To love and to honor (20 page)

"Go on. Ken. I want to hear all you will tell me. I am happy that you are willing to confide in me."

"My father used to write at length as to the fineness of Cinderella Clinton's character—he never mentioned her beauty or charm—of her devotion to her father. As I read those letters I would grin and think, Top is remorseful that he has tied up my life in this zany marriage and is building up the girl to me.' When I saw Cinderella all he had written fused and fell behind her like a wonderful, colorful backdrop. I loved her. She was the woman I wanted."

"And you let that annulment go through. How could you?"

"When I was tempted to stop it I reminded myself that I had made a decision by the process of cold reason, that at present I was in too much of an emotional upheaval to trust my judgment. The day she went to court I played off my tennis finals, then faked a business appointment in Portland for fear my resolution would

crack. However, I held fast to my determination to start with a clear slate with her."

"That same slate is slightly smooched, I'd say. Did Slade take her home?"

"I'm sure he did. She hadn't much of a start when he raced after her along the porch. He loves her. She is furiously angry with me. It is his chance to score. That isn't fair. Slade is a plus guy. I've bored you enough with my problems. Did you enjoy the ball?"

"Yes. Who was the girl or woman flitting from dancer to dancer, whispering news, on whom the chef cut in so often? I wasn't in the hall when the dancers unmasked."

"That was what the chef was trying to find out. Unfortunately at the moment of unmasking the onetime chef had been forced to reveal the fact that he had been leading a double life."

"Did you pick up any clues at our dinner last night?"

"Several, I think. I haven't fitted them into the pattern yet. I'll report to you when I have it worked out."

"I had a feeling that the news-carrier might be a person in whom we are interested. I noticed that a clown also was cutting in often on her dances."

"A clown!" Cindy had whispered. "Quick, let's dodge that clown coming this way. He has cut in twice before. I-I don't like him."

Had the man trailed her knowing she was from The Castle? Did he know of the jewels cached in the turret room? Had he followed her when she left the Inn? Suppose he had? So had Slade immediately.

"The clown also was shadowing Cindy," he explained. Perhaps Slade hadn't reached her first, perhaps—why stand here wondering? "I'm uneasy about her. I'm going to The Castle, Ally. Hang it, my car is in the shop."

"Take mine, Ken. Seth came with me but decided to walk to White Pillars, said he would sleep better. Drive me home, then use my roadster. Stop pacing like a prowling tiger. Undoubtedly by this time she is safe under Sarah Ann's watchful wing. Did you get your man installed at The Castle?"

"Yes. Let's get going. I'll snatch a topcoat on the way."

Seth Armstrong in a hectic plaid wool lounge robe which did not quite reach the bottom of the legs of his red and white striped pajamas, appeared on the porch as the roadster stopped in the drive in front of the white-columned yellow colonial house.

"That you. Ally?"

"Yes, Seth."

Ken Stewart held her long cape of black satin and bouffant pink skirt away from the wheel as she stepped from the car.

"What has happened? Why are you waiting up for me, Seth?"

"Have you seen Cindy Clinton? Oh, it's you, Colonel. I was glad the Damon alias cracked tonight. It had its dangers. When you told me of it the first time you came to my office I didn't believe you could get by for a day. Cinderella was too excited when the deeds to the oil property were signed to notice that the signature, 'Ken-niston Stewart' under hers was not followed by 'Bill Damon, Attorney in fact.' "

"You were an enormous help in the deception, Counselor. I couldn't have carried on without you. Why are you asking about Cindy? What's happened?"

"I don't know that anything has happened." Seth Armstrong inflated and deflated his cheeks. "Five minutes ago Sarah Ann Parker telephoned that Cinderella had told her she would be home soon after midnight. She hadn't come. 'So many awful things in the papers,' she whimpered. She tried to contact you at the Inn, Colonel, but the desk reported you didn't answer the ring."

"I'll beat it to The Castle. I'll take your roadster. Ally."

"I'm sure you will find her safe—" The rest of the sentence dwindled in the distance as the car shot out of the drive.

Why did one always imagine the worst in a crisis? The wheels kept pace with his thoughts. The speedometer needle went to sixty, crept up to seventy miles an hour. The roadster hurtled past lightless houses. Gardens colorless but sweetly fragrant in the dusk of early morning.

