Compartment K

by Helen Reilly

  Seated beside her mother, the pink poodle draped across her lap, Candy Font looked and listened. She was quite a young woman. A friend of her had been shot to death the night before, early that morning a thief had ransacked her belongings, she had been shaken up in the station in Calgary, yet her face was as unstained, as smooth as though she had never had a care in the world. Bertillion was right when he called the face the mask. Candy Font was wearing a white silk jersey and a white pleated skirt. Every once in a while she plucked at the silk of the jersey across her breast as though it were a little tight . . . Presently, Todhunter wandered away.

  Daniel Font was evidently not interested in the scenery. He was in the lounge car, buried behind the pages of a Canadian newspaper. Rose O’Hara’s door was closed. So was Colonel Eden’s. Nils Gantry was in his compartment with the door open, drinking highballs with the Frenchwoman who had discovered Davidson’s body. Madame Flavelle was talking volubly in her own language complete with gestures. Gantry was answering her in French. They were both laughing.

  There had been no messages for Todhunter at Calgary, there was nothing at Banff. The train was slowing for Lake Louise. Towering snow-capped peaks all around now, their shapes sharp and complete against the deep blue sky. Voices called and people began to throng the corridors. The Commonwealth drew into the pretty little station. The lake itself was invisible but there were flowers everywhere, high toned in color, brilliantly pure and incredibly massed. It wasn’t the sprawling lushness of the tropics, the beds here were orderly and beautifully tended, were all flowers, had practically no green in them. They looked artificial in their perfection.

  The telegram Todhunter hoped for was waiting for him at Louise. He retreated to his bedroom and tore the envelope open. The message was a long one. He skimmed the body of it, paused at the last line.

  The lost had been found—Gilbert Davidson’s camera, an expensive one, had been neither mislaid nor stolen on board the Commonwealth. Gilbert Davidson had left it behind him when he started on his journey across the continent. The camera was in a drawer in the living room of his apartment on upper Lexington Avenue in New York City.

  SIX

  “Well, all I can say is—you can’t go looking for something when you don’t know what you’re looking for” Constable Duvette rubbed a hand over his face and grunted. He was very unhappy. The fact that the dead man had been carrying a camera case minus a camera slung over his shoulder at all times was highly suggestive, he agreed to that. It was a good blind, would attract no attention, half the people on board had cameras. The case could have contained valuables, cash, jewels, bearer bonds—it was large enough —could have, they had no evidence—no positive evidence—that it had contained anything at all.

  He repeated forcibly more than once that you couldn’t search every passenger and every nook and cranny on the train when you didn’t know what to search for. Besides that, a number of people had left the train at a half dozen stations since Calgary and the thief could be safe away with his booty by now. He said again that the real place to go to work was New York, where Davidson had come from.

  Todhunter assured him that this was being done but that it would take time. To date, Gilbert Davidson, deceased with a bullet, was a somewhat enigmatic character. The insurance firm that had employed him for almost five years gave him the highest of characters. His salary had risen steadily, he was making $8,500 when he gave up his job in early June. They had been exceedingly sorry to lose him. Davidson’s living quarters were modest enough, his apartment was a hole in the wall above a bar and grill on the upper East side, but his tastes were expensive. The contents of his desk showed him with a bank balance of $84 and bills amounting to over a thousand. After hours, he ran with the big money socially. His work, the insurance of valuables introduced him to it, his manner, appearance, single blessedness, and availability as an extra and more than presentable man, did the rest.

  Todhunter thought of the scribbled memorandum in the dead man’s wallet, a proposed expenditure of $350 a paltry sum if there was cash in the camera case.

  The woman battered to death on Murray Hill three days earlier was still anonymous. There was no apparent link between her murder and Davidson's—except a name. The name Elizabeth Questing. The woman in New York had died in the courtyard of Elizabeth Questing’s house there, Davidson had been on his way to visit Elizabeth Questing at Amethyst Lake. He had been shot by someone on the train and eight passengers on board at the time, the Fonts, Loretta Pilgrim, Rose O’Hara, Nils Gantry, Colonel Eden and the Beldings—nine if you counted the man or woman traveling tourist whom Loretta Pilgrim and her daughter had recognized—were connected directly or indirectly with Mrs. Elizabeth Questing and were journeying to Amethyst Lake to be her house guests.

