“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you what I know of it, and I suspect it’s bigger than I know. You’ll have to wait for that.”
“Have you seen The Capital Whispers?”
“No, what is it?”
“It’s a local weekly—a scandal sheet—the sort of paper that buys gossip and scandal from servants or from anybody. There’s a paragraph in it this week you might be interested in. This news about the breach of promise suit reminded me. Would you like to see it?”
Elfinstone nodded, and the reporter used the telephone to have a copy sent up by bellboy from the hotel newsstand. The paragraph was brief.
The circumstances surrounding General Dolliard’s unfortunate death still supply a major portion of tea-table conversation and many are the guesses and theories advanced. Little is still known however beyond the fact that when General Dolliard called on the dashing Captain Elfinstone in his Baltimore hotel he found him alone, but that when he called at his Washington hotel the next night he found him in conversation with the young and beautiful Mrs. Dolliard. But out of that gossips have made much, especially since it is reported that the tall captain was as skillful in penetrating feminine attractions as he was in penetrating the Teutonic lines during the war.
“Nice garbage,” Elfinstone commented as he put down the paper. “Has much of that sort of thing been said? I haven’t seen any papers.”
“A little, not much considering the circumstances.”
Elfinstone picked up Capitol Whispers again. “Who runs this?”
“A fellow named John Parlett. A rotter all the way through, but there’s this: he’s not a blackmailer. He doesn’t sell silence. Nothing’s too rotten for him to publish if he can get by with it, but you can’t buy him off.”
Elfinstone scowled thoughtfully over that information, was still scowling over it when a bellboy with a telegram knocked on the door. The telegram was a reply to the one had sent the mayor of the northwestern city.
CHIEF OF POLICE DABNEY DOES NOT REMEMBER GRANTING LEAVE STOP IN ANY EVENT HE HAD NO AUTHORITY TO DO SO STOP PARAGRAPH NINE YOUR CONTRACT STATE EXPLICITLY SUCH AUTHORITY VESTED IN MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL ALONE
An added touch of finality hung over the telegram by virtue of its having been sent collect.
Elfinstone, smiling grimly but not without satisfaction, gave the telegram to the young supporter to read and copy and then held out a lean hand to him.
“Stop in and see me tomorrow, Alden. I may not have anything for you, but you’ve helped me get a couple of ideas straightened out.
The boy’s eyes were bright, his voice a little uneven.
“I do hope you come out all right, Captain Elfinstone. I can’t answer for my paper—I’m only a cub who got into this on a fluke—but if there’s anything I personally can do you’ve only to mention it. I mean whether there’s news in it or not.”
For several minutes after the young reporter had gone, Elfinstone stared thoughtfully after him. Then he picked up the telephone and gave the Dolliards’ number. He had some difficulty in getting Mrs. Dolliard on the wire.
“This is Captain Elfinstone,” he said when he had at last succeeded. “I must see you at once, alone. I have some information you should have.”
“I would rather you gave it to me through my attorneys, Otis and Juel,” she said with chill finality.
“Won’t do,” he said impatiently. “I’ll give you a name. You can tell by that whether it’s wiser to get my information personally. The name is Brefina.”
For a space nothing was said. Then her voice came cool as before: “I don’t understand you at all. The name means nothing to me. However you may come if you wish. I will see you.”
“I thank you,” he responded ironically and, avoiding the lobby and principal exits, left the hotel for a taxicab.
Mrs. Dolliard, black-dressed, was standing in the wine and gold room in which he had been introduced to her by her husband when the tall man was shown in. She neither bowed, spoke, nor invited him to sit down.
He plunged headlong into the matter between them.
“Is it possible you think I haven’t guessed what your husband’s missing papers were?” he demanded.
MY BROTHER FELIX
“Time to Die”
1
He sat in the Stuyvesant Hotel lounge and read a newspaper. His hands holding the paper were thin, and except for their pale scars, sunburned brown as his loose tweed suit. His thin face was sunburned and scarred: two narrow white parallel lines ran from his left ear to the bridge of his nose. The clear light blue of his eyes was startling in so browned a face. His hair was thin, ash blond, cut short. He could have been thirty-five years old or forty-five.
