Uninvited Guest

by George Harmon Coxe

  “What’s that?”

  “Just that unless the police decide to call Julia’s death accidental and blame it on Sally—”

  “They can’t,” Sally said, tension showing in her voice. “Because I couldn’t have done it. I’ll never believe it and—”

  “I know, darling,” Vivian said. “That’s what I mean. When we rule out the accident what we have left is murder, which seems to mean that one of us is guilty, which also means our friends will have a grand time wondering which one of us did the job. Won’t that be just lovely, watching their faces, trying to find out what they’re thinking—”

  “Oh, stop it!” Farrow’s tone was blunt and irritable.

  “Well, it’s the truth, isn’t it?”

  “Do we have to discuss it now?” Lambert said in his odd tenor voice.

  “There should be some subject less morbid,” Freddie commented.

  “I thought,” said Sally, “that the purpose of this gathering was to relax and have a pleasant drink.” She rose and moved away from the settee. “Wasn’t it, Howard?”

  “What?” Crane glanced round. “Oh, yes. Quite. Yes, consider the subject closed. Any further discussion will be ruled out of order.”

  “Hear, hear,” said Freddie, and giggled.

  All of this sounded forced and unconvincing to Scott. The tension was still there, touching all of them, building again in the silence that followed. If, as seemed likely, one of them was guilty, he knew the tension must be almost unbearable to that person, faced as he was with the task of watching every word and presenting always a show of innocence and unconcern.

  Then they were talking again, Farrow moving over to sit next to Lambert, Crane looking about for drinks to refresh and urging his guests to drink up. Scott moved over and leaned against the railing beside Vivian’s chair. When he asked if he could fix her drink she said no; she was fine, thank you.

  “I understand Tom Waldron was down to see Major Briggs,” she added presently.

  Scott said yes, and explained why Waldron had been summoned.

  “I knew he was rather friendly with Julia last summer,” Vivian said.

  “What else do you know about him?”

  “Very little actually.” She hesitated. “About the only thing I know for sure is that he’s a very good dancer.”

  “You never knew him in New York?”

  “No.”

  “Somehow he doesn’t look much like the retired-businessman type.”

  “No, he doesn’t, does he?”

  “But he has money.”

  “Some.”

  “Not a lot?”

  “I don’t think so. Mark talked to him about the island once on the off chance that he might be interested. I guess he was in a way but when it came to the matter of investing he said his money was pretty well tied up . . . I believe I will let you fix this,” she said and offered her glass.

  Scott fixed a fresh drink and when he came back he asked about the island. She asked if he knew Cat Cay and he said no but he’d read about it.

  “Well, we hope ours will be like that some day. It’s coral, of course, and close to some of the best fishing in the world. We have a jetty up and some boat slips, a sort of marina, with a comfortable camp, and we hope to put up some cottages this summer. . .”

  She went on with her description of the project and Scott listened with part of his mind while the other part strayed in patternless fashion. Freddie had gone over to talk to Sally, and Lambert and Farrow seemed to be arguing on the settee. Then, without warning, there came one of those unexpected and often embarrassing silences that occur from time to time in any social gathering. One instant the air was filled with the buzz of conversation; the next there was only silence, and into this gap there came a statement from Lambert that he was unable to check.

  He did not speak loudly but the silence made it seem so. There was pique in the phrasing of his adolescent-sounding voice and his words were distinct and unmistakable, though the last one faltered as he tried to lower his tone.

  “—never said I would invest.”

  That was what Scott heard and now the silence struck again. Lambert looked round, the darkness hiding his embarrassment. Everyone looked back at him. Scott could almost feel Vivian stiffen in her chair. Then, slowly, she sat up.

  “Sorry,” Farrow said stiffly. “Perhaps I misunderstood you.”

  “It’s all right.” Lambert was still truculent. “It’s just that I don’t like to be badgered.”

