“Remember the treasures we were shown in hidden temples and shrines when we worked together on that foreign assignment?”
“Do I? I strolled into a huge jeweler’s shop while in New York. When I saw the outlay there I was reminded of the diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires galore we saw set in the eyes and heads of idols, of the strings of pearls, the gold and carved ivory urns and vases. Go on.
“Many of those treasures are being secretly sent to the United States — by a complicated route to dodge customs — and the loot sold to finance rebel elements in a country overseas.”
“The stuff is being smuggled in to this small seacoast town where each person appears to know his neighbor’s business from A to Z? Incredible.”
“Smuggled is the word. It fits in with the Pirate’s Cove legend. Perhaps that very story suggested this shore as a landing place for the loot. A week ago I was alerted to watch for developments, but the receivers this end must have been tipped off. Nothing happened except that a yacht appeared off the twin points: two lights flashed from one of them. It was on and off so quickly that the exact source was doubtful. A speedboat streaked in the direction of the yacht which immediately came about and sailed away. Later I discovered that the one I saw is the property of the tenant of Rockledge, a rich businesswoman not likely to be interested in stolen goods, so she’s above suspicion. Now I have to start over on the jackpot question, who in this vicinity is on the receiving end?”
“In this vicinity? Sounds like something thought up by a mystery-story expert.”
“Maybe it does but my informant isn’t a mystery-story writer. He knows his job. Will you help me? Don’t answer yet. It’s only fair to tell you that an occupant of The Castle is under suspicion.”
“The Castle? Do you mean Cinderella Clinton’s Castle?”
“Sorry, but that was the tip. Willing to help?”
“Willing? Sure, I’m willing. I’ll clear her home of suspicion if it’s the last thing I do.”
CHAPTER NINE
“THAT’S your second birdie, Cinderella. Call it a record for the day. It’s too hot to putt even at 10 A.M.,” Hal Harding declared. “I’ve got something to say to you. I came early to get ahead of the western guy with whom a little bird told me you’ve been spending most of your time the past week while I’ve been away. My speed runabout is at your landing. Come for a spin and cool off.”
With her putter Cindy knocked the small white ball idly back and forth on the velvety green. Better let him talk. A showdown between them was overdue. It would be a relief to get it behind her.
“For the love of Mike, why are you staring at me as if you’d never seen me before? Cinderella Clinton Stewart, may I present Hal Harding? He’s been dying to meet you.”
She laughed and bobbed a little dancing-school curtsey.
“I have long anticipated this pleasure, Mr. Harding. You win, Hal, the sun is blazing. Too hot for the boat. I’ll settle for the patio. It will be cool there. You may talk and I’ll listen, after which perhaps you will let me speak my piece. Ooch, it’s sizzling. I should have worn a hat. Hear that cicada. Is there a hotter sound in the world?” She stopped on the path. “I wonder if the yacht dropping anchor belongs to Mrs. Drew, the tenant at Rockledge? It’s sensational.”
“Sensational, you’ve said it. Whoever owns that boat owns a beaut inside and out. It measures 87’ X 17’ X 6’.
There are three staterooms with showers, large main salon with one end equipped for dining. Spacious aft deck. Twin 165 h.p. G.M. diesels, diesel generator. Boy, oh boy, it’s the kind of craft I intend to own some day.”
“That description sounds like a yacht broker’s ad in capitals. How come you know so much about the boat?”
“I — I sailed on her once with a former owner.”
“Is Mrs. Drew the owner now? Have you met her, Hal?”
“No. I don’t want to. I hear she’s downright ordinary. Steer clear of her, Cindy.”
“She’s my nearest neighbor. I intend to call.” Sary’s words echoed through her memory: “Every little while a big boat drops anchor off her shore, signals, I guess she goes off in it. Kind of mysterious. Gives me the hibby-jibbies.”
“Don’t get mixed up with her, sugar. It’s a dam lot easier to keep out of being friendly than to get out after you’re in,” he warned.
One side of the patio was cool and shadowy. Diamond spray from the fountain shot high into the air and fell to the surface of the pool with a refreshing tinkle. Hal Harding pushed the chaise longue back into deeper shade.
