Devil May Care (26 page)

"You can't do that," Kate protested.

"Yes, I can. And I will."

Before he could get to the telephone, that instrument began to ring. The doctor snatched it up. The hope faded from his face as he listened, to be replaced by a puzzled frown. Then he held out the instrument to Ellie.

"It's your fiance," he said, giving her a strange look.

Ellie suspected the truth almost immediately. In her haste she dropped the receiver; while she was untangling it she heard the doctor say softly to Kate, "I didn't realize Ellie's young man was Hungarian," and then she was sure.

"Hello," she gasped. "Hello. Who is this?"

"If you say one word, one syllable that will give me away, I'll hang up," said Donald.

He sounded slightly drunk.

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"Are you all right?" Ellie demanded. "Where are you?"

"Yes to the first question, never mind the second.

Listen, Ellie, I know you can't talk; I'll talk, you just say yes and no. I want you to--" "No," Ellie said.

"But all I want you to do is--"

"No." Donald sighed.. "I suppose everybody is pretty mad?"

"Yes. And," Ellie added, "suspicious."

She turned around. The doctor had resumed his seat. He was pretending to leaf through a magazine, but Eilie could almost see his ears twitching. Kate had disappeared.

"I've got a plan," Donald said ingratiatingly.

"So I gather."

"If you would just let rne tell you what it is ... "

"All right." Ellie leaned against the table. The doctor glanced at her; she smiled at him.

"See, I figured that if I set up a trap, with myself as bait," Donald began.

"That was obvious from the first," Ellie said.

"Even to me."

"Oh. Okay. Then you know about my calling all our suspects?"

"Uh-huh!"

"Did any of them call you?"

"Oh, yes. Yes, indeed."

"That's great." Donald was slurring his words just a bit; otherwise he sounded as cheerful and cocky as ever. "It's working. I thought it was." His voice dropped several octaves. "I'm being followed," he whispered loudly.

Since the doctor was listening, Ellie did not say the word that came into her mind. There was a peculiar wheezing noise on the other end of the line; at least Ellie thought that was where it came from un214 Elizabeth Peters til Donald asked, "What's the matter with your breathing?"

Ellie had already suspected that Kate was listening on one of the extensions. Perhaps Donald was dopey from the medication he had been given and was not thinking clearly, but even so it had been stupid of him to fake an accent in order to deceive his father. It had not deceived Kate, and she was not the woman to balk at a spot of eavesdropping.

"I have sinus trouble," Ellie said.

"Oh. Well, what I propose to do is this. I'll wait till about midnight before I come to the house. You make sure everybody is in bed before then. And don't you come downstairs. You can watch, from the head of the stairs, if you want to, but don't--"

"Oh, gee, thanks, can I, really?"

"I think you're being sarcastic," Donald said doubtfully. "Quite uncalled for, sarcasm. This is a neat plan. What I'll do is, I'll pretend to find the parchment, see? I won't really find it, I'll leave it where it's safe, but I'll pretend it's in the library.

Then I'll leave. Oh, I forgot; if the library door has been repaired, you make sure it's unlocked for me, okay? Where was I?" "Leaving," Ellie said gently.

"Leaving. Oh. Yeah, then I'll get in the car and head for Charlottesville. See, this guy won't know for sure that I haven't gotten some guy to agree to see me in the middle of the night, or first thing in the morning; he can't risk my reaching the University, so he'll follow me and--" "Force you off the road," Ellie said. "Into a tree.

Or over a cliff." The doctor had risen slowly to his feet. He was clutching the magazine in a grip that had twisted it into scrap paper, and the look on his face, the mingled hope and weariness, was too much for Ellie. Her voice rose to a shriek. "Where are you, you selfish pig? You tell me where you are, right this second, or I--"

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"I know where he is," said Kate's voice. "Don't hang up, Donald; I've already telephoned Mr. Blan- chard, at the Silver Fox, and told him to hold you there at gunpoint if he has to."

"How did you call if I'm on the line?" Donald demanded.

"Ha, ha," Kate said coyly.

"I suppose you have half a dozen telephone lines going into that place," Donald said resignedly. "Or carrier pigeons?"

Ellie didn't wait to hear any more. She held out the phone to the doctor, who took it gingerly, as if he were afraid it might be hot to the touch. She heard him say, "Donald?" in a voice that brought tears to her eyes before she left the room.

