“I want to go home,” Paula whispered. “Please, Chad. I can’t go through with it.”
Chad was silent for a time. Then he said in a hard voice, “It’s what I expected. You haven’t the guts of a worm, Paula.”
“No — I know.” She bowed her head.
“Just how are you going to get home, now?”
“The driver must be here,” Paula said. “The nurse was lying. We could search the house.”
“Very eager, aren’t you?” Chad said. “Do you think we can just walk into a stranger’s house and search it, like the police?”
They were talking in low whispers, but even though Charles Crawford was on the other side of the room he heard the word police. He sauntered over to Paula and Chad, keeping his hands in his pockets.
“What’s this about police?” he asked casually.
“None of your business,” Chad said.
“No? All right.” He smiled amiably at Chad. “Anyone ever tell you you could make a fortune frightening babies? Look into it, eh?” He turned and walked away towards Miss Gracie Morning.
Gracie was sitting comfortably and happily in front of the fire, drying out her long beautiful legs and combing out each of her auburn curls separately and with infinite care. She paid no attention to the bickering going on around her. She accepted her fate gracefully, partly because she was naturally even-tempered and partly because she was not hungry like the others, having consumed three-quarters of a pound of Laura Secord chocolates.
Crawford sat down beside her and frowned into the fire. Gracie thought he looked cute.
She said, “I’m just crazy about stern men.”
Crawford tried to think of a suitable reply to this and eventually hit upon, “I’m crazy about auburn hair,” — which was true enough.
“So am I,” Gracie said confidentially. “That’s why I have it.”
“Ah? So.”
“Mr. Goodwin is a very peculiar man, don’t you think so?”
Here again the truth seemed best. “He is,” Crawford said, “rather.”
Gracie rolled her eyes. “Very! But I guess we’re all funny in some ways, though some of us are worse than others. Like the old lady.”
“Miss Rudd? She’s not so old. Fifty, perhaps.”
“That’s old.”
“You think so?” Crawford said sadly. “I’m nearly forty.”
“I’m twenty-three.”
“A good age.”
“But I’m much older than my years,” Gracie confided.
“Yes, I can see that,” Crawford said.
Gracie was not entirely satisfied with this reply, so she returned to her curl combing to think it over.
Joyce Hunter had taken off her ski jacket and was now walking around the room examining the furnishings with a businesslike air.
“Quaint but grim,” was her verdict when she returned again to Isobel Seton. “Floraine’s been gone a long time. You don’t suppose she’s skipped out, do you?”
Her father let out a long exasperated sigh. “Why on earth should she skip out?”
Joyce thumped her feet impatiently against the floor. “Poppa, you mustn’t always be asking why this and why that. I don’t know why. I just feel things. I felt something about the bus driver and he disappeared. Now I feel something about Floraine, and it wouldn’t surprise me if she disappeared.”
“I guess we’ll have to burn you as a witch,” Miss Seton remarked, “before you put the hex on the rest of us.”
“You shouldn’t joke about sinister things,” Joyce said.
“No, I suppose not,” Miss Seton said gloomily and strolled over to the fireplace to join Gracie and Crawford.
Gracie welcomed her brightly. “I was just telling Mr. Crawford how crazy I am about stern men.”
“Are you?” said Miss Seton.
“I think Mr. Crawford is terribly stern, don’t you?”
Miss Seton examined the point. “Droopy,” she said, “not stern. He is no longer youthful.”
“I am as youthful as possible,” Crawford said coldly. “Considering the circumstances, I think I’m downright boyish.”
“Oh, the circumstances aren’t so bad,” Gracie offered cheerfully. “Even supposing the old lady is crazy, well, I had an aunt who was a little crazy and she didn’t do any harm. Kind of sad, she was.”
The oak door creaked open and Floraine came back into the room with a large tray of tarnished silver containing a coffee percolator, cups and saucers, and a plate of sandwiches. The sandwiches gave off a strong fishy odor.
Floraine set the tray down on a mahogany refectory table placed against one wall, and drew up a chair beside it. She sat down and began to pour out the coffee, with a calm, self-possessed air which Miss Seton found rather disturbing.
She’s not curious enough, Miss Seton thought. She hasn’t asked any questions and she looks as though she doesn’t intend to answer any, whether she can or not.
“Sugar?” Floraine asked her, as if she were aware of Miss Seton’s thoughts.
“Please,” Miss Seton said meekly. “Two lumps.”
“One lump,” Floraine said with a slight lift of her brows. “We’re rationed and not equipped for guests.”
Feeling very guilty indeed, Miss Seton settled for one lump, reached for her coffee and retired as far from Floraine as she could get. When she had settled herself in the chair beside Paula Lashley, she found she had forgotten to take a sandwich. In spite of their repellent odor, the sandwiches were food and Miss Seton had seen no food since leaving the train. She got up again and was making her way back to the table when the light in the chandelier flickered and went out.
A babble of voices rose instantly in the darkness. “Who did that?” “Turn it on again!” “Miss Seton turned the light off.”
“Oh, I did not!” Miss Seton protested feebly.
“It’s quite all right.” Floraine’s voice was cool. “This has happened before. We have our own diesel generator and it frequently fails us. I’ll ask Frances to fetch the oil lamps.”
She went across the room and out into the hall and called, “Frances! Where are you, Frances? Go and bring down the oil lamps.”
There was no answer but a shuffling of feet from some place in the hall. Floraine, apparently satisfied, came back into the room and took her place at the table. There was no light in the room except the fire and Floraine’s face was turned away from it, but Miss Seton fancied that Floraine was smiling.
After a time Miss Rudd’s voice began to whine from the doorway. “I can’t find the lamps, Floraine. Someone has stolen them. I don’t like the dark with Harry here.”
Floraine rose again and went to the door. “You’ve hidden them again, Frances,” she said patiently. “Where did you hide them?”
“Oh, I didn’t! I didn’t!”
“We’ll have to remain in the dark all night unless you tell me.”
Miss Rudd hid her face in the black shawl and wept. “Oh, I didn’t hide them! I just put them away so these thieving friends of Harry’s couldn’t get them.”
“Where?”
“Oh, I can’t tell you, Floraine. These thieves will hear me.”
“Whisper it.”
Floraine bent over and Miss Rudd said in a loud sibilant whisper, “In the cellar. Aren’t I clever?”
“Very clever.” Floraine walked away down the hall. Miss Rudd remained in the doorway rubbing her face with her shawl.
“Well, Anthony,” Mrs. Vista said sternly. “Hadn’t you better ask her for your hat?”
“Oh, quite.” Mr. Goodwin said bitterly. “Oh, yes, yes, yes.”
He advanced on Miss Rudd, making amiable grimaces. “I say. That hat. Hat.” He patted his head coaxingly. “Hat. Chapeau.”
Miss Rudd merely stared at him as if he were crazy.
“You’re going at it all wrong!” Joyce cried. “You’re simply supposed to treat her as if she were quite normal. I took a course in psychology, abnormal, subnormal and normal.”