by Rufus King
He was not nearly so gaunt as Ann had expected from Danning’s catalogue of ailments. Certainly he was opaque. He bore his age well, and there was a simplicity and general kindliness about him which made Ann instantly forget that the hand which he offered controlled one of the great fortunes of the country.
“Good evening, Miss Ledrick. I am Justin Marlow. Come over and meet my cousin Estelle.” He went on as he led Ann toward the hearth: “You’ll find that her bombazine exterior really shelters the soul of a femme fatale. For the past ten or fifteen years Estelle has been posing as the mystery woman of Paris, but nobody would take her seriously. People put up with her solely because of her chef, who was a cordon bleu and who had the distinction of committing suicide, as we’ve heard, when the black market ran short of mushrooms.”
A woman rose from a sofa and smiled agreeably and said, “Miss Ledrick, Justin is a complete liar. My role in Paris was that of a Cassandra. I told the benighted fossils exactly what they were heading for. They preferred to consider me mad and would have locked me up a hundred times if they hadn’t thought me so filthily rich. The instant that gendarme look would come into their eyes I’d just put on another emerald. Do you like sidecars?”
“Very much, Miss Marlow.”
“So sensible. I’m as American as they come, but this national fetish for dry martinis convinces me that the country is still in the thrall of barbarianism.”
Ann sat on the sofa beside Estelle Marlow and tried to readjust the portrait she had formed of the woman with its reality. The exterior was not the bombazine one which Justin Marlow had advertised, but the effect was close: a variety of velvet purples over plumpness and a serene apple of a face under a cap of softly graying hair most simply arranged. The hands were dimpled and beautifully shaped. As a girl, Ann thought, she must have been a beauty of the milk-and-honey type.
Washburn served cocktails and canapés while a drugging amiability in the general conversation began to make Ann feel hypnotically at home. She caught herself considering that she had known these two pleasant people always and that this room was one with which she had been familiar not for a brief moment but for many years.
This sensation was so strong that Ann thought: There’s something funny about this. Isn’t it a little overdone? I’m a photographer brought up here to do some ocelots and yet all this warmth, this instantaneous acceptance into intimacy. Ann felt it genuine enough, but there it was. Perhaps they both were parched for a stranger. That could be. Living as they did. But if she could be flown in, why couldn’t friends be? Why isolation, with the obvious effect of turning her presence into an oasis?
It was during Ann’s second cocktail when Washburn came in and said to Marlow: “The field has just telephoned that Mr. Ludwig Appleby has landed in a chartered plane, sir. Shall I give instructions that he be driven to the house?”
It became simpler later for Ann to dissect the reaction which Washburn’s statement caused. At the moment her impression was of a thunderbolt in miniature cracking the serenity of a clear sky, in miniature because both Justin and Estelle Marlow instantly recovered their poise.
But there had been that moment during which Marlow’s emaciated and sensitive face had frozen into an expression of intense hatred, while Estelle Marlow’s kind eyes had contracted and her lips had thinned, fashioning the homely apple look of her features into something close to virulence.
The moment flashed and was gone, and Marlow said quietly, “Yes, Washburn, do. Mr. Appleby will join us at dinner, and if we can persuade him to stay over please place him in the rooms next to mine.”
“Very good, sir.”
Washburn left, and the conversation resumed its casual course; that is, so far as Estelle was concerned. Justin said little, and though outwardly calm and attentively agreeable Ann saw that his thin, veined hands were gripping rather than resting on the arms of his chair.
Estelle, who was on France, continued placidly listing the destruction of her continental possessions. The chateau at Noilly which she had leased to a European embassy had been deserted by the ambassador, and of course when the Germans had occupied it its treasures were either stolen or destroyed. Fortunately her flat in Paris had failed to bemuse them, and as for money, they had let her keep one half of such sums as she had received through Justin’s influence from the States.