  Duvette proposed to start a name check in the tourist section, which could be matched with a customs report of people crossing the border from the States.

  “We’ll be lucky if we finish by Vancouver—if something else doesn’t happen. This is a bad business. We may never get to the bottom of it.” He got up gloomily.

  “Don’t worry,” Todhunter told him. “It’ll come. You don’t know Inspector McKee,” and made his way back through the swaying train. He was in the corridor of the murder car, No. 7, when Nils Gantry caught up with him. Gantry put a hand on Todhunter’s shoulder, said. “Hello, sleuth,” and passed on with his long legged swinging stride. The door of Rose O'Hara’s compartment was open. Gantry stuck his head in.

  “Carry your bags, lady? Next stop Field.”

  “Thanks, no. The porter will take care of them.”

  The girl’s voice had ice in it. It didn’t stop Gantry.

  “We’ve got almost another hour,” he said cheerfully. “You wouldn’t care for a little conversation?”

  “The answer is still no.” Rose O’Hara got up and closed her door. There was a peculiar expression on Gantry’s face as he turned away, a mixture of anger and wry amusement and thought. He rolled an eye at Todhunter and shrugged. “My charms don’t seem to be in demand . . . maybe I can find a taker somewhere.” He strolled off towards the lounge car.

  Todhunter looked after him thoughtfully. There was mischief in Gantry and more than a touch of recklessness. He was a clever fellow. He would stop at nothing in pursuit of an idea. It was what had made him outstanding when he was a newspaperman. It had also gotten him into trouble. On several occasions he had dug up more facts than his bosses wanted known and he had been hurled from two leading conservative molders of public opinion and had come up w’ith a new job each time smiling and thumbing his nose. On the other hand, what did they really know about him—except that he lived by his wits and his typewrriter, and that he seemed O.K.? So did the other people on board who had been questioned in connection with Davidson’s death. They were all respectable and respected citizens . . . very much so. Todhunter returned to his cubicle and began his meager packing.

  In her own compartment, with the door secured against intrusion, Rose sat and looked at her bag. The big bag. Daniel’s coat was in there, wrrapped in her rain cape. She had washed it as well as she could but there would still be traces of blood. . . . Did Nils suspect anything? Had he looked at the bag when he poked his head in? How could he suspect? The shining brown calf was unstained, unmarred, the bag locked securely. The keys were in the coin compartment of her purse. She opened her purse to make sure.

  Nils couldn’t know about Daniel’s jacket. No one could. Her journey to and from Daniel’s roomette had gone unnoticed. She hadn’t met a single soul, had kept her face averted when she went past open or partially open doors. . . . But suppose someone had glanced out, suppose someone had seen her, someone who was lying low? Daniel was right. It was a mad thing to have done. He hadn’t wanted her to do it, but she had overridden him. Nonsense, she told herself, she was being foolish, she was conjuring up specters that didn’t exist. If anyone had seen her, she would have been challenged long before this. It was Nils who had made her j
ittery with that remark of his.

  She linked her hands around a crossed knee and considered. There was only one thing to do. In the ordinary way the porter would collect her bags and deposit them on the platform at Field where they would be loaded on a truck, and the truck then rolled the length of the platform, a good long platform, to where cars and buses waited near the collection of buildings that were tiny toys at the foot of Mount Field. She would carry the big bag herself, and let the porter take the smaller one and her dressing case. If wouldn’t be too noticeable. People often did carry their own luggage, some of it. Wouldn’t it be wiser to take the jacket out of the big bag and cram it into the smaller one? She couldn’t bring herself to touch it until she had to. Besides, she looked through the window and drew in her breath—she was afraid of heights—there wasn’t much time.

