“Mother told me to watch for you. There’s a problem with Mrs. Allegra. She seems to be going berserk in the art gallery, and you’d better go there at once. Mr. Nichols is away and can’t be reached. As usual, Coxie doesn’t know what to do.”
Gretchen and I looked at each other, and then started for the gallery at a run.
Chapter 16
Allegra was dressed once more in her running-away costume of brown slacks and pullover, her white hair braided out of the way and tied with a pert velvet ribbon. When we came in she was standing in the center of the long gallery, her arms set akimbo, hands on hips. Coxie and Steve, the guard, were both remonstrating with her.
“I want to know where those two pictures are!” Her voice managed to be indignant and still ladylike at the same time. This was not the Allegra who would ride a horse impudently through the Coconut Grove. Instead of flying in the face of authority, she was authority itself.
Gretchen ran down the room to fling her arms about her grandmother. “I’m so glad to have you home!” she cried. “Even if Brett shouldn’t have done this when I wasn’t there to help.”
Allegra released herself gently from her granddaughter’s embrace, eyeing me over Gretchen’s shoulder. It was to me she spoke.
“You’re my son’s wife, so you’re in charge now, and you must answer my question. There are two paintings missing that always hung on that wall.”
I looked up at the wall she indicated, and saw no empty spaces.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know the collection well as yet. Will you please explain?”
“There were two Lautrecs that always hung right there. I didn’t like Ross’s arrangement, but I got used to it, and I know every painting on these walls. Now he seems to have hung a couple of unimportant Hudson River schools there. Why? What has happened to the Lautrecs? They are valuable.”
Gretchen flung up her hands. “Oh, Gran! There’s no use asking Sharon. What does she know? Dad moved things around whenever the notion struck him. You’ve been away for a long time, and he might have done anything at all with those paintings. There are a lot put away in storage, you know.”
I was staring at the wall. “Wait! I think I do remember one of those pictures. I noticed it especially because it wasn’t the Moulin Rouge sort of thing that Lautrec made so popular. It was an oil of a carriage drawn by a single horse, with a driver on the high seat, wearing a top hat. A lovely picture.”
“That’s it!” Allegra tapped me smartly on the arm in approval. “That was one of them. So you must have seen it on this wall recently.”
“I believe I did. It could even have been here on the day Ross died.”
“I knew it, I knew it! There’s been a theft. Two Lautrecs are missing!”
Gretchen gave me a look of reproach. “Gran, we don’t know that. Dad moved the portrait of Ysobel Hollis that last day. He might have moved others as well.”
Allegra looked at me brightly. “You don’t think so, do you?”
I didn’t think so, but Gretchen was shaking her head at me in warning.
“I can’t be absolutely sure,” I said.
Allegra seemed to wilt a little, suddenly a very old lady. “I’m tired. Take me upstairs,” she said to Gretchen. “If I can climb those stairs.”
She climbed them between Gretchen and me, with Coxie trailing after us, and on the way Gretchen whispered sharply in my ear. “Just let it alone,” she warned me.
Mrs. Broderick had taken the opportunity to get two of her maids into Allegra’s rooms, and they were being tidied and dusted. Gretchen shooed them out of the bedroom, kissed her grandmother lovingly, and turned her over to the nurse. “I’ll come visit you later, Gran.”
We went into the corridor together. “Do you think those paintings have been put somewhere else?” I asked.
“I think they’ve been stolen,” she said. “Just as the netsuke have been stolen. But I don’t want Gran worried about this. I’ll see what I can do about it.”
She went off looking grim and tense, and I wondered if Vasily was in for a bad time. If he’d taken these things, he deserved it. Perhaps it would be easier for everyone if she took him off to Europe for a while. Yet somehow I was glad to have them both in the house. I hated to think of these echoing halls with so many of the family gone. It would be especially lonely at night, when the servants all vanished to their own quarters. But I mustn’t start frightening myself.
