“Of course he will. You never have failed him before, have you?”
“Never, Miss.”
Walls, fields, fences flew by. Sandra’s hair blew about her face. She breathed deeply. Glorious air! It had the lift and tangy buoyancy of mid-September. She turned to look at the dogs who were sitting upright on the back seat. Their sensitive noses sniffed the wind which ruffed their tawny coats. Their brown eyes met hers and shifted.
The remembrance of her immediate problem wiped out the smile their dignity had brought to her lips. What would she do first when she reached home? Hide the envelope in her room, of course; then she would drop a pound or two of bath crystals into the tub and … The high tea! She had forgotten that. She must be in the living room before the first guest arrived. Could she make it?
At the side door of Seven Chimneys she jumped from the car; the dogs leaped after her.
“Don’t worry, Sharp. Even if you didn’t ride him, something tells me that Fortune won.” She flung the scrap of comfort over her shoulder.
The house seemed deserted except for voices in the kitchen end. She tiptoed in. Stealthily she reached her boudoir door. It was ajar. She withdrew her outstretched hand as if the knob were red-hot. Voices! Whose? She gripped the collars of the dogs. Knelt. Applied her ear to the crack.
“You didn’t lose time getting away from the track, did you? Must have burned up the road. I know. I know who won. Bridie’s gone crazy because the Duval girl hasn’t showed up. I told her I’d wait here so that if she came I could let her know. Perhaps you can tell where she is?”
Emma, the waitress, talking. Talking? Sounded more as if she were setting her teeth in some one. In whom? Sandra strained her ears to the cracking point, but she could hear a murmur only.
“Speak up! Don’t mumble!” the woman’s bitter voice prodded. “There’s no one in the house to hear. You’ve begun to drink again, haven’t you? Just when you need a clear head. Oh, you won’t show it, you never do, but you’re not a safe person when you drink. Why couldn’t you wait till …”
The voice thinned to a whisper. Sandra’s hands were ice-cold. Emma and Huckins! Hadn’t Mrs. Pat suspected that he drank? Time someone stopped their little game. She banged open the door with her foot. Gripping the dogs’ collars, she demanded:
“What are you do …”
Surprise choked her voice. Emma’s eyes were steel points of hate; beside her stood Philippe!
“Well, see who’s here!”
Rousseau’s face was drawn and haggard, but his greeting was a jaunty imitation of hers in the library not so many hours before. Sandra blinked as if to clear her eyes. Philippe and Emma again!
“What are you two doing in my room?”
At her sharp question, the dogs, who had been motionless, took purposeful steps forward. She tightened her hold on them, jerked them back on their haunches.
Rousseau laughed. “What are you doing in those pyjamas at this hour? Don’t tell me that you didn’t get to the races. I wasn’t in Mrs. Pat’s box, so I didn’t know that you weren’t there.”
“Never mind where I have been. You’d better sit down, both of you.” Could that be her voice, cold and steady, when her legs were folding at the knees like a jackknife? “You may be here quite a long time.”
The maid dropped to the bench. Her cheek-bones were splashed with red, her eyes were sparks, her fingers tense. She is loaded with TNT, Sandra thought. It looked as if the rough touch wouldn’t be lacking to set her off with a bang right here. Rousseau remained standing. He twisted the end of his small moustache with his long fingers. His dark eyes were tinged with wistful melancholy.
“What a flair you have for dramatization. Perhaps it looks—”
“It looks like a hook-up to me,” Sandra interrupted crisply with a fleeting glance at the maid.
“But—dearest …” The last world brought Emma’s head up as if galvanized.
“Don’t dare call me that again, Philippe!”
Not until the color flowed hotly into his face did Sandra realize how white Rousseau had been.
“What has happened since we parted at daybreak?” he reproached. “Oh, I forgot,” he cast a meaning glance at the maid, “we have an audience. Emma, you may go.”
“Sit down, Emma!”
Sandra’s command cracked like the whip of a ringmaster. “Better sit down yourself, Philippe. You’ll both stay here until someone comes from the races.”
“Will we?”
