Domino

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  Would I? Would I ever know for sure? I certainly didn’t know right now.

  Jon pointed ahead, and I saw that Baby Doe had been tethered near a few cottonwoods by the stream below the trail. She stamped and whinnied her impatience at the sight of us.

  “The mare was left far enough away from the mine,” Jon said, “so that when she was found it would look as though you’d tied her here and wandered off. Yet she couldn’t get home on her own. A delaying tactic.”

  “Do you suppose I’d have been left in the mine? I mean—”

  “Don’t think about that. You’re out. Come on down and I’ll put you on your own horse.”

  This time when I dropped into his arms, he let me go quickly, his manner turned brusque, as though his thoughts were already moving ahead, gathering anger for an encounter in which I could take no part. I trusted him to act wisely, but at the same time I was a little afraid. Mark Ingram was more a power than a man, and I didn’t know whether Jon could stand up against him.

  We rode down the valley together, and when we reached the barn we said nothing in the face of Sam’s surprise at our appearance. Jon was only a little less dirt-smeared than I, but this was no time for explanations.

  “Better go clean up, Laurie,” Jon said, “before you see your grandmother.”

  I looked into smoky gray eyes and saw kindness there, and a concern for me that almost brought the tears, but I didn’t find what I most wanted. I turned Red over to Sam and walked away quickly.

  At the house the same look of surprise that Sam had shown met me in Caleb’s eyes as he came downstairs from my grandmother’s room.

  “What has happened to you?” he asked.

  I explained briefly. “I went looking for Red and I was shut into the mine on Old Desolate. It was lucky that Jon Maddocks came looking for me and helped me to get out.”

  “Shut in?” He continued to stare at me.

  “Yes, and the padlock closed. Who was it that phoned you about hearing Red on the mountain?”

  “I have no idea. He didn’t give his name, though he said he’d talked to Belle. But, Laurie, how could you possibly—”

  “It was a trick.” I broke in on his disbelieving words. “Someone tied Red inside an old tunnel, and when I took the bait the door was shut on me. And locked.”

  He looked genuinely dismayed, but I couldn’t trust him now. I couldn’t trust anyone.

  “How did you get into the mine?” he asked.

  “The door was left open. On purpose, I suppose. Where does my grandmother keep the key?”

  He moved to a small table in the hall. “Keys not often in use are kept in this drawer. Here you are. You can see that the key is tagged.”

  I took the ordinary padlock key from him and read the name Old Desolate on the tag. The key had either been replaced quickly or another one existed besides Jon’s. I gave it back.

  “Nevertheless,” I said, “the door was open when I went in, and it was shut on me and locked.” I didn’t like his air of skepticism, and I started past him up the stairs. “As soon as I’ve showered and changed my clothes, I’ll want to see my grandmother. She must be told about what has happened.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” he said.

  I paused on the stairs to look down at him. “What do you mean—it won’t be possible?”

  His expression was as disapproving of me as ever. “I mean that Mrs. Morgan has been unconscious for several hours. We’ve sent for Dr. Burton, but it may take a while for him to arrive.”

  For a moment longer I stood staring down at him. Then I ran up to Persis Morgan’s room. Gail waited in the doorway, and she didn’t mean to let me in.

  XV

  “I want to see my grandmother,” I said to Gail.

  Caleb had come up the stairs behind me, and he put a hand on my arm. “Let her be, Laurie. She won’t know you now.”

  He had aligned himself with the nurse, and neither of them wanted me in that room.

  “Just let me by,” I said.

  Gail shrugged and stepped out of my way.

  From downstairs I heard Hillary’s voice. “Laurie, are you there? Is anybody home?”

  I called down to him, glad for an ally of my own. “I’m up here. Come upstairs, Hillary.”

  I didn’t wait for him, but walked into the darkened room. Hillary must have heard the tension in my voice, for he came up the stairs two at a time.

  “What’s going on?” he said as he joined me, dropping his voice.

  “Persis is unconscious,” I told him. “And Gail and Caleb don’t want me in her room.”

