Brigid, though she meant the best in the world, didn’t do so very well. She insisted on helping roll rocks, and half the time somebody was stopping work and yelling at her to watch out where she was going. So, toward noon, when she came crumbling through the rocks by the outer edge of the car, leaving maybe three inches between her and dropping to destruction, and told Adam she was hungry and was going to walk back to Memaloose, he was all for the idea. The only stipulation he made was that she pass the car on the inside of the road as she went.
Right then and there, while she was climbing around the car, I had another foreboding of evil and I stated it again in advance.
“Adam,” I said, “I don’t like it. I don’t like letting the kid put out alone that way. If I thought I could make the four miles in this heat, I’d go with her.”
“What heat? You’re better off where you are. Can’t a girl of her age take a walk on the deserts in broad daylight without your getting nervous? She is certainly much safer walking to camp than she was dangling over the sides of this mountain.”
The old Doc came up just then insisting that it was his turn at the shovel, so I went and sat down on the running board of the car and stuck my fingers in my ears. The grinding, gritting noises were getting me ready to fly into pieces.
Before long, of course, Adam had come and sit be’ side me, bent on talking, and I had to listen to him and to the noises both.
He was worried about Mrs. Duefife’s being ill, he said, and he went on, getting sentimental, saying how essentially she was a good woman, a very good woman if only she didn’t happen to make a man’s nerves raw at times. But, after all, she had supported herself and her son for years and it was easy enough for a person who had never known the gnawing fear of poverty or the curse of charity to carp at those who had.
“Damn it all,” he said. “What if she and Reggie did have a few signals for bridge? I edit Betty-Jean’s check book and I could have fixed it up with Brigid later. I’ve known it for months and liked the extra handicap when I played with Rosemary against them. Rosemary played like an idiot Wednesday afternoon and we lost. I’d hate to think that was the reason that I spoke as I did to that poor, frightened old lady. I could have gone about it decently. I needn’t have humiliated her as I did. Besides that, I’ve ruined our bridge games from now on.”
I thought it over for a minute and then I decided I might as well ask him if that was why he had called Mrs. Duefife out in the kitchen for a talk on Wednesday afternoon, just before I got there.
Never before in his life, he said, had he lived where his every word, move and gesture were not only noticed but also gossiped about. Hotbed of whispering. By the Eternal he’d stood all he was going to stand. From now on he’d have privacy or die, but he’d rather have privacy. He’d pension Mrs. Duefife and Reggie and send them packing tomorrow. Yes, yes, yes, that had been the subject of the kitchen conversation, since I insisted. Just as soon as Kent and Betty-Jean were married he’d send them away too.
Up to then I hadn’t said a word, but I couldn’t keep still any longer. “Well!” I said. “Kent and Betty-Jean are going to get married, are they?”
“I’m inclined to think so,” he said, lightly but very knowingly.
“Where?” I said. “In the Ferras jail?”
“At it again,” he said.
“No. But the only thing is, I understood Kent to say that he was going to marry Rosemary.”
“Nothing is coming of that nonsense,” he said, moving his hands like he was bouncing soap-bubbles with them. “In fact, I am confident that the whole thing has fallen through, completely, since we left Memaloose this morning.”
Any man hearing that kind of talk would think what I thought and nothing more—that Adam was talking it through his hat. But, when I finally got into the hotel at a quarter till two, and Bert Thalen told me that Brigid O’Dell wanted me to call her at Memaloose as soon as I came in, I remembered Adam’s words and thought that Brigid had got hold of some silly notion that had to do with love affairs.
I’d be the last person in the world to think that love affairs weren’t important. I just thought that helping the Doc get Mrs. Duefife up to my room, and collecting fans from the other rooms so that she could be comfortable until Adam was ready to take her on to Hay Patch, was more important.
There happened to be a pint of real liquor on my bureau, and the old Doc thought a dose of it would be good for Mrs. Duefife and fine for us. Before we’d finished, Shinny Lang came up to tell me that Brigid O’Dell wanted me to call her at Memaloose. The Doc went on about his business. I waited just long enough for Shinny to have his drink.
