I looked along the candle-lighted table with its ornate Georgian silver and lace-and-linen cloth until my eye came to rest upon Virginia Bushrod. Latest of the arrivals at the Merridews’ house party, she was also probably the most interesting. You could not judge her casually. A pale, white skin, lightly tanned on beach and tennis court, amber eyes, shading to brown, hair waved and parted in dull-gold ringlets, curled closely on the back curve of her small and shapely head. The dead-white gown she wore set off her bright, blond beauty, and a pair of heavy gold bracelets, tight-clasped about her wrists, drew notice to her long and slender hands.
They were extraordinary hands. Not large, not small, their shapeliness was statuesque, their form as perfect as a sculptor’s dream, with straight and supple fingers and a marvelous grace of movement expressive as a spoken word. Almost, it seemed to me as she raised the spun-glass Venetian goblet of Madeira, her hands possessed an independent being of their own; a consciousness of volition which made them not a mere part of her body, but something allied with, though not subservient to it.
“Her hands are rarely beautiful,” I commented. “What is she, an actress? A dancer, perhaps—”
“No,” said Miss Travers, and her voice sank to a confidential whisper, “but a year ago we thought she’d be a hopeless cripple all her life. Both hands were mangled in a motor accident.”
“But that’s impossible,” I scoffed, watching Miss Bushrod’s graceful gestures with renewed interest. “I’ve been in medicine almost forty years; no hands which suffered even minor injuries could be as flexible as hers.”
“They did, just the same,” Miss Travers answered stubbornly. “The doctors gave up hope, and said they’d have to amputate them at the wrist; her father told me so. Virginia gave Phil Connor back his ring and was ready to resign herself to a life of helplessness when—”
“Yes?” I smiled as she came to a halt. Lay versions of medical miracles are always interesting to the doctor, and I was anxious to learn how the “hopeless cripple” had been restored to perfect manual health.
“Doctor Augensburg came over here, and they went to him as a last resort—”
“I should think they would,” I interjected. Augensburg, half charlatan, a quarter quack, perhaps a quarter genius, was a fair example of the army of medical marvels which periodically invades America. He was clever as a workman, we all admitted that, and in some operations of glandular transplanting had achieved remarkable results, but when he came out with the statement that he had discovered how to make synthetic flesh for surgical repair work the medical societies demanded that he prove his claims or stop the grand triumphal tour that he was making of his clinics. He failed to satisfy his critics and returned to Austria several thousand dollars richer, but completely discredited in medical circles.
“Well, they went to him,” Miss Travers answered shortly, “and you see what he accomplished. He—”
Her argument was stilled as Jane Merridew, who acted as her brother’s hostess, gave the signal for the ladies to retire.
CHINESE LANTERNS, ORANGE, RED, pale jade, blossomed in the darkness of the garden. Farther off the vine-draped wall cast its shadow over close-clipped grass and winding flagstone paths; there were rustic benches underneath the ginkgo trees; a drinking-fountain fashioned like a lion’s head with water flushing in an arc between its gaping jaws sent a musically mellow tinkle through the still night air. I sighed regretfully as I followed the men into the billiard room. The mid-Victorian custom of enforced separation of men and women for a period after dinner had always seemed to me a relic of the past we might well stuff and donate to a museum.
“Anybody want to play?” Ralph Chapman took a cue down from the rack and rubbed its felt-tipped end with chalk. “Spot you a dollar a shot, Phil; are you on?”
“Not I,” the youth addressed responded with a grin. “You took me into camp last time. Go get another victim.”
Young Chapman set the balls out on the table, surveyed them critically a moment, then, taking careful aim, made a three-cushion shot, and followed it with another which bunched the gleaming spheres together in one corner.
De Grandin raised a slender, well-manicured hand and patted back a yawn. “Mon Dieu,” he moaned to me, “it is sad! Outside there is the beauty of the night and of the ladies, and we, pardieu, we sit and swelter here like a pack of sacré fools while he knocks about the relics of departed elephants. Me, I have enough. I go to join the ladies, if—”
“May I try, Ralph?” Glowing in defiant gayety, lips wine-moist, eyes bright and wandering, Virginia Bushrod poised upon the threshold of the wide French window which let out on the terrace. “I’ve never played,” she added, “but tonight I feel an urge for billiards; I’ve got a yen to knock the little balls around, if you know what I mean.”
