After a long moment of silence, Ray Hardy demanded in a small voice of stupor:
“Well, but—well, but—was that the letter that Sidney was writing?”
Lindy, smiling inscrutably in the shadows, shook her head.
“I never was any good at mathematics. What do two and two make, Joel?”
“Of course it was the letter, you little nut.” Joel eyed his spouse’s blank countenance with undisguised diversion. “And while your mind’s plunging ahead at this terrific pace, I’ll give you exactly three guesses as to who the ghost is who goes wandering around the house between midnight and dawn, laughing its wicked little head off.”
“Do you mean to tell me that those other three letters were from Nell to Damaris, giving away the whole blooming show?”
“No, no, there was no name on them to show whom they were written to, but as they each began ‘Beloved’ I hardly think they were intended for Damaris.”
“You mean she stole them?”
“Oh, Ray, I’m sure that two and two almost never make five! There were a dozen ways that Damaris might have got those letters without stealing them. Suppose that the messenger had brought them to her instead of Sidney, hoping for better pay; suppose that Denry intercepted them and sent them to her; suppose that Sidney gave them to her himself or forgot to destroy them, and left her to discover them after his death? Why do you want to turn my Damaris into a common spy and thief?”
“I know perfectly well that I’m a donkey nine times out of ten,” remarked Ray gloomily. “But this happens to be the tenth time. How about that unfinished letter? Did Sidney turn that over to her?”
“You’re all so appallingly inquisitive,” sighed Lindy, perching herself on the arm of the great sofa. “There’s probably a perfectly simple explanation, if we only knew it.… Are we going to sit right here for the rest of the night, children?”
“So that’s the solution,” said Gavin Dart thoughtfully. “And your lovely Damaris wore black till the day she died, did she? What a really remarkable young woman! I suppose that any jury in these stirring days would hand her back to her golden-headed infants with tears and a blessing.”
“Jury?” repeated Ray in dazed tones. “Why should a jury—Lindy Marsden, you aren’t sitting there telling us that your great, great, great, great grandmother murdered her own husband?”
“Oh, Ray, who in the whole wide world told you that? Not I—not ever. There’s always been a feud in the Pallisser family as to who did kill our most romantic ancestor, and when the family deserted Lady Court and the things were divided up, Aunt Serena’s father took Sidney’s portrait and all his possessions and installed them in the Baltimore house, and Aunt Chloe’s mother took Damaris to Richmond and hung her over the mantel, and filled the attic with her trunks. My aunts took turns bringing me up, after Daddy and Mother were killed in that train accident, and I always used to leave Baltimore convinced that Sidney was a martyred victim and come back sure that Damaris was the martyr. Aunt Chloe always insisted she was a vastly maligned lady of impeccable conduct, and that I owed her a debt of gratitude for bequeathing me her hands.”
“Here’s the lad to say you do!” concurred Doug King gayly from the chair at her side. “Prettiest hands since Damaris died! Lindy chile, dat ole story done soun’ better dan it do ten years ago, an’ ole Uncle Doug he know what he say. You suah are de beatinest story-teller either side de Mason-Dixon line.”
“I’ve told it so often,” said Lindy dreamily, “that it doesn’t sound true to me any more—you know, the way quite a simple word begins to sound fantastic if you say it over twenty or thirty times. Damaris and Sidney feel more like my own inventions than my own ancestors.… Anyway, there’s a posthumous happy ending. Humphrey was so impressed by the contents of the ivory and coral box that he and his Ninon lived happy ever after. They never spent four hours apart in all their lives, and celebrated their golden wedding with thirty-two grandchildren to toast their success. So do, do let’s get at supper and forget the errors—let’s say of judgment—of my unlucky ancestors.”
“All’s well that ends well, what?” inquired Joel jubilantly. “Nothing like a good murder in the family to insure fidelity for generations to come! Don’t you go putting ideas into Ray’s blessed little empty nut, Lindy love.”
