“I’m always having bad turns; one, more or less, makes no difference to me. Fred’s expecting us.”
“I can telephone down from the hotel, and say you didn’t feel up to it.”
“No. I want to see him.”
“And the doctor says you mustn’t be thwarted. How you trade on that, young fellow!”
The pale young man, hunched to the ears in his topcoat, chuckled. His sister spoke from the back seat, after drawing her head in at the car window: “That Ford hasn’t passed us yet.”
“What Ford?” The driver glanced back.
“It’s been following us for miles.”
The pale young man turned to look at her face, which showed, a white blur, in the car’s dark interior. Then he, also, craned out of his window. When he drew his head in, he said cheerfully: “You’re crazy. Here she comes, now.”
A horn sounded, and the small car passed them. Its driver, a small man in a sou’wester much too big for him, flashed by and vanished in the mist ahead. The boy laughed, teasingly. “No holdups to-night,” he said. “Poor old Alma. No excitement.”
“We’re almost there.” His aunt leaned forward to look out of the car. “Yes, just a minute or two more. Turn right, Hugh, and then straight along the shore road. The Barclay cottage is the second on the left.”
The screen of trees had rolled up at last. They were in the open, rumbling across a wooden bridge; a salt smell came from the marshes on either hand, but the fog closed in now like a barrage. The car slowed down.
“This is bad,” said the driver.
“Only a minute more, Hugh. The second cottage on the left.”
The Barclay cottage, a gabled relic of the eighties, was situated rather bleakly on the outskirts of a small summer resort called Ford’s Beach. Its only small, dry front yard, a sandy road, and a low rampart of rock were all that separated it from the ocean. It was also rather bleak within. Its combination lobby, living and dining room—walled, ceiled and floored with native pine—was made cheerful by a log fire, and a faded Navajo blanket on a couch in one corner; there was no other brightness or colour, no pictures, no knick-knacks, and no flowers.
Four persons sat around a bridge table, in the glare of a droplight: Colonel and Mrs. Barclay, their son, Lieutenant Frederic Barclay, and a guest from the hotel, a Mr. Henry Gamadge. The time was twenty minutes to twelve o’clock, and the date was Sunday night, June 25, 1939.
The three men were adding up scores; Mrs. Barclay was digging small change out of the cavernous recesses of a large knitting bag. She looked, and was, an old campaigner. As an Army wife she had learned to travel light, and had forever lost the habit of collecting bric-a-brac, or of regarding her home as anything more permanent than officer’s quarters in a camp or barracks. Mrs. Barclay liked to think that she was a cosmopolitan, and had somehow acquired the notion that this involved wearing a curled fringe or bang, and piling the rest of her light hair high on the top of her head. She also felt obliged to dress formally in the evening, no matter what the circumstances; grudging exception being made in the case of picnics and dining-cars. On this occasion she wore a limp, flowered costume, cut very low; a fluttering chiffon scarf; and several strings of Venetian glass beads.
She was tall, thin, and very strong. Her game of golf was formidable, but she ruined her score on the approaches and the greens. She drove the family car much as she had once ridden a horse—sitting very straight, and bumping very much.
Colonel Barclay was a short, round man with a sunburned face and a clipped grey moustache. He was immaculate, if a little shabby, in yellowing white flannel trousers and a tight, blue serge coat. His son, Lieutenant Frederic Barclay, was also immaculate, and also shabby; but the resemblance between them went no farther. Lieutenant Barclay, Field Artillery, stationed in the South, and now spending his leave (for economy’s sake) with his parents, was a tall, broad-shouldered and extremely handsome young man. He had long, dark, sleepy-looking eyes, smooth, dark hair, and a clear skin, slightly tanned. He moved slowly and deliberately, without effort; and he looked presentable in anything.
Mr. Henry Gamadge, on the other hand, wore clothes of excellent material and cut; but he contrived, by sitting and walking in a careless and lopsided manner, to look presentable in nothing. He screwed his grey tweeds out of shape before he had worn them a week, he screwed his mouth to one side when he smiled, and he screwed his eyes up when he pondered. His eyes were greyish green, his features blunt, and his hair mouse-coloured. People as a rule considered him a well-mannered, restful kind of young man; but if somebody happened to say something unusually outrageous or inane, he was wont to gaze upon the speaker in a wondering and somewhat disconcerting manner.
