Sunny was hugely enjoying her role of hostess. Her dramatic blondeness was high-lighted by a gown of shimmering metal cloth that clung intimately to the lines of her luxurious figure. She moved from person to person and group to group, greeting guests by their first names, having a smile or a cheery word for each, picking up conversations on the fly, dropping a pungent comment or two, then moving on again.
She encountered Gail Foster and said, "Hiya, Gail. How you making out?"
"Nicely, thanks. Where's Lew? I haven't seen him."
"Lew hates parties. He doesn't care how often I fling 'em, or what they cost, but when there's a lot of people making hi-hi, Lew wants out."
"You mean he won't show up at all?"
"Oh, he'll be here. Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen. He'll say hello to a few fellers and girls and then scram. He's slipping away on the Gull so's to get an early start tomorrow morning on some deep-sea fishing."
Gail stood stock-still, oblivious of any further words of Sunny's, unaware when Sunny left her side. Alan was going on the Blue Gull. If she were ever to have an opportunity to speak to him alone, this was it. She remembered the Blue Gull from the morning when she and Mac had taken pictures of Sunny. Aside from the crew's quarters, there were four cabins. It ought to be simple enough to hide in one of those cabins until the boat was free of the shore. After that... Gail shrugged, and found the gesture turning into a shiver. By tomorrow morning, she thought, I shall be a sadder or a wiser girl. Maybe both.
Once the idea took hold of her, Gail didn't hesitate. She moved unostentatiously toward the gate. Nobody noticed her. No one cared what she did, and that suited her fine. She crossed Collins Avenue and went down the pathway leading to the dock at which the Blue Gull was moored. Her manner was studiously casual.
She had seen a couple of the men from the yacht cross the road and enter the Hartley house. She came close now and listened. There was somebody on board. She could hear sounds, as though a man were fiddling around with machinery. Walking softly, she moved up the gangplank. Maybe the man on board would intercept her, maybe not. If he did, she'd make it sound natural: friend of Sunny's—just wanted to look around...
But she wasn't seen. She descended the aft companion-way into the compact, luxurious salon. She knew exactly where she was going. To the cabin that adjoined Hartley's. She'd seen it the day Sunny had so proudly exhibited the yacht to her.
The cabin had not been made up. So far, so good. That indicated that it was not to be used tonight. She tried the door leading into the owner's cabin. It opened readily, and she peered into the handsomely furnished room. She clicked the door shut again and then seated herself on the edge of the berth in her room. She waited.
She was traveling now on sheer nerve. She said sternly to herself, you're an utter idiot, Gail Foster, but try at least to be a consistent one.
Time dragged. She wanted to smoke, and dared not. Party noises drifted to her from across Collins Avenue, and she tried measuring time by the number of dances the orchestra played.
Shortly before midnight the captain and steward came from Hartley's house and boarded the yacht. She could hear them talking, but couldn't distinguish their words. She continued to stare through the open porthole and a few minutes later saw two other men approaching the Blue Gull. One was the slim, laconic, unpleasant little person called Chuck. The other was Alan.
Or Lew Hartley, she thought in sudden panic.
Alan and Chuck came aboard. She could hear footsteps on the deck overhead. She heard other subdued sounds, a few quiet orders from Captain Swanson. Then came the purr of the motors. The lines were cast off and the graceful prow of the yacht nosed quietly into the calm waters of Indian Creek.
Well, she reflected, here she was. The chips were down.
They glided into the placid waters of Biscayne Bay. She could hear faint sounds from shore, distant wailings of dance bands, auto sirens, the thrrrrrr of an occasional motorboat. They were moving toward the channel leading to deep water when she heard Alan and someone else in the corridor just outside her cabin. He was talking, obviously to Chuck. The voice was muffled. Alan's voice. She was sure it was Alan's voice. She heard him say, "Yes, early. 'Night, Chuck." If Chuck answered, she did not hear him.
