by Max Brand
"I'm going up to change for dinner," said Nancy, and went out with her head still thoughtfully bent. The door closed behind her soundlessly, as though she were in fear of making a noise.
* * *
CHAPTER SIX
To Kildare, lost in thought, the voice of Messenger came eagerly, saying: "How does it seem to you, Kildare?"
"It doesn't make sense," answered Kildare, frowning at the fire.
"It's a puzzle, of course," said Messenger, "but I hoped that you might arrive at something about Nancy. You've seen the two largest factors in her life—her past in me, her present and future in Herron. Doesn't some light fall on the problem?"
"Light? There's too much light," said Kildare. "There's enough of it to blind me. The sort of light that shows one the solution in a psychological case like this is usually a single ray, not a whole flood."
"For a man in doubt, you're saying a great deal. You're calling it a psychological case at once. You're dismissing the possibility that her sudden change in the way of living is simply a natural desire to see a great deal of the world before she settles down in marriage."
"Yes, I'm dismissing that possibility," said Kildare gloomily.
"Will you give me some of the reasons?"
"You know most of them. Herron is one."
"Charles Herron?"
"A man in love doesn't see things with ordinary eyes, and what he sees in her frightens him badly. He can't live without her; but he's afraid that he'll have to try to before long."
"You've only had a glimpse of them," said Messenger curiously, "but you think it's a grand passion?"
"I think it is," said Kildare.
"At least," said Messenger, "you have the advantage of a quiet evening's talk with her, because she'll be staying home tonight."
"I don't think so," said Kildare, shaking his head.
"My dear fellow," said Messenger, "you heard Herron directly ask her to stay in, didn't you? You've already told me how much they mean to one another. No matter how headstrong she may be, she couldn't disregard as direct and strong a request as this."
"Nevertheless, I think she will."
"That's impossible—if she loves Herron."
"I think she'll do anything rather than spend a single evening in this house."
"You can't be sure of that!" declared Messenger.
"I wish I were never less sure of anything," answered the intern.
"Do you think there's some profound reaction against her home? Might it be a revulsion against me?"
"I hope not. I don't know."
Messenger put up his hand and dragged it slowly down over his face.
"Let's get it down to words of one syllable: You think that Nancy will leave the house this evening?"
"She will," said Kildare. "And when she goes, you must try to hitch me to her."
"She can't leave. She had Herron's very strong injunct against it. She's promised. She knows that Herron is not a fellow whose wish can be bandied about lightly."
"No. She doesn't take him lightly," agreed Kildare. "But she has to go."
"But where? Into the nonsense of the night clubs again? What do they mean to her?"
"Nothing, probably."
"Then why in God's name should she go to them? Doctor Kildare, I'm trying to understand you."
"I'm trying to understand myself," said Kildare. "But there's only a vague light to see by. In a case like this, there's no use straining the eyes. A glimpse will probably tell more than a microscope. We have to wait for some accidental clue—perhaps something she says; perhaps not the words, but the way she speaks them. It may be something as small as a colour she likes or shrinks from. Detectives and their crimes—they have an easy time of it—they have a bloodstain—or a body—or a weapon; they have motives printed large enough to serve as headlines. But a case like this—why, she probably doesn't know what drives her to act as she's acting now. If I dared to ask her direct questions, I doubt that she'd be able to give me the answers even if she wanted to."
The door was pulled open and Nancy stood on the threshold in a fur jacket over a taffeta dress with a widely flaring skirt. A double round of big pearls shimmered at her throat.
"Hello and good-bye! I've had a call!" she cried, waving to them.
"Wait a minute! Nancy!" exclaimed the father as the door began to close again.
"Yes?" she called, looking back for an instant. "Take John Stevens along with you."
"Oh, I'd be glad to. But it's not my party. It's Harry Wendell..."
"Wendell? You can't go out with people like the Wendells, my dear!"
"Oh, yes. In this country I can," she answered, laughing a little.
