Читать книгу The Yellow Room (Musaicum Vintage Mysteries) - Mary Roberts Rinehart - Страница 4

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The trip to Boston was a nightmare. The train was jammed with a Sunday crowd, and stopped frequently with a jerk that almost broke her neck. It was still hot and her mind was filled with the events of the past three days.

Any attempt to locate Greg in Washington had met with failure, and Mrs. Spencer had taken refuge in her bedroom and a dignified silence. Then on Sunday she had openly rebelled.

“I think I’ll go with you, Carol,” she said. “I might as well. If all Elinor provides me with is a place to sleep and food to eat, I see no reason for staying.”

It had taken Carol a half hour to persuade her to stay. June was often cold in Maine, and the house would be damp anyhow, she said. Also the girls would have all they could do. Her mother would certainly be uncomfortable. Better to wait a few days. At least she was well housed and well fed where she was.

And that crisis was barely over when she had a visit from Virginia Demarest. Virginia was a tall slim redheaded girl, very pretty and very young, and just now very indignant.

“I wish you’d tell me where Greg is,” she said. “Or don’t you know either? I haven’t heard from him since he left San Francisco for Washington the first of the week.”

She lit a cigarette and threw the match away almost violently.

“We only know he’s in this country, Virginia. We are opening Crestview for him. Not my idea,” Carol added hastily, seeing Virginia’s face. “Mother thinks he needs to be cool after where he’s been. He’s somewhere in Washington probably. He was to get his medal or whatever it is this week. Of course he’s busy.”

“There are telephones in Washington,” Virginia said stormily. “All the phones in the country seem to have been sent there. Also I presume they still sell three-cent stamps. What does Elinor say?”

“She’s in New York. She hasn’t heard either.”

Virginia eyed her.

“She and Greg are a pretty close corporation, aren’t they?”

Carol smiled.

“I came along later,” she said. “Rather as an unpleasant surprise, I gather. Yes, they’re fond of each other.”

Virginia was not listening. She was looking at a photograph of Greg, tall and handsome in his flying clothes and helmet. Her truculence had gone now. She put out her cigarette and glanced rather helplessly at Carol.

“There’s something wrong,” she said. “Something’s happened to him. Ever since he left after his last leave his letters have been different. I suppose men can fall out of love as well as in.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Carol said, with spirit. “If ever I saw a man who had gone overboard completely it was Greg. Of course his letters are different. They had to be read by a censor. You know that.”

But Virginia was not convinced.

“They have girls out there,” she said. “Nurses, Wacs, all sorts. He may have found someone he likes. He’s no child. He’s thirty-four, and he’s been around. You know him.”

Carol knew him, she admitted to herself. She had always adored him, his good looks, his debonair manners, even the lightness with which he threw off his occasional lapses. It had been she, years ago, who had slipped to him the headache tablets or even the Scotch which braced him the morning after so that he could face the family. And she had understood him better than Elinor.

“You’d better grow up soon,” she had told him one morning, standing long-legged and gawky by his bed. He grinned at her.

“Why?” he inquired. “God, what awful mess is this?” He took it, grimacing. “It’s fun to be young, Carol. Or it was last night.”

She roused herself when she reached Boston. She managed to get to the North Station in a taxi which threatened to break down at any moment, and she found there three tired and discouraged women servants who had had no dinner and were standing by the bags they had carried themselves. Only Maggie, the cook, gave her a thin smile.

“Well, we’ve got this far, Miss Carol,” she said. “And if you know where we can get a cup of coffee—”

She got them fed after some difficulty, sitting with them at the table and trying to swallow a dry cheese sandwich. They cheered considerably after the food.

There were no porters to be had. They lugged their bags to the train and got aboard. It had taken on the aspects of adventure to the two younger girls, especially since Carol was with them. But when she tried to enter her drawing room the door was locked, and the porter said it was already occupied. It was useless to protest. If two tickets had been sold for the same room, you could blame the war and anyone who protested was unpatriotic.

