He continued his digging — through Lemuel, through old newspaper files, the local library, through a mole-like research into names associated with the Vanderlings. His keen imagination popped open kernels he ferreted from old gossip columns, notes on society and business pages. Immersed in his subject, he almost felt that he had once been part of the scene.
Exchanging greasy kitchen steam for the stink of his cheap room each night, he considered the angles.
He would face himself in the scaly mirror over the dresser, knock on an imaginary door, and when the door was opened he would look into Atha Vanderling’s non-present eyes and rehearse.
Role of private investigator: “Miss Vanderling? I’m James C. Lyerly. Here is my card. I have some information about a man named Guthrie Linyard...”
No. It could get too involved, foisting himself into her hire as a private detective. The ideal con was simple, direct.
A long-lost friend: “Atha, you remember me, of course. Jeremy Dekalb... My dear, the years haven’t hurt you a bit...”
Nope. The link must be stronger than one of ancient friendship.
A distant relative: “Atha, I’m Peter Conway, all the way from Switzerland. Aunt Helen told me to be sure to look you up...” More than twenty years ago the local paper had Sunday-featured the removal of the Conway branch of the family to an executive position in a Swiss firm. But the distant relative was too risky. She might have despised Peter.
Marley would brood from his window at the scabby alleyway below. A pigeon isolated in her roost with no one to protect her... no father left to come between her and a Guthrie Linyard, who had once come close to getting it all...
Catching a glimpse of his reflection in the dirty window, Marley felt the sudden creeping of a rather delicious numbness. As if hardly daring to trust his muscles, he turned toward the mirror. His mind unveiled the Guthrie Linyard shown in the society pages a generation ago when the Linyard-Vanderling engagement had promised the most expensive wedding of the season.
Marley lifted his hand, touching his chin. Same size... same coloration... Thirty years ago he’d resembled those old pictures of Guthrie Linyard in a general way. Who could say that Linyard wouldn’t have aged into Marley’s present image?
Suddenly too excited to breathe, Marley paced his room, beating his fists together.
The scenario... It had to be the best Marley had ever dreamed up.
Parts of it posed no problems. His assiduous research had yielded many threads for the weaving of a mask that would identify him as Guthrie Linyard, for whom the candle burned nightly. He knew that Guthrie had enjoyed sailing. A long-forgotten society page editor had noted the color of the gown worn by Atha Vanderling the night she and Linyard had topped the list of society names at a big benefit. The same editor had covered bridal showers given for Atha by Clarice Snowden and Margaret Fogg. The Leyer orchestra had played at the engagement party.
Names of long-ago friends, schools she’d attended, a minor auto accident involving her father, a charity drive headed by her mother... so many details concerning Atha and her family from the time of her childhood... Marley had them etched carefully in his mind. And once he was over the first hurdle — effecting entry — he would pump the old woman with the cunning and shrewd indirection of a gypsy fortune teller.
Intervention from outside? No sweat. She was a recluse, and he would dissolve into her life style. Fire the current chauffeur-handyman, hire a stranger. As Guthrie, he and Atha would share reunion, their great secret passion of togetherness, with no one. The prospect would please her right down to her toenails.
It was less attractive to Marley, the thought of togetherness with a crazy old harridan. But it had its redeeming facets. He could hire a maid, a cute, sexy, greedy young thing. And a cook — and dine on surf and turf any evening he desired. And once he was inside, he was quite certain, he would be wholly capable of reaping his harvest. There would surely be a situation involving her with lawyers, trustees and other such deadbeats. But never mind. He didn’t aspire to all of the Vanderling millions. Amounts that he could arrange to take over, and hence put him in a position of control, would be quite adequate.
The big problem was getting into 341 Vanderling. How does a fellow explain away a jilting at the altar that occurred thirty years ago? Throw himself on her compassion and mercy? Work on the obsessions and superstitions she held in her pixilated state? Tell her he’d seen the candle in his dreams?
No, no, no... Compassion, mercy, hallucination... Tools to use. But would they get him in the door?
He flung himself to a sitting position on the edge of his lumpy bed, hands clenched between his knees, his wiry body rocking under the intensity of his thoughts.
Why had he, as Guthrie Linyard, deserted her at the altar thirty years ago?
Cool it now. Get the ducks all in a row. In the first place, everything told to her thirty years ago was a lie. He had not cut out because her father had threatened to disinherit her while offering him fifty thousand dollars.
He had stranded her at the altar because...
Hmmmm. A simple explanation, that’s all that was needed. A simple, sympathetic explanation.
Getting rid of the onus of a fifty thou bribe shouldn’t be too difficult. Just say that her father had made the threat and the offer, and he’d laughed in her father’s face. She could have been a pauper like the little match girl, for all he cared about her money.
So it’s thirty years ago and she’s standing in her white satin, a bridal bouquet in her trembling hands while a church full of people begins rustling, looking for the groom.
Trouble is, her father has resorted to a last desperate measure — and two big yeggs have walked into the ante-room, nicked the groom-to-be with a medical syringe full of drugs, and are carrying the hapless unconscious Guthrie out the side door.
The groom regains consciousness in a motel in a distant state. Yeggs still present. Then, at that point, father’s fifty thou is stuffed into his pocket and the groom warned never to return.
Nuts, thinks the groom. Fifty million wouldn’t be enough. When the yeggs at last depart, the groom tries to phone the love of his life. He cannot get a call through to her. He comes back, to the palatial home on Vanderling Boulevard. He learns a tragic truth. Atha, his darling Atha, is sealed away in a private mental hospital. Lost to him forever.
He never wants to see the house on Vanderling Boulevard again.
The groom has gone to the west coast to try and find a life for himself. He has married, never had children, and not once has he held his wife in his arms without aching with the thought of Atha. His wife has died. Couple years ago? Or a year? Why not a few months back? Yes, a few months would be better. Growing emptily old, he has at last returned, goaded by the need to find out what happened to the only woman he ever really loved.
Marley leaped to his feet. It was a bit soapy. But it could have happened. It offered the images he wanted to transmit to her, and don’t forget... believing in Guthrie’s return she’s burned a candle nightly for thirty years...
She answered the muted front door chimes herself. And Marley felt a slight chill. The old face was a dead white collection of sharp angular bones and wrinkles. And the garment she wore... it was not a nightgown after all. It was a white satin wedding dress.
She was limned in a pale lighting of the enormous, vaulted entry foyer. Marley felt the darkness over the lawn behind him like a weight against his back.
“Yes?” she asked.
Marley’s gaze flicked toward the right, toward the window where the candle glowed. He took heart from the wealth exuded by the house.
“Atha,” he murmured, “don’t you remember? Don’t you recognize me?”