The Million-Dollar Suitcase Part 40

It was a thankful if not a joyous Jerry Boyne who crossed the front pergola of the Vandeman bungalow that evening in the wake of Worth Gilbert, bound for an informal dinner. The tall, unconscious lad who stepped ahead of me had been made safe in spite of himself. This weight off my mind, I felt kindly to the whole world, to the man under whose dining table we were to stretch our legs, whose embarra.s.sing private affairs I had uncovered. He'd taken it well--seconding his wife's dinner invitation, meeting my eye frankly whenever we encountered. My mood was expansive. When Vandeman himself opened the door to us, explaining that he was his own butler for the day, I saw him quite other than he had ever appeared to me.

For one thing, here in his own house--and this was the first time I had ever been in it--you got the man with his proper background, his suitable atmosphere. The handsome living room into which he took us, showed many old pieces of mahogany, and some of the finest oriental stuff I ever saw; books in cases, sets of standard writers, such as people of culture bought thirty or forty years ago, some family pictures about. This was Vandeman; a lot behind such a fellow, after all, if he did seem rather a lightweight.

Ina joined us, very beautifully dressed. She also showed the ability to sink unpleasant considerations in the present moment of hospitality. We lingered a moment chatting, then,

"Shall we go and look at the artists working?" she suggested, and led the way. We followed out onto a flagged terrace at the rear. A dozen great muslin strips were tacked over the walls there, and two small figures, desperate, smudged, wearing the blue overalls Skeet Thornhill had waved at us, toiled manfully smearing the blossom festival colors on in lettering and ornamental designs.

"Ina!" Skeet yawped at her sister, "Another dirty, low Irish trick! Get yourself all dressed up like a sore thumb, and then show us off in this fix!"

Mutely Barbara revolved on the box she occupied. There was fire in her soft eyes; her color was high as her glance came to rest on Worth.

"Fong Ling's nearly ready to serve dinner," said Ina calmly. "Stop fussing, and go wash up."

"h.e.l.lo, Mr. Boyne." As Skeet pa.s.sed me, she wiped a paw on a paint rag and offered it to me without another word. I got a grip and a look that told me there was no hang-over with her from that scene yesterday in her mother's sick-room. Vandeman was commenting on his depleted bamboo clumps.

"Mine suffered worse than yours, Worth. Fong Ling kicked like a bay steer about our taking so much. He's nursed the stuff for years like a fond mother. But we had to have it for that effect up around the orchestra stand."

"Then he's been with you a long time?" I caught at the chance for information on this c.h.i.n.k--information that I'd found it impossible to get from the c.h.i.n.k himself.

"Ever since I came in here. Chinamen, you know--not like j.a.ps. Some loyalty. You can keep a good one for half a lifetime."

We strolled back to the living room; the girls were there before us, Skeet picking out bits of plum-blossoms and bunches of cherry bloom from a great bowl on the mantel, and sticking them in Barbara's dark hair, wreath fas.h.i.+on.

"Best we could do at a splurge," she greeted us, "was to turn in our blouses at the neck."

"And what in the world are you doing to Barbara?" Mrs. Vandeman said sharply. "Let her alone, Skeet. You'll make her look ridiculous."

Skeet stuck out her tongue at her sister, and went calmly on, mumbling as she worked,

"Hold 'till 'ittle Barbie child. Yook up at pretty mans and hold 'till."

Over the mantel, in front of Barbara as she stood, her back to us all, hung an oil painting--one of those family groups--same old popper; same old mommer, and a fat baby in a white dress and blue sash. At that, it was good enough to show that the man had some resemblance to Vandeman as he leaned there on the mantel below it, rather encouraging Skeet's enterprise. From the other side, I could see Barbara's glance go from man to picture.

"Doesn't it look like Van, Barbie?" Skeet kept up the conversation. "Got the same ring, and all. But it ain't Van. Him's the tootsie in there with the blue ribbon round his tummy."

"I say, Skeeter, lay off!" Vandeman looked selfconsciously from the painted ring in the picture to the real ring on his own well kept hand there on the mantel edge. "People aren't interested in family histories."

"I am," said Barbara, unexpectedly. As the gong sounded and we all began to move toward the dining room, they were still on the subject and kept it up after we were seated.

Fong Ling served us. The bride had Worth on her right, and talked to him in lowered tones. Barbara, between Vandeman and myself, continued to show an almost feverish attention to Vandeman. It was plain enough from where I sat that nothing Ina Vandeman could say gave the lad any less interest in his plate. But I suppose with a girl, the mere fact of some other girl being allowed to show intentions counts. Did the flapper get what was going on, as she looked proudly across at her handiwork, and demanded of me,

"Say, Mr. Boyne, you saw how Ina tried to do us dirt? And now, honest to goodness, hasn't Barbie with the plum-blossoms got Ina and her artificial flowers skun a mile?"

