It counted all the more because, as far as I knew, he was still in Atlantic City, taking charge of a drive there for a short time in some sort of an emergency. The package contained no card, and had been sent from a shop down the avenue, probably ordered by phone, or more likely he simply told somebody in his office to choose something awfully good and have it sent. There was nothing on the wrapping paper except Jay’s name, marked by the store. So that evidently he was still in New Jersey. And missed me. Very nice.
I opened one of the jars again and looked, for the first time with attention, at the cream. It appeared much too thick. I tested it, lightly, with the tips of two fingers, and knew from the touch that it would never do. It was something quite different. But there would be no trouble in substituting for it the cream I regularly used.
I wiped the tips of my fingers with some tissue, feeling, as I did so, that they were tingling. Then after the small dabs of cream had been wiped away the tingling deepened. My fingers began to smart.
I wiped them strongly again with another pad of tissue, but now they began to sting and burn. I leaned over and smelled of the cream. It did not smell right, at all.
Those two little points of contact were now needles of fire. I jumped up from the desk and went to the washroom. But even under the cold water running from the faucet of the washbowl, the strange sensation was still there, and when I withdrew my fingers from the stream of water, that fiery bite was still there, and worse. This really hurt. Those two spots were discolored and raw.
Every salon must have a staff trained for first-aid measures, but this emergency did not fit into any ordinary kind I had ever seen or heard about, and I felt, besides, that I did not want the staff to know about this one. But we also had a physician in the building, Dr. Dwight, we sometimes called. I went back to my desk and told Elaine, at the switchboard, to call him now, or if he was not available, to send somebody at once.
Then I went back and ran some more cold water on that stabbing ache. It could not have been long, though it seemed very long, that I waited and tried to think, but could not seem to, before Elaine came in, followed by Dr. Dwight. She was both worried and curious.
“It’s all right, Elaine,” I told her, and sort of emphatically waited, smiling, until she left the room.
When we were alone, Dr. Dwight put his bag down on my desk and asked:
“What is it, Mrs. Hepworth?”
“Come here,” I said.
He came to the doorway, and I showed him my fingers.
“Burns,” he said. “Rather bad ones. How did you get them?”
I didn’t even try to answer that.
“Water doesn’t seem to help,” I told him. “But I couldn’t think of anything else.”
“Well, it helps while the water is running,” he said, reassuringly. “Doesn’t it?”
“I don’t think so.”
Dr. Dwight was a stout, gray-haired man of about sixty. He had always been very discreet and understanding and obliging, but he also gave the impression that he was no stuffed shirt, or rather, that he had been stuffed with steel wool, drills, forceps, and other unpleasantly hard objects.
“Where did you get the burns?” he repeated, and simply waited for an answer.
After what seemed like the longest, weakest, most awkward pause imaginable, I finally said:
“I think I got them from a new cream I was trying out.”
“Where is it?”
I started to tell him I had thrown it out, but he had already stepped back into the office, and seen the open silver jar standing on my desk. Without another word he picked it up, looked at it, smelled it, and finally scooped a sample of it on the blunt point of a letter opener. He brought it into the washroom and held the cream under the running water. Something like a thin vapor came up from it, and the smell was very sharp.
He went back into the office, and opened his bag.
“Take your fingers out of the water,” he said. “That only makes it worse.” He came in with cotton swabs and a liquid he mixed in a glass. Washing the burns, he went on, casually, “I can’t be sure, but I think the active ingredient of your cream is sulphuric acid. Where did you get it?”
“I was just testing it,” I said. “It’s something new.”
He remarked, dryly:
“It certainly would be. I hope not much of that has been sent out. If much of it has, and it’s used by ladies who can’t reach a doctor quickly, a lot of them aren’t going to have much left of their hands and faces. Where did it come from?” He brought me back into the office, where he reached a jar of ointment from his bag, covered the burns, and they at once felt better. I hoped he had forgotten his question, as he taped a light bandage to each of the fingers. “Does that feel better?”
“Yes.”
“Where did that cream come from?”
“It was just an experiment I was making,” I said.
He merely glanced at the heavy silver jar, lifted it, turned it over, read the tiny engraving of the name of the firm that had done the metal work.
“Did it come from the Artcraft Studio? I hope to God they aren’t sending free samples to every beauty salon in the city. If so, they will have to be stopped at once.”
“No. Only the container came from there. That is, I know they are not sending out any samples.”
He looked at the jar again, and then his eyes fell on the other, matching container. He opened it, looked at the perfectly smooth, untouched surface of the cream, sniffed it, looked at me. He put the second one down, capped it again.
“No,” he said, thoughtfully. “That’s a rather expensive set,. I imagine. They wouldn’t be sent as samples. It looks as though it had been sent as a gift. But who mixed those creams? I believe they both have a sulphuric acid content. Did you order or mix that new formula yourself?”
“Yes,” I told him. “I was experimenting with something new, as I said. Wasn’t it the silliest mistake? Luckily, that’s the only batch there was. And the last.”
