by Dorothy Eden
“Not proof, of course. But Willa knew something about it. She was frightened, the nurse said.”
“The nurse? I thought you went to see the doctor.”
Grace bent her head over her bowl of soup. The steam warmed her face. The snap had already warmed her stomach. She was getting over her panic and beginning to think logically again.
“I believe that that girl is in love with Dr. Sven Backe, and she’s in a state of jitters because he was the doctor who gave medical evidence at the inquest. If there’s a rumor going about that Bill Jordan’s death wasn’t an accident, then it’s just possible Dr. Backe knows more than he’s saying.”
“So his loyal nurse who is in love with him spreads this nasty gossip?”
“No, not in that way.” Grace looked at Polsen and said starkly, “She’d never have opened her mouth except that she’s petrified about what’s happened to Willa.”
“So,” Polsen murmured noncommittally, “I won’t be alarmed by your histrionics, Grace.”
“So, suspecting the doctor as she does, if the girl weren’t in love with him, she’d leave him, wouldn’t she? She’d get another job with someone less mysterious.”
“Has she any chance with the handsome doctor?”
“Oh, good heavens, none at all. She’s so unremarkable she’s almost invisible. I mean, if he didn’t particularly notice someone as flamboyant as Willa, he isn’t going to see this poor mouse.”
“And Dr. Backe himself?”
“I got no further with him. He simply told me lies. Said Willa had come to him to confirm that she was expecting a baby. He said she would have a healthy child. Oh, Polsen, I pray she does!”
Polsen ruffled his already untidy hair. He went off on another tangent.
“I have a piece of information for you. Captain Axel Morgensson’s ship is due today or tomorrow.”
Axel. The one with the cold eyes who stared…
“Is it really! Then what do we do?”
“We have to make his acquaintance.”
“Do you think Willa might be on board his ship?”
Polsen properly ignored that fanciful remark and said, “This is what we have to do, Grace. You have to give a party. I will share the expense.”
She stared. “But I don’t know anybody.”
“A party for all of Willa’s friends. The people she knew at the embassy, the Backes, Sven and Ulrika, Captain Axel Morgensson and his aunts, the Von Sturpes—”
“The baron, too!”
“Jacob? Naturally.”
Grace reflected and said flatly, “I never felt less in a party mood.”
“Oh, you will be when you dress in Willa’s clothes. She was always in a party mood.”
The eerie apprehension was descending on her again.
“But you can’t want me to do that! You don’t like me in Willa’s clothes.” Slowly she added, “Why?”
“The party is really for me,” Polsen explained. “I think it’s time I came out of the background and met your friends.
“Not my friends,” Grace said vehemently.
“Yours, for that night. You will be Willa. Don’t you understand?”
“This is intended to be a joke? A sick joke.”
“Not necessarily. Unless one particular guest thinks it sick.” He looked at Grace anxiously. “Do you think it a good ploy? Better than yours about an abortion.”
“Ploy!”
“That was your word.”
“It’s a creepy idea!”
“I thought you’d enjoy it. With your sort of imagination.”
Wearing those butterfly glasses again, and the-party pajamas, and the Balenciaga scent…
“Do I have to get my hair dyed yellow?” she asked in utter distaste.
To her surprise Polsen’s voice was equally full of distaste.
“No, certainly not. You can wear a wig. Find one the right color. Find the hairdresser who did Willa’s hair, if you can.”
Chapter 8
THE TELEPHONE IN WILLA’S flat began to ring just after Grace and Polsen arrived home. Again, Grace’s heart gave a great leap of hope. Was it Willa this time?
She realized that she had become inured to disappointment, for she remained quite calm when the caller was identified as Winifred Wright, the middle-aged secretary from the embassy.
“You’re still here, Grace?”
“But of course. I don’t intend leaving until I’ve seen Willa.”
“That’s what Peter Sinclair said. He thinks you’re optimistic.”
“Optimistic?”
