There is always love (16 page)

After he persuaded her to turn the billiard room, which was back of the stairs and had doors opening into both drawing room and Ubrary, into a movie theater, it was evident that she no longer suspected he had an ax to grind. He had arranged for an operator to be on hand week ends and holidays to project films. Madam Steele loved costume pieces and pictures which fictionally depicted epoch-making events in the United States. The more Indians and shooting the better. Money certainly made life's walk easy when it came to entertainment

"With which not too original reflection I will go back to work," Linda derided herself and sat down at the table near the window. On it lay a loose-leaf album, a box of cellophane covers, hinges, perforation gauge, watermark detector, color chart, an adjustable magnifying glass, envelopes of stamps and a catalogue. She saw them through a mist This was the first time since her father had gone that she had touched his stamp collection. Ruth had been right when she had said that working over these things he had loved would bring him very near.

"Mind if I come in?" Madam Steele inquired from the threshold. "It's such a gloomy day I can't stay put anywhere."

"I'd love to have you. Know anything about stamps? Come and look at this Postmaster's Provisional. Something tells me it's a reprint, but I wouldn't swear to it."

As Madam Steele took her chair at the table Linda picked up the stamp with the tongs and placed it under the magnifying glass.

"Reprint or not, it is an interesting item. . . . This array of implements has all the marks of a professional collector. How does it happen?" Madam Steele inquired.

Linda told her.

"I thought I had lost interest, but the moment I touched that book the thrill came back. The weather helps. This is just the sort of day when the world is hushed under the 90

spell of falling snow that my father and I loved to work."

"Where did you get stamps; buy them?"

"Not often. We'd swap and occasionally a neighbor who was cleaning out an attic would send us a box of old envelopes. Dad and I would be thrilled speechless."

"I can believe it. The memory has set your eyes glowing, I wouldn't be surprised if there were stamps you would like in a chest of old letters in one of the rooms upstairs. You may have all you find. Come with me and I'll give you the key to the door of the stairway which leads to the third floor. I had it shut off to save heating it, it is so rarely used now." She stopped before the green-lacquer-and-gold dressing table.

"What an exquisite Chinese box. I like the strings of different colored beads trailing from it."

"One of my sea-captain grandfathers brought that jewel case home from the Orient. It now holds my collection of costume jeweky, 'junk,' my father called it. Junk or not, it sparkles and I love sparkle."

"So do I. Someday I will show you my jewels. Meanwhile you'd better start stamp-hunting. Come with me; I'll give you the key."

Madam Steele never before had mentioned her jewels, Linda remembered as she followed her. Each time Ruth and Hester had come to The Castle for a week end they had confided that they were crazy to see them; Keith Sanders had been tepidly interested, Skid eager to compare them with his mother's. But no reference had been made to them by their owner. That little remark about saving heat had been funny when one thought of the fortune in precious stones which was cached somewhere in this house, but apparently even the very rich had their pet economies.

Two hours later, Linda was stUl sitting on the floor near one of the rear windows of the room at the head of the stairs. Her cheeks burned with excitement though her hands were stiff from cold. She was thrilled to the marrow of her bones. Envelopes were piled in her lap. She had found rare stamps to fill several spaces in her books and in the chest remained packages of letters tied with strings. She would open just this one before she went down.

She squealed with excitement, rubbed her hand across her eyes, looked at the envelope again. It was! She wasn't mistakeni It was a 1901 Pan-American-Exposition issue. Carmine and black with an inverted railroad train in the center. The priceless two-cent error!

"Are you there, Miss?" The parlormaid, Annie, spoke from the head of the stairs. "The Madam told me to tell you tea was served."

"Good heavens, is it teatime? Come over here, Annie, and help tie up some of these envelopes, will you?"

"Sure, Miss. Ain't you excited, though, about a lot of old letters?" She looked out of the window as she knelt beside Linda. "Gee, ain't this high! I'm glad we maids don't have to sleep here. We'd never get out if there was a fire."

"Yes you would. See the iron fire escape just outside the window? This house must have been built many years ago but even then safety was considered. You look white. Aren't you well, or is it this light?"

