Something blue (8 page)

"It's not a very pretty job," he said ruefully.

"What do we care about that," she said, "if Nan's engaged to a murderer?"

He couldn't answer.

Five times it was on the end of Johnny's tongue to tell her the rest of it. Five times he stopped before he told.

Aunt Emily's face. There goes the meaning of my life. The face of McCauley. // I have been wrong, I pray the Lord. Dick Bartee's face. No reason that I know . . . The old man's letter, kind and wise . . . the little girl all happiness.

Who was Johnny Sims to decide against them all?

CHAPTER 9

It was alm«st five o'clock in the afternoon by the time they turned into a road that ran between vast flats of what seemed to be pure sand. Johnny had seen this country when rows of twisted sticks stretched across as desolate and unproductive-looking a landscape, as one would see this side of the moon. At this season the sticks were hidden in green.

This private road, thought Johnny, was the 'long, long driveway' that Chnton McCauley had walked on a midnight, long years ago. It made a loop around a knoll with a tuft of trees upon it that stood up like a hairy wart on the smooth face of the land. Johnny noted another road leading away to the back.

He took the narrow tum-o£F into the thicket of trees that curved up to the door of a huge wooden house of Victorian design which was painted, gingerbread and all, a soft pale piuplish color. The efiPect was rather pleasing.

They parked and went up the steps. Double wooden doors with old-fashioned etched glass in their upper portions. The doors to which Clinton McCauley had fitted his key? Johnny punched a bell-button,

A neat maid opened the doors. Dorothy asked for Nan. They were let in.

They stepped upon a red carpet. Surely, thought Johnny, not the same red carpet upon which Clinton McCauley had found the candlestick lying. But, if not, it was a replacement that repeated. There was a lot of red carpet. The hall was fifteen feet wide and it went far and deep into the old mansion. He thought he could tell, by an alteration in the hght, where the stairs went up, on the left, about half-way back.

To their inmiediate right, an arch was shut off by two tightly closed sliding doors. To their left an arch had no doors at aU and from this room, as if she came around tlie comer somehow, Nan appeared.

She moved hghtly. Johnny saw that she had regained that dancing air, the effect of some inner joy that he, J. Sims might have to destroy. Behind her loomed Dick Bartee, the tall blond man, easy in his own place, not a type who showed surprise. Then the two girls were exchanging httle jabberings of surprise and explanation.

Johnny said to Dick in the proper undertone, "I wonder if I could wash?"

Bartee nodded. ''Under the stairs. Just go on down the haU."

So Johnny set off upon the red carpet. He knew very well that he might not be within these walls but this once, and he wanted to look at the study. It lay across from the bottom of the stairs that wound up in a square pattern to the left. Johnny went into the little lavatory, remained a judicious time. When he opened its door he did not step out. He stood and inspected, across the fifteen feet of the hall, the old man's study where Christy McCauley had been beaten to death with an iron candlestick seventeen years ago.

The small square room was wide open. Sliding doors here, too, but not shut. There was a mantel piece diiectly opposite, in the outside wall. There were glass-covered bookcases, a hbrary table. The safe, he thought, was probably behind the picture, a rustic scene that hung over the mantel. At least he couldn't spot it, elsewhere. Then, with shock, his exploring eyes perceived that he was being watched by a lizard gaze from the wrinkled old face of an ancient woman in a wheel chair.

Johnny was nobody to skulk sheepishly away. He moved out of the lavatory, closed its door, marched across the red carpet, entered the study. "Ma'am," he addressed her, "my name is John Sims. I am a friend of Nan Padgett."

The old lady regarded him with some interest.

"How do you do?" he said.

"They haven't come to take me to my tea," she said. "So I don't do very well."

"Then I'll take you," he said, "if youll tell me where."

The old lady let out a rusty chuckle. "To the parlor," she said. "I want my tea."

Johnny saw how to release the brake on the wheelchair. Then he got behind it and pushed it out into the hall. He turned to his left and the old lady did not object. So Johnny pushed on towards the front doors and then he turned her into the big room from which Nan had come.

"Motherl" said a man's voice. "Oh, I see!"

The old lady was chortling witii delight. "Young man's name is John Sims," she said triumphantly. "Well? Tea?"

The man who had spoken held out his hand. "Thanks for bringing my mother in, Mr. Sims," he said pleasantly. "I'm Bart Bartee."

