To love and to honor (26 page)

She relived the moment in police headquarters when he had extended his billfold to the chief for inspection, his "Take a look at this." Recalled the official's startled.

"GoramiRhty, it was you, Col—" saw again the warning lift of Ken's hand which had broken off the sentence. Curious how a mystery began to untangle when one caught the right end. Probably that same police department had supplied "Brother Joe." No one else had appeared to guard the hidden loot in The Castle.

Cautiously she widened the crack. Why stay cooped in this closet when possibly a melodrama was about to be unreeled outside? Ally Barclay had left the door partially open. Could she slip behind that? This stateroom was dark. She had made it. Through the crack she could see the end of the salon with a table set for four. Crystal sparkled. Silver shimmered. From the sounds it would appear that cocktails or sherry were being served.

"I didn't find out whom you were representing at the Bal Masqu^, Mrs. Drew—" Ken Stewart's voice.

"I left before the unmasking. I wasn't used to my costume, and when it threatened to come apart on me I departed."

"Did any one of you discover the identity of the clown who cut in so often on the girl selling papers and her news? I wondered if it was a case of love at first sight."

"I didn't notice him. I wasn't the newsgirl. Colonel Stewart. I wore a purple East Indian costume."

"The one you brought from Calcutta—Patty Gould?'*

"Maxl"

The hoarse exclamation brought Cindy from her hiding place to the threshold. She could see Mrs. Drew's ghastly face—her pallor accentuated by the brilliant green of her frock—as she stared at the man in uniform who had stepped into the room. Light struck the large lenses of his spectacles with uncanny effect. It highlighted also the small, shining bald island on top of his head surrounded by graying hair. The silver bars of a captain glinted on his shoulders, a broad and colorful array of service ribbons adorned the breast of his tunic.

"I see you recognize me, Patty, my love." A gargoylish grin distorted his face.

In the split second of silence that followed her hor-

rified exclamation Mrs. Drew had pulled herself together.

"I don't know what you are talking about. Lloyd, how came this man aboard my boat?"

"Your man Lloyd will keep his mouth shut till I get through talking." The voice was that of a person accustomed to command. "You called me 'Max/ didn't you? That is my name, isn't it?"

"How do I know what your name is?" She was magnificent in her disdain. "I was startled for a moment. You looked like a brother I lost in the war. He was a Captain. Lloyd, put this person off my boat."

"No one will put me off this boat till I have collected my half from the sale of our possessions you brought to this country, Mrs.—Drew. Am I right in the name? I understand you have had several since you discarded mine. I have been half crazy with anxiety about you— didn't give a damn for the treasures—now that I see you and know what you are, so far as I am concerned you died the day you left me." He removed his spectacles and polished them with a handkerchief.

"You'd better come clean, Patty, my love'* His voice lashed. "Each person in this room knows you've been smuggling during the last two years."

"How did you know—" As if realizing she had betrayed herself she whirled toward Ken Stewart in a passion of fury.

"You did this. You heard that broadcast of missing persons at WTiite Pillars. At cards you tricked me into showing my skill. You got in touch with this man who claims to be my husband. You—you—' Fury choked her voice.

"Better stop where you are," the man in uniform reminded coldly. "With every word you're plunging deeper into confession. I'm not here to claim you as my wife. I don't want you. I want my half of our joint property or my share of the money you got for it and I won't leave this boat till you sign over my rights."

Her eyes flashed from one to another like those of a trapped animal. Stopped at Laurence Lloyd. Narrowed.

"Why haven't you said a word in my defense? I wonder if all this time you have fooled—"

"You and the crew of this boat are under arrest. Madam."

Cindy's heart shot to her throat and choked her with its heavy beat.

The white-haired police chief in person. He stood in the doorway that opened on the deck. He was the man who had questioned her at headquarters. Would he suspect she belonged to this gang? That was a lovely thought.

"Arrested." Mrs. Drew looked him up and down as if he were some strange animal which had wandered into the lounge. "Arrested? For what? Because I deserted that man in uniform? All right, he was my husband, but you don't arrest people for desertion in the State of Maine, or do you?" There was a hint of amusement in the last question.

