The Classic Mystery Novel MEGAPACK®. Hay James
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concerns, Jack and I gave her the dry crumbs of companionship and listened to all she had to say with scarcely half an ear. For two months she sat at our fire, drank our tea, told us about herself, and at the end of the relationship we were to discover that we knew virtually nothing of the real Laura Twining. She struck us as anything but an interesting or a mysterious figure.
I think now a part of our blindness may have lain in the fact that we never saw her in her own setting. It was impossible for her to invite us to Hilltop House—no one set foot upon the sacred grounds without a definite invitation from the grande dame herself—and Laura keenly felt this unhappy situation.
I remember the day when Jack offered to accompany her home.
Instantly she became distressed and agitated. “It isn’t at all necessary. It’s just a step.”
“I’d like to stretch my legs.”
Her protests redoubled; eventually Jack woke up, said dryly, “Suppose I take you as far as the bend in the road.”
“That will be lovely.” She couldn’t let the matter drop so easily, but must add the explanation, the painful apology. “I do wish I were differently situated. I’d love to have you visit me, but people upset Luelia. She sees almost no one.”
“I understand.”
I have said we entered Hilltop House on the day we signed our lease. We didn’t realize then how unusual was the occasion, nor were we particularly impressed. Although Mrs. Coatesnash was the wealthiest woman in the county, most of the mansion year in and year out was kept thriftily closed. I daresay the two women habitually used no more than three of the thirty-odd rooms.
On the occasion of our call the drawing-room was opened—a lofty room paneled in oak, hung with fading tapestries, a somber and pathetic reminder of a magnificent past. The furniture which crowded the place was a history of American and English cabinet-making, but it was also shabby, worn, in need of repair. A long-silenced grand piano displayed the depredations of mice; a Chippendale sofa lacked a leg and was propped up with books; a Duncan Phyfe table was cracked down the middle. Dust lay thick in corners, powdered the velvet draperies and blurred a lovely gilt mirror which reflected the room. The crystal chandeliers—there were three—had no more sparkle than unwashed windows. I should add that I kept on my coat. The house was bitterly cold.
Luella Coatesnash did not rise. She sat before an enormous fireplace where two sticks of wood sizzled and sputtered, a stout woman past sixty, dressed in ancient taffeta, hair piled high in the style of a bygone day. Diamonds glittered on her fingers and encircled her throat. At her feet crouched an English mastiff, motionless as an animal carved in bronze. Behind her chair, pleased, eager and uneasy, fluttered Laura. She made the introductions. Mrs. Coatesnash inclined her head like an empress, served us weak tea and demanded three months’ rent in advance.
“You’re getting the cottage very cheaply, Mr. Storm. Three months in advance is the usual arrangement.”
“I’ve never paid more than two in New York.”
“This is Connecticut.”
Jack wanted to argue, but I frowned, and reluctantly he parted with the ninety dollars. Our hostess softened. A slippered foot prodded the mastiff.
“Ivan, these are friends.”
The dog oozed to thin, gray legs. This unpleasant animal was the darling of his mistress’s heart. He was also, I thought privately, probably better fed than Laura. I shrank as he advanced, and Mrs. Coatesnash smiled.
“You don’t like dogs, Mrs. Storm?”
“His size is a little alarming.” Mrs. Coatesnash stroked the dog’s huge head. “Ivan is the finest mastiff in this country. As he should be. Our family has been breeding mastiffs since the confederation of the states.” Jack took on the wary look common to males whenever a genealogical discussion looms. It didn’t save him, or me. Mrs. Coatesnash was a New Englander. She went firmly into both our families, and quickly satisfied herself that we were nobodies sprung from nowhere. Ohio, indeed! She seemed doubtful about the future of her cottage, and warned us to cherish the furniture, to watch out for cigarettes and to take care not to set down wet glasses.
“I’m holding you responsible, Mr. Storm.”
I got a little red, and Jack didn’t trouble to conceal his irritation. Laura was determined that the occasion go off well. She said breathlessly:
“Mr. Storm will love your things, Luella. He’s an artist, you know. You remember my saying so. He paints.”
“I collect,” said Mrs. Coatesnash.
“How interesting,” said Jack in his blandest tones.
Mrs. Coatesnash gave him a suspicious look, and then proposed a tour of her private gallery. As we assented, an interruption occurred. The doorbell rang with rusty violence, and Mrs. Coatesnash glanced hurriedly toward the corner clock.
“If you’ll forgive me, we can see the pictures some other day. I’m expecting another caller.”
This was cool enough, and I rose at once. A crisp, amused voice called from the foyer, “Nonsense, Luella, I won’t be treated as company. If you’re doing the gallery, I’ll trail along.” A moment later I had my first glimpse of Annabelle Bayne, and a surprising figure she presented in that somber room. She was slim, dark, vivid, around thirty. Her strange white face, her brilliant painted mouth, the restless peculiar manner which was so much a part of her, seemed startlingly out of place. Even the clothes she wore—the smart Harris Tweed suit, the modish but unbecoming hat, the green gloves which matched green shoes—seemed designed not for the village of Crockford but for the city of New York.
As a matter of fact, the name of Annabelle Bayne was known in New York. I placed her immediately. Annabelle Bayne was a writer of a very specialized type. Her writing was drawn from life, yet was smartly, cruelly out of focus, and I’ve heard it said that her friends could not sleep easily until they had read her latest clever little piece and discovered whether or not they had escaped the acid bath. She was always poking fun at small towns and small-town people. She was heartily disliked in Crockford.
I couldn’t imagine how it happened that she and Luella Coatesnash were on friendly terms. Yet friends they were. They embraced, and the old woman seemed honestly pleased with her visitor. Annabelle greeted us vivaciously enough, and even spoke vaguely of a future meeting. To Laura she was less pleasant.
“Hurry my tea, please,” she said crisply. “I’ll need nourishment before I can look at pictures.”
Laura said nothing, but her lips trembled, and I decided that I didn’t particularly like Annabelle Bayne. The tour through the gallery, which by this time neither Jack nor I wanted to make, was hardly a success. For one of Mrs. Coatesnash’s bulk, the walk along the drafty corridor beyond the drawing-room was a definite effort. She leaned heavily on a gold-headed cane, and on the other side Annabelle supported her. Beside the two women padded Ivan, silent and ghostly, eyes lambent in the gloom.
Most of the pictures—Mrs. Coatesnash considered them all worthy of the Metropolitan—were frankly terrible, although the collection did include a Stuart of an early bewigged Coatesnash and a small very good Trumbull. As I paused before the Trumbull and stepped back to obtain a better perspective, Mrs. Coatesnash surprised me by saving sharply:
“Stand still. Mrs. Storm. Just as you are.”
I moved instinctively, and she tapped her cane against the floor in exasperation. “You’ve spoiled it. It’s gone now.”
“What’s gone?”
“For a moment I thought you resembled my daughter. I see it was only the way you were standing. Jane was much younger.” I am twenty-two, and even so I wasn’t pleased. Annabelle Bayne said then, quickly and in a voice queerly emphatic, “You’ve forgotten, Luella. Jane would be older now. By many years.”
A look passed between the women, a look I could not comprehend, a look which made me uncomfortable in