Lost Island

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “That stone was loose,” I said, touching it with my hand. “Now it’s perfectly secure.”

  “I’ve no doubt,” he said. “Perhaps you got up early to take care of it?”

  I rose to my feet and faced him indignantly. “I came down to make sure of what I thought I had discovered last night.”

  “And to make sure that no one else would find the stone loose—is that it?”

  His disbelief was frightening. More frightening than Floria’s reckless words.

  “Who stood most to win by Elise’s death?” he demanded coldly.

  I took a deep breath of the ocean-borne air. “You’re leaping to a conclusion. How could I have known that Elise meant to come down to the beach last night? How could I have known she meant to go across this place in the wall?”

  He was silent, still watching me, his eyes dark with ugly suspicion.

  “I doubt that anyone knew she was going to indulge this whim,” I said. “Except you, perhaps. But someone knew that I meant to meet Giles on the beach. Someone knew in time to come down here and loosen that stone. Anyone who stepped upon it confidently would have been thrown across the rocks. It was meant for that to happen to me. Not to Elise. It was sheer chance that brought her down here first, in my place. That’s why I came this morning to examine the stone. I wanted to see what had been intended for me. But someone has already mended the damage. You can see the small stones that have been wedged under the big one to hold it solid.”

  Hadley Rikers bent to examine where I pointed. He tested the big stone himself, and I hoped he was beginning to believe me. Then something on the sand caught his eyes, and he reached out to pick up the small golden crown Elise had worn last night. Its make-believe gems winked emerald and ruby in the morning light, and he ran it around his fingers several times before he laid it almost ceremoniously upon the scarlet cloak.

  “The end of Camelot,” he said.

  For a moment I felt drawn to him in unexpected pity. I did not think he would suffer for long, but in this instant the pain of Elise’s loss had stabbed through him.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked him. “How did you get here?”

  He waved an arm toward the small motorboat drawn up on the beach some distance along. I had not seen it, had not troubled to look that way until now. All my attention had been given to the rocky wall. But I had heard no sound of a boat coming in and I did not know how long he had been about, watching me.

  “I wanted to see for myself the place where she fell,” he said. “She told me once or twice that she was afraid that someone might try to injure her. She was afraid of Giles, even though she went out of her way to anger him.”

  My brief pity for him vanished. “Giles wouldn’t have loosened a stone for her to step on!” I cried. “That’s ridiculous!”

  “Until I saw your interest in that rock, I’d thought of something more direct,” Hadley said. “In fact, I think it’s more likely that she was given a rough, direct push from behind.”

  I remembered that he had been present last night when Floria had burst out with her accusation.

  “But you can’t really think—” I began.

  He broke in on my words. “That you pushed her? No, I don’t. There’s a more likely possibility. After all, we have only your word for it that Giles was far down the beach, and nowhere near the wall at the time she fell. Of course you would lie to save him if it was necessary. You might easily invent a loose stone. That would be very neat, wouldn’t it? Especially if you came down here early this morning when no one was up, and made sure that a stone was loose. The only trouble is that I found you too soon. And now I can swear that every stone in that wall is solid, and there was nothing to throw her off balance.”

  I could only stare at him in disbelief. “You’re making every bit of this up. You haven’t a particle of evidence—”

  He caught me by the wrist, silencing me. “I have the evidence of your being here. I have the knowledge that you would try to save Giles if you possibly could.”

  “But there’s Floria!” I protested. “Floria and Paul. They reached the wall soon after I did.”

  “So you claim,” Hadley said. “Giles could have been well away by then, and Floria would prefer to blame you.”

  I put my free hand on his arm. “Oh, please!” I cried. “The truth is such a simple thing. No one has been trying to injure Elise, but someone has tried again and again to hurt me. I’ve thought all along that it was Elise doing these things. Elise trying to punish me because Giles—”

  “What did she care about Giles?” he demanded angrily.

