White Jade. V. J. Banis
impatiently into the kitchen to pour myself a cup of coffee. Usually at this time of evening I drank tea, but I had tried that earlier and found it unpalatable.
All right, look at in the worst possible light, I told myself. Suppose Mary Linton was trying to murder Jeff. Suppose he were already sick enough that he could do nothing about it, couldn’t escape, had no one to whom he could turn for help (he had said that, hadn’t he?)
So what did that have to do with me? I wasn’t in love with him. He wasn’t, I was quite sure, in love with me. We had not seen one another for five years and at that time, when I had been in love, he had jilted me. Coldly, cruelly, not caring at all if I nearly died from heartache. I owed him nothing.
Which of course was utter nonsense. Nearly dying from heartache was a far cry from literally dying from arsenic poisoning.
And I did owe him, in the same sense that Jerry owed me some concern and his friend owed Jerry some concern, and so on and on through the whole structure that man had built up for himself and called civilization.
Because we are, in some measure at least, our brother’s keepers. Because there are the dues we have to pay as part of the entire scheme, part of the human race. Because it is necessary to balance the ledger sheet against all the acts of concern and kindness that other people had done to me and would do again.
I went into my tiny bedroom, to my closet. The little overnight case was on the shelf. I took it down, carrying it to the bed. It had a film of dust on it and I got a cloth from the kitchen and dusted it carefully. Then I opened it and began to put things into it.
There was a train shortly after midnight that, with connections, would put me into Elsinore about dawn.
I could not help wondering what time of day Jeff usually had his tea.
CHAPTER FIVE
It was barely dawn when I arrived at the little station in Elsinore. I felt old and haggard in the first timid light of morning.
Now that I was here, standing outside the station on the empty street, I felt a trifle foolish as well. Last night, spurred on by fear and tension, it had seemed imperative that I get here as soon as possible.
It would have made a great deal more sense to have waited for the morning train. There was nothing I could do at this hour. It was quite unlikely that anyone, including Jeff, would be stirring in that big stone house. I had rushed here so that I could kill time waiting for a propitious hour to go there.
I left my overnight case at the station, after first using its contents to freshen my appearance a little. The station’s coffee shop was not yet open but the old man working there sent me to another just a few blocks down the street that was doing business.
I came into its brightly lit warmth gratefully. A few local men were already having coffee on their way to work. The waitress, a plump, jolly looking creature, eyed me with frank curiosity.
“Bit nippy out, isn’t it?” she said in the way of a greeting.
“Yes. I’ll have coffee, black, please, and one of those doughnuts.”
She brought the coffee in a big, battered looking mug and then fetched the doughnut. “You’re not from Elsinore, are you?” she asked in a friendly voice.
I did not want a get-acquainted chat, however, nor did I want to explain who I was or why I was here. “No, I’m not,” I said, softening it a little with a smile. I took my coffee and doughnut to one of the tables near the window and pretended to study the scene outside.
An hour and several cups of coffee later, I left and walked back to the station, where I guessed rightly that I would find a taxi. I hadn’t expected to find the same man who had driven me before, but there he was, smiling broadly in recognition.
“Morning, Miss,” he greeted me, “looks like you’ll be taking the job up at the house after all. I guess you’ll want a lift?”
“Yes,” I said, letting him help me into the back seat of his aged vehicle. I did not try to make any explanations for my return.
When we were close to the house, however, I leaned forward and asked him to pull over and stop. “I’d like to walk the rest of the way,” I said. “It’s so pretty out here, away from the city.”
“We don’t have a lot to offer, but it is pretty,” he agreed, making change. “Especially with the house up there above everything, looking so majestic, if you know what I mean.”
I got out and then, remembering something, leaned back in. “I want to try to catch Mrs. Linton,” I said. “Do you happen to know sort of car she has?”
“One of those big foreign jobs. A Rolls Royce, they call it. But you needn’t worry about that, she’s not likely to be going out this early. Will you be wanting me to come back for you, Miss, or will you be staying this time?”
How could I answer that? I hardly knew myself when I would be going. As soon as possible, of course, but I couldn’t say that to him.
“Thank you, I’ll call if I need a ride back.” I closed the door with a last nod.
I waited until he had made his turn and started back for town. Then I set out toward the house. I did not follow the road but cut across the fields. The snow that had fallen when I was last here had disappeared. The ground was bare and dead looking, and easy to walk on.
As I walked, I stared at the house before me. It did not look pretty to me, or majestic. It appeared dark and brooding, as if it watched me with countless, malevolent eyes, letting me come closer, closer, until it could reach out....
Stop it, I told myself sharply. There were dangers here that were real enough without letting my imagination run away with me as well.
I did not go directly to the house. Between me and it were several trees in a cluster, bare now, their branches making a twisted pattern. My coat was dark and long, in a pattern of browns and tan and black—the barren earth colors. In it I thought I would blend all right with the trees and the winter scene. I took up a post between two of the larger trees and began to wait.
The cabbie’s remark indicated that I might have a long wait, but there was nothing I could do for it. If it proved more than I could bear, I would simply have to return to town and try again later. At some time Mary Linton would be going out. That was when I would go to see Jeff.
I had no watch and could only guess at the passage of time. It seemed to stretch on and on forever. I had worn my warmest clothes but even so I eventually had to stamp my feet and rub my hands together to ward off the cold that was seeping into my very bones.
The distant house remained still. Once a maid in black uniform came out and went to the garages behind the main building and returned a few minutes later. I had no way of knowing whether the master and mistress were still in bed or up or, for all I really knew, on vacation in Florida.
Just as I had decided I could bear the cold no longer, fortune smiled on me. I saw a man open one of the garage doors and a minute later a mammoth looking Rolls Royce backed out and came around the drive to the front of the house. The driver went into the house, leaving the car running.
A few minutes later a woman came out. At the distance I could see little more than that it was a woman in a leopard coat, but she walked with an imperious carriage. I was sure it was she.
She got into the car and a moment later it moved off down the driveway and along the road toward town. I waited until she was out of sight before I moved from the protective cover of the trees.
I arrived at the house without incident except that I felt half dead from the cold. My numb fingers had some trouble with the big brass knocker.
The young woman in a maid’s uniform who answered the door looked at me with some curiosity. I saw her eyes go past me to the drive, where no vehicle awaited me, and no doubt I looked frozen solid. I certainly felt it.
“I’d like to see Mr. Linton,” I said.
“I’ve