The Golden Unicorn

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  “You mean those letters that have been coming to the house are a sort of blackmail? Do you know who is sending them and why?”

  “Not necessarily the letters. It’s another little tactic—though the letters may be part of it. We haven’t all the answers yet.”

  “Does Herndon know about this? Know what you’re planning?”

  “Not yet. Judith hasn’t been able to bring herself to tell him. That’s why she’s asked me to help her.”

  “I can understand that,” I said wryly. “I would hate to confess to my husband that I’d been living a lie for all these years. Especially when I had a reputation for directness and honesty.”

  He gave me a look in which there was no approval. “I suppose you’re too young to have learned generosity.”

  Both look and words made me bristle. “How can anyone be generous with nothing to base generosity on?”

  “Perhaps it’s a quality that must be present before all the facts are in.”

  After that there was silence for a time, and I felt chastened and uncertain, yet at the same time rebellious. He didn’t know all the truth, and in spite of his fine words, Evan Faulkner had not been notably generous toward me. Nor had I any valid reason which I could so far understand to be generous toward any of the Rhodes, whether the facts were in or not. All I knew for certain was that almost anything I did or said seemed to irritate and provoke this man. And I wished it weren’t so. Against all reason, I envied Judith her champion, and that in itself was a disturbing and unacceptable thought.

  When he spoke again, it seemed that he had reconsidered and intended to give me a little more to go on.

  “I don’t know all the details about what Judith did with Alice’s baby,” he admitted. “Or why she did whatever it was. But until I do know, I’d like to give her the benefit of the doubt. There may have been some necessity to get the child away.”

  “Judith doesn’t always play fair,” I said. “I never know what turn she may take against me. How can I be generous where I don’t trust?”

  He made no comment. By this time we were following Montauk Highway, running east through little towns that bordered the ocean. In one such village we turned off onto a narrow country road that ran between potato fields.

  “I’ll give you a little quick background,” Evan said. “The woman we’re going to see has been out of the area for a long while. She has apparently come back in order to stir up trouble, and she’s staying here with a friend from the old days when she used to live in East Hampton.”

  “Who is she?” I asked.

  “Her name is Olive. Olive Asher. She is William Asher’s first wife and she used to live with him at The Shingles until they had a falling out and were divorced.”

  All my interest and attention quickened. The name “Olive” had been tantalizing me and I felt suddenly eager for the encounter ahead. When Evan drew the car up before a small cottage with a rose trellis over the porch, I got out quickly.

  The woman who answered his ring had a thoroughly dejected look about her, as well as an air of uneasiness that was almost palpable. She wore dark slacks and a gray shirt over a dumpy figure that bulged in the wrong places, and her gray hair had the fuzzy look of a too-tight permanent.

  “I thought you were coming alone,” she said without greeting.

  “This is Miss Marsh, who is staying with the Rhodes just now. I asked her to come here with me.”

  Olive Asher gave me a suspicious look, but when Evan walked past her into the house and I followed, she pulled the door shut behind me and waved us into a small sitting room.

  “I’m staying here with Mrs. Blake,” she said, “and she’s out for a little while. We have to finish before she returns because she doesn’t know anything about my—uh—affairs.”

  “Then let’s get to the point as quickly as possible,” Evan said. Since our hostess was apparently not going to invite us to sit down, he stood beside the small fireplace, with an elbow on the mantel, while I remained near the door. “Mrs. Rhodes has asked me to tell you that you are to stop making phone calls to the house. I have already asked you not to, and I have told you that any calls that come in will be transferred to me, so that you won’t be able to annoy her again.”

  “Annoy her?” The dumpy little woman stood in the middle of the floor with her arms folded and spite in her eyes. “Maybe she’s got it coming to be annoyed!”

  “If you feel that way, why have you waited all this time to come here and bother her?”

  “I’m hard up now—see? For a long time she made it worth my while to keep still. But now she’s stopped sending what she owes me, and I’m not going to stand for it.”

  “What do you plan to do?”

  “Talk—that’s what! Unless she catches up on what she owes me. We had an understanding—her and me, way back when it began. She didn’t pay me all that much to keep still, you know. But I’ve never been greedy. It was all right to send something every few months. Only she’s stopped altogether now, and that’s not fair. I have to protect my own interests, don’t I?”

  Evan regarded her with distaste. “When you say you’re going to talk, just what do you mean?”

  Her elbows waggled defiantly. “Maybe I’ll go to Mr. Herndon. Or maybe to Mr. John. They never knew—they never knew anything. And after all, it was Mr. John’s baby. Could be I’ll even go to the police.”

  “Admitting that you were an accessory?”

  “Accessory to what?”

  “Kidnaping, perhaps.”

  She refused to be cowed. “You’re bluffing. She don’t want all this coming out in the open. You can’t tell me! The police would still be interested, what with all this money coming to Mrs. Judith’s daughter—when it doesn’t belong to her at all.”

  “Who do you think it belongs to?”