The tears were tears of rage. She had to pace up and down the hall for a few seconds before she was calm enough to hear Donald's voice again without screaming epithets at him. Then she went to the library.

Kate was on that phone. Ellie went to the kitchen and picked up that extension.

"... don't see why you're acting so peculiarly," Donald was saying. His voice sounded petulant. "It's a great plan. Kate, you tell Blanchard--"

"It is a great plan," Kate agreed. "Absolutely great, Donald, I love it. But something has happened that you don't know about. I want you to come on out here right away, okay? After all, the important part of the plan starts when you leave this house. Isn't that right? If you come in daylight, then the--the villain can follow you more easily. You wouldn't want him to lose you."

"Oh, all right," Donald muttered. "God, you're bossy, Kate. I shudder to think what kind of aunt-inlaw you are going to make. I'll come; but it's my plan, and you just let me do it the way I want. Dad?" "Yes, son," said the doctor.

"You still there?"

216 Elizabeth Peters

"Yes, I--"

"You sound funny."

"I do not feel funny," said the doctor ominously.

"I'm coming in to pick you up, Donald. You stay there till I arrive. Understand?" "Everybody's bossing me around today," said Donald, and hung up.

Ellie met the doctor in the hall. He was fumbling wildly in his pockets.

"Keys," he panted. "Where the hell are my car keys?" "There's no hurry, you know," said Kate, strolling languidly out of the library. "He can't leave till you get there; I made sure of that. Don't drive like a madman, Frank." "Keys," said the doctor, still searching. Two of his pockets hung out like limp wind socks.

"Take my car." Kate fished a set of keys out of her pants pocket. "Now, Frank, don't--"

The doctor snatched the keys and jogged toward the door; he paused only long enough to remark, "Donald is right, Kate. You are bossy."

The screen door banged, failed to catch, and Kate made a flying tackle just in time to grab Ambrose as he hurled himself at the door.

"No, baby, it's getting dark, and Momma doesn't want you out," she crooned, flat on the floor, with her face half buried in Ambrose's thick fur. "Better count cats, Ellie; we may as well get the chores done before the fun begins."

"Fun!" Ellie was limp with relief and frustrated anger. "You and that emotionally underdeveloped Donald; both of you ought to be locked up."

Kate rolled over onto her back, hugging Ambrose.

"If Donald had been his normal brilliant self, he wouldn't have called from the phone in the bar of the Fox. I recognized the background noises. I'd sure like to know what kind of drug he's been taking.

What a high!"

DEVIL-MAY-CARE 217 III Whatever Donald had been taking, the doctor dealt with it, by means Donald never cared to explain in detail. He was limp and fairly sober by the time the car pulled up in front of the house to find Kate and Ellie waiting on the porch. The doctor was still seething.

"Popping pills," he exploded, hauling his son out of the car. "A man of your age, supposed to have some sense, some training--" "You're hurting my ribs," Donald said plaintively.

"No, I am not. Get in the house and stop trying to appeal to my sympathy."

Donald started up the stairs, limping ostentatiously.

Before he entered the house he stopped and gave Ellie a long, hostile stare.

"Fink," he said bitterly.

"Fink yourself." Ellie followed him, with the others trailing behind. "Of all the dumb, inconsiderate, cruel things to do to us--"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time." Donald lowered himself gingerly onto the carved chest in the hall. "Maybe it wouldn't have seemed so bright if I hadn't been hopped up on pills, but I still think ... " He looked up at Ellie. "Did you say 'us'?" "Not that I care what becomes of you," Ellie said. "But your father ... No, I didn't say '.' I said--"

"You did, too."

"I did not."

"You--" "Shut up!" shouted Doctor Gold. "Now listen, you young lout, I've had enough of this adolescent tomfoolery.

And when I get my hands on the idiot who loaned you his car and his bottle of uppers, I'll break his neck. I can guess who it was, probably Randy or Mike Jackson--"

218 Elizabeth Peters Kate cleared her throat. It was such a small sound it seemed impossible that anyone could have heard it through the hubbub--for Ellie and Donald were both shouting, too--but it instantly silenced the others.

Kate's hands were clasped over her stomach and her head was tilted back.

