Henry Whitaker specified proper steel fittings on every repair order he filed. I have his notebooks. I have the specifications in his handwriting. What I will eventually also have is your purchasing records, which I believe will show a pattern of substituting cheap iron where steel was specified. She kept her voice perfectly level.
That is not a question of cleverness. That is a question of paper and time. Crane looked at her for a long moment. Then Cissus came back with the handkerchief. Hol looked at it.
He looked at the monogram. He looked at Crane with his careful eyes. This your handkerchief, Mr. Crane, he said. I couldn't say Crane said.
That's a common monogram. W and C together is your initials, Holt said. And the initials of perhaps 50 other men in this territory, Crane said pleasantly. Holt folded the handkerchief and put it in his jacket pocket without discussing it further. And Martha filed away that he had pocketed it and not returned it, which was the action of a man who was keeping it for a reason.
I'll need to take a statement from both of you. Holt said about the 22nd and what you found on that road. He looked at Martha. And I'd like to borrow this ledger, ma'am, if I may. You may, Martha said.
Crane's face was perfectly smooth, but his hands were not the left one had closed at his side in a way he probably wasn't aware of. Martha saw it. She filed it away. Crane left first. He made his farewells with the complete graciousness of a man who had come here to do something that hadn't worked and was now going to go figure out what to do instead.
And his horse was a good horse, and he rode it well, and he did not look back as he went through the gate. Martha stood on the porch until he was gone. Then she sat down on the top step. Silas came and sat beside her. Not on the step.
He sat on the railing facing her, which put them roughly at the same height. And she was aware of that as a choice, even if it wasn't a conscious one. He's going to try something else, she said. Probably. Silas said, he told me he would plant the drawing if he needed to.