  His eyebrows raised expressively and he looked around at them. Neither spoke or offered further objections.

  Heavy draperies of an oppressive brown had been pulled across the windows to shut out the light, and the room seemed airless, its very atmosphere stifling. From the bed I could hear Persis Morgan’s heavy breathing. I ran to the window and pulled aside all that dark weight, raised the sashes to let in air and sunshine. Looking out, I glimpsed the town, bustling with activity as it did all day, the mountains rising austerely behind. Then I went to the bed and bent over my grandmother’s still figure.

  She lay on her back, her mouth slightly open, her breathing stertorous. One hand lay outside the covers, and I touched it.

  “Grandmother, can you hear me?”

  “Of course she can’t hear you,” Caleb said from the doorway, but he kept his voice low.

  “I don’t think she’s asleep,” I said. “And I don’t think she’s unconscious because she’s ill. I think she’s been drugged. There was too much sedation this time, wasn’t there?”

  Gail came into the room, crisply in charge. “She’s had no more than her usual pills,” she assured me.

  I doubted that, and I stood beside the bed, trying to think what to do.

  Hillary put an arm about me. “I don’t know what’s happened to you, Laurie, but you’d better go and clean up. Then you’re coming with me. There’s no way you can help your grandmother right now.”

  That wasn’t true. I must think of something. But about one thing he was right. I needed to shower and bathe my cuts. Then, when I felt better, I would know what to do.

  “When will the doctor be here?” I asked.

  “It will probably take him an hour or more,” Gail said. “In the meantime you look as though you need food.”

  “I don’t want anything to eat,” I told her, and Hillary said he’d had lunch at the hotel, and he would wait for me downstairs.

  I hurried down to my room to get out of my clothes. When I stood before the mirror in the bathroom I saw dirt streaking my face, with bits of wood and earth caught in my hair. In an instant I was back in the mine, remembering, trapped and frightened, with that smooth skull under my hand.

  Hastily I splashed water on my face, shed my clothes, and stepped under the shower. For a moment all I wanted was to wash memory away, to stop being afraid. But my escape from the mine hadn’t freed either Jon Maddocks or me from the danger that threatened us, and threatened Persis Morgan as well. I must talk to Jon as soon as possible. And there was one other thing I would do. I would go to the hotel and find Belle Durant, remind her of her promise to help if she was needed.

  When I went downstairs I found Hillary in the parlor, looking through Morgan albums, absorbed in old pictures. He had stopped at the snapshot I had found of Noah Armand.

  I could feel myself freezing at the sight of it, and Hillary saw my face. “What’s the matter, Laurie?”

  I didn’t want to talk about those bones in the tunnel. Not now. There was too much I needed to do.

  “I want to go over to the hotel,” I said.

  He smiled at me. “That’s just where I plan to take you. There’s something I want you to see. A little distraction won’t hurt right now, and you can come back here quickly before the doctor arrives.”

  I knew he was going to put his arms around me, but when I stepped back he let me go. “Someth
ing’s been happening since we came here, hasn’t it, Laurie? You’ve turned into a woman I don’t entirely know.”

  I tried not to hear his words as dialogue from a play. He must have feelings—deep feelings—but I was beginning to realize that I didn’t know what they were.

  “We have to talk, Hillary. But not now. Not while my grandmother—”

  “I know,” he said gently. “Come along with me now, and I promise I’ll get you back here quickly. I do want to show you something.”

  “All right,” I said. “But first I have a phone call to make.”

  He waited for me in the parlor. Jon’s number was in the small book by the hall telephone, and I dialed it quickly. But though I let the ringing go on for some time, he didn’t answer. Probably because he had already gone to his meeting with Ingram? Perhaps I would find him at the hotel too. An increasing sense of anxiety was rising in me.

  Hillary’s mood seemed cheerful enough, and I knew he didn’t really believe anything was seriously wrong between us. But I couldn’t convince him now. We crossed the yard together, and at the gate I stopped and looked back at the house. Once more brown draperies had been drawn in Persis Morgan’s room and the windows closed. I was sorrier than ever that I hadn’t urged more strongly for Gail Cullen’s dismissal while I had the chance.

