Then Bob grabbed him by the shoulder and flung him away so hard that the man crashed against the shelves of silks. Then he snatched the door open and found himself running up a black narrow flight of stairs.
“What is it?” he called. “What is it, Mrs. Kingman?”
The whole place had a musty, spicy smell that he had once associated with Japanese trains and railway stations. He heard a scuffling of footsteps and voices above him, and then he was on a landing, turning the knob of a flimsy little door. It opened into a room lighted by two windows, obviously a fitting room with a mirror and a chair and a table. And there was Mrs. Kingman. Her shoulders were bare. She was clasping her dress in front of her, facing three chattering Japanese.
“Look here,” Bob said. “What’s the matter? Did you scream?” Something must have happened. He was sure of it, because her eyes were wide and staring and her face was ashy white. He pushed his way through the Japanese boys and walked toward her.
“Why, Mrs. Kingman,” he said, “what is it?” She opened her mouth and closed it. Something had frightened her, something had frightened her terribly.
“I never thought—” she said, but her voice was hardly more than a whisper.
“It’s all right,” Bob told her. “What happened? Did any of these boys—”
Then her voice was louder.
“Take me out of here,” she said, “take me out!”
“Why, yes,” Bob told her, “of course I will. It’s all right. Just tell me what happened.”
She drew a deep breath and her voice was steadier.
“They all came in,” she said. “I think they were going to—” She stopped and stared at the door.
“Going to what?” Bob asked her. “It’s all right, Mrs. Kingman.”
“Going to kill me,” she said. “But—” and then her words were steadier, “but it’s all right now. Just take me away.”
“Oh, come now,” Bob said. “Something just startled you,” and he turned to the boys and scowled at them. “You boys get out of here! What the hell do you mean breaking into this room?” None of them answered. They only stood staring at him with wooden, vacant faces, and he heard Mrs. Kingman draw in her breath sharply.
“It’s all right now,” she said again. “Just take me out.”
Then Bob Bolles heard quick, light footsteps on the landing, and he saw the man he had seen earlier that morning in his neat white business suit. It was Mr. Moto.
The light from the window glittered from Mr. Moto’s glasses. There was something birdlike in the way that Mr. Moto turned his head, first toward Mrs. Kingman and then back toward Bob Bolles, but aside from that quick motion, everything else about him was very tranquil. As he stood with his delicate hands clasped in front of him, he looked patient and reassuring.
It was only afterwards that Bob Bolles wondered where Mr. Moto had been and why he had not appeared sooner. He must have been somewhere near, for he was not out of breath; he showed no signs of hurry.
“Oh,” said Mr. Moto, “what is it, please?” And he spoke to the boys sharply in Japanese. “Was something wrong, please?”
“Look here,” Bob said. “Something happened to this lady when she was trying on a dress. I was down in the shop and she screamed.”
“Oh,” said Mr. Moto, “oh, so sorry. I know now. A misunderstanding, please. Those boys they work so hard. They came to fit the clothes. So very stupid of them. So sorry. They do not understand the foreigners, the boys,” and Mr. Moto rubbed his hands together and bobbed his head. “So very, very sorry for the lady. Excuse it, please. So very sorry.”
“I tell you something happened,” Bob Bolles said. “What was it, Mrs. Kingman?”
“It’s all right now,” Mrs. Kingman said. Her dress was on again and the color was back in her cheeks. “They just came in so suddenly, without knocking, all of them at once. It—startled me, up here alone.”
Mr. Moto clasped his hands and bowed again.
“It is so very awkward,” he said. “I hope so very much the lady will excuse. In Japan it is the other way,” and Mr. Moto laughed nervously.
“What’s the other way?” Bob asked.
“In Japan, please,” Mr. Moto said, “everyone undresses in Japan. No one would mind. These boys did not understand. So sorry.”
“That’s so,” Bob said. “You ought to see them in the railroad trains, Mrs. Kingman. They don’t mind what they take off in public. But you’d better teach these boys, Moto.”
“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Moto, “yes. So sorry for the lady. She may have the dress for nothing if she will make no trouble. So very, very sorry. Madam, please, we will close the door. We will be so very, very careful.”