She heard the door of Alan's cabin as he closed it. He was moving about the cabin. She heard the scratch of a match and the walking stopped, and she figured he'd settled himself in a chair and was smoking.
She waited, tight as a violin string. Through the porthole she could glimpse the silhouettes of great hotels and the outlines of lavish winter homes. She could see the steady stream of traffic along the Causeway. Gay, bright lights: the cheerful glitter and garish brilliance that marked the hectic merriment of a Miami night at the top of the season.
Alan was moving again. Undressing, probably. Then she heard the creak of bedsprings and the rustle of a magazine. He was probably planning to read himself to sleep. There was no other sound save the swish of water against the sleek sides of the Blue Gull.
She allowed herself an extra fifteen minutes. Then, frightened but courageous, she turned the knob, flung open the door, stepped inside Alan's cabin, closed the door behind her, and stood with her back against it.
Alan was sitting up straight in bed. There was no light in the room save the bed lamp by which he'd been reading. He was clad in blue and white striped pajamas. He stared at her, and in the half shadow his face looked startlingly unlike Alan: the jagged scar over the left eye, the prominent nose, the mustache. The shock was intensified because she'd been thinking in terms of Alan Douglas. In that first awful instant her confidence was shaken. She had the feeling that she was here with a stranger, that Vance Crawford had been right all the time.
She was keyed to concert pitch. Frightened as she was, she made her play boldly. She said tensely, "Alan! I've got to talk to you."
She could see that he was thinking fast. He kicked off the sheet and lowered his bare feet to the floor. He reached for a gaudy dressing gown and slipped it over his powerful shoulders. When he spoke it was in a low tone, as though he preferred not being overheard; but the rasping voice and words it used seemed to belong to Lew Hartley.
He said, "What the hell are you doing here?"
His brutality aroused an anger that did something to allay her fear. She said, "You know what I want, Alan."
He opened his lips to say something, then closed them. When he finally did speak, it was carefully, as though measuring every word. He said, "Look here, Miss Foster, there seems to be some man named Alan who is an obsession with you. Now let me tell you a few things. First, I don't know where I fit into the picture. Second, I don't give a damn. Third, you're making a nuisance of yourself."
She spoke with a confidence she no longer felt. She said, "No soap, Alan. From the first, I've known who you are. Now I'm asking—why?"
His voice was harsh. "You're a friend of Sunny's, so I won't have you arrested. Otherwise—"
"Just a minute." She tried to keep her voice steady. "I'm here because there wasn't any other way of seeing you alone. I've tried, and you've brushed me off. What's wrong, Alan? Why have you done this to yourself? Why won't you trust me?"
He said, "I'm giving it to you straight. I'm not taking much more of this."
"That would be the right answer if you were really Lew Hartley. But you're not. I knew it before and I know it now." Her voice was filled with a desperate urgency. "This thing is all tied up somehow with the money you gave me for my father. Believe me, Alan, no matter why you're doing this, I'm grateful. I'll play things your way, if you'll only tell me the truth."
Alan Douglas realized that the situation was getting out of hand. Never before had he loved Gail so desperately, so completely; never before had he so despised the necessity for acting as Hartley would act. He knew that if he let things ride, he'd be the one to break. His courage could not match hers, his disguise could not long be proof against the confidence that her devotion to him had given her.
She was talking again: earnestly, passionately. She was staking everything on her belief that he was Alan Douglas and not Lew Hartley. She was tearing herself to pieces, so that he could not fail to understand. He felt himself nearing the end of his own resistance.
He was thinking, I'm Hartley. What would Hartley do? And then the answer came to him.
He strode past her and flung open the door of his cabin. She shrank against the wall, her right hand pressed against her lips, her eyes wide with disbelief. This, more than anything else he could have done, was shaking her confidence.
Alan bellowed for Captain Swanson. His voice was loud and unpleasant. But before Swanson appeared from above, the door of Chuck's cabin jerked open, and the slender, agate-eyed bodyguard stepped into the corridor. He looked at Alan and the girl. He said, "What goes on here?"
