Call After Midnight (16 page)

Gulls were swooping and mewing out over the Sound. The air was fresh and cool and it looked as if a rain was coming up. Jenny said, “Nothing can happen here.”

But then she thought coldly, something did happen here.

Cal said, “It’s a long time till supper. Let’s get the dog and take a walk before it rains.

T
HE DOG HEARD THEM
coming. He was in a fenced-in run at one side of the cottage and began to bark wildly at the sound of their footsteps on the graveled path.

“He’ll not remember me, of course,” Jenny said, hoping he would.

“He was only a puppy,” Cal said, seeing through her and preparing her for disappointment.

But Skipper did remember her. He stopped dead-still when she came to the fence, his stovepipe legs braced, his cropped ears alert, his eyes perfectly black and shining. He sniffed, growled, took a cautious step toward her and another and when she said “Skipper” he looked stunned for a moment and then hurled himself against the fence and contrived to lick her chin.

A young man came up the path behind them and said good morning in a respectful yet self-reliant way. He was dark and slim with muscular arms emerging from a T-shirt; he wore faded blue jeans and eyed them both in a friendly but reserved way.

“Oh, Victor,” Cal said. “We were about to let the dog out.”

“It’s okay,” Victor said. He knew who Jenny was, for he said, “Looks as if he remembers Miss—I mean Mrs. Vleedam.”

He let Skipper out. Jenny kneeled down, nearly got knocked over for her pains, and felt tears in her eyes as she hugged the wriggling, frantically happy dog.

“Well, don’t cry about it,” Cal said gently, smiling at her.

“I’ve missed him so.” Jenny got to her feet. “Is it all right if we let him take a walk with us?” she asked Victor.

“Oh yes, I think so. Just don’t let him go in the house. Mrs. Vleedam doesn’t like—oh—” His young face lost its look of self-reliance. “I forgot.”

“We’ll bring him back here,” Cal said swiftly. “Come on, Jenny.”

The dog cavorted, stiff-legged, around them.

They strolled across the lawn and down to the sea wall. The sky and the Sound were gray again but this time a rather ominous, steely gray, with the gulls screaming and swooping and quarreling; the tide was out and this was the time for their mussel hunt. Jenny paused at the sea wall and looked back at the house. The windows of Fiora’s room were open, the curtains hanging still in the quiet air.

Cal said, “What are you thinking?”

“The house looks so different. Not as I remembered it. Yet of course it’s the same.”

Cal looked thoughtfully at the house. The brown tracery of wisteria was showing green and pale purple.

“Perhaps you’ve changed,” he said lightly. “People do change without knowing it.”

“So I see the house in a different way?”

Cal shrugged. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I sound like Blanche.”

“There she is. And Art”

They were walking along the sea wall, with a curious air of not being together although they were only a yard or so apart. Neither were they talking. Jenny said. “I always used to think that they were very good friends. In fact, I thought—but I must have been wrong.”

“Everybody thought so,” Cal said shortly. “When his wife died I really thought, well, now they’ll make it legal.”

“When did Art’s wife die?”

“About a year ago, not quite. I never knew her.”

“Neither did I. Art never spoke of her that I remember.”

“I don’t suppose he liked to. It was one of those lingering things. She was in a sanitarium for years, nurses ’round the clock. It was tough on Art, I know that—expensive, too. That’s one of the reasons Peter is so good to him.”

“Peter is always loyal.”

“As a matter of fact, he is,” Cal said soberly. “Oh, Art is sound enough about law; he goes by the book, he’s cautious, but take the rules away from him and he wouldn’t know where he was. But that’s all right; we want the rules. Blanche now—she’s got brains and plenty of initiative.”

Art Furby was walking toward them. Blanche was picking her way across the lawn, delicately as a cat.

“That aunt of Fiora’s is a pestilence,” Art said, nearing them. “Blanche says she’ll cope with her. Want to come to my house and have a drink? Do you good.”

Cal agreed, Jenny agreed, mainly to get away from the house, she thought. Skipper was sure that a walk would do him good, too, and shot ahead. They walked beside the sea wall as far as they could go. Art had yielded to the country influence to the extent of gray slacks and a brown pullover sweater under his gray tweed jacket but he looked exactly as discreet, as full of quiet and reserved authority, as he would have looked behind his desk in the city. If it was a façade, Jenny thought, built up by Art to cover the plodding pace of his actual mental efforts, then it was a good one. He also covered any resentment he might have felt at Cal’s being moved up to the presidency of the road, by a little polite conversation about nothing as they took the path Jenny remembered well, behind a great clump of copper beeches whose thick branches were already showing bronze leaves, through a small door in the wall and out to the public road. Here there were a few cars; Jenny took off her belt and looped it around Skipper’s collar for a leash.

