Having already set the dining room table for herself and her grown son and checked on the Sunday roast, she opened wide the kitchen windows to admit an April breeze full of salty hints from the Atlantic. She then made the innocent comment that was to lead to a policeman in the house, not to mention a pretty girl stiff with terror.
“I don’t like to boast,” Mrs. Brace said boastfully, “but any girl who gets you is lucky.”
“So you seem to have mentioned in the past.” her son remarked. “However, never hesitate to repeat it. It strengthens my ego, not very weak to begin with.”
“You are a very superior young man.” Mrs. Brace retorted to his raised eyebrows. “Look at you! Handsome, tall—”
“A splendid engineer with a fine future,” Peter inserted nimbly. “You never forgot that before,” he added plaintively. “I’m beginning to feel you don’t really care.”
“You are laughing at me, of course,” Mrs. Brace said matter-of-factly. “Nevertheless. I repeat, you are everything any girl could want.”
“Do you have the feeling your clichés are showing?” Peter inquired politely. Then he added provokingly, “Just any girl?”
“You know very well that I am warning you against That Woman, Elizabeth Caldwell,” Mrs. Brace said. She had to look quite a long distance up to Peter, who was, black hair, snapping black eyes, and all, the image of his lamented father only more so. “I know I’m domineering,” she added without visible sign of contrition.
“Hear, hear.” Peter called, with a light patter of applause.
“But I’ve done my best to teach you to defy me,” she went on.
“As you often remark.” Peter assured her comfortably, “I am an apt pupil.”
“So that in all fairness to me, oughtn’t you to think twice about this—this bleached divorcee?”
“Twice?” Peter repeated contemplatively. “Mother, if twice were all I thought of Elizabeth, this little talk of ours would be far afield of the point.”
“Of course I trust your judgment,” Mrs. Brace continued unconvincingly.
“I wish I could return the compliment,” Peter answered frankly. “It is obvious that although I have spent a total of six hours in Elizabeth’s company—and charming company it is—in your judgment I have already been measured for the job of third husband.”
“Whereas—?” she prodded delicately.
“Whereas I have spent six hours in her company,” Peter said. “In my judgment this is not adequate to plunge a man into a lifetime of matrimony.”
“There!” Mrs. Brace said triumphantly. “I knew you were too sensible.”
“I do find her attractive, though,” Peter reminded her. “Don’t go getting smug.”
At this Mrs. Brace burst out fervently, “I wish the Kents hadn’t moved to Mexico!”
Peter hooted. “That’s getting down to essentials, that is,” he said. “If the Kents hadn’t sold their house, Elizabeth Caldwell wouldn’t have bought it, and so of course we might never have met. Thus, in direct logical progression, how can you ever forgive the O’Malleys?”
Mrs. Brace looked blankly at her son. “The O’Malleys?” she repeated. “How do they come into it? We’ve never had better neighbors.”
“But they are not your neighbors at the moment,” Peter pointed out.
“Oh, well, that’s only for a couple of months,” Mrs. Brace said, relieved. “Just until Frank straightens out his Chicago office.”
“They’ve sublet, haven’t they?” Peter asked patiently. “I may fall in love with her, whoever she is. After all, they’re next door, closer even than Elizabeth. I won’t have so far to walk.”
“How unfilial of you to make light of my selfless maternal anxiety,” Mrs. Brace said pleasantly. “However, I have no fears for your safety next door. They are a young couple with a baby. She is all mother at the moment. We have merely exchanged introductions, since they moved in only yesterday, but I may have to speak to her very soon since I am sure she dresses the baby too warmly for this time of year. She is a pretty young woman, although not blond like That Woman. However. I have seen her constantly yearning over her infant and cannot visualize her in a flirtation with you.”
“Don’t despair. Mother.” Peter said. “When I bring out the heavy artillery, she’ll surrender, baby and all.”
“I believe I shall have to step outside,” Mrs. Brace said. “The air in here is too heavy with your innuendo. Besides, there is little point in serving you a meal, since no doubt my cooking will no longer please you.”
“This is too much,” Peter protested, laughing. “The poor girl merely mentions that she does not care for beef stew, and that makes her a pariah.”
