Lady Afraid (22 page)

“Oh yes! Yes, I know. And that’s what I mean,” said the old lady eagerly.

Sarah gave her a friendly look. “I’m—I see,” she said.

“You didn’t dislike me,” Alice Mildred said. “Tonight you didn’t hate me.” She spoke excitedly, as if it were quite important. “You weren’t acting, Sarah. I noticed. You weren’t just being kind to a sick old lady.”

“Good lord, Mother Lineyack,” Sarah said wonderingly, “why should I pretend? What good—I mean, why bother this late in the game?”

“That’s just it!”

“Now, now! Please—you mustn’t agitate yourself, Mother Lineyack,” Sarah said soothingly.

With a quick shaking of her head, Alice Mildred exclaimed, “Pooh! This kind of excitement won’t hurt me. It’s nice. It’s relaxing.” She lay back on the bunk, smiling. “I guess I’m being a silly old woman,” she added. “But I’m so pleased. Oh, so very delighted.”

Sarah patted the thin hand. “We’re both—I’m pleased also, Mother Lineyack,” she murmured. And she almost added: Too bad we couldn’t have learned more about each other some four years ago. But she caught that back. Why clatter skeletons in closets? The words remained in her throat, tasting a little bitter of regret.

Alice Mildred raised up.

“The door opens! Sarah, the door will really open!”

Sarah, startled, threw her eyes at the stateroom door. It stood ajar. But it had already been open—it hadn’t moved. Belatedly she realized Alice Mildred didn’t mean
that
door, or any door on the boat; not even, possibly, any door that one could actually see.

The old lady smiled happily to herself. “Have you ever kept a dog for a pet, Sarah?” she asked. “You have. Then you know how a dog finds a warm place, soft and comfortable, and doesn’t want to leave for the cold outdoors. The older the animal gets, the more it wants to stay there in the haven it has found, sleeping life away… I’ve been like that. My mind found a comfortable place. A room by itself, where it wanted to stay. I was behind a door. It was getting so I couldn’t bear to open the door, even to peek out.”

“Gracious, what a comparison!” Sarah exclaimed wonderingly…. Was the old woman’s mind really stable?

“It’s crude, isn’t it? Childish, a bit. Dr. Danneberg—my doctor, you know—illustrated my mental condition to me with that little story. I mustn’t, he said, stay in the room, like an old dog, and dream myself away from reality. That was what he meant.”

Sarah thought Dr. Danneberg must be a great one, comparing the minds of his patients to old dogs.

Alice Mildred read her thought and smiled even more happily. “Oh no. No, Sarah—Dr. Danneberg’s a really wonderful doctor. You see, that homely comparison—to show what animal-like instincts the human mind owns—stayed with me. I think, more than anything else, that crude little story was responsible for me beginning to try to open the door that I’d almost closed forever.”

“I see,” Sarah, still somewhat dubious, answered.

“Am I so silly, Sarah? Do you think I’m awfully senile?”

“Of course not.”

“Ivan has always thought I was silly. I mean—always. From the day I met him.” Alice Mildred compressed her lips. “I shouldn’t ever have married Ivan. Isn’t that terrible to say?”

No, you have something there, Sarah thought. You certainly have. Prudently, Sarah withheld affirmation, however, sure it would be unseemingly vehement.

“Dr. Danneberg got me to start coming out of myself,” the old lady said, and folded her hands proudly. “He showed me that I really shouldn’t let Ivan walk over me. Ivan had, you know. For years—Ivan is an overbearing man. He’ll put your very soul in his pocket, if you’ll let him.”

“Don’t tell me,” Sarah said grimly. “I know about Ivan. Oh, brother!”

Alice Mildred nodded quickly. “Yes, Sarah. You—and I—Ivan treated us both like—well, in the only way he knows of treating people. Ivan’s so egotistical…. And how I enjoyed opposing him, when I tried. Oh, I did! It was wonderful to learn that it could do my mental composure good to stand against Ivan.”

Opposing Ivan, Sarah thought wonderingly, didn’t seem like a prescription for peace of mind. She hoped the psychiatrist, Dr. Danneberg, had known what he was doing.

Then the old lady dropped a bomb.

“The bribe-giving was only one thing I opposed,” said Alice Mildred.

“Bribe?”

“Yes. That is—you call it bribe, don’t you, when you have to pay Mr. Arbogast for letting you have an RFC loan?” Alice Mildred peered up at Sarah. “Bribery? Or what? Anyway, it’s crooked. It’s wrong.”

Sarah groped for composure. She felt as if she had been shot at.

“Mr. Arbogast is a crook?” she gasped.

“Oh yes. Yes!” said Alice Mildred, nodding vehemently.