  “She wouldn’t divorce him to marry you,” I said.

  “We hadn’t got to the point of talking marriage. I’m not sure I’m the marrying kind. But I know how Elise felt—about me.”

  What he believed was what Elise had wanted him to believe.

  “What do you mean to do with this wild story of yours?” I asked.

  He let my wrist drop. “I haven’t decided yet.”

  I tried again to urge the truth upon him. “You’ve got to see that what you claim isn’t what really happened! If you want to find out what happened, then you’ll need to be open-minded. Perhaps you’ll need to help me.”

  “Help you?”

  “Help me find out who loosened that stone so that I might be badly hurt when I came over the wall last night. The same person who came down here later and wedged it solid again.”

  He shook his head, not believing me, and turned away. I watched as he went striding along the beach toward his boat. I watched as he shoved it into the water, got into it and started the motor. Not until he had roared away toward the entrance to Malvern River, did I start over the wall. That was when something caught my eye—something which stuck to a rock, dangling like a bit of seaweed. But it was not seaweed. Nor was it Spanish moss.

  I bent and pulled the gray strands loose from a crevice of rock where they had lodged. What I held in my hand was Merlin’s beard.

  The thing looked somehow ghastly in the early morning light—a bit of gray and evil magic left over from the time of darkness last night. So Floria had been here, wearing her black costume, losing the beard on a spike of rock, not being able to find it among other shadows in the dark.

  Or had it been Floria? She had left her Merlin things in a heap on a chair in the library. Anyone could have picked them up by way of a disguise and worn them to the beach. Whoever had put them on must be the one who had come back to make solid a stone that was loosened earlier last night.

  The strands of gray clung to my fingers, and I ripped them away, rolled the beard into a wad and thrust it into a pocket of my slacks. Then I started back toward the house, leaving the scarlet cloak and golden circlet behind to play their last masquerade on the beach.

  If Elise were alive I would have thought this sort of prank typical of her. But she had not loosened the stone that brought about her own death. Even if she had thrust that sand dollar into my napkin at the time of my last visit, even if she had closed the door of the freezing room upon me, even if she had hidden the less valuable brooch among the things in my room, and managed to shove a loose piece of masonry over upon me at the ruins of the hospital—even if she had done all these things, she had not done this. So now I must look elsewhere for someone who wished me harm. And in looking elsewhere, perhaps I would find—not Elise, but the author of all these other threats as well.

  My feet were slow upon the path as I followed it toward Sea Oaks. I did not want to look into island faces, seeking for evil. Who could dislike me so much that my injury or death was intended?

  The colors of dawn had faded by the time I went around to the front of the house, and the morning sun was up, touching everything with a warm and innocent light. As I started toward the steps, someone came from the path that led by way of the burying ground toward The Bitterns. It was Paul Courtney. He looked as though he had slept as little as I, and apparently he had not gone home to Malvern at all last
night.

  “Have you seen Floria?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “Is she supposed to be here? Perhaps she’s inside.”

  “She must have left the house before I was up,” he said. “I’m worried about her.”

  I reached into my pocket and drew out the gray strands of Merlin’s beard. “I found this clinging to a rock down on the sea wall,” I told him.

  He regarded the thing in my hand warily, as if it were something he had never seen before.

  “Hadley Rikers was on the beach,” I went on. “He said he wanted to have a look at the place where Elise fell. He thinks Giles was to blame and that I was lying when I said he was far down the beach when I found Elise.”

  “You’d lie for Giles if you had to,” Paul said, still wary.

  “But I’m not lying. And it would be dreadful if Hadley Rikers tried to make trouble for Giles.”

  “He won’t,” Paul said. “He’ll want to keep out of trouble himself.”

  His words reassured me only a little. Hadley Rikers would be in character as a troublemaker. I knew that from reading his book. But there was nothing I could do about him now.

