It sometimes seemed strange to Wilson how small half-forgotten details returned to him later when he reconstructed that scene. All sorts of things registered in his memory—the black rectangles of the open windows, the sound of the wind outside as it rustled through large unfamiliar leaves, the scratches on that bare oval table where the light struck it, the shine of the light in Eva Hitchings’ close-cropped hair, that half malicious, half mischievous smile of hers because she was composed again, completely herself. There had been a moment in that outburst of her anger when she had revealed a new side of her personality. He had been able to understand her loyalty and her bitterness, not so much by what she had said as by its implication. There must have been some prepossessing quality about Ned Hitchings, for his daughter had loved him as everyone else seemed to have who had known him, in spite of all his faults.
But what surprised Wilson most was the unexpected interest which she had aroused in him, which was more than curiosity. She had not spoken of her loneliness but he had seen it. She was not a person who was meant to be alone. Suddenly he realized that he was thinking of her emotionally, not logically; that she was appealing indirectly to his sense of chivalry, and he knew that this was foolish. Then he heard Mr. Moto speaking again.
“Please,” Mr. Moto was saying, “I’m afraid I interrupt.”
That close-clipped voice of Mr. Moto’s brought him to himself and made him realize that both of those persons in the room were waiting for him to go and that he had been standing almost stupidly with his hand on the knob of the door looking at Eva Hitchings.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Good night.”
“Good night,” said Eva Hitchings.
He remembered that Mr. Moto had been glancing at the open window as he spoke.
“Good night,” said Mr. Moto. “I shall see you soon again, I hope. It will be so very nice.”
Eva Hitchings was standing motionless waiting for him to go and Mr. Moto was glancing back at the windows. Wilson’s back was half turned, he was reaching for the doorknob, when a sound like the snap of a whip made him whirl about. Even with his back to the room, he knew that the sound had come from the night outside. It was its sharpness more than its loudness which startled him. His first thought as he was turning was that a motor had back-fired in the driveway, and in the same second he was ashamed that he had started.
“I am sorry,” he began, “I didn’t mean to jump.” And then he stopped. He found himself looking at Mr. Moto. Something had happened in that instant which was very odd. Mr. Moto was crouching, staring out of an open window. He was holding a small automatic pistol, he was absolutely motionless, evidently listening. In that first second of amazement Wilson did not move. He remembered that he glanced almost stupidly about the room wondering what had happened, for nothing in the room had changed. Eva Hitchings was standing just as he had seen her last but she was no longer smiling. She was holding tight to the back of the chair, also staring at the open window.
“What’s the matter?” said Wilson. “What was that?”
No one answered for the moment. Mr. Moto still peered into the darkness and Eva Hitchings gave no sign of hearing. Then, still holding his pistol, Mr. Moto straightened himself and turned away from the window. It seemed to Wilson that his color was lighter, but Mr. Moto was smiling. And his eyes were dark and placid.
“Excuse me,” he said, “I think perhaps you know. It was a pistol shot—the bullets will be in the wall somewhere behind me. The man was a very bad marksman, Miss Hitchings. You should get one who is more steady. Yes, he was very bad and I was very very foolish. I did not think that such a thing would happen. Yes, I was very very foolish, but I do not think that he will try again to-night because he moved away. The next time that you and Mr. Hitchings try to kill me, will you do it better, please. I hope you will. Thank you very very much. And now, Mr. Hitchings, please stand away from the door. I think I shall be going now. Good evening, Miss Hitchings! Thank you very very much.”
There had not been much excitement in Wilson Hitchings’ life and the idea of such a piece of melodrama was more than he could grasp at once. The thing had happened so suddenly, and yet so casually, that it became ordinary and matter of fact. The ordinary quality of such an episode seemed reflected in Mr. Moto’s manner, and judging from appearances such an event had happened often in Mr. Moto’s life.
“What do you mean?” said Wilson, and he still stood in front of the door. His sense of law and order was so outraged that his mind moved dully trying to reconcile what had happened with ordinary fact. “What are you talking about, Mr. Moto?”
