“I’ve heard it,” he said, startled. “But I’ve never seen a case.”
“Then let’s hope you never do,” she said. She stirred the bottom of her bag in a frenzy. “Too annoying. I’m looking for a piece of sugar. I saved it from my breakfast tray and put it in here before I dressed. And now—oh, here it is!” She held a lump of sugar up to his astonished gaze. “For my horse. I should say, my rented horse. There he is, over there.” She nodded in the direction of the glistening bay. “He’s very clever and takes it from my hand with very little fuss. I drive almost every day and Mr. Sutton often goes with me. You’re coming today, aren’t you?” The smile she gave old Sutton was almost arch.
But he didn’t answer. He looked as if he hadn’t heard. He was still staring upward, and his thin neck turned inside his too large collar as his eyes followed something in the sky. His mouth was wet and open.
The others looked up.
Two dark shapes wheeled and circled against the brilliant blue, swooping and dropping and rising again. They were full of grace, and even from a distance they were powerful.
“Chicken hawks?” Mark asked idly.
“No,” Miss Rayner said. “I’m afraid not.”
Nick Sutton limped out into a clearing and studied the sky, his hands shielding his eyes from the sun. He came back and sat down without a word.
“Hawks?” asked Miss Rayner.
“Yes.”
“Where are they?” she insisted.
“Where? I don’t know. It’s hard to tell that. . . . You can’t tell exactly where an airplane is, can you?”
“I suppose not.” She put the clutter of things back into her bag and drew the string tight. “Come along, Mr. Sutton. It isn’t good for you to sit like this. You need a bit of shaking up. You and I will have a nice drive together and be back in plenty of time for lunch. I do believe it’s beef.”
Old Sutton shifted in his chair. He drew a clean handkerchief from his sleeve and touched it to his lips. “Not today, thank you. I’ll stay home today. It’s too hot, it’s too hot out here. I think I ought to go indoors and lie down.” His thin, fretful voice appealed to his grandson. “Why don’t you go with her? You ought to go. I tell you I want you to go. But first you must take me in and call George. George will put me to bed and then you can leave me.”
“I don’t want to leave you, grandfather. I’ll stay here.”
“No. You must drive. She’ll take you down that lane behind the pool. It’s cool there. All trees, all trees and a little brook.” In his babbling eagerness he ran the words together. “You go like a good boy, Nickie, and I’ll wait for you to come back.” A trickle of saliva slid from one corner of his mouth.
Mark forced himself to study the old face and wondered, as he always did, why inevitable things like age and death were too often shocking and ugly. This was the wrong companion for a boy like Nick. Nick ought to be off somewhere with someone like Roberta, someone who was young and emotionally sound. But Roberta was with her father, and the other guests were too old or too wise. Even Miss Rayner was faintly ridiculous, but at least she could get him away for an hour or two.
“You cut along and take your drive,” he said. “I’ll look after your grandfather.”
“My grandfather has an attendant,” Nick said stiffly. Then he gave Mark an odd look of speculation. “Do you really mean that? Will you stay here and keep an eye on him? I don’t think he ought to go in yet, and George is taking a nap. He was up all night.” He brushed the old man’s lips with his own handkerchief and talked over his head as if he weren’t there. “Last night wasn’t so good,” he said.
“Sure I’ll stay,” Mark said. “Get along and enjoy yourself.” There wouldn’t be much joy in a buggy ride with a frail spinster, he thought grimly, but they had one thing in common. They both limped.
The old man sat up suddenly and struck at Nick’s hand. “No!” he shouted.
The veranda card players turned in amazement and then looked quickly away.
“It’s no use,” Nick said. “He’s made up his mind and we can’t do anything about it.” He hoisted the old man to his feet.
Miss Rayner watched with a frown. “Are you coming back?” she asked.
“Wait for me.” He patted his grandfather’s shoulder and gave him a broad wink. “Come along. We’ll look for George. George will make you a nice drink, the way you like it, and then you can sleep.” The old man dropped one eyelid in agreement and let himself be led away.
