Deadly Nightshade (15 page)

“She needn't have any more, so far as we're concerned,” said Mitchell, annoyed. “I bet we can keep her secrets better than you have, anyway.”

Gamadge intervened. “Talking of secrets; was there any secret about that picture deal you arranged for old Mr. Bartram, in 1925 or 1927, Mr. Ormiston?”

“Picture deal?” Ormiston, busy at his sketch, did not turn; he continued to elaborate the pattern of Martha's bandanna, as he asked: “What picture deal?”

“Some pictures the old gentleman bought in Paris of an impoverished French nobleman, or somebody.”

“Oh, I remember. The only secret about it was that poor old Buissonville didn't want the business talked about.”

“What were the pictures?”

Ormiston turned, and said angrily: “What is all this? Do the Bartrams want to buy them back again? I shall be delighted. They are still in my studio in New York, waiting until I have time to bother with them—if that time ever comes. It would be exactly like George Bartram to hear about my having them, and begin lying awake worrying for fear lest I should have got 'em too cheap. Is he in this country again, by the way? He would be. Where peril is, George Bartram is not. Lord! When I think of that decent old gentleman, and what he got for sons—a moneygrubber and a playboy!”

Gamadge waited until this outburst had subsided, and then said, gently: “I should like to know what the pictures were. An interesting point came up while I was at the Bartrams' this morning—”

“I cannot imagine an interesting point coming up at the Bartrams', this morning or at any other time. Duller dogs than those brothers never lived. George, of course, is a clod; Carroll's a crashing philistine, with the brain and vision of one of his own silkworms. And I don't say that,” he concluded, rubbing his nose, “because he deprived me of my fatal beauty. I forgave him a long time ago, when the old man sent me to Paris. I'll tell you something: If it wasn't for Bob Loring, those two Bartrams would have perished of their own inanity long since.”

“I rather wondered why old Mr. Bartram cared to acquire these pictures.”

“Merely because of the goodness of his heart. Buissonville needed the money, and he had these daubs—one of 'em was quite a nice little seventeenth century Dutch interior, though; the last of the family collection, and not worth much; painter unknown. I advised him to pay the six hundred Buissonville wanted, for the sake of that one, and take the others so as not to hurt the old fellow's feelings. They were horrid things by his son-in-law—who couldn't paint at all. Barbizon school, at its fuzziest and worst.”

“And you took them off Mrs. Bartram's hands for six hundred dollars?”

“Plus duties, which weren't much. The old lady was delighted.”

“Bartram seemed to think there was some joke or other about the Dutch picture.”

“Now I come to think of it, there was. Old Mr. Bartram and I used to say that we were going to put it on the market as a lost Vermeer, and see if we couldn't fool some of those Boston critics that thought my work so repulsive. Of course I put him up to it; he didn't know Vermeer from Vanderdecken. We half thought we'd stage a show for a few people, ask their advice and opinion, see what came of it. But it was sailing too close to the wind for the dear old boy; he was afraid some pompous ass might take the joke seriously.”

“Has Buissonville—that his name?”

“Charles de Buissonville. Yes.”

“Has he any more pictures to sell?”

“He's dead.”

“Oh. I'm fond of a bargain myself. Nothing I like better than hunting up lost Vermeers in dealers' attics.”

“You can't have mine. Old Mr. Bartram said he was going to leave it to me in his will—Make my fortune, you know. But he didn't, of course; people never do. He died suddenly, you know.”

“Wasn't any of his stuff appraised?”

“Bless you, there was never any question of that. All his property except the mills went to Mrs. Bartram. There wasn't as much property as they thought—again, there never is; so the brothers purchased an annuity for the old lady. How they must be suffering over that now! I saw her will in the paper, last June; a few thousands between the boys, and the jewelry to young—” His face changed. “That was tough,” he said. “What happened to young Julia, I mean. Is Bartram badly knocked up?”

“Rather badly, I should say.”

“I keep forgetting; but still, that catastrophe doesn't alter the fact that he was an oaf. Probably is still.”

