Summer of the Dragon, page 15
“I was going to offer you coffee,” he said. “Wouldn’t you prefer espresso to that?”
“This is fine,” I said.
“I’ll just have a cup myself, then,” Hank said. “Tom?”
“Why not?” Tom said disagreeably.
I expected Hank to ring or yell for service. Instead he threw open the doors of a handsome carved cup-board, and what to my wondering eyes should appear but a huge metallic contrivance bristling with knobs and faucets and dials. I thought at first it was his magnetometer.
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Then he started pulling levers and pushing buttons.
The machine gurgled; and I recognized it for what it was—an espresso machine, one of the big commercial models. I suppose the servants kept it loaded up with coffee and water and whatever ingredients such monsters require (as I keep reiterating, I do not understand machines, or like them). Hank obviously loved them.
His face glowed as he manipulated the device. Eventually it produced coffee, together with a rather vulgar series of sounds, and Hank filled two cups.
He sat down behind his desk with his coffee, after offering a cup to Tom. The lamplight fell full on the turquoise in the massive bracelet he wore on his left wrist, and I said involuntarily, “That looks like Morenci.”
“Very good,” Hank said in surprise. “I didn’t know you were an expert on turquoise.”
“I’m not. Tom showed me your collection the other night, that’s absolutely all I know about it. But I recognized the color. It’s beautiful.”
The stone was a polished cabochon fully four inches long. I touched it with a reverent finger. The surface was warm, not cold like most stones; it almost felt alive.
Hank slipped the bracelet off his wrist. The stone was set in a simple silver mounting. A single silver leaf shape, with roughly stamped veining, curved around one side of it. The band was bent to fit the curve of the wrist, and was open at the end. Hank squeezed the ends in, decreasing
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the diameter; the soft, virtually pure silver bent easily.
Then he held it out to me.
I put it on. For a few minutes I just sat and purred, moving my arm around so that the light brought out the velvety blue of the stone—the mysterious “zat” of the turquoise. Then I started to take it off.
“Keep it,” Hank said, watching me. “It’s yours.”
I heard a soft, quickly suppressed sound from Tom, who was sitting beside me.
“Oh, no,” I gasped. “I couldn’t.”
“Never accept expensive gifts from strange gentle-men, dearie,” said Tom, in a peculiar voice.
“Don’t be disgusting,” I said angrily. I couldn’t help it if the dialogue sounded like an excerpt from a Vic-torian novel; people do talk in cliches when they are moved. “That’s not it,” I went on awkwardly. “I…. It’s too valuable, Hank. I’d be afraid to wear it.”
I thrust it at him. He had to take it.
“I’ll put it in the safe while you’re here,” he said, in the voice that brooked no argument. “I can see why you might not want to leave it lying around. But it’s yours. Now, let’s not discuss it. We have more important things to talk about.”
I was afraid to look at Tom. I decided I would deal with the problem if it came up again; maybe Hank would forget about the offer by the time I was ready to leave.
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“I hear you have another magnetometer,” I said.
“Right. And this one is going to spend the night with me, in my room, same as the first one.”
Tom was slouched deep in his chair, in his usual spineless fashion. “What’s wrong with the safe in here?” he demanded, sitting upright.
“Nothing, but—”
“You’re hoping someone will try to swipe it,” Tom said in an outraged voice. “I suppose you told everybody in the house that it had arrived, and where it was going to be?”
“I don’t know what’s come over you, Tom,” Hank said. “I swear you’re inventing plots. I can’t figure out why someone took the first one, but I’m assuming it was only a malicious gesture. Nobody would try the same stunt twice. But if they do, I’ll be ready for them.”
Tom was ready to go on arguing, but Hank raised his voice and drowned out his protests.
“No more foolish talk, Tom. If you want to come along tomorrow, you’re welcome. I just wanted to tell D.J. I plan to leave early, before it’s light. Is that all right with you, D.J?”
