Black-Eyed Stranger (5 page)

“Beg your pardon,” Sam said at the same moment.

“Yes?” Meaning, he judged, now who the devil are you?

“My name is Lynch. I'm waiting to see Miss Salisbury.”

“To see Katherine?” The woman came toward him, taking tiny steps on her teetering heels. “You are a friend of Katherine's?” she asked, but it was only recognition, or perhaps welcome.

“Yes, ma'am.”

“I am Katherine's mother.” Her hand was put forth. Sam was too astonished to touch it.

“You are!” he said in flat amazement.

“Of course. I am Martha Salisbury.” The woman laughed. “What a beautiful image of surprise. You and I are going to get along nicely.”

He touched her hand, then. It was cool and small, with coral nails. She said, “But does Katherine know you're here?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“I do like that. Ma'am.” She picked up a bright fabric bag from the corner of a chair. “So many of the young men are using it now. The war, I dare say. Were you in the Service, Mr. Lynch?”

“I was in it,” he said, studying her. “Although I'm not so young, ma'am.”

“Sit down, please do.” He waited for her to seat herself. Something about her made manners imperative. She took out of the blue and yellow bag some bright blue yarn tangled with coral knitting needles. “I haven't heard your name before, but of course that means nothing. Have you known Kay long?”

Her pretty mouth was painted coral. She was a lady, but such a little doll of a lady. The face was not quite so young, close up, but it was pretty. She had an arch to her nostrils, a dainty and well-boned little nose.

“I met her once, ma'am,” Sam said. He was wondering what to do.

“And she made an impression,” Martha Salisbury nodded. “Katherine does, rather.”

“She goes to the Starke School. Every day.” Sam neither raised nor dropped his voice.

Mrs. Salisbury tipped her head, not sure whether he questioned or answered. “She's a day student,” she murmured. “We like her at home. You met her at the school, Mr. Lynch?”

“It was at a party,” Sam said, not meaning to sound evasive, still wondering what to do.

“One meets so many people at parties,” she smiled reassuringly. “Isn't this a lovely day?”

He fidgeted. “I'm an old newspaperman, Mrs. Salisbury.” He was trying to lead into something. But her brows lifted, her eyes teased him, as if to say, now, I didn't ask. “No, you didn't ask,” he said stolidly, “but that's what I am.”

“Are you here, as such?” She was puzzled.

“No. No, not that. You see, Mrs. Salisbury …” But he wasn't sure. He didn't quite know what he ought to do. She seemed too fragile for his news. And this confused him.

“I don't mean to be a suspicious parent, you know,” she smiled. “I didn't even mean to sit down. But you looked interesting.” Her hands were skillful with the needles and the yarn.

His face hardened. “Can anybody get in here like this?” He was almost insolent.

But she laughed. “You mean do I often stumble over strange people in my drawing room? Well, yes. I do. Strange to me, that is. Kay has many friends, and, of course, I don't always know who they are.” He felt his scalp move. “Have you an ash receiver there, Mr. Lynch?” She bent to see. “Ah, yes, I see you have. What kind of newspaperman are you?”

“I write about crime,” he said, throwing the word in bluntly, his black eyes watching her. “Exclusively.”

“Oh, dear!” Her hands pressed the yarn in a little gesture of distress. “Do you? Oh, don't you find that depressing?”

His scalp moved; his hair stirred.

“I should think one would grow very weary of the seamy side. Do you
like
it?” she asked. He couldn't find an answer. He had the impulse to hang on to his chair. “My daughter's fiancé,” she went on, and a flick of her eye noted that this was not news to Sam, “is very much interested in crime, too.”

“Is that so?” said Sam numbly.

“We hear a certain amount about it. Because Alan rather studies it, these days. As a part of his all-round education. Alan has some theories.”

Sam sunk his chin. “I'm sure he has,” he muttered.

“Alan says that almost any social outcast can be rehabilitated. Do you think so, Mr. Lynch?”

Sam's face darkened, and his eye flashed, and she opened her coral lips in surprise at his reaction. “That's a word I happen to dislike,” he muttered awkwardly. “I don't know. Some words you take a dislike to. Or at least I do.” He squirmed. “I hate it.”

“Why, that's true!” she said, delighted. “Do you know, I never thought of it, but I hate some words, too. ‘Poignant,' for instance. It makes me shudder. Does it, you?”

