“Does Mr. Damon know you’re going?”
“He doesn’t know I’m going and I hope I never see him again. Make what you like out of that. Don’t worry about me, Sary. That stolen limousine adventure couldn’t happen twice in a lifetime. If it does — send Brother Joe in search of me.”
“What do you mean, saying ‘Brother Joe’ in that kind of snippy voice? Not mad because he’s here, are you?”
“Of course I’m not mad because he’s here. There’s the speedboat siren. Hal is waiting for me.”
“I should think he’d be polite an’ come to the house for you. Other folks goin’ to be there?”
“Of course others will be there, Sary, and while we are on the subject, I wish you would stop treating me like a kid. You check every step I take.”
“Sakes alive, Cindy, what’s got into you? Haven’t you told me where you were going since you was a little girl? Want to know somethin’? You’ve been cross as two sticks ever since the masquerade. ’Tain’t like you. I can’t figure out whether it’s because you’re worried about that Slade fella or you’ve got a guilty conscience.”
“Wouldn’t you be on edge if you’d found a bag of jewels hidden in your house and expected the police to arrive any minute and accuse you of hiding stolen goods?”
“Calm down, Cindy. Colonel Bill Damon —”
“Stop calling him that. You know perfectly well that the person who claimed to be Bill Damon is Kenniston Stewart. Good-by. Expect me when you see me and not a minute before.”
That burst of temperament set Sary’s mouth ajar, she thought as she crossed the patio. I’ll bet she has known who he is all the time. Why do I care that Ken Stewart put on that “guide, philosopher and friend” act; that Sary thinks there may be a “match” between him and Ally Barclay? Plenty of other things to think about with the paper which appeared so mysteriously in the pocket of the red skating costume pricking in the pocket of my cardigan this minute. I’d better get busy putting together the pieces of that puzzle.
Halfway across the putting green she stopped and looked back at the house, before she pulled the folded paper from her pocket. She ripped it open. Read the clumsy printed message. Read it twice.
“Keep away from the seat on the point.
Stop flashing lights. DANGER.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Keep away from the seat on the point.
Stop flashing lights. DANGER.”
DANGER? TO whom? What could it mean? She looked toward the stone seat beyond the putting green. Sary and she had been the only persons living at The Castle this summer. Joe was there now but it couldn’t refer to him. He had arrived only a few hours before the Bal Masqué where apparently the warning had been slipped into her pocket. Had it been intended for someone else? That explanation was out. “Keep away from the seat on the point” must mean the seat she could see just ahead; there wasn’t another like it on this shore.
“Stop flashing lights.” The writer was on the wrong trail if he suspected an occupant of The Castle. Sary had said:
“You can see it plain from that seat on our point” — she had referred to the house across the cove, “I sit there a lot to watch what goes on. Every little while a big boat drops anchor off Rockledge shore and signals.”
The suspicion that the message had been intended for Sary was ridiculous. Hadn’t she rushed out of the house to report flashed lights the night a boat had bumped against the oceanside landing at The Castle? Later hadn’t she herself heard a voice warn:
“They’ve made the getaway safely. Now we can go. Our job is done. No one awake here. Luckily for them.” She recalled the icy chills that had crept up her spine and slithered down. Even the memory set her a-shiver. Add to that the word DANGER and what had you?
Who had been in that boat? Who had slipped the note into her pocket at the masquerade? Was it a threat or a friendly warning? She began to check partners by their costumes. It couldn’t have been the chef or Prince Charming. The clown? She had distrusted him from the moment he first cut in on a dance. The suspicion that he would bear watching had steeled to conviction when he had slipped into the front seat of —
Hal was coming. Hurriedly she thrust the paper into the pocket of her cardigan.
“Have you turned into a pillar of salt, sugar?” he demanded. “You’ve been standing motionless in one spot for at least five minutes. Come on.”
