Chiffon Scarf (7 page)

She didn’t move or speak; it was rather sweet to stand there, alone with Jim, waiting.

Jim turned as if he’d known she was there; as if, all the time, he’d been waiting, too.

“Eden—”

“Jim, Jim, it was an accident.”

“Eden—you saw the plane fall. God—”

“Don’t, dear. Don’t think of it.”

Involuntarily she put out her hands and he took them tight in his own.

Instantly, again, it was as if Averill and Noel and all those others did not exist. It was as if there were no barriers and no masks between Eden and the man before her.

“It wasn’t an accident. Believe me, Eden, will you? It wasn’t an accident. My engine was safe. There was nothing that could have gone wrong. Yet—it did.” He lifted his head suddenly and said: “Eden, it was a good engine. It couldn’t have caught fire like that. There’s no way—” The line around his mouth hardened and Eden watched it change and gauged it as if she had known the changes of expression in his face always. He said: “There is a way—”

She was sure and unsure of what he meant. He went on slowly:

“It isn’t crazy. It isn’t fantastic. The plans are gone—and Bill didn’t take them.”

“
Jim—do you mean—
”

“I mean the engine was fixed to crash. Don’t look like that; I’m not out of my mind. There are ways to do it. And if Pace didn’t want to buy it, really—in spite of what he says—if he actually preferred stealing it, there are ways to do that, too.”

“
Pace?
”

“Yes, Pace.” He released, her hands and turned and paced up and down, talking rapidly. Sharing the thing with her as if he had to share it.

As if he needed her. She closed her heart on that thought and listened.

“If he bought it openly it could be used for anything—openly. But if he could steal it, he could sell it to anybody that wouldn’t question too much as to how and where he got it. Suppose he was out to double-cross the government (whatever it is) which he says he represents. Suppose he intends to get away with the plans, sell them to whatever country he can sell them to, claim he bought them honestly, convince them of it (I don’t know how), then pocket the two hundred thousand for himself. After all, there are always governments that are not too scrupulous about sources from which they buy.”

“He’d have the two hundred thousand besides the price he could get for the plans.”

“I’m going too fast,” said Jim.

He walked again to the window and stood there, hands in his pockets. Eden tried to follow his thoughts.

How much did any of them really know of the man calling himself Major Pace? They knew only that he wanted the engine and he’d offered to pay them, and he’d deposited the money as an evidence of good faith.

But he’d refused to tell them what country he represented. Eden knew that, too. And there was definitely something about the man which suggested that his motives were in all probability sheerly mercenary.

Creda! With a start Eden remembered the sharp impression she’d had that Creda already knew Pace. It might be only a baseless notion; certainly if Creda knew him then it was curious neither of them acknowledged it.

But she recalled Creda’s fat, white little hand tightening spasmodically on Noel’s arm—the way she avoided Pace’s eyes.

Jim turned suddenly again to face her.

“The plane couldn’t crash like that. Bill was a good flyer; the engine was good. I’ll stake everything on that. There’s something back of it, and I’ve got to find out what it is.”

“That would be murder!”

“Yes. Murder. Bill Blaine and—and the best God damn’ mechanic—” He checked himself abruptly.

“Murder,” whispered Eden with horror. Pace? There was another silence.

And Jim said as if he’d made up his mind: “I’ve got to have proof. Before it’s too late. Before he’s got away with it. I’ve got to have proof, and I’ve got to have time.”

“Can I—help?”

“Yes,” he said unexpectedly, “you can. I can count on you. It—it may seem crackbrained—what I’m going to do. But I believe I can do it and I don’t see any other way.”

“Tell me what to do.”

He smiled a little.

“Thanks. You—you know what it means to me. Eden—” His face sobered. He put out his hand and she put her own in it. And all at once, irresistibly, his hand tightened. The look in his face changed; he drew her nearer him. That too was as irresistible as the course of a river, the strength of a tidal wave, the whirling of the earth and sun. He said suddenly and in the strangest voice as if words were wrenched from him: “Eden, why didn’t you come sooner—”

During a fractional moment she was aware of two things. He was going to take her in his arms; he couldn’t help it any more than she could help yielding. And the door opened and Averill stood on the threshold.