“It’s a rather lonely little house, you know,” Art said as they turned into a lane overgrown with lilacs. “Haven’t got a servant for the summer yet. I’ve been staying in New York all winter, always do. But I thought that this summer I’d spend more time out here, near Peter.”

“So as to talk to him about this merger?” Cal said quietly.

“Why not?” Art said. “It’d be a good thing for the road. I want to talk to you about that, Cal. I’ve got a feeling you’re against it.”

Cal said, “Who’s that?”

They had followed the lane around a small clapboard house to an open porch overlooking the Sound; a young man sat, humped up in a chair looking sulkily at the water. He rose as they came up the steps.

“My secretary,” Art said. “My new one—that is, since Blanche has moved up, so he’s not so new really. But very promising.”

He introduced them. “Waldo Dodson—Mrs. Vleedam—Mr. Calendar. You’ve seen Mr. Calendar many times in the office, Waldo.”

“Oh, I’ve
seen
him,” Waldo Dodson said glumly. “How do you do? Sir?” he added sourly.

He had a pudding face and eyes like raisins, set too close together; he wore a turtleneck sweater and his black hair was too long. “Get us some drinks, Waldo, please,” Art said.

Dodson didn’t shrug but almost. Art did not appear to observe it Jenny said, “Ginger ale for me, please.”

Art contrived a left-handed compliment. “Keeping that lovely figure of yours? Would you rather have tea?”

“Oh no.” Jenny felt unjustly irritated. “Thank you. I just can’t drink from now till dinnertime.” She sat down in one of the iron chairs; they had not been repainted for the summer and were a little rusty and cold.

The sulky young man came back with a tray and pulled a table out from the wall. He had brought a plate of crackers and cheese, too, and passed it to Jenny, who took a cracker, but Skipper engulfed the cracker and most of her hand. He released her hand, swallowed the cracker and gave both her hands a lavish lick, indicating his desire for more. Art and Cal were talking and the sulky young man softened a little and asked her if she wanted to wash her hands.

“Thanks.” She knew the way for she had been in Art’s small house many times but Dodson led her inside, past the tiny washroom off the hall, through a bedroom—Art’s she thought by its meticulous neatness—and into a big bathroom.

It was very neat, towels arranged just so, huge bars of soap. She scrubbed off the slobbery marks of Skipper’s affection—not for her this time but for crackers. When she went out through the bedroom she saw that one of the closet doors was open. A few of Art’s clothes were hanging in the closet. Between two sports jackets hung a pink silk dressing gown ruffled with lace, and a faded gingham apron hung from a hook on the back of the door. So it wasn’t exactly a lonely little house!

Oddly, the gingham apron introduced an accustomed and domestic note. For a second she thought both apron and dressing gown must have belonged to Art’s wife; yet she hadn’t been at home for years. Art just might have kept the enticing dressing gown out of some curious sentiment, although it didn’t seem likely, but Jenny was sure he wouldn’t have cherished a gingham apron. Irresistibly her speculation shot to Blanche.

Yet by no stretch of the imagination could she picture Blanche hopping out of a bed of dalliance, tying that apron around her and going to the kitchen to cook, say, a hearty breakfast. Besides, there was that air of guarded, polite aversion between Art and Blanche, almost as if each knew something not quite to be trusted about the other. Perhaps they had quarreled. Or perhaps a rather chilly alliance had merely run its course. It was more likely that Art’s lady-love was not Blanche at all and in any event her identity was no business of Jenny’s.

She felt a little ashamed of her own inadvertent snooping and she was also curious as to whether or not there were more evidences of a woman’s presence anywhere around. It was a great temptation to open a chest of drawers that stood near. She conquered that but with regret, went back to the porch and munched on cheese and crackers, with Skipper putting a great paw on her knee, his eyes purple with longing. She fed him bits surreptitiously.

Art and Cal were talking about the merger, or rather Art was talking about it.

