Chiffon Scarf (10 page)

“Sit down then and shut up,” said Jim.

“Noel, you’re being very mysterious,” said Averill. “Exactly what
do
you mean?”

Noel sat down again slowly.

“I don’t mean anything, Averill.” He sighed. “I apologize. As Jim suggests, it was the very access of good luck we were having that roused my lurid suspicions. I apologize all around and hope everybody is satisfied.”

Jim passed him a plate of flapjacks; Creda, who had been sitting in complete silence staring at her plate, moved and lifted a cup of coffee to her lips.

But Pace got to his feet deliberately with a kind of threat in the slow movement of his heavy body.

“I’m afraid I’m not quite satisfied,” he said. “At least I see no point in staying here indefinitely. I suggest that you tell that pilot to start the plane and take us back to St. Louis.”

“Suppose I refuse,” said Jim.

“You won’t refuse,” said Pace. “You don’t dare.”

“It isn’t quite a question of daring,” said Jim. He put down his fork and looked at them with a kind of weariness. “If you can fly that plane as she is now back to St. Louis or on to Louisiana or any place in the world, you’re welcome to try it. But I won’t go up with you.”

Pace blinked slowly, like a lizard. He looked at Noel.

“Can you fly? Do you know anything about planes?”

“I’ve—got a license,” said Noel rather hesitantly. “I’ve flown a little but I don’t know much about the—the engine or the mechanics. However, Jim’s on the level about this, Pace. Aren’t you, Jim?”

“Why on earth wouldn’t I be?” said Jim. “What do you think I’m trying to do?”

“I don’t know,” said Pace slowly. “I can’t imagine. But I do know there are ways to get out. I can wire for a plane to pick us up. I can telephone.”

“Certainly you can,” said Jim coolly. He took another flapjack deliberately. “Go ahead and wire.”

Noel said: “It’s all right, Major Pace. I talked out of turn. Sorry.”

“What’s that man Strevsky here for?” said Pace.

Jim poured syrup on the flapjack lavishly. “Because he’s a good pilot,” he said. “And luckily for us, a good mechanic. Look here, if any of you really want to leave, Sloane’s got a couple of cars. He said town was only fifty miles away. You can make it easily.”

“How long will it take to get the plane so it’s safe to leave?” asked Averill coolly.

“Honestly, Averill, I don’t know. We may get out by night—we may have to send for some new parts. I don’t know. I’ll go down right away and get to work on it.”

“Do you think it would be better to take the train?”

Jim shrugged.

“Just as you like. We could leave the plane here. Strevsky could fly it back to St. Louis when it’s repaired.”

The rancher strolled past the open door and Jim called to him.

“Oh, Mr. Sloane—”

“Call me P. H.,” said the rancher parenthetically. “Everybody does.”

“When can we get a train from—Red Gap—Rocky Gap—”

“Rocky Gap,” said the rancher. “The train’s gone.”

There was another moment of silence. Then Averill said incredulously: “
The
train!”

“It went through Rocky Gap at five-thirty sharp,” said the rancher calmly, “and there won’t be another for three days. It’s the off season here, you know. In another month they’ll put on a train a day. That’s when I get my tourists. But just now it doesn’t pay the railroad to run more than two trains a week. It’s tough pulling, crossing the mountains. But you’re welcome to stay as long as you like. My first guests arrive next month. I guess,” he added without apology, “we’re a little off the main traveled road.”

It struck Eden as being almost a stunning understatement.

But she couldn’t help rather admiring Averill’s rally, for Averill said after a moment, quite coolly:

“In that case we’d better have the bags brought up from the plane. I suppose Mr. Sloane can supply us with rooms.”

“Glad to,” said the rancher. “At the usual rates. They are a little high.”

“At any rates you like,” said Averill not to be outdone. “I suppose you have a telephone, too.”

“Certainly. It’s the country line but it’s a telephone.”

“Very well. Will you send some telegrams, Dorothy? After you’ve finished breakfast, of course. Now—if you’ll show us to our rooms, Mr. Sloane.”

He clapped his hands smartly and another Chinese boy came running.

