“Thanks, Edgar. Goodbye, Mr. Wakeley.” She was nervous and anxious to leave.
“Now just a minute …”
“But I told you I couldn’t,” said Sarah Shepherd. David could see into her eyes, it seemed, a long long way. The message was, We might have been friends. I like you very much indeed. “I’m very pleased you think I’m qualified,” she was saying gracefully. “I’ve enjoyed your course. I liked your book.”
“I’ll see you in class tomor …”
“Goodbye, Mr. Wakeley,” There was no doubt she meant it. Deep in the eyes, doors closed. “Goodbye.”
“Nice to have met you,” said Dr. Perrot and he turned and his big body hid from David’s sight the little blonde’s flight to the door and away.
David Wakeley sat down. A very hard stubborn look took possession of his normally amiable face.
Chapter 2
Late afternoon, alone, Dr. Perrott drove very fast. He ran quickly out of the smallish town, east of the big city, in which the college had its being. It was not far at all, and not long at his speed, to the sea.
He passed through an elaborate gateway, past a guard who might or might not stop and query a car entering this snobbish colony clustered about its own cove. Edgar Perrot wound through and entered upon an ascending private road that was more snobbish and more exclusive than all the rest. For there was a small headland, and on the land side of it the great main artery ran to the south. But on the sea side there was a shelf cut, and a house lay curled like a shining lizard, low, with much glass, on the lip of this shelf. The only access to the place was through the gates, through the colony, and up the winding road.
Edgar ran his car into a big garage which was nestled between the sea and the road’s end. He opened a wrought-iron gate with a key, went up nine deep steps, and walked briskly on the brick pavement between flower beds, past a fountain, and entered the house by a glass door. To his right, the center portion of the house was one huge living room where at this hour, latish on a dull day, the curtains had all been drawn across the sea side. There was an inglenook on the land side. In the nook, on soft cushions, there sat a little gnome of a man and across the Camelot board, on a soft stool, sat a woman.
Edgar Perrott took his place on the opposite bench, the other side of the muttering fire. The woman turned gracefully to pour his cocktail.
“And how is Sarah?” inquired the little old man, cocking his head.
“Sarah’s all right.” Dr. Perrott sounded gloomy and a trifle sarcastic.
“Your move, Malvina,” the old man said.
The woman was big boned and well rounded. She had dark hair drawn tight to a great bun on the back of her neck, a tanned but fresh-looking face and very fine teeth which she knew how to show in a wide smile. She knew how to make her eyes glisten.
“There’s a professor, name of Wakeley,” said Edgar in his colorless voice. “He’s after her to be his secretary, help him write a book this summer.”
“Did Sarah consent?” said the old man after a moment.
“Sarah did not consent.”
“It wouldn’t be desirable,” said the old man, softly. There were traces in his voice of British vowels, British rhythms.
“He may persist,” said Edgar.
“If he does,” the old man sighed, “you will think of something?”
“I suppose so.” Edgar’s small pale eyes watched the woman.
The old man leaned back. “It’s obvious, Malvina, that I’ve won again,” he said petulantly.
“You always do, Grandfather,” she purred.
The old man said, “But Sarah is a problem, eh? A problem. Yes, a problem.”
Sunday evening David Wakeley went to see his mother’s friend, Mrs. Consuelo McGhee.
“Davey!” She held out beringed hands to him. “How nice to see you! I was about to write and complain to your mama.”
He gave her a fond smack on the forehead. “I’m here with ulterior motives and don’t intend to waste any time on flattery.”
“Oh well,” she seated herself comfortably, “when a woman gets to be forty, like me, she must take what crumbs fall.” She grinned at him. She was sixty-two.
“Blonde this week, hm?” David inspected her critically.
“I was in the mood,” said Consuelo airily. “And I think for summer, blonde is so practical.”
“Indubitably,” said David. He stretched his legs before him. “Just occurred to me that you, in the course of your wanderings among the international fleshpots, lived in England during the whole late lamentable war. Tell me, Consuelo darlin’, did you ever hear of a Bertrand Fox?”
