by Helen Wells
Cherry refused to weaken. “Talk sense,” she said crisply. “Why should anything that belonged to you be in Timmy’s bedroom?”
Jan raised her tearstained face. “Plenty, that’s what,” she cried. “And it’s none of your business, Miss Ames.”
Cherry felt like spanking the girl—hard. “Now, you listen to me, Jan Paulding,” she said firmly. “It is so much my business that unless you explain yourself I shall report you to the ship’s surgeon. He, in turn, will report you to the captain. And then you will be in trouble.”
Jan sat up abruptly and crossed her long, slender legs. “All right, I’ll explain. But you’ve got to promise not to tell anybody else.”
Cherry shook her head. “I won’t promise anything of the kind. I shall certainly report you at once unless you give me good and sufficient reason for what amounts to your breaking and entering.”
At that moment Mrs. Crane came back from her swim. She nodded vaguely to Jan. It turned out that Mrs. Crane and the Pauldings were seated at the same table in the dining room.
Jan stood up and said quickly, “Oh, Mrs. Crane. I stopped by to get the nurse for Mother. She’s quite ill. Is it all right if Miss Ames leaves Timmy with you now?”
“Why, of course,” Timmy’s mother said. “We don’t own Miss Ames. I’m sorry about your mother. Let me know if I can do anything.”
“The Cranes may not own me,” Cherry thought amusedly, “but Jan Paulding acts as though she did.” Out in the corridor she said: “If your mother is sleeping, perhaps we can have a little talk in the other room.”
“That’s right,” Jan said. “She will be asleep. She always goes to sleep the minute the pain is relieved.”
“Why are you so sure the pain has been relieved?” Cherry demanded suspiciously.
Jan shrugged. “The doctor arrived soon after you, didn’t he?”
Cherry nodded. “So, to add to your other crimes, you lied to me?”
“I did not,” Jan insisted. “Dr. Monroe did stop by right after lunch. Mother sent for him because she broke her bottle of medicine. She was afraid she might get one of those headaches. He told her that if she did he would send you to her at once with aspirin and an ice bag if he himself couldn’t come right away.”
“I see.” Cherry thought for a minute. “What about Waidler, the steward? You told me you sent him for the doctor half an hour ago.”
“That was perfectly true too,” Jan said defiantly. “That was at two o’clock. I told him to ask Dr. Monroe to stop in at two-thirty. It takes Mother that long to work herself up into a real state of excitement.”
Jan led Cherry into Room 127, the living room of the suite. “You sound like an awfully hardhearted daughter to me,” Cherry said. She peeked through the door between the two rooms and saw that Mrs. Crane was sleeping peacefully.
Jan began to cry again. “You don’t know my mother or you wouldn’t say that. She—she likes being sick. You’ll find that out before the cruise is over. Wait and see.”
Cherry began to weaken. Either Jan Paulding was an accomplished actress or she was a thoroughly unhappy young girl. And the glimpse Cherry had had of Mrs. Paulding had not made her feel that she was an admirable or sympathetic mother. Mrs. Paulding had been in pain, of course. But Cherry had nursed lots of other people in pain too. Very few of them had whined and moaned and groaned.
She drew a chair up to the sofa and patted Jan’s shaking shoulders. “Come on, honey,” she said gently. “Crying isn’t going to do any good. Sit up and tell me all about it.”
Jan sat up and wiped her streaming eyes with a brightly checkered handkerchief. “It’s the ambergris,” she blurted. “I have to find it. Don’t you see? It’s the only way I can go to art school.”
Cherry didn’t see and said so. “You’d better begin at the beginning. You might start alphabetically with the letter A, for ambergris. All I know about it is that it’s used in the manufacture of perfume even though it’s supposed to smell horrible. It’s formed in the intestines of whales, isn’t it?”
A smile lighted up Jan’s teary face. “That’s all I knew about it, too.” She giggled. “Until Uncle Ben arrived. Oh, Cherry, let me tell you about ambergris. Sailors call it ‘Fool’s Gold of the Sea,’ because they’re always finding something that isn’t ambergris. Real ambergris is absolutely priceless!”
