Horror on the ruby x, p.7
Horror on the Ruby X, page 7
Ramon lowered it reluctantly. He didn’t put it in his holster.
“Put it away, I said!”
The deputy slipped the gun into his belt.
“You’re making a mistake to trust that red devil. A shot through one arm would teach him his place.”
Patrick was straightening his clothes. He didn’t answer.
“I was standing out there when this son of a bitch sneaked into the garage. I didn’t think you’d need me, so …”
“Didn’t,” Patrick said. “Tom thought we had handled some of his medicine herbs and things.”
“You mean, he jumped on you for that? They sure got a lot of crazy notions.”
“He’s got to clean himself up,” Patrick said evenly. “Go into the bedroom and bring another set of Levis from one of the closets, Martinez. Put them in the bathroom. You stand at the bedroom door and I’ll watch this one.”
The Navajo was getting back to normal.
“You must shut both the doors!”
“We’ll keep them open,” Patrick said.
The deputy went to get the Levis and Tom Smith said, haughtily, “I must take another hot bath.”
“That will have to wait,” Patrick said. “I’ll untie you and in the bathroom you can wash up and change your clothes. I wouldn’t advise you to do anything else because Martinez is pretty fast with that gun. Then we’ll go back to the house. First, why did you come out here?”
“To get my blanket.”
“Why?”
“Gina is afraid. She wants me to watch in her sitting room.”
Patrick put on his necktie. I tied it and examined his scratches and said we must use some antiseptic when back in the house. Try an herb, Patrick said, winking.
In a few minutes Tom emerged clean, and in clean clothes. One eyelid was drooping and his fine aquiline nose was blue and swollen.
“I hope it’s not broken,” I said, very anxiously.
“I couldn’t care less. Come on, let’s go.”
“I must clean up the blood on the floor,” Tom said, obstinately.
“Okay. Use a towel from the bathroom.”
“I have cleaning rags.”
“A towel will do.”
“What did you do with that snake bag?” Patrick asked Ramon, as the Indian was wiping up the blood.
“Left it on the porch.” Patrick frowned and Ramon said, “Nobody’s going to come out there in this weather. It’s snowing cats and dogs. Can’t see your hand in front of your face. I’ll guide you along the walk to the kitchen door. It’ll be there.”
Ramon found the walk but no snake bag. He declared that he had left it under the shelter. The door into the kitchen was locked.
“That’s funny,” he said. Like the Indian when hog-tied, Ramon had lost his positivity. “It wasn’t locked when I came to the garage to see what had happened to you folks.”
“Wait here,” Patrick said to Ramon. “We’ll go around to the front. Tom, walk on ahead.”
“I can’t stand out here in this weather,” Ramon cried.
“The sheriff will tell you what to do.”
The Indian walked again with his springy steps, his head thrown back, his straight back haughty as ever. He didn’t try to get away. Under the narrow shelter outside the front door Mike Carreras huddled, his Stetson drooping under the weight of the snow. The outside lights were on but visibility was nil.
“I had to leave the car. Couldn’t see anything.”
“Did you see Tom Smith leave the house?”
“No.”
“Tom, did you come out by this door?”
The Indian was surly. His lips curled. His pale eyes blazed. He nodded.
“Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t,” Mike said. “Maybe he left by a window.”
Tom ignored it. His eyes were focused far away, contemptuous blue almond crescents.
We let ourselves in. The sheriff was alone with Lauren Brent in the living room. He stared at Tom Smith’s face and then at Patrick’s. Just a little difference of opinion, Patrick said, but Trask’s eyes were belligerent as he stabbed them on Tom’s damaged face. Seeing the snow on our clothes, he said, “Thought it was coming. Better get my boys inside, I guess. Almost everybody’s gone to bed and we can watch over the house now with all of us inside. Might as well go to town, but can’t make it. Couldn’t see the road in thick snow. Tom, you’re to go to Mrs. Mackenzie’s sitting room. Stay there. Leave the door open. She seems to have got the idea that you’re better protection than the law. But leave the hall door open. Hear?”
