Ghost of a Chance (13 page)

Jeff said, “We ought to have stayed right there in the dining car.”

“But Sally didn’t want us to. There was somebody around. She didn’t want them to know we were helping her. Thank God she’s smart, Jeff. She realizes that we can do her more good if we keep covered, if the gang doesn’t spot us.”

“I’d like to know that she’s all right.”

“Darling,” I said, “what could anybody do to her in the dining car?”

“Probably nothing,” Jeff said, “but I want to make sure.”

“I don’t blame you,” I said. “I want to know, too.”

“I’ll be right back.”

The late-comer across the aisle was opening up a conversation with his three fellow-travelers by using the old weather technique. They agreed with him that it had certainly been some snow storm we had had. From there he went on to radio comedians, home-made bread, horses, arthritis.

Tarrytown faded away behind us; we were bearing down on Ossining. Jeff slid into the scat beside me.

“All right,” he said.

“Will it stay all right?”

“She’s paying her check. She’ll be with us in a minute. She sneaked me the high sign.”

The conversationalist across the aisle was exhibiting a snapshot. He had first built up a terrific suspense by secretly examining the picture, holding it close to his ruddy face with its long sharp nose and continually blinking eyes. Now he handed it to the man beside him.

He said slyly, “Who do you think that is?”

The man glanced at it and promptly said, “You.”

Blinky was crestfallen. “Oh. Oh, well, it is. But don’t you see a resemblance to anyone else?”

“Can’t say I do.”

“You need glasses, brother,” Blinky said.

He took the picture from the man’s hands and turned away from him, suffering from acute frustration. Then he saw that I was watching him. He bounced to his feet and plunked himself in the empty seat facing us. He thrust the picture before our eyes.

It was a snap of our sharp-nosed friend and his automobile. One foot poised debonairly on the running board, he leaned back against the car with all the nonchalance of a pickpocket being photographed by the police. His mouth was open; he was obviously telling the person with the camera how to use it.

He slapped Jeff on the knee. “You see a resemblance to somebody there, don’t you, young fellow?”

Jeff wasn’t interested. He was tired playing straight man to the employees and customers of the New York Central. He had something else on his mind. He growled at Blinky.

“Now wait a minute,” Blinky said. “If I’m buttin’ in on something, just tell me.”

“You’re buttin’ in on something.”

“What am I buttin’ in on? You two was just sittin’ here, doin’ nothin’l I’m tryin’ to be friendly and you get nasty!”

“I’m sorry,” Jeff said.

“Oh, it’s easy enough to apologize! Anybody can apologize! If you don’t like people,” Blinky demanded, getting more obnoxious by the moment, “what do you ride on trains for? Why don’t you hire yourself a private airplane?”

“Go away, will you?” Jeff said wearily.

“What did you call me?”

“Oh, God,” Jeff said. “Look, pal, that picture of you does remind me of someone. I’ve got to admit it, it does.”

“Yeah?” Blinky said, suddenly mollified. “Who does it remind you of?”

Jeff never got a chance to tell him. A flock of new passengers surged down the aisle and I realized that the train had stopped. Instinctively, I glanced out the window to see which station it was. I couldn’t locate a sign; I could only see billboards advertising the current Broadway shows and, in front of them, a tall girl with red hair.

“Jeff!” I shouted. “Jeff, hurry!”

I plunged between him and the man with the snapshot. I started down the aisle to the platform. Through the pavilion of the station I saw a small blue sedan. Stepping into that sedan was Sally Kennedy.

Jeff charged after me. We met the jovial conductor on the car’s steps. He held up a restraining hand and blocked our way.

“This isn’t Oscawana!” he said. “It’s Chappawan!”

We piled past him, down out of the train, across the station platform, out to the street.

The blue sedan had pulled out of sight.

Chappawan was an almost
deserted village. Its main street told the story. Across from the railroad station stood a row of closed, sealed-for-the-winter shops. There was a lending library, a beauty parlor, a souvenir arcade, a bicycle rental place and the inevitable Sugar Bowl. Chappawan was a summer vacation town. Now, at this moment in the dead white of winter, there was absolutely not a soul in sight.

Jeff and I helplessly watched the train pull away around the curve of a wooded mountain. We went into the tiny station and read the sign on the ticket window: “Back in an hour.” Underneath it some skeptic had penciled: “Oh, yeah?” We walked back out to the street. Far down it a light spilled from a combination gas station and grocery store. We headed for that.

