Hydrofoil Mystery (6 page)

“Come, Billy, let's get moving,” Mr. McGregor said.

I trailed after him but looked back over my shoulder, catching a last glimpse of that machine before we'd moved too far away to see it any more.

Chapter Five

“T
HERE'S NOTHING TO
worry about,” Mrs. McCauley-Brown said as she stood before me, straightening the shirt and tie she'd borrowed for me. She said it wouldn't be right if I wasn't dressed formally. I felt stupid and angry. I was sure this was Bell's way of humiliating me for making that comment about him. He wasn't just batty, he was downright mean-spirited.

As well as angry, I felt nervous. I could feel sweat trickling down my sides.

“All you have to do is take away the empty plates. Just remember to take from the right. You serve from the left and remove from the right. Got it?” she asked.

“Yeah, I think I can remember,” I answered with a touch of sarcasm.

“Good. Now take this,” she said, pressing a tray into my hands and pushing me toward the door.

I stumbled out of the kitchen and almost directly into the dining room. People were sitting around the large, rectangular table. I did a quick count; there were sixteen. Mr. Bell occupied the seat at the head of the table and his wife sat beside him. I'd met her before the first guests arrived. I'd been told to look at her when I spoke because she couldn't hear and she had to be able to read my lips.

I'd never heard of people being able to do such a thing, and the way she understood everything and talked so well, I couldn't believe she was deaf.

Everybody was eating heartily, and there was a lot of lively conversation. Mr. Bell looked like he was having a good time. He roared with laughter. The only other person I recognized was Casey Baldwin. As I removed the dessert plates, Mr. Baldwin introduced me to the other visitors. Some were from Philadelphia, and some were from as far away as Washington, D.C. Other than sailors, I'd never met anyone from the United States before. And they were hanging on Mr. Bell's every word.

I helped to remove the last of the dishes, reaching over and grabbing them from the table and piling them on my tray.

Mr. Bell stood up and the conversation died as every eye turned to him.

“Ladies and gentlemen … my fine guests … with the conclusion of the meal I suggest we retire to the drawing room, where our enjoyment can be prolonged in greater comfort.”

A few people echoed back agreement and his guests slowly rose to their feet. Mr. Bell walked up to my side and I swallowed hard.

“William, I'd like you to go to my bedroom. You will find a humidor … large, brown, sitting on the bookshelf by my desk. I would like you to remove a dozen cigars and bring them to the drawing room.”

“I don't know where your room is.”

“Through those doors near the front of the house.” I put the tray down on the table and hurried off.

“And William!” he called out.

I turned around.

“Please be gentle with the cigars. They are delicate, fine works of art.”

He certainly cared for his cigars. I went down the hall and stopped in front of the closed door. Gently I pushed it open. There was a small light sitting atop a dresser and the room was bathed in a dim, yellow glow. It was a large room filled with furniture. The bed was a big four-poster covered by a thick quilt. What surprised me even more than the bedroom being on the main floor was that the room was almost completely ringed by windows. The sun had almost set but there was still enough light to clearly see the long curving driveway, and Bras d'Or Lake and the lights of Baddeck in the distance.

I couldn't help but think that his bedroom had the same view of the water as mine. Of course that was the only thing the two rooms shared—the only thing that the two of us did, or ever would, have in common.

This bedroom was bigger than the entire flat where my whole family lived. It just didn't seem fair that one man could have so much … just not fair.

I turned my attention away from the windows and back to the room. A large writing desk sat in the corner. Behind it, occupying an entire wall, was an enormous bookcase. The lone shelf not devoted to books housed what I hoped was the humidor.

I removed the lid and the smell of tobacco filled my nose. Inside were dozens and dozens of cigars. Carefully I removed one and examined it. It was long and thick and brown and had a paper wrapper around the end. I read the
wrapper: Cuba. I'd only smoked a few times and I really didn't know much about cigars and smoking, although Tim and most of my new friends smoked. There was always a haze of smoke hovering over top of any poker game I'd seen or played in. But I did know that the most expensive cigars in the world came from Cuba.

I counted out and removed another eleven cigars until I had an even dozen. I was going to put the lid back on the humidor when I was struck by a thought: there were so many cigars in there that he wouldn't know if a few were missing, and I might be able to sell them. Maybe I'd even try to smoke one. I hadn't enjoyed the few cigarettes I'd smoked, but it might be different with a cigar. I reached back in and drew out two, hesitated and took a third. I put the lid back on the humidor. I tried to put them into one of my pockets, but they were too long. I removed them and gingerly tucked them into the front of my pants. They'd be fine there until I got to my room.

I walked out of the room and closed the door behind me. I felt the cigars digging into my leg and shortened my stride so I wouldn't break them. I opened the door to the drawing room and was surprised to see the furniture had been cleared away to the sides of the room and in its place four folding tables had appeared. The guests started to take seats at the chairs, four to each table. Then, to my utter amazement, decks of cards were brought to the tables. They were going to play cards!

“I'll take one of those,” Casey said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

“What?” I asked, dumfounded, staring around the room.

“The cigars. I'll take one.”

“Oh, yeah,” I answered, handing him a cigar. “You're all going to play cards?” I asked, although it seemed pretty obvious what was going on.

“Yes, bridge. Have you ever played?”

“It's a very ingenious game,” Mr. Bell added, coming up from behind me.

“I … no … I've never heard of it.”

“There is a great deal of strategy involved, not unlike playing poker, but with a partner. Are you familiar with poker?” Mr. Bell questioned.

“Oh sure, I know …” I stopped. “I know a little bit about poker … I saw some men playing it once.”

I had almost blabbed out what a good player I was. It was always wrong to brag about being good at anything, but doubly wrong when it was poker. It worked to your advantage to let people think you didn't know the game; after all, how could somebody who didn't know how to play cheat or hustle? It was better if they just thought you had “beginner's luck.” It was safer for the guy you took to be mad at Lady Luck than at you.

