Deadly Nightshade (7 page)

“Mrs. Ormiston is a kind woman. I said to her: ‘Take your children away from here, before worse happens to them. Take them away,' I said. ‘There's a curse on the place.'”

“I know; you've been saying so right along. But things happen in most places; this isn't any worse than any other place.”

“And I said the same to Mrs. George Bartram. I said: ‘Take your child away from this dreary seacoast.'”

“You must have been a big comfort to 'em. Anything you'd like to ask this old lady, Mr. Gamadge?”

Annie turned vague eyes on Gamadge, in which he read a vast bewilderment, and a definite fear. He said: “You can't see the summerhouse from your kitchen, Annie; I know that. Can you see it from your bedroom upstairs?”

“Me room upstairs?”

“Yes. Is it on the west side of the house? Can you see the summerhouse from the window?” As she continued to look at him blankly, he went on: “I wondered if you had happened to go up there on Tuesday, between twelve and one. If you had seen anything unusual going on in the garden you'd have mentioned it—I know that; but I thought you might have seen something that you didn't think important at the time, but that might interest us.”

She drew away from him, looking very much frightened.

“
Did
you look out of your window?” persisted Gamadge.

“I have not climbed a stair in this house since the stiffness got into my knee, a dozen years ago. The old madam gave me the little room next the kitchen for my bedroom, and she put a bathroom for me where the old scullery used to be.”

“Which side of the house are you on?”

“The east side, and me windows are choked up with vines. It's strangled we are with the trees and the bushes, but the old madam would not have them cleared away. ‘Annie,' she told me, ‘the old master liked the shade. We'll cut nothing down while I live.' That was when young Mrs. Carroll wanted the landscape artist to come in and make a garden among the rocks.”

“So if that little gypsy had wandered in through the gate on Tuesday, at noon or thereabouts, you wouldn't have seen him from the kitchen door, or from any window.”

“Thank God, not a thing did I see.”

“You were pretty busy that morning, weren't you?”

“I was; and the new girl never came until most of the work was done. By the front door she came, like a visitor; ‘It's Miss Gibbons I am,' she says. And I pushed her back into the kitchen before she had her hat off.”

“So she never had a glimpse of the summerhouse.”

“It's many a glimpse she's had of it since; and didn't she try to bring her young man in yesterday, to have a look at it. And hasn't she gone off to the funeral this morning, like one of the family, in the dry cleaner's van.”

“But on Tuesday morning she came in by the front door, and didn't see a thing. Meanwhile, Miss Ridgeman was helping you in the kitchen. What time was it when you asked her to come in and lend a hand?”

“It's not for me to call a nurse away from a child. Nobody can say I did a thing like that.”

“Of course not. I mean, what time did she come?”

“It was after twelve when she looked in on me and saw the dishes from the top shelf of the pantry waiting to be washed, and the vegetables wilting in their skins. ‘Annie,' she says, ‘you'll kill your knee entirely,' she says. And not a step did she take out of the kitchen until the doorbell rang and the company came. It was kind of the woman, tired as she had a right to be herself, with cleaning the upstairs.”

At this moment a nurse in a white uniform appeared in the hall above, holding a little girl by the hand.

“Good morning, Miss Ridgeman,” said Mitchell. “I hear the family's been delayed.”

“A little.” She came down, the little girl eagerly stepping from stair to stair beside her. “They'll be here any minute now, and I know Mr. George Bartram will want to see you, even if Mr. Bartram isn't up to it yet.”

Annie disappeared through a baize door at the end of the long hall, and Miss Ridgeman assisted her charge down the rest of the stairway. Mitchell introduced Gamadge, who shook hands gravely with the nurse and with Miss Irma Bartram. The latter swung on Miss Ridgeman's hand in a carefree manner; she was a jolly-looking little girl, with thick, curly brown hair and round brown eyes, whose short white dress and blue jumper gave her the appearance of being about seven eighths leg. Miss Ridgeman was a square-built, rather homely woman, darkish in coloring, with a face and manner that expressed practical common sense. This had been overlaid at the moment by a dryness and constraint that might well have been the effects of a great shock. Even her voice was subdued, as she said:

“Come into the sitting room. I should like very much to talk to you, and Irma can play chess. Can't you, Irma?”

