“Do I know it? You bet I do. In spite of the chaperons we had a lot of fun. Remember the roller-skate parties? The prizes we copped for our act?”
“I do. There is a rink a few miles from here, highly respectable, in fact verging on top-drawer. I've been planning to go there some day. My skates are in the turret room at The Castle.”
“Remembering the fun we had, I brought mine on the chance there would be a place to use them. We’ll smash a few more records with our turns and whirls.”
“Meanwhile, play with the attractive girls at the Inn, give them the time of their lives.”
“Suppose I fall for one of them?”
“All right with me. Better now than later.”
“Jupiter, you’re a hard-boiled critter, Cindy.”
The bracelet man had said that, only he had called her a female, not a critter.
“I don’t see why? Because I intend to have my next marriage — if there is one — of the ‘till death do us part’ kind?”
“That makes it unanimous.”
They dined and danced. Stopped for a late snack. It was midnight when Cindy softly closed the front door of The Castle behind her. She listened till the purr of Tom Slade’s convertible faded in the distance, then turned the shaded lamp in the hall to low and crossed to the stairs. Foot on the bottom step she stopped.
Why go up now? She wouldn’t sleep if she went to bed. Her mind was in a hectic tangle, mussed like the drawer of her dresser when she had searched it in a hurry. More sensible to curl up on the chaise longue in the patio while she tried to restore order to the impressions of the last twelve hours.
She tiptoed through the hall. Sarah Ann Parker was the original watchdog. She slept with one eye and both ears open.
Perfect night, so enchanting it made one homesick — for what? she asked herself as she snuggled among soft green cushions and stretched at length on the chaise longue. “What a day,” she said aloud. “I haven’t stopped a minute. I’m dead to the world. Part of it is because shame at my treatment of Bill Damon after he saved my life has been gnawing at my conscience.”
Fragrantly warm air rustled the balsams. A three-quarters moon, already taking on a tinge of autumn ruddiness and attended by a brilliant lady-in-waiting star, grinned down at her with a what-you-going-to-do-about-it smirk.
“Oh!”
The descent of a warm body on her knees jolted the exclamation through her lips. The black Persian cat circled several times before settling down in a purring lump on Cindy’s aqua linen lap.
“Make yourself at home, Darius,” she whispered as she scratched the top of the satin-smooth head. “At what point in my tabulation of the events of this epoch-making day had I arrived when you switched the dial?”
The cat tucked nose under velvet paws, blinked topaz eyes at the face above and closed them. His rhythmic purr accompanied the monotonous chirp of crickets in the flower border, the scratchy call of a katydid and the insistent far-off shrill of a tree toad. Shine and blink, shine and blink, myriad fireflies flitted about the patio and snapped their lights on and off.
Head against the downy cushions, eyes closed, Cindy heard again that shouted “Come back!”; lived over the moments under water till the crazy motorboat had passed high above their heads; the following session on the beach. Who was the man? Why wonder? Hadn’t Lydia Fane declared that Bill Damon was registered at the Inn?
Just a minute, gal. Did he ever tell you he was the man of whom Ken Stewart had written to Armstrong? The question brought her sitting up straight. He said that I refused to speak with Bill Damon when he phoned, that answers that doubt, doesn’t it? Maddening that my lawyer is away. Another week to wait. Will he try to see me meanwhile, or was he too annoyed by my doubt of him to care if he ever saw me again?
“Cindy, you here?”
The hoarse whisper brought her to her feet and the sleeping cat with a thump to the flagged floor of the patio.
“Good heavens, Sary Parker. You might as well kill me as scare me to death. What’s happened?”
“Sssh-h-!”
The warning hiss came from the figure enveloped in a dark bathrobe. Sarah Ann Parker laid a work-worn restraining hand on the girl’s bare arm.
“Speak low, Cindy. We may not be the only folks watching.”
“Watching what?” Chills feathered along Cindy’s veins. She was indignantly aware that the huskiness of her voice was going the housekeeper’s one better.