Miss Rayner settled her toque and openly returned a dime to her bag. “If you’ll help me unhitch I won’t have to tip the boy. I don’t like those boys. I think they laugh at me when my back’s turned. . . . Is there anything about me that looks—odd?”
Mark smiled at her serious face with its network of fine wrinkles. “You look as dashing as all get out,” he said. “I’m mad about your hat.”
“Now you’re teasing,” she said. “Don’t. I’m almost too familiar with my own appearance.” She got to her feet, gripping the stick with open pleasure. “Don’t help me. If I favor this leg it’ll never get well, and I need it.”
They walked over to the parking lot. He wanted to say something about old man Sutton but decided against it. Too gossipy. He compromised.
“Miss Rayner, have you given any more thought to that arrow business?”
“I’ve thought of little else,” she said soberly. “But it seems unimportant in the light of other things. I wonder how long it will be before she—.”
“Before what?”
“Before she comes back. But let’s not talk about that. Here we are.” She closed the subject with a snap.
He kept a straight face while she removed a glove and gave the horse his sugar; she was like a child offering a penny to an organ-grinder’s monkey, willing but dubious. When that was done she sighed with relief and scrubbed her hand fastidiously with a piece of cloth evidently hoarded for that purpose in the bottom of the violet bag. “I think we should be kind to animals,” she said.
“We certainly should,” he agreed. He unhitched the horse with grave solicitude. She said it was a lovely day for a drive even though it was the hottest day they’d had. He said yes, it was pretty hot, and he hoped to go back to New York soon. He said that New York was the greatest summer resort in the country. She agreed, smiling.
“I know,” she said. “It’s my home too. Why in the world don’t we stay where we belong! Vacations!”
Nick came up and they drove off, with Miss Rayner tenderly slapping the reins on the fat bay’s back. He watched them turn into the wood road. He looked at the sky again, but the hawks had gone.
He picked up his newspaper and went back to the cottage porch. Twelve o’clock. The Beachams and the Pecks would soon be home, tired enough, he hoped, for the regulation siesta after lunch. He didn’t care what the Pecks did as long as they kept out of his way. Franny Peck’s conversation might go down in a night club, with something to celebrate in champagne.
He put his feet on the railing and reviewed the recent past. He knew very little more than he’d known the night before. Roberta had kept her mouth shut on the drive home. He’d been able to extract one piece of information; she was eighteen years old and she didn’t have her own latch key.
He’d also collected one new character, old man Sutton. Old Sutton had certainly not shot Miss Rayner in the leg and neither had he lured Miss Cassidy from the church supper. He hadn’t even gone to the supper. Also, he had probably forgotten that there were two sexes. His grandson and his valet, who made a special drink, filled his life.
Twelve-fifteen. Perley would be checking telegrams at the Western Union office, every telegram that had come to Bear River in the last two months, every telegram that had gone out from Bear River. And after that he would check long distance calls with the telephone company. Amos Partridge and two other deputies were even now beating the bush on the other side of the mountain.
He craned his neck as a car drew up to the big ver
anda. Cora Sheffield and Kirby were returning from their treasure hunt, and it took three service boys to grapple with the lone fruit of their quest. Cora saw him and screamed a summons. He went over and stood by while she pulled off bits of burlap to show the grain. Kirby excused himself and strode manfully up the steps and out of sight.
“He’s melting,” she said fondly, “and the poor fool thinks I don’t know it. Rouge and mascara. I don’t have to use anything. I was born with this complexion.”
He murmured something suitable and she laughed at him. She sounded like an exhilarated crow.
“Well you don’t look as if you’d found Cassie,” she said.
“Give me time,” he begged. “Or give me an idea, if you can.”
“Something funny’s going on,” she said, dropping her voice to a hoarse whisper. “Hank and I saw a lot of men with poles and rakes, crawling under bushes and things. On the other side of the mountain. We drove around there looking for cider.”
“Cider?” he echoed incredulously.