“Sit here and be comfortable,” he urged. “You are perched on the edge of that white chair as if poised for a take-off, Cindy. Curl up in this and relax.”
“No. The cushions make it hot.” She brushed the short curls back from her moist forehead. “The tips of the hollyhocks, phlox and delphiniums are drooping as if they couldn’t hold up their heads a minute longer. You look maddeningly cool in that open neck white shirt and slacks. How do you do it?”
“Peel off your jacket and you’ll be cool.”
She started to pull off the bolero of her pale pink cotton frock to bare her shoulders and arms, thought better of it as she noted the appraisal in his blue eyes. Pity that a man so lavishly supplied with wealth, blond good looks and personal charm, gave one a feeling of distrust.
“Why are you giving me the once-over again, as if trying to pick out a suspect from a Rogue’s Gallery?”
“A cat may look at a king, sirrah. Proceed with what you want to say, Hal. I have a date with Counselor Armstrong at eleven sharp.” She glanced at her wrist watch. “Speed. Speed. We haven’t much time.”
“This is not a subject to be hurried.” He drew a straight chair to face hers, straddled it and crossed his arms on the top.
“Like me, Cinderella?”
“With reservations.”
“I know what that means without asking. You think me fickle. No use explaining the reasons for the bust-up of my two matrimonial ventures, you wouldn’t understand.”
“I have told you before, Hal, that I am not interested in the reasons.”
“We’ll drop that for the present. When will you know the date your annulment case will come before the Court?”
“I hope Mr. Armstrong will tell me this morning. He assured me that he had a decision in my favor nailed down, that it will be granted at once, that I will walk out of the courtroom a free woman. Even at the thought my spirit spreads its wings and soars. See it soar? See it soar?”
“I hear it flutter. Hooray! That night I’ll give the party of the century at my place to celebrate.”
“You will not. We’ve gone over this before. It isn’t decent to make whoopee, I know your brand, over a thing like that. It is too much of a tragedy.”
“Tragedy! Have you gone screwball? What’s tragic about it? Why turn sob sister? You just shouted to the housetops, ‘I’ll walk out of that courtroom a FREE WOMAN!’”
“I didn’t shout.”
“Have it your way, sugar. I’m not interested in what you say, only in what you do. The minute you are free, you’ll marry me. Right?”
She shook her head till every short gold-brown curl was in motion.
“No, Hal. I will not marry you. I hoped I had made you understand that.” Here was the showdown. She must make her refusal so clear there would be no doubt that it was final. “And furthermore, if you give that party ostensibly for me, I won’t come. I’ll leave town.”
“Why? Why won’t you marry me? I’m crazy about you. My family is tops, and —”
“Where you came from doesn’t mean so much to me as where you are going — and what you are is even more important.”
“I suppse you mean by that, accomplishment. I don’t need to work. I can give you everything you want, now.”
“Not everything, Hal. I want a man who feels the responsibility of money and power. Wealth creates power, and to my mind responsibility. A man like you shouldn’t go through life doing ex
actly as he wants regardless of the harmful example he is setting to others who admire him for what he has.”
“I get you: my brother’s keeper fixation, what?”
“Don’t sneer. You claim you can give me anything I want. You can’t. A sense of responsibility when there is wealth and power is the way I see life, and that’s the way I intend to try to live it, live it with a man who sees it that way too. When I promise ‘to love and to honor’ I’ll mean it with all my heart and soul and mind.”
“Hold everything, Cinderella, you have it wrong. In the marriage service the words are ‘to love and to cherish’ — I ought to know.”
His heartless chuckle increased her determination to make him understand.
“I still stick to ‘to love and to honor’ — accent on honor. If you honor a person you’d be bound to cherish him or her, wouldn’t you?”
His laugh was a shout of derision.
“This is a scream. You orate about loving and honoring a husband after having married a man you’d never even seen.”
Her face crimsoned.
