Lighted Windows, page 20
“Mees Samp seesters send plate. They say, sorry they can’t come to party.”
“Tell them that I am terribly disappointed.” The girl lingered, twisting her bracelets in conscious expectancy. “I never saw so much lovely silver jewelry. Something tells me you’ve had a present.”
Tatima assumed indifference. “Who, me? Kadyama geeve to me. He geeve me much more. I marry on him. He chief’s son. Some day I beeg chief’s squaw.”
Low as it was, perhaps because her subconscious was simmering with suspicion, Janice heard Tubby Grant’s hushed “Ba-gosh!” She glanced at Paxton perched on the corner of the table desk. The speculative gleam in his eyes as he appraised the Indian girl made her a little sick. She looked back at Tatima who was regarding Grant with a superior smile.
“I no sell my beads. I keep w’at I have an’ get more an’ more an’ more.” Her eyes glittered. Her fingers clutched at her red dress.
There was a thread of excitement in Grant’s laugh. “Mebbe so. Mebbe so. Kadyama’s struck pay-dirt, has he? Where’s his gold mine?”
“He noding like gol’ mine. Money owe him long time for card game. Yesterday man pay. Kadyama buy silver from Ossa.”
“Who’s the rich stranger? I’d like to get up a little game with him myself.”
Tatima sniffed scorn. “Stranger! Pasca pay heem. Pasca have beeg fat roll of money, Kadyama say.”
XIX
Coming aboard Ned Paxton’s boat had set old memories twanging unbearably. Even if Tubby Grant’s argument had seemed water-tight, she should not have stepped foot on it, Janice reflected uneasily, as, back to the rail, she regarded the group under the awning of the deck lounge of the Modern Mariner. Mary Samp’s eyes were big with wonder, her cheeks pink as Delicious apples, partly from excitement, partly from heat generated by the heavy drab woolen dress and thick shoes which were Miss Martha’s conception of the proper costume for yachting. She perched on the edge of the seat like a plump pigeon on a ledge ready to take-off at the slightest warning. Millicent Hale, in a deck chair, had removed her black hat. Her fair hair seemed fairer in contrast to her sombre frock. From her regal air she might have been Cleopatra voyaging in a gilded barge, under outspread sails of purple, to the rhythmic pulse of silver oars. Janice sniffed. Cleopatra was too snappy a comparison. Her face was as maddeningly complacent—when one didn’t see her evasive eyes—as a sculptured goddess in a gallery. Why had the fragile woman in black such power to hurt her? Whenever they met she left a barb of innuendo rankling like a thorn which one cannot see but which pricks irritatingly. Unless Millicent Hale was a smooth and convincing liar there had been more than friendship between Bruce Harcourt and herself.
Was Ned Paxton intrigued by her? He sat on a high cushion at her feet, hands, clasped about his white flannel knees as he talked. His conversation had the true cosmopolitan flavor. Why not, when he spent his life in the gayest, largest capitals of the world? The sun brought out the gloss of his smooth hair, patterned his navy serge coat with gold. Was that her own turquoise blue self grotesquely broadened in the shining ball of brass? Janice regarded the reflection thoughtfully. Life was a jolly joker. She had ordered this very sports frock to wear on this very boat before she had given Ned back his ring.
Good grief, she hadn’t a minute to spend on the past with the present and future tangled into mystery. Perfect afternoon. Warm as a Long Island summer day, fragrant as a forest-rimmed harbor in Maine. Raucously screaming gulls soared and dove about the boat. The sky was clear sapphire softened by an opal haze which settled in a light film on the deck, lava dust from the volcano which they were sailing forth to see at closer range. The distant shore was emerald green. Dense woods of birch, spruce and hemlock rose gently into slopes patched with moss, dotted with junipers and alders, reared sharply into fanglike summits holding mouthfuls of snow. To the south a wild light hung over the water. It seemed to rise from a mammoth deep-sea reflector which cast curious, macabre patterns on the helmet vapor clouds.
