Somewhere in the House (5 page)

“They'll prefer me if they think I won't tell.”

“They're clever in certain ways, very clever. They'll probably see for themselves the kind of person you are, and I'll try to make it clear to them.”

Gamadge said: “I'd better remind you that you can't make people believe you're in earnest about a thing unless you are in earnest.
Would
you confide in Mr. Allsop if they refused to let me in tomorrow?”

“Yes. It was bad enough to lose the other things and say nothing. When I think of them, all crowding into that room tomorrow—the bad light, the confusion—I don't feel that I can stand it. I've thought about it; I've had a long time to think about it. Tomorrow, even if it is Sunday, is the day specified in the will for the trust to come to an end. I don't believe that even Mr. Allsop would make difficulties for us now that it's all over.”

“But the others wouldn't face the possibility of his making difficulties in the matter of those things stolen from the house?”

“They're terrified of a lawsuit. They want the money now. So do I want the money, I don't know what I should do without it. But Uncle Gavan and Aunt Cynthia are old, and Seward isn't strong, and he has Ena to think of.”

“Garth?”

“The very idea of losing the money would send him off his head. Garth won't risk anything.”

“He and Miss Elena Clayborn are out, so far as the thefts are concerned, I suppose.”

“Elena certainly is; when the emperor's seal disappeared she was only eight or nine. I don't know what Garth was capable of at fifteen. He wouldn't have been able to dispose of the things without help. I'm inclined to think that he knows nothing about them.”

“On the score of youth, not of character?”

“You'll see him, Mr. Gamadge. Perhaps I'm prejudiced. He wasn't a very nice little boy.”

“One thing, Mrs. Leeder—didn't the rest of the family have the same opportunity that Miss Fitch may have had to take those buttons out of the music room twenty years ago?”

She looked startled. “We were all here, and my father and mother and Seward's wife besides; but the button subject came up so naturally. It never entered my head…”

“The other things hadn't been stolen then. By the time they were stolen you were used to the idea that the buttons were still sealed up with your aunt Nonie, or gone with Miss Fitch.”

“I suppose so.”

“So—other considerations aside—your father and mother and Mr. Seward Clayborn's wife may be ignored in the matter of the buttons because they had died before the other things were taken.”

“Yes. You can ignore them anyway. Seward's wife was such a gentle little thing, and my father and mother…”

The mild old voice of Roberts came to them from the hall: “Miss Harriet, the doorbell has rung.”

“Thank you, Roberts. Give us half a minute. Nobody will blame you for being a little late to-day.” As she and Gamadge left the studio she added: “But they wouldn't bother to use their keys before ten o'clock at night, no matter how much Roberts had to do.”

“My old Theodore would never let us hear the end of it if we didn't use our keys.”

“This family is spoiled, frightfully spoiled.”

She and Gamadge were settled in their old places, before a tall man and a tall woman came into the sitting-room. They were elderly people, but they conveyed a strong impression of vigour, activity, and communion with the outside world.

Mrs. Leeder said: “Hello, you're late for tea. Let me introduce Mr. Gamadge. Mr. Gamadge, my aunt Cynthia and my uncle Van.”

M
ISS CLAYBORN AND
her brother had the kind of offhand manners that are civil and easy, but hardly manners in the formal sense at all. “We have got beyond all that nonsense,” they seemed to imply, “and so no doubt have you. You are to take us for granted, and if we couldn't take you for granted you wouldn't be here.”

They might hardly have noticed him as an individual; but Gamadge was sure that in the very moment of introduction they had taken in his appearance, his clothes, his behaviour, and penetrated beyond to his probable station in life. Gamadge thought he was accepted.

He relinquished his place to Miss Clayborn, and sat down at the other end of the sofa. Gavan Clayborn drew up an armchair in front of the tea table, so that across it he faced the fire. He and his sister were tall like Mrs. Leeder, but blue-eyed and sanguine of complexion; Gavan—who on closer inspection looked at least seventy years old—was broad and thick in the shoulders, with plenty of grey hair and a cropped grey moustache. He wore faultless clothes carelessly. By the look of him he had lived well, but had had plenty of hardening exercise. Gamadge thought he might be moderately amiable, satisfied with himself, and immovably selfish.

