Stranger At Home (9 page)

Joan said, “If your wife wants it like that, I'll go. But I must see her first.” She turned, and his hand fell on her shoulder. Lightly, gently, like a falling leaf. His eyes were expressionless, and his mouth held a faint, vague smile.

“You are a servant in my employ,” he said. “You will do as you are told.”

They stood there for a time in the doorway, she looking up at him and not moving, except that she began to tremble slightly.

“I will not go,” she whispered. “I will not leave her.”

“Do you think I'm going to harm her, Joan, on our second honeymoon? Have I any reason to harm her?”

“Michael. Michael – let me go.”

He took his hand away and said impatiently, “Really, you're being very stupid! You've been without a man too long, Joan. Getting neurotic. I might almost begin to wonder just what your extreme interest in Angie means. For heaven's sake, take a vacation and find yourself a playmate. A male playmate!” A bell rang in the rear. “There's the cab I ordered. Come along.”

He propelled her toward the front hall. Her overnight bag, a coat and hat, and a pair of sandals were waiting for her. Vickers picked up the coat and held it for her.

“This will do you for a while. We'll send the rest of your things along later.” He waited. Joan stood staring at him. He moved the coat. “Well, come on!” He waited again. Finally he asked patiently, “Are you going to scream?”

She studied his hands, curled over the soft tweed lapels. “No,” she said. “No, I'm not going to scream.” She permitted him to help her on with her coat. Vickers picked up the rest of her things and took her to the door. The cabby was waiting impatiently. Vickers thrust a bill into his hand.

“Wherever she wants to go.” He guided Joan down the steps and helped her into the cab. “You'll find your handbag in the overnight case. There's a check in it. Let me know when you need more.” He backed off and waved as the cab started. “Have a good time, Joan, and don't worry.”

He watched the vehicle until it disappeared down the hill. Coolin and Molly came up to him. Molly was still uncertain about him, but he talked to her and presently she made advances, and when he went indoors she was as close on his heels as Coolin. Vickers smiled. He took three envelopes from the pocket of his dressing gown and headed for the servants' quarters.

Angie came down shortly after nine. She found Vickers in the kitchen, serenading himself with the original and bawdy version of
Bell Bottom Trousers
while he whipped up batter for French toast. He was wearing slacks and a very gay sport shirt and one of Cook's big flowered aprons, and he seemed completely happy. Molly and Coolin sat moist-eyed, lost in admiration of the magnificent breakfast taking shape on the big white table.

Vickers became lost in admiration of Angie. She was wearing white shorts and a flowered silk shirt with the tails tied up native-fashion in front, and a bright matching ribbon in her hair. She had lovely legs. She burst out laughing at Vickers.

“Don't we look nice in our pinafore!”

Vickers held the skirt out in his free hand and studied it. “I thought so. All I need is some lipstick. Suppose you come and put it on for me.”

She did. “Better?”

“Much. Now you go sit down till this is ready.”

“How did Cook like being run out of her kitchen?”

She seemed a little bewildered.

“I don't wonder.” She sat down, drew a long breath, and closed her eyes. “It smells as though you could still cook!”

Vickers looked from Coolin to Molly to Angie, and laughed. “The three of you are making
me
drool.” He dipped slices of bread in the batter and laid them in the skillet. Angie picked up the paper and put it down again hurriedly.

“The house is awfully quiet this morning,” she said. “I haven't even seen Joan.”

“Joan isn't here.”

Angie stared at him, in blank amazement. “What?”

“I sent her away for a vacation. She's earned it. I sent the servants, too.”

“But – Vick...” She had stiffened, grown tense, her body drawing in upon itself. “I – I don't understand. Why would you do such a thing?”

He said gently, “It's been a long time, Angie. We have a lot to say to each other. I've changed – you've probably changed, too. Things have to be worked out between us. We had to be alone.”

She got up and stood with her back to him, looking out into the garden. “But why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you ask me? Joan is my friend!”

