Marriage Bed

by Dixon, H. Vernor

  “Good. I’d like to stop at an address on Alvarado Street for a few minutes.”

  “Do you know someone there?”

  “Yes and no. I — ah — have been in communication with someone there. It will only take a few minutes.”

  “We have time.”

  He put an arm across the back of the seat and fixed his eyes on my face. He said, “Suppose I make a few guesses.”

  I nodded. “All right, Sam.”

  “First, you regret your impetuous marriage; second, you’re no longer in love, if you ever were; and, third, you’re badly frightened about something. Right?”

  “Yes.” I swallowed a lump in my throat and said, “I should have married you.”

  “No. We were too close then. And besides, you were emotionally and intellectually immature.”

  I was shocked. “Now, really — ”

  “The simple fact that you rushed headlong into marrying a man who was a stranger to you precludes any argument on that score. You were not a sensible woman.”

  I said humbly, “I guess not. Besides being frightened, I feel pretty silly.”

  He told me the address he was seeking and I stopped on Alvarado Street and parked the car while he went up some rickety stairs to a second-floor office. On the downstairs door I noticed the names of two attorneys, a dentist, and the branch office of a private investigating company. I had a hunch, which proved to be correct, that it was the latter Sam was calling on.

  When he returned to the car and we were again on our way, he explained, “That’s the Pacific Coast branch of Killian and Brown, a New York outfit. I had Killian follow you out here the day after you left New York.”

  “You mean to say someone has been keeping an eye on me all this time?”

  “Well, not exactly. Mainly, they have been investigating your husband and his brother.”

  “I thought you had already had them investigated.”

  “No. Just their financial and social status. But I had to know more.”

  “Why?”

  He shifted his position in the seat so that he could watch my expression. “Well,” he said, “there were a number of reasons, but the main one was neglect.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t follow you.”

  He was exasperated as he said, “Of course you do. Use your head, woman. You were married to Jeffrey one week, then he came out here and neglected you for four months. It was perfectly obvious to me that, for some reason or other, he was stalling. Inasmuch as you two were so much in love you were slightly slap-happy about it, that failed to make sense.”

  “I thought you had that all settled in your mind when you told me at La Guardia that he was just a playboy and so on.”

  Sam’s face split up into smile wrinkles. “Did you believe me?”

  “No.”

  He chuckled. “I didn’t think you would, but I had to give you something to think about other than your injured pride. Anyway, your husband was not acting in a logical manner.”

  “No.”

  “No matter what had gone wrong between him and his brother, he could have flown back to New York and, in a few hours, explained it to you.” Sam tilted his hat to the back of his head and rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. It was a gesture I knew well; Sam was worried and anxious. He said, “Even if he regretted marrying you, he would have flown back to talk it over. Considering the Hamlyne fortune, that would have been the sensible thing to do.”

  I turned out of Monterey and started up the long grade. I switched on the yellow lights as we plunged into the fog and crept along in second gear. I wondered if the fog would burn out during the day and doubted it. It looked heavy and it was not thin. It was on the ground to stay.

  Sam was still watching my expression and asked suddenly, “Now, just what is it that frightens you?”

  I thought of all the queer things that had taken place and wondered how to put them into words. They had all been as real as the fog and the road before us, but words would reduce them to the quality of doubtful nightmares or, at best, the unfounded suspicions of a frantic woman. I could explain the sequence of events, but they would lack reality until Sam should experience the atmosphere peculiar to Lynecrest.

  However, I did express the more pertinent facts. I said, “It’s a strange tale, Sam. Something happened between John and Jeff months ago that is coming to its inevitable conclusion tonight, or before the week end is over.”

  “Something tragic?” he asked.

  I answered, “I believe so. The brothers are identical twins, you know, but their characters are different. John is a staid businessman, believe it or not. There was a clash of temperament over some matter vital to the two of them. I have no idea what it was, but it had to be of enormous imporance, as nothing at Lynecrest has been quite the same since then.”