“Never too late to learn,” young Chapman grinned at her. “I’m game; I’ll pay you five for every kiss you make.”
“Kiss?” she echoed, puzzled.
“Kiss is right, infant. A purely technical term. See, here’s a kiss.” Deftly he brought the balls together in light contact, paused a moment, then with a quick flick of his cue repeated the maneuver twice, thrice, four times.
“O-oh, I see.” Her eyes were bright with something more than mere anticipation. It seemed to me they shone like those of a drunkard long deprived of drink when liquor is at last accessible.
“See here, you take the stick like this,” began young Chapman, but the girl brushed past him, took a cue down from the rack and deftly rubbed the cube of chalk against its tip.
She leant across the table, her smooth brow furrowed in a frown of concentration, thrust the cue back and forth across her fingers tentatively; then swiftly as a striking snake the smooth wood darted forward. Around the table went the cue ball, taking the cushions at a perfect angle. Click-click, the ivory spheres kissed each other softly, then settled down a little way apart, their polished surfaces reflecting the bright lamplight.
“Bravo, Virginia!” cried Ralph Chapman. “I couldn’t have made a better shot myself. Talk about beginner’s luck!”
The girl, apparently, was deaf. Eyes shining, lips compressed, she leant across the table, darted forth her cue and made an expert draw shot, gathering the balls together as though they had been magnetized. Then followed a quick volley shot, the cue ball circled round the table, spun sharply in reverse English and kissed the other balls with so light an impact that the click was hardly audible.
Again and again she shot, driving her cue ball relentlessly home against the others, never missing, making the most difficult shots with the sure precision betokening long mastery of the game. Fever-eyed, white-faced, oblivious to all about her, she made shot follow shot until a hundred marks had been run off, and it seemed to me that she was sating some fierce craving as she bent above the table, cue in hand.
Phil Connor, her young fiancé, was as puzzled as the rest, watching her inimitable skill first with wonder, then with something like stark fear. At last: “Virginia!” he cried, seizing her by the elbow and fairly dragging her away. “Virginia honey, you’ve played enough.”
“Oh?” An oddly puzzled look gathered between her slim brows, and she shook her head from side to side, like a waking sleeper who would clear his brain of dreams. “Did I do well?”
“Very well. Very well, indeed, for one who never played the game before,” Ralph Chapman told her coldly.
“But, Ralph, I never did,” she answered. “Honestly, I never had a billiard cue in my hands before tonight!”
“No?” his tone was icy. “If this is your idea of being sporting—”
“See here, Chapman,” young Connor’s Irish blood was quick to take the implication up. “Ginnie’s telling you the truth. There isn’t a billiard table in her father’s house or mine, there wasn’t any in her sorority house; she’s never had a chance to play. Don’t you think I’d know it if she liked the game? I tell you it was luck; sheer luck—”
“At five dollars pe
r lucky point?”
“Word of honor, Ralph,” Miss Bushrod told him, “I—”
“You’ll find my honor good as yours,” he broke in frigidly. “I’ll hand you my check for five hundred dollars in the morning, Miss—”
“Why, you dam’ rotten swine, I’ll break your neck!” Phil Connor leaped across the room, eyes flashing, face aflame; but:
“Gentlemen, this has gone quite far enough,” Colonel Merridew’s cold voice cut through the quarrel. “Chapman, apologize to Virginia. Connor, put your hands down!” Then, as the apology was grudgingly given:
“Shall we join the ladies, gentlemen?” asked Colonel Merridew.
“IT WAS A RATHER shoddy trick that Bushrod girl played on young Chapman, wasn’t it?” I asked de Grandin as we prepared for bed. “He’s a conceited pup, I grant, vain of his skill at billiards, and all that; but for her to play the wide-eyed innocent and let him offer her five dollars a point, when she’s really in the championship class—well, it didn’t seem quite sporting.”