She smoked a cigarette in the women’s room before she crawled resignedly into her lower berth. She supposed everything was all right. Elinor would be at home by this time, and Virginia would have heard from Gregory. But her depression continued. Partly of course it was the thought of men fighting and dying all over the world. Partly it was the belonging to what her friends called the “new poor” and having a mother who refused to change her standard of living. And partly it was an odd sense of apprehension, compounded partly of her dislike for returning to Crestview, where before the war Don Richardson had courted her so gaily and won her so easily. To escape she tried to plan about the house. Lucy had had too short notice to have done much, but at least she would be there, small, brisk and efficient. In that hopeful mood she finally went to sleep, and it persisted even when at six the next morning they got out onto a chilly station platform and looked for the taxi Lucy was to send.

There was no taxi there, only a sleepy station agent who regarded the summer people as unavoidable nuisances and disappeared as soon as the train moved on. There was a small restaurant not far away, and after a wait they got some coffee. But no taxi arrived, and at last Carol managed to locate one for the ten-mile drive.

It was cold. The girls shivered in their summer coats, and Carol herself felt discouraged. She did her best to keep up their morale, pointing out the fresh green of the trees and when they reached it the beauty of the sea.

“Look,” she said. “There’s a seal. They’re usually gone by this time. I suppose with no motorboats around—”

“It’s awfully lonely,” said Freda. Freda was the house maid, young and rather timid. “I feel all cut off from everything.”

“You feel cool too, don’t you?” said Maggie briskly. “After the fuss you made about the heat. Just feel that air! Ain’t it something?”

There was of course plenty of air, all of it icy, and Freda shivered.

“I’ll be glad to get into a warm house,” she said. “Where are we? At the North Pole?”

Nora, the parlormaid-waitress, had kept quiet. She was not much of a talker at any time, but she looked blue around the lips and Carol felt uneasy. If the girls didn’t stay—

“Mrs. Norton will have breakfast ready,” she said. “The house will be warm, too. And the lilacs ought to be lovely still. They come out late here.”

No one said anything. The taxi had passed Colonel Richardson’s cottage and turning in at the drive was winding its way up the hill to the house. Carol began to have a feeling of home-coming as the familiar road unwound. They passed the garage and the old stable, unused for years; not, she remembered, since Gregory had kept a saddle mare there and she her pony. She took off her hat and let the air blow through her dark hair.

“Look, there are some lilacs,” she said, hoping for a cheerful response. No one said anything. They made the last turn and before them lay the house, big and massive and white. It faced out over the harbor, but the entrance was at the rear, with the service wing to the left and what had been her father’s study to the right. She saw the two younger women eying it.

“It looks big,” Nora said, doubt in her voice.

“It’s not as large as it looks,” Carol said briskly. “It’s built around an open court. I wonder what has happened to Lucy?”

Except that the winter storm doors and windows had been removed, the house looked strangely unoccupied. The front door was closed, and no small brisk figure rushed to greet them. They got out and Carol paid off the taxi, but there was still no sign of movement in the house. Also to her amazement she found the door locked, and while the women stood disconsolately among their bags and the car departed with a swish of gravel she got out her keys. The door opened, she stepped inside, to be greeted only by freezing air and a vague, rather unpleasant odor.

The women followed her in, looking sulky.

“I can’t imagine what has happened,” she said. “Mrs. Norton must be sick. If you get a fire started in the kitchen, Maggie, I’ll telephone and find out.”

She put her hat and bag on the console table in the hall. It was impossible to take off her coat, and except for Maggie, starting toward her kitchen, nobody had moved. The two girls stood as if poised for flight.

“What’s the smell?” Freda said. “It’s like something’s been burned.”

“Leave the door open,” Carol said impatiently. “Mrs. Norton has been here. She may have scorched something. Go on back with Maggie.”

She went along the passage around the patio to the library. The old study was untouched, and the covers were still on the hall chairs at the foot of the wide staircase at the side of the house. But the covering was off the shallow pool in the patio, and the shutters off the French doors and windows opening on it. To her relief she found that at least an attempt had been made to make the library livable. The rug was down, the dust covers were gone, some of the photographs and ornaments were in place, and a log fire had been laid, ready for lighting.

She put a match to it and straightened, feeling somewhat better as the dry logs caught. But the odor—whatever it was—had penetrated even here. She opened the French door onto the terrace and stood there looking out. The air was fresh, and the view had always rested her. The islands were green jewels in the blue water, and a mile or so away she could see the town of Bayside, small and prim among its trees. She drew a long breath and turned to the telephone.