"Very well. But add John Stevens to the Wendell party...Sorry to let you mix with such a crowd of bounders, but go along, John. It will be better than glooming through an evening alone with me. Be nice to him, Nancy. He's worth an effort—if you're really going out. You haven't forgotten what Herron said, have you?"
"Charles?" She winced. It was almost a shudder, and her eyes closed. Then she said briskly: "Shall we be starting on? We're late, Mr. Stevens."
Messenger, following on to the door, stuffed into the coat pocket of Kildare a stiff sheaf of money; then the two of them were hurrying down the hall, Nancy saying with an unhappy attempt at lightness: "I don't need to worry about Charles Herron, do I? When a lawyer expects to be taken seriously, he sends a court order or a summons, doesn't he?"
She was stating a theory, not asking a question, so Kildare did not have to answer.
However, he said: "Lawyers are always dealing with facts; overt acts mean a lot to them, don't they?"
She stopped short. She had been hard-hit by his remark, but after an instant she shrugged it off and went on.
The limousine picked them up and slid them away through the traffic.
"How far away in the West do you live?" asked Nancy, leaning back into her corner and yawning a little. "Not as far as California," answered Kildare.
"Some place where there are trails to ride, or canoes and white water and log-jams and things worth while?"
"No. Just another big town."
She nodded as if to say that she had expected as much. When her eyes glanced away from him again, he knew that he was forgotten.
"Shall I be spoiling a party? Shall I be breaking in on a lot of old friends?" he asked.
"It's up to you," she said indifferently. "If you can put up with the party, the party can put up with you. Isn't that usually the way of it?"
It was worse than insolence, this insouciance. It stifled him above all with its unexpectedness, and he knew at once that she was not fully aware of what she had said. Sick people think chiefly of their own concerns.
She hardly spoke another word to him, and Kildare at every traffic stop found himself automatically searching the sidewalk crowd for the great shoulders and the strong, handsome face of Charles Herron; he was sure to find out about this broken promise. Then they were shooting up in a soundless, luxurious private elevator and walking into an apartment that made a point of spreading its elbows.
Harry Wendell came from a distance, calling out, making a gesture of triumph over Nancy.
"Everything is going to be beautiful now," he said, "except that Liz Baker is here and already as tight as an owl."
"That's all right. Mr. Stevens is from the Far West where they know how to take care of the wild things. Show Liz to him, and he'll control her."
"I thank God for you, Nancy," said Wendell. "I thank God for you and all your works. Come on and get a load of Liz, Stevens."
The ballroom was as vaulted and almost as big as Grand Central Station. At one end of it a large orchestra was swinging industriously. Quantities of young America slithered here and there in couples, but Liz Baker, young and dark and beautiful, was draped over one end of a blue couch studying her blurred image in the polished floor.
"If that's water," said Liz, "I'm going to drown myself."
"Here's an o
ld pal of yours from the Great West," said Mr. Wendell. "He'll help you make yourself at home. Give her a hand, John."
"What Johnny are you?" asked Liz. "And how far West are you, and what are you West of? I'm so full of great open spaces that my head is spinning and I can't find those mint juleps. Come on and help me find them, Johnny."
She got up and shook herself. Her tousled hair sprang back into shape like untangling springs.
"I can't walk, but I can dance," said Liz.
They danced across shining acres until Liz heard the rattle of ice in cocktail shakers and the chime of glasses jingling on a tray.
"You can't dance, but maybe you can walk," said Liz. "Try to find that sound and bring me some of it. I don't mean the music, sweet."
He helped her toward the bartenders. He did not trouble about her because he knew that young Liz Baker already was beyond doctor's care.
"Is this a silver dress I'm wearing, or am I frosted?" she asked.
"That's a silver dress you're wearing," said Kildare.
"If I had something green in my hair, I'd look like a mint julep, but that's not the way I feel. There's more mint than there is julep about me, honey, if that means anything. Bartender, does that mean anything?"