  Sam said, “You’re talking in riddles. I suppose you’ll get to the point sooner or later. Meanwhile, what’s at stake and what’s the motivation behind whatever is impending?”

  I had to smile. It was Sam, the playwright, speaking, and it brought back the years we had argued over those two points in play after play.

  I said, “The Hamlyne wealth could be at stake, and that’s no light matter. They’re worth millions. The Hamlynes have their fingers in practically everything going on in this state, especially land and produce.”

  “Good enough.”

  “As for motivation,” I continued, “that’s harder to define, yet even more real to me. John is obsessed by power, financially and politically, and will not tolerate anything in his way. He can be and is absolutely ruthless. He’s suave and casual about it, but still as hard as steel.”

  “I see. And Jeff has been in his way?”

  I thought of the tenses involved and decided to let it go. I replied, “I’m not sure, but I think so. I don’t believe Jeff deliberately hindered John’s progress, or even unwittingly, but John hints at black scandals and other matters and has even stated that Jeff is rotten to the core. That’s an inhuman thing for one twin to say of another.”

  “But is he?”

  That was a difficult question to answer without blurting out all of my suspicions, and that I was not prepared to do. So I said, “Well, the Jeff I have been watching lately is decidedly peculiar. He isn’t at all the person you met in New York.”

  Sam snorted, “You aren’t telling me all of it.”

  “I know,” I cried. “But I will, Sam, later. I just can’t bring myself to put it into words right now.”

  “Very well.” He sighed. “Choose your own time. I suppose you want me to look the situation over first.”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. But what’s supposed to be in store for this week end?”

  I took a deep breath and said, “John is going to pull the strings while Jeff commits suicide. The stage is set.”

  Sam gulped and stared at me with amazement. “Good God, do you know what you’re saying?”

  “Yes.” I nodded. “You, as a producer, have never set a stage quite as elaborately or as well as this one. The whole thing is so fantastic I doubt my own senses. But that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”

  Sam rubbed his hands over his face, his brain apparently spinning in a blank void. After a while he said, “That can’t be. If you know it to be true it can be prevented, so that can’t be.”

  “Now, wait a minute, Sam. Would you, or anyone else, willingly act the part of the suicide — literally, I mean?”

  He dropped his hands and his lips pressed into a thin smile of appreciation. “You haven’t lost your touch, Carol. You’re putting this over very well. But go on. Evidently you wish to see this little plan carried through.”

  “I intend to interfere at the last minute only, if I can time it right.”

  “For what purpose?”

  I frowned into the fog and whispered, “That’s one answer I don’t know. Maybe it’s curiosity, or the desire to justify a mistake, or perhaps revenge for being made to p
lay the role of an utter fool.”

  Sam smiled. “A woman operates better without logical reasons. Don’t pry too deeply.”

  “I won’t,” I promised. “I’m afraid of the ugly, horrible things leering at me in my own mind.”

  Sam patted my hand on the wheel and leaned back in the seat. Oddly enough, I was rather relaxed, too, in spite of the possibility that I might never see another day.

  Chapter Sixteen

  As I HAD IMAGINED, Lynecrest did not especially impress Sam. The building looked solid and huge and substantial, even more so with the fog swirling about it, but Sam’s only comment was “It’s God-awful big. Is it hard to heat?” And then he dismissed it from his mind.

  Brannen carried in the luggage, after expressing his pleasure at meeting the great Sam Brandt, and then we walked into the hall. Sam’s eyebrows did rise at the immensity of the staircase well and his eyes twinkled with humor. He was inwardly laughing at the thought of Carol Moore rattling around in such a place. I felt a bit hurt and wanted to act the lady of the manor, but the nagging fears in the back of my mind obtruded. I led the way to the library and mixed Martinis, using a few drops of Scotch. Sam tasted his drink and smacked his lips.