A thin worft^n with bronze hair, a sharp prow of a nose and a small chin hurried to take his place at the pushing-bar of the chair. "I'm Blanche Bartee. You surprised us."

"Surprised you, didn't I?" said the old lady with relish. "Miss Adams makes me wait." .

"No reason why you should wait," said Blanche soothingly. She pushed tlie old lady to a position down the huge room.

"I should think not. In my house," the old lady said.

Bart spoke. "Come in. Come in. Sit down. Mother has tea, but the rest of us have something a little more stimulating. Join us?"

"Thanks."

Then Johnny was seated with a glass in his hand and he was assembling his impressions. The big room was charming. The furnishings were old but stately and attractively well cared for. It was the room of a moneyed family, who did not need nor wish to be up-to-the-minute in fashion. The things they'd had for years were precious and significant. He was within the stronghold of the Bartees. Young Bart

was master here. His wife was not the mistress. The old lady was the mistress of the house.

A woman in a white uniform came pushing a teacart, apologizing. The old lady nibbled and sipped and twinkled at Johnny. He seemed to have taken her fancy.

Bart, Jr., was a man about forty, Johnny surmised. Not tall, not big, but well made. He had an air of competent authority. Blanche's age he could not guess, except that she was not a young girl and not an old lady. She struggled to say what a gracious hostess ought to say while the old lady waited to pounce rudely. Johnny could sense strain.

Blanche was saying now, to Dorothy, "You must stay with us, of course. There is plenty of room."

"Who is she?" said the old lady crossly.

"I am Dorothy Padgett, Nan's cousin," said Dorothy promptly. "I should have phoned, I know, but I caught a ride with Johnny at the last minute. It's very kind of you," said Dorothy directly to the old lady, "to ask me to stay."

The old lady nodded. "Not at all," she said, looking pleased with herself.

Dorothy sent a smile of apology to Blanche, who merely looked patient. Bart was watching Dorothy with pleasure— and, perhaps, surprise.

"How nice," said Blanche to Johnny, "that business brought you down."

"I'd better tell you what my business is." Johnny put the glass, whose contents he had not tasted, cai-efully down on the little table beside his chair.

"Matter of fact," interrupted Dick Bartee, "it is a good thing you two are here. There may be a wedding soon. You'll want to attend." He cast a lover's look at Nan, beside liim. Nan was demure, tucked in, belonging.

"Nan isn't," said Dorothy, "going to get married without me around. We are all the Padgetts left."

Blanche began to make sympathetic sounds. It was all pleasant, poHte, genteel. And Johnny was here to destroy this mood.

He broke in again as soon as he could. "Have you ever heard of Roderick Grimes?"

Blanche's face, a paler bronze than her hair, put on a frown. "It does sound familiar."

"He writes books," Johnny told them.

"That's right, he does," said Dick. "About murder."

The Bartee heads turned. Johnny knew one word had destroyed the mood.

"Right. I do some leg-work for him on occasion. He's given me a chore, this time, that brought me here. I am to talk to a few people about the McCauley case."

Johnny heard Blanche's breath catch. If Bart's smooth face gave any sign, Johnny missed it. He was noticing the twitch of Dick Bartee's full mouth. The glance of those gray eyes seemed to rest on Johnny's face, not probing, but coolly resting.

"You can't mean Christy!" said Blanche with dismay.

"I'm afraid I do, Mrs. Bartee," said Johnny. "You see, Grimes ..."

"I know about him. He v^rites up those things," said Dick in a pleasantly informative voice. "Puts them in books."

Nan said from her snug place next to Dick, "Who is Christy?"

"Christy McCauley," said the old lady. Crumbs fell from the comer of her mouth. "Poor Christy McCauley."

"Christy," said Blanche in an aside to Nan, "was Mother Bartee's granddaughter." -"•

"Nelly's little girl," said the old lady. "My only daughter's only daughter, I used to say."

Blanche looked at her vdth alarm. Johnny thought he could read the thought in her bronze head. The old lady ought to be gotten out of the room. It was so vjvid an impression that Johnny found himself waiting for this to be ac-comphshed.

But Bart said sharply, "This man Grimes wants to write up that story?"

"It depends on what I can report to him," said Johnny. "He is interested in old cases that lend themselves to his kind of recapitulation."

"And what is that?" asked Bart sternly.

Johnny said gently, "If it makes an interesting story, sir."