"That means a whole heap," said the bartender. "If you were to take and lay down with a lump of ice on the back of your neck, you'd feel a lot more like a mint julep than you do now. Here's some mint for her," said the bartender, offering a green bit of it to Kildare.
"That's right, give him that sprig of mint," said Liz. "That's what he needs when he dances. There's no sprig in him. Does that hurt your feelings, darling? Does it hurt him, bartender?"
"You can't tell about a thinking man," suggested the bartender.
"Why should he think? Why should he be as mean as all that?" asked Liz Baker. "Listen, Johnny, why do you want to go around, thinking all over the place? Honey, I don't need you any more. I don't need anyone when I'm this close to the cracked ice. Hey—somebody come and take Johnny. You don't have to pay. I'll give him away."
Kildare drifted off. The rooms were filling. An endless chain of servants began to serve dinner from a great buffet. Alternate trays of drinks and food journeyed through the apartment. He found Wendell and said: "I'm sorry that I couldn't handle Liz Baker."
"What do you mean you couldn't handle her? You're wonderful," declared the host. "Liz has to drop some place, and it's best to have her over there near the service entrance...Where's your drink?"
He dodged a drink. As a matter of fact it was easy for him to do as he pleased in such a crowd, so he kept drifting, passing into little pools and shallows of conversation now and then, and then moving on again so that he could keep Nancy Messenger in sight. She obviously was different from these people, and as she wandered about with an air of abstraction and a vague smile that kept them at arm's length, they seemed glad to have her, but hardly to know what to do about her. It was equally obvious that for mysterious reasons she was glad to be in the place. Then, just after eleven, she almost disappeared from him in the midst of a group who were leaving. He managed to get into the elevator with them.
"I didn't know it was time to go," he said to Nancy.
"It isn't," answered Nancy. "It's never time to go, unless you want to. You're not going to have me on your conscience, are you?"
Then she forgot him again. They went to a night club, and on the way Nancy, with her usual indifference, introduced him only to one member of the group, a Charlotte Fothergill who was plump and pretty and equipped with an inextinguishable smile.
"Charlotte, this is a son of a friend of my father's. He comes from out West," said Nancy. "She's a great horsewoman, John."
"Those great big ranches out West are wonderful," said Charlotte. "How many hundred square miles are there in your ranch, Mr. Stevens?"
"I haven't a ranch," said Kildare.
"I mean, the kind they have down in Texas," said Charlotte Fothergill. "You ride for days and days and get lost. How many times have you been lost on your ranch, Johnny?"
"I haven't a ranch," said Kildare.
"I mean, not really lost, but not knowing where you are," said Charlotte. "I was lost in a department store once. I had to buy my way out of the lingerie department, and before I got clear I had enough to last me the rest of my life. And then the styles all changed and there I was. It was frightful...Dingie, here's a man after your own heart, with a thousand square miles of ranch down in Texas. Johnny, this is Hugh Dingwell. Dingie has a place down in the Tennessee Valley Authority, but he goes in for Grand Rapids furniture and that's a pity, don't you think?"
"Charlotte is just a little twisted," said Dingwell, who was a tall young man with a pinched face and nervous lips. "I have a place down in Tennessee and most of my horses are out of the Rapidan line. You know—Rapidan, who got Rapid Waters, who got Rap Me—but what are you breeding in the way of horseflesh on your ranch?"
"I haven't a ranch," said Kildare.
"I know you fellows," said Dingwell. "Anything less than a hundred thousand acres doesn't count. I know a lot of fellows out Texas way that use the Irish Boy strain. If they're not big enough to race, they're big enough for polo, so there you are, and you can't lose. Missionary came from out there. You know Missionary, don't you?"
"I never heard of him," said Kildare.
Dingwell laughed, but it was easy to see that he was hurt.
