Shaw might almost have thought he imagined that look if the chemist with him had not given a low whistle. “Whew! Did you see that? Mason looked as though he’d like to stick a knife in Harrison.”
“Yes, I noticed,” Shaw said quietly.
The chemist, a pleasant young man named Wilcox, with blunt features and an air of unconquerable good humor, shot him a quick look. “What goes on around here? This used to be the most congenial outfit I was ever in. Now there’s Mason looking as if he would like to throttle Harrison, and Harrison acting most of the time as though he would like nothing better than to slug you.”
Shaw laughed. “Just the hot weather. It takes some people like that. Wait until we get a cool spell and they will relax.”
“Maybe,” Wilcox said skeptically. “I noticed that the heat doesn’t seem to affect you. So far, you’ve taken everything Harrison handed out without even turning a hair. And yet I wouldn’t put you down as an easy mark. Not like poor Blake.”
Shaw’s eyebrows rose in a question. “Poor Blake?”
“A good guy,” the chemist said hastily. “Don’t misunderstand me. One of the best. But he certainly lets Harrison take over the driver’s seat.” He repeated with a troubled look, “But he’s a good guy.”
Shaw was troubled, too. It became more and more evident that Harrison was steadily taking over the reins from Corliss Blake and that Blake wasn’t even putting up a fight. Shaw suspected that his fellow chemist shared his doubt, wondered whether Blake could be selling out information on the formula to the Gypton people.
He tried to dismiss the idea but he could not help remembering that Blake had married a woman of great wealth whom, rumor said, he did not care for. Money seemed to be of considerable importance to him. It was generally known that his wife browbeat him. Could he be bribed if the price were high enough?
He remembered Leslie Blake’s furious words: “Do you think for one single moment that we’d rather have that than have him safely home?” But it was better not to think of Leslie, the miracle of her, with her loveliness, her warmth, her loyalty, her simple human kindness.
Easy to say but hard to do. That first meeting, her hand on his arm, her voice calling out with such gladness. Since then every encounter had made him more aware of the wonder of her. But—if she knew the truth about him? What then? Suppose he were to see in her eyes what he had seen in Jane Williams’s: shock and disgust and fear? See her run from him.
Anyhow, she wasn’t for him. According to her best friend, she was on the verge of marrying Oliver Harrison. Not Harrison, of all men! But there was nothing he could do to stop it, not if she loved the man, and women appeared to find him irresistible.
The evening was still warm and the sandy path along the river was white in the moonlight. The trees overhead rustled in a light breeze, sounding like soft rain. Shaw continued his walk at a long easy stride. Already he had regained almost all his normal strength and he enjoyed the exercise.
There was a light splash and he looked toward the river. A canoe went past him. Jim Mason was out for his evening drill. Instinctively Shaw stood motionless, close to the trunk of a big oak tree. It seemed to him that Mason was looking directly at him. Then he realized that the clerk had turned his head, that he was peering at the barge across the river, moored at the foot of the Blakes’ lawn where it sloped to the river. What on earth was the man doing?
A paddle lifted, the canoe went on up the river and Shaw shrugged his shoulders. He looked at the luminous dial of his watch and turned back toward the covered bridge.
The usual group of women rocked on the porch of the Fox and Rabbit, chattering their heads off, sounding, he thought, like hens clucking in a barnyard. They broke off to watch him go up the steps, several of them calling “Good evening” as he went by. Lonely women, reaching out tentacles of words to hold a stranger in conversation, even for a moment.
The door to the lobby was open for coolness, and as he went inside he heard a woman’s voice, raised indiscreetly, say, “Well, I guess he wasn’t out with her tonight. She’s still up in her room.”
By her he gathered that the gossiping women were talking about Felice Allen. Several times she had imperiously beckoned him to her table and they had dined together. If he had been vain he would have believed she found him attractive, but he was detached enough to notice how shrewd and probing her questions were. Attracted or not, she was chiefly interested not in Donald Shaw but in his background. Much too interested, he thought uneasily, and he tried to arrange his dinner time so as to avoid her.
