“Well, I’ve seen him have worse spells than this one—not in the air, either.” The elderly lady hesitated. “He does seem much better now—”
Vicki said that it was really up to the captain of the plane to decide whether to make an emergency landing. She excused herself, went forward past curious passengers, unlocked the cabin door, and stepped up into the cockpit.
In the cabin dozens of black-and-white dials on the instrument panel glowed, needles flickered, the radar screen flashed. At a signal from Captain Jordan, the copilot took over the controls.
“Well, Vicki? How is that man?”
“He came fairly close to fainting, Captain Jordan. He’s elderly, a little overweight, and he has a heart condition. However, since he’s had therapeutic oxygen, he’s not in any distress. And his wife seems fairly satisfied with the way he looks now.”
“I’d much rather land than take chances with a passenger’s life.” Captain Jordan looked at his wrist watch, thinking. “I’ll tell you what. Observe him for ten minutes and if he shows any sign of relapse call me. We can come down at Clarkville. In any case, Vicki, we’re going to have a doctor and an ambulance on hand at New York. We’ll radio ahead to La Guardia Airport.”
“Thank you, Captain,” said Vicki.
“That’s all for now, Vicki. Keep me informed.”
Vicki returned to the Bryants. Mr. Bryant was sitting up erect now; it was a relief to see that. She told them of the captain’s decision.
“I am so grateful!” Mrs. Bryant exclaimed. “I’m sure we won’t need to make a special stop.”
Mr. Bryant apparently was not a man to yield a point easily, but he did say, “Very good of you airlines people. Very good indeed.”
Vicki brought the Bryants their dinners right away, and both old people perked up as they ate the hot food. She raced through serving all her other passengers. Jean cheerfully doubled up on jobs, so that Vicki finished her in-flight chores on time.
“Do you know we haven’t sat down once since take-off?” Jean said breathlessly.
“Jean, you’ve been an angel on this trip! For a while there I thought you had four hands.”
“Save the compliments. We’re coming in for a landing in twenty minutes.”
Twenty-one minutes later they were down at La Guardia Airport. Vicki summoned the passenger agent. He gave Mr. Bryant his arm on the way out of the plane to the waiting ambulance. Vicki escorted Mrs. Bryant, walking slowly.
Vicki waited for the Bryants outside the ambulance while the doctor checked over the elderly man. She hated to leave Jean alone to say good-by to the other passengers and pick up in the cabin afterward, but she’d make it up to Jean some other time. The passenger agent had sent a man to locate the Bryants’ car and chauffeur. He would bring the car onto the airfield as near to the ambulance as possible.
The doctor stepped out and said to Vicki:
“All right, stewardess, he may go home. I think it’s safe for this gentleman to drive to the city now.”
He helped Mrs. Bryant down out of the ambulance, then Mr. Bryant. Their car pulled up at that moment. Captain Jordan came hurrying over, carrying his flight papers.
“Miss Barr, are both Bryants all right?”
“Yes, Captain. Tired but all right.”
The Bryants thanked him, and he went off. They particularly thanked Vicki. They climbed into their car, and asked Vicki if she wished to drive into metropolitan New York with them.
“It’s kind of you, but I still have some duties here.”
“Then you must come to lunch,” Mrs. Bryant said. “You’ve been a wonderful help, and I want a chance to thank you properly.”
“I was only doing my job,” said Vicki.
“Come to lunch tomorrow,” Mr. Bryant barked at her. “Can you?”
Vicki was so startled she stammered, “Y-y-yes, th-thank you.”
Mrs. Bryant smiled, and told her the address. “At twelve, Miss Barr?” Then she said an odd thing. “You know, my dear, we have a granddaughter whom we’ve never seen. Lucy. I hope she’s like you.”
Vicki must have looked puzzled, because Mrs. Bryant smiled again. “We’ll talk about that tomorrow. Good-by for now, little Miss Barr.”
CHAPTER III
The Story of Lucy
Vicki went to the Bryants’ house not knowing quite what to expect. It was Friday the thirteenth, but since she was not foolish enough to be superstitious, the date alone did not account for her sense of something special about to happen.
