“The snow-maiden doesn’t believe in divorce!” Estelle’s tone added straw to the fire.
“Of course I believe in divorce,” Sandra flared, “for justifiable cause.”
“Justifiable cause! That has the genuine pre-war tang. Perhaps Miss Duval has come with a message from her—your boss, Curt. I will wait outside until she goes.”
Sandra bit her lips on a caustic retort. It was time she remembered that she was a paid employee and that she had not been engaged to do battle for Mrs. Pat in her matrimonial tangle. She waited until Estelle Carter had closed the French window behind her before she said as evenly as the throbbing pulse in her throat would permit:
“I’m sorry, Mr. Newsome, but I had to come. Your wife wants you at once.”
“What for? Good gosh, can’t she let me out of her sight for a minute?” His boyish blue eyes looked enormous; there was no trace of the gay host of the dinner table. Evidently the storm she had interrupted still raged within him.
“Know what it feels like to be trailed and watched every minute, Miss Duval? Sometimes I wish I had the courage to end it. I’m sunk! I’m ab-so-lutely sunk!”
The broken admission of defeat twisted Sandra’s heart unbearably. She never before had seen a man cry. Man! He wasn’t a man; he was a boy. She laid her hand on his sleeve.
“I wish I could help.”
“I know that it is against the rules, Curt, to enter your bailiwick without permission, but …”
Nicholas Hoyt! What would he think to find her alone here with her employer’s husband? That another secretary had fallen in love with the one-time jockey? With a choking breath Newsome straightened. Only thing for her to do was face the music. Sandra turned.
“Miss Duval!” For an instant Nicholas Hoyt’s expression registered savage surprise; then he adjusted a mask of polite indifference.
“Sorry. Didn’t know that I was butting in on a special musicale.”
Newsome cleared his voice and sheepishly brushed the betraying moisture from his lashes. “That’s all right, Mr. Nicholas. Miss Duval came in just as I was finishing that aria of Puccini’s. It always gets my goat, and—well, I went cuckoo, that’s all. It’s what Pat calls my musical temperament, I guess.”
Nicholas Hoyt’s silence and expression infuriated Sandra; her eyes blazed a challenge to doubt her words. “You were not butting in and it was not a special musicale. I came with a message from Mrs. Pat.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“I’m not apologizing! I—I am explaining!” She resisted a violent urge to add, “Darn you!” and stalked from the room.
Why hadn’t she stayed and fought it out with him, she demanded of herself, as she ran along the loggia and across the terrace; she was in fighting trim. Why hadn’t she blazed at him as she had at Estelle, made him understand that she was not carrying on a clandestine flirtation with the husband of her employer? How like her to act first and think afterwards. Why worry? If Nicholas Hoyt had a hateful, suspicious mind, why care what he thought?
Between speed and resentment she was breathless when she reached the living room. Silly to get so excited—she was actually trembling. One of the dogs met her at the threshold. She must have left her door unlatched. With her hand on his collar she crossed to the mimosa framed window. Perhaps a glimpse of the garden would cool her anger. How lovely the pool was in the pale moonlight. Would Estelle return to the music room? Was Mrs. Pat in her laces still waiting and longing for a husband—who did not want to come? The mere thought was heart-twisting.
What was that white—she shrank back. The dog, who had been looking out, wrenched away from her, crouched on his haunches, stretched his nose toward the ceiling, and howled. Sandra stood in numbed, powerless terror. The wail rose, quavered, dwindled to a whimper.
Did he see something outside? The thing she had seen? A dull, overpowering dread of the great house settled like a leaden weight on her heart. In the tense silence which followed, the high note seemed to echo through the corridors of her mind.
How could she be so silly! Just showed how the talk of ghosts and the memory of that—that thing she had imagined at the pool had wrecked her common sense. A door clanging! The grille to the terrace. Footsteps! Who was coming? Some one in a hurry. She leaned forward that she might see the hall. She clutched the dog’s collar. Philippe! He was ghastly. Had he seen the white thing? He was tearing upstairs.
She waited tense and still. The dog whimpered deep in his throat. At last! The house was quiet. She stole from the room. Shaking with a chill, made up of anger at her fright and fear which would persist, she pushed the dog ahead and charged up the stairs.