  He took a bundle of papers from an inner pocket and I saw the letterhead of Killian and Brown. “Before I meet the hosts,” he said, “we have a little job to perform. Won’t take more than a couple of minutes. These papers,” he said, rattling them in his hand, “contain a written account of the day-by-day actions of John and your husband since the day after you arrived.”

  I held out a hand. “May I see them?”

  “We haven’t time for that. We’ll look them over later. I might say, though, that it’s one of the weirdest things I’ve ever looked through. Their actions just don’t make sense. In the first place, I understand that Jeff didn’t meet you in San Francisco.”

  “No. He was supposed to be in El Centro. That’s down toward the Mexican border.”

  A strange light flamed for a moment in Sam’s eyes and then died. He lifted a pencil from the library table and made a note on the back of one of the papers. “El Centro? Hmmmm. That’s odd. Now then, can you give me the sequence of the comings and goings of the two brothers since you got here? Just roughly.”

  “Well, let me see.”

  It wasn’t difficult, as I had thought it might be. It seemed that I had been in Lynecrest for years and years but actually hardly a week had passed. I went through the days in a hurry and had just finished when Brannen came in for something or other. While I was talking with him Sam was going through the dates and comparing them with the Killian and Brown account.

  When Sam put his papers away his expression was an odd mixture of bewilderment and amazed unbelief. I was dying to talk with him, but that was impossible. Too many matters required my instant attention. Brannen needed help and Miss Laura needed direction and Ann was in a dither of excitement and the extra servants arrived with their problems. The telephone rang constantly and even the musicians’ union called to ask pertinent questions. In two hours I was a wreck and was sure that the party would be, too. But Brannen made order out of chaos and Lynecrest itself was a help. The place was so designed that a party fitted into it like a hand into a glove.

  The ballroom, which I had never had the courage to investigate, turned out to be a welcome surprise. After the tables and chairs had been arranged and the soft lights turned on it became a rather elegant and intimate night club. Folding doors opened to what I had thought was a large closet and a champagne bar came into view. A section of the west wall disappeared and the solarium was suddenly a part of the ballroom and, beyond that, the ocean and the fog were a black and gray backdrop. The setting alone would make a success of any party.

  I left the ballroom to walk toward the reception hall and went up the stairs, feeling very much cheered by the gay lights and the decorations, and then came to a halt on the second floor with my head raised and the brooding mystery of Lynecrest again enveloping me. “Jeffrey” was on the third floor, looking down at me over the railing. His face was a smooth mask, but there was wildness in his eyes. I had an odd feeling that he had been waiting for me for some time. His lips parted in what was meant to be a smile, but failed far short of the mark. He nodded and waved at me, then disappeared. I continued on to my own rooms feeling chilled. The party was a bad taste in my mouth before it had even started.

  Ann helped me dress in a white gown and chatted like a magpie about the party. I gathered the information that the servants had made their own arrangements for quite an affair in their quarters. She also informed me that Sam and Mr. John had had dinner in John’s rooms and that the two of them were getting along famously. She had a tray of food for me, but I was incapable of eating and decided that I could get through until the midnight buffet.

  Brannen called to tell me that the musicians had arrived and, also, a group of guests about fifteen minutes too early. He intimated that they were already in a gay mood. I started downstairs and John called down to me from the landing. He and Sam were together. I waited for them and then the three of us went down together.

  We stood by the door and shook hands and turned our smiles on and off and the guests flooded in. I was soon well aware of the fact that someone had more than doubled the size of the guest list. When I accused John he winked and said, “Jeff’s idea. He wants this to be a bang-up affair, too. But don’t worry. Brannen knew how many were coming.”

  I turned to Sam, who was looking very distinguished in his evening clothes, and asked him, “Have you seen Jeff since you arrived?”

