Page:Frank Owen - Woman Without Love (1949 reprint).djvu/148



later, after hours of worry, Mary Blaine visited the office of Clive Reardon, attorney for the Estate of Templeton Blaine. From the moment he had met her, while admitting she was eccentric, Clive Reardon had liked her. She was an easy client to get along with. She did not make preposterous demands nor expect him to perform miracles. She left practically everything in his able hands. For years he had been Templeton's lawyer and he understood thoroughly every detail of his affairs.

As soon as she had been ushered into Mr. Reardon's presence, Mary said abruptly: "The weather is fine and I'm looking well. So let's get down to business at once. It is serious business."

"I am always at your disposal," said the lawyer.

"I want you to prove that I am not Mary Blaine," she told him bluntly.

He was surprised. "Surely you are joking."

"The only joke I am perpetrating right now is living at all," she said bitterly. "I am in a frightful dilemma. If we don't act quickly Dorothy's entire future may be destroyed."

"Surely it is not as serious as that," he exclaimed.

"It is worse," said she. "Before I came to live in New York I kept a place in the Midwest. For years I have been a notorious character known as Madame Leota. I thought when I arrived in New York that all my past was burned away or that it was a locked book with the key lost. Unfortunately I was utterly wrong. My past has caught up with me."

Then she told him in detail about the visit of Blackie Gray. Despite the gravity of the situation Clive Reardon could not help smiling at her description of how she had tumbled him down the stairs.

"I presume you are aware that what he suggested was blackmail?" he asked thoughtfully.

"Yes," she said.