Going down stairs I met Joe Laud coming up to tell me that Brigid O’Dell wanted me to call her and, before I’d got to where the phone was, Slim came in the back door telling me that Brigid O’Dell wanted me to phone her pronto at Memaloose.
She answered the first ring. “Jeff,” she said, “get Kent out of jail and bring him over here as fast as you can in your car. Hurry. Don’t let Mayor Oakman know——”
“Hold on, Brigid,” I began, still confused about those love affairs and thinking, also, I’ll admit, that good jobs like mine didn’t grow on trees.
“Don’t argue!” she said. “Something terrible has happened. It is a matter of life or death. Rosemary’s. We must have Kent——”
“Doc Sprague, too?”
“No, no. Kent. Stop talking. Hurry. Run. Bring Kent and your car.”
I went to the garage and got my car—Red had put a new spark plug in it—and from there fast to the jail. It was a big relief not to see Adam’s car standing in front of it. I had feared, too, that the boy might give me trouble about leaving; so, before going to the garage, I’d skipped up to my room and got my six gun. I didn’t need to show it to him. The minute I told him that Brigid had said it was a matter of Rosemary’s life or death he beat me out of the jail on the run.
We jumped into my car. He wanted to drive and I let him. He drove fast. But at that Adam kept far enough ahead of us so that we didn’t have to eat his dust.
Brigid should have known better. As soon as Adam had left me and started up the street all the boys began hailing him and telling him that Brigid O’Dell wanted me to phone her at Memaloose right away. She had called up only half a dozen or so, but they had passed the word around. I don’t know yet why Adam was scared. Premonitions, it must have been. He just said that he knew there was trouble and so, without waiting for anything, he had headed straight back to camp. The only thing that had delayed him at all was stopping the first five or six times when hailed, thinking that maybe it was other news.
Anybody will tell you that a Ford is the only car for this country; and, if it happens to be a model T like mine, so much the better—fine clearance. But there is something about these sixteen-cylinder cars that goes. In spite of Adam’s having to back before he could take any curve on the mountain, we wouldn’t have known he was in front of us if we hadn’t spied him on the hairpins, and when we got to the straightaway there wasn’t even a speck of dust left in the air.
The Memaloose gate was open. Kent brought my car through it—I wouldn’t know how fast, since the speedometer has been out of whack for years, but at a rate I didn’t know the old bus had in her, and kept going a little faster until Adam, who had come dashing out of the back door of the community house yelling and waving one arm, headed straight for us. Kent had to choose between running him down or turning into the brush. He turned into the brush. We stopped at full speed.
Chapter XXIII
Kent said, “Where’s Rosemary?” and jumped out of the car.
I said, “What’s happened?”
Adam yelled, “What’s happened? Nothing. Everything. I don’t know. Hell’s broken loose again all over the place. What do you know? What did Brigid tell you? Answer, can’t you?”
“Where is Brigid?” I said.
“Where is Rosemary?” Kent said.
“I don’t know,” Adam said. �
��I just got here. I’ve had my hands full. Why don’t you answer me?”
Kent swung up on Acrasia who, horse-like, had come nosing over to see what it was all about, and gave her a slap that started her on a dead run down the road toward Rosemary’s cottage.
By this time I was out of the car.
“Take your hands off me,” Adam said. “What’s the matter with you? Brigid’s here. I just told you. She’s in the kitchen there on the floor. I found her unconscious beside the open gate when I got here. I thought she was dead. She’s not. But I can’t revive her. Of course it’s serious, you forsaken fool. I’ve telephoned for the boys and the Doctor.”
I kept on running, but I spared breath to holler, “Sure somebody didn’t get her, after she phoned?” Come to find out Adam was right beside me. “Sure of nothing! She’s not been shot. Dead faint I can’t revive her.”
‘Throw water on her.”
“I have.”
“Loosen her stays,” I said, from out of the past as I went running up the back steps.
“She’s in her swimming suit,” he said.
