by Rufus King
How happily, how marvelously was it like the days before he had gone away: a trancelike interlude which held solidly its warming joy until they left the table and went into the drawing room.
“Hi there, Lieutenant,” said Miss Ashley.
Mrs. Giles almost literally felt frost forming on her skin. The creature (again motherless so far as Mrs. Giles was concerned) was standing beside a buhl table and daringly leafing through Papa’s large, handsomely bound family Bible. She was no longer in slacks but wore an organdy dinner dress which Mrs. Giles was compelled to admit had been masterfully cut by a first-rate house. It gave the wretch an all but wickedly deceitful air of virginal innocence.
Mrs. Giles could have killed her.
“Hello there yourself, Miss Ashley,” said Kent. “You are looking very fit.”
“I thought so.” She shifted the impact of her sultry eyes with their eye shadow of pale mauve to Mrs. Giles. “You want to be careful for the next few days what you do. Jupiter’s not so hot. He’s with the Moon in a nadir in the sign of Pisces. My advice to you is don’t travel.”
The frost moved from her skin into Mrs. Giles’s voice.
“Would you explain what you are talking about, Miss Ashley?”
“Your horoscope. I got the date of your birth from that Bible. When I get time I’ll work it out. But right now I’m not kidding, Mrs. Giles. You keep away from travel. Anyhow, until next week. How about slipping a disk on the juke box, Lieutenant? Your grandmother has a nice place here all right, but boy, does it wrap me in shrouds.”
Mrs. Giles sank into a rose damask fauteuil. Miss Ashley’s magic (black) still worked. Mrs. Giles could see its poisonous brew befogging Kent’s normally lively eyes. She could see it in the manner with which he walked in a rosy daze to the cabinet that held his private selection of records, in the way he gathered Miss Ashley into an arm and melted into rhythm as some brazen creature started moaning blue. They floated as one, toward her and away from her, upon the fluid floral designs of Papa’s finest Kirman-Lavehr carpet.
CHAPTER 21
Mrs. Giles with relief saw Mr. Smith and his nephew hesitating in the doorway, having been attracted there by the music. “Attracted” was an insult to the dictionary, Mrs. Giles decided as her eardrums shuddered beneath the timpani of a famous drummer who was not only trying to drown out the wind instruments but was succeeding very soundly in doing so.
During the comparative stillness while the drums ceased and a deathbed baritone took over Mrs. Giles said loudly: “Do join us, Mr. Smith. Won’t you and your nephew come in?”
She watched them approach and did hope that their entrance would break up that intimacy of the dance, graceful though it was, and (Mrs. Giles was frank enough to admit it) of a propriety which would have put to shame some of the capers at the country club which she had witnessed.
Smith and Fergus sat down on a love seat near her chair, well filling it. Mrs. Giles’s never-resting mind flashed back to Leila as again the breath-taking good looks of young Mr. Wade faced her.
“I do hope you have recovered from your shock this noon,” she said to him.
“Shock? Me?”
“Yes, during that unpleasant visit to the morgue.”
Fergus smiled ingenuously.
“I never saw a stiff before. I guess it was too much for me.” He dug down and brought up from the curious recesses of his mind the tritest of often-read phrases: “Everything went black.”
“My nephew,” Smith said, “has had a little trouble with his heart. So many athletes do.”
The music and the baritone expired, then Miss Ashley and Kent came over and offered greetings. In the heavy pause which followed their acceptance Mrs. Giles, probably for the first time in her life, felt at a social loss.
What conceivable conversational topic could she introduce which would fuse these differing elements into a whole and soften the set, expectant grin on Mr. Smith’s rugged face, the smoky blankness of young Mr. Wade’s altar-boy eyes, the faint daze in Kent’s, and that sultry something in Miss Ashley’s?
She was almost grateful when Miss Ashley herself took the situation in hand. Hypnotized, she listened while Miss Ashley extracted the birth dates of the three men and then promptly proceeded to forecast their immediate futures.
