The Signature of All Things

understood Yancey’s loyalty to Henry, or how Henry managed to control him, but one thing was clear: the Whittaker Company could not function without this terrifying man.
    “Mr. Yancey,” Alma said, and gestured toward a chair. “I beg of you, make yourself at ease.”
    He did not sit. He stood in the middle of the room and held Ambrose’s valise loosely in one hand. Alma tried not to stare at it—the only possession of her late husband. She did not sit, either. Evidently, they would not be making themselves at ease.
    “Is there something you wished to speak with me about, Mr. Yancey? Or would you prefer to see my father? He has been unwell lately, as I know you are aware, but today is one of his better days and his head is clear. He can receive you in his bedchamber, if that would suit you.”
    Still, Dick Yancey did not speak. This was a famous tactic of his: silence as a weapon. When Dick Yancey did not speak, those around him, nervous, filled the air with words. People said more than they meant to say. Dick Yancey would watch from behind his silent fortification as secrets flew. Then he would bring those secrets home to White Acre. This was a function of his power.
    Alma resolved not to fall into his trap and speak without thinking. Thus, they stood in silence together for what must have been another two minutes. Then Alma couldn’t bear it. She spoke again: “I see you are carrying my late husband’s valise. I assume you have been to Tahiti, and have retrieved it there? Have you come to return it to me?”
    He neither moved nor said a word.
    Alma went on. “If you are wondering whether I would like to have that valise back, Mr. Yancey, the answer is yes—I would like it very much. My late husband was a man of few belongings, and it would mean a good deal to me to keep as a remembrance the one item that I know he himself valued enormously.”
    Still, he did not speak. Was he going to make her beg for it? Was she meant to pay him? Did he want something in exchange? Or—the thought crossed her mind in an errant, illogical flash—was he hesitating for some reason? Could he be feeling uncertain? There was no telling with Dick Yancey. He could never be read. Alma began to feel both impatient and alarmed.
    “I really must insist, Mr. Yancey,” she said, “that you explain yourself.”
    Dick Yancey was not a man who ever explained himself. Alma knew this as well as anybody alive. He did not squander words on such petty uses as explanation. He did not squander words at all. From earliest childhood, in fact, Alma had rarely heard him speak more than three words in a row. As for this day, however, Dick Yancey was able to make his point clear in a mere twowords, which he now growled from the corner of his mouth as he strode past Alma and out the door, thrusting the valise into her arms as he brushed by her.
    “Burn it,” he said.
----
    A lma sat alone with the valise in her father’s study for an hour, staring at the object as though trying to determine—through its worn and salt-stainedleather exterior—what lurked within. Why on earth would Yancey have said such a thing? Why would he take the trouble to bring her this valise from the other side of the planet, only to instruct her now to burn it? Why had he not burned it himself, if it needed burning? And did he mean that she should burn it after opening it and reviewing its contents, or before ? Why had he hesitated so long before handing it over?
    Asking him any of these questions, of course, was quite outside the realm of possibility: he was long gone. Dick Yancey moved with improbable speed; he could be halfway to Argentina by now, for all she knew. Even if he had remained at White Acre, though, he would not have answered any further queries. She knew that. That sort of conversation would never be part of Dick Yancey’s service. All she knew was that Ambrose’s precious valise was in her possession now—and so was a dilemma.
    She decided to take the thing out to her own study, in the carriage house, that she might contemplate it in privacy. She set it down upon the divan in the corner—where Retta used to chat with her so many years ago, where Ambrose used to sprawl out comfortably with his long legs dangling, and where Alma had slept in the dark months after Ambrose left. She studied the valise. It was about two feet long, a foot and a half wide, and six inches deep—a simple rectangle of cheap, honey-colored cowhide. It was scuffed and