She looked at her father’s picture. If only he were here to tell her. His eyes were not smiling now. She could almost hear him say:
“Steady, Sandy, steady!”
The thought quieted her excitement. She would take the letter to Stone House now, it wasn’t safe here a moment. Even if Nick already had started with Eddie Sharp for the track, Nanny O’Day would guard it with her life. She must get away. There were too many in this house who would be keen to get it, Philippe, Emma, Huckins, she was sure of Huckins. She pinned the envelope to the inside of her pyjama jacket. She couldn’t stop to change. She kicked off her sandals, pulled on a pair of walking shoes. She slipped into her checked coat, thrust her flashlight into the pocket. She looked at the book—the date on the title page meant such a lot—but, safer to leave it here.
At the slightly opened door she listened. The dogs thrust their noses at the crack. She pushed them back.
“Go! Go to bed, Bud and Buddy!”
Their aggrieved manner brought a little gust of laughter to her lips. “You look as if you were about to burst into tears,” she whispered to them.
Lucky that love and excitement had not numbed her sense of humor. She patted the head of each dog apologetically before she softly closed the French windows and shut them out on the balconies. Come what might, she must be on her own. A girl on her own! The phrase she had read so often while abroad, which had seemed to open a new world, a more rushing, noisy world than that she had left, more real, more vibrant.
Step by cautious step she went down the stairs, turning her head at the faintest sound, stopping at a creak in the wainscotting, hearing her heart beating like a tom-tom in the silence. Perhaps she should have waited until morning to take the letter. No! No! Suppose, suppose anything happened to her in the night—people had been known not to wake up—Nick might never see it.
The hall filled with a chill gray light. No sound in the house. What was that? She stood motionless, barely breathing. A vine tapping. It made her think of a pale spirit from another world begging admittance to warmth and luxury. Lucky she had found out the truth about the phantom by the pool or she might imagine that that was drifting by.
She tiptoed through the hall. The grille to the loggia was locked! If only the key wouldn’t squeak! What was that? Icy fingers seemed to clutch at her throat. No sound but the thump! thump! of her heart and the eerie tap! tap! of the vine. Something grim about the silence. She hurried up reserves of courage. One moment of hesitation bred a dozen chances of being stopped. The door opened at last! How could she have let it clang? It would rouse the sleepers.
She stole across the terrace—why hadn’t she worn a dark coat—how keen and fragrant the air! Was that soft pink light dawn?
She flitted along the garden path, past the still, dark pool. Day was coming over the hills. An awakening murmur stirred the air. Shadows were thinning. The high, exultant song of a bird broke in the middle. Was the singer being pulled back into a warm nest by a sleepy mate? Faint footsteps crossing the terrace? Was some one following? Had she been seen on the garden path? Had her light coat betrayed her? She shrank into the shadow of a hedge. Held her hand over her heart to muffle its loud throb. No sound. Had the footsteps stopped when she stopped? She must go on.
It seemed hours before she reached the road she had followed the day Happy Landing had flung her over his head. It was the shortest way to Stone House. Once out of sight of the windows of Seven Chimneys she ran; past grass meadows; open fields; the rise crowned by the in-and-out; by post and rail fences; stone walls; patches of woodland; the pasture with the water-hole.
“Faster! Faster!” she lashed herself, and thought of the Red Queen and Alice. Her throat was dry, her breath pumped in ragged gusts. Was that a shout behind her, or was imagination playing tricks again?
Fear lent wings to her feet. She must, she must get to Stone House. Evidently she was not in sight of the person following yet. If she could get around the next turn without being seen, the letter would be safe. If—there wasn’t such a word! There couldn’t be such a word for her now! Did lungs burst from overexertion? She would sprint every day after this to keep fit. Around the bend! No stir at the stables. Had Nick gone? Nanny O’Day? The side door of the house was open!
She cautiously closed it behind her and leaned against it panting. Her heart must stop thumping; her breath must stop tearing up from her lungs soon. She tried to call. Her voice wouldn’t come. Had her legs gone back on her that she could not move? The demon on her trail would find her. Where should she go? The secret panel!
