The Third Mystery

by James Holding

  * * * *

  Lucille, temporarily abandoned by Herschel and Madame Alcott, was by no means at a loss for something to do. Still vaguely on Cloud 9 after her session with Herschel she retired to a cabana and rigged herself for a spot of skin-diving—a diversion at which both she and Lyle were adept.

  An hour went by in subaqueous beauty, in the silent fairyland of opalescent decor, coral jewelry, and friendly fish that lies beneath the surface of the sea, and as always the experience refreshed her, giving her anew that calm outlook on life so inherent in her nature.

  However, this outlook received something of a buster after Lucille had dressed and gone into the Lisbon Den to attend to her social correspondence. It was Hopper who administered the jolt by coming in and announcing, “A Miss Estelle Pompey is calling, Miss Bellington.” He added noncommittally, “With luggage.”

  “Luggage?”

  “An overnight bag and a suitcase. The taxi driver deposited them in the entrance hall.”

  A bit stumped, but after all it was that decibel-inspiring young man’s soon-to-be-operated-upon sister, Lucille said, “I think the Seville suite, Hopper. Put the bags in it after you show Miss Pompey in here.”

  “Yes, Miss Bellington.”

  A couple of whys fluttered around while Lucille waited. A sudden attack? An emergency operation imperative? Naturally the girl had no one to turn to other than her brother…

  Estelle Pompey, ushered into the Lisbon Den, could easily have posed as the very picture of Health. But such outward blooms are often deceptive, as any reputable diagnostician well knows. There was a sturdiness about Estelle, a clean, fresh look about her face, a face dotted with the same type of candor-blue eyes that dotted her brother’s, to which Lucille took an immediate liking.

  “Estelle, dear, I’m glad you came,” Lucille said with a warm handshake. “You’re very welcome.”

  “I’m afraid just barging in like this—”

  “But I’m glad you’ve come, and I mean it. Tell me—is it serious?”

  “What?”

  “The operation.”

  “Oh—you thought—oh no, Miss Bellington—”

  “Lucille.”

  “Lucille. It isn’t that. I mean there’s no rush about that. They say not for a month or two. No, it isn’t that.”

  “Look here, Estelle. Take that jacket off and sit down. Tell me what’s bothering you, then I’ll get you settled in your rooms.”

  “You’re awfully kind. Really kind. I’m worried sick about Herschel. I just had to come.”

  This was a real twister. “Herschel? Why?”

  Estelle, whose nature was a good deal similar to Lucille’s, did not beat around the bush. “A year ago he had a little trouble back home. Did he tell you about it?”

  “No.”

  “He hit a man. He’s very strong. The man almost died, and Herschel was in prison for seven months. He hit the man because of me. The man was—that is, was about—”

  “But of course your brother would!” Lucille exclaimed indignantly, as her thoughts clothed Pompey in the shining armor of the parfait gentil knight.

  “He’d do anything for me.”

  “I’m sure of it. But what’s worrying you now?”

  “This job he’s on. This Foundation racket.”

  “Racket?”

  “That’s what I had to make sure about, that it’s on the level.”

  “But my dear Estelle—!”

  “Oh please—it’s not you, not you personally, but Herschel told me just as he was shoving off with Mr. Galli that I was not to worry. He had to write it down, of course. Here, I’ll show you.”

  Estelle took a note from her handbag and gave it to Lucille. Lucille read: you’re not to worry—this job will cover the works—you’ll have the best knife juggler in the country—Harvey himself.

  “Don’t you get it?” Estelle said. “Dr. Harvey’s fees start around two thousand dollars, and how could my brother earn that sort of money on this job? Unless.”

  One would think that any common sense answer to this question would leave Lucille badly shaken. But being Lucille, and having placed her trust in Herschel, just as she had plighted her troth to Lyle Dasher, it could not. “There’s an explanation,” she said. “I’m sure of it.”

  “So am I, Lucille, and I’m afraid of it. It’s why I came down. I don’t want my brother to get into any more trouble for my sake.”

  “I’d feel the same way, Estelle.”

  “You’re sure there’s nothing queer? No angle?”