“One more round, Lindy!” implored Doug. “One more because this is a party, and we’re the March Hares. We ought to drink to the Queen, God Rest Her Soul, and scrunch the glasses under our heels—how about some good old Victorian glass scrunching, boys? This is Liberty Hall, isn’t it, Lindy? Or is it Lady Court? You never can tell about these places—sometimes it’s one thing and sometimes it’s another.”
“It’s Lady Court,” said Lindy with surprising firmness. “And its inhabitants are now rapidly approaching the end of the ‘Wassail,’ ‘Lebewohl,’ ‘Hoch,’ ‘Skoal,’ and heel-taps period. When you start chattering about glass-scrunching, Doug, I doubt whether we’re approaching it rapidly enough! This is good though, Sherry. Here’s to my guests—bless them for being here!”
“Here’s to our hostess—bless her for having us! On your feet, March Hares—strike up the band!
“‘Oh, what is the thing
That maddens our brain?’”
Doug’s plaintive bellow echoed to the ceiling, drowning the wind itself—
“‘That brings to our life
Both sorrow and pain?
And last but not least
That drives us insane?’”
“You tell ’em, boys! All together, now—
“‘Wilson’s whiskey—that’s a-all!
“‘Wilson’s whiskey—that’s all!
Even Hanna the sedate and Jill the demure were on their feet, beating time to the idiotically infectious swing with a zeal worthy of a better tune. As for Douglas the irrepressible, he whooped, he howled, he pranced, he executed intricate little jig steps and abortive cadenzas with the abandon of a whirling dervish and a Pawnee Indian. It was a really memorable performance.
“Now we’re all up, boys and girls, how about a dance? Just one, Lindy, because the night is young and so are we! The lights—the lights, and the music—that’s us all over, isn’t it? Just look at that old music box standing up on its hind legs rarin’ to go; all right, old timer—you and me both! Do your stuff, boy; let’s go!” He spun the handle, gave a professional twirl to the black disk, and stepped back with a magnificent gesture of invitation.
“Boy, listen to that! They don’t write music like that these days. ‘Underneath the stars’—ta da da, dee da—da! This is ours, Lindy; here’s where we teach ’em how to dance!”
Lindy, her eyes black pools in the white terror of her face, pressed back against the sofa.
“No, no, Doug; I’m tired. No!”
“Chile, I don’t even know how to spell ‘no.’ Come on, show this gawking crowd what the poetry of motion means. Attagirl! ‘Jack-o’-lanterns in the garden gleaeaming—’”
No one stirred—no one moved—they stood transfixed, the glasses still in their hands, the candlelight in their hair, the music of Sunny’s tune rising and falling about them as Doug swung by with Lindy in his arms. Swaying, circling, dipping to the old unforgotten tune—the old unforgotten words—
“Underneath the silver …”
It checked, wavered, and swung off into space with a long rasping cry as Kit Baird pushed the lever ruthlessly across the still spinning disk, and stood staring down at the scar that it left in its wake. In the far corner of the room Doug King flung about on his heel.
“Who did that? You, Baird?”
“I myself—in person,” said Kit Baird, his eyes still on the disk.
“It’s the second time that you’ve done it,” said Douglas King. “And if you’re asking me, it’s twice too often.”
At that Kit raised his eyes, and they were smiling.
“Do you know, for a moment I almost thought you’d forgotten.” He came forward through the little group with his
long, light step, his eyes still smiling. When he was a pace away, he stopped and dropped one gentle, detaining hand on Doug King’s shoulder. “Your mistake, old man. Didn’t you hear her say that she was tired?”
Chapter III
In the silence that had fallen abruptly and appallingly over the great room, a strange voice rose, a voice thickened and coarsened beyond recognition.
“Take your hand off my arm, you—”
There was a small crash of splintering glass as Joel Hardy moved swiftly forward.
“Steady on there, King. This isn’t a tavern.”
