“Oh, yes, not only the Tuesday but four or five days at a time, eating absolutely nothing. And then she has to work back gradually to regular eating—only liquids for a day or so and then very light foods. Of course she doesn’t sleep properly, she needs drugs; awful! But that’s not the worst of it, there’s something she does that’s actually dangerous, the doctors and all of us have warned her but she won’t believe anyone. She poisons herself with paint.”
“What? How?”
“You know she’s a painter, maybe you’ve seen some of her things in Berkeley exhibits, and she has one or two in permanent collections in the City. They’re queer and beautiful, gouache mostly. Well,” Cass gave an exasperated little laugh, “it seems you can’t be haunting without using lots of green; and it seems that painters can’t get a good fine point on a brush without putting the tip between their lips; and green paint is jam full of arsenic and you can eat enough of it, that way, to keep yourself half sick all the time. I ask you, what can a body do with someone like that?” She flung out her pretty hands in an appealing gesture.
“It would be a problem. And you, what do you do?”
“I’m Martha,” said Cass, grinning. “I was just a good ordinary English major at Cal, and now I cook and give two or three days a week to a day nursery, and—just exist.”
She added wistfully, “Bell was the one of us who could really have done things. She sang and she acted and she wrote. There was never anyone like her, so lovely—but she was always wanting to break free. Maybe she wouldn’t have gone far anyway, after she was married. Sidney Grant wasn’t much for the arts.”
Georgine’s pulses stirred. “I wonder if I haven’t seen her name or heard it, somewhere? Was her first name Isabel?”
“No. Sibella.” Cass looked round and sprang to help Georgine to her feet. “You’re sure you feel like moving?”
“Yes. I must get home.”
“You must let me drive you.”
“No, thank you, my car’s at the foot of the street.”
“Oh; well, if you’re certain you can make it comfortably.” She went on, walking protectively beside Georgine to the gate, “I suppose our parents thought they’d take the curse off Johnson for a last name, so they fixed us up with fancy first ones. Bell was Sibella, and Ryn’s Dorinda—and mine, of all things, is Casilda. I’ve always expected to find myself married to two gondoliers at once.”
Georgine laughed. “They’re pretty names, though. Look here, you needn’t get your car out; I’d rather walk this little way, I’m going to be stiff tomorrow anyway.”
“Then I’ll see you safely into your own car,” said Cass with determination. “Is there any way we could find out how you are? Call up tomorrow, or something?” Her gray eyes were anxious.
“No, thank you, don’t bother,” said Georgine strongly. “You’ve worried too much over a stranger as it is.”
***
“And a stranger I mean to stay,” she told Todd half an hour later.
Todd was hovering about her with penitent concern. “I wish to the Lord’s sake you’d lie down.”
“I’m standing by choice.”
“Then I’m going to fix you another drink.”
“All right. I haven’t had so much hard liquor since New Year’s eve, but for once I need it. Right here on the mantelpiece, thank you, dear.” She sipped the drink and sighed. “Of course, next time you’ll know better than to send me. I would see fit to bring up the Sibella Grant business, so that the old lady knew I was onto something. I’m sorry I made such a hash of it, Todd.”
“You didn’t. And I’m only sorry that you were hurt and frightened.”
“Hash,” said Georgine with a sigh. “It reminds me of dinner. I can cook standing up, anyway.”
While she was stirring about beyond the swing-door, Todd sat down in his shabby blue armchair and looked unseeingly at the cold fireplace. Presently, with an automatic gesture, he brought a mouth-organ from his pocket and began tapping it gently on his palm. Georgine came into the adjoining dining-room to set the table, and he began thinking aloud through the clink of silver and glassware. “The annoying part of it is that I didn’t believe a word of Hartlein’s story when I let you go up to Cuckoo Canyon. Queer—he’s a queer guy all the way round. Now that we know there was some truth in his story, it’s hard not to look for… The old lady’s house doesn’t sound rich, from what you said of it… And there is a case of slow poisoning, but the girl’s under a doctor’s care and they know what’s causing it… No, Hartlein’s all off.”
