Читать книгу Feathers Left Around - Carolyn Wells - Страница 4

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KNOX flung his book across the veranda.

“Another of those old Sealed Room plots,” he complained, as his host, Valentine Loft looked up, mildly inquiring.

“Man dead in an inaccessible room,” Knox went on, “doors and windows all locked, no weapon to be found; murder or suicide?—and how was it done—if any?”

“The sort I like best,” and Loft looked interested. “I eat up Detective Stories, and I like better the How Was It Done? or the Who Did It? kind better than the Why?”

“You’re dead wrong. The real interest of a murder story lies in the motive. That’s the thing.”

“Nope. It’s the cleverness of the detail work. The art of the criminal. Now, if I were going to commit a murder—”

“Heavens and earth, Val! What are you talking about? Drop it, any way, and listen to little Anna. I’ve thought up a name for this place.

“Number two thousand and six!” Loft groaned. “I pray Heaven may sometime send me a guest who does not requite my hospitality by offering me a ‘name for my place’!”

The vivacious little blonde who had just come up on the terrace, accompanied by a big, good-natured looking man, sat on the arm of Loft’s chair, as she insisted on her suggestion.

“You’ll like this, Val, though. It’s different from the Stonywolds and Ferndales that the herd invents. It’s Valhalla! There, how’s that?”

“Rotten!”

“Not a bit of it,—is it, Ned?” and Anna Knox appealed to her husband, whose talk with Loft she had interrupted.

“Pretty good,” he responded; “I believe Valhalla means the place of departed spirits,—so, in a way, it’s appropriate!”

“If you people stay much longer, mine will be entirely departed. But while I’ve a dram left,—I can take a hint.” Loft leaned over to touch a bell button.

“Oh, Val, listen!” Anna went on. “It’s the name,—don’t you see? Valentine,—Val,—Hall,—Valhalla!”

“I heard you the first time,” and Loft looked at her smilingly; “but, though I recognized the Val connection,—I didn’t get the Hall part till you explained it. Almost like a charade.”

“You are the most aggravating thing!” and Mrs. Knox favored him with her best pout.

Little Anna was one of the few perfect blondes Nature ever turned out. She needed no vanity-case, her face was like a Greuze pastel. Her shining hair, carelessly tucked up, nestled over her ears in loose, involuntary rings, not at all a rolled-up mass.

Dainty of flesh and blood, she was always perfectly togged, and to-day, in her white knitted silk sport suit, she seemed a morsel that any man might greedily devour.

Ned Knox looked at her adoringly, yet a trifle uneasily as she lounged nearer to Valentine Loft.

“Come here, Anna,” he said, authoritatively, “come here and sit by me.”

“Yes, dear, as soon as I make Val consent to my suggestion.”

She lightly ran her fingers through the thick dark hair of Loft’s restless head.

“Get out, Anna!” he growled; “get out! I’ll murder you!”

“Come over here, Anna,” said Angel Bob Baldwin, the man who had arrived with her.

Baldwin was a giant person of the Viking type, and by reason of his calm serenity and frequently upturned blue eyes was called Angel.

“But I’ve had you all the afternoon,” Anna smiled; “I can have Ned all my life,—and I can only catch Val in an unoccupied moment, now and then, when Pauline doesn’t see me.”

“Just for that, you’ve got to go,” and with a calm push, Loft gently dislodged her from her perch, whereupon, nothing dismayed, she went round and sat on the other arm of his chair.

But Anna’s caprices were always smiled upon, and Loft offered her a cigarette.

The veranda gave West, and the disappearing sun touched the flowers, the trees and Anna’s golden hair with a final blaze of glory. None of the three men could keep his eyes off her exquisite face, and though seemingly unconscious of this, she saw it, exultantly, and her vain little soul fairly lapped it up.

The “place” of Valentine Loft was a small estate in Westchester County, more noticeable for its quiet taste and comfortable appointments than for grandeur. He had guests much of the time, and always a group of people over the week-ends.

Yet, though up to now, a bachelor’s domain, Petticoat Rule was imminent, for in a few months Loft would marry Pauline Fuller, and into her capable hands would pass the household reins of government.

But no gracious chatelaine could improve on the kindly courtesy or thoughtful hospitality of Valentine Loft.

A good-looking chap of thirty-two, he was a man of varied interests and vocations. A lawyer first, but more or less of a dabbler in Real Estate, an architect of no small skill and a general financier. But his natural quickness of intellect and his achieved efficiency enabled him to have many irons in the fire, and keep them all hot. In his offices he was a General, commanding, inspiring, conquering. In his home, he was a delightful, debonair host, a man of the world, the flesh and the devil.

