The Devil's Stronghold

by Leslie Ford

  “Is it Eustace you see, Mrs. Latham? Dear Eustace. He’s such a rotten liar. He had no possible intention of going home after your son declined his invitation. He was just getting rid of us. Oh, well, I dare say each of us has his own self-reflexiveness, and his own raison d’être, Mrs. Latham. It’s not for us to judge.”

  We’d come to the entrance hall that divided my room from the one Sheep had been so long delivering the vegetables to. I’d gathered that the stone staircase there at the left led down to Mrs. Kersey’s suite.

  “Well, good night, Mrs. Latham.” She held out her hand. It was soft and plump and somehow unpleasant to touch, a selfish, egotistical sort of hand. “Do tell the boys how much I’m interested in helping them with Miss McShane. I can be of great help, Mrs. Latham. After all, what is money for if one can’t use it to help others? I could take so much of their burden—”

  “I don’t think they feel it’s a burden, Mrs. Kersey,” I said deliberately. “They seem to think it’s fun, and they seem to be doing very well.”

  “Of course they are, Mrs. Latham. They’re doing divinely. But you know how men are. There are so many things they never think of that a girl needs to make really the most of herself in this extraordinary world. But just tell Miss McShane how much I’m interested in her career. Will you, Mrs. Latham? Thank you, dear. And there’s—”

  She stopped, listening. “Is that my telephone?”

  Her ears were sharper than mine, but I heard it too as it rang again.

  “It sounds like it,” I said.

  “I can’t think who’d be calling me. No one knows I’m here. Unless it’s my husband calling long distance, the dear man. Well, I must run. Good night, Mrs. Latham.”

  She didn’t run. She moved off with the deliberate balanced rhythm of a woman who’d studied to make herself what she was, and who’d rather miss a call from her husband than relax and be natural for a moment.

  Chapter Seven: Dreamboat—with claws

  I STOOD FOR AN INSTANT looking after her. So, I thought. She doesn’t want to take money from Molly—she wants to give it to her. Molly McShane had guessed wrong again. She seemed to have a talent for it. And I couldn’t help but wonder. An apple had been currency in the Garden of Eden. What form would it have now that Viola Kersey had cast herself in the serpent’s role? I glanced back to see if maybe Bill and Molly were finally coming. They’d be interested to know that a proposition was in the making. But no one was in sight—no one, that is, except the blond girl I’d met in the powder room. She appeared to be wandering around still, hunting her taxi, I supposed, though at the moment she gave more the impression of being headed back toward the bar.

  Mrs. Kersey had got to the bottom of her private stone stairway and was going in the door of her cottage when I turned back to go to mine. A light suddenly switched on, and as suddenly off, over the door at the end of her house. I stopped. She was closing the front door behind her. I could see her shadow crossing the broad window behind the Venetian blinds. Someone who had been in her apartment was leaving by the patio door. I was sure of that before I heard the creak of an iron hinge. It was a slow, cautious creak, coming from the solid wood gate in the white wall across the walk at the foot of the stairs. I could see the gate move in the light from an old-fashioned street lamp on a vine-covered post at the right of the bottom step.

  And suddenly the gate stopped moving. A slim black figure slipped through it, silhouetted against the white stucco, silhouetted just long enough to close the gate as quietly as she’d opened it. It was little Miss Molly Me-Shane. And then it wasn’t—she disappeared somewhere into the shadow of the terrace wall, as silently as if she were herself a shadow. She had to be down there still, however, I thought, as the stone steps seemed to be the only exit. I moved on into my own hall to give her a chance to come up. I thought briefly of calling to her to tell her I had the evening bag, but that I dismissed. I didn’t want her flying at my throat a second time.

  Mrs. Kersey’s phone was ringing again, muted but audible. As I let myself into 102 I had the same creeping chill down my spine that my own ringing phone had given me that afternoon. I could see Mrs. Kersey picking it up and hearing the same warning asthmatic wheeze— unless the tactics had been changed.

