Domino

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  He reached into a pocket of his jacket and took something from it, rolling it in his fingers, holding it up for us to see, and I watched, hypnotized. I knew it was the bullet from the deringer that Hillary had told us about. So small a thing to kill a man, to turn him into a heap of bones in a mine tunnel.

  “Laurie!” Hillary said in warning, and I realized that I had made a move as if to rise.

  “I’m all right,” I told him, and was aware of Jon watching me from across the room, his concern for me evident.

  Persis paid no attention, her proud look still upon Mark Ingram. “What do you expect to prove with that bullet?” she asked.

  His smile was gentle—that dangerous smile that I didn’t trust. “Why—that Noah Armand died in this house, and that his body was carried to the mine and left there. The police are going to be interested, and an investigation may open up a lot of other things too.” He glanced briefly at me.

  “Don’t believe him,” Hillary whispered.

  Persis didn’t believe him either. Before he finished speaking, she was shaking her head. “I’m sorry to disappoint you. The man in the mine died violently, yes. But he isn’t Noah Armand. Those bones have been there since my father’s day. I know about them.”

  Jon put a hand on her shoulder in support. “Good try, Mr. Ingram, but it isn’t going to work.”

  With as casual a gesture as though he were taking out a pack of cigarettes, Ingram dipped a hand once more into his pocket. When he drew it out he held a small square of tarnished metal that might be silver.

  “Perhaps you’ve seen this before, Mrs. Morgan?”

  She took it from him and held it up to the light. Her gasp was soft and quickly stifled. “Where did you get this?”

  “From the same place the bullet came from—those bones in the mine.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “The police will believe it. I have witnesses who will swear to its being found there. And it won’t look good for you that this body was never reported.”

  “What is it?” I cried. “What is it he’s found?”

  Persis turned the square of silver about in her fingers and then dropped it into the hand Ingram held out for it. She looked haggard as she answered me.

  “It’s a belt buckle that I had made for Noah one Christmas, soon after we were married. His initials are on it, and he was wearing it the last time I saw him.”

  Ingram nodded. “Yes, I’m sure he was. That was the time when he returned to run off with Laurie’s mother, wasn’t it? And was murdered—here in this house.”

  “That’s not true!” Persis cried. “Not a word of what you are saying is true.”

  Hillary tried to stop me when I rose, but I pushed his hand away and walked over to stand beside my grandmother.

  “Of course it’s not true. In fact, Noah Armand may still be alive. There isn’t any way you can prove those bones in the mine are his, no matter what sleight-of-hand tricks you play with that buckle—however you came by it.”

  They were all staring at me now, and I hurried on.

  “I talked to Caleb Hawes last night. He told me that he had made a search for Noah after he left this house, and that he was able to keep track of him for a while. Then the man he had on the investigation lost the trail—so there’s no telling whether he is dead or alive. But he certainly lived for several years after he left this house. There will be proof of that.”

  “Caleb never told me that,” Persis said softly. “I would never have allowed him to track that man. I never wanted to see or hear of Noah Armand again.”

  Someone across the room released a deep breath, and I realized that it was Belle Durant, still at her place by the door.

  Mark Ingram had not been shaken in the least. He turned a mock-kindly look upon me. “Has it occurred to you, Miss Morgan, that Mr. Hawes might have a very good reason for lying, and that this supposed tracking down of Noah Armand could be a complete fabrication? In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s what it is.”

  He dropped both belt buckle and bullet back into a pocket of his jacket and returned to his chair. He crossed his knees with an air of having all the time in the world, lighting a cigarette, while we watched him in stunned silence, waiting for whatever would come next. Not one of us had any doubt, I think, that more would come from this man.

