Puzzle of the Pepper Tree (33 page)

Leslie Reverson sauntered in, supremely unconscious of the fact that he wore the best-cut trousers in the place. He sank into his chair and his face brightened as he saw the balloons. “How frightfully gay!” said young Reverson. He blew one to moderate proportions and sent it sailing.

Loulu Hammond caught his mood of mild amusement, and joined him in balloonatics. They hardly noticed the advent of Miss Hildegarde Withers, who stared curiously around the table as she was shown to her chair. Dr. Waite had the usual congratulations to impart.
“Knew
you’d live!” he boomed.

Then came Andy Todd, in a dinner jacket which it would seem that he had inherited from a great-uncle. It was shiny in the lapels, narrow in the badly pressed trousers, and Loulu Hammond knew at one glance that the black butterfly bow which graced his high collar had come ready-made, with a rubber band, to hold it in place.

“Well!” said Andy Todd. He seemed extremely well satisfied with himself, for some reason or other. All his chagrin at the collapse of his pool on the hunted robin was gone, and he was internally bubbling.

Miss Withers looked at him curiously. “There’s a young man who is up to something!” she instantly decided.

At the other tables soup was being served, and the constant pop of bursting balloons was heard. “Shall we wait for Miss Noring, or start?” inquired the doctor. “All here but her.”

“How about her friend Miss Fraser?” inquired Loulu calmly. “Surely she will be with us tonight?”

Everyone looked at everyone else. Miss Withers realized that there was a secret here, or at least something which was a secret from her.

“Will the poor girl come, do you think?” asked the Honorable Emily. No one answered her, for all were wondering. People at other tables were craning their necks to see. Candida Noring had been right. There was nothing for people on shipboard to do but gossip—and guess. Andy Todd’s peekaboo party on deck the second night of the trip had got around.

Tom Hammond looked extremely casual as he placed a paper helmet on his sleek blond head. “Why shouldn’t she come?” he inquired. “The sea is calm as dishwater.”

A woman pushed her way between the tables, almost brushing the wide shoulders of Captain Everett as she came. The captain was holding forth among his group of elderly somebodies on the dullness of seafaring and the joys, which he anticipated, of a duck farm on Long Island.

The woman was Candida Noring, her tanned face strangely pale. Perhaps that was because for the first time tonight she wore lipstick, and a sleeveless dress of characterless beige.

“You haven’t been waiting for
me?”
she said, as she sat down next the doctor. That told them what they wanted to know. Rosemary Fraser was not coming down to dinner, not even to the captain’s dinner.

The soup was served, and a dry white wine was poured into the tall goblets in front of each place. Andy Todd was strangely restless…

“We may as well open our gifts,” said the doctor. He took up the tissue-wrapped package which lay across his bread-and-butter plate. Swiftly he tore off the string—it was the “prop” cigarette box which he received as a gift every trip, and Dr. Waite had little interest in it. “Come on, everybody… see what the Shipping Board has brought you for Christmas!”

Andy Todd was second in opening his present. It was another cigarette case, of japanned metal with a painted bridge on it. Miss Withers and the other women found powder boxes similarly decorated.

“How perfectly perfect,” said the Honorable Emily. She was still worrying about Tobermory. Then she saw the slim figure of a girl approaching and forgot Tobermory completely.

Rosemary Fraser, in shimmering white silk, came like a wraith to join them. She smiled in answer to the doctor’s greeting, and then stared at Candida, her eyes wide and hunted, as if to say, “You told me to!”

There was a long pause, punctuated by the sharp collapse of a balloon which Leslie Reverson had blown too full.

“Well!” said Andy Todd uncertainly. He drained his wine and coughed. There was the soft splashing of soup, and then Rosemary Fraser followed his example and downed her glass. She did not cough. A table steward filled it again, and again she drained it.

Rosemary, avoiding her soup, stared at the package in front of her. “Favors,” sang out Candida cheerily. “Open it, Rosemary!”

Rosemary fumbled with the string, and Andy Todd leaned to offer his pocket knife. But she did not accept the offer. She untied the strings—more strings and knots than any other package had—and came at last to the round powder box.

She smiled, vaguely, and lifted the lid. Inside was a further package, and everyone leaned forward to see.

