by Helen Wells
“Yes, Bucky,” Cherry gently encouraged.
“Well, it’s this,” he smiled warmly. “What do you think would be a nice present for a very nice girl?”
She held her breath. “I suppose that would depend on what the girl is like, wouldn’t it?”
“She’s lovely,” Bucky said softly.
Cherry smiled at him. “No doubt she likes you, too,” she encouraged.
“I certainly hope so! Now, let’s see—”
“You don’t want to spend too much,” said Cherry, careful of a young man’s pocket. “I’m sure I—she—wouldn’t want too grand a gift.”
“I’d spend my last dollar for her,” Bucky said earnestly. “Do you think she’d like a wrist watch? Or a ring—the most beautiful ring I could find?”
Cherry was thrilled. She stammered, “Do you know what size she wears?” She was playing for time, trying to think. This had come so suddenly.
“No, I don’t know her size.”
“Couldn’t you find out?”
“Well, she’s smaller than you—”
Cherry stiffened in surprise. “Smaller,” she echoed weakly.
“I said, she’s smaller than you. Quite tiny. And golden-haired,” Bucky went on in the same soft, confiding voice. “Seems silly not to know my fiancée’s size, but I haven’t seen her for a year, I’ve forgotten her sizes.”
“Oh,” said Cherry. It was all she could think of to say. His fiancée. Golden-haired. Smaller than you.
“You’d love her, Cherry. Peg and I—her name’s Peg—we always like the same people. You’d love her.”
“I’m sure I would.” Cherry forced a weak smile.
“Well, now, isn’t that nice of you! Come on. Help me decide on what to give her,” Bucky rattled on cheerfully and unconsciously. “She’s golden-haired and tiny, as I said, if that’s any help to you.”
No help whatsoever, Cherry thought glumly. But she made herself say that golden jewelry should be very nice with golden hair. And she bade the grateful Bucky a rather hasty good night.
Upstairs, the girls’ jokes about Cherry’s “conquest” of Bucky did not make her feel any better. When they asked her, “What did he say?” and “Did you let him kiss you?”—disillusion settled over her like a cold rain in the middle of vacation.
“Ho, hum!” Cherry stifled her feelings with a large pretended yawn. “It’s a bright, moonlight night, but right now I could use some sleep,” she evaded.
Monday morning Cherry felt miserable as she drove the Spencer Club down to the railroad station. Even as they boarded the train, the Club was still heatedly discussing its future.
“We’ll meet soon again and decide then.”
“Now that we’ve started our Spencer Club, we’re going to go through with it!”
“See you in St. Louis, Cherry!”
“See you, Gwen.”
Cherry drove back home alone. The family was nowhere in sight. Her mother had left a note, saying Bucky was gone, bag and baggage, and said good-bye and thanks to her. Cherry was relieved that she did not have to see him again.
She wandered around the deserted rooms, sourly thinking, “What a fool I made of myself! Lucky, huh? Conquest, huh? Why, he told me in so many words that he was merely being polite! Just doing his duty to his hostess! And I—I—I threw myself at him!”
Covered with chagrin, Cherry felt like the well-known two cents. If that much. How Bucky must have laughed at her, as she dangled like a popeyed fish on the bait of his compliments. Well, why had he called her Princess—tagged after her everywhere—made her believe he was smitten? It wasn’t fair!
But, on second thought, Cherry had to admit that Bucky had not led her on. She had taken too much for granted. It was her friends who had led—or misled—her on. Not Bucky! Even stuck up there in the ferris wheel, his golden opportunity to get sentimental, Bucky had merely been his entertaining self. She decided grimly that at least he had to be credited with delightful manners. He had simply repaid hospitality by being as amiable as he knew how.
“Nevertheless, I hate him! Making a monkey of me!”
A small silent voice squeaked: “You made a monkey of yourself. And you certainly did a thorough job of it!”
Cherry threw herself on the couch, dug her heels in the upholstery, and moped. “Sunk,” she muttered. “Completely sunk. You gosh-darn fool!”
