Her lips relaxed in a gratified smile. No wonder she was tired—she had not danced for months, and tonight there had been no lack of pink sleeves about her, her dances had been cut into with flattering frequency, no thanks to either of the men who had stepped out after their apparent eagerness to drive her to the ball.
“Bridie!” she exclaimed, as from the threshold of the boudoir she regarded the rusty-haired woman sitting stiffly upright in an apricot colored chair. Bud and Buddy stood like sentinels on each side of her, their ears pricked to attention, their tails wagging a welcome. She closed the door.
“Bridie! Why are you waiting here? Don’t you know that it is almost morning?”
The woman rose and took Sandra’s white velvet coat. “Sure an’ why wouldn’t I know, Miss; I’m not deaf. Haven’t I been hearin’ the cock at Stone House a-bustin’ his throat answerin’ the crow of one here at Seven Chimneys? I couldn’t find the dogs early an’ I hunted round till I got ’em. Set down, Miss, and I’ll take off yer shoes while ye eat them nice little sandwiches I put on the dresser for ye. I’ll bet yer feet are tired.”
Sandra dropped to the bench in front of the poudreuse and extended a silver sandaled foot. She bit into a round of bread and tomato and mayonnaise. The dogs with heads tilted watched her hungrily.
“Tired isn’t the word; my feet feel as flat as a duck’s. This sandwich is luscious! And a glass of milk too! What a dear you are!”
“Sure an’ I thought ye’d be hungry whin ye got here, wid the gintlemen all askin’ ye to dance. I’ll bet ye had a lot of beaux.” The woman eagerly encouraged confidences as she gently massaged a slim foot.
“I wasn’t too unpopular. Your hands are like magic, Bridie, they take out all the ache. It was a marvelous ball. Lovely ladies in gorgeous frocks; a tropical setting of palms and ferns and shrubs in every conceivable shade of green for a background; men in hunt pink, men in sombre black; and through it all the beat and throb and croon of music, music that pulled your heart up into your throat and held it there beating in time to the rhythm. It was heavenly!
“ ‘Good night, Sweet-heart, till we meet tomorrow,
Good night, Sweet-heart, sleep will banish sorrow.
Good night, Sweet-heart, good night,’ ”
she sang softly.
“That’s kinder sad an’ yet liltin’, Miss, almost makes my feet go.” Bridie held out a soft rose négligée. “Sure an’ I’ll bet ye sing like a bird. You an’ Mister Nicholas ought to do some duets together. You’ve heard him sing, haven’t ye?”
“Never.” Smoldering resentment blazed up in the word.
“Is that so? An’ him so fond of singin’! I guess it’s worry about the family fortune what’s checked him up. He ain’t like he was; he used to be such a gay-hearted lad. My, an’ wasn’t his uncle crazy about him! Sure an’ when he told me tonight to get them dogs up here if it took me all night—”
“Mr. Nicholas told you!”
“Lord love ye, now I’ve done it!”
“Bridie, what did Mr. Nicholas tell you?”
“Well, sure, Miss, now I’ve gone so fur I might as well be hung fer a sheep as a lamb. Ever since the first week ye come, he’s been kinder watchin’ yer.”
“Watching me?”
“I guess I’d oughter say, watchin’ over yer, Miss. Mister Nicholas has me call him every night after I get Bud and Buddy up here. See thim two dogs prick up their ears. They know we’re talking about ’em.”
“He does? He is afraid that someone will run away with me? Or—perhaps he is afraid I will run away with something.”
“I guess it ain’t that last; he was terrible excited when he talked to me tonight to find out if the dogs were here. There, I shouldn’t have told ye that. Forget it, Miss. Wouldn’t ye like me to give yer hair a good brushin’?”
“I’d love it.” Sandra smiled at the faded eyes regarding her from the mirror. “But you ought to be in bed. You will be dead to the world in the morning.”
“Sure an’ there won’t be much doin’ tomorrow inside the house; it’s today now though, ain’t it, an’ the races this afternoon. When the clock strikes three the big horses will be off. It’s a grand sight, I’m tellin’ yer. Ye’re goin’ of course.”