Lindy, swaying very slightly, steadied herself by catching at Doug’s free arm. She slipped her hand through it, smiling desperately up at him, and at the look in her eyes Kit relaxed his grip abruptly and stood aside.
“Doug, please—it’s my fault; I signed to Kit to do it, because I didn’t feel as though I could dance—truly, I was so tired. This is my party, Doug—you aren’t going to spoil my party? Kit, I do think that was rather rude.”
Kit, his eyes never leaving her face, said carelessly and pleasantly, “It begins to look as though none of us will make the third grade! Joel, if you’ll just trundle up the kiddie car, I’ll take a whirl or so on it before we all settle down to porridge and milk and a good rousing game of Ring Around a Rosy. Or must I stand in the corner, Lindy?”
“Not this time.” Lindy’s caressing voice was resolutely light. “Suppose you sit over there with Joel and Chatty, and we all get at the porridge? Doug, you come over here with Hanna and me—you, too, Sherry. Oh, no, Doug has to carve first—he’s the butcher. The ham’s in that little hamper there.… Doug, I’m afraid to look at you—are you still scowling?”
“Nary scowl, angel—not with you at my side.” He bestowed a reassuring pat on the hand resting so lightly on his arm, and swung a jovial beam about the still transfixed circle. “Let’s have a look at this ham. Gr-reat suffering cats, look at that ham!” His voice rose in a mighty diapason as he swung aloft a small mountain of glistening brown.
“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” Lindy, still at his side, eyed it with benign modesty, as became a hostess. “Mandy feeds them for months on nothing but oysters and acorns and corn meal with cream, and then when—when the inevitable has transpired, she cooks them in cider with peach brandy, and bakes them with that crust of brown sugar and walnuts. She claims it makes right good ham.”
“Right good ham!” howled the frenzied Douglas. “Here, give me a knife, someone! If I have to wait three minutes longer to get at this I’m a dead man.”
“There’s one with the rest of the silver in that cabinet—no, the left-hand corner.”
“This dinky thing? I don’t want to cut butter. I’m after ham.”
“But, Doug, what on earth is the matter with it? Isn’t it sharp enough?”
“It’s sharp enough, Beautiful, but what I want is a carving knife, not an objet d’art. You can turn this over to the boy scouts. I’m a man, I am, and I wants a man’s knife, I do!”
“Doug, you’re driving me straight out of my senses,” said Trudi, scowling ferociously at him across the ham. “For the love of Pete, get one out of the kitchen and carve that ham. You’d better take one of those candles—it’ll be black as Egypt out there.”
“Coming to show me where the knives live, Lindy love?”
“They’re in the cabinet to the left of the stove; you can’t possibly miss them. And I really have to get these tables in order, if we’re going to have supper before midnight. Yes, that way, the second door—Oh, Larry, look out—there goes that window!”
Larry caught it just in time to save the flickering candles, and from somewhere far down the corridor through which Doug was disappearing, a door banged an answer, and another door, farther away still, echoed it with feeble violence.
Larry, flushed and panting from his struggle, turned a rain-spattered countenance back to the reassuring warmth of the fire, stopping to wring out a rain-soaked cuff.
“Gosh, what a night!” He laughed with all the curious hilarity that a struggle with the elements engenders. “It’s blowing a fair gale and raining like the last day of the Deluge. Any of the other windows liable to do that, Lindy?”
“No, that’s my fault. Kit and I opened it to see what kind of a night it was, and evidently we didn’t make a distinguished success of closing it.… There was a red streak over the cedars, and Kit said then it meant trouble.”
“Go to the head of the weather-prophet class, Kit! Where do I put these things, lady?”
“The cabbage salad goes with the ham, as soon as Doug decides to carve it. You serve it, will you, Chatty? And those biscuits stuffed with bacon and the cheese straws ought to be hot—stick the platters down by the fire, Kit; we can fish them up later. Oh, thank goodness, Doug—we thought you were lost! Why in the world did you come back through the chapel?”