Safe in her boudoir, she leaned against the door she had closed behind her. Her breath came raggedly. She appealed to the picture of her father.
“How could I live if I didn’t have you to talk to, Jimmy Duval? Am I a poor sport or just plain foolish? If you had seen the ghastly thing …”
The sentence trailed off in a long drawn “Oh-o-o.” To her excited fancy her father’s dear face seemed to wrinkle into a smile, his eyes to blaze with delighted laughter. She had seen him look like that when he had gleefully told the tale of the Three Musketeers of Melton and the Stone House ghost.
Eyes still on his, Sandra sank to the floor and sat back on her heels. Did he—he couldn’t—he did—mean that the thing was a hoax? It was amazing. It was incredible—but of course he knew. Why hadn’t she thought the incident through to a solution instead of hysterically shoving it from her mind every time it poked its spectral self in? What an easy mark! What an unbelievably easy mark she had been! Who was behind the trick? Why? She had seen the apparition the night she had arrived at Seven Chimneys—as she had gone up, Jed Langdon had come down the stairs, he had been startled by her face—tonight he had returned and the horrid thing had appeared again.
She put her arms about the neck of the dog who had been uneasily nuzzling her hair. She shook with nervous laughter as she said aloud:
“Your Sandy may be plain dumb, Jimmy Duval—but from now on, watch her, that’s all, just watch her!”
CHAPTER XVI
In that moment when he had discovered Sandra’s head so near Curtis Newsome’s, her hand upon his arm, Nicholas Hoyt’s hope and faith and illusions went down. Now he absentmindedly pulled his pipe from the pocket of his dinner jacket and as absentmindedly lighted it. He leaned against the piano, moodily regarding the man who, with unsteady hands, was returning the violin to its shabby case. He had come to help him. Lot of help he needed! What the dickens was there about that fairhaired boy which fascinated women? First, Mrs. Pat, almost old enough to be his mother—the late secretary—hard-boiled Estelle Carter—and now Sandra.
“What’s that, Mr. Nicholas?”
Had a throb of intolerable pain forced a sound through his clenched lips?
“I didn’t speak. Cut out that ‘Mr.,’ Curt, we are sort of in-laws now, you know. I started to explain that as I was walking and smoking outside with Langdon I heard the wail of your violin. Sounded like a soul in torment. Couldn’t stand it. Hoped that I might help. Sorry I butted in on your party. My mistake.”
“It wasn’t a party. You got us wrong. I’ll bet I haven’t said a hundred words to Miss Duval since the day at the paddock when you told me not to let on who you were. You sure had her fooled; she thought you were a trainer all right. She’s a swell kid. Of course she isn’t a kid, but she seems kind of fresh and young. She brought a hurry-up call from Pat; I was worked up by the music and—and other things; there was something in her voice that—well, I cracked-up just like I was a little fella, and she was sorry for me. That’s all there was to it.”
A load dropped from Nicholas’ heart. He could eliminate Curt from Sandra’s stag line. Would she ever forgive him for his suspicion? Had he lost the ground he had gained with her since her fall? The fact that she had told him her suspicion of Emma had buoyed him through the last anxious weeks. She had told him and not Philippe! In her he
art she must believe in his cause.
She had been frosty enough before dinner. Had Estelle’s laughter-cloaked insinuation about the accident been responsible, or had she expected that long before this he would have declared the two letters the maid had brought him? She had been excessively friendly with Rousseau tonight. Too friendly. She had overdone it a trifle. If she—he must keep her out of his mind—that was a joke. As if he could!
What a confounded tangle life was. Could he help Newsome along the rough road he was traveling without seeming intrusive, he, who would bitterly resent interference in his own affairs? Where did Curt stand in regard to Rousseau? Perhaps his present mood was a heaven-sent opportunity to find out whether he were with or against the man in possession.
He looked at the blowing shadows the fire cast on the paneled walls. Dame Fortune had given her wheel a fantastic whirl when she had tossed Curt Newsome from the stables to be lord of this beautiful room. His eyes focussed sharply on a bit of betraying black glitter on the floor at his feet. Ladies in sequined frocks shouldn’t make late visits in gentlemen’s music rooms unless the sequins were riveted on. Estelle, of course. Why couldn’t she let the boy alone? He was doing his best to play the game.