“Elizabeth Caldwell has not been a girl for some years now,” Mrs. Brace said firmly. “I am quite sure that she would be too mean to cook beef stew just to please you. Or roast beef, since it is also a favorite of yours. You may as well get used to doing without.”
With her bright blue eyes looking pointedly into the distance, she swept by him regally, a feat which took some doing, since she was only a hairsbreadth over five feet.
It was a fine spring afternoon, just past two. The young couple next door, Matthews by name, had just brought the usual paraphernalia indigenous to babies out into the back yard and having deposited their child in the playpen, vanished indoors. The lawns were not separated even by hedges, and Mrs. Brace walked over to chat with the baby.
He was dressed in a heavy snow-suit, and although Mrs. Brace reminded herself sternly that it was really none of her business, she determined nevertheless to speak to the mother about the injudicious way she overdressed the child. Although, Mrs. Brace decided philosophically, it was probably just a New Method. She herself had raised Peter by all the New Methods in series as each was introduced, having found to her delight that she could be firm, permissive. Freudian, and so forth without in any way doing a thing different from the way she would have done it in the first place. And really, without prejudice, she told herself contentedly, you’d never want a more independent, maturer man than Peter at twenty-four. If only that Dreadful Woman—!
She looked over at the pleasant cottage next to this one of the O’Malleys. As she watched, its new mistress appeared in the doorway. She only wears those tight slacks because she has such a stunning figure, Mrs. Brace thought, somewhat unreasonably. Sensing motion to the rear, she added grudgingly that nobody could blame Peter for running like an ant after sugar whenever that lusciously constructed female appeared. There he went, halfway across lawns on the instant!
“Have you seen our new neighbor’s baby?” she asked adroitly. Peter halted in midstep. He was far too well bred—naturally!—to continue past without at least a show of civil interest, so he joined her beside the playpen. Mrs. Matthews opened the door and peered out “Is anything wrong?” she called anxiously.
“Not at all,” Mrs. Brace said graciously. “My son is just about to meet little Billy. There, Peter, isn’t he sweet?”
“Is he?” Peter asked in an undertone. “Seems a glum little devil to me.”
The baby stored up owlishly at them. Mrs. Brace began to chirp the usual feminine nonsense, to which the baby responded by looking morose.
Mrs. Matthews came out and bent over the pen. “Is Mummy’s boy comfy?” she crooned. “Is Mummy’s Billy a good boy?”
Billy wasn’t having any. He looked broodingly about him.
“I wonder if he’s a bit too warm?” Mrs. Brace asked, and bending over, unzipped the snowsuit. “There!”
Mrs. Matthews rapidly rezipped the snowsuit and said, “I’m so sorry! I know it must seem he’s dressed too warm, but he’s just got over the worst cold—” Billy made no observable response to these tender ministrations.
Mrs. Brace asked his age and was informed that he was ten months old. Before they could go further back to the inevitable obstetrical details, Elizabeth, apparently tired of waiting for Peter, sauntered over. At this addition to their circle, Mrs. Mat
thews, not at any point what you might call a social type, became frankly confused, although she remained grimly polite and gave courteous little answers as they were called for. She kept looking uneasily to the house until finally, as if in answer to some unspoken plea, her young husband came to the door, called out pleasantly, “How about dinner, honey?” With an audible gasp of relief she fled inside.
“Maybe she doesn’t want so many people hanging around the kid,” Peter offered. “Isn’t there an anti-germ school of thought?”
“Nonsense—that’s obsolete.” Mrs. Brace said expertly. “Company’s good for babies.” She promptly introduced Elizabeth to Billy leaving her no choice but to address the child.
“Hi, kid,” Elizabeth said, which was just about the degree of womanly tenderness Mrs. Brace had anticipated. She hoped Peter would notice, although with the way the silk blouse melted into the skin-tight slacks, he’d be a wonder to notice anything else. The baby turned on Elizabeth the steady stare that was so disconcertingly gloomy. “What gives with him, anyway?” Elizabeth asked uncomfortably.