“That's just why I didn't mention it, darling. You'd have got all involved with emotions and ethics and things. It was so much easier for everybody.” He turned the toast with a quick expert flip of the wrist. “This,” he said, “beats tortillas.”

Angie said, “Vick, why did you send Joan away?”

‘I'm not trying to break up your friendship with her. I just don't want her around for a while. I want you to see me through your own eyes, not through hers. She detests me, Angie – perhaps with good cause, but...” He left the stove and went to put his arm around Angie. “Do you still love me?”

She turned her head away. ‘I'm just where I always was with you.”

“Are you afraid to stay with me long enough to find out?”

“I don't know, Vick,” she whispered. “Before God, I don't know!”

He stood in silence for a moment. Then he released her and returned to the stove. “It's all ready. Want to hold the plates for me?” There was no answer. He glanced over his shoulder. Angie had gone. He got the plates himself from the warming oven and filled them with golden fried toast and crisp bacon. He was bringing coffee to the table when she came back.

“Vick, the phones don't work.”

“I know it.” He poured steaming coffee into bright spode cups. “I cut off the extensions. Use the one in my den.”

“Your den is locked.”

“Is it?” He set the coffee pot down carefully on a mat. “That's funny. Must have done it without thinking. Were you calling Joan?” He walked over and opened a cupboard door.

“Yes.”

“But you don't know where she is.” Vickers was investigating the jelly situation, and finding it inadequate. “No bramble. But then, no one liked it but me.”

“Joan will go to the Wilshire Regent. The manager's wife is a good friend of hers.” She watched Vickers take a spoon and transfer currant jelly from the jar to a cut glass dish. She had come no farther than the doorway. “Vick.”

He paused and looked around.

“Vick, why did you cut off the phones?”

He shrugged and picked up the jelly. “I didn't want to be bothered with the ruddy things ringing all over the house.” He smiled at her. “We're going to have other things to do beside answering telephones.” He added, wryly, “Even if we fight.”

Angie said, “I want to call Joan.”

“Of course, darling. But don't you want to eat these things while they're still young and beautiful?”

“I think I'd better call Joan.”

Vickers sighed. “No wonder cooks get temperamental. Oh, well. It won't take long.” He pulled off the apron and went to Angie, and she slipped away from him, unobtrusively, and went ahead of him down the hall.

He tried the door of the den and shook his head humorously. “Must be balmier than I thought.” He pulled out his keyring and opened it, then followed Angie in. The room was small enough to have a pleasant personality. There was oak paneling and cretonne draperies of a soft but cheerful brightness and a few good prints. There was a gun case and a place for fishing rods of varying sizes built in between the book shelves. It was, like Vickers' bedroom, extremely masculine and self-sufficient.

Angie went directly to the desk and picked up the telephone. Vickers put his hand on her arm. There was something oddly pleading about the gesture.

“Give me a chance,” he said.

She looked up at him and let the phone rest. “If I could only understand you, Vick! You shouldn't have sent Joan away like that.”

“You can surely see my reason.”

“But it was rude and unkind, and you should have asked me!” He could see the little anger sparks in her eyes. “And the servants. There was certainly no reason to send them away.”

He said quietly, “I thought there was.”

“Why?” said Angie. She had begun to tremble visibly, and her eyes were flashing. “Why do you want me alone in this house, with the only telephone in a locked room?”

He turned away from her, slowly, and walked across the room and back again, his head bent in an attitude of deep thought. He reached into his hip pocket, as though for a handkerchief, but what he brought forth was small and flat and cleanly shaped from blued steel. A .32 Colt automatic.

A stillness came over Angie. Her knuckles, curled around the shank of the telephone, showed white.

Vickers was looking at the gun. It was not pointed at anything in particular.