He said now, writing something on his score pad, and drawing a circle around it, “It’s getting a little late. Shall we go on, or shall we have the return rubber another night? Perhaps you’ll play with me to-morrow, at the Ocean House.”
“Going on midnight.” The colonel looked up at his watch. “We’ll have to wait up,” he grumbled, “but we’ll let you off, if you like.”
“I have an early golf match to-morrow, or I wouldn’t suggest stopping. I’m afraid I’m the big winner.”
Mrs. Barclay fished a heap of small change out of her knitting bag. “I don’t feel like any more bridge to-night,” she said. “Let me see, Mr. Gamadge. At a twentieth of a cent, I must owe you a dollar.”
“That’s right, Mrs. Barclay; but it can stand over.”
“No, indeed. My father always said, ‘Never get up from the bridge table owing money.’ I should be the winner, really.”
“Yes. Hard luck.”
“I suppose it was mad to redouble the spades, but I was counting on Freddy. He is such a good holder, usually. I was counting on him.”
“Lots of psychology in family bridge.” Her son subdued a yawn. “How far am I down, Gamadge?”
“You’re up thirty cents. Thirty cents to your offspring, Colonel.”
“Come across, Dad.”
Colonel Barclay heaved himself sidewise in his chair, got two dimes and two nickels out of his trouser pocket, and shoved them over the khaki bridge-table cover towards his son. “You’ll be wanting to get to bed, Gamadge,” he said, “if you have a nine o’clock golf match.”
“I have, sir; with old Mr. Macpherson from Montreal.”
“But you must wait and have a nightcap with us. I was sure the Cowdens would be here long before this.”
“They couldn’t make it much earlier than twelve, leaving Portsmouth at about ten,” said young Barclay. “Sanderson telephoned from there, you know. He said he was going to drive slowly.”
“Eleanor must be mad,” complained Mrs. Barclay. “Ridiculous to stop here. Not that it isn’t very sweet of your cousin to want to see you, Freddy. Still, to-morrow would do.”
“‘To-morrow’ isn’t a date he can be sure of keeping, you know, Mum.”
“My dear child! And don’t you give him his present to-night, whatever you do. It’s very unlucky to give birthday presents before the day.”
“He’ll think he’s very unlucky to get this one, whenever he gets it.”
“Now, Freddy; a lovely case, for his medicated cigarettes! The prettiest one in the gift shop.”
“He has one, and it came from Bond Street, I think. Or Cartier’s.”
“This will be just the thing for ordinary use. It’s such a sad story, Mr. Gamadge; really a tragedy.”
“Your nephew is so very seriously ill?”
“Incurably so. It’s his heart. He had rheumatic fever while he was quite a child, and the aftereffects were very serious. He cannot live long. He has these attacks more and more often; he had one to-night, just before they reached Portsmouth. But he insisted on coming along to-night.”
“Curious that his people should allow it,” said Gamadge.
“They don’t cross him,” said the Colonel. “They do as he pleases. He should have been brought up to obey orders.”
&n
bsp; “Now, Father, it’s easy to say that, but it has been a dreadful problem for poor Eleanor; my sister-in-law, Mr. Gamadge—she’s his guardian; his parents are dead. My brother was appointed guardian to both the children, and then he died, and now Eleanor looks after them.”
“Two children, are there?”
“Oh, yes. Brother and sister.”
“Alma doesn’t count—yet,” said young Barclay, smiling a little.
“Of course she counts, Freddy! What a thing to say!”
“You’ll have to tell Gamadge all about it, Mum; he looks interested.”
Gamadge was glad that he had given that impression. He said: “There’s a story, is there?”
“A very interesting story, Mr. Gamadge. A very peculiar story. My nephew Amberley will be twenty-one years old to-morrow, and he will come into nearly a million dollars.”
“Whew!”
“If he lives,” said young Barclay. He consulted his watch, and added: “Sixty-eight minutes to go. I should say he’d make it.”
“Freddy!”
“Well, Mum, we’re all pretty well used to the situation by this time. Matter of fact, he may live for years.”
“It is an interesting situation, though,” said Gamadge. “May I ask what would have happened to the million if he hadn’t lived?”