His hand slid into his coat pocket. Sandra’s pulses stilled. Had she the right to hold the two here merely because she felt that they were conniving against Nick? Emma had accused Philippe of drinking! Hadn’t she said that he was not a safe person? He had had a gun this morning. Suppose he had? The prospective heir of the Hoyt fortune wasn’t shooting himself into the headlines yet, drunk or sober. Perhaps the flesh and blood Philippe wasn’t looking at her with a slight sneer, perhaps this was another dream. Perhaps she was still behind the panel, might reason herself out of this nightmare. She shut her eyes tight, opened them.
It was not a dream. The cool green walls touched with silver were real; so were the turquoise taffeta hangings, the crystal and silver laden poudreuse; the apricot cushions, the tick of the clock were real. Thank heaven, time was passing! She would keep the man and woman here until she heard a stir in the house; then she would let them go and follow them. Suppose they snatched the precious letter? But they didn’t know about it. The dogs knew something was wrong; the collars she was clutching registered every nervous twitch of their lithe bodies.
“Sit down, Sandra, if we are to make an afternoon of it,” Philippe Rousseau suggested sarcastically. “Why you have elected yourself a committee of one to hold me here only you know. Why should I care for the reason so long as I can look at your lovely self? If you will play sentry in front of that door, let me get you a chair. First, though, put those dogs wise to the fact that I’m your friend.”
“Friend!”
“Why the scorn? What have I done to you that you speak like that?”
His hurt amazement was not fabricated. He had reason to reproach her. She had liked him and had shown that she had. But, day by day, in spite of her knowledge of the letters which should prove his claim, her liking for him had trickled away. Philippe and Emma together here! It took a crisis to clarify a situation one had not understood. It was like lightning picking out and showing up streaks of human nature which had been unnoticeable before the tearing, revealing flash.
“Don’t bother about a chair for me.” Sandra pulled the growling dogs back with her as she perched on the edge of a chair near the door. Pity she didn’t smoke—a cigarette might help her to appear nonchalant. She didn’t care for the hand in Philippe’s pocket. Was she afraid of the man she had liked?
“Why did you come here?” she questioned more in disappointment than in anger.
“I like that tone better.” His eyes narrowed. “I came back from the track—because my horse was beaten and—”
“Iron Man lost! I’m sorry, Philippe!”
“Sorry! Oh no, you’re not! I came here the minute the race was over because this woman had told me that Nick Hoyt has letters which prove my claim. You know it, she says. Have known it for days!”
How had Emma discovered the contents of those letters? She had read them, of course, before she took them to Stone House. They were both unsealed. What should she say? Oh, if only Nick would come! The maid started for the door.
“Sit down, Emma!”
“I—I—heard someone outside, Miss. Someone’s listening. I’ll lose my place if Mrs. Newsome thinks I’m helping you get a man into your room.”
“Emma!”
Was that livid-faced girl in the mirror herself, Sandra wondered.
“Isn’t she right, dearest?”
“If you call me that again, Philippe—I—I—Come in! Come in!” Sandra called frantically in answer to an authoritative tap at the door.
“Stay out!” Rou
sseau warned. “Unless you—”
“Sstt! At him, boys!”
The dogs sprang at Rousseau’s sleeves before he could bring his hand from his pocket. The door was flung open by Nicholas Hoyt.
His eyes burned into Sandra’s soul—it seemed to her as if there were two men standing straight and tall on the threshold—before they flickered over the maid and fastened on the man by the window.
“What are you doing here, Rousseau? This house isn’t yours yet. There are some rooms you can’t enter. Call off the dogs, Sandra.”
“Don’t call them off, Nick! Don’t! Philippe has a gun!”
“Drop him! Come here!”
Bud and Buddy gazed at Nicholas Hoyt with unwinking red eyes as if questioning his meaning.
“Come here!”
They backed away from Rousseau, their fangs gleaming, savage growls rumbling in their throats. Sandra caught their collars. The man they had released took a step forward.
“Stay where you are! What are you doing in Miss Duval’s room?” Hoyt persisted.
Rousseau twisted his moustache. “I might ask you that question. If she doesn’t object, why should you?”
“Philippe!”
He ignored Sandra’s angry protest. His eyes burned. A nerve at one corner of his mouth twitched incessantly.