“Well, I can expect lunch and conversation,” Vicki thought, and went up the white marble steps of the Bryants’ house. She was a little intimidated by its grandeur, and by the butler who admitted her. “My goodness, this is much too grand for me,” Vicki thought. “They must be awfully rich.”
The butler said, “Who shall I say is calling?”
“Miss Victoria Barr.” Vicki tried to stand up taller than she was and look older. It never worked.
“Oh, yes, Miss Barr, you are expected.”
She gave the butler her coat and followed him from the entrance hall, past a formal high-ceilinged living room, and into a big, sunny sitting room. It was cheerful in here, with flowered chintzes, green plants, and several extraordinarily beautiful parakeets in cages shaped like pagodas and dollhouses. Vicki exclaimed aloud “Oh! Lovely!”—without meaning to, just as the butler announced her.
Mrs. Bryant was sitting half hidden in an immense wing chair. She put aside the needlepoint she was working on and made a point of getting up to greet her young guest.
“How nice to see you again, Miss Barr. You were so busy yesterday on your plane that there was almost no chance to visit with you.”
“I kept you busy, for one thing,” Mr. Bryant said. “A tiresome old codger, wasn’t I, young lady?”
Vicki smiled shyly, and said Mr. and Mrs. Bryant were kind to let her come. She asked Mr. Bryant how he was feeling.
“Better, thanks, better. Oh, I’m perfectly all right!” He started to pace up and down.
Mrs. Bryant changed the subject. She invited Vicki to sit next to her on the couch in the winter sunshine, and they chatted about the Electra. Mr. Bryant joined in with a question or two. He seemed less forbidding today. Still, Vicki thought, this imposing man would probably never be easy to get along with. She’d as soon attempt to be friends with a polar bear—he reminded her of an old, still powerful bear with his heavy, rolling gait and thatch of yellowish-white hair.
“Where’s Dorn?” he demanded. “Not here yet?”
His wife said, “Mr. Dorn telephoned to say he will be a little late. It was unavoidable, dear.”
“Humph. Well, I’ll lie down again for a few minutes. Excuse me, ladies.” He abruptly thumped out of the room.
Mrs. Bryant waited until he was out of earshot, then smiled at Vicki.
“When I invited you to lunch yesterday, Miss Barr,” said Mrs. Bryant, “I thought you would be our only guest. But this morning a young lawyer who is doing a particularly important piece of work for us telephoned and asked whether he couldn’t see us about noon today. So he’ll be here for lunch, too. I’m sure you and I will have our visit, anyway.”
Vicki was a little disappointed, and offered to leave rather than intrude.
“No, indeed!” Mrs. Bryant exclaimed. “I want you to stay. Mr. Dorn is going to tell us about Lucy—our granddaughter whom we’ve never seen.” She looked very thoughtful. “Does that seem odd to you?”
Vicki was not quite sure what to answer. “Unless,” she said, “your granddaughter has always lived at a great distance from you.”
“Yes, she has. In every sense. Tell me, Miss Barr, in the course of your stewardess work are you ever in San Francisco?”
“I’ll be in and out of San Francisco all the time, now that I’m based there.”
“That’s extremely interesting.” But Mrs. Bryant did not say why. “Well. Shall we look at my parakeets?”
Vicki walked along with Mrs. Bryant and admired the exquisite birds in their cages. Her elderly hostess pointed out the birds’ markings in every tone of blue and rose and green. Yet her mind seemed to be on something else.
“I hope you won’t find it tiresome at lunch, Vicki, listening to a conversation about a girl you know nothing about.”
“What is Lucy like?” Vicki asked.
Mrs. Bryant said helplessly, “I don’t know. It is odd, isn’t it? Our daughter’s daughter, and we don’t even know what she looks like. Except for an old snapshot. Lucy was ten when it was taken, and she’s twenty-one now.”
From a desk drawer Mrs. Bryant took a small, faded snapshot, in a frame, and handed it to Vicki. Vicki studied it. The little girl’s face was rather blurred. She could have been any little girl sitting on a porch step. Her hair was either dark blond or light brown; it was hard to tell which.
“I suppose Lucy’s hair might be darker by now,” said Mrs. Bryant, as Vicki gave her back the snapshot. “Our daughter Eleanor wrote in one of her rare letters that Lucy had my disposition. They named her Lucy after me, in spite of—everything. But I must be boring you.”