“Good grief! I never in a thousand years—”

But Alice Mildred seemed to feel it was logical for Mr. Arbogast to be sneakingly dishonest.

“Why so surprised, Sarah? With all those rascals who got into government bureaus during the war confusion, what’s unusual about one more thief? The people didn’t elect them, you know. Oh, Mr. Arbogast is a crook, all right…. Here’s the story, Sarah. Nearly two years ago, when Ivan refinanced his business with an RFC loan, he had to pay Mr. Arbogast a bribe. A good-sized one—fifty thousand dollars. I knew about it at the time, of course. Ivan, when he’s having trouble, likes to rave to me about it. So I knew.”

“Oh lord!” Sarah exclaimed, clapping a hand to her forehead. “Mr. Arbogast—I’m so surprised. That fat little man, with his dependent ways. Like—like a leech!” This last, bursting out, was a stroke of pure enlightened understanding.

“Wait until you hear the rest, Sarah,” Alice Mildred said with grim relish. “Recently—Ivan had a chance to sell his truck interests to Mr. Driscoll. But before he could deal, Ivan had to get the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to release their mortgage on that part of the business. Mr. Arbogast, under the RFC setup, has to okay such a release. Mr. Arbogast demanded another fifty thousand dollars for doing so.”

Sarah, staring at the old lady, suddenly grew chilled.

“And that,” continued Alice Mildred, “was where I stepped in. I told them all flatly Ivan was going to be honest. I was going to tell Washington about Mr. Arbogast’s crookedness.”

“You didn’t! You—Oh, now I suddenly see who—”

Alice Mildred nodded angrily. “And I will, too. I’ll tell Washington. Just as soon as Dr. Danneberg says I can travel, I’m going to Senator Garling—I know the senator fairly well—and make sure that Mr. Arbogast’s chicanery becomes known.”

Sarah demanded sickly, “Did Mr. Arbogast know you intended to do that?”

“Certainly. If he didn’t, he’s a fool. I told him. I told Ivan, as well.” Alice Mildred smiled a fierce grimace. “Ivan was upset. He was—he raised hell. But I was adamant.”

“Oh lord! Then Mr. Arbogast is the one who hired Brill, and he—he killed Brill too!” Sarah said with appropriate horror.

“Of course he did,” said the old lady. “I’ve decided he’s the one. I suspected him, so tonight I went to ask Mr. Driscoll if the deal for the trucks was pending. He told your Captain Most that it was. So then I knew that Mr. Arbogast was keeping the deal warm and was trying to drive me insane, and Ivan would have to put me in a sanitarium, and nobody would pay attention to the ravings of a demented old lady. And the deal could go through and Mr. Arbogast would get his squeeze money.”

This was devastating. Sarah was shaken. She moved her hands about vaguely, unable to find what to do with them—she had the same trouble with her thoughts.

Finally she gasped, “Gracious, Mother Lineyack! Did Dr. Danneberg have any notion what he’d stirred up by practicing mental therapy on you? I’ll bet it would have floored him.”

“Oh no. I didn’t tell Doctor,” the old lady said slyly. “I told no one but Ivan and Mr. Arbogast.”

Now Sarah had a fantastically horrible thought: What if Mr. Arbogast, the murderer, came there?…

And Mr. Arbogast did come. Mr. Arbogast
came right then.
It was ghastly timing, something that just couldn’t happen. Feet landed on the cabin top.
Thump
! Softly—because Mr. Arbogast was a soft little beast.

Sarah’s head wrenched back; her eyes grew terribly large, lips torn widely apart, so that the breath that entered and left her lungs was a coolness on her teeth.
Lida Dunlap
a
nd her two henchmen had fled because they were afraid the murderer would come there.
Sarah began to withdraw from the stateroom door, moving each foot to the rear with quite a conscious effort. Moving, in a rigidly suspended way, toward she didn’t know what.

In a moment chubby little Mr. Arbogast was peering into the cabin.

“Why! Who—” exclaimed Mr. Arbogast. “Why!… My goodness!”

Sarah stood poised. The fingertips of her left hand were against her throat low and in front. It was a weird time to remember an unconnected fact, but she had heard somewhere that it is next to impossible to take your own pulse with your left hand. Yet she could feel her own pulse throbbing in her neck.

Mr. Arbogast’s soft face had the oddest look. The surprise that was on it was like a sickness. Surprise is usually an upflying of eyebrows, a hole with the mouth, a quick start, and then perhaps some posturing. But this was an illness.

“You—Sarah!” said Mr. Arbogast. “Sarah, I didn’t expect—What on earth are you doing here? What in heaven’s name!”