  I looked over at the table where I’d left the rock that also was meant for her. It was gone. The glass under it had been polished off, the dried soil that had stuck to it neatly wiped away. The maid could have taken it, I thought, though the day bed was still made up and the wastebasket not emptied. Or it could have been whoever had brought the two extravagant bowls of flowers that had come since I went out to dinner. I looked at the cards on them. The bronze chrysanthemums were from Gee Gee and Lucille with love, which seemed to put me on new terms with George Gannon, whom I’d never met. The roses were from Bill. They were on the bamboo coffee table. As I untied the card I saw something black caught at the morticed corner where the bamboo had splintered. It was a small triangular piece of black lace.

  I pulled it out and looked at it, and then I looked at the drawer where I’d put Sheep’s message to Miss Molly McShane and the one that had come tied to the rock. I went over, laid my bag and Molly’s on the chest and the scrap of black lace beside them, and opened the drawer. It was quite empty. Both messages were gone. The coffee table was in a direct line from there to the window looking out onto my patio. Anyone in black lace and in a hurry to get out could easily not have noticed a fragile pull at her skirt as she went. But on the whole it seemed a little silly. She could, of course, figure that removing the evidence left it just my word against hers, if I decided to tell my son and she cared to deny it. It would be ever so easy for Bill to wonder if Ma wasn’t cracking up a little bit, maybe—or for some reason sticking a monkey wrench in their beautiful deal. Perhaps the child was smarter than I’d thought. She was certainly a busy little eager beaver.

  I was thinking that, half amused and half disturbed, when there was a sharp knock on my door—a demand, not a request, to open up. It came a second time as I crossed the room. And there she was—Molly McShane, breathless as if she’d been running, blue eyes blazing black and distended, small fists clenched.

  “My bag—I’ve lost it. A girl up there says she gave it to a lady. It was in the phone booth. She—”

  Her eyes were darting like twin blue-black dragonflies beyond me around the room. She spotted the bag near mine on top of the chest, and like a flash she was past me and across the room. She grabbed it and held it clutched to her midriff, the scrap of black lace fluttering to the floor. She was too excited to see it. She whirled around at me, her quick staccato breathing audible all the way across the room. I closed the door to keep it from being audible across the hall.

  “You took it. You know—”

  “Of course I took it, Molly,” I said. “The girl found it in the telephone booth and brought it to the powder room. She gave it to me. I took it to give to you, and you’ve got it. If you’ve lost anything out of it, I didn’t take it, and I don’t think the girl did. It might be a good idea to look and see.”

  It wasn’t a screwy dame yelling that she’d lost the crown jewels but it was a slightly screwy youngster terrified before she knew whether she’d lost anything or not. Or that was what I thought at the moment.

  She ripped open the plastic crystal clasp and looked inside. The relief on her intensely mobile, pointed little face was instantaneous. It was followed up as instantly by something else.

  “You—you read—”

  “Look,” I said patiently. “I didn’t open your bag. I didn’t read anything. I didn’t look in it. I recognized it and I felt your big compact in it. It never occurred to me to open it. I’m not interested in what you carry around. But now you’re here there is something I’m interested in. Why don’t we quit all this play-acting? I’ve had about all of it I care to take—beginning with this afternoon at half-past three. What is all this nonsense, Molly?”

  Her body stiffened straight as an arro
w, defiance pointing up mistrust and disbelief. I added, before she had a chance to lash out again, “And what has Viola Kersey got to do with you?”

  She stood staring rigidly at me for a moment. Then— mirabile dictu—it was as if I’d sprayed a dusty windshield and wiped a clean rag across it. The whole world was clear and beautiful, as transparent and pure as an early morning in May. All doubt and mistrust vanished. She let go the strangle hold on the bag. Her taut little body melted into a warm, lovely curved line, her eyes widened, and she even smiled at me, like a happy child.