“As for my jewels,” Estelle said complacently, “I was rather clever about them. You see, my dear, they put me down as a harmless eccentric whom it paid them to pamper while they used me as a mint. They’re terribly practical, you know. Have you ever met one?”
“Not while in action, Miss Marlow. Possibly some of our local brood.”
“Oh, those. Well, they thought my ocelots just another lunatic foible and were completely indifferent to my taking them with me when I left. I had had special collars made for them with large studs, the tops of which unscrewed and under which I put the genuine stones from my jewelry. I had very good paste ones replaced in the settings. I permitted General von Heinmann to steal the imitations, and he was very happy about it all, and so was I.”
“So the ocelots brought the jewels home?”
“Yes. You have no idea, Miss Ledrick, how frequently it pays to be considered odd. That is, if you have the bank balance to back you up. Otherwise they put you in an institution.”
Ann listened and was conscious of the undercurrent of unease. She felt this undercurrent increasing through the passing minutes and more especially so with Marlow, whose knuckles were white when Washburn announced from the doorway: “Mr. Ludwig Appleby.”
Ann saw Appleby unclearly at first as he stood at the room’s distant end. He approached them slowly and became a tall, middle-aged man of heavy build with a shock of ink-black hair and bold features of the stamp, Ann felt, which practiced matrons would consider both informative and alluring. The lips, on closer view, were lushly thick.
Marlow had stood up. He did not offer his hand. He said, “Good evening, Ludwig. This pleasure is becoming increasingly frequent.”
Appleby’s voice was rich with assurance and with glutted good living.
“You’re looking a bit better tonight, Justin,” he said. “Not a day over your age.” Then he turned his eyes thoughtfully on Estelle. “And you too, Estelle. Somewhat plumper, perhaps? I ought to chase you around the block.”
Estelle said calmly, “After dinner if you wish, Ludwig. This is Miss Ledrick—Mr. Appleby.”
Ann said, “How do you do?” and found that Appleby said nothing whatever.
He stood looking down at her with his prominent dark eyes during a pause that ended in a puzzled frown. He said, “This is most extraordinary.”
Estelle said sharply, “Miss Ledrick has come up from Fanny Mistral’s to photograph the ocelots.”
“Oh?” Ludwig said.
Then he smiled.
CHAPTER IV
The dinner was in keeping with Fanny Mistral’s forecast, and Ann was hungry. She did a good job on clear green turtle soup with sherry, followed by pompano served with broiled mushrooms, and cucumbers, all helped to their destination by a glass of Rauentaler.
The extensive charm of the dining room had stopped impressing her. A four-part Sheraton table had been reduced to conversational size, and (her appetite clipped of its edge) she was beginning to feel annoyed at the persistency with which Appleby, who faced her, was regarding her. She decided it was a speculative rather than a predatory look. It was irritatingly unpleasant.
Appleby said, while a saddle of mutton was being served, “Are you from New England, Miss Ledrick?”
“No, Mr. Appleby. Long Island.”
“Really? I would have said New England. Boston, perhaps. Do you know Boston?”
“Most sketchily. Almost from a football point of view.”
Appleby’s voice tightened, and the interest in his dark, vital eyes sharpened noticeably.
“Do you,” he asked, “know the Charings?”
It occurred to Ann that Just
in and Estelle Marlow were suddenly not only silent but motionless as well. They had the waxwork look of effigies who were gripped in the drama of some situation which involved them strongly and which they were helpless to control. Marlow grew pale, and his anemic fingers were nervelessly quiescent on the stem of a glass which Washburn had just filled with champagne.
“No,” Ann said, “I do not.”
Ann heard Estelle Marlow sigh gently in the stillness with a breath that had been held and was, with relief, expelled.
Then Estelle took over with determination.
“Ludwig, there is no more reason why Miss Ledrick should know the Charings than that you should know the Osterbrooks of Paris. The Osterbrooks, Miss Ledrick, were a fanatic family from Indiana who enjoyed spending quantities of money in collecting worthless paintings that were so modern they had turned sour.”
