Lucas Quincy stared at her heavy-lidded, stared at her glistening eyes, at her quick breathing, at the almost imperceptible twitching of her hips. “Alys,” he said gruffly.
“Yes, Lukey darling?”
Quincy continued to stare impassively. “Lay off of Tom,” he said flatly.
“Yes, darling.” She crossed the room again and gazed out of the window to the sands where she had stood earlier.
Ramirez was now comfortably bedded in the doctor’s room, and Arnold was busy with his bag. “You shall now,” Tom announced as the two younger men emerged into the upstairs hall, “see the setting of a new world’s record. That noted young psychologist and athlete, Thomas Lucas Quincy, is about to get into a tuxedo in the fabulous and breathtaking space of five minutes. Want to race me, Fergus?”
“With what?”
“Oh. Sorry. That’s right. You’re going to have to show up at this extraspecial anniversary dinner in—”
“In this, God help me. ‘And the king saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having on a wedding garment? And he was speechless.’”
“And from the look in Brainard’s eye, he’d like to carry out the rest of it: ‘Bind us hand and foot, and take us away, and cast us into outer darkness.’”
“My!” said Fergus. “Can psychologists quote scripture?”
“Sure. Didn’t you know? We’re personal agents of the devil. Want to come watch my deathdefying battle with time?”
“No thanks. There’s something I’ve got to check before dinner.”
Tom’s easy smile vanished. “Something about…?”
Fergus’ lips were tight and firm, and there was a sharp glint in his green eyes. “You go get dressed,” he said dryly.
ii
“You can take this into the dining room,” said Stella Paris.
Fergus lifted the cover of the sterling silver vegetable dish and looked at the peas. “Canned,” he observed unhappily.
“I know. That’s Horace for you. He knows a man who knows a man and he can get canned goods wholesale. So the market is full of fresh peas and we eat canned. It’s a miracle we’re not having canned beef for dinner. Corcoran says What’s the good of being a cook if you’ve got nothing to cook with.”
“Miss Paris …” Fergus began.
“You’re being mother’s little helper, aren’t you? Take that dish in.”
He took it. “Miss Paris …” he started again when he returned.
“Nobody ever calls me that. I’m not used to answering to it. I’m just Stella.”
“Stella, then. Though that does sound as sacrilegious as meeting Miss Pickford and saying ‘Hiya, Mary!’ Stella, why did you invite me here?”
Miss Paris devoted careful attention to the stirring of the gravy. “I thought you’d guessed that,” she said at last.
“I did guess about Valentino—my sneezes and that little mound … And I knew about the Stanhope case and put them together.”
“Then you know why I asked you.”
“You want me to find Martha Stanhope’s murderer? Then why won’t you talk to me? Why won’t you tell me what actually happened on the sands this afternoon? Why don’t you tell me the whole story of that hotel at Santa Eulalia, the story that isn’t in newspapers?”
She stirred on. “What should I know after twenty-five years?”
“No conceivable motive, the papers said. That’s nonsense. There hasn’t been a group of people ever, close to each other, tightly knit as you of that wedding party were, where there wasn’t some conceivable motive for death, if you probe deep enough. Motives aren’t so simple as the classifiers make out. You can’t just say, ‘She didn’t have a lover, she didn’t leave a fortune, therefore no motive.’ Talk to me about that group, tell me all you know, and let me—”
“Fergus.” Miss Paris stopped stirring and looked at him earnestly. “I don’t think that is why I invited you. Not to find out who murdered poor dear Martha. If it’s only that, let it be only that. If Martha was … If it was one of us, let it go. We’ve all lived on since then at peace with society. We’ve lived relatively decent lives. You can’t take a man after a quarter of a century and put him in the gas chamber for something so long ago that it might as well have been done by someone else.”
“I don’t feel that way,” said Fergus. “And especially not in this case. Not after Valentino.”
Miss Paris nodded. “That’s it. That’s why I wanted you. Not to catch the poor devil for what he did centuries ago, but to keep him from doing it again. If Valentino was … was the same as Alys’ kitten, then we need you. And if he was … just something extra, then I don’t want you to learn too much. I don’t want the dead past to bury the living.”
“And if I can prove to you that Valentino was not something extra?”
“Then … Oh heavens! Lumps!” She returned her attention abruptly to the gravy. There was a minute of vigorous stirring and then at last she relaxed. “Even Horace,” she said, “would protest over lumpy gravy. Not that he has palate enough to notice its flavor.” She tasted the gravy and frowned. “Want to taste?”
Fergus took a clean spoon and tasted. “Good,” he said reservedly.
“Don’t be polite. I know it’s not quite right. What would you suggest?”
Fergus thought. “I’d say a little lemon juice and a pinch, maybe, of celery salt.”
