The Cases of Susan Dare (20 page)

“But I don’t see how I can help you,” Susan repeated firmly.

“You
must
help me,” said Mrs. Lasher. “Christabel Frame told me about you. She said you wrote mystery stories and were the only woman who could help me, and that you were right here in Chicago.”

Her handkerchief poised, she waited with childlike anxiety to see if the name of Christabel Frame had its expected weight with Susan. But it was not altogether the name of one of her most loved friends that influenced Susan. It was the childlike appeal on the part of this woman.

“How do you feel about the two claimants?” she said. “Do you feel more strongly attracted to one than to the other?”

“That’s just the trouble,” said Idabelle Lasher. “I like them both.”

“Let me have the whole story again, won’t you? Try to tell it quite definitely, just as things occurred.”

Mrs. Lasher put the handkerchief away and sat up briskly.

“Well,” she began. “It was like this: …” Two months ago a young man called Dixon March had called on her; he had not gone to her lawyer, he had come to see her. And he had told her a very straight story.

“You must remember something of the story—oh, but, of course, you couldn’t. You’re far too young. And then, too, we weren’t as rich as we are now, when little Derek disappeared. He was four at the time. And his nursemaid disappeared at the same time, and I always thought, Miss Dare, that it was the nursemaid who stole him.”

“Ransom?” asked Susan.

“No. That was the queer part of it. There never was any attempt to demand ransom. I always felt the nursemaid simply wanted him for herself—she was a very peculiar woman.”

Susan brought her gently back to the present.

“So Dixon March is this claimant’s name?”

“Yes. That’s another thing. It seemed so likely to me that he could remember his name—Derek—and perhaps in saying Derek in his baby way, the people at the orphanage thought it was Dixon he was trying to say, so they called him Dixon. The only trouble is—”

“Yes,” said Susan, as Idabelle Lasher’s blue eyes wavered and became troubled.

“Well, you see, the other young man, the other Derek—well, his name is Duane. You see?”

Susan felt a little dizzy. “Just what is Dixon’s story?”

“He said that he was taken in at an orphanage at the age of six. That he vaguely remembers a woman, dark, with a mole on her chin, which is an exact description of the nursemaid. Of course, we’ve had the orphanage records examined, but there’s nothing conclusive and no way to identify the woman; she died—under the name of Sarah Gant, which wasn’t the nursemaid’s name—and she was very poor. A social worker simply arranged for the child’s entrance into the orphanage.”

“What makes him think he is your son, then?”

“Well, it’s this way. He grew up and made as much as he could of the education they gave him and actually was making a nice thing with a construction company when he got to looking into his—his origins, he said—and an account of the description of our Derek, the dates, the fact that he could discover nothing of the woman, Sarah Gant, previous to her life in Ottawa—”

“Ottawa?”

“Yes. That was where he came from. The other one, Duane, from New Orleans. And the fact that, as Dixon remembered her, she looked very much like the newspaper pictures of the nursemaid, suggested the possibility that he was our lost child.”

“So, on the evidence of corresponding dates and the likeness of the woman who was caring for him before he was taken to the orphanage, comes to you, claiming to be your son. A year after your husband died.”

“Yes, and—well—” Mrs. Lasher flushed pinkly. “There are some things he can remember.”

“Things—such as what?”

“The—the green curtains in the nursery. There
were
green curtains in the nursery. And a—a calico dog. And—and a few other things. The lawyers say that isn’t conclusive. But I think it’s very important that he remembers the calico dog.”

“You’ve had lawyers looking into his claims.”

“Oh, dear, yes,” said Mrs. Lasher. “Exhaustively.”

“But can’t they trace Sarah Gant?”

“Nothing conclusive, Miss Dare.”

“His physical appearance?” suggested Susan.

“Miss Dare,” said Mrs. Lasher. “My Derek was blond with gray eyes. He had no marks of any kind. His teeth were still his baby teeth. Any fair young man with gray eyes might be my son. And both these men—either of these men might be Derek. I’ve looked long and wearily, searching every feature and every expression for a likeness to my boy. It is equally there—and not there. I feel sure that one of them is my son. I am absolutely sure that he has—has come home.”

“But you don’t know which one?” said Susan softly.