“Going! A police squad couldn’t keep me away. I’m all of a tingle. I never have been in the midst of race preparations before. I suppose the Stone House outfit has gone?”
“Sure, Miss. But that’s a small stable; Mister Nicholas won’t send so many people; Mrs. Newsome has done the handsome thing by Mr. Rousseau’s horse. Fortune’s a great stallion though. I remember when he was a little thing Mister Mark Hoyt said he’d be a champeen. There, don’t that shine like satin?” She held up a strand of dark hair that had the bluish sheen of a raven’s wing.
“It is marvelous, Bridie. You made me think of Mother Goose.
“ ‘Old woman, old woman, whither so high
I’m off to brush cobwebs out of the sky.’
You have brushed the sleep cobwebs from my brain.” Sandra rose and stretched lazily. “I will read until I get dozy.”
“Excuse my sayin’ so, Miss, but that’s a beautiful bracelet. It sparkles like cut glass.”
Laughter twitched at Sandra’s lips. Cut glass must be Bridie’s acme of brilliance. “I like it too. It was a present from someone I love.”
“I guess there’s plenty of folks love yer, Miss. Anything more I kin do for ye?”
“Nothing, and thank you for everything. Don’t disturb me in the morning. My work for tomorrow is done and I may sleep late. I want to look grand for the races.”
“Sure an’ ye’ll look g-grand anyway, but ye’d better get all the sleep ye can. I don’t hold much with readin’. Readin’ll fill yer head up with thinkin’ again.”
Sandra stood in the middle of her room until Bridie closed the door behind her. She didn’t need “read-in’ ” to fill her mind with thoughts. Anger and humiliation at Nicholas Hoyt’s change of mind when he discovered that Philippe was not taking her to the ball still pricked unendurably. She had learned one thing tonight, that deep within her lurked fiercely elemental forces of fury of which she never would have believed herself possessed.
With an impatient exclamation at her impotence against the memory, she crossed to the window and looked out upon an indigo world flooded with soft opaline light. A few stars blinked sleepily; one bolder and bigger than the others tossed on the rippling surface of the river like a jewel glittering on the bosom of a woman’s sombre gown. Where the world slipped away into the east the horizon was faintly luminous. The moon, like a piece of a broken silver plate, was sinking westward. The stables twinkled with topaz lights. This was the dawn of the day of the great race. How could one sleep?
Somewhere a cock crowed lustily, and faintly from the distance another answered. Almost day! Why stand here nursing her grievance? She would read. She picked up books on the table, shook her head and dropped them. She couldn’t keep her mind on fiction or biography with the world in which she was living vibrating with the excitement of an estate contest and a horse race.
That gave her an idea. She would slip down to the library, retrieve her flashlight, and get the modern book on Thoroughbreds she had noticed. It would help her watch tomorrow’s—no today’s—race more intelligently.
She opened her door a crack. The house seemed quiet. She flung the négligée in a rose-colored heap on the chaise longue—she wouldn’t go out of her room in that—slipped into the pale blue velvet pyjamas she had worn at Stone House. Stone House. Bridie had said that Nicholas Hoyt had been watching her since she had come to Seven Chimneys. What had he thought when her eyes had flown to his as if she were waiting for him to insist upon driving her to the ball? Half way across the room she stopped. Should she take Bud and Buddy? What had he had in his mind when he had told Bridie to be sure the dogs were in her room?
“Oh, lay off Nicholas Hoyt, Sandy!” she admonished aloud, and laughed at her perfect imitation of
Mrs. Pat’s slangy irritation. B.D. was right—she was picking up Americanisms fast. Why not, when they were so crisply effective?
She whistled softly to the dogs, opened her door and listened. A tomblike silence prevailed. The halls were dark. Mrs. Pat was an illogical spender. Millions for the stables, not a penny for extra light, might have been her paraphrase. Sandra crossed the hall to the stairs with the two dogs like a bodyguard beside her.
She descended cautiously. It would be awkward, to say the least, to rouse the household by tumbling the entire length. Never before had she realized the number of stairs from one hall to another; at a guess she would say there were a thousand or two—tonight. She held tight to the rail. She had heard of Stygian darkness. This must be the brand. What a noise the dogs made on the tiled floor. To her excited fancy, their toe-nails sounded as loud as the tap-tap of the Legionnaires’ canes on asphalt roads as they had paraded one Armistice Day.