She forced herself forward, half stumbled through the hall. A clock striking! Five! Was Nanny O’Day still asleep? If so, why the open door? No time to hunt for her. She must disappear.
The panel slid open at her touch. She sprang into the darkness. Lucky she had her flash. It was not in her pocket! Gone? It wouldn’t help if her pursuers picked that evidence up on the road. She fumbled for the panel and pulled it forward. The lock clicked. She had not meant to close it! A million icy chills skittered through her body. Locked in! Without a light! She tried to push the panel open. It would not move!
CHAPTER XXI
Nicholas Hoyt had started after Sandra as she followed Mrs. Newsome from the library. Immediately a hand lightly pressed each of his arms. B.D. and Jed Langdon were reminding him that there would be no ball for him. Did they think he had so soon forgotten the decision made in the moment they had stood looking up at the portrait of the M.F.H.? Not likely.
It was a mean break that Sandra should leave the room thinking him a quitter, after that impassioned “dearest!” of Philippe Rousseau’s which he had heard and hated. Her eyes had flashed to his when Mrs. Pat had suggested that she drive to the Club House with her, and then Estelle had butted in. What had been her idea? He wouldn’t make a date with her if she were the only woman in the world.
After his brag to Sandra that she would go to the ball with Rousseau only over his dead body, he had stood like a dummy when his chance to take her had come. He squared his shoulders. His defection must go without explanation for twenty-four hours; then he would tell her that he loved her.
“Step on it, Nick!” Jed Langdon’s low voice broke into his reflections. “Get back to Stone House and change and hang around with an eye out for Sharp. B.D. and I will show ourselves at the ball; then I’ll start on Rousseau’s trail. He has some deviltry up his sleeve tonight, I’ll bet a hat.”
Nicholas listened for voices in the hall. At least he could go to the car with Sandra. He agreed absent-mindedly:
“Don’t worry about Eddie Sharp. I’ll sit beside his bed all night if I have to. He won’t double cross me, you needn’t worry, I wish that I were as sure of the loyalty of all my friends as I am of his. Here they come!”
He was at the foot of the stairs as Sandra reached the lowest step. He took her velvet coat with its deep white fox cuffs from her arm and held it. In a surge of love and desperation he touched her bare shoulder with his lips. For an instant she hesitated; then she slipped into the coat. As he adjusted the collar, he pleaded:
“Sandra. Please …”
She twisted free and joined Damon and Langdon whom Huckins had been assisting into their coats. “You two men are coming with us, aren’t you? I would so hate being the odd woman.”
“Yours to command, Sandy,” the older man responded gallantly.
Mrs. Newsome called over her shoulder: “Coming with us after all, Nick?”
“Sorry, I can’t.”
Langdon turned and closed one eye expressively. “Bye-bye, Nick. Don’t sympathize with him, Miss Duval. He’ll join us later.”
“I! Sympathize with Mr. Nicholas Hoyt! Where did you get that fantastic idea, Mr. Langdon?”
If there was such a thing as bitter honey, Sandra’s voice was it, Nicholas thought savagely, as he watched the three, arm in arm, follow Mrs. Pat to the door. Jed needn’t look so like a grinning idiot.
“Got a light, Mr.—Nicholas?” Cur
tis Newsome asked. “That will be all, Huckins,” he added with an unwonted show of authority and a tinge of his wife’s dictatorial manner.
The butler bent his head obsequiously. “Very good, sir. Anything I can do for you, Mr. Hoyt?”
“Nothing—wait a minute—where are the dogs, Huckins?”
“Mr. Rousseau gave orders that they were to be sent to the stables, sir.”
“Good gosh! How long since Rousseau has been giving orders and having them obeyed around here, Huckins?”
The butler glanced at Nicholas, coughed a deprecating little cough.
“I thought as how the madame would want her guest’s wishes carried out, Mr. Newsome. You see, the dogs don’t like the new heir—I beg pardon, Mr. Hoyt, in the servants’ hall we’ve got in the habit of speaking of Mr. Rousseau as the lost son—and he’s afraid of them.”
“Say listen, if during the next twenty-four hours he gives you orders, don’t obey them. Get that straight, Huckins?”
“Yes, Mr. Newsome.”