He closed his bag, taking plenty of time to think it all over, at the same time studying me.
“No,” he pronounced, with finality. “No one experienced with cosmetics, least of all yourself, would ever think of using sulphuric acid in it. It was sent to you, as a gift, and whoever sent it intended to ruin your looks. The attempt might have failed, with prompt medical attention, even if you had spread it on your face. But it might have succeeded. Anyway, that was the intention. Who sent it to you?”
“I don’t know. It was sent anonymously.”
“It can be traced, you know, through the shop from which it was sent, even if the package had no name.”
I started to glance at the wastepaper basket where the wrapper now lay, but looked away in time.
“It did not come directly from any shop. It was just delivered by a messenger.”
“But it was a gift?”
A gift. That knowledge turned the very air to ice.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Have you any idea who might have sent it?”
The chill reached into my heart, my bones, piercing and twining deeper than the acid itself.
“I’ll have to think. Offhand, no.”
“No card came with it?”
“No.”
“No indication as to the sender?”
“None.”
“Will you notify the police? Or shall I?”
“Why must they be notified?”
My response had been too quick, and he knew it.
“I’m not sure whether this has been an outright assault, or not. I guess you would know about that better than I would.” He paused, weighing the matter, studying me, then took up the jar that had been used. He capped it, placed it in his bag, closed the bag. “I can have it analyzed, anyway, and if it’s what I think it is, the Department of Health should be notified, at the very least. Don’t you agree?”
“No,” I said, flatly. “I’d prefer that you didn’t.”
“Y
ou don’t seem to understand, Mrs. Hepworth. This was a calculated effort to injure you. Whoever sent this, some jealous man or woman, I suppose, that unbalanced person may try again. He might do anything. You don’t know what he’ll do next.”
I hadn’t thought of jealousy. A wonderful motive, the best in the world, and that ruled out Jay. All at once the office came back into focus, ordinary and rather cozy.
“I won’t be so careless, in the future,” I assured him.
Dr. Dwight, now standing at the door, stopped again.
“In the meantime, I’m going to have this analyzed.” He added, with veiled but unmistakable point, “And in case you do just happen to think of somebody who might have sent this present, if some logical name does occur to you later on, you might let the person know I am doing so. That ought to stop another effort, for the present. Will you be here at, say, five o’clock this afternoon?” I nodded, and he went on, “I’ll look in on you then. Have another look at those burns, and change the dressing. And let you know the results.” His eyes sought the remaining jar, and he indicated it. “Be careful of that, of course. Don’t touch it, and don’t let anyone else do so.”
Then he was gone, and I slowly lowered myself to the chair behind my desk.
It could not be Jay, thank God. But that thing had been sent by somebody, and in his name. By whom? By Derek? That was not likely. In fact, not possible. My husband had some freedom from the sanitarium, and when his condition permitted, sometimes briefly emerged altogether from that expensive limbo in which Francoine Studios maintained him. But he was truly harmless, and in any case, simply not able to plan and carry through any act at all of such skilled, vicious determination.
Then who had? And I could think of no one. But it seemed inescapable that Jay must be told.
I picked up the phone and told Elaine to put through the call to Jay’s headquarters in Atlantic City, and if he were not there to get a number where he could be reached.
When I replaced the phone, I began to think of what I ought to tell him, and how to phrase it. A strange and very ugly present Ms been sent to me, in your name. Something like that, not too alarming, but with definite weight. It probably has no connection with you, but since your name was used, I thought you ought to be told. It’s nothing serious, and I’ll ex-plain when I see you. How’s the campaign going? Something about like that.
But although it would let him know there was some sort of a problem, he couldn’t shed much light on it. The threat had been to me. And this would leave me right where I now was. Who?
I knew that I was frowning when the phone rang and Elaine told me:
“On that call to Atlantic City, Mrs. Hepworth, they don’t know where Mr. Ravoc can be reached at this moment. But he’s expected back in about fifteen minutes. I left word to have him call you. Is that right?”
“Yes, fine.”
“And there’s a lady here who wants to see you. A reporter, she says. She wants to talk to you about the night you went to a banquet given by Inner Light.”
“About what?”
“About the evening of the Inner Light dinner, she says. She says you’ll understand.”
I did not understand anything, except that this was very oddly phrased.
“What’s her name?”
“Mrs. Belle Griscom.”
The name had no meaning to me. But that evening of the dinner, not the dinner itself but the drive afterward, that I knew I would never forget. Though Jay told me they found young Thornhill had not been in the car, the whole experience still seemed deranged, if not worse. All of us there, our behavior, in some strange way now appeared shocking.
“Ask her to come in,” I said.
The Inner Light function, though, the speeches after the dinner, now seemed without much color or weight, much like any other civic affair. I did not think my brief connection with it could be of any help to this Mrs. Griscom. Nor, now that I thought of it, did I quite see how she had even come to know about it.