“I’m coming. I wouldn’t turn into salt, Hal,” she tied the light blue kerchief over her head as they walked side by side toward the pier. “I’m so sweet and charming I would turn into sugar. And that reminds me, why do you keep calling me by that saccharine name? If you hadn’t declared you didn’t know Mrs. Drew I would think you had picked it up from her. Didn’t you hear her call me ‘sugar’ at the Armstrongs’ dinner?”
“Perhaps she is Southern. I was playing round with a bunch of Virginians just before you came to town this summer. Must have picked up the word from them. It suits you.”
“Maybe you think it does, but I don’t like it. Don’t do it again.”
“I won’t. Perhaps you’d rather I wouldn’t talk to you at all.”
“Good heavens, Hal, be your age. Don’t sulk. Don’t go adolescent on me and spoil our afternoon. Isn’t that Rena Foster, the waitress at Rockledge, crossing the cove in a dory?” Not that she cared but in the hope of switching his mood which all signs indicated was set for “stormy.”
“Yes. She came to tell me not to call for Mrs. Drew. I told you I intended to invite her to the steak party. She sent word she couldn’t come as she had invited friends to dine with her aboard the yacht. All right with me. I asked her because you made such a point of being neighborly. I don’t like her and I don’t want you to become friends with her.”
“Friends. No danger of that. She’s all right enough but not a person to whom I would confide the secrets of my heart.”
“Has your heart secrets?”
“It has. What’s a heart without secrets? Hasn’t yours?”
“I wear mine on my sleeve proud to let the world know whom I love. It ought not to take long for you to figure out that one.” They had reached the pier where the speed runabout tugged at a chain fastened to a ring. “Jump in. Grand afternoon, isn’t it? I hope it brings me luck. Why are you waiting?”
She had hesitated because she hadn’t liked his voice or his eyes when he had referred to his heart on his sleeve or his “I hope it brings me luck.” Was she inviting trouble by going with him? Foolish. Other guests would be present.
She stepped on the brilliant red gunwale then down to a plastic-covered matching seat. Harding unfastened the painter and dropped behind the wheel beside her. He pushed a button. The runabout shot forward.
“Isn’t this exciting!” Cindy declared breathlessly. “Like being on the front seat of an automobile. Lucky there is a glass windshield to keep off the spray we’re kicking up. Hear it swis-s-h against the hull.” She tightened the kerchief on her head.
“Lucky you aren’t wearing a hat. It wouldn’t stay on a minute.”
“I haven’t worn a hat this summer.”
“Why snap at my conversational tidbit? The fact that you wear a hat or don’t wear one is not of cosmic importance, is it? In the interests of this boat’s color scheme you and I should be wearing red, Hal. Not that I don’t admire your tone poem, snappy dark blue coat, light blue shirt and blue and beige striped tie, the outfit is immensely becoming to your blond good looks.”
“Now, you’re ribbing me. I don’t mind. Glad to see you in such high spirits, sug-Cinderella.”
“It is the exciting speed at which we are shooting over the water that makes me chatter.”
High spirits. Lucky he wasn’t a mind reader, lucky he couldn’t divine the chaos of anger, hurt and love battling within her. Why think of that now when she was on a party? Hadn’t she the mental strength to control her thoughts? “One good shove of the shoulder and God helping we’ll get Britain out of this hole,”
she had heard a great statesman declare over the radio. Would one good shove of her shoulder oust Ken Stewart from her heart?
“A penny for your thoughts. A million of them if they are of me,” Hal Harding demanded and promised in the same breath.
“A million pennies. Sounds like a magnificent offer. How many dollars would that be?” She pretended to count on her fingers. “Only a thousand. My inner thoughts are worth more than that, Mr. Harding.” The motor hummed rhythmically. Creamy foam at the sides marked their swift progress. “This is the most thrilling sport in the world. I love it.”
“Why don’t you have a boat like this? I understand you have come into a fortune recently.”
“You mean from the sale of the oil property? I suppose I could. I can’t realize that I have money to spend on an extravagance. Before I buy a boat or a new car — the car is a must, at some not distant day the jalopy will lie down and die on me — I have other things I want to do.”