“I'm neutral on that one, ma'am.” Sam tried to grin. He rubbed his head. She made him slightly dizzy. It was like watching a petal spin on the skin of a wave, a pretty petal that could never sink.

“You're a writer. Of course you must feel for words.” She smiled at her work. “It's nice to see a man absorbed by what he is doing. Alan is quite a brilliant boy. He is so earnest. One day, I suppose, it will all bear fruit and he will be quite a great sociologist or social scientist or whatever the term is.”

“Do-gooder,” offered Sam, rather helplessly.

“And so, of course, crime fascinates him, as a social symptom, you see? But, do you know, Mr. Lynch, I'm afraid it doesn't fascinate me. To me it's unhappy. It's just unfortunate. I rather feel,” she cocked her head, “that if the underworld lets me alone, why, I let it alone, you know?” She laughed quite merrily.

Sam put his hands down and curled them on the edge of his chair.

“There, now you think I'm a giddy female.” She sighed. “Perhaps I am. Perhaps I'm just not hopeful. Crime we have always with us, like the poor. At least in my lifetime. It's only that I know my place, Mr. Lynch. You men may be in a position to do something about it. Men like you and Alan.”

“You've got me wrong, ma'am,” said Sam savagely. He would not be yoked with Alan Dulain. “I'm a reporter. Don't twist it. A reporter is someone who sees what goes on and simply reports it.”

“Yes?”

“That's all.” He was pretty twisted himself, he thought. He gave it up.

“I see,” she frowned. “That's your definition of a newspaperman?” She considered it. What she considered was an arrangement of words. He felt she could memorize and repeat them. But she was afloat. She would veer and shift with a turn in the phrase. Petal on the surface.

“I guess so,” he said feebly. He gave her up.

“Of course,” said Mrs. Salisbury with tender amusement, “my little Katherine is very much interested in crime, too.”

Sam had given up. He now could drawl, “Oh, is she? In what way, ma'am?”

“Oh, romantically, of course. You see, a woman in love is a chameleon, really. Twenty years ago, Mr. Lynch, I thought the sun rose and set with Salisbury's Biscuits.”

He didn't smile.

“Mr. Salisbury is, or was … Salisbury's Biscuits,” she said gently. “As perhaps you knew?”

“I know. Kind of cookies, aren't they?” Sam was solemn. “He made a lot of money with them, didn't he? I've seen his warehouse, his great big warehouse full of biscuits, and somebody watching over them, night and day.”

She opened her eyes very wide. “But, of course, Charles is retired,” she trilled. “He has almost nothing to do with such things as warehouses, any more.”

“Or so he thinks,” muttered Sam.

“I beg your pardon?”

He didn't repeat.

“The warehouse impressed you, Mr. Lynch?”

“It made a link,” Sam said gravely, “in a story.”

“Why, isn't that interesting!” cried she. “And you write stories, too?”

Then her daughter, Katherine, came dancing down the stairs.

Chapter 5

IT was like dancing. She was so young and her feet were so quick and sure and the short mane of her shining hair bounced in the rhythm of her flying descent. She wore a chocolate brown skirt and a sweater the color of pale toast, and the quick, slim, sure, young feet were in flat brown pumps with round toes. She came dancing over the carpet.

“Hello. I'm sorry. I was writing a letter, and all over ink. I can't get it off. How nice of you to come to see me.

He winced at the impact of her welcome. She put her hand in his and he looked down at the scrubbed fingers, the ink stain that wasn't quite gone, and something ached in his breast. All of a sudden he was terrified again, and tense, and in a hurry.

“Mother, have you met Mr. Sam Lynch?”

“Of, course, dear. He presented himself, and very nicely. We've been chatting away like old cronies, really.” Mrs. Salisbury's pretty little hands were stuffing the yarn into the bag.

“What I wanted …” Sam began harshly. “I came …”

“To see Katherine. Of course,” said her mother serenely. She rose, balancing her trim little body tiptoe, because of her ridiculous heels. “And since I came after my knitting, you know, in the first place—”

“No, ma'am. Please don't go. I …”

“Now, that's very sweet.” She cocked her head. “But you'll find I'm quite well trained. I do know my place.” He closed his mouth.