“I’ll tell you why I’m here, Hoyt. You’ve beaten me on the track, you have been prejudicing my girl against me, but I’ll turn you out of Stone House tomorrow. For over two weeks you’ve held letters which proved my claim.”
Nicholas Hoyt’s eyes widened. “How do you know what is in those letters?”
“You acknowledge you have them! How do I know? I’ve seen this woman Emma sneaking round whispering to the butler. She found two letters in my father’s, Mark Hoyt’s desk. Took them to you, didn’t she? I’ve put the screws on her, and—”
Emma’s face contorted with rage. “Screws! Screws!” she hissed. “Think I’ll stand for that? You’re crazy! Screws! Who sent me to this house? Think I’m so dumb that I’ll let you walk off with a fortune and this girl—Slick Fingers? You …”
The TNT had gone off! Blinding. Stunning—for a second only. Rousseau sprang. The woman choked on a shrill note. Nicholas caught his hands from her throat and twisted them back. He gripped his wrists.
“Call for help, Sandra! Quick!”
Emma flung herself against the door. “You’ll call no one! Let him go! If you don’t …”
She jerked open the door. Screamed. Huckins faced her, Huckins, smiling his furtive, secretive smile.
Sandra set her teeth sharply in her lips to keep back a gasp of terror. One more against Nick! She gripped the collars of the dogs. This time when she let them go they would do their work. Silence. Tense. Vibrant. Rousseau sneered at the maid and the butler.
“What did I tell you? He didn’t expect to find us here. He’s come to divide the jack you paid the woman for those letters, Hoyt.”
“Yeah!” Huckins pushed aside Emma who was staring at him with big, terrified eyes. He closed the door and leaned against it. “Come to divide the jack for those letters, have I? You’ve got me wrong, Rousseau. I’ve come to tell Mr. Hoyt that I saw your girl friend here plant those letters.”
Nicholas’ face was colorless. “Take Rousseau’s gun!” As the butler deftly removed an automatic and slipped it into his own pocket, he released the Kentuckian’s wrists. “Now, explain about those letters, Huckins.”
“I saw the woman put them in the secret drawer. I’ve waited for other facts before telling you, but …”
Rousseau’s laugh was ugly. “Good, but not good enough. You can’t put it across, Cousin Nicholas. That man is in your pay. I’ve suspected it. Of course he would lie about those letters. Didn’t intend to produce them, did you? Perhaps you’ve disposed of them already. As for this woman being my girl friend! It’s a frame-up! Never saw her before she came to Seven Chimneys. Will the Court take her word against mine—I ask you! It’s part of your game to have her lie—”
“Lie! Lie!” Emma’s repetition shook with fury. “Is that the thanks I get for turning myself into a housemaid? A housemaid! Me! Lie! ‘The girl you’re going to marry!’ ‘Dearest!’ You’ve called Sandra Duval that for the last time. You’ve been crazy with the idea of this fortune! You’ve cast off one after another of your friends and now—me! You’ll have to pay for that! Things don’t come so easy. Go to court tomorrow—”
“Wait! Wait!” Sandra interrupted frantically. For the first time since Nicholas Hoyt entered her room she thought of the letter under her jacket. The pin stabbed viciously at her shaking fingers as she loosened it.
“I found this, Nick …”
He caught the mauve envelope from her hand.
“A registered letter from Kentucky! The return address A. P. Rousseau!” He looked up at the man intently watching him. “Another of your plants, ‘Slick Fingers’?”
Sandra caught his arm. “No! No! I found it in your uncle’s book, THOROUGHBREDS. See, he has written on it, ‘Nick must see this at once.’ He must have received it the very day he died.”
As he read, Nicholas Hoyt’s face darkened. His lips twitched. He nodded toward Rousseau.
“Hold on to him, Huckins.”
Rousseau tried to shake off the hand on his arm. “What’s the big idea, Hoyt? Staging a melodrama? Got a movie camera concealed about your person?”
“No, only a letter to read to you, Philippe Rousseau. If he so much as stirs, Huckins, take him out and lock him up. This letter was written by Anne Pardoe Rousseau. From the date on the envelope, Mark Hoyt must have received it shortly before he died.”