A
FTER A DELIBERATE SECOND
or two she entered; she was perfectly cool, self-possessed and observing. Eden made a violent effort and succeeded in restraining the quickness of the motion with which she turned from Jim. But Averill, always quick as a cat, probably perceived that very restraint. She ended the slight pause and came toward them.

“I couldn’t find the plans,” she said. “Noel says he hasn’t seen them and they weren’t in Bill’s room. But it doesn’t really matter, does it, Jim? They’ll turn up somewhere. And if I were you—” She linked her arm through Jim’s possessively and smiled up into his face.

“If I were you,” she went on quite simply, “I wouldn’t say too much of the plans having been mislaid. They’ll turn up somewhere. And it suggests—”

“Suggests what?” She lifted her slender shoulders.

“Oh, all sorts of unpleasant things. Plots, motives. People talk.”

“Wait a minute, Averill. Let me get this straight. What do you mean by talk?”

“Oh, Jim, think! It’s your engine and everybody knows it. Reporters are practically camping on the steps right now. Suppose some of them got a hint that you hadn’t wanted to sell the engine.”

“Averill—”

“There, Jim, I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s only because I love you that I’m speaking as I am. I—Good heavens, Jim, we’re to be married in three days. Haven’t I a right to think of your name?” She linked her arm through his and put her sleek, dark little head against his shoulder. Jim, his face like a stone, did not move and did not seem to be aware of her caressing gesture. But Averill pushed her head against his arm and looked at Eden.

There was triumph and there was complacence and there was warning in her gaze. Because Averill knew.

Eden was suddenly as sure of that as she was ever to be sure of anything in her life.

Perhaps there bad been something too revealing in the scene Averill had interrupted. Perhaps it was an alert sixth sense. Nothing tangible, nothing definable, but she knew. And she was warning Eden and reminding her.

The trouble was Averill was right. And Eden was quite definitely and unquestionably in the wrong.

The butler opened the door and came in. “Excuse me, miss. If I might see the drawer where the blueprints were placed—”

Eden murmured something and went out of the room and rather blindly walked down the hall and stopped at the big bay window. Sunshine poured down upon garden and shrubs. The hall itself was cool and shadowy and empty.

A house of mourning really; but the thing Eden mourned was still alive.

So that was love. The kind that comes once and never comes again. She’d have to stand by, she thought suddenly, painfully, and see the man she loved marry someone else. Averill.

Well, if Averill had ever wanted revenge upon Eden she had it now.

And Jim—why, Jim must have loved Averill. He wouldn’t have asked her to marry him, if he hadn’t. Then did he still love her? But he’d said—she closed her eyes, the better to hear it again—“Why didn’t you come sooner?” That could mean only one thing.

Noel came quickly along the hall, saw her and stopped.

“Well, it’s all set. The plane leaves tonight at nine. Has Averill found the plans?”

“No.”

He looked at her sharply.

“Steady, my girl. What’s wrong? Don’t let this get you down, Eden. It’s tough. Poor old Bill. But it’s nothing that could have been helped.”

The butler came out of the library and advanced sedately.

“Mr. Carreaux—”

“Yes, Glass.”

“None of the maids have seen the blueprints that are missing. I’m quite sure none of them inadvertently removed the blueprints.”

“Oh. All right, Glass. They’ll turn up somewhere, I’m sure.”

“I hope so, sir. And by the way—it’s a small matter but—when Miss Blaine showed me the drawer just now where the blueprints were placed last night I happened to notice that—well, three new sticks of red sealing wax were missing, too.”

“Wax? But, really, Glass—”

The butler drew himself up.

“I realize it is a trivial matter, sir. I mention it because I replenished it only last night.”

“Thank you, Glass.”

The butler, wearing a disapproving expression, went away.

And Eden thought, wax, a package of blueprints, mailing. But there’d been no time, or at least no opportunity.

The door opposite, which led to the small morning room, opened and Dorothy Woolen looked out, failed to see Eden who stood a little in the shadow of the stairway and said to Noel:

“Noel, they’ve gone.” Her usually blank face wore an animated expression; she was for an instant almost pretty. Noel said:

“That’s a good girl.” He glanced at Eden. “I knew Dorothy could get rid of reporters if anybody could.”

