For a second Don stood staring at him, his jaw aggressively tilted, his strong arms hanging stiff at his side. Then, very quietly, he said: “O.K.,” and strode away.
As he melted into the shadows, Ivor tossed away his cigarette and moved closer to Kay.
Every nerve in her was jarringly alive from her scene with the boatman. And for the first time she felt a queer sting of fear—fear not of what Ivor might say, but of his physical nearness and the sudden, responsive quiver of her own body.
“You’re more beautiful than ever, Kay.”
His hands moved to her arms. She wanted to pull herself away. But she couldn’t. Memories, rushing back with the familiar touch of those fingers, held her motionless in a spell that had fascination as well as repulsion.
“More beautiful. But just as unsophisticated.” His fingers moved over her bare arms. “I was too much fun, wasn’t I? I excited you instead of revering your maidenly modesty. So you put me in the monster class—a wicked, wicked ogre who eats young girls. And now you’ve come to save your niece from a fate worse than death.” She could see his white teeth as he smiled. “If I were you, darling, I’d just relax and enjoy the sunshine because you’re not going to succeed, not even with Terry’s hysterics to back you up.”
She stared at him challengingly. “What makes you so sure I won’t succeed?”
“Because I think Elaine’s one of the most beautiful girls I ever saw. I want to marry her. And I’m going to marry her.”
“And she wants to marry you?”
“That, my dear, is a very interesting question. But then Elaine’s a very interesting and complex person. She’s fascinated by money; and she’s rather fascinated by me. She’s certainly enough of your niece to be shocked by me too. That makes it much more exciting.”
“And she loves you?”
“Loves me!” He gave a queer laugh. “Do you think I’d marry anyone again who loved me—after Rosemary?”
The moon, a gleaming yellow disk, was hanging now above the still waters of the bay. In its soft radiance, Kay could see his face clearly—see the ironic eyes and the mouth with its half-derisive smile.
“Poor Kay, you good women are so pathetically naive. You think I hounded Rosemary to her death for the fiendish delight of watching her suffer. You’d never understand that she was the one who hounded me. That appalling, suffocating, female love! She tried to swallow me whole into her ghastly world of cheap romance where cupids shower roses on the bridal couch and wives are Little Women. It’s a miracle I wasn’t the one who jumped out of that window! Heaven spare me from another loving wife.”
Kay watched him, hating him. “I suppose you know Rosemary kept a diary of her married life? She sent it me just before she—she killed herself.”
His lashes flickered. “I thought I recognized that little green book you were nursing when I came into the room today.”
“It might interest you to know I’m going to show it to Maud tonight.”
“So you haven’t shown it to her yet. That’s interesting.” He was smiling again. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, darling, but your bomb isn’t going to explode. Your sister has far too shrewd an instinct for keeping her bread buttered to be affected by the scribblings of a neurotic girl.”
“That’s a vile thing to say. Just because she’s let Gilbert accept all those things from you, you needn’t…”
“My dear Kay, I never suggested I’d bought your sister off by my small generosities. I’m merely telling you that neither Maud nor Gilbert Chiltern will ever stand in my way so far as marrying Elaine is concerned—whatever you do. So don’t you think you might be a tactful sister and not—shall we say—embarrass Maud more than necessary?”
“What are you driving at?”
He moved closer. “I wouldn’t be inquisitive, darling. You’ll only force me into telling you something not so very nice about your beloved Chilterns. And then you’ll call me a cad.” His fingers found her arms again. “Just concentrate on being the beautiful aunt and don’t try to be a shaper of nieces’ destinies. You’ll get much further that way.”
His hands slid around her waist. He drew her toward him. And he kissed her on the mouth.
Her brief moment of fascination had completely gone. The touch of his lips on hers brought her nothing but a sharp, uncontrollable disgust. She wrenched herself free.
He stared at her, his shoulders very straight and stiff.
“The rhapsody seems to have ended, doesn’t it?” he said. “I can’t expect to compete with my hired boatman.”