“What did you think of Rousseau’s noble offer to keep his poor relation on as manager, Curt?”
Nicholas’ abrupt question shattered the pulsing quiet. Newsome straddled a chair and took its back into his embrace as if he welcomed any diversion from his own troubled thoughts.
“Good gosh, I almost pushed his face in. How can Pat put up with him? She’s been pretty sore at you, but—”
“She doubtless thinks it is a sporting proposition to give the long-lost son every opportunity to prove his claim. Where do you stand, Curt? Do you believe Philippe Rousseau’s story?”
Newsome abandoned the chair in such haste that it toppled to the floor.
“Believe it! Of course I don’t. Say, listen, it’s a frame-up. I’ll bet Pat doesn’t believe in him either. How can she? But you never can tell about women. If you ask me, his place is in the movies. With his slushy line, he’d have the ladies in swooning heaps at his feet and a pile of fan mail with the sky the limit.”
“If she doesn’t believe in him, why welcome him at Seven Chimneys as her guest?”
“You know she’s good-hearted, but you know too that she’s got a rotten temper, and when you stopped coming here she went fighting mad. Having him and especially that Thoroughbred of his here to run against Fortune was her meat. Wait a minute,” he implored, as Nicholas opened his lips. “Don’t think I blame you. Your uncle’s widow pulled a bone when she married his jock—”
“Forget it! Want to help me, Curt?”
Eagerness routed despair from Newsome’s eyes. “Sure thing. Give me something to do. When I’m not practicing, I feel like a pet poodle with a bow on his collar. Sometimes when a longing for horses comes over me so strong that it seems as if I can’t stand it, I think I’ll chuck music and go back to jockeying and be on my own again. I’ve thought of it so much that I’ve kept my weight down to ride Iron Man in some of his workouts. How can I help?”
Nicholas glanced at the French window which opened on the garden. He lowered his voice. “Damon, Langdon, and I have a feeling that the people on Rousseau’s pay-roll are not all in the stable.”
Newsome ran his fingers through his fair hair as he intently regarded the semi-circle he was outlining on the polished floor with the toe of his slim patent-leather shoe.
“Meaning?”
“That there may be a servant or two at Seven Chimneys who will retire on a fat pension if the estate comes to him.”
“Got ’em spotted?”
“Nothing more than suspicion as yet.”
“I get you. Haven’t thought that the suspects may be interested in your stables instead of the estate, have you? Haven’t forgotten that you have a probable winner in the Charity Races?”
“I have not. I am sure of the loyalty of every one on my place. Rousseau has been there several times, but every breath he has drawn has been watched. Huckins the butler—”
“Huckins!” Curtis Newsome whistled a long, low whistle which sounded for all the world like a policeman’s signal in a gangster talkie. “Huckins! There’s something phoney about Huckins. What’s he staying here for? Pat treats him like the dickens. She looks after his ordering so sharp that he has no chance for graft. He’s been here longer than any other butler has stuck it out. He came just before Rousseau showed up. I’ll bet he’s here on some crooked deal about the races. There’s a lot of jack at stake.”
“You’re raving, Curt. What harm could that butler do?” Nicholas knew quite well what he could do, but he wanted Newsome’s reaction to the man.
“How do you know he’s always been a butler? If he can’t dope your horse and make winning sure and lay everything he has on Fortune, he might put a fast one over on Eddie Sharp—and make a swell job of it too—put him out of the running, and lay his money on Iron Man. Ever thought of that? How do you know he isn’t Rousseau’s man? Suppose Sharp disappeared at the last minute? Who would ride Fortune? That jock knows every thought the black stallion has before he has it, and those he hasn’t he ought to have, he whispers to him. Oh, yeah! What could Huckins do!”
“He won’t get anywhere with my jockey. There is only one way he can put him out of the running, and Sharp has sworn to me that he won’t take a drink before the race. I trust him.”