Gamadge laughed. “‘Oaf' is the last word I should apply to him. Well, we shall have to see Miss Strangways, but I assure you that we shan't distress her more than can be helped. Something must be done to clear up this nightshade mystery, if possible.”

“Oh, let it alone. You'll never find out anything.”

“Would you say that if one of your own children had had the poison, Mr. Ormiston?” Mitchell, who had risen, walked to the doorway behind Gamadge, but stopped there to survey the artist with some displeasure.

“Yes, I should. What does Bob Loring say about it, by the way? He's a man of sense—or used to be.”

“Very much what you say,” Gamadge told him.

“You see! Save your constructive work for something more important,” Ormiston advised him. “If we weren't on the branch, I'd ask you to come again and see my summer work.”

“Thanks very much. We may come again, anyway.”

Odd Behavior of a Murderer's Cousin

“Y
OU CERTAINLY PUT YOUR
finger on what's been worrying me since Tuesday,” said Mitchell, as they drove past the cliff dwellings of Harper's Rocks.

“You would have put your finger on it yourself, sooner or later.”

“I'm not any too sure; but I did think she was pretty calm about the boy.”

“And pretty nervous about the other two. Do you suppose that Breck fellow knows? I think he must. He's up here as Miss Strangways' friend, or I miss my guess.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I don't believe his type would choose this way of working out a vacation unless he had some private reason for doing it. He looks competent and wiry.”

“Lots of young fellows, starting out in life and hard up—”

“His kind doesn't go in for baby tending. And it doesn't take orders from such as Ormiston. A disciple might; Breck isn't that.”

The car turned left, and began to round a blunt promontory; no human habitation was in sight; low rocks and pebbly sand separated the road from the ocean. A young woman sat on a log of driftwood, her drawing board propped up in front of her by means of a stick. A large box of water colors and a tin of water stood on the flat rock beside her, in front of which a yellow-haired little boy sat playing in the sand. As the car stopped, he pointed at it and said something. Miss Strangways turned, glanced at them, and then went on with her painting.

Mitchell and Gamadge got out and picked their way among the boulders. As they approached she looked over her shoulder again, and went on looking.

“Just a word, ma'am,” said Mitchell. “This is my friend Mr. Gamadge. We wanted to ask you something.”

Miss Strangways got up, placed the water-color board on the rock, and stared at them. Gamadge studied the oval, rather thin face, with its slate-blue eyes, wide forehead, and firm, large mouth. Her straight yellow hair, not much darker than Tommy's, was braided and worn flat against the back of her head. She had on a painter's gray linen overall, which nearly concealed her red-and-white cotton dress. He made up his mind.

“I'm sorry to interrupt your work,” he said; “I wanted to speak to you about your boy.”

Miss Strangways justified his first impression of her. She neither screamed nor fainted, nor did she burst into tears; but she turned pale under a healthy coat of tan.

“Mr. Ormiston told you,” she said.

“No, he didn't. I guessed it.”

“And then he told you the whole story.”

“Yes.”

She looked at Tommy, whose attention was engrossed by his building operations, and said with a kind of quiet desperation: “It will all come out. I knew it would. I don't think I can stand the publicity.”

Mitchell protested: “I don't know why you think there has to be any. If we don't have to, we won't say a thing; and we probably won't have to.”

“You don't understand. I was trying to make up my mind. Now it's been made up for me.”

Gamadge was looking at her painting, which was not a sketch of rock, sea and sand, but a bold and original study of seagulls, in flight against gray clouds. He said: “You won't have to leave Tommy in other people's care for long, Miss Strangways. Not at this rate. This is a lovely thing.” He added: “I suppose the Ormistons will let you have him back when you're ready to take him?”

“Yes. They've been awfully good to me.”

“I hope so. You look just a trifle underweight. I believe that you've been cooking for seven people, including two men?”

She answered his smile with a faint answering twitch of the lips. “It isn't so bad,” she said. “David Breck helps a lot, and so does Mrs. Ormiston, when she has time.”

“Squash me if I'm impertinent; I have a feeling that Mr. Breck is here on your account.”