He unlocked the door of his room, switched on the light, and then stood motionless. After a long time he turned to close the door behind him.
Whoever had searched his room had done a thorough job. Every drawer had been taken out, emptied and turned upside down, in case anything had been fastened to the bottom. His bed was mussed as though someone had searched the springs and mattress. The pockets of his suits were inside out. His shoes had been moved.
“Well!” he said aloud. He grinned. “Well, it was a good try, anyhow.” He locked the door, removed his right shoe and pulled out a folded paper. Sitting at the small desk, his face suddenly hard, he wrote a letter, enclosed the paper he had taken from his shoe, and addressed the envelope to the Gypton Company. It was marked, Personal. Confidential.
* * *
He mailed the letter at a box in the next village, some eight miles away, and left his motorcycle propped behind a rather dark and dismal-looking tavern with a battered and misleading sign. YE OLDE TRAVELERS’ REST.
Inside it was as dark and dismal as on the exterior, with imitation oil lamps and bare tables in booths. At least, Shaw thought in satisfaction, there was no jukebox. In fact, there seemed to be no sign of human life.
Then a man rose from the last booth and peered out cautiously. Shaw went back to join him, and a waiter, who had come from behind the swinging doors to the kitchen, took their order.
“Well, Nors?” Shaw said. “Make out all right?”
“Sure,” the guard told him. “I just asked to be relieved a coupla nights a week. After all, I’ve got thirty-five years of service behind me. Got a good man as a replacement.”
“Can you count on him?”
“Think I’d have picked him if I hadn’t been sure?” Nors Swensen pushed his rakish cap to a belligerent angle on his graying head.
Shaw grinned at him. “Okay, keep your shirt on. Anything new?”
Nors shook his head glumly. “But maybe things will pick up now. How about you?” The guard examined the tall man facing him. “You sure look better than the first time I saw you. Put on some weight, haven’t you? Look like you could take on anyone your own size. And you don’t act so darned grim. More like you are enjoying life.”
“I’d hardly say that I am enjoying it, but at least it is interesting. I have a couple of items for you but I’m not sure what they add up to, if anything.”
“Tell me,” Nors said eagerly.
“My room at the Fox and Rabbit was searched sometime during my absence this evening. And I mean searched. Brother! Not a thing overlooked.”
Nors’s face stiffened. “They find anything?”
Shaw grinned reassuringly. “Nothing there to find. There never is.”
There was no answering smile on Nors Swensen’s rugged face. “But you’ve got notes somewhere.”
“I carry them on me.”
“Suppose you get knocked on the head some dark night. You ought to find somewhere else for safekeeping.”
Shaw gave a low laugh. “Perhaps where I found the blue sheets of data Harrison wanted me to look for?”
Nors was not amused. “Someone is on to you,” he said stubbornly. “That’s the only explanation. And it’s no laughing matter.”
“I don’t see how anyone can be. Let’s say that someone may be suspicious.”
“I don’t like it. You’d better look out for yourself.”
Shaw laughed softly. “I intend to.”
“Now who do you suppose—” Nors broke off as the door opened and footsteps sounded on the floor, a woman’s high heels, a man’s heavier tread.
“Heavens, it’s dark in here,” the woman said in a husky, low-pitched voice.
Shaw slid down in his seat so that his head was below the top of the booth partition. Nors raised his eyebrows. His lips shaped the word “Who?”
“At least there’s no one else here,” the man answered. “That’s the main thing.”
Shaw’s gray eyes narrowed, his lips parted in sheer astonishment. The waiter hastened in from the back. The couple had taken the front booth. While they gave their orders, Shaw whispered, “Harrison and Miss Allen, that redhead at the Fox and Rabbit.”
