Mr. Nipperson’s lips formed the word ‘no,’ but it died there without utterance. He stared after Bill for a little time, while his eyes grew brighter. Phrases were tumbling about confusedly in his mind. Perfectly selected phrases which fell into sentence patterns to fit leaded type.
He drew a pad toward him and started to write.
CHAPTER NINE
THE FIRST MISTAKE
Vergie awoke that morning with an indefinable feeling of happiness casting its warm glow over her. She lay in bed for a time and savored the feeling. The sun streamed in through the open window and lay brightly across the foot of the bed. A fresh breeze sweeping in from the sea was invigorating.
For this morning was unlike other mornings. She was not accustomed to awaking in a jubilant mood. As far back as she could remember, awaking had been a dreary, uninspired business.
Something about the salt air, she reflected. Something about the attitude of the two children who had intrigued her so the preceding evening. She had gone to sleep with a gentle smile on her lips and a queerly distorted hope in her heart.
They had accepted her. She tried to reason it out this morning. Glancing across the room, her gaze fell upon the lovely negligee where she had hung it carefully when retiring. She studied it lingeringly. Could a single filmy garment make so much difference? Tuck had been cool to her at the dinner table. Had appraised her distantly, then turned away.
It must have been the negligee, Vergie decided. Perhaps clothes are important. She struggled to think so. She wanted to believe she would be as others if she adopted their style of dress. Still, it hardly seemed that the negligee would have brought something akin to adoration to the girl’s eyes. Perhaps there was something else. For she was positive she was not mistaken.
She laughed as she leaped up and ran across the streaming sunlight to the old-fashioned bathroom. Her heart was exultant, and she refused to delve too deeply into motives.
At the breakfast table Mrs. Tucker sat companionably by and enlivened the moments with sprightly bits of gossip to which Vergie paid no heed. Mrs. Tucker was a comforting hostess. She demanded no attention. She talked. One could listen if one desired, or one could busy oneself with private thoughts. Mrs. Tucker’s attitude seemed to be that she was doing her part by talking. If her interlocuter failed to derive enjoyment from the unceasing flow of words, that was not Mrs. Tucker’s affair.
Vergie escaped from her after breakfast, and went to wander in the garden and let the sun shine in her face.
She had just found a rustic seat which looked over a tumbled mass of zinnias when Bill turned in the front gate, and came directly toward her when he saw her sitting alone in the garden.
Vergie looked at him from beneath discreetly lowered lashes until he was close. Her pulse accelerated a little, and the jubilant mood of the early morning returned.
He stopped before her and tossed his hat on the grass. Coatless, he appeared lithe and youthful. Vergie instinctively arose as he bowed:
“Miss Whidby, I believe,” he said. There was something intimate in his smile. Vergie’s hand started to her breast, and she dropped it to her side with a deliberate effort of will.
“Sit down,” Bill said. “I’m Bill Porter, city editor of the Daily Argus.”
Vergie murmured something as she sat down. She folded her hands in her lap.
Bill studied her admiringly for a moment. “Some pose,” he chuckled. “You belong in a garden. And you do the garden stuff swell.”
Vergie didn’t say anything. She didn’t know what he was talking about.
Bill was a little bit perturbed when he saw no response in her eyes. A tough customer, he decided. He sat beside her and spoke ingratiatingly:
“We’ve got you dead to rights, Miss Ware. I’m not even asking any questions. The glasses help some, but you can’t hope to hide Valerie Ware from her public.”
Vergie continued to gaze at him. Her body had stiffened, but she made no other show of emotion. She hadn’t the slightest idea what he was talking about. A dreadful suspicion entered her mind. Perhaps the man was mad!
Decidedly a tough customer, Bill thought. Cool as a cucumber. Didn’t betray herself by as much as the flicker of an eyelash. His admiration for her mounted.
“You see how it is?” Bill spread out his hands ineffectually. “Of course, we respect your wishes and all that, but we, too, have a certain duty toward our readers. Puts us in rather an awkward predicament, don’t you see?”