“You,” Miss Ashley said to Smith, “have a remarkable experience before you. Mars, the planet of force, is in the second house. Your experience will be concerned with finances. I advise you to go ahead with any plans you have in mind.
“You,” she said to Fergus, “are strangely linked by the planets with the destinies of your uncle. The Sun and Venus are culminating in the sign of Virgo. And that means, my handsome friend, beware of skirts. So far as Fifis are concerned, my advice to you is to take a sabbatical.”
That was perfectly agreeable to Fergus.
“Where,” he said, “do I get one?”
“I’ll let you know. As for you, Lieutenant, you are going to follow that cute suggestion you made at the morgue and take me out upon the town. I’m all for rug cutting, but not on a rug.”
Mrs. Giles could see that this was not unpleasant to Kent, although it did occur to her that there was something overdone, a forced note in his enthusiasm. She wondered why. Especially in view of what had been his obvious, almost doting pleasure in Miss Ashley’s company before Mr. Smith and his nephew had joined them.
Then she knew what it was: the enthusiasm was acting. Kent had always been the worst possible sort of actor. The kind which Mrs. Giles understood they called ham. She never had forgotten that ghastly moment while he was in boarding school when she had sat with such agony through Kent’s interpretation of a sophisticated faun.
She assured him that she didn’t in the least mind his going, especially as it was approaching her accustomed hour for retiring. She hoped that Miss Ashley and he would have a pleasant evening and said that she would breakfast with him at whatever hour he got up. She suggested a taxi instead of the brougham as Hopkins’ retiring hour coincided with hers.
Miss Ashley paused at the doorway as they were leaving the room. She said, “Didn’t something unpleasant happen to you back in 1928?”
How odd, Mrs. Giles thought. Because there had. That was the year in which she had almost died from a severe attack of influenza.
“Why, yes, Miss Ashley. I was seriously threatened with influenza. What made you ask?”
“I got that far in your horoscope.” Her smoldering eyes moved lazily from Mrs. Giles to Smith and Fergus. “Smart guys, those stars.”
Then she and Kent left.
Mrs. Giles watched their vivid young figures vanish into the gloomy hall. A chill shook her. How queer that Miss Ashley should have hit on 1928. Could there be anything in it? Could Miss Ashley, in addition to her perfect ability to control the present, lift the veil and forecast things to come? Then Mrs. Giles found herself somewhat taken aback at the flash of resentment she caught on Mr. Wade’s face. But naturally it would be there: swift jealousy of Kent or of any man who would remove so gaudy a plum. That woman had an endless net.
Surprisingly Kent was back in the doorway, saying: “I’ve brought you the press,” and bowing Dawn Davis into the room. He added: “Her finger was reaching for the doorbell.”
And again he was gone.
Miss Davis looked brightly professional. She gathered up Smith and Fergus with a glance (the section swept at Fergus paused for a stopover) and said to Mrs. Giles: “I warned you, you know. I do hope you don’t mind.”
Mrs. Giles was at sea.
“Mind?”
“I said this morning that I would interview your guests. I seem to have missed Miss Ashley, thanks to Kent. I’m still wind-blown from the speed with which he whisked me past her.”
Mrs. Giles clutched at her manners. She introduced. Miss Davis refused to take off her things.
Miss Davis sat down.
“I remember seeing you at the bond sale, Mr. Smith.”
“And I am in yo
ur debt for having made it possible for my nephew and myself to be here.”
“I also remember that when you looked at Mrs. Giles’ etching you said that it reminded you of home. Was it Maine?”
“It was,” Fergus broke in, “Long Island. My parents were blown up in their launch on the Sound.”
“But how dreadful, Mr. Wade. You must tell me.”
“I just did.”
“My nephew,” Smith said, giving his nephew an imperative look, “was a child of tragedy. He was seven. He has lived with me ever since. Our home, Miss Davis, was a simple cottage near the Hamptons. Frequently during the winter a deer or two would come to our pond, and that is why the etching meant so much to me.”
“And now, do give me your reactions to River Rest.”
Oh dear, Mrs. Giles thought, I am so glad Miss Ashley isn’t with us to give hers.