“Want to know somethin’? That big yacht I told you about is in again. I was lookin’ out my bedroom window — couldn’t get to sleep till you came in — an’ I saw two lights flash. Suppose that Mrs. Sally Drew’s goin’ on the water this time of night? Don’t seem respectable.”
“Sally.” The name reverberated with startling clarity along the corridors of memory. “You know Sally,” the bracelet man had said. Later he had claimed that the name had been an improvisation. Had it been or was there such a person in his life? Perhaps he knew this Sally Drew who made mysterious excursions at midnight, perhaps — he was really here to see her.
“My sakes, Cindy, why’d you gasp as if someone had knocked the breath out of you?”
“Why not? You’ve got me all excited about your mystery hunch, though common sense tells me that dozens of boats come into this harbor and at midnight, too. Why shouldn’t Mrs. Drew go for a sail?” She glanced at the illuminated dial of her wrist watch. “It is half after the witching hour of midnight. A yacht and a beau to twang a guitar is the perfect answer to this moonlight. Wish someone would invite me.”
“You’re pokin’ fun at me, Cinderella. I feel it in my bones ’tain’t as simple as that. Want to know somethin’? There’s a terrible lot of skulduggery goin’ on and it ain’t all bein’ pulled off in the cities, either. I read in the paper that they’re findin’ that some of the folks that ’pear mighty respectable are mixed up with criminals dealin’ in stolen —”
On the screen of Cindy’s memory flashed a close-up with sound effects of a man in a blatant checked suit ogling a girl in red. He looked as if he might deal in stolen goods and he didn’t look mighty respectable, either.
“Listen!” Sarah Ann Parker’s shrill whisper shattered the vision and iced Cindy’s blood already chilled by memory. “Somethin’ at our landin’. Too late for company to be callin’. Smugglers?”
She held her breath. The sound was that of a boat bumping against the wood. Silence again, broken only by the monotonous chant of crickets, and the weak chirp of a bird settling more securely in its nest.
“Did you hear it, Cindy?”
She nodded in response to the whisper, and pulled off Sarah Ann’s enveloping bathrobe.
“Give me this. Smugglers! That’s a laugh. Your imagination has dropped you back more than a hundred years, Sary. I’ll find out who it is, what goes. Hustle into the house. That nightie is shockingly thin for a public appearance.”
“I’m not in my —”
She eluded the housekeeper’s indignant grab. Swathed in the dark garment she stepped from the patio, sped along the green borders of the flower beds to avoid the crunchy pebbles of the path, crossed the putting green.
Now she could see the rocky point jutting into the sea, twin to the one on which The Castle had been built. Moonlight picked out the spreading California-type house and spotlighted a pier from which a long, fleecy wake made a path toward the dark horizon. Had a boat returned to the yacht? She stood in the shadow of a tree near shore.
Sary was right. A boat was at the Oceanside landing of The Castle. Muffled voices. She held her breath to listen.
“They’ve made the getaway safely. Now we can go. Our job is done for the present. No one awake here — luckily for them.” The low voice was followed by the muffled sound of oars.
Cindy drew the dark robe closer about her. Its warmth didn’t decrease her shiver. What did “luckily for them” mean? Who were “them”? The residents of The Castle?
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE
RE WAS an electric fan in action in the old-fashioned room in the small white office on the lawn of the imposing yellow colonial house, White Pillars. A breeze stealing through an open window lightly stirred papers spread on the broad, orderly desk. A ray of sunlight sifting in added a touch of gold.
Seth Armstrong in open-neck white shirt tipped back at a reckless angle in his swivel chair, fitted the fingertips of his plump waxen hands, and regarded with pale eyes between half-closed lids the bronzed face of the man seated opposite.
“Sorry I had to keep you waiting a week, Colonel Damon, but I wanted to check on the oil holdings, leases and patents myself. That’s the way I do business, firsthand information. Your explanation of your presence in our village is confirmed by a letter I received from Kenniston Stewart. Now that I meet you I suspect that your service record is sensational.”