“No.” Vergie uttered the word through stiff lips. She fought back a desire to scream and run. He must be perfectly harmless, she thought. Perhaps just the village idiot whom people knew and tolerated.
Bill was puzzled and angered.
“See here,” he protested. “You needn’t look at me like that. After all, I’m just doing my job. And I think we’re giving you a mighty square deal too. You know, we could have run the story without coming to you first. We appreciate your attitude, but we ask you to give us the same consideration.”
Vergie edged away from him in alarm. His voice had suddenly become hard. Perhaps he wasn’t harmless.
Just then Tuck came through the gate. She saw them sitting together in the garden, and came swiftly toward them.
“Morning, Bill,” she called. “What’s the city editor of our great daily doing down in my garden this early in the morning? And good morning, Miss Whidby,” she went on vivaciously without giving Bill time to reply.
Vergie stared at Tuck in amazement. She treated the strange man as though he were perfectly normal. She felt faint as she looked back at Bill.
He was making a disgusted face at Tuck. “Go roll your hoop,” he growled. “I’m here on business.”
Tuck was disconcerted. She wondered if the newspaper could possibly have learned the secret she and Nip had thought their own.
“Beat it,” Bill pleaded. He winked at her and screwed up his face meaningly. Tuck, very wisely, decided to retire and think the matter over.
“All right,” she said. “But don’t tell him anything you don’t want printed, Miss Whidby. He’s a nice fellow, but absolutely conscienceless when it comes to anything connected with his silly old newspaper.”
Vergie stared at Bill with a puzzled frown as Tuck moved away. “Are you … really … a newspaper man?”
“Sorry I don’t look the part.” Bill grinned amiably. “You don’t either,” he went on, chuckling. “How on earth have you learned so much in the few short years you’ve adorned this earth?”
Vergie drew in her breath sharply and blushed “Please,” she murmured, “I haven’t the tiniest idea what you mean.”
“Oh no? Still keeping up the old incog, eh? You know what. I mean all right. Anyone who could write Elixir of Sin knows pretty damn well the answer to all the questions.”
Vergie gasped and drew away from him. Her face was very white. “Why … why …” she gasped. “You don’t think …?”
“No,” Bill said cheerfully. “I don’t think anything. I know. And your grandstanding is okay, only it doesn’t buy you anything with me. You ought to be on the stage though, instead of writing books,” he continued. “If I didn’t know I had the straight goods, I’ll be damned if you wouldn’t have fooled me.”
“I … I …” Vergie faltered. “It’s a terrible mistake!”
“Take it easy,” Bill advised. “Save the histrionics for some time when they’ll be appreciated. Look. I’ll tell you exactly how we know you’re Valerie Ware. That’ll save you all the trouble of denying it. We can talk business after you find out the game’s up.”
He went on, then, relating concisely all the facts which Mr. Nipperson had given him. He had worked it all out in his mind on the way over, and he changed the telling to present the facts as though they had been discovered by a singularly alert and adroit reporter.
“… That’s the dope. Pete Crane did a swell job of sleuthing. He got some of it from Tuck, but don’t blame her because she didn’t have any idea what it w
as all about. Now,” he ended, “do you still deny that you’re Valerie Ware?”
Vergie had listened to him with rising horror. She understood everything. She wanted to laugh wildly, and she had to fight back a thrill of pride in the realization that he truly believed her to be Valerie Ware.
“It’s all a mistake,” she said.
“So you’re a bitter-ender? All right,” Bill shrugged. He made as though he would rise. “You can deny it publicly,” he said stiffly.
“No!” Vergie grasped his arm. “You mustn’t print that foolish story,” she protested. “It’s all a mistake. I can explain everything.”
“I’m not asking for explanations,” Bill said. “I’m sure enough of my facts to take a chance on printing them. There’s only one alternative.”
“But this is positively insane,” Vergie said. “I tell you I’m not Valerie Ware. I never saw Valerie Ware.”