“No,” said Mrs. Kingman. “I want to go. Please, Mr. Bolles, don’t talk to him. I just want to leave here. I don’t want to see their faces. I don’t—” and she took his arm. He felt her hand shaking as she held it.
“It’s all right, Mrs. Kingman,” Bob said. “No one’s going to hurt you. Of course we’ll get out,” and he walked down the stairs with her and through the shop, with Mr. Moto following.
“So sorry,” Mr. Moto kept saying. “Will Madam please excuse?”
“I’m awfully sorry you had a fright like that,” Bob said. “Of course I can see, up there all alone—”
But he could not be sure that something else had not happened, for out in the street she still clung to his arm. Something had frightened her, and she did not seem like a person who was easily frightened.
“Let’s go away,” she said. “You’ll help me, won’t you? Please help me.”
“Why, of course,” Bob said. “I guess I’d better take you back to Mr. Kingman.”
Her grasp on his arm grew tighter.
“Oh,” she said, “not that, no. Please, listen to me, Mr. Bolles. There isn’t much time. I—you’ll have to help me.”
“Why, yes,” said Bob, “of course. Just forget what happened up there. It was really a misunderstanding. No one can hurt you here possibly.”
She gave her head an impatient shake and then she dropped his arm. His words must have reassured her somehow. At any rate she seemed to have recovered.
“You’ve been awfully nice,” she said. Her voice was suddenly warm and friendly. “When you came running up those stairs—I should have known that you’d be nice.”
“Why, that’s all right,” Bob answered. “It wasn’t anything.”
“You’d say just that, of course,” she said, “because you’re nice. I’m afraid you think I’m an awful fool, going to pieces like that.”
“It’s all over now,” Bob said. “We’ll find Mr. Kingman and then you can forget about it.”
“But why are you in such a hurry to find him?” she asked, and she smiled at him in a way that made him feel very peculiar. “Girls aren’t always tied to husbands. I think he’s going to be busy for quite a while. There’s no hurry, is there? Just suppose that he weren’t here at all.”
“What?” Bob asked her.
She looked up at him, half questioningly, half laughingly, so that he could not tell whether she was serious or not.
“Just suppose he weren’t here at all,” she said. “Just suppose that you and I had met somewhere and that neither of us cared much about convention or anything. I don’t, and I don’t believe you do.”
When Bob looked back at her he knew that it was true—he did not care much about convention.
“All right,” he said, and somehow her eyes made his voice unsteady. “Suppose he weren’t. He’s probably still down there talking at Henry’s.”
“Just suppose we’d known each other for a little while longer,” she said. “Suppose we’d talked about a lot of things and suppose we’d danced together. Suppose I told you that I was sick and tired of everything.”
“I’ve been told that before,” Bob said, and he was thinking about the times he had been told, but no one who had told him looked like Mrs. Kingman.
“Suppose we liked each ot
her. We might, you know,” she said.
“That’s true,” Bob answered, and he did not mind at all dealing with the supposition. “We might have once—when I was in the Service, maybe—but I’m an ex-Naval officer now and I’m pretty nearly on the beach,” and he laughed.
“I know,” she said. “We heard about you from Henry. You see, I’m not very happy and you’re not very happy, don’t you see? And I suppose there are times when you don’t care much what people say. That’s why I say—just suppose—”
“Suppose what?” Bob asked.
“That I told you I was in a great deal of trouble.” Her eyes were on him, half serious and half questioning. “And that I wanted you to take me away on your boat—anywhere to get away from here. I wonder if you’d do it.”
“You’d have to be in an awful lot of trouble to ask me that,” Bob said.
“I suppose so,” she answered, “but I’m not so sure—if we’d only known each other longer. I wonder if you would. Would you?”
The strange thing about it was that she spoke as though the question were serious, as though there were actually something between them; and he could almost wish there were.
“If you put it that way, I might,” he said, and Mrs. Kingman laughed, but somehow she was still half serious.
