Nothing Can Rescue Me (10 page)

“Evelyn Wing?”

“The accusation about the script of the novel wasn't tale-bearing.”

“Probably nothing to tell. Or Susie may be keeping some more scandal up her sleeve; she said she wasn't showing us the whole bag—little wretch!”

He stopped beside the bridge table and looked down at planchette; then, with a half-smile, he laid the fingers of one hand on it.

“Going to have your sitting now?” asked Gamadge.

“Uncanny little thing, isn't it? How do you work it? What do you do?”

“Just put all your fingers on it and wait.”

“How long?”

“Till it writes, or you get sick of it.”

Sylvanus, with a satirical grimace at his own expense, sat in the chair Gamadge had occupied, and followed the latter's directions.

“You ought to be in the dark,” said Gamadge. “The spirits prefer it.” He let the venetian blind down, and grey twilight enveloped the plump face and figure of Sylvanus. He drew the curtains.

“Come back after you've seen Florence,” Sylvanus murmured. “I'll have a message for you. Solve the case.”

“I'm going to give her some advice, and you must help me make her carry it out. See you later.” Gamadge went into the hall, closing the office door behind him. He walked down to the swing door, and pushed a bell set into the wall beside it. Thomas looked out.

“Sorry to bother you, Thomas,” said Gamadge. “Is Louise in there?”

“Yes, sir. She's in our sitting-room.”

Gamadge looked at his watch. “It's ten minutes to three. Mrs. Mason wanted to see me, but doesn't she rest at this time in the afternoon?”

“Yes, sir, she does. But if she expects you—”

“I thought Louise might find out whether I'm to go now or wait.”

Thomas withdrew, and Louise quickly arrived through the swing door. She was a French Swiss, who had taken care of Florence Mason for forty years. Wrinkled and yellow, in a neat black dress and without cap or apron, she looked what she was—an old-fashioned, obstinate, faithful, not very good-tempered lady's maid. She had no prejudice against the male sex, and greeted this member of it with a smile.

“Meester Gamadge! It is like old times!”

“Splendid to see you again, Louise.” Gamadge put a hand under her arm and propelled her down the side passage. “Remember how you used to give us the dickens for tracking snow up these back stairs?”

“You were always a good nice boy.”

“I still am. I want a word with you. I'm anxious about Mrs. Mason; she sent for me, you know.”

“Zose zings in her book!” Louise allowed him to assist her up the steep flight.

“Yes. Come on down to my room and let's talk it over.” As they entered, the griffons tumbled through the bathroom, yapping loudly, and made for the door. Gamadge, before closing it, gazed after them. “Going down the way we came up,” he said. “They act as if they had an appointment.”

“Sweet little zings. Always together,” said Louise fondly. “Zey cannot find Mr. Hutter in his room, so zey look for him somewhere else.”

Gamadge established her in an armchair, sat opposite her, and got out a cigarette. She smilingly watched him light it.

“Now,” he said, “do for pity's sake help me. Who in the world could have put the things in Mrs. Mason's book? Who would?”

Louise's gnarled face became enigmatic. She said: “Some people would like to frighten a lady like mine. Zey are jealous, zey don't like to work for zeir living, zey would be ladies zemselves.”

“Do it just for spite, would they?”

“And to make Madame turn everybody else away.”

“Except you.”

“Zey would turn me away if zey could.”

“And you think some woman must have done it, do you?”

“No man would do such a zing!”

“Think not?” Gamadge, smoking, looked at her. Then he said: “You sound as if you know who the viper is. Have you warned Mrs. Mason?”

“She laughs at me, then she is angry. She tells me I cannot prove it, I will get into trouble.”

“Not with me, you won't. Who is it?”

Louise shook her head. “I promised Madame I would never say what I think.” She added: “Poor Mr. Mason.”

“Poor Mr. Mason?”

Louise's nose twitched.

“Is he poor because he's taken in by this woman,” asked Gamadge, “or because he is in danger from her, or because he can't get Mrs. Mason to listen to him, either—when he tries to warn her?”