The Indian went with his head high. When he was gone Trask asked, “What really happened?”
“Did you permit him to go to his rooms for his blanket?”
“Yes. Alan said he wouldn’t sleep without his own. Some superstition or other. I don’t know how the hell he got along in the Army.”
“He’s got a lot of Navajo things out there which mean a lot to him, Jim. Has to do with his religion and things, I guess. We were looking at some of them when he walked in and we had a fight.”
“Did he draw a knife?”
Without replying Patrick opened my scarf and on the big table displayed four knives, including the one Tom had thrown. All had turquoise-inlaid silver handles.
“That’s the lot, Jim. No harm done. He may have others in the garage, but I doubt it. It might be a good idea to go through his rooms again later on.” Trask said, “He likes them fancy. But there’s no foolishnesss about the blades. I’m afraid of him. As a soldier he’s a trained murderer. And he’s still a savage. Almost four thousand of those wild Navajos were in the Second World War. If they didn’t know how to kill before they went, that learned them.”
“I don’t think he would hurt anyone unless badly frightened, Jim. He was scared frantic because he thought we touched his special things.”
“Don’t try using your psychology with Navajos. I don’t trust any of them.”
“I feel sorry for him,” I said.
“So do I,” Lauren said. “I’m sure he wouldn’t hurt a fly. And he’s terrified of anything dead. There was a dead mouse in the garage the other day. He asked me to take it away.”
“Well, you girls settle it,” Trask said, sarcastically. “I reckon Tom has a way with women.” He heaved himself out of his chair. “I’m going to tell Mike and Ramon to come inside. If there’s a blizzard on nobody’s likely to leave the house. It’d be suicide to drive in a heavy snow and nobody can get away any other way.”
“The kitchen door is locked on the inside, Jim. We found a Hopi snake bag in the Doretti car. Left it with Ramon. He came to see what was going on in the garage and when we got back the bag was gone and the kitchen door was locked. Hadn’t been locked before, he said.”
The two men exchanged glances and Trask headed toward the kitchen. Patrick went to the front door to admit Mike Carreras. He came in and stamped his feet to shake off the snow and then shook it from his hat. Patrick bolted the door and asked Mike to get a chair and sit in the hall. Patrick took off to the back of the house and I sat down near Lauren and lit a cigarette. She didn’t smoke.
“Who else sleeps in the wing where your room is, Laurie?”
“No one. There’s another room they use as a guest room but no one’s in it just now.”
“And Gina?”
“The left-hand door yonder, next to the diningroom door, leads into a hall which flanks one side of the dining room. Gina has a sitting room and bedroom off that hall. Cousin Ada’s room is next to her sitting room. Gloria’s is next.”
“Hasn’t the dining room any windows on that side?”
“Casements above the level of the hall ceiling. The extra bedrooms were added after Gina came and the hall was extended. To get light on that side they used casements.”
I was sorry that I didn’t know the layout of the house. Adobe houses just grow and seldom conform to any special architectural plan.
“Where do Alan and David and Joel have their rooms?”
“There’s a door into a small hall just beyond Gloria’s room. Their wing is off that hall. They use another door into it from the back of the dining room. The hall door near Gloria’s room is kept locked.”
“Why?”
Lauren smiled. “One might think you were the detective. Gina says that door is locked because Cousin Ada is prudish and won’t have any of the men barging into their wing. Cousin Ada says that Gina keeps it locked because she is afraid.”
“Of what, Laurie?”
“Don’t ask me. She got panicked a night or two ago. Insisted that Tom Smith spend the night in her sitting room. With the door open, so that nobody could get past him. The poor guy! He lay rolled in his blanket on the floor and I guess, from what was said, that Cousin Ada stayed awake all night in order to watch Tom Smith. Cousin Ada sent for me before I’d turned in. He had lights on in the sitting room and I saw his eyes gleam as I walked past.”
“Why did she send for you?”
