Something blue (2 page)

"Um hum." He didn't feel like mentioning the possibility that Emily was tinning back, for an unknown reason.

"Did you see the girls?" his mother asked. "I haven't seen them for ages. How are they?"

"All right."

His mother pulled her feelers in.

In the morning, Johnny went to see Roderick Grimes, who was a pink and hairless man of great wealth whose avocation it was to write semi-scholarly books about old murder mysteries. Sometimes he hired Johnny to do the research, scavenge around, interview people. Grimes was lazy. He fancied himself the Mycroft type and he was rather brilliant in the armchair. He said that Johnny had a flair.

This morning, Grimes was cordial but indecisive. He had a couple of things in mind, he said; he hadn't chosen between them. Perhaps in another week or so? Johnny was just as glad of a delay.

He called the girls at six, when they'd be home from work. Dorothy answered.

"We've had a cablegram," she told him. "Emily's flying in at noon on Friday."

"Anything I can do?"

"I don't think so, Johnny. We'll just have to wait. Maybe you'd hke to go to the airport with us?"

"Of course. Pick you up downtown?" They made the date.

"One thing, Dot." Johnny felt miserable. He couldn't speak directly to Nan about this. "Nan said Mr. Copeland introduced them. Has she ever asked him what he knows about this . . . about Bartee?"

"Oh, but Mr. Copeland has been away," said Dorothy quickly. "He went to Honolulu with his fairly new wife. Although I think they are coming back—is it Monday? Nan?" Silence on the wire. ''She asks no questions," said Dorothy in a low voice. (He

sensed that Nan had gone away, could no longer hear.) "She's not in a mood to be practical, Johnny."

He knew this was so. Who ever was? The sweet dizziness of love didn't wait for a dossier. When had it?

"Isn't this . . . Bar tee coming up on Friday?" he asked.

"Yes, but not until the evening . . ."

He couldn't think of any more to say.

When they walked into the airport waiting room on Friday, shock exploded. The Miss Padgetts were being paged. The yoimg man at the information desk said gingerly, "I'm soiTy to have to tell you that Miss Emily Padgett has been taken ill on the aiiplane. The suggestion is that you might like to call her own doctor."

"/«.' How ill?"

"Her heart, they tliink. There's a nxu'se on the airplane. Don't worr>' too much." The young man was in duty bound to say this, but he didn't create a lot of reassurance.

Johnny whirled them into action, to call Dr. Keams, to make arrangements at a hospital. Johnny held a frightened girl on each arm as they waited the last tense two minutes at the barrier.

Emily came off the plane on a stretcher and they ran to her. The small face was gray. The girls murmuredl^and touched her v>iTh loving hands.

It was Johnny who said loudly, "Nobody got married, Emily." That was all the reference there was to Richardson Bartee before Emily vanished into the ambulance.

At the hospital they were djslayed by the need to answer questions for admission. At last, they started down a corridor. It was a small private hospital, Dr. Keams' favorite, all on one floor. They came upon the doctor around a corner.

"She ought to do, with a little sensible care," he told them cheerfully. "Now, don't excite her or upset her. Don't stay too long. Not now. Excuse me? Got a patient in the next wing. Cheer up, now."

The girls stepped softly into Emily's room with Johnny behind them. Emily, on the bed, looked old. More murmurs of love given, received.

"Don't worry about anything," Nan said uselessly. The whole room throbbed with unasked questions and unadmitted anxieties.

"Maybe she ought to be let alone,'' said Johnny loudly. ''That's a brute of a trip she's just made, remember?" He was going to bully the girls out of here. This was no good. ''You could come back tonight at visiting hours. Hm, Emily?" Emily's sad eyes looked up at him and he knew they flickered. "Give me—until tomorrow ..." she said weakly. "Of course, darling." Dorothy kissed her hair. Nan picked up her hand. "I wouldn't want to do anything—ever—to hurt you in any way," Nan said, asking for absolution.

"Darling, I know that," said Emily, her eyes aglow with love and a mysterious sorrow. So they left her.

Johnny took them home to the flat. Scarcely a word was said on the way. Once in the mirror he saw Nan's silent tears. He wanted to say, "Don't blame yourself for Emily's heart!" but his tongue felt tied.

At the flat, Dorothy said there was nothing, really, that he could do and Nan said yearningly, "Dick will be here. Dick can take us to the hospital tomorrow."

