“As if what?”
“As if someone had pushed me,” said the Major.
Perhaps it was fortunate that the butler arrived just then, and there was the slight diversion of getting the Major to stretch out full length on the divan and sip a restorative.
And somehow in the conversation it emerged that neither Dixon nor Duane had been in the dining room when the thing had happened.
“There’d been a disagreement over—well, it was over inheritance tax,” said Dixon flushing. “Duane had gone to the library to look in an encyclopedia, and I had gone to my room to get the evening paper which had some reference to it. So the Major was alone when it happened. I knew nothing of it until I heard the commotion in here.”
“I,” said Duane, watching Dixon, “heard the Major’s shout from the library and hurried across.”
That night, late, after Major Briggs had gone home, and Susan was again alone in the paralyzing magnificence of the French bedroom, she still kept thinking of the window and Major Briggs. And she put up her own window so circumspectly that she didn’t get enough air during the night and woke struggling with a silk-covered eiderdown under the impression that she herself was being thrust out the window.
It was only a nightmare, of course, induced as much as anything by her own hatred of heights. But it gave an impulse to the course she proposed to Mrs. Lasher that very morning.
It was true, of course, that the thing may have been exactly what it appeared to be, and that was, an accident. But if it was not accident, there were only two possibilities.
“Do you mean,” cried Mrs. Lasher incredulously when Susan had finished her brief suggestion, “that I’m to say openly that Duane is my son! But you don’t understand, Miss Dare. I’m not sure. It may be Dixon.”
“I know,” said Susan. “And I may be wrong. But I think it might help if you will announce to—oh, only to Major Briggs and the two men—that you are convinced that it is Duane and are taking steps for legal recognition of the fact.”
“Why? What do you think will happen? How will it help things to do that?”
“I’m not at all sure it will help,” said Susan wearily. “But it’s the only thing I see to do. And I think that you may as well do it right away.”
“Today?” said Mrs. Lasher reluctantly.
“At lunch,” said Susan inexorably. “Telephone to invite Major Briggs now.”
“Oh, very well,” said Idabelle Lasher. “After all, it will please Tom Briggs. He has been urging me to make a decision. He seems certain that it is Duane.”
But Susan, present and watching closely, could detect nothing except that Idabelle Lasher, once she was committed to a course, undertook it with thoroughness. Her fondness for Duane, her kindness to Dixon, her air of relief at having settled so momentous a question, left nothing to be desired. Susan was sure that the men were convinced. There was, to be sure, a shade of triumph in Duane’s demeanor, and he was magnanimous with Dixon—as, indeed, he could well afford to be. Dixon was silent and rather pale and looked as if he had not expected the decision and was a bit stunned by it. Major Briggs was incredulous at first, and then openly jubilant, and toasted all of them.
Indeed, what with toasts and speeches on the part of Major Briggs, the lunch rather prolonged itself, and it was late afternoon before the Major had gone and Susan and Mrs. Lasher met alone for a moment in the library.
Idabelle was flushed and worried.
“Was it all right, Miss Dare?” she asked in a stage whisper.
“Perfectly,” said Susan.
“Then—then do you know—”
“Not yet,” said Susan. “But keep Dixon here.”
“Very well,” said Idabelle.
The rest of the day passed quietly and not, from Susan’s point of view, at all valuably, although Susan tried to prove something about the possible left-handedness of the real Derek. Badminton and several games of billiards resulted only in displaying the more perfectly a consistent right-handedness on the part of both the claimants.
Dressing again for dinner, Susan looked at herself ruefully in the great mirror.
She had never in her life felt so utterly helpless, and the thought of Idabelle Lasher’s faith in her hurt. After all, she ought to have realized her own limits: the problem that Mrs. Lasher had set her was one that would have baffled—that, indeed, had baffled—experts. Who was she, Susan Dare, to attempt its solution?
The course of action she had laid out for Idabelle Lasher had certainly, thus far, had no development beyond heightening an already tense situation. It was quite possible that she was mistaken and that nothing at all would come of it. And if not, what then?
