by Jack Iams
Her handbag was lying where she had left it on the pink sofa. She opened it and fumbled for the folded slip of paper Sam Magruder had given her the night before. Standing in the middle of the room in pale blue pajamas, she unfolded it and read it. It said:
Imperative I see you alone as soon as possible. Strictly alone. Call me at MU8-1239. Don’t worry about a place to stay. I’m taking care of it. Watch your step.
Sybil folded it again and slipped it into the monogrammed pocket of her pajama coat. She opened the bedroom door softly, listened a moment, then closed it. She picked up the phone and dialed Magruder’s number.
A gruff voice answered. “Yeah?” said the voice.
“Is Mr. Magruder there?”
“Wait a minute.” Apparently the voice consulted somebody else because it returned and asked, “Who wants to know?”
She hesitated. “Tell him it’s Sybil.”
There was another pause for consultation, and Sybil thought she heard somebody laugh. The voice came back and said, “He ain’t here. He’s moved away.”
The receiver clicked in her ear. “Hullo,” she said. “Are you there?” Only the insulting cackle of the dial tone answered her. “Damn,” she said and put down the phone. She bit her lip and looked out of the window, frowning worriedly.
Almost immediately the phone rang. Sybil jumped, then reached for it eagerly. A hearty feminine voice, with a hint of a Lancashire accent, boomed out of it. “Would this be Mrs. Timothy Ludlow?”
“It would.”
“The former Lady Sybil Hastings?”
“None other.”
The bedroom door opened and Tim poked his head through it, blinking sleepily. “Thought I heard the phone,” he said. “Who is it?”
“Don’t know yet,” said Sybil.
“This,” went on the hearty voice, “is the British-American War Bride Improvement Association. BAWBIA, for short. My name is Mrs. Lemuel Barrelforth, president of the New Jersey Chapter. Welcome to the United States.”
“Thank you,” said Sybil.
“Who is it?” asked Tim. Sybil shushed him.
“It has been called to our attention,” the voice of Mrs. Lemuel Barrelforth boomed on, “that you and your veteran husband are without a place to live. In other words, you need improvement. That’s what the Association’s for.”
“You mean you’ll help us find a place?”
“I certainly do. And I’m pretty sure we can.”
“But how marvelous!” cried Sybil. “And how kind!”
She paused a moment. “Was it, by any chance,” she asked, “a Mr. Magruder who brought us to your attention?”
“The matter was taken up with the Central Welcoming Committee,” replied Mrs. Barrelforth, “and turned over by them to the New Jersey Chapter. New Jersey, you know, is the Garden State, and where there are gardens, there are houses. Stands to reason, doesn’t it?”
“I suppose it does,” said Sybil.
“What the heck’s this all about?” asked Tim. “Something about a house?” Sybil nodded.
“To get down to cases,” Mrs. Barrelforth went briskly on, “we’ve already got a house lined up for you. It’s got its drawbacks, but it’s also got a roof and four walls. Shall I describe it more fully?”
“I think you’d better speak to my husband,” said Sybil. “Right-o,” said Mrs. Barrelforth. “Put him on.”
Sybil put her hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s something called the British-American War Brides Improvement Association,” she said to Tim. “And apparently, they’ve found us a house.”
“It must be a gag,” said Tim. “Things like this don’t happen.”
“Let’s not look it in the mouth,” said Sybil, handing him the phone.
She lit a cigarette and perched on the arm of the sofa while Tim talked. Or rather, while Tim listened. He said “Uh-uh” and “I see” several times while a pleased incredulity gathered in his face. “Gosh,” he said finally, “it certainly sounds good to me. Can I call you back?… Oh. Right away, eh? Do you mind hanging on a minute?”
He covered the mouthpiece and turned to Sybil, looking dazed but delighted. “It seems to be on the level,” he said. “The house is in a place called Merry Point, which is a seaside resort on the Jersey coast. That’s the big drawback.”