  “Badgered?” Vivian waited until she had Lambert’s attention. “Surely not by Mark. He’s not the badgering kind.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lambert said. “It’s just that, well—I haven’t made up my mind.”

  Freddie tried to smooth things over. “I move and second that all business conversation be ruled out of order.”

  “So ordered,” Crane said.

  “We’re all a little nervy,” Freddie continued. “Good God who wouldn’t be? Twenty-four hours ago everything was fine. We were going to Morgan’s for dinner and have a nightcap aboard and then this morning we were going on our cruise. Then she came.”

  “Now you’re out of order,” Crane said. “Look. Let me make a motion. What we need, when we finish our drinks, is some food. A good steak.”

  “Yes,” Vivian said. “But please, not at Morgan s. By now he’ll have the news—he always manages to know everything that happens—and I’m not sure I could face it tonight.”

  “We’ll eat at the Surf Club,” Crane said. “I’ll phone for a table while you’re finishing your drinks. “Let’s see, seven of us, right?”

  “Six,” Scott said. “I have to see a fellow a little later.”

  He had a chance to talk to Sally when Crane went inside. “Still mad at me?” he asked.

  “When was I mad at you?”

  “This afternoon.”

  “I wasn’t mad.”

  “Miffed?”

  “Maybe a little.”

  Her eyes, as she looked up at him, were in shadow but the soft curve of her mouth told him she was no longer annoyed with him. He pressed her hand and let it go. He said he was sorry.

  “I talk too much,” he said. “Also I was jealous. I didn’t mean to be but—”

  “And you’re not any longer?”

  “Well, maybe a little.”

  “Good. Just so it’s only a little. I like it that way. It’s flattering . . . And you really can’t eat with us?”

  Scott said he was sorry and then Lambert came up to ask if she was ready. He was all right now, smiling, affable, attentive. Yet when Scott followed them down the steps he could not help wondering what had happened to this rich young man. Something had changed him; that much was certain. The brief scene with Farrow was proof that something was bothering him but Scott could not tell whether this had come as the natural result of the strain which had been working on all of them or whether the answer lay in something more important

  There was a brief argument when they gathered around the cars as to who was to ride with whom. In the end it was decided that Freddie would drive his car round back and leave it to be picked up later. It was when he turned on his lights and started the motor that Scott noticed the cracked lens with the missing piece. He waited somber-eyed and serious as the ancient car swung out of sight, aware that he had noticed a cracked lens like that before but not knowing just where. As he drove away the impression remained that he had seen that car somewhere the night before. Eventually the answer would come to him, though he did not expect it to matter much.

  CHAPTER 13

  THE CLUB MORGAN was practically empty when Alan Scott arrived there at eight thirty. Only two cars stood in the parking lot and the attendant was not yet on duty. Inside the main room was quiet, so was the bar. A young couple sat close together at one end sipping martinis, and over behind a pillar and only partly visible a man was having dinner alone. Scott put all three of them down as newcomers to the island who had not yet learned that almost
no one ever came to Morgan’s for and deep-seated. dinner before nine and that most people did not get around to eating before ten or ten thirty.

  Abe, the headwaiter, was reading a novel in the little room to the right of the foyer and when he saw Scott he put the book down and followed him to the bar. Abe apparently had heard about the death of Julia Parks and when Scott had ordered a drink Abe was ready for details. A white-haired man of indeterminate age and antecedents, he had a soft and sometimes a profane way of speaking, his accents suggesting a one-time exposure to the cockney. Now his manner was respectful but curious, with just enough reluctance in his approach to take the edge from his persistence.

  Scott said what he had to say, answering some questions and pleading ignorance to others. He said he imagined Abe knew Julia pretty well and Abe said yes indeed. Julia had been a frequenter of the club, first with her husband and later with Crane and Waldron.

  “Quite a girl,” he said. “Pretty in her way, and full of beans. Loved a good time, loved it.”

  “And her liquor.”