  I looked up at the house from my place at the foot of the steps. I let my eyes follow the long, lovely lines of fluted columns, gleaming white in early morning beauty, and the impact of knowing Elise was gone struck me again.

  “I keep expecting her to come out the door,” I said. “I keep expecting her to come down the steps. I can almost hear her laughing.”

  “I know,” Paul said dully. “There’s a sense of unreality about everything that happened last night.”

  “I do believe,” said a gently mocking voice above us, “that you are both hypocrites.”

  Charles Severn had stepped out from behind a pillar. His hands rested on the balustrade that rimmed the portico as he looked calmly down upon us. When we both stared up at him in astonishment, he came toward us down the right-hand steps. He was as neatly dressed as though he meant to go to the office, and he did not look in the least ravaged by the events of the night before, as both Paul and I did. When he reached our level he spoke to me directly.

  “Do you mean to tell me, Lacey, that you miss Elise? Do you mean to tell me that you grieve for her?”

  He was asking me for honesty, and I tried to shred away half-understood emotions and give it to him.

  “I keep remembering her as a little girl—when I was a little girl. I admired her then, wanted to be like her. During the last few days perhaps I’ve hated her. With part of me I can’t wish her alive again. Yet I can grieve for something that was needlessly lost and wasted.”

  “Lost a long time ago.” He smiled at me benignly. “That’s honest, at least. We need to clear the air after the turbulence of last night.”

  He turned questioningly to Paul, who looked at Charles as though he had not really seen him for a long while, as though he had not troubled to look at him closely. Looking now, he was forced to some answer.

  “I was dancing with her only last night,” Paul said.

  “And forgetting Floria?” Charles asked in the same gentle manner that nevertheless cut deep.

  “I don’t ever forget Floria,” Paul said, suddenly angry.

  “Then you should be glad that something utterly evil has stopped living. I am glad.”

  Charles would have gone past us, leaving us to our astonishment, but he saw what I held in my hand, and reached out to touch the gray strands.

  “Merlin’s beard. So you found it. Where did she lose it, Lacey?”

  “She?” I repeated. “Who do you mean?”

  “Floria, of course. I saw her come into the house last night before the police arrived, wearing her black costume. But the beard was missing. Where were you, Paul?”

  Paul seemed to hesitate, as if he might be trying to recall hazy details from a night of confusion. “I went looking for her. When I found her near the house she wasn’t wearing the beard. Perhaps she never put it on at all.”

  “But why would she go out in costume at that hour?” I said.

  “What else had she to wear? She couldn’t run about outside looking for Richard in her long dress. And she must have changed her mind about putting on something that belonged to Elise.”

  Charles listened, still smiling gently, as though this were an ordinary conversation which rather amused him.

  “How is Aunt Amalie?” I asked him.

  “She’s asleep,” he said. “I persuaded her to take a pill last night. If it weren’t for her shock over Elise’s death, if it weren’t for what Richard is going to feel, I would be quite content this morning. What has happened will be a load off Amalie’s shoulders as well.”

  We watched in stunned silence as he turned away and followed the shell drive between the great trunks of the live oaks, walking along in as leisurely a manner as though he took one of his usual after-dinner strolls.

  I looked after him dazedly. “I’ve known Charles all my life, yet I’d never have suspected that he could say such things.”

  “Charles has always looked after Charles,” Paul said wryly. “Sometimes I feel a little sorry for Amalie.”

  “Aunt Amalie has found what she always wanted,” I reminded him, repeating the phrase that everyone used.

  Paul shrugged. “Elise told me he married her mother for comfort, not for love. But then—Elise never liked Charles, any more than he liked her. If he hadn’t been Giles’s father, she would never have stood for him living in the same house.”

  Once more I looked up at soaring pillars. “At least it’s his house again. Elise always tried to make it hers.”

  Paul moved impatiently, as though tiring of our talk. “Sometimes I forget that it’s his house. Let’s go inside, Lacey. I want to look for Floria.”

