Domino

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  Hillary pressed him further. “Why do you think that?”

  “Because of the sort of man he was,” Caleb answered. “Bad pennies always turn up. If he’s alive, he’s still Mrs. Morgan’s husband. It’s hard to believe he wouldn’t make claims, put on some sort of pressure.”

  “What if he has?” Hillary asked, his tone gentle, almost amused.

  We all stared at him, startled, and he laughed.

  “Don’t look so shocked. It’s just a thought. Why don’t you check with Mark Ingram?”

  “Let it alone!” Caleb said sharply. “Don’t go digging Noah Armand up—if it’s really a grave he’s in.”

  I wondered again what it was that had so alarmed Caleb Hawes.

  “Perhaps that’s a good idea, Hillary,” I said. “Perhaps I will ask Mr. Ingram when we have dinner with him tonight.”

  Hillary’s smile approved of me. Then he turned gracefully to other subjects, drawing Caleb and Gail into talk about Mrs. Morgan, Jasper, and Ingram’s plans, drawing them away from more dangerous topics. Once more I was grateful for his social skills, manipulative though they sometimes seemed.

  I was glad to be left to my own thoughts. An obvious suspicion was growing in my mind. Had it been Noah who returned to the house after he had left? Returned quietly, to break in, kill my father, pick up some of his wife’s jewels, and disappear before he could be stopped? Had Persis, to avoid scandal, developed the lie about an intruder that everyone had believed ever since? But I could put none of this into words now.

  When we’d finished our meal, Caleb said he had work to do in his office upstairs, and Hillary asked me to come with him to the Opera House, which he wanted to visit again.

  I said, “Not right now, please. There’s something I must do. Caleb, Grandmother Persis told me that there are albums of family pictures. I’d like to go through them before I leave. If you could help by identifying any of the faces …?”

  “I can show you the albums, Laurie,” Gail offered. “I’ve taken them up to Mrs. Morgan often enough. Most of the pictures are marked with names underneath, so you won’t need help in identifying them.” She turned to Hillary. “May I go to the Opera House with you? I love that old place, and I can show you some of its secrets that you’d never find out for yourself. Mark has been showing them to me.”

  Hillary grinned at me a bit cockily. After all, I’d had first chance. “Don’t you have some duties in the house?” he asked Gail.

  “Not today. I’ve been banished for now.”

  “That won’t do.” Caleb spoke sharply. “You can’t sidestep everything like this. I’ll talk to Mrs. Morgan.”

  “Yes, you do that,” Gail said. “In the meantime I’ll show Hillary the theater.”

  I found myself watching her, decidedly troubled. Gail was a nurse, and it seemed odd that she could take her position so lightly. It was possible that she knew Mark Ingram better than she pretended. In which case his influence in this house was much greater than I liked to think. Perhaps she held a secure if unacknowledged place here that not even my grandmother understood?

  “Go ahead,” I said to Hillary. “I’ll look at albums for now.”

  Before they left, Gail set the big books out for me in the parlor, and I curled up on a plush sofa with one of them on my knees. My wish was to stay away from Ingram’s Opera House because it was enemy territory. Besides, I was beginning to feel a new and enormous need to learn about my father’s family. My family. This must be done in the few days left to me in this house.

  Gail’s small overtures to Hillary didn’t really matter. In fact, perhaps that was part of what troubled me. That so much that I had believed important was ceasing to matter.

  Soon I must talk again with Jon Maddocks. He knew Persis Morgan, knew what she was really like. Besides—I wanted to see him again. Perhaps of them all he was the one person I could trust. He might tell me off bluntly at times when he disapproved of me, but there was also a chance that he was my friend. In this house I was badly in need of a friend.

  X

  The first album I opened contained not snapshots but early photographs, a little faded and stiffly posed. I found Sissy at once—the same face I’d seen in the framed picture upstairs. The face that resembled mine. Some were theatrical pictures from her Silver Circuit days, when she had entertained in the larger mining camps under her mother’s chaperonage. That lady had a strong chin and a domineering look in her eyes, while the young Sissy was all curves and smiles, melting and loving, the frothy skirts of her costumes swirling flirtatiously about her. My resemblance to her was only superficial, I decided. But Persis must have inherited an autocratic strain from Sissy’s mother.