  Along the street we walked beneath scaffolding, dodged workmen, picked our way past debris that was being cleared out of one of the false-front buildings. When we reached the Timberline, we found Belle at the desk, looking rather distant and unwelcoming. It wasn’t going to be easy to approach her, but I must say what I’d come to say. I must remind her of a half promise she had made me that time in the cemetery.

  Mark Ingram was there as well, large and benevolent and assured. A benevolence I trusted even less than before. Impeccable in his gray cords, the silver-topped cane in one large hand, he beamed at us. There was no sign of Jon, to my relief. I must tell Hillary all that had happened, but when we were alone—not here.

  I spoke directly to Belle. “My grandmother needs you. She’s been oversedated and she’s unconscious. The doctor has been sent for, but she ought to have better care than she’s getting. More trustworthy care.” I flicked a quick look at Ingram, but he was impassive, merely listening. “Belle, will you come?” I pleaded.

  She hesitated, obviously uncomfortable. Then she glanced at Ingram. “Sorry, my job is here.”

  I would have to get her alone, I thought. I would give my words time to soak in, and come back to the attack later. Belle, I suspected, was not one to act impulsively.

  However, I had another question to ask her. “Caleb received a phone call from a man who said he’d heard a dog barking over near the mine on Old Desolate. The man told him he’d spoken to you and you said the dog probably belonged to me. Can you tell me who he was?”

  “Nobody talked to me about any dog,” she said.

  I stared at Ingram, but his expression still exuded that benevolence I didn’t trust, and I knew he would admit to nothing.

  Hillary sensed an impasse and broke in, speaking to Ingram. “I’d like to show Laurie the Opera House. We won’t be long.”

  Ingram’s expansive mood reached out to all of us in an excess of goodwill that I didn’t believe in for one moment.

  “A fine idea,” he said. “In fact, I’d like to show it to Miss Morgan myself. Belle, come along with us. You’re not needed here right now.”

  Moving with obvious reluctance, she came from behind the desk.

  I didn’t want to spend time sight-seeing, but this might be my one chance to have a further word with Belle. I tried to relax and not fidget.

  As we crossed the street, I sensed that a hint of something electric was stirring in Hillary. He was planning some moment of drama that I didn’t welcome at this time. I would have to deal with it when it came and try to get this visit to the Opera House over as quickly as possible.

  The double doors stood open, and the lighting system had already been repaired and connected inside, so that illumination flared when Ingram touched a switch. Moving ahead of us, Hillary went eagerly to pull open the door to the orchestra, and I stood at the head of a dark aisle, waiting for the house lights to come on.

  It was Belle who went to find the switch, and the dull glitter of a chandelier, dusty wih disuse, bloomed overhead, along with tulip-shaped lights along the side walls. Someone had at least swept out the orchestra pit, and the floor and spaces between dilapidated seats were clean enough. Ahead and below us the stage stood dark and shadowy, the curtain—what was left of it—raised into the proscenium arch, its edges frayed by age.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” Hillary whispered, as though reluctant to disturb old ghosts.

  I knew he was seeing it as it could be, and I nodded.

  “Red and gold, of course,” he went on. “Lots of velvet. The two tiers of boxes on either side of the stage are jewels in themselves. Their brass rails should be restored, and all the seats must be red. It can be a beautifully rich little house!”

  He had forgotten my grandmother, forgotten all our problems, in his rapture over this theater.

  Mark Ingram smiled blandly. “You’re right, of course. I’ve been thinking of bringing out an expert from New York to do the theater over. So I’m glad to have your impression.”

  I looked quickly at Hillary and saw a flash of very real anger in his face. He didn’t like this man any better than I did, but he coveted this theater.

  Ingram must have seen the look too, but it only amused him. He had a talent for stirring up emotion, playing with it. All this was rather a game to him. Destroying my grandmother was a game. Had shutting me into a mine tunnel also been a rather deadly game?