“Why?” asked Sybil. “What’s wrong with a seaside resort?”
“Because in winter a Jersey seaside resort is just about as jolly as Wuthering Heights. It’ll be bleak, windswept, cold, and lonelier than Mount Everest.”
“We’ll have each other,” said Sybil.
“I’ll do my best to be entertaining,” said Tim. “Card tricks and so on.”
“Will there be four for bridge?”
“I don’t know. From what I gather, the only inhabitants outside of us will be what the summer people call natives.”
“Natives? You mean redskins?”
“They might as well be, I’m afraid, as far as bridge goes.”
“How far away is it?” asked Sybil.
“About seventy-five miles. We could get in to the city now and again. We’ll have the car, and there’s a town with a railroad station about five miles away. So we won’t be completely cut off.”
“I should think we could stick it,” said Sybil. “What about the house itself?”
“The house, apparently, is very comfortable. One of these big old-fashioned summer places, with the added advantage of an oil burner.”
“Furnished?”
“Yep. Everything provided.”
“Is it awfully dear?”
“No. It seems this war bride outfit stakes out claims to these houses and then rents ’em on a pay-what-you-can basis.”
“Blimey,” said Sybil. “We’d better jump at it.”
“That’s what I think,” said Tim. He said as much, gratefully, into the phone, then covered the mouthpiece again. “We can have a look at the place this afternoon,” he told Sybil. “And if we like it, we can move right in. Everything’ll be ready. Seems there’s a handy man who looks after the house and he’ll have the lights and water turned on and a few supplies laid in.”
“Things are moving a little bit fast for me,” said Sybil, “but I suppose we’d better do it. Ah, you Americans.”
“This is pretty darned fast even for, ah, us Americans,” said Tim. “It’s also pretty darned lucky. Shall I tell her okay?”
Sybil nodded. For a moment, Tim thought he saw a faint shadow of disappointment in her face, but it passed so quickly that he couldn’t be sure. He told Mrs. Barrelforth okay.
“What’s next on the agenda?” asked Sybil. “Breakfast, I hope.”
“I knew there was something I wanted,” said Tim. “Breakfast, by all means. I’ll phone down.”
“And the afternoon papers,” said Sybil. “I’m dying to read about the shooting.”
“The shooting?” repeated Tim vaguely. Then he sat up straight in his chair beside the phone. “Good God,” he exclaimed, “I’d forgotten!”
“About the shooting?”
“Shooting, my eye. About you being Lady Sybil.”
“Oh,” said Sybil, “that.” She wrinkled her nose. “I wish you had forgotten that.”
“I’ll try to,” said Tim. “Otherwise, I won’t dare kiss you without tugging at my forelock.”
“Let’s see if you won’t,” said Sybil.
* * * *
Breakfast appeared, eventually, under gleaming dish covers among white napery along with the newspapers, neatly folded. Sybil spread one out beside her on the sofa. “Tim!” she exclaimed. “Look.”
Tim was concentrating on tomato juice. “Something about the shooting?” he asked.
“Something about it! It’s in headlines a mile high. Red ones, too. Listen: Two Die As Gaming War Flares. Socialites
Terrorized As Mobsters Invade Breeze Club.”
“Gosh,” said Tim. Then he chuckled. “I suppose you’ll always be convinced now that gangsters roam the city streets.”
“Don’t they?”
“Man and boy, I never saw one. And you walk into a mob war your first night.”
“And loved it,” said Sybil. “Shall I read you some more?”
“Go ahead,” said Tim. “It sounds less sordid with your accent.”
“Sordid? With everybody in evening clothes? It was a very dressy affair.” She cleared her throat and read aloud: “Notables of the social and theatrical worlds scattered in panic early this morning when a band of gunmen forced their way into the notorious Breeze Club and staged a gun battle that left two of the participants dead on the red-carpeted floor.