Smith restrained a hurried look around the walls.
“I never knew,” he said, “that such a place existed. Magnificent.”
“And you, Mr. Wade?”
“Magnificent.”
Miss Davis wondered whether or not she had enough. She thought she had. The exploding launch plus Mr. Wade’s physique and the simple Hamptons cottage with its deer were good for several sticks. The quote “Magnificent” was a sufficient horse on which to drape her rags-to-riches angle. And there was still that Ashley vision to be chased through the town’s three night clubs.
She stood up. She was furious at not being able to discuss the murder, but that had been clamped under an official taboo.
“This has been very kind,” she said at large.
She said good-by. She started for the doorway. Hamptons? Sound? Why keep a launch on the Sound when you lived miles across the island on the other shore? It was a little thing, but Miss Davis wondered, as she left the house whether there could be something there. Discrepancies, however slight, could prove important when their perpetrators occupied a scene of crime.
CHAPTER 22
Mrs. Giles could feel a stolid sense of sympathy radiating toward her from Mr. Smith. There was nothing tangible about it, but she knew that it was there.
Her mind had the ability for tangents, no matter under what emotional stress (a good thing, of course, or currently she would have gone mad), and she suddenly thought how nice it would be if Mr. Smith’s nephew would pose for an etching. Those perfect features done in cameo with just a suggestion, perhaps, of the sweep of Mr. Wade’s superbly muscled shoulders and upper arms.
The tangent ended as she realized Mr. Smith was saying: “You have had a trying day. Fergus and I will wish you good night.”
In this emptiness which had been left by Kent’s departure with that creature, Mrs. Giles did not want Mr. Smith and his nephew to leave her. The last thing she felt she could bring herself to face would be an hour or two alone in her rooms, tormented with conjectures and harrowing thoughts, until the hour would come when it would be safe to bury the blue silk wrapper.
She cast about for a topic of mutual interest which might hold them.
She said: “They have identified the dead man.”
It held them all right.
Mr. Smith, who had started to rise, fell back upon the love seat, and the oddest expression flashed over Mr. Wade’s face while his splendid muscles tensed.
Wade got as far as: “What did I tell you?” when Smith cut in with an abrupt: “Who was it, Mrs. Giles?”
“I believe Mr. Stedman said the man’s name was Agualdo Russdorff. That was his favorite one. His other aliases he didn’t favor quite so much. The central bureau in Washington identified Mr. Russdorff from his fingerprints.”
Smith immediately plunged into a sound lecture on crime. He covered its roots, its fruits, and the inevitable end which awaited all tasters of the same. Mrs. Giles warmed to him more than ever.
As he talked he reminded her strongly of that splendid and stanch Mr. Wattlestone who had made such an impression on her youthful mind in the calm little church she had attended with Mamma and Mademoiselle as a child. Their pew had been beside a window which was always open on Sundays, and the smell of catnip would come in. She would have liked to linger with this memory, but she forced her attention back to what Mr. Smith was saying.
He wanted to look at the studio. He thought that perhaps a quarter of an hour in the serene milieu of art would take her mind off the tragic happening of the morning. It struck Mrs. Giles as an excellent suggestion, and she led the way out into the hall and up the stairs.
Smith paused as they came to the door of his room.
“I wonder whether you would step in for a moment and let me show you something, Mrs. Giles.”
“Certainly.”
“I have made a slight alteration in the decorations.”
He opened the door and switched on a ceiling cluster. Mrs. Giles went inside, followed by Fergus. She looked around. The room seemed the same. It was still the Blue Room. That was another fad Papa had blindly followed: decorating the four guest rooms each in a distinctive color.
For years Mrs. Giles had thought the Red Room pretty terrible, but she had never redecorated it because Papa had been most pleased with it of the lot. “Now that’s a color you can get your teeth in!” he used to say.
“But I see no change, Mr. Smith.”
“Look on that wall there.”
Then she saw it. At the space where a water-color sketch involving blue sky and a beached rowboat with a blue hull had always hung. This trifle now was gone, and in its place Mr. Smith had put her etching of the thirst-quenching stag.
