Unexpected Night (18 page)

“Rather a formidable pet.” He handed Sanderson the other glass, and mixed a drink for himself in one which Mrs. Cowden brought from the bathroom. “He's a holy terror in medical jurisprudence, and no jury has ever brought in a verdict against his evidence.”

“I knew he had a wonderful reputation. I hope you two are going down for a swim.”

“I'd like nothing better. You going, Gamadge?” asked Sanderson.

“I certainly am.”

“Gosh, this is what I needed! You're a Samaritan, old man.” Sanderson drained his glass, and then took a sheet of paper out of his wallet, and handed it to Mrs. Cowden. “Here's the statement the Colonel and I drew up for the Press. We called up the sheriff, and he approved. I only hope you will.”

She read it, and passed it to Gamadge. “It will do, I suppose. Very clever of you, Hugh,” she said, wearily.

“Did they like it?” Gamadge handed it back. It was short, and had a disarming effect of candour: Amberley Cowden had left the hotel shortly after his arrival with his family; he had expressed interest in the aspect of the “sea turn,” and had probably strolled down the road, and climbed to the top of the cliff, to get the full effect of it. The cliff was only a couple of minutes' walk from the hotel, and the climb to it was short and easy. Unfortunately, the boy had an advanced case of myocarditis, and this last exertion had proved too much for him. Doctors Cogswell and Baines were mentioned by name, as were also the Barclays. No reference, of course, was made to money, birthdays, the Atwoods or Seal Cove.

“They had to like it. We gave it out to five papers, local and otherwise, and to the Associated Press. Then we quit. The Colonel went down for a swim, and I got in a little putting.”

“We saw you,” said Mrs. Cowden.

“Did you get out? Splendid.”

“Very splendid. I went against my better judgment, and when I do that I always regret it. Now you two must go down and get your bathe. The Barclays are coming up after dinner, so you're off for the rest of the day, Hugh. You've done your share, until to-morrow.”

“That's awfully good of you; I should like to turn in early. Come along to my room, Gamadge, will you, while I get my bathing suit?”

Room 20 was small and hot; it contained a washbasin equipped with gurgling water pipes, and, judging from the clash of crockery that came in through its uncurtained window, it was directly over the kitchen. Sanderson apologised for its disorder.

“I'm not even unpacked yet,” he said, removing clothes and books from the bed, so that Gamadge could sit down. A suitcase stood on the only chair, and he proceeded to rummage in it. He dragged out a bathing suit, added a raincoat to it, and said he was ready.

“A raincoat's a great help,” he remarked, slamming the door behind them. “Beach robe, dressing gown, what you please. Look here, Gamadge; what did Mrs. Cowden mean, about regretting her walk with you?”

“Somebody was taking pot shots at Miss Cowden on the golf course.”

“What!” Sanderson stopped, and stared at him.

“Golf ball nearly hit her. Come on, I'll tell you about it after we get outside.”

When they were on their way down the drive, Gamadge described the incident. Sanderson looked bewildered. “I never heard of anything like it,” he said. “Do you mean it was an accident?”

“Well, the women think not. Of course, the fellow must have run like a rabbit, afterwards.”

“It couldn't possibly have been a stray ball from another tee? Or another fairway?”

“You don't know the terrain, or you wouldn't ask that.”

“It couldn't have been done on purpose.” Sanderson looked frightened.

“I don't quite know how to explain myself, but there was something exceedingly purposeful about the way it came shooting down.”

“But, good Lord! It
must
have been an accident.”

“That's what Fred Barclay says.”

“Was he with you?”

“Playing on the next fairway. He joined us afterwards. He was playing alone.”

Gamadge put no particular significance into his tone, but Sanderson looked at him sharply.

“And Mrs. Barclay was on the tenth tee, also playing alone,” said Gamadge.

“And I was on the eighteenth green also playing alone. Don't talk rot,” begged Sanderson.

“I'm just giving you the general picture.”

“Mrs. Barclay!”

“Good player, Mrs. Barclay, until she gets up to the green.”

“How—how is Alma taking it?”

“Very well. A little upset, naturally, but Baines has seen her, and I think she'll be all right.”

“What does she think about it? What does her aunt think?”

“Well, they seem to be more or less obsessed by the idea of our friend Atwood.”

“Atwood? Nonsense. He's sewed up there at the Cove.”

“He is, if mortal man can sew Atwood up. I'm going up there to the show, as you remember; so's Mitchell. We'll have to try and find out whether he was on hand this afternoon.”

“They have this unreasonable horror of the fellow. I suppose he must have been an uncanny sort of boy.”

“Curious phenomenon in a respectable family. His mother was Mrs. Barclay's sister, wasn't she?”

“Yes, the eldest of three. I gather that she was more or less the family fool. She was in her late forties when she eloped with Atwood; some sort of vaudeville actor. You can imagine the scandal.”

“I suppose the family never saw much of the son.”

“On the contrary, they tried to give him a lift when the parents died, which they did when he was only a kid. Hopeless proposition—there was no holding him. When he was old enough, he went on the stage himself, and married there. This woman is his third wife. Poor old Amby never knew him at all, or hardly. Thought he was a romantic figure. All that nonsense of Atwood's tickled him—and, of course, he did rather like the idea of being a patron. It gave him an interest. Nice feelings, he had; always out for the underdogs—such as myself.” He smiled. “That's the way he thought of me.”

They had reached the bathhouse, where they separated; Sanderson to engage a cabin, Gamadge to seize two towels from the shelf, and disappear into his own cubicle. He got into his bathing suit, and ran across the beach to the edge of the water. It was almost as quiet as a pond; pale blue and twinkling in the distance, glassy green inshore. Thin ruffles of surf broke at his feet.