Rosemary, all unknowing, opened this—and found a single Yale key. Attached to the key was a card… Rosemary was dizzy from the wine, dizzy and afraid.

She picked up the card and read it aloud, though she did not know that her lips moved. “Use this and save repair bills,” she recited. “With our compliments the key to—to the blanket locker—”

They were all watching her. Eyes, pairs upon pairs of eyes, were watching Rosemary. She knew that she must say something, anything, so that the eyes would turn away, so that she could faint without being noticed.

She spoke, and her words were stark, horrible—“How—how convenient!” said Rosemary Fraser. She had meant it to be flippant, casual. And yet…

Andy Todd laughed first, his tenor guffaws ringing through the room. Dr. Waite was next, a shrill cackle. And then, from sheer nervousness, the table roared.

Leslie Reverson actually neighed into his napkin, coughing and gasping until his aunt, herself convulsed with paroxysms of hysterical laughter, had to thump on his narrow shoulders. Tom Hammond snorted, and then shook silently, Loulu Hammond told herself that she must not, would not, laugh, and heard her own clear soprano ringing out above the laughter of the others.

Only two at the doctor’s table did not laugh—for Rosemary Fraser herself was laughing. There was madness in her laughter, but no one sensed that. Candida Noring bit her lips until the blood ran salty under her tongue. Miss Hildegarde Withers, who was perhaps the one adult on board who did not know of the ship’s pet scandal, merely looked puzzled. But there was enough laughter without Miss Withers’ and Candida’s.

Loulu Hammond, who had been seething with repressed emotions for five days, fairly shrieked now. All the time her mind was saying, “I shall not laugh. I shall not!” Her long finger nails cut into her palms…

Captain Everett stopped talking about his duck farm and smiled toward the further table. “The young people certainly do have high times together,” he observed paternally. “That’s the best thing about traveling on a small boat, the passengers get to know each other so well…”

He stopped short as a young woman brushed past his wide shoulders again, clutching in her hand a cheap japanned powder box and a key.

“These young folks!” he smiled. “They have all the fun!”

Through the open portholes of the
American Diplomat
came a yowling cacophony which rose shudderingly in a horrible crescendo and then died away. “The tomcat must be having trouble with his robin,” observed Captain Everett genially.

Somehow, the laughter cut itself short. Leslie Reverson sent vari-colored balloons flying in every direction, and Tom Hammond began to talk very loudly about the collapse of the American dollar in the foreign exchange, about London hotels, about anything…

The others joined him, chiming in too quickly but with good intentions. Only Miss Withers and Candida Noring were silent. Before the dessert was served, both had left the table, Miss Withers to seek the deck and the fresh air which she had lacked for so many days, and Candida to go to her cabin mate.

She found the door locked, and her insistent knocks brought no reply. Finally Candida went out on the promenade deck, and came where she could see in through the porthole. She pushed aside the drawn curtain and saw that the light was on.

Rosemary Fraser, instead of sobbing brokenly on her berth, was sitting on the settee and calmly writing in a leather-bound book

“Rosemary! Let me in!”

But Rosemary kept on writing.

“Rosemary!”

The girl in white finally looked up. She stared full into the frightened, tanned face of Candida Noring. Her red lips opened and unbelievable sounds came forth.

“Damn you to hell—oh, damn you, go away!” Her voice was low and soft, but it rang through Candida’s ears for long afterward. She tiptoed softly away.

The Honorable Emily passed Candida in the passage, but they did not speak. She came on toward her own stateroom, shaking her head. “These Americans!” said the Honorable Emily. Then—“Poor girl!”

She closed the stateroom door and rapidly changed her uncomfortable taffeta for a flannel robe. “I loathe practical jokes,” said the Honorable Emily finally.

There was a faint scratching at the door, and she sprang, with a sudden access of joy, to open it. There stood Tobermory, his silky silver fur torn and bedraggled, and with the lust of battle still shining in his amber eyes. He entered quietly, carrying in his mouth a bundle of feathers.

“Toby!” cried the Honorable Emily.

Tobermory, startled, let go the feathers, which immediately resolved themselves into a fat robin. The robin swung to his feet, and spread his wings. Tobermory struck him down with a swift paw and looked up at his mistress.

“Mine!” he said, in unmistakable cat language. But Tobermory was manifestly uncertain what to do with his prize.