"Let us all keep our peace," she said in saccharine tones. "Shouting--cruel, hurting words--oh, He! Do you not know that anger scars the soul with anguish that cannot be retrieved? Do you not remember the words of that sweetest of saints--and although I am not a member of the dear old Mother Church, friends, I am, I hope, sufficiently broadminded to venerate those shining souls who have been a light of inspiration unto the meek--"

"Go on," Ellie urged. She had sat down beside Donald and was listening to the imitation with as much appreciation as the others. "Go on, Kate." "I can't do it too long," Kate said, in her normal voice. "My brain goes numb. Donald, were you really followed?"

"Was I really ... " Donald rubbed his forehead.

"Kate, you flip around from subject to subject so fast you make me dizzy. Yeah. I think so. From the hospital, I'm not so sure, I was flying a little high then. But I could swear there was someone after us when we left the Fox. Dad lost him when we got out of town. He hit seventy on that stretch by the fair grounds." He smiled appreciatively at his father, who flushed slightly.

"A gross exaggeration. Anyway, I don't believe that fellow was following us. He just happened to be going the same way. If--"

The chimes burst into Beethoven's Ninth, Choral section. Everyone but Kate started nervously. After a moment Donald got up and went to the door, where he stood peering out through the narrow vertical glass panels that flanked the door itself.

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"Hey," he exclaimed, in a thrilling whisper. "It's the same car! The one that was following us." He spun around, cracked ribs forgotten, his eyes shining with the light of the chase. "Novv's our chance. We've got him now. Come on, everybody, get ready!"

CHAPTER TEN.

Donald looked wildly around the hall. There was no possible weapon--no object, in fact, that weighed less than two hundred pounds; so he darted into the drawing room and came back with a collection of fireplace tools.

"Here," he said, thrusting a poker at Ellie, who recoiled.

"I'll get my Mauser," Kate exclaimed. "Oh, damn, I forgot. You took it. Where did you put my Mauser, Donald?"

"Never mind the gun, we don't want to kill the guy," Donald said. "Have a poker."

"You act as if you plan to kill him." The doctor awoke from the temporary stupor into which his son's activities sometimes sent him. "Now sit down and be quiet, Donald. If the car is the one you mentioned --and I admit, there was one that seemed to be after us when we left town--it was not one that I recognized. Let me open the door. This is probably some stranger who has lost his way."

He advanced purposefully upon the door. The strains of the greatest of all symphonies were beginning again; apparently the visitor was becoming impatient.

Kate and Donald exchanged glances. Then they took up their positions on either side of the

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door, with poker and shovel raised. Ellie stayed where she was. The situation seemed to be getting out of hand. Even the doctor looked a little rattled, but he opened the door with a flourish.

Ellie leaped to her feet as if she had been stung.

"Henry!"

Donald's jaw dropped. So did the fireplace shovel, which narrowly missed his father's arm. The doctor leaped nimbly aside; and Henry, confronting a total stranger--who seemed to be extremely nervous--and unable to see Ellie in the gloom of the hall, rose, figuratively and literally, to his full stature.

"How do you do, sir," he said, extending a hand.

"My name is Willoughby. Ellie's fiance. May I come in?" "Oh, sure," said the doctor weakly. He stepped back. Henry squared his shoulders and advanced; and Ellie, who had just realized what Kate was doing, shrieked aloud.

"Kate! Don't you dare!"

Kate lowered the poker.

"Eh?" she said, cupping her hand around her ear.

Torn between amusement and outrage, Ellie could not speak for a moment. Henry, forgetting manners in his curiosity, peered around the door. Kate peered out from behind it. For a moment they confronted one another, nose to nose. Kate squinted hideously.

"Oh, dearie me," she said. "Is it you, Mr. Willoughby?

I've gotten so hard of hearing lately ... "

"It's nice to see you again, Aunt Kate," Henry shouted.

"Eh?" said Kate.

Ellie saw Donald leaning helplessly against the wall, clutching his aching ribs as he tried to keep from laughing. The sight infuriated her.

"Kate, stop it! Henry, what are you doing here?"

"Why, darling, Al--the Senator--called me," Henry said. "We exchanged phone numbers the other night. He said you were having some trouble down

222 Elizabeth Peters here. And when I tried to call and was unable to reach you--"