  Sam’s eyes darted back and forth between the two of us, then rested on me. He nodded and said, “Why, yes, I have. Just a short while ago.” He said to John, “It’s amazing, the resemblance between the two of you. I always thought that when twins age, some slight differences creep in. But I couldn’t possibly tell you two apart.”

  John flashed him a pleased smile and said, “You won’t have much trouble.” He held out his lapel so that we could see the flower and said, “I hate a bouttoniere with tails, but we’ve always found it necessary. Mine, you notice, is a red carnation. Jeff’s is white.”

  Sam returned his smile, but there were shrewd lines about his eyes. “That,” he said dryly, “will be a help.”

  John’s face was pale, but there were bright spots of color in his cheeks and his eyes were a dreadful milky blue. I watched him trying to read Sam’s expression and felt a cold spot between my shoulder blades and suppressed a desire to shudder.

  I saw him stiffen and turned toward the door. The Chandlers were just entering. Vivien floated in clothed in something in pale amber that alternately clung to her body and billowed away from it with the gossamer sheen and weight of a spider web. The mistlike effect was typical of Vivien. Her skin, too, was translucent, and the hall lights sparkled in her hair as if caught in a nest of finely spun gold glass. She was a truly beautiful woman. Her eyes were very much alive, the faint blue shadows had faded from beneath them, and the bitterness had disappeared from her lips. Her face glowed with a serenity that had before been notable by its absence.

  Something had happened to cause that transformation. I made a mental note to question her at the first opportunity.

  I turned my attention to Scott, who was talking solemnly with John and Sam, and the thought of a vampire bat crossed my mind, with Scott as the victim. In spite of his huge bearlike size, he looked haggard and drawn and ill. His bloodshot eyes shifted constantly and his powerful hands opened and closed, opened and closed. Even a bad hangover could not have had that effect on him; it went deeper than that.

  Vivien drifted by him and started toward the ballroom. Scott put his hand on her arm. She turned her head to look at him, without expression, and withdrew her arm. Scott’s shoulders sagged.

  We three remained at the entrance to greet other arrivals and then glanced at each other and mutely agreed that duty had been observed. John muttered something under his breath a
nd hurried toward the library. I found a semidetached female for Sam to dance with and left them at the ballroom.

  For a moment I stood listening to the nine-piece orchestra, which was very good, then made a slow tour of the main floor. It took almost an hour to go from the ballroom to the library, then into the solarium, to see that everything was functioning smoothly. There was nothing about the party that needed generalship on my part. It was one of those things that are born full-blown and seem to take care of themselves. I could and did drop any worries about it from my mind.

  I was leaving the solarium when I saw Scott standing by the windows in one of the few dark corners of the house. I joined him and placed a hand on his shoulder to look out at the fog. I asked him if he were enjoying himself and could have bitten my tongue.

  He looked down at me and the wry twist of his mouth was like a knife turning in my heart. He said softly, a statement of fact that required no answer, “You know the whole story, don’t you?”

  There was no denying it. I nodded in reply.

  His eyes turned back to the night. He was not interested in talking, but I asked, “Scott, how did you happen to come here tonight?”

  “Oh,” he shrugged, “John asked us and then Jeff called today to make sure we’d be here.”

  “Jeff? It’s odd,” I said, striking in the dark, “that you haven’t turned on Jeff.”

  “Believe me, I’ve come close to it.” His brows drew together and his forehead wrinkled in a frown. “But, you know, I’ve always had a lot of admiration for him. I never thought much of John, but Jeff used to be one of my favorite people. Right now I hate his guts and I think the guy has turned out to be a coward. I don’t know, but it seems that way. He’s been acting so strange.”

  “About your wife?”

  He slanted a look down at me from the corners of his eyes. “It makes me feel kind of funny talking about it with you. Don’t you feel peculiar, too?”

  “That has almost come to be the natural state with me. But I don’t mind talking about it, Scott. I’ve had to face that and more since I’ve been here. But do you truly think Vivien is worth all the worry you’ve been going through? Honestly, now.”