Something blue (17 page)

"I have things to ask," said Dorothy ominously. "Do you realize the wedding is tomorrow morning at eleven?"

"Oh no, it's not." Johnny strode into the room, grasped the phone, put in a call for Roderick Grimes again. Dorothy had followed him. She stood with her hands in the pockets of her soft gray ulster, staring at his tired face.

The operator began to singsong up the coast.

Johnny said, "He did it, Dot. Dick Bartee killed Christy. I know it in my bones, as they say. I don't know how I'm going to prove it."

Dorothy said quietly, "Was our Aunt Emily's real name Edith McCauley?"

Johmiy reached out with his right arm and gathered her j close to him. "Now you know," he sighed.

Grimes was saying, "Hello? Hello?"

Johnny began to tell him about the ^^'inery incident, the alibi broken, the loan application. "So now I am convinced," j he woimd up, "and I am going to Nan, and make her listen. ' Where is Copeland? I want him down here."

"He's coming down," Grimes said. "What do you mean, i make her listen? You haven't told her!"

"I am about to tell her ."

"You better," said Grimes sharply, "and quick. If you don't want that girl to marry a lousy murderer. You go ; stop it. Work on the giil. That's all for you to do." 1

"Can you put any pressure on this man, Harris," said Johnny, "and fiiid out what security?"

"Yes, yes," said Grimes impatiently. "Listen, don't worry j what you have to do to make her stop this wedding. Say j you'll kill yourself or something. There's a time for scruples but this isn't it." Grimes hung up.

Johnny turned to Dorothy. Grimes had sounded frantic, i

Johnny's own mind was dark and his heart was heavy. "How did you know who Nan is?"

"How did you?" she countered. "Did Emily tell you?''

"Yes."

Dorothy began to draw away.

"Ah, Dotty, Emily gave up her identity to keep that secret," he said tiredly. "McCauley gave up the acquaintance of liis own and only child. An awful lot was sacrified, for seventeen years, to keep that secret and to keep it from Nan. How could I blurt it out in five minutes? McCauley, himself, asked me to make sure . . ."

"Sme of what?"

"Whether Dick killed Christy. He was willing to believe he might have been mistaken—for Nan's sake."

"For Nan's sake," Dorothy repeated slowly.

"How did you find out?"

"Oh, Blanche said there was an aunt. Then I talked to Kate. Kate says he was crazy about the baby." Dorothy was looking at events past with troubled eyes.

"McCauley? Yes, 'Polly McCauley' he used to call her. Silly pet rhyme."

"Polly McCauley." Dorothy tried to smile because she was beginning to feel like crying.

"McCauley isfi't psycho," Johnny said sadly. "He is saintly. What a comment on the times, that I couldn't tell the difference! He's worried himself sick over tlie whole thing. Knowing he didn't do it. BeHeving Dick did. And yet," Johnny hit one hand with the edge of his other palm, "having the incredible charity to remember 'about being in love, when you are young."

"Oh, poor mani Poor Emilyl Johnny, you ought to hava told us."

1 wasn t sure.

"It wasn't necessary to be sure," she flamed. ''Who elected you the judge? You can't be the judge! Johnny, she cant marry Dick, not knowing all of this. You must not let her break her father's heart all over again in ignorance!" cried Dorothy. "Johnny, that's wrong!"

He said grimly, "Poor Nan."

"Poor Clinton McCauley," said Dorothy, blazing.

Because Dorothy must return Bart's car, they went in it

together. On the way, Johnny told her about the old man having sent money for the baby, and the possibility that Dick had hunted Nan out.

Dorothy was neither surprised nor impressed. "I knew there must be something," was all she said.

"So he went for the money," Johnny said, "from the be-giiming. I think he must have been furious that the old man left him no part of the family business. If we could make Nan see that."

Dorothy shivered. "Johnny, Dick is a monster, isn't he?" "A ring-tailed doozer," Johnny muttered. "And not a drop of proof. The secret alibi was faked. We can't prove why. But I can't imagine why, unless he knew when Christy died. Can you?"

Dorothy said, "Didn't they put McCauley in prison without a lot of real proof, Johnny?"

"Seems so, now. Now, that the cUmate has changed." "Poor Chnton McCauley."

Johnny started to say, "Poor Nan" again, but he did not.

Bart himself opened the door. "Come in," he said cordially.

"I hope you've had dinner? We are all sitting meekly in the

study, because the parlor is not to be contaminated. Seems

it is ready for a wedding. Come on back."

