Deadly Nightshade (21 page)

“Irma loves her. I'll ask George about it tomorrow, as soon as he comes in.”

“And there's something you can do for me,” said Gamadge, feeling in his pocket and producing the wad of red ribbon and the red bell. “This is Whitey's, and I promised it to Irma. I have an idea she remembers such things, and I shouldn't like to let her down. Will you tie this on the cat tomorrow morning, and tell Irma I kept my promise?”

“Of course I will.”

“I'm afraid it's rather dirty.”

“Perhaps I can find another ribbon for it.”

“I think we'd better stick to this one.”

“Children do notice when a thing's been changed, don't they?” Mrs. Bartram took the bell, and put it carefully in her bag.

The door opened, and George Bartram came in breezily.

“Well, people! Hello, Gamadge! What brings you here?” He kissed his wife, shook hands with Gamadge, and caused his brother to wake suddenly, looking bewildered. “Let me at that radio—the news bulletin ought to be on.” He twiddled a knob, and went on talking at the top of his voice, while an announcer bellowed war news. “Some picture, that ‘Snow White'! Prettiest thing I ever saw. You see it, Gamadge? Great, isn't it? You'll have to take Irma, Dell.”

“I told you, dear, Irma and I saw it in Rotterdam, that time.”

“I know, but they had those Dutch titles.”

Carroll Bartram said drowsily: “That you, Gamadge? What's up?”

“Mitchell wanted a word or two with you and Loring. He's in the dining room. Don't disturb yourself.”

“Adèle, why don't you get us all some whisky? I'm a rotten host.”

“Lead me to it!” But George Bartram did not wait to be led; he barged out of the room, followed by his wife. When he returned, a few minutes later, his face was no longer smiling. Mitchell and Loring came with him, the latter very grave.

Mrs. Bartram had brought ice and glasses on a tray. Her husband poured Gamadge's drink, and came over, carrying it and his own.

“I think that idea of yours is a good one,” he said heavily. “About Dell and Irma getting out of here tomorrow. I'll telephone for their tickets, and I'll get them off before noon.”

“Hope you don't think me officious. It was just a suggestion.”

“Mighty good one. This place isn't fit for a dog to live in, from what I hear. Mitchell says you were shot at, coming over tonight.”

“Not quite.”

“And that dummy! Look here; what do you two know that's so important? Mitchell swears he doesn't know a thing.”

“Nor do I—yet.”

“Are you sure the dummy wasn't a kid's trick? Mitchell said you didn't stop and investigate.”

“No, I thought we'd better try to live a little longer.”

“By heaven, in your place I'd have got out of that car! I swear I would. I can't believe the fellow meant business. What did he think would happen, when you two were found there in the road?”

“I don't suppose that bothered him; if it was a him.”

“Some crank! A case like this always brings dozens of them out of their holes.”

Mitchell and Loring had been conferring with Carroll Bartram, who had got himself into a sitting position, and was gulping whisky.

“Take it easy,” begged Loring. “Some crank, as George says.”

Mrs. Bartram, hovering on the outskirts of the group, looked terrified. “Oh, this is dreadful!” she was saying, almost in tears. “Oh, Miss Ridgeman,” as the nurse came in, “have you heard? You'd better come away tomorrow with me and Irma.”

“I'll stay right here.” Miss Ridgeman's square, homely face was grim. “This crazy person won't attack us, Mrs. Bartram.”

“How do you know he won't? I wouldn't let Irma stay for anything!”

Carroll Bartram asked, almost with violence: “What criminal idiot is doing these things, Loring? Are you trying to find out?”

“Easy, old man; you're getting your psychopathology mixed. Mitchell wants me to look over one subject—if he can catch her, that is.”

“Her?” cried Mrs. Bartram.

“Her. I'll investigate some others for him. Meanwhile, let's decide that it was nothing but an attempt to scare our friends here; and a very successful attempt it seems to have been.”

“Very,” admitted Gamadge, in a cheerful voice.

Mitchell said that he still couldn't get over the crunch when they hit the dummy. “I don't know how Gamadge did it.”

Gamadge rose, placing Whitey carefully on the floor. “Quite unpleasant,” he said. “A sixth sense comes into action when it's a question of preserving one's life.”