“Such as —”
“I’m not talking about them till they are accomplished. What a gorgeous sunset. All the colors of the rainbow. Those fluffs of cloud make me think of irridescent galleons sailing majestically across the blue. I’m not crazy about that purple fog bank, though.”
“That’s nothing to worry about. It has been like that for several days.”
“How fast are we going, Hal? The boat is skimming on top of the water like a jet plane through the sky. My eyelashes feel as if they were being pulled out by the roots.”
“This motor has only a twenty-eight m.p.h. speed. Nothing spectacular. It’s as large as a twenty-three-foot runabout can carry.”
“I would hate to go faster. Perhaps I’m just a little outboard motor gal. I love scooting around in my dory with the Evinrude.” As the boat slid smoothly up to a pier she pleaded:
“Hold it here a minute, Hal. I love the glimpse of your house at the end of the avenue bordered by maples bursting into flame at the tips. You should be very proud of your home, Mister. The Hundreds is definitely the show place of the county because of its history and beauty.”
“I’ve been trying to give it to you but you won’t listen.” He stood on the pier and held out his hand. “Come on.” As she stepped out of the boat a man approached and touched his cap.
“Want I should take her out to the mooring, Mr. Harding?”
“Yes, Macey. Stick around to take care of other boats as they come in.”
“Yes, sir.”
Cindy looked over her shoulder as they started along a path.
“Am I the first arrival? Are both the outboard at the pier and the second one at the mooring yours?”
“Yes. The one at the pier is for the use of Macey, the boatman who lives in the village. Will you come into the house? I have new record albums we could play while we waited for the others.”
“No. I’ve come for a steak party. Let’s go to the playhouse.”
I wish I hadn’t arrived so much ahead of the other guests, she thought, as they approached the pool. The red-cushioned chairs ranged round it on the velvety green lawn, the scattering of gay umbrellas gave her the curious feeling that the party was over. There were no signs of cooking supplies at the stone fireplace with its iron grills. There should be a variety of long forks and spoons and a pile of charcoal briquettes.
“I never give up what I want.”
Hal Harding’s angry shout with its suggestion of threat in the Courthouse parking lot echoed through her memory. His “I hope it brings me luck” followed. Queer. Was instinct broadcasting a warning? Were guests expected or had his mention of others invited been a ruse to get her here alone? He had asked her time and again to come for tea. Fool suspicion. Unhampered as he was by ethical inhibitions he wasn’t that kind of heel.
“Sit down, Cindy. You are giving an imitation of the Winged Victory poised for flight.” He drew forward a deep chair.
“I was wishing that I had not been the first arrival at your steak party,” she admitted as she sank into the inviting cushions.
“First arrival or last, what difference does it make except to me? Why worry? The others will come along in a bunch. While we are alone I’ll ask a question. Has Kenniston Stewart explained why he let that annulment go through?”
“Hal Harding, if you mention that name again I’ll go home if I have to swim.”
“I bet you could do it, you won’t have to swim, Cindy. You answered my question with your reply.”
“What is it, Simpkins?” he inquired of the man in a white cotton coat who was hesitating in the doorway of the playhouse as if uncertain whether to approach.
Cindy’s heart zoomed and grounded. She couldn’t be mistaken. Hadn’t she watched that slicked black hair with the one deep wave for what had seemed hours as the limousine hurtled on? He was the clown who had stolen the car. Her heart made like an Indian war drum. Now that she saw his face without the clown make-up he was the tough whose picture she had snapped at the beach. How had he managed to double back here with what had seemed the entire police force in pursuit? Watch your step, she warned herself. He mustn’t suspect that you recognize him. She looked up with what she hoped was casual indifference as he approached.
“The folks you expected phoned after you left, Mr. Harding, that a fire had started up the shore and they were going to that,” he said.
“All of them?”
“Yes, sir. One phoned the message for the bunch.”
You’re lying. You were briefed to say that, Cindy thought. It is unbelievable that all the guests would sidestep the party. Hal must think me gullible.