Except for that click, how still, how eerily still the house was! It was the silence which caught at her breath; it was a vague sense that some malevolent influence abroad in the night was stalking her.
She ran the last few steps, stopped in startled surprise on the threshold of the library. It was dimly lighted! The colors in the portrait of the M.F.H. glowed like jewels. Light fell also on a sleek black head, on a face by the desk. Philippe Rousseau was staring at the door. Something sinister and blue and shiny glinted in his hand.
“Come out of the dark, whoever you are!” he warned with deadly quietness.
His low voice echoed through the still room in wisps of sound. Even if these were the crime-thirties, he would not fire, Sandra reassured herself. Why was he in the library at this hour? Why was he at the desk? Emma had told him of the secret drawer, that was the answer.
She wished that her lips were not so dry and stiff; he might think that she was frightened. Frightened! She, with Bud and Buddy as bodyguard? The rumble in their throats was a protection in itself. Head up, stiff lips smiling, she stepped within the glow cast by the light above the portrait.
“Well, see who’s here!” Her whisper was gay, if guarded.
“Sandra!” Rousseau’s face was colorless; his menacing hand slid into his coat pocket. “What are you doing here?” he demanded in a voice as repressed as her own.
She backed up to the shelves, reached behind her for the flashlight. She mounted the steps. Threw the spot of light along the titles of books. THOROUGHBREDS. That was the one she wanted.
The dogs crouched at the foot of the steps, their eyes on the man by the desk. She wasn’t in the least afraid, Sandra reminded Sandra again; excessive dancing earlier in the evening was responsible for the sudden all-goneness where her knees should be. They trembled like the proverbial aspen in a breeze. She sat down suddenly on a step.
“What am I doing here? Can’t you see? I couldn’t sleep. It is so long since I have stepped out socially that the excitement set my mind whirling like a mechanical top. I came for a book on horses which I discovered here yesterday. Now that I have accounted for my prowling, it is your turn Philippe. Why are you here?”
He started toward her. Bud and Buddy rose as one, with the sound as of far away thunder in their throats; the hair along their backs ruffed. He stopped. There was a hint of brutality in his low laugh.
“Nice fellas. Those dogs will go out with some of the other junk when I take possession. Meanwhile—”
“Meanwhile you were about to explain what you are doing in the library at this ungodly hour. I thought you were in the city.”
“Did you think of me, Sandra?” The dogs stalked forward. He checked his eager approach. “I did go to the city but I came back early. That second call was from the track again. I didn’t want any one to know it.”
The lines had deepened about his mouth, his eyes were haggard. Sandra forgot Emma, forgot her suspicion of him in interest in his horse.
“What has happened, Philippe?”
“Iron Man got a scratch just above one of his hoofs. They’ve washed it out and applied an antiseptic, but the leg is beginning to swell a trifle. When my trainer called the second time he told the maid long distance. The news of the gray’s condition must not get out. I shouldn’t have told you, Sandra, but I’m terribly worried. Luck’s against me.”
“The persecution complex again.” Sandra was instantly ashamed of the thought. She said warmly:
“I’m sorry, Philippe, terribly sorry. Perhaps you are taking it too hard.” Suddenly she remembered his gesture when she had appeared on the threshold; followed by the memory of him standing by the hedge with Emma. A warning doubt of this last story pricked at her mind. She asked lightly:
“Why the racketeer touch?”
“Racketeer!—Oh, you mean the gun? There have been so many hold-ups lately that I have picked up the habit of carrying one; besides, I don’t trust Huckins.”
“Huckins!” Sandra converted a contemptuous sniff into a faint cough. Did Philippe suspect that she had linked the butler up with him? Was he trying to switch her from that train of thought? Better let him think her dumb.
“I agree with you; there is something queer about Huckins. All for preparedness, aren’t you?” She stifled a yawn. “I have my book. I’m going up.” She backed down the steps. “Come, Bud and Buddy.”
“Wait a minute. I’m going too.”
“Put out the light,” she whispered. “Mrs. Pat has views as to economy on electric bills.”