The waiter went out and the girl said, “What a hole-in-corner sort of place! You ought to have known better, Oliver, than to bring me to a place like this.”
“Look here, Felice, you agreed to let me run things my own way.”
“But—”
Harrison’s voice rose. “That’s the way they are going to be run. I know exactly what I am doing, and I won’t tolerate any interference.”
“My, my,” she mocked him, “what a big boy you’ve turned out to be.”
“Big enough to handle you and don’t forget it. Now go back to New York, where you should have stayed all the time, and don’t leave there again until I give the order.”
“I’ll go where I please and when I please,” she said angrily. “I’ll live my life just the way that suits me best.”
“Exactly what do you think you are doing?” There was a snarl in Harrison’s usually smooth voice. “I warn you, Felice, if you try to spoil things for me, I’ll make you sorrier than you’ve ever been in your life.”
“I was just checking up,” she said sullenly.
“Checking up on what?”
“That’s what I’m not sure of,” she said slowly. “I just don’t trust you, Oliver, my sweet. I don’t trust you an inch. We had it all worked out but—”
“Well?”
“I think you’re trying to change the program. Something has happened to you and I can’t figure out what it is. If it’s the Blake girl, I can tell you right now that you are wasting your time.”
“Yes?”
Harrison’s amused confidence made Shaw want to hit him, but he remained silent in the booth.
Felice Allen was not impressed. “Yes. You may be Clark Gable to the rest of the girls in that hick village but not to Leslie Blake. She’s in love, all right, but not with you. I saw her face the night of the buffet supper. You can’t miss it, that springtime beauty a girl gets when she falls in love for the first time.” It was the bitterness of disillusioned experience in her voice rather than her words that carried conviction.
“Who is he?” Harrison demanded.
The girl did not answer. Then she gave a muffled cry. “Oliver, you’re hurting me!”
Shaw started to get up but Nors’s massive hand clamped on his arm, holding him down firmly.
“Who is he?” Harrison repeated savagely.
“Find out for yourself! But I’ll tell you this. Double-cross me and you’ll be sorry. Twist my arm all you like, but I mean it. And he means it. Don’t underrate us. That’s your weakness, my love. You always overrate yourself and underrate other people. You aren’t going to play any tricks on us now and that is a plain warning.”
“And just what does that mean?”
“If we don’t cash in one way, we intend to do it another. Is that plain enough for you?”
“Blackmail! You wouldn’t dare!”
“Try me,” she said softly. “Just try me.”
“I’d like to wring your neck,” Harrison growled.
The door from the kitchen swung open and the waiter came out, balancing a tray. Knowing that she was safe in his presence, the girl laughed mockingly.
“Don’t I know it! But watch your step, darling. Because, believe me, we are watching you.”
“Check, please,” Oliver said and flung down some money. “Come along.”
“But I haven’t even tasted—”
“Come along with me and come now or you can walk back to Claytonville by yourself. It’s a good eight miles. I can see you doing it in those high heels.” His words were like a whiplash.
The girl stood up, preceded him to the door. Before she went out she said, her voice rising deliberately, clearly, “At least, if they find me beaten up, they’ll know where to look for the man who did it.”
Oliver followed her out and the door slammed with a crash behind him.
The waiter whistled. “Whadda ya know? Wonder what made her say that?”
“Life insurance,” Shaw said grimly.
The waiter laughed and then sobered. “Maybe. But I’d put my money on the lady. You shoulda seen her face. She don’t have that red hair for nothing. I guess she can fight her own battles. Well, you see all kinds.” He shrugged his shoulders and the swinging doors closed behind him.
“And what,” Nors asked, “did you make of that?”
“I don’t know,” Shaw said thoughtfully, “except that there are storm signals out. Something is going to blow up in our faces if we aren’t careful.”
“We’ll be careful,” Nors said with stolid assurance. “Now, have you got anything else? We’d better separate before people start dropping in here for the evening.”
“Only a man in a canoe.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Not at all.”