“That’s what makes it so interesting,” said young Barclay, in a dry tone. “Every cent of it would go to some French connections that none of us has ever laid eyes on.”
An ancient grievance was smouldering in Mrs. Barclay’s eye. She said crossly: “I still think that will could have been broken. I said at the time that it could have been broken. I begged and implored Mr. Ormville—that’s our lawyer, Mr. Gamadge—I begged him—”
The Colonel spoke rather impatiently: “Ormville knows what can and can’t be done, Lulu. The will was all right.”
“It was iniquitous! My oldest sister, Mr. Gamadge, was eccentric; I still think that she had become irresponsible.”
“Mum was ready and willing to shoot her into a lunatic asylum, weren’t you, poor old Mum?” laughed Fred Barclay.
“I certainly should have done something about it if I had known; but we didn’t know, unfortunately, Mr. Gamadge… until she died. You see, she had married a Frenchman, and she had lived in France for years. She had become very peculiar even before she died. She didn’t care for any of us any more—her own relations! —except my brother, Amberley’s father. He took the child over there to see her, and she immediately took a fancy to the child. It amounted to infatuation.”
“And you took this child over to see her, and she took anything but a fancy to me,” laughed Fred Barclay.
Mrs. Barclay ignored him. “Amberley has stayed with her several times. She took him to specialists. She gave him a huge allowance. And when she died, she left a will leaving him all her money—if he should live to be twenty-one years old. If he didn’t, it was to go to her husband’s French relations.”
“I see,” said Gamadge. “It was her husband’s money, was it?”
“Oh, yes; he was a very rich man. Some of them are, you know—they make it in Indo-China, or somewhere. I thought him very vulgar.”
“Not at all,” growled the Colonel. “Good sort of fellow.”
“You should see his relations, Harrison! You never met them, but I did. Freddy is wrong when he says none of us has ever laid eyes on them. I did, years ago.”
“Mother has met everybody, at one time or another,” said young Barclay, shuffling the cards.
“But they weren’t anybody, Fred. Well, that’s how it is, Mr. Gamadge. Can you imagine the strain it has all been for poor Eleanor Cowden, my sister-in-law?”
Fred Barclay burst out laughing. “You’re a caution, Mum. No wonder the lot of you have turned poor old Amby into a cynic.”
“You know perfectly what I mean, dear, and it is very wrong of you to take that attitude. We are all devoted to Amberley, Mr. Gamadge. His illness has been a great anxiety to us all. Of course it has warped him a little; it would be a miracle if it hadn’t. But everybody tells me that Mr. Sanderson—that’s his tutor, Mr. Gamadge—has done wonders for the child’s morale.”
“He plays the deuce with mine, though.” Young Barclay tilted his chair back against the wall. “Makes me tired. ‘Doesn’t your sister need a change of air after her cold? Have some consideration for your dear aunt.’ That sort of thing.”
“Mr. Sanderson is not at all like that, Freddy. If it were not for him, Amberley would be spoiled—utterly spoiled. He was beginning to think of nothing and nobody but himself. I was surprised and delighted when you told me about his making that will.”
“Another source of strain,” said Fred Barclay, glancing at Gamadge. “He can’t make a will until tomorrow, of course; but he’s got one all written out and ready to sign.”
“Three witnesses are required in this state, dear; don’t forget that,” begged Mrs. Barclay.
“Perhaps Gamadge will oblige; and you and Dad. The rest of the family are beneficiaries,” said her son. “There’s only one shadow to mar the rosy prospect, Mum; he’s sure to have left a slice—and a big one—to Arthur Atwood.”
“Oh, dear!” sighed Mrs. Barclay.
The Colonel drummed on the table. “I don’t want to hear a word more about this,” he said, angrily. “It’s repulsive.”
“But, dear,” protested his wife, “we all know that Arthur Atwood is perfectly horrible.”
“Arthur Atwood,” explained Fred Barclay, for Gamadge’s benefit, “is the son of Mother’s next most eccentric sister. So there you have the whole family; and we might as well include poor old Alma, insignificant as she seems, because if Amberley dies intestate she’ll get all his money; unless he manages to give it away first. I shouldn’t be surprised if he did. He’s dying to get his hands on the principal. You can understand that he hasn’t been able to raise a cent on his expectations.”
