Something blue (3 page)

He had left the door a trifle ajar and she could tell that the hospital was full of visitors. Feet came and went in the corridor. People laughed. The world had not come to an end, after all.

How right she had been to call on Johnny Sims. Dear reliable Johnny with the kind green eyes in the long-jawed face. Tall steady Johnny who had been brought up to do the one simple right and basic thing. To keep his word. Johnny would see Clinton. Tell him as gently as such things could be told. Johnny would look out for Nan. And there was truth in all he had said. To be tested as Nan would now be tested was not necessarily terrible.

If only Nan would turn to Johnny. Johnny had always been strength and shelter for her and all might be weU at last. And the truth told. The long lie wrung out to all its useful purpose and discarded.

So she sighed deep, and rested.

The door moved. A man came in and pushed it shut

behind him. For a moment, she thought Johnny had returned. What time is it? she thought in confusion. Is it morning?

He came toward the bed, moving quietly. He wore a hat. So she saw that he was not Johnny.

He was tall and big and his eyes were a cool gray. His mouth was cut large and full and almost too well, carved and curved like the mouth on a statue. He came around the bed, his back to the window, his face to the door.

"I thought it was you. Miss McCauley," he said. "Do you remember me?"

In seventeen years, he was not bigger, but the flesh on his face was not as fresh as she remembered it. "You're making Nan mighty unhappy," he chided.

"II" Emily raised up. "You'll never marry Clinton's child," she defied him. "Not you."

"Why not? Who blames her for her father's crime?"

Emily's heart was jumping in anger. "Your crime!"

"You still insist?" He sounded sorry and even weary. He turned and touched a cord at the window that tripped the Venetian blinds. "Why haven't you told her, then, what you think I did?"

"I will. I will," she blustered. She knew this wasn't good for her heart.

He stood looking down. He had not taken off his hat.

"You think you'll marry Christy's child?" said Emily with bitter triumph. "You never will."

"Oh, I don't think you'll tell her very much now," he said pleasantly. "You've missed yoiu' chance." His hands took the pillow's edge. "You shouldn't have come back."

"My brother will tell her," Emily said sharply.

"Maybe he'll try," said the big blond dangerous man. "But it will be too late." He jerked at the pillow. Her head bounced.

"No," said Emily feebly. "No use . . ."

"She doesn't know her father," the man said, quite softly and reasonably. "Why will she believe what he tells her? If he can find her, to tell her anything. There isn't any proof, you know. There never will be."

"Then . . ."

"Oh, I can't afford to have you mLxing her up before the wedding, Miss McCauley. There's a reason—"

Emily tried to reach the bell-push, but he didn't permit it. The pillow came down upon her face. The last thing she tliought in triumph and also in defeat was: "This proves it! At last!"

Richardson Bartee watched the time on his wrist. He took plenty of time. When enough had gone by, he put the pillow back where it had been before.

He crossed the very silent, the breathless room and opened the door 1by the shank of the handle, smearing the place where his fingers had to touch it. People were standing in doorways, talking. He dodged a red-haired woman in a mink jacket, hand to his hat, obscuring his face. He got the thirty feet to the door at the end of the wing. Then he was in the parking lot.

His car was not in the parking lot, but around the comer, snug to a flowering bush. It was only a rented car, of coiurse, but Dick Bartee hadn't risked more than he knew was necessary. He was older and wiser than he had been seventeen years ago.

Twenty minutes later, he parked the rented car, crossed the sidewalk, punched the bell.

"Dick? Darling?"

He ran up. He was still holding Nan when the phone rang.

Johnny went home after all, and the phone was ringing as he got there.

"She couldn't have died!" he exploded, when Dorothy's voice had told him.

"The doctor says—it sometimes happens—to a sick and tired heart." Dorothy was crying.

Johnny's mind was churning. Why, he had just seen Emily! Could not tell the girls what Emily had said to him. Wasn't free to tell them, yet. He didn't want to be a man keeping a stubborn secret and the girls trying to guess what it was. He wouldn't put them or himself in that position. Could not even say he'd seen her.

But how could she have died!

"Look, Dotty," he said, "would you like the loan of my mother?"

'Dick is here," Dorothy sobbed, "but I think . . . Oh, Johnny, we could use her."