Mrs. Giles felt genuinely flattered and pleased. She said so, then she took them upstairs to the attic floor and into the room which Papa had had fixed over into a studio.
It was a large room with a long row of windows to let in the north light. There had been some talk of a real skylight, but the roof was mansard and weighty with slate, and Papa had felt it would spoil the looks of the place terribly.
A row of cupboards lined the east wall for her etching materials and supplies of paper while the Payne and Sons’ Albion hand press, covered with a dust sheet, stood out in the room’s center. She wondered idly what, if anything, Leila had added to her kleptomaniacal loot. For some time now Leila had been using one of the wall cupboards as a cache, and its contents, the last time Mrs. Giles had looked into it, had embraced such trifles as a copper ash tray, an egg beater, and a piece of costume jewelry.
As soon as the studio lamps were turned on Mrs. Giles knew that Mr. Smith was a true artist. There was a positive eagerness in the way he removed the dust cover from the hand press.
It seemed silly to say so, but his hands did have an almost fondling touch as they moved about and tested the condition of the press’s mechanism. Even his nephew seemed to have caught a dash of Mr. Smith’s suppressed air of pleasure, for he also was examining the press in a thoroughly interested fashion.
“It’s in very good shape,” Smith said. “Let me congratulate you, Mrs. Giles. Not many women feel such a responsibility toward machinery. But then you are an artist. Naturally you are sensitive regarding your tools. Would you think it presumptuous if Fergus and I were to take it apart and give it a thorough going over some evening?”
“I would be deeply grateful. Mr. Smith. In fact, I had hoped that you might care to join me in doing a plate or two.”
“Splendid!”
“The thought occurred that your nephew might even consent to pose. Just the head and upper torso, say in cameo. Would you, Mr. Wade?”
Fergus glanced at Smith, who permitted an eyelid to lower briefly. So Fergus offered his shy smile and said he’d like to pose whenever Mrs. Giles wanted him to.
“If I recall correctly,” Smith said to her, “didn’t you tell Miss Davis at the bond sale about still having some of your original stock of India paper?”
“Yes, in fact, I’ve most of it. Both the India and bond. Papa bought me an awful lot. Papa always did buy much too much of things. It’s
in this cupboard, Mr. Smith.”
Mrs. Giles opened the door of the cupboard which was farthest removed from the one where Leila had her cache. She felt most warmly gratified when Mr. Smith examined the large stock of paper with a nonplused respect which amounted almost to awe.
“How lucky you are, Mrs. Giles. This stuff is made from pure linen rags.” He held a sheet against the light, then tested its flexibility and strength. He shut the cupboard door reverently, as though upon a gold mine. “It is impossible to get hold of paper like that today. You have no inks, of course. Not if you haven’t done any etching for a good many years.”
“No, and I’m afraid my stock of Dutch mordant may have deteriorated. It would have, wouldn’t it?”
“That is according to how it has been kept, Mrs. Giles. I think it would be safer to get a fresh supply. I do hope you will permit me to attend to it, and also to the inks. I will feel I won’t be imposing so greatly then for using your priceless paper and the press. Dear, dear, but this carries me straight back to the Academy. Such happy days. That carefree student life! ”
For a full half-hour they talked shop. Fergus fiddled in fascination with the press, and Smith was most kind in his criticism of a folio of Mrs. Giles’s India proofs which he persuaded her to show him.
Then they returned to the door below and said good night, and Mrs. Giles went into her living room. The pleasant half-hour dropped from her as she shut the door.
Her problems were with her again.
CHAPTER 23
Through the smallest of cracks Smith observed Mrs. Giles going into her living room, then he closed the door.
“I’m all of a sweat,” he said to Fergus, who had come in with him. “A thing like that shakes me.”
Fergus, with the unerringness of a homing pigeon, sought the bed and stretched out flat on his back. He flexed whipcord muscles and yawned, then his face took on the peculiar expression it assumed whenever he attempted to think.
