by Unknown
Charleroy did not answer; this was his method when he did not wish to talk. Stopping for a light, Leon turned to look back at him, a dark, emaciated young man with hollow cheeks, a mouth like a Brownie’s, from ear to ear. He smiled, and Charleroy looked at him in gloomy silence.
Charleroy was thinking, “I’ve got to find out where Julia was, who that man was. The fellow may be going around, talking. . . . I could find out from Sylvie—but she might suspect something. I’m sure she’d suspect something if I called her up, asked her questions. Never called her up in my life. No. Julia will have to ask her for the fellow’s name. . . . But I don’t like that, either. All this petty intrigue . . .”
“Helen could handle this,” he thought. But Helen was not to be disturbed. She was not to know about Julia, not to see Julia with a black eye. “I’m worried,” he told himself angrily. But he would not say to himself that it was something more than worry.
He had been to the Park Vista Hotel before; two or three times in the past to bring the children home from their music lessons; once to bring Miss Ewing home to a Thanksgiving dinner. The lounge looked familiar to him, rumpled chintz covers on the chairs, everything shabby and not very clean, but, he thought, cheerful.
He had never before been above the main floor, and he had expected to wait in this lounge for Miss Ewing. But she pushed him gently into an old grillwork elevator; they ascended to the fourth floor and got out into a corridor with green walls and a green carpet, and a peculiar airless smell.
Miss Ewing went before him and opened a door with a key. “Here’s my little domain, Mr. Charleroy!” she said.
It was a big room with a high ceiling, green paint peeling off the walls, a mantelpiece upon which stood two tall, red-glass vases filled with somber leaves and, at one end, a brown curtain drawn across an alcove.
“Excuse me just a moment!” said Miss Ewing, and disappeared behind the curtain.
It occurred to Charleroy that possibly Miss Ewing’s life was not quite so cozy as he had thought. He knew that she was not at all well-to-do; he and Helen were always recommending her to people as an excellent music teacher and, above all, as a fine woman. They had tried to help her in other ways, too: a check at Christmas time, a handsome payment for the three or four times she had come to look after the children and the house. But he had thought of her, all these years, as living in this hotel in a cheerful and comfortable fashion. “Not like this,” he thought. “This is sordid,” he thought.
• • •
Miss Ewing came out from behind the curtain now in a dark-brown dress with a little white collar; her pale-brown hair curled up wildly from her weather-beaten face. From a table she took up a tooled leather box and proffered it to him. There were four cork-tipped cigarettes in it, and he took one, out of politeness.
“I’ll have one, too!” she said, and he lit it for her.
“How is Mrs. Charleroy?” she asked.
“Oh, doing very well, the doctor says. Very well.”
“If there’s anything I can do for her—” said Miss Ewing. “But I’m sure she knows how glad I’d be.”
“She does,” said Charleroy, drawing on the cigarette, which was dry as hay. It must have been in the box a very long time. “I appreciate your going out to Meadowsweet with Julia, Miss Ewing.”
“I’m glad to go, Mr. Charleroy. I think it’s a very serious situation. It happens so often.”
“Don’t understand you,” said Charleroy.
“They forget,” said Miss Ewing. “They forget names. They forget where they’ve been.”
“Who forgets?”
“Those poor girls who’ve been given goof balls.”
“Goof balls? Never heard of goof balls,” said Charleroy briefly. “What are they?”
“Barbiturates. Like sleeping pills, only stronger,” said Miss Ewing ominously.
“Nonsense. Julia would never think of taking—”
“I know that, Mr. Charleroy. I know that. But they could have been slipped to her!”
“But Ivan and Sylvie were there, plenty of people around, waiters, and so on.”
“Waiters are often in cahoots with those men,” said Miss Ewing.
“What men?” asked Charleroy, unable to conceal his irritation. “No. It’s simply a question of taking one drink too many. You were there last night—”
“My Jewel wouldn’t do that,” said Miss Ewing. “She was only eight years old when she first came to me, and I made a study of her. Mr. Charleroy, you don’t know how much of this drugging is going on.”