Suddenly the spectacle of herself fluttering coyly after a young man who was—romantically—blissfully unconscious of her, struck her funny. She started to laugh, silently at first, then roared out loud.
But the sore spot was still there, and she still was annoyed with herself. She realized her lightheaded foolishness was a natural reaction after being tied down so long on the Owens case. But she hoped to goodness her brother had not noticed, and that the friends would not learn the truth, or she would never hear the end of this!
“What a sucker I am! What a gullible—”
Mrs. Ames came in, her arms full of groceries.
“What are you looking so depressed about, Cherry?”
“Ohh—nothing.”
“Your friends are sweet. And that Bucky is very charming.
“Entirely too charming.”
“Why, Cherry!” Her mother studied her with shrewd and understanding eyes. “Hmm. That reminds me. Did you find the letter for you from Wade Cooper?”
Cherry brightened a little. “From Wade?”
“It came last Thursday and I put it on the hall table with the rest of the mail. Didn’t you find it?”
“No, I didn’t. And I want it! Quick!”
Mrs. Ames sighed. “I suspect Midge would know where it is. Midge and her grand passion for Captain Cooper.”
Cherry telephoned Midge.
“Why, yes, I do have Wade’s letter at that,” Midge admitted airily. “I was kind of sort of keeping it for you. I saw Wade’s name on the envelope and—it’s been such a satisfaction to have it in my pocket!”
Wade’s letter, when rescued and opened, read:
“Dear Cherry—So you thought you were through with me, and vice versa, did you? Well, so did I. And boy, are we both wrong!”
“I forgive you for everything, even rescuing me from drowning.”
“Papa Cooper herewith notifies you that only a love affair with your rival, the auto repair business, keeps him away from you. But I will be around eventually, and that’s for sure. Don’t you dare even look at anyone else.”
“Your ever-loving, long-suffering,
Wade.”
Cherry forgot about Bucky fast and thoroughly.
CHAPTER VIII
The Threat
THE INSTANT CHERRY STEPPED INSIDE THE OWENS house, she sensed that something was wrong.
Jen, who had let her in, wore an anxious air. Octave the cat paced the piano top, a nervous barometer of the house’s mood. Worst of all, there was no music—only strained silence.
“Miss Cherry, I certainly am relieved you’re here!” the housekeeper exclaimed. “I’ll take your bag. You run right upstairs to Mr. Scott.”
“What’s wrong?” Cherry asked fearfully. “Is he sick? Was Dr. Pratt called?”
Jen shook her white head. “Not sick, but I’m afraid he may be. Something awful has happened, he’s had a shock, he and Miss Kitty look like ghosts. No, I haven’t the faintest notion of what it is. Go along now, run.”
Cherry ran.
On the second floor, the doors to the two Owenses’ bedrooms and to Miss Kitty’s office stood open. The rooms were deserted. Cherry fled past the third floor where her own bedroom and the guest chamber were located. On the fourth floor, where she had never been before, she still heard no voices to guide her.
Cherry hesitated, then knocked on the door of the room which faced the street. No answer. Gingerly she turned the knob and looked in. She discovered Scott Owens’s workroom—a grand piano heaped with music scores, some printed, some in pencil, and a piano bench and a powerful lamp, nothing more.
> Cherry turned across the hall and paused before the other closed door. Yes, here she heard sibilant whispers. She knocked.
Miss Kitty opened the door a crack. “Miss Cherry! Back so soon?” Her face looked pinched and old. “Well, isn’t that nice. Why don’t you go to your room and rest, or have some tea, or—ah—”
“Let her come in,” Scott Owens called weakly. “She might as well know.”
“I don’t want to intrude—” But Miss Kitty flung the door open, drew Cherry in, and closed the door once more, as if she were closing out trouble. Cherry found herself in the musician’s study. If the musician himself had been in a better mood, this would have been an inspiring and fascinating room, she reflected. All four walls were covered with framed photographs of the great in music, of all continents, and some in other arts, all inscribed affectionately to Scott. The names were dazzling. A fine gray marble fireplace, banked with green leaves for the summer months, had on its mantel gifts and curios collected on Scott’s musical travels. A great basket of red roses, tagged with an admirer’s card, nodded between the two ceiling-high windows. But the blinds were closed, and Scott Owens lay back on one of the divans in exhaustion.