“I fail to see any connection, Estelle,” Ludwig said. “After all, the Charings are Back Bay.”
“There is no connection. I simply wish to change the subject. We will discuss the Secretary of Labor, Miss Perkins. That woman—”
Miss Perkins was taken apart through a heavenly thing which Estelle Marlow informed Ann was a gooseberry charlotte. Its mechanics, Estelle said, consisted in lining a charlotte mold either with slices of génoise or sponge cake, then dumping in gooseberry cream and chilling until firm.
The dinner (and Miss Perkins) ended. They returned to the lounge for coffee and cognac, after which two rubbers of bridge were managed in a heavy atmosphere which seemed to Ann to have been stripped of all zest. The pleasant intimacy which had been set up before Appleby’s arrival was gone, and in its place was one which seemed to her as impending; just of what, she did not know.
All of their rooms were on the third floor, and Ann thought it kind when Estelle went with her into her living room and said that if Ann did not mind she would sit there for a moment and smoke a cigarette.
The coals were still glowing on the hearth and the room was so silent that the sound of an ember dropping was distinctly audible.
Estelle said, “Do you mind if I call you Ann?”
“Not at all, Miss Marlow. I’d like it.”
“And I should be pleased if you would call me Estelle.”
“Certainly.”
“May I ask whether you have been happy?”
“Here? Now? Most happy.”
“No, dear. I mean the years before. You’re twenty-two, aren’t you?”
“Yes, just. How could you tell so accurately? I mean, we’re all supposed to look either younger or older.”
“I asked during my telephone conversation with Fanny Mistral. I wanted to know the general sort of woman to expect, as you would be with us for a week or longer. Tell me, have your years been happy ones?”
“Very happy. Naturally there has been some lonesomeness since Father died last spring. There were only the two of us. Mother died quite a while ago.”
“Then there is no one? Now?”
“There is a pleasant idiot in Washington named Bill Forrest who has made up his mind to marry me next Friday.”
Whether it was a trick of the firelight or not, Ann could not tell, but Estelle seemed to withdraw in suddenly upon herself.
“And you, Ann?”
“I?”
“Do you intend to let Mr. Forrest marry you, as you put it?”
“I put it that way because the first news I had about it was when Bill announced his intention by telephone from Washington this afternoon.”
“Mr. Forrest sounds somewhat bewitching.”
“He is much too bewitching. He’s so utterly sure of himself. He wants to take me off to the wars with him in a watch.”
“A watch?”
“Bill has just joined the Marines, may heaven help them. Naturally he has to have a snapshot of a wife bravely smiling and keeping the home fires stoked. His mind works that way. It seems he has selected me. So far, Bill’s nearest approach to a romantic gesture has been to call me up at four in the morning to relieve his insomnia. He is definitely not of the doublets-and-knee-bending school.”
“Then it is nothing really serious?”
“I don’t know. Honestly I don’t.”
“You said—Friday?”
“Yes.”
Estelle sat for a while looking thoughtfully down into the glowing coals. Then she said, “Things happen so rapidly now in this world of ours. Nations have been conquered overnight while an empire falls in a matter of weeks.” She threw her cigarette into the grate and stood up. She said, “Good night, my dear. Between now and Friday are five days.”
“I’m certain I can do a good job on the ocelots before then.”
Estelle dragged herself back from some thought that was obsessing her. Her eyes were faintly bewildered.
“The ocelots?”
“The pictures I’m here to do of them.”
A flush started slowly at the base of Estelle’s throat and then rose until it colored the soft milk tones of her cheeks.
“So stupid of me,” she said quietly. “The pictures. Of course.”
CHAPTER V
Estelle left behind her an unpleasant note which cooled the room and sifted it with doubts. It was odd, Ann thought, about the pictures. Estelle had unquestionably forgotten them entirely, which placed them in the category of being a device to get her up to Black Tor rather than a reason in themselves. The original charms of arrival were flitting, with the warm friendly welcomes and the swift induction into the status of a cherished old friend. In their place came a sense of oppression, an intangible smothering to snuff out a happy flame.
