Dread Journey (17 page)

Sidney Pringle piped with wounded dignity, “I ought to go. You want me to go.”

“Why does everyone want to go?” Hank roared it out. “What you need is another drink, Sid. Then you can tell me all over again about how you come to write
Asses’ Milk.
Damn good book, you know.”

Pringle tried to smile. “If I take another drink I’ll be drunk.”

“You’re drunk already.” Hank was playing a part because he couldn’t bear the waiting; he was hanging on to the miserable Pringle because he alone was solid in this nebula of fear; he alone, outside of it, was normal.

Gratia spoke again with that same pleasant definiteness. “I’ll go tell Kitten to hurry.”

“No!”

They said the word together, Les and Hank, said it so quickly. They were afraid for their eyes to meet.

Gratia said firmly, “I want to wash up before dinner.” She glanced at the bracelet of Les’s hand on her wrist. Slowly he unloosed it.

She stood up. They couldn’t stop her; they couldn’t go with her. She was capable of walking a few steps to her drawing room, of washing her own hands and face. She couldn’t help but sense their unspoken reluctance for her to go; it swirled in thick clouds about them stifling their words.

Les could speak if he hadn’t forgotten how. He could drop those polished pebbles from his smiling mouth, he could delay her a little longer. Hank couldn’t speak. Not without giving birth to the monstrous obsession which lay like a stone in his stomach and his brain.

It was Les who answered her, answered gravely, “Yes. We very much want her to hurry.”

She accepted his words. She smiled her lovely smile. They watched her cross the little room. She opened the door and took a deep breath, a clean breath. “I won’t be a minute,” she smiled.

He couldn’t let her walk in on it. He called, “Wait!”

She remained where she was, puzzled, obeying only because his word was a command. He wasn’t that kind of a coward. He had to be the one to go.

He felt Les behind him in the doorway. Hank’s hands were rough as he pushed Gratia aside, pushed her to Les Augustin. He said nothing, there was nothing now to say. There was nothing to do but face the specter of a lost fight. He walked forward steadily. He didn’t compromise with his prescience. Without knocking, he opened the door and went in.

J
AMES COBBETT WATCHED WITH
them all afternoon. Not because he was interested in them; because he was heavy, because he’d been unable to shake off the weight of depression which had settled on him when the Chief left L.A. yesterday noon.

His passengers had been quiet enough during the long afternoon. Surfeited with the squirrel-tread movement of the train, they’d closed themselves behind their doors. Too lethargic even for bell ringing. He understood the hopelessness of travelers this second day out. Familiarity with ceaseless motion reduced the high speed of the Chief to a tortoise crawl. The unchanging horizon line of Arizona and New Mexico had the unending and fearful sameness of crossing eternity. Engendering something that bordered on atavistic fear. Moving, always moving; yet the movement was to no avail. The scene pasted on the windows was ever the same, wasteland and sky.

The bridal couple clung together behind their door. The journey to them was fleet as a falling star and as beautiful. If they had recognized the resemblance to eternity, they would not fear. They needed eternity to hold their happiness. The old couple drowsed together, content with each other out of long habit. They had weathered endless finite eternities; so many they no longer recognized one until it was past.

The others huddled together in their incongruity. All but Vivien Spender. He sat alone behind his door. James Cobbett learned one thing about Vivien Spender as he sat alone outside Spender’s door. One thing that money and power and importance did for a man. It made him lone.

He learned another thing about Spender after a little. Even the great were not immune from the arid depression of the long afternoon. Spender came out of his room, left the car seeking human relations. Cobbett, not caring, learned who it was Spender sought. With the fact, he added to his knowledge of the lone, restless man. He could not go simply to Gratia Shawn as a poor man would go. He had to send his secretary.

When Spender returned to the car, a dark motif was added to the pattern of knowledge. The great could be unreasonable in the throes of anger. The look Spender darted at him was bleak with hatred.

After that the car was quiet. At four James Cobbett went to eat. Dinner didn’t alleviate the heavy hanging over his head. He left the companionship of his own as quickly as he could, returned to his tired vigil. It might be that Rufe’s good-natured taunt was a glimmer of truth. He had the ha’nts.