“Well, perhaps that isn’t the right word.” Winifred sounded slightly flustered. “I meant that he thinks Willa’s more than a bit unreliable. Anyway, since you’re here, we’d like to look after you. Can you come out for a meal one evening?”
Had Peter Sinclair asked Winifred to share the chore of keeping an eye on her? Or was she doing this out of her own kind heart?
“I’d like to. There are a lot of things I want to ask you.”
“Such as?” The voice at the other end of the wire was crisp.
“Things puzzling me. Do you know the hairdresser Willa went to, for instance?”
“Yes, I do, but you’re not going blond, are you?”
“Willa seemed to have plenty of success that way. Although one would have thought the Swedes would prefer brunettes, for a change. Winifred, I’m going to give a party. Will you come?”
“But you don’t know people here, do you?”
“A few. The rest will be Willa’s friends. I thought this could be a sort of wedding party with the bride and groom unfortunately in absentia. But we can drink their health. What a pity that poor Bill Jordan is dead.”
For a moment there was a complete silence; then, “Why Bill Jordan?” Winifred asked.
“Wasn’t he a special friend of Willa’s?”
“I don’t think so. He wasn’t her type. He kept to himself rather. He was shy with girls.”
“Good-looking?”
“Very.”
“Then that’s it. I can just see Willa winkling him out of his shell. She was extremely good with shy young men.”
“He’s dead, if that’s anything to do with it,” Winifred said gruffly.
“What an incongruous remark,” Grace said carefully. “What do you mean? Do you think Bill Jordan’s death was suicide?”
“Why?” Now Winifred’s voice was sharp, with an undercurrent of wariness. “Does someone else?”
“I heard a rumor. Do you think he had worries?”
“You mean, was he breaking his heart over Willa? If he was, she deserves strangling. I know she’s your cousin and all that, but she can be a little bitch.”
Grace, feeling her way, had got a more shattering reaction than she had expected.
“That nice young man,” Winifred was going on indignantly. “Everyone knew he was unhappy. We all tried to get him to talk, but he wouldn’t.”
“And so Peter Sinclair had a last attempt?”
“Yes. But he got nothing out of him, although they both got a bit drunk. Bill was the buttoned-up kind. He just went out and had this accident or whatever it was. Hell, Grace!” Winifred’s voice was full of disgust. “I thought we were talking about a party, not a funeral. When’s it to be?”
“Saturday—six o’clock. And that hairdresser?”
“A little place called Ingrid on Strandvägen, not far from you. But, honestly, what are you trying to do? Be Willa? You don’t look the bitchy type to me.”
Grace laughed and put down the telephone and looked at Polsen, silent in the corner.
“You got the gist of that?”
“Mostly.”
“It seems the rumor is that Willa drove Bill Jordan to his death. That must be why she talked hysterically about murder.”
“Then all I can say is that he must have been a remarkably stupid young man. To lose his life for a butterfly like Willa.”
Grace frowned in perplexity. “What’s wrong with her
? She never used to be like that. Thoughtless but not heartless. She was particularly warmhearted.”
“Don’t be so upset, Grace. One man, anyway, has found her warmhearted. She’s going to have a baby, remember?”
“Does that indicate a warm heart? Or a trap she’s got herself caught in?”
“And could have got out of if she had wanted to. She obviously prefers to keep her baby.”
“And her Gustav.” Grace pressed her hands to her temples. “This is enough for today, Polsen. I’m going to bed. Maybe Willa will be back tomorrow, and I won’t have to have my hair dyed yellow or have a party that isn’t a party or ask another single question.”
But the narrow bed with the curved ends was not a restful one. Charming, but not comfortable. It seemed to close her in too much, as if she were back in her cradle and helpless. It gave her dreams that were claustrophobic and horrible, although she couldn’t remember their horror when she woke. Something about being unable to find her way out of the dark forest and the snow beginning to fall like goose feathers.
The next day Ingrid’s long and pale cynical face with its high crown of blond hair looked into the mirror above Grace’s.