"I—I feel a kind of headache coming on. I'll be all right after I have my tea, Miss. We'd better hurry and get out of this freezin' room."

"What luck?" Madam Steele inquired as Linda entered the library. "No need to ask. Your cheeks are red. Your eyes shine like stars. You must have found something in those old boxes."

"Old boxes! Treasure chests! Look! What do you see?"

She held out the envelope with the Pan-American-Exposition issue. Madam Steele regarded it through her lorgnon.

"I see a red-and-black stamp. Nothing to raise my blood pressure. I presume it means something?"

"Means something! It's worth hundreds of dollars!"

"You're in luck, my dear."

^''You're in luck. It's yours. I know where I can sell it for you. It's a sensational find!"

"I told you you could have any stamp you found and I meant it. Will you sell it?"

"Mine! Really! Sell it!" Linda gulped back a gasp of excitement. "Never! It will go into our book. If he were here, my father and I would be doing an Indian war dance. Are you sure you want me to have it? You could buy jewels with the money for your collection."

"It's yours. I'm glad you found it. Keep the key to the door of the third-floor stairway. You may find other treasures."

"Thank you a million times."

She had been here almost three months. The thought recurred to Linda as in a copper-gold lame frock she entered the library before dinner. She stopped on the threshold. Greg Merton was standing in front of the fire..Madam Steele, in shimmering gray satin almost as white as her hair, was talking earnestly, using her beautiful hands, sparkling with rings, for emphasis. Had she known he was coming? It looked like it. He was dressed for dinner.

"This is a surprise. Did you snow down, Greg?** 92

•*No. Still sticking to the good old roadster. Aunt Jane sent me an S O S. Haven't found out yet what it's all about."

"I'll explain when we have our coffee, Gregory." Madam Steele rose as Buff announced dinner.

In the dining room the butler drew out her chair. Gregory Merton performed the same oflBce for Linda before he took his seat, at the end of the shining mahogany table, with its exquisite lace, massive silver and crystal, opposite his aunt

The conversation which ran to family matters, questions by Madam Steele, answers by her nephew, while the butler, assisted by Annie in a maroon silk frock, deftly served a delicious meal, afforded Linda's thoughts ample time and opportunity to roam. Since she had come to The Castle there had been days when she felt as if she were living in a dream, but never one which seemed so unreal as this afternoon when she had crouched near the third-floor window and found that sensational stamp. It was hers! Hers and her father's.

She glanced furtively at Greg Merton. Dislike him as she did, she'd have to admit that he was sensationally good-looking, that he had an endearing quality of warm sympathy as he listened to his aunt. If her no-appeal assertions were irritating he gave no hint of it. Did he still believe that Linda Bourne had come to The Castle in the interest of Keith Sanders?

She hadn't, but she felt sometimes that Keith was smugly sure that under cover of the social-secretaryship she was working for him. Was that why he invited her out so often, —more often than she would go,—why he was so charming to Madam Steele? Was he scheming to acquire the management of her many real-estate investments? He could be great fun, but she didn't trust him. Then why accept his invitations? Answer. First, because it was exciting to go out with him; the second, and more compelling, reason was that she had a curious conviction that he had some scheme in which he intended to use her. She was determined to find out and block him.

"Come back to the present and talk to us, Linda. Greg must be fed-up with family news by this time." Madam Steele's crisp suggestion brought Linda's reflections to a crashing climax.

"I'm sorry, terribly sorry, that I was woolgathering—^there's a question for 'Information Please.' How did the expression originate?"

"You and Greg can work out the answer in the library over the coffee." She rose. As Linda started to leave the room Annie touched her arm.

^ "Please, Miss Bourne, may I speak to you a moment?" The girl's voice was urgent, her face white.

"Of course. Don't wait for me, Greg." As he followed his aunt to the hall she asked: "What is it, Annie?"

"IVe got to talk to someone, Miss Linda. I've got to. You were so kind of friendly this afternoon upstairs I thought you might be willing to listen. May I come to your room?"

"Of course. Ask Maggie to let you bring my breakfast tray tomorrow."

*Thank you. Miss. Thank you. I'll do that very thing."