“I’ve no idea. None of the things they get bothered about here mean anything to me, Jean. She said when I went into her room that there was something she thought I ought to know. Then she got off on religion. Asked me if I belonged to a church, and I do, and that pleased her, so she sent me off to bed. Poor old soul. She worships this family. Jean, I’m sorry I said what I did about Gina. I’m sure she’s as good and generous as I thought at first. She’s in a state of mind about something. I was upset. I take back all I said.”
Abruptly I sensed there was a third person in the room. Tom Smith had entered with his usual soundlessness. I was delighted to see that already his nose looked less swollen.
“Gina wants to talk to you,” he said to me.
“Where?”
“In her bedroom.” Patrick came back from the kitchen. “I stay here,” Tom announced. “Everybody must stay here except Jean.”
His eyes moved to the knives laid out on the table. Patrick asked Mike Carreras to come into the living room and take over till Trask came back. Mike took a chair near the knives. The Indian went to the hassock by the fire and picked up his drum. He began to play and sing, as if alone, and he paid us no attention when Patrick accompanied me through the door to the hall leading to Gina’s suite. Before we entered her sitting room Patrick said he would wait there under cover of the bedroom door.
“Try to leave it open a crack, darling. I don’t trust her.”
“Why should you? Nobody here trusts anybody. Even Laurie Brent took back what she’d told me about Gina. Why? I wish we could get out of here.”
“We can’t, in this snow.”
“You wouldn’t leave anyway,” I said. I was very unhappy. I didn’t want this session with Gina. And I knew Patrick did want it, regardless.
Chapter Nine
“Suppose she’s in her sitting room?”
“In that case I’ll stay openly unless she throws me out.”
We entered the prettily lighted sitting room and Patrick turned the key in the hall-door lock. This was a very feminine room, furnished with Regency style mahogany, flowered wallpaper, a thick deep-green carpet and off-white heavy silk curtains. It had a conventional fireplace in which piñon burned in a grate. The bedroom was two steps up and its door was directly opposite the sitting-room entrance from the hall. Patrick took cover behind a high-backed chair. I tapped on the door. Gina wanted to know who was there. I answered and told her that Tom had said she wanted to see me.
“How nice of you!” she purred. “Half a minute. I’ll open the door.”
A key turned. A bolt slid back. A second bolt slid out of its catch. The extra-heavy door opened wide enough for her to make sure it was I. She opened the door wider and I entered.
She retreated to her bed and I managed to leave the door slightly open.
“What a heavenly negligee!” I said, to distract her from the door.
It was a delightful thing of a lush pink satin and lace with a nightgown to match. The head of the footless bed was upholstered in off-white leather. A blue satin counterpane made the right contrast to her pink, and the same pink was the color of the heavy carpet. Gina sat against three pillows with embroidered linen slips. All furnishings in this room were modern and the white walls were almost covered with paintings in delicate jewel colors. They were entirely modern, exquisitely painted, and Joel Chapman had done them. I exclaimed over them now, to keep Gina’s mind, if possible, off the door.
There was a white telephone on her bedside table. A white house phone hung on a gilded hook next to her bed.
“Sit down.” She wagged a hand at the foot of the bed. I sat down on blue satin. She offered cigarettes and flicked her lighter. “You didn’t close the door, darling.”
“I locked the one from the hall. Tom Smith has a way of startling me, he walks so silently.”
“He won’t come back unless I send for him. I’ll get right to the point, darling. I can see that you have a lot of influence with your husband. I want you to persuade him and Trask to leave this house.”
She flattered me. I’ve never in my life been able to persuade Pat to lay off a murder case before he’d solved it.
“It isn’t possible just now, Mrs. Mackenzie. It’s snowing so hard that it would be suicide to try to drive down that hill.”
“Please call me Gina.” She flicked off an ash. “People drive up and down the hill in snow or rain or whatever. There’s no danger.”
I shook my head.
“I wouldn’t dare try it.”