“A rinse, certainly, fröken. But not that color. Not for you. Seriously, I wouldn’t recommend it. What about a streak or two of silver? Here and here?”
A thin, long-nailed finger poked at Grace’s hair.
“You gave my cousin a rinse, and it was an enormous success.”
“Yes? Do I remember her?”
“Willa Bedford. From the British Embassy.”
“Ja, ja! I remember.” The melancholy face suddenly crumpled up with laughter. “She was a character. I want to make an impact, Ingrid, she used to say. I’m not an embassy wife who has to be discreet. I’m only a secretary. Who’s going to look at me if I don’t give them something to look at?”
Was. Used to. The past tense again…
The woman, her fingers resting on each side of Grace’s temples, studied her face in the mirror.
“But you don’t need to make that sort of impact.”
“No, I don’t suppose I would be very successful at carrying it off,” Grace said resignedly.
“I didn’t mean that. I meant that frankly you would look terrible. You’re the intellectual type, yes?”
“Oh, hell,” said Grace.
The hollow laughter came again.
“You don’t like to be that? But it’s much more distinguished. Now me, I would give anything to look clever. Is it true that Fröken Bedford has run off with a man?”
“Is that what you’ve heard?”
Ingrid had picked up scissors and begun to snip at Grace’s hair.
“Ja, I heard that. She told me herself. ‘Give me a special do today, Ingrid,’ she said. ‘I’m going to be married.’ ‘Who is the lucky man?’ I asked, and she said it was a secret, but she called him Gustav.”
“Was she happy and excited?” Grace asked.
“Excited, yes. But there were difficulties, she said. She might have to be patient for a while. But it was all going to be wonderful in the end. Now, fröken, I suggest a simple casual style—like this, and this.”
Grace regarded the work of Ingrid’s skillful fingers. She said reluctantly. “I suppose so. But, like Willa, I have an occasion for making an impact. So what I must have is an inexpensive yellow wig.”
The long face in the mirror expressed nothing but shock.
“It’s for a joke,” Grace said defiantly.
She went home with the wig box containing its impossible concoction of nylon curls bouncing on her arm. Four hundred kronor down the drain, she was thinking. Were she and Polsen letting this macabre game they had invented run away with them?
The strange man was halfway down the stairs when she arrived home. She stood at the bottom, waiting for him to complete his descent. Fru Lindstrom’s ears were at the alert, for her door opened at that moment, and she appeared, clapping her hands as if in surprise and exclaiming, “Captain Morgensson, delay a moment and meet your new neighbor, Fröken Asherton.”
The cool blue stare, the thick blond beard that partially concealed pink sensuous lips. Gustav? But no, the nose was a little too long, the forehead too high, the eyes too cold and watchful. Just for a moment, however, Grace had been startled. Was Willa’s likeness derived from a vivid momentary impression?
“Willa’s cousin, I believe? My aunts talked of you.” Captain Morgensson’s English was heavily accented. He took her hand in a hard grip. “You called on them, they told me. They enjoyed your visit.”
“You’re just home from a voyage?” Grace said politely.
“From Greenland. I am glad to get warm again.” Captain Morgensson gave a hearty laugh, but his eyes had caught the frosty glitter of the ice packs he had been sailing through. No wonder his stare had made Willa uneasy.
“My name is Axel,” he said. “I hope to see more of you, Miss Grace, before I sail again. Now that Willa has jilted me to get herself a husband.” He gave another loud laugh in which Fru Lindstrom joined. They both seemed to laugh for the sake of making a noise. As if there must not be any seriousness when the amusing and frivolous Willa was talked about.
Grace swung the wig box on her arm and imitated their gaiety.
“You must come to my party next Saturday, Captain. I’m having a few friends to drink Willa’s health.”
“Willa will be there!”
Her imagination was running away with her. There couldn’t have been such surprise in his voice. As if he had reason to know Willa’s presence would be an impossibility.
“Who knows? She’ll turn up when she turns up. But in the meantime we can drink her health. Do come if you can. Bring your aunts, too.”