There was activity after five. Kitten Agnew at Spender’s door. The man with the mouth worn in sardonic grooves, Cavanaugh, following her. Quarrelsome words; silence. The bride and bridegroom, clean and happy, hand in hand, moving forward doubtless to the club car for a before-dinner cocktail.

When Kitten came out of Spender’s, Cobbett dropped his eyes quickly. Her mouth was an ugly blur, her pupils glazed. She came alone and she walked unsteadily to her own door, pushed inside. Something cold touched the root of his spine. He had looked upon something unclean. If he had been Rufe, he would have performed a superstitious ritual. James Cobbett was educated; he had no talisman to exorcise evil. He sat there in the silence and wondered.

He wondered about Vivien Spender and those who were lighted by the sun of Spender. He saw the secretary enter the car, hurrying as if fear nipped her heels. He saw Cavanaugh as he wavered out of Spender’s room; scorn twisting his mouth. The crisscross of movement went on. Mike Dana came out shortly after Cavanaugh. She wasn’t hurrying now, she moved like a wooden figure; she too went to Augustin’s. In, out, in again. She returned to Vivien Spender. Cobbett saw her angular face, wooden as her body. He saw her hesitation at Spender’s door, the fear line of white framing her lipstick. And he added to Vivien Spender, a man who could engender evil and scorn and fear. It wasn’t good for a man to have too much.

In and out. The old financier and his blue-white diamond wife on their way to the diner. But Kitten didn’t come out. James Cobbett was waiting for that, waiting to look on her again, to reassure himself of her humanness because he had no superstition for reassurance. No one went to her room; she remained closeted there alone.

He was still waiting when the other girl appeared, Gratia Shawn. The tightness of his muscles relaxed. He’d been a fool to sit here brooding all afternoon. Because he didn’t feel quite himself, a cold coming on, a stomach upset. Because his lonesomeness for Mary and the children was never stronger than when he was nearing them.

Gratia Shawn ended his doldrums. She was young; she was cleareyed, smiling, human. The long afternoon was over, had been over since La Junta. He should have realized before. It was night and the Chief was coming alive. Tomorrow was the reality of Chicago. Everything was all right now.

And in the moment of realization came the denial. Gratia was halted, pushed aside by Cavanaugh. It was he who went to Kitten’s door, who entered her room. In Augustin’s doorway there was tableau, the girl and Augustin holding each other, behind them a triangle of Sidney Pringle’s curious brow.

Cobbett didn’t know why alarm rang in his head. Only that he’d been feeling lowdown and that he’d been the last one to look on the face of Kitten. He was the one who knew it wasn’t her face but that of one possessed.

He remained on the leather seat but he was tensed waiting. He saw Cavanaugh return to the others, his face masked, expressionless. Cobbett watched. He didn’t hear their words; they spoke quietly and they were at the opposite end of the corridor.

He watched them move like puppets, impelled by a will stronger than theirs. Cavanaugh and Augustin. The girl, forbidden, following after a moment. Pringle creeping up behind her. The four were a motionless frieze at the doorway of drawing room B.

James Cobbett didn’t want to see what they looked upon. It was not his will that he rose quietly from his place and moved forward. Not his curiosity nor his anxiety. He was responsible for this car and its tenants. Something was wrong.

When he reached the group he didn’t have to speak. They parted, made a lane through which he could walk to the threshold. He followed the flickering horror of their eyes to the floor of the drawing room.

A golden scarf flung there. The scarf of her hair. A pale mound crumpled in the darkness. One hand clenched.

Alarm was husky in his throat. “Is she—”

Cavanaugh spoke behind him. His voice grated flatly. “She’s dead.”

James Cobbett heard the words and knew them to be truth. Kitten Agnew was dead. She was dead when she passed him in the corridor. Death was the evil which had possessed her.

Mike wanted to go. He wanted her to go. He didn’t know why he kept her there, upright in the chair, inhuman as a sawdust doll, making pretense of attention to the empty words he spoke. He didn’t know why he made an effort to entertain her, as if she were a chance acquaintance he wished to impress.

He knew only that he couldn’t let her go like this, eaten with suspicion, without reason for suspicion. He deserved her trust; for years he’d had her absolute loyalty, he had no intention of accepting her repudiation now. She’d been all right after Cavanaugh left the room, after she’d made certain with her own mouth that Kitten’s drink was harmless. She’d believed that Kitten had gone to change her dress.