“Police were convinced that the fray was connected with the efforts of Frank L. (Frankie) Heinkel, a big-time gambling operator of pre-war days, to obtain domination of the reviving underworld. Heinkel, whose career dates back to the Prohibition era, kept out of the public eye during the war, but there have been recent reports that he was trying to rebuild his organization.
“One of the slain men was identified as Louis Something I Can’t Pronounce, who was definitely linked by police to the Heinkel outfit. The other was Charles Something, a Breeze Club employee. The rest of the reputed Heinkel henchmen had made their escape by the time police reached the scene, and no arrests were made in connection with the actual shooting.
“However, police took into custody Jacob Burlick, manager of the Breeze Club—” Sybil looked up. “Why, that must be our friend, Jake,” she said.
“No friend of mine,” said Tim.
“… and chargcd him,” Sybil read on, “with operating an illicit gambling establishment. The club itself, which has long enjoyed a certain amount of immunity largely due to its inclusion of leading political figures among its patrons, was padlocked.”
“Then,” said Sybil, “there’s a long list of all the important people who were on hand. Very impressive. No mention of us, though.”
“Just as well,” said Tim. “Hardly the sort of thing an aspiring professor wants bruited about.”
“Mmm,” said Sybil, “it would have been nice to send back to England.”
“Is there anything about What’s-His-Name? Magruder?”
“Not so far.” She ran her eye down the column. “Oh,” she said suddenly.
“Find something?”
She didn’t answer for a moment. Then she handed him the paper and pointed to a paragraph well down in the story. “Read it yourself,” she said. “I don’t feel like it.” Tim read the paragraph:
“Police refused to confirm the report that a well-known figure in gambling circles was the target of the Heinkel invasion, nor would they answer questions speculating as to the identity of such a person. However, it was reliably learned that Samuel H. Magruder, so-called gentleman gambler of pre-war days, slipped out of the Breeze Club just before the shooting started. Magruder, known among gamesters as Silky Sam, was never in the toils of the law, but he is definitely known to have had dealings with Heinkel before the war. There have also been reports of subsequent bad blood between them. An unidentified couple was said to have ducked out of the club with Magruder.”
“Well,” said Tim.
Sybil was silent, and he noticed, then, that her lips were white and trembling.
“Don’t let it upset you, honey,” he said.
“I’m trying not to,” said Sybil.
He patted her hand. “I know it must be a shock to learn that your father’s supposed friend was a professional gambler.”
“Supposed friend?” Sybil’s voice was suddenly chilly. “I shouldn’t say so. Besides, he was a gentleman gambler. It says he was right there in the paper.”
“How did your father make out with him? I believe you said they played bridge a good deal.”
“I’ve no idea. And it wouldn’t have mattered to Father. He played because he loved the game. Furthermore, I want to see Mr. Magruder again.”
“All right,” said Tim. He spoke with forced easiness because he didn’t want Sybil to see his disapproval. “You have his number, haven’t you?”
“I seem to have lost it.”
“Wasn’t it in your bag?”
“It was. I’m afraid it fell out when I was chipping in on the cab fare home.”
“Maybe he’s listed in the phone book.”
“No. I looked.”
“I always mistrust people who aren’t in phone books,” said Tim. “Private phone numbers and foreign titles are considered very mistrustful in my provincial circles.” He grinned, but Sybil’s answering smile was distraught.
“Tim,” she said, “I wonder if our friend Jake would know how to reach him?”
“Must you keep referring to Jake as our friend?”
“He grows on me in retrospect. I wonder if the police would let us talk to him.”
“They might later on. I hardly think today would be the ideal time to ask them.”
Sybil thoughtfully buttered a piece of toast. “I suppose that’s true,” she said.
“Besides,” added Tim, “we ought to be setting out for this dream cottage of ours pretty soon. I’d like to see it by daylight.”
“I’d make a little joke about a daydream cottage,” said Sybil, “if I weren’t so anxious about Mr. Magruder. Aside from everything else, we owe the dream cottage to him.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Don’t you?”