After a few minutes Georgine heard him at the telephone. “Is Inspector Nelsing still in his office?… Hello, Nelse, it’s Mac. Not too good, how’s yours? Uh, huh, I know, sitting around there doing nothing, getting fat on the taxpayers’ money. Have you a minute to check something for me? Did your people investigate a fatal automobile accident some time last year, in which a couple were killed on their wedding night? Sidney Grant and Sibella Johnson Grant… Oh, you knew her personally, did you? All three of them; I see. Yes, I’ll wait…”
There was a long silence. Georgine opened the door from the kitchen into the hall and eyed her husband. “Nelse says the Johnsons were on campus all together, when he was taking his graduate work. Everybody knew ’em. He remembers when Sibella was killed… Yes? All right, I’m listening.
“Thanks,” he said finally, and hung up. “I guess that does it,” he said, following Georgine into the dining-room. “The Grants had got pretty high at their wedding reception and they hadn’t driven more than eight miles before they went off one of those turns on Grizzly Peak Boulevard in a summer night fog. Grant was killed instantly, Sibella was thrown clear and lived about half an hour; the insurance people made a routine investigation and nothing more came of it. Nelse says there’s nothing in it for me and I must be hard up for material. How truly he spoke,” concluded Todd, applying himself to pot roast and savory vegetables.
Georgine glanced at him. His agate eyes were intent on something beyond her.
“I’m sorry you can’t find anything to work on,” she said, “but I’m just as pleased that we’re out of it.”
They had barely finished doing the dishes after dinner when the doorbell rang, long and peremptorily; and a vigorous male voice said, “Todd McKinnon? Was it your wife that nearly got knocked down by my car this afternoon? I’m David Shere.”
CHAPTER THREE
“BUTI’VE GOT to see her,” Shere was insisting frantically “Good God, I nearly killed her, and I didn’t know a thing about it, not until the Johnsons got hold of me. I have to see how badly she’s hurt. For the Lord’s sake, man, don’t you know what this means to me?”
Todd seemed to be standing his ground at the front door. David Shere’s voice dropped lower. “Arrange for a doctor’s care if it’s necessary, and apologize…do that if nothing else…”
“Oh, let him in, Todd,” said Georgine, wearily accepting the inevitable and coming into the hall. Shere stepped through the door and looked her over with an anxious flash of light-brown eyes. He stood still, but Georgine found herself catching her breath as if he had rushed at her.
He was a squarely built young man in his late twenties, light-haired, good-looking enough in an irregular way. It would be hard for a woman to notice his looks closely at a first meeting, or to analyze them for some time after, for he was possessed of the kind of vitality that surrounds its owner with a zone of almost palpable electricity. It crackled in his voice and in the intensity of his look; if you were in a state to fall in love, it might make him irresistible, and even if you disliked him you could not be unaware of him.
“Mrs. McKinnon,” he said hoarsely, “—you are Mrs. McKinnon, aren’t you? The girls got your name from the steering-post in your car, and we saw the same car in your garage—Mrs. McKinnon, I’m abject. There’s no excuse for me, except that I’d just been turned down on a proposal and I was simply in no state to know what I was doing. I want to find out if you’re hurt.”
<
br /> “Oh, that’s all right,” said Georgine, still wearily.
He glanced from Georgine to Todd. “You don’t look like the kind of people who’d be planning to bring suit for huge damages, and break me. I guess Mrs. McKinnon would be lying down groaning, if you had anything like that in mind.”
Todd said neutrally, “My wife will see a physician if it’s necessary.”
“And you’ll let me pay for it, I hope—or do anything I can to make it up to you.” He took another step forward, looking earnest and young and worried. “I haven’t a job; I’m taking graduate work in metallurgy, and right now I haven’t got anything to my name except an old house in San Francisco that my grandfather left me. The rent’s my only income. If you were really seriously injured, Mrs. McKinnon, of course you could have that and welcome, but I couldn’t scrape up another cent.”
Todd laughed involuntarily. One could not help being touched by such candid indiscretion.
“Well, come in and sit down for a minute,” he said.
“Is there someone else with you?” said Georgine. “You said ‘we’ noticed the car in the garage.” —So much for my careful disguise, she added to herself.