Buff had served the coffee, had hovered devotedly about Greg Merton with the tray of cigars and cigarettes and had departed to his kingdom belowstairs. Madam Steele held out her fragile cup.

"Fill it once more."

"Are you sure you want it? You wouldn't have dared ask for it while Buff was here," Linda reminded and poured the coffee.

"He's a meddling old party. That reminds me, my dear— bold on to the key to the third-floor stairway. If he were to find it in the door, he would think someone had carelessly left it there and as a matter of discipline would add it to his bunch. He was almost senile with delight when I told him you would be here tonight, Gregory. He sighed with relief, exclaimed: *It will be a great help to have another man in the house. Madam.'"

"What did he mean by *help,' Duchess?"

"Ask him. He likes to think that The Castle couldn't go on vdthout him. I gave up having a houseman years ago because no one whom I engaged would endure his bossing. He heard the doctor tell me to go light on coffee, so he appointed himself my keeper. There is no reason now why I shouldn't drink it. I'm sleeping well."

"Not too well. I heard a sound in the hall last night and when I peeked out you were coming up the stairs looking like a modem Lady Macbeth with an electric flash instead of a candle. I expected to hear you mutter, 'There's blood upon these . . .' Oh, my dear! What have I said? You're white." Linda dropped to her knees beside Madam Steele.

"What's the matter. Duchess?" Greg Merton laid his arm across his aunt's shoulders.

"Sit down, Linda. Gregory, stop fussing over me and see if there's anyone in the hall. Then look behind the hangings."

"Not so much as a shadow," he reported as he returned from making the circuit. "What's happened? I never saw you nervous before."

"Come closer while I tell you. Last night I shot a man."

THE ROOM was very still. Tragedy had stepped out of the shadows. Horror laid its icy finger on Linda's heart. Greg Merton stared incredulously at the woman in shimmering gray, sitting erect and composed in the carved-backed chair. She had made the startling statement in the voice with which she might have said: "Last night I danced with a man."

"I'll be darned! You—you sh— shot someone!"

"If I didn't stutter and stammer telling it, I don't know why you should repeating it, Gregory. I presume men who have been caught breaking and entering have been shot before."

"My mistake. Duchess. Shooting a person may be a daily stunt in your life, but it just doesn't fit into my schedule. Are yoM armed when you prowl? If so, you may bet your bottom dollar you won't catch me leaving my room at midnight."

"Of course I'm armed. Suppose I met a burglar? I couldn't very well say 'Excuse me while I run to my room for my revolver,' could I?"

In a low voice, with an occasional furtive glance over her shoulder. Madam Steele explained that she had been unable to sleep, that when the clock struck twelve she had gone to the library to get a book, had switched on the light, had seen a window hanging move.

"Come out or I'll shoot," she had commanded.

The hanging moved again. SKe shot. Hurried across the room. The long French window was ajar. She flashed her electric light on the floor, on the terrace. There were a few drops of blood on the snow.

"That's why I turned white when you quoted Lady Macbeth, Linda. I don't like blood. I got my man, Gregory. I've always told you I was the equal of any burglar who walked."

"Sneaks, is a better word. You got him! Do you mean he's a prisoner here?"

"No, worse luck. I stepped out on the terrace and—"

" 'Stepped out'! You're crazy. You might have been shot yourself."

"I didn't think of that. I thought only that he might have fallen, that I would have him brought into the house and cared for. After all, I didn't intend to kill him. Snow was falling. His tracks were already covered. We will cautiously inquire if a wounded man has applied at the hospital or to a doctor in the neighborhood for help. We'll get him and find

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out who sent him. It isn't conceivable that a lone man would try to steal my jewels. That's why I sent for you, Gregory. I haven't forgiven you yet for saying I thought myself smarter than my business advisers, but I'm willing to admit that in some matters you have intelligence."

'That's a break. You mean you'll let me handle this without interfering? If so, I'll get in touch with the police at once.'*

"The police! Certainly not. Having carried on without them for years, I won't appeal to them now. / shot the man— you needn't remind me that I lost him; now you and Linda can find him for me.'*