“Well, as friends of Alan’s you’re welcome to stay overnight but we simply must get rid of that common sheriff. Alan tells me he brought two other men with him. Common plaza loafers, I suppose. If they think they can’t make it, Alan will take them to town in his jeep. Alan can drive anywhere in any kind of weather.”
“I’m afraid you overestimate my influence, Gina. Our car was crippled by somebody who wanted to kill us. My husband won’t stop till he knows who did it and why. You must be afraid yourself, the way you lock yourself in.”
Her little shoulders moved disdainfully.
“I always lock myself in, as you call it. This is a wild lonely place. Anything might happen here.”
“Anything has,” I said. “Do you always have Tom Smith on guard outside your door? As tonight?”
She tamped out her half-smoked cigarette.
“I do not. He makes me pay through the teeth for any extra service like, that. But when he’s outside that door I know I’m safe. The slightest noise wakes him. He sleeps with the hall door open and a knife at hand and if anyone dared come here he’d kill him.”
“So you are afraid?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Surely you’re not afraid of anyone in your family?”
She didn’t answer. She lit another cigarette, took a couple of puffs, and then said, “I’m too kind for my own good. I took Joel Chapman out of the psychopathic ward of an army hospital. He had no people. In any case he’d never had a father and his mother died in a jail where she’d been shut up for dope peddling. Only I suspected his talent. Look!” She waved a hand at the pictures which illumined her room with their delicate beauty. “I’ve spent a fortune on him. But now I’m afraid for my life. I’m afraid he’ll kill me. He’s unsafe. I was silly to bother with him when he came from people like that. By the way, he doesn’t want anybody to know about his people.”
“Why don’t you give him his pictures and let him go?”
“My dear, I can’t afford to. I’m not rich, like Alan. Besides, without me, Joel would be nothing. He needs me.”
“So you bolt yourself in and have Tom Smith guarding you because you’re afraid of Joel Chapman?”
After a perceptible pause she said, “Yes.”
“It must be nerve-wracking,” I said. I assumed a look a lot more sympathetic than I felt. “Can’t your sons get rid of him? Keep him away?”
“It’s not that simple. But he’s not always so rude as today. He can be very sweet and usually he is.” She inhaled. “There’s something else. Ada Fraser hates me passionately, always has. She was in love with John Mackenzie when he fell in love with me. She wouldn’t’ve married him even if he had wanted her because they were first cousins and to marry, in her opinion, would be a sin. He committed suicide. She still blames me. She’s rich as rich. Texas oil. She doesn’t have to stay where I am but she does it to plague me. There isn’t a day in my life that she doesn’t remind me that I killed my husband. That’s how she puts it, because she says I drove him to suicide. Imagine having to live in the house with an insane creature like that!”
“Do your sons know she behaves like that?”
“Yes. They’re afraid to cross her for fear she’ll get violent.”
She’s a smooth little liar, I thought. I said, “Your sons are very different. In looks as well as in personality.”
She nodded.
“David takes after my family. With his lovely disposition as well as his looks. Alan looks a little like me but he is dour, like his father. My husband discriminated dreadfully against David. Against me, too. He left practically everything to Alan.”
“How strange!”
“He had a fanatical streak, like Ada Fraser. There’s a lot of eccentricity in that family.” Ada had said there was a bad streak in Gina’s family. “My husband was a lot older than me when he fell in love with me and we married. The first year Alan was born. When Alan was past two I started David. My husband didn’t want another baby and he made me leave home. To avoid scandal I went to New York. John made Ada come with me. We took Alan, too. I came back home when David was two months. He was a beautiful baby and I thought his father would welcome us back. Instead he made a dreadful will and then shot himself dead. I’ve had a very hard life. That’s why I like to help people like Joel and Laurie. Her father was sent to the penitentiary for stealing from the bank where he was employed. Her mother died of grief.”
She didn’t have to tell such things, I thought. I felt angry. But I was convinced that she was lying.
“You must have money enough, Gina. I mean, you backed Joel Chapman, and Laurie says that you put up the money so that she could finish school, and that you did it entirely on an impulse.”
