Читать книгу The Winter Murder Case - Willard Huntington Wright - Страница 6

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(Wednesday, January 15; 9 p.m.)

Markham notified Carrington Rexon, and we left New York the following afternoon in Vance’s Hispano-Suiza.

It was a cold, clear day, and fresh snow had fallen during the night. The drive to Winewood in the Berkshires would ordinarily have taken about five hours, but the roads north of the city were deep in snow, and we were late in arriving at the Rexon estate. Darkness had settled early, but the night was white with stars, and the moon was luminous.

It was nearly nine o’clock when we turned in through a wide stone gateway that marked the outer limits of the vast estate. There was no one to direct us, and when we had reached the crest of a high rocky hill, Vance was confused as to which turning to take. There were half-hidden tracks in one of the forks of the narrow road, and we turned to the right to follow them.

A mile or so farther on, the road sloped gently downward into a narrow snowclad valley at the far end of which precipitous cliffs rose to a tree-crested plateau. Vance let the car coast noiselessly into the still white fairyland.

As we reached the base of the long incline the sound of faint music came to us through the trees on our left. There was no habitation visible, and the music intensified the fantasy of the setting which spread before us.

Applying the brakes, Vance stopped the car and, stepping out, moved towards the source of the lilting notes.

We had gone scarcely a hundred yards when, through the trees which hid us from view, we spied a small frozen pond on which a girl was skating. The music came from a small portable phonograph placed on a rustic bench at the edge of the pond.

The girl, in a simple white skating costume, seemed unreal in the light of the moon and stars. She was going through one difficult skating figure after another with serious repetition, as if trying to perfect their intricacies. Vance suddenly became attentive.

“My word!” he whispered. “Magnificent skating!”

He stood fascinated by the girl’s proficiency as she executed various school figures and complicated free routines.

The phonograph ran down and, as the girl completed an involved jump and spiral spin, Vance approached her with a cheerful greeting. At first she was startled; then she smiled shyly.

“You must be new guests at the Manor,” she remarked in a timid voice. “I’m so sorry you caught me skating. It’s sort of a secret, you see. . . . Maybe you won’t tell anyone,” she added with a note of appeal in her voice.

“Of course, we shan’t.” Vance studied the girl critically. “I believe I remember you—I was at the Manor some years ago. Weren’t you the friend and companion of Miss Joan?”

She nodded. “I was. And I still am. I’m Ella Gunthar. But I don’t remember you. It must have been when I was a little girl.”

“My name is Philo Vance,” Vance told her. “I was just driving to the Manor, and lost my way. When I heard your music I came over in the hope of finding my bearings.”

“You’re not seriously lost,” she said. “This is the Green Glen and if you go back up the hill and take the narrow road to the right for about a mile, you’ll see the Manor just ahead.”

Vance thanked her, but lingered a moment. “Tell me, Miss Gunthar: if you are Joan’s companion at the Manor, why do you skate on this little pond so far away from the main house?”

The girl’s lovely face seemed to cloud for a moment.

“I—I don’t want to hurt Joan’s feelings,” she answered cryptically. “I always come to the Green Glen at night when my duties are over at the Manor, to do my skating.”

“But the phonograph,” said Vance; “isn’t it frightfully heavy to carry all this way?”

“Oh, I don’t keep it at the Manor.” She laughed. “I keep it in Jed’s hut, just around the curve in the road, by that big cypress tree. And I keep my skates and skating clothes there, too. It’s all a secret between Jed and me.”

Vance smiled at her reassuringly.

“Well, I promise the secret will go no farther. But it’s really a magnificent secret. You know, don’t you, that you skate beautifully? You’re one of the most talented performers I have ever seen.”

The girl blushed with pleasure.

“I love skating,” she replied simply.

A few minutes later we had turned into the driveway to the brilliantly lighted Rexon Manor.

As a bald elderly butler led us through the lower hall we could hear the boisterous hilarity of many guests in the drawing room—snatches of popular music, laughter, raised voices: a gay and youthful clamor.

Carrington Rexon, alone in his den, greeted us with old-world dignity. It was the first time I had met him, but I was not unfamiliar with his features, as pictures of him had frequently appeared in the Metropolitan press. He was a tall, slender, impressive man in his sixties; aloof and stern, and with an imperious air of feudalism. He vaguely suggested Sargent’s famous portrait of Lord Ribblesdale.

“Ah, Vance! It was generous of you to come. Perhaps you think I am unduly apprehensive. . . .”

The door opened and a dark, serious young man of athletic build stood on the threshold.

Rexon turned without surprise.

“My son Richard,” he informed us with undisguised pride. Then: “But why are you deserting our guests?”

“I’m a bit fed up.” Then the young man shrugged his shoulders apologetically and smiled. “I guess I’m not used to it. It’s such a change——”

A girl of about twenty-five appeared in the doorway and looked about.

The elder Rexon somewhat relaxed his stern manner and presented us. Her likeness, too, I had seen many times in the New York papers. Carlotta Naesmith had been a vivid and gifted debutante a few years before. She was a colorful auburn-haired young woman, animated and vital, with sagacious eyes and an air of self-assurance. She nodded to us casually, and turned to young Rexon.

“Completely overcome, Dick? Has the gaiety got you down? Come, don’t desert the ship just when the sea’s getting stormy.”

“I think Carlotta is quite right, Richard,” Carrington Rexon commented. “You came home for relaxation. Forget your scalpels and microbes for a while. Go on back with Carlotta, and take Mr. Vance with you. He’ll want to meet your friends.”