Cherry glanced at her wrist watch. “It sounds fascinating, but I haven’t too much time. Maybe you had better give me the story of ambergris some other time. Right now I just want to know what it—and you—have to do with Timmy’s bedroom.”
Jan sobered. “That’s a long story too, Cherry. Oh, I forgot to ask you—may I call you Cherry? Timmy does.”
“Almost everyone does soon after they meet me,” Cherry admitted.
Jan’s lovely face was now as bright as a summer sky after a sudden shower. “I like you, Cherry,” she said. “I liked you the minute we first bumped into each other. I’m sorry you don’t—well, approve of me.” She went on in a rush of words, and completely won Cherry’s heart. “I’m not really a cold-blooded thief. Honest, I’m not. And as for Mother, she really is a hypochondriac. Her own doctor told me so. She works herself up into those headaches. She hypnotizes herself into having pain. She does it whenever she can’t have her own way. I’ve known it ever since I was a child. If Daddy wanted to go to the seashore and she wanted to go to the mountains, she’d have an attack. So we’d go to the mountains. Daddy let her get by with it, but I won’t! She has no right to ruin my life. I don’t want to make my debut next winter. I want to go to college. It takes years and years to become a good artist. I can’t afford to waste one year going to silly parties, dancing with silly men, and selling tickets to silly charity balls.”
“How old are you, Jan?” Cherry asked quietly.
“I was sixteen last month.”
“So you’ll be not quite seventeen if you go to college next fall,” Cherry said mildly. “That’s pretty young for college. The average age of a freshman is eighteen. Seems to me you could compromise with your mother. If she has her heart set on your having a debutante winter, why not give her a year of your life? After all, she is your mother. Even the most selfish mother makes plenty of sacrifices for her children. Few of us ever have a chance to repay our parents; this is your chance. I know I sound preachy, but you don’t want to leave something undone which you may regret when it’s too late to do anything about it.”
Jan hung her head. “When you put it that way, it makes sense. And I do love Mother. But even if I do give in and ‘come out’ at a big ball next winter, she won’t let me go to college the following year. Daddy left every single cent to her. I won’t inherit a penny when I’m eighteen. I’ll be dependent on her all the rest of my life.” She shuddered violently. “I’m desperate, Cherry. I begged and begged her to at least let me take a business course at school, but she promptly had an attack. So all I can do is speak French and Spanish, fence, and recite Shakespeare. How can I support myself with nothing but a finishing school background?”
Cherry was beginning to understand the despair of this lovely young girl. She had a drive that must be given expression. Her mother was blindly selfish not to see it. Cherry said:
“I can sympathize with your desire for a career. I wanted dreadfully to become a nurse. I guess I was lucky having a family that encouraged me.”
“You are lucky,” Jan told her. “Nobody understands me. My aunts all say, ‘Don’t be silly, child. You’ll be married before you’re eighteen. It would be a waste of time and money to start in college.’ But,” she finished, “Uncle Benedict understood me. Oh, Cherry, he was the most wonderful old man! None of the other members of the family had anything to do with him. Because he was sort of an adventurer, you see. As salty as the sea, with the most marvelous sense of humor. He didn’t mind being snubbed at all. Said his brothers and sisters were a bunch of stuffed shirts. And they are.”
“Was he the Uncle Ben who told you about ambergris?”
Cherry put in.
Jan nodded. “He not only told me about it, he gave it to me. But then he died, and now nobody knows where it is. I’ve got to find it. It must be somewhere in that stateroom.”
Cherry’s mouth fell open in surprise. “In Timmy’s stateroom? Why on earth would it be there?”
Jan sighed. “I guess I had better begin at the beginning. It happened a few days before Thanksgiving when I was all alone in the apartment. Mother had gone to the theater and the servants had the afternoon off. The doorman called up from downstairs and said there was a ‘peculiar character’ calling to see Mother. Claimed to be her brother-in-law.” Jan grinned. “That made him my uncle. I was downright curious to see an uncle whom William described as a ‘peculiar character.’ So I said, ‘Send him right up, William.’