So Johnny left them. He rode around aimlessly for a long time. Felt useless, worried. He decided, by some uneasiness in his bones, that he must stay in town overnight, so he found a phone to call liis mother.

"John? Oh, good! We were about to go to the Miller's for dinner and there was an urgent message. The Schmidt Memorial Hospital wants you to call them, right away."

"Then I better do it," said Johnny, so surprised and frightened that he hung up without telling her anything.

The hospital said that Miss Emily Padgett urgently requested Mr. John Sims to come see her this evening. Visiting hours from seven to eight. "Tell her I'll be there."

Johnny hung up, rubbed his face. Stood in the phone booth.

His mother and father would have gone out. Well, he'd tell them in the morning where Emily was and how. He would tell nobody anything tonight. He knew that when he, Johnny Sims, old friend and neighbor, got to the hospital at seven o'clock, he was going to be put right smack in the middle of whatever trouble there was going to be.

A little before seven, in Emily's flat, Nan flew to take the phone. "Dick! Where are you, darling?"

"Just off the plane, love. Shall I come right up?"

"Oh, please! Oh, Dick, Aunt Emily is in the hospital."

"Hospital! Wliere?"

"Right here! The Schmidt Memorial. She flew back. Oh, Dick, I didn't call you—but she was so upset . . ."

"Wait a minute. Your aunt is back! In town!"

"Yes. Yes, she is. I talked to her in Paris. When I told her about us, she said she'd fly home right away."

"But why, dearest? You say she was upset?"

"Yes, she was. She said I wasn't to m-marry you. I must wait ... I don't know why. We can't talk to her now. It's her heart. We can't even see her again until tomorrow."

"Is it serious?"

"The doctor doesn't think so. But . . ."

"Well, then . . ." he said soothingly. "Nothing to worry about. I'll be there just as soon as I can."

Nan put the phone down. "You see!" she said to Dorothy. "He doesn't know why she should be upset!"

Dorothy said, in a moment, "Maybe we'll get it straightened out tomorrow." .-^ --

CHAPTER 3

Johnny Sims entered the hospital on the stroke of seven; nobody asked him his business. He turned right on an inner corridor and walked as far as he could passing several wings, until he came to the last wing of all. He turned left, and then, looking ahead of him, realized that a door at the far end of this last wing stood open. He could have come in that way, directly from the parking lot. Well, he hadn't. No matter.

Emily's room was the second from the end of the wing.

She was sitting a little higher; she looked a little better.

"Johnny, dear, close the door." He closed it. "Sit down. I shouldn't talk too long."

He pulled the straight chair close to the bed and leaned his head into the light. "Take it easy. I've got good ears."

"You've known her so long. You're fond of Nan,"

"True," he agreed.

"Will you help me, Johnny?''

"Certainly."

"I don't know what to do."

Now he thought he could see her heart struggling in her breast. He wanted to ease it. "Just tell me," he urged quietly.

"First, promise you won't tell Nan without permission."

He winced inside, but he had to agree. "I promise. Go ahead."

"You do keep your word." Emily made this a statement.

"I do," he agreed.

She smiled a little. The smile was for him, affectionate and trusting. And absolutely binding upon him. "I can't . . . go anywhere . . . just now ..." she began again with difficulty. "And it can't be my decision. It must be his. So you must go."

Johnny said nothing. He couldn't yet understand.

"The very worst thing that could have happened , . ." Now her head began to turn to and fro upon the pillow. Her heart labored, as he thought he could tell. "How could I imagine!"

"Don't put any steam in it," said Johnny gently. "Just tell me what I must do and I will go and do it."

"Yes," said Emily gratefully. Her head stopped that desperate wagging motion. "But first you have to know. Nan isn't my brother Henry's child. I never had a brother Henry. She's the child of a brother of mine whose name she's never heard. You see, I changed all the names. I made up lies. I had to."

"Go ahead," said Johnny quietly.

"Nan's father is in prison. He was convicted of murder seventeen years ago."

Johnny kept smiling. He was surprised, but not too shocked. He had expected something as bad as this.

"They said he murdered Nan's mother . . ,'' Emily's voice sank to a whisper. "Poor Christy McCauley."

Johnny swallowed.

"My brother Clin to is in San Quentin, Johnny. I want you to see him. Ask him what we aie to do. He must decide."

"I see. I will," Johnny said soothingly.