So Johnny hung up, dashed out, roared down two blocks to the Miller's house, rousted his parents out of their bridge game.

"I'll take you in, Barbara," his father said. "You go on home with John now. Pack. I'll explain to the Millers."

Johnny said, "Wait. I want you both to remember—you don't know a thing about the hospital calling me tonight."

"You saw Emily, Johnny?"

"Yes, but you mustn't say so. Mind, now."

"Why not?"

"Because Emily asked me to do something. Secretly.''

"You are still going to do it?" his mother asked tearfully, "now that she . . . ?"

"Of course, I'm going to do it," said Johnny fiercely. "I said I would."

CHAPTER 4

Johnny was acquainted with one of the chaplains at the prison, a man they called Father Klein. Johnny had talked with him about a convict there, in the course of doing research for Roderick Grimes. So, by ten o'clock the next morning, Johnny was in the chaplain's little office, throwing himself upon the man's mercy.

"You'd like me to tell him about his sister's death?" asked Father Klein.

"I've got to see him myself," said Johnny. "She sent me on a—a mission. Can you help me?"

"Is it about his daughter?" asked the chaplain promptly.

"It is." Johnny felt surprise.

"Then I'll fetch him. Would it be better if I told him about Miss Editli?"

"Edithr

"I believe she called herself Emily."

/ changed all the names. I luid to. Johnny remembered. "I wish you would," he said gratefully, and then he waited.

For Nan's father.

Johnny had not seen the girls last evening. Had not met this Richardson Bartee. First he must find out what to do from Nan's father.

At last the chaplain returned with a small thin white-haired man, who looked very frail. He had a limp, Johnny saw. His skin was papery white. There was something uncanny about the face. It was serene.

"John Sims? I have heard of you," this man said in a soft cultivated voice. "From my sister. And now she's gone?"

"It was her heart. I'm sorry, sir."

"She was good," the man said. Johnny had not heard that word used just that way for a long, long time, if ever. "How is my Polly?" the man asked.

"I beg your pardon."

"Mary. I mean Nan, Her name is Mary. I used to call her Polly—when I was young and she was only one or two. 'Polly McCauley' I used to call her. Silly little rhyme. Christy never liked it."

"She's—she's sad, of course. My mother's with .her.", Johnny found ^mself floundering. The avalanche of unfamiliar designations confused him. Nor did he know this man or understand him or believe in him, one way or the other.

"Would you like me to leave you?" the chaplain asked, sensing some kind of hesitation..

"Just a minute, sir." Johnny grasped for hefp. "I think you'd better stay. He may need an older friend than I—"

"Please stay. Father Klein," said the prisoner mildly. "What is the trouble?"

Johnny didn't know how he was going to say what the ti-ouble was. He began slowly. "You knew Miss Emily went ofi^ on a trip. I'm sorry, I can't call her , . ,"

The little man smiled faintly. "Yes, I know," he said. "I was glad. She never did things for herself .... Dear, good Emily. Where was it that she died?"

"Why it was here." The little man did not react with surprise. He seemed detached, as if distances and places in the outside world were simply rumors to him. Johnny plunged aliead, "Emily did leave, some ten weeks ago, I

think. Took ship through the Panama Canal, spent time in New York, and then in London. She got as far as Paris. From there she flew back."

The prisoner was listening courteously.

"Nan had met a man and fallen in love and got engaged to be married," said Johnny in a rush.

A faint smile came to McCauley's lips.

"She phoned Emily to tell her. That's why Emily flew home. Mr. McCauley, please remember that I don't know anything about all this. Except what Emily told me and— asked me to do. The man," Johnny's voice almost stuck in his throat, "the man Nan wants to marry is named Richardson Bartee."

Clinton McCauley's face grew thinner. The cheeks hollowed. The lines tightened. The serenity was destroyed.

"He is from Hestia, California. He is thirty-two years old. His family has a vineyard. Miss Emily wanted you to say what is to be done."

The man's head was going forward and down. Father Klein sprang to get him a glass of water. The chaplain's lips were tight.