Idabelle Lasher’s pale eyes and anxious, beseeching hands hovered again before Susan, and she jerked her satin slip savagely over her head—thereby pulling loose a shoulder strap and being obliged to ring for the maid who sewed the strap neatly and rearranged Susan’s hair.
“You’ll be going to the party tonight, ma’am?” said the maid in a pleasant Irish accent.
“Party?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. Didn’t you know? It’s the Charity Ball. At the Dycke Hotel. In the Chandelier Ballroom. A grand, big party, ma’am. Madame is wearing her pearls. Will you bend your head, please, ma’am.”
Susan bent her head and felt her white chiffon being slipped deftly over it. When she emerged she said:
“Is the entire family going?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. And Major Briggs. There you are, ma’am—and I do say you look beautiful. There’s orchids, ma’am, from Mr. Duane. And gardenias from Mr. Dixon. I believe,” said the maid thoughtfully, “that I could put them all together. That’s what I’m doing for Madame.”
“Very well,” said Susan recklessly. “Put them all together.”
It made a somewhat staggering decoration—staggering, thought Susan, but positively abandoned in luxuriousness. So, too, was the long town car which waited for them promptly at ten when they emerged from the towering apartment house. Susan, leaning back in her seat between Major Briggs and Idabelle Lasher, was always afterward to remember that short ride through crowded, lighted streets to the Dycke Hotel.
No one spoke. Perhaps only Susan was aware (and suddenly realized that she was aware) of the surging desires and needs and feelings that were bottled up together in the tonneau of that long, gliding car. She was aware of it quite suddenly and tinglingly.
Nothing had happened. Nothing, all through that long dinner from which they had just come, had been said that was at all provocative.
Yet all at once Susan was aware of a queer kind of excitement.
She looked at the black shoulders of the two men, Duane and Dixon, riding along beside each other. Dixon sat stiff and straight; his shoulders looked rigid and unmoving. He had taken it rather well, she thought; did he guess Idabelle’s decision was not the true one? Or was he still stunned by it?
Or was there something back of that silence? Had she underestimated the force and possible violence of Dixon’s reaction? Susan frowned: it was dangerous enough without that.
They arrived at the hotel. Their sudden emergence from the silence of the car, with its undercurrent of emotion, into brilliant lights and crowds and the gay lilt of an orchestra somewhere, had its customary tonic effect. Even Dixon shook off his air of brooding and, as they finally strolled into the Chandelier Room, and Duane and Mrs. Lasher danced smoothly into the revolving colors, asked Susan to dance.
They left the Major smiling approval and buying cigarettes from a girl in blue pantaloons.
The momentary gayety with which Dixon had asked Susan to dance faded at once. He danced conscientiously but without much spirit and said nothing. Susan glanced up at his face once or twice; his direct, dark blue eyes looked straight ahead, and his face was rather pale and set.
Presently Susan said: “Oh, there’s Idabelle!”
At once Dixon lost step. Susan recovered herself and her small silver sandals rather deftly, and Idab
elle, large and pink and jewel-laden, danced past them in Duane’s arms. She smiled at Dixon anxiously and looked, above her pearls, rather worried.
Dixon’s eyebrows were a straight dark line, and he was white around the mouth.
“I’m sorry, Dixon,” said Susan. She tried to catch step with him, for the moment, and added: “Please don’t mind my speaking about it. We are all thinking of it. I do think you behave very well.”
He looked straight over her head, danced several somewhat erratic steps, and said suddenly:
“It was so—unexpected. And you see, I was so sure of it.”
“Why were you so sure?” asked Susan.
He hesitated, then burst out again:
“Because of the dog,” he said savagely, stepping on one of Susan’s silver toes. She removed it with Spartan composure, and he said: “The calico dog, you know. And the green curtains. If I had known there was so much money involved, I don’t think I’d have come to—Idabelle. But then, when I did know, and this other—fellow turned up, why, of course, I felt like sticking it out!”