“No more so than that of dozens of men who gave all they had and didn’t come through. My part in the holocaust is ancient history. Now I wish to live and work in the present. I am out of active service, though on call if needed. Please drop ‘Colonel,’ Bill Damon to you. I am eager to get Ken Stewart’s affairs washed up that I may get on with my own life. I have a book to write and a partnership as the patent man in an engineering firm waiting for me.”
“No reason why they can’t be washed up speedily.” Armstrong tapped a legal-looking sheet spread on the desk. “Your power of attorney is in order. Stewart’s signature agrees with those on letters I have received from him. You also have checked on the leases and registration of the patents in use at the oil holdings on the field and in Washington and report them to be unimpeachable — a rumor got around to the contrary, circulated, I have reason to suspect, by would-be purchasers — which means that the transfer can go through without a hitch.”
“That’s good news.”
“Only one person can hold it up. Mrs. Stewart. Have you met her?”
“Twice.”
“By your smile I deduce it was a pleasant meeting. I am surprised. I was with her in the garden patio when the housekeeper delivered your telephone message. I heard her declare she would not see you. What happened?”
He told of the runaway motorboat; of his talk with the girl on the beach; of her indignation when she discovered his identity; of the advent of Tom Slade. Seth Armstrong inflated and deflated his cheeks as he listened for all the world like a man blowing up balloons for a lot of kids.
“He’s assistant to the Western lawyer who put across the written-contract marriage, isn't he?” he inquired thoughtfully. “What did you think of him, Col — Damon?”
“I had no time in which to form an opinion, he flashed on and off the scene so fast. I haven’t seen either of them since that day. Knowing that I couldn’t confer with you for a week, I spent the time in New York, I had important business there. Cindy Clinton — as you see, I have picked up the name her friends use — had previously assured me that Slade is tall and terribly good-looking. I’m willing to take her word for it. Is he the man she is planning to marry when the annulment goes through?”
“If he is she hasn’t told me. There is talk to the effect that Hal Harding, a playboy who owns The Hundreds, a spectacular estate here, is determined to make her the third Mrs. Harding. It’s gossip, take it for what it’s worth. I’d say the Western lawyer has more on the ball. How do you feel about holding off that annulment till after the deeds of sale of the oil holdings have been signed? It will make only a few days difference, I had a conference with Judge Shelton about it this morning. I think it should wait.”
“I agree with you. Optimism is expressed over the near term outlook for the oil industry. I have been informed that so far as one can see production of crude oil will be permitted to rise over the next several months at least. The buyers are eager to acquire the property, which is in the middle of hundreds of acres on which they own mineral rights. I understand that neither Ken nor the girl he married wants to shoulder the responsibility of the business. The holdings are small as oil holdings go, but good. It is their chance to get out from under with a sizable profit. The lawyer of the buyers waved two checks in the seven-figure bracket practically in my face if I would put my John Hancock on the deed of sale while I was on location, they would obtain hers later. I refused on the ground that Mrs. Stewart and I would sign at the same time.”
“Would you get a bigger price if you played hard to get?”
“Undoubtedly. General market conditions permitting, oil shares are likely to be in better investment demand over the next few months than they have over the last several, but, I have my orders to sell. Will you use your influence with her to get her to sign?”
“It won’t be difficult when I explain that the sale first will mean only a short delay to her freedom. Now if you have time check with you on the financial report.”
The touch of gold on the desk vanished, the room grew shadowy in the corners as the two men discussed and compared facts and figures. Seth Armstrong snapped on the desk light. He glared at the door in response to a knock.
“Who is it?” he growled.
"It’s Ally, Seth. You asked me to bring the tea tray at four-thirty. Hurry! It’s heavy. Open the door!”
Armstrong snatched up his coat from a chair.
“Just a minute. It’s my sister, Mrs. Barclay, Colonel. Let her in while I get this on. She detests —”
“I’ll drop the pesky thing if you don’t —” The tall white-haired woman in a thin soft green frock opened dark eyes wide and stared at the man who flung open the door. He seized the huge china-laden silver tray which tilted dangerously.