He read his newspaper deliberately, patiently, column by column from top to bottom, until, at about midnight, a man and a woman in evening clothes came in together from the street. Then he put down the paper, picked up his straw hat, and went to meet them.
The man who had come in cried, “Felix!” and put both hands on the thin man’s shoulders; the woman cried, “Felix!” and clasped one of his hands.
Felix said, “How are you all?” He seemed frail and worn beside them. His voice and smile, pleasant enough, were thinner, held less warmth, than theirs.
“But when did you come to New York?” the woman asked. Her English was unaccented: she spoke it more carefully than if it had been her native language.
“Day before yesterday.” He moved his head a little to indicate her companion. “Naturally I looked Michael up first thing.”
The man called Michael said, “Naturally,” with considerable heartiness. He smiled down on Felix: he was a big man, tall and meaty, owing little of his impressive size to fat. “And it’s damned good seeing you. Come along.” He turned toward the elevators.
“It is good,” the woman said, and took Felix’s arm. “It is good that we three should be together again.” She squeezed his arm and insisted, “Is it not?”
“Mais oui.”
She peered into his face with eyes that were very large and dark and on a level with his—she was a tall woman—but in his pale eyes there was no hint of the mockery that had tinged his voice.
Michael, standing aside to let them enter the elevator, said, “Julie was afraid you were sore—not answering my letter—but I told her you had too much sense for that.”
The woman squeezed Felix’s arm again and smiled at him.
He asked, “What letter?”
“The letter I gave Tomas for you.” When the smaller man said nothing, Michael asked, “You got it, didn’t you?”
“No.”
“By God!” The big man frowned, said slowly, “I don’t understand what—” He broke off, opened his eyes wide. His eyes were a deeper blue than Felix’s. “Then you must think—” He broke off again. “This is our floor.”
They got out of the elevator.
The big man touched Felix’s shoulder lightly, said, “Then I reckon we’ve got a lot of talking to do,” and led the way to a white door at the end of the corridor. He walked lightly for his weight and his stride was a young man’s, though his thick brown hair and carefully trimmed mustache were sprinkled with gray and he must have been within a few years of fifty. He opened the white door, reached inside to turn on lights, and held the door open. “Didn’t you see Tomas at all?”
“No,” Felix replied. “He’d left Concepcion—some kind of Milicia Republicana trouble.” He dropped his hat on a seat in the vestibule. “But you got my letter.”
The big man opened his eyes wide again. “No. What letter? Not a word from you since that night at— Julie, Felix says he sent us a letter.” He shut the corridor door.
The woman was switching on lights in a gray and green sitting-room. She stared at the big man, said slowly, “That is most peculiar,” and continued to stare at him.
Felix went up close to the big man and said, “I don’t believe either of you. You got my letter. You didn’t send me one.”
&n
bsp; The woman laughed.
Michael’s cheeks flushed, but his voice was unruffled. “It’s no use talking like that. We—”
Felix’s right hand moved and a clasp-knife snapped open in it. He put the tip of its four-inch blade against Michael’s smooth white shirt-bosom and said, “I don’t want any more of you. Give me that letter.”
“For Christ’s sake, Felix!” The flush had gone out of Michael’s cheeks, most of the color had gone out of his face, but his face—except for the eyes strained downward to watch the shiny threatening knife—was still firm-featured and handsome.
Felix’s body hid the knife from the woman. She put her wrap—olive green velvet and dark fur—on a chair and chid them impartially: “Why must men quarrel always? Can’t you wait at least until we have talked awhile and I have gone off to my bed? It is so long since we three have been together.”
“Cornejo’s letter,” Felix said to the big man. The point of his knife, moving an inch or two, left behind it a deep scratch in the starched linen.