"Light in the forehand, I grant you that, and some of his get let you down beyond a mile. But I wouldn't say that I'd never heard of Missionary. They broke his back with weight in the Belmont or you know what would have happened. And then he got Salvation out of Jingle Bells, and you can't laugh off Salvation, can you? Jacqueline, here's a fellow who owns half of Texas, and he wouldn't have Missionary blood on his place. Not for a gift, he wouldn't."
Jacqueline turned her head slowly and looked Kildare up and down.
"How naïve!" she said. "What would you use? Domingo, perhaps?"
"Why not Domingo?" asked Dingwell. "Look at Dominic and Do-Re-Mi, both chuck a block with Domingo blood."
"Domingo horses are front runners and nothing else," said Jacqueline with decision. "The dirty dogs drop dead in the stretch if anything comes up and looks them in the eye. Uncle Tom, I want you to talk to John Stevens here; he has a million acres of Texas all full of that lousy Domingo strain..."
This chatter continued from the automobile into the night club, until the Fothergill girl said: "Nancy, whatever made you sell that mare of yours? 'Distinction,' wasn't that her name? What did you go and sell that mare for last month? I thought you were sure crazy about that little old chestnut jumper."
The whole group of these horsey people turned on Nancy with voluble questions, and Kildare saw that she was badly hurt. A signal from her brought them out dancing together, and as they danced she said: "I've got to get away. This talk about horses, horses, is driving me crazy. Get me away from them, John?"
They slipped away during an act of the floor show that came on.
"Are we stopping or going on she asked.
"I wish we were never stopping," said Kildare. "I mean, I hate to see things stop."
She looked with a sudden flash of interest at him—and they went on. Wherever they went somebody knew her, a party seemed ready to engulf her, yet she never seemed fully aware of what was going on around her. She drank little, danced a great deal, and in her face there appeared, it seemed to Kildare, greater and greater apprehension, as though she were approaching some invisible danger. At four o'clock, when the wheels that made New York travel by night all stop, Nancy Messenger bought the whole orchestra for triple pay and took it with a dozen of the last guests at the night club to a little apartment belonging to one of these new friends. There the party started all over again with a whoop, but the enthusiasm could not last. Dancing weariness and alcoholic fatigue began to reduce them to sleep by five-thirty. At six the party crumbled away to nothing and left Kildare with Nancy in the limousine wh
ich the chauffeur with the black streak of moustache was driving. She had been working hard up to the very moment when the party fell to pieces, like a driver whipping on tired horses, but she could not keep that group awake. Now she sat back with her eyes closed, apparently exhausted, but still he noted a certain tremulous tension about her lips.
"Tell me where to take you," said the girl, without opening her eyes. "Where are you staying?"
"I suppose I have to be dropped somewhere," agreed Kildare. "I don't suppose we just could drive on for a while."
He had his elbows on his knees and stared straight ahead, but he could feel the girl wake up beside him.
"We can have a spin through the Park, if you want," he said.
"That's better than nothing," nodded Kildare. "Let's do that."
So the car was turned up Fifth Avenue and then in at the Sixtieth Street entrance.
* * *
CHAPTER SEVEN
HE knew that before the single round of the Park had been completed he must do his work with the girl. If he failed to hold her now, she was gone through his fingers. Still he could not find a good approach. In the hospital things were not like this. Patients had to answer questions there, but even a single interrogation probably would close the lips of Nancy for the rest of the night. When he tried to think his way forward, he found his train of thought dissipating among the clouds of frosty trees that swept away behind them, left and right; when he searched for words, the hollow of his brain was filled by the rushing noise of the tyres over the wet pavement, like a high wind. They continually were slowing for a red light, gathering soft way again when the green appeared. They were up by the reservoir and still the silence held Kildare. Ahead of them he saw a big yellow street lamp like a rising moon or a sun through heavy mist.
"The long nights," said Kildare. "Now—if that were the sun coming up—you know?" He glanced nervously toward her and found that she was appraising him with a coldly curious eye. She was interested, but from a great distance. However, he had struck out a-line and for lack of a better he stuck to it.
