Shadow of Reality (18 page)

“Yes, we must. It wouldn’t be the same with other people.”

“I wonder if Weldon Stark will direct it again?”

“I can’t imagine anyone doing a better job.”

“Rather sure of your solution, are you?” Gavin asked.

Elizabeth nodded. She was the only one not jubilant over her script. If only she could be sure. Probably every team in the room was equally certain of their own answer. But none of the others were working with anything but a fictional game—a romp of the imagination that they would leave behind them tomorrow afternoon, taking home with them nothing more than a scrapbook of snapshots and some good conversation topics.

But if Elizabeth was right, she would go home with a mutilated heart and a lifetime of shredded dreams. And if she was wrong it would be even worse. She had to be sure. Deadly sure.

Ebullient conversations swirled around the room against the background of the orchestra playing popular 1930’s songs helpfully identified in their programs: “Beyond the Blue Horizon,” “Can This Be Love?” “Dancing on the Ceiling.” It seemed each one was chosen specifically to twist the knife in Elizabeth’s heart.

The waiter set a raspberry meringue surrounded with chocolate curls before Elizabeth, calling her back to the party. She looked around guiltily, hoping no one had been able to detect her wide-ranging thoughts. But the others’ minds were happily on the revelry and good food around them. But still the black cloud hung over her. Only a few hours remained. She
must
decide. But every time she thought she had reached a decision another argument arose from the other side. What was she to do?

She was so startled when the answer came that she almost dismissed it as nonsense. And yet, there it was, as clear as if the person sitting in the next chair had spoken. She even looked over each shoulder, not sure what she really expected to see, since the words were only in her head, dredged up from some far recess:
The banquet is set out, the rugs are spread; they are eating and drinking—rise, princes, burnish your shields…Go, post a watchman to report what he sees
.

She repeated the words again in her mind, more slowly this time, letting them speak to her:
Go, post a watchman
…All right, that was what she was supposed to do. Now, how would she go about it?

“I say, I’m supposed to circulate—mingle with the common folk, what? Care to take a turn around the room with me?” Gavin was holding his eyeglass, getting into character.

Elizabeth swallowed her last raspberry and forced a smile. “Great. I’d love to get a better look at all the costumes.”

Sir Gavin rose and held Elizabeth’s chair, then bowed to Helen Johnson. “Will you excuse us?”

“Certainly! Go take a stroll with your beautiful lady.” Helen blew a kiss at them, and Elizabeth felt anew the Cinderella quality of the evening.

The orchestra began a romantic melody and a singer took the microphone, “Dancing with tears in my eyes…” Elizabeth  blinked. But then several couples started toward the dance floor, giving Elizabeth a perfect opportunity to focus on the moment by observing the fashion parade. Now that she knew what she had to do, it was possible to relax and enjoy the gala evening.

Gavin stopped at each table, greeting players with whom he had become acquainted during the week, complimenting women on their gowns and making witty comments. To Elizabeth, the laughter around her, the music from the orchestra, the glimmering lights, all blended and spun together with the dancing couples like a carousel.

She firmly put tomorrow’s skit out of her mind and let herself be swept up in the fantasy of the moment. As they strolled past the glowing fireplace, Gavin put his arm around her lightly and they were characters in a play—Romeo and Juliet at the Capulet ball, perhaps? That was before Romeo killed Tybalt…

The problem of the real murder wasn’t as firmly tucked away as Elizabeth had thought.  It seemed every new association took her back to it. Her new thought halted her steps. Juliet loved Romeo even after he killed her kinsman. If her suspicions were correct, could she…?

They were close to the musicians’ dais when the brass struck up a swinging version of “Chattanooga Choo Coo,” and Gavin reacted with a frown. “I say, that’s beastly loud, and it's awfully stuffy in here. Shall we step out on the balcony?”