Admitted that it was a glorious day, that fact did not explain her presence on this boat. Tubby Grant had been responsible. That was unfair. She alone was responsible for what she did. She was white, free and considerably over twenty-one, quite old enough to make her own decisions. Had it all been Tubby’s insistence, or had she been glad of the chance to be away when Bruce returned? She pigeon-holed the question for future examination. After supper last night, Tubby had held her up outside the Waffle Shop—while men, sourdoughs with gold teeth, workmen with no teeth at all, Indians and Eskimos, passed and re-passed, for all the world like extras on the silver screen, while the aroma of coffee and sizzling batter scented the air—had begged her to second his efforts to have Millicent Hale away from headquarters when the Commissioner and Harcourt arrived the next afternoon. From the fact that his name had not been mentioned in the radio message, there was every reason to believe they were bringing Jimmy Chester. He had asked Paxton to cooperate by inviting a party on his yacht for a nearer view of the erupting volcano. He had caught on at once. Said he had promised Miss Mary a trial trip or two, that he would invite Mrs. Hale.
Grant’s plan had seemed sound. Now, on thinking back over the conversation, she wondered that he had not referred to Tatima’s startling disclosure as to the source of the money which Kadyama had lavishly expended on silver jewelry. Where could Pasca get so much cash so suddenly? Was it part of that taken from Joe Hale when he was shot? Apparently no one had suspected Bruce Harcourt’s house-boy. Because of that very fact, had the events happened in a detective story, he would have been proven to be the perpetrator of the crime. It would account for Bruce’s revolver having been used, for Pasca’s absence from the squaw-dance. What would have been the motive? Not Tatima. Money? Tubby had said that it was public knowledge that Hale carried a fat roll.
The mystery would be cleared up soon, then what would happen? Would Bruce and the Commissioner be at headquarters when the yacht returned? Would the boat approach near enough to the volcano for her to get a picture of it? Had the opal haze thickened, or was the sky clouding over? The sea was running smooth, the day had been made for Miss Mary’s first trip. A ship’s bell struck. She counted. Eight bells. Was it possible they had been sailing three hours? Tea time. She joined the group under the awning. Paxton rose.
“You stood so long staring over the rail, we decided that you were making up your mind for a swim.”
“Not in this icy water. I was wondering if we could approach the volcano near enough to get a picture. I brought a movie camera.”
“I’ll talk with the Captain and the native pilots. We have two aboard. Meanwhile, will show Miss Mary the interior of the boat? You know every crack and cranny of it, though you haven’t seen it since I had it redecorated—for you.”
The last words were so low that Janice wondered if anyone but herself heard them. Miss Mary admitted half-heartedly:
“I’d like real well to see it, but I’m not much of a sailor below stairs. You comin, M’s. Hale?”
“No. I am really not equal to the exertion. Don’t feel that you must stay with me, Mr. Paxton.”
“Miss Mary will enjoy the tour of inspection much more if there isn’t a man trailing round. I will interview the Captain.”
Janice slipped her hand within Mary Samp’s arm. “We’ll begin our sight-seeing tour with the hydraulic steering apparatus. It is the last word in its class. As the mechanic’s cell was left out when my brain was assembled, auxiliary engines, synchronized Diesels mean nothing in my young life. We’ll get the second officer to explain them to us.”
Mary Samp’s eyes shone, her cheeks reddened with excitement as she passed from one part of the yacht to another. The silver and blue, black and rose and gold of the staterooms reduced her to a state of thrilled speechlessness. On the threshold of the main lounge she clasped ecstatic hands.
“Well, now! I suppose this is what folks call modernistic!”
Janice, accustomed as she was to the latest vogue in furnishing, gasped at the sheer daring of the room. The ceiling graded down in equally proportioned tiers of pearl and silver. Lights cunningly concealed radiated a soft glow. In lieu of a fireplace for a focal point the decorator had set in one wall panes of opaque glass, illuminated from the back, through and over which water gently trickled. The fountain gave the effect of moonlight on a silver sea. It glowed with beauty. Blues, turquoise and peacock tones, white, silver and black were repeated in the hangings and furnishings. Mary Samp drew a long, unsteady breath.