Louise said: “Madame is not fair to Mr. Mason. He amuses himself, he is not old. Why should he not be happy?”

“Very odd how these stories get about to his wife.”

“No, it is not odd,” declared Louise, again looking enigmatic. “I know how zey get about, but Madame will not permit me to tell.”

“Naturally they don't get about through you.”

Louise was offended. “Me! I never carry tales to Madame.”

“Not even to protect her against schemers?”

“No, never.”

Gamadge, contemplating her with benign scepticism, asked: “Does Mr. Percy need protection too?”

“Meester Percy?”

“From the mysterious menace who has cast her spells on Mason?”

Louise was entertained by the notion. “He can take care of himself, zat one!”

“You sound as if you liked him.”

“I love to have him come here. He is so funny, and he is such a gentleman. His clothes, zey fall apart, zey are so old, but he tips us all as if he were millionaire.” She added: “And
beau comme le jour
.”

“Beautiful as the day; this day, perhaps—dark, you know.”

Louise did not follow this, and Gamadge, certain that he would get no definite information from her except as to her predilection for the males in the house, rose from his chair.

“See if Mrs. Mason is ready for me, will you?” he asked. “I'm to report to her on all these people.”

Louise got up too, looking defiant. “You may tell her what I say!”

“Don't think I shall even mention your name.”

He followed her to Mrs. Mason's door, and waited while she knocked gently and went in. When she came out she was smiling. “Madame says what has become of you, she is tired of waiting!”

“She doesn't want to see me any worse than I want to see her.”

A bright fire cast orange lights on the white woodwork of the fireplace; Florence, again on her chaise-longue, had a large illustrated book of gardens across her knees. It slid away as she half turned to address him eagerly:

“How did it go? How did it go?”

“I put them all in a temper.”

Mrs. Mason seemed pleased at this news. She slightly tossed her head, and remarked that she wished she had been there,

“Now I'm going to make you lose your temper,” said Gamadge.

“Mine?”

“I'm going to scold you, warn you, and give you some advice.”

Mrs. Mason looked affronted, then alarmed. She said: “Why, Henry, what have I done?”

“I don't entirely know.” He glanced about the room; seldom had he seen a more delightful one, with its long azure draperies, its pale-gold sheen of satinwood, its silvery walls. The twin beds, luxuriously appointed and supplied each with its blue-and-rose eiderdown, had a pair of night tables between them, with tambour-fronted drawers, silver reading lights and crystal ash trays.

In the north-west corner of the room stood a desk, its shallow pigeon-holes bulging with bills and letters.

Gamadge sat down beside Mrs. Mason, and looked at the desk, which was almost directly behind her.

“You always make a rough draft of a will, I suppose,” he said.

“Oh, yes; several. Why?”

“Where do you keep the drafts until you're ready to draw up the will?”

“I don't know. In my desk, I suppose; my desk in New York, or this.”

“This last will, the one Macloud wouldn't draw up for you—where did you put the draft of it, and where's the will?”

“There in the desk behind you.”

“Macloud has the earlier one?”

“Yes. He always told me I mustn't put a will in a safe deposit box, because the tax men—”

“I know. Where did you keep the copies of the earlier wills you made—since your marriage?”

“In my desk in New York, Henry.” Mrs. Mason was irritated.

“Do you keep that desk locked, and do you keep this one locked when you're out of the room?”

“No, because somebody always is in my room; I am, or Louise is.”

“I suppose you don't relieve each other like sentries?”

“No, but people don't come in and hunt through my papers. They wouldn't dare. I wish you wouldn't look at me like that.”

“How can I look at you?”

“Bob always told me the copy must be accessible.”

Gamadge lighted a cigarette. “What it comes to,” he said, “is this: any of your circle may have read the draft or the copy of any of your wills, and may have read this newest will itself.”

“They wouldn't even know where to look!”

