The Scarlet Thread (11 page)

“Are you married, Mr. Maxton?”

He laughed. “Oh, Lord, no. Not in this job. No wife would put up with it.”

“But a lot of women come here on their own,” she remarked. “They like gambling, I suppose.”

“Yes, they do. Women get the bug as badly as men. Some of them are widows or divorced. They come and play roulette and enjoy some company.”

“And I suppose they pick up men?” The question was posed with an innocent stare that didn't deceive him for a minute.

“Not in this casino, Mrs. Falconi.”

She shrugged and turned away from him. She couldn't stop thinking about the woman in the hotel, the woman who wore Joy.

She wondered how long Steven would stay tonight. She wished this irritating Englishman would go away and pester someone else. She wanted to be alone with Steven, to reassure herself that all was well between them.
Tomorrow I'll go to the head porter
, she thought.
I wonder how much money it will take
.

The head porter couldn't help her. He pretended not to see the roll of currency she took out of her handbag. It was more than his job was worth to take the slightest risk. He made as much in a day's tips as the lady was offering.

“I'm so sorry; I can't help you, madame,” he said. “Perhaps the reception desk could assist you.”

The receptionist declined to look at the register and tell her of any women guests who were alone. Clara was pressed for time. She had dressed hurriedly and come down ahead of Steven to make her inquiries. Back home, she'd have got what she wanted. She swore under her breath. He'd picked her up in the cocktail lounge, most likely. The smell of bourbon was as strong as that hated scent when he'd come back in the morning. She went to the bar. There were several couples having a drink before lunch. And two women alone. One she didn't even look at. She was gray-haired, absorbed in a novel. The other one? Clara stared at her, and some primeval instinct assured her that she need look no further. She passed close by. The woman was sipping a Campari. The scent of Joy stung Clara's nostrils. She was amazed at her own cunning as she approached the young barman.

“Isn't that lady a famous actress?” she whispered. “My husband said he met her last night.”

“No, madame.” The boy shook his head. “That's Madame Duvalier. She's a regular guest here. Comes every year. Maybe she said that to play a joke on Monsieur Falconi?”

“Maybe.” Clara gave a savage smile. She turned and looked once more. Sophisticated, very chic, no longer young. Clara went outside to find Steven.

They chartered a boat and sailed around the coast. There was a picnic and a lot of wine. She felt sleepy and sensual in the heat and wanted him to make love to her in the cabin. It seemed better to her than ever. She felt she had reached him again and that surely, please Virgin mother and all the saints, she would conceive this time.

Afterward, they dived off the boat and swam in a sea as clear and cold as sapphires.

“What are you thinking about,
caro?
” she asked him as they dried in the sun on the foredeck. She reached out to take his hand, but he didn't notice. Hers lay outstretched toward him, until slowly the fingers curled up.

“Business,” he answered, his eyes closing against the glare of the sun. “I think we should look into casinos back home.”

“That's Musso's territory,” she said dully.

“There's room,” Steven answered. He wasn't used to discussing things like this with a woman, and he changed the subject. Only men talked about business. “I'm going for another swim,” he said, and dived off without waiting for her.

That night Clara put in a call to her father in New York.

The line was crackly. “How's my little girl?” he kept asking.

She cried into the telephone.

“What's the matter, sweetheart? What's wrong? Aren't you happy? Come on, tell Papa.”

“I will,” she promised. “Oh, Papa, I miss you and Mama. I've been so happy, but something's gone wrong. There's a woman. She's making a play for Steven. Papa, what can I do?”

There was silence for a moment. She thought they had been cut off. Then her father's voice came back on the line.

“You leave this to me,
cara mia
. Just tell me the name of this dame and where she can be found.”

Clara did so. She said, “Thank you, Papa. Thank you,” and cried again. Then she hung up.