  “That too. Funny thing about that. At first you didn’t think anything about it. I mean, she didn’t drink any more than anyone else. It was only later after Lambert moved out that you noticed it. Gave us a bit of trouble now and then but gave her escort more when she put her mind to it. Yes, sir, a fine looking woman when she first came down here and opened her dress shop.”

  He shook his head and sighed. “Knowing her like that it’s hard to imagine her smothering herself in bed. You’d think she was too rugged, too vital for that. Something violent you could understand but—”

  He let the sentence dangle and Scott said: “She was drunk. She was helpless. She never knew what happened. According to Major Briggs the medical books have described such cases before.”

  “What do the police think?”

  “If by police you mean Briggs, he isn’t saying. At least not to me. If you want my opinion, you can have it. I think she was murdered . . . Look, could I get one of those good hamburg sandwiches you have, with a few f rench fries?”

  “For dinner,” said Abe looking horrified.

  “I haven’t got time for dinner. I may stop in again later.”

  Abe asked how he wanted the hamburg and Scott said medium. Then he saw the bartender drain a fresh martini into a glass and place it in front of him.

  “From Mr. Waldron, sir,” the bartender said.

  “Waldron?”

  “Over there.” The bartender pointed towards the column which hid the solitary diner.

  Scott stood up and took a step to one side. That told him the diner was Tom Waldron. He gestrued with his glass to acknowledge the favor and Waldron nodded and waved one hand. As a result Scott did a bit of thinking about the man while he ate his sandwich. Even after Waldron had left his thoughts centered on the ex-New Yorker, and it was not until he paid his check that he remembered there was information he needed before he could go looking for Luther. When Abe came back Scott showed him the advertisement of the dance that he hoped Luther might attend.

  “Do you know anything about these things?” he asked.

  “Not a great deal,” Abe said. “It’s a way for an enterprising woman with a lot of friends to make a few bob,’

  “Would it be all right to go?”

  “For you?” Abe chuckled. “What on earth for? You’ll be the only white man there.”

  “I thought it might be interesting.”

  Abe remained silent, an indication that he was not so sure,

  “There wouldn’t be any trouble, would there?” Scott asked.

  “I don’t expect so. Some of them might resent it a little. I doubt if anyone would make a row, so long as you didn’t dance with some young buck’s girl. You might see a fight or two but you should be nimble enough to keep clear of it.”

  Scott examined the advertisement again. He pointed to the line which said there would be two bars, adding that it must be a big dance.

  “Not necessarily,” Abe said, “it’s the usual thing. One’s a liquor bar, the other’s a pork chop bar.”

  “Pork chop bar?”

  “That’s the local term. Actually it means a food bar. They cook up a mess of pork chops in advance and have them there cold for the hungry. Bread and stuff. Maybe fish or sandwiches.” He grinned. “I’ll wager fifteen minutes of that dance will be sufficient for you, but you can see for yourself.”

  He supplied the necessary directions on how to reach the address mentioned and then, motivated by some impulse he could not explain, Scott thought of Waldron again and asked if Abe knew where he lived. Abe did.

  “Down near the end of Bailey’s Gap on the St. Lawrence coast,” he said. “Place called Mar-Vista or some such name. Three brown-colored buildings, two bungalows and a two-storied house with four flats. Waldron has the bungalow on your right as you face the sea.”

  Scott thanked him. It occurred to him then that in Abe’s position he might know other things about Waldron as yet unspecified to others, but right now the germ of an idea was beginning to blossom out of the original impulse which had made him wonder about Waldron in the first place. It was not, however, until he was in his car and on his way that he knew what he wanted to do.

  He argued with himself all the way to the St. Lawrence coast. He admitted that he had nothing more to go on than a simple hunch which kept insisting that Waldron might know a great deal more about Julia and the reason for her sudden visit to Barbados than anyone suspected. But even if this were true there was no way Waldron could be made to talk unless confronted by some tangible evidence that had to be explained. Waldron was, it seemed, something of a mystery man and what Scott proposed to do now was something that is known technically as breaking and entering, his one forlorn hope pinned on the chance that he might discover a motive for murder.