  The first picture I discovered of Malcolm Tremayne fascinated me, and I followed him eagerly through the pages. There seemed something romantic and rather devil-may-care and dashing about him. In the early photos he appeared as a well-dressed young man, obviously just over from England. In later pictures he grew more American in appearance, more informal in his clothes, but no less arresting. There was one of him standing before the opening to what was probably the Old Desolate mine. That same entrance that I had seen boarded over and well padlocked.

  There was also one of Sissy and Malcolm outside their spanking-new house in Domino. In every picture he seemed a striking, exciting sort of man, and probably a reckless one in his younger days.

  There were some marvelous pictures of Domino too, as it had once been, with the houses intact and people in old-fashioned dress in the street. What a pull that lost little town had for me—as though it had claimed me long ago and was not yet ready to let me go free. Perhaps I would ride there again before I went away.

  In later pictures the posing was done before the house in Jasper—when it was the Silver Castle. It was easy to see how their fortunes had changed. Sissy was plumper, more matronly, but still smiling, while Malcolm looked handsome and successful, and perhaps a bit piratical with his flowing mustache. Apparently Sissy hadn’t borne children with the prodigality of her day, for only Persis came up repeatedly, first as a little girl and then as a young woman. Not a beautiful woman, but with an arresting look about her and a poise that gave her a great deal more than beauty. She must have had great authority of manner, even as a young woman, and the resemblance to her father was evident.

  She had grown up with Johnny Morgan, the son of Tyler Morgan, Malcolm’s partner, and clearly he’d been a strong personality in his own right. Together they looked like a powerful pair—Persis and Johnny—well matched and content with each other’s company. Their marriage must have been a good one, lasting until the time of his far too early death. There was one picture taken at his grave, with expensive floral pieces heaped about it, but my grandmother was absent from the scene. There was no mention of where he was buried.

  As the years went by, fewer pictures were taken, though suddenly I came upon one of Richard Morgan when he was a young man. This I pored over, trying to recapture something lost so long ago. His seemed a good face, both strong and gentle, with dark, intelligent eyes, and it was faintly familiar to me. Following were several vacant places in the album where pictures had been removed. Pictures of my father when he was older? Of my mother? Of me? I found only one or two more marked ones of my father.

  The snapshot age had long begun, and the pages grew more crowded with smaller, more informal pictures, often unlabeled. I fancied that I could find Richard here and there—and certainly that was my mother, Marybeth, standing beside Persis in a group picture—very lovely and young. Not at all the worn, sad woman I remembered. There I was, too, as a small child, holding onto the hand of my tall father, whom I looked up at adoringly. I studied this picture with a lump in my throat, but I couldn’t bring him strongly back to mind. No attempt had been made to remove all traces of us in these smaller shots. Perhaps my grandmother had given up her system of identification before she got this far.

  Here, too, I found young Caleb, stiff and correct in one picture, perhaps
fearful of my grandmother, who stood beside him. The snapshot of a curly-headed boy on a horse caught my attention, and I looked closely for a resemblance to Jon Maddocks. I could find it readily in the jaunty, slightly arrogant way in which he sat his saddle, filled with confidence, knowing his place to be one worth occupying. But I didn’t find him again. I wondered if Persis would mind if I took this picture away with me. Just to help me recapture a memory.

  And finally I came upon Noah Armand’s picture—a full-length snapshot, beneath which someone had lettered his name. He had been a tall, thin man, rather handsome, perhaps with a certain appeal if he hadn’t looked so lugubrious in this shot. He squinted into the sun, so that his eyes were narrowed, and heavy black brows added to the scowling look. Even in so small a picture he appeared to be an enormously dissatisfied man. He looked familiar as well, as though I had known him and feared him too.