“I don’t know,” said Tim. “This war bride outfit sounds awfully respectable.”
“And you don’t think my father’s friends are respectable?”
“Well,” said Tim, “his daughter was awfully forward for a lance corporal.”
“Don’t try to mollify me,” said Sybil, looking mollified. “Besides, how else could the war bride people have found out about us?”
“I’ve been running an ad in the papers. Veteran needs roof for British bride. They might have seen that.”
“Darling,” said Sybil, “you don’t mind if I go on thinking Mr. Magruder arranged it for us, do you?”
“No, dear.”
“And you won’t be stuffy about me wanting to see him again?”
“No, dear.”
“Goodness, you’re being tractable,” said Sybil. “May I have a mink coat?”
“You could,” said Tim, “if there weren’t such a wide distinction between a Ph.D. and a John D.”
Chapter Five
Banshee Castle
It was after three when they finally set out for Merry Point. In the mists that lay over the Jersey flats as they emerged from the Holland Tunnel, there hung already a desolate sense of approaching nightfall. Oncoming cars mostly had their lights on, yellow blobs bursting through the grayness, their wheels whirring shrilly on smooth wetness as they passed. Traffic moved swiftly, weaving, jockeying for advantage at stop signals, as though everyone wanted to get the journey over with, to get out of the cold fog and into warmth and cheer.
“Reminds me of Liverpool,” shivered Sybil.
“I have a feeling,” said Tim, “that Liverpool will seem like the Riviera to you when we get to Merry Point.”
When they left the main highway and swung toward the coast, the sense of desolation deepened with the fading afternoon. Traffic thinned out, a relief at first, then dwindled to the point of loneliness. Roadside stands were shuttered, dine-and-dance places stood dark and gaunt. Signs advertising boating, bathing, and bungalows rattled mockingly in the wind. Occasionally they passed a shabby bar-and-grill or hamburger joint with its neon lights lit, but such forlorn bravado merely emphasized the general abandonment.
Even these relics of quasi civilization petered out as they pushed south into the pine belt. Then th
e road ran somberly straight through endless tracts of pine trees, murmuring in their own funereal twilight. Mile after mile, the dark green wall rustled past.
Once a lithe, brown shape bounded across the road in front of them, and Tim said, “Must remind you of the family deer park.”
“Was that really a deer?” asked Sybil.
“Sure.”
“Well,” said Sybil, “if my family ever had a deer park like this, I’m glad they didn’t tell me about it.”
Suddenly the glow of lights appeared in the distance and, almost before they knew it, they were coming into what, according to the map, must be the town with the railroad station five miles from Merry Point. Bankville, it was called, and it was a relief to enter its bright main street after the brooding woodland. Behind the lines of parked cars, shop windows were cheerful, bulbs glittered around the marquee of a movie house, potted shrubs lent wistful elegance to a little red-brick hotel.
“I suppose this’ll be our shopping and whoopee center,” said Tim.
“We just passed a likely-looking pub,” said Sybil. “I might add, why?”
“Because we probably wouldn’t leave it,” said Tim.
“Who wants to leave it?” asked Sybil.
“Get thee behind me,” said Tim. But, having put the pub and the lights of Bankville behind him, he had to admit to himself that a spot of Dutch courage might have helped matters. Again the walls of pine closed in, fragrant and oppressive. It was decidedly dark by now, and the road that branched off to Merry Point was narrow and elusive in the mists swirling in front of the headlights. Among the trees, dark and shiny patches of water began to appear. Then, abruptly, the woodland ended, and the harsh, salt smell of marsh and sea rushed over them.
They emerged onto a flatland of stunted trees and waving reeds, palely illumined by a white and mist-hung moon just rising from a black expanse that had to be the ocean. On the sandspit that rose slightly from the marshland, rows of houses were dimly silhouetted like a village of cardboard.