Miss Cynthia Clayborn was gayer and more raffish. She wore smart tailored clothes, a fur—sable—and a tall, feathered hat. Her shapely feet were shod in high-heeled pumps. She seemed competent and tough.

She settled herself against the cushions of the sofa and remarked in a harsh voice that it was a nice day. Mrs. Leeder had already poured tea for her uncle, and handed him his cup. Roberts came in with a salver on which stood a stiff highball in a cut-glass tumbler. He set it down on the little table near Miss Clayborn, then lifted Sir Arthur Wilson Cribb out of the way.

Miss Clayborn snatched the solander from him, opened it, and took out a cigarette. Gamadge lighted it for her. She said: “You'd better have what I'm having, Mr. Gamadge.”

“I refused one, thank you all the same.”

“I need it. Great Heavens, that endless music. Gavan, aren't you joining me?”

“Had plenty at the club.”

“I bet you did. How was the game?”

“Fair, until a man cut in we didn't know well.”

“Win all your money in the last rubber?”

“No, and didn't like losing. Bridge isn't supposed to be a source of income at that club.”

“Oh, come now,” said his sister.

“I said isn't supposed to be. Membership isn't watched nowadays.” He turned a casual blue eye towards Gamadge. “Do you find that so where you play?”

Something had mysteriously told Gavan Clayborn that Gamadge was not poor and not rich; he already knew it, knew it finally, but Gamadge's reply might establish his rating more accurately. Gamadge obliged: “The stakes we play for wouldn't do much to our incomes one way or another.”

“Much better to keep them moderate.” Half a cent, thought Gavan.

Mrs. Leeder asked: “Was the music so very boring, Aunt?”

“Oh, Heavens. I don't know why Elena or you will never go, and let me off.”

“They'd rather have you.”

“There was the usual appeal for funds in the intermission. They won't get any more from the Clayborns. I hope the man noticed my old fur.”

“He probably noticed your new hat.”

Miss Clayborn squinted up at a drooping plume, dyed in shades of mauve, wine colour and purple. “Nobby, isn't it? You ought to have seen the other ones. Do I look like a woman who would be likely to have pansies on her first autumn hat? They still try to make me do it. When we sell the house I shall have a fur cape.” She addressed Gamadge: “Somebody wants it for a girls' school, Mr. Gamadge. Perfect, with the garden and the studio.”

“Perfect for you, if you think so,” said Gamadge, “but sad for the rest of us—these changes. Once an old house passes out of a family, anything can happen to it.”

“I should be quite willing to stay on,” said Miss Clayborn, picking up a sandwich and biting into it. She swallowed the bite, and went on: “If I had a million dollars. As it is, how shocking it will seem to pay rent.”

“As shocking as taxes?” Gamadge smiled. “I'm hanging on to my small old house.”

Clayborn said: “Much better if you can.”

“I use it as an office too. That makes a difference.”

Clayborn looked inquiring; but just then a tall, very thin man with dark hair and eyes and a long oval face came slowly into the room. Mrs. Leeder said: “Mr. Gamadge, my cousin Seward.”

Seward behaved as if he were depressed and tired. He nodded to Gamadge, took a cup of tea from Mrs. Leeder, and walked over to the window at the right of the fireplace. He sat down on the window seat, put his cup on the cushion beside him, and got out a cigarette.

“Mr. Gamadge,” said Mrs. Leeder, “has a most interesting occupation. He's an author too—”

Seward glanced at Gamadge with pale interest.

“But his real business is most interesting. He finds out all about old books and papers. It's like being a detective; forged documents and that kind of thing.”

Gavan Clayborn, suddenly alert, stared at Gamadge with open surprise. “Gamadge? Gamadge? Haven't I heard—”

“By your expression,” said Gamadge, “I'm afraid you have.”

“The Gamadge we've seen in the papers?” asked Miss Clayborn, with tolerant wonder.

“Unfortunately I have been in the papers.”

“Those cases!” Miss Clayborn was more and more flatteringly kind. “What fun!”

“Well, not entirely.”

“Shouldn't think you could stick it,” said Seward Clayborn.

“Stick anything if you get mad enough,” said Gamadge.