  What had he wanted in his alliance with Persis Morgan? Money, of course, perhaps position. But what had there been about him to charm her into such a marriage?

  In the picture his clothes seemed well cut, and he wore them with a certain assurance. Obviously he had been an adventurer, wandering from place to place until he’d come here and Persis had recklessly taken him for a husband. Of course a single small picture couldn’t give me the measure of a man, and I was reading into this some of the bits of information about him that I had picked up. I knew one thing for certain. I hadn’t liked him.

  Persistently now, I searched for more shots of Noah, but the last of the albums came to an end with only empty pages. More than ever I wanted to know the story of his leaving a week before my father’s death. That seemed altogether too fortuitous, and I wondered that the police had accepted it and made no connection with his possible return.

  When I’d put the albums aside, I sat for a little while pondering my next move. If something was to be done to aid my grandmother, I had to know more than she was willing to tell me. All questions seemed to return to Noah Armand—where they stopped. Tonight I would follow up my promise to ask Mark Ingram about him, but perhaps there was someone else I could question right now.

  Caleb Hawes. If I could find him alone.

  I went back to the kitchen, where Bitsy, the cook—a large, rather cranky elderly woman—was washing up while Edna dried dishes. Apparently it wasn’t necessary for someone to be with my grandmother at all times. After all, she had her bell.

  I asked Edna where Mr. Hawes’ office was, and she told me it was on the third floor, a couple of doors down from my grandmother’s room.

  When I’d climbed the stairs to the open door, I found Caleb sitting before an old-fashioned rolltop desk, with the anachronism of a modern calculator, battery-operated, beside him. He looked up at my step, and I sensed a wariness in his greeting.

  “Will I interrupt if I come in for a little while?” I asked. “I can return later if you’re busy.”

  He rose at once to remove a pile of books from a chair, and set it for me where sun came through an open window. There was little furniture in the room, and no effort had been made to dress it up. All was strictly utilitarian, makeshift, and temporary. As though the man who worked here expected to be elsewhere very soon.

  “What happens to your law office in Denver while you’re tied up here?” I asked.

  “I have two senior partners.” There seemed a hint of resentment in the words, but he went on quickly, “I suggested that it was wiser for me to be near your grandmother right now. Is there something I can help you with?”

  “I’d like to know more about Noah Armand,” I said.

  For an instant Caleb appeared startled, then his normal guard came up and he busied himself rearranging papers on his desk, not meeting my eyes. I had again the feeling that Caleb Hawes might be a secretive man, and perhaps capable of behind-the-scenes scheming.

  “What do you want to know about him?” he asked.

  “What was Noah really like? I found a picture of him in one of those albums just now, and he didn’t seem to be an especially appealing man. Why was my grandmother attracted to him?”

  “I can’t answer that. I wasn’t here very often in those days. My father took care of Mrs. Morgan’s business himself and sent me up here only occasionally. I believe he was as surprised as anyone by her marriage. Older women can be foolish sometimes, and she may have been lonely. Or perhaps it was simply the attraction of the rogue that she felt in him. Other women felt it too.” He hesitated. “Does it matter now?”

  It mattered to Caleb—much more than he wanted me to believe. I was sure of that. Always when Noah Armand was mentioned, an uncertainty seemed to surface—in myself as well as in Caleb.

  “He must have been fairly important in Jasper, married to my grandmother. Did anyone think that Noah might have returned to the house that day my father died? That he could have shot my father?”

  Caleb’s expression did not change, but his fingers were suddenly still on the papers before him, betraying the fact that I had shaken him in some manner I didn’t understand.

  “I don’t think anyone thought that,” he told me. “Mrs. Morgan wouldn’t have allowed anyone to think it. The last thing she wanted was a scandal that would involve more of her family. It was bad enough that Richard was shot. No mother could have loved her son more than your grandmother loved your father, Laurie. His death almost destroyed her.”

  “What did she think about Noah’s running off?”