“I understand, Hal, how that marriage must look to those who weren’t in the know. I did what seemed to me right. Like Arabella Allen, in Pickwick Papers. If I didn’t know then what I did want, I know now what I don’t want.”
“That means me, I suppose. Nice of you to compare me with Bob Sawyer. Boy, but you’ve mounted the rostrum this A.M. Jump down, Cindy. I don’t care how you live your life if you live it with me. I’ll make you happy as a queen. You intend to get rid of Kenniston Stewart P.D.Q., don’t you?”
In the impelling need to make him understand she had bared thoughts she hadn’t realized she had, they had formulated and risen to the top of her mind as she talked. He had about as much comprehension of what she meant as had that flash of gold in the pool. No use to be serious with him. She laughed.
“I’m not so sure that I intend to get rid of Ken Stewart. I’m beginning to wonder. A bird in the hand — you’ve heard that one. Perhaps I’m not gonna wash that man right out of my hair.” She sang the paraphrase with a hope that she could end a situation now and forever which threatened to get out of hand.
“You can’t have changed your mind?” The words were hoarse with incredulity. “You can’t mean that you’re going to stick to that written contract, go through with it? You’ve gone hay —”
“Sorry to interrupt at what appears to be a crucial moment,” apologized a voice from the doorway behind them, “but Counselor Armstrong asked me to stop for you and bring you to his office — Mrs. Stewart.”
Cindy wheeled. Bill Damon again. Looking as cool in white as if this weren’t the hottest summer day for years. Had he heard her silly declaration about Ken Stewart? Could he hold up her case in court by repeating that gem of flippancy? Why would he want to? Wasn’t he under orders to push the matter full speed ahead?
“If you have lost your voice, Cinderella, mine is still in working order.” Harding’s incisive words were tipped with vitriol. “Who are you in the doorway and what do you mean butting into a private conference?”
“Shall I present my credentials to the gentleman, Mrs. Stewart?” Bill Damon took a step down to the patio. “It will take time and we really shouldn’t keep the Counselor waiting.”
I could wring your neck, Mister, for the amusement in your voice and eyes, Cindy thought, before she explained:
“Colonel Damon is here to represent Kenniston Stewart, Hal. We are to sign deeds this morning for the sale of the oil property. The Court has spoken. I must go.”
“You bet I’m not getting in wrong with the Court in this case by detaining you, I have too much at stake. We’ll pick up this conversation again, sugar, in a place where we will be safe from officious interruption. Your argument floored me for an instant, but I’ll have an answer. I’ll be seeing you.”
She watched him as he strode down the garden path, switching angrily at the rose border with his putter, watched him cross the green and disappear from sight. A motor hummed. His boat. The sound diminished in the distance. That was that. Now what?
“Who was the gentleman? You didn’t introduce him,” a voice reminded.
“I’m sorry, Colonel. He is Hal Harding. We had had a hot argument and I forgot my manners.”
“Couldn’t have been very hot. He called you ‘sugar.’”
“I know he did.” She brushed her hair back from her warm forehead. “Three times. I never heard him use the word that way before, that sort of greeting from him seems so out of character. I wonder where he got it.”
“Words are as infectious as the common cold. Easy to pick up from a person one sees even occasionally. We should be on our way.”
“It’s too hot. I’m not going. Those deeds don’t have to be signed today.” To avoid his intent gray eyes she picked up shears from a gathering basket on the glass-top table and concentrated on cutting bachelor buttons until she had a sizable bunch. She carefully drew the stems through her belt.
“That’s a corking color combination, the deep blue against the delicate pink of your frock. If you are not going would you mind sitting down? I can’t until you do, and as you observed, this is a hot day.”
“I can see no reason why you should stand or sit in my garden. You are at liberty to go.” Her defiant eyes glanced quickly away from his which were alight with laughter.
“Come on, now, Cindy —”
“Don’t speak to me as if I were a kid. You did that once before.”
“O.K., Mrs. Stewart. You want to get the complications in your life straightened out so you can begin real living, don’t you?” His authoritative voice sent little tingles along her nerves.
“Certainly I do.” Allah be praised he hadn’t heard that brainless, “Perhaps I’m not gonna wash that man right out of my hair.”