“Okay, okay.” Bill grinned. “We’ll let that pass. Have it your own way. You’re Miss Whidby from Podunk Corners. There’s no use arguing about that. We’ll put it this way: There’s one way you can keep the story out of the paper.” He leaned forward and held her eyes steadily. He was bluffing, and he had to make her believe he wasn’t bluffing.
“We’ll drop the story. Forget it,” he told her. “If you’ll agree to give us a weekly column for every Sunday you’re in St. Augustine. We’ll pay for it at straight space rates, and you can write any darn thing you please …”
Vergie started violently and opened her lips to speak, but Bill held up his hand.
“Wait a minute,” he begged. “You don’t even have to sign your own name. Your initials will do. And you can write anything you damn please … just so it’s something along the lines the readers expect from the author of Penthouse Passion and Elixir of Sin.”
“But I’ve told you I’m not Valerie Ware,” Vergie wailed.
“And I said all right. You’re not. We won’t argue. You’re Vergie Whidby. I don’t want to call you a liar point-blank.” Bill assumed a virtuous expression. “I’m just asking you to write us a column along the lines Valerie Ware might write if you were she, or if she were you, or whatever way you want to put it.”
“Whatever way I want to put it,” she laughed. Her thoughts were gradually returning to normal. There was no doubt that the young man’s conviction of her identity was unshakable.
“You’ve got me blathering,” Bill confessed bitterly. “Next thing, I’ll be talking in an unknown tongue. How about it? Is it a deal?”
“I don’t see how on earth I could write anything you’d want,” she said anxiously.
“We’ll worry about that,” he said. “Suppose you head your column something about youthful morals. You’ve got a hundred good topics in any of your books. The double standard. The modern habit of young girls carrying forbidden devices in their vanities. Anything.”
Vergie blushed. She would have turned and run from the garden had she even vaguely understood Bill’s allusion to the modern girl’s vanity. But she was not certain what he meant by forbidden devices, so she only blushed faintly.
A daring idea was taking possession of her. It wouldn’t really be wrong, she argued. She had told him she wasn’t Valerie Ware, and he had admitted himself satisfied. He simply asked her to sign the initials V. W. Her own initials.
Bill saw signs of weakening in her attitude. He struck the crowning blow while the iron was hot.
“I don’t like to offer this in the way of coercion,” he said earnestly. “Rather, let’s put it this way. We don’t wish to print anything to embarrass you. On the other hand, we stand to lose a swell scoop if we kill the story. It’ll be only fair for you to do us a favor in return. If you’ll agree to write the column for us … I promise to kill the story.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then the story goes,” Bill lied. “It’s all set up for the next edition.”
She made one last effort to salve her conscience.
“I’ll accept your offer,” she told him, “if you’ll give the money to some local charity. I simply couldn’t take money for it.”
“That’s the girl.” Bill whisked a typewritten sheet from his pocket and forced a fountain pen between her fingers. “Sign right there.”
He grinned as he folded up the signed agreement and put it back in his pocket.
“That,” he said, “is a good day’s work. And now, just to prove to each other that we don’t hold any hard feelings, how about a date for tonight?”
CHAPTER TEN
IRRESISTIBLE TEMPTATION
“A … date?” Vergie shrank away from him.
“Sure. You’re not going to hold this thing against me, are you?” He waved the agreement which held her signature. “Just a part of my job. After working hours, I commend myself as a fairly average specimen of humanity.”
“Oh!” Vergie eyed him. Bill interpreted her gaze as one of speculation.
“I’m not a moron,” he said. “Give yourself a break and grab off the best you’re likely to find in St. Augustine. I don’t boast that I can make copy for one of your burn-’em-up stories. But I have been around and about, lo! these thirty years more or less. I can show the points of interest in the old town, and talk your own language while I’m doing it.”
“I don’t think,” Vergie said, “you could talk my language.”
“You’d be surprised.” Bill leaned forward. His heart was beginning to thump loudly. He was angered. What was she doing? Giving him the run-around?