“Naturally. Fox and Lupino. What you’d call here a vaudeville team. A pair of beloved clowns, hah!”
“I want to know all about him,” said David, sliding down in the chair.
Consuelo settled her portly figure. Her shrewd eyes marked the tension and impatience that he thought he was concealing. “If you promise to let me feed you …”
“You may feed me,” said David graciously. “As if any schoolteacher ever scorned a free meal …”
“With a charming companion …” prompted Consuelo.
“With a charming and-so-forth.… What about Fox?”
“Before we get into that, how is the family?”
“Letter from Mother. She’s fine. Dad’s O.K., I guess. Life at Watch Hill, you know, as usual.”
“Those dear sane people.” Consuelo sighed. “Someday I’m going back to visit.”
“They’d love to have you,” said David mechanically, “if you could do with only one bathroom. Tell me about this Fox, Consuelo darlin’.”
“Have you run afoul of Br’er Fox, Davey?”
“Not yet,” he said, too curtly.
Consuelo frowned. “Anything in particular about him?”
“About his family.”
“Family! Don’t tell me you’ve met Malvina!”
“Never heard of Malvina. Who is she?”
“All right. Begin at the beginning, as you always say. Let’s see. Those two were going great guns in London before the war. Fox and Lupino. Americans, I believe, both of them. Never caught on here. So they became more British than the British. Oh yes, a pair of clowns, as I said. Much beloved by the public, so the public was told. Baggy pants, red nose … that’s the type. Old-timers, and the second generation was supposed to love them for nostalgic reasons. God knows I saw no others.”
David stirred.
“But family, you say. Now, Davey, they weren’t what you’d call family men. Let’s see. Lupino managed to have a son, and something dreadful happened to him although I can’t remember what it was, at this moment. And I believe Fox’s solitary daughter had the good sense to run away with an American and fly to this continent. That’s really about all I know about family. Of course there’s Malvina. Malvina Lupino, she’d be the granddaughter of Tweedledum. She’s holding forth down near Corona del Mar, in case you don’t realize.”
“I realize Bertrand Fox lives down there.”
“Oh, you do? That’s right, Davey. He’s holed up in the darnedest most fabulous house. You see, as I get it from the neighbors, first the blitz came along and did away with Lupino, breaking up the act. So Fox took off, in sorrow, to Ireland for the duration. Taking Malvina along, I believe. I’ve heard she was a nasty little piece, even then. Now, after the war, lo if it didn’t turn out that Fox, years ago, made American investments and guess what the old Fox had done. Bought California land! Of all things I So, he appears and collects, because you know as well as I do what happened to California land values. And now he is living in luxury and ease on the side of a hill. The Nest, he calls his place.”
“Do you know, Consuelo darlin’, you don’t sound as if you liked this Fox much.” David looked more pleased than not.
“I never did and I don’t now.” Consuelo said indignantly. “The old potentate won’t let me in.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s suppo
sed to be in delicate health. He is to be seen by appointment only. They dole out five minutes of his precious company to deserving folks who bring their pedigrees. Well now, naturally, after having met him before, to the extent of having spent a week end at the same house once, I sprazzed myself up and went to call. Seems Mr. Bertrand Fox was so sorry. He couldn’t see me. So there I am, down there for two months every summer and other townspeople get in, but not me. So I’m burned up, Davey, and that’s the fact.”
“You sure are,” said David grinning. “And do I gather that you aren’t crazy about Malvina either?”
“Her,” snorted Consuelo. “I’ve seen her about. Buxom lass, Malvina. Comes down from the heights and bows to the commoners. I can’t stand her, Davey, any more than her grandfather, and that’s the fact, too.”
“Grandfather?” said David. “I thought you said …”
“Lupino, I meant. Although she is Fox’s adopted granddaughter, I believe, at that. Relict of his beloved partner. I guess he fished her out of the blitz to be his handmaiden. She acts like the Duchess of Orange. Orange County, that is.”
David laughed. “Bitter,” he teased.
Consuelo’s big handsome face was perfectly cheerful. “The worse thing is, I never did give a darn whether I saw the old man. I wanted to see the house. That house …”
“Never mind the house for now. Tell me who Sarah Shepherd is.”