  “Why to that baby of Mrs. Alice’s and Mr. John’s. The one I helped Mrs. Judith smuggle away to New York—so that it looked like it was lost by drowning that time in the storm. It’s not so easy to hide a baby—she couldn’t have managed without my help.”

  “So you really were an accessory?”

  “I don’t care what you call it. I’m not afraid of her—or of you either.”

  Evan looked at me. “I hope you’re listening to all this, Miss Marsh.”

  I managed to nod. “I’m listening.”

  “Good,” he said, “because I know you’ll want to write the details into your story.”

  Until now, Olive Asher had ignored me, but at his words she swung around and stared at me balefully. “What are you talking about? What has she got to do with any of this?”

  “She’s a reporter, Olive, and she will be writing it all up in an article she’s doing for a national magazine. So you see it won’t be necessary to pay you for secrecy any more. It’s all coming right out in print—probably with your name included. And if there’s any further annoyance from you, we’ll be the ones to tell our story to the police. They don’t look kindly on blackmail.”

  Olive’s knees must have been ready to give way, for she dropped into a chair and stared at Evan.

  “I—don’t understand. What are you talking about? Mrs. Judith never wanted any of this to be known.”

  “That’s not true any longer, as you can see,” Evan said. “She wants it all to be known. She wants to find out what has happened to that baby. She wants to find the woman she is now and bring her here. So you see there’s nothing at all you can do to trouble her any longer.”

  “But then—then her daughter won’t inherit. And the other one will. How can she want that?”

  “It’s exactly what she wants. The girl who should inherit Lawrence Rhodes’ fortune is Alice’s and John’s daughter—Anabel Rhodes. We’re going to find her and see that justice is done, even though it’s pretty late in the day. Do you understand now, Olive?”

 
“But what about the police when they find out?”

  “Someone has to bring charges, but I don’t think John Rhodes will at this late date. Not against his sister-in-law.”

  “What about this girl, if you find her?”

  “She’ll probably be delighted to have a fortune fall into her lap. She’s unlikely to cause any trouble.”

  Words were tumbling around in my mind, but I couldn’t speak any of them.

  Olive sat in the heap she’d fallen into, turning her head from side to side in bewilderment. “I don’t understand— I don’t understand at all.”

  “You will if you make one more move against Mrs. Rhodes. And there’s another thing you can answer me. Have you been writing anonymous letters to the house?”

  “Letters? Why would I write letters? I’ve been phoning ever since I got to town.”

  “I see.” Evan turned back to me. “Would you like to ask Olive any questions, Miss Marsh? Perhaps you’ll want to set down a few details about what happened more than twenty-five years ago.”

  My own legs were not too certain under me, but I managed to stay on them as I shook my head. “No, I haven’t any questions.” This wasn’t true, but I couldn’t ask them now—not with Evan listening.

  We left her humped where she was and returned to Evan’s car.

  “Judith won’t have any more trouble with her,” he said as we got in.

  “Does that mean it’s only a bluff and that Judith isn’t going through with this plan?”

  “She has to go through with it in order to stop Stacia.”

  As he started the car I looked around carefully, noting the number of the house, noting the street sign when we pulled away. Because there was one thing I knew out of all my confusion—that I would come back to this place, that I would return alone to talk with Olive Asher. As we drove toward the highway, I found that my mouth was dry so that it was hard to form words.

  “Why are you mixing into all this,” I asked at last.

  “I’d like to see the house kept in Herndon’s hands. For Judith’s sake.”

  “How can you want to help her when she’s done this vicious thing?”

  “How can you know the circumstances? How do you know it was vicious? What if it was for the child’s own safety?”

  “So that’s what she told you? How can you believe anything she says under the circumstances? Stacia—” Now that my words had started, they were pouring out without control, but Evan broke in.

  “I can’t regard Stacia as a sympathetic authority on Judith. And you are hardly an authority at all,” he said coldly.

  “Because she has you all hypnotized—you and Herndon and even John!”

  His sidelong look was more puzzled than angry. “Why are you so upset about this, Courtney? Why have you set yourself against Judith?”

  I sank back in the front seat, trying to get myself in hand. “How do you know this imaginary heiress won’t sell the house herself?” I managed to ask.

  “In that case, it’s likely that she’ll sell it to Judith and Herndon—out of gratitude. Where Stacia only wants to injure.”

  “Anyway,” I said dully, “you haven’t found this woman yet.”

  I must have sounded odd, because he gave me another quick look. “No, that’s truth. But just going to the authorities with the facts will cause any payment to Stacia to be postponed. That will give us time to find Anabel Rhodes. Even if she’s using another name, it shouldn’t be difficult once we put someone on the trail.”

  I could think of nothing more to say, and we were silent most of the way back to The Shingles. Not until we had turned into Ethan Lane did Evan speak again.

  “It will be up to you, of course, Courtney, as to how much of this you want to publish. Judith says you must be given the choice, but mainly you were a threat to hold over Olive Asher’s head. Even though Judith means to go to the authorities, it will be hard for her if you write it all up in print.”

  “I can see that she’ll hope I won’t publish what I’ve just learned,” I said dryly.

