“No. The apartment on State Street and both the Hunter labs were searched, and produced nothing. He could have a locker somewhere, anywhere — a bus or train station — or a safety deposit box in a bank.”
“Then let us hope and pray that the book does everything it’s supposed to. If Millie is strong enough to divert a good proportion of the royalties into her home, they may be all right. Just maybe. If you look at the situation dispassionately, Carmine, Jim has been stealing from Millie ever since she obtained a grant income — that would have been at Caltech in California. Her salary would always have been university modest, but ample for her to buy a few dresses and shoes as well as steak and fish for her table. But no, she’s handed her money over to Jim, who ploughs it into his work, his facilities. How much of his equipment does Chubb or a grant committee own, versus how much is in his name? There’s no law against it, it’s just that most researchers like to live reasonably and so don’t do it. Jim does, always has. I mean, I know what research is like. No one comes around, even once a year, to check the serial numbers on the equipment. If it’s being sold off for nefarious purposes it will be found out, but if it’s just taken to be used in some other lab of the same institution — who knows? The person who lost it — in Jim’s case, Millie. But is she going to report Jim? No, never! She simply goes to his lab to use what’s actually hers.”
“Keep going,” Carmine said, fascinated.
“Millie is a variation on a very common theme.” Desdemona sounded stern, unforgiving. “I mean the abused wife. Think a bit about it! She’s not beaten or terrorized, yet she exists at the grace and favor of a man who regards her as his property, as a convenience, as an asset to advance himself, never her. He steals her income, perhaps the fruits of her research, her time, her energy and even her youth. Everything she does is to gratify him because she has no sense of self-worth. He stole that too. His world believes that he loves her madly, but does he, Carmine? Millie believes he does. Well, I don’t. I think that Millie is his property, and he’s proprietorial. He abuses her.”
“It’s a valid argument,” Carmine said, his dinner suddenly not sitting well.
Desdemona wasn’t finished. “They’ve been Chubb faculty for over two years. Millie should have been prosperous enough to dress, and the pair prosperous enough to live in a decent place. Now all of a sudden they’ve moved to a good house in a really good neighborhood. Why? Because, I believe, someone told Jim in no uncertain terms that he had to loosen the purse strings. It’s not a subject anyone at C.U.P. would have raised because university presses don’t think in personal terms. Chauce Millstone telling Jim the journalists would think it odd to find him living in a semi-slum with a beautiful wife who doesn’t own a good frock? No! I think Davina Tunbull told Jim, and that makes me wonder how well they know each other.”
“What would I ever do without you?” Carmine asked, awed. “Do you really think that once the dollars pile up, Hunter might see Millie as expendable?”
“I think it’s a possibility,” said Desdemona. “Why not take the dog for a walk? The exercise will settle your tummy.”
The interview kept intruding; after two fruitless hours in his laboratory, Jim Hunter gave up and went home. He was almost to their old apartment on State Street before he realized that they were living in East Holloman now; chuckling quietly at the images of an absent-minded professor that had invaded his thoughts, he drove to Barker Street. When he noticed that a very ordinary beige car also seemed to recollect that it was going to East Holloman rather than Caterby Street, he gave an involuntary shiver. The cops had someone on his tail. His every destination would be noted down, examined. Then, after the shock wore off, he whiled away the rest of his journey in dreaming up things he could do to confuse and upset Operation Hunter. The fools!
An ideal house, he thought, walking up the path to the front porch, and groping in his pocket for the key Millie had given him. Its advent was perfect, and the royalties would buy it, just as they would better clothes for him and Millie, good food on the table — he would miss their pizza meals, the Big Macs. Food to Jim Hunter was just fuel to keep going.
Yes, the timing was perfect. Finally he had the right number of technicians and post-doctoral fellows, all the equipment he could possibly need, and sufficient space. He could afford to let Millie turn from helpmate to housewife, since clearly this was what she wanted; his next grant, a huge one, was in the bag according to a letter in this morning’s post. Knowing it, he had faced Carmine Delmonico more sanguinely. Chief suspect? No, the big cop was sure he was the culprit, purely on lack of evidence! Well, he’d turned that one on its head! The fools! Couldn’t they see that what went for him also went for Millie?