  The idea appalled him even as he parked his car well back from the Mar-Vista development and considered the small, darkened bungalow to the right of the main building. He had never considered such a thing in his life and right now he did not even know what he was looking for. The other night he had entered Julia’s hotel room with a key in his hand and the experiment had ended none too happily. This was worse because he not only had no key but could not, if asked, give any good reason for his act. Even the police were forbidden to make a search without a warrant and yet—

  He got out of the car and it may have been the thought that he lacked courage to make the attempt that stiffened his resolve and directed his feet towards the sand-colored coral building. There were lights on in the larger building but he saw no one about and heard no sound but the crunch of the waist-high surf breaking upon the beach.

  The bungalow had a front veranda and a small back porch. It stood well off the ground, supported by concrete blocks, and its side windows had awning-like wooden sun shades which gave them a hooded look. He saw as he circled in the darkness that two windows were open. A wire boundary fence close by the right wall gave him the foothold he needed to reach the sill, and a few seconds later he had hauled himself upward and into the room.

  It gave him a strange feeling, standing there furtively in someone else’s house. It scared him a little, not the thought of what might happen but just the idea of being there unlawfully. He waited, not knowing which way to turn, the ceaseless sound of the surf in his ears, aware that he had no flashlight and could not very well do his searching with matches. The window hoods prevented anyone from seeing inside from an upper level and he realized now that the lower half of the windows were painted for opaqueness. By closing them he could look about without being seen. As for showing a light, that was a chance he had to take.

  He saw the floor lamp as his eyes adjusted themselves to the darkness, and when he had closed the window he turned it on to find himself in a large high-ceilinged bedroom. There were two painted metal beds, each with a folded mosquito net hanging overhead. The furniture, of local design, consisted of a chest, a bureau and a vanity, two straight-backed cha
irs, a night table and a huge and ancient-looking wardrobe.

  Of the two doors opening from the room, one led to the bath, the other into a small hall. Turning right he found himself in a living room that extended the width of the building and again he made sure the windows were down before he switched on a light. One end of the room was used for dining purposes, for there was a polished native-mahogany table, a sideboard, a half dozen matching chairs. The rest of the room was furnished with the sort of things which were indigenous to the climate and the island: cushioned wicker chairs, canvas chairs, a settee, some odd tables and a desk resembling a knee-hole desk but very little like it since instead of drawers on either side there were two doors.

  Still not knowing what to look for or where to start, and continually prodded by his conscience, he stepped to the front door and opened it. When he saw the spring lock he pressed the catch so it would be on latch before he closed it.

  His inspection of the desk did not take long once he had opened the side doors and saw the shelves inside. There was some stationery here, envelopes and paper, some folded newspapers, some clippings, a road map of the island. He examined none of this closely because he did not expect to find anything valuable or incriminating in a place so easily accessible, and having assured himself that there was no other likely hiding place here, he returned to the bedroom.

  He went first to the wardrobe. There was a key in this but it was not locked, and when he opened the doors he saw that it was literally full of suits, slacks, and jackets. On the floor were two pieces of airplane-type luggage. These indicated that Waldron had been traveling light when he came, that much of the clothing was the product of local tailors, acquired since his arrival. One of the bags was empty but the other was locked, and when he shook it things bumped around inside.

  He put the bag back, wanting to force the lock but not quite daring to. Apparently that bag was Waldron’s way of keeping certain valuables beyond the reach of any curious or light-fingered servants, but Scott was not interested in valuables as such so he closed the doors and stepped over to the chest. Under stacks of handkerchiefs in the top righthand drawer he found two checkbooks and immediately gave them his attention. Here at least would be a record of what Waldron was doing with his money and for the first time a small stir of excitement began to make itself felt.