Irma nodded, and ran into the sitting room ahead of them. She skipped to a low table at the farther end of the long parlor, and opened a rosewood box. From it she began to take out big red-and-white carved ivory chessmen, which she ranged in two rows.

Miss Ridgeman led the two men to a bay window overlooking the front garden.

“It's just as well that we have young company with us at present,” she said, in that dry, strained voice. “We have to pretend to be cheerful, and that's just what we all need.”

“You've been fine, Miss Ridgeman,” said Mitchell. “I'll have to hand it to you.”

“Fine?” The nurse's face hardened. “That's hardly the word to describe my behavior, I'm afraid. If I can help them in any way now, I'm thankful for the chance.”

“Don't feel that way. I wish you'd tell me something; is that old cook of yours all right in the head?”

“Annie? Oh, yes. It's been a frightful shock to her, that's all. Has she been telling you there's a curse on the place?”

“Yes, she has.”

“Nobody can quite make out what she means. I suppose you could call what happened a curse.”

“But she don't know what really did happen, you think?”

“Absolutely not. She never notices what goes on. I wanted to ask you if you'd had any news—about that little gypsy boy, for instance.”

“No news about him at all.”

“I do hope they can prove that he wasn't responsible. Doctor Loring and I want Mr. Bartram to take him.”

Mitchell was astonished. “Take him?”

“Yes.”

“For good, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“You mean—right away?”

“It would be the best thing in the world for Mr. Bartram.”

“For the kid, too, I guess; but it isn't everybody would adopt a gypsy, let alone this gypsy.”

“Mr. Bartram isn't everybody.”

“But it would keep the whole thing right in front of him all the time.”

Gamadge said: “Just the kind of thing you New Englanders are supposed to be willing to tackle, isn't it? Now later immigrants, like Annie and myself, might balk at it; but you are made of sterner stuff, and ought to take it in your stride.”

“I'm not a New Englander,” said Miss Ridgeman, faintly smiling, “but I can easily imagine myself doing it. His grandmother wants to take him back with her to Whitewater Beach; I understand that she has some kind of decent place to live, there, but I wish he didn't have to go. Have you seen him, Mr. Gamadge?”

“Yes; nice little fellow. They seem to be making him comfortable enough.”

“Doctor Loring saw to that. The gypsies still cure people with spells, he says.”

“But would his folks give him up?” asked Mitchell.

“I understand that his father and mother are dead. Doctor Loring thinks his grandmother might be glad to ‘give him up,' if you can call it that.”

“Sell him, most likely.”

“I'm afraid so. It would be the saving of Mr. Bartram to get up an interest in another child; and this one needn't be any burden on him at all. The house is big, and I should be only too glad to stay on and look after him. Only…”

She paused, and was silent so long that Mitchell asked: “Only what, Miss Ridgeman?”

“I hardly like to offer.”

“In the name of goodness, why not?”

“After what happened, Mr. Bartram may not think that I'm capable of looking after a child. I shouldn't blame him if he didn't.”

“Now, Miss Ridgeman—” Mitchell was concerned.

“He can't bear the sight of me.” Her self-possession had cracked a little, but she went on, calmly enough: “I ought to leave the house; I would, only they need me badly just now, on account of Irma.”

“Mr. Bartram hasn't said a word about your being to blame. Nobody blames the Beasleys, or the Ormistons.”

“Indeed people do blame the Ormistons.”

“Annie seems to be down on him. Do you know why?”

“No, I don't, Mr. Mitchell. He's never been inside this house, to my knowledge, since I came here myself, when Julia was born. I think the families used to know each other in Boston. Perhaps he was a disagreeable boy.”

“He's an eccentric kind of a feller now. Funny thing he did—asking Mr. Bartram to let him bury Tommy in the Bartram lot; and the boy wasn't even dead!”

“Annie can't get over it; but in a way it isn't so queer. The Ormistons have always lived in Europe a good deal, and I suppose they probably just get buried anywhere they happen to die. Annie thinks it's more important to have a graveyard than to have a home.”