“Thank you, Miss Grace. For my aunts I can’t promise, but for myself I will be delighted to come.”
“That’s marvelous. Six o’clock, Saturday. I’ll see you then.”
She knew that his inquisitive stare was following her up the stairs, but it was impossible to guess what he was thinking. Nothing, but nothing, got any clearer. Could she hope for anything better when she met the last man mentioned in Willa’s diary? Jacob, the Baron von Sturpe, the elegant Ebba’s husband. That was, if the Von Sturpes agreed to come to her party.
At home she would never have had the temerity to give a party like this. There was no doubt that in an uncanny way she was taking on some of Willa’s haphazard, gay, but curiously fatalistic personality. She studied the telephone directory and began to make confident telephone calls. She was certain of acceptances. Most people would come out of curiosity. But she had an intuition that there would be one or two who had no curiosity, only that watchfulness she had encountered already. Well, she and Polsen could be watchful, too.
The surprised but cordial voice of the Baroness von Sturpe, the more guarded voice of Sven Backe, who would be delighted to come and to bring his sister, Ulrika, Winifred Wright, and other friends of Willa’s from the embassy, the Thompsons and the Hendersons whom Grace had met at Peter Sinclair’s party, the frail voice of Miss Anna Morgensson accepting with pleasure for herself and her sister and her nephew, Axel, fortuitously home at this time. The last call Grace made was to the Sinclairs. Kate answered. Her voice was unbelieving.
“A party! At this time!”
She spoke as if the time should be one for mourning. She seemed to be outdoing the Swedes in their talent for melancholy. It couldn’t be much fun for her husband.
“What’s wrong with this time?”
“But for Willa, when she isn’t even here! You’re beginning to behave exactly like her, Grace.”
“How?” Grace asked interestedly.
“Doing these offbeat things. A party for someone who has gone.”
“But not forever. She may even be back to take part in it. Anyway, you and Peter can come, can’t you?”
“I’ll have to confirm it with Peter. He keeps his appointment book in his office. I never know what we’re doing.” The
faintly whining voice was the old Kate. “And Georgy has come down with a temperature. If Alexander gets it, too, I’ll have to stay home.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Yes, it couldn’t be at a more awkward time. I’m supposed to go to a tea party at the residence this afternoon.”
“Then go. I’ll come out and stay with the children.”
“Grace! Would you?”
“Of course. I’d like to.”
“Really—you are nice. Willa was good-natured like that, too.”
“You’ve already told me I’m like her. I didn’t think you meant it as a compliment.”
Kate gave an uneasy laugh., “You’d better not take any notice of me. I’m a bit mixed up. And I so hate this place. It wasn’t so bad until Bill’s death. I can’t seem to get over that. Not that he was a very close friend. Just that it was so sad.”
“Is that why you got prejudiced against Willa?” Grace asked.
“Willa! Oh, goodness, no. I don’t think she had anything to do with it.”
“Winifred Wright thought she had.”
“I know there were rumors. But Peter wouldn’t pay any attention to them. He said Bill knew the type of girl Willa was and wouldn’t have taken her seriously.”
“Well, someone apparently has,” Grace said lightly.
“Has what?”
“Taken Willa seriously.”
There was a long pause.
“Or it could be the other way around,” Kate said slowly, at last. “Have you thought of that, Grace? That Willa has taken someone seriously.”
“You mean, someone who isn’t serious about her?”
“It would only be what she deserved, wouldn’t it?”
Just before Grace was ready to leave for the Sinclairs at four o’clock as she had promised, Kate was on the telephone again.
“Grace, I promised to pick up Joyce Thompson, so I’ll have to leave now. The children will be all right until you arrive, but come as soon as you can, will you? Alexander will let you in. And do make Georgy stay in bed. She’s being very tiresome. She’ll probably behave better for you than she does for me. I won’t be more than a couple of hours. Have a drink with Peter if he’s home before me.”