He had thought of Mr. Moto in the past as an insignificant man but now he looked as compact and as nerveless and as efficient as the pistol he was carrying. Mr. Moto’s dinner coat was double-breasted and cut in extreme lines; his round head and his black hair arranged in a shoebrush pattern was almost grotesque, but there was nothing grotesque about Mr. Moto’s answer.
“Excuse me, please, if I did not make myself clear,” he said, “perhaps I was excited. Please, I am not excited now.” Mr. Moto’s eyes were bright and steady, he was breathing fast through his closed teeth. “A shot was fired at me through the open window. I’m very very sorry—I did not expect one so soon. Attempts have been made to liquidate me before, Mr. Hitchings. Enough of them so that I should have been more careful. I had not thought I had been asked to this room to be murdered. I am very very much surprised. Please, I shall be going now.” And he took a step toward Wilson, who stood with his back to the door.
Wilson glanced at Eva Hitchings. The girl looked pale and frightened but she did not speak, and the absurdity of the situation began to dawn on him. Mr. Moto and his automatic looked absurd, so amusing all at once that he almost smiled.
“Well,” said Wilson, “I’ve always heard you Japanese were egotists. Do you really think I paid a man to stand outside to murder you, Mr. Moto?”
Mr. Moto smiled.
“Excuse me,” he said, “I’m so very very sorry. It is not nice to say so, but I think that is what you and Miss Hitchings did. Excuse me, I must be careful. Please do not move your hands.”
“And what do you propose to do about it?” Wilson asked. He found the matter increasingly amusing. The idea of his being connected with Eva Hitchings in any capacity amused him.
“I propose to do nothing about it,” said Mr. Moto. And he said it genially, like someone anxious to be kind and forgiving. “These matters happen, do they not? Let us say no more about it, please. It would be very very much better, don’t you think? Please, it does not make me angry. It was so very badly done.”
“Perhaps you won’t mind then,” suggested Wilson, “if I tell you what I think.”
“Oh, no,” said Mr. Moto, “except I am in a hurry to be going, please.”
Wilson moved a step nearer to him and looked down at Mr. Moto.
“Please,” said Mr. Moto again, “do not move your hands.”
Then Wilson heard Eva Hitchings speak and her voice sounded frightened.
“Don’t,” she said softly, “don’t move.”
Wilson thrust his hands deliberately into the side pockets of his coat.
“That will do for your giving me orders, Mr. Moto,” he said pleasantly, “personally I think you are rather too high-strung, and that you have a powerful imagination. I don’t know much about these things but I don’t believe anybody fired at you, Mr. Moto. Try to think of it calmly; a car made a noise outside probably. Or else a window shade snapped up. Now, if I were you I’d put that pistol in your pocket where it won’t do any harm. I don’t know what manners are in Japan but I don’t think you have been very polite to Miss Hitchings, Mr. Moto, and you have startled her a good deal. Personally, I don’t mind; in fact, I rather enjoy it, but I think it would be very very nice if you said ‘good night’ to Miss Hitchings and begged her pardon.”
Mr. Moto’s expression had changed since Wilson had spoken; his forehead had wrinkled into little creases; he
looked puzzled, almost hurt.
“Excuse me,” he said, “I do not understand. Please, do you think this is funny, Mr. Hitchings?”
“Yes,” said Wilson, “mildly funny. Now don’t you think you’d better put that gun away? And tell Miss Hitchings you are sorry? I won’t hurt you, Mr. Moto, really I won’t.”
Mr. Moto put his pistol in his pocket and his breath hissed through teeth, then his tenseness and his watchfulness entirely disappeared, and he bowed his head to Eva Hitchings. There was a strange, submissive dignity in his bow.
“Excuse me, please,” he said, “if I have done anything to be rude. I am so very very sorry, and I am so very very sorry if I have been funny. Excuse me, please. Good evening, please.”
Wilson opened the door to the roulette room and when he closed it he began to laugh.
“Excuse me, please,” said he to Eva Hitchings. “I am very very sorry.” Then something on the dark polished floor, near the wall, caught his attention, he never knew just why. Close by the door he had just shut were a few grains of new white plaster. Something made him look upward to the wall. There was a small hole where something had struck and had knocked the plaster down. He looked from the dent in the wall toward Eva Hitchings, curiously. She was no longer the same person he had seen before—she had regained her poise, but she was no longer as she had been before Moto had come in. Somehow as she stood there, resting her hands on the back of the chair, she looked enigmatic and extremely capable.