“All right then, get out!”
With an apologetic look at Nicholas and another cough, the butler departed.
Newsome shrugged. “Pat will give me the dickens for barging in on her business, but that flunkey gets my goat. There’s the French horn! She’ll be swearing mad if I keep her waiting—I suppose she thinks I’m hanging around for Estelle,” he interpolated bitterly. “I’m not; I wanted to warn you to keep your eye peeled for Rousseau. He hasn’t gone to New York tonight to see his lawyer. Mac Donovan told me in confidence that something was wrong with Iron Man. Look out for your hoss.”
“I will, Curt. Get going. There’s the horn again.”
“Coming!” Newsome shouted. “What I really came back to say was, I—I—have sort of a hunch that something’s going cockeyed soon, and if there is any blooming thing I can do to help—anything—I’m with you. Get me?”
Nicholas laid his hand affectionately on his shoulder and walked with him toward the door. “I get you, Curt—and thanks.”
“Coming!” Newsome shouted again in response to another summons, not so musical this time, and charged down the steps.
Nicholas turned and thoughtfully regarded the door through which Huckins had departed. Should he ring for the butler and find out just what the servants were saying about Philippe Rousseau’s claim? No. He was not ready for that yet.
Had there been a motive in Rousseau’s order to have the dogs shut up tonight, or was the man really afraid of them, he wondered, as he sent his roadster at a clipping pace toward Stone House. If he had motored to town, what difference did it make to him where they were? One never knew what was lying in wait around the next corner. When dressing tonight, he had determined to drive Sandra to the ball, and here he was, not taking her but going home himself. Sometime she would wear that jeweled clip. He wouldn’t give up until she was the wife of another man. He was crazy to get that possibility on his mind! He needed to concentrate his thoughts on Rousseau’s tactics. So far his reputation in the turf world was spotless—but …
He went directly to the telephone in the library when he reached Stone House. It took several minutes to get the housekeeper’s room at Seven Chimneys and several more to get in touch with Bridie to tell her that the dogs were shut up, that she was to find them and take them to Sandra’s room. He paced restlessly as far as the length of the cord would permit. He was impatient to change, to locate Sharp, but he must talk to the maid first. There she was!
She responded soothingly to his instructions:
“Sure, Mister Nicholas. I’ll get Bud an’ Buddy. Don’t ye worry. I’m goin’. Good-bye!”
That took a load from his mind. It had been evident to him from the first time he had seen them together that Rousseau was quite mad about Sandra. Her safety had been his first thought. He wouldn’t trust the Kentuckian as far as he could see him where a lovely girl was concerned. The defendants of Mark Hoyt’s will had learned that much about the claimant’s past record.
What had been his idea in having the dogs shut up? Suppose, in spite of whatever evidence the defense might produce—that was a joke; what had they to produce but two letters which would hand the estate over to the claimant, Nicholas reflected, as he changed to tweeds. He’d better cut out that line of thought, he had no time to spend being a calamity-howler now, it was his job to locate Sharp and stay with him.
As he strode along the path patterned with flags, he looked up at the sky. What a night! The one-eyed moon smirked gallantly in the star-powdered sky. Little mists floated like wisps of silvery gauze above the shimmering river. Somewhere a frog croaked and quickly the shrill tremolo of a tree toad answered. The leaves above his head stirred with a sound like rippling water; the late perennials shook out a lovely perfume. From a hill where burned the lonely red light of a camper’s fire came the faint, eerie hoot of an owl. In a nearby field one cow-bell tinkled.
“What a night!” he said again. The air was spicy with the fragrance of evergreens. Far, far to the north, quivering pinkish white rays shot toward the zenith of the heavens. The Northern Lights. Was some one showing them to Sandra? Was her lovely head tipped back near some man’s shoulder? Her eyes would be as deep and dark as …
“Cut it out! You have all you can take care of tonight without getting Sandra on your mind,” Nicholas warned himself as he pulled open the stable door.
“Oh, Sharp!”