  Ingram’s smile had turned a little grim when he began to speak again. “You forget that Noah was at one time my very good friend. I knew him as well as anyone could. And I was more or less in his confidence. It cost you a small fortune to get rid of him, didn’t it, Mrs. Morgan? All that money you paid him, before he played you the dirty trick of coming back! You wanted him gone pretty badly. You thought you could save your son’s marriage by paying him off handsomely and sending him away. Perhaps you thought you might even prevent Richard Morgan from killing him. Have you ever wondered what became of all the money you paid him after he disappeared?”

  Persis stared at him without speaking, and I saw the tightening of lips grown thin with age.

  “He was my partner as well as my friend,” Ingram went on. “Everything would have gone fine for him if it hadn’t been for his stupid infatuation for your daughter-in-law. And hers for him! I warned him against it. But he had to come back, didn’t he? He had to make a last try for her. But not before that money was safely in my hands. I told him I would wait for him in Denver and we would go back to Kansas together. Only he never showed up, and I had to start out alone. The money was all I needed. Ironic, isn’t it, Mrs. Morgan, that I’m where I am today because of that nest egg in cash that you paid over to Noah Armand? You don’t think he wouldn’t have come after that if he was able—yet I never saw him again.”

  I felt a little sick. As sick as my grandmother looked. Jon bent over her, and Belle came a few steps into the room. Only Hillary didn’t move. He sat where he was, on the hassock beside me, his hands about his knees—a frozen spectator.

  Jon said, “If you were waiting in Denver, Mr. Ingram, why didn’t you come to Jasper to investigate when your partner didn’t show up. Why did you let it all go until now?”

  “I did come—quietly. The place was in an uproar and swarming with reporters and police. But no trace of Noah turned up, though I made a few discreet inquiries. No one even seemed to know that he’d come back. I knew because he’d told me on the phone that he meant to.”

  “Why didn’t you bring up what you knew with the police?”

  “There’d been a murder, and I didn’t know any of the details. I didn’t want to become involved. So I went off to Kansas alone, knowing Noah could find me when he wanted to. If he stayed away, there must have been a reason. Over the years I’ve put together a few suspicions. So when Gail told me about the bones in the mine, I had my final clue. I can’t be patient forever, Mrs. Morgan. If I can’t have what I want because you choose to block me, then perhaps I owe it to Noah to go to the police now.”

  Persis managed to rouse herself. “You can do as you like. The man in the mine wasn’t Noah Armand. There’s no way for you to prove what isn’t so.”

  “It may not be necessary to prove it, Mrs. Morgan,” Ingram said smoothly. “It may only be necessary to stir up the past a bit and let the investigation take its course. Will you enjoy the publicity that follows? It’s sure to make headlines, and how will that be for your granddaughter? How will it affect her for the rest of her life?”

  “Mark!” That was Belle’s stricken cry. “Mark, you can’t do this!”

  “Get out of my house!” Persis’ voice cracked as she shouted at him, her proud poise gone.

  He went straight to Belle and took both her hands in his. “I’m sorry. This is what I have to do.”

  Then he was gone, out the door, and an odd mutual releasing of breath seemed to sigh around the room. But before we could recover, he was back, smiling at us as outrageously, as though no controversy had ever existed.

  “Of course I’ll do nothing about this until after my Forty-niners’ Ba
ll,” he announced. “Too much has gone into that. It’s to be held this coming Saturday night, you know.”

  I think we all gaped at him, unable to make the switch that Mark Ingram had made so easily. He went right on in the face of our astonishment.

  “Gail is helping me by phoning friends in Boulder and Denver and other parts of the country. There’s no time for formal invitations. But they’ll come. I want to hold it right away, in order to celebrate the opening up of Jasper to the world. I’ll have the press here, of course, and various people from the media. Maybe a congressman or two. Naturally, I hope you will all come. That dress you’re wearing, Mrs. Morgan, will do very well as a costume. I’ll hope to see you then.”

  He was entirely confident as he made a sweeping gesture with his broad-brimmed hat. Then he was really gone.