He’d been clever, very clever. He’d poured the first drink for Kitten, a harmless if loathsome cocktail. She’d take a second; he knew that. He knew how to play on her, just how to put another drink in her hand.

She thought she was being clever; Kitten was transparent as cheap silk. Bringing Cavanaugh instead of Mike. A stranger, someone not under the influence of Vivien Spender. Poor, stupid Kitten. Having no faint recognition of how Viv could twine about his finger any person he set out to capture. Cavanaugh was on Viv’s side almost at once. Idiot Kitten. As if a drunken newspaperman could hold out against a man of Spender’s civilized nuances.

Cavanaugh took that first drink from her. Perhaps in her silly soul she’d had a premonition of danger. Viv prepared her second cocktail exactly as he’d planned her second. He’d rehearsed earlier, a careful rehearsal. He had no fear of being discovered now. He’d prepared for Mike; the most minute detail had been worked out to pass her scrutiny. He knew where to stand, where to place his hands, just when to empty the vial into the glass. It wasn’t discernible in the concoction. A cherry for a fillip.

He watched her drink, watched with no emotion save appreciation of the interesting conversation he was developing for Cavanaugh’s pleasure. Not that he needed to converse. One cocktail added to what Cavanaugh had already taken this day took care of the man.

He had planned the mishap. A cocktail upset on her dress and she’d go quickly to change. She’d be safe in her own room when the draught took effect. He knew just how long it would take, minimum and maximum. He’d learned that a long time ago. If by mischance any of her drinking companions went to her room, he’d think Kitten had, to be crude, passed out. There was little risk that any one of them would go to her. They’d been shut up all day in Les Augustin’s room; they’d all be in about the same shape as Cavanaugh.

With the exception of Gratia. There was still the need to make certain of Gratia. When Mike admitted she hadn’t carried out his orders to Gratia, his mouth tightened. His angry, “I don’t care where she is, I want her now,” was careless. Mike was too keyed to suspicion. She went at once to fetch the girl but she was reluctant to go.

He didn’t know what happened in that room; he knew only that Mike returned with fear again sucking her blood. She said, “It’s too late. Gratia has promised them.”

He could have slashed her with blame but he held his tongue. He must not give way to anger again. If Gratia were remaining with Augustin and his friends, she wouldn’t be retiring early.

He shrugged and asked playfully, “You won’t desert too, Mike? Or have you more important fish to fry?”

She said, “I won’t desert you, Viv.” But she didn’t match his mood. There was a great sadness on her homely mouth. A sadness that was not relieved by the entertainment he furnished for that purpose. The knock at the door was welcome relief. She shouldn’t have been frightened by it; he wasn’t. She shouldn’t have moved board-stiff to answer.

She opened the door a handsbreadth. He waited calmly. He heard her say, “One moment.” She closed the door before she turned to him. Behind the slant green glasses the emptiness of her eyes was shocking. She said, “It’s Hank Cavanaugh. He wants to see you.”

He breathed satisfaction. “Good. I knew he’d come around.” His smile was sure. “A contract with Vivien Spender isn’t something to refuse.”

Into her empty eyes came the oil of pity.

He broke off. “What does he want?”

“He wants to see you.” Her gesture was limp as chiffon. “Out there.”

Something had gone wrong. Someone had stumbled across Kitten. Too soon. Too wisely.

He put a little laugh into his words. “I wonder what he wants that’s so private.” He stood up, his shoulders square, and crossed to the door; opened it smiling. When he saw Cavanaugh’s face, he knew he was right.

Cavanaugh said, “I want to show you something.”

He never felt more sure of himself than at that moment. Just the correct tilt to the eyebrows, the slight puzzlement to the lips. He didn’t need words; pantomime was more expressive. He followed Cavanaugh.

They were waiting outside Kitten’s door, the chance companions of her last journey. The brittle sophisticate, Les Augustin. The resentful failure, Sidney Pringle. The beautiful innocent, Gratia Shawn. All of them reduced by death to the common denominator of fear.

He went past them silently, following Cavanaugh to the doorsill. Only then did the swift horror come to his face. He cried, “Kitten.” He snapped on the lights. “She’s sick. Hurry. Get a doctor.”