One of his most endearing traits was a broad, sweet tolerance that forgave idiosyncrasies and even defects in others, making allowance for their unfortunate lack of mental or psychical equipment. Yet there were a few things he could not condone or forgive. On these points he was so positive as to seem stubborn.

One of these was his attitude toward divorce. With the assuredness of the inexperienced, he held that once married was always married. So far did he carry this notion of his, that he rarely made friends of divorced people, and preferred not to meet them.

Some had jestingly told him that after his own marriage he might change his mind, but his cold reception of these pleasantries forbade their repetition.

His love for Pauline Fuller was the love of his life,—in it he had already put his whole soul, and Loft’s was not a fickle nature.

Another fad of his was the value of inaction. He deplored waste motion, and held that far more was lost by effort than by restraint. A favorite maxim was: “Do nothing and all things will be done.” This he had picked up in a book somewhere, and frequently quoted it. Though such a code might be dangerous to a less executive brain, to Loft it was wise counsel.

And seemingly, his plan worked. He seemed, indeed, to do nothing and yet, in his domain all things were done. His household mechanism was of the most smooth-running variety, and no incoming bride could hope to improve on it,—the most she might hope would be to keep it up to its present standards.

With his calm foresight, Loft felt sure that Pauline would do this, or if she didn’t, she could be taught to.

And now Pauline was under his roof, spending a blissful fortnight, made possible by the chaperonage of little Anna Knox.

Though a few months younger than Pauline, Anna was a matron of three years’ standing, and so, thoroughly equipped for the office of chaperon. To be sure, Mrs. Ned Knox had her own notions of these duties, but her presence gave the conventional sanction to Pauline’s visit.

Pauline, tall, dark, beautiful, came out from the house, pausing a moment in the doorway to lift her straight, heavy black eyebrows at Anna’s position.

“You!” she exclaimed, “you grasping cormorant! You have all the men in the world, and yet you must needs reach out after my one little ewe lamb! You go and read your prayer-book where it says, ‘Keep my hands from picking and stealing’!”

“I wasn’t hurting your lammie,” and Anna rose slowly from Loft’s chair arm, and went over to sit beside her husband. “Was I, Val?”

“I didn’t know you were there,” Loft returned, looking surprisedly at her, as he rose to arrange a seat for Pauline, and Anna made a face at him.

Tea was brought then, with other cups even more cheering, and as the shadows lengthened across the lawn and dusk began to fall, conversation lagged and there were frequent silences.

“I’m asked down to Wyngate for the week-end,” Baldwin said.

“You can’t go, Angel,” Loft told him quickly. “I’ve more guests coming, and you must help bore them to death.”

“But they asked me, and they said they were going to have a lot of interesting people there.”

“Contradiction of terms. Interesting people don’t come in lots. The other sort do.”

“Why, Val, how you do make on!” cried Anna. “Haven’t we a group of interesting people right here now?”

“No; Pauline is the only interesting one, and I wouldn’t except her only she’s my fiancée, and it seems as if I ought to.”

“What a bear you are,” and Pauline glanced at him amusedly. She was taller and more slender than most girls, and possessed of a lithe grace that made one want to watch her every motion. Her coloring was very black and very white, save where a slight touch of rouge showed on either cheek. Her dark eyes were almost sad in repose, but brightened to shining light when she became animated. Her smile was fleeting and adorable, and the look she gave Loft was enough to turn any man’s head.

“I’m awfully alone,” complained Angel Bob. “Here’s Pauline making eyes at Val, while he wriggles with delight. Here’s my little flirt Anna, gone back to her husband, and I’ve nobody to play with.”

“Well you can’t run off for the week-end,” Val repeated. “I’ll import one or two pretty girls for you to flirt with, and I’ll allow Pauline and Anna to give you a daily dozen of their witching smiles and glances.”

“Oh, Lord, don’t overdo it!” and Baldwin flung up his hands.

“Pauline,” Anna said, “what do you think these men were talking about when Bob and I came suddenly upon them a few moments ago? Just as we reached them, Val was saying, ‘Now, when I commit my murder—’ ”

“Hold hard, there, Anna,” Loft said; “I didn’t put it quite like that. You see I’ve not yet fully decided to do one. As a matter of fact, I was saying, if I were going to commit a murder—”

“Well, what’s the difference? They’re both in the future tense.”