  “I think Judith has suffered enough.” His tone was quiet and reproving. “She’s carried a load of guilt all these years. Nevertheless, she’s putting no restrictions upon you. You can do as you please. Judith says she doesn’t care any more.”

  “I don’t know if she could ever suffer enough for what she did,” I said.

  “That’s a harsh judgment.”

  “I was thinking of the child. Taken from her parents, given to strangers—”

  “Alice was dead, and the child was only two months old. I’m not condoning what Judith did, but I don’t think she should go on paying for it forever.”

  “I don’t think you know anything about it.”

  “At least I know when I’ve trodden on a sensitive nerve—even though I don’t understand why you’re taking offense.”

  I knew I must be careful, lest I blurt out more than I wanted him to know. There was still a choice left to me—the choice of flight.

  “Why did she do it?” I asked. “Why would Judith do such a thing?”

  “I’m not altogether sure, since this is a question she won’t answer, except in hints. There’s the obvious reason, of course—that she knew she was going to have Herndon’s baby and she wanted her child to inherit. But I have a feeling there was more to it than that. Something more complex.”

  Evan was no different from other men. Judith could put her spell on all of them, make them believe what she wanted them to believe.

  “What will Herndon say?”

  “He’ll be upset, but he’ll back Judith in the end. He always has.”

  “Then why did she come to you for help instead of going to her husband?”

  “I’ve told you that. It’s not going to be an easy thing to tell Herndon. And I’ve been close to Stacia. I know her. Her reaction is likely to be violent, and I need to be prepared.”

  I moved away from the thought of Stacia’s violence. “What about John’s reaction—since it was his child she smuggled away?”

  “That’s a question I can’t answer.”

  “Isn’t the biggest unknown quantity the girl you haven’t found? What if she doesn’t want to be an heiress?”

  “That’s unlikely, don’t you think? In any case, she won’t have much to say about it, once the law takes over.”

  “Why should she inherit instead of Stacia?”

  “That has to do with the wording of the will, I understand.”

  We had reached the house, and afternoon shadows were lengthening. I felt increasingly cold—cold and a little sick—and my leg was aching. When Evan stopped the car, I sat for a few minutes without moving. What if I should tell him the whole thing right now? But I shrank from so irrevocable a step. As long as he and Judith didn’t know, I could play for time—find out what I must do.

  He didn’t open the car door at once, and I became aware that he was looking at me strangely, as he’d done once or twice this afternoon, and the harshness he so often showed me was gone.

  “What’s troubling you, Courtney?”

  “I—I don’t know. I don’t even know who I am any more, or what I want. Though I’m sick of people who think they have to search for an identity, and I don’t want to be one of those. By the time a woman is twenty-five she ought to know enough about herself to be sure of what she wants.”

  “Not necessarily.” Evan’s tone was not unkind. “Maturing can be a long process.”

  I looked at him—straight at him. Into dark eyes that so often concealed what he was thinking and turned a defensive shield toward the world. Had his years with Stacia given him that look?

  “Was it a long process for you?” I asked.

  There seemed a difference in him that was almost a gentling as his eyes met my own.

  “Some people are forced to it when the
y’re very young,” he said.

  I nodded. “I’m still trying. Sometimes when you’re on a treadmill you don’t even know it. Until you tumble off. Then you can get badly bruised.”

  “What do you think you want from life, Courtney Marsh?”

  The simple words carried an unexpected tenderness of tone, as though he had come out of all that remoteness that was his usual state, and was reaching toward me in a human way. I found the change both comforting and a little frightening. Frightening because of my own inner response and a desire to reach out to him that might be dangerous. Along that path lay rapids.

  “I don’t know what I want any more,” I told him. “It’s just that everything I was doing in New York suddenly became meaningless. I’d always known that a lot of it was artificial, but somehow I never got a real look at what I was becoming until the night of that Winser talk show. Then I didn’t like what I saw. Now I don’t know what I can put in its place.”

  “You’re on the road to finding out, I think.” He touched my hand—a light, reassuring touch, and I was all too aware of him close beside me. What would happen if I turned my own hand and clung to his? I had never needed anyone to hold onto before, but I did now. Yet there was nothing that could be said between us and I was silent, neither turning my hand nor drawing it away.

  “We’ll talk again, Courtney,” he said, and I heard the promise in his words. The time was not ripe for either of us. Whatever current had leapt so unexpectedly between us had come too soon, and I think in that moment we both drew back. We were still capable of caution. Something had happened—and we knew that too—but we both stepped back.

  “Thanks for coming with me,” he said quietly. “Judith will be grateful. Don’t judge her too harshly, Courtney.”

  He left the car and came around to open my door, and as I got out Tudor growled. Evan spoke to him and he subsided, but I gave the kennel a wide berth as we moved toward the house. When Evan started up the steps, I left, almost in flight, and walked around to the front terrace. To go inside, to face any of them right now was the last thing I wanted. On the terrace I ran toward the steps and hurried down—hurried so that no one could stop me, or even speak to me.