He shuddered, knowing the signs; this was going to be an icy dip. He dashed in, plunged, and came up gasping. After a swim just long enough to prove that he wasn't afraid of cold water, he waded out, flung his bathrobe over his shoulders, and went along the narrow plank walk towards the nearest gap in the sea wall. His way took him past the Barclays, who were assembled in a family group; Mrs. Barclay and the Colonel in deck chairs, their son at their feet, his hands clasped about his shins and a sweater tied by its sleeves around his neck. Like a contemplative god, he sat gazing beyond the shouting children and the striped umbrellas, out to sea.

Mrs. Barclay gave the shivering young man who addressed her a cool reception. “Fred's told on me,” thought Gamadge, and said to the god below him: “Mitchell and I are driving up to the Cove, to-night. Want to come along?”

“Are you asking me?” Young Barclay turned his head and looked up.

“Yes.”

“No, thanks; there's been a death in the family.”

Gamadge said, amiably: “The trip was to be in the nature of business.”

Colonel Barclay, who had apparently been dozing, opened his eyes. “Part of this sheriff's investigation?” he asked.

“Yes; sir. Not only that; there's been a death up there—one of the actresses. Mitchell's looking into it.”

“God bless me! Another inquest?”

“Another inquest.”

The Colonel said: “I never heard anything like it. What's this I hear about Alma being hit by a golf ball?”

“She wasn't hit, sir.”

“If she had been, she would have been killed; outrageous. I understand you couldn't find the scoundrel.”

Lieutenant Barclay observed, in a dispassionate tone: “What I can't quite make out is why you didn't look around a bit. I gather that you never even left the tee.”

“Well, no, I didn't,” replied Gamadge, still more amiably. “I figured that there were three fairways within a few yards, just beyond that belt of pines up there. If I had gone through, and met a lone golfer on any one of them, innocently knocking his ball about; would it have done much good to have asked him politely if he had just failed to commit a homicide?”

Colonel Barclay said, irritably: “Not so much criticism, Fred. Gamadge and Sanderson have been doing their best all day to help us out of our difficulties. I can't say as much for you. You took yourself off, this afternoon—”

“Now, Father!” protested Mrs. Barclay.

The choleric blue eyes wandered seaward. “There's going to be another sea turn, to-night,” said the Colonel.

“No; really?” Gamadge, in turn, looked out over the dazzling ocean, and up at the clear blue sky.

“Land breeze is dead, air's softening, not a cloud up there, and you can see the haze on the horizon.”

“So I can.” The white line between sea and sky was indeed broader than it had been. “Well, my teeth are beginning to chatter. I'd better get my clothes on.”

He went up to the bathhouse. When he came out, Sanderson joined him, looking half-frozen, the damp and sandy raincoat bunched over his arm.

“My heavens,” he said, “what water! Is it always like that?”

“Always, when there's a land breeze.” They walked up the road, Gamadge rather wishing that he was alone. He wanted time to sort out the jumble of his ideas. “Evidence, evidence, evidence,” he brooded, while Sanderson's chat sounded in his ears. “We haven't a scrap of it that would stand up for one instant in a court of law. And yet I
know
. Maddening…What's that you say?”

“I said, ‘What kind of ball was it?'”

“Dreadnought 3. I use them, everybody uses them. Mrs. Barclay uses them—up.”

“Do stop talking about Mrs. Barclay! It's too grotesque.”

“I shouldn't care to have her drive into me, I can tell you…” He retired again into his thoughts: “What's the use of telling Mitchell? He'd only take action, and ruin everything. I can't tell him yet. I don't dare. Evidence. If I could only…”

They went up the Ocean House steps, and into the lobby. New arrivals were at the desk, where Wilks, the freckled day clerk, presided fussily. He saw Gamadge, and waved to him. “Telegrams for you, sir.”

Gamadge had stopped dead in his tracks, his thoughts racing. “Great Caesar's ghost! What did—wait a minute. I must cultivate poise. That's it; nerves of steel, like Fred Barclay. Like Mitchell.”

Sanderson looked at him, wonderingly. “What's the matter?” he asked.

“Something I just remembered. My telegrams. Forgot all about them.”

They went up to the desk, and Wilks handed two yellow envelopes to Gamadge, and some letters to Sanderson. “You were on the golf course when these came, sir,” he said to Gamadge. “At least, so Peabody told me. I didn't think they were urgent, so I didn't chase you.” Wilks, having taken them himself over the telephone, saw no reason why he should pretend ignorance of their contents.

“Thanks. No, I don't suppose they are.”

“Just day letters, about that club you were thinking of joining.”

“Club? Oh, yes.” Gamadge wished that his fingers had not such an irresistible tendency to jerk at the envelopes as he opened them. He glanced casually about him; up at the clock, right and left at the arrivals and their luggage, down at the register beneath his nose. “Has Miss Macpherson come?” he asked. “No, I see she hasn't. She'd better; her uncle's arranged a foursome for tomorrow.”

“Coming to-night, sir, on the C.P.R.”

“Golf champion?” enquired Sanderson.

“Could be, if she wasn't a trained nurse. People are coming in, Wilks; we won't know the place in a day or so. You ought to see it at the top of the season,” he told Sanderson. “Especially on a rainy night. All the cottage people stay in the place and play bridge. Children dashing around and yelling, radio going, tobacco smoke so thick you could cut it, card tables jammed together like sardines, and half a dozen Mah Jong die-hards rattling tiles in one corner.”

“I'm afraid I shall miss all that,” said Sanderson, rather wistfully.

Wilks coughed. “We hate to lose your party, sir. Four rooms and two baths. But we wouldn't hold you, not even for a week, after such a tragedy.”

Gamadge spread his day letters out on the desk, planted his elbows one on either side of them, and read them through, “All right so far,” he reflected. “Poise, perfect poise.”