“When I first called Jelcoe about you, I had him repeat the message from Washington as closely as he remembered it. Not knowing what it was all about, he hadn’t read it carefully, but the substance of it confirms my belief that Dwight is holding something over Hardiman’s head, blackmailing him into using his official position with the State Department to force Mexico to make a private settlement with Dwight. I’ve been too upset by your absence to spring my information on Hardiman, but we won’t let it wait any longer. Come on.”
He strode down toward the open doors of the lighted drawing room. I followed on his heels and we found Myra Young, Michaela O’Toole, Pasqual, and a tall Mexican whom I hadn’t seen before.
Myra was stretched out on a divan with a highball within reach of her hand. She glanced at us with a grimace, and quickly looked away.
The three Mexicans were in a huddle across the room. They broke off their low conversation to look up inquiringly as we barged in. Senor Rodriguez was a tall, courtly, old fellow, with a lean scarred face and a bristly white mustache. He reminded me of a duelist on guard as he faced Burke.
“Where’s the rest of the happy family?” Burke sardonically asked the room at large.
Nobody answered him for a moment. Then Myra swung her legs off the divan and sat up. “The Dwights said to hell with all their uninvited guests... and went to bed.” Her face was drawn and sallow.
“What about Mr. Hardiman?”
“He had a telephone call a while ago, and went out the side door soon afterward. He didn’t tell any of us where he was going but I thought I heard him upstairs talking to Ray a little while ago.”
By “Ray” I gathered that she meant Raymond Dwight, and the thought flashed through my mind that she wasn’t missing any opportunity to impress upon us her intimacy with our host.
Senor Rodriguez interrupted my thought by striding forward and confronting Burke: “As a citizen of another country I demand a reason for your holding us here against our will. I warn you that I shall make the strongest diplomatic representations to my government...”
Burke broke in rudely: “You’re safer here than if you were within reach of the mobs after your scalp for selling out your country to Dwight.”
The Mexican’s lips were set in a thin tight line, and his eyes blazed, but he didn’t answer Burke.
Myra got up and moved toward us. “I’ll run up and see if Mr. Hardiman is still with Raymond. Shall I tell him you want to see him?”
Burke nodded absently. I went to the center table and mixed myself a stiff brandy and soda from the bewildering array of drinkables displayed there.
Burke turned to Rodriguez and said: “I apologize for my unwarranted crack about you selling out your country. I think I’m beginning to understand the sort of pressure you’ve been under... and I believe it is about to be withdrawn. But I insist that you are far safer here until the matter is entirely cleared up.”
The tall Mexican bowed stiffly. “In return, I assure you, Senor Burke, that my every action has been with honorable intent. There has been no secret agreement between my country and private interests, and there will be none if I can prevent it.”
I heard Chief Jelcoe’s thin voice in the hallway, and Rodriguez moved away from Burke as the tall figure of the detective entered the drawing room. His eyes bulged as their gaze roamed over Senor Rodriguez’s scarred face, then rested on Michaela and Pasqual who were talking together in low tones on the far side of the room.
“Hello, Chief,” Burke greeted him, then took his arm and drew him aside. “That telegram from Washington has disappeared. I want you to repeat it as nearly as you recall...”
Hell broke loose upstairs.
A door slammed and the clamor of shrill voices tore the silence to shreds. A scream that contained more of anger than anguish sliced through the clamor; then there was the pounding of feet on the stairs and Desta Dwight’s voice crying: “I caught you that time! Just like I knew I would! I’ve been watching...”
Myra darted into the drawing room with Desta in close pursuit, Desta, her eyes glittering hotly, her slim body inadequately clad in filmy pajamas of flame-colored silk.
Burke took one step forward and his right arm encircled Desta’s waist as Myra collapsed on the divan. He slapped a big hand over Desta’s mouth and held her wriggling body tight while sternly asking Myra what it was all about.
Glaring back defiantly, Myra panted out: “She came at me in the hall just as I was closing her father’s door. Without stopping to ask any questions, she jumped at her own nasty conclusions and tried to claw my eyes out. She’s nuts if you ask me.”
Desta looked like a crazy person as she struggled, against Burke’s hold, to get at Myra. Her face was smeared with cold cream or some beauty preparation, and her eyes were red-rimmed and glassy. Gurgles of anger crowded past Burke’s big hand pressed tightly over her mouth.
Jerry lifted her bodily and carried her across to a big chair into which she crumpled when he let go his hold. Her breath wheezed in and out between set teeth, and little bubbles of saliva formed at the corners of her mouth.
Glancing aside at Jelcoe, I had to smother a laugh at the look of stupefied bewilderment on his sallow face. I had forgotten that he hadn’t been with us all evening and didn’t know this was just the normal thing to expect in that haywire household. In Desta’s collapsed condition I thought I might be able to get something out of her, so I moved forward to the chair and reached down to shake her shoulder.
She looked up at me with a furtive glint of fear in her eyes, cowering away as though she expected me to hit her.
I said: “Some fresh air will do you good,” and pulled her to her feet.
Burke nodded with understanding and motioned the others back when I put my arm about her waist and steered her out the door.
She apathetically let me lead her out the front door, as though her spirit had suddenly crumpled under the strain. Her flame-colored pajamas were as near no covering as could be devised by modern science, and she began to shiver when we got out into the cool moonlight.
I went to the bench Laura and I had sat on, saying matter-of-factly: “You’ve been kicking up a lot of hell, young lady. Explanations are in order.”
She sighed and cuddled down against me on the bench, pressing my hand tightly against the inadequately covered flesh of her flat stomach. “Why?”
“Have you been away from here the last couple of hours?”
She snuggled a little lower. Again, she asked sleepily: “Why?”
“Someone followed me to my house and attacked me. I want to know...”
She giggled. Not hysterically, but with real mirth. “Do you think I’d do that? Attack you, I mean? Would you really make a girl go that far? I should think...”
“Not the way you mean,” I said hastily. I tried to move my hand but her hot moist fingers held mine tightly, kneading the flesh beneath them with a feverish intensity of purpose that made me uncomfortably aware of her youth.
“If I ever attack you, you’ll know who did it. And I bet if you were to attack me...”
“I’m not going to.” Her cheek was resting against my chest and I was looking over her head.
She moved and I looked down to see her lips drawn back tightly from sharp white teeth. There was something in her eyes that I had never seen in a woman’s eyes before. I was shaken and repelled... yet I felt something inside of me responding to the hot glitter that was in her gaze.
She was working herself up into another frenzy and I didn’t know how to cope with it.