  “Don’t worry,” Belle said cheerfully. “All that stuff he’s been carrying on about—it’s just bluff. He always thinks he can pull things off in a big way, even when he’s losing. But there’s nothing he can do if you just hold on.”

  “I don’t believe he’s losing,” Persis said. In the last few moments all her courage and eagerness for battle had drained away. “Perhaps there’s nothing else to do but give in and let him have his way.”

  “Don’t do that!” Hillary’s words were unexpected as he left his place and came to where we stood around Persis. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Morgan. Belle’s right. Ingram was lying. I could tell. You and Laurie can stand against him if you don’t let his bluffing beat you down.”

  I hoped he was right. I knew, as the others could not, that Hillary had a keen eye for reading character, for discerning the gesture or the look that betrayed.

  “What’s more,” he went on, “I think we should all go to that ball of Ingram’s. Mrs. Morgan, you can do some bluff-calling of your own if you’re there. If you don’t go, he’ll think you’re afraid of him.”

  Belle laughed. “Why not? That’s the very way to confound him.” Then she caught my grandmother’s look. “Never mind—you don’t have to decide now. Jon, help me get Mrs. Morgan upstairs to her room. There’s been enough excitement for one day.”

  Persis gave in, her energy drained, and Belle and Jon helped her up the stairs. The return of the missing deringer was still on my mind, but I couldn’t add another worry for Persis at this time.

  At the front door Hillary gave me a quick hug and then went jauntily off toward the Timberline. It was as though his anger with me had never existed. He was still refusing to accept any break between us, and for me he was a problem that still had to be solved.

  Jon came down while I was there on the porch, and we sat on the front steps together while I related all that had happened last night. I told him of my curious meeting with Gail and Caleb in the empty church, and about what had happened later when someone at the house went into the back parlor.

  “Now there are two deringers in the box,” I told him. “The one that was missing has been returned. What can this possibly mean?”

  Jon got up at once and went with me down the hall. In the rear parlor the French door to the side porch stood open, as the intruder had left it, and the room wasn’t as dark as usual. Jon noted the table that had been moved and the chair that was set in its place near the wall.

  “To stand on?” Jon puzzled.

  He climbed on the straight chair and reached toward the wall above his head. A small patch of wallpaper up near the black walnut molding had been torn, and when he pulled, it hung down to show cracked plaster. But there was nothing to tell him whatever he wanted to know.

  “I wonder,” he said as he got down from the chair. “In fact, I’ve always wondered.”

  “What? What do you wonder?”

  “Nothing. Nothing that makes any sense. When your father died, the police picked this room clean. There would be nothing left for anyone to look for now. But whoever came in last night must have thought there might be.”

  “And whoever came in had that deringer in his possession,” I said. “But who could it have been?”

  Jon shook his head and went to the box on the small table. I had closed it last night after I found what was in it, and he raised the lid. The two blunt-nosed little guns were there. The twin pistols that had been reunited.

  “I wonder what time Caleb left Jasper last night,” I said. “I wonder if he could have come into this room before he went off.”

  Jon was silent, and another question rose in my mind. What if it had been Persis herself who had kept the second pistol? What if she had asked Caleb to replace it last night?

  “You’ll have to tell your grandmother,” Jon said.

  “No—not now! It’s better not to!”

  My vehemence alerted him, and he must have guessed what I was thinking, for he let the matter go.

  Further speculation was futile, and we returned to stand for a few moments longer on the porch.

  “How are you?” I asked, not wanting to let him go.

  “Never felt better.” But if there might have been a moment of intimacy between us he turned it aside. “Hillary may have a good idea about attending Ingram’s ball and calling his bluff. Maybe we can show a united front if we go.”

  “In costume?”

  Jon’s mood had lightened. “It’s not hard to look like a forty-niner. Save me a dance, Laurie. Or don’t you dance with cowboys?”

  “I dance with cowboys every chance I get,” I told him.

  But already he was looking away from me, off up the valley toward Old Desolate.