“Finish your sentence, Val,” observed Pauline. “It sounds interesting.”

“You see, Ned and I were discussing Detective Stories. We’re both fond of them.”

“I thought nobody read them,” interrupted Bob, “except English Premiers and American Presidents. I assumed they were rather highbrow stuff.”

“Anything Bob says is funny,” said Anna, and as he smirked complacently, she went on, “because he’s so funny looking.”

Whereupon Baldwin really did look funny.

“Go on, Val,” commanded Pauline.

“Well, I’m always interested in the plans of the murderer. If I were one, I’d lay my plans and go about my work in such a careful and clever way, that the crime could never be brought home to me. It could never be discovered who did it.”

“Then there wouldn’t be any Detective Story,” declared Mrs. Knox. “Moreover, Val, you couldn’t do that,—it would be impossible.”

“On the contrary it would be dead easy,” contended Baldwin. “Why, I couldn’t kill anybody because I’m too soft-hearted, but if I did, I’d easily arrange it so it would be an insoluble mystery.”

“It isn’t as easy as all that,” Loft said, slowly; “it’s possible, but difficult. You see, you have to guard against so many contingencies. And detectives are sharp chaps.”

“In fiction,” said Bob.

“In real life, too. Even if they don’t do the Sherlock act, they very often bring home the bacon. Anyway, that would have to be reckoned with.”

“What method is most approved this year?” Pauline asked, composedly.

“Strangling,” said Bob, promptly. “Strangling is neat, clean and cool. Needs no weapon, leaves no mark. Try our strangulation method, you will never use any other!”

“That’s all very well for you, with muscles like pile-drivers and hands like clam-rakes!” Knox looked at his own small and neatly cared-for hands.

He was a trifle undersized, but agile and athletic. In inverse proportion to his size his egotism was supreme, and he was opinionated and a bit cocky. His imagination was unlimited, and to its fullest scope he invented short stories which sold to the best magazines at the best prices.

“And yet, Bob,” he went on, “I’d think your poetic soul would balk at strangling. It’s not really artistic, you know.”

“What is?” asked Anna.

“Shooting. That’s a gentleman’s method. Shoot your man,—quick,—ping!—all over.”

“But the weapon?” said Loft, “how conceal it?”

“There’s where your cleverness gets in its fine work. I could do it. I could either cause the weapon to disappear,—or, with it, fasten the crime on another—oh, no, that way wouldn’t do,—they’d see through that,—well, then suppose—”

Knox’s voice drifted to incoherent mutterings.

He was thinking up and rejecting one plan after another so rapidly that language could not keep pace with his inventive mind.

“He’s off,” said Loft, smiling. “He’s in the throes of composition. But he’s wrong, and so are you, Bob, Stabbing is the only thing. Then, you see,—”

“Oh, yes, I know,” Bob growled. “Pick up the paper-cutter from the library table,—Florentine dagger sort of thing,—jab it in and leave it in the wound. Handkerchief wrapped round hand,—no fingerprints on aforesaid dagger. Butler down at seven A.M. Gives alarm—I always said, Val, you had no imagination. That’s the most hackneyed plot of all.”

“Needn’t use paper cutter if you don’t want to,” said Loft, imperturbably. “Take dagger along, if you like. Or use jack-knife,—or carver,—or long clipping-shears.”

“That’s new,” conceded Bob. “Clipping-shears are not hackneyed. Would you use ‘em open or shut?”

“An open and shut case,” said Knox, coming out of his reverie, but no one noticed him.

“You’ve omitted the best way of all,” said Pauline, her slow smile and whimsical glance robbing her speech of horror. “That’s poison.”

“Too hard to procure,” Knox said, thoughtfully. “Dramatic, in a way,—but not facile of achievement.”

“Oh, stop this talk,” and Anna shuddered. “You give me the willies!”

“Now, Anna, be reasonable,” Bob admonished her. “To our class of mentality,—and you said, yourself we were all interesting people,—no subject is taboo. Beside, you must be interested in these themes. It’s being done. Detective Fiction is no longer read solely by statesmen and College Professors. The movement has invaded the stage. Only sleuth plays are bought nowadays by our best managers.”

“Don’t talk more than you want to, Angel,” Pauline said, kindly. “I’ll relieve you for a while. Why, yes, Ned, one can get poison easily enough.”

“But how? Its sale is prohibited—”

“But no prohibition ever really prohibited anything. It only makes it more difficult to come by—”

“And therefore, more attractive,” suggested Loft. “I’m not surprised, though, Pauline, at your choice of method, for poison is preeminently a woman’s way. You girls couldn’t manage a shooting or a stabbing, nor, unless you’ve gone in strong for athletics, could you pull off a successful strangle,—but poison, now, ah, there you have it.”