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Latham,” she said. “I shouldn’t have thought you opened my bag. I guess I’m just not used to trusting people I don’t know. Maybe I’ve been awfully rude. Excuse me, please, will you, Mrs. Latham?” It was wonderful. It was also all as plain as day. There was something in her bag that told all about Viola Kersey. I could have read it, and known, and never needed to ask. My asking was proof I hadn’t opened the bag and proof I didn’t know. So Molly could afford to relax, then, accepting my statement, and to apologize so prettily for doubting my word. It was sweet—but I wasn’t amused. I even wished devoutly that I had opened it.

  “What’s it all about, Molly?” I asked again. “Why don’t you like Viola Van Zant?”

  She looked at me calmly, as blankly innocent as a two-month old blue-eyed spaniel.

  “Viola Van Zant? Do you mean Mrs. Kersey? The woman with Eustace tonight?”

  I said that was who I meant. The very same Mrs. Viola Van Zant Kersey who was with Eustace Sype in the cocktail lounge at the Casa del Rosal where we and they had had dinner.

  “I’m sure I have no idea, Mrs. Latham,” she said politely. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never seen Mrs. Kersey before, as far as I can remember. I only had a quick look at her, but I thought she was a horribly overdressed old bag, didn’t you? I was surprised at Eustace having her out in public. He usually has people like that at his own house, with the shades pulled down. But I’ll find out, if you really want to know.”

  I was amused, then. I couldn’t help but be. If I hadn’t been, I would have had a vigorous impulse to turn the little wretch over my knee. I had one anyway. Still, with everything, she was about the cutest and most engaging child I’d ever seen. I could understand better why Bill and Sheep thought she—and they—really had something.

  I smiled at her. “Who else besides you wants Mrs. Kersey to leave the hotel by tomorrow noon, Molly?” That struck a spark off, but nothing caught on fire. She was in control of herself. The play-acting was very nice.

  “I must be stupid, Mrs. Latham,” she said sweet, “but I can’t imagine what any of this is about. You can’t think I meant what I said this afternoon. The boys wanted me to put on an act for you, so I did. I thought I might as well make it good while I was at it, and then carry it on by pretending I didn’t know it was you when Bill introduced me. I must have been better than I thought I was, if you took it seriously.”

  She smiled at me. “And I’d better go. I’m awfully sorry if I’ve upset you.”

  She went gracefully across to the door and put her hand on the knob.

  “And, Mrs. Latham,” she said, “you needn’t worry about Bill. I know how mothers are. I’m not going to marry him. Or Sheep either. There’s no love stuff. That’s part of the deal. Bill and Sheep explained that to me the first thing. And Mother and Dad explained it to them too. They wouldn’t have let me come if it hadn’t been all down straight. So you don’t have to worry. They’re not in love with me and I’m not in love with them.”

  She opened the door a little, smiling sweetly at me.

  “I thought I’d better explain in case you’d got the wrong idea—and I knew you would get it. That’s why I didn’t want you to come out here, Mrs. Latham—that’s why I burned the letter they wrote you, instead of mailing it like I was supposed to. Because I knew you wouldn’t approve of me. I know I’m just a girl they picked up in a juke-box joint. But my parents—”

  A voice outside in the hall interrupted her. “Maid.”

  She looked around quickly and pulled the door open for the woman to come in.

  “Good evening, madam. May I turn your bed down now?”

  The maid was a middle-aged woman with graying hair and a stern, no-nonsense face. As I nodded, she turned to Molly.

  “You’ve got a call for seven-thirty under your door, Miss McShane. And Bill’s looking all over for you. You’d better get some sleep tonight if you’ve got to be up early.”

  Miss McShane seemed to me to be a little dashed at being interrupted in her best scene. I supposed the maid had seen too much of Hollywood in undress to be impressed by any raw recruit.

  “I’m going, Rose. Right away. I really am.”

  She put her sweet society air back on for an instant, smiling at me, and then was gone in a flash. Unlike Mrs. Kersey, she wasn’t afraid of what she looked like when she ran. And I was a little sorry myself that the woman had interrupted her. I hadn’t had a chance to tell her about Mrs. Kersey’s profound interest in her career, for one thing. But there would no doubt be another day.

