There is always love (17 page)

"I! But there might be a dozen wounded men in the countryl How would I know I had the right one?" Linda had a breath-snatching vision of herself speeding about inquiring for a man who had been shot.

"Your secretary will keep out of this or I wash my hands of the mess now. Take your choice. Duchess." Gregory Mer-ton's voice rang with a hands-up quality which sent little shivers merry-pranking along Linda's veins. It had its effect on Madam Steele.

"Have your own way, Gregory," she acceded grudgingly, "I've tried battering at your will power before."

"One liability removed. You understand that you are not to muscle in on this mess under any circumstances, Lindy?'*

"I would like to help."

"Skip it. K you help, I don't."

"All right. I'm out. The dictators are not all in Europe.** She made an impudent little face at him.

"Now that that point is settled we'll get back to the business at hand. Know where you hit the guy, Duchess? Arm? Leg? Head?"

"Think. Use your brain. If I'd shot him in the head he would have dropped where he was. If in the leg, he couldn't have gone far. It must have been his shoulder or arm. There's your clue. You'd better start to hunt in the morning."

"Morning! I'm due at my office at nine-thirty for an important conference. Greg, the boy detective, will buckle on his trusty revolver and start tonight."

"You're laughing about a serious matter, young man. You haven't a permit to carry a gun; you'd better apply for it tomorrow. I believe you think I had a nightmare. Don't you realize that if I hadn't shot that man we might all have been murdered in our beds?"

"That's a cheery thought." Linda suppressed a shiver.

"Though when you come to think of it, why would a person

enter my room? Anyone with any sense at all—and it must

take a heap of brains to be a burglar—^would know that a

girl who works for a living would have nothing worth stealing."

"She might have a valuable engagement ring," Greg Merton suggested before he held a lighter to a cigarette.

"She might. I hadn't thought of that," Linda countered noncommittally.

A red-headed, freckle-faced, black-silk-frocked maid hesitated on the threshold.

"May I take the coffee tray now, Madam?"

"Yes." Her mistress frowned as she approached. "Why are you doing this, Maggie? It is Annie's work."

"I know. Madam, but she has a bad attack of migraine, could hardly hold her head up while she was serving dinner, she couldn't. She'll be all right in the momin'," she prophesied and left the room with the large silver tray.

"You'd better look in on Annie before you go up, Linda. See if she really is iU. She may have wanted to step out early. Such things happen. See her and report to me."

"I will, Madam Steele." Apparently the headache of which Annie had complained in the afternoon had developed into migrame.

"Ill go out now and take a look around. Which curtain did your deadly shot penetrate?" Greg Merton inquired.

"Hmp! Still making a joke of it, aren't you? Examine the right-hand hanging at the end window." Madam Steele leaned forward to follow him with her eyes as he crossed the room. He felt of the blue-damask hanging. His long, low whistle was expressive.

"I am limp with apology. Duchess. I did think you'd had a nightmare. I've found the bullet hole. Which fact convinces me that we'd better start the man hunt, pronto. Business will keep me in New York this week. I'll be back Saturday but I'll send up a man, Jim Shaw, who works for me, to carry on while I'm away."

What would the gorillalike Jim Shaw think when he found her ensconced in The Castle, Linda wondered. She was sure he had suspected her when Janet Colton's bracelet was stolen.

"Gregory Merton, I won't have a detective or the police on this place. Either you help me or I won't have anyone."

"Suit yourself. Duchess. I will do what I can tonight. I'll be gone in the morning before you're up. If I discover a clue I will leave a note for you. Good night. Aunt Jane."

Curious that he hadn't said good night to her, too, Linda thought. She might have been a chair or table for all the notice he took of her. Madam Steele's eyes followed him until he had left the room. She settled back in her chair.

"Earlier this evening you spoke of Christmas, Linda," she reminded, as casually as if, a few moments ago, she hadn't

admitted that she had shot a man. "I have a plan for it. I want Gregory, Janet and her family, your friend Miss Brewster, your mother and sister, that amusing Skidmore Grant and of course Mr. Sanders, to come the day before and spend the holiday with us. Judge Reynolds will be here as usual."

"But, Madam Steele! Your nephew and niece of course, but why my family?'*

"You'll want to go to them, won't you?"