“I opened the door and there stood this big, rawboned man with the most weather-beaten face you ever saw. He was wearing a rough coat that hadn’t been pressed in years and a thick navy-blue sweater and tight, blue serge pants, and, believe it or not, Cherry, knee boots! No hat, and there was melting snow in his bushy white hair, and his hands were rough and red. I wouldn’t have believed he was Daddy’s ‘black sheep’ older brother, except for his eyes. They were my grandfather’s own green, twinkling eyes. Granddaddy was a country banker. And although he was very rich, he drove around in a battered old Ford, and never put on airs. Everyone loved him.”
“He sounds like a wonderful person,” Cherry said.
“He was. And Uncle Benedict was an awful lot like him. His eyes twinkled at me and he said, ‘You must be my niece, Jan. Never would have thought Rob and Nellie could produce such a beauty.’ ” Jan blushed. “I liked him right off. Not so much for the compliment as for the way he said it. Completely outspoken and frank in a deep, hearty voice. My other uncles flatter me in such a namby-pamby way I hate it. Well, anyway, Uncle Ben and I got on together from the very beginning. In less than an hour I was weeping on his shoulder about wanting to be an artist and how Mother wouldn’t let me. He didn’t say anything that day, but I saw a lot of him after that. Mother didn’t approve, but I went ahead and met him away from home. We went for long walks through Central Park, and rode on the top of open buses even in bitter cold weather. And he told me about his different experiences and scrapes. Then one day he got to talking about ambergris. Said that it didn’t smell awful at all but had the most delicate, exotic fragrance with a nice seaweedy smell too.”
Jan leaned forward excitedly. “Uncle Ben said that during all the years that he roamed the seven seas he was always on the lookout for ambergris. Then one day when he and a pal were wandering along a beach in the Persian Gulf, they found a chunk of it. The most perfect type of fossil ambergris, or, as it’s called, ambre blanc, because it’s white. It had been lying there on the shore for centuries, perhaps. They knew from its texture and fine odor that it was not Fool’s Gold this time. So they divided the lump into two equal parts, and came right back to America to sell it.”
Cherry was so fascinated by this romantic tale that she forgot momentarily that she was a cruise nurse. “Go on,” she urged Jan as the tall young girl got up and began to pace nervously up and down the room.
CHAPTER X
Jan’s Problem
JAN CAME TO REST BESIDE CHERRY’S CHAIR. “WHEN Uncle Ben told me he’d actually found some priceless ambergris, naturally I was dying to see it. But he wouldn’t show it to me then.”
“Oh,” Cherry put in. “Then he didn’t sell it when he came back to America?”
Jan shook her head. “No, his pal sold his share in New York for about five thousand dollars and began to live like a king. Uncle Ben said his partner was much younger than he. Young enough to be his son. Uncle Ben was in his seventies, but the two of them had been traveling around together for years and years.”
“Why didn’t your uncle sell his share in New York?” Cherry wanted to know.
“I’m coming to that,” replied Jan. “Uncle Ben suddenly got the notion that he’d like to settle down. He felt as young as ever, but for some reason he began to think about taking root somewhere. Ages ago, he had bought some property in Curaçao, but he left the running of it to his lawyer in Willemstad, the capital city. Squatters have been living rent free in the lovely old Dutch mansion at Piscadera Bay. So I imagine everything has been allowed to go to rack and ruin. Uncle made up his mind to use the money he got from his ambergris to fix the property up. He said it wouldn’t take much to make it salable. Then, at the height of the tourist season, he would sell it for a fancy sum. It would make a swell site for a club or inn, he said.”
“I can imagine that,” Cherry said. “But how do you fit into the picture?”
Jan began to pace again. “After Uncle Ben sold the property, he was going to buy himself a smaller place on the island. The rest of the money he was going to give to me so I could go ahead and become an artist. He was awfully mad when he heard that Daddy had left everything to Mother. Daddy inherited from my grandfather, and Uncle Ben felt I should have been the sole heir. He himself was disinherited when he ran away from home as a boy. He didn’t mind that at all. But he got so worked up about me he made out a will at once making me his sole heir, and sent it to his lawyer in Willemstad.”
Jan smiled. “He was an old darling, Cherry. Eccentric as anything. No matter how much money he made throughout his checkered career, he never once had a bank account. Didn’t believe in them. He had an old-fashioned money belt which he kept on him day and night. And yet for all of that, he wouldn’t do a thing without first consulting his lawyer down in Willemstad. He wouldn’t even sell his ambergris until Mr. Camelot said the price he was offered was right.”