Alan said, "This woman smuggled herself on board."
Chuck's eyes were hostile. He stepped past Alan and into the cabin. He reached out toward Gail, and suddenly her fear vanished and she was coldly angry. She said, "I wouldn't advise you to do that." He dropped his hand.
Alan said, "You've met her before, Chuck. She's a friend of Sunny's. Works for a magazine. Maybe this is her idea of journalism."
"It's a lousy idea," said Chuck.
Swanson, who had waited until the sailor relieved him at the wheel, came lumbering down the companionway.
Alan said, "We have an uninvited guest. We'll put back to Miami and drop her off."
Swanson blinked, said, "Aye, aye, sir," and went back to the wheel.
Alan said to Gail, "You'd better go up on deck."
She looked at him, long and hard. She said, "That's how it is?"
"Yes," he answered, "that's how it is."
Chapter Twenty
Gail Foster's apartment was inexpensive, attractive, and cozy. It was on the second floor, rear, of a long, narrow building that had been designed strictly from a utilitarian angle. It consisted of a single room, not radically different from her efficiency apartment in New York. It had a couch, an easy chair, two straight chairs, a table, a mirror, and a bed that appeared out of the wall. There was an infinitesimal foyer and an even tinier kitchenette.
This afternoon she came home early. That had been at the insistence of Niki Thorpe. The rotund, jolly, dynamic co-owner of Surf and Sunshine had descended upon her in a cloud and made gestures. "Get out!" she exploded. "Go home!"
Gail looked up in surprise. "What causes this, Niki?"
"I don't like the way you look. You give me the creeps with those dark rings under your eyes."
Gail tried to smile. "I didn't know I showed it."
"You do. What's the matter? You look like the subject for a bad portrait to be entitled 'Lady with Hangover.'"
"It wasn't liquor," said Gail.
"Emotional," snapped Niki. "That's worse."
So Gail was home. There were things she could have been doing, but she was in the grip of inertia. She relaxed in the easy chair and stared through the open window at a patch of azure sky. The afternoon was warm and pleasant, the air fragrant with Cherokee and Dorothy Perkins roses, which clambered about the apartment building. But Gail was in no mood for the delights of the senses.
No use kidding myself, she thought. I'm whipped down.
Discouragement set heavily upon her. She felt disappointment and more than a little bitterness. But the most persistent sensation was one of uncertainty. Until last night, she had been positive. She tried to put it into words. "I'm still sure," she said to herself, "but I'm not certain any more."
There were too many fantastic angles for which there could be no conceivable explanation, too many doubts, too many incredible circumstances. She was emotionally at rock bottom; mentally and physically ready to give up, to return to New York and wait for whatever might happen.
She scarcely heard the knock on her apartment door. Not until it sounded a second time, more authoritatively, did she connect it with herself. She walked indifferently across the room. She opened the door.
Alan Douglas stood there. Alone.
Of all things that might have happened, this was the most unexpected. She stood motionless for a few seconds, feeling a strange contraction about her heart and a momentary paralysis of her muscles. She stared at the hawklike nose, the scar over the left eye, the mustache, the keen brown eyes. Then she was aroused from her stupefaction by the sound of his voice: "Aren't you going to ask me in?"
She stood back and he walked into the apartment. She closed the door and turned so that her back was against it. He stood in the middle of the room regarding her gravely.
Her brain was buzzing. Her back was tight against the door, and the palms of both hands were pressed against the panels as though for support. She was prepared for anything—except what happened.
His voice was gentle and soft and sorry: "You were right, Gail. I am Alan."
It came suddenly, with no warning, no preparation. It hit hard. It left her shaken and voiceless because it was so unexpected.
He was speaking again: "I've been awake all night, thinking. I decided that I had to trust you. So here I am."
