“No’m. Upstairs.”
“Then I’ll go right up.” Eva mounted the wide stairway lightly, leaving the new maid to stare after her.
Downstairs and in the basement servants’ quarters Karen Leith’s house was as Western as the interior decorator could make it; but upstairs Karen and the East had had their way. All the bedrooms were Japanese, full of furniture and gewgaws Karen had brought back with her from her father’s house in Tokyo. It was a pity, thought Eva as she went up, that so few people had ever seen Karen’s bedrooms; for they were as quaint and absurd as specimen rooms in a museum.
She thought she saw a kimono-clad figure going through the doorway of Karen’s sitting-room as she turned into the upstairs corridor; and Eva hurried after.
Sure enough, it was Kinumé, Karen’s ancient maid, and Eva saw the tiny alien creature quite clearly, just going into Karen’s bedroom through the sitting-room and closing the bedroom door behind her. Eva also saw, before Kinumé disappeared, that the old woman was carrying a single blank sheet of deckle-edged Japanese stationery and an envelope, very delicate with their faint rose-on-ivory pattern of chrysanthemums.
Eva was about to knock on Karen’s door when it opened a little and Kinumé’s tiny figure backed out, without the stationery, saying something in her sibilant speech.
“Oi! Damaré!” Eva heard Karen say petulantly from inside the room.
“Go men nasai, okaasan,” lisped Kinumé hastily, shutting the bedroom door and turning around.
The old Japanese woman expressed surprise in the only way Eva had ever detected in her — by a slight widening of the ellipses of her eyes. “’Lo, Eva. You no coming see Missie long time.”
“Hello, Kinumé,” said Eva. “No, I haven’t, and I’m terribly ashamed. How are you, and how’s Karen?”
“Me good,” said Kinumé, but she stood her ground by the door. “Missie no good.”
“Is Karen—” began Eva, perplexed.
The wrinkled mouth set firmly. “You no see Missie now,” Kinumé announced in her polite, hissing little voice. “Missie liting. She finish soon.”
Eva laughed. “I wouldn’t disturb her for the world. A major novelist! I’ll wait.”
“I go tell Missie you here.” Kinumé turned back to the door.
“Don’t bother. I haven’t anything to do, anyway. I’ll read a book or something.”
Kinumé bowed and, folding her tiny hands in her sleeves, pattered off, closing the sitting-room door behind her. Eva, left to herself, took off her hat and jacket and went to the odd mirror to primp herself. She poked at her hair and wondered if she would have time to-morrow for a permanent. And her hair did need a good washing. Then she opened her bag and took out her compact and wondered while she opened the lipstick whether Dr. MacClure would bring her back one like Susie Hotchkiss’s. Mr. Hotchkiss had brought her quite the most fascinating gadget from Paris. She dabbed with her little finger three times at her lips, and then stroked the rouge on rather critically. Dick had kissed them a little out of shape and he hadn’t let her do a really good job before she left his office. The stuff wasn’t supposed to smudge, but it did. Eva made a mental note to get another lipstick like the peach-coral at home.
And after a while she went to the window to look out at the garden, patchy in the late afternoon sun.
The window was barred. Poor Karen! The way she had had her sitting-room and bedroom windows hemmed in iron when she bought the Washington Square house! It was absurd in a grown woman. New York would always be a terrifying place to her. Why on earth had she ever left Japan?
Eva flung herself down on one of Karen’s queer little couches. The room was so peaceful; it was a lovely place to think. Birds were chirruping in the garden — Karen’s sitting-room and bedroom occupied the entire back of the house, overlooking the garden — and the shouts of children in the Square were very far away... To think of Richard, and of being married... Eva wished for an instant that Richard — darling Dick — might be with her, in her arms. Poor Dick! He’d looked so surly — like a child denied its candy...
There was no sound from the bedroom next door, no sound at all. Eva picked up a book from a little teakwood table and idly flapped its pages.
4
At five-thirty by the ship’s New York chronometer the Panthia was slashing through a pleasant sea. It was growing dark beyond the eastern horizon, and Dr. MacClure lay in a deck-chair staring at the thin hazy line behind, where sky touched water fantastically.
The open upper deck was deserted near the dinner-hour. But one young man, tallish and wearing pince-nez glasses under his linen cap, was weaving his way along the deck, occasionally stopping to elbow the rail and gaze accusingly at the placid sea. As he passed Dr. MacClure his face lightened from green to yellow.
“Dr. MacClure!”
The doctor’s head rolled around and he studied the young man’s face blankly for a moment.
“Probably don’t remember me,” said the young man. “Name’s Queen. I met you in May, at your fiancée’s garden-party in Washington Square.”
“Oh, yes,” said Dr. MacClure, smiling briefly. “How are you? Enjoying the trip?”
“Well...”
“Had the most wretched time myself. Seasick since Southampton. Never have been able to stomach the ocean.”
Mr. Queen grinned under his greenish mask. “You know, I’m the same way. Suffer the tortures of the damned. If I look as badly as you do, Doctor—”
“Haven’t been well,” grumbled Dr. MacClure. “It’s not all mal de mer. My folks packed me off to Europe. Can’t say I feel any better for it.”
Mr. Queen clucked. “Father in my case. Practically had me shanghaied. Inspector Queen of the New York police department. If I did feel any better, this westward passage has taken it all out of me again.”
“Say! You’re the detective-story fellow. I remember now. Sit down, Mr. Queen, sit down. Haven’t read any of your stories — can’t stand the damned things — but all my friends...”
“Have probably written me letters of complaint,” sighed Ellery Queen, dropping into the next chair.
“I mean,” said Dr. MacClure hastily, “I don’t like detective stories. Not yours especially. Scientific information always garbled. No offence, you understand.”
“That’s what I meant,” said Mr. Queen gloomily.
He was rather shocked at the change in the doctor’s appearance. The chunky, powerful face was gaunt and the clothes looked pitifully loose.
“Haven’t noticed you before,” said the doctor. “But then I’ve practically lived in this chair.”
“I’ve been too sick to do anything but groan in my cabin and munch at dry chicken sandwiches. Been abroad long, Doctor?”
“Couple of months. Poking around the capitals, seeing what was being done. Stopped over at Stockholm for a visit to the prize people. Had to apologize for forgetting to come, and all that. They were pretty decent about it, considering the size of the check.”
“I read somewhere,” smiled Ellery, “that you donated it to your Foundation.”
Dr. MacClure nodded. They sat in silence for some time, gazing out to sea. Finally Ellery asked: “Is Miss Leith with you?” He had to repeat the question.
“Eh? I beg your pardon,” said the doctor. “Why, no, Karen’s in New York.”
“I should think a sea jaunt would have done her good,” said Ellery. “She looked rather done in in May.”
“She’s run down,” said the big man. “Yes.”
“Post-novel fatigue,” sighed Ellery. “You scientific fellows don’t know what hard work it is. And Eight-Cloud Rising! It’s like a piece of perfect jade.”