The Scorpia Menace (3 page)

She returned their sallies in a half-hearted way, barely conscious of what they were saying. Her trim, athletic body with its springy stride was the target of most male eyes as she passed. She wore a blue, open-neck shirt so severe as to be like a boy's and her tailored tartan skirt perfectly molded a form that owed nothing to artifice. Her high, tip-tilted bust strained forward against the blue shirt and a silver medallion on a silver cord round her neck quivered with the motion of her body.

Presently, she turned in through a large, wrought-iron gateway and went up a red gravelled driveway to a white house built in Colonial style. The colonnaded porch and the shutters at the windows proclaimed the influence of the South, but the yellow painted garage that would hold four cars and the kidney-shaped swimming pool on the patio spoke of the comforts of the East.

The girl turned the bronze handle on the big mahogany front door and went through into a large hall that was gracious with well-waxed antique furniture and bowls of cut flowers that stood about on chests and table surfaces and gave off a pungent perfume in the cool dimness of the interior. She turned into a long room where mellow light shining from outside stencilled the shadows of the French windows across the carpet.

"Is that you, Diana?"

It was a woman's voice; soft and well-modulated. Diana smiled gently at its well-remembered tones and the often repeated question.

"Yes, Mother," she said. "I'm in the drawing room."

The woman whose lithe step sounded in the hall a few moments later showed the remains of great beauty on her face. Though in her late forties she was still elegant and her trim figure had often been mistaken for that of her daughter. Diana moved quickly to greet her mother with an affectionate kiss on the cheek. They were tremendous friends, despite the age-gap, and they always confided in one another

Mrs. Palmer's hair showed traces of grey now and as she

despised cosmetic aids to beauty, she made no effort to tint it as was the modern fashion. She was dressed smartly and expensively in a tailored suit with velvet cuffs and collar that set off her figure to perfection and the basket full of cut stems in one hand and the clippers in the other showed that she had been engaged in her favorite occupation, cutting and arranging flowers in the elegant rooms of the Palmer home.

Mrs. Palmer paused and put the basket down on a nearby table and then put the clippers in the basket. She dusted her already immaculate hands as though the work of flower arranging had left traces of some soiling physical labor. She looked inquiringly at her daughter who had gone to sprawl on a large, overstuffed sofa, one of her long, elegant legs dangling over the arm.

"Have you enrolled for that course, Diana?"

"Funny you should ask, Mother," Diana said. "I've just been down to register at college. Luckily, there was a vacancy or I wouldn't have got in until the fall. As it is, I start night classes this evening."

Mrs. Palmer smiled with pleasure.

"That is good news, dear, though why you want further qualifications with all your talents I don't know."

Diana frowned. Even that could not disturb the beauty of her face.

"You know I must keep busy, Mother," she said. "I feel the need to do something with my time."

"You've been unsettled ever since Kit Walker left," Mrs. Palmer continued. "He was the one, wasn't he?"

Diana flushed. She shifted her position on the sofa and put her right leg up to join the left.

"That's a leading question, Mama," she said.

Mrs. Palmer smiled again.

"You never did like direct questions on intimate matters, dear," she said. "Your late father was just the same. It must be an inherited trait. But I wouldn't mind betting anything that I'm right."

It was Diana's turn to smile.

"In that case, Mother, you won't need any answer from me," she said. "Anyway, most of the young men around here bore me. All they can talk about when they ask me out to dinner is baseball or the latest figures on the Dow Jones Index."

Mrs. Palmer shot Diane a penetrating glance.

"All the same, dear," she observed. "You have turned down some very eligible young men in the last year or so. It is time you were thinking about marriage."

Diana closed her eyes and lay back with her head against the cushions of the sofa.

"No doubt you're right, Mama," she said. "I sometimes wonder myself why I haven't married."

"There you are, you see," said her mother, as though she had just uttered a profound truth.

"Still, perhaps you'll run across somebody interesting during this new course. What are you taking?"

"Medieval history," Diana said brightly.

Mrs. Palmer frowned.

"Well, no doubt you know best, dear," she said. "Though I must say it does seem a little arid to me."

She looked helplessly round the immaculate drawing- room, as though there were hundreds of bowls of flowers that still needed arranging.

"Why not have a swim before dinner, darling? There's plenty of time and the sun's still hot."

Ten minutes later the trim form of Diana, taut and bronzed in her bikini, trotted out onto the lawn at the rear of the house, a Sealyham terrier yapping excitedly behind

her. A Japanese gardener hacking away at the roots of a fruit tree in a neighboring garden almost turned a somersault as he caught sight of her. Diana climbed to the top of the diving board, her feet hardly seeming to touch the rungs of the ladder. Then she jack-knifed down from the twenty- foot level. Her arrowed body hit the water so perfectly that she entered the pool almost without a ripple. Something seemed to pull her body down through the water with a minimum of disturbance.