Past a beach ghostly white under the starlight, murmurous with the swish of the tide. The harbor lights. The Castle.

Sarah Ann Parker was at the open door in a dark blue robe, when he stopped the roadster with a suddenness that plowed up pebbles in the drive. He sprang out and dashed up the steps.

"Have you brought her?" Her face Vas yellow-white under the porch light.

"No. Come into the house, Sary." Arm under hers he guided her through the hall into the old kitchen.

"Sit in the wing chair. Now, pull yourself together. Why are you so terrified?" He glanced at the banjo clock. "It is not quite three. That isn't late for a masquerade." It is late, infernally late, he thought, but why add to the woman's fear?

"Cindy said she'd be home soon after midnight," Sarah Ann Parker sat on the edge of the big chair and wrung her bony hands. "She stood on the threshold of her room laughing, you know the way her dimples prick through, an' said:

" 'Something tells me I am about to spring a colossal sensation. The next time you see me, Sary Ann, I bet I will have made front-page headlines.'

"I'm scared. I've been thinkin' she may have meant she was elopin* with Hal Harding. I've been kinder suspicious she liked him more than she let on an' he has a persuasive way. Perhaps she's married him."

Could it be? The possibility stopped his heartbeat. If Sarah were to be believed, Cindy had been cruelly hurt by the indifference of Ken Stewart. She had been shocked tonight by the brutal surprise of his presence. She wouldn't, she couldn't marry Harding. Hadn't she scorched him with contempt in the ballroom? Not more than she scorched you later, memory reminded. Tom Slade had followed her almost immediately, she wouldn't have had time to see Harding.

The reminder sent blood coursing through his veins again. Slade loved her too much to connive at a clandestine marriage. Which reasoning was good as far as it went, but didn't answer the question, "Where is she?"

"There's the phone." Sarah Ann Parker started to her feet. "It's probably her teUin' us—" big tears rolled down her cheeks. "You take it, will you, Colonel Da—Stewart? If I try to speak I'll cry."

He was already lifting the receiver, tense with dread of what he might hear.

"Yes. This is The Castle.The county hospital?"

"Has she, is she—"

He shook off the clutch on his arm.

"Please, Sarah. Wait till 1 get the message." He spoke into the phone.

"Put him on. Kenniston Stewart speaking for Miss Parker. Slade? Where the devil are you? Is Cindy with you? What? Speak louder. You can't. O.K. Put on your nurse."

"Mr. Slade is trying to tell you—" A woman's voice-He could feel the color drain from his face, his blood turned to ice as he listened for what seemed years.

"That covers it." The voice went on. "Mr. Slade is hazy and feverish from shock. Slight concussion. No bones broken. He keeps muttering, 'Tell him to find her. Black limousine. Heading for Portland. Tell him I picked up her red slipper.' He keeps muttering, 'Cinderella's slipper.' I guess he must have heard Walt Disney has made a movie of that fairy story."

"Thank you, nurse. I'll report to the hospital the moment I find her."

He cradled the receiver, laid his hand on Sarah Ann's shoulder as he answered the question in her anguished eyes.

"Tom Slade followed Cindy when she left us. He remembered that her coats were in the stage dressing room, went for them for fear she would be cold. He was sure she would find his car and wait for him. When he reached the drive a big black limousine pulled out from a line of parked cars and shot away. Something about the take-off didn't look good to him and he ran to the space it had left, and saw—a red satin slipper."

"Stop an' get your breath, Bill-Ken Stewart. I got hold of myself now. What happened next?"

"He followed the black limousine in his convertible.

He was making sixty an hour with the racing car just ahead, when he heard a loud explosion. A tire, he thought, and the next he knew he was in a hospital trying desperately to make the nurses understand that he knew what he was saying, that he must get in touch with you."

"That's all he could tell about Cindy?"

"Yes. The nurse said that after he told her the story to pass on to me, he drifted into sleep he had fought off until he could tell what happened."

"Now, what do we do? We must do something."

He held his own agonizing anxiety in check to reassure her.

