The Flesh of The Orchid (23 page)

“Won’t you wait a little longer?” he asked. “You’ll be all alone. . . .”

A sudden glow like fever came into her cheeks.

“Please do what I say or I must find someone else,” she said with raised voice. “Where I am going and what I intend to do is my affair.”

Magarth shrugged.

“AH right,” he said unhappily, got to his feet. “I’ll do it.”

She put her hand on his arm, and for a moment the hardness in her eyes softened.

“You are very kind,” she said in a low tone. “Don’t think I’m ungrateful. I don’t know what I should have done without you and Veda. I hope you will both be very happy.”

“That’s O.K.,” he said, and managed to smile. “You know how I feel about you. I do wish you’d think again. Veda and I want you to stay with us. I don’t know what you are planning to do, but I have a hunch nothing good will come of it. . . ;”

“I have made up my mind,” she said quietly and turned away. “Will you leave me now? Will you please tell Veda that I am leaving tomorrow morning? I don’t want to see anyone tonight.”

Magarth made a final appeal.

“Won’t you take me into your confidence, Carol?” he pleaded. “I might be able to help you. Why do you insist on going off on your own, when you have two people who would do anything for you? Tell me what you plan to do, and I’ll help you.”

She shook her head.

“No one can help me,” she said. “What I have to do can only be done by myself, and alone. Please leave me now.”

“All right,” Magarth said, admitting defeat, and he crossed to the door.

When he had gone Carol went to the window and sat down. She remained motionless for some moments, her cold, clenched hands pressing against her temples.

“Wherever you are, Steve, my darling, love me,” she said softly. “I am so lonely and afraid, but I will find them. They will not escape me, and I will make them pay for what they did to you. I will be as ruthless and as cruel to them as they were to us. I have nothing left to live for but to make them pay.”

She was still sitting before the window when the pale autumn light faded, and rain, which had been threatening all the afternoon, began to fall.

*     *     *

Rain was still falling the next day, and dirty grey clouds, lying low on the hills, formed belts of mist that brought darkness to the late afternoon.

A black Chrysler coupe, its fenders splashed with mud, nosed its way up the steeply rising by-road which led to the old plantation house so recently occupied by Tex Sherill.

Carol stopped the car before the crumbling porch, got out and stood for a moment while she surveyed the dark building for any sign of life.

The rain dripped dismally from the eaves on to the wooden stoop and made a soft whispering sound. The blank face of the house was tight in darkness, and Carol wondered if it were empty.

She mounted the wooden steps and tried the door-handle. The door was locked. .She rapped with her knuckles on the hard panel and waited. She had to rap several times before she heard a faint step on the other side of the door. She rapped again insistently, and the voice of Miss Lolly came through the letterbox, “Who is it?”

“Carol Blandish. I want to speak to you.”

She heard Miss Lolly catch her breath, then the door opened a few inches, stopped as the chain on the inside prevented it opening further.

“Why have you come back?” Miss Lolly asked out of the darkness.

“I want to talk to you,” Carol said, leaning against the doorpost and speaking close to the narrow opening.

“But you can’t come in,” Miss Lolly said. “I want to be left alone.”

“You helped me before. I was hoping you would help me now. I am looking for the Sullivans.”

Miss Lolly drew in a sharp breath.

“What do you want with them?” she asked fiercely. “They are hunting for you, you little fool. Leave them alone!”

“They shot my lover,” Carol said in her hard flat voice. “Do you think I’m going to leave them alone after that?”

“Oh!” There was a moment’s silence. “Revenge?” Miss Lolly asked, a new and eager note in her voice. “Is that what you want?”

“I want to find them,” Carol said.

The chain grated, then the door opened.

“Come in,” Miss Lolly said out of the darkness. “I am alone here now. Mr. Sherill left soon after you did.”

Carol followed her down the long dark passage into the back room, where a lamp burned brightly on the table. The room was full of old, shabby furniture, and it was not easy to move about without touching something.

Miss Lolly kept in the shadows. Carol could see her big tragic eyes looking at her. Around her throat was twisted a white scarf, hiding her beard.