She came in, a compact blonde wearing a jacket and dress duet, powder-blue tweed with the same background in the shantung lining and the dress. She was thirty-seven years old, with a lot of hard trying, expensive, but still a composite job. Clearly, a very different kind of a reporter, even for the fashion and beauty pages of the best magazines or newspapers. I looked at her, nodded, and said, without rising:
“I’m Shana Hepworth, Mrs. Griscom. I don’t think the girl made it clear what you wanted to discuss, with regard to that organization, Inner Light.”
“Your position in it, Mrs. Hepworth,” she said, coolly.
“I haven’t any. What publication do you represent?”
“A great number. We’re syndicated nationally.” She waited for this to impress me, but apparently saw that it didn’t. They are all syndicated. “When we heard of your interest in it, we wondered whether you had some Generous Heart professional hand in the work being done for those unfortunate girls.”
I shook my head slowly, feeling that one layer of this made sense, while another did not, quite.
“Sit down, Mrs. Griscom,” I said, my brief nod indicating the chair on the other side of the desk. The hand with the bandaged fingers lay in my lap, below the surface of the desk, and now I extended the other one across the top of it, inviting her to show me some credentials. “What syndicate did you say you represent?”
She sat down in the chair, her smile something tiny and secret, warming only to herself, like an expression stamped on a medallion. She ignored both my question, and the unspoken request. She told me, in a quiet, unhurried voice:
“What I really wanted to talk to you about was the unusual interest you and Mr. Ravoc have in that organization for disfigured women.”
The moment stayed, deepened, became an abyss.
“Yes?”
“And about your drive in the park, after the dinner.”
The chasm widened, and seemed bottomless.
“I see.”
She watched me out of eyes so blue they were almost violet, and what she saw apparently satisfied her.
“Perhaps you think you are protecting Mr. Ravoc,” she said, earnestly. “If so, you are mistaken. Actually, it is Mr. Ravoc who needs the help that only you can give.”
I said, numbly:
“How? And just what is the trouble?”
She studied me more closely, and presently remarked, as though to herself as well as to me:
“Mr. Ravoc must be made to realize he cannot play a lone hand against all of his partners. He must sign the new contract with Generous Heart, along with Haley Robbins and Vincent Beechwood and Stanley Thornhill The way he should, exactly the way they have always signed all other contracts. Just like the one for the disfigured, for example.”
“The disfigured,” I echoed, not even making a question of it.
“There has never been any disagreement between them, before.” She was quite calm, and reassuring. “Fin sure you can make him see reason, now. Talk to him. Explain that they all want to do the right thing, but they can’t understand his present stubborn streak.”
“Just what is your interest in this?” I demanded.
“I know how childish, even desperate, Mr. Ravoc can be when he thinks he is being crossed or contradicted. He must have his own way, and most of the time they let him have it. But this time, he will have to give in to them. For your sake, as well as his own.”
My blank gaze went around the desk, came to the remaining silver jar there in the center of it.
“For my sake?” I asked, being light. The thought was insane. But I pushed the jar toward her. I added, sounding bright and irrelevant, “He sent me this, just this morning.”
The woman’s face turned even more masklike, as those deep eyes, nearly purple, concentrated on the thing.
“It’s lovely,” she said. “You got it this morning?”
“Yes. And the cream is something new, too. I don’t think you’ve ever tried anything like it.”
He
r eyes came up in reluctant fascination, and met mine. I waited, and presently, almost against her will, she asked:
“A gift?”
“Yes. Quite wonderful. Would you care to feel the texture of it?”
She was unsure of this, and of me. But I was not. Now, I was almost certain. She already knew about this gift. She was jealous. Of me. And she had either sent it herself, or knew who did, perhaps even Jay, himself. And there was a business angle involved, besides. A contract he had to sign, but for some reason, I stood in the way.
“Why, I don’t know,” she said, uncertainly regarding the gleaming jar. “Thank you. I don’t believe so.”
Then I brought my other hand, with measured finality, to the top of the desk. I moved it toward the jar, reaching to uncap it. The bandages could not be overlooked. And now her attention fixed itself upon them, as though she could not see anything else.
I uncapped the jar.
“Please try it,” I urged. “It’s most unusual.”
She drew back, her pale face even whiter, and suddenly she was on her feet. She issued a jumble of mechanical phrases and exclamations, that it had been a pleasure, that she hoped I would think about what she had said. Then she was abruptly gone from the room.
There was no doubt left, now. None. She had known about this attack on me. And she was linked with Jay. My chair, my desk, the whole room, became a block of ice.
The phone rang. It was Elaine.
“Here’s Mr. Ravoc, Mrs. Hepworth,” she said. “Galling from Atlantic City. Shall I put him on?”
When Shana Hepworth slowly brought out that bandaged hand, daring me to sample the cream, those black velvet eyes of hers simply enormous with contempt, it was the third time in my life I died. Died, still living, talking, and even laughing, but knowing that although I was all dressed up, it was only to attend a funeral, Mine. And that everyone else was there, scarcely noticing me, each of them attentive and polite, acting the way people ought to act, but all of them present for the same reason, only to be seen at the ceremony.
The Generous Heart Page 9