They flew to London. It was a typical English summer, chilly and overcast. Clara was cold and bored. Even the art galleries and museums were dull by comparison with the glories of Paris. She hadn't mentioned the apartment in Paris to Steven. There'd be a right time and place, but it hadn't come. She went to the Italian church in Clerkenwell on a private pilgrimage and prayed for a child.

“Don't worry about it,” Steven told her. “It'll happen. In God's good time, as my mother would say.”

“It's not what she'll say to me,” Clara protested. “I want a honeymoon baby. They're always lucky children.”

She nestled into his side and murmured, “I'll be glad to go home. I want to move into our own house.”

Steven said yes, he would like that too, and went on thinking of the Musso family and their stranglehold on the gambling in Nevada. The honeymoon was over. It was time for Clara to become a wife and hopefully a mother very soon. And for him to get back to business and the men's world.

The man had been watching Pauline Duvalier for three days. First in the hotel bar, then in the restaurant; now her luggage was coming down and her car waited at the entrance. He had never even met her eye, and she didn't notice him because he was middle-aged and bald. She drove herself in a prewar Lagonda. He envied her the car, as he followed it up the winding Moyenne Corniche, carved out of the face of the mountain way above the coast. He saw her turn into the gates of a villa.

Big, expensive place; must have wonderful views. It was to look like a robbery. He drove past and then managed to make a turn higher up. Coming down again, he eased the car just inside the gates. There were tall pine trees, providing shade and privacy. He couldn't see the house once he was under them, and that meant he couldn't be seen. It had to be a daylight job. The gates would be closed at night, and a car's headlights would be seen for miles from up there. He got out and slipped his hand into his trousers pocket. He was stocky and powerful underneath a layer of fat. Though past his prime by fifteen years, he was still a strong man. He was good with women and the elderly.

There'd be servants about the place. His watch said eleven-thirty. Not time for lunch yet. He crept on the soles of his feet, keeping in the shadows under the trees.

It was a big villa indeed, with a large open terrace and doors leading into various rooms. He was close against the wall when he saw her. She came out onto the terrace. She was smoking a cigarette, and she'd changed into slacks and a shirt. Robbery with violence. She stood there for some minutes, thinking of something, frowning.

In the old days he had collected from the brothelkeepers in Marseilles. When he was young, they gave him a choice of the girls along with the protection money. Then he moved to Nice after a bit of trouble when someone had died after a beating—a greedy ponce who didn't want to pay up. There was plenty of work in Nice. Shopkeepers, restaurants, brothels—they all paid dues, and he was one of the debt collectors. He had a wife and three children. They lived in an apartment on the seafront. He was well paid. He did odd evenings at the casino as a bouncer.

The woman still didn't move. Then just when he thought he might have to come up behind her on the terrace, which he didn't fancy, she swung around and went inside. He pulled the stocking over his head and followed her. He carried no weapon. She didn't see him or hear him. He rabbit-punched her, and she fell without a sound. Locking the door, he heaved her up from the floor and onto the bed. She didn't feel anything because she never recovered consciousness. When he had finished, he turned out the drawers, threw a few things on the floor and put a gold necklace, two rings, and a gold lighter in his pocket. He slipped out and got back to his car. He was sitting at a traffic light in Beaulieu when Pauline Duvalier's maid came to call her for lunch.

The doctors at the American Hospital in Nice told reporters that they doubted the unfortunate woman would survive her injuries. Every bone in her face had been smashed, and she was certain to lose the vision in her left eye. It made headlines in the national press.

THREE

“It's very sweet of you, Jim,” Angela said gently. “But I don't want to get married again.”

They were sitting by the fire, and he had taken her hand and, for the third time in the past year, asked her to think it over.

“You don't have to hurry about it,” he said. “You've got the boy's future to think of, and he really needs a father. I'm very fond of him, and he's fond of me. All I want is to make you happy, Angela.”

He was the soul of kindness and honesty. By now her father had retired with a bad heart, and Jim Hulbert had taken over the practice with a younger partner, who was married and had a baby. Jim wasn't a bloodless man either. Most women could have been very happy with him in spite of the age difference.