He sat up a little as Cherry approached and tried to smile at her.
“Hello, my little nurse, did you have a good time?”
“Yes, thanks, but you, Mr. Scott—”
“No, I’m not ill, just terribly worried. I’ve had a bad upset. Bad.”
Miss Kitty nervously fingered her reddish hair. “Do you really think, Scott, that you ought to tell about—”
“You told! You talked too much, didn’t you? To the wrong people—with this wretched result!” His thin, usually gentle face was fiery. His sister sat down and bit her lips. “You sit down too, Cherry, and listen. Unless you don’t care about listening to this mess?”
“I do care, Mr. Scott! Not about your secrets,” Cherry stammered, “about your health.”
She was indeed concerned about the effects of shock and worry on her cardiac patient.
The musician’s bottomless eyes stared ahead for a long minute. His voice shook a little as he started to talk.
“You remember the various fortunetellers we went to? You particularly remember Gregory Carroll in the fancy apartment? Carroll,” he sneered, “with his ‘saintly’ air, and his much too clever secretary, Mr. Thatch, and—yes, and that harpsichord which they probably rented to win my sympathies!”
Miss Kitty mumbled, “Don’t excite yourself, Scott. Please.”
“Don’t excite myself!” he shouted. “My Lord, we’re on the verge of ruin—of public disgrace—and she tells me—”
“What’s happened?” Cherry broke in quickly.
“Blackmail! And may the Lord help us!”
Cherry repeated disbelievingly, “Blackmail—Gregory Carroll is threatening you—threatening to—”
Scott Owens covered his eyes with his hands. “It’s the end of my career—of my good name—of our income—of our whole life—” He waved his hand at the walls with their photographs. “It’s the end of everything!”
Miss Kitty was noisily crying into a tiny handkerchief.
Cherry took a deep breath. Someone had to remain calm, to steady these two panic-stricken people. It was up to her. Yet she felt herself to be on very delicate ground. To reason them out of their terrible mood, she would have to discuss their most private affairs, ask questions, pry—and she had no right to do that. The whole idea of meddling was distasteful to Cherry. Yet here they sat, helpless, alone, gone to pieces emotionally. She ventured to ask exactly what Carroll had threatened.
Miss Owens drew up her big frame in the chair. She said heavily, “I’ll tell you what he wants. That fortuneteller found out something in my brother’s past which, if made public, could ruin him. We’ve guarded that secret for years—how he found it out, I still don’t know—”
“You told him, you fool,” Scott said bitterly.
“Yes, Scott, I admit I did tell him bits of it. And I suppose, as you said on the train that day, these fortunetellers know how to dig up confidential information.”
Cherry suddenly, sharply remembered their talk on the train, and the man who had sat opposite them. Had he listened? Had they said anything compromising? What idiots they had been to discuss anything private, in public!
“—has dug up all these facts, you see,” Miss Kitty was continuing, “and now Carroll threatens to—”
“Just a minute,” Cherry interrupted. “Has he proof?”
There was an odd silence. Scott answered:
“We don’t know.”
“But we certainly think so. Otherwise how would he dare threaten us?”
“Bluffing you?” Cherry suggested.
But Scott sadly shook his head. “I’m afraid not. And this is what he wants. Listen to this! Carrol demands that in return for keeping his mouth shut, I pay him ten thousand dollars! My Lord, I haven’t got it!”
“And if you start paying him, you’ll pay for the rest of your life,” his sister said. She started to cry again. “Don’t think that extortion stops with one payment!”
Cherry rubbed her cheek with her fist, trying to think. She felt sickened at what the Owenses had just told her. They were caught tight in the clutches of an unscrupulous man—a racketeer who would coldly take away Scott’s music, house, health, even his honorable name, unless Scott gave him money, for years and years to come. No wonder the two veins at the sides of Scott’s thin neck throbbed so hard that Cherry could see them beating.