“I don’t know which one,” said Idabelle Lasher. “But one of them
is Derek.
”

She turned suddenly and walked heavily to a window. Her pale green gown of soft crêpe that trailed behind her, its hem touching a priceless thin rug that ought to have been in a museum. Behind her, against the gray wall, hung a small Mauve, exquisite. Twenty-one stories below, traffic flowed unceasingly along Lake Shore Drive.

“One of them must be an impostor,” Idabelle Lasher was saying presently in a choked voice.

“Is Dixon certain he is your son?”

“He says only that he thinks so. But since Duane has come, too, he is more—more positive—”

“Duane, of course.” The rivalry of the two young men must be rather terrible. Susan had a fleeting glimpse again of what it might mean: one of them certainly an impostor, both imposters, perhaps, struggling over Idabelle Lasher’s affections and her fortune. The thought opened, really, quite appalling and horrid vistas.

“What is Duane’s story?” asked Susan.

“That’s what makes it so queer, Miss Dare. Duane’s story—is—well, it is exactly the same.”

Susan stared at her wide green back, cushiony and bulgy in spite of the finest corseting that money could obtain.

“You don’t mean
exactly
the same!” she cried.

“Exactly,” the woman turned and faced her. “Exactly the same, Miss Dare, except for the names and places. The name of the woman in Duane’s case was Mary Miller, the orphanage was in New Orleans, he was going to art school here in Chicago when—when, he says, just as Dixon said—he began to be more and more interested in his parentage and began investigating. And he, too, remembers things, little things from his babyhood and our house that only Derek could remember.”

“Wait, Mrs. Lasher,” said Susan, grasping at something firm. “Any servant, any of your friends, would know these details also.”

Mrs. Lasher’s pale, big eyes became more prominent.

“You mean, of course, a conspiracy. The lawyers have talked nothing else. But, Miss Dare, they authenticated everything possible to authenticate in both statements. I know what has happened to the few servants we had—all, that is, except the nursemaid. And we don’t have many close friends, Miss Dare. Not since there was so much money. And none of them—none of them would do this.”

“But both young men can’t be Derek,” said Susan desperately. She clutched at common sense again and said: “How soon after your husband’s death did Dixon arrive?”

“Ten months.”

“And Duane?”

“Three months after Dixon.”

“And they are both living here with you now?”

“Yes.” She nodded toward the end of the long room. “They are in the library now.”

“Together?” said Susan irresistibly.

“Yes, of course,” said Mrs. Lasher. “Playing cribbage.”

“I suppose you and your lawyers have tried every possible test?”

“Everything, Miss Dare.”

“You have no fingerprints of the baby?”

“No. That was before fingerprints were so important. We tried blood tests, of course. But they are of the same type.”

“Resemblances to you or your husband?”

“You’ll see for yourself at dinner tonight, Miss Dare. You will help me?”

Susan sighed. “Yes,” she said.

The bedroom to which Mrs. Lasher herself took Susan was done in the French manner with much taffeta, inlaid satinwood, and lace cushions. It was very large and overwhelmingly magnificent, and gilt mirrors reflected Susan’s small brown figure in unending vistas.

Susan dismissed the maid, thanked fate that the only dinner gown she had brought was a new and handsome one, and felt very awed and faintly dissolute in a great, sunken, black marble pool that she wouldn’t have dared call a tub. After all, reflected Susan, finding that she could actually swim a stroke or two, thirty millions was thirty millions.

She got into a white chiffon dress with silver and green at the waist, and was stooping in a froth of white flounces to secure the straps of her flat-heeled silver sandals when Mrs. Lasher knocked.

“It’s Derek’s baby things,” she said in a whisper and with a glance over her fat white shoulder. “Let’s move a little farther from the door.”

They sat down on a cushioned chaise-longue and between them, incongruous against the suave cream satin, Idabelle Lasher spread out certain small objects, touching them lingeringly.

“His little suit—he looked so sweet in yellow. Some pictures. A pink plush teddy bear. His little nursery-school reports—he was already in nursery school, Miss Dare—pre-kindergarten, you know. It was in an experimental stage then, and so interesting. And the calico dog, Miss Dare.”