"I'm going after that black limousine, Sary. I'll phone the nearest police headquarters. First I must pick up an automatic—"

"A pistol? You don't have to go anywhere. Joe has one an—"

"Joe! Good Lord, I'd forgotten him. Rout him out. quick."

TWENTY-THREE

Cindy had pulled herself to her knees. The triumphant glare in the policeman's eyes held her there. The insigne on his sleeve was that of a sergeant.

"Hey, see what I've found, fellas. Come here."

His shout brought several men from out the shadows to converge in the space in front of the limousine. He focused his flashlight again and addressed the group staring as if hypnotized at the girl framed by the open door of the car.

"Cheerio. Don't be downhearted. The guy we were after made his getaway. Headquarters told us he had a dame working with him and lookee, it's her. Get an eyeful of those pearls." He reached into the car and caught her arm.

"Come out."

She shook off his hand.

"Certainly I will come out, but without your assistance." She drew the dark blue rug over her shoulders and stepped to the ground with her slippered foot, followed by the other covered only by a sheer red stocking. Chin up she looked from one face to the other. Her eyes came back to the man who had broadcast the news of his find.

"What's it all about? I was in the back of the limousine—"

"Hiding, weren't you?"

"Stop interrupting me. I was in the back seat of the parked limousine when a clown slid into the front seat and-"

"Don't waste time lettin' the dame tell the story of her life," interrupted an authoritative voice from the background. "Bring her to headquarters, Sarge, then she can tell the chief all the fairy tales she wants."

"Yes, Captain." The sergeant who had so cockily proclaimed his find touched his cap respectfully before he seized Cindy's arm.

"Come along, you.'*

She administered a stinging slap on his cheek.

"Let me go. I shall not come-along-you—till I have spoken to your boss and told him who I am." Brave and ringing words, my proud beauty, but ten to one they land you in the hoosegow, she warned herself.

The sound of a starting car set her heart thumping. Had the "Captain," who supposedly had intelligence or he wouldn't be a captain, left her at the mercy of these men peering out of the shadows? They resembled nothing so much as a lot of movie gangsters. Her impulsive attack on the sergeant had been a mistake. The smothered gufEaws from the onlookers hadn't helped her case.

"He's gone. You can't tell him. He'll be headin' a reception committee for you at headquarters. Come along, now."

Cindy glanced at her watch. Almost three o'clock. Sary expected her home soon after midnight. By this time she would begin to be anxious—she would phone someone, perhaps Bill Damon at the Inn—she didn't know he was Ken Stewart—or Tom Slade—Tom? He must have started looking for her—perhaps he had followed the speeding limousine in his convertible— I>erhaps the crash she had heard behind—

"Coming? Or will we have to carry you?" a rough voice demanded.

"You won't have to carry me. You may be surprised, but I'm coming. Listen, my cocky one. You have another surprise in store that will wipe that gloating grin off your face. Out of my way." I didn't know you had such defiance in you, gal, she told herself and flinched as her stockinged foot bore down heavily on a jagged fragment of rock.

Guarded by four men—only four—she had thought it

was a panp:—she limped her way toward a poh'ce cruising car. Its headlights shot long yellow rays that were lost in the haze of distance. Spooky effect. She remembered the day in the patio when she had declared to Bill Damon-he was Bill Damon then—"The moment I am free I shall live daringly." Looked as if what she had intended for a joke were coming true.

Would he care if he knew she was caught in this mess? What difference did it make if he did or not? He was out of her life completely. In an effort to expunge him from her thoughts she looked up at the sky.

"I wonder which of those stars is broadcasting four-meter radio waves, Officer? I forgot, scientists declare that the stellar broadcasting stations that produce the waves are probably stars with surfaces too dim to be seen. Astronomy is a fascinating study, haven't you found it so?"

"Kiddin' me, aren't you? You know what you get for resisting arrest and assaulting a policeman?" Apparently the slap rankled. "You won't be so chatty when you reach headquarters."

"Your mistake, Sergeant. You will be surprised how much I will have to say. I hope you are not too fond of your job, that you have unemployment insurance. You may have to look for something else by which to bring home the bacon."

It was three-thirty by the huge clock on the wall above a long desk with five chairs behind it, when she entered police headquarters. A heavy white-haired man, occupying the center seat, curtly ordered her to sit on a bench facing it.