“Isn’t it beautiful! Martha’s right. One half the world doesn’t know how the other half lives. Don’t seem like a man’s room though.”
The blood throbbed in Janice’s temples. The ghost of her old self whispered:
“This was planned for you.” As in a crystal she saw the crude living-room at the H house. No doubt but that was a man’s room. Miss Mary touched her arm.
“What’s that?”
Janice’s eyes followed the pointing finger toward a corner which was occupied by a broad shelf, before which were stools of polished metal, behind which were wall cabinets.
“That is a bar, Miss Mary.”
“You mean, like they used to have in saloons for drinks?”
“Yes.”
“Well, now! That standing there as bold as brass, an’ only last week a captain of one of the coast boats was sent to prison for selling liquor to a native! It don’t seem fair, somehow. Let’s go on deck. Lookin’ at that made me kinder sick.”
Two Filipino boys were bringing the tea things when they returned to the lounge deck. Janice’s lips twitched with laughter as she remembered Pasca’s high-held tray. That reminded her, where had the Eskimo procured the money to pay Kadyama? The moment she reached land again she would begin sleuthing. Suppose— Her imagination took the bit in its teeth and galloped. She had Pasca safely behind prison bars, Jimmy Chester free as air once more when a voice crashed into her reflections.
“Janice!” She looked up. Paxton was standing before her fastening a holster belt. “That’s better. You were a hundred miles from here. I’ll bet you couldn’t tell whether you’ve had tea or not. You have. The sea is running smooth. If you want to get near enough to the volcano to take a picture, the Captain says that it will be perfectly safe for the native pilots to take you in the launch.”
Janice’s premonition nerves tingled. Darn her imagination. Here was the opportunity of a lifetime. Would she let her fear-complex rule? She would not.
“I’m all excited! Am I to go alone?
“No. I’ll go to make sure that you don’t fall out of the boat in your excitement. The sky is not quite so clear as it was, we’d better get a move on. The yacht will follow. We will turn back the moment you say the word.”
Seated in the launch, Janice waved to the two women and the Captain bending over the rail to watch them start. Miss Mary’s eyes were troubled, Millicent Hale’s inscrutable, the Captain’s complacent as he listened to the purr of the motor, rhythmic as a kitten’s breathing, observed the skill of the native pilots who had shed their coats and caps, gold braided with the yacht’s insignia, and had stolidly wriggled into kamalaykas, which looked like waterproof overshirts with a hood. When at a proper distance, Janice focused the camera on the group on the deck. She cranked until the faces were dim.
“There! I wonder what Tubby will say to that. He is teaching me the motion-picture art. I’ve even learned to develop films. When I return to civilization I will be equipped to go on the lecture platform.”
“Then you expect to return to civilization?”
Apparently absorbed in the intricacies of the black box she held, she answered abstractedly:
“Return! Of course. Then some day we are going to South America to build a bridge.”
Paxton laughed skeptically before he crouched down behind the engine to light a cigarette.
From whence had that iridescent bit of fabrication bubbled, Janice demanded of herself in dismay. From the rows and rows of Spanish books in the H house? Had those spelled South America to her subconscious?
Paxton went forward to consult the man at the wheel. The Modern Mariner had dwindled to Lilliputian proportions. The launch was running parallel with a green shore from which twin mountains lightly clothed with alders and willows, arid, with volcano ash, rose in a graceful sweep to taper into dazzling white cones. Beyond towered higher peaks like purple shadows. She could make out an abandoned Indian village, its tumble-down huts shining weirdly white in the distance. Were those uprights carved totem poles? She turned eagerly to Paxton as he came aft.
“See that Indian village, Ned. I wish—”
The sentence died on her lips as a rain of tiny rocks showered upon the boat. They burned as they struck her hands, hissed as they fell into the water to float away like dingy snow-flakes. Orange and scarlet flames fired curling vapor, belching smoke, till the sky seemed one frightful conflagration.
“Hol’ tight! Hol’ tight!”
Janice hadn’t needed the hoarse shouts of the pilots as a warning. Instinctively she had gripped the side of the launch.
“Come about! Make for the yacht!” Paxton shouted.