In the instant of tingling silence which followed Cindy forgot that she should remain out of sight and stepped across the threshold. Safe enough. No one would notice her in this crisis. She glanced surreptitiously at Ken Stewart. He was staring at her as if he couldn't believe what his eyes were seeing. It was but a second before they returned to the white-haired police chief who had produced a paper from the breast pocket of his brass-buttoned dark blue coat.

"The charge of desertion does not appear in this warrant. You are accused of smuggling stolen goods into this country."

"Lauriel"

"No use to appeal to your captain for help, Madam. The broadcasting radio of the yacht has been put out of commission. You can't warn your accomplice on shore. Already government men are at work in your house with mirrors, torches and probing rods to find the loot hidden behind walls and in furniture. We've let you run your rig till we knew there was plenty of evidence. That covers it. The persons present not under arrest are advised to go and quickly/'

Alida Barclay came to the stateroom for the topcoat Cindy was holding out to her.

"My heavens, in the excitement I completely forgot you, Cinderella. I'll go first. Follow in a minute. Our hostess is so engaged she won't notice."

She did.

"Who's the woman in my clothes?" Mrs. Drew demanded as a figure in navy, orange and white flashed by.

"I'll explain later," Cindy heard Lloyd say before in her headlong flight she collided with Ken Stewart who was helping Alida Barclay over the side. A light from below illumined them.

"Here I ami" She announced the evident fact breathlessly. "I was so afraid you would leave me."

He waited till Alida called, "Next," before he seized her shoulder in a grip that hurt.

"How long have you been on this boat, Cinderella?"

The hint of suspicion in the demand coming on top of the evening's excitement and threat of danger infuriated her.

"Something over two thrilling hours, I'd say," she answered airily. "Sensational yacht, isn't it?"

"Did you come on board with Lloyd?"

"Ask him. Now, if you will step away from the exit I'd like to leave, Simon Legree."

"Go ahead."

He held her arm till her feet were firmly on the ladder. The tide was higher than when she had come aboard. Only two steps and she was in the motorboat. Ken Stewart followed. He picked up a slicker.

"Stand up. That blouse is thin. Quite a sea running. You'll be drenched. Put this on."

She stood but raised rebellious eyes to his. Her lips opened to resent his lordly order. Closed. Why make a scene?

"White Pillars, Scott."

"Yes, Counselor," the man at the wheel responded. "It's going to be rough, sir. The tide against the wind which has risen has cooked up a choppy sea."

"Choppy is right. Get through this as fast as you can, Scott.

"Cinderella Clinton, where in heaven's name did you come from?" Seth Armstrong demanded, even in the dim light she could see his cheeks puff and deflate "When you dropped into this boat I thought it was an hallucination induced by an overdose of excitement."

"It couldn't have been a patch on my brain storm when she stepped from the closet of the stateroom in which I left my coat, Seth. Tell us what happened Cmdy. I couldn't get half of it from your excited whisper."

She told them, omitting the reason for faring forth in the outboard. Her story was punctuated by sudden silences when the bow of the boat bore down on a breaking wave throwing geysers of white spray.

"Why were you alone on the water so late?" Ken Stewart demanded.

She watched the red light of his cigarette glow and fade as she counted the faint strokes of a distant ship's bell Only eight o'clock? It seemed years since she had raced down the path from the playhouse at The Hundreds.

"I felt an urge to get away from it all," she answered

lightly.

"And you succeeded, I'll say. I'm worn to an emotion-al frazzle by the late events," Alida Barclay declared, rortunately there is only one more."

"Allyl" Her brother's low warning was accompanied by the motion of his hand toward the man at the wheel. ..J.'^j^^^^' ^^^^'" s^e agreed in a voice as low as his. Cindy, you must be exhausted. I hope you didn't take cold. How long were you in those drenched clothes?"

'It seemed an aeon or two but I wasn't even chilly Smell the sea. I love it. The sky is clear. Millions of stars. And now that I am on the subject of stars, have you heard that reservations are being booked for'interplanetary trips to Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and the Moon leaving a space-port on March 15, 1975?"

"What a corking idea for a twenty-fifth wedding an-niversary trip for a man and gal married this year. Chi dren would be old enough to leave at home safely by that time."