“A canoe? What was he up to?”
“That,” Shaw admitted, “is what I have been trying to figure out.”
11
On a Saturday morning, two weeks later, Leslie was working at her sculpture in her attic studio. She had been at it for three hours, with the radio turned to WQXR for the music. The notes of Swan Lake brought to her memory the lovely movements of that romantic ballet and she contrasted them, in their lyrical grace, with the figure that was taking shape on the armature.
No grace here. Only a living, striving body, pulling, clawing at the mountain. It was, she knew, the best thing she had ever done. If only she could finish it as she had conceived it. She had, little by little, lost sight of the festival. It was no longer her objective; only the sculpture itself absorbed her. There was a strength, a boldness of line unusual in the work of women sculptors, as though she had done something better than she knew.
She sat back, stretching her arms and her tired back.
“About time,” Paul Logan said from the doorway, and she looked up in surprise. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Hello, Paul. I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I know. I’ve been here nearly five minutes; you were completely absorbed. May I see?”
“Well,” she began reluctantly, “it’s not finished, of course.”
He came to stand behind her, looking at the figure with its face pressed against the cliff. Only the taut muscles of the back could be seen, the straining arms and legs. Paul made no comment at all.
Leslie got up to cover it with wet towels. “What do you think?” she asked at length, disturbed by his silence. Perhaps, after all, she had overestimated her work.
“I didn’t say anything because praise from me would be impertinent,” he said quietly.
Her face glowed. “Oh, Paul! You like it? You really think it’s good?”
“Better than good. You must realize that yourself.”
“I—hoped so.”
He smiled suddenly. “Come on, Sobersides. It’s a wonderful day. What is so rare as a day in June? The roses in the garden are all dressed in their prettiest colors for you. I thought we might swim off the barge for a while and then go to the Country Club for lunch. Doris and Jane are going to be there and I’ve invited that young doctor, Fletcher, the child specialist, who looked after Jack while he was ill. He has fallen for our Jane with a loud crash.”
Paul added, rather uncertainly, “I brought along S
haw to even up the numbers. That motorcycle of his conked out for good and he has decided to buy a car but he won’t have it until sometime next week. Suit you?”
“Fine,” she agreed, her tone sounding careless.
“That’s a relief,” he said as though he meant it.
“Why?” she asked in surprise.
“Because Jane isn’t going to like it one little bit. She’s got a wild prejudice about Shaw and told Doris she didn’t want him invited to Web Rock again. But for my money he’s a nice guy, so I brought him along to join the party.”
“You were right. Anyhow, Doris likes him.”
“Yes. Well—”
As Paul hesitated, Leslie looked up in surprise, saw his expression. “Oh!” she said, enlightened.
Paul’s color deepened. “Well,” he explained rather defensively, “you’ve been busy with your sculpture and lots of other dates, as usual. Not that I shouldn’t be used to that by now. So Doris and I got involved, as partners, in that tennis tournament, and I’ve been swimming at Web Rock and—what with one thing and another—you see how it is.”
Leslie’s eyes were dancing. “And—she’s not a Sobersides.”
He grinned ruefully, saw her expression and laughed outright in capitulation. “She’s a little darling,” he admitted. “We’ve been having a lot of fun together.”
“I’m terribly glad.”
“So Shaw goes along more or less as your partner. Is that okay?”
Leslie had started down the stairs ahead of him and she did not turn around. “Of course.” She tried to keep the betraying gladness out of her voice. “You know where to change, don’t you?”
“Sure. Too bad that Shaw doesn’t swim, but he said he’d enjoy watching and waiting.”
Leslie was annoyed to find her heart pounding as she ran across the lawn in a brief bathing suit, holding her cap in her hand, her soft curls giving off copper-colored lights in the bright sun. Donald Shaw, looking very tall in white slacks and jacket, was standing at the foot of the lawn, examining the barge.
A Candle in Her Heart Page 10