“Sit down,” Miss Lolly said. “So you are looking for them? If I were younger I would look for them too.”

Carol opened her light dust-coat, pulled off her close-fitting hat. She shook out her hair with a quick movement of her head.

“Do you know where they are?” she asked as she sat down.

“But what can you do to them if you do find them?” Miss Lolly said, a note of despair in her voice. “What could I do? They are so cunning, so quick, so strong. No one can do anything to them.”

Carol turned her head, and for a moment the two women looked at each other. Miss Lolly was startled to see the hard, bitter expression on Carol’s face, and the icy bleakness of her eyes.

? “I will make them pay,” Carol said softly, “no matter how cunning and quick and strong they are. I will make them pay if it takes me the rest of my life. I have nothing else to live for.”

Miss Lolly nodded, and her fingers touched the scarf at her throat.

“I feel like that too,” she said, and two tears ran out of her eyes and dropped on to her hand. “You see, Max cut off my beard.”

Carol didn’t move nor did her expression change.

“Why did he do that?” she asked.

“Because I let you go,” Miss Lolly said, clasping her hands. “I would rather they had killed me. I’m a vain old woman, my dear: it may seem horrible to you, but I loved my beard. I have had it a long time.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Miss Lolly drew up a chair, again adjusted the scarf round her chin, sat down. She put out a hand hopefully, but Carol drew away, her face cold and hard.

“Tell me,” she repeated.

“They came back two days after you had gone. Frank remained in the car and Max came in here. I was a little frightened, but I sat where you are sitting now and waited to see what he would do to me. He seemed to know you had gone, for he didn’t ask for you. He asked for Mr. Sherill, and I told him he had left here. He stood looking at me for a long time, then he asked why I hadn’t gone too, and I told him there was nowhere for me to go.” Miss Lolly fidgeted with her scarf, then went on after a long pause: “He hit me over the head, and later when I came to they had gone. He had cut off my beard. You may remember it?” She looked wistfully at Carol. “It was a very beautiful beard, and he burnt it. He’s a devil,” she said, raising her voice. “He knew nothing would give me more pain than that.”

“And Frank?” Carol asked.

“He remained in the car,” Miss Lolly said, looking bewildered. “I don’t know why, for he is cruel, and it is not like him to keep away when someone is going to be hurt, but he remained in the car.”

Carol smiled. Looking at her, Miss Lolly felt a chill run down her spine.

“He stayed in the car because he is blind,” Carol said. “I blinded him after he had killed Steve.”

Miss Lolly remained still. She was surprised that she felt a shocked kind of pity for Frank.

“Blind? I wouldn’t wish anyone to be blind,” she said.

Carol made an impatient movement.

“Where are they?” she asked, a harsh note creeping into her voice. “If you know, tell me, but don’t waste my time. Every moment I remain here means they are getting further away from me. Where are they?”

Miss Lolly shrank back, alarmed at the suppressed venom in the green eyes.

“I don’t know,” she said, “but they had a room upstairs where they kept their things. They took everything when they left except a photograph which had slipped between the floorboards. That may tell you something.”

“Where is it?” Carol demanded.

“I have it here. I was looking at it when you knocked.” Miss Lolly opened a drawer, took out a photograph, laid it on the table under the white light of the lamp.

Carol bent over it.

It was a photograph of a girl whose dark hair was parted in the middle; the broad white line between the parting was pronounced. It was a curious face: a little coarse, full-lipped, wide-eyed and fleshy. There was something magnetic about it: sensual, animal quality; an uncontrolled wantonness; a badness that was scarcely concealed by the veneer of polished sophistication. Under the brazenly skimpy swim-suit she wore was a shape to set a man crazy. Across the bottom of the photograph, scrawled in white ink and in a big sprawling hand, was the inscription:
To darling Frank from Linda.

Without change of expression, Carol turned the photograph, read the name of the photographer stamped on the back:
Kenneth Carr,
3971
Main Street, Santo Rio.
Then she once more turned the photograph to study the girl’s face.

Miss Lolly watched her closely.

“She is the kind of woman a man wouldn’t forget easily,” she said, leaning forward to peer over Carol’s shoulder. “She’s bad, but attractive. A man would return to her again and again. Find her, and I think you will find Frank.”