“Suppose we went right now, right down to the water, and rowed out to your boat, me with nothing but what I have—just this handbag and this dress—and suppose you just pulled up the anchor and hoisted up a sail. We’d be a long way off before anyone knew, wouldn’t we?”
“Yes,” Bob said, “we might be,” and then he laughed. “But you see, there’s Mr. Kingman. That’s the trouble with supposing.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Kingman, “but just suppose—I have plenty of money. I’m quite rich, really.”
Bob Bolles felt his face grow red again. That talk of money was the first thing that put him in his place.
“You don’t do things like that for money,” he said. “At least, I don’t,” and then he laughed again. “We’d better go and find Mr. Kingman. It’s getting late. I imagine he’s still down at Henry’s. He had to see someone there.”
Then he heard Mrs. Kingman catch her breath sharply.
“He had to see someone?” she repeated. “Who?” And Bob’s mind went back to noon at Henry’s when he had been sitting in the shady barroom—and all the make-believe was gone.
“A new arrival,” Bob said, “just off the plane, nice-looking, rather tall, rather young. He said that he particularly wanted to see Mr. Kingman. It was the first time I heard your name and Henry gave him a room upstairs.”
Mrs. Kingman grasped his arm again and her voice was very sharp.
“Did you hear his name?” she asked.
“Why, yes, I did,” Bob answered. “He said he came from Portugal. His name was Durant. Why, what’s the matter?”
A spasm of sickness seemed to have struck her. For a second her eyes were half closed and her body swayed against him, and then she steadied herself and stood quite still.
“It’s nothing,” she said. “It’s so hot—the sun—Mr. Bolles—”
“Yes?” he said.
“Will you take me on your boat? Will you right away?”
They had come to a standstill on the corner, near one of the white banks on the square, and all the slow life of Kingston was moving past them unheeded. A truckload of bananas passed them on its way to the pier from some estate in the back country. A group of Negroes walked by aimlessly. Two spruce-looking businessmen emerged from the bank and passed them, without giving them a look. All life passed them by while they stood there. Bob Bolles seemed to be conscious of her for the first time. It was the first time that Mrs. Kingman was not a polite abstraction, but instead a definite person who had become suddenly a part of his life.
“Do you really know what you’re talking about?” he asked.
And he could almost believe she knew. She stood there—lithe and straight and tall. The curve of her lips, the curve of her chin, the steadiness of her eyes all told him something. It was more than an impulse with her. It was more considered than that. She half smiled at him, making him look at her, making him see that she was desirable, and all the time she was trying to read everything about him, because something must have made her desperate.
“Yes,” she said, “I really know.”
She might regret it later, but she was telling the truth. Something had made her desperate—not afraid, but desperate. It was a desperation which had made her toss aside every little conventional concealment. She was nothing but a human being—no longer fashionable, no longer calm.
“You’d better tell me what it’s all about,” Bob said, and her answer came promptly, almost breathlessly.
“There isn’t any time to talk now. It’s just you and me—you and me. I’ll tell you when we get aboard your boat.”
“Well—” Bob Bolles began, but he never finished. Mr. Kingman came around the corner by the bank, walking very fast. He saw them and waved his hand and hurried toward them. She must have seen him at the same instant and her whole manner changed.
“Why, Mac,” Bob heard her say, “there you are!”
Although Bob could not define it, there was something a little ugly about it, something surgical and cruel in Mr. Kingman’s smile, something very wary in his eyes.
“Hello,” he said to her and his glance never left her face. “I thought you were shopping, Helen.”
“We were,” Mrs. Kingman said. “I was just going to get a—a taxi to go back to the hotel.”
“No, you weren’t,” Mr. Kingman said. “You were talking. I’ve told you, my dear, it isn’t good for you to excite yourself by talking.”
“I think Mrs. Kingman is a little upset,” Bob Bolles said. From their faces it seemed to him necessary to make some sort of explanation. Mr. Kingman’s eyes were icily cool. He was giving every word a complete and flattering attention.
“Upset?” he asked briskly. “How?”
“It was just a little matter in the Japanese store,” Bob said. “She will tell you. It wasn’t anything, really.”