He paused, and Susan felt his arm tighten around her waist. She looked up, and his face was suddenly chalk white and his eyes blazing.
“Duane!” he said hoarsely. “I hate him. I could kill him with my own hands.”
The next dance was a tango, and Susan danced it with Duane. His eyes were shining, and his face flushed with excitement and gayety.
He was a born dancer, and Susan relaxed in the perfect ease of his steps. He held her very closely, complimented her gracefully, and talked all the time, and for a few moments Susan merely enjoyed the fast swirl of the lovely Argentine dance. Then Idabelle and Dixon went past, and Susan saw again the expression of Dixon’s set white face as he looked at Duane, and Idabelle’s swimming eyes above her pink face and bare pink neck.
The rest of what was probably a perfect dance was lost on Susan, busy about certain concerns of her own which involved some adjusting of the flowers on her shoulder. And the moment the dance was over she slipped away.
White chiffon billowed around her, and her gardenias sent up a warm fragrance as she huddled into a telephone booth. She made sure the flowers were secure and unrevealing upon her shoulder, steadied her breath, and smiled a little tremulously as she dialed a number she very well knew. It was getting to be a habit—calling Jim Byrne, her newspaper friend, when she herself had reached an impasse. But she needed him. Needed him at once.
“Jim—Jim,” she said. “It’s Susan. Listen. Get into a white tie and come as fast as you can to the Dycke Hotel. The Chandelier Room.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Well,” said Susan in a small voice. “I’ve set something going that—that I’m afraid is going to be more than I meant—”
“You’re good at stirring up things, Sue,” he said “What’s the trouble now?”
“Hurry, Jim,” said Susan. “I mean it.” She caught her breath. “I—I’m afraid,” she said.
His voice changed.
“I’ll be right there. Watch for me at the door.” The telephone clicked, and Susan leaned rather weakly against the wall of the telephone booth.
She went back to the Chandelier Room. Idabelle Lasher, pink and worried-looking, and Major Briggs and the two younger men made a little group standing together, talking. She breathed a little sigh of relief. So long as they remained together, and remained in that room surrounded by hundreds of witnesses, it was all right. Surely it was all right. People didn’t murder in cold blood when other people were looking on.
It was Idabelle who remembered her duties as hostess and suggested the fortune teller.
“She’s very good, they say,” said Idabelle. “She’s a professional, not just doing it for a stunt, you know. She’s got a booth in one of the rooms.”
“By all means, my dear,” said Major Briggs at once. “This way?” She put her hand on his arm and, with Duane at her other side, moved away, and Dixon and Susan followed. Susan cast a worried look toward the entrance. But Jim couldn’t possibly get there in less than thirty minutes, and by that time they would have returned.
Dixon said: “Was it the Major that convinced Idabelle that Duane is her son?”
Susan hesitated.
“I don’t know,” she said cautiously, “how strong the Major’s influence has been.”
Her caution was not successful. As they left the ballroom and turned down a corridor, he whirled toward her.
“This thing isn’t over yet,” he said with the sudden savagery that had blazed out in him while they were dancing.
She said nothing, however, for Major Briggs was beckoning jauntily from a doorway.
“Here it is,” he said in a stage whisper as they approached him. “Idabelle has already gone in. And would you believe it, the fortune teller charges twenty dollars a throw!”
The room was small: a dining room, probably, for small parties. Across the end of it a kind of tent had been arranged with many gayly striped curtains.
Possibly due to her fees, the fortune teller did not appear to be very popular; at least, there were no others waiting, and no one came to the door except a bellboy with a tray in his hand who looked them over searchingly, murmured something that sounded very much like Mr. Haymow, and wandered away. Duane sat nonchalantly on the small of his back, smoking. The Major seemed a bit nervous and moved restlessly about. Dixon stood just behind Susan. Odd that she could feel his hatred for the man lolling there in the armchair almost as if it were a palpable, living thing flowing outward in waves. Susan’s sense of danger was growing sharper. But surely it was safe—so long as they were together.
The draperies of the tent moved confusedly and opened, and Idabelle stood there, smiling and beckoning to Susan.