“Yes, Cass and Ryn Johnson are down in the car.”
Todd neither moved nor changed expression, but his wife felt a quickening of attention which could be read only in one way. “But do ask them in, too,” she said. “They were very good to me this afternoon.”
Shere nodded and plunged off down the steps. As he returned more slowly, with a young woman on either side, his extremely carrying voice could be heard floating upward: “Damn’ decent. I hope it’ll last!” One of the Johnsons presumably hushed him.
Ryn Johnson paused on the threshold of the living-room as introductions were being completed. She looked it over with a comprehensive sweep of the gray-green eyes, and nodded decisively. “She likes your color scheme,” said Cass, coming up beside her with a twinkling glance at Georgine. “See how I can read minds?”
Standing together, dressed in loose casual coats and plain wool dresses, the Johnsons looked more alike than at a first impression. One thought of Cass as shorter and plumper, because of her healthy coloring and roundness of cheek, but she was of much the same height as her sister. Ryn, although she looked better than she had in the afternoon, was still moving slowly and dreamily. She wandered toward a chair and sat down abstractedly. It was not necessary for her to talk much, she gave pleasure merely by letting you look at her, but now and then the perfect carmine lips opened for a murmur in her cool voice. She said now, “Cass said she felt like an under-cover man.”
Cass giggled. “Of course, it was possible that you’d borrowed the car, but I couldn’t help seeing your driver’s license too, when I was putting things back into your bag. And we couldn’t just let you walk away, and leave it at that!”
“My wife uses her professional name for interviews,” said Todd smoothly. Georgine prayed that nobody would ask what profession, and nobody did. “Besides,” Cass went on, “we wanted to see you again; we liked you, for one thing.”
“Thank you,” said Georgine. —You ought to see me when I haven’t just cracked my coccyx, she added to herself.
“Ryn thought you people might be on the faculty,” said Cass. “No? You’re not even connected with the University?”
“My husband’s a writer,” said Georgine guardedly. Cass gave a cheerful nod of comprehension. “That’s one way of getting around, certainly. We couldn’t help wondering how you’d met Hugh Hartlein.”
There was a minute’s pause. Across the room David Shere was telling Todd something surpassingly dull about a new temperature control to be used in assay work on gold, and seemingly holding his audience; but Todd’s ears were remarkably selective and his attention all-embracing. The Johnson girls both looked at Georgine, with a hint of strain under their easy manner.
“I have just met him—once,” she said at last. “Why, is that so remarkable?”
“He’s always saying he has no social life, aside from us.” Cass smiled at Georgine. “Now I know better! We were sure you knew him, from the way you used one of his pet phrases this afternoon. Do tell me, what kind of impression did he make on you?”
“It wasn’t a long meeting. He seemed rather intense and moody.”
The Johnsons looked at each other and laughed. Ryn said, “An understatement if I ever heard one. Hugh’s neurotic.”
There was an odd, almost indefinable ring in her voice. What was it? Relief, eagerness, satisfaction at having said what she had come to say? Georgine could not decide, but she was aware that Todd’s mind had been alerted. Though there was no eagerness in his voice or look, from clear across the room she could feel his attention.
He entered the conversation now. “That’s one of those words that has almost lost its meaning, isn’t it?”
“Oh, I’m not using it lightly,” Ryn returned. “We know him rather well. He was—” she smiled slightly, “—nominally in the family.”
“Which one of you did he marry?” said Todd, also smiling.
“Me,” said Cass Johnson in a mournful voice, her eyes twinkling. “The things I let myself be talked into! You know— Hugh can be awfully interesting and even charming when he works at it, but he stopped work about five minutes after the knot was tied. Quite a honeymoon we had.” She chuckled reminiscently. “Four hours at the Reno airport and in the plane, fighting all the time.”
“You started earlier than most,” Todd murmured.
It was Ryn who replied. “It was good luck that it happened that way. Hugh couldn’t wait a minute to go back on everything he’d said earlier. That awful mother of his, for one thing—he announced that she was to come down and live with him and Cass. It isn’t even as if he liked her himself! And—there was plenty besides that,” she went on hurriedly. “But what you can’t get into Hugh’s head is the fact that he could ever be to blame for anything that goes wrong, or that anyone can dislike him for himself alone.”