“Chango will show you, Miss Blaine,” he said. “The best cabins, Chango. Tell Charlie to take the light truck over to the ship for the baggage.”

Averill sighed.

“At any rate,” she said, “we’ll have baths and a sleep.”

It ended, for the time being at least, any further questioning although there was no way of knowing what anyone actually thought.

Only Dorothy Woolen seemed to think nothing at all. Her bland, blank face was impassive, her pale eyes observed constantly but reflected nothing; apparently she was chilly in her silk jacket and had borrowed from the steward or from Noel, for a man’s brown sweater hung apathetically around her shoulders. She seemed utterly unmoved and incurious. Yet she was not unintelligent and certainly she had followed the whole conversation with most minute attention—as if she were making a neat record of every word in her efficient, secretary’s mind.

With again a kind of suspicious fortuitousness the cabins proved to be extremely comfortable; their rustic look was not intrusive and did not extend to such things as beds and plumbing.

Each cabin was equipped with two long, fairly wide bedrooms, two fireplaces and two bathrooms. Eden shared a cabin with Averill; Creda shared the cabin directly beside it with Dorothy. Eden didn’t notice just how the men were disposed for the airy, chintz-decorated and comfortable room was too welcome a sight. She had a vague impression that Jim and Noel disappeared almost at once in the direction of the plane and that Pace’s cabin was at the end of the little row, but that was all.

The water in the tub was hot and there were plentiful bath salts to relieve its indubitable harshness. It was inexpressibly restful. Eden thought dreamily that she would talk to Jim at the first chance she had—and barely reached the bed before she fell asleep.

She never knew much of what happened that day.

Certainly Jim and the pilot spent some time working at the plane; certainly Dorothy sent the necessary telegrams announcing their continued delay and the reason for it.

It must have been to the outward eye quiet and restful with almost nothing of any importance happening. Yet sometime during that long, lazy day, two things must have taken place.

Someone—unobserved and undetected—went to the plane and—still undetected and very efficiently—cut the fuel line leading to the engine.

And sometime that afternoon Creda Blaine took a long walk, leaving and returning alone.

These things happened.

The damage done to the fuel line was not discovered that afternoon because Jim and the pilot, after busying themselves about the plane all morning, had at last wired to Denver for a part they said they needed and had gone to their cabins to sleep. The boyish steward (whose name proved to be Roy Wilson) gave up early in the day and passed most of it sleeping calmly in a hammock hung at the south end of the long porch.

And Creda’s departure and late return were observed casually by the drowsy steward, scarcely remembered, and at the time wholly without significance.

It was after dinner that Eden had her talk with Jim—and had likewise, later, her unexpected interview with Averill.

It was a rather quiet and not unpleasant meal except that, even without Creda’s presence to remind them, it was not quite possible to forget that Bill Blaine ought to have been with them. Once Noel started to speak of him and caught himself. And once Averill mentioned him, too, and then, with a quick look at Creda, also caught herself.

Creda, though dressed carefully and youthfully in the organdy evening gown—her curls soft and childish around her forehead and her lips made into a perfect, pink Cupid’s bow—was unwontedly silent, with small pouches under her gentle brown eyes. So far as Eden knew she had not spoken to Pace, nor Pace to her. Yet Creda’s silence was unusual with her, and there was something taut and anxious in that silence.

It was cold. P. H. Sloane, turning out unexpectedly in a perfectly tailored dinner jacket (although none of the other men changed for dinner) and sitting, host fashion, at the head of the table, said it was always cold at night.

“It’s because we are practically in the mountains,” he said. “We’ll have a fire lighted in the lounge.”

They had coffee and liqueurs, poured by a gracious host, in the lounge—the enormous room with the great piano; a log fire roared in the fireplace opposite the piano.

It was probably about ten when Eden went quietly out onto the porch and stood for a moment at the railing, looking out into the still night.

Behind her in the lounge their host was telling stories of the ranch country—telling them calmly, not unpleasantly, as if it were a part of his recognized duty; certainly there was a flavor of familiarity about the stories, of oft and extremely well-told tales.

She had changed into a printed silk dinner dress and because of the cold had put her big white coat over it; she pulled the coat tight around her and walked slowly toward . the far end of the porch, her slipper heels making little taps of sound along the wooden floor.