  Now he laughed. “I had been thinking of sending for an expert, but perhaps I won’t need to. The job is yours, Hillary, if you want it.”

  His anger didn’t die out at once, and this time the real Hillary was coming through. For an instant I glimpsed his passion for the theater—all aspects of the theater. Then he was his charming self again and laughing with Ingram. But I didn’t think he had liked being manipulated, even though he might be willing to work for Mark Ingram because of the theater.

  Belle had rejoined us and was listening, still looking uncomfortable. “When you refurbish it, Mark, who’s to come? There are a dozen more easily accessible old towns in Colorado that have more to offer than this one.”

  Ingram’s soft chuckle wasn’t particularly pleasant to hear. He was enjoying every movement of his chessmen. “Belle is our local pessimist. She lacks vision, I’m afraid. But you and I can see the future, can’t we, Hillary?”

  Hillary was no longer listening. He’d started off by himself, lost in his own fantasy of what this theater would one day be, caught up in his own excitement.

  “Come look here, sir,” he called out, and I winced at the “sir.” Hillary was playing his own game too, erasing that moment of open anger, presenting the role of a young man, extremely respectful toward one who was older and wiser.

  “I suppose your friend will be writing and acting in his own plays?” That was Belle’s whisper rasping in my ear.

  I looked at her more carefully in the dusty light. She hadn’t bothered with makeup today, and her wide cheekbones were more prominent than ever, her untinted mouth large and a bit rebellious.

  I asked a question that was not entirely idle. “Do you know if Mr. Ingram was out on a horse this morning?”

  She turned and started down the aisle because Ingram was beckoning to her. “I wouldn’t know,” she said over her shoulder. “I had a hangover this morning, and I didn’t get up until a little while ago. He’s still peeved with me about that.”

  I followed her down the aisle to the edge of the stage, where Ingram and Hillary were conferring. The older man was gesturing toward a rickety wooden gallery that could be reached by stairs backstage. A catwalk ran above ropes and pulleys, controlling the flats that made up what was left of stage scenery. I felt an
odd sense of recognition, though I didn’t know why.

  “All that trash will have to come down,” Ingram said. “There are a couple of old dressing rooms in the loft up there—too small and inconvenient. We’ll clean it all out and build some decent rooms backstage, even if we have to add an annex. Will you go up and have a look, Hillary? I don’t think you’ve been up there. Belle can show you the way. Those stairs are a bit too steep for me—harder to get down than up.”

  “Of course,” Hillary agreed cheerfully. “Come along, Laurie. Let’s explore.”

  He went ahead of me toward the door at the left of the stage, and ran up the few steps.

  Belle came after us more slowly, still reluctant. “This place gives me the creeps. I’m not much for ghosts, but I can believe in them back here.”

  I could too. It was dim backstage, and the air seemed cold and musty. There was a smell of dust as we moved about. I stood between wings that seemed to represent a street scene beneath ancient grime, and looked across the stage. By New York standards it was small, but any empty stage can seem large.

  “Look up there,” Belle said, pointing to the gallery that ran across the back above the flats. “One young soubrette is supposed to have thrown herself down from there, breaking her neck when she hit the stage.”

  I shivered, but Hillary was calling to me. “This is the way up. Come on, Laurie. I want you to see the theater from up here.”

  Belle gave me a little push. “Go ahead. I’ve been up before. Just watch yourselves, you two.”

  Hillary climbed first, light and graceful as a cat, and I took hold of the unsteady rail and went after him. As always, I was ready to climb anything. I would choose heights over depths any day, but something else was pulling me now. I had been up here before. The steps reached a landing and then climbed again, and I looked down at Belle, her wide face upturned, watching us, her look anxious.

  “Be careful!” she called.

  Hillary paid no attention. I knew his imagination was leaping ahead to how it was all going to be, and he began explaining to me how perfect, how beautiful, how comfortable for both the theater’s patrons and for the actors backstage everything could be made.