“These are the netsuke that were missing?” he asked.
“Yes. Miss Cox found them in Mrs. Logan’s dressing table drawer.”
“That’s unfortunate. It’s terrible that she’s had to deteriorate in this way. I wish something could be done to help her, Sharon.”
I hesitated before I went on. “I suppose we have to tell Ross where they were found?”
His manner seemed slightly less brusque with me than before. “I can understand how you feel. You’ve become fond of Allegra, haven’t you?”
“It’s not only Allegra. It’s Gretchen too. We’re all involved. What if Allegra didn’t take these in the first place?”
He looked mildly startled. “What do you mean?”
“After they were discovered missing, perhaps the real thief became nervous and put them in the cottage so everyone would think Mrs. Logan had taken them?”
“An interesting theory, but unlikely. According to your idea, who would you pick for the thief?”
“No one. I haven’t anything to go on except a feeling that Allegra never touched anything but the mermaid she believed was hers. Even Miss Cox said she was only interested in the mermaid.”
“I suppose you can suggest this to Ross.” He sounded doubtful.
I must have sighed, because once more he was studying me disconcertingly. “How are you? Have you recovered from your fall?”
I sat up straight in my chair. “Don’t you see? Something is happening in this house! And I don’t think Allegra has anything to do with it. Sometimes … sometimes I feel I’m being watched. And I know there was real vindictiveness behind that push on the stairs when I fell. And do you remember when I picked up a coconut from the lawn and you said it would rot if I tried to keep it? Well, someone carried one into my room that was in worse condition, crawling with ants, and left it on my dressing table.”
If I’d shocked him in the least, he showed nothing. He was the perfect lawyer, playing it cool, and my anger began to include him.
“Have you told Ross?” he asked.
“No! I don’t want to. He’d just call another meeting and dress everyone down.” I lost my last trace of patience. “Don’t be so smug and blind! There’s some sort of dreadful purpose behind what’s happening! Only I haven’t a clue as to what it can be. Or even what the source is. That’s the awful part. And we’re all going to suffer if it isn’t stopped.”
He didn’t take offense at my anger, but shook his head at me. “You mustn’t get so excited. You mustn’t let foolish tricks upset you like this. Or frighten you.”
“I’m not frightened! Not any more. I’m just mad clear through. I feel outraged and—and furious!”
His guard had slipped a little and he was at least betraying astonishment. “And to think I believed that you were the unruffled type.”
“I used to be. I liked being that way. Poinciana has done something strange to me, and I’m not enjoying it. I’ve never lived in a place so thick with secrets.”
“Secrets?”
It was useless to try to explain. Jarrett Nichols was a realist. How could I explain feelings which were still nebulous? I could hardly reveal anything so personal as the eerie playing of “Blue Champagne” on my first night in this house, or tell him of the way I felt when I saw my mother’s portrait in the gallery, admired in secret by my own husband. And there were those other secrets Gretchen and Brett and Allegra were all harboring—some of them concerning Jarrett’s own wife.
“That push on the stairs was real,” I said sharply. “Yet no one seems to know what lies behind it. If I can’t walk around the house safely in broad daylight—” I broke off, remembering what Susan had said about the brakes of Pam Nichols’s car. Others had not been safe either. For the first time I questioned that “accident.”
Myra came scurrying through the adjoining door, halting her rush at Jarrett’s desk. “Mr. Logan in coming up the driveway in his car. If he starts upstairs, shall I ask him to come in here first?”
“Yes, do that,” Jarrett said.
She bounced off with her light walk, as though she moved on rubber. I imagined she couldn’t help hearing every word we’d spoken, and I wondered what scraps of information she might have about Poinciana that might be useful to me if I found the right questions to ask her. At least her interruption had helped me to relax a little.
“How was your morning on Worth Avenue?” he asked.
“It didn’t make me comfortable,” I told him. “It’s hard to believe in all that money. Somehow such a lavish display of wealth seems almost—obscene.”