Stella Paris smiled. “Exactly what I thought myself. We’ll do well if you’re as good at analyzing … other things.”
Fergus took off his apron. “I’ll talk to you after dinner,” he said. “And I think I’ll prove to you that there’s nothing extra in this picture.”
Fergus whistled softly to himself as he slipped out the back door. It shouldn’t be hard to prove. And that proof should be the needed lever to pry out all Stella Paris’ knowledge of what happened at the Hotel de la Playa in 1915. With that knowledge—
The whistle died as he heard quiet footsteps coming along the side of the house. This might, of course, be the doctor. Or it might … He kept himself in shadow and edged along the wall to the corner. He peered around.
James Herndon was walking along almost silently, one hand cupped around the glowing bowl of his briar, the other beating against his leg with a sort of futile desperation. He came on to the corner and there paused, stared ahead unseeingly, and turned back. Twice he executed this maneuver, like a guard on sentry duty, and each time Fergus sensed a depth of despair in those staring expressionless eyes.
Then another form loomed up—the heavy bulk of Lucas Quincy, recognizable from afar by his tramping step and by the bright red dot that was his cigar end. As he saw Herndon, he hesitated, tossed the cigar down, and stepped on it. Then more softly he came up to the other and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t!” Herndon cried. It was almost a shriek. Then, “Sorry, Lucas,” he added. “Nerves.”
“That’s just it,” said Lucas Quincy sympathetically. “Nerves. I was worrying about that.”
“Don’t worry.”
“But I know your nerves, James. You shouldn’t wander around alone like this. It’s not good for you. Nor for …” He left the phrase unfinished.
“I can look after myself.” Herndon’s voice took on a little of his brother-in-law’s snappishness.
“Can you? And what were you doing out here alone?”
“Praying to God I might forget these matters that with myself I too much discuss.”
The phrase sounded faintly familiar to Fergus, but he could not place it. Lucas Quincy said, “Whatever that means. You’d better go inside. Remember, James, I know what is best for you.”
Herndon gave a short and quite unamused laugh. “I wonder, Lucas. I wonder how much of what you know, you do in fact know.” But he turned and went back to the house.
Fergus was bothered. There is nothing so disconcerting as a man who abruptly steps out of character, and surely the gentle concern, one might almost say the tenderness of this sce
ne was completely unrelated to anything he had seen or known of Lucas Quincy. It was an impossible scene, and therefore an important one. Though in what way important …
He stepped around the corner. “Mr. Quincy.”
“Ha.” Lucas Quincy seemed unsurprised. “Good man. Wanted to have a talk with you alone.” He took out a fresh cigar but made no motion of offering one to the detective. “Hanged if I know how you got here or why.” He struck a match and puffed. “But I never saw you before.”
“You’re calling the tune,” said Fergus. “O. K., so you never saw me before. But as to why I’m here—”
“Not interested. Wanted to make things clear.” That odd brief cloak of sympathy had fallen quite away. He was as stolid and cold as ever now.
“You’re interested all right.” Fergus took the leap. “I’m here to take that job.”
Quincy shook his head. “Said I never saw you before.” He turned and walked back toward the front of the house.
Fergus grinned to himself. So the urgent need for the O’Breen services had vanished. Quincy was going to play hard to get. But there were other possible clients. And the same proof which would open Miss Paris’ confidence might also reconvince Quincy—might even turn this into a legal deal.
He resumed his soft whistle as he walked away from the house. The grin was still on his lips, but with an earnest quirk to it. He was resolved on the impossible: to prove the financial advantages of quixotry.
If Fergus had gauged correctly the character of Horace Brainard, the servant Corcoran had surely occupied, not a room in the house itself, but some uncomfortable makeshift outside. And if he had diagnosed correctly the nature of Corcoran’s ailment, that wise-seeming doctor had left him out there, away from prying eyes. And here was just such a meager shack, cold and comfortless. The deductions were working out.
The door was locked. Sensible man, Dr. Arnold, even if he had slipped in describing Corcoran’s trouble to Miss Paris as illness and to Fergus as accident. The door was wisely locked, but at one side was a window. Fergus did not want entrance. Not yet. This time only a glimpse to make sure.
Corcoran was alive. He had not been certain of that. Either way was possible. There was the slight regular motion of breathing under the blanket. And as he lifted his eyes toward the man’s head he saw what he had known he must see, the dark-stained bandage around the throat.
Fergus hesitated in the doorway of the library. This was the first step in a campaign which should mean a check in his pocket, the capture of a murderer, and a new and freer life for all but one of those on the island. It was a ticklish moment.
It was a silent group in the quasi-library, or almost silent, for little splutterings of exasperation escaped with every breath of Horace Brainard. The others were still. Alys Trent stared out at the sands, one hand resting on her half-bare breasts, the other lightly and unconsciously stroking her white hair. Lucas Quincy sat mountainous, his small eyes, black dots in his full red face, fixed impassively on Alys. And James Herndon effaced himself in a corner and raptly contemplated the silver mountings of his briar.