"No, you don't see," said Emily impatiently. "He did not kill Christy. He was convicted but he wasn't guilty. The baby ... He and I didn't see why the baby shoiild suffer at all. It was bad enough that he had to lose his wife and go to prison for what he hadn't done. Why should there be bad added to bad? Why should the baby grow up in the shadow of such a terrible thing? People believing that her father killed her mother. So I took the baby. I made them give me the baby. I had an agreement with the old man. And I changed my name and her name and Dorothy's name, too. And I was never going to tell her. And all these seventeen years she hasn't known and none of it has ever touched her or hurt her."

"She's had wonderful loving care," Johnny said softly.

"Yes," said Emily and plucked her sheet.

"Now, you feel—if she is to marry . . . ?" he began. ...

"No, no, noT Emily gasped. "Don't try to guess, Jolmny. It only takes longer."

So he waited.

"My brother's name is Clinton McCauley," she said in a moment. "I've always gone to -see him once eyery month. He . . . loves all the news of Nan. But now . . ." She gathered strength and went on. "Christy was killed in the Bartee's house in Hestia. You see, she was related."

Johnny took in air. "This Richardson Bartee is related to Nan?" he asked as calmly as he could. He thought, well, that's it, then, and it's bad, all right.

But Emily shook her head. "Don't guess," she said feebly. "It's worse than you can guess. Much worse. No, not related. The old man had two wives. There's nothing like that."

So Johnny just waited.

"For seventeen years," said Emily in a moment, "Clint has been sure . . ."

"Yes?"

That the boy killed Christy. The wild kid-fifteen years old."

"What boy?"

"Richaidson Bartee," said Emily, her eyes pits of sorrow. "Now do you see?"

All Johnny's nerves tingled. "You say your brother is sure of this? Couldn't you have . . . ?"

"Proved it?" said Emily with vigor. "No. I tried." Emily was up on her elbow and he was too shocked to press her back into a position of rest. "How can I let Nan marry" cried Emily, "the very one—the one rotten evil soul in all this world—who killed her mother and let her father go to prison for it?"

"You can't," said Johnny horrified. (Oh, Lord, it's bad, he thought. Poor Nan.) But he had to think of Emily just now. "Hush, lie back. You're not going to let her marry him. Just tell Nan all this. That's all you really need to do.''

"And there goes," said Emily, "the meaning of my life and all of Clinton's sacrifice."

The room was quiet. He was vaguely aware of sounds out in the corridors, of lights and shadows in the windows of the next wing, across the narrow court between. He himself felt too shocked and sad to move or speak.

"But I can't tell her, Johnny," said Aunt Emily at last. "Not until Clinton knows. He must decide that she be told. You can see that?"

""Yes."

"So will you go to see him?"

;;Yes."

"And will you help Nan, afterwards?"

-Yes."

"The one wrong man in all the world . . . the one wrong man for Nan."

She looked so exhausted that he was frightened. "Put it o£F your mind," he said gently. "I will go to the prison and see your brother. I will tell him. I will ask him what he wants you and me to do. And then I will do it. Don't you fret any more. Nan will be all right, you know," he went on confidently.

"You'll stand by her, Johnny?"

"You and I and Dorothy and my Ma, and all of us will stand by her," he promised warmly. "And it won't be as

terrible as you think. Listen . . ." He was frantic to comfort her. "She's aheady had what you wanted for her. She didn't grow up in any shadow at all, but in full sun. She's been as well-raised as any child on earth. You've done the job, Emily. And because you've done it, she's going to be able to take this. You'll be proud of her."

"Thank you, Johnny," Emily said. Her face was relaxing. "God bless you, Johnny Sims. I hope you're right. Yes, thank you."

"You rest now," Johnny kissed her fondly. "Leave everything to me."

"I will," said Emily. "Dear Johnny. I feel much better now."

In a little while Johnny left her. His feet fell fatefully on the vinyl floor. In the corridor, he turned sharp and went out at the end of the wing. He was fiUed with dismay. Dismay.

He had no idea what the truth was about the old tragedy. It didn't make a lot of difference what the truth was. Nan was going to be torn in bits, whatever it was. And he wasn't at all sure how Nan could take it.

After Johnny had gone, Emily Padgett lay quietly. The storm in her Ij^art and mind seemed to have died to a sdd and^ yet rather a sweet calm.