“What do you know about that? A wholesale walkout. Sorry I got you here under false pretenses, Cindy,” Harding regretted. “We’ll have a cold drink, then we’ll shoot for the fire. What’s yours?”
“Nice, tall, iced orange juice for me. Sounds like the King of France and his forty thousand men. I walk up the hill to the playhouse and then walk down again.” Nonsense but she needed time to think.
“Orange juice for Miss Clinton. Mine as usual, Simpkins.”
As the man turned away she asked:
“Isn’t he a recent acquisition? Can’t remember seeing him here at any of your parties. How long has he been at The Hundreds?”
“About a week. He’s good but I suspect he’s a drifter. However, I’m enjoying him while he lasts.”
“He looks efficient.” Efficient at stealing cars, she added to herself. “To make the occasion perfect how about producing the ‘South Pacific’ album and turning on the phonograph in the playhouse? I can’t think of anything more delightful than to sit beside this sunset-tinted pool and hear Ezio Pinza sing ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ especially for me.” She crowded back the memory of the night she had heard the air perfectly whistled. Ken Stewart was out of her life forever.
“‘Some Enchanted Evening’ coming up. It is at the house. I’ll spring down and get it. All you have to do here, Cinderella, is to wish for something and it is yours. I’ll be the fairy godmother. The only thing I won’t produce is a pumpkin and mice to carry you away.”
Her eyes followed him as he entered the path that led down to the main house. She hadn’t liked his eyes when he had said that about the pumpkin and mice. Am I crazy or just bursting with conceit when I suspect him of conniving for an evening alone with me? The presence of that man Simpkins gives me the jitters. I’m afraid of him. Suppose for any reason Hal should not come back? I know that’s a cockeyed thought, but nothing is too cockeyed to imagine after my experience Friday night. I don’t trust Hal Harding. I know now that deep down in my mind I never trusted him. I’ve got to make my getaway and alone. How?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE SUN was going down in a fantastic splurge of color. The pool reflected pink and violet tints, but she wasn’t seeing it, she was remembering that the bar in the playhouse was well stocked; that it wouldn’t take the man Simpkins long to prepare the drinks. She must escape before he returned and while Hal was collecting the alb
ums for the phonograph.
How? Hitchhike along the highway back of the playhouse? No dice. It would leave her across the harbor from The Castle, besides Hal could easily overtake her in his car. She must do something and quick. The caretaker’s outboard? Could she get it? She must. It was her one chance to escape.
“I never waste a moment in indecision.” The statement credited to Eleanor Roosevelt flashed through her mind. Indecision was out. She must get away in that boat.
A door closing. At the playhouse. Simpkins was coming. Without a tray. To speak to her? Had he seen Hal leave? In some undercover way, had he discovered that she had been in the back seat of the stolen limousine? Was he coming to warn her not to betray him?
She ran. Charged down the path that loped lazily toward the shore. Was it he calling? Think success and you invite success was one of the planks in her platform for living. Now was the time to give it a workout.
“I know I can. I know I can get away in that boat,” she told herself over and over as she raced on. Luckily she would be out of sight of the large house until she reached the pier.
In the shadow of a spreading oak she stopped for breath, to listen and look. The caretaker’s boat swayed at the landing. The power runabout in which she had come, with its gleaming chromium and glass windshield, its brilliant red trim, was moored perhaps fifty feet off shore. A smaller motorboat pulled and tugged at a nearby mooring. Her one chance was the outboard. She kicked off white sandals. The sound of heels on the planks might betray her. All set. Now think success and invite success, she prodded herself.
“I know I can. I know I can make it,” she chanted as with sandals clutched in her left hand she ran forward.
No one in sight at the boathouse or pier. She didn’t dare look back. She flung her sandals into the outboard and with fingers that felt all thumbs tried to loosen the painter. The dam thing stuck. Tight as the twine tied round the bag of jewels. She had untied that. She would do this. At last!
To Love and to Honour Page 20