Mrs. Brace was not in the least surprised that Peter asked loudly, “Care for a short walk before dinner, Elizabeth?” Undoubtedly he was embarrassed at the side of Elizabeth revealed by her manner with the baby.
As they left, Peter called to Billy, “Goodbye, fella,” quite properly, Mrs. Brace thought.
“Oh—bye, kid,” Elizabeth said, too loudly and too unfeelingly. Mrs. Brace trembled for any children Elizabeth might have—and trembled again at the prospect of Peter as their father. She frowned after them briefly, then turned, and looked absently at Billy—only to gasp in astonishment at the bright smile that transformed his little face. For a moment she could only stare blankly. If that smile had come at any other time—but until just now the child had remained perversely dull. The conclusion, outrageous as it seemed, appeared inevitable—Elizabeth had made him smile! Mrs. Brace had perforce to ignore the conclusion, simply because it was impossible and did not even aspire to the dignity of the logician’s “possible-improbable.” Elizabeth was a heartless, superficial woman. She couldn’t have succeeded in making Billy smile where even his own mother failed. According to Peter, I coin cliché after cliché. Mrs. Brace ruminated with some agitation. Well, I will coin yet another: You can trust a woman a child loves. But I could never trust Elizabeth!
She looked intently at Billy, who had lost his radiance. Although she herself performed all the reassuring and entertaining tricks she knew, he would not smile again. In complete bafflement she walked slowly home.
How very extraordinary! She kept thinking that over and over. Can I have been wrong in my evaluation of Elizabeth? She dismissed this as an unlikelihood too remote for consideration. She knew from her size-four shoes up that she had not made a mistake. Elizabeth was an empty sort of woman unfortunately all too common.
But still—the baby had smiled! Proceeding logically from the assumption—no, from the fact—that she had summed Elizabeth up accurately, she must review the incident until she found a clue to the mysterious appearance of little Billy’s smile. It was either that, or admit she was wrong about Elizabeth, a choice which didn’t bear thinking of!
She went back over the scene slowly, beginning with her own and Peter’s gentle and intelligent attempts to get the baby to smile, then on to the mother, who had failed too, and finally to Elizabeth’s effortless success. Each time she went over it, it came out the same, like a sum in addition. The baby had smiled for Elizabeth!
But no baby would! Mrs. Brace felt closer to tears than to smile in Elizabeth’s presence herself, so why not a baby? Therefore: after logic had stripped the incident to its bone, there remained only one conclusion. Within ten minutes of focusing all her lively mental powers on the problem she was left with no alternative at all. There was only one thing to do. She reached for the telephone.
Once on course, so speedily did matters progress that although Peter returned from his walk less than half an hour later, it was exactly as a taxi deposited at their front walk a gray-haired man and a young woman, each carrying luggage.
Even in the brief time it took for them to traverse the front walk, it was apparent that although the man had a smile he could produce when necessary, the girl’s face, which was drawn and extremely pale, would yield nothing. Her manner was so set and rigid that the brown eyes looked neither to the left nor to the right. She was young and in good time might have been pretty, but at this moment she was all but petrified by fear.
Mrs. Brace flung open the front door with glad cries, kissed the girl heartily, hugged the man, and drew them enthusiastically into the house. Peter trailed after.
“Long lost relatives?” he suggested, and his mother replied, “Oh, dear, no, Peter! My greeting, like the luggage they carry, is merely to give verisimilitude to the act. They must appear to be relatives, you see.”
“Ah,” said Peter.
“You are bewildered, naturally,” his mother commiserated, and although her manners were in general impeccable, as she had been known to admit quite freely, she did not now take the time to make introductions. Instead, she hastily conducted the strangers into the kitchen, guiding them to the window over the sink. “You can get a perfect view from here.” she said.
“Perfect.” Peter agreed solemnly, looking past the baby still forlorn in its pen to where Elizabeth Caldwell was lounging handsomely in her doorway and lighting a cigarette in practiced fashion. Mrs. Brace frowned at Peter reproachfully, but she turned back to watch too.
A man in shirt sleeves and carrying pruning shears had appeared from nowhere. He seemed to be speculating about the maple on the sidewalk in front of Elizabeth’s house.