He needn’t have told me. I was several leaps ahead of him by that time and I could see for myself. She was lying there as flat as something spilled on the kitchen floor. But not as motionless. No, it took her, I’d judge, about one-sixteenth of a second to settle down into unconsciousness again. She’d done it fine, though, before Adam got in.
“She’ll be all right,” I said, sitting down on my heels beside her and mad all over for a minute. “What about the other folks? Are they all right?”
“Probably not,” Adam-said. “I don’t know. I just got here and found this child by the gate. Reggie has been scared into imbecility. He told me that Betty-Jean was all right, but I doubt that he knew what he was talking about. He had locked himself in the storeroom there. He came out when I carried Brigid in here.
“He has some wild story about hearing shooting all over the place at five minutes till twelve. What did Brigid tell you when you telephoned?”
“Nothing,” I said, remembering that she’d told me not to let Mayor Oakman know, and giving her the benefit of the doubt, “except to get Kent and come over. I tell you what Adam, you get out and rustle around and see about the shooting—if any—and I’ll sit here and tend to Brigid——”
“You’ll sit nowhere!” he said. “I’m responsible for this child. She’s been out too long now. There’s some brandy around here somewhere. I can’t find it. Get it and bring it here.”
I got the cooking sherry instead and poured some in a cup so he wouldn’t notice the bottle. Whatever had happened I knew that Brigid couldn’t take a drop of anything stronger without getting cock-eyed and that having her that way wouldn’t help a bit.
“By the Eternal!” Adam said. “I knew from the first instant that this wasn’t a mere fainting spell. I knew there was something unnatural about it. Look here, Jeff. Her teeth are clenched. It can’t be rigor. She’s warm. Sweating. Her heart is beating. You listen. It is beating? Of course it is beating. Well then, why hasn’t she relaxed. What can we do? What would you do?”
I could think of several things to do, such as tickling her since she was very ticklish. But if she wanted to stay swooning on the kitchen floor with her teeth clenched, I thought I’d better humor her for the present.
All I knew about Reggie’s hearing shooting was that it had been Reggie who had heard it—so that was nothing to bother about, much. I remembered Brigid’s phoning that the trouble was a matter of Rosemary’s life or death; but I knew doggone well that the kid wouldn’t be acting this way unless she was certain that it was smarter than acting any other way. My idea was that, now she had Kent on the job she wanted like fury to keep Adam off the job. I was just thinking how lucky it was that she was a girl instead of a boy, on account of Adam’s susceptibility to being hoodwinked depending almost entirely on gender, when——
“She’s been poisoned,” he decided at the top of his voice. “Poisoned. That accounts for her clenched teeth. What shall we do? She may be dying. What can we do? She probably is dying. Get warm water. Hot. Tepid. Get mustard. Salt. Egg whites. Stop sitting there. What’s the matter with you? We can pry her teeth open——”
“Listen, Adam,” I interrupted. “Take things easy now. I’ve had a lot of experience with poison——”
“The devil you have! Where?”
“The Spanish-American War,” I said, it being about the only place I’d ever been where he hadn’t. “You’d be surprised——”
“I am,” he said. “Go on. Go on. Go on.”
“I am going on. This is the same thing as shellshock, but a little different. Brigid’s had some shock and fainted, and instead of coming to, she’s gone off into kind of a coma. Best thing in the world that could have happened. Forcing anything on them or waking them up is very dangerous. They come out raving. This way they sleep it off. Nothing to do for her that is as good as making her comfortable and keeping her very quiet.”
“What’s all this to do with poison?” he said.
“Nothing. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I don’t know how many soldiers I’ve seen in this fix—exactly the same. Dozens upon dozens. Young fellows, mostly.”
“I hope you’re right,” he said. “But I doubt it.”
I went and picked her up and carried her to a sofa by the window in the living room. “Brigid, honey,” I whispered, “this is going too far. Call a halt as soon as you can, won’t you? Kent is here now, and——”
“What’s that?” Adam said. “What are you muttering for, Jeff?”