Too late. With the roar as of all the thunder-bolts forged in Vulcan’s workshops let loose, with a crash which rocked the world, the volcano blew up. Fascinated eyes on the spectacle, Janice saw what looked to be the back of a great sea monster rise to the surface. An island being born? Paxton caught her in one arm, clung tight with the other hand. A wave which seemed mountains high rolled toward the launch, caught it as though it had been a chip in a puddle, swept it shoreward with incredible speed. Sweat ran down the bronze face of one pilot as he strained at the wheel. The eyes of both bulged with terror. Overhead feathery, scooting clouds merged. The world which had been all sapphire, emerald and crystal went dreadnaught gray. Stinging white foam flew back in drenching spray. Smoke rolled and twisted like a boa-constrictor in the throes of acute indigestion. The boat climbed a huge roller, lunged sickeningly in the trough, staggered and shuddered when a fresh wave struck it. The sea snarled and hissed under a shower of hot stones. Spray blurred Janice’s eyes as she strained them in an effort to see what lay ahead. Another mighty smash and shock of water, greater than its predecessor, lifted the boat like a toy and flung it on the shore.
For a dazed instant she sat with eyes tightly shut. She had thought that last plunge would end everything. Paxton touched her shoulder.
“We’re safe, Jan. Don’t, don’t go to pieces now that the danger is over.”
“Go to pieces!” She blinked, forced a smile. “I was merely orienting myself, that’s all.”
The launch was stranded on a pebbly beach, not so far up, she told herself, but what another tidal wave would either land it in the tree-tops or carry it out to sea. If she had her choice she was all for the tree-tops. Coppery coils of smoke obliterated sea and sky twenty feet from shore. No escape that way. The native pilots were huddled in the bow. Paxton, livid, tense, was standing over them. With a final word he came back to her.
“We’ll have to camp here until the yacht picks us up. The men say there is a hunter’s shack somewhere on this shore. They are dumb with fright. That was all I could screw out of them. We’d better find it before another wave catches us.”
The girl’s heart stopped for an instant. A mammoth wave rolled in. She jumped into water when she left the boat. The three men were holding the bow. The tide was sucking at it, trying to drag it out. She helped pull the launch farther up shore. An uncanny howl from somewhere inland rose to crescendo, slid into diminuendo and died away.
“What’s that?”
The teeth of one of the pilots visibly and audibly chattered as he answered Paxton.
“That a wolf cry, yes sirree. Smoke an’ fire drive dem to shore. Dey no lak fire. Not much ever come oder time. Hunters come here. Shack up by trees.”
Paxton’s voice showed strain. “Come on, Jan. We’ll find it. Don’t lose your nerve over that howl, it was miles away.”
“It is not my nerve I’ve lost, it’s my knees. There is nothing but all-goneness where they should be.”
“You’ve clung to your camera, I see. We may wish it were something to eat before we get through. There are two cans of crackers in the launch, that’s all. If only this infernal smoke would lift, we’d get back to the yacht. The men were right. There’s the shack.”
Janice’s heart went into a tailspin. On a little hill, a spur on the side of the mountain, sagged a cabin of warped, weather-beaten boards. It leaned tipsily between two spruces like a blowsy woman in the grip of austere law-enforcers. Into her mind flashed the remembrance of the night she had lost her black satin slipper from the roadster. Ned had been unbearable then. To be sure, he had been drinking. Why, why should that memory bubble to the top now when she needed confidence, trust in him?
She didn’t know how long she and Paxton stood there staring at the distant hut. He wheeled at sound of the put-put of an engine starting. With a startled oath he ran back to the water’s edge. Janice stumbled after him. As they reached it, the stern of the launch vanished into the mist, where smoke and sky merged with blackish green water flecked with boiling white. There was a blur of red, white and blue, then that also slipped into the phantom world.
“Come back! Come back!” Paxton shouted. Only the fading throb of the engine responded. He drew his revolver and fired into the air. As though in answer, a wild wail was relayed by echo after echo through the woods. Janice caught his arm. Her voice came raggedly.
“Ned! Ned! Save your ammunition. Remember that ghastly howl.”