“Who’s he?” Peter said. “I’ve never seen him before.”
“He’s one of ours,” the gray-haired stranger said, and handed a pair of binoculars to the young woman. She focused them, stared, whimpered. “Yes, yes it’s Elizabeth!” and began to crumple. Peter caught her as she fell and swung her up easily into his arms. “That’s right,” his mother said vaguely. “My room.”
Peter placed the girl gently on his mother’s bed and looked thoughtfully at the sweet face, relaxed now in unconsciousness. He returned to the kitchen to find his mother alone, but still peering out the window. “What’s cooking?” he demanded, and peered out too. The gray-haired man was halfway across lawns, walking casually—he was about to pass the playpen where the baby sat mournfully watching him. “He’s after Elizabeth, isn’t he?” Peter demanded.
“Yes, dear,” his mother said tautly.
“Something’s going on, what is it?” Peter demanded. At this point the man outside swerved and scooped the baby out if its pen. Holding the child close he ran back into the kitchen. As if this were a signal—undoubtedly it was—men began to appear magically from parked cars and telephone poles and the branches of trees, appeared and advanced upon the Matthews’ house. There was no sound, no command—but the Matthews’ back door opened, and the young couple came down the steps, hands raised.
“Without a shot!” observed the stranger, who was actually Police Inspector Harrity.
The young couple were conducted to a nearby telephone repairman’s truck and driven off.
“Borrowed,” Harrity explained complacently. “Nobody ever suspects a utility company.”
Elizabeth Caldwell still stood in her doorway, watching and smoking, having at no time shown any more concern than might be expected from a disinterested observer.
“I thought you said they were after Elizabeth!” Peter exploded.
“Oh, Peter, you have it all wrong.” Mrs. Brace said. “Not that Elizabeth—this one!” She kissed the baby and went on cooingly, “Little Elizabeth Varrick. Kidnapped.”
Peter ran a handkerchief over his forehead. “It doesn’t follow, Mother,” he said. “Non sequitur, as we brilliant academicians put it.”
“Ha, ha, a humorist,” said Harrity. “Lucky your mother twisted this non sequitur around to make s
ense.” He beamed a middle-aged beam at Mrs. Brace, who said in a flurry, modestly ignoring the compliment, “Wasn’t that smart of the kidnappers? They rented the O’Malley house so they could move into it like any young couple with a baby. They didn’t have to hide out at all. Then, just to make surer, they pretended the child was a boy. Although they needn’t have kept her steaming in that hot snowsuit just so nobody could possibly—er—They were safe as a bank anyway. If it hadn’t been for Elizabeth Caldwell not being that type—”
“What type?” Inspector Harrity inquired.
“The type that could make a baby smile, of course! The moment I saw that baby smiling at her I knew there was something wrong. I mean, I knew no baby who resisted smiling at me—or at my son—or certainly at his own mother, would then smile at a cold, heartless woman. So then I remembered that Peter had said the name Elizabeth, and of course after that it was obvious.”
“Was it indeed?” Peter inquired.
“Well, of course! I just asked myself what had happened that made the baby smile, and I thought, why. Peter said a name. Elizabeth. So I began to add things up. If we granted that the baby’s odd behavior was due to fright—and he certainly looked scared or something!—and then suddenly that poor frightened baby smiled at the sound of a name, it must be one that had a good association for him. Only of course it is her. Only, at the time—but anyway, it is obvious when you look at it that way. Of course I had an advantage in knowing that no child would take to Elizabeth. Children only love people who love them.”
“Mother, you think in clichés.” Peter said.
“Well, what’s wrong with that?” Harrity wanted to know, somewhat belligerently.
“Poor Peter.” Mrs. Brace said. “Don’t you see this cliché turned out to be as right as most of them. Because when I called the police and asked if a child named Elizabeth had been kidnapped, they came at once and brought the poor child’s aunt along to identify her. That’s the aunt in my bedroom. Margery Varrick. Oh—”
The 2nd Golden Age of Mystery and Crime MEGAPACK ™: Ruth Chessman Page 14