“Whatever you say. But I agree with Tom that—”
“Tom’s an old lady,” Hank said, grinning at his secretary. Tom slid down in his chair and looked very unladylike. “I’ll have somebody wake you in plenty of time, D.J. You’d better get to bed 192 / Elizabeth Peters
now. It will be a long day. Don’t forget to wear your boots.”
I have never been in the presence of royalty, but I imagine they use the same tone of voice when they dismiss people from their presence. I stood not upon the order of my going, but went.
The dismissal included Tom too. He closed the door of the study after him and stood there frowning, his hands in his pockets.
“What are you—” I began.
“Sssh.” He grabbed my arm, and we walked down to the other end of the library. A fire was burning on the hearth. Tom gestured toward a chair and took one himself. They were big, high-backed leather chairs placed close to one another, and I felt like a character from an old-fashioned English mystery story as we sat there cheek by jowl, conversing in low voices.
At first I was afraid Tom was going to bug me about the bracelet. If he had told me the truth, the gift had meaning that far transcended the value of the jewel, which was of course considerable—though insignificant to Hank. However, he had other things on his mind.
“Did you tell anyone about the new whatever-it-is?”
“No,” I said. “I did mention to Joe and Edna that the trip had been postponed. I don’t think I told them that tomorrow was the day, but….”
“It doesn’t matter. If I know Hank, he’s broadcast the news all over the ranch. He doesn’t really Summer of the Dragon / 193
believe my warnings, but he wouldn’t mind a chance to slug somebody.”
“He had a fight the other day with a man who was hassling Debbie,” I said.
“Jake Smith?”
“I think so. Debbie said he used to work here, in the garage.”
“That was Jake. I thought he’d left the area.” Tom looked thoughtful. “I wonder if Hank could be right.
Jake is the type to smash things for the fun of it. He wouldn’t dare tackle Hank personally, but if he saw him fondling his new plaything, he might have wits enough to know it would hurt Hank to lose it.”
“He pulled a knife on Hank,” I said.
“Any rat will bite when it’s cornered. But he’s no killer, our gentle Jake. He’s a coward and a bully.”
“Could he have been responsible for the other accidents? Hank said he had warned him off the property once before.”
“It’s possible. Getting at the lion’s cage would be no problem, and everybody knows Hank spends most mornings out there with the animals. The stairs would be trickier. I think someone stretched a cord across them. After Hank fell it wouldn’t take long to remove the evidence. Yes, Jake might have done it—but it doesn’t seem his style, somehow. Anyhow, he couldn’t have put the pills in your drink.”
“Need we assume that was part of the same 194 / Elizabeth Peters
plot?” I asked. “Hank’s pet loonies seem to see me as a threat. Maybe doping me was a separate piece of spite.”
“Oh, hell, I don’t know.” Tom groaned. “It’s all to amorphous. But I’ll tell you one thing: I am going to spend the night outside Hank’s door.”
“Noble man,” I said admiringly. “Enjoy yourself. I am going beddy-bye.”
I was almost at the door before he spoke again.
“Abbott.”
“Yes?”
“Lock your door. And the balcony doors.”
CHAPTER 9
Having nothing of any magnitude on my conscience, I sleep very soundly. Normally I don’t wake up till somebody kicks me out of bed. I know now what it was that woke me at the crack of dawn next morning; but at the time I was amazed at myself. My first emotion, as I lay blinking at the bright morning light, was fear that I might be turning into one of those horrible people who bound cheerily up at 6 A.M. every morning.
Something was bothering me. You know how it is, when you wake up and think, What was I worrying about last night? After a few hazy minutes I realized what it was. Hank had said he wanted to leave early, and he had promised to have me awakened. Early in this house meant early—before dawn. But sunrise was bright in the sky, and nobody had pounded on my door. I had locked it—I didn’t need Tom’s reminder to do that—but I would have heard someone knock.