When I stepped into my room it seemed more alien than ever. I must move out of it soon. Perhaps to a smaller bedroom, with a sitting room. In some strange way, I could feel Brett’s presence here, and I was always aware that she had planned and furnished its pale elegance for herself. Besides, I didn’t want to stay here, with Ross’s room and all its unhappy memories right next door. And there was still the portrait of Ysobel Hollis to be dealt with. It must be hung somewhere else—or put away.
But I didn’t want to decide anything now. All I needed to do was mark time until I could see Jarrett this evening. Always, through this strange morning, the thought of him had been warm at the back of my mind. I would talk to him tonight, tell him everything of my day, and of fears that he would help me to dismiss.
Something inside me said, “Wait, wait! You’ve been wrong before. You mustn’t trust so easily. You mustn’t care so easily.” But I wanted to trust. I wanted to care. I didn’t want to live by that cynical rule of my father’s—that things were seldom what they seemed. There had been an unexpected warming in me toward Jarrett and I wanted to turn to him.
Once more, the outdoors drew me, and I went down the gracefully curving stairs to the yard. I’d hardly stepped out of the house since Ross’s death, except for the funeral and my trip to town just now. I needed to push walls away from me, to breathe clear, salty air blowing in from the Atlantic.
The afternoon was warm and sunny—a real taste of Florida. I would go down and walk on the beach, I thought. It was time I faced those sands again, and banished memories that hurt me. But as I turned in the direction of the water, I saw with delight the flame tree—the flamboyant—the poinciana! It had burst into full bloom with every spreading branch ablaze with glorious fire. I stopped to drink in its beauty. All over southern Florida, these trees would be flaming now. Allegra must have seen to the planting of this one, since she’d honored the name for her own Poinciana. For how many seasons had Ross watched this blooming? Yet now he would never see it again, and the realization brought sadness with it. I walked on slowly.
As usual, there were two or three men at work on the grounds, tending the mowing, the watering, the flower beds, ready to pounce on any weed that showed itself. I stopped beside a man who was inserting something through a funnel into the trunk of a coconut palm and asked what he was doing.
He shook his head gloomily. “All over Palm Beach the coco palms are dying of a disease. The town is having them all injected, but I’m not sure it’s doing much good.”
These palms were plentiful at Poinciana. From every upstairs window one looked out upon their shaggy heads and slim, leaning trunks. In the days when there had always been visitors at the house, I’d been told that these trees were kept free of coconut clusters, lest they fall upon the heads of innocent guests.
I found my way to the tiled tunnel through which Ross had taken me on our way to the beach. Overhead, traffic was zooming past, while I walked on echoing stone. When I came out upon the sand at the far end, I saw the bathhouse and swimming pool Allegra had built, but it was the ocean that drew me.
Today the wind was strong and whitecaps rolled in, curling a froth of lace onto the sand. The ocean’s voice roared in the sound of the waves, and where the beach was wet and firm I followed the edge of the water as it reached my feet. Sea grape grew against the wall that protected the boulevard, rusty brown from salt winds, with spiky branches as thick as my arm, and big tough leaves. In the summer I would come down here and swim. If I were still here in the summer.
I’d been afraid
of being haunted by the memory of that night of a Florida moon when I’d walked here with Ross. Strangely, however, that was beginning to seem another lifetime away, another man I had walked with. A man I had lost because of the stranger he had turned into. I couldn’t mourn-for the stranger. Gretchen was right. We must both admit to a sense of relief some of the time.
I walked on, looking up at the roofs of large houses that fronted on the water across the boulevard, and when I began to tire I turned back toward the tunnel again. But as I went down the steps to its sunken floor, I heard echoing voices. At once I drew myself close to the wall, where I wouldn’t be silhouetted against the light, not wanting to meet anyone now.
As my eyes became accustomed to the dim mustiness of the tunnel, I made out the two people standing together at the far end. There was an air of secrecy, perhaps of conspiracy, about them, and I knew instinctively that they had come here separately to a private meeting. One was Vasily Karl, the other Brett Inness.