His smile was wry. “What’s this—reverse snobbery? As Mrs. Ross Logan, you’d better be aware that money is very real. Though I don’t suppose you have even a beginning notion of the tremendous good Ross does with his money. All the philanthropies, the trusts and foundations—have you any idea of what they do for thousands upon thousands of people?”
“Of course I do,” I protested. “Oh, I don’t know all the details. But what has that to do with high fashion and priceless gems, exotic perfume, and custom-made cars?”
“Well, well, well! What have we here—a proletarian at Poinciana? You mean you don’t care for any of those things?”
I was growing indignant. “My mother and father had them to some extent. But they came as a reward for years of hard work and sometimes doing without. Perhaps it’s just as well that Allegra Logan can’t run Poinciana the way she used to. It’s too—too—”
“Decadent?” He was laughing at me.
“Where do you fit in?” I challenged.
He sobered at once. “Perhaps the channeling I do is useful. Isn’t that possible?”
I suspected that he did a great deal more than “channeling.” I remembered the few facts I’d been told about Jarrett Nichols—the way Allegra had picked him out and put him in Ross’s charge. Of his marrying a woman who had by inheritance all the things he’d never had. Yet I felt that the basic man had never changed. Money had not used him, as it had used Ross. In some instinctive way I believed this, and I quieted a little.
“You undoubtedly do a great deal of good yourself in Ross’s world,” I said, and knew how lame the words sounded. Even when I stopped being angry with him, there seemed no way to get through to Jarrett, much as I might want his help.
I was relieved to hear Ross’s voice in the outer office at that moment, so that I could end this disquieting discussion. Yet I dreaded what was to come and wished I could sweep the two netsuke into a drawer. I did not move, and when Ross reached us the first things he saw were the small carp and dragon lying on Jarrett’s desk. He bent to kiss me on the cheek and I looked up at him as he stood beside my chair, with one hand resting lightly, possessively, on my shoulder. For just a moment I was intensely aware of the two men. Ross, vital and dynamic, as he always seemed, quick of temper and explosive, as he could be. Jarrett, all quiet control over whatever fires raged within. Often sardonic, always strong. He would be able to stand quite still at the center of a storm and he would probably master it, I thought. In the same instant I wondered if a real hurricane would blow Ross away, and winced at my own disloyalty.
Ross was already speaking. “Where did you find them?” he asked us, picking up the netsuke.
“Mrs. Logan found them,” Jarrett said, and Ross looked down at me.
“They were in a dressing table drawer in Coral Cottage,” I told him. “Miss Cox discovered them and called me because she couldn’t reach you. I brought them here.”
“Did you talk to my mother about them? Not that it would have done any good.”
“She was sleeping. I didn’t want to disturb her.”
“She’d never remember taking them anyway. I’m glad to have them back, but this means I’ll need to make a decision all the more quickly. I was in town this morning talking to an old friend who has an aunt in a fine home in upstate New York. When we’ve had a look at the place, I’ll take Mother there.”
“New York?” I cried.
“Upstate—in the winter? When she’s used to Florida?”
“There are heated houses,” he said mildly. “She won’t be abandoned in a snowdrift. And, after all, she grew up in Minnesota.”
I gave up trying to contain myself. “I think it’s a terrible thing to do! I think it’s disgraceful, when you have all these empty rooms, where she could be happy and live out her life in a familiar and loved place—with nurses to care for her constantly.”
His expression darkened as I spoke, and I saw the anger in his eyes. He moved away from me and placed a sheet of paper on Jarrett’s desk.
“I’d like you to talk to the woman in charge of this place, Jarrett. Draw up a list of practical questions to ask. And then make an appointment for me to go there.”
As they discussed Ross’s plan, I became aware of Myra in the doorway, wiggling her fingers at me and making faces. But before I could understand her signaling, Gretchen was in the room. Myra hurried back to her desk and Gretchen faced her father.
“What’s this about a home? Dad, you can’t send Gran away! I won’t let you!”
