Ghost of a Chance (16 page)

“You must never do that to me,” she said, “never. I frighten very easily. Promise you’ll never do that again.”

“I promise,” I said, “and I’m sorry.”

She laughed. “I forgive you.”

I went over to the bed and sat beside her. “It’s nice seeing you so happy,” I said. “And so healthy.”

“Mrs. Troy, what’s your first name?”

I told her.

“Haila,” she said, “I’ve got a lot to explain to you, I know I have. The way I ran out on you on the train and all. I… I didn’t know that you followed me from there.”

I said, “We saw you at the station. We saw you get in a cab.”

“But you couldn’t have followed me up the mountain. I watched. There was no one.”

“We met a man, a taxi driver, who knew that you must be coming here. Sally…”

“Yes, I know. What about me?” She took a drag of her cigarette, then snuffed it out quickly as though she didn’t like it. “I found out that you were right, you and Jeff and old Frank Lorimer. Somebody is trying to kill me. I… I found it out as soon as you left me at my hotel. I packed and ran. I thought of this place, I’d heard about it from friends of mine. But I didn’t get away cleanly. Someone caught up to me, a man. He followed me onto the train. He was in the dining car, watching me…”

“Yes, we guessed that.”

“That’s why I went into that strange rigmarole about joining you later. I didn’t want to involve you. You… you’d done enough for me already. But then I couldn’t escape from the man in the train without running out on you, too. I waited until the very last minute and then I dashed.” She smiled. “I owe the railroad a dollar-eighty.”

“And after that, Sally?”

She shrugged. “After that, nothing. I got the manager to give me a room without registering, a room in this wing that’s all shut off. I made him promise not to tell anyone that I was here. It cost me five hundred dollars, but…”

“Mr. Kramer,” I said, “Is earning his money. He acted as though we were crazy when we insisted you were here.”

“But I wonder,” Sally said thoughtfully, “why he didn’t tell me you were here, asking for me.”

“There was a mix-up. At first we thought you had registered under another name. He only found out it was you we wanted a little while ago. And since then he’s been pretty busy in the dining room.”

“I see. Well!” Sally placed a pillow against the headboard of the bed and leaned back against it. “Well, we can relax now. Everything’s all right. I’m glad you found me, Haila. It would have grown lonely here.”

I put my hand on her arm. “Sally, it’s not all right. Not yet.”

“What?” She sat straight up.

“When Jeff and I…”

“Where is Jeff?”

“Still looking for you. Sally, let me tell you…”

She let me tell her how Jeff and I had been overheard by someone in the taproom, someone who had hidden in the booth behind ours. I told her how I had been followed to the third floor and into the ballroom, how I had eluded my pursuer and come to her. She was on her feet now; she wasn’t relaxed and cozy; she was frightened.

She didn’t speak. Snatching up a towel, she wiped the cold cream from her face in one sweep. She shook herself out of her dressing gown and ripped a suit from its hanger in the closet.

“Sally,” I said, “wait. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure.” She was getting into her suit, kicking off her slippers and stepping into her shoes. “I thought I was safe here. I thought I could hide out here until… until it was all right. But they know I’m here, somehow they know. They…” She repeated the word slowly; it seemed to hypnotize her the way an obscene reptile might. She said, “Who are they, Haila? Who could they possibly be?”

She didn’t expect me to answer, she didn’t wait for me to. She snapped back into action. Dragging her overnight case from beneath the bed, she stuffed her things into it. She flung her dressing gown into the bag, scooped her toilet articles from the bureau and scattered them across the gown. She tossed her slippers after them.

I said, “Sally, what are you going to do? Where are you going?”

“I don’t know. Just keep running, I guess. That’s all there is to do. I’ve got to keep out of their way until the day after tomorrow. Then… then it won’t matter any more. Haila…” She stopped, and I saw the pleading question in her eyes. “Haila, could you…”

“Yes,” I said. “Jeff and I will go with you.”

She turned away. “Someday,” she said quietly, “I’ll be able to thank you both.”

“It’s all right,” I said. “You finish packing, get ready. I’ll find Jeff and we’ll meet you in the lobby.”

“The lobby!” The vehemence in her voice stopped me. “But they… they’ll be there, Haila. They’ll be watching. If they see us leave we won’t get very far… not any of us…”

“Yes,” I said. “We’ll have to find some other way.”