"I don't think," said Blanche, "that it is anything we want at all. How can he do this without having consulted the— the family?" Blanche flicked a nervous look at the old lady who, still as a lizard, was watching her balefully.

Dick said, "It was news. As such, I guess it belongs to the pubhc. Am I right, John?"

He was easy. He spoke sensibly. Johnny thought that if he had killed Christy McCauley, this was as nerveless a killer as ever was.

Johnny said, "Whatever wasn't in the newspapers. Grimes handles very carefully." He took up the glass. It had become a kind of symbol. If they reacted with any kind of permission, Johnny would become their guest. Then he could drink it.

Nan said wonderingly to Dorothy, "Did you know about this?"

Dorothy said softly, "It's just Johnny's job." "Do you propose to talk to us?" asked Bart. "I had hoped to." The drink remained untouched. "About Christyl" Blanche ran her tongue along her lip. "You don't seem to reahze, Mr. Sims, just what you are asking. You came here . . /'

Nan looked from face to face. Bart exuded silent chill. Johnny put his drink down again. "I beg your pardon," he said, "if I have seemed to come into the house under false pretenses. It is just a job I have to do." He got up. "I'll say good-night then."

Nan said, "Oh," as if to protest something, but not sure what.

"Where's he going?" the old lady said. "He hasn't had his tea. Did you know Christy, young man?"

"No, ma'am," said Johnny gently. "I only wanted to know about her."

"Then sit down," she said. "I'll tell you about her." "Mother," said Blanche.

"Oh, be still," said the old lady promptly. It was obvious that she liked to be opposed to Blanche. "I haven't thought of Christy . . . Yes, I did. I thought of Christy only last night. Poor child. She was killed in this house." Her face had no horror in it. Not any more, at least. "Right here in this house," she said.

"I know," said Johnny swiftly. He could teU that Nan shrank closer to Dick. He could tell that Blanche was sending eye-beams to her husband. Blanche twisted her hands. Dick Bartee neither moved nor spoke.

"It was that husband of hers that did it," said the old lady vigorously, "That awful man. I never liked him, from the first. I said to Bart—my husband, I mean—that I

couldn't think of letting Christy go oflF with that awful man. And Nathaniel agreed with me." Her head nodded. The soft flesh of her face shook.

"What was wrong with him?" Johnny asked.

Dick Bartee sat quietly. But he was alert, Johnny thought. Perhaps he always was. Perhaps he had the animal quality of alertness to danger at all times.

"Oh, that McCauley was a drunkard, you know," said the old lady, "and he was always out 'til all hours of the night, drinking, you know. And then he used to see that dreadful woman. He wasn't the kind of man for Christy at all."

Bart spoke. "Mother, do you realize this man wants material for a book?"

"A book about ChristyP The old lady's face Ht. "Well, somebody should put in a book how sweet and pretty she was and what that awful man did to her." The old lady was waxing garrulous. "I remember all about it and, if he wants to know, I am the one to tell him. Not another one of you was here."

"I wish you would tell me," Johnny dared murmur.

Blanche said, in a kind of moan, "Bart, please dori't let^ her ..."-•

"Let me?" The old lady bristled. "Christy was my granddaughter. Not another one of you is related to her. You come over here. What's your name, young man?"

Dick Bartee said mildly, ''He's going to get all this somewhere, Blanche. Let Grandma have the fun." He put his arm around Nan where they sat, side by side, and seemed to work himself more comfortably into the upholstery. Nan looked into his face with trust and pleasure.

Johnny moved to another chair.

The old lady began to talk. The past was far more vivid to her than the present. She was enjoying this. "Christy was a dear, dear girl, you see, and we all loved her. But when that man came, he was so surly about everything. He behaved so badly. Well, we had gone to bed, you see, and I woke. I could hear them quarreling. Downstairs. Christy and Clinton. I could hear him growling and muttering. I woke my husband. By the time he was fully awake the voices had stopped. But I made him get up. Bart had a gun and he took that . . ."

"Why?" said Johnny.

''Why? Why, because there were people quarrelmg."

"A man and his wife?"

"It was the middle of the night," she said. "And Bart was quite right to take the gun. Youll see. He went down and there she was. That McCauley—Clinton was his name— I never hked him. He had hit her with a big heavy candlestick. Oh, it was wicked! And he was drunk. He had opened the safe. He had stolen her pretty pin. He was a wicked man I"