“Yes, yes!” said Charleroy. “But in Julia’s case—”
“Mr. Charleroy, I personally know of two girls—American girls in Europe—who were drugged. One of them, a beautiful girl, was missing for two days, and to this moment she can’t remember one single thing about where she’d been or what happened. Then later this man appeared and began to blackmail her.”
“Yes, yes,” said Charleroy, and glanced at his watch. “I’m afraid we’d better be going, Miss Ewing.”
“Mr. Charleroy,” she said, with a passionate earnestness, “you can count on me to the last ditch.”
“I’m sure of it, Miss Ewing,” he said. “I appreciate it.”
And that was true. “If the poor old girl wants to make up a sort of movie story out of the thing,” he thought, “let her. Makes her happy, and it doesn’t hurt anyone else.”
“You’d better take some money,” he said, and got some bills out of his wallet. “Might need something. I’ll mail you a check tonight.”
“Thank you,” said Miss Ewing. “You can trust me to look after our Jewel.”
• • •
Leon was waiting for them outside the hotel.
“Tell you what,” said Charleroy. “When we get to the house, Miss Ewing will wait in the cab until my daughter comes out. Then I want you to drive them out to Meadowsweet. You can call me up later, let me know what I owe you.”
“I’ll do that, Mr. Charleroy,” said Leon.
Charleroy felt somewhat better about things. He had two faithful retainers on the job now, two people to respect, cherish, and shelter Julia. He used his latchkey to enter the house on Eleventh Street, and he hoped he would not meet the housemaid. He mounted the stairs as lightly as he could and knocked at Julia’s door.
“Me,” he said in a muffled voice, and Julia opened the door at once.
When he saw her, all the pain, the dread, the shocked astonishment of last night came back to him. She was dressed with her usual expensive correctness, in a tailored gray suit, a pale-blue blouse; she stood tall, straight as an arrow, her dark hair neat, close to her head. But the black eye made her look forlorn, battered; she was not the cherished young creature he wished to believe her, entirely beyond the reach of ugly misfortune. She had been hurt, and she was vulnerable.
“Better wear your dark glasses,” he said.
Without a word she went to the chest of drawers and got out a pair of sunglasses with white rims; she put on a gray felt hat, and beneath it her face looked thin, even gaunt.
“As soon as you get out to Meadowsweet,” he said, “call Dr. Pugh and get him to take a look at your eye.”
“Yes, I will, Father,” she said. “Father, I’m sorry.”
His throat contracted; he gave a short cough. “Well . . .” he said. “You must be more careful in the future.” . . .
He entered the office like a sultan, generous, but dangerous. A man of moods, his secretary called him to her friends.
“Get me Meadowsweet, will you?” he asked her. “I want to speak to Mrs. Brady.”
He sat down before his enormous, gleaming desk in blank silence.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Charleroy,” said Miss Peters, “but Meadowsweet doesn’t answer.”
“Oh, thanks,” he said. “It doesn’t matter.”
&
nbsp; But it did matter. Throughout the cold months the Bradys were caretakers at Meadowsweet; in the summer Mrs. Brady became a cook-housekeeper and her husband a gardener; they were fine people. He had wanted to tell Mrs. Brady that Miss Julia was on her way out; make her comfortable; look after her. But, he told himself, it was quite reasonable to expect that, at this hour of the morning, Mrs. Brady had gone into the village to market and that her husband would be out, looking after the chickens, or something of the sort. “They’ll be there when Julia arrives,” he thought, “and she’s got Miss Ewing. She’ll be all right.”
He now turned his attention to the mail Miss Peters had sorted for him, but there was nothing in it that interested him enough to relieve his black oppression. Unfortunately, he suddenly remembered Miss Ewing’s talk about “goof balls.” “Nonsense!” he told himself angrily. He had never paid too much attention to Miss Ewing’s anecdotes, most of them to do with her adventures in Europe just after the first World War, and certainly he was not going to begin now to take them seriously.