“Is there anything else?” said Dorothy. When Eden glanced at her again the prettiness had gone as if wiped off by a sponge; her face was simply a blank, plump expanse showing no expression whatever.

“Yes,” said Noel. He murmured something to Eden and went into the morning room and Eden climbed the stairs rather wearily to her own room.

Just here at the top of the stairs Bill Blaine had taken her hands the night before and kissed her.

Bluff, big Bill Blaine.

If what Jim said was true, if he could prove it, it was murder.

She shivered a little and went quickly to her own room.

Jim must have gone almost at once to the plant where he remained. He did not return to the house to dinner and Eden did not see him again until the plane left that night.

And there were things to do.

She packed her own things first, which was simple and did not take long. She did not pack her heavy white sports coat; she would wear it in the plane for the night was likely to be chilly. As she put the coat over a chair she remembered the key that she had discovered at her feet in that horrible moment when the plane fell, a blazing, smoking mass, with human souls going up in that smoke.

Deliberate murder. Cold-blooded. Planned. Was Jim right?

She didn’t know what she had done with the key; she felt in the pockets of the coat she had worn and found it. Again she turned it in her fingers but this time looked at it with attention. A Yale key, she’d noticed that. A large substantial key; it might be the key to the house, the key to anything.

There was no way of knowing who had lost it. Creda, Averill or the chauffeur might have dropped it—or it might have been dropped sometime (any time, indeed) previous to that morning. It was bright and clean as if in constant use, but then it was a brass key and not likely to show signs of weathering.

It would give her, however, a chance to talk to Creda. If Creda could be seen.

She took the key; she was walking through the hall toward Creda’s suite of rooms at the back of the house when she met Noel again.

“Coast is all clear,” he said. “I just sent Dorothy home to pack. I don’t know why on earth Averill wants her to go along but expect she can make herself useful. Dorothy’s an—an efficient young woman. What’s that you’ve got in your hand?”

“A key,” said Eden and showed it to him.

“Why that” He began and stopped. He shot her a quick look. “Where did you get that?”

“Found it. I think it’s Creda’s. Do you know what key it is?”

“Creda’s? Oh, I see.” His face cleared. “For a moment, I thought it looked like a key to the plant. Perhaps I was mistaken—I can soon tell.” He drew out his own key ring, selected a Yale key and compared them. “By Jove, it is a key to the plant! What was Creda doing with it, do you suppose?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to return it to her.”

“Wait a minute.” He was frowning, thinking. “Oh, all right,” he said. “It’s probably Bill’s key. It doesn’t matter anyway. Are you all packed to go?”

“Yes.”

“It’s too bad, things turning out like this. Averill planned everything so well. She’s a great girl; good executive; she’ll be better at running things at the plant, as a matter of fact, than Bill was. Did you see how quickly she took hold of things?”

“Yes, I saw that.”

“She’ll be a good wife for Jim,” said Noel. “She’ll pull him out of this thing in fine shape. And, by golly, if we let her alone she’ll still sell the engine to Pace. Here’s my door; I’ve got to pack—”

“But, Noel, the thing this morning wasn’t Jim’s fault. You said yourself—”

“I know.” He glanced quickly up and down the hall and lowered his voice a little. “And it’s true that the engine passed the tests all right. But—Bill was a good flyer, Eden. Accidents don’t happen, just like that.”

“You mean you think the engine failed?”

He didn’t answer for a moment; his blue eyes were dark and thoughtful. Then he turned away with a shrug and a quick smile.

“I don’t mean anything, Eden. Forget it. Run along and see how Creda’s getting on.”

He waved, still with a smile, and went inside his room. Eden, pondering the things he hadn’t said rather than what he had said, went on to Creda’s door. She knocked and Creda said at once:

“Who is it?”

“Eden.”

“Oh.” There was a slight pause, then the soft tread of Creda’s feet across the rug and the rasp of a key in the door, unlocking it.

“It’s you,” said Creda. “Come in.”

Her face was very pale and without tearstains; she glanced rather uneasily down the hall over Eden’s shoulder and closed the door quickly as she entered. Her fat little hand already on the key, she just restrained herself, Eden felt, from relocking it.