“I'd have sworn it was little Miss Strangways. Ugliest thing I ever had anything to do with. That yellow wig.” Mitchell shook his head. “No kid's trick there, Mr. Bartram.”

“Want an escort to Burnsides?” asked Loring. “George and I will oblige; Carroll can supply us with a couple of duck guns.”

“No, thanks. We have some reserves,” said Mitchell.

“I wish you wouldn't go tomorrow, Gamadge, just when things seem to be getting hot. This appears to be your show, now.” Loring watched him, critically. “Mitchell doesn't seem to know why the attack was made. You must have been giving yourself away, somehow.”

“I really haven't. Mitchell knows as much as I do, and more besides.”

“Whoever engineered the thing knows all about the Ormistons.”

“And all about the Beasleys.”

George Bartram, lowering and uncertain, accompanied them to the door. “Must you quit tomorrow night?” he asked.

“I must.”

Mitchell and Gamadge drove to headquarters in silence. When they arrived there it was exactly nine thirty. “Seems like midnight,” said Mitchell, going to answer the telephone, which began to ring as they went in. It was Bowles.

“They're all fine, up here,” he said. “I saw the kid—fast asleep in Miss Strangways' room. Nobody'd been off the place except Ormiston, and he came in just before I left. He'd been—”

“To see ‘Snow White',” growled Mitchell.

“That's just where he was! Mrs. Ormiston was in the studio all evening since right after supper, laying out a hooked rug.”

“Anybody see her there?”

“No. Breck and Miss Strangways were playin' rummy in the sittin' room. They were hard at it when I came.”

“You come on down and relieve Pottle in the short cut, so he can go to the movie. I wouldn't like to have him miss it,” said Mitchell, with sarcasm. “Such state police I never saw in my born days.”

Mitchell then telephoned to the Pegram House, and got Schenck. That young man informed him that Miss Walworth, to whom he referred as Her Nibs, had come in half an hour before, told the clerk that she had sat through two performances of “Snow White”, and gone upstairs.

“You and Hoskins beat it out and go over that car.”

“We did.”

“No! That's the first sensible thing I've listened to since suppertime.”

“We found a—er—cannon in one of the pockets, wadded down under a bunch of those paper handkerchiefs. I took some of 'em—to put Mrs. Burnside's lotion on with.”

“Cannon!”

“Big old .45, loaded. And the neatest little Leica camera I ever saw.”

“That's nice. What did you do with 'em?”

“Left 'em there. Hoskins is sitting on the car step.”

“I'll be over.” Mitchell, in a kind of waking dream, replaced the receiver and hurried out to the car. He was still commenting on Miss Walworth's idiosyncrasies to Gamadge when they reached the middle of the short cut. Pottle was keeping guard over a few twigs and some straw, scattered among the ruts in the road; and Pottle's young lady, in a rakish hat and a pink marabou cape, dozed in his sidecar. They were told to wait for Bowles.

Miss Luvy Wells, shuddering slightly in her airy best clothes, remarked that they would be in time for the second show. Mitchell drove away as if afraid that she might mention the name of it.

“If that girl hadn't been along, I would have got Pottle to follow us,” he said, boring doggedly along between the dark regiments of trees.

“The bolt is shot for tonight, I think,” replied Gamadge.

“You better borrow my gun.”

“I'm ever so much obliged, but I think not. Don't worry about me.”

“See you tomorrow.”

“Yes. I'm going to turn in as soon as I can get ready. I feel like sleeping ten hours. Can't believe it's still Saturday.”

“Sleep twelve, if you want to; there's nothing to get up early for, far as I know.”

“You never can tell.”

Burnsides looked very much isolated, and very dark. Mitchell watched Gamadge enter with his key, and then actually got out of the car, turned the corner of the house, and waited until he saw a light spring up in Gamadge's bedroom. Afterwards he drove as fast as he dared to the Center, wondering uneasily what it was that he and Gamadge knew.

Storm Signals

A
T TEN O'CLOCK
the next morning Mr. Schenck found Gamadge basking in the sun on Burnsides' front steps, the Boston Sunday papers strewn around him. He was affable, but he did not seem talkative.