His mind was swiftly made up for him. Tobermory was grasped firmly by the slack of his neck and tossed into the berth. The Honorable Emily picked up the frightened, hunted robin, and held it against her cheek.

“Poor, poor Dickie-bird,” she crooned. The robin, completely a pessimist by this time, did not even dare to flutter. He would as soon be eaten by a large creature as a small one.

Sadly the Honorable Emily noted the pounding of the bird’s heart, its torn plumage, and the poor wounded claws which spoke for its futile clutching at rusty gear and swinging wires. “Poor, poor Dickie-bird!”

Then she rang the bell furiously. When the steward approached, she demanded that he produce a bird cage.

“I shall save him,” she promised the robin. “I shall save his poor little life willy-nilly!”

The steward didn’t know of a bird cage. But, upon extreme pressure, he admitted that perhaps the ship’s carpenter could rig one up, out of wire and bits of rope, in the morning. “Chips is very handy with tools, ma’am,” he told her.

The Honorable Emily cast her eyes around the little stateroom. “In the morning,” she agreed. “Tell him to rush it.”

She saw Tobermory, proud in wounded dignity, watching from the berth. Tobermory had taken this robin, by sheer right of conquest, from the ship’s tomcat, who had made the mistake of underestimating his silky and effeminate-looking opponent, and who was now licking his wounds and wondering what struck him.

The Honorable Emily had a bright thought. Under the berth was Tobermory’s traveling case. She pulled it out and inserted the robin, who hopped about inside and thought it as good as any other place. Any minute now he expected the worst.

Tobermory’s eyes blazed. It wouldn’t have been so bad if this woman had
eaten
his prey, but to put it aside in that manner amounted to sheer insult! It was not as if it had been a thin or scrawny bird, Tobermory felt. He sulked on the berth and would not purr.

Up on the boat deck, Miss Hildegarde Withers relaxed in a deck chair. The wind was warm and brisk, and it came sweeping across the ship’s bow, almost from the direction of England. London would have to be awfully interesting, Miss Withers felt, to make up for this voyage. She felt vaguely annoyed by the little mystery, the tempest in a teapot, which had spoiled the dinner party. There had been something in the attitude of the girl in white which worried Miss Withers. She had been afraid of something, that slim proud Fraser girl.

Looking up, Miss Withers saw the girl of whom she had been thinking. Rosemary Fraser was coming along the dimly lit, windswept deck, wearing nothing but her white evening dress and an incongruous scarf, a long, trailing banner of a scarf of midnight blue.

“Child alive!” said Miss Withers to herself. “You’ll catch your death of cold!”

Her chair was set in the shadow of a lifeboat, and evidently the oncoming girl did not see her. Rosemary leaned far over the starboard rail, amidships of the vessel, and stared out at the misty darkness of the night. She was smoking a dark cigarette, and its sparks trailed gayly into the blackness.

“I ought to tell her to go back to her cabin and get a warm coat,” said Miss Withers again. But she did not rise. After all, these young people of today had a physical resistance which was unknown in those distant days when Hildegarde Withers was a girl. They could drink innumerable cocktails, dance all night, and go out into the winter winds with only the sheerest of silk stockings, the lightest of underwear and dresses…

“Perhaps we are developing a race that has a wonderful physical stamina,” mused Miss Withers. “Ten years or more of prohibition beverages must kill off the weak ones, at least.” She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. “I wonder if they have the mental stamina that we had to develop,” she asked herself. “I wonder if they could—if they can—”

Her drowsy musings were interrupted by a worried feminine voice. “Excuse me,” said Candida Noring, leaning over Miss Withers’ deck chair. “I’m looking for Miss Fraser. I know she came up here—have you seen her?”

“Why,” gasped Miss Withers, “she’s at the rail, right there…”

Her voice trailed off, for Rosemary Fraser was not standing by the rail. She was not on the deck, not anywhere.

“I came up the forward ladder,” said Candida, in a puzzled tone. “She didn’t pass me. If she isn’t here, she must have come past you.”

But Miss Withers hadn’t heard the click of high heels on the wooden deck. “She didn’t pass me,” declared the school teacher. “She must be here somewhere!”

Bewildered, the school teacher rose to her feet. Candida Noring drew closer to her and shivered.