“Come inside, my dear,” she said. “She wants you, too.”
Susan hesitated. But, after all, so long as the three men were together, nothing could happen. Dixon gave her a sharp look, and Susan moved across the room. She felt a slight added qualm when she discovered that in an effort probably to add mystery to the fortune teller’s trade, the swathing curtains had been arranged so that one entered a kind of narrow passage among them, which one followed with several turns before arriving at the looped-up curtain which made an entrance to the center of the maze and faced the fortune teller herself.
Susan stifled her uneasiness and sat down on some cushions beside Idabelle. The fortune teller, in Egyptian costume, with French accent and a Sibylline manner began to talk. Beyond the curtains and the drone of her voice Susan could hear little, although once she thought there were voices.
But the thing, when it happened, gave no warning.
There was only, suddenly, a great dull shock of sound that brought Susan taut and upright and left the fortune teller gasping and still and turned Idabelle Lasher’s broad pinkness to a queer pale mauve.
“What was that?” whispered Idabelle in a choked way.
And the fortune teller cried: “It’s a gunshot—out there!”
Susan stumbled and groped through the folds of draperies, trying to find the way through the entangling maze of curtains and out of the tent. Then all at once they were outside the curtains and staring at a figure that lay huddled on the floor, and there were people pouring in the door from the hall, and confusion everywhere.
It was Major Briggs. And he’d been shot and was dead, and there was no revolver anywhere.
Susan felt ill and faint and after one long look backed away to the window. Idabelle was weeping, her faced blotched. Dixon was beside her, and then suddenly someone from the hotel had closed the door into the corridor. And a bellboy’s voice, the one who’d wandered into the room looking for Mr. Haymow, rose shrilly above the tumult.
“Nobody at all,” he was saying. “Nobody came out of the room. I was at the end of the corridor when I heard the shot and this is the only room on this side that’s unlocked and in use tonight. So I ran down here, and I can swear that nobody came out of the room after t
he shot was fired. Not before I reached it.”
“Was anybody here when you came in? What did you see?” It was the manager, fat, worried, but competently keeping the door behind him closed against further intrusion.
“Just this man on the floor. He was dead already.”
“And nobody in the room?”
“Nobody. Nobody then. But I’d hardly got to him before there was people running into the room. And these three women came out of this tent.”
The manager looked at Idabelle—at Susan.
“He was with you?” he asked Idabelle.
“Oh, yes, yes,” sobbed Idabelle. “It’s Major Briggs.”
The manager started to speak, stopped, began again:
“I’ve sent for the police,” he said. “You folks that were in his party—how many of you are there?”
“Just Miss Dare and me,” sobbed Idabelle. “And—” she singled out Dixon and Duane—“these two men.”
“All right. You folks stay right here, will you? And you, too, miss—” indicating the fortune teller—“and the bellboy. The rest of you will go to a room across the hall. Sorry, but I’ll have to hold you till the police get here.”
It was not well received. There were murmurs of outrage and horrified looks over slender bare backs and the indignant rustle of trailing gowns, but the scattered groups that had pressed into the room did file slowly out again under the firm look of the manager.
The manager closed the door and said briskly:
“Now, if you folks will be good enough to stay right here, it won’t be long till the police arrive.”
“A doctor,” faltered Idabelle. “Can’t we have a doctor?”
The manager looked at the sodden, lifeless body.
“You don’t want a doctor, ma’am,” he said. “What you want is an under—” He stopped abruptly and reverted to his professional suavity. “We’ll do everything in our power to save your feelings, Mrs. Lasher,” he said. “At the same time we would much appreciate your—er—assistance. You see, the Charity Ball being what it is, we’ve got to keep this thing quiet.” He was obviously distressed but still suave and competent. “Now then,” he said, “I’ve got to make some arrangements—if you’ll just stay here.” He put his hand on the door knob and then turned toward them again and said quite definitely, looking at the floor: “It would be just as well if none of you were to try to leave.”
The Cases of Susan Dare Page 17