The little Frenchman eyed the glowing tip of his cigar in thoughtful silence for a moment; then: “I am not quite persuaded,” he replied. “Mademoiselle Bushrod—mon Dieu, what a name!—appeared as much surprised as any—”
“But, man, did you notice her dexterity?” I cut in petulantly. “That manual skill—”
“Précisément,” he nodded, “that manual skill, my friend. Did it not seem to you her hands betrayed a—how do you say him?—a knowledge which she herself did not possess?”
I shook my head in sheer exasperation. “You’re raving,” I assured him. “How the deuce—”
“Tiens, the devil knows, perhaps, not I,” he broke in with a shrug. “Come, let us take a drink and go to bed.”
He raised the chromium carafe from the bedside table, and: “Name of a devil!” he exclaimed in disappointment. “The thing holds water!”
“Of course it does, idiot,” I assured him with a laugh. “You wanted a drink, didn’t you?”
“A drink, but not a bath, cordieu. Come, species of an elephant, arise and follow me.”
“Where?” I demanded.
“To find a drink; where else?” he answered with a grin. “There is a tray with glasses on the sideboard of the dining-room.”
The big old house was silent as a tomb as we crept down the stairs, slipped silently along the central hall and headed for the dining-room. De Grandin paused abruptly, hand upraised, and, obedient to his signal, I, too, halted.
In the music room which opened from the hallway on the right, someone was playing the piano, very softly, with a beautiful harpsichord touch. The lovely, haunting sadness of the Londonderry Air came to us as we listened, the gently struck notes falling, one upon another, like water dripping from a lichened rock into a quiet woodland pool.
“Exquisite!” I began, but the Frenchman’s hand raised to his lips cut short my commendation as he motioned me to follow.
Virginia Bushrod sat before the instrument, her long, slim fingers flitting fitfully across the ivory keys, the wide gold bracelets on her wrists agleam. Black-lace pajamas, less concealing than a whorl of smoke, revealed the gracious curves of her young body, with a subtle glow, as wisps of banking storm-clouds dim, but do not hide, the moon.
As we paused beside the door the sweet melody she played gave way to something else, a lecherous, macabre theme in C sharp minor, seductive and compelling, but revolting as a painted corpse already touched with putrefaction. Swaying gently to the rhythm of the music, she turned her face toward us, and in the wavering candlelight I saw her eyes were closed, long lashes sweeping against pale-gold cheeks, smooth, fine-veined eyelids gently lowered.
I turned to Jules de Grandin with a soundless question, and he nodded affirmation. “But yes, she sleeps, my friend,” he whispered. “Do not waken her.”
The music slowly sank to a thin echo, and Miss Bushrod rose with lowered lids and gently parted lips, swayed uncertainly a moment, then passed us with a slow and gliding step, her slim, bare feet soundless as a draft of air upon the rug-strewn door. Slowly she climbed the stairs, one shapely hand upon the carven balustrade, the dim night-light which burned up in the gallery picking little points of brightness from her golden wristlets.
“Probably neurotic,” I murmured as I watched her turn left and disappear around the pillar at the stairhead. “They say she underwent an operation on her hands last year, and—”
De Grandin motioned me to silence as he teased the needle-points of his mustache between his thumb and finger. “Quite so,” he said at length. “Precisely, exactly. One wonders.”
“Wonders what?” I asked.
“How long we have to wait until we get that drink,” he answered with a grin. “Come, let us get it quickly, or we need not go to bed at all.”
BREAKFAST WAS NO FORMAL rite at Merridews’. A long buffet, ready-set with food and gay with raffia-bound Italian glassware, Mexican pottery and bowls, daisies, chicory and Queen Anne’s lace, stood upon the terrace, while little tables, spread with bright-checked peasant linen, dotted the brick paving.
De Grandin piled a platter high with food, poured himself a cup of coffee and set to work upon the viands. “Tell me, good Friend Trowbridge,” he commanded as he returned from the sideboard with a second generous helping of steamed sole, “what did you note, if anything, when we caught Mademoiselle Bushrod at her midnight music?”
I eyed him speculatively. When Jules de Grandin asked me questions such as that they were not based on idle curiosity.
“You’re on the trail of something?” I evaded.
He spread his hands before him, imitating someone groping in the dark. “I think I am,” he answered slowly, “but I can not say of what. Come, tell me what you noticed, if you please.”