“He's an old friend of mine. He would come; I begged him not to waste his summer.” She looked a little distressed, and Gamadge said quickly: “Don't you worry. Young men of his type spend their summers as they prefer; and here he comes now, on the run.”

Mr. Breck, in fact, was rounding the bend in the road at a fast trot. When he saw the group among the rocks he slowed, and finished the distance walking. Miss Strangways greeted him with a fair imitation of composure: “It's all right, Dave. You're in plenty of time.”

He cast a stern and unfriendly eye at the two men. “In time for what?”

“They know all about everything, and I didn't tell them.”

“Ormiston, I suppose. That fool's always bursting with it.”

“No; this gentleman says he guessed it. I knew somebody would, sooner or later.”

Breck addressed Mitchell with some heat: “See here; if you set the newspapers on this girl, it'll kill her. I mean that. She nearly died of it before—she was sick for months. If she hadn't been, do you suppose she'd have let Tom go?”

“I might have.” Miss Strangways emptied her tin, and replaced tubes of water color in her box. “I still think he'll be better off without me.”

“You think everybody will be better off without you. See here, Mr.—Gamadge, is it? Can't you persuade these people, state police, whoever it is that's making this investigation, to keep Miss Strangways out of it? If the papers get on her trail again they'll be the death of her, I tell you.”

Gamadge replied mildly: “I don't see why you are both so sure her identity will have to come out.”

Breck stared, and Miss Strangways explained, quickly: “They don't know about Evelyn, yet.”

“Then why bring it up? No reason why they should. Let it go, Mil.”

“No. I've made up my mind.” She faced Mitchell, and said calmly: “We're talking about Evelyn Walworth. You know who she is.”

“Yes, I do.” Mitchell spoke bluntly. “She was the one that got over the arsenic poisoning, and she was the principal witness at the trial.”

“Against her cousin Lawrence,” said Breck, excitedly. “And you know the kind of witness she made. Her own lawyer couldn't keep her from turning her evidence into an accusation of Millie, here. She practically asked them to acquit that devil, and put Millie in his place. If she hadn't been obviously demented, they might have done something about it, by Jove! As it was—”

“As it was,” said Mitchell, “nobody paid any attention to her.”

“Oh, didn't they! Do you remember the newspapers? Did you hear the talk?”

“There's always talk, when there's a murder trial.”

“There wouldn't have been enough to bother anybody, if it hadn't been for this malicious old creature. She never liked Millie; jealous of her. Wouldn't believe a word against her darling Lawrence.”

Millie Strangways frowned, and shook her head. “Nonsense, Dave. She was fond of him; that's what drove her out of her wits. You must see that she was only trying to persuade herself he couldn't have killed her father and mother, or wanted to kill her. She wasn't sane, and I don't wonder.”

Breck ignored this. “And now,” he went on, addressing Gamadge and Mitchell with a kind of frenzy, “Millie Strangways wants to forget all about it, and let this woman see her, and see Tom.”

“She has a right to see me, if she wants to, Dave. Perhaps you'd better take Tommy home.”

“Do you mean,” asked Mitchell, interested, “that she's in the neighborhood?”

“Yes; she's been at Robson's all summer. I didn't know it, but she seems to stay there regularly, in a boardinghouse called The Bayberries.”

“Robson's! That's only a couple of miles down the shore, below Oakport.”

“She's at Ford's Center now; she's staying at the Pegram House. I got a letter this morning. She said she was driving up this afternoon, and hoped I'd see her. I thought it was only decent. The doctor wrote me, two years ago, and said she was cured.”

A great light seemed to have burst upon Mitchell. “Look here; is she a kind of a tall, thin, funny-looking woman, dresses in black, drives a little Ford coupé?”

“It sounds like her. She was always rather—eccentric.”

“Lady in the car, all right!” Mitchell cast a triumphant glance at Gamadge. “You think she means to let bygones be bygones, do you, Miss Strangways?”

That young woman looked uncertain, and rather distressed. “She's sane again, you know. I did think of Tommy's ‘lady in a car', but it seems so improbable.”