Ross held the netsuke out to her. “These were found in your grandmother’s dressing table drawer. She’s become totally irresponsible, Gretchen, and she can’t be controlled any longer at Poinciana.”
“You’re not going to do it!” Gretchen’s look was as dark as her father’s and they glowered at each other.
“You are going to stop me?” Ross demanded.
“If I can.” Gretchen whirled and walked out of the room, her rage with her father almost sizzling.
“I’ll take care of this,” Jarrett said quietly, picking up the sheet of paper.
I gave him a look filled with scorn. Of course! He would always do whatever Ross Logan required. That was why he was behind that desk. My brief vision of strength and solidity had vanished. I couldn’t stand either of them any longer, and I couldn’t stand this house. I jumped up and ran through the outer office, where Myra stared in wry amusement, and went out the front door to the driveway.
Immediately a man in uniform appeared from the gatehouse and came toward me. “You’d like a car, Mrs. Logan?”
“Yes, please. And someone to drive me.”
Albert, the chauffeur who had met us on arrival, was still putting the Rolls away, and at the gateman’s signal he turned it around and drove back to the porte cochere.
When he held the car door open for me and asked where I wished to go, I told him to take me to some peaceful spot where I could get out and just walk around.
He knew exactly the place, Albert assured me, and we went north along South Ocean Boulevard in the direction of town. We drove through Palm Beach streets until Albert drew up to the curb before a great Gothic church near the lake.
“Bethesda-by-the-Sea,” he told me. “The gardens are very beautiful, Mrs. Logan.”
It was the open-air solace of the gardens I sought, rather than the shadowy nave of the church itself. I walked through a long stone arcade to find a courtyard where palm trees slanted up through paving stones that had been set around each bole, and where bougainvillea climbed the walls. My steps echoing on stone flags told me I was alone. Through an archway I saw the graceful gray branches of a poinciana tree, where blossoms were turning to flame. Another archway and stone steps with fanciful stone abutments led me to a higher garden of patterned flower beds in contrasts of red and green. A bench invited me, and I sat down and raised my face to the constant Florida sun, letting its healing warmth pour over me from a limitless blue sky.
All I wanted was to quiet my thoughts, my emotions. When Ross Logan had come into my life at its lowest ebb, taking away my load of problems, helping to assuage my grief, I had wanted the peace he’d seemed to offer more than anything else. With his arms around me, I had felt safe and able to breathe again. Some of the soreness of memory began to abate, and I could love a man for the first time. I had been grateful for his love and his rescue of me in my need. Yet in the short time I had been at Poinciana, all the good feelings of safety and peace had been shattered, and my world turned upside down in more frightful turmoil than ever. A turmoil that was part of a fearful present. I could no longer be an observer on the sidelines. I had been plunged into the tumultuous heart of whatever was happening. Perhaps I was really coming to life for the first time. The movement of blood through frozen limbs is always painful.
From the corner of my eye I was aware of movement in another part of this formal garden. Without turning my head, I was aware that a man walked alone beyond the flower beds. I didn’t look at him, and he kept to himself. We would respect each other’s solitude.
But the small distraction had disturbed the peace I was seeking. Everything crowded in upon me, centered upon fears that I knew were justified, even though others discounted them. Gretchen, Allegra, and I were all tied together now, but because of my presence, some unseen enemy had moved—where perhaps there had been no need to move at all before. And an enemy who is faceless is the most terrifying of all.
True, it was Ross who wanted to send his mother away, but I’d begun to sense some other ominous movement behind the scenes, and it frightened me not to know the hand that moved us as if we were chess pieces. Which one played the powerful role of Queen, and was the disguise worn by male or female? I’d been unable to tell about the sex of whoever had pushed me down the stairs.
I sat with my head bowed in my hands, only to become suddenly aware that the man who shared this solitude had come close to my bench and was watching me. With a sense of shock, I looked up into the face of Vasily Karl.
