"I'm sorry, Miss Broon, but he said he had something to tell you about your father, and that you would want to know it."
"Probably that daddy was a great guy."
"No, miss. He said it was about the way your father died."
Holly Broon sat up in bed. She had pretended her father's death had been nothing but a heart attack. So the call might mean something. "All right," she said, I'll talk to him."
"Yes, miss. You're not angry with me?"
"No, Jessie. Go now. I'll take the call here."
Holly Broon waited until the blonde girl had left her room before stretching her left hand toward the telephone.
"Hello," she said.
"Hello," came a dry crisp voice. There were a lot of ways to say hello. Some people were questioning; some were unsure of themselves; some were brisk and abrupt, trying to cover indecisiveness with the all-business mask. But the greeting she had just heard was the hello of a man totally rational and in control of himself and everything that he dealt with.
"You don't know me," the voice went on, "but I have some information about the death of your father."
"Yes?"
"I noticed in the press that an attempt was made to make your father's death seem natural. But, of course, it wasn't. The death of your father was the work of Blake Corbish."
Holly Broon laughed. "I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous." She knew whom she was talking to now. "Corbish wouldn't have the nerve. It would take seven months of committee meetings for him to make such a decision."
"I don't mean, Miss Broon, that he performed the… er, matter himself. I mean he ordered it done."
"How do you know that?"
"Miss Broon, I know a number of things about Mr. Corbish. Is it not so that he is now in line to succeed your father as president of IDC? Wouldn't you think that was motive enough?"
Holly thought about that for a moment. "Yes, I guess it might. But if Corbish didn't do it himself, who did?"
The voice hesitated only momentarily. "No doubt he hired someone to do it. Please, Miss Broon, I am giving you this information so that you can act on it, and also so that you can protect yourself."
"I appreciate it," Holly Broon said, adding playfully, "You sure you won't tell me who you are?"
"It's not important. Do you know what Corbish is up to?"
"Yes, I think I do."
"It is very dangerous; he must be stopped."
"Do you really think so, Dr. Smith?"
Speaking his name brought a click to the other end of the connection. Holly Broon laughed.
It had probably been dumb, but she had not been able to resist. Yet the laughter stopped as abruptly as it started.
There was little doubt in her mind that Smith had told her the truth. She had begun to suspect it herself after that first day of watching Corbish in operation. He had ordered the killing of her father, presuming that he would immediately become the president of IDC. And she had played right into his hands.
Now she had a decision to make. Should she stop Corbish? Or should she go along and let him become president of IDC and then extract her revenge later? She thought about it for a moment, but her mind focused on a chilling question: could she stop Corbish? Did he have resources that she knew nothing about that might guarantee him the IDC presidency with or without her?
Even while wrestling with the question in her mind, Holly Broon knew the answer. She knew what she would do.
Blake Corbish would be stopped. Anyway she had to.
Outside a rural phone booth in Pennsylvania, Dr. Harold Smith felt vaguely dissatisfied.
He had broken the news to the Broon girl about Corbish's implication in her father's death. And she had guessed who he was. That meant she had at least an inkling of what Corbish was up to. She might even have been in on it from the start.
He doubted it.
It would be strange to find a woman who would cheerfully go along with the planning of her father's murder. She had probably wised up after the fact.
He hoped that she would put a little heat on Corbish. That would help.
But there was something else that was disquieting to Smith.
Holly Broon might not know much about what Corbish was doing, but she knew something.
And something was too much. She would have to die also.
It was a shame, he decided. She sounded like a bright woman.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"He's nuts, Chiun. Absolutely stark raving nuts."
Remo stood in their White Plains hotel room, the telephone in his hand, staring at the instrument as if he would find an answer there to the eternal riddle of man's inhumanity to man.
"You refer to your Mr, Garbage?"
"Yeah," said Remo, deciding that correcting Chiun's pronunciation was no longer worthwhile. "I just called him. You know what I got?"
"A headache," Chiun suggested. "Another reason for your interminable kvetching?" Without waiting for an answer, he looked down again at the parchment on which he had been writing.
Remo decided to be magnanimous and ignore that. "I got a switchboard, for God's sake. Can you picture that? A switchboard. The dopey bastard wants me to talk to him over an open line."
Remo was outraged. Chiun was mildly amused when he looked up. "It is a difficult thing, is it not, this serving of a new and strange Emperor. When you grow up, you may learn that."
"Anyway, he's going to call me back here on a private line."
"I am happy for you, Remo." Chiun did not seem happy.
Remo put the telephone down. "Why do you say that?"