  They were at the very top of the pass. Mountains towered in a vast circling cup, peak after snow-capped peak, their lower slopes pine-covered precipices. Far down a twisting river was a thread at the bottom. The train had to descend the sides of the immense cup and make its way into the first of the spiral tunnels far below. She could just see the tiny black hole pasted at the base of Cathedral Mountain that was the mouth. From there it didn’t seem any bigger than a woodchuck’s hole under millions of tons of granite that the train couldn’t possibly go through. It could and did, every day. She didn’t want to watch the descent. What a coward she was. She never used to be a coward, not until Daniel—she put the thought of him roughly aside, refused to think of Nils, loo. Nils who had been warmth and light and sureness, and who was now an enemy. She got up, put her bark to the windows, and went over to the washbasin and ran water and did her face and hair, her mouth.

  Half an hour later, after that frightful drop and the thundering darkness of the two tunnels, she was on the platform at Field and walking in tranquil sunlight towards the distant station carrying the big bag, and trying to pretend it was as light as a feather. She had managed to elude the others getting out of the train. It was too good to last. Almost at once she ran into difficulties.

  She hadn’t gone fifty feet, during every foot of which she was horribly conscious that no one else was carrying a bag, when three men hurried towards her. Nils and Colonel Eden came from behind, Harry Belding came from in front, in a white silk shirt and slacks. He had reached the lodge a full hour ahead of them and had had time to change.

  “Here, Miss O’Hara,” “Let me—” “I’ll take that—” She handed the bag over to Colonel Eden. She was conscious of little else, walking towards the waiting car among a dozen at the bottom of that dry valley, where a trickle meandered through the wide flat river bed, with Mount Field to the east and more mountains to the west. Eden handed the bag to Belding who stowed it in the luggage compartment with a lot of others, Gertrude’s and Loretta Pilgrim’s and Daniel’s, and a battered specimen belonging to Nils. Buses were loading all around them, and there were a lot of people, an eruption from the tourist section, and other cars; they finally drove off in the long sleek Bentley; Candy, Loretta and Rose in the back, Belding and Daniel and Nils in front. It was not, Rose thought with wry amusement, as they crossed the bridge and went into the pines, a felicitous grouping.

  Pines. There were nothing but pines, high, impenetrable, rich green walls of them hemming in the road from which only very occasionally a sandy thread branched off. You didn’t believe there would ever be anything else but pines. There were no open spots. There was no break, no water, no houses, nothing. Harry Belding and Nils did the talking in the front of the car. Daniel gazed ahead of him. Loretta bore the conversational burden in the back. “How well I remember . . . such trees, and second growth, too. . . . This is Cathedral Avenue . . . you can scarcely see the sky . . . the forest primeval, isn’t it? Longfellow or is it Whittier? . . . No, he’s Snowbound. Soon we’ll swing . . .” Candy Font stroked the pink poodle asleep in her lap and said nothing.

  A six-mile drive, then a right turn off the main road through stone pillars, a run of another hundred yards and all at once, without preparation, they arrived. It was like a trick. You were suddenly in another world. The mountains were there again. In the middle of them the lake, an incredible smooth jade, was semicircular. Tucked in the inner side of the elbow a wooded hill rose steeply. Its heavily treed sides were strewn with cottages that, although they were not far apart, were barely visible because of the trees. The Amethyst Lake Chalet was at the top of the hill. The planks of a white bridge across a finger of the lake rumbled under the wheels and the car climbed through the evergreens dark against the brilliant blue-green of the water, came out into the open in front of the Chalet, went on slightly down hill and through another pair of gates, and they were on the Questing grounds. Another thousand yards brought them to the lodge on a rise above the lake. It was long and low and rambling, built of logs that fused with the shadows and sunlight. Flowers crowned the lip of the drop to the water. The pines were everywhere else except out in front, where the lake lay with mountains rising on the far side, snow-topped and dazzlingly white against the blue of the sky.

  Gertrude Belding was waiting to receive them at the top of a flight of steps leading to the great awninged terrace that ran across the front of the main building. More awninged verandas projected at the ends of the two wings. Elizabeth wasn’t in sight.

  The suitcase was Rose’s one thought. The car had pulled up. Loretta Pilgrim and Candy were out of it. So were the men. She was the last. Nils was waiting to help her. She stepped down, went past him without a glance, and around to the back.