“Right, absolutely right,” agreed Gavan. “Don't do to be too squeamish in these days.”

“Never did to be too squeamish, perhaps.”

“I'm too squeamish,” said Seward in a tired voice. “Much too squeamish.”

Mrs. Leeder said: “Mr. Gamadge is the one person in the world—I think you'll agree with me—whom I could ask to be here tomorrow when we open the music room.” And as Gamadge gripped the arms of his chair, she went on: “To find the buttons.”

There was a profound silence, during which Gamadge relaxed. Then Clayborn said shortly: “Don't understand you,” and his tea slopped in his saucer. No; Gamadge wasn't going to be thrown out.

“He's entirely discreet,” continued Mrs. Leeder calmly, “and he doesn't bungle. If the buttons are there he'll find them in no time.”

Miss Clayborn, ignoring Gamadge, looked at her niece. “Harriet,” she asked in her harsh voice, “have you gone stark crazy?”

“No, Aunt Cynthia, I haven't. Anyone would tell you that it's much better to have an impartial person present—”

Seward's cold voice interrupted her. “Harriet, you really have gone out of your head. Mr. Allsop—”

“Mr. Allsop is about eighty, and what does he care about the buttons?
They're
not part of the trust.”

Another silence followed. Gamadge broke it, speaking mildly: “I know how you must all feel; it must seem like an intrusion, and unless you can accept it it will be an intrusion. But may I suggest that a disinterested referee takes responsibility from the parties involved and makes things simpler for all? You engage me to find the buttons; I find them if they're there, all of them, and place them in Mr. Allsop's hands for sale or distribution. No delay, no argument. I should like to tell you about my Great-aunt Myrtle.”

They were all looking at him now; Mrs. Leeder quietly, as one who has done her part and leaves the rest to a stronger ally. Clayborn's face was unreadable; but while his colour was high, his sister's had faded until her conventional makeup stood out against her pallid skin like camouflage. Gamadge, turning his head to include Seward Clayborn in the conversation, was greeted by a stare of almost ludicrous consternation.

Gamadge crossed his knees and lighted another cigarette.

“My Great-aunt Myrtle,” he began, “was a peculiar and terrifying old lady with a weak heart, who lived with her brother—until he died—in a large old mansion in a country town. She was not, I may remark here, terrifying to me; I used to spend a month of my summer vacations there when I was a boy, and we got on very well.

“She knew that when the brother died the house and property, and all the old family stuff in the house, would go to his children. She had money of her own, and would be comfortable; but naturally she didn't look forward to the move, and she very much disliked the eldest son's wife.

“Her brother died one spring, and she was allowed the summer to pack and arrange her affairs. She couldn't have stayed on, too many servants were required there for her means; and she wouldn't have dreamed of sharing the house with any of the heirs.

“She had unfortunately got it into her head that certain items in the inventory belonged to her personally; and those items, to the dismay of the heirs, began to disappear. There was little doubt that when she left they would leave with her, in her trunks and boxes. It was a delicate situation: nobody wanted a scandal or a lawsuit, and nobody wanted to be accused of having killed her—she had a heart attack whenever the matter of the lost items came up. She said that they had never been in the house at all, or that they had disappeared long before, or that Great-uncle must have given them away. The fact was, of course, that she had settled it with herself—her right to the objects—but didn't dare submit her cause to earthly justice.

“The objects were valuable, and they were heirlooms; some silver, a piece of lustreware, and a coral necklace. The necklace was antique and beautiful; fifty-one carved, matched, graded beads, ranging in size from a pea to a chestnut, and with a bloom on them that I can't describe. Great-aunt Myrtle knew who wanted to wear
that
, and she couldn't stand it.

“Finally, in despair, the family got her own lawyer—a small-town crook if there ever was one—to ask her whether she'd allow an impartial person, duly authorized, to make a search for the things. They—and he, I think—hoped that would scare her. Great-aunt Myrtle said certainly, only she would pick out the impartial person. She thought it was a tremendous joke on them all when she picked me—I was thirteen years old at the time, and still with her on my vacation. She said I was the only impartial member of the family that she could think of—our branch didn't inherit—and that whatever I found I could turn over to the bank which represented the estate.