The room was utterly silent except for the whir of the air
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conditioning and the chatter of birdsong, muted by the closed windows.
Believe it or not, I was halfway down the hall before I knew why I was running. I don’t really believe in ESP; but I am willing to concede the possibility that, in moments of extreme stress, minds that are in rapport can occasionally communicate. However, that wasn’t what drove me at top speed toward Hank’s room. I had good, sensible, rational reasons to expect the worst.
It wasn’t the worst, but it was bad enough. Tom was lying on the floor outside Hank’s door, face down; his arms and legs were bent at such uncomfortable angles that it was obvious he wasn’t snatching a nap.
I had turned him over and was slapping his face, not too gently, before I realized that something wet and sticky was soaking through my thin nightgown onto my lap, where his head rested.
I knew what it was, but I put my hand under his head. When I removed it, my fingers were red.
I took a deep breath and remained calm. His color was good and he seemed to be breathing normally.
All the same, it was mildly alarming that my rough handling hadn’t produced the faintest trace of returning consciousness. There was a sizable lump, as well as a cut, on his head, but his skull seemed to be in one piece. That was one thing I knew about—skulls.
I slapped him again and got no response, so I Summer of the Dragon / 197
lowered his head to the floor and stood up. The servants didn’t come upstairs until later in the morning, but the kitchen staff was on duty early. The kitchen was the most logical place to go for help. There wasn’t a doctor in the house, not a real one. Besides, the vil-lain who had slugged Tom might be one of the guests.
I ran down to the dining room. The smell of frying bacon led me to the kitchen. It was the first time in my life that the smell of food made me feel sick.
The room was full of people. I had believed myself to be quite calm up to that point, but all at once the faces seemed to blur into a haze of staring eyes and open mouths. I suppose I was a sight to startle any assemblage, white as my bloodstained nightgown, waving my arms and keening like a banshee. That’s Debbie’s description. Hers was the first face that took on recognizable outlines from amid the general haze.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded. “Has something happened to Hank?”
I stared stupidly at her. “Hank,” I said. “Oh, my God.
I never even looked.”
I turned and ran out again.
Most of them followed me, in an insane parade; Debbie was right on my heels most of the way, but I was running so fast it took the vanguard some time to catch up. Tom was still lying where I had left him. I bounded lithesomely
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over his prostrate form and flung myself at the door.
It wasn’t locked. The draperies at the window waved in the breeze.
The room was empty, but it took me some time to convince myself of that obvious fact. I looked under the bed and in the closet, I peered into the bathroom.
Debbie stopped me when I heaved up the top of an old Spanish chest and began tossing out blankets.
“He’s not here,” she said. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know.” I took a deep breath, focused my eyes on the bridge of my nose, and started muttering—well, never mind the word, it’s my secret mantra, and you aren’t supposed to tell anybody what it is.
“Stop that!” Debbie grabbed me by the arms and tried to shake me. “Are you going to have a fit or something? D.J., this is no time for—”
I uncrossed my eyes.
“I’m all right. What we need now is a doctor.”
The servants were standing in a whispering group.
One of them was kneeling by Tom.
“My brother, Juan,” Debbie said. “He’s a premed student.”
“What’s wrong with Tom?” I asked.
Juan looked up. “He got a knock on the head; that’s obvious. It isn’t too bad, but there’s something else—some kind of drug. Debbie, you had better call Doc Parsons.”
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“You had better call the police, too,” I said.
“Assault and battery,” Juan said cheerfully.
“Not just assault.” Debbie, already at the telephone, turned to look at me. I went on. “The rest of you spread out and start looking for Mr. Hunnicutt. But I’m afraid…I’m afraid we’ve got something worse than assault on our hands.”
“Kidnapping?”
“Kidnapping,” I said.
The sheriff eyed me skeptically. He was a real, honest-to-goodness sheriff, and under other circumstances I would have been thrilled to make his acquaintance.