“Did he ever show you the ambergris?” Cherry asked.
Jan shook her head. “No, although I found out later that he had it with him whenever we went for those walks and bus rides. Finally one day he let me smell a pinch of it. It has the most delicate, out-of-this-world aroma, Cherry; like nothing else I ever knew. Then just about two weeks ago, Uncle Ben kissed me good-bye and sailed away on this very same ship to Curaçao. The next thing I knew he was dead.” Jan tensely rubbed her eyes. “Mr. Camelot sent me a cable saying my uncle had been stricken at sea with pulmonary thrombosis and had died without regaining consciousness shortly after being taken ashore at Willemstad.”
Cherry sat up straight. “Pulmonary thrombosis!” Jan’s uncle, then, must have been the passenger so many people had mentioned during the past few days!
“The cable,” Jan continued, “said that my entire inheritance, besides a few hundred dollars Uncle Ben had carried with him, was the property at Piscadera Bay. In its present state of disrepair, Mr. Camelot implied, it was practically worthless. The cable ended by requesting me to state my wishes as to the disposition of the property.”
“But the ambergris?” Cherry cried. “What happened to it?”
“That’s the point,” Jan cried. “What did happen to it? I cabled Mr. Camelot at once asking him if there wasn’t something else of value in my uncle’s luggage. The answer was no. Nothing, except what was in his money belt. Three hundred dollars and forty-nine cents, to be exact. Mr. Camelot, I suppose, thinking I didn’t trust him, went so far as to list by cable collect the contents of my uncle’s one and only suitcase which the steamship line sent ashore with him.”
“What were the contents?” Cherry demanded. “Maybe the ambergris was hidden in a shoe.”
Jan grinned ruefully. “No shoes. Boots, remember? And Uncle Ben virtually died with his boots on, just as he would have wanted to. The attack came on as the Julita was waiting for the pontoon bridge at Willemstad to open. Mr. Camelot came aboard the minute the ship docked and took Uncle Ben straight to a hospital. Uncle Ben believed in traveling light, I guess. In his suitcase were nothing but an extra sweater, socks, shirts, and pajamas.”
“There must have been something else,” Cherry argued. “Slippers, a comb, military brushes—you know, the things men always pack in t
heir grips. Razor and toothbrush, certainly.”
Jan shrugged. “I suppose all that sort of thing was in the suitcase too. But Mr. Camelot didn’t bother to list them, thank goodness, since he was cabling collect. Mother was very stuffy about paying for those cables, I can tell you. And she refused at first when I insisted upon taking this trip. But when she found out that some of the ‘best families’ were taking the cruise, she was all for it. She doesn’t know about Uncle Ben’s ambergris. But don’t you see, Cherry? The ambergris must be still aboard this ship!”
Cherry thought for a minute, and then nodded. “Somehow in the last-minute rush and the excitement of taking a dying passenger ashore, it wasn’t packed with the other things.”
“That’s what I think,” Jan said slowly. “In fact, I’m sure of it. So sure, that I went right down to the steamship line and tried to reserve the same room. I put on a big scene, cried like anything, insisting that for sentimental reasons I must have the same room in which my uncle had spoken his last words.” She sighed. “They were very nice and understanding about it, but no go. It seems that 141 and 143 are almost always sold as suites. Last trip they did split the two rooms, but they don’t like to. And the suite had already been reserved by a Mrs. Crane for this trip. The best they could do was to arrange things so we would be seated at the same table. Then I might be invited to visit in the room where my uncle practically breathed his last.”
She whirled on Cherry stormily. “I know I sound awfully hard-boiled about this, but Uncle Ben wouldn’t have wanted me to grieve. He had a wonderful, full life, and although he claimed he wanted to take root somewhere, I think he knew he was nearing the end of his journey. He told me himself that when he went, he wanted to go quickly. He had never been a grasping person, and he didn’t intend to grasp at life.” Jan was crying now. “ ‘Honey,’ he said, ‘I’ve seen everything there is to see on this old globe. I’m tired. But I’m going to die with my boots on. You’ll see.’ ”