Chapter 9
Again the sharp sense of recognition assailed me, and with it came memory. The last time I had seen that face it had worn a beard, thick and blond and slightly curly.
“I knew you’d remember,” Vasily said. “I knew we had better talk when I could find you alone. So when I saw you rush out of the house a little while ago and drive off in the Rolls, I followed you. I’m sorry to disturb your contemplation in this beautiful spot, but it is necessary, don’t you think? You were only thirteen, I believe, but you remember now, don’t you?”
Yes, I remembered. It had been in Amsterdam. How I’d loved that museum filled with Vandykes. Ysobel wouldn’t look at them in spite of my pleading. She was upset because a handsome emerald necklace that had been given her by a Spanish nobleman had been stolen. I couldn’t remember the necklace as well as I did the Vandykes because it had been sold later for a tidy sum when Ysobel and Ian had found themselves in debt.
“Emeralds,” I said. “The necklace, I mean. And a few diamonds sprinkled in. I never understood what happened, but I was in the room when the police brought you to see Ysobel. I remember that I was fascinated by your beard and your eyes, and that scar over one eyebrow.”
I didn’t tell him that I’d also been terribly frightened that day. There had been something about the young man who was brought to see my mother that I didn’t like. Perhaps a child could sense more deeply beneath the surface than an adult did. I hadn’t liked him, and I was afraid that he meant to hurt my mother.
Vasily sat beside me, studying me with those slightly tilted eyes that I remembered. “A distant Mongol ancestor must have furnished the eyes,” he said. “The scar was made by a knife. Together, they make disguises difficult. What else do you remember?”
“I’m not sure of the details. Was it you who took the necklace?”
He laughed softly and his amusement seemed genuine. “No—my career has usually operated well inside the law. But I was living at the time with an uncle who was, I believe, an excellent fence. I happened to have seen the necklace in his shop. So when I read about it in the papers, I decided to go to the police. After all, I had been charmed by your mother in a recent performance and I couldn’t bear to see her unhappy. My uncle was a rascal anyway, and we were never very good friends after that. But your mother was generous in the reward she gave me and best of all in her kindness.”
He made it all s
ound so innocent, so light and amusing. Yet I had been afraid.
“Yes,” I said, “I do remember. I was there in the room when you put the necklace into her hands.”
“And I remember you. A small girl with very big eyes and already with a beauty far greater in promise than your mother’s would ever be. I wished at the time that I could have brought you chocolates or a nosegay. But I gave you neither, and now I am in your hands.”
“Why do you think that? I don’t know anything about you, except that you brought back something which my mother valued.”
“Mr. Logan is bent on investigating my life. And not all of it bears investigation. He will not be pleased if he goes back to Amsterdam. In those days I had another name.”
“Then you must have been in trouble with the law?”
“But never caught. There is a difference, I think.”
“Does Gretchen know about any of this?”
“She knows all there is to know. Or almost all. I must throw myself on your mercy. If you will give me your silence about ever having seen me in Amsterdam—give it for just a little while—perhaps you will be doing Gretchen a favor. She needs our help, wouldn’t you say?”
He had a winning charm of his own, and besides, I had no wish to see Ross destroy whatever happiness Gretchen had found. I mustn’t rely too much on the instinctive fear of that child in Amsterdam.
“There’s no reason for me to say anything about my mother’s necklace, or about meeting you in Amsterdam,” I told him.
“Thank you.” He took my hand. “I’ll leave you to your solitude now. My car is on another street, since I thought it wiser not to have Albert see me come into the gardens.”
He bent his blond head and kissed my hand, but when he stood up to leave, I stopped him.
“There’s one other thing. Do you know that the two netsuke—the ones that were missing—have been found among Mrs. Logan’s things at her cottage?”
“I had not heard that,” he said gravely. There was a slight lift to that already raised eyebrow and I wondered if he spoke the truth. Certainly I had the feeling that I had given him something slightly disturbing to think about as he bowed again and turned away. Intrigue was his medium, however, and I suspected that he would come through his troubles, whatever they were.
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