When we reached the road-like street that Sally Kennedy’s blue sedan had taken, an ancient, open touring car pulled across our path. Its operator was a smiling, bulky man who sat in the driver’s seat as though it were his favorite easy chair. He wore a great, gaudy mackinaw, a cap with a shiny visor. He held up a hand to us, then enjoyed lighting a pipe before he spoke.

Finally he said, “My wife seen you two needed a hand.”

“What?” Jeff said.

“From the bedroom window.” He jerked the visor of his cap in the direction of the hill behind him. “She seen Jim Merton drive off and leave you. Made me get out the old bus and see if I could give you a hand. Glad to do it for you. Cost you five dollars, not including tip. Where do you want to go?”

“Jim Merton’s fare is an old friend of ours. We want to catch up to her.”

“Get in.”

Jeff was as pleased as he was surprised. “Do you know where they’re going?”

“Jim went up the mountain. Only one place up that way to go this time of year. Chappawan Lodge. Get in. I don’t get out and hold the door open for young folks. Just for folks older titan me and Art Smiley. Art’s always too drunk to open the door himself. Get in.”

We got in.

We were out of the village before the car was out of second gear. We went through an old covered bridge and we emerged from it into wild, up and down country. A strong wind blew clouds of snow across the road. The cautions against falling rock were so numerous that there was no room for Burma Shave signs. We passed a slow-moving truck; two men with shovels were scattering ashes from its rear. The highway steepened even more; our driver wrestled the car into low gear and slowly, doggedly climbed the mountain.

We writhed cautiously through an S-curve and suddenly, high above us, loomed a large building.

“The Lodge,” our skipper told us. “Chappawan Lodge.”

I stared at it, half expecting it to disappear. It couldn’t be real. If it were, it hadn’t been built from an architect’s blueprint; it had been copied from a highly touched-up picture postcard. With the sculptured blanket of snow on its many-gabled roof, the gaudily red-trimmed building looked like a giant birthday cake. The drifts about it were tumbled-down icing. At first glance it was all gaiety, all carnival; with a second glance it grew pathetic. It was like a bathing beauty smiling desperately atop an iceberg.

A narrow drive ran up to its door, ducked under a trellised porte-cochere and wound back out to the highway. Only the “In” part of the drive had been cleared of snow.

Our car had been better on the hills than Jim Merton’s blue sedan. It was backing out toward us now, and Sally Kennedy was plodding up the steps of the Lodge. She pushed open the door and disappeared.

The blue sedan came abreast of us, the drivers exchanged “How-dies,” and it was our turn to use the narrow lane. In a moment we were under the porte-cochere. Jeff quickly gave our man six dollars, thanked him, and we hurried into Chappawan Lodge.

The lobby was huge and dusky, its high ceiling beamed with rough logs, its walls hung with Navajo rugs, its big windows curtained in bright cretonne. At one end of the room were two arches, the signs above them announcing that the front one opened on the bar, the rear one on the dining room. At the other end a log fire glowed and crackled in a field stone fireplace. A staircase, banked with rhododendron, started at the back of the room, climbed three steps and divided itself to go separate ways from there on.

I caught a glimpse of a pair of brown tweed-trousered legs disappearing at the top of the left flight. Bumping against one leg was a small overnight bag. I turned back to Jeff.

“She’s being taken to a room.”

“Yes,” Jeff said thoughtfully.

I didn’t see what there was to be thoughtful about. I said, “Let’s go, darling. We’ll go up and talk to her now.”

“Wait a minute, Haila.”

Jeff was inspecting the lobby. There was no one in sight now; we were alone in the great room. Small copper lamps did nothing more than accentuate the loneliness of the place. Vases of bayberry and holly, current magazines and newspapers showed that guests were wanted but, apparently, had not materialized. That was understandable. Chappawan Lodge was undoubtedly a garden spot, but not this week.

Jeff moved to the reception desk at the right of the staircase. He flipped around the large leather-bound book that was the register. The name of the most recently-arrived guest was Mary Thompson, of New York City.

“Oh,” I said.

“Yes,” Jeff said. “If she wants to be Mary Thompson here, we won’t spoil it. We’d better take our time.”