But, later in the day, in the middle of a talk with a new and not too important advertiser, he suddenly remembered the tale of the American girl, tall and beautiful, who had disappeared for two days, and never knew where she had been.
“First thing is to get Julia away,” he thought. “So that Helen won’t be asking to see her. Then the next thing is to get hold of this fellow, find out all about him. He’s a friend of Sylvie’s and Ivan’s; they’ll be able to tell me all I want to know. Then I’ll look him up, have a talk with him, size him up. No. I’m not worried.”
But he could not deny the sense of urgency, of irritable haste that filled him. He rang up the Wall Street office where Ivan worked, and he was angry to learn that Ivan was out. He tried again in the afternoon, and got the same answer. “Very well; this evening, then,” he thought. . . .
• • •
At five o’clock Leon drove him uptown to the hospital, and he went into Helen’s room. There was a nurse there, a big, clumsy woman, and she did not go away.
“I’m much better, Carrol,” Helen said.
He noticed that she had put on lipstick, and that worried him. Women did those things, he thought, to make themselves look better than they were.
“Helen—?” he said.
She held out her hand to him, a thin hand, but beautifully kept; colorless nail polish.
“Carrol,” she said, with a drowsy smile. “I’ll be home in a few days. Don’t worry about anything, dear. I’ll be back.”
He held her hand tight. “Yes,” he said. “Yes. Everything’s all right, Helen. Take it easy, Helen.”
Their hands clasped tight, these two who had together known love and birth and death, war that had struck twice, the anguish of seeing their sons leave, the scarcely lesser anguish of seeing their older daughter, Margaret, so gentle and bemused, marry an Englishman and go off to make her life in exile.
Then the cross, awkward nurse moved forward, and Charleroy withdrew his hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Helen,” he said. . . .
Instead of using his latchkey, he rang the bell, because he wanted someone to speak to him when he entered that silent house.
“Uncle Carrol!” said a resonant voice.
It was Ivan Barlow, husband of his niece Sylvie, a dark, handsome blue-jowled young fellow, very serious.
“I was down at the trust company all day,” he explained. “When I got back to the office they told me you’d called. I tried to call you back, but you’d just left. So I thought I’d better stop by on my way home.”
“Yes, yes,” said Charleroy. He had meant to make his inquiries casual, very casual; he did not want it to be this way. “Nothing of any importance,” he said.
“I wanted to see you, anyway,” said Ivan in his serious fashion. “Sylvie and I talked it over, and we both felt that we were more or less to blame.”
“For what?”
“Well, we could see that she wasn’t herself.”
“What are you talking about?” Charleroy demanded, so roughly that Ivan dropped his eyes for a moment. Then he looked up, with a clear and candid gaze.
“Sylvie and I were very much upset,” he said, “when Julia disappeared with that fellow.”
“What fellow?”
“I wish to heaven I could remember,” said Ivan, distressed. “I’m pretty sure his name is Winter, but I can’t remember who the devil he is, or where I met him. And Sylvie says she never saw him before. I noticed him standing in the doorway, and he seemed to recognize me, so I beckoned to him to come over to our table. To tell you the truth, I wanted a chance to talk to Sylvie about Julia, about what we’d better do—”
“Yes, yes! Go on.”
• • •
“Sylvie and I got up to dance. We were talking, and we didn’t notice them go out. We sat down again and waited, and after a while I went to look in the bar and the lobby. After half an hour more Sylvie went to call you up to see if Julia’d come home.”
“She came in a little later,” said Charleroy. “Winter, you say the fellow’s name is?”
“I’m pretty sure of that, but I can’t remember where—”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Charleroy. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Sylvie and I were worried,” the earnest Ivan said again. “I called up Julia this morning, and the maid said she’d gone away.”
“She took Miss Ewing away for a little rest,” said Charleroy. “Nothing to worry about.” He took a step forward, obliging Ivan to retire backward a little down the hall. “Very good of you to stop in,” he said. “Give my love to Sylvie. And don’t worry about Julia. Not now, or any other time. Julia’s all right.”