“Silly,” said the girl, wrinkling her nose.

Her mother put a forefinger on the girl's own short straight well-boned little nose, so like her own, and she pushed it, playfully. “He's very nice, sweetie. Your Mr. Lynch. He calls me ma'am, and I do enjoy that.” She smiled at Sam. “I hope you will come again.”

Sam stood there. He should have said, “Thank you,” and maybe he did. She prompted a man to his manners. But he held on to the back of the chair beside him, just the same, and silently, he watched her trip away and rise sedately up the stairs.

Kay whirled around and looked at him. “What's the matter?”

He groped for the chairback with his other hand, too, and he bent over it. “She's knocked me for some kind of loop, your mother has. Sister, I'm scared.”

“Scared! Mother? Scared you?”

“Uh huh,” he said nervously. “Yeah.”

“But she's—Nobody in the world is more harmless! What—”

“Who trained her?” he murmured. “Who taught her her place?”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“I know you don't,” he groaned. “Never mind.” He flopped into the chair.

“But she
liked
you. I could tell.”

“Because of a word,” Sam said. “Because I called her ma'am. Because I remembered my manners.”

Her eyes sparked. “Mother's not stupid. She's a very good judge.”

He shook his head. “Look, don't people keep track of their kids any more? I'm out of date? The modern world has passed me by?”

The girl laughed at him. She tucked herself into a chair, sitting on her foot, and the tooth was definitely out of line on the right side of her laughing mouth. “Oh, my goodness!” Her eyes were half size with the rise of her cheeks, and bright and brimming, and her mirth was a pretty thing. A laughing girl was a most delightful thing. “But I'm not a
kid,
for heaven's sake! What did you and mother
say?
”

“I told her,” he said glumly, “we met at a party.” The girl sobered. “She took that for an answer.”

“It is an answer.”

“No,” he said.

“You mean you didn't tell her whose party?” The girl's face pinkened.

“
That
she didn't ask.”

“It's just as well,” Kay murmured. “Mother's sweet but a perfect sieve. It's Daddy who would be upset, I'm afraid. He's the old-fashioned one. But you're … funny. You really don't look old-fashioned, Mr. Lynch.”

“Is Daddy around?” he asked sharply.

“I think so,” she was vague. She looked a little stubborn. “After all,” she declared, “if I hadn't gone to the party, we wouldn't have met. You wouldn't be here.”

“I know,” he said.

“Didn't you have a good time at the party?”

His black eyes, resting on her face, despaired. He sucked a long breath in and sighed it out again. “After you left,” he stated coldly, “one of the guests inquired. Wanted to know what kind of girl you were.”

“Now, isn't that flattering!” she beamed.

“No. It wasn't.”

The twinkle on her face vanished as if he had slapped her. Sam said, furiously, “You don't know what it's all about, any more than she does. Talk about giddy! How am I going to tell you anything? You're a baby.”

“Did you come to scold me?” the girl asked plaintively.

“It looks like I came to talk to your father,” he snapped. “Right away. Fix it, will you?”

Her face clouded, and her lashes fell. “Then you didn't come to see me at all?” He made an exasperated sound. “We did have such an interesting talk.” The lashes went up. “I thought it was fun. Didn't you? I thought perhaps you wanted to talk some more.”

“Sister,” he groaned. “No. There's no profit in any more interesting talk between you and me. And you know it. Now, quit with this, will you?”

“But, I don't know it,” she insisted. “I don't see why—”

“Check back,” he said grimly. “You made your boy friend give you a glimpse of what your mamma calls the underworld. You thought it was fun to look in a minute, on the other half. Hm?” Her lips parted. “And we talked. You and I. But your boy must have told you since. Sam Lynch is friends with the wrong people. Maybe he told you I'm one of the crooked ones? That so?” She winced. “Only
you,
in your wisdom, thought it was quite a lot of fun to have me at your side, telling you inside stuff. You said I was so kind. But you really thought I was attracted. And whatever you've been told, you feel pretty powerful, such a queen of a little lamb, don't you, sister? Or you wouldn't mind setting up a friendly little flirtation with a tall dark sinister character like me. And be my little pet lamb, immune, of course, to any hurt, because you appeal to my innate honor which is only dormant.” He was furious. “
Isn't that so?
”