We wandered to the dining room entrance. A solitary waiter came out of the kitchen and began setting tables. It was nearly dinner time. Dinner time. The thought made my gastric juices run riot. I had had nothing to eat the live-long day. The waiter put a fat roll on a plate, a fatter one on another plate. I felt Jeff’s hand close on my arm.

“Where are you going?” he inquired politely.

“Those rolls,” I said.

“No.” Jeff was stern. “Remember what happened to Jean Valjean.”

“He didn’t starve to death. Furthermore, he swiped a loaf of bread. I only want a roll.”

Feet shuffled behind us. A voice, well-oiled with obsequity, said, “Good evening, good evening.”

The man in brown tweeds was gliding toward us, smiling pleasantly at us, the unmistakable smile of a hotel manager. He wasn’t rubbing his hands together, he only seemed to be. Blond, slightly bald, handsome in an overgroomed way, he looked the perfect host. If Phi Beta Kappa could be made in Hotel Management, he made it hands down.

“Good evening,” he said again. He undoubtedly had a permanent crease engraved deeply across his chubby little tummy from bowing at the waist. “May I help you?”

“Yes,” Jeff said. “We’re friends of Miss Thompson and we…”

“Miss Thompson? Oh, yes.”

“She’s expecting us. I wonder… what’s her room number?”

“Twelve. On the next floor.”

“Thank you,” Jeff said. “We’ll go up.”

“Oh, no, I’m sorry, but no!” Mine host was horror-stricken at the very idea. “Miss Thompson was quite definite about not being disturbed. The trip here, you know. A nap before dinner.” He smiled at us. “She came here for a rest and if I disturbed her against her wishes… well, I could hardly do that.”

He smiled again, sweetly, but firmly, a smile which said that he obeyed his guests’ wishes to the letter, even if it involved calling out the militia.

I said, “Well, could we… might we have a room?”

“A room?” The manager wrinkled his blow. “I don’t know. If you’ll step this way, please, I’ll see.”

We followed him across the lobby. He slid behind the counter of the desk and made the motions of a hotel manager seeing if there was an unoccupied room in his inn. He studied the key rack, the register; he shuffled through some old papers. He straightened up the desk. I thought he was about to start washing down the walls, when at last he sadly shook his head.

“So sorry,” he murmured. “We seem to be filled up.”

“Filled up?” Jeff looked around the empty lobby. “Do you keep all your guests chained in their rooms? Or is there a bull fight going on upstairs?”

“You might well think that,” he smiled. “But, you see, in the winter I keep only a skeleton staff. And that limits the number of my guests.”

“Please,” I said. “I need a room. I’m dirty, tired and hungry. We won’t use much service.”

“Well… well, I’ll try. I’ll find something for you.”

He pushed the register toward Jeff and handed him a pen. Jeff wrote “Mr. and Mrs.,” then hesitated and looked at me. The manager’s eyebrows flew up. I saw what was coming; I wished fervently for our marriage license. Having decided at last to use our own name, Jeff duly recorded it. But it was too late; the damage had already been done.

The manager spoke suavely, but the insinuation was there. “I’ll help you upstairs with your luggage.”

“We,” Jeff said, “have no luggage.”

I tried to help. “We don’t believe in luggage. We like to…”

Jeff nudged my shin with the toe of his shoe. I felt a run race up my nylon over my knee and hit my garter. “You pig!” I said to Jeff. “Sec?” he said to the manager. “We’re married.”

“But no luggage. How odd.”

“All right,” Jeff said. “We aren’t married. There’s no use trying to fool a man of your perception. It’s this way. I’m a famous surgeon.” He held out a hand to show how steady it was. It was steady, but it was dirty. He put it behind his back. “I am married to a woman who doesn’t trust me. She thinks I’m running around with Haila. This is Haila. Say hello to the man, Haila.”

“Hello. I am a milliner’s model. In the off season I model foundation garments and do a little stag party work. I am determined that my young brother shall have the education I was denied…”

“That will do, Haila.”

“Yes, doctor.”

“Where do you get that doctor stuff?” Jeff snarled at me. Then he snarled at the hotel manager. “Listen, buddy, if you don’t give us a room, I’m going to tear you and this joint apart and possibly pollute your entire water supply.”

“You’re delightful!” the manager cried. “You’re both really delightful!”