It was not there. She gazed in dismay at the desk where it had stood. The silver cigarette box was there as always. The little Battersea patch case was in its place, as was the desk pad and the old Sheffield inkstand with the candles to melt the wax and the snuffers to extinguish them. But the telephone was gone.

Something else was there, however, which made her stop and stare. On the ash tray lay a partially smoked cigarette, and there was lipstick on it.

Lucy Norton neither smoked nor used lipstick, and Carol looked down at it incredulously. Then she smiled. Of course someone had dropped in. Marcia Dalton perhaps, or Louise Stimson. Almost any of the women of the summer colony, climbing the hill and coming in to rest, could have left it. Nevertheless, her feeling of uneasiness returned. She moved swiftly through the adjoining living room and dining room to the pantry and kitchen. Maggie had taken an apron from her suitcase and was tying it around her ample waist. The two girls were standing like a coroner’s jury, reserving decision.

“I’m afraid some of the telephones have been taken out,” she said with assumed brightness. “Is the one in the kitchen hall still there, Maggie?”

Maggie opened a door and glanced back.

“It’s gone,” she said. “Looks like they’ve taken them all.”

“Good heavens,” Carol said. “What on earth will we do?”

“Folks lived a long time without them,” Maggie said philosophically. “I guess we’ll manage. What do you think that smell is, Miss Carol? There’s nothing been burned here.”

It was not bad in the kitchen, although it was noticeable. Not unexpectedly, Freda, the youngest of the three, broke first.

“I’m not staying,” she said hysterically. “I didn’t plan to be sent to the end of the world, and frozen too. And that smell makes me sick. I’m giving you notice this minute, Miss Spencer.”

Carol fought off the nightmare sensation that was beginning to paralyze her.

“Now look, Freda,” she said reasonably, her face a little set, “you can’t leave. Not right away, anyhow. I can’t call a taxi. The cars in the garage have no gasoline and no batteries. They’re jacked up anyhow. There’s not even a train until tonight.”

Maggie took hold then.

“Don’t be a little fool, Freda,” she said. “I expect Mrs. Norton’s ordered the groceries. You take off your hat and coat, and I’ll make hot coffee. We’ll all feel better then.”

A hasty inspection of the supply closet revealed no groceries, however. There was an empty coffee can and the heel of a loaf of bread. In the refrigerator were a couple of eggs, a partly used jar of marmalade, and a few slices of bacon on a plate. Maggie’s face was grim. She looked up at the eight-day kitchen clock, which was still going.

“If that lazy George Smith’s here we can send him into town,” she said. “Go out and see if you can find him, Nora. He’s the gardener—or he says he is.”

She ordered Freda to the cellar for coal, and under protest Freda went. Carol sat down on a kitchen chair while Maggie looked at her with concern.

“You’re too young to have all this wished on you,” she said, with the familiarity of her twenty years of service. “Don’t take it too hard. Somebody’s sick at Lucy’s, most likely. I don’t know why your mother got this idea anyhow. Mr. Greg won’t come. He’s got only thirty days and probably he’ll want to get married. It’s a pity,” she added grimly, “that you and Mr. Don didn’t get married before he left.”

Because Carol was tired and worried, tears came into her eyes. She brushed them away impatiently.

“That’s all over, Maggie,” she said. “We have to carry on.”

Then Freda came back, gingerly carrying a pail partly filled with coal, and Maggie started to fight a fire. The odor—whatever it was—was not strong here, but when Maggie poured a little kerosene onto the coals and dropped a match into it, Carol realized the odor was much the same. Perhaps Lucy had started the furnace fire that way.

Nora came back, shivering, from the grounds. “I don’t see anybody,” she reported. “The grass has been cut here and there, but there’s nobody out there.”

She huddled by the stove, and Carol got up abruptly.

“Something’s happened to Lucy,” she said. “Take over, Maggie, and get started. I’ll go down to the village and find out what’s wrong. I’ll order some groceries too. The Miller market will be open now.”

“One of the girls can do it,” Maggie objected.

But Carol refused. She was worried about Lucy. Also she knew what was needed, and how to find it. And—although she did not say it—she wanted to get out of the house. Always before when she came it had been warm and welcoming, but that day it was different. It felt, she thought shiveringly, like a tomb.