The Flesh of The Orchid (6 page)

“No,” Steve said, bewildered by this reasoning. “I don’t want him to do that again.”

Roy watched them go, then he got slowly to his feet. He was so elated that Carol hadn’t resisted him that he almost forgot that Steve had knocked him down. He had kissed her! It had been like taking candy from a kid. If Steve hadn’t shoved his oar in . . . why, she was a push-over!

That night, when Roy was in bed, Steve came into the bedroom after locking up. Roy had kept out of the way all day, but now, face to face once more with Steve, he decided to take the initiative before his brother slanged him.

“You watch your fists, you big hick,” he said, scowling. “The next time you start something like that you’ll pick lead out of your belly.”

“Then keep your hands off the girl,” Steve said, sitting on the edge of his bed. “Can’t you see she’s not normal? That bang on the head’s done something to her. She’s like a kid. So lay off, Roy. There can be no fun in fooling around with a girl in her mental state.”

“Can’t there?” Roy grinned. “All cats are grey in the dark whether they’re nuts or normal. She’s just a woman to me, and I like women.”

“Lay off or we’ll have a show-down,” Steve said, his face grim.

“You’ve some hopes,” Roy said. “What’s to stop me knocking you off ? No one would find you here for months, and by that time I’d be miles away. You watch your step. I can do what I like here, and the sooner you realize it the better.”

Steve kicked off his shoes, began to undress.

“I’m telling you. Keep your hands off Carol.”

“She likes me. She let me kiss her, didn’t she? You can’t kid me a girl with her stack-up doesn’t like being kissed. If you hadn’t shoved your oar in we’d have got along fine together.”

“I shan’t tell you again,” Steve said quietly. “If I have to take you, I’ll take you, gun or no gun.”

The two men stared at each other for a long moment. Roy’s eyes were the first to give ground.

“Aw, nuts to you,” he said, rolled over.

Steve got into bed.

“What are you scared of?” he asked abruptly. “Who’s after you?”

Roy whipped round, half sat up.

“Shut your mouth. I’m not scared of anyone.”

“But you are. You’re as jumpy as a flea. Who are you running away from—the police?”

Roy jerked up the ugly blunt-nosed automatic.

“I’ll blast a hole in you if you don’t shut up,” he snarled, his face white and twitching. “Why I haven’t knocked you off before—”

“Because you’re afraid to be left alone,” Steve said quietly. “You want me behind you when what you’re expecting to happen happens.”

Roy dropped back on his pillow, slid the gun out of sight.

“You’re crazy,” he said, turned off the light. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m going to sleep.”

But he didn’t. He lay awake for hours, listening to Steve’s heavy breathing, seeing the moonlight on the big pine trees through the open window.

The night was quiet and still. A soft breeze rustled in the trees and the water swirled gently round the jetty.

Roy thought of Carol, wondered if he could leave the room without waking his brother. If he could get into Carol’s room, the rest would be easy; he was sure of that. The idea of holding Carol once more in his arms suddenly galvanized him into action. He half raised himself, looked across at Steve. As he did so a movement outside the cabin caught his eye. His desires drained from him and he sat up, his heart racing.

A shadow crossed the open window: a gliding, silent shadow that had come and gone before his eyes had scarcely time to register it.

Fear gripped him and he lay transfixed in bed, staring at the window.

A light step sounded on the verandah, then another. A board creaked. The sound came nearer.

Roy grabbed hold of Steve, shook him violently.

Steve woke instantly, sat up, feeling Roy’s frenzied fingers digging into his arm. He stared at Roy’s white face, sensed immediately that something was wrong.

“What’s up?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

“Someone’s outside,” Roy said. His voice was shaking. “Listen.”

Somewhere down by the lake Spot began to howl mournfully.

Steve swung his legs out of bed, paused as he saw the shadow once more at the window. He leaned forward.

“It’s Carol, you fool,” he said. “Pull yourself together.”

The breath whistled through Roy’s clenched teeth.

“Carol? What’s she doing out there? You sure?”

“I can see her,” Steve said, crept to the window.

After a moment’s hesitation Roy joined him. Carol was pacing up and down the verandah. She had on Steve’s cut-down pyjamas and her feet were bare.

“Damn her,” Roy said softly. “She scared the pants off me. What’s she doing?”