There was a mysterious quality about that dent in the wall which changed the point of view. Wilson could feel a number of illusions leaving him and the sensation was almost physical. For one thing he felt as cold as though he had lost a comfortable covering; for another his visual faculties seemed entirely different. Eva Hitchings was no longer a lonely girl, no longer a flower on a midden, not to be associated with such a place as Hitchings Plantation. She was looking at him coolly, almost contemptuously, he thought, and in a way which made his next remark seem immature and stupid.
“So it was a shot?” he said.
Her shining reddish head moved in a brief sarcastic nod.
“What did you think it was?” she inquired, “a bean from a blower? This isn’t exactly a Sunday School, Mr. Hitchings.”
Wilson leaned against the wall with his hands in his pockets watching her. He did not know what attracted him, certainly nothing which was right. He knew that he was close to something which was dangerous and he had never known that danger would carry with it an intriguing fascination. He was aware of a strange exaltation beneath his training of habit and formality.
“You’re quite right,” he agreed. “This isn’t like any Sunday School that I remember. And you’re not like a Sunday School teacher, either.”
“No, but I could teach you a good deal,” she said. “I could teach you enough so that your family wouldn’t know you, Mr. Hitchings! Perhaps you have learned already that this isn’t the place for you. The name of Hitchings is being dragged in the mud, isn’t it?” She paused and laughed and seated herself on the edge of the table, and Wilson noticed mechanically that she wore gold slippers, and that her legs were bare. “I hoped for a minute that you were going to be dragged in the mud, too. It did look as though you were going to get into a brawl with Mr. Moto—that wouldn’t have looked well, would it? A Hitchings shot at Hitchings Plantation? That would have made the family jump.”
He could not understand why the remark annoyed him as much as it did.
“I should have been careful of him,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt any of your friends.” She laughed again and swung her slippers slowly back and forth, tossing her head back a little, and holding to the edge of the table.
“Don’t be so naïve,” she said, “and don’t worry. I’ll see you won’t get hurt.”
“Thank you,” said Wilson. “I suppose you know who fired that shot?”
Her face had grown hard again; she looked at him without speaking for a moment.
“If I were you,” she said, “I’d keep my lily white hands out of this, because it’s none of your business, Mr. Hitchings.”
“I wonder,” said Wilson. “It might be my business if that shot were meant for me; perhaps you know whom it was meant for—me or Mr. Moto. Would it be too forward of me if I asked you?”
The gold slippers were motionless; she leaned toward him and her eyes grew narrow.
“What do you mean by that?” she asked.
“I mean,” said Wilson, “that you are not exactly a Sunday School teacher, Cousin Eva. You can’t help my having vague ideas.”
Her voice changed; it was low and urgent.
“Stop! Be quiet,” she said.
Wilson Hitchings smiled at her, he could not understand why he felt so tolerant or so kindly toward her unless it was because of a sense of his own superiority. He thought his remark had frightened and shocked her; certainly she looked frightened.
“Why should I be quiet, Cousin Eva?” he asked. “Have you got a sense of free guilt, as the psychologists put it?” Then her expression told him that she was not listening, at least not to him. He saw that she was tense and motionless, staring at something beyond his right shoulder and he turned and followed her glance. The door to the roulette room was opening very slowly.
“What is it?” asked Eva Hitchings. “Who is that?”
It was the man with the watery eyes, the watcher at the roulette table. Now that Wilson saw him standing up, the man’s awkwardness was gone. The man was thin with a whiplike thinness and his voice showed he was a long way from home. It was a New York City voice.
“It’s me, ain’t it,” he said. He spoke slowly, huskily, as he closed the door behind him and walked almost noiselessly to the center of the room. “I thought maybe there might be a little argument in here.” He looked Wilson slowly up and down. “Who’s the guy, Miss Eva?”
Miss Eva slid down from the table.
“Have I, or have I not told you not to interrupt me, Paul?” she asked. “You might frighten someone sneaking in that way.”