“I can meet you on your own ground,” he told her. “I think we’d agree on a lot of things. Also things we might disagree about … which is a hell of a lot more interesting.”
Vergie gasped and arose. Bill was the first man who had ever ventured to say hell or damn in her presence. She was frightened … and confused. This, more than anything else, told her that he was determined to believe she was Valerie Ware in spite of all her protestations.
Bill mistook her attitude. He arose too.
“It wouldn’t hurt you any in your work to study a little masculine psychology,” he told her. “That’s your weak point. I grant you a perfect understanding of feminine reactions, but, oh! how you do slip in your masculine characterizations. No doubt you write about types familiar to you,” he went on stingingly, “but you ought to do a little more familiarizing. All men aren’t either satyrs or mincing fops. There is a middle ground, you know.”
Vergie swung on him angrily. She adored Valerie Ware’s books.
“I didn’t know,” she said. “I consider the men in the Ware books to be beautifully drawn. Conceived with the utmost discernment, and faithfully delineated in every detail.”
“I pity you if you believe that,” Bill said. “You certainly must have moved in a queer circle of male acquaintanceship. All any of your characters think about is getting to bed with a woman. Any woman!” he went on. “All men aren’t lustful degenerates. We have our decent instincts!”
Vergie gasped weakly before this blast. Her mind told her to flee from this awful situation, but her soul gloried in the hearing of truths spoken which she had previously met only on printed pages. She stood her ground and blinked rapidly at Bill from behind her glasses.
“Take Herbert Bailey, for instance,” Bill continued, “in Penthouse Passion. That, I suppose, is your idea of a normal man’s actions? Wallowing in the arms of a sensual little cat like … what was the name of the strumpet in the case …?”
“Ethyl?” Vergie supplied weakly. She had lost the power of conscious thought. She swayed before him, but Bill was too preoccupied to heed her.
“Yeah. Ethyl. Then you painted it as the most natural thing in the world for him to go out of his way to seduce a lovely little virgin who truly loved him. And at the end you twisted the whole damned conception around and proved that poor Herbert had simply been searching for the true love which came to him after his soul was cleansed in the cauldron of seething lust to which you subjected him for some
three hundred pages. I could teach you a few things about men,” he ended arrogantly.
A little cry escaped Vergie’s lips. Bill leaped forward in consternation and caught her swaying body in his arms.
“Here!” he exclaimed.
Her body was soft and yielding. He laid her on the grass and bent over her anxiously.
“Are you all right? Can’t you say something!”
Vergie’s eyelids fluttered, and Bill removed her glasses. Then she smiled at him faintly.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“I’m a brute,” Bill muttered. He rocked back on his heels and considered her as she sat up.
“It’s all right.” She smiled.
“It isn’t all right. I simply lost my temper because you wouldn’t give me a date.”
Vergie blushed and was silent.
“I suppose I’m envious too,” Bill went on determinedly. “A dog in the manger. I’ve tried my own hand at writing fiction and didn’t get to first base. So I’ve degenerated into a surly beast who finds fault with another’s success.”
“But … do you really think the character of Herbert Bailey is so poorly drawn?” she asked wonderingly.
“I don’t think anything,” said Bill. “What I think doesn’t matter. You sell your stuff. And I’ll spend the rest of my days slaving on some lousy newspaper. That makes your opinion aces high, and mine not worth one whoop in hell.”
Vergie was able to smile at this. She was beginning to think his curses very quaint. A strange change was sweeping over her. Strength, and a mysterious thrill of power. It was so hard to resist being placed on the pedestal Bill wished to place Valerie Ware upon. His admiration for the person he thought her to be was glorious.
Bill got up and stood before her.
“All I can say is that I’m sorry,” he muttered. “Call on me for anything you want. The Argus staff is wholly at your service.”
He started to walk away. Vergie gazed after him fearfully. He was walking out of her life. And she knew he wouldn’t look back. He impressed her as one who would never look back.
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