Michael winced, but did not step back from the knife. He moistened his lips with his tongue. “Put that thing away. That temper of yours. Give me a chance to talk.”
“I don’t want talk,” Felix said. “I want Cornejo’s letter.”
“But listen to me a minute.” The big man forced his eyes to look up from the knife-blade to Felix’s hard thin face. “I’m not trying to—”
“Shut up.” Felix held out his left hand. “Cornejo’s letter.”
The woman, staring perplexedly at Michael, had come far enough toward them by this time to see the knife. The perplexity went out of her eyes. She said amicably, “You are being most foolish, Felix. There is no letter.”
Felix said, “No?” and the point of his knife opened a three-inch slit in Michael’s shirt-bosom.
“Don’t!” the big man cried hoarsely, and flattened himself back against the wall, away from the knife. “I got it, Felix.”
Felix dropped the open knife, handle down, into his jacket pocket and slapped Michael’s face.
Michael sobbed, “Don’t, don’t,” but did not raise his hands to protect his face.
The woman said, “Virgen santísima,” very softly. She was leaning forward a little, full red lips parted, looking at Michael as if she had never seen him before.
Felix turned his back on Michael. “Do you know where he keeps the letter?” he asked the woman.
She shook her head and said slowly, “I do not think he has it—now.”
Michael said hastily, “If you’ll only listen to me a minute, Felix. If you’ll only let me talk.”
Felix turned around. “Sure, I’ll let you talk.”
“And you won’t fly off the handle till I’ve—”
“You’ll have to take your chances on that. I don’t like you. I never liked you.” He slapped Michael’s face again.
The big man hung his head and mumbled, “I know.”
The woman laughed. “C’est incroyable,” she told Felix, “but in his pocket he has a pistol.”
The big man, blushing, said, “Well I can’t shoot my own brother.”
MY BROTHER FELIX
“September 20, 1938”
My brother Felix came over from the mainland in Rev Youngling’s boat early in the morning. I didn’t know him at first. I hadn’t seen him for five years and he was smaller and darker than I remembered. But when, as I came out on the pier, he turned from paying Rev and grinned up at me with his lips flattening against his teeth I knew him.
“How are you, Morgan?” he said, watching me come down to the float. He grinned again. “A horse. Papa ought to be satisfied.”
Rev pushed his boat away, said, “His ears are too long, ha, ha, ha,” waved his arm and headed back for the mainland.
I told Felix I was all right and was glad to see him and we shook with all four hands. He had got two scars on his face, thin straight lines—white against his sunburn—running from his left ear to the bridge of his nose and there were other scars like them on the backs of his hands.
“How is Papa?” he asked.
“All right.” I picked up two of his bags, he took the other one and his newspapers. “Everybody’s all right except Inés and she’s a lot better now.”
“Was she really very sick?”
“I guess she was, but she’s better now. Did you know they got married?”
He said a little carefully as we climbed up to the pier, “I knew they were thinking about it.”
“Are you going to stay a while this time?”
“I don’t know. It depends on—” The dogs—we had two brown poodles then—crashed through the bushes and came racing out on the pier to meet us. “They’re beauts.” He put his bag down to play with them. “Where’s old Cap?”
“Dead. So we got these.”
Papa came through the bushes behind the dogs. When he saw Felix he took his pipe out of his mouth and said, “That’s odd. I dreamed about you last night.”
Felix stepped over the dogs to go to Papa, who bent down a little to let Felix kiss him on the cheek. I thought as I had thought before how funny it was that of all Papa’s children only Felix didn’t look anything like him. I suppose Felix took after his mother. I never saw her. My mother was Papa’s second wife.
Papa spoke to me over Felix’s head. “Take his things up to the house, son. He’ll want to look around a little before breakfast.” He led Felix off toward the orchard.
I tucked the newspapers and the third bag under my arm and went up to the house with the dogs romping ahead of me. Viv was on the porch steps eating grapes. Cocoa stood up on her hind legs and was given a grape. Jummie tried to stand up on his hind legs, fell over on his side, and was given a grape. Then Viv saw the bags, pointed the grapes at them, and asked, “Who’s come?”