“Shepherd. Oh yes. That’s his real granddaughter.”
“That’s her married name?”
“I dunno, Davey. Shepherd could be the name of the man that Foxey’s daughter ran off with, for all I remember. Was it now?” Consuelo’s tongue licked her upper plate thoughtfully.
“You’ve seen her down there?”
“I can’t say as I have. Heard of her. I’m on the community grapevine.”
“Naturally. Who is Dr. Perrott?”
“I’ve seen him, all right. He’s on view in any of the better bars.”
“Much of a practice, has he?”
“None at all. He is just Fox’s tame doctor, as far as I know. Big chap with a pinhead?”
“That’s the one.”
“Are you working around to telling me why all these questions?”
“Soon,” said David, cautiously. “But give me more of the background. Clowns, you say?”
“Oh Lord, yes. The beloved clown, which is a folk figure I can’t abide. I’ll tell you what kind of people they were.” Consuelo bounced on the sofa. “I’ll give you a for-instance. This house party. Fox and Lupino and assorted members of their families had been asked. Country doctor with a rich wife, friends of mine.” Consuelo went off on a sudden tangent. “I may have met Fox’s daughter, Davey. If so, she didn’t made a very vivid impression. What did is the scene we had. Oh me! It seems that dear Fox and Lupino had promised themselves for some big charity do. I want you to get the picture. There were lots of other acts. The town was crammed with visiting talent. Got that?”
“I’ve got it.”
“Now, in the afternoon before this performance there was an accident. Lupino was struck in the chest by an arrow. A child’s arrow. A pure accident. But oh what a lot of blood and commotion! It’s the commotion that I remember. The swooning and wailing. ‘The show must go on.’ For the life of me, I can’t see why. Who says so? If it had been a question of a great star around whom many other people had their economic being … then I might concede that the show must go on,” blustered Consuelo. “But not when it was the kind of thing it actually was. Nothing would have happened … nothing, believe me … if Lupino had quietly gone to bed on doctor’s orders like any other human being. People understand these things. No one would have held it against him. It wasn’t worth any commotion. But do you know what that old man … he was sixty, if he was a day … actually did? Had himself plastered up and went on and did his ridiculous pratt falls and all the rest of it. And everyone carried on as if he were a hero of the greatest proportions. I was disgusted. Nobody gave a second thought to the child. Except me. I remember laying down the law to her father, I think it was, and finally persuading him to take the child out of all the commotion, at least, so she’d not get the idea she’d as good as assassinated the King. Do you get the picture, Davey? Small, narrow little men engrossed with reputation, swollen with self-importance. That Lupino! Although he was no worse than Fox. There wasn’t a pennyworth of difference between them.”
“And he won’t let you in, either,” said David, dead pan.
“Exactly,” said Consuelo. “Now then, what’s all this?”
“I wanted your biased opinion before I told you.”
“You got it. For heaven’s sakes …”
He began, rather soberly, with Sarah Shepherd and the strange sequence of events she had recounted.
“Hm,” said Consuelo when he came to a stopping place. “But you know, Davey, granted that guilt-thing she had about the man who crashed, and then the blow when her bridegroom died … don’t you suppose there could be some distortion in that story?”
“Possibly,” he agreed, watching her.
“All of us know people who have had bad luck. We don’t relate it to ourselves. Maybe she leaves out certain friends who haven’t had bad luck at all. Just as nobody ever tells you when a white cat crosses his path.”
“Possibly,” admitted David. “I don’t know. Don’t know her. But I told you she wrote such a fine paper …”
“Oh come now, Davey. Surely you know intelligence hasn’t got a lot to do with emotional stability.” He cocked his brow at her. “Well, sometimes not,” said Consuelo. ‘‘Mad genius, and all that.”
David said grimly, “Then you would take it all with a grain of salt?”
“I would. I surely would,” said Consuelo comfortably.