“The Japanese store?” Mr. Kingman said. His voice was light and humorous, but there was no humor in his eyes. “You shouldn’t have gone without me, my dear. Don’t be afraid. I’ll see it doesn’t happen again. Nothing will trouble you again, because I’ll be with you—always.”
“Yes, Mac,” Mrs. Kingman said. “Don’t be silly.”
“I shall not be, my dear,” Mr. Kingman said, and his eyes were back on Bob Bolles. “I should have told you, Skipper, that Mrs. Kingman isn’t very well. I hope there wasn’t anything that puzzled you. She didn’t possibly suggest that you might run away with her?”
“Why, no,” Bob said, “of course not, Mr. Kingman.”
“Because if she ever does,” Mr. Kingman said, “don’t take it seriously. Helen’s a charming girl, but she’s here for a little rest.” His arm shot out suddenly and his fingers grasped Mrs. Kingman’s elbow. “We really have a—a jolly time together, don’t we, dear? We’ll get one of those cars over there and go back to the hotel.” But Mrs. Kingman did not move.
“Mac,” she said, “you’ve seen Charles?” Mr. Kingman’s fingers were still on her elbow, gripping her very hard.
“What?” he began. “What the devil do you know about Charles?”
“Don’t lie to me, Mac,” Mrs. Kingman said. “Charles called to see you at that saloon and you’ve been talking to him. Where is he now? What have you done to him?”
Mr. Kingman beckoned to a driver in a car across the square.
“My dear,” he said, “we will talk about it quietly in just a minute. And no emotion now, please. You must excuse her, Mr. Bolles. She’ll be better at five. You’ll see. Say good-by to Mr. Bolles, dear.”
“Don’t,” Mrs. Kingman said. “You hurt me, Mac.” Mr. Kingman’s hand dropped from her elbow. “Oh,” he said, “so sorry, dear. See you later, Skipper.” And then Mrs. Kingman
smiled at Bob Bolles as though nothing had happened at all.
“Good-by, Mr. Bolles,” she said. “Thank you very much.”
The touring car and the driver were at the curb and Mr. Kingman helped her in.
“Careful,” Bob heard him say, “careful, Helen.” And then they were gone and Bob Bolles was left standing at the corner.
“Now, what do you know about that!” Bob Bolles said.
Perhaps Mr. Kingman had been right. Perhaps she was upset and tired. He had seen other married couples—He shrugged his heavy shoulders.
“Maybe it’s just as well,” he said softly, “that I never married, but it’s certainly taken me out of myself.”
CHAPTER IV
He must have stood there for quite a while, thinking of everything that had happened, and it had certainly taken him out of himself. Mrs. Kingman had made him forget his own problems almost entirely. He had almost forgotten that he was standing on the corner by the bank, when he heard a voice behind him calling, “Bob—Bob Bolles!” It was like a voice in his own thoughts when he heard it, for no one in Kingston knew him well enough to call his name, but he understood when he turned—and all his old life was back. He had forgotten the destroyer that he had seen entering the harbor, and now he saw a young officer in starched, fresh whites. It was a long jump from Mrs. Kingman when he saw him. It was Bill Howe, whom he remembered very well at Hampton Roads. He was a junior lieutenant now, and of course he would be assigned to the Smedley.
“Hello. How are you, Bob?” he said. “Captain Burke’s at the hotel. He sent me to find you.”
Bob Bolles felt his face flush.
“What’s the Captain doing on the Smedley?” he asked.
“Flagship of the division,” the Lieutenant answered. “Captain Burke wants to see you.”
“How the devil did he know I was here?” Bob asked.
“You know, we talk about you quite a lot,” the Lieutenant said. “They said at Key West that you’d bought the Thistlewood and the Captain picked her out when we came in this morning. He sent me to find you, Bob. It’s orders.”
“Well, that was damned thoughtful of him,” Bob Bolles said. He paused and looked up and down the street, at the coffee-colored policemen, at the fat old women with their shells and baskets, at the tropical trees in the square and at the automobiles and the hack horses. “You can give Captain Burke my regards and tell him I’m not forgetting that he sat on the Board that passed me over.”
Last Laugh, Mr. Moto Page 4