The air was crisp, but without the chill of the night before. Here the music reached them at a comfortable level. Far below in the valley the lights of Hidden Glenn glimmered like silver sequins on a black velvet ball gown. “Elizabeth.” She jumped at the intensity of Gavin’s voice. The man beside her had shed all his role-playing impersonations. He was completely Gavin Kendall, and he was totally, intently hers. “Elizabeth, we need to talk. Tomorrow all this will be over, and I think we both know we can’t just shake hands and say, ‘Good-bye, it’s been fun.’

“Elizabeth, I love you. I’ve never felt like this about anyone before. I’ve done so many things in the past that I’m terribly ashamed of and sorry for, but with you I could make a whole new start—”

She started to speak, but he laid a finger on her lips to silence her.  Through the open door crooned lyrics of “All I Want is Just One Girl” seemed to add urgency to his proposal. “I’m not asking for a lifetime commitment. That wouldn’t be at all fair when you’ve never even been to England. But will you at least promise to come over this summer—I’ll send you a ticket—and you can take all the time you need to decide.”

It was everything she had been waiting to hear all her life. With all her being she wanted to throw her arms around his neck and vow a thousand times that she’d come, that she didn’t need to look things over or think any longer—she’d found him, and that was all she needed. She could just tell Irene in the morning that they were going to use the other script. No one would know. Except herself. And God.

“Ask me again tomorrow after the skits, Gavin.” The pain she felt at saying those words was as great as if her heart were physically bleeding. If the answer in the skit was right, there would be no choice; if it was wrong, he wouldn’t want her.

Now she had a job to do. Her own part to play. As well scripted as any theatrical drama. “You see, I can’t really think of anything else until that’s over because the team put the whole responsibility on me, and I can’t get it off my mind.”

“Got it solved, have you? Good show.”

She looked at him earnestly for a long time. “I know the real answer, Gavin.” A slight nod of her head gave emphasis to each word. “It’s all in the script.”

He nodded. An ambivalent gesture that could mean simply that he realized she had spoken. Or it could mean he understood the stakes as clearly as she did. “Shall we go in?”

She moved away from the wall so he could open the door. In all the time on the balcony, she had not gone near the railing.

Just inside the door they met Weldon Stark. He greeted Gavin warmly, then turned an appreciative gaze on Elizabeth.

“You’ve done a marvelous job running things this week,” she said.

“Marvelous enough that you’d be willing to leave this bloke and dance with me?” Stark held out his hand.

This was just the opportunity she needed. Elizabeth put her hand in his. At first she concentrated on the waltz steps. Stark was a wonderful dancer of the old school; he led firmly and included a little dip in his step. But once they reached the middle of the floor, Elizabeth reminded herself to get back on task. “Mr. Stark, I want to tell you about my script for our skit tomorrow…it’s, er…something rather different.”

He listened intently, and she felt his arms tighten around her as she went on. “A real murder, you’re saying?” He missed a step, but recovered quickly. She nodded.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“The script is in my room. It’s all final.”

Stark started to argue more, but the number ended, and he was claimed by the exuberant guest still wearing her pink feather boa, as she had to every event all week.

Elizabeth turned to find Dr. Pearsall and repeat her dialogue. “Oh,
really?”
He looked more than a bit perplexed. Whether it was because he couldn’t figure out why Elizabeth was telling him that information, or because he understood all too well, she couldn’t tell.

One more to go. She left the ballroom and its romantic strains of “Sweet Embraceable You” to seek out Mr. Hamlin. He had retired to his private sitting room, but at her insistence, the clerk on night desk duty summoned him.  The manager was clearly flummoxed to receive her information. Or else he was a very good actor.

Now just a word with the police officer guarding the main door and she could retire.

Richard was just turning out the lights in the sitting room when she came in.

“You left the party before the excitement. Have you heard?”

“What?”

“Scott of the Yard died.”

“What!” This was too much. She couldn’t cope with another catastrophe. Then she looked at Richard’s grin. “Oh, you mean as part of the script.”

“Of course. He got up to make some kind of an announcement, then keeled over very dramatically clutching his heart.”

“So it looked like a heart attack—natural causes?”

“I suppose so, but who knows? Stark certainly knows how to keep the tension up through the eleventh hour.”