  “About the Foundation? Estelle, dear, be sensible. How could there be?”

  Estelle told Lucille just how there could be. It could be used as a front for a variety of undercover doings. A land grab racket. A mask for subversive activities. A tract of land to which no possible suspicion could be attached, and yet would be used as a base for plane and truck take-offs in dope running, arms running, alien smuggling—any number of rackets. “All those things,” Estelle said, “I’ve been thinking about.”

  “Well, don’t. It’s ridiculous.”

  Lucille was in the process of explaining exactly how ridiculous it was when Herschel came in with the muted effect of a leashed atmospheric disturbance. He went directly to Estelle (Hopper had informed him of her arrival), seized her hands and looked a question. Then he handed her the loose-leaf notebook and the pen. Lucille observed the interchange of writings, while sensing the strong bond between these two with its flavor of dominance by Herschel and devoted submission by his sister. She noticed the look of gratefulness touch Estelle’s face, a slight quivering of her lips.

  “Lucille, it’s all right,” Estelle said after the final written exchange. “It was Mr. Galli who promised it to Herschel—the kindness of Mr. Galli’s heart, and Herschel tells me that you—too—”

  Estelle broke down at this point and indulged in tears.

  * * * *

  The evening was uneventful up until midnight, that traditionally fatal hour so agreeable to witches and foul deeds, and Herschel’s movements were darkly in tune. He left the house, satisfied that it slept, and walked to the gazebo through the moon-pallid night.

  He deposited under the cushion of the rattan settee the evening’s batch of loose-leafs, which included indignant written notes by Lucille in reference to the South American ex-dictator now exiled in Miami.

  “I think that about finishes it,” the voice said from its point of origin in the hibiscus. “Don’t bother fishing for anything more.”

  “All right. I think there is something you should know.”

  “Yes?”

  “My sister. She’s here.”

  The voice said after a pause, “Why?”

  “She was worried about me. She figured there was something phony about the Foundation.”

  “She—knows something?”

  “She knows nothing! I’ve convinced her that everything is solid. Miss Bellington has convinced her. She’s sold.”

  “Miss Bellington—then your sister has expressed her doubts to Miss Bellington?”

  “I was out with Madame Alcott when Estelle landed at the house. There’s nothing to worry about. I’m going to ship her home tomorrow.”

  “Yes,” the voice said thoughtfully, “that might be best. Are you certain you can make her go back?”

  “She does what I tell her.”

  “Then—good night.”

  “’Night.”

  Herschel left the gazebo. He had scarcely taken more than a few steps along the path toward the house when his nerves were twisted with severe shock. Estelle stood facing him, blocking him, all pale violet and shadowy in the violet moonlight.

  She was about to speak, with his name just reaching her whitened lips when his hand clamped over her mouth and lifting her off her feet he ran with her to the terrace, to the pathway to the cabanas, then down to the beach where their voices would be blocked out by the surges of the rising tide.

  There was nothing exceptional about th
e following morning, no sign in the sky, not a one of those portents so dear to the hearts of the superstitious citizens of ancient Rome, no raven bird nor howling of a werewolf-nurtured dog transpired to deter Lucille from getting up at seven o’clock.

  She went to the door of the Seville suite, rapped, and stepped inside.

  “Estelle? It’s I, Lucille.”

  Estelle’s voice answered from the bedroom. “I’ll be right with you, Lucille.”

  “I came to take you for a swim before breakfast. All right?”

  “Fine.”

  “You’re sure you feel up to it?”

  “Of course. I take one every day at home.”

  The ocean was cooperative, the waves being what the weather reports designate as from 1-3 feet, the wind southeast at seven miles per hour, the sky partly cloudy, the temperature of the water eighty-two.

  The girls stood for a moment at tide’s edge talking. Lucille felt in Estelle a change, a sense of strain. She seemed different from the girl of yesterday.

  “I seem to do everything suddenly,” Estelle was saying. “Like just landing here out of the blue. Well, I’m leaving just as suddenly, Lucille. Herschel has made a reservation for me on this afternoon’s flight for Boston. I’ll take a bus up to Bushing from there.”