"Why—why, yes. I hadn't thought of anything different."

"I need you here. Help me make this a joyous Christmas. There will be presents for everybody and a tree. I can't do it without you. Will your family and friends object to coming?"

"I can't answer for them but, whether they come or not, I will stay here till every last thing is ready and planned for your celebration."

"But I want them and you. Why shouldn't we have a merry Christmas in this house? I provide one for the townspeople. I need terribly to forget on that day that the life of my son and the lives of countless young men were a wasted sacrifice. Twenty-one years and Europe is again aflame. . . . Sorry, I didn't mean to refer to that tragedy. I will write the invitations tomorrow. Look around at the window fastenings, will you? Buff is getting careless. I should have asked Gregory to do it. That young man is obstinate as a mule—but I'm glad he's here. I feel as if I had something secure to grip." She waited on the threshold until Linda joined her and reported:

"Fastened tight as a drum."

"You're a sweet child. You make me feel that you like what you young moderns call your 'job.'"

"Like it! I love it."

"Thank you, my dear. Go now and inquire for Annie. If she's asleep don't disturb her. Sleep is the best remedy she can have."

"If I don't report to you, you'll know she's all right. Madam Steele. If you hear anything disturbing tonight, don't prowl—phone my room. I always leave my boudoir door unlocked so that you can come in if you want to. I'm not much of a shot, but I can scream. Good night."

Linda was thinking of that affectionate "my dear,'* as she knocked gently at the maid's door in the servants' cottage which was connected with the main house by a covered passage. Madam Steele had never before spoken to her in that tone.

No answer. She knocked agam. Listened. Was Annie asleep? She turned the knob. The light from the corridor shone on the bed. No one in it or on it. The spread was undisturbed. No hat or coat in the closet. 98

She gently closed the door and tiptoed back into the great hall, ran lightly up the stairs. She thought of the maid's white face. Had she gone out in connection with the matter she wanted to talk about in the morning? A hand caught her arm.

"Is Annie in her room?" Greg Merton whispered.

She shook her head, "Shall I tell Madam Steele?" she whis^ pered in return.

"No. What she doesn't know won't worry her. Just a minute. Nice of you to tell Sanders that you couldn't love me. Why not wait till I ask you to?"

Linda's lips flew open. Before she could answer the savage question, he threw open the door of her room.

"Go to bed and stay there. Understand? Stay there. Just in case you've forgotten, get this: You're to keep out of this mix-up, or there'll be trouble."

XIX

LINDA was standing at the window in a pale-blue lounge coat when Annie entered with the breakfast tray. She hadn't slept much. When she had dozed it was to chase a black-masked burglar up one hall stairway and down the other, then skid across the flagged floor only to charge the stairs again to the accompaniment of Greg Merton's savage voice saying over and over, "Why not wait till I ask you to?" She felt as if she had spent the night on a merry-go-round that never stopped.

"Good morning, Miss Linda." Annie set the tray on a small table and placed a chair. "I think I've brought what you usually have, Miss. Maggie fixed things. She's my sister. She's awful good to me."

"It looks perfect, thank you." Linda sipped the ice-cold orange juice and looked up at the maid. Her eyes were heavy. Her face was pale.

"How's the migraine this morning?"

"I didn't have it, Miss Linda."

"I know that. I went to your room. You ran out, didn't you?"

"Did—did the Madam know?" The question was a whisper. The maid's mouth trembled uncontrollably; tears flooded her eyes. "Will I lose my place?" There it was again—everyone in the world in terror of losing a job.

"I didn't tell her. Sit down. Stop twisting your hands. What's on your mind?"

"It's Cline, Miss Linda." Her voice caught in a sob.

"Who is Cline?"

"He's a mechanic in a garage in the village. Sometimes the head chauffeur calls him in to repair the Madam's cars; though I will say she gets new ones so often there isn't much to do to them." Her voice held a resentful note.

"What is this Cline to you that you should cry about him?"

"He's my boy friend, my steady."

"Is that all, Annie?"

"That's all, honest-to-God, Miss Linda. We're going to get married as soon as he's saved money enough to take me to Canada. His brother has a garage there and will give him work. He thinks 'twill be sometime after Christmas we'U go." The light of anticipation faded. Her lips trembled again; her eyes suffused. "I guess we won't go now, though. He's had an accident."