“Hmmm. I’d give a lot to know if that was in his original plan or an improvisation.” She stood there looking uncertain and trying to think until Richard yawned and turned toward his room.

She wished him a brief good night and went on into her own room. but not to bed. Moving with a sense of detached calm, she took off her flame red ball gown and put on three layers of the warmest clothes in her suitcase. Then she pulled the blanket off her bed, stuffing the remaining covers with towels and folded clothing so that it would appear she was asleep. Then she tiptoed across the sitting room, repeating over and over to herself,
Go, post a watchman…go…

Before stepping out onto the balcony she took one last look around the room: Script on the table, window shades at the right level…she closed the door behind her, wrapped herself in the blanket, and taking a position where she could see under the shade, began her lonely vigil.

At first the excitement of what she was doing provided stimulation to keep her awake, but as the moments dragged on and the hotel behind her went to sleep and the lights in the valley below blinked off, she found it necessary to fight her own drowsiness. She didn’t dare get up and move around. Why hadn't she thought to bring a mug of coffee with her? The best she could do was to flex her muscles in rotation and force herself to breathe deeply of the fresh night air.

Singing was always a good way to keep oneself awake, but hardly appropriate for a secret stakeout. So she decided to try quoting poetry. Requiring students to memorize poetry was out of fashion in academic circles, But, perhaps from her grandmother's example, Prof. Elizabeth Allerton often offered an extra credit option. And usually learned more than her students. She would test herself on her recall. Her mind strained and groped. Surely, if she could just get started. But it seemed only snatches from last semester’s Hebrew poetry class would come to her:

 All revelry is darkened, and mirth is banished…desolation alone is left…”

Whether they turn their gaze upwards or look down, everywhere is distress and darkness inescapable, constraint and gloom that cannot be avoided; for there is no escape…

With those less than comforting words ringing in her mind, she turned her gaze upwards, then looked down—and everywhere was inescapable darkness. Her only comfort lay recalling Richard’s words, “He is telling you he understands, that he is there with you.”

As time wore on, Elizabeth shifted her position carefully to relieve muscles that were beginning to ache. Even as warmly as she was dressed, cold seeped in around the edges of the blanket.
This is really dumb, you know. You could be sound asleep in your nice warm bed right now
—
like Gavin and Stark and Pearsall and all your other imaginary bogey men are. You are being unbelievably idiotic
—
carried away by the aura of the mystery week and all the thrillers you’ve read. If you told you’re theory to an objective observer they would laugh you out of the room
—
or offer you first rights for a fiction publication
.

She was within inches of talking herself into standing up and chucking the whole thing when another verse came to her mind: “Keep peace, and you will be safe; in stillness and in staying quiet, there lies your strength…Wait.”

Yes, fine. But how long
?

She wrapped the blanket tighter around her, stifled a yawn that made her eyes water, and leaned her head back against the cold iron bars of the railing…

It was only the merest click, barely audible. She was sure her heart leaping into her throat made a far louder sound. But it was enough to call her back from the cloud she was drifting away on and rivet all her attention on the two-inch gap between the shade and the window sill.

The dark figure moved noiselessly across the room with no more substance than a shadow. It paused at the desk and flicked on a penlight. The tiny yellow pinpoint moved across assorted papers on the desk, then flicked off. The shadow moved and the dot of light scanned the mantle. Elizabeth held her breath as the shadow turned toward the balcony, then stopped at the low table by the sofa. The light zigzagged back and forth across the lines of her notebook, left open to the appropriate page. Then the light went out, and the shadow exited into the darkness. And for Elizabeth all the lights in the world were extinguished.

Chapter 15

Sunday, March 18, 1990/1934

The next morning Elizabeth was thankful for the cover stick in her makeup bag as she applied it to the dark circles under her eyes. She considered forcing herself to drink a cup of strong black coffee, but decided her nervous system could provide all the energy she needed without artificial stimulation.

While all the teams were finding seats in the parlor, she cornered Irene and explained one addition she wanted to make to the script—a prologue—and asked Irene to set up the action with Richard and Benton.