“I want you to pass out the cigars to the gentlemen and then come and pull up a seat right beside me. I'll explain the game to you as we play. Learning to play bridge should be part of every young man's education,” Mr. Bell said.

“You want me to sit beside you?”

“Yes, when you're finished I expect you to pull up a chair.”

I slowly handed out the cigars. What was he up to, and what did he want from me? He probably just wanted to
impress me with how smart he was, I guessed. Or maybe I was there to fetch and carry for him.

I pulled a chair over and sat down just off to the side. As I did, I could feel the stolen cigars breaking, but there wasn't much I could do. The cards were shuffled and dealt until they were all distributed. That meant each player had been given thirteen cards. I was close enough to see Bell's cards cradled in his hands. I noticed immediately that nobody seemed to be shielding their cards very well; if I leaned ever so slightly over to one side I was sure I'd be able to see the cards of the person sitting beside me.

“Now, William, in bridge each person has a partner who sits opposite to his seat. So in this game my partner is my lovely wife.”

Mrs. Bell smiled softly and nodded her head. “You'll have to be patient with my husband, William. He may be an inventor by profession but he is first and foremost a teacher.”

“And the lesson has begun. In bridge, working with your partner you must attempt to take “tricks,” that's a round of cards played, in order to obtain points toward winning the hand. The secret is not only to be aware of the cards you hold but to know what cards are in your partner's hand.”

Sounded an awful lot like poker, except for the partner part. “Can you let your partner know your hand through signals?” I asked.

“No, no, my dear boy!” the woman sitting beside me exclaimed. “That wouldn't be fair now would it?”

“Don't be so hard on the lad,” Bell cautioned. “He is in fact correct.”

“He is?” the woman said.

“Of course. By the manner in which my partner plays her cards, as well as the way she responds to bidding, I can be reasonably certain which cards she is holding. William, I want you to watch this game closely.”

They began playing. They exchanged comments about “trumps” and “no trumps” which made no sense to me, and then the person to the left of the dealer started playing her cards.

The first few hands passed without me making any sense of or seeing any order to their actions. Occasionally Mr. Bell would lean back and mutter a few words to me, which just added to the mystery. My mind strained to try to assign order to the game. Little glimmers of understanding would start to form, and then just as quickly the next move would show them to be wrong. I tried to see the pattern to the bidding and an order in the way the cards were played. I made guesses, some of which were right, about which cards were held by Bell's partner. The game ended with Mr. and Mrs. Bell winning. They remained seated at the table and their original opponents left and were replaced by another pair. All around the room people were rotating from table to table to play against other partners. I watched intently through three complete games.

“I think it's time for William to be turning in for the night,” Mrs. Bell said.

“Turning in? It's hardly ten-thirty!” Bell protested. “He has much to learn here tonight!”

“He'll learn more tomorrow after a good night's sleep. It's been a long day.”
Bell scowled at his wife's words and then his whole face softened. “Aye, you're right, and it has been a long day. The lessons in bridge can continue another time. Everyone should bid a goodnight to young William,” he announced.

I rose to my feet and mumbled good nights in response to their waves and comments.

There had been a friendliness to their voices—in fact, everybody had been very nice to me all night long, not like the way I expected rich people to treat the servants. I almost felt a little bad about taking the cigars—almost.

I pushed through the door into the kitchen. Mrs. McCauley-Brown was at the sink washing the last of what must have been a mountain of dishes.

“So, you see, there was nothing to be nervous about,” she said.

“I wasn't nervous.”

“Whatever you say,” she said in a tone that made me think she didn't believe me. “Now come and sit down. I'm going to fix us both a cup of tea. I still haven't had time to read this correspondence from your mother,” she said, pulling the letter out of the pocket of her apron. “Probably nothing more than a mother bragging about her son, is all it is.”

I hoped that was all it was. I really didn't have any idea what my mother had told or written her friend. I knew she'd been concerned by some of the things I'd done, and afraid of others she believed I was doing, but I sure hoped she was too embarrassed to share them.

She started opening the letter. “What's this?” she asked as she pulled out both a letter and another envelope. She
held the envelope in her hand and examined it. “This is for you,” she said, handing it to me.

It had my name written on the front in my mother's flowing writing. Why would she be sending me a letter?

“Probably just wants to tell you how much she already misses you,” Mrs. McCauley-Brown said, answering my unspoken question.

Of course she must be right. I tucked the letter into my pocket so I could read it later.

“Just as I suspected. Hardly gets through the first three lines of the letter before she's telling me what a whiz you are in school!”

I guess she didn't write about how I was almost tossed out of school this past year for not going to classes. There were better things to do and better ways to learn how to make money. I'd never had one single teacher explain how to palm a pair of dice or how to deal off the bottom of the deck. All the teachers I'd ever had knew lots about book learning but nothing about the world outside their classrooms. Besides, if playing cards was good enough for my father, why wasn't it good enough for me?

She continued to read until the whistling kettle roused her to her feet. She poured a bit of the steaming water into a teapot and swirled it around before dumping it down the sink. Next she popped a tea ball into the pot and filled it with the remaining water. She set it down in front of me and brought over two cups and saucers, a sugar bowl and a small pitcher of milk.

“Let it steep while I finish up the letter.”
She read quickly, running her finger down the page, occasionally nodding her head or chuckling to herself. She put the letter down and looked up at me.

“It's good your mother is doing well. I can only imagine how hard it has been for her, and for you, since the start of the war. It must be terrible to have your father gone so much, and you all must worry so much.” She paused. “Your mother told me about the problems you've been having. It'll be good for you to be here for the summer, and away from … influences.”