Dawn was creeping in at the windows; a pale cold light sifted through the gloom as Rousseau joined her in the hall. He moved stiffly. He answered the question in her eyes in a whisper:
“Stiff working over Iron Man so long. Been living too soft. It did me up. Feel ninety years old.”
Sandra sent the reluctant dogs ahead. At the top of the stairs Rousseau caught her hand. She allowed him to draw her nearer; he must not suspect that she doubted him.
“Sandra. Tomorrow—”
“What was that? I thought I heard something!” They listened. “My nerves broadcasting. There won’t be a tomorrow for me if Mrs. Pat sees us now. Good-night, Philippe.” The light from the room shone on him as she opened the boudoir door. He was as colorless as she felt. She pushed the dogs, who seemed inclined to follow him, into the room ahead of her, closed the door and leaned against it.
“That seems to be that,” she said softly. Apparently she had played her part well. Philippe Rousseau did not suspect that she had been behind that projector this afternoon. He and Emma! The picture the light had revealed flashed with cinematic clarity. She should have told Nicholas Hoyt what she had seen; terribly small of her to withhold such information because her feelings had been hurt.
Back again on the old treadmill of thought. She looked at the clock. No use going to bed, she couldn’t sleep. She flung herself on the chaise longue, adjusted the light, opened the book she had taken from the library shelf. Unseeing eyes on the dogs stretched back to back on the rug, her thoughts whirled on.
After all, why should she tell Nicholas Hoyt, why should she care whether or not he kept the estate? Why should she care what happened to a man who cast her off as casually as he had last night? The memory of his indifference stung unendurably. Had she shown so plainly that she hoped he would insist upon taking her to the ball? Hoped! Why not be honest? She had longed to have him catch her hands tight in his, hear him say, “Only over my dead body you’ll go with him!”
The mere thought of his voice set her heart throbbing. Why? She leaned back and covered her eyes with her hands. Was it love? She liked men tremendously. Once she had thought herself in love, but it had not been like this; her breath had not caught at the man’s look, she had not longed for his arms to close about her as she longed for Nick’s now. Had jealousy been back of her rage when Estelle Carter had nestled up to him in the library? She had gone savage then, she, Sandra Duval, had touched the depths. So this was love! It was as if the outer shell which had cramped and stifled her heart had been pee
led off, leaving something quiveringly sensitive to one voice, one pair of eyes. She made a bitter little face. If this were love—and it was, she admitted it—it was the most distracting experience of her life.
Her hands dropped from her eyes. Only five minutes gone since she had entered the room. Had she been facing a revaluation of her feeling for Nicholas Hoyt for only five minutes? It seemed as if she had been living in this emotional chaos for a lifetime. Having reached this world-shaking conclusion, what good would it do her? In spite of his caressing voice—the memory of it caught at her heart—she was just one more girl to him. Why, why had she let herself care?
She was only making it harder by thinking; she must put him out of her mind. Reading always closed the door on problems for her. Resolutely she opened the book in her lap. THOROUGHBREDS. Mark Hoyt’s name was on the title page, also the date when he had acquired it. It must have been a short time before he died.
She snuggled down into the pillows. A letter dropped to her lap. Pale mauve. Curious. She picked it up. Registered. The sender must have thought it of great importance. It was addressed to Mark Hoyt. What was that pencilled line?
“Nick must see this at once.”
She swung her feet to the floor and sat up straight and rigid. The postmark was blurred, but she could make out Ky. Kentucky! Kentucky! The one-time nurse had been living in Kentucky! Yes, there was the return address. A. P. Rousseau. The letter had been opened. Should she read it? No! No! She must get it to Nick. How had it come in the book? She looked at the date on the title page. It must have been on the desk, perhaps Mark Hoyt had dropped it when he had fallen forward, perhaps this very book had been under his head. In the excitement of discovering him dead, the book with the letter in it had been swept aside.
She sprang up. Never mind how it had come there. She must get it to Nick. Philippe was suspicious of undercurrents. Wasn’t the automatic proof of it? Perhaps he suspected that a letter had been sent to Mark Hoyt by his mother. Tonight he had seen her take that book from the library. What should she do?
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