The telephone rang.
Bill said, when Ann answered it, “Ann?”
“Hello, Bill.”
“How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Perfectly, Bill. Why?”
“I don’t like your being up there. I’ve wrung it out of Fanny that you knew nothing about the Marlows. The man is a dangerous nut.”
“No, Bill. I like him. He’s friendly and he’s kind.”
“So was that agreeable gent who gave his wives the bathtubs. The better to drown them in. His neighbors adored him.”
“Bill, you’re crazy.”
“I’m not crazy, but Marlow is. He’s been off his nut ever since his son knifed his wife twenty years ago. I don’t mean Marlow’s wife. She was dead. The son killed his own wife and was electrocuted for it.”
“Bill!”
“Marlow believed in his son’s innocence. He and nobody else. It knocked him for a loop and he’s still spinning. This pretty domestic tragedy took place right where you are, my dear. Have you seen the music room? ”
“No. It’s just beneath me.”
“The scene of the crime. She was playing Chopin on a spinet. The ivory keys ran red.”
“Bill!”
“A factual detail brought out during the trial. There were roads there at the time and gaiety and a happy, carefree social life. Marlow removed the roads after the electrocution and planted them with trees. I want you to know these things because I want you to snap the damned ocelots tomorrow and pack up and beat it.”
“It still doesn’t make sense. About Marlow’s mania, I mean. Why wouldn’t he want to shut himself up from the world? I tell you he’s kind, Bill. Old, and sick, and kind.”
“Let me shake your sweet faith with a couple of rumors about the joint. It’s a charnel house.”
“It’s nothing of the sort.”
“The Dame has it otherwise. Not only did Marlow believe in his son’s innocence, but he is still trying to prove it. The son’s wife was a Charing from Boston. It explains her fatal delight in spinets. The Charings are the sort who wear blinders against the present and use the past like vampires to nourish their blue anemia. This Alice Charing who got knifed had a corner on the family’s supply of good looks. She knocked men flat. There was nothing wrong about her. She was tops in every way, but unl
ess she had gone about in a thick crepe veil she couldn’t prevent the lads from getting sunstroke. That’s what they claimed.”
“Who?”
“The prosecuting attorney. The motive for the crime. Fred Marlow went berserk in a jealous rage. The whole thing was foul, Ann. Alice was going to have a child, and they did a Caesarean and saved it. The mother was already dead.”
“That’s terrible, Bill. Terrible.”
“I know it is. It’s why Marlow went cuckoo. He fought like a tiger to clear his son right up to the execution. Then, off and on, things happened.”
“What things?”
“This isolation business and a couple of gents who died.”
“Murdered?”
“That’s what they whispered over the teacups. One was a boyhood flame of Alice’s, a Jerry Abbott. He’s the one the state claimed drove Fred Marlow into the deed. Abbott was staying at Black Tor at the time of the murder. Abbott came back to Black Tor as a guest of Marlow several months after Fred Marlow was electrocuted. Abbott left Black Tor in a coffin.”
“Bill!”
“Well may you exclaim. A hunting accident, my dear. Abbott tripped and blew the top of his head off. But I can promise you that tongues wagged.”
“How about the other gent?”
“That was more subtle. A Machiavellian touch. A Boston man by the name of Frank Lawrence. A basket of fruits and pâtés was delivered at his bachelor nest by a messenger boy on Christmas. He lived alone and ate alone, and a jar of foie gras did the trick. They said ptomaine, and he was cremated in jig time in accordance with his known wish. Later, when Lawrence was ashes and the remains of the foie gras sunk wherever it is that Boston dumps its garbage, it was recalled that Lawrence had also been a flame of Alice Marlow’s, as well as having been present at Black Tor on the day of her demise.”