I didn't wonder that young Mrs. Vandeman saved me the necessity of answering, by taking her up.

"Skeet, you're too outrageous!"

There she sat, quite a beauty in a very superior fas.h.i.+on; and Worth at her side, was having his attention called to this dark young creature across the table, whose wonderful still fire, the white blossoms crowning her hair, might well have made even a lovelier than Ina Vandeman look insipid. And Worth did take his time admiring her; I saw that; but all he found to say was,

"Bobs, I suppose Jerry's told you that he's treed Clayte at Tiajuana?"

"No," said Barbara, "he hasn't said a word. But I'm just as much surprised at Clayte's being caught as I was at Skeels escaping capture."

"Say that over and say it slow," Vandeman was good natured. "Or rather, put it in plain American, so we all can understand."

"Mr. Boyne knows what I mean." Barbara gave me a faint smile. "Mr. Boyne and I add up Skeels and Clayte, and get a different result. That's all."

"Bobs doesn't think that Skeels is Clayte, caught or uncaught," Worth said briefly and went on eating his dinner. Apparently he didn't give a hang which way the fact turned out to be.

"Why don't you?" Vandeman gave pa.s.sing attention. She shook her head and put it.

"Skeels, at liberty, was quite possibly Clayte; Skeels captured cannot be Clayte. Mr. Boyne, do you call that a paradox?"

"No--an unkind slam at a poor old man's ability in his profession. I started out to find a gang; but Clayte and Skeels are so exactly one, mentally, morally and physically, that I don't see why we should seek further."

"Back up, Jerry," Worth tossed it over at me. "Let Barbara"--he didn't often use the girl's full name that way--"give you a description of Clayte before you're so sure."

"How could I?" The girl's tone was defensive. "I never saw him."

"I want you," Worth paid no attention to her objections, "to describe the man you thought you were asking for that day at the Gold Nugget, when Jerry b.u.t.ted in, and your ideas got lost in the excitement about Skeels. Deduce the description, I mean."

"Deduce it?" Barbara spoke stiffly, incredulously, her glance going from Worth to the well-gowned, well-groomed woman beside him. I remembered her moment of rebellion yesterday evening on the lawn, when she said so bitterly that if he asked it again, she'd do it again, as she finished, "Deduce--here?"

"Here and now." Worth's laconic answer sent the blood of healthy anger into her face, made her eyes s.h.i.+ne. And it brought from Ina Vandeman a petulant,

"Oh, Worth, please don't turn my dinner table into a side-show."

"Ina, dear." Vandeman raised his eyes at her, then quite the cordial host urging a guest to display talent, "They say you're wonderful at that sort of thing, and I've never seen it."

Barbara was mad for fair.

"Oh, very well," she spoke pointedly to Vandeman, and left Worth out of it. "If you think you'd really enjoy seeing me make a side-show of Ina's dinner table--"

She stopped and waited. Vandeman played up to the situation as he saw it, with one of his ready smiles. Worth threw no life-line. Ina didn't think it worth while to apologize for her rudeness. Skeet was openly in a twitter of antic.i.p.ation. There was nothing for me to do. A little commotion of skirts told us that she was drawing up her feet to sit cross-legged in her chair.

"She's going to! Oh, golly!" Skeet chortled. "Haven't seen Bobsy do one of those stunts since I was a che-ild!"

Arms down, hands clasped, eyes growing bigger, face paling into snow, we watched her. To all but Vandeman, this was a more or less familiar performance. They took it rather as a matter of course. It was the Chinaman, coming in with the coffee tray, who seemed most strangely affected by it. He stopped where he was in the doorway, rigid, staring at our girl, though with a changeful light in his eye that seemed to me to s.h.i.+ft between an unreasonable admiration and an unreasonable fear.

Orientals are superst.i.tious; but what could the fellow be afraid of in the beautiful young thing, Buddha posed, blossoms in her hair? The girl had gone into her stunt with a sort of angry energy. He seemed to clutch himself to stillness for the brief time that it held. Only in the moment that she relaxed, and we knew that Barbara had concentrated, Barbara was Barbara again, did he move quietly forward, a decent, competent servant, stepping around the table, placing our cups.

"Just two facts to go on," she said coldly. "My results will be pretty general."

"Nothing to go on in the way of a description of Clayte," I tried to help her out. "I'd call that one we had of him as near nothing as it well could be."

"Yes, the nothingness of it was one of my facts," she said, and stopped.

"Let's hear what you did get, Bobs," Worth prompted; and Skeet giggled, half under her breath,