“It’ll be good for our line,” Art said. “Believe me, Cal, I’ve investigated—”

“By what authority?” Cal said.

“Because I’m interested, of course! Nobody told me to investigate but that’s part of my job. I don’t see why you’re against it.”

“I didn’t say I was against it.”

“I can tell! Blanche is for it.”

“There’s no use in getting into facts and figures yet,” Cal said remotely. “Even if everybody concerned decides it’s the thing to do, it’s still got to come up before the Interstate Commerce Commission—”

“We’ve got to go ahead, decide just what stock transfers seem equitable, all the preliminaries. It takes time, the sooner we get at it the better.”

“No rush,” Cal said lazily. “Isn’t there a golf match on television today?”

Waldo Dodson stirred. “Television won’t work. One of the posts is corroded. House was damp this winter,” he explained knowledgably.

“Better get it fixed,” Art said. “Waldo is going to enjoy the summer here. Whenever we can be here at any rate. Waldo is stage-struck so he’s a summer stock fan. He used to play in summer stock before he gave it up to get a regular job. Why,” Arthur looked genuinely startled, “it was Fiora who recommended you, Waldo!”

Up to then nobody had mentioned Fiora. Now her name was like a stone dropped into a still pond which was waiting for it and sent little ripples in all directions.

Waldo Dodson lighted another cigarette. “That’s right,” he said. He had a thickly nasal voice, rather unpleasant. “I hadn’t seen Fiora for years. Met her on the street by chance just as I was looking for a new job. Told her I’d taken a secretarial course. She spoke to Blanche Fair.”

“I remember.” Art turned to Cal and Jenny. “Blanche had just been made executive assistant to Peter. I had to have somebody to take her place. She investigated Waldo’s references, said to give him a chance. I hired him the next week.”

Cal looked thoughtfully out over the Sound. “Then you knew Fiora before her marriage, Dodson?”

“Oh, sure.” Dodson’s eyes flickered once, swift as a lizard’s. “The gang of us used to go for malteds and hamburgers—you know how kids are about summer stock. We were only apprentices, supposed to be learning. Had to do the stage sets, lights, everything. Oh yes, I knew her. But as I say, I hadn’t seen her in years.” He shook his head decorously, “Poor Fiora.”

“You must have known her friends, too,” Cal said, watching some gulls.

Again there was that lizard-quick flash in Dodson’s eyes. “Some of them, at that time, certainly. Fiora had boy friends, sure. She was pretty, gay, attractive. But that girl was after the main chance—got it, too.”

Art frowned. “Don’t speak like that of that poor girl!”

“Facts are facts,” Dodson said sourly. “But if you’re wondering if one of the old gang killed her, Mr. Calendar, I’d say no. No reason to. Besides, we all drifted apart. She did a good turn for me but that was accident. I mean, kind of her, of course, but didn’t mean anything to her. If I knew anything at all about her murder it would be my duty to go to the police. Wouldn’t it, Mr. Calendar?”

“Yes,” Cal said equably and rose. “Jenny, you’re freezing. Time for us to go.”

The secretary rose but stayed glumly where he was. Art walked around with them to the lane. “I’m staying out here tomorrow. Just to be around for the inquest,” he said. “Can’t be of any help but I feel sorry for Peter. See you—”

The rain was still holding off although the sky was low and even the trees and yellow masses of forsythia seemed very quiet, waiting a storm.

“What a prize that young fellow is,” Cal said. “I wouldn’t have him in my office two minutes. Practically sneers when Art speaks to him.”

“It’s odd that he knew Fiora.”

Cal considered it. “Oh, I don’t know. Things happen like that. Fiora met him, seems to have remembered and liked him sufficiently to try to get a job for him. Unless of course she just liked playing lady bountiful to somebody who knew her when. Or she might have been simply good-natured, wanting to help. I rather incline to the lady bountiful notion myself. But then Fiora and I were never exactly
simpático.
”

“You never particularly liked me,” Jenny said unexpectedly.

Again Cal seemed to consider it. They had walked along the road for a long time before he said, answering her, “Oh yes, I liked you. Here’s where we turn.”

The door in the wall stood a little ajar as they had left it. They entered the path beside the huge copper beeches whose thick trunks looked a little ghostly in the gathering gloom. Cal closed the door. Jenny let Skipper off his improvised leash and tied her belt around her again and thought of a faded, very domestic apron.