“I’m very much interested, Mrs. Bryant.”
“Well, I am rather keyed up about Mr. Dorn’s visit. So many old memories come to mind today. The silver rings, for one thing. I hadn’t thought about them in years. There are only two like them. Lucy has one and I have the other.”
Vicki glanced at Mrs. Bryant’s hand. Her hostess noticed.
“No, I’ve put mine away. I never wear rings of any kind,” Mrs. Bryant said. “They annoy me. But this pair of silver rings has an interesting history.”
They had an identical lacelike, open design. Mrs. Bryant had long ago given one ring to her daughter Eleanor, and Eleanor in turn had given the ring to her daughter, young Lucy.
“Almost all Mr. Bryant and I know about our granddaughter is that she has the ring. We had a few facts about her schooling and a sketchy description of her. Eleanor wrote us those things before she died.” Mrs. Bryant looked down at her tightly clasped hands. “As for the letters from Lucy’s father—” Mrs. Bryant stared past Vicki, past the birds. “We never answered certain of those letters and we were wrong. So terribly wrong!”
Then the whole grievous story of Lucy came tumbling out. Mrs. Bryant, in telling Vicki, tried hard not to blame her husband. But Vicki understood that Marshall Bryant was a man who valued money and important connections above all else. Mrs. Bryant could not cope with his domineering ways.
The Bryants had planned a brilliant marriage for their only child. They were bitterly disappointed when Eleanor married against their wishes a boy who had little money and limited education. They felt, unjustly, that Jack was a fortune hunter. Marshall Bryant made several attempts to break up the marriage. When he failed, he disowned his daughter. He was determined that Jack Rowe should never get hold of the Bryant money, no matter what the penalty to Eleanor or to any children Eleanor would have.
The young couple moved to California “—to get as far away from us as possible, I suppose,” said Mrs. Bryant, and also because Jack had job opportunities there. As for Jack’s family, they were scattered over the United States and were not in touch.
The young couple made several overtures to the Bryants, especially after their daughter was born. They named her Lucy after her grandmother. But the old couple refused any reconciliation. They never saw their granddaughter. “I wanted to, but Mr. Bryant was adamant. No one can blame Eleanor and Jack for feeling resentful.” A rupture and silence of many years ensued. Once Mrs. Bryant wrote to her daughter, offering aid for small Lucy, but Eleanor never answered.
When young Lucy’s mother died a few years ago, her father wrote this news to the grandparents and asked if they wished to attend the funeral. Marshall Bryant decided that they would not go. Mrs. Bryant murmured, “It was hard to lose Eleanor without ever seeing her again.” Jack Rowe had suggested that the Bryants might, at long last, wish to see their granddaughter. But Marshall Bryant hinted that Rowe’s motive was a desire to gain their fortune. Young Lucy’s father, as a result, felt freshly antagonized, and wrote them a bitter letter. Once more the two families ceased to communicate.
Recently, within the past year, Marshall Bryant had developed a severe heart condition. “He’s still active,” said Mrs. Bryant, “but he may not have long to live. This knowledge has—has modified his personality. He is more concerned than ever about what will become of his fortune after he and I pass away. I am afraid he is not a charitable enough man to leave the bulk of it to institutions for—as he says—strangers to enjoy. Also, he now feels great remorse for disowning Eleanor, and for refusing any contact with her daughter.”
As for herself, Mrs. Bryant said, she had grieved for years about the family rupture. For a long time she encouraged Marshall Bryant to make amends for the past. Finally, this past Christmas Day, they decided to find their granddaughter, Lucy Rowe, and arrange for her to inherit the Bryant fortune.
“If Lucy wishes to live with us, we’d be so happy.”
“I’m so glad,” Vicki said softly, “that you’re trying to find her.”
“You’re right to say ‘trying,’ because all we definitely know about her is her last address in San Francisco. That’s the one on Jack Rowe’s letter five years ago.” For a moment Mrs. Bryant closed her eyes. Then she said matter-of-factly, “A five-year-old address and an old snapshot aren’t much to go on, are they? That’s why were relying on Mr. Dorn to locate Lucy for us.”