  We climbed the steps together and stepped into the wide main hall. Sunlight could not reach into its depth, and it still looked empty and deserted. Scarlet and gold banners were a mockery this morning.

  “I think there will never be another Camelot ball,” I murmured. “All that belongs to a dream world. Just as the island itself is part of some sort of dream. I wish I could wake up.”

  “I wish we all could,” Paul said. He crossed the hall beside me with so firm a step that I felt he was bracing himself against something. Perhaps against the memory of Elise.

  Sounds came from the parlor—Vinnie’s voice.

  “Let me do that, Miss Floria. Whyn’t you lie down there on the couch till breakfast time? You look awful this morning.”

  Floria and Vinnie were emptying ash trays, picking up glasses, straightening the room. They both looked around as we came in, and Vinnie said, “Good morning,” to us each in turn. Floria dumped the contents of an ash tray into a plastic container and turned her back on us.

  “You might have let me know you were coming over here,” Paul said.

  Floria did not glance his way. “I looked in on you, and you were sound asleep. I thought you’d prefer to rest. I couldn’t sleep and I felt I might be useful over here.”

  Vinnie picked up a tray filled with glasses and started toward the door. “I’ll go get breakfast started. Looks like everybody’s going to be early this morning. Mr. Charles is already up.”

  When Vinnie had gone, Paul went to Floria, took an ash tray out of her hands and set it aside. Then he turned her toward the light that fell through one tall French door.

  “Elise is dead,” he said. “Perhaps it’s a good thing. Charles thinks so. Maybe we’d better be as honest. Even though you were her sister, you never knew half what I knew about her. You never knew—”

  “Oh, yes I did!” Floria cried. “I knew she had you hypnotized, for one thing. I knew—”

  I did not want to listen. Whatever she had to say lay between her and Paul, and I left them to hurry across the hall. From upstairs came the sound of a door opening. I went to the foot of the stairs and looked up as Giles came out of his room. He wore a maroon-colored robe, and he had showered, so that hi
s hair lay damply back from his forehead.

  At the same moment Richard came running along the upstairs hall from the direction of Elise’s room, still in his pajamas.

  “Where is she?” he demanded of his father. “I’ve thought of something I have to ask her, but she’s not in her room, and her bed hasn’t been slept in. Was she really sick last night? Was that why Dr. Lane came—to send her away to the hospital?”

  Giles went to his son and picked him up in his arms. “We’ll have to talk about that. Let’s go into my room and talk about it now.”

  I watched them disappear in the direction of Giles’s room. My legs were uncertain under me and I let myself slide down along a baluster until I was sitting on the bottom step. The air seemed suddenly cold and I put both arms around my body and tried to hold myself still. Vinnie came into the hall and saw me there. In a moment she had gone to the coat rack near the door and pulled a jacket from a hook. She flung it around my shoulders and buttoned the top button under my chin. It was something she had done for me often as a child, and I accepted her kindly touch with gratitude.

  “Richard is with his father,” I said. “Giles is telling him now.”

  Vinnie stepped back to look at me. “Then I reckon you got to be brave, Miss Lacey. He’s a tough little boy. More than you’d think. Sometimes kids come through better than grown-ups do. So don’t you go all to pieces now.”

  “Thank you, Vinnie. Perhaps I’m a coward. I’m glad I don’t have to tell him.”

  “Me neither,” Vinnie agreed and went back to the business of getting breakfast.

  Floria and Paul came out of the parlor looking thoroughly unstrung, and saw me sitting there.

  I spoke before either could ask a question. “Giles is talking to Richard.”

  Floria stiffened. “Well—it has to be done.”

  “Floria,” I said, “don’t tell Richard that horrible accusation you made against me last night. Will you promise me that, at least?”

  She stared at me, her expression stony with distrust.

  Paul spoke to her curtly. “Give her your promise. Your mother would ask you the same thing.”