“Felix.”
“Oh, good.” She stuffed the rest of the grapes into her mouth and asked through them, “Where is he?”
“Papa’s talking to him.”
“Oh,” she said. “I bet he’ll be surprised how much I’ve grown.”
“He told me that’s what he came back to see about.”
She made a face at me. “Do you think he’ll have some more stories?”
“Maybe you won’t like them now that you’re grown up.”
She frowned. “You liked them and you were sixteen.”
“I know, but at sixteen I wasn’t as mature as you are at twelve.”
“Twelve and a half,” she said as I went on into the house.
In the living-room Christina in a white bathing suit was tucking her yellow hair inside a yellow rubber cap. “How about that swim before breakfast?” she asked.
“Felix is here.”
She stopped poking at her hair. “Did you talk to him?”
“Only until Papa came along and carried him off.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing special. Why?”
Her face flushed a little. “Nothing. We’ll put him in Saint George’s room.”
“You’re awfully pretty, Christina.”
She laughed and said, “You’re an awfully nice boy.”
When I dropped the newspapers on a chair they fell open to show the Times front page headlines:
CZECHS DELAY DECISION ON PARTITION;
ASK FRENCH ATTITUDE IF THEY REFUSE;
BRITAIN SEEKS A GESTURE FROM HITLER
The Herald Tribune’s read:
CZECHS DEBATE SURRENDER TO HITLER
AS LONDON AND PARIS RATIFY DEAL;
RUSSIA INDICATES SHE WILL NOT AID
I tried to make myself think I didn’t have to believe them and took Felix’s bags up to the bedroom that got its name from a two-foot wooden statue of a man in full armor—except that he wore no helmet to hide his carefully curled long hair—shoving a spear down the throat of a small inoffensive-looking dragon.
When I came downstairs again Jim and Wally were with Christina. She had put on a white terry robe and was l
ooking at the Herald Tribune. “The hurricane missed Florida,” she said.
“How about us?” Wally asked. He was sitting over by a window cleaning a pistol.
She shrugged and read, “‘Should it continue on this course, it likely would be centered off Great Abaco Island about seven a.m. tomorrow.’ That’s today,” she said and went on reading, “‘This, said the observatory, definitely diminishes danger to the Florida channel, the south tip of Florida, and Cuba. “It is in the process of turning now and no one can tell just what course it finally will take,” he added.’ I don’t know who he is,” she said. “He just popped up in here. Anyhow he says, ‘I can’t even say where it would go if the direction of the moment is continued because the curve is continuing.’ Does anybody make anything out of that?”
Wally said, “Not guilty. Where’s Great Abaco?”
“One of the Bahamas,” Jim told him. “It’d take a day or two to get up here—if it’s coming.” He turned to me. “So the wanderer has returned?” Jim was the oldest of us and the largest. He was almost as tall as Papa—who was six feet seven—and heavier. “How does he look?”
“All right, only he’s black as an Indian.”
“That country’ll burn you.” He ran a hand over his own sunburned face and chuckled. “Is he just back from there?”
“He didn’t say. How’s Inés?”
“Pretty good this morning.”
Felix came in from the porch with an arm around Viv’s shoulders. She was telling him about the new school she was going to.
Christina said, “Felix,” and held out her hands with the newspaper dangling from one. He crossed the room to kiss her.
Jim clapped him on the back and said, “Welcome home, boy.”
Felix shook Jim’s hand briefly and went over to Wally, who put down his pistol and stood up wiping his hands on his pants legs. Felix took his hands and said, “You boys are doing a nice piece of growing.” Wally at fourteen was less than an inch under six feet. “This is good being back here.” He looked around the room. “That’s a new picture over the radio, isn’t it?”
Wally said, “Morgan painted it. Swell, huh?”
The Hunter and Other Stories Page 32