“Of course not. Too bad a life,” said Gamadge.
“No insurance, no borrowing, no anything. He’s had this big allowance, though, and we’ve all been battening on it.”
“Generous with it, is he?”
“In his own way.”
“Haven’t his aunt and his sister any money of their own?”
“Not much—have they, Dad?”
“None of us has had much since 1929.” The Colonel got up. “I believe I hear the car.”
Mrs. Barclay arose, and hastily followed her husband out on the porch. Young Barclay strolled after them. The open door let in a gush of damp air. Gamadge, whose interest in the arrivals had been considerably aroused, listened to the slamming of car doors, the chorus of greeting, the noise of many footsteps on gravel and then on wood. A crowd surged into the room.
“You must all be chilled to the bone. Come in, come in and get warm,” trumpeted the Colonel. “Hot or cold drinks—all ready.” He disappeared into the pantry.
Mrs. Barclay advanced, her arm in that of a tall, slender figure, beautifully dressed; her son followed more slowly, his arm about the shoulders of a smaller, slighter young man, beside whom a light-haired youth in a raincoat hovered anxiously. A dark girl brought up the rear of the procession. She stood for a moment or two in the doorway, and then closed the door and went over to a window. As she leaned there, looking out at the opaque curtain of mist beyond, Gamadge thought that she seemed neglected, unhappy and forlorn. She was rather casually dressed in a dark-blue flannel skirt, a rose-coloured blouse, and a leather coat. She wore no hat. Her dark hair, cut very short, lay as smoothly as a cap on her small head.
Young Barclay and the man in the raincoat had shepherded their charge to the fire, and were relieving him of his heavy tweed ulster, his white silk scarf, and his fine Ecuadorian Panama. Mrs. Barclay seized Gamadge’s arm.
“Mr. Gamadge, I should like to introduce you to my sister-in-law, Mrs. Cowden. Eleanor, this is Mr. Gamadge, a friend of Fred’s.”
“How do you do?” said Mrs. Cowde
n, smiling. Gamadge saw that Mrs. Barclay had been right—Mrs. Cowden could smile and be civil, but she was indeed suffering from strain.
“How do you do?” he said. “You must be tired.”
“We all are, a little.”
“And this,” said Mrs. Barclay, still gripping Gamadge’s arm, and drawing him towards the fire, “this is my nephew. Dear Amberley. And Mr. Sanderson, who takes such good care of him.”
The sudden modulation of her tone from affection to condescension might well have cut an oversensitive person like a knife; but Mr. Sanderson seemed to be philosophical; his thin, good-looking face registered nothing but polite good humour. He had turned from his charge, and was steering in the direction of Miss Cowden and the window. Mrs. Barclay said:
“Oh—there is dear Alma. I want you to meet Alma, Mr. Gamadge. I didn’t see you, dear. This is Mr. Gamadge.”
Alma Cowden nodded.
“Are you comfortable, Amby? Getting warm?” Mrs. Barclay dropped Gamadge’s arm, and returned to the fireplace. “Fred, where is Amby’s cocoa?”
Fred went into the pantry, and Gamadge went up to the young man who stood in front of the hearth. He had been prepared for symptoms of serious illness, but nothing could have prepared him for the skim-milk translucence of the face that smiled up at him. Its dark eyes looked like onyx against that pallor.
“Are you an old-timer here, Mr. Gamadge?” he asked.
“I think I may say so. I’ve been coming every summer for years.”
“This is my first trip. Have you ever been up to a place called Seal Cove?”
“I’ve missed that.”
“They tell me it’s quite a short trip—just a few miles beyond Oakport. I have a cousin up there, this summer; he’s helping to run a summer theatre.”
“Interesting job.”
“It opens to-morrow night. I wouldn’t miss it for anything. Do you go to summer theatres much?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, not unless somebody hauls me. I must admit I like winter ones best.”
The boy laughed, gaily. “This one is going to be better than most. They’ve got a manager that used to be with the Abbey Theatre—you know. I’ve met him. He’s crazy about the Irish drama. Do you like the Irish drama, Mr. Gamadge?”
The Gracie Allen Murder Case Page 16