“Quiet,” Steve whispered. “Maybe she’s walking in her sleep.”

Roy grunted. Now he had recovered from his fright the picture Carol made, bare-footed, in the white silk pyjamas, her red hair loose on her shoulders, fired his blood.

“She’s a looker, isn’t she?” he said, speaking his thoughts aloud. “What a shape she’s got!”

Steve made an impatient movement. He was puzzled, wondering what the girl was doing, pacing up and down out there.

Suddenly Carol paused, looked in their direction as if sensing she was being watched. The moonlight fell directly on her face, and both men saw a change in her expression that startled them. The muscles in her face seemed to tighten, the lines contort, giving her a sly look of animal cunning. There was a nervous tic at the side of her mouth and her eyes were like pieces of glass and as soulless. Steve scarcely recognized her.

Spot howled miserably from his hiding-place across the yard, and Carol turned swiftly to look in that direction. Her whole bearing was as quick and lithe as the movements of a jungle cat, and as dangerous. Then, as Spot howled again, she disappeared through the open window of her room.

“What the hell do you make of that?” Roy asked uneasily. “Did you see the way she looked? Did you see that expression?”

“Yes,” Steve said, worried. “I’d better find out what she’s doing.”

“Take care she doesn’t scratch your eyes out,” Roy said with an uneasy laugh. “She could do anything the way she looked just now.”

Steve pulled on a dressing-gown, took an electric torch and went down the passage to Carol’s room. He opened the door quietly.

Carol was in bed, her eyes closed, the moonlight on her face. She looked as lovely and as serene as she always did, and when Steve called to her, she didn’t move.

He stood for a moment watching her, then quietly shut the door and returned to his room.

He slept as badly as Roy that night.

*     *     *

Sam Garland and Joe were cleaning an ambulance in the big garage at the rear of Glenview Mental Sanatorium.

“Don’t look now,” Sam said, polishing away, “but that news hawk’s heading this way.”

Joe showed his two gold teeth.

“I like that guy. He’s persistent. Think we could bite his ear for a few potatoes?”

“Idea,” Sam said, stood back to admire the glittering chromium headlamps.

Phil Magarth, lean, tall, carelessly dressed, sauntered up to them. He had been around for the past week trying to get some worthwhile information about the patient who had escaped from the sanatorium, but apart from a short, useless statement from Dr. Travers and a curt “Get the hell out of here” from Sheriff Kamp, he had got nowhere.

Magarth, the local reporter for the district as well as a special correspondent for a number of Mid-West newspapers, had an instinct for news, and he was sure there was a big story behind the escape if he could get at it. Having tried every other avenue for further information without success, he decided to see what he could learn from Garland and Joe.

“Hello, boys,” he said, draping himself over the hood of the ambulance. “Found that loony yet?”

“No use asking us,” Garland said, resuming his polishing. “We’re just hired helps, ain’t we, Joe?”

“That’s right,” Joe said, winked at Magarth.

“I was reckoning you boys knew something,” Magarth said, jingling his loose change suggestively. “Who the dame is, for instance. My expense account is fat with inactivity, if that interests you.”

Both Garland and Joe lost their indifferent expressions.

“How fat would it be?” Garland asked cautiously.

“Well, maybe ‘fat’s’ the wrong word. I should have said bloated. If you know anything don’t be scared to open your little mouths.”

“We won’t,” Garland said, looked cautiously over his shoulder. “A hundred bucks would buy it, wouldn’t it, Joe?”

“Just about,” Joe said, rubbing his hands. “A hundred each.”

Magarth winced.

“I guess I’ll try that blonde nurse. By the circles under her eyes she’d give herself away as well as information for two hundred bucks.”

Garland’s face fell.

“He’s right,” he said to Joe.

“But you’d never be the same guy again,” Joe said seriously. “I’ve tried her. It’s like wrestling with a bear-trap.”

“I like ‘em that way,” Magarth said simply. “Ever since I was knee-high to an ant I’ve been handling energetic women. You don’t have to worry about me.” He tilted his hat over his nose, squinted at Garland. “Of course, if you’d like to make it a hundred bucks I’d play along with you. I’m the self-sacrificing type.”

Garland and Joe exchanged glances.

“O.K.,” Garland said. “It’s a deal.”

“It’ll have to be good for the dough,” Magarth reminded him.