“There’s a way to get out of this wing, a door at the end of the corridor downstairs. Haila! Haila, listen carefully.”

“Yes.”

“Go through that door, you and Jeff. There’s a row of garages out back, I saw them from the window. I’ll meet you in the first one from the right that’s open. One of them is bound to be unlocked.”

“The first one from the right that’s open.”

“Yes. Hurry, Haila. And be sure that no one sees you. If they see you, if they follow you…”

I stepped out into the dark corridor. I leaned back against the door of Sally’s room and listened. There was nothing, no sound at all. I could feel the vibration of the hotel as it stood against the storm, but here in this inside hall I could not even hear the wind. Quietly, I moved to the corner where the wing joined the main building. I stopped just around the corner and listened again. There was nothing.

He hadn’t followed me. I had lost him. It didn’t seem possible, however, that he would have given up his search. He must still be prowling through the darkness somewhere. Perhaps he had found Jeff. But Jeff wouldn’t let himself be found. I had eluded the man; Jeff was more capable than I. Jeff was able to take care of himself. Jeff, for instance, in a crisis wouldn’t stand whistling in the dark to himself as I was doing. He wouldn’t stand still; he would keep moving.

I hurried along the hallway until I came into the light of the landing above the lobby. I hesitated there. I had to find Jeff, but to search the three floors of this rambling, half blacked-out building seemed a hopeless job. Possibly… possibly I was expected to go wandering through it, looking for him. Possibly someone was counting on me to do exactly that. Instinctively I turned toward the lobby, started down the stairs. On the last step Jeff’s voice drifted in to me.

He was standing at the bar in the taproom. Merrill and Trask were on one side of him, Kramer and Mary Thompson on the other. I took one step forward and then stopped, remembering Sally Kennedy’s words, hearing the terror in her voice. Who are
they,
she had asked, who could
they
be? I moved quietly out of the range of vision of the people at the taproom bar.

I knew then that I couldn’t walk up to Jeff, couldn’t make an excuse to speak to him alone. One of the people standing with him, someone lurking just behind the kitchen door, someone hunched unseen in a booth might see through that excuse and know what to do about it.

I looked around the lobby. It was deserted except for the little girl who sat beside the fireplace chewing on one of her long braids. Her picture book was across her knees but she wasn’t interested in it. She was staring at me with wide, curious eyes. She wasn’t shy; she seemed to want to be friends. I saw then the means to accomplish my mission.

I smiled at the child. I felt like Fagin. Slipping into the chair of a writing table, I made a great show of doing something highly mysterious. Actually, on a picture postcard of Chappawan Lodge, I scribbled a note to Jeff, giving him the instructions that Sally had given me, asking him to pick up our coats on his way.

I had bet on the girl’s curiosity; it was a good bet. In a minute she was at my side, trying to look across my arm.

“Shh!” I whispered.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Would you like to do me a favor?”

“What’ll you give me?”

I didn’t have a thing to give the child. “A nickel,” I said. “A nickel the next time I see you. No, a dime.”

“You mightn’t ever see me again.”

“My dear!” I drooled, feeling more and more like Fagin. “Why won’t I see you again?”

“Because I might turn into a pumpkin.”

“Don’t be silly. You’ve been reading too much.” The child was looking significantly at the jade brooch I was wearing on my blouse. Jeff had given me it; it was one of the three things he had ever given me that I could wear in public. But I took it off and pinned it on her dress. It looked lousy on her. “Now will you do me a favor?”

“Yes.”

“Will you give this postcard to the tall man with the dark hair? See him? He’s standing over there with those people. The young one.”

“I see him.”

“Say to him, ‘Mister, you dropped this.’ Then give it to him.”

“That’s easy.”

“Then come right back and sit where your mother told you to, you hear?”

“Shall I do it now?”

“Please. And thank you very much.”

I watched the child trot across the lobby and into the taproom. The quartet by the bar didn’t see her approach. Jeff and Trask were turned away from her and the two of them blocked Kramer’s and Mary Thompson’s view. She stopped outside the circle they made. She was looking up at Trask. He was tall, he had dark hair, to her he probably seemed no older than Jeff. I started forward and then stopped. There was nothing I could do now, nothing except pray that Trask was not one of
them.
The little girl stepped closer to the man, her hand reached out for the hem of his jacket.