In a surge of anger, Kay swung away and hurried blindly back to the house. And yet, even though she had left his tall, slender figure there by the swimming beach, the feeling of his nearness was still with her like a toxin in her blood. She reached the moonlit terrace and stepped into the living room.
Maud was there alone. When she saw Kay, she came straight to her. “Kay, did you find Terry?”
“No. He’s gone sailing. He’s better off alone.”
Maud said jerkily: “You despise me, don’t you? You think I’ve been blind or—or worse. How can I explain? How can I make you see I never realized before what Ivor—what all this has done to Terry.” Her lips trembled. “I’ve always loved Terry best. I’ve always tried never to hurt him. Tonight he said he’d rather be dead than be like me.”
She stared straight at Kay. Her face had a strange set quality Kay had never seen before. “I’m sorry, dear, for what I said this afternoon. I’m desperately sorry about everything and I’m beginning to despise myself. That diary, I want to see it. Bring it to my room later tonight—after everyone has gone to bed. Until then we must act as if everything were the same. We’ve got to.”
In a few moments the door opened and Ivor came in, smiling blandly.
“Well, well,” he said, “the young folk seem to be out enjoying themselves and the invalid has retired for the night. A very suitable time for the rest of us to play a little middle-aged bridge.”
And they did. Ivor summoned the nurse, Alice Lumsden, for a fourth. For what seemed like an eternity he kept them there, playing with his usual casual brilliance, watching them derisively, enjoying their steadily increasing nervous tension.
Once a maid came in and said to Alice: “You won’t be needed any more tonight. Miss Elaine is helping Mr. Chiltern to bed.” That was all that happened. But it was not the only thing Kay noticed. As the interminable game progressed, she became more and more conscious of Ivor’s “distant cousin.” Whenever Ivor spoke to her, Alice Lumsden’s queer homely face lit up so that it was almost pretty and her deep-set eyes followed his every movement with the stubborn devotion of a dog’s. Kay thought: So that’s the way it is. Perhaps that was why the nurse seemed to dislike the Chilterns so thoroughly. Alice Lumsden was another of Ivor’s feminine conquests.
It was not until eleven-thirty that Ivor suggested stopping and curtly dismissed the nurse. Then, bidding Kay a sardonic good night, he slipped his arm affectionately over Maud’s shoulder.
“You’re going to be a nice mother-in-law and wave me good night from the dock.”
As soon as they moved out through the French windows, Kay hurried upstairs to her room. She was tingling with a sensation, half of excitement, half of dread. Maud had asked to see the diary; she had recanted. That was a victory. But Ivor had hinted that for some reason, by showing Maud Rosemary’s tragic self-story, she could do nothing more than hurt her. Had he been speaking the truth? Or was it just a bluff?
Hesitantly she pulled open the drawer in the dressing table where she had slipped the little green book before dinner. Her hand went down and then stiffened. With feverish anxiety she started pulling open the other drawers, searching through neatly folded lingerie and stockings. After a few moments she was forced to accept the truth.
Rosemary Drake’s diary was no longer there.
She looked up, staring dazedly through the open window. In the vivid moonlight she could see straight across the bay to the
little island, see the lights twinkling in the playhouse, lit presumably by Don when he had taken the sheets and Ivor’s bag over earlier in the evening. What a fool she had been! What a crazy fool not to have locked the drawer. It was screamingly obvious what must have happened.
She had told Ivor that she was intending to show Maud the diary; and he had seen the little green book in her hand before dinner when he had come into her room. Just after she had left him at the dock, he must have slipped upstairs and—taken it.
It was so easy to see everything now. Ivor had pretended not to care about the diary, had made up that story to delay her showing it to Maud. Now he had it. And with it he had taken her only really effective weapon against him.
Somehow she had to get that little book back. Impulsively she started toward the door. But, as she did so, the soft silence of the night was broken by the roar of the speedboat from the dock. She turned back to the window. Vaguely, a dark moving shape on the silver water, she saw the speedboat bound away, headed toward the island.
Ivor had gone!