Horace Brainard whirled and glared at the entrance of that damned young Irishman in the yellow shirt. “Well!” he yelped.
“I’m sorry, sir,” said Fergus courteously, “but I have to speak with you alone. It’s most important.”
Alys Trent turned her slow gaze upon him, and seemed to find him as preoccupying as the sands. “So important?” she murmured. “Let me hear too!”
“Alys,” said Lucas Quincy flatly. You could not call his tone even warning, but it stopped the girl and held her by the window. There was something almost idol-like about the monosyllable solidity of Lucas Quincy; yet Fergus had a shrewd idea that he knew just where to apply the hotfoot to that idol’s feet of clay.
“No time now,” Horace Brainard snapped. “Or ever. But certainly not now. Time for dinner.”
“But, sir.” Fergus tried to suggest urgency without undue alarm. “I swear that this is most important to every person in this room. On this island, in fact.”
Alys’ lips parted; but she caught Quincy’s eye and said nothing.
“Young man,” Brainard announced, “at this moment only one thing is of importance to me. That is that I should be allowed to celebrate my anniversary in peace. Now will you get to hell out of here?”
“But Horace,” James Herndon protested gently over his pipe. “Surely the young man is dining with us.”
“The devil he is. He’s forced himself in on us here. No manners. No clothes. And because it’s my anniversary, do I have to entertain every impecunious young rapscallion in—”
“Sorry,” Fergus cut in curtly. “I’m not worrying about my dinner. My passion for canned peas falls something short of the fetish level, and there are more immediate concerns. I—”
“He’s exciting!” Alys gasped. “He makes you feel—oh, I don’t know—awful things. And I love it. Please, Horace, let him stay!”
“Can you never have men enough?” Brainard barked.
“No,” said Alys calmly and, Fergus imagined, truthfully. “But please, Horace …”
“Horace,” said Lucas Quincy, and astounded Fergus by turning on him a coldly genial smile.
It had worked as planned. Fergus had noted earlier the quiet internal pleasure which Quincy seemed to take in imposing his will on Brainard, and had wondered what the hold might be which enabled him to do so. Goad Brainard far enough, and Lucas Quincy would take your side purely for the joy of deflating his host. It was a first step. But that smile was even more than he had expected.
“Very well,” Brainard grunted pettishly. “Stay if you damn well like. Come to my dinner. Eat my roast. Ruin my anniversary with your goddamned yellow shirt. But I warn you of one thing: Whatever you have to say, however weighty you may think it is, it can wait. This dinner is going to go on undisturbed. It’s going to go on as it should have if no damned Corcorans and no damned Mexicans and no damned young brats that Stella dredges up from God knows where …”
Fergus could feel his fist clenching. He envied these tough and two-fisted investigators you read about who shoot out a straight right to the jaw whenever some dope cracks wise. The hell of this business when you’re in it is that you can’t afford to have a temper. You’ve got to take what’s handed out to you and hope you can make up for it when the time comes for the bill; and Fergus had already decided that, failing Lucas Quincy, Horace Brainard was going to sign one honey of a check before this party was over. So “Thank you, sir,” he said stiffly, and forcibly unclenched his fist.
“Tell me, O’Breen.” James Herndon made a touchingly unsubtle attempt at appeasement. “Are you interested at all in pipes?”
Fergus walked over to the timid man’s corner. He tried to keep an eye on Quincy, but there was nothing to be read in that blank red face. “Never smoke them myself,” he said, “but I think they’re a joy to look at. Why?”
“I’m by way of being a collector,” Herndon explained deprecatorily, “and I shouldn’t think of going off even for a weekend without a few of my treasures. If you have the time after dinner, we might—”
“Come in!” Horace Brainard bellowed in answer to a knock on the door.
Stella Paris stood in the doorway. She still wore the dated evening gown; but the stance of her body was so perfect, her head was adjusted at so exactly the right angle of dignified condescension, that you saw not a fat and friendly woman but a portly and competent butler. She cleared her throat with elaborate unobtrusiveness and spoke in fruity and British tones. “Dinner is served.”
Fergus and Alys laughed with pleasure, and even Lucas Quincy half-smiled. Miss Paris had nowise lost her mimetic talents.
But Brainard winced at the laugh. “God damn it, Stella! Must even you make a farce of my anniversary?”
James Herndon knocked out his pipe. “Farce?” he repeated, looking at Fergus. There was bewilderment and tragedy in his voice.
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About the Author
Anthony Boucher was an American author, critic, and editor, who wrote several classic mystery novels, short stories, science fiction, and radio dramas. Between 1942 and 1947 he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle.
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