  “But, Estelle!”

  “There’s no reason for my staying. I understand things now, and I’m needed at home.” Estelle added almost curtly, “Let’s swim.”

  They swam out past the sand bar, easy strokes through the lazy sea, and after a while Lucille turned on her back and floated effortlessly on the swell. She closed her eyes. She tried to puzzle out the oddities in Estelle’s attitude during their talk on the sands. The strange decision to go home, its immediacy with its quality of brusqueness.

  Lucille opened her eyes on the empty surface of the sea.

  Empty.

  From shore to the horizon. From north to south.

  She called out, subconsciously knowing the futility of it, “Estelle—Estelle—”

  Lucille circled the area with swift strokes and a heartbeat that neared panic. She knew these waters both on their surface and below, how the vagaries of a current would carry a body off in undeterminable directions.

  She swam ashore and ran with constricted lungs to the house. Her memory for numbers was good and she recalled the one Stuff Driscoll had given her for the Seahorse Towers Motel.

  She said, when his answering voice came over the wires, “It’s about Mr. Pompey’s sister, Mr. Driscoll. She and I were swimming out beyond the bar. I floated for a while with my eyes closed and when I did open them she was gone.”

  “I’ll be with you in ten minutes,” Stuff said.

  * * * *

  The body was found an hour later, washed ashore somewhat to the north of the Bellington beach. A fisherman, surf casting, came on it in the swirl. Shortly, Stuff took charge.

  How can one compress, as they seem to have been compressed, those morning hours with their teetering between speed and the ones that dragged through lethargy?

  The most desperate hour for Lucille was the one passed with Herschel, and their writings in the loose-leaf notebook. Of singular importance among the notes were:

  Lucille: I blame myself. I feel you must always hate me. It was I who suggested we swim.

  Herschel: Don’t be like that. I couldn’t hate you. You couldn’t help it. She always swam plenty. She was a fish.

  Lucille: If only she had cried out, but there wasn’t a sound. I might have saved her.

  Herschel: Even if this hadn’t happened the odds were stacked against her. A 20 to 1 shot, they said. This brain operation stuff—

  There was more along the same line and what happened after a while of it was just one of those things for which no academic explanation seems acceptable. They were alone together on the terrace in the canyon shade of a Poinciana tree, and each was keyed up to a pretty strong emotional pitch. This kindness of Herschel in suppressing his own bitter grief and attempting to allay her misery of self-recrimination was more than Lucille could bear. She started to cry, helpless crying, the sobs shaking her.

  Herschel lifted her and held her close. Then the roughness of his cheek, then the painful and fierce pressure of his lips, while during the strange ecstasy of the short moment the thought bedeviled Lucille’s mind: this must not be. I am betrothed to Lyle Dasher.

  A later hour.

  This between Lucille and Lyle in the Griptread Tires patio. The whole thing had been too much for her. Jones’s murder—Lyle’s dose of strange poisoning—Estelle’s death—the miasma of evil that hovered above the Foundation—her crazy mad newfound love for Herschel, shoved out of sight but blazing in a secret of desperation. She couldn’t take it.

  She was, she told Lyle, stepping out. Out of the Foundation. Out of everything. Finish. Lyle’s reaction to all this was perfectly normal. He suggested that she was hysterical, which to a measure Lucille certainly was. He insisted quietly in his down-to-earth fashion that she should not, must not, selfishly think only of herself. He, Lyle, was involved. The Governor was involved. Any number of people and organizations were involved. And she was the Foundation.

  Well, it worked. Lucille agreed to go home, take a sedative and calm down. Then perhaps by the next day she and he could come to a clear decision.

  There was a different sort of hour between Stuff and the medical examiner. The report on Estelle indicated murder: marks around the ankles where she could have been pulled under; throat marks suggestive of throttling; no water in the lungs—things such as that. But the temporizing press release on the matter would officially be: the unfortunate accidental death by drowning of a visiting guest. As for the Jones and Dasher tests, there might be an answer for Stuff sometime during the evening.