“I—I’m surprised too,” Sarah managed to say.

“Great Scott! Sarah!” cried Mr. Arbogast. “Have you found your son?”

Sarah couldn’t free her tension. But she got enough of the knots out to begin moving her hands. She withdrew her left hand from her throat. She said, “Yes…. Yes, we found Jonnie.”

The most ill-looking part of Mr. Arbogast’s face was the little full-lipped mouth that was made for sucking.

“How wonderful,” he said—a word that was a ghastly travesty on the way he looked.

“Yes—it was—a great relief.”

“Is your son unharmed?”

She nodded. “He’s sleeping.”

“I—well—Thank God!” said Mr. Arbogast hollowly. And then he all but screamed, “We? You say we! Who is with you? Is that man, Captain Most—”

From where he stood in the companionway, Mr. Arbogast’s view did not include the stateroom. He had not yet seen the boy, nor had he noticed Alice Mildred.

“Alice Mildred came with me,” Sarah said weakly.

“What! The old—”

“Alice Mildred Lineyack, yes. She could not sleep, and she left Ivan’s house. She was seeking my little boy. I met her, and we searched together, until we found him.”

Mr. Arbogast placed the palm of a hand against his forehead. He held it there tightly. “I knew Mrs. Lineyack had disappeared from the house, of course,” he muttered. “Ivan told me. He is very worried. Frantic!”

“You have been to the Lineyack home?”

Mr. Arbogast spoke glibly. “Oh yes! And a very upset household it is! You see, I also was unable to sleep after you and Captain Most came to see me. I was—frankly, the things you and Most had to say unnerved me greatly. I was in a dilemma. I did not know whether to tell the police about you. And finally I thought of coming to ask Ivan Lineyack what he would prefer that I do.”

Mr. Arbogast seemed to have his eyes closed behind the hand clamped to his forehead. “Confusion!” he moaned. “So much turmoil! I didn’t do what I planned to do. I didn’t even mention the matter to Ivan. You see, he was so worried about Alice Mildred being gone.” He jerked the hand away. “Oh—such terrible things tonight—Ivan is like a crazy man.”

“Yes, I see,” Sarah said tensely, and waited for the soft little RFC lawyer to tell his lie—to explain how he had happened to find this boat.

Mr. Arbogast gave his version with an honest look that sickened her. Eyes widely open now, so widely open that the tobacco tint that overgood living had put in the whites was plainly visible, Mr. Arbogast exclaimed, “Egad! You must be wondering how I found you.”

“Yes. Yes, I was,” Sarah said hollowly.

“Why,” said Mr. Arbogast, “it was so simple. It was one of those accidents. You see, I wanted to help out if I could—Ivan was so worried—and so I got in my car and just drove around, looking for Alice Mildred. And I chanced to drive past here and noticed that blue convertible roadster standing parked. Suddenly it dawned on me that it was Louis Driscoll’s car—Louis Driscoll, the truck-line magnate. It is a very distinctive car…”

Now Mr. Arbogast had had a ghostly accident with his composure. He lost his voice. The words simply stuck in his throat. The silence that this left in the boat was startling; it was not even broken, for nearly a minute, by any breathing. In the stateroom it was so utterly quiet. The little boy’s sleep was so noiseless that Sarah thought, with sudden horror: Maybe they drugged him! But probably two-and-a-half-year-old boys slept like that, like puppies in a boiler factory.

“Dug-dug—
distinctive car!” Arbogast blurted. His voice had come back. “I—forgot to tell you—Louis Driscoll was at the Lineyack home, and he was upset too. He told me he’d seen you and Most and Alice Mildred. You’d visited him too.” Mr. Arbogast was as pale as a corpse and sweating profusely. His hands began to describe vague movements in front of him, as though they were untangling yarn. “So you see, I knew you were using Driscoll’s car, and when I saw the car I knew I’d better investigate.”

He peered at her now. How he must be wondering if I believe him, Sarah thought.

“Sarah—how did you find the child?”

“A man brought us.” Sarah had answers ready.

“A man—”

“A very scared man,” Sarah added. “There were two others here—a man and a woman. They were afraid also. And they went away. They left us here.”

His tobacco-tinted eyes protruded. “And that—is that all—”

If I am ever to tell a good lie, let me tell it now, Sarah prayed.

“That is all,” Sarah said. “They left. They were as terrified as people can become. They fled.”

Mr. Arbogast sagged. He emptied his lungs of air and refilled them. Whipping a large handkerchief from his pocket, he scoured his face with it. But his face was quite dry; there had been no perspiration on it. He looked ill and feverish, Sarah thought. He was the picture of a tubby little man whose whole attitude toward life was digestive.