“And in France,” said Gamadge, “families often share burial lots; lack of space, I suppose, as well as frugality.”

“Still, he was a little casual about it all. But they were terribly upset in every way. They are now. They're half packed, with their things in crates and boxes, all alone in that deserted place. Of course he wants to get home.”

“An artist with all his materials in crates must be a pathetic object,” said Gamadge.

“I can sympathize with him in a way, because we're so upset ourselves. We weren't prepared for three house guests, and one of them needs a good deal of attention.” She glanced down the room at the absorbed Irma, and went on: “Annie's lame, and the new girl isn't much of a treasure. I haven't been able to do any marketing. I'd take Irma with me, only both the cars are out.” Her haunted eyes turned towards the world that glimmered with light and shade outside the windows.

“I'd be glad to run you down to the village, Miss Ridgeman, and tote the parcels back in the car,” said Mitchell.

“You would? Oh, thank you—but I can't leave Irma. Annie isn't able to keep after her.”

“Leave her to me,” said Gamadge.

“You really wouldn't mind?”

“Certainly not.”

“I'd telephone for the things, but the deliveries are so late, and there isn't much in the house for lunch.”

“Go ahead; it will be a pleasure for me,” Gamadge assured her.

“The nurses in Holland must be quite strict, I think; she's very good; really no trouble at all.”

“You relieve my mind tremendously.”

Miss Ridgeman went out into the hall, Mitchell following her. She seized a cape from the rack under the stairs, and they hurried off. Gamadge heard the car drive away, and then, after lighting a cigarette, joined Irma at her chess table.

Old Iron

“A
LONE AT LAST
with the witness in chief. I've been looking forward to this,” said Gamadge. He sat down and contemplated Irma thoughtfully. “We must have a talk; the subject will be cats.”

Irma looked up.

“What a subject!” Gamadge spoke with feeling. “We must give it our undivided attention. May I help you put the chessmen away?”

They accomplished the job in silence; Irma placing each piece carefully on the wrong peg, and Gamadge removing it and shifting it to the right one. This took some time; but at last the rosewood box was closed, and he assisted her into a large chair opposite his own. He then said briskly:

“Cats. Everybody ought to have a cat. I have a very large yellow one, whose name is Martin. Have you a cat, Irma?”

Irma's mouth drew down at the corners. She stretched her right arm as far outwards and backwards as it would go, and made a circle in the air with her forefinger.

“I never in my life saw anything so graphic,” said Gamadge. “The map of Europe unrolls before me, and I know the very spot in the Netherlands where that animal now lives as best it can. You had to leave it behind.”

Irma nodded, her face the picture of gloom.

“But luckily there are many other cats in the world. For instance, I know a place not far from here where there are six kittens, one of them white. It just occurred to me that I might be able to get hold of it and bring it back here this afternoon. Mind you, they may not let you keep it.”

Irma's face had become radiant. She paid no attention to Gamadge's warning, but placed her hands on the arms of her chair and bounced up and down.

“If I do that, will you do something for me?”

Irma, who seemed to be only too well acquainted with this ominous gambit, became very grave, and looked at him doubtfully.

“I just want to know how you came to dive under that pine tree,” he went on. “The other day, you know; when you found your little cousin. Your parents are used to your flighty ways, and they seem to have thought nothing of it; but I wondered whether you hadn't some reason for crawling under that big branch. Had you a reason?”

Irma, gazing at him fixedly, seemed to ponder the question. At last, and very slowly, she reached down into the breast pocket of her woollen jumper, fumbled there, and withdrew her hand, clenched into a fist. She extended it, opened it, and disclosed to Gamadge's incredulous stare a little red bell, attached to a wad of very dirty red ribbon.

Gamadge eyed it for some moments in silent fascination. He then advanced his own hand, but Irma withdrew hers in alarm. She replaced the bell in her pocket, fumbled there again, and produced something else. This, when exhibited on her palm, proved to be a small, shriveled object, black and vaguely spherical. Gamadge snatched it, without pause or ceremony. He examined it closely, gave an exclamation of loathing and dismay, and dropped it into his pocket.