“Let me continue. The next day she wasn’t in class. Didn’t come back at all. Well, that seemed too bad. So I began to hunt around for her. Friday I found her, having lunch with this Dr. Perrott. Nothing daunted, I barged in on them. I can be stubborn …”
“Oh yes, you can. Spitting image of your Grandmother James and a more stubborn old …”
“Don’t get off the track. Listen. She tried to brush me off, of course. But the doctor sat tight and I didn’t brush. Had quite a talk.”
“You and Dr. Perrott and the girl, eh?” Consuelo blinked. “What did you talk about, à trois?”
“My book,” said David promptly.
Consuelo rolled her eyes. “You mean, you talked. And your own shop, at that. I bet they got to say goodbye, maybe.”
“About all she said was goodbye, again,” David admitted. “The doctor said little or nothing. However, she was fascinated by my project. She sparked right up, as I knew she would. When I got to telling her some of the fabulous goings-on in those early days …”
“Everything about California is fabulous, as everybody knows. Don’t you get off the track. Tell me, is she pretty, Davey?”
“No,” said David impatiently. “Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. She’s just a little blonde girl. I’m not … What I wanted more than ever on Friday was to get her to work with me. And it looked as if the only thing standing in the way was this …”
“Superstition? Obsession?”
“… thing,” said David. Consuelo looked sharply at him.
“Now it comes out,” she pounced.
“Yes. Now, I’ll tell you. Last night I parked my car on the hill, as I have to do. I turned the wheels into the curb. I set the brake. I was taking a bath when the car shook loose and rolled down and smashed itself up.”
“Oh, Davey! Too bad!”
“I’m afraid that’s not the worst of it,” David said gently. “I can’t make this easy. It killed a woman, Consuelo.”
“Oh!” She held her powdered cheeks.
“Somebody’s maid. Just an innocent woman, going home in the early evening. She must have frozen. She just didn’t get out of the way in time. Now, Consuelo, will you consider, with me, the peculiar fact
that this accident happens to me right after I try to take up with a girl who thinks she is a Jonah? Now that’s odd, surely.”
“Odd!” said Consuelo. Now she touched his hand and found it tense. “Davey, you are good and mad, aren’t you?”
“I am,” said David. “I am good and mad. I’m no scared girl with a foolish feeling of guilt on my mind or a shock of sorrow riding me. I know I set that brake, I cramped those wheels. I won’t, for the rest of my life, wonder whether I did or not. I won’t carry that burden.”
“But if you did?”
“Uh huh,” said David. “In the light of the fact that I did park my car correctly, now look back on the stuff she told me. What if somebody is fixing these disasters?” Consuelo stared at him. “I’d say,” he went on, “that the man crashing, her husband dying … all the deaths were … well, call them real accidents. But when her lunch date’s mother died, too … a pure coincidence … and Sarah Shepherd went into a tailspin, as who could blame her, suppose at that point somebody saw how this notion of hers could be encouraged and … well … validated? Since then, look. A fire. A disease. Well, there’s such a thing as a germ, you know. Then a dog dies. A landlady lost her house. No deaths in that lot. Just disaster. So murder they don’t do. They could have done everything else.”
“Who could?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why would they?”
“I don’t know. Going to see if I can find out.”
Consuelo’s girdle creaked and she sighed.
“Because, my sainted courtesy-aunt Consuelo, murder they don’t set out to do. But whoever released the brakes on my car last night and swung the wheels so that the car could roll, must have known the risk but didn’t mind very much. And my car murdered that poor woman. Let me tell you, if it happened because somebody is having fun-and-games with Miss Sarah Shepherd, somebody is going to be sorry.”
“Oh dear,” said Consuelo. “Oh dear, Davey. Will you be in trouble about the car?”
“I don’t think so. And since Prexy pulled all the wires he could, the school isn’t mentioned, and my name is misspelled in the papers. So far. But the point is, no one was seen, no evidence was found, and although I am honest and of good repute and they don’t doubt my word, the implication remains. Maybe I just absent-mindedly, this one time, did not park my car as I thought I had.” David had on his rocklike look. “Consuelo, I know I did. So … well, there’s that poor kid …”
Better to Eat You Page 2