“I know what I’d do in such a predicament,” Cherry thought aloud. “I’d report this threat to the police at once.”
An unexpected reaction met her words. Miss Kitty laughed. And Scott said, “Cherry, you’re naive.”
With a jolt, Cherry understood. They could not go to the police for protection, because some fact in Scott’s past really was disgraceful. They would rather face Gregory Carroll and his threats than own up to that fact. They needed to keep it hidden at any cost. Whatever it was, it must be extremely serious.
So Scott really had been in bad trouble! Scott, who was so gentle and impractical. Cherry found it hard to believe and still could not believe Scott himself was bad.
What had he done? Cherry racked her brains, her memory. That uncle who must never be mentioned before the artist—money—proof in a box—a different name, possibly—Cherry fleetingly thought of all sorts of crimes, of punishment, disgrace, suffering—
Scott was suffering now. He was ill with suffering. One glance at his gray face told that; another indication was such irritability, coming from a normally sweet-tempered person. Cherry thought he could easily be on the verge of a heart attack. One more prod from Carroll, one more worry added to the load already burdening him, and his overwrought nerves and frail body would crack.
“Mr. Scott, you’d better go to bed, or at least lie down,” Cherry said. “I’m going to call up Dr. Pratt and ask him to have a look at you.”
But her patient begged to talk a little longer, saying that he could not rest with this terror on his mind. Cherry saw this was true enough, and relented.
“Maybe I should go to the police,” he wavered. “You see, Cherry, I didn’t—Believe me, I’ve done foolish things, mistaken things, ignorant ones—but on my word of honor, I’ve never intentionally done anything evil.” He seemed hopeful for a moment, then fell back on the divan again. “But if the facts were made public, the world would believe only the worst of me. No, it’s hopeless. And what would become of Kit, if all this were spread all over the newspapers—in the gossip columns—everything raked up from years ago—I can just see the blackest, most lurid headlines—” He groaned and fell silent.
Miss Kitty ventured, “If you could be cleared—”
“Yes, there are those papers. In the box. In the vault box.”
Cherry’s heart leaped with hope. “Proof to clear you! The box the ‘witch’ was trying to locate? On Carroll’s instructions, d
o you suppose?”
“Possibly, who knows,” the pianist said wearily. “There is proof of a sort, in our safety deposit box in a bank vault, right here in this city.” But he did not say which bank. He went on to talk vaguely about the proof, and Cherry’s hopes evaporated as he explained. It was a guarded explanation, revealing nothing of Scott’s secret past. Scott merely stated that proof did not weigh very heavily against unfavorable publicity. “Plant an ugly idea in people’s minds,” he said, “and they won’t bother to verify whether it’s true or not.”
“But won’t those papers help even a little?” Miss Kitty said in a confused way. “I mean, then Carroll at least couldn’t say—”
“No, no, no! Carroll can’t be stopped by a few old documents.”
“Maybe if I went to speak to Gregory Carroll—” Miss Kitty said. “After all, I pride myself on being a practical person—” Scott stopped her with a harsh laugh. “Or no, if we could get hold of Mr. Thatch and win his confidence—” She went on making bootless suggestions. She merely tangled up the issue further. And the more she talked, the more upset her brother became.
Cherry decided it was time for someone to take a firm hold of the situation.
“See here,” she said. “This aimless talking will get us nowhere. You’ll have to come to a decision, the sooner the better. No matter what in the past is worrying you, I still suggest you at least consult the police about this, even if you don’t want them to take action. After all, a crime is being perpetrated against you. The very least you can do is report it. Decide yes or no, about going to the police. That’s the first step.”
Miss Kitty discreetly held her tongue. Scott could not decide. He worried over Cherry’s suggestion, hesitated, wavered, worried some more. He was too upset to think clearly.
Cherry saw this and determinedly rose to her feet. She went over to the musician. “Now this is enough fretting! You will make a yes-or-no decision by tomorrow morning, agreed? Come along now, Mr. Scott. I’m your nurse and in charge of you. You’re going to your room and rest.”