“It’s better than good—it’s sensational,” Garland said. “Front page stuff in six-inch type.”

“Bigger than Pearl Harbour,” Joe said.

“Bigger than the Atom Bomb,” Garland added, not to be outdone.

Magarth produced a roll of notes, peeled off five twenty-dollar bills.

“I came heeled guessing you two would sing,” he said, dangling the bills. “Let’s hear.”

“John Blandish’s heiress,” Sam said, grabbed the notes. “How do you like that?”

Magarth took a step forward.

“What do you mean?” he said, a rasp in his voice. “What kind of fluff’s this?”

“What I say,” Sam said. “Ain’t you heard of John Blandish ? Well, this guy had a daughter and she was kidnapped. . .”

*     *     *

Steve and Carol breakfasted alone together the next morning. Roy had gone out early after trout.

“Did you sleep all right last night?” Steve asked casually as he poured coffee.

“I dreamed,” she returned. “I always dream.”

“But did you get up in the night?” Steve smiled at her. “I thought I heard someone moving about in the cabin. Maybe I was dreaming, too.”

“Oh, no,” she said, touched her temples with slim fingers. “But something did happen. I can’t remember. I can’t remember anything. It frightens me.” She reached across the table for his hand. “I don’t know what I should do without you. I feel so safe with you.”

Steve grinned uncomfortably, patted her hand.

“You’d be all right,” he said. “What do you dream about, Carol?”

“I don’t really remember. I seem to dream the same dream ever and over again. It’s something to do with a nurse. I don’t know what she does, but it’s always the same nurse. She has a horrible look in her eyes and she stands over me. I am so frightened in my dreams, and I wake up frightened, my heart beating, and the dark frightens me.”

Steve worried about her all day, and he was still worrying when Roy returned after dark.

Roy was silent and surly until bedtime, his eyes continually on Carol.

He was already in bed when Steve came in after locking up, and he pretended to be asleep.

Steve glanced at him, shrugged, got into bed. He was tired of his brother’s surly behaviour, longed to be rid of him.

Later in the night Roy sat up, called softly, and when Steve made no reply he cautiously pushed off his blanket. ? He was trembling with excitement and desire. All day he had brooded about Carol, working himself up, determined that tonight when Steve was asleep he’d go to her. She had let him kiss her: showed no fight. It should be easy so long as he could get out of the room without waking Steve. Quietly he slid out of bed.

Steve stirred in his sleep and Roy waited, tense, ready to slip back to bed, but Steve slept on. Moving softly, Roy left the room, closed the door, stood listening.

Carol’s room was at the end of the passage. There was no sound but the wind rustling in the trees and the lake water swirling against the jetty.

Roy crept down the passage, listened at Carol’s door, heard nothing, turned the handle and went in.

He could see Carol lying in the bed, her arms uncovered, her hair like a, red halo on the pillow. She looked very beautiful with the moonlight falling directly on her face, and as he came in she opened her eyes. She didn’t seem alarmed. Her eyes were wide but serene.

“Hello, kid,” Roy said. His tongue felt a little too big for his mouth and his skin was feverish. “I’ve come to keep you company.”

She didn’t say anything but watched him cross the room, her eyes on his.

“You’re not scared of me, are you?” he asked. Her beauty made him shiver.

“Oh, no,” she said quietly. “I thought you would come tonight. I’ve been dreaming about you.”

Roy started.

“You mean you wanted me to come ?” he asked, sitting on the bed by her side.

She looked gravely up at him.

“I felt your eyes on me all this evening. Wherever I went you watched me. I felt you’d come tonight.”

Roy grinned.

“And I’ve thought about you all day, too,” he said, put his hand on hers. Her hand was warm and limp, unresisting. “I wanted to kiss you again.”

“Steve doesn’t want you to do that.”

“Steve won’t know. He’s asleep. You liked it, didn’t you?”

His face was close to hers now and his hand touched her breasts. She didn’t flinch, but stared at him abstractedly. “Undo that,” he went on, touching the buttons on the silk jacket. “Come on, Carol, come on. I’m not going to hurt you.”

The girl mechanically, to his astonishment, undid the pyjama buttons, and he touched her bare skin.

“You’re beautiful, kid,” he said, not knowing quite what he was saying. “You’re lovely,” and his hands covered her breasts.