"It would depend a little on how many there were, Ken." Ally Barclay laughed. "You're shooting through the years faster than a rocket can shoot through space. Is it that you hear the ring of wedding bells, Colonel?" she teased. "Thanks be, we're out of that choppy sea. I couldn't have taken much more of it. We'd better land Cinderella at The Castle first, Seth."

"I'll see that she gets home safely, Ally. I left my car at White Pillars," Ken Stewart reminded.

"The air force has spoken," Seth Armstrong declared and chuckled.

Perhaps the Counselor wouldn't be so amused if he knew how she resented the dictation of the "air force," Cindy thought as after removing the slicker she stepped from the boat at White Pillars landing.

"Come in for a snack," Alida Barclay invited. "Do you men realize that we didn't get as far as dinner? Did you have anything to eat on the boat, Cindy?"

"EatI No. I was too busy planning how to get away to think of food. I must go home. Sary will be expecting me. Colonel Stewart should stay—"

"Colonel Stewart is taking you home, Cinderella. Come on."

"Ken, report to me tomorrow, tell me where and how you ran down the husband. There is still one piece of the puzzle—"

"Even trees have ears. Ally," her brother reminded. "Good night, Cinderella. Good night, Stewart. God be with you. Something tells me you'll need Him."

When they reached the long green car at the side of the drive Ken Stewart produced a robe from the back seat.

"With the top down you'll need this. Put it over your shoulders. Comfortable? Let's go."

They had passed through the village before he spoke again.

"I know now how you came to be on the yacht. My apologies for suspecting that you had gone aboard with Lloyd. He's a tiptop agent, but—let's be charitable and say unreliable when it comes to an attractive female of

the species. Ready to tell me why you were in that outboard alone in the late afternoon?"

"No."

"I thought we might trade experiences, that you would be interested to hear what led up to the appearance tonight of the abandoned husband."

She sustained it as if from an electric shock, resentment forgotten.

"I am, oh, I am. Terribly interested, but—I don't want to tell why I borrowed that boat—I did borrow it without asking—it's a comfort to know that if it's lost I can pay for it—the reason I took it may have been entirely cooked up by my imagination."

"That's enough for the present. Perhaps sometime when we are friends again you'll tell me the whole story."

"We'll never be friends, never" her breath caught in a strangled sob.

"Never is a long time, darling. Want to hear the story?"

"Phaser

"Alida Barclay did a piece of detective work abroad. When the head of the customs department heard she had a brother in this town he contacted her and asked her help. Save your startled 'Really?' You'll need it later. You heard the chief of police of this district read the warrant, so you know what she was sent here to unearth. It was weeks before she suspected Mrs. Drew. She told me you caught her tapping the living-room wall at Rockledge. From what the chief of police said, it wasn't a patch on the tapping going on at the present moment. She had been tipped off that there was storage space behind sliding panels. She was trying to find a spring that would open one. That same day you introduced me to Lloyd. He is an agent with whom I worked on a case."

"You said you never had—"

"Heard the name Laurence Lloyd. Right?**

"Right. Forgive the interruption. Go on. I'm so tense my toes have curled under in Mrs. Drew's sandals. It

seems as if the stars were nearer, as if they had leaned down to listen."

"If they have, they haven't heard anything yet. Remember that a couple of days later I went to Washington? It was to renew my credentials—I served in Intelligence before the airlift—so I would have a right to help Ally run down the smugglers."

She remembered how she had missed his companionship, and set her teeth hard in her lips to steady them.

"The night of the dinner at the Armstrongs' I watched the faces of the guests in the living room as the announcer of the Missing Persons program described the wife for whom the Captain of Infantry was searching. I noticed Lydia Fane's loss of color, her tilted coffee cup-that means a story—but I was more interested in Mrs. Drew. A spasmodic twist of her eyes when the wife's expertness at bridge was mentioned set me on her trail like a bird dog on a scent. I asked her to be my partner at contract—I told you she was dumb at the game, too dumb to be true, but I didn't tell you that I let her fumble halfway through, then signaled for a certain play that only an expert would understand. She fell into the trap and came across triumphantly. That tied it. I had found the runaway 'Patty.'