  “I’m itching to get started out there,” he said. “We need to be ready for next year.”

  “Can you really graze cattle in the valley?”

  “Sure. It’s big enough, and there’s plenty of grass. In the summertime, anyway. We’ll need to do some planting, and we’ll need more land down on the flats during the winter, and that can be managed. The cows that are held back for breeding and not sent to market can be fed with our own hay. We can swing it if your grandmother holds onto her courage. Are you going to be a partner in this, Laurie?”

  “I am if you’ll have me.”

  I couldn’t hold back what I felt any longer. It was there in my eyes, on my lips, whether I wanted it to be or not. He couldn’t help seeing it. He pulled me into his arms, kissed me almost roughly, and then set me away from him.

  “The heiress and the cowboy!” he said. “That’s not what I’m after, Laurie.”

  I watched him move away with that easy lope that covered ground so quickly. My heart was thudding, and my thoughts were angry. Now I knew what stubborn pride I would have to confront. Somehow I would have to manage that. How very few times in my life had I ever been determined about anything. But I was determined now. I had my directions finally, and I knew where I was going. No more fantasy and make-believe and escape, but only the reality of Jon Maddocks and the life I wanted to spend with him.

  When I whistled for Red, he came bounding around a corner of the house, and I took him for a run that we both needed. More than ever I knew that Mark Ingram had to be defeated. Really stopped. Sent away, once and for all. Jon had to have his chance at the valley, and Persis and I had to have our chances too.

  But as I returned to the house, I found myself wishing that there weren’t times when I still felt afraid. Something faceless always seemed to be working against us, and I would have to look past Mark Ingram to find it. He was involved, but there was something more.

  Two days later this feeling in me was reinforced when an attempt was made upon Ingram’s life. The whole thing was common knowledge in Jasper within an hour of when it happened. Belle learned about it and brought the news to us.

  One of the few sports Ingram could enjoy was riding, and he was often out on the mettlesome gray that was his favorite mount. On this morning he was riding over to Domino when he was fired upon from behind a clump of rocks. The first two shots missed, but the third cut through his jacket and resulted in a slight flesh wound in his upper arm. He had
the good sense to get out of there as fast as he could, and he rode Juniper back to town at a gallop. While his arm was being bandaged, he ordered his men out to search the area from which the shots had come. A rifle was missing—the hunting rifle that had always stood behind the bar at the Timberline, and anyone could have picked it up.

  At Morgan House we talked over the shooting, and Belle showed how much it had upset her. If it hadn’t been for Persis’ need, I think she might have returned to him then. But not even Belle, who knew Ingram so well, could guess what had happened. Caleb was home by that time, and he had no suggestions to offer either.

  “Sure, Mark has enemies,” Belle said. “He’s always made plenty of them along the way. He can be dangerous, and dangerous men draw lightning. But who knows which enemy has turned up again to try to get rid of him now?”

  Whatever his private suspicions might have been, Mark Ingram shrugged off the incident. The wound was slight and to be ignored. Though it was noted that he never rode out alone after that. Always two or three of his men rode with him wherever he went, and they looked a grim lot when they followed the trails around Jasper together. Like something out of the old West.

  The remaining days before the Forty-niners’ Ball went by without any further event. And that was just as well. Even the mysterious attack upon Mark Ingram, which seemed to indicate that someone was on our side, had been disturbing. We needed a spell of calm to rest us and to give us a chance to be braced for whatever was to come.

  Persis ate her meals with a new appetite, and she even exercised a little, and slept better at night. She began to come downstairs more often, and even walked about outside. Pretty soon, she said, she would be up on a horse again. Belle was delighted with her improvement, but afraid she would overdo.

  Caleb had returned from Denver looking subdued, but with the new will in hand, and it had now been properly executed. I was Persis Morgan’s main heir. If that fact served only to increase my uneasiness and my sense that I might be in even greater danger than before, I told no one how I felt.