“Nuts!” the thin man said softly. “Who’s the guy?”
“This is Mr. Hitchings,” Miss Eva said. “This is Mr. Maddock,” Miss Eva said.
Mr. Maddock’s pale eyes turned upon Wilson unblinkingly; his Adam’s apple moved languidly.
“Oh, it’s you, is it?” he said. “How are you, pal?”
Wilson Hitchings stared back at him. There had been a sneering lightness in his speech which was entirely new to him, and Mr. Maddock represented a world he had never known, but Wilson knew enough to know it was not a congenial world.
“Quite well,” he said, “under the circumstances.”
“Oh, yeah!” said Mr. Maddock. “Well, this is a funny place, pal.”
“Yes,” said Wilson, “and there are lots of funny people in it.”
Mr. Maddock’s thin lips formed themselves into a smile.
“You got that wrong,” he said softly. “I’m not so funny, pal. Has this boy been getting fresh, Miss Eva? I thought there was some trouble here.”
“I wish you’d mind your own business,” said Eva Hitchings shortly. “Mr. Hitchings and I have been talking—why should you think there has been any trouble?” A lump in Mr. Maddock’s throat moved slowly and he glanced casually toward the open window.
“I’m funny that way,” he said in that soft voice of his. “I always did have a sense for trouble, see? That’s what makes me useful, see? I seen that Japanese come out of here and I did not like his looks. He looked like someone had tried to run him out and then when no one else came after him—” Mr. Maddock paused and shrugged his shoulders. “You know how things happen among customers; we’ve got to watch everything, Miss Eva.”
“Well, nothing happened,” Miss Eva said.
Mr. Maddock walked toward her softly; his pale face looked cynical and kindly.
“Listen, girlie,” he said, “it couldn’t be that Hitchings came here to make you a proposition? You w
ouldn’t be holding out on me, would you?”
“No,” said Eva Hitchings promptly, “of course I wouldn’t, Paul. Mr. Hitchings has come here to buy me out and I’ve turned him down.”
Mr. Maddock took a long thin cigar from his inside pocket and lighted it very carefully.
“That’s the little lady,” he said softly, then he turned to Wilson and exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Tough luck,” he said, “but she knows who her friends are, pal.”
“Yes,” said Wilson, “I’m sure she does.” Mr. Maddock removed his cigar from the corner of his mouth.
“It’s getting kind of late, pal,” he suggested. “Maybe you had better be going home.”
“Why,” asked Wilson, “do you own this place? I’m not in any hurry to go.” Then he heard Eva Hitchings laugh, and she spoke before Mr. Maddock could answer.
“Paul,” she said, “will you send someone to bring around my car? Mr. Hitchings was just leaving. I am going to drive him home.”
“Drive me home?” echoed Wilson, and he tried not to show his surprise. “You don’t have to—but it’s very kind.”
“It will be better for you if I did, I think,” Eva Hitchings answered, and Mr. Maddock raised his eyebrows.
“What’s the big idea?” Mr. Maddock asked. “Some of the boys can take him.”
Eva Hitchings shook her head. “No,” she said, “I’d like the ride.” Mr. Maddock frowned thoughtfully.
“You’re lucky, pal,” he said, “it isn’t everybody who gets a ride with her.”
“Yes,” said Wilson politely, “I’m sure I’m very lucky.”
“Well,” said Mr. Maddock, “I’ll be seeing you.”
CHAPTER V
Wilson followed Eva into the dark-paneled room where the roulette game was going decorously forward beneath that indefinable shadow of concentration which always hovers above a well-conducted gaming table. There was no sound but the whirring of the wheel and the rattle of the ball moving distractedly in its first burst of speed. No one looked up as they entered. They might have been walking into a laboratory where scientists were gathered to watch a final, critical experiment, and yet Wilson Hitchings had never felt so strangely, so mysteriously alive. All his senses seemed to have awakened into a peculiar stimulated watchfulness. He had never felt so much like an actor in a play. He was aware almost unconsciously of mysterious, possibly of dangerous matters, all around him. He was aware that anything might happen. But he was surprised to find that the knowledge stimulated rather than disturbed him.
Think Fast, Mr. Moto Page 7