Mrs. Bryant explained that she and her husband were too elderly, and he too ill, to travel to San Francisco and search for the girl themselves. Also, Mrs. Bryant said, they hesitated to approach Lucy directly, either in person or by mail. “After all the antagonism which my husband—and I, too—showed them, Eleanor and Jack naturally felt antagonistic toward us. I’m afraid some of that feeling may have been instilled in Lucy. She might not be glad to see her grandparents.”
So Marshall Bryant had engaged his law firm to locate young Lucy and bring her East. He planned to transfer a generous part of the inheritance to her immediately. The law firm assigned Thurman Dorn, a young man, to do the traveling and investigating involved in finding Lucy. Mr. Bryant was pleased with the choice. Though Thurman Dorn was relatively new in the firm, his uncle, now dead, had for many years done fine work for Mr. Bryant through the same law firm.
“My husband and I feel we know young Thurman Dorn,” said Mrs. Bryant. “Our lawyers have told us that he came from Chicago, his home town, with the highest recommendation from one of his law school professors.” She mentioned the name of the law firm, Steele and Wilbur. Vicki recognized it as a respected company. “Mr. Dorn has persuaded us to stay entirely in the background and to let him act as intermediary with Lucy. I do think that’s the most discreet way in such a delicate situation.”
A painful situation for a sick man and his elderly wife, Vicki thought. She said, “I do hope Mr. Dorn’s search will be successful in every way.”
“Thank you, my dear. Mr. Dorn was in San Francisco three or four weeks ago, and got his search for Lucy under way. Unfortunately he could not find her on that trip—she has been away—but perhaps he has some other leads or news to tell us about today.”
“Oh! Do you think he’ll bring Lucy with him?”
Mrs. Bryant smiled shakily. “I’m afraid to hope for so much. Let’s go find my husband. He’s feeling anxious, too.”
When Thurman Dorn arrived a few minutes later, he was alone. Vicki was impressed by his air of professional competence, and by his personal dignity. He was about twenty-seven, a formal, cool young man, evidently highly educated, very correct in his manners and attire. His meticulously tailored gray suit, his British-looking mustache, the stiff way he
stood, reminded Vicki of a fashion plate. Or perhaps of a stone statue. She wished someone less formal, less unsentimental were to bridge the gap between young Lucy Rowe and her grandparents. Well, perhaps it took someone as cool, deliberate, and as obviously hard-headed as Mr. Dorn to trace Lucy in the first place. Vicki could see how highly Marshall Bryant valued this young lawyer.
Mrs. Bryant introduced Vicki and Thurman Dorn. He said “how do you do” to her with a delightful little bow and smile, and remarked—when Mrs. Bryant said, “Vicki Barr is a flight stewardess with Federal Airlines”—that he was an air-travel enthusiast. However, he quickly turned away, and had little further to say to Vicki during lunch. She was sure that Mrs. Bryant’s mention of her work did not interest him and probably never registered with him at all.
He was busy describing to Mr. Bryant—and to Mrs. Bryant, too, though secondarily—the progress of the search for Lucy in San Francisco.
“Now, Mr. Bryant, and Mrs. Bryant, you already know that this search is not proceeding as easily and quickly as we would wish,” Thurman Dorn said. “Reaching Miss Lucy takes time and patience. So will effecting a reconciliation.”
The elderly couple listened to him, their hopes visibly rising and falling as he spoke.
“You know that I made only partial progress when, at your request, I visited San Francisco for a week, and personally conducted a search for your granddaughter.”
“I remember receiving your bills from the St. Clair Hotel,” Mr. Bryant said dryly.
Young Dorn accepted this with a deferential smile. “And unfortunately I had to come back and tell you the disappointing news that by the time I had located Lucy’s present home and work addresses, she had just gone off for a trip. For, I believe, a month or more.”
Mrs. Bryant turned toward Vicki. “At least Mr. Dorn learned that Lucy has gone traveling with respectable friends, another girl and the girl’s mother.”
Mr. Bryant looked up from serving himself seconds from the dish the maid offered. “Well, sir, it’s about a month now since you’ve been out there. You say Lucy will be back in San Francisco soon. How soon can you go out there again, and get on with this job?”
The Third Girl Detective Page 65