“Well,” began Schenck, “Mitchell went over Miss Walworth's car. It's all tracked up with leaves and dirt, and there are pine cones in the rumble. She says she likes to get out and ramble in the woods.”

“I dare say she does.” Gamadge had laid the papers aside, and was leaning back against a post, cigarette in mouth. It waggled as he spoke.

“The gun was dripping with oil; it was fully loaded. Mitchell took the shells out, and took away the rest of the ammunition, and put the gun back.”

“He'd better.”

“Yes, I bet she'd have the law on him at the drop of a hat. While she was at breakfast Hoskins searched her room. I don't know what for. He didn't find anything compromising, so far as I can make out.”

“He and Mitchell seem to be heading for trouble.”

“Unless you can call this compromising,” continued Schenck. He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and offered it to Gamadge, who glanced at the other's expressionless face, and unfolded it.

“That's only a copy, of course,” explained Schenck. “They put back the original.”

Gamadge read:

ADEPTS PREPARE
For the third coming of Ithuriel
Who will descend upon the terrestrial globe
On Sunday, April 7th, 1940
In the Great Purple

“There's a lot more,” said Schenck. “I only copied the title.”

“Oh. Where is Miss Walworth now?”

“She drove off a little while ago, with Hoskins right behind her. He mended her flat tire. He was telling me about you. He says when you get in a case, funny things happen. I said you impressed me as a quiet, easygoing type; very cool, but—”

“But slow.”

“Hoskins said if I stuck with you I'd feel as if I was sitting in that cave behind Niagara Falls, with the Great Cataract roaring past me; and then I'd feel as if I was going over in a barrel.”

“
In
the barrel, you notice.”

“Hoskins said that I'd end up swimming around the whirlpool, hanging on to what was left of the barrel.”

“He had a shocking experience last summer, but that wasn't my fault.”

“Pottle rode in while we were at breakfast. He says Mr. Ormiston went to the movies last night in Miss Strangways' little car. He says both it and the Ormiston bus are a mess; twigs and sand, but no straw—whatever he meant by that. Samples of all the different kinds of soil between here and Kittery. Bits of flowers. The Ormiston car has fishing tackle under the back seat, and a dead starfish in one pocket of it.”

“I've seen family cars in the summer.”

“I came here by way of the shore, and Oakport. The troops seem to have been called out; policemen on their bikes every few yards. I began to think Hoskins was right.”

“He isn't right very often, I'm sorry to say.”

Mr. Burnside came to the front door and said that a young feller had been on the telephone for Mr. Gamadge.

“He said not to disturb you, and the message is ‘Nix'.”

“Nix?”

“Nix.”

“Thanks very much, Mr. Burnside.”

Mitchell's car drove in, and Mitchell got out of it. Gamadge rose.

“Excuse us, will you?” he asked Schenck. “I have a confidential report for Mitchell.”

That gentleman's face brightened. “You have?”

“Just came.”

“Nix,” muttered Schenck, as the two went into the house.

Mr. Burnside, in the dining room, heard voices in Gamadge's room. Then he heard Gamadge's voice, talking steadily, and suddenly a crash, as if someone had leaped to his feet, overturning a chair. There was a loud exclamation or expletive, and then both voices alternated for a few minutes more. Finally Gamadge's door banged, and Mitchell pounded down the stairs and out of the front door. He was driving furiously away before Gamadge sauntered back to the porch steps.

“What's all this?” demanded Schenck, gazing after the car, and then at Gamadge.

“Mitchell has some urgent business.”

“Because somebody told you ‘Nix'?”

“Partly for that reason. Here comes company.”

Miss Strangways' two-seater turned into the drive from the north. It contained Miss Strangways herself, Mr. Davidson Breck, and Tommy, the latter wedged tightly between them. Breck got out.

“We're off,” he said. “I wonder if Mrs. Burnside will put us up some lunch?” He went into the house, and the other men descended to the car. Miss Strangways' face had color in it, which made it seem less thin than before; and it was shaded by a becoming, if incredibly aged, red straw hat. She was smiling cheerfully. Tommy sucked a piece of barley sugar, and stared at Mr. Schenck's shining nose.