“Give me one minute at it—that's all.” He smoked for a time in silence. Then he said: “I'm amazed that it hasn't occurred to you: somebody may have seen that twenty-five thousand dollar legacy to Miss Wing in the will you made three years ago, and seen that she wasn't exactly losing favour with you, and decided to get rid of her before you drafted another will, leaving her more.”

“I tell you that until this happened about my book, I never dreamed people would go snooping around!”

“But Miss Wing's enemy proved to be her best friend; ‘a paradox,'” said Gamadge, smiling. “Instead of being ruined with you, she is your residuary legatee. What if somebody has discovered that?”

“Henry, you frighten me; you really do!”

“Didn't Bob Macloud explain to you what would happen if you and Sylvanus should be killed in the same automobile accident, or bombed by the same Jap?”

Mrs. Mason shrank back among her cushions.

“Didn't he remind you,” asked Gamadge, “that if Sylvanus predeceased you by only half a minute, and could be proved to have done so, your residuary legatee would inherit not a mere hundred thousand dollars odd and Underhill, but your father's millions?”

“Yes, but it's so unlikely, and this will is only provisional. I told him so!”

“Provisional—until you're sure Mason didn't write those extracts into your book. If he did, you'll show him this will and have your revenge?”

“How else could I make him realize what he'd done?”

“Poetic justice; it must be a lovely thing to play with. Mason may have seen these wills, Florence, or copies of them, or drafts of them; Miss Wing may have seen them.”

“I tell you—”

“This tampering with your book seems to me a symptom, rather than a fact to be taken by itself. The symptom of a rising crisis. You tell me people won't do this or that; I tell you that you don't know how people will react to stimuli such as you have provided them with by making those wills. I want you to make another one, Florence.”

“Another? When?”

“To-day. I want you to make it, keeping in mind the fact that your residuary legatee may inherit the Hutter fortune; and the fact—you can face it, you know—that we're all mortal; that life is uncertain; that you might very well die without opportunity to change a will, or even express a wish in connection with it.”

Mrs. Mason, flushed, bewildered, and somewhat terrified, responded after a minute with courage: “If you feel so strongly about it, of course I—but I don't in the least know what to put in that new will.”

“We can work something out. I met your cousin to-day—Miss Corinne Hutter.”

“Oh; did she drive over?”

“She drove over. Why don't you stick her in as residuary? The last of the family; it's a logical thing to do. Nothing fantastic about that.”

Mrs. Mason drew herself up. “Corinne Hutter doesn't wish to be in Syl's and my wills, Henry.”

“These family feuds—I know they're tiresome; but you can leave her the money anyway, and she can build libraries with it.”

“It would be most unsuitable to leave her all that money. Syl and I shall arrange an annuity in due course,” said Mrs. Mason stiffly. “I'm not going to have Corinne get up after we're dead and say she won't have tainted money!”

“Is she likely to?” Gamadge had to smile.

“You don't know the airs she puts on. I think Syl and I are very good to put up with her at all!”

“Well, we must figure out some other deserving residuary legatee. Oh, look here!” For Mrs. Mason had begun to cry bitterly. “This won't do; what's the matter?”

“I don't know who cares about me enough to deserve it. Even Sally only thinks of Bill; she divorced him, but she still thinks of him, I know she does. Evelyn's the only real friend I have, to leave my money to!”

“Forget about who thinks of you and who doesn't. You're not old enough to bog down in this feeble way, Florence.”

“I'm so alone. I can't get about as I used, and Tim leads his own life.”

“Do you encourage people to come to you with tales about one another?”

“Of course not!”

“No, but do you? And then do you tackle the culprits?” She began to sob.

“They never tell me anything. They think they can make a fool of me. I must know what's going on, to protect myself.”

“But that kind of thing lands you in a perfect hotbed of resentment, and mutual distrust, and bad feeling all round. People don't know who's been telling on them, and they're all ready to flit at one another's throats. Oh, well.” He patted her arm. “The thing is to make a sensible will. We'll discuss that later—you can leave the bulk of the money to that Home in Bethea.”

“And the Church, Henry.”