Questions. Countless questions flashed through her mind: silly questions, obvious questions, eager questions. But she asked none of them. Out of all the things that she wanted to know, she could find no one single question that demanded to be asked first.
He said, "I shocked you. I'm sorry. But this is the only way I could do it." He moved forward, took her arm, and led her to the easy chair. "I feel like an awful heel," he said. "But it wasn't my fault."
Again she felt that sensation of there being no question big enough or comprehensive enough to ask at a moment like this. She kept her eyes on him, studying him, taking in every detail.
He drew up a straight chair and sat close to her. He did not touch her. His gentleness was incongruous behind the mask of Hartley's face. He started at the beginning, picking up the loose threads of the story that long-ago night when they had gone skating on the pond at Rockefeller Center and he later had encountered Wayne Hamilton. He talked simply, as one might talk to a child who was groping for the answer to a bewildering problem.
His voice acted like a sedative on her jangling nerves. A touch of color came back to her cheeks, her eyes lost their frightened look, her body was less rigid. As his incredible recital went on and on she found herself nodding occasionally to show him that she understood.
He carried his recital through to last night. "That jarred me," he said. "After you had been put off the boat, I went back to the house. I spent the night smoking and thinking. I was debating a single point: of the courses open to me, which was the most fair to Lew Hartley."
He took out a jeweled cigarette case that bore the initials L.H., handed her a cigarette, selected one himself, and lighted both.
"There was no one with whom I could discuss it. Wayne Hamilton has gone away. I had a feeling that neither Chuck Williams nor Sunny Ralston could be relied on for sound advice. It narrowed down to this question: Which was better—for me to violate the letter of the trust Hartley had placed in me, or to let you continue to investigate until you discovered the truth? I decided that even Hartley would approve what I'm doing."
She had herself under control now, but she still did not speak.
He went on, "My reactions last night when you walked into my cabin decided me. You caught me with my guard down. I knew I couldn't hold out much longer." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I had almost forgotten how much I love you. What reminded me was the look of hurt I saw in your eyes. I knew I couldn't stand that gaff very long. But there was no time to think then. That was why I called Swanson, because I didn't want to be overwhelmed by the problem until I'd had time to think it over."
His lips expanded into a smile, and it seemed sardonic on this face that was not his. "Later, you can tell me how you happened to be in Miami—what aroused your suspicions. I haven't doped that out any more than you could cook up an answer to why I was playin
g Hartley. But this was clear to me: If you continued snooping around—and you gave every indication of doing exactly that—you'd be bound to verify your suspicion that it was I. You'd logically tell someone. And that seemed grossly unfair to Hartley, who has something tremendous at stake. He had pledged me not to tell anyone, but here was an unforseeable condition that had to be handled on the dot. I had to take it for granted that he could trust my discretion as well as my integrity."
His eyes bored into hers. "I knew something that Hartley could not know. I knew that I could trust you. You reminded me of that last night. So long as you were ignorant and inquisitive, you might cause trouble. Knowing the truth, you'd play it my way." His voice trailed off, and he spread his arms wide in a gesture of surrender. "So here I am, sweetheart. And that's the story."
She said, "Would you mind holding me very tight for just a minute, Alan?"
They rose and his arms went about her. He kissed her. But she kept her eyes closed. This was Alan caressing her, and she dared not look at the face of Lew Hartley.
After that it was easier to assume a semblance of sanity. He said, "I was right to trust you, wasn't I, Gail?"
"You know the answer to that."
"You won't try to interfere, now that you know everything is all right?"
"I won't try to interfere, Alan." She hesitated briefly. "But I don't feel that everything is all right."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know. Intuition, I suppose."
"Darling, you mustn't let an archaic thing like intuition knock your common sense out of the ring. If you're worried about the supposed danger from the rival manganese moguls, I think that was a lot of boloney from the beginning. The risk, I mean." He smiled. "And I've got Chuck. He's a crummy companion, but a most efficient bodyguard."
The Corpse That Walked Page 11