“What do you care?” she roared. “We found something! One of the drawers in that commode is packed full. Boys!” She loped up the steps after the sweating attendants. “If you drop that I’ll have your hides!”
He went back to the cottage porch and sighed. The church-goers returned, limp from the struggle of righteousness over heat. A family of new arrivals made a royal descent from their own car and immediately demanded the service they felt entitled to at twenty dollars a day per head. The Beachams and the Pecks came back, the Pecks glowing and full of chatter, the Beachams weary and hollow-eyed.
Somebody in this outfit has got to get some sleep, Mark said to himself.
“Good game?” he asked Beacham.
“Fair.”
The Pecks went to their own cottage, and Roberta and her father went indoors to change. Joey lagged behind, kicking at the rockers and scowling at the sky. He gave her a fraternal boost to the railing. She was wearing a bedraggled white linen frock and a hair ribbon, and she looked bitterly unhappy.
“My other laundry comes back tomorrow,” she said suddenly, “so that old louse can’t stop me wearing pants anyway.”
He weighed his words carefully before he answered. “Are you pretty sure it was an old louse?”
“Of course. This place is full of old louse—leese—”
“Louses,” he amended gravely.
“Louses that don’t know anything,” she finished.
“I wonder if we’re thinking of the same one?” he asked idly. “I’ve got my eye on several.”
“Old Mr. Sutton’s one. He’s always calling me little boy.”
“Well now, Joey, that may be all right. You know he’s very old and probably he doesn’t see very well.”
“He sees all right. He sees me coming, doesn’t he? He sees me coming from way off and he says little boy, sit on my lap, I like little boys.”
“He gets mixed up. He thinks you’re Nick. . . . What do you do then?”
“I don’t do anything. I say good morning and I walk away.”
“That’s right.”
She hugged a post with one thin arm and studied his face. “You look like you’re thinking. Are you?”
“Sort of.”
“I thought so,” she said with satisfaction. “Are you going to work for my father after lunch?” she added delicately.
“Yes. I worked this morning too, even though it didn’t look that way. And after lunch I’m going down to Bear River and talk to Sheriff Wilcox.”
“That’s good,” she said.
“And you,” he went on, “you are going to take a long nap. Without argument.”
She shook her head. “Not today. I can’t. I got to go to Sunday school at three o’clock. We got to beat Pee Wee’s class.”
He made a rapid survey of his own past and came up with a vague recollection. “It’s the attendance record you beat, isn’t it?” he asked cautiously.
“Sure.” A fugitive gleam came and went in her eyes. “They got a blue silk banner on a gold stick, and if everybody in your class comes every Sunday for a month they let you have it. But you have to give it up if somebody else gets perfect attendance. Pee Wee’s class has got it now but we got a chance to get it ourselves today. All us girls swore on the Bible we’d come. I got to.”
“I can see that,” he agreed. “You know, I had you all wrong. You didn’t strike me as the Sunday school type.”
“I’m not,” she admitted. “I don’t go when I’m home, but here it’s different. . . . Here they sing swell songs.”
That was as good a reason as any, he thought. Swell songs had played victorious parts before. And it was a better reason than the one that used to woo him from the quiet Sunday streets. He remembered his own double life, when he was a family Episcopalian in the morning and a lone Presbyterian in the afternoon; Presbyterian because they gave the biggest box of candy at Christmas.
Joey touched his arm. “Do you know the one called ‘Jesus Loves the Little Children of the World’?”
“I’m afraid I missed that one,” he regretted. “But it sounds like good stuff.”
She jumped down. “Here comes our lunch,” she said. “Mike thinks we ought to eat in our own rooms—for a while.” She ran in ahead of him.
He was sorry to see her go. Now that he had her confidence, she was ready for questioning. She could fill in the background that he needed, and he knew he could trust her. He glared at the two stewards who were trundling dinner carts across the grass. One of them recoiled, but that was because he was a reformed pickpocket.
When Mark joined the others at the living room table, Joey was already planning her afternoon wardrobe.