Jeff turned and saw her. He smiled automatically and raised his hand toward Trask’s arm. Then he stopped, his hand still in mid-air, his eyes fastened frowningly on the child’s dress. He had seen my brooch in time. Jeff went down on one knee beside the child. He spoke to her. I saw her nod and hand him the postcard. I watched him glance casually at it, as though it were something he had seen before, and slip it in his pocket. I turned and went quickly out of the lobby.

The row of garages was a hundred yards beyond the rear of the hotel. I could see the low, long hulk of their shape through the falling snow. They were arranged in an arc and in the center of the court they made stood a high pole topped by a strong, blazing light. The fourth garage from the right was open, wide open. Its front yawned black as a cavern in the white night.

I stepped into the shelter of the small building, fighting for breath. A hundred yards was a little over my favorite race. For a moment I could see nothing, then Sally was walking toward me out of the shadows of the car-empty garage. She wore a heavy coat, a scarf over her head. I wished that I had stopped for my coat, not left it for Jeff to pick up.

Sally’s voice was a whisper. “Did you find Jeff?”

“Yes. He’ll be here in a few minutes, everything’s all right. Shouldn’t we close the door? We can watch out for Jeff.”

“I don’t think we can close it.” Sally pointed above her. “The chain seems to be broken.”

The door was one of those that slides up into the roof. On its bottom edge was a handle, but the handle was a good three feet out of our reach. The wind rocked the big door back and forth in its tracks. Shivering, I moved with Sally to the rear of the garage. We found a box to sit on.

“Haila, you’re freezing!” Sally slipped one arm out of a sleeve and shared her coat with me. “There. How’s that?”

“Fine,” I said. “Fine, thanks.”

“And Jeff… he’ll be coming soon? He won’t be too long?”

“Not long, Sally. He’ll be here. It’s going to be all right.”

“I don’t know.” Her voice was small. “I… I’m afraid. I don’t understand all this.”

“You don’t know why they’re trying to kill you?”

“It must be the money, of course. It has to be the money. I get all of father’s estate on my birthday, the day after tomorrow. If I can live through the day after tomorrow…”

“Don’t, Sally. Don’t talk about it. Let’s think about how we’re going to get away from here.”

“I can’t,” she said wearily. “I can’t think anymore.”

“We’ll let Jeff do it for us. He’s a thinking man.”

“Yes. He found out that it was I. Haila, how did you find that out? That Frank Lorimer knew it was I?”

“It was a combination of things, Sally, a combination of facts. We got the first set from your lawyer.”

“Carl Dobbs? Oh. He’s such a darling, the old grizzly bear.”

“He told us about your birthday, about your money and your father’s will. Then I phoned the Cortlands. It was Mrs. Cortland who told me about the accident, the truck that just missed you on Madison Avenue. We knew it wasn’t an accident. Frank’s death was made to look accidental. Yours was to look that way, too.”

“Yes,” Sally said quietly. “So I owe all this to a great many people. Frank and you and Carl Dobbs and the Cortlands.”

“I doubt,” I said, “If the Cortlands even know that they’ve helped you.”

“I’ll tell them sometime. And thank them. They’re a dear old couple.”

“You’ve known them a long time, haven’t you?”

“Years and years.” Sally laughed reminiscently. “Claire’s such a darling. I used to call him Uncle Claire. Why, I practically grew up on his knee. He used to take me to the Zoo, all those things.”

She prattled on, but I wasn’t listening. Something was wrong, terribly, frighteningly wrong. She had known the Cortlands for years, she had said. She had called Mr. Cortland Uncle Claire, she had grown up on his knee…

Frantically, I pushed my mind back to the tea party on Gracie Square. I saw the nice, elderly man, his white-haired gentle wife. I heard her speaking to him. Holly she had called him. I heard him answer; he had called her Claire. It was Mrs. Cortland whose name was Claire. Sally Kennedy had known them all her life, and yet…

I tried to keep my voice steady when I spoke. “Sally,” I said, “what is Mr. Cortland’s first name?”

“Why, Claire. Claire Cortland. Why?”

I stood up and moved away from the red-headed girl. I knew then that the girl was not Sally Kennedy.