  * * * *

  At the conclusion of dinner Madame Alcott went to Griptread Tires to confer with Lyle on a final publicity layout for the Revels Humane. In her book, come stomach upsets, drownings, or what have you, the show, in terms of her pet cliché, must go on.

  As for Lucille and Herschel, each wanted the other’s company and yet each was afraid of it. Neither, violently, cared to be alone. They had coffee in the Granada Room and the silence of the night pervaded the chamber like a physical thing. It was surcharged with their emotional tensions, the fluid interchange of love and grief.

  Lucille wrote in the notebook tentative suggestions as to arrangements about Estelle. Would Herschel care to have her placed at rest in the Bellington vault until he would accompany her north for burial with his people? Would he care to have a service held here by the Reverend Osgood Spanker?

  I don’t want to think of things, Herschel wrote. I feel funny about things—mixed up—

  Then Hopper was with them. He carried a portable telephone which he plugged into an outlet near the coffee table. He said, “A Mr. Galli is calling, Miss Bellington.”

  Chill sifted in the air and Mr. Galli’s voice held an unpleasant Sicilian purr.

  “Miss Bellington?”

  “Yes, Mr. Galli?”

  “I must ask you not to be alarmed at what I have to say.”

  “Alarmed?”

  “It is imperative that I see you this evening on a matter of strictest privacy. It concerns the Foundation.”

  “Then of course I’ll see you, Mr. Galli.”

  “Thank you. I suggest that we meet, say, in half an hour?”

  “Very well, in half an hour. I’ll be here.”

  “No, not in the house, Miss Bellington. In one of the cabanas.”

  “In a cabana? Really, Mr. Galli, I don’t see—”

  Mr. Galli chopped the sentence in its middle. “As I have indicated, privacy is of the essence. Please do exactly as I have suggested. It will be best for the Foundation. It will be best for you.”

  The connection broke.

  The effect of this conversation was bad enough but it was nothing to the cataclysmic blow Lucille suffered a moment later. She had reached for
the notebook and was about to write a resume of Mr. Galli’s virtual fiat when Herschel said in a harsh, tight voice, “Don’t bother with that hoke any longer. I heard enough of the talk from your end to figure what it meant.”

  A “must” right here is a surmise of the causes that had made Herschel break into speech, to shatter his masquerade of being a deaf-mute, and by doing so to rat on Mr. Galli and thus quite pointedly nominate himself for a casket. It was a terrific thing for a young man of his tough character to do. One can only attribute it to a combination of love, gratitude for Lucille’s treatment and sorrow for his sister, admiration for her all round goodness—let us say that all of those things had brought his slender but still existent better nature to the front.

  With Lucille the shock was more of a chain effect, her first reaction being: He hears, he talks. He’s a fraud and in it with the rest of them, whoever they are. Well, everyone knows that there are things that hurt you very much, almost to the point of sickness, and this feeling was a wave that caught up Lucille with cruel strength.

  “I know how this hits you,” Herschel said. “It hits me, too. I’ll tell you how it hits me. I’ll try.”

  He told her all he knew, which wasn’t much, as he had never been in Mr. Galli’s confidence but had simply done the job given him blind. For the money that was in it, the two thousand that would have paid for Estelle’s operation. “Useless, now,” he said.

  * * * *

  As for the plot against the Foundation, he hadn’t the slightest idea of its nature. Only one thing he was sure of—once Lucille got in Mr. Galli’s power her reputation would be shattered, conceivably her life. He touched on Mr. Galli’s mysterious client and the fact that Madame Alcott was a partner in the evil enterprises. He stressed the client’s ruthlessness—consider Jones and the poisoning of Mr. Dasher. As for himself, if Mr. Galli and his client were to learn that he had quit his masquerade of a deaf-mute it would spell his death—or as he put it: “I’d end up on the slab.”

  The good, the good no matter what the bad, shone out like a marvel to Lucille. It was for her safety that he had placed his life in jeopardy by speaking, by confession. Her love, never far absent, swept overpoweringly back. No matter what Herschel had done she knew that she would always love him. No matter what his punishment would be, she would be waiting.