The clattering echoes of their own voices must have warned them, for they began to speak more quietly, and I couldn’t make out the words. Crouching against the wall, I didn’t hesitate to listen, to strain to pick up any phrase I could catch.
Once I heard Brett’s words, “She knows …” and then her voice was lowered. The clamminess of unreasoned fear dampened my arms. Ever since I’d come to Poinciana, I had sensed secrets that were hidden beneath our everyday lives. I’d tried to speak of this to Ross, and he’d shrugged it aside. Perhaps that very shrugging off had been fatal for him. Perhaps what he had chosen to ignore so arrogantly had in the long run killed him. The troubling question returned to me.
Why had Brett turned on the alarm system?
A voice was raised again—Vasily’s voice: “… stop this.”
“Hush,” Brett said. “You have no other choice.”
I began to wonder how visible I might be if they really looked this way. But I was afraid to move, lest the slightest sound betray my presence. There was something terribly wrong at Poinciana. Something—evil. Yet I wasn’t sure against whom it might be directed. There seemed only two choices—Gretchen and me. And I was the likely one. She knows, Brett had said. I could only think she meant me. But what did I know? And why should it matter when I’d already made it clear to everyone that I meant to leave Poinciana to Gretchen as soon as it was possible for me to get away? Or was there a more far-reaching plot against me? If something happened to me, then everything would revert to Gretchen. That would mean investments, the controlling shares of Meridian Oil stock, property in other towns—I really had no idea of all that Ross had left me. I only knew that it had not been a gift of love, but one of revenge and punishment against his daughter.
The murmuring voices had stopped. There was movement now at the other end of the tunnel, and I saw Brett’s elegant figure stand briefly against the sunlight of the arched opening. Then she disappeared up the steps to the yard. After a moment Vasily followed, moving to the left, approaching the house from another direction.
I returned to the sand, where children were playing with a beach ball. Out over the water a flock of brown pelicans caught my eye. They were spectacular birds, diving accurately into the water from a great height to capture fish in their huge yellow beaks.
When I’d watched long enough, I returned and dared to go cautiously through the tunnel. Even then, I didn’t step immediately into the sunlight, but clung to the wall as I climbed the steps and looked carefully around the grounds.
Except for a gardener, no one was in sight, and I stepped onto the grass and started toward the right wing of the house. If anyone saw me approaching, it might be thought that I’d come from somewhere else than the tunnel.
“Good afternoon, Sharon,” said a voice behind me.
I whirled in alarm, to see Vasily Karl leaning against the coquina rock wall that ran along the edge of the boulevard. Beyond him cars whipped past. I was totally unable to speak. He smiled at me easily, but I sensed watchfulness in his eyes, and suspicion.
“Don’t look so astonished, Sharon,” he said. “Did you think you were being clever by waiting a while before you came back through the tunnel? Of course I saw you all along, standing there, listening. Though I think Brett did not. When she left, I decided to sit here and wait for the rabbit to come out of the hole.”
I made a desperate effort to collect myself. “Much good it did me,” I told him. “I couldn’t hear a word either of you was saying.”
“I quite believe you,” he said cheerfully. “When I saw you come into the tunnel, I took care to keep my voice down, and I persuaded Brett of the need for quiet. So now you have another mystery, don’t you? This strange meeting between Gretchen’s mother and her husband. Whatever can they be up to?”
“Would you like to tell me?” I asked.
“Good! I like a lady who can bluff when she is frightened. You are frightened, aren’t you, Sharon? And with good reason. It would be very wise at this time to turn everyone out of Poinciana, including Allegra, and close it up for a while. Then take yourself far away from Palm Beach. Where you will be safe.”
“Safe from what?”
“You wouldn’t even begin to guess,” he said. “Just take my word and leave.”
“Is that what you’re really advising?”
“Advising, yes. But I think you will refuse to go. You are just stubborn enough to refuse to give in to your fears. Isn’t that so, Sharon?”
“I don’t want to talk to you!”