  This time Caleb let himself go. “Good riddance! She knew by then that she’d made a bad bargain. I think she’d been telling him to get out for some time. So if he chose to go—fine!”

  That this usually controlled man should permit himself such an outburst was disturbing in itself. A smoldering beneath the surface hinted at explosive depths.

  “What is it?” I asked. “What is it you’re not telling me?”

  For the first time since I’d stepped into his office, he met my eyes directly. “If you are wise, Laurie, you won’t press to know any more than you do. Let it go. Leave while you can, before irreparable harm is done. To you as well as your grandmother.”

  “What do you mean—leave while I can? What irreparable harm?”

  “That’s all I have to say. If you want to know more, you’ll have to go to your grandmother.”

  I wondered out loud. “Perhaps she gave him the jewels. Perhaps they were never stolen at all, but were a bribe to get him to leave. What did they consist of—the things that were taken?”

  Caleb was staring at me, appalled, and again alarmed, as though I threatened him in some way. It took him a moment or two to get himself in hand.

  “Really, Laurie, you ask too much. How could I possibly remember what was taken after all these years?”

  I suspected that his was the sort of mind which would remember such details exactly, and that if he wanted to he could probably list every item that had disappeared.

  “I suppose there’s a listing somewhere? I wonder if the Denver Library would have microfilm from the newspapers of that time. Perhaps I could read about what happened here?”

  He seemed relieved. “If that’s what you want. Laurie, I can furnish you with those old papers myself. They have been kept on file right here in this house. But first I must ask your grandmother if she wishes you to see them.”

  “I’ll ask her myself,” I said, with the strong suspicion that he might prejudice any chance of my seeing such papers.

  I left him to his calculator, and just as I reached the stairs, Jon Maddocks came out of Persis’ room. I felt a small rush of joy at the sight of him.

  For once he seemed warmly approving as he came toward me. “You’re good for her, Laurie. She’s coming to life. She wanted to know all about your visit to Domino and how I thought you felt about the old place.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I told her you’d fallen too much in love with the past, but that I thought there was still time for you to catch up with the present.”


  The tiny rush of feeling in me died. “Why must you always mock me?”

  “Is that what you think I’m doing?” He stood close to me at the head of the stairs, and suddenly he reached out a finger to touch a tendril of hair that had come loose against my cheek, lifting it back. “I don’t mean to mock you, Laurie. I just hope you’ll wake up in time to be useful to her. You were ready to be for a while this morning.”

  I drew back from his touch, a little afraid of my reaction.

  He came down with me, his hand on my arm. “Will you stay, Laurie?”

  “I want to,” I said. “I think I really do. But there’s so much that I don’t understand. Sometimes—”

  “Trust yourself. Just trust yourself a little more. There’s a lot of her in you.”

  “You said that before. But why should you think it?”

  “I think it because of what you did in facing up to Ingram this morning. That took courage. And because I can remember a spunky small girl who loved her grandmother very much. A small girl who was so much like Persis Morgan that everyone around could spot it. Even a kid like me.”

  “It’s gone now!” I cried. “I’ve lost a whole part of me somewhere and I don’t know how to find it again.”

  I leaned against the stair rail, sagging a little as we reached my floor, and he put an arm about me, walked me toward my door. Behind us Gail came running up the stairs and stopped.

  “Hello!” Her look questioned, faintly derisive. “I’ve left Hillary to explore that old theater. I needed to get back here for Mrs. Morgan’s afternoon medication.”

  “What is that medication?” I asked.

  “Only a simple sedative.”

  “Why does she have to be sedated? She seems fine to me.”

  “Perhaps you’d better ask Dr. Burton when he comes. If you’ll excuse me—” She ran lightly up to the floor above and disappeared from view.

  Jon hadn’t dropped his arm at her appearance. For an instant it tightened around me, and then he let me go.

  “There’s too much of this sedation going on,” he said. “It’s begun since that nurse came in. When Belle Durant was here things were better. I have a feeling she talks old Doc Burton into doing what she wants. Maybe you can put a stop to it.”