  The luggage compartment was open and Harry Belding was lifting out the bags. A houseman in a white jacket was there. Rose said, “I’ll take mine myself, I want to change. It’s frightfully hot,” and was at once aware that there was a cool breeze blowing. Harry Belding said incuriously, “Tom will carry in your stuff for you in a minute, Rose, you’re in the lodge with Elizabeth.” But Rose reached in and slid out the big bag herself.

  Nils was blocking her path. His eyes were fastened on her, there was a dark, dancing light in them. Did it mean anything, or was he just being Nils? . . . She felt a flush rising, averted her own glance, moved around him and mounted the steps.

  The terrace of stone, great slabs of it, was forty feet wide by over a hundred long. Groups of chairs and tables and chaises and lamps broke it into sections. Elizabeth was seated in one of the sections in a straw chair with a tall fan back. She had on a pale yellow dress so that her figure melted into the background of straw, her high dark head stood out in relief against it.

  She had been a great beauty as a girl. The features were still there, the classic nose and brow, the delicate modeling of the jaw, but now in her late thirties she was too austere for beauty. There was a remoteness about her, the coolness and detachment of an onlooker not intimately concerned with anyone or anything. She had loved Humphrey very much, and had never been the same since his death. Once her aloof gravity had chilled Rose, until she came to realize the very genuine kindness beneath it. Her amber eyes under strongly marked brows were on Loretta and Candy advancing towards her, with Daniel and Colonel Eden behind.

  “Loretta,” she extended a hand, “my ankle—you’ll forgive my not getting up? And Candy—”

  Their figures intervened. Loretta’s pretty voice flung colored streamers of sound about; so nice to see Elizabeth, so very nice . . . the dear, dear lodge. It w'as just the same, and the mountains, and the lake, and the trees. It had been a long time but how well she remembered . . .

  Rose started forward and Elizabeth’s face lit up. “Rose, my dear.” She put out both hands. Her cheek against Rose’s was hot and dry as though she had a slight fever, and she was thinner . . . “You must have had a distressing time, all of you. Poor Gil Davidson. I want to hear about it later . . .” Then she was shaking hands with Nils. “I’m glad to see you again, Mr. Gantry, glad you could come.”

  Nils was to be in one of the guest houses with Colonel Eden. Rose was to hav
e the room in the lodge she had had last year.

  Loretta Pilgrim, Candy, Daniel and Colonel Eden were seating themselves. The pink poodle prowled at their feet. Elizabeth bent to pet him and he barked and drew back. Candy scolded him. “Augustus! You naughty boy.” Elizabeth smiled. “The little fellow’s just tired.” All was peace and harmony. There was no acerbity, stiffness, antagonism. Elizabeth was composed, gracious; Loretta Pilgrim was full of a childish happiness and pleasure; Colonel Eden had been right, Davidson had been wrong.

  Rose wanted to dispose of the suitcase. Nils had picked it up and was waiting. This time Rose didn’t object. She would be rid of him in a moment. He followed her into the hall, past the great square living room lined with books, with a baby grand in a distant corner and a fireplace you could roast an ox in. Rose was in the wing to the left. As they crossed the corridor, Gertrude Belding came from the kitchen regions carrying a tray of tall frosted glasses. Areas of dimness opened behind her, the long pantry, part of the kitchen; there were no lights, there was no bustle, no maids were moving about in caps and aprons . . .

  Gertrude Belding caught her glance.

  “We’re eating at the Chalet this year. Elizabeth decided it would be easier—help’s so hard to get. . . . You’re just in time. I made these myself.” She held the tray out. Rose said, “In a minute, with pleasure,” and went on. Nils grinned at Gertrude Belding. “No time like the present.” He picked up a glass, drained it, put it back on the tray, and followed Rose. She waited for him in the middle of the bedroom floor. “There.” She pointed to the trunk rack at the foot of the bed.

  Nils put the bag down. “Open it for you?”

  Rose was curt. “No, thanks.”

  “O.K. I got the impression you were in a hurry.”

  Nils straightened, shoved his hands in his pockets and faced her. There was no levity in him. He gave her a long, slow, examining glance, spoke deliberately.