“There you don’t have it,” cut in Bob. “Notwithstanding Pauline’s jaunty assurance, I’ll bet no one of us interesting people here would know how to go about getting enough poison to kill a baby!”

“Oh, you have to know the chemist, I suppose, or have a club chum who knows him,” Loft said; “of course, if I wanted poison I’d get it,—beyond all manner of doubt. But it implies premeditation and preparation and a certain intimacy with one’s victim, and then there’s always the vial to be disposed of.”

“It might be a powder,” said Pauline.

“You could eat the paper, if necessary,” added Bob. “The vial of course you couldn’t.”

“More and better authors than ever are writing detective stories, aren’t they?” Knox said. “I believe I’ll try one.”

“Short or long?”

“Have to be short,—Never write books. I say, that Curran chap is doing some corkers.”

“Hugh Curran? Indeed he is! I’ve just read his ‘Brick Walls’ and ‘Mystery of the Monastery,’ and they’re all a first rate Detective story ought to be.” Bob spoke enthusiastically. “By Jove, I’d like to know that fellow.”

“If you’ll be a good boy and stay here this weekend, I’ll invite him over,” said Loft, smiling.

“Do you know him?” cried Anna. “Oh, do ask him! I never met a real author! Husbands don’t count,” and she flung a merry smile at Ned. “What’s he like, Valentine?”

“I’ve only met him once,—at the Sports Club. But he seemed all there, and he’s a friend of the Gedneys and the Bowles’ so he must be righto. By the way, Angel, he’s a book collector of great wealth, so you can put a few over on him. Rich book collectors never know anything.”

“Don’t they?” and Baldwin smiled.

Though not a regular book dealer, Angel Bob was a connoisseur, and negotiated personal orders for exceedingly rare and very expensive works. He had bought and sold more than one Folio Shakespeare and Gutenberg Fragment to his own advantage as well as that of his satisfied clients.

Imaginative, visionary, vague in many ways, Baldwin was of accurate and sure knowledge where Rares and Antiques were concerned. He loved the old books; the print, the paper, the bindings, all were of intense interest to him. He had bought several choice specimens for Loft, at attractive prices, and he had even sold a few things to Hugh Curran himself.

Not under his own name. As a matter of business policy, Angel Bob thought it no harm to use the fictitious firm name of Baldwin and Co.

But this was an open secret, and his friends often chaffed the Angel on his Trade. At which he good-naturedly smiled and continued his still hunt for special finds which he could buy for a song and sell for a chorus.

“Tell us about him,—what’s he like?” begged Anna.

“I didn’t notice him much,—it was a fortnight ago, before I’d read any of his books. It was at luncheon, and all I remember is that he salted every dish before he even tasted it.”

“Poor compliment to the cook,” said Pauline; “he might at least taste first, and give her the benefit of the doubt.”

“No,” Knox objected, “you don’t see it right, Pauly. I’m sure he requires more salt than the average man, so he puts it in first. That, to my mind, is more polite than to taste, and then add salt. That seems a reproof. The first is merely a precaution, knowing his own idiosyncrasy.”

“Oh, Ned! You and your psycho-analysis!”

“That isn’t psych anything. It’s imagination. Well, when we get Curran here we can ask him all about the best and cheapest modes of murder. By the way, I’ve heard that Curran isn’t his real name. What is, Valentine?”

“I don’t know. I think I was told, too, but I’ve forgotten. Everybody calls him Curran or Hugh.”

“He hasn’t been writing but a few years,—strange his pseudonym sticks to him so.”

“He was a movie actor for a couple of years previous, I believe. He used the name of Hugh Curran there, too.”

“I suppose few movie actors use their real names. What does he look like?”

“Oh, tall, dark, holler-eyed, cadaverous, lantern-jawed,—”

“I know what Val means!” giggled Anna, “he means he’s tired of the subject!”

“Not quite that,” Loft denied, “but I don’t remember how he looked,—so I made him up. You’ll see him in a few days,—can’t you wait?”

“I can,” Pauline said, quietly, “but I don’t see, dear, why you want a moving picture actor here.”

“Oh, he isn’t that any more. He’s now a prominent novelist and a popular author. Quite different, I assure you!”

“I’ll ask him to teach Neddie to write stories,” Anna declared, and returned her husband’s scowl by a friendly kiss.