“Yes,” Carol said.

*     *     *

Santo Rio is a small, compact little town on the Pacific Coast: a millionaire’s playground. It has no industry unless you call every form of lavish and luxurious entertainment an industry; in which case Santo Rio’s industry is a thriving one. The main bulk of its citizens earn their living by entertaining the rich visitors who come in their thousands to Santo Rio all the year round. Gambling, racing, yachting, dancing, ordinary and extraordinary forms of vice, night clubs, theatres, cinemas and so on employ those people who are not smart enough to stand on their own feet and run their own rackets.

The smart ones—of whom Eddie Regan was a leading member—make a comfortable living out of blackmail, con. tricks, being gigolos or practising any other nefarious racket that brings in easy money.

Eddie Regan was tall, wide and handsome. He had black curly hair, a tanned complexion, excellent teeth as white as orange pith, and sparkling blue eyes that proved irresistible to rich, elderly women who came to Santo Rio to kick over the traces, probably for the last time.

Eddie made a reasonable income as a dancing partner to these elderly women, and supplemented this income from time to time by blackmailing them when they were foolish enough (as they often were) to furnish him with evidence which they would be reluctant for their husbands to see.

Making love to elderly women was not Eddie’s idea of a good time, but he was smart enough to realize his talents were only suited to such a career, and so, being a man of considerable vitality, he consoled himself with youthful beauty in his off-duty hours.

His present consolation was Linda Lee, the subject of the photograph that had been overlooked by the Sullivans when they had packed up and left the old plantation house for good.

Eddie had come upon Linda quite by chance. He had been lounging on the beach one afternoon keeping an eye open for any elderly woman who happened to look lonely when he observed Linda coming out of the sea for a sun bath. Now, Linda had the kind of figure that looked its best in a wet swim-suit: anyway, Eddie thought so, and he was, in his way, an expert on such matters. Elderly women were immediately banished from his mind as he gave his undivided attention to the sensational torso that was moving his way.

Eddie had seen nothing like it before, and in his long life of amorous experiences he had seen many pleasing sights. Without hesitation he decided it was imperative that he should become closer acquainted with this torso, and as soon as its dark-haired owner had settled down on a beach wrap and handed herself over to the hot rays of the sun, he crossed the strip of sand dividing them and sat down by her side.

Linda was quite pleased to have company. Maybe Eddie’s handsome face and sunburnt, manly chest had something to do with it, but whatever it was, she received his advances graciously, and in a minute or so they had become old friends: in under an hour they were lovers. -That was the way Eddie liked his women: smooth, polished, quick and willing.

Eddie, who was a cynic, fully expected that by the end of the week Linda’s charms would have palled; as the charms of so many other young women who had also been quick and willing had palled in the past. But, instead, he found himself thinking about Linda night and day; neglecting his work to be with her; and even passing up a golden opportunity to levy a little blackmail just to take her out to an expensive night club.

Their association had now lasted three weeks, and so far as Eddie was concerned he was eager and as amorous as the day the association first began. He was even willing to secure proprietary rights over Linda, a step he had avoided in the past as not only unnecessary, but as a direct menace to his freedom.

Linda, however, had no wish to lose her independence and freedom. Receiving Eddie every day and two or three nights a week as a lover was one thing; but Eddie as a complete lord and master, to say nothing of being a permanent lodger, was something else besides.

So Eddie was kept in check and was not allowed all the freedom he might wish. He was baffled by the luxurious standard by which Linda lived. She owned a charming little villa which boasted its own private beach and a small tropical garden which a negro gardener attended to with colourful and fertile results, and which was hidden away in a quiet secluded spot along the coastline.

The villa was furnished in style and comfort; the meals provided by the negro cook were excellent. The upkeep of such an establishment must have been considerable: where then did the money come from? Where did the money come from to keep Linda supplied with the smartest clothes, the smartest shoes and the smartest hats to be seen in Santo Rio? Where did the money come from that bought the glittering blue Road Master Buick in which Linda drove around town or out into the country when the spirit moved her?