No answer to his call. He looked into the tack room; usually the jockey would be found tipped back in a chair with his head against the wall. No one there. The place seemed uncannily empty; a mouse was nibbling behind the plaster; vague shadows flickered on the wall as the jet-black stable cat, crouching on the window-sill, waved her plumy tail and narrowed her sphinx eyes to glittering emerald slits. The clock ticked monotonously. An apple plumped to the ground outside.
Apprehension without cause, a certainty of disaster without evidence chilled Nicholas to the bone as he stood on the threshold. Rage at the trick his nerves were playing started the blood surging through his veins again. Of course the jock had turned in early to be steady for tomorrow. He went on to the stall room. No one here either. What the dickens did the men mean by leaving the place deserted?
Curtain Call floundered to his perfect feet and thrust his head over the gate. He drew his nose up and down his master’s gray waistcoat. Nicholas rubbed his ears.
“Love me now, don’t you, old fella?”
The colt snuffled and rolled unfathomable brown eyes toward a barrel. Other sleek shining heads appeared above other gates as Nicholas passed with a hand full of apples. His eyes were on the two empty stalls as Curtain Call daintily picked the last tid-bit from his hand. Fortune and his stablemate were bedded down at the race-course paddock tonight. Would the black stallion come home tomorrow a winner?
“Sure, Mr. Hoyt, you must have crept in.” A red-faced, cross-eyed groom sent his voice ahead of him as he hurried forward.
“Crept! I could have broken in and walked off with a colt and no one would have been the wiser. Who’s on duty tonight, Bond?”
“I am. Parsons, a couple of grooms, and a boy have gone to the track. Wasn’t them our orders? I could have sworn that no one could come in without me hearin’ them.”
“You’re not here alone?”
“Just the exercise boys, the swipes, an’ me. We were up in Sharp’s quarters listenin’ to some hayseed talkin’ about the chances of the racin’ tomorrow over his radio. You’d a bust laughin’ if you’d heard it, Mr. Hoyt.”
“You men know better than to be in the jockey’s room tonight. He ought to be asleep.”
“Asleep! Sharp! He ain’t here. You sent fer him yourself, sir.”
Nicholas’ heart stopped, plunged into a thundering beat. He forced his voice to steadiness.
“What do you mean, Bond? I didn’t send for Sharp.”
The man’s face went purple, his eyes locked.
“Well, what d’y know about that! Some one’s pul
led a dirty trick, Mr. Hoyt!” He burst into frightened, uncontrolled laughter.
“Shut up, Bond, the others will hear you. Come out of here. You are making the colts nervous.”
Back in the room hung with saddles and harnesses, with its cases of silver cups and gold-lettered rosettes, Nicholas Hoyt commanded:
“Tell me all you know about this thing, and tell it quick.” He glanced at the clock ticking ponderously. “Ten! Every minute counts. Sit down, you’re shaking.”
Bond sank to a chair and clenched his trembling hands. “Why shouldn’t I be shakin’ from shock, sir?” He gulped. “It was this way: I was lookin’ at a scratch on Curtain Call’s ankle—don’t worry, ’tain’t hardly skin deep—when Eddie Sharp come along an’ said as how you’d sent for him to join you at the Hunt Club rooms this evenin’, that you wanted him with you tonight.”
“Did he say who ’phoned?”
“I asked him that right off. I haven’t liked the way that butler from the big place has been hangin’ round here. He—”
“Don’t waste time! Who ’phoned?”
“Sharp said it was Mr. Langdon.”
“Langdon! Was he sure?”
“He seemed sure enough. When I said as how even if ’twas him he’d better wait for orders direct from you, he says, ‘Isn’t Mr. Langdon the boss’s lawyer? And didn’t Mr. Nicholas tell me he was the doctor an’ to take orders from him?’ I couldn’t say nothin’ but ‘yes’ to that and off he went.”
“How long ago?”
“I’d say an hour at a guess.”
“How did he go?”
“One of the boys drove him in his own fliv. He took his silks in a suitcase.”
“Which boy?”
“I don’t know, sir. Want me to see if the car’s back?”
“Yes. But don’t talk. Understand?”
“Sure, I get you, sir.”
“Come to the house; I’ll be in the library telephoning.”
The heavens were shimmering with pale colored lights as Nicholas left the stables.
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