“I don’t wonder you are startled, Madam, to see a stranger when you expected your brother to take over. I’m Bill Damon pinch-hitting for the Counselor at the moment. Where shall I deposit this?”
She put her hand to her throat as if to loosen tension. “On the desk,” her voice was husky. “There appears to be plenty of room. You shouldn’t spring a surprise like that, Colonel — Damon. I almost dropped the tray when I saw your face instead of my brother’s. Seth, I was an aide in a field hospital when your present guest was brought in with the ugliest wound of the engagement.”
“How about the cup of tea you brought along, Mrs. Barclay? Do I smell cinnamon toast? The Counselor and I have been figuring till we are on the verge of a nervous breakdown for want of nourishment.”
“Right.” She seated herself in the chair he had occupied at the desk. “Seth, come out of the coma into which my recognition of your guest — or is he a client? — appears to have plunged you. Sit down, both of you. How do you like your tea, Colonel?”
He drew up a chair at an end of the desk, Armstrong tilted back in the swivel chair opposite his sister.
“Strong. I need a stimulant after your surprise appearance. To reminisce for a split second, Counselor, your sister was shipped to England with me and helped me fight back to life in the hospital.”
“It seems as if it happened yesterday, and it was the last month of the war. Time no longer marches on. It is geared to modern tempo. It flies. Here’s your tea, Seth.” Armstrong took a mighty swallow from the cup his sister passed to him and swore inarticulately.
“Why didn’t you warn me that stuff would scald, Ally?” he demanded.
“Don’t tell me that the superefficient secretary of yours, about whom you brag, serves it cold,” she countered. “Aunt Minerva still makes the most heavenly toast out of captivity — she won’t allow my maids to do it — it’s so luscious and cinnamony and sugary. Try it, Colonel. You don’t look as if you needed to count calories.”
“Now that we are through with the prologue, let the play go on. Did you come to this town to meet Damon, Ally?” Seth Armstrong demanded.
“Me? I never was so surprised in my life as when I recognized the man who opened the door as a onetime patient. I had no idea he was in this country-I haven't seen him since the fighting war ended. The one time I heard of him he had been sent on a dangerous mission."
/> “That mission was supposed to be secret.”
“One of those secrets that were circulated to hide the truth? Now that surprise has given way to curiosity, why are you in this small town — Bill Damon?”
“I’ll tell you why.” Seth Armstrong deposited cup and saucer on the desk and answered the question. “Remember Cinderella Clinton, Ally?”
“Do you mean little Cindy Clinton, that adorable youngster with a tousle of goldy-brown curls? Of course I remember her. Aunt Min has kept me posted on village gossip. Wasn’t there a story going the rounds that she made a phony marriage?”
“Nothing phony about it. Legal to the last dot of an i. It is about to be dissolved. The Colonel is here to represent the absent husband.”
“Dissolved. Another marriage gone wrong. Can’t you save it, Colonel?”
“No. I am under orders from the husband to conform to the lady’s wishes and the lady says, ‘Off with his head.’ That leaves me no alternative.” He rose.
“As we have finished our business, Counselor, I’ll take off. Won’t you dine at the Inn with me some evening, Mrs. Barclay? I’d like to check with you on news of men we both knew.”
“I’d love it. On the chance of appearing to gulp your invitation, I suggest that if you are not tied up we make it tonight. Every other evening this week is taken.”
“Perfect. I will come here for you at seven.”
“No, thank you. I want to make a short call on the way.”
“I’ll be waiting for you at the Inn. The earlier we dine, the better the dinner, I have discovered. That being settled, all right if I drop in with Mrs. Stewart tomorrow morning to sign the deeds of sale, Counselor?”
“Yes, if she will come. The buyers are so eager they have sent checks to the bank here to be turned over as soon as you both sign. If she protests tell her that the other matter, which appears to mean life or death to her, will be held up till the sale goes through. I’m glad you are here to twist the thumbscrews, Damon. I’m soft. Good luck to you.”
To Love and to Honour Page 5