"When I was fifteen years old she yanked me out of school in Switzerland and began lugging me around the world with her. She and Joseph are operators, Winter. Canadian gold, African oil, Indian opium, Brazilian girls, you name it, and they've bought it and sold it. They aren't the biggest and they aren't the shrewdest, but they keep getting richer, and it's never fast enough to suit them. They are in and out of cartel and syndicate operations with other chums of the same ilk, and their happiest little game is trying to cheat each other. I was only fifteen, but I soon learned that in their circles, the name Omar Krepps terrified them. Almost a superst.i.tious terror. Too many times Krepps would suddenly appear, skim the cream off a deal and leave with the money. I believe they and some of their friends tried to have him killed, but it never worked."

"Kill Uncle Omar?"

"Shut up and listen. And believe. That fat little old man seemed able to be nine places at once. One time he skinned them good, intercepted cash on its way to a number account in Zurich somehow, and just took it, and they could do nothing about it because they'd in effect stolen it first,, Joseph and Charla and some of their thieving pals. At that time Charla was wearing a ring that opened up. A poison ring, [ guess, with an emerald. She opened it idly one day and there was a little wad of paper in it. She unfolded it. It said, 'Thanks, O. Krepps.' When she came out of her faint she had the wildest case of hysterics you ever saw, and she had to go into a hospital for a week. You see, the ring hadn't been off her finger since before the money was taken."

"I can't really believe Uncle Omar would, "

"Let me finish. Krepps died last Wednesday. They were in Bermuda. They flew here Thursday morning. You arrived at dawn on Friday, and by dawn on Sat.u.r.day you're in bed in Charla's suite. How much accident is involved in that?"

"I thought I met them by accident."

"That pair doesn't cotton to the random stranger. There's always a reason for every move. What do they want from you?"

"They've invited me on a cruise."

"Tell me all of it, Winter. Every word you can remember."

He told her an edited version of it.

She scowled. "And your Uncle Omar left you practically nothing? 1 guess they must want to pick your brains and find out how he operated."

"But ! didn't have anything to do with, making money. I don't know anything about the business end of it. He told me what courses to take in college. When I got out I went to work for him, doing the very same thing right from the beginning."

"Doing what?"

"Giving money away."

"What!"

the gin "Just that," he said helplessly. "He had some sort of clipping service and translation service and I would go and make investigations and give the money away if in my opinion everything was on the level, and if it could be kept quiet."

"Much money?"

"I think it averages out somewhere around three million a year."

"To charities?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes to individuals trying to get something started, or small companies in trouble."

"Why did he want to give it away?"

"He never seemed very serious about anything. He never explained. He just said he did it to keep his luck good. He was a jolly little man. He didn't like to talk seriously. He liked to tell long jokes and do card tricks and show you how he could take his vest off without taking his coat off."

"Did you see much of him?"

"About once a year. He was always going off alone. It made people nervous. He had apartments and houses here and there, and it was hard to tell just where he'd be. But I never ran out of work, no matter how long he was out of touch. And he hated publicity of any kind."

"You are not lying to me," she said. It was more statement than question.

"No. While he was alive I wasn't supposed to tell anybody what I did for him. Now I guess it doesn't matter too much. The notoriety he got in the very beginning, I guess it made him secretive."

"What notoriety?"

"A long time ago. My parents were drowned in a boating accident when I was seven, and I went to live with Uncle Omar and Aunt Thelma. She was his older sister. She was good to me, but she certainly made Uncle Omar's life miserable. We lived in an old house in Pittsburgh. Uncle Omar taught high school chemistry and physics. He had a workshop in the bas.e.m.e.nt where he tried to invent things. I guess it was the only place in the house where he was happy. Aunt Thelma was always crabbing about the money he spent on tools and equipment and supplies, and complaining about the electric bills. When 1 was eleven years old he quit right in the middle of a school term and went out to Reno and won a hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars. It was in all the papers. They called him a mathematical genius. They hounded him. Every nut in the country made his life miserable. He put money in the bank for us and disappeared. He was gone almost a year. He reappeared in Reno and lost a hundred thousand dollars there, and then n.o.body was very interested in him any more. After that he took us down to Texas where he'd built a house on an island in the Gulf off Brownsville. He set up a trust fund for Aunt Thelma and sent her back to Pittsburgh. I stayed there with him for a little while before I went back. By then he had a lot of business interests all over the world. He supported me and paid for my education and gave me my job when I graduated. But, he didn't leave me anything, and I don't know anything about his business interests. In fact, I didn't know him very well. The papers say it's a fifty-million-dollar estate. He left me his watch and a letter to be handed to me one year from last Wednesday."

"And you told Charla that?"

"Yes."

"And told her what you've been doing for a living?"

"I guess I did."

"And you've gone all these years without even trying to make any guesses about your uncle?"

At the moment Betsy Alden irritated him. "I may act like an idiot, but I have average intelligence, Miss Alden. My uncle left that cellar all of a sudden. And how many high school teachers become international financiers?"

"So he found something that gave him an edge." "An edge over other people, so he gave a lot of the money away. Maybe it was conscience. At least it made him feel better."

She nodded rather smugly. "And so Charla is terribly interested in that letter. Isn't it obvious?"

"But she can't, I can't get it for a year."

"Mr. Winter, any explanation of how one little man could terrorize Charla and her group, fleece them, and end up worth fifty-million dollars is worth a year of effort. And by the end of the year she can have you in such captivity, you'll turn the letter over to her without even opening it, and whinnying with delight at the chance to please her in some small way."

"You have a dandy opinion of me."

I know Charla. I've seen her at work."

"Where do you come in? What do you want? Do you want the letter?"

"All I want, believe me, is some leverage. I don't care how or where I get it, but I want to be able to pressure Charla into fixing it so I can go back to work where I belong. She brought pressure down on me." She stabbed Kirby in the chest with her finger. "And if I can use you to get her off my back forever, I would be a very happy girl. And at the same time I might be doing you a favor, like keeping you from sinking into a swamp."

"Do you hate her that much?"

"Hate is complex. This is a simple emotion. Contempt. She's really quite easy to understand. Her only motivation is greed. Greed for money, power, pretty things, admiration, sensual pleasure. She likes to use power, Winter. So does Joseph, but she's captain of that team."

"He's your uncle?"

"Hardly. She calls him her brother, but he's more a sort of half brother-in-law. And not what you'd want to call a wholesome relationship. But they do seem so charming, don't they? It makes them a deadly team."

"I keep feeling that you are dramatizing this. I just can't believe they, "

"Wait a minute. I just thought of something. You are his only living blood relation. And it was in the papers, so Charla must know that. So in addition to whatever is In the will, won't you get his personal papers and records?"

"I guess so. I hadn't thought about it."

"Believe me, Charla will. And Charla has. Now don't you dare turn anything over to her."

"What do you think I am?"