Dorothy slipped off her coat and dropped it on a hall chair. They followed Bart. Neither had done more than make a polite sound in the throat.

In the small squaie room a fire was buj-ning, for other pleasure than its heat. The old lady was still up, stationed in the corner where Johnny had first laid eyes on her. She looked disgruntled. (She had been ordered out of the living room by Blanche and Bart.) Blanche was the hostess here. She greeted them with smiles. "Everything is ready as it can be. The corsages are coming early."

"Mayest hear the merry din," said Dorothy, in a strange voice.

There was a black leather chair to the left of the fire. In it, sat Dick Bartee and, on the black leather footstool, close to his knee, sat Nan. She hardly seemed to notice the newcomers. Her face wore a look of dreaming wonder. 'The guests are met, the feast is set, mayest hear the merry din,' " Bart quoted. " 'Held off, unhand me gray-

beard loon . . I' Sit down. Miss Dorothy. I'll fetch another chair."

"Don't bother," said Johnny. "I'd as soon stand for what I've got to say." Dick Bartee put his head back sharply. Nan didn't even seem to hear.

"I am the 'graybeard loon/ I guess," said Johnny. "Something has to be told, right now." He felt tense and determined. "Emily Padgett told me a secret."

''What's he saying?" the old lady mumbled. "What are you saying, young man?"

"You must listen to me carefully,'' Johnny said to her. "Chnton McCauley and his wife Christy had a baby girl."

"Yes," said the old lady. "Little girl. Mary was her name. Mary Christine."

"Nan is that baby girl."

Bart who had been leaning on the wall bent forward in surprise. Blanche bridled.

"Who?" said the old lady.

"This girl," said Johnny loudly and distinctly. "Nan is your great-granddaughter. Her real name is Mary McCauley."

The pair in the black leather comer had not moved at all.

''The man in prison is your father, Nan," Johnny said, trying for a gentle voice. "He didn't kill your mother. He beheves that Di^k did. Do you understand?"

"I know," said Nan dreamily. She leaned backward and Dick's torso came forward, and they were close.

"We figured that out this afternoon," Dick said, amiably. "It's the only explanation. Why Aunt Emily flew home, why Sims has been acting this w'ay. As soon as I^found out he had been to see McCauley, it all came to me." He kissed Nan's hair. "Well?" he inquired.

Johnny was absolutely stunned.

Dorothy said, "Nan, that is why Aimt Emily flew back. She had kept this secret since—since you were three. Then you gave her Dick's name, of all names, on the telephone. Do you understand?"

"Of course, I do," said Nan. Her face kept the wondering glow. "I felt it, anyhow. I could tell that I belonged here."

Bart said briskly, "Now, you are sm:e of this, Sims? You aren't inventing?"

"I am not inventing," Johnny said wearily. "Ask Charles

Copeland, in San Francisco. Emily's lawyer. Or ask Clinton McCauley, who is alive, who is suffering . . ,"

Nan's face had not changed. It did not change now. (She is lost, thought Johnny with a terrible pang. Lost to Emily, who trusted me. Lost to McCauley who trusted me, too.)

The old lady said, "Christy's little girl? Why then, she is my daughter's daughter's daughter 1" She began to beam, pleased as punch. "Why, my dearie!"

"Great-grandmama?" said Nan shyly. "And I suppose my uncle Bart?"

Bart said, "Dick, how long have you known this?''

"I guessed it, this afternoon," Dick said.

Nan leaned back against him. "Now we understand . . .''

"Understand what?" said Dorothy bluntly.

"Why it was that we fell in love, so suddenly, so—so deeply." Nan looked shyly aglow. "It was because we had known each other already—years ago. Dick knew me when I was only three and I—I adored him. There was an old groove in our hearts." (Johnny felt sick!) "We aren't related at all," said Nan, "but we belong! And we sensed that."

Dick's arm came around her waist.

Johnny felt sick, heart and soul. He knew now that he had been fighting with the wrong weapons. He had been using time to track down trifles—alibis and pins. Evidence, he had been after. Reasonable proof. But Dick Bartee had used his time to deal with more potent things. Dick had got into Nan's heart and mind—and got there first. Dick had seen to the climate there. Dick had taken the edge off this news. Transformed it. Put it inside the dream.