She stopped there, and Susan looked at the faded, flabby calico dog held so tenderly in those fat diamonded hands. She felt suddenly a wave of cold anger toward the man who was not Derek and who must know that he was not Derek. She took the pictures eagerly.

But they were only pictures. One at about two, made by a photographer; a round baby face without features that were at all distinctive. Two or three pictures of a little boy playing, squinting against the sun.

“Has anyone else seen these things?”

“You mean either of the two boys—either Dixon or Duane? No, Miss Dare.”

“Has anyone at all seen them? Servants? Friends?”

Idabelle’s blue eyes became vague and clouded.

“Long ago, perhaps,” she said. “Oh, many, many years ago. But they’ve been in the safe in my bedroom for years. Before that in a locked closet.”

“How long have they been in the safe?”

“Since we bought this apartment. Ten—no, twelve years.”

“And no one—there’s never been anything like an attempted robbery of that safe?”

“Never. No, Miss Dare. There’s no possible way for either Dixon or Duane to know of the contents of this box except from memory.”

“And Dixon remembers the calico dog?”

“Yes.” The prominent blue eyes wavered again, and Mrs. Lasher rose and walked toward the door. She paused then and looked at Susan again.

“And Duane remembers the teddy bear and described it to me,” she said definitely and went away.

There was a touch of comedy about it, and, like all comedy, it overlay tragedy.

Left to herself, Susan studied the pictures again thoughtfully. The nursery-school reports, written out in beautiful “vertical” handwriting.
Music:
A good ear.
Memory:
Very good.
Adaptability:
Very good.
Sociability:
Inclined to shyness.
Rhythm:
Poor (advise skipping games at home).
Conduct:
(this varied; with at least once a suggestive blank and once a somewhat terse remark to the effect that there had been considerable disturbance during the half hours devoted to naps and a strong suggestion that Derek was at the bottom of it). Susan smiled there and began to like baby Derek. And it was just then that she found the first indication of an identifying trait. And that was after the heading,
Games.
One report said: Quick. Another said: Mentally quick but does not coordinate muscles well. And a third said, definitely pinning the thing down: Tendency to use left hand which we are endeavoring to correct.

Tendency to use left hand. An inborn tendency, cropping out again and again all through life. In those days, of course, it had been rigidly corrected—thereby inducing all manner of ills, according to more recent trends of education. But was it ever altogether conquered?

Presently Susan put the things in the box again and went to Mrs. Lasher’s room. And Susan had the somewhat dubious satisfaction of watching Mrs. Lasher open a delicate ivory panel which disclosed a very utilitarian steel safe set in the wall behind it and place the box securely in the safe.

“Did you find anything that will be of help?” asked Mrs. Lasher, closing the panel.

“I don’t know,” said Susan. “I’m afraid there’s nothing very certain. Do Dixon and Duane know why I am here?”

“No,” said Mrs. Lasher, revealing unexpected cunning. “I told them you were a dear friend of Christabel’s. And that you were very much interested in their—my—our situation. We talk it over, you know, very frankly, Miss Dare. The boys are as anxious as I am to discover the truth of it.”

Again, thought Susan feeling baffled, as the true Derek would be. She followed Mrs. Lasher toward the drawing room again, prepared heartily to dislike both men.

But the man sipping a cocktail in the doorway of the library was much too old to be either Dixon or Duane.

“Major Briggs,” said Mrs. Lasher. “Christabel’s friend, Susan, Tom.” She turned to Susan. “Major Tom Briggs is our closest friend. He was like a brother to my husband, and has been to me.”

“Never a brother,” said Major Briggs with an air of gallantry. “Say, rather, an admirer. So this is Christabel’s little friend.” He put down his cocktail glass and bowed and took Susan’s hand only a fraction too tenderly.

Then Mrs. Lasher drifted across the room where Susan was aware of two pairs of black shoulders rising to greet her, and Major Briggs said beamingly:

“How happy we are to have you with us, my dear. I suppose Idabelle has told you of our—our problem.”

He was about Susan’s height; white-haired, rather puffy under the eyes, and a bit too pink, with hands that were inclined to shake. He adjusted his gold-rimmed eyeglasses, then let them drop the length of their black ribbon and said:

“What do you think of it, my dear?”

“I don’t know,” said Susan. “What do you think?”