As soon as Henry returned to East 49th Street in Manhattan, New York, Katharine Hepburn called him in for questioning.
"What was that Mellon family ball all about?"
"I guess Mrs. Rachel Lambert Mellon mentioned me to one of the younger members of her family, so they invited me over to see whether I'd make a suitable son-in-law. They weren't impressed, of course."
If a bald nobody failed to make a good first impression on a wealthy young woman, there was no reason for her to see him again. She had plenty of accomplished men around her. Why would she choose an ordinary man with a little cleverness and unremarkable looks?
It wasn't as though they had known each other since childhood or gone to school together. They had no feelings to build on. Henry was happy to leave it there; he had no desire to marry into her family anyway.
But Katharine Hepburn clearly wasn't interested in that. "What's this about the Arden Family?"
After a moment's thought, Henry told her what had happened in Hollywood. "Basically, Tony Stark asked me to keep an eye on things on the West Coast and pass along anything I heard.
"Because of Tony's request, I approached those people myself, and the vampires noticed me instead. Their main target was Stark Industries. It got to the point where the Arden couple stepped in personally to put pressure on me.
"But the couple later disappeared. They hadn't properly arranged their family assets, so their lawyers and accountants embezzled a fair amount. Their in-laws and other Old Money families took plenty too.
"The younger members of the Arden Family had no one else to blame, so they pinned it on me. According to the couple's schedule, I was the last person to see them. I