“Then come on, pronto. Armstrong told me yesterday that the sale of the property must go through before he would finish the case of the annulment of the marriage contract with the Court. He and I checked the deeds of sale. As soon as we have signed, you for yourself, and I for Stewart, Armstrong will go along with us, present them at the local bank here, where cashier’s checks for a million bucks, one for you and one for Stewart, will be exchanged for the deeds.”
“A million for each of us? That’s two million.” Her eyes were wide with amazement. “Those people offered me two hundred and fifty thousand for the holdings. They claimed the registration of the deeds and patents was faulty and the presence of more oil a gamble. Cheats!”
“Had you given me the sliver of a chance to explain I would have told you the result of my investigation. The registration of the deeds and patents is as sound as the U. S. mint, otherwise why the two million offer? If you say the word, we’ll hold out for more. We can get it.”
“But that would delay everything else, wouldn’t it?”
“If you mean the annulment, yes.”
“Accept the offer. It won’t be the first time freedom has been preferred to money.”
“They thought they had an easy mark when they offered you a fraction of what the property is worth. Stewart deserves to forfeit his share for dumping the responsibility on a girl.”
“But, this girl didn’t fall into the trap, I beg to remind you. I can afford to forget that now. A million dollars. What in the world will I do with it? All right, laugh. I mean what I say, why would I want all that money?”
“I laughed at the thought of you worrying about the amount. Your Uncle Sam has your welfare on his mind, he will see to it that you are not overburdened with moola, lady. He’ll leave you a nice little nest egg to invest. Let’s do it together, you for Cinderella Clinton, I for Ken Stewart.'”
“Do you mean speculate? Thanks, no. I’ve had enough of that in drilling for oil to last my lifetime.”
“I said ‘invest.’ There’s a heap of difference.”
“How can we? You’ll be on your way, won’t you, as soon as Ken Stewart’s business is finished?”
&
nbsp; “No. I’m planning to remain here until my book is written. After years spent in the midst of tragic devastation, I’ve fallen hard for the order, cleanliness and beauty of this village, the tree-shaded streets, the well-cared-for houses and lawns. I like the people, too. How about it? Shall we set the annulment ball rolling by signing those deeds?”
“Lead on, Sirrah. Don’t mind my flippancy. The prospect of ending an intolerable situation, neither maid, wife nor widow — that gem of rhetoric was borrowed from a nineteenth-century novel title — has unfolded the wings of my spirit which has been grounded. The moment I am free I shall begin to live daringly. How are we going?”
“My car is outside.”
Sarah confronted them in the long hall.
“Trader Armstrong just phoned, Cindy. Wanted to know why you wasn’t in his office?”
“Give him a buzz, tell him I am on my way, Sary. Colonel Damon, this is my guardian angel, Sarah Ann Parker. Colonel Damon is here pinch-hitting for Kenniston Stewart, Sary.” Why should the introduction send color to the woman’s face as if she were having an acute attack of blood pressure?
“Pleased to meet you, sir. Stayin’ long?”
“Until Stewart’s business is finished. He felt guilty leaving so much for Mrs. Stewart to do and as I was coming to this country asked me to take over.”
“Hmp. Want to know somethin’? Folks is sayin' ’bout time he come to his senses. You be back for lunch, child?”
“I will answer for her. Better not count on it. We have a lot of business to put through this morning.”
“Got the door key in your bag, Cinderella? ’S’long as you won’t be home, I’ll lock up an’ later drop in to Ella Crane’s shop. Rena Foster told me she’s got a television machine on trial. Good mornin’, Mr. Damon.”
As the long dark green car slid forward smoothly he inquired:
“What did you say her name was?”
“Sarah Ann Parker. She has been housekeeper at The Castle for years. She spends the winters in Sarasota that she may watch the practice of her favorite ball team. She’s a dear.”
“S for Sarah. A for Ann. P for Parker. Reverse the initials and you get P.A.S. You said she is your guardian angel. I have reason to believe you.”
To Love and to Honour Page 7
