The Dead Can Tell: A Detective McKee Mystery. Helen Reilly

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ there that Steven didn’t know? But perhaps he did. Perhaps that was what he had meant when he said there were things he couldn’t tell her. Cristie shook out folds of white chiffon. Over and above the trouble Sara could still cause Steven, she didn’t like the complications that were cropping up, tangled threads whose ends she couldn’t see.

      She turned instinctively in a movement toward escape. Two people blocked her way. As she edged around them, the voices of the two women outside followed her. Sara Hazard asked a question about “Cliff.” Cliff was the name of the man Miss Dodd’s niece, Kit Blaketon, was engaged to. Mary Dodd said something about the “Penobscott Club” and “eleven or twelve.”

      Cristie was to recall that later. She danced with Euen and then with Johnny, spoke to Margot who looked rather pale in spite of fresh lipstick and rouge. Margot was tired.

      Then she ran into Sara Hazard again, or rather didn’t run into her, because her place, the place of unseen observer, had been taken by someone else. Cristie was crossing the hall in the direction of her own bedroom for fresh powder when she turned the corner and stood still. Her bedroom door was open. Sara Hazard was seated at her desk. She was at the telephone. Her voice was low but the desk was close to the door and Cristie heard her say, “Penobscott Club?” And then she didn’t hear any more. Her attention changed its focus.

      There was a girl standing between herself and Sara Hazard, a girl in green with flaming red hair. The girl was Kit Blaketon, Miss Dodd’s niece. Kit Blaketon’s face was hidden but there was no mistaking the tension, the stress in the slim body pressed against wall and door jamb. She was invisible from inside the room. She was listening to what Sara Hazard was saying over the telephone.

      Cristie drew back, walked away, returned to the living room. She had only just reached it when she saw Sara Hazard leave the hall and go out into the foyer. She was wearing the gold jacket that was part of her gown but she had no wrap on. She had scarcely disappeared from view when the red-haired Kit Blaketon went through the foyer doors in turn. She was carrying a green velvet coat over her arm. Something about the girl’s swift progress suggested a stalking. Was she—could she possibly be trailing the other woman? Cristie watched the doors for some time. Neither of the two returned. She forgot them in her increasing tension about Steven.

      It was getting late, he must know that she would be anxious, would be waiting. She exhorted herself to patience. There were a lot of things he might have to do. It wasn’t nearly midnight yet. The party was still in its first flight. The din was continuous. Cristie listened to the music for a while, had a scotch and soda with Euen Firth and heard an interminable story with some vague point which Euen didn’t seem to have quite clear.

      The noise, the stir, the incessant merriment began to get on her nerves. They were raw and taut and the discord was like the rasping of a giant file. Her longing to see Steven, to know that he was all right, to know that everything was all right, was like thirst. Her cheeks were burning and her eyes were tired from the colored lights.

      She evaded two partners, young friends of Margot’s, went out on the terrace and around to the far side. It was quieter there and cool and dim. She was leaning against the railing at the southern end with her back to the city below when she saw Sara Hazard enter Margot’s bedroom.

      Sara Hazard went to Margot’s dressing table, put her purse down, took off the tight-fitting gold jacket, powdered her face, neck and arms and applied fresh lipstick. She scrutinized her face carefully in the mirror, retrieved the jacket and purse. It was a big, black velvet purse with gold corners and her monogram in gold on the front. Cristie thought she was going to leave the room but she didn’t.

      The raised bed was loaded with wraps. Sara Hazard’s wasn’t among them. Her cape of summer ermine was thrown over a chair in a recess beyond the bed. She crossed to the recess, paused beside the chair and opened her purse.

      Cristie stared. She straightened. The blood drained out of her face and from her heart.

      Sara Hazard’s movements were swift. There was no mistaking them or the thing, the object, she removed from the purse and dropped into a capacious pocket of the ermine cape. Light from the lamp glinted on it as it disappeared from sight. It was a small, squat, black pistol.

      Sara Hazard had a gun with her, a gun that she was shifting around, a gun that she didn’t want anyone to know about.

       Chapter Three

      NO LONGER THERE

      CRISTIE DIDN’T know what to do. Margot was her first thought, but Margot was in the dining room with Euen’s father and mother. She couldn’t very well interrupt them with a bald announcement that one of the guests had a gun. If only Steven would come! She sat down on a chair in a deserted row in the living room. She was glad to be back where there were lights and laughter and people. The darkness had been terrifying.

      A man hurrying past paused in front of her. It was Johnny. Cristie tried to smile up at him but the presence of that ugly black weapon hidden in the silk-lined pocket of the ermine cape in the bedroom beyond was a weight, a question, dragging her down, putting pallor into her cheeks, stiffness into her vocal cords.

      Johnny didn’t notice her condition. He said, “Seen anything of Sara Hazard, Cristie? I’m looking for her.”

      He didn’t say why. Cristie looked at him dumbly. Why was Johnny so anxious as to Sara’s whereabouts when he had announced his dislike of her only a few hours ago? Cristie felt as though she were treading a slow measure of nightmare with the golden figure of Sara Hazard appearing and disappearing in its coils. She was the object of a peculiar attention on the part of Margot, Johnny, Euen, and Kit Blaketon, an attention all the more striking because none of them seemed to care for her. Johnny appeared to sense her unspoken query. He said vaguely that someone wanted Sara Hazard on the phone.

      Cristie told him that Sara was or had been in Margot’s bedroom a few minutes earlier.

      “That’s funny,” Johnny said, “I looked there before.”

      Cristie said coldly, “Mrs. Hazard left here, went out somewhere a while ago. But she’s back.”

      “Sure, Cristie?”

      “Quite sure.” If only she weren’t so sure of what she had seen from the darkness of the terrace!

      Johnny left her without another word. He made for the study and the telephone there. Cristie’s perplexity thickened. Why didn’t Johnny find Sara Hazard and take her to the telephone instead of going back to it himself? She brushed the cobwebby incongruities aside only to have them crop out in another place.

      Sara Hazard wasn’t the only person being sought in that maze of people at Margot’s engagement party. Mary Dodd was hunting for her niece. She looked worried. Cristie heard her inquiring about the lithe, red-haired girl with the green eyes. She got out of her chair, went to Miss Dodd and told her about Kit Blaketon’s departure.

      Cristie said, “She left some time ago. She may have returned, though. Can I help?”

      Before Mary Dodd could reply a man joined them. Mary murmured his name. He was Clifford Somers, Assemblyman Clifford Somers, the man Kit Blaketon was engaged to. He was a well-set-up young fellow of twenty-eight or so with a pleasant, likeable face, a good jaw, and straight-forward blue eyes. Cristie knew who he was then. She had heard Margot speak of him.

      Clifford Somers had made a name for himself in politics. He was talked of for bigger things than the Assembly. Part of his success was the result СКАЧАТЬ