Yes, Angela thought, I could have settled down here and been a good doctor's wife, spent my life in the village where I was born and raised my children as I was raised. If I hadn't met Steven Falconi. If he didn't look at me out of my son's eyes.

“I know, Jim,” she said. “But it's no use pretending I'll change my mind; I won't. I know all the arguments against it, but I know I can bring up Charlie myself. In fact, I asked you over tonight because I've got something to tell you.”

He looked downcast. It hurt her to refuse him, to dash his hopes. But it would be less than honest to stay on and let those hopes survive.

“You're leaving here,” he said.

“Yes, I am. How did you know?”

“Your mother mentioned something.”

Mrs. Drummond had been her usual tactless self, too anxious to mince words. “You'd better do something, Jim,” she'd said, “before she goes off and gets this job she's so set on. Go and ask her again, won't you? Make her change her mind.” Her parents wanted the marriage. It secured the practice, gave Angela a home and a husband they liked and trusted. And most of all, it provided a stable background for the boy.

They loved Charlie in their own way, but his foreign looks distressed them. “There's not a drop of Drummond blood in him,” Angela's father had complained to his wife, and then added guiltily, “But he's a fine little chap all the same.”

“I've applied for a job with a firm in London,” Angela told Jim. “They want a personnel officer. It sounds interesting, and the money's not too bad. I went for an interview, and they've accepted me. My nursing training helped.”

He thought,
Not only that. Don't you realize what an attractive, intelligent woman you are?
“What about Charlie?” he asked.

“I had an argument with my father about that,” Angela admitted. “I thought of taking him to London and sending him to school there.”

Jim Hulbert frowned. “Wouldn't that be an awful upheaval? He's only got a few more weeks till the holidays, and then he's off to prep school.”

“That's exactly what my father said. He said I was being selfish even to suggest moving him. He hit the roof when I mentioned keeping him at day school until he was thirteen. ‘All boys need to get away at eight'—that's what he said. ‘You can't keep him tied to your apron strings.' It does seem very early to go to boarding school; but my brother went at seven. He loved it. So in the end I said we'd keep to the plan. And my father's taken out a policy to pay for his education right up till he's eighteen. I talked to Charlie about it and explained. He said, ‘I'd love to be with you, Mum, but I'd hate London.' That made up my mind for me. I shall miss him dreadfully, but he's better off here in his own home with Mum and Dad till he goes away in September. I'll be back every weekend. So in two weeks I'm moving to London.”

He said nothing for a moment. He rose, took out his pipe, filled it and tapped down the tobacco. Lighting and drawing it took some time.

“All right, my dear,” he said. “Maybe you know what's best. I love you, and I always will. If you change your mind and get fed up with London, I'll be here. We've had some very happy times together. Kiss me goodbye, will you?”

“Of course I will,” she said. “I don't know what I would have done without you, Jim. You've been a darling to both of us. Thank you for everything.” She stood up and walked into his arms.

“Good luck anyway,” he said. “I'll be off now. We could have dinner together before you go.”

“I'd love to,” Angela said.

When he had gone, she poked at the fire and poured herself a glass of wine before going to bed. It was sad, but also a relief. She didn't want to marry him or anyone else. She had to change her life, had to stop relying on her son for happiness. The idea of a job had appealed to her more and more as her son grew older and more independent. And she dared to hope that at some point she would find contentment.

I've got a lot of energy
, she decided.
And it's eating away inside me instead of being put to use. I'm bored too, to be honest. I'm not ready for a life bounded by the village and its activities. If I had a man to love, if it was possible with Jim, yes, but not otherwise. I'm going to see what the outside world has to offer before it's too late
.

She stood, set the guard in front of the fire and locked up. Her parents had gone to bed long before. She opened the door of her son's bedroom and looked inside. He was asleep, sprawled in the manner of small boys halfway across the bed, with the pillow crumpled under him. Gently Angela pulled it away and settled him properly.