“Four years ago,” he said, “somebody tried to kill me. I know it was one of three men. I know that it wasn't Harry Bryce, because yesterday somebody tried again. Right here on the hill. They fired into the cab.” He touched the scar with his free hand. “Only the man who did this would have any reason to try again so soon, with one murder already on hand. You see, he doesn't know how much I remember. Perhaps I saw his face that night, in spite of the dope he fed me. Perhaps I knew his voice. Perhaps at any minute a latent memory will come clear, and I'll know him.” He looked somberly at Angie. “Remember that. When you kill a man, make sure he's really dead.”

Angie's voice was only a whisper, and it came from a long way off. “Do you really think I...”

He dropped the gun in his pocket and began to pace again. “I didn't want the servants here. I don't know them, and servants can be bribed. I didn't want Joan. I'm going to stay here, in this house, and I want no visitors that I don't let in myself, and stay with every minute. I'm afraid of being killed. Now do you understand!”

Angie let the phone come to rest on its stand. She sat down, rather slowly, in the big leather chair behind the desk. A shaft of sunlight from the window touched her silk blouse to tropical brilliance. Above it, her face was waxen and stiff like the face of a doll.

She said, “The police...”

“There's no such thing as protection. Besides, my friend would only have to wait until the boys got bored and went home.” He paused. Then he said, very softly, “One doesn't call the police to settle a family quarrel.”

“Vick.” She did not move in the big chair. Even her lips hardly moved. “Vick, you can't believe...”

He put one hand on the desk and leaned on it, and stood looking down at her. After a while he said,

“In your own words, I don't know. Before God, I don't know!”

In the silence, suddenly, the telephone rang. Vickers reached across the desk and picked it up.

“Vickers speaking. Oh, hello. Yes. Yes, any time. We'll be home all day.”

He put the phone down. “That was Trehearne,” he said. “He'll be up later. The autopsy report was – murder.”

The building that housed the Bay Cities Division of the Los Angeles forces of law and order was less than a year old and consequently still fresh and clean and reasonably unmarred by the laborious grindings of the wheels of Justice. The Homicide Bureau was on the second floor. Joan Merrill found it with little or no trouble.

She was shown immediately into Joe Trehearne's private office, a small and plainly furnished cubicle of a depressing utilitarianism, neat and very efficient. There was, on the desk, a framed portrait of a young woman with fair hair and intelligent eyes. She held a very bored infant in a white dress, and had her free arm around the shoulders of a little girl. She seemed completely happy and at peace.

Trehearne himself rose and shook hands, motioning Joan to a chair. “You sounded upset over the phone,” he said. “What's happened?”

“You know my position in the Vickers' household?”

“Well, perhaps not too well.” He thought Joan Merrill was looking remarkably handsome in her soft blue suit, in spite of the strain evident in the lines around her mouth and eyes. He thought it was quite an accomplishment. He knew nerves when he saw them. This woman had them, in big quivering bunches, and few women can mix nerves and beauty with any success.

“I work there. I'm with the family, but not of it. Housekeeper, secretary, companion, whipping-boy, anything you like. Every wealthy home has one.” She stopped and drew breath. Her next words came much more slowly. “I've been there nearly nine years. In that time I have...” She stopped again, then leaned forward. “Angie – Mrs. Vickers has become almost like my own – sister.”

Trehearne nodded. “I guessed that. Go on.”

“This morning Michael put me out of the house.”

Trehearne's angular face became intent. “Put you out?”

“Yes. He even had my bag packed.” She told him what had been said and done over the early coffee. “He frightened me,” she said. “I think if I had screamed, or tried to force my way upstairs, he'd have – I don't know. But he terrified me.”

“Well,” said Trehearne soothingly, “maybe he was just tactless. It's logical that a man would want to be alone with his wife...”

“Then why wouldn't he let me see her? Why did he have everything ready to get me out of there without a moment's delay? And there's more to it than that.” Joan had let go now. Words were pouring out of her. “I tried to call the house to let them know where I was, and to reassure myself that Angie was all right. The phone rang and rang and no one answered. That means the servants are gone too, and that Michael isn't letting Angie...”

“Hold on, now.” Trehearne put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I talked to Vickers myself about an hour ago. I'm sure everything's all right.”