It had been a long speech, for Ryn. She subsided, breathing fast as if her vehemence had tired her. Cass had been sitting with lowered eyelids; now she flashed a brilliant glance at David Shere, and observed, “And as long as he thinks of my Aunt Chloe as a witch, he needn’t come mooching round trying to get me to marry him again!”
“Don’t look at me,” said Mr. Shere with some heat. “I don’t mind your aunt. And why are you bringing this up, as though it was the only impediment?” He began to scowl; he leaned forward and added seriously, “I’m an impediment, damn it!”
Cass laughed. “Maybe you are and maybe not,” she said lightly. “And how did we get onto the subject? Isn’t it silly, the way you start talking about one thing and end up miles from where you began? We ought to be leaving, you know. We only came so that you could ask after Mrs. McKinnon’s health.” She got up briskly and Georgine also rose, but in a slower and more painful manner.
“Of course,” said Shere, “but that was all settled long ago.”
Todd had been helping Georgine up. At the complacent sound of this remark, his eyebrows rose. “Was it?” he said. “I don’t remember our settling anything.”
“Well, I’m damned,” said Shere with sudden violence. “I told you where I stood; what d’you want me to do, crawl on my belly?” He swung to face Georgine. “Don’t try to make out that it was all my fault. If you hear a car—”
“David, hush!” Cass cried out. She grasped his arm and began urging him toward the door, but he literally brushed her off and went on, “—a car starting up out of sight, why don’t you get into a safe place and wait till it’s gone? These damn’ pedestrians, walking right into the path of—”
“You’d better get out, Shere,” said Todd in a metallic voice. The young man paused in mid-speech to give him a startled look, and before anything more could be said the Johnsons swept forward as one woman and hustled their friend to the front door. “He would have to spoil it,” Cass threw over her shoulder in an angu
ished tone, and the door closed.
Georgine took a long breath. “Quite a salon we’re running here,” she observed acidly. “The flower of America’s young manhood, a new flower each night. How do we attract them? Is there something wrong with us?”
“Only with me. I’m not quick enough to the punch.”
“Thank heaven for that. That’s all my salon needs, a good brawl. What was this all about?”
“I’m not sure,” said Todd deliberately. He had got hold of himself, and was moving toward the desk. “I’ve been pumped before, and I’ve had information forced on me, but never quite so obviously! Where did I put that—”
“What are you looking for?”
“The envelope with Hartlein’s address.” He rooted in the desk drawer. “The checkbook, too.”
“Todd, did those people make you think there was something in his story—after all?”
“Not exactly,” Todd said. Under Georgine’s dubious gaze he dated the check Nov. 3, and began to fill it out. “This may be a dirty trick, though Hartlein did lay himself open to it—but I’m going to use him in some kind of a yarn.”
“H’m. If you’re going to play a dirty trick on anyone, why don’t you have a go at our Mr. Shere?”
“He’s too simple, I’m afraid,” said Todd regretfully. “He blew up right after Cass started teasing him.”
“You mean just a frustrated love could cause all that?”
“There may be a li’le more to it, but as a psychiatrist of long standing, I’d say that he’d feel lots better if he were married to some lusty wench.”
“If you slap me there I’ll kill you,” said Georgine ominously.
Todd addressed his envelope and laid it on the hall table to be mailed in the morning. “That non-existent wife and child in Grass Valley are going to have a Christmas after all,” he said. “Young Hartlein’s a clumsy liar; and that’s the most interesting thing about him.”
***
On the evening of November 10, the driver of a Number 7 bus stopped on his way down Euclid to wait for a young man who was running down the last half-block of Cedar, signaling to him. The young man got on, breathing fast and coughing as he asked for a transfer; he wore no hat; there was a shine of perspiration on his cadaverous face; he sat huddled into his overcoat, gazing at the floor of the bus. There were not many passengers, but several of them got off at Shattuck and University, where the young man also disembarked. They stood waiting for their various buses and cars on the corner, paying little attention to each other.
The Smiling Tiger Page 4
