Evidence of Things Seen (18 page)

“False bottom!” Groby spoke hoarsely, pushing his flushed face forward.

“As neat a trick as ever I saw, and I shouldn't have seen it if the wood hadn't warped a little. A cache within a cache,” said Gamadge, scooping up a layer of paper money and crushing it into Mrs. Groby's trembling hands.

Groby snatched at falling greenbacks, and began wildly to count them. At last he and Mrs. Groby had the whole treasure assembled in a sheaf and Mrs. Groby looked up at Gamadge, her face crimson: “Nine hundred and ninety-five dollars!”

“Did Miss Radford have a handbag with her when she was taken into the cottage?” he asked.

“Yes, old Duckett has it,” panted Groby. “Three dollars and some change in it.”

“Then we'll say that Miss Radford was in possession of a thousand in cash by the first of July.”

“Well, Mr. Gamadge, all I can say is that we're obliged to you. Can't say how long it would have been before we found it ourselves,” Groby could not take his eyes from the sheaf in his wife's fingers; he patted his forehead with his handkerchief.

“We never would have found it!” Mrs. Groby raised her face from adoring contemplation of her money to scowl at him. “Never!”

“I always like to have one try at the impossible.” Gamadge was looking pleased with himself.

Mrs. Groby gazed at him, gazed down at her money, and then addressed him in a voice of sudden anguish: “Mr. Gamadge—ought I take it now?”

“What do you mean, take it now?” Groby stared at her as if personally affronted. “It's yours, isn't it?”

She paid no attention to him, but continued to search Gamadge's sympathetic features. “I mean, ought I to hand it over to Mr. Toms or somebody till he gets the tax man?”

“Well: that would be the correct procedure, of course,” said Gamadge. “It's part of Miss Radford's estate, and the will isn't even probated yet.”

Groby, much alarmed, protested violently: “What is this—a charity board? We've just lost the whole estate, this is all we're going to get. And boy, we need it! And I tell you what, Gamadge, you're entitled to a commission; ten percent. Right now, if you like.”

Gamadge, ignoring this, continued to address Mrs. Groby: “I'm merely answering your question as to the correct legal procedure; and that procedure would certainly make an excellent impression on all concerned. But it's none of our business, Clara's and mine; we won't mention this.”

Groby stood perspiring. “We lost seventy thousand,” he said, and his voice faltered.

Mrs. Groby burst out crying. “I've had enough of monkey business, Walter Groby; if it wasn't for all the monkey business we wouldn't be in so bad now. You want to do something Mr. Gamadge wouldn't do?”

Gamadge said: “The Gamadges haven't had as much bad luck as you have—financially; we can adopt a high moral tone and convince ourselves that we could maintain a high moral attitude against adversity. But I recommend turning in the money. Have you enough to go on with until you get probate?”

“Sure we have,” said Groby. “We're not bankrupt.”

“Then we'd better drive right over to Stratfield now,” said his wife.

Groby mumbled, “Bank's closed.”

“Well, we know where Mr. Toms lives, don't we?”

Gamadge said: “And we must be going. We promised Maggie that we wouldn't leave her in the cottage alone after sunset.”

He and Clara took their leave, the Grobys staring rather confusedly at them. When they were on the way home, Clara said: “Poor Mr. Groby.”

“Now don't you get sentimental about Groby; he tried to bribe me with ninety-nine dollars and fifty cents.”

“He can't help being that way. I wish you could find the rest of the seventy thousand.”

“Think how awful Groby would be with seventy thousand dollars.”

“He might be nicer.”

Gamadge looked at her, smiled, and took a hand off the wheel to pat the top of her head.

As they reached the cottage the telephone was ringing. It had stopped by the time they arrived on the porch, and Maggie came out to say that Mr. Hunter was on the wire.

“Glad I caught you,” he told Gamadge. “We want you and Clara to perform a rescue job this evening; we are threatened with dinner guests—Craye and one of his refugees.”

“I hope it's the wandering princess from a Gothic tale?”

Hunter laughed. “Yes—Mrs. Star; that describes her. I may have found her a job, and they're coming to talk it over. But I found her two other jobs, and neither seemed to suit.”