But that only checked her for a moment. There was a canoe at the dock. She could paddle over to the island. She had to. It was her one chance. Caught up into a strange, grim efficiency, she changed the white evening gown for a dark-navy playsuit which would not be so conspicuous in the moonlight She glanced at her watch. Ten of twelve. Cautiously she moved out into the passage.
As she made her quiet way to the head of the stairs, she passed the closed door of Elaine’s room. She wondered if Elaine had been there all evening, fighting the memory of that humiliating scene at dinner. And Terry. Was he still somewhere out in the bay, sailing?
The living room was empty. She moved out into the moonlight of the terrace and across the lawn toward the dock. The throb of the speedboat was no longer audible. Ivor must have reached the island. At the sound of footsteps she slipped behind a hibiscus bush. Emerging from the shaded tamarisk walk which led from the dock was a familiar figure.
Maud returning to the house. Kay could get to the jetty now without being seen.
In a few moments Kay had reached the dock rail where the swimming suits hung forlornly. Vaguely they looked different. Then she realized that Elaine’s silver cap which had perched grotesquely on a post was gone. The cruiser still loomed at its moorings.
The little canoe nestled against the wharf. But there was no sign of the sailboat.
So Terry hadn’t come back yet.
As she dropped silently into the canoe, she glanced back at Hurricane House. Except for the light in the living room, it was plunged in darkness. To the left on the shallow cliffs above the swimming beach, she could make out the small cottage where the boatman lived. A light showed in the window. Don Baird must be still up.
She pushed off from the dock and started to paddle toward the island which lay straight ahead, a dark silhouette punctuated by the gleaming windows of the playhouse. The night air was warm and caressing on the bare skin of her arms. Drops of water slid down the shaft of the double-bladed paddle and fell on her wrists. It was warm too.
The silence was immense. Somewhere, farther off, a low flop broke the rhythm of the paddle’s soft splash. It sounded again. Could it be a swimmer out in the bay? At this time of night? More probably a fish rising. It did not come again. Very subdued and distant, Kay thought she could hear the hum of a speedboat. It was the only sound in that silver-blue world.
She paddled more quickly. Soon the canoe was nosing up to the island’s miniature wharf which thrust out from the gray coral rocks at the foot of the playhouse. She tethered the boat and climbed the few cement steps to the little dock. A second canoe was moored at the far side of the jetty.
But Ivor’s speedboat was not there.
As she peered around her, there came to her once again that elusive purring of an engine. It sounded distant and yet queerly close too—like a ghost noise in a dream.
That must be the explanation. That must be Ivor’s boat somewhere off the island. He must have gone for a ride around the bay before turning in.
The diary would be there with him in the speedboat. She would have to wait. She moved toward the brightly lit playhouse. Opening the blue Dutch door, she stepped inside.
Then she stopped dead.
Standing in the middle of the comfortable bachelor room, gorgeous with her chestnut hair falling around smooth bare shoulders which thrust up from a strapless black evening gown, was Simon Morley. The girl stared at Kay with sardonic hostility, one scarlet-nailed finger playing with the heavy silver slave bracelet on her wrist.
“Hello, Miss Winyard. So you’re tonight’s blue-plate special!” Her red lips curled in a slow, quizzical smile. “Sorry if I barged in at the wrong moment.”
“I didn’t come with Ivor if that’s what you mean.”
“You didn’t?” The remarkable blue eyes were skeptical. “Then where is he? I heard the speedboat leave the mainland quarter of an hour ago. Then the sound of the motor stopped.”
“He’s out in the bay. I heard the boat as I came up.”
“You heard it?” Simon moved to the open window. Kay joined her and once again she heard that vague, obscurely eerie purr of a boat engine—somewhere. Simon swung round, her face queerly changed. “That sound doesn’t come from the bay. It’s close—very close. And the engine’s idling. There’s something phony about this.”
Abruptly she hurried out of the playhouse and started swiftly along the edge of the low cliffs to the left of the dock. Feeling dim apprehension, Kay followed.