“I’ve heard that one before. You’ve got more confidence in your jock than I have.” He glanced at the watch on his wrist. “I’d better get a move on. Got so interested I forgot Pat sent Miss Duval for me.” He went livid—the surface evidence with him, Nicholas remembered, of inner turmoil; he had seen him look like that as he rode to the post. “She doesn’t trust me too much. Good gosh, life is an in-and-out all right; guess I’m kind of hopelessly lost in it.”
“You’ll pull through, Curt, just as you have in races when you thought you hadn’t a prayer. Don’t think I’m posing as a saint—the Lord knows I’m human enough—if I say that the things a—a gentleman doesn’t do are worth all the self-denial they may cost. A Thoroughbred isn’t judged by his winnings; he’s rated by the fight he puts up against strong odds. There are great losers on rolls of honor, injured horses who have gamely run the last heat never knowing that they were beaten. But you know all that, I didn’t come here to preach, Curt, I came to help.”
There was a curious light in Curtis Newsome’s blue eyes. He laughed—his gay, rollicking laugh.
“You weren’t preaching, you were just telling me—you and—Miss Duval. She said a mouthful too. I’ve always thought you the real thing in gentlemen, Mr. Nicholas. Course, I never can be like you, but from now on I ride straight—if I find I can’t—well …” He shrugged. “Lock up here, will you? Good-night and—thanks!” His furtive glance at the French window betrayed his reason for haste.
Nicholas’ face still burned with embarrassment from his attempt to give the boy something stable to cling to in his emotional turmoil. He wouldn’t have blamed Curt had he walked out on him. He gazed thoughtfully at the door to the loggia which he had closed with a bang behind him. Had he been afraid that if he were left alone Estelle might return? Did the woman really care for him, or was she trying to show her power?
Curious the power one person sometimes has over another—power of attraction, power of influence. Wasn’t that what kept the world going? His instant attraction to Sandra, her—well, he had better face it—her instant aversion to him. He had started off on the wrong foot the day he had met her at the station. That fool deception had been B.D.’s suggestion. Why pass the buck to B.D.? He had fallen in with it readily enough. He need not have kept it up that day at the paddock.
Why stand here conjecturing? He had better lock up and get back to Stone House. He picked up the black sequin and dropped it into his pocket; there it would tell no tale to Mrs. Pat or the servants. Before he could lock the F
rench window, Estelle Carter pushed it open, closed it, and backed up against it.
“Well, what are you going to do?” Her face was colorless; her painted lips were defiantly curved.
Nicholas smiled. “Looks as if I would be obliged to treat you rough, drag you away from the window so that I can lock it.”
“Don’t bluff. You know what I mean. I saw you pick up the sequin, saw you look at it as you held it in your hand. What are you going to do about—Curt and me? Tell Mrs. Pat?”
“I have a hunch that Curt is capable of managing his own affairs without help from any one.”
“If he doesn’t need help, how about me? You know that he is sick of his marriage; Mrs. Pat bribed him into it. If he were happy, I’d let him alone. He isn’t. He has a right to be happy.”
“I’m surprised at you, Estelle. That ‘right to be happy and dam the consequences’ is a hangover from the departed jazz age. Never expected you to be even slightly old-fashioned.”
“Trying to laugh me out of it, aren’t you? It can’t be done, Nick. Curt and I were made for each other. I have money enough for us both. We like the same things. The woman he married—”
“Don’t forget that you are a guest of that same woman.”
“Suppose I am? I didn’t invite myself. When I met her abroad and she found that I had grown up in this one-horse village, Mrs. Pat begged me to come. I—remembering you, Nick dearest—”
“That’s side-splitting, Estelle. Why make me the goat? You had forgotten that I was in the world. Don’t touch my tie!”
Estelle rubbed her wrist. “You needn’t have grabbed me like that; I don’t care about your old tie, only wanted to straighten it. You’re the original cave man.” She exhaled a long breath of smoke and looked at him from eyes which glinted like green glass between blackened lashes. “I may have forgotten you, perhaps—but not your uncle’s fortune. Ask Miss Duval if it isn’t a lure; she’s hedging until the rightful heir is acclaimed before she pins her flower on a coat lapel. If you ask me, she’s laying her money on Rousseau, he’s an exciting person. She spends every moment with him she can snitch from her job.”
Uncharted Seas Page 15