He even looked like a sheriff, all lean and bronzed and leathery, with silvery-white hair and a big star on his leather vest. His name was Walsh, and he was beautiful, but he was dumb.
“Now, see here, Miss—”
“Abbott,” I said. “Ms. Abbott.”
His eyes narrowed, and I could see him sorting through his mental labels: “Feminist…liberated…damn pushy woman…”
He was polite, though.
“Okay—Ms. Abbott. What makes you think Hank has been kidnapped? He goes off like this all the time.”
“Does he always hit his secretary on the head before he takes off on his little jaunts?”
The sheriff sighed. “You heard what Doc Par 200 / Elizabeth Peters
sons said, young lady. Your friend took some kind of sleeping medicine. He probably fell and hit his head.
As for Hank, he’s a bit—er—”
“Eccentric,” I said. “Millionaires are eccentric; poor people are crazy.”
“Crazy, eccentric, I don’t care what you call it. The point is, he’s done this kind of thing before. Why, you just got through telling me he had some nutty idea about a big discovery out there in the desert. He’s always wandering around discovering things. Sounds to me as if you got him all riled up, with your worries and your fussing at him, and he just decided to take off on his own. He’ll be back, waving some fool bone or chunk of rock, telling you it’s a piece of a Martian spaceship.”
He beamed paternally at me. I did not beam back.
“That is not how it was,” I said.
“Well, that’s how it strikes me.”
The sheriff and I were in the library. The servants were still looking for Hank, although a search of the immediate area had produced no trace of him. That relieved some of my worries, and substantiated my belief that kidnapping, not murder, was the issue. As for Tom, the doctor had confirmed Juan’s tentative diagnosis. The bump on his head was not too bad, but he was doped to the eyeballs with sedatives. He had not had anything like a lethal dose, and there was nothing to do but let him sleep it off. The idea that he had hit
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his head falling was Sheriff Walsh’s contribution. I knew, and the sheriff knew, that nothing near the scene of the accident could have caused such a wound.
Walsh had his own theory, and I was pretty sure what it was. Hank was a power, not only around here but internationally; I could imagine that he could be very unpleasant if someone got in his way. Walsh didn’t want to annoy Hank. He believed that Tom had tried to keep Hank from leaving, and that Hank had slugged him. That’s what a reputation for eccentricity, and several million dollars, can do for a person. He can get away with everything short of dismemberment, and other people will just shrug tolerantly.
In a way I didn’t blame Walsh. The series of incidents that had culminated in Hank’s disappearance sounded trivial when you considered them one by one.
Yet I was convinced they made a pattern. I was also convinced that whatever the provocation, Hank wouldn’t have attacked Tom.
Walsh and I were sitting there staring at each other in mutual distrust and dislike when one of the sheriff’s men came in carrying a piece of paper.
“Here you go, Chuck. This should settle it.”
I made a grab for the paper, but the deputy eluded me and handed it to his boss.
Walsh was a slow reader. I think he deliberately prolonged the process in order to frustrate me. I kept jumping up and down saying things like, 202 / Elizabeth Peters
“What is it? What does it say? Let me see.” Nothing aggravates a man so much. It finally got to Walsh.
Scowling, he handed me the paper.
The message had been typed. It read: “I’ve gone to have another look at the place. I may be gone a few days. Sit tight and don’t make a fuss.”
It was not signed.
“I told you so,” Walsh remarked.
“That is a really mean, catty remark,” I said. “If I had said that to you, you would have classified it as a typ-ical female crack.”
“I guess I would,” Walsh muttered. “Okay, young lady, I apologize. You owe me an apology too. Was I right or not?”
“No, you were wrong, wrong, WRONG, and this doesn’t make you right. It isn’t even signed. The kidnapper typed it on Hank’s typewriter—”
“Kidnap notes say things like ‘Bring ten thousand dollars to the arroyo at midnight,’” Walsh protested.