Stupid, stupid, Johnny accused himself. The very idea that Dick was a killer—Dick had taken all the sting out of that. Nan had been soothed and satisfied. And a tenuous collection of wispy facts—Dick's car rumored to have been on the Upper Road, Dick fooling a girl in tlie dark, a man reading a book with his hghts on. Nothing there with any power.

God help me, thought Johnny, if I am relying on reason.

But he must reach her. "Your own living father thinks Dick killed your mother," he said flatly. "Your father is alive, Nan. Won't you go to see him?"

"Of course," she said. "Some day."

^'Some dayl" Dorothy exploded. "What's the matter with you?"

"But I'm being married tomorrow," Nan said patiently.

Johnny said, "You can't be married tomorrow, Nan. Listen to me. Your father has loved you, all the years of your life ..." ^

"I don't remember him," she said. "I've never seen him, since I can remember . . ."

"—loved you enough, never to see you since you can remember. Sacrificed . . ."

"But Dick didn't kill Christy," Nan said earnestly. "And 1 didn't know my father was in prison. It's not my fault that I never knew, is it? I don't know^ whether he killed my mother. He says he didn't. I'm—I'm sorry. But I do know that Dick didn't do it and Dick loves me—whatever, wherever my father is."

"Your father is sick over you," cried Johnny. "In anguish. Nan."

Her dark eyes looked into his. They were honest, according to her lights. "But he doesn't need to be in such anguish," she explained. "Don't you see? I'm sorry he has made himself sick and for what he thinks, but that isn't Dick's or my fault.

The whole r©om was listening, except possibly, the old lady who was staring at' Nan and moving her Ups, soundlessly.

Finally, Dorothy said, "Nan, don't you care?"

"I only care for the truth," Naij said, flinging up her head.

"The truth is," said Johnny calmly, "your father is right."

Now Dick put Nan to one side and rose from the chair. "Say that once more."

"Gladly," said Johimy. "McCauley is right. You killed Christy."

Dick's muscles prepared to deUver a blow.

Bart said, "Just a minute. None of that." He was between them. "Why," he demanded of Johnny, "do you say so?"

"For one thing," said Johnny, "he faked the alibi with Blanche. I can prove that. He wasn't with her at midnight."

"So I must have been here, murdering Christy?" said Dick, sounding dangerous. "Because you would hke to think so?" Dick loomed.

Nan jumped up. "Dick, pleasel Johnny, please!" She

clasped her hands together. ^'Johnny, if you will just listen and believe me. No matter what happens, ever—I would never, never marry you."

Johnny looked at her. She was so young. If she was just a tinge pleased, he would try to forgive her. "I know that," he said solemnly.

Dick used both hands to put Nan gently back upon the leather stool. Bart had paid no attention to her. "Anything else, that makes you think Dick killed Christy?"

"The fact that he would have liked to see me blown up this morning," said Johnny.

Dick Bartee said, "And been blown up, too? You don't seem to understand what is going on at all, Sims. I'm being married tomorrow. I then, take my bride on our honeymoon. I've got more important things to do than argue with you about an old story, seventeen years behind us." He loomed, big, dangerous, clever. "Do you really think we will put ofiF our wedding?" he scoffed. "Because you keep insisting that I am some kind of villain? I am one kind of villain in your eyes, Sims. I stole your girl! And that is the bottom and the essence of what ails you."

"Oh, Johnny, you mustn't be so wicked!" wailed Nan. She believed it.

The old lady stirred. "Blanche, go, please get Christy's picture?"

Blanche got up, dazed, "Mother, hadn't I better take you away . . . ?"

"No, no," said the old lady, "not a bit of it. I want the child to see her mother's picture."

"Oh yes, please," breathed Nan. "Great-grandmother?"

Bart had his hand on Johnny's sleeve. He said, "I don't see that you've proved anything, Sims."

"There's been enough trouble," Blanche said pathetically. She went out into the hall.

Dorothy had her arms crossed, hands on her own shoulders, head bent.

Dick Bartee said, "One more word about that kilhng, Sims, and I will throw you out bodily. In fact, I tliink we would all like it very much if you would go."

Johnny said rapidly, "Old Mr. Bartee sent Emily five thousand dolliirs, every year, for the baby." He saw Bart's

face react. "It was put into a fund by Mr. Copeland. The money you have, Nan, is Bartee money."

Nan's eyes went to Dick and she smiled.

"Listen to me," pleaded Johnny. "Dick knew you were an heiress. He needed money to buy into this place. He wants this place."

"Of course, he wants to buy in and be Bart's partner. It's all family," Nan said. "It's wonderfull"