“Well,” I bent my brows in concentration, “first of all, I’d say that she was sleep-walking; that she had no more idea what she was doing than I have what she’s doing now.”
He nodded acquiescence. “Precisely,” he agreed. “And—”
“Then, I was struck by the fact that though she had apparently risen from bed, she had those thick, barbaric bracelets on her wrists.”
“Holà, touché,” he cried delightedly, “you have put the finger on it. It was unusual, was it not?”
“I’d say so,” I agreed. “Then—why, bless my soul!” I paused in something like dismay as sudden recollection came to me.
He watched me narrowly, eyebrows raised.
“She turned the wrong way at the stairhead,” I exclaimed. “The women’s rooms are to the right of the stairs, the men’s to the left. Don’t you remember, Colonel Merridew said—”
“I remember perfectly,” he cut in. “I also saw her turn that way, but preferred to have corroboration—”
The clatter of hoofs on the driveway cut short his remarks, and a moment later Virginia Bushrod joined us on the terrace. She looked younger and much smaller in her riding-clothes. White breeches, obviously of London cut, were topped by a white-linen peasant blouse, gay with wool embroidery, open at the throat, but with sleeves which came down to the gauntlets of her doeskin gloves. For belt she wore a brilliant knit-silk Roman scarf, and another like it knotted turbanwise around her head, its glowing reds and greens and yellows bringing out the charming colors of her vivid, laughing face. Black boots, reaching to the knee, encased her high-arched, narrow feet and slender legs.
“Hello, sleepy-heads,” she greeted as she sat down at our table, “where’ve you been all morning? Making up for night calls and such things? I’ve been up for hours—and I’m famished.”
“What will it be, Mademoiselle?” de Grandin asked as he leaped up nimbly to serve her; “a little toast, perhaps—a bowl of cereal?”
“Not for me,” she denied, laughing. “I want a man’s-sized breakfast. I’ve ridden fifteen miles this morning.”
As she peeled off her white-chamois gloves I caught the glint of golden bracelets on her wrists.
“We e
njoyed your playing, Mademoiselle,” the little Frenchman told her smilingly as, obedient to her orders, he deposited a “man’s-sized” plate of food before her. “The Londonderry Air is beautiful, but that other composition which you played with such verve, such feeling, it was—”
“Is this a joke?” Miss Bushrod looked at him through narrowed eyes. “If it is, I can’t quite see the humor.”
“Mais non, it is no jest, I do assure you. Music is one of my passions, and although I play but poorly, I enjoy to hear it. Your talent—”
“Then you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” the girl cut in, a quick flush mounting to her face. “I’m one of those unfortunates who’s utterly tone-deaf; I—”
“That’s right,” Christine Travers, virtually naked in a sun-back tennis blouse and shorts, emerged through the French windows and dropped down beside Miss Bushrod. “Ginnie’s tone-deaf as an oyster. Couldn’t carry a tune in a market basket.”
“But, my dear young lady,” I began, when a vicious kick upon my shin cut my protest short.
“Yes?” Miss Travers smiled her slow, somewhat malicious smile. “Were you going to tell Ginnie you’ve a remedy for tone-deafness, Doctor? Something nice and mild, like arsenic, or corrosive sublimate? If you’ll just tell her how to take it, I’ll see—”
“Doctar Trowbridge, Doctar de Grannun, suh, come quick, fo’ de Lawd’s sake!” Noah Blackstone, Merridew’s stout colored butler, burst upon the terrace, his usual serene aplomb torn to shreds by sudden terror. “Come runnin’, gen’lemens, sumpin awful’s happened!”
“Eh, what is it you say?” de Grandin asked. “Something awful—”
“Yas, suh; sumpin dreadful. Mistu—Mistu Chapman’s done been kilt. Sumbuddy’s murdered ‘im. He’s daid!”
“Dead? Ralph Chapman?” Horror mounted in Virginia Bushrod’s amber eyes as she seemed to look past us at some scene of stark tragedy. “Ralph Chapman—dead!” Unthinkingly, mechanically as another woman might have wrung her handkerchief in similar circumstances, she took the heavy silver fork with which she had been eating and bent it in a spiral.
The Best of Jules de Grandin Page 62