McCauley gulped water. He said in a whimper, "Must it be?" He turned his face up toward Johnny and whispered, "Must I stand for this too?" The prisoner, with white fingers clamped to the edge of Father Klein's desk began to talk. "Listen to me. I know many a man in prison will say he's innocent. I know it's so general a thing, it doesn't meet belief. But I never killed my own Christy! I was convicted. I understand that. I was convicted by society for other things society didn't like about me. And I have borne it. But how can I bear this! It was Dick Bartee who killed my v^dfe!"

"So Emily said," Johnny croaked. The burst of pain from behind that mask was a shocking thing. "She said there was no way to prove it . . .'^

"How can I let him have my little girl?"

Johnny leaned back and felt the sympathy leave him suddenly. "Don't let him have her," he said crisply. "Tell her about all of it. That will fix that."

"Yes," said Clinton McCauley. "Yes." He looked at the chaplain. "What will it do to her? To find out her mother was brutally killed. To find out her father's an old jailbird.

To find the man she . . ." He looked at Jolinny. "She-cares for tliis man?"

"Yes," said Johnny. "I doubt if she'd promise to marry him if she didn't." Johnny couldn't analyze what made him so tart. Clinton McCauley made him uneasy. Johnny didn't like a mart\T-type.

The little mim put his fingers to his temples. "What is right?"

"Listen," said Johnny, "aren't you missing the point here? If this Dick Bartee ever killed anybody then Nan mustn't marry him. This has absolutely nothing to do with you or your conscience or what you have to bear." He stopped, embarrassed. "I'm sorry . . ."

"The boy is right," the chaplain said gravely.

"What can be the meaning of an accident hke this?^ McCauley half-whispered. "That she should meet this man— of all men—"

"What makes you think Bartee is guilty?" Johnny asked bluntly.

"He must have done it," said McCauley. "For seventeen years I have believed . . ."

"And you may have been wrong for seventeen years,'' said Johnny grimly. "But it's up to you, sir. I promised» Emily. It's yoii? decision."

CHnton McCauley began to beat his hands softly on the desk and Johnny watched. Suspiciously.

"Vve thought of something," said the chaplain, suddenly. "And Sims here is qualified, . too. Why don'jt you ask him to check for you?"

"Check?" said McCauley.

"He's done work for Roderick Grimes. Couldn't he check the alibi?"

Johnny was listening with a sagging jawbone.

"Isn't it true," said the chaplain, "that you have always said the Bartee boy's alibi was worthless? Now, suppose you are wrong and suppose it does hold? Why then, we would know that the boy had not done it. And your daughter could go on being happy. Just as you and Miss Edith planned for her to be."

Johnny gaped at the chaplain's kind, beaming, rugged face. He was appalled by the naivete of the whole conversation.

"Look," he said. "I'm not a detective. I'm not a police officer. I'm not qualified to check . . ."

"You say she loves him?" (Johnny looked at that white saintly face and it made him uneasy.) "If I have been wrong," said McCauley, "I pray the Lord to let me know it now."

Johnny was shocked. "But Nan has to be told," he said. "You can't let her marry into that family, not knowing. Emily only wanted you to be the one to—to tell me to teU her."

McCauley straightened his slight body. "She mustn't be told," he said, "and her heart broken with this old evil business, and my sister's whole life thrown away. Not if there is anything else at all that we can do. Not if you can prove that I've been wrong."

"I agree," said the chaplain.

"Oh, you do?" said Johnny angrily. He rose. "May I speak to you alone. Father Klein?"

"Surely."

The chaplain led Johnny into a kind of anteroom.

"Look here^" said Johnny, "unless something pretty fishy has been going on, / don't agree, at all. Maybe you know what I don't know. Is that man guilty? Does he know, right now, and none better, that Dick Bartee didn't kill his wiJFe? Because he did it himself, and all this seventeen years' innocence is just phony?"

"Sometimes," the chaplain said calmly, "a prisoner gets obsessed with a phony innocence, as I see you realize. I can only tell you that ever since I've been here McCauley has believed . . ."

"Believed," said Johnny.

"Exactly. He believes that he did not do it. He has believed that the Bartee boy did.

"But what gets me is now he's willing to change his mind and believe that Bartee is innocent! Which I can't swallowl How can you swallow that? What kind of man is this? Why hasn't he been out on parole?"

"Things happen," the chaplain said vaguely. "Whenever the Board gets around to his case . . ."

"What things?"