She stepped there. Through the pines between she could see lights glimmering from the nearest cabin window—could see even the writing table and chair beside it for the shade was up. It wasn’t more than forty or fifty feet from the porch, but an outcropping of rocks covered with thickets of pines intervened.

She lifted her face to the deep night sky. It was a starlit night but so clear that she almost thought she could see the rim of mountains glimmering distantly like silver in the starlight. The loftiness and grandeur of the night caught at her again irresistibly.

Old worlds and old quarrels and the threat of war were inconceivably remote. Struggle and the race for armaments could not, she thought, reach out and grasp at them there.

Someone inside touched a piano—and touched it again. A cascade of silvery notes fell into the night; she listened; it was Debussy, played by a musician. Their host, of course.

Where and how had Jim known him?

The door onto the porch opened and closed.

She heard Jim’s footstep when he came along the porch behind her.

He stopped beside her: and as he had done that first night—how long ago it seemed and how distant—offered her a cigarette.

“Thanks.” She took it and, as before, bent to the light he offered. The small flame lighted his face for a moment and vanished.

“Let’s walk,” he said. “Steps are over here.”

They left the porch and strolled along a gravel drive. It was so still the sound of their feet on the gravel was distinct, the music behind them clear and lovely. The drive led through dense, black clumps of pines, away from the house; it was irregular, sloping here and there; eventually paths (taking the long way around because of the rocks and pines) led from it, branching right and left toward the two groups of cabins, one at each end of the long house, but the drive itself went on between pines and firs, toward the mile-distant gate. They passed the dividing paths and strolled on.

The house lay behind them—only the distant mountains ahead. There was the bittersweet fragrance of sagebrush at night. The sound of music grew more distant. As if by agreement, they had walked and smoked in silence, until they were some distance from the house. It was Eden finally who said:

“Have you found the plans?”

It was as if he expected her to ask it. He shook his head.

“They’re not here.”

“How do you know?”

“Never mind. I know.” He glanced over his shoulder but they were altogether alone with only the still night around them. “Of course you guessed it wasn’t an accident. Our landing here.”

“Yes.”

“The trouble is the rest of them guessed, too. It’s fairly obvious. In spite of the way things calmed down there at breakfast. I wish—”

“You wish—” She said as he didn’t speak for a moment.

“I wish they didn’t know or guess,” he said. “I’m afraid it means trouble.”

“WHAT KIND OF TROUBLE
?”

“I don’t know exactly. I don’t like the way Pace took it.”

“Jim, who is P. H. Sloane?”

“Oh, you guessed that, too. Well, he’s a detective. Rather was a detective. One of the best.”

She stopped short.

“A detective!”

“Yes. He—that’s it, you see. He’s the only man I could think of who can help me. If he can’t discover who was responsible for the crash and the death of two men, no one can. We—everybody who was involved in the thing, were going on the plane last night. It seemed a good idea just to—to bring them out here. Keep ’em all together. Sort of simple—but I’m not sure it was such a good idea.”

“No one else knows P. H. Sloane?”

“I don’t think so. I knew him ages ago. He was a friend of one of my professors in school; we used to meet at his house. I was going to school, then, of course, at Chicago U.; P. H. Sloane was then a consulting detective. He’d been with the police for years—had a row with somebody political in a famous case. I don’t remember details. In the end he left the police and set up shop for himself; he prospered and as soon as he had enough money he gave up his profession, came out here, bought this land and set up a dude ranch. He’d always hated his work; he’s taken on color like a salamander; you’d think he was born here.”

“You’ve told him about the crash?”

“Some. We had time for only a few words. I’m going to have a long talk with him tonight. He may refuse to do it—but I don’t think so.”

They had been standing still in the shadow of a clump of pines. They walked on, now, slowly.

“Then what’s the matter with the plane?” asked Eden.

“Nothing,” said Jim. “That is, I disconnected the radio, and when it was safe, the compass.”

“Doesn’t Noel know the truth?”

“He could easily discover it. But he’s a good egg. He’ll keep quiet. Strevsky’s the only one who knows much about a plane. And he’s with me.”