She took an almost sensuous pleasure in swimming and shee floated lazily beneath the surface, her hands spread out si i Illy above her head, her skin tingling from the freshness of the water, as she drifted to the end of the pool. Then she surfaced, shaking her long, dark hair, conscious of a faint echo of applause. She looked up to see the laughing, boyish face of a trim-looking man in his forties. His blond hair was cut short and a briar pipe was stuck between his square, white teeth. His square jaw re-echoed the theme mid he belched furiously at the pipe, which gave off sparks and blue smoke as he continued to applaud.

"Beautiful, Diana," he said.

"Thank you, Uncle David," she said. "I didn't expect you home so early."

"Flew in two hours ahead of schedule," her uncle said. "They had an early warning of electrical storms so I derided not to take the later plane."

He sat down on a rustic bench near the edge of the pool as Diana stroked her way effortlessly through the water.

He knocked the pipe on the wooden arm of the bench, Bending a shower of sparks and ash over the tiles.

"Lily tells me you're going to take a night course in medieval history," he said.

Diana shook the water from her hair and gripped the ladder at the side of the pool. She smiled up at David on the terrace.

"It wouldn't have anything to do with Kit Walker, would lt?" her uncle grinned. "I remember he came from a long line of buccaneers or something, wasn't it?"

Diana felt herself flushing again.

"Really, Uncle David," she said. "It was sea-captains and admirals and people like that. Pirates, indeed!"

her uncle smiled again. It's a thin division especially when one gets a little farther back in history. Diana had ducked back beneath the surface of the water. But later when she went up to change for dinner Uncle david's words came to her mind Kit walker had been much in her thoughts of late.

3

PIRATE GOLD

Diana Palmer ran lightly up the double flight of steps in I ront of Westchester College as leaves whirled about her in I lie night wind. Ahead of her the long rows of windows cast yellow beams of light across the campus. She avoided chattering groups of students and made instead for a secluded side door. More and more, Diana was isolating herself from people, working out some of the complex problems of her life in her head. And more and more the smiling face of Kit Walker had crystallized itself into a permanent image in her mind.

Now she made her way down the corridor by a route that avoided the mainstream of student chatter into the library where the Medieval History Class was assembling. there were only a dozen taking part and of these only three were known to Diana personally. However, she nodded pleasantly to the others and settled herself at the desk.

She had already selected the volumes she intended studying and now she assembled the material on the surface of the desk before her. The library was a light and airy place, the ranks of books in teak bookcases making a blaze of color round the walls, and an old pine farmhouse-type clock licked melodiously on as the minutes passed. Amanda Welch, the dynamic, blonde-haired history teacher in her mid-forties, was already sitting in her famous steel and leather armchair on a dais in front of the students, ticking olf something in a leather-covered book.

Now she got up and extended a welcome to the class. Then she went round the tables individually, greeting the students and asking and answering questions. She hesitated momentarily as she reached Diana.

"I noticed your name on the register," she said. "Aren't you Diana Palmer, the Olympic diver and explorer?"

Diana smiled.

"That is true, Miss Welch," she replied, "but I think my achievements have been somewhat exaggerated by the press."

Miss Welch's eyes were sparkling as she gazed at Diana with approval.

"I think you may safely let the public be the judge of that," she said.

"I was rather surprised at your enrolling for this course, that's all." Diana looked puzzled for a moment.

"I don't quite follow you, Miss Welch," she said.

Miss Welch tested the pliability of a pencil between her delicately manicured fingers as she gazed across the room at the other students.

"What I'm trying to say, Miss Palmer," she said, "is that this history course must seem pretty tame to you after your travels and all your other accomplishments."

Diana's face cleared. She laughed softly.

"Oh, I see. No, I find it exciting. I think if you put everything into the task of the moment you invariably get something out of it in return. At least, that's what I feel."

Miss Welch's eyes met hers gravely.

"That's a refreshing attitude these days, Miss Palmer," she said ruefully. "I only wish some of our less mature students would take the same attitude."

Diana smiled again.

"Ah, student lib. That's a big question," she said.

"Too big to go into tonight," said Miss Welch. "Particularly during history class."

She tightened her grip on the pencil and tapped it against pink finger nails.

"Forgive me for being personal in saying this," she murmured.

Diana looked at her inquiringly.

"Go ahead," she said.

Miss Welch hesitated. She shifted awkwardly from on foot to the other.

"Well, it's just that one is surprised," she said.

"Surprised about what?" said Diana.

Miss Welch came to the point.

"I wonder why a beautiful and talented girl like you isn't married," she said.

There was a faint flush on her cheeks which had not escaped Diana's notice and which saved her from embarrassment in turn.

"There are reasons, Miss Welch," she said. "Your question was not at all impertinent. I may tell you something more about it when we get to know each another better."

With that Miss Welch had to be content She turned away to begin her opening remarks. But Diana, head bent down toward her books was already mentally re-echoing Miss Welch's questions. The image of Kit Walker as she had last seen him kept coming between her and the printed pages. Miss Welch was a remarkably shrewd woman. She looked at her now as she sat in her swivel chair, poised and perfectly at ease as she put major historical questions into the context of the course.