“I didn't realize until I called on him this morning that he was harboring refugees.”

“He's very reticent about them; we don't mention them unless he does.”

“Why should he be reticent?”

“I believe it's because they all have hostages or something. Don't ask me about them—ask him.”

“I don't think I should be rewarded for my indiscretion. Wait a minute while I speak to Clara.”

He returned to the telephone to say that Clara and he would be delighted to dine. “But,” he added, “will Craye and Mrs. Star be delighted?”

“Yes. He said you'd met her this morning.”

“Met her? She opened the door for me, and nearly froze me on the mat.” Gamadge added: “Perhaps because she's the niece of a cardinal?”

“Her race isn't as adaptable as some others. Well, thanks for coming. Shall we send down for you?”

“Certainly not; most kind and obliging of you to suggest it, but you need your own gas. We're bringing Maggie.”

Gamadge hung up, and went to ask Maggie if she had had time to do anything about his other shirt. She had two pieces of good news for him; his large bag had come by railway express, and there was a telegram from the Herons. It said: STANDING BY SHALL ARRIVE AS PLANNED UNLESS NOTIFIED TO THE CONTRARY LOVE TO BOTH FROM DICK AND SALLY

“Aren't they sports?” Clara was pleased.

“Yes. I suppose that now I have the clothes I must dress for the Hunters.”

“They dress all the time.”

“First we'll have our splash in the pool.”

But he waited to put in a long telephone call to Duckett. Ten minutes later he and Clara were in the pool, and an hour later they had arrived at Mountain Ridge Farm.

It was like walking out of a rustic vignette into an academy oil of
Life at the Manor
to pass in ten minutes from the homely dusk of the cottage into the Hunters' yellow drawing room. The party was already drinking cocktails, and a striking party it was. Phineas Hunter, always elegant, was—oddly enough—not so elegant in evening clothes as Gilbert Craye. Craye, finished as a drawing in sepia, black, and white, his face thin as a coin, his manner so much part of himself as to seem no manner at all, had regained his mood of perpetual laughter; he seemed much pleased that the Gamadges were there.

And if he drew the eye away from Hunter, Mrs. Star's silvery fairness put Fanny Hunter's blonde fairness into the shade. Mrs. Star's features, untouched by rouge or powder, were sharp and delicate as if cut by the finest tools from white shell or agate. The pale gray of her eyes was repeated in her thin cotton dress, which flowed from her sloping shoulders as though it had been made of China crêpe. Against Fanny's brilliant colors she was an engraving.

She seemed to be engaged in extracting from Fanny the details of Miss Radford's accident and death. When she and Clara were introduced, she looked concerned and sympathetic.

“I do hope the haunting is over,” she said. “It must have been the worst kind; we have them in Europe a great deal.”

“We don't have them here at all,” said Fanny earnestly.

“You do not?” Mrs. Star looked surprised. “I thought you did. I thought the Indians had them, and that spiritualism was invented in America.”

Hunter murmured in Gamadge's ear: “It is not a race famous for tact.”

“We had some friends in Poland,” continued Mrs. Star, in her soft, barely accented voice, “whose castle was dreadfully haunted.”

“Did they move away?” asked Fanny, in a quavering voice.

“Oh, they could not; it was their hereditary home. Of course it's gone now, quite gone, and so is the family; but the manifestations had been going on for centuries. On a certain day of the year the children were sent to Warsaw, because the ghost was known to be dangerous at that time. Mrs. Gamadge,” she turned silvery-gray eyes on Clara, “what is a sunbonnet?”

Hunter murmured: “Shall we rescue your wife?” but Clara was describing a sunbonnet with calm detachment.

At dinner, Hunter was immensely amused at Clara's description of the improvements at the Radford farm. Fanny said: “Of course Mrs. Groby is right; of course you helped her, Gil! Why didn't you tell us?”

Craye took this humor in good part. He said: “I would have if she'd asked me. I'm an expert since those fellows came up and lectured me on my house. The house certainly needed help; you ought to have seen it, Mrs. Gamadge, when it had all the plush and the marbles in the parlor. And there was a Crusader on the newel post. I didn't want things done wrong, so I read up a little. We found stuff in the attics and barns, and they restored the moldings and the paneling. I got samples for curtain materials—quite fun it was,” he ended, on a note of languor.