Was Nicholas waiting to get his unsteady voice in hand? Sandra looked at Philippe. She never had seen a face so white; he was staring at the floor. The eyes of Emma, the waitress, were dilated; Huckins’ lips were parted as if in suspense; the dogs kept tense, red-eyed vigil. Would Nick never speak?
The sheet of paper he held quivered. He gripped it with both hands and read:
“ ‘Dear Mr. Hoyt:
“My doctor has told me that I may go at any moment. I don’t care. Life lived in a fog of remorse that one has been a coward, has run away, doesn’t mean much, but God won’t take me until I have written the truth to you.
“ ‘Little Philip did die! I swear it. I have reason to think that after I am gone my son, Philippe, will try to prove that he is your son. Never mind how I know it. The scars of burn on his shoulders are a coincidence; he looks something as your boy might had he lived—how could he help it when for years your Philip’s face was in my mind?
“ ‘My Philippe has a fatal gift with his fingers—I won’t use an uglier word. He has forged my name to get money—only mine, I am sure. It is unnatural for a mother to testify against the son she loves, but I owe you the warning.
“ ‘Philippe may never try it, perhaps I am misjudging him—I pray every night that I may be—but—’ ”
That’s enough!” Rousseau slashed into the sentence. Nicholas held up a paper. “Your mother enclosed your birth certificate from the South American city where you were born.”
“Didn’t I say I’d had enough? I know when I’m licked. It’s just my luck! Well, it was a good try—if that woman hadn’t squealed …”
Emma defiantly met his glare, but her body shook as with a chill.
“What are you going to do about it, Cousin Nick? Send me to the hoosegow?” Rousseau demanded cockily. His haunted eyes betrayed his bravado.
Nicholas Hoyt’s face whitened. His gray eyes were black. His voice was bleak.
“Not for trying to steal the estate, but the turf authorities will take care of you for stealing my jockey.”
“For what?” Huckins jerked Rousseau back as he plunged forward. “What do you mean? That I would pull anything crooked about a race! Why you—”
“Mr. Nicholas! Mr. Nicholas!”
Nicholas pulled open the door in response to the frantic call. Bridie caught his sleeve. Her
eyes were red, her voice was choked with sobs.
“Oh, Mister Nicholas! Come down! Quick! Ain’t it terrible! Mrs. Newsome wants ye!”
CHAPTER XXVI
“Excuse me, Miss Duval, for interrupting. When I saw your rose-color dress from the hall, suddenly I felt that I couldn’t leave without explaining one or two things to you. I’ve only stayed on this week to help if I could.”
Sandra looked up from the pile of music she was sorting on the piano in the living room. Huckins stood on the threshold, very straight, very spruce, impeccably appareled for the street. His mouth was firm and honest, his skin had lost its telltale redness. Had the color been make-up for his part? She smiled.
“You were good, Huckins. By the way, is that your name?”
“Not so good as you were. Never mind my name. When I saw you coming out of the projector room, I didn’t know for whom you were working. I knew that Langdon had planned the phantom scheme; that Mr. Hoyt had told him to lay off because the wrong person had been frightened. When Rousseau almost went to pieces at dinner and threatened to block the underground passage, I started it up that night on my own responsibility. I scared the life out of him.”
“You reduced me to pulp with your mysterious warning that afternoon in the library after I had discovered the projector.”
“Sorry. Was sure you liked Rousseau—”
“I did like him.”
“He has his points, he’s a good horseman, but he’s pretty dumb. A man faking a long-lost son shouldn’t bring his sweetheart along on the job. She’s sure to gum the game.”
Sandra regarded him with interest. “I’ve never met a secret service man before. It must be a thrilling profession.”
“It is, Miss Duval, if you stick to sleuthing. I wasn’t so good as a butler. The way you found that letter! You’re not so bad a detective yourself.”
“That was pure accident—was it, I wonder. The gods provide the thread when the web starts to unravel. That’s my own version of the adage. I recommend the correct one for your coat-of-arms, Mr.—Huckins. ‘The gods provide the thread when the web is started.’ I suppose you knew that Emma was a—a confederate?”
Uncharted Seas Page 24