"Accident!" The word slashed through Linda's preoccupation. She had been wondering if "Cline" really intended to marry the girl—that garage in Canada somehow did not ring true.

"What kind of an accident?'* Could it have been Cline at whom Madam Steel had shot?

"He hurt his shoulder, Miss, terrible bad, I guess. He can't move his arm. He said something flew off and hit him when he was working on an auto. He wouldn't even let me look at it."

"When did he get hurt? How did you know about it? Why did he come out here if he was hurt at the village garage?"

"It must have happened night before last. Something hit my window. I was woke out of a sound sleep. I looked out. Cline was standing near a shrub beckoning to me. Honest-to-God, Miss, I've never met him at night before. I wouldn't want to and if I did, I'd be scared for fear I'd meet the Madam—she walks round the house at night, she does, like a banshee. He came to find me. Said he didn't know no one else who'd help him."

"You went out?'*

"Yes, Miss. What else could I do? He was braced against a spruce tree white as a ghost. He didn't speak till we were out of hearin' of the house. He looked something awful. Sweat running down his pale face and him biting his lips as if holdin' back a scream. He leaned so heavy on me I ahnost dragged him to one of those benches on the garden path.**

"Did you see the wound?"

"Oh, 'twasn't a wound, it was a braise. He wouldn't let me

look at it. Said if he could get to some place where he

could lie flat, he'd be fine. I was at my wits' end to know

where to take him and then all of a sudden I thought of that

game house up in the woods. 'Tisn't used in winter, hardly ever. You've seen it, haven't you, Miss?"

Linda nodded. She remembered that she had thought the grotesque building looked like something which had been designed for the World of Tomorrow, had been rejected and cast outside the sacred gates.

"I stole back to the big house and got the key—^it hangs in the back hall—fair holdin' my breath for fear I'd be caught. I thought I'd never get him there. I did though. I told him to lie quiet and in the morning I'd bring a doctor. He made me swear I wouldn't. Said he'd get on all right by himself, that if his boss knew he'd been so clumsy with tools, he'd fire him and it would be nix on gettin' married. Then be passed out. I dragged cushions from the window seat. Got him onto them. Covered him with my coat. After he come to again I left him. I went again last evening. He's awful sick, but he won't let me bring anyone to see him, says that would end everj^hing between us. I don't know what to do. That's why I asked if I could talk to you, you were so kind of friendly yesterday afternoon. I was crazy to tell you then but I didn't dare."

Undoubtedly Cline was the man at whom Madam Steele had shot. She would make sure, though, before she reported to Greg. Had Annie read her thoughts? The maid was colorless.

"I've told you this in confidence. Miss Linda," she reminded passionately. "If you tell anyone about it or where Cline is you'll make terrible trouble for me. Promise you won't. Promisel" The girl's voice cracked on a hysterical sob.

"Be quiet, Annie. I shan't tell anyone till I have seen your boy friend. I've had three years' Red Cross training. I'll go to the game house with you after dark. Persuade Cline to let me look at his shoulder. If the skin isn't cut or a bone broken, it won't do any harm for him to stay where he is until the -worst of the pain is over. I'll take along something to ease that and you can apply it."

"Will you really, Miss Linda?" The maid's mouth quivered in a smile. "I'll bet Cline will let you look at his shouder. He's asked a lot of questions about you. I've told him about your boy friends who come here and your swell looks and clothes. What time had we better go to the game house. Miss?"

Linda considered. Usually Madam Steele went to her room promptly at ten. Her dour maid was in attendance after that. Greg Merton's business would prevent his return to The Castle until the week end at least, thank heaven. By that time

Cline would be on his way if the injury to his arm or shoulder was a bruise and not a bullet wound. What would she do if it were the last? Why cross that bridge until she came to it?

"I ought not to stay here any longer, Miss," Annie prodded. "What time will you meet me?"

"After dinner I play rummy with Madam Steele. At ten she goes to her room. I'll meet you in the shadow of the great pine near the game house as the church bells chime eleven. If for any reason you can't be there, get word to me. Understand?"