Fanny Hunter said in Gamadge's ear: “His awful wife—nobody could put up with her, and she had to be amused. But as soon as the work was finished, off she went. Gil had to bring suit to keep the baby, and then it died, and she made a frightful row. She was going to write a book—I mean somebody was going to write it for her, but Gilbert bought her off.”

“Has Craye found his refugee a job this time?”

“Well, I'm afraid not; it's so difficult. She isn't trained for anything, Henry; she could only be a companion; and I don't
see
her as a companion, do you?”

“Not clearly, no.”

“People want somebody to read to them, and play games with, and do all kinds of errands. And they want to talk about the war with their friends; and how could they? Mrs. Star's husband is
fighting
. No matter how much of a brute he is, or how much she loathes him, people couldn't say all they felt, could they?”

“Not quite all, perhaps.”

“Her own people had a dreadful time, and Baron von Stermi wouldn't lift a finger for them. Oh dear, now I've given it away, and I promised Gil I wouldn't!”

“I shall keep the lady's real name even from Clara.”

“Oh, please do.”

“Von You-Know-Who is of the old officer caste; I don't think it would have helped if he had lifted a finger.”

“Oh, isn't it all a mix-up? And now Phineas got old Mr. Tremblow to say he'd try her as a secretary but she can't type!”

“Very discouraging.”

“There's one thing, I don't think Gil cares whether she gets a job or not; he's wonderful about his refugees.”

“Does she care whether she gets a job or not?”

“I don't know.”

But it soon became apparent that if Mrs. Star had not been trained in a business school, she had been trained rigorously in another. When coffee had been drunk she was asked to play and sing; she did so promptly, and almost professionally; in fact, her performance was so dazzling that Fanny refused to follow her at the piano.

“Too bad there's no living to be made that way,” sighed Hunter. “Let's have some bridge.”

For the first rubber Mrs. Star cut in with the three men. She explained without embarrassment that she could not play for stakes.

“Not much of a gamble to carry you, Mrs. Star,” said Craye. And it soon became evident that here again she had graduated from a tough school; she played with firmness but audacity, and she and Craye made the most of their cards and came out well ahead. Gamadge arranged a return party for the following night.

“I shall like to see the cottage,” said Mrs. Star.

“There'll be no ghost, you know.”

“I hope not.”

When the Gamadges were driving home, Maggie again in the rumble, Clara said: “I hope you didn't think I was wrong to talk about those decorations at the Radford farm, Henry.”

“Not at all. I only wish you'd gone on to ask Craye what he called on Miss Radford for last September.”

“I wouldn't have for anything!”

“How do you like Mrs. Star?”

“Is it because she's been through so much that she seems—so different from other people?”

“How different?”

“She doesn't seem quite human to me. I don't mean that she's inhuman, either.”

“Unhuman, rather.”

“Yes—a little.”

“An undine; no soul?” Gamadge smiled at her.

“Not that, either. I can't explain.”

“A strong, controlled spirit.”

“She simply couldn't be a companion to some nice old rich lady.”

Gamadge laughed outright. “Perhaps she's strong enough and controlled enough even for that.”

As they were going up to bed the telephone rang. Gamadge answered it: “Hello, Mrs. Groby!”

“I just wanted to tell you, Mr. Gamadge; I went—Mr. Duckett took me to the burying ground tonight. I'm just back home.”

“Oh—how trying for you, though.”

“I thought I ought to, Mr. Gamadge; I'm the only member of the family left, and I thought I ought to be there.” She swallowed audibly. “I don't know why I felt so bad; I didn't care for either of them much, or they for me, but it was terrible. Like a funeral going backwards.”

“You did the right thing; of course you're upset.”

“There wasn't a soul to see it, except the men with that van they have; and Mr. Duckett told me to tell you they wouldn't have to have it done at Hartford, there was going to be somebody at Stratfield hospital tomorrow morning; or is it this morning?”