He advanced another step, and Ivan, slightly disconcerted, again retreated and reached behind him for the doorknob.
“Aunt Helen?” he began.
“Doing very well!” said Charleroy heartily. “Good night, m’boy!”
“Good night, Uncle Carrol,” said Ivan, and opened the door.
The wind streamed in, cold against Charleroy’s face; then the door closed. And, standing there in the hall of the silent house, he had a moment of desperation. If Ivan and Sylvie don’t know who the fellow is, he thought, then what?
It was his conviction that there was always something to be done in any emergency. He thought for a moment; then he went to the telephone directory and looked up the Winters. There were plenty of them, and nothing in their addresses, first names, or occupations gave him any clue, or any inspiration. He thought again; then he dialed the St. Pol.
“I want to speak to a Mr. Winter who’s staying in the hotel,” he said.
There was no Mr. Winter in the hotel.
“See if he checked out yesterday, will you?”
No Mr. Winters had checked out yesterday, or the day before.
“Thank you,” said Charleroy.
He sat with his head bent, his eyes fixed upon his glossy shoes. He began to remember Miss Ewing’s stories, which he had, in the beginning, dismissed as pure romancing. Now, however, they were vivid to him; he could imagine variations. This fellow Winter might easily trace Julia. He might follow her out to Meadowsweet. He might try to blackmail her. He might be there now!
Anger began to rise in him. “I’ll get to the bottom of this!” he cried to himself.
He decided to call up Leon.
“There’s a business matter that’s just come up,” said Charleroy. “Paper, for my daughter to sign. I’ll have to run out to Meadowsweet with it.”
“Okay, Mr. Charleroy. Will I come early tomorrow?”
“I’ll have to go tonight,” said Charleroy.
“Tonight?” said Leon, and was silent for a moment, perhaps rearranging his own unimaginable life. “Okay. Mr. Charleroy.”
“In an hour and a half,” said Charleroy.
• • •
He ate his dinner without interest; he told Nora the tale about the paper to be signed, he made sure that she had the Meadowsweet telephone number. Then, for some reason which he did not trouble to examine, it seemed to him incorrect to leave without taking a bag. He brought a suitcase out of his closet; in it he put pajamas, clean shirt and socks, a razor, and a toothbrush, and carried it downstairs.
In his overcoat and hat, he stood in the open doorway, and it was strange to be going like this, nobody saying good-by to him, nobody expecting him anywhere. There was a wild wind blowing and the street was empty; now and then a car went by, but there was no one on foot. The taxi, when it came, looked fantastic, tinselly, with a red light, a green light, yellow lights.
He went down the steps, holding his hat.
“It’s a mean night,” Leon said.
“Very,” said Charleroy.
“Still,” said Leon, “we can make good time, a night like this. We can get out there by eleven, if we get the breaks.”
Charleroy lit a cigar and leaned back. He felt like talking to Leon tonight, and he did talk, about politics, about taxes, about Russia, as they drove through the city and out onto a highway.
He dozed a little, and when he waked, the country was familiar, the gentle sweep of the dark hills, the empty fields, the bare trees rocking stiffly against the pallid sky. “Nearly there,” he thought, and fear stirred in him again. Suppose he found Julia ill?
Now they were turning into the lane, and in a moment he would see the lights of the house. If there were any lights. But the Bradys always went to bed very early, and very likely Julia and Miss Ewing had done so, too. “Perhaps I should have telephoned,” he thought. “But no; it’s better this way. I’ll see for myself . . .”
There was a crash that flung Charleroy down on his knees; his head banged against the wall. He thought that he was sliding down a long chute, horribly fast . . .
“Mr. Charleroy! Mr. Charleroy! Are you all right?”
“Yes,” said Charleroy. “What happened?”
“I dunno,” said Leon, with a sob. “I ran smack into this car here that’s parked without no lights.”