I moved away from him across the grass. The lawn seemed to go on forever, but I didn’t stop or look back until I was safely inside the house. Then I paused beside a window from which I could see the ocean and the entrance to the tunnel under the boulevard. Vasily was nowhere in sight.
My first thought was of Jarrett. He was the only one I could turn to and I hurried to his office. He still hadn’t returned, but Myra took one look at my face and said, “Sit down, Mrs. Logan.”
She went through her usual ministering of refreshments—her cure for everything—and for once was discreet enough to ask no questions. After a while I stopped shaking.
“Tomorrow,” I said, “I’m going to move out of my room upstairs. It’s too big for me now.”
“And too lonely,” she observed wisely. “I wouldn’t want to rattle around in that empty wing all alone. Especially not if I had a feeling that there were those in the house who didn’t mean me any good.”
I stared at her. “Why do you say that?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? Mrs. Karl has hated your marriage from the beginning. She can’t be happy about you now.”
But it wasn’t Gretchen I feared, though I couldn’t tell Myra that.
“Anyway, moving would be fun, wouldn’t it?” she went on. “I mean, to have all the rooms there are in this house to choose from? To be able to furnish your own apartment any way you wish?”
“I don’t suppose I’ll bother,” I said. “I doubt I’ll be here long enough.”
She sighed, and I could see the wheels going around in her head. Obviously, she thought me foolish not to take every advantage I could of being Mrs. Ross Logan. I couldn’t tell her that Mrs. Ross Logan was someone I didn’t want to be.
“There’s one thing I’d like to ask you,” I went on. “Do you happen to know whether Mr. Logan removed any pictures from the gallery on the day before he died?”
She thought about that for a moment. “There was the portrait of your mother. He brought it to his office in the afternoon, and I wondered if he was going to hang it there.”
That would have been like him, I thought. But he had a better idea.
“That’s not the one I mean. Mrs. Logan thinks there are a couple of Toulouse-Lautrec paintings that are missing. And I believe I’ve seen one of them hanging in the gallery since I came.”
She thought about that solemnly, and then hopped up from her chair and scooted toward Ross’s office, flinging words back at me.
“I don�
��t know for sure,” she said. “I mean I don’t know what pictures they were, but I believe he brought some things from the gallery here either that last day or the day before. Let’s look.”
I followed her and watched as she opened a deep cabinet, gesturing for me to look inside. I could see the edges of frames standing on their sides, and I drew one of them out. It was an oil on wood of coach and horse, the driver sitting up in front, with his whip and top hat. I pulled it out in delighted relief and reached in to pull out the second picture—the portrait of a lady in a garden. Another Lautrec.
“That’s wonderful!” I cried. “Now I can put Mrs. Logan’s mind at rest. But I wonder why my husband brought these here?”
Myra managed to look both wise and arch at the same time, while she said nothing.
“Stop playing games,” I told her impatiently. “Even if you’re only speculating, I’d like to know what you’re thinking.”
She bent to close the cabinet, and then looked at me with a half-smile that was both appealing and apologetic. “I really do like you, Mrs. Logan. You don’t look down your nose at the help, and you’ve tried to be kind to my friend.”
“Your friend?”
“The old lady. Mrs. Logan. I understand she’s back in the house again. Just the same, I don’t want to stick out my neck with things I’m not really sure of at all. And I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I can stand being hurt,” I said. “And I expect you’re perfectly sure about a lot of what goes on at Poinciana.”
She was still hesitant. “But this is pretty crazy—really far out. Do you suppose rich men ever steal from themselves?”
I went to the big leather armchair opposite Ross’s desk, remembering that it was in this chair I’d sat that night when I’d run away from him and come here with Jarrett. The last night.
“Maybe you’d better explain,” I said.
She was airy about her reply, still being cautious. “The rich don’t always keep a lot of cash in their pockets. Isn’t it true that sometimes they have to liquidate funds in order to pay big debts? So couldn’t a rich man who owned a great many valuable possessions put some of them—well, in hock, so to speak, in order to raise money if he needed it?”
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