  “These girls,” the maid said. “They don’t think at night what they’re going to look like in the morning. Some of them, anyway. Even the stars. You’d think they’d have learned.”

  She took the cover off the day bed, folded it up, and brought a pair of pillows from the closet.

  “If you hear anyone walking outside, don’t be alarmed, madam,” she said. She spoke as if having no very high idea of the whole place and glad to have an outlander to talk to. “The night watchman makes his rounds every hour. It’s to keep these crazy girls from disturbing the guests. They hide in the shrubbery and try to follow the male stars to their rooms. We’re always having trouble with them. They drive some of the stars wild. Or like that girl up there now. They get her a taxi, and she’s back at the bar. Nobody knows where she is now. The taxi comes but it won’t wait all night. But they’ll find her. Is that all tonight, madam? I’ll bring your waste-basket right back.”

  Chapter Eight: A wicked woman

  THAT WAS HOW I HEARD SOMEONE WALKING on tiptoe on the tiled floor of the hall between my room and the room of the man Bill had called “You Know Who” when he’s been out there earlier, irately demanding his solid, grated, and juiced vegetables. I’d started into the bathroom to get my dressing-gown, and mildly curious about people on tiptoe, I glanced around at the long mirror on the door in the middle of my inside wall. I saw a plump white hand raised to tap discreetly on the gentleman’s door. It was Viola Kersey. She’d changed into a pair of lounging-pajamas of a warm, smoky gray, no doubt an excellent color for discreet nocturnal wanderings, as I understand all cats look gray at night. Mrs. Kersey rapped on the door with her left hand and turned the knob with her right. The door was unlocked. The next instant she had it open and her head inside, followed at once by the rest of her. The black frosted oak door was all that was left in the mirror.

  Before I could turn to go about my own affairs, the maid appeared. She was coming back with the empty wastebasket in her hand, her head turned toward the door across the hall. As she came in she had the same look of dour disgust she’d had before, no more and no less. I dare say she was used to that sort of thing too. She put my wastebasket down by the table.

  “Is there anything else, madam?”

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  She started out. At the door she turned.

  “I saw Sheep. He said if you weren’t tired he’d come back and talk to you. Sheep’s a fine boy. So is Bill. Everybody likes them. They’re a lot better than some we get here. The guests, I mean. Not the help. The help’s all nice.”

  I gathered she knew Bill was my son, though the watchdog look on her lined face wasn’t changed.

  As she went out she glanced at the door across the hall again. She was probably a good person, I thought—or not, depending on one’s point of view—to have as night maid at a sprawling garden hotel.<
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  I could hear Sheep outside—“Hi, Rose, about through this end?”—and the maid say, “31-B’s the last. The lady says it’s…” Her voice trailed off as Sheep got to where she was, and I waited so long, then, for Sheep that I’d about decided he wasn’t coming when I heard him say, “Okay; good night, Rose,” and heard his feet scrape the tiles as he came to my door.

  “Well, what do you think of our dreamboat, Mrs. Latham?”

  He’d taken off his white coat and put on a plaid sport jacket that would have wrecked a train—a screaming medley of green, yellow, and red. His black tie was gone, with none to take its place, and his collar was opened down his lean, sunburned throat.

  “Gee, what a night.” He sank down in my lounge chair and stretched his legs out. “I sure hope I never have to do this for a living… What do you think of our Miss Molly McShane?”

  “She’s terrific,” I said.

  “No fooling. Isn’t she cute?”

  “She really is. Awful cute.”

  “Oh, by the way.” He leaned over and reached in his pocket. “Here’s your lunch check. $1.75. Want to sign it?”

  He picked up a pencil from the table and handed it to me with the check.

  “I see she gave it back to you,” I said, signing it for him. I could also see she hadn’t told him anything about it. He reddened and gave me a dismayed sort of look before he relaxed and grinned.