A blue hair ribbon, she told her father; and if Roberta was out when it was time for her to go, would he tie it? He would. And the white dotted swiss with the Irish lace insershom; and the Milan straw with the field flowers on it. She rattled off these items of her Sunday wardrobe with an ease that went oddly with her scratches and mosquito bites. “Irish lace insershom is perfectly beautiful,” she said firmly.
Mark listened with amazement and a grin that he didn’t know was fatuous. Tough Joey must have been a surprisingly attentive audience on her shopping trips; or else, and he thought this more likely, she was being faithful to someone she loved. He patted her grubby little hand and was mildly shocked to find his thoughts dwelling on paternity.
Beacham spoke in an undertone. “Anything yet?”
“A little,” he answered.
He turned to Roberta. She was pushing the food about on her plate, and she looked too old and too tired for her eighteen years.
“You missed something,” he said lightly. “Nick went off driving with Miss Rayner.”
A faint smile softened her mouth. “Finally got him, did she? There ought to be a law! What happened? Grandpa have a stroke?”
“Roberta!” Beacham’s voice was sharp. “I don’t like that kind of talk.”
“Sorry,” she said, “but you know what I mean. Grandpa and Rayner have been holding hands in that buggy ever since—”
“Roberta!”
“Oh, all right.” She pushed her plate away. “What’s the dessert?” She reached over to the carts and uncovered dishes until she found it. “Strawberry shortcake and whipped cream, for heaven’s sake! Whipped cream! There’s not a woman in this hotel who can afford to eat that. I guess the chef wants it all for himself. Or maybe we’re being fattened for the slaughter.” She stood up. “I’d like to be excused, please,” she said thickly, and stalked out.
Mark felt a pang of pity. Something wrong there; too nervy and too tense. But she was still close enough to childhood to blush at her own gaucherie, and he liked that.
Joey watched her sister’s departure with wide eyes. “A little bit of church wouldn’t hurt that young lady,” she observed. “Well, I’m not afraid of getting fat.” She took her own portion of shortcake and Roberta’s too, and licked off the cream like a kitten. Nobody told
her not to.
After lunch Archie Peck sauntered over and offered to drive Mark down to town. “Franny’s locked herself in her bedroom,” he said. “She says she has a headache, but I know better. She’s got something up her sleeve. She’s fixing her face and she’ll come wheedling out of there around four o’clock, looking ten years younger and begging for something.” He stared at the sky. “Sundays are terrible. I never know what to do. I don’t suppose you could fix it up with Wilcox to let me help? I found a Peon once, down in Mex; they’d given him up for dead and he was, too.”
“I think Wilcox has all the help he needs,” Mark said carefully. “But thanks.”
Archie didn’t seem surprised. “I didn’t think you’d take me up on it. Just thought I’d offer anyway. I always liked old Cass. . . . What are you guys doing, by the way? That happened Friday, and here it is Sunday.”
Mark told him they were doing all right. “We have to scrape the surface first, you know. Like raking a lawn before you plant the seed.” He thought that would please Archie, and it did.
“Sure, sure,” Archie said, openly delighted because he understood another man’s shop talk. He stored the words away for future boasting. “Then you get down to bed rock and blow her up.”
“Something like that,” Mark answered. “I think I’ll take you up on that drive. When are you leaving?”
“Right now. Come along. I had to go down anyway.” He saluted Beacham and trotted off to the lot. “I picked up a bit of information from Hank and Cora,” he confided. “They found a place where they got some good stuff.” It was easy to see he wasn’t talking about antiques. “They won’t tell me where, but I’ll track it down if it kills me. Don’t tell Franny.”
Two boys rushed to open the car doors. Archie was evidently a good tipper.
“What about a lift for Joey and Pee Wee?” Mark asked.
“Too early for them. They’ll go down in the wagon.” He beamed. “Old Pee Wee’s in a bad spot. One of the kids in his class showed signs of mumps last night. His folks fed him a test pickle and it don’t look so good. . . . Fine thing, Sunday school.”
Time to Die Page 7