“Thought I was lost?” inquired Doug, flourishing his carving knife in menacing circles. “You knew darned well I was lost. Why didn’t anyone come after me? Lindy, you’re the only girl I ever loved—where were you?
“Playing Penelope. Brandish that at the ham, will you? Chatty, you come over here.”
“My candle went out round the very first corner,” continued Doug in a plaintive bellow. “And I fell three times down the coal hole and once into the ice-box. I nearly died—not that any of you care.”
“I care,” said Joel Hardy, with prompt fervour. “I care terribly that it was only nearly. If you’d only broken that thick head of yours, someone else could have a go at the ham. For God’s sake, carve!”
“That Hardy guy doesn’t like me,” said Doug darkly. “He never did like me. He can’t bear me because I’m better-looking than he is, and funnier, too.… I came in that way, Lindy, if it still interests you, because I got lost just outside the butler’s pantry and took the wrong turn and fell three stairs down into the chapel and three stairs up into here. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Poor Doug, of course I mind. That hamper has dessert in it, Trudi—crullers and apples to roast on sticks. The sticks must be in the closet. Doug, if you don’t stop brooding over that ham—”
“Possibly he doesn’t know how to carve it,” suggested Gavin Dart amiably.
“Not know how to carve it? My dear fellow, when I die the art of carving ham dies with me. Step right up—the line forms to the right to see how a born master handles his tools. There you are, sir—fragrant as a rose and transparent as stained glass. Correct me if I’m wrong.”
“No, no, you’re quite right.” Dart watched the fragile slices curl back over the dextrous knife with a diverted and appraising eye. “That kind of skill gets out of the realms of talent into those of genius as far as I’m concerned. I’m every kind of dub with my hands.”
“Oh, Doug can do anything with his hands,” murmured Lindy. “He’s a real magician. Thanks, that’s plenty.”
“Ah, yes,” said Kit Baird pensively, “Doug certainly uses his hands to save his head. If a guy could get to be President of the United States by making coins drop out of the other fellow’s ears and cards vanish from under his nose, Doug would win on the first ballot every time. And as for getting out of tight places, let me tell you now, the late Houdini has nothing on that boy—has he, Doug?”
Doug King eyed the blandly nonchalant countenance at his elbow with a certain curious fixity for a moment, and then grinned appreciatively.
“You ought to know, ole sport! You and me together, love! Double for me on that Scotch, Sherry, and no quits. Now, are we all set? Lindy, chile, Ah done gone an’ save yo’-all a mighty fine li’l’ slice off dat li’l’ pig, as purty a li’l’ slice as yo’-all is goin’ to lay yo’ shinin’ eyes on dis whole endurin’ night.”
“If there’s one thing that I like better than another about Doug,” murmured Lindy with a shadowy smile, “it’s that Boston accent. Move over, Chatty darling. He wants to sit next to you.”
Ray remarked earnestly fr
om the next table, “You know that’s exactly the way I thought you were going to talk. When Joel told me you were a Southerner I was perfectly sure that every other minute you’d be saying, ‘Ah raickon’ and ‘honey, lamb’ and ‘you-all’ and ‘right sweet.’ You know, the way you all do in books.”
Even by the flickering candlelight an attentive observer might have seen the shadowy smile deepen, but Lindy remarked serenely in her voice of moonlit languor, “Did you? And when Joel told me that you were from Vermont, I could hardly wait for ‘I callate’ and ‘I swan’ and ‘real spry.’ And now not even a ‘land’s sake’ to reward me! You aren’t trying to high-hat us, are you, Ray?”
“Just you let that remark lie where it falls, duckie,” advised Joel, who, contrary to etiquette and tradition, had seated himself firmly at his wife’s side. “You’re being kidded by experts! The little Southern lady is gently implying that ladies and gents talk like gents and ladies irregardless of the hoi polloi and equatorial distinctions. But don’t you let anyone get snooty with you—a nice, courtly come-back for that last one is Oh, go jump in the lake.’”
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