“I was not muttering,” I said.
“You were muttering. I saw you. Your lips were moving.”
I tried looking reverent, hurt and bashful.
“I beg your pardon, Jeff,” he said, and for almost half a second things were as quiet and solemn as Sunday without the church bells.
“Tell you what,” I whispered to him, taking advantage of the calm, or trying to do so, “I’ll sit right here with Brigid——”
“No, you will not,” he said, speaking soft but very savage. “I want you to get outside and find Betty-Jean and see what’s happened here. I’ll stay with Brigid now, and I swear by the Everlasting that if the poor child does pull through this I’ll keep her with me after this. You warned me. I’ll never let her out of my sight again until I hand her over to her father. Here, wait a minute before you go. Isn’t she relaxing, slightly? Give me something to fan her with. I’ve no excuse. My own criminal negligence. Why don’t you go and get Betty-Jean? I sent Reggie for her. He may have locked himself in the storeroom again. Telephone and see what has happened to Doctor Sprague? This paper is not any good—find me a fan. A fan! The place is alive with fans. Find Betty-Jean. Find Reggie. Will you please do as I have repeatedly asked you to do and telephone to Doctor Sprague’s home?”
I got the old Doc’s house and Julia there said her father was on his way now, though he’d had to stop to see a patient after Adam had phoned—the little Potter boy who had been bitten by a scorpion, but who was going to be all right in a day or two.
“That’s good,” I said to Julia.
“What’s good?” Adam said. “Gossiping at a time like this!”
I chatted a decent half-second more with Julia and then hung up the receiver and told Adam that the old Doc would be here any minute.
“You’ve done it now,” Adam said. “Yelling over the telephone like that. You’ve waked Brigid up too soon.”
“I had to yell,” I said. “Julia Sprague’s deaf and you know it.”
“You did too yell,” he said. “You deny everything. See here, Brigid’s eyelids are fluttering.”
I thought that they’d better be fluttering with the old Doc due at any minute. But I was so kind of embarrassed for Adam, or something, that I thought I’d rather not face her when she made up her mind to be revived.
“Here!” Adam said. “Where are you going? Don’t leave me for a few minutes. I ma
y need some help.”
I guess he was thinking about my soldiers who woke up raving.
Brigid opened her eyes—not bad-looking if you care for eyes large and freckle-colored—and said, faintly but politely, “How do you do?”
“Dear little girl,” Adam said, fanning her like sixty now. “Dear little girl. Are you all right?”
“Thank you. Yes, of course,” she said. “But I seem rather confused. I know that I’m in Italy, but this room is unfamiliar.”
She and her papa had been in Italy several years ago. I began getting a little scared right then, being entirely unable to remember for sure whether or not I had really seen her settling down on the floor in the kitchen, and things went from bad to worse.
She didn’t know me. She didn’t know Adam. She was mannerly but not cordial, and she got pretty insistent about seeing her friends. Adam kept introducing us to her over and over and pleading with her that we were her friends. She was too nice to deny it up and down, but she showed pretty plainly that she doubted it like fury.
Adam got me to one side and asked me if those Spanish-American War soldiers ever came out of it with their memories gone. The only excuse I can make for myself is that by this time I was scared enough for two men twice my size. The minute Adam mentioned those soldiers I believed in them stronger than I believe in the Democratic Party, and I could remember hundreds, troops of them, who had come to with their minds complete blanks. Whether they were ever cured I couldn’t remember for sure, but I thought not.
Adam had a bright idea. “We’ll call your friends, dear,” he said. “But you must tell us who they are, dear. What are your friends’ names, dear?”
“Brigid O’Dell,” she said. “And St. Dennis O’Dell, and another close friend named Kent.”
Adam began tearing through his pockets like they were full of hornets. When he found his notebook he went to the telephone.
“I’ll have to call her father,” he said. “This can’t go on. I’ve his hotel here somewhere. Could I telegraph? No. I must talk to him. Explain. What can I say? What would you say? What is the confounded name of that hotel?”
The Desert Lake Mystery Page 14