It was a strange sensation, hurrying down that narrow winding path after Simon with no real idea of where she was going or why. The wind-stunted cedars made weird silhouettes around her in the moonlight. The turf, broken by jagged pieces of coral, was treacherous underfoot. Twice she stumbled, but the blurred figure of the other girl ahead lured her on like some dark will-o’-the-wisp.
Simon had stopped now. Kay caught up with her. Lying beneath them, gleaming white and symmetrical, lay a tiny sand beach. The drone of the engine was louder, concentrated in the small semicircle of the cove. Simon’s fingers closed over Kay’s wrist.
“Ivor’s boat. It’s beached. See it?”
Kay did see it, a vague blot of darkness at the shadowy rim of the water.
Simon started scrambling down the gentle slope of the cliff to the beach. Swept up into her mood of urgency, Kay followed. Soon they were on the soft, dry sand, running through the moonlight toward the speedboat.
It lay in the shallow water, half tilted over on its keel, its bow nosing into the sand of the beach. The aquaplane board, like a small, jagged mast, still thrust up from the stern. The rhythmic chugging of the engine echoed hollowly around the curved face of the cliffs.
Simon jumped into the boat, disappeared into the cabin, killed the motor, and re-emerged.
“He isn’t there. Why hadn’t he switched the engine off?” There was a strange challenge in her voice. “What do you know about it? What…?”
She broke off, her body going stiff as stone as she stared across the shining water of the cove.
“Look!” She grabbed Kay’s arm convulsively, spinning her round. “Look! There! You see?”
She was pointing to a spot in the water close to the speedboat, a few feet from shore.
“Look!”
And shatteringly Kay saw that thing, that indeterminate patch of black and white, half floating, half submerged in the silky water.
Simon had plunged into the sea, not waiting even to kick off her high-heeled shoes or to lift her long, trailing dress. Blindly Kay followed. The beach shelved steeply from the water’s edge. Simon, wading ahead, disappeared to her waist. Kay’s own skirt clung wet and heavy around her thighs, like invisible fingers tugging her back.
At last they reached that thing. Simon was peering down at it, her hair falling in the water. Fighting back panic, Kay looked too.
She saw the white of a coat, the twisted travesty of an arm, and, dimly, staring
up from beneath the shadowy water, the gray suggestion of a face.
Her hands, thrusting down, touched a cold surface. There was nothing in the world but that frightful deadness under her fingers.
Then Simon’s voice, remote and unreal, spoke the words that were hammering like pistons in her own mind: “It’s Ivor. My God, it’s Ivor. He’s dead!”
Chapter Four
SOMEHOW, in an interminable nightmare, the two girls started to tow that limp, cold body through the water toward the beach.
Kay’s mind was numb. But even then, in those moments of horror, she was acutely conscious of Simon’s icy control. It was Simon who had ordered her to grip Ivor’s heavy shoulder; Simon who was supporting Ivor’s head with its dark, matted hair, keeping it above the water in the futile hope that there might still be a spark of life.
They staggered with their burden almost to the water’s edge. Suddenly they could not drag any more. Something was jerking them back. Kay stopped. Simon’s voice, high and sharp, rang out: “It’s his leg. It’s caught in something. It’s…”
She was back in the sea again, kneeling at Ivor’s feet, her hands plunging into the shallow water.
Kay stared at her blindly. Then her eyes, focusing with no conscious purpose, shifted to the water between Simon and herself. Something was there close to that vague, shapeless body, something white and gleaming.
Her back to Simon, she stooped. Her fingers went down through the water. They touched the cold skin of a hand, shivered away to that other pale, shining thing.
Something that was clutched in Ivor’s hand.
With a little sob she wrenched it free, pulled it up out of the water, staring at it in the moonlight. It was a bathing cap, a platinum-silver bathing cap.
With terrible clarity her thoughts rushed back to that moment after dinner when she had followed Terry to the dock. She had seen the swimming suits hanging to dry on the rail of the jetty and among them, propped on a post, had been a platinum-silver bathing cap.
Elaine’s cap.
A second recollection came tumbling after the first. Just now when she had left the dock, she had noticed the swimming suits again, noticed dimly that Elaine’s bathing cap—had gone.
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