Black Cypress Read online

  Black Cypress

  A Pat and Jean Abbott Mystery

  Frances Crane

  This book is for Carlotta

  1

  At ten minutes past three by the luminous dial of the little brown traveling clock, I woke with the feeling that somebody had just passed by the open casement windows. There was a row of them, on the west side of the room. I sat up in bed and, at an angle, noticed across a low stone wall which edged the cliffs that the corn-yellow moon was lying near the rim of a solitary ocean. It was apparently at high tide, because the waves were heavily pounding the cliff, yet in the moon’s path the water was like dark smooth silk and curiously melancholy.

  There were intervals, between the roaring of breakers, when the flower-and-salt scented night had a ghostly stillness. You could then hear the small whispery sounds of the surf falling away from the rocks. You could have heard footsteps.

  I sat listening. In such light as the setting moon granted the room I peered at my recumbent husband, Patrick Abbott. He was a long motionless ridge in the other bed, bent in the knee-region to keep from crowding against the ornamental footboard. Beyond him and against the white walls I could see an antique Italian bureau, two stately old chairs, and the new, low, deep, pale modern chair which stood near the closed door to the living room.

  Hiram Stryker had told us that the cottage was being modernized. Mrs. Stryker, he had said, wouldn’t ever permit changes of any kind in the main house, which was called the Villa Black Cypress. But their son Ronald wanted the cottage as a playhouse and the remodeling was now under way.

  Hiram Stryker had said, with his charming elfin smile, “On the outside, however, even the cottage must remain exactly as it has been. If the outside went modern, it would stick out on this medieval ranch like a sore thumb.”

  Renaissance was the word he meant. Villa Black Cypress, built at the end of the nineteenth century, was definitely in the Florentine manner perfected in the time of the Borgias. Grandeur, gloom, dark and stately furnishings, Madonnas—but also bathrooms—characterized the edifice called Black Cypress.

  What a grim name for a California country house! But suitable, apparently. There had been a long avenue of dead-black cypresses from the highway to the house. We hadn’t yet been in the Villa, having arrived at such a late hour, but I wondered if its bedrooms, like this, looked entirely too much for my taste like Renaissance morgues. These narrow high-off-the-floor beds with their tall painted head and footboards could serve very well as catafalques. Suitable for the fifteenth-century Borgias, but very odd cots for the Patrick Abbotts.

  A bird began to sing. It was a mockingbird and it filled the whispery intervals between the breakers with cascades of cheerful notes. That bird would not sing, I thought, if anything evil were lurking near this cottage. Besides, Patrick had ears keen as a fox. He wouldn’t sleep so peacefully if there were good reason to be awake. And Hiram Stryker himself had said not to be alarmed if pedestrians passed by the cottage in the night. Until six weeks ago, Villa Black Cypress had been closed for several years. He supposed he ought to put up a sign saying to keep out, there where the path started up from the beach. But you hated to do that, he said, because presently the public would realize that the family had come back and voluntarily cease trespassing.

  The yellow moon was now crossed by a fog-band that was black and half-transparent, like mourning. The darkness thickened. The bird went on singing and Patrick slept. A great serenity lay over the earth, deepened rather than interrupted by the steady pounding of the waves.

  I yawned and lay down and closed my eyes.

  Suddenly I was again wide awake. The moonlight was brighter. There was a long pencil of black shadow on one white wall because the living-room door stood slightly open. On the arm of the pale modern chair something gave off a small gleam. It was a ring, on a hand resting on the arm of the chair. The hand was darker than the fabric beneath it and it rested motionless, the nerveless hand of a creature who knew exactly why he was here and what he had to do. I shot a sidelong frantic look at Patrick and discovered with horror that he was not in his bed.

  At this hour we should have been pulling into San Francisco—crossing the Bay Bridge, maneuvering so that we would drive up California Street, turning right on Hyde towards our new house on Russian Hill, peeping in at Michael and discovering again how well he got along without us, even without me, his mother. Instead we had stopped for a quickie in the Vine Street Derby in Hollywood, and, to avoid the evening traffic, had gone on to dinner at Romanoff’s.

  We had been feeling high. The late afternoon sky was a wonderful bassinet pink. The rising moon in the late daylight was a slice of vanilla ice cream. Patrick’s pockets were full of the money he had just been paid for bottling up a gang of dope peddlers and he was determined to spend as much as he could before I latched onto the rest and put it in the bank. No more money for Patrick’s passions, such as emeralds and Renoirs and this and that, until prices come down, I was saying, as we entered the Bamboo Room and sat down near the entrance from Vine.

  The four kids occupied a table halfway back. Anybody would notice any one of them immediately, and all together they were a knockout. There was a tall, deeply-tanned girl in a white coat, with heavy shining dark hair cut in a bang and flowing down to her shoulders behind a black velvet band. The other girl was small, with expressive white eyelids and apricot-yellow hair. She would grow fruity before she aged but at this stage she was delicious-looking. One of the boys was tall, dark and handsome. The other was green-eyed, with his thick sun-streaked hair in a crew-cut. Both wore gray flannel.

  A small bald waiter with one long lock plastered over his dome took our order and fetched our drinks. To my girl, Patrick said, and I said I appreciated that considering the galaxy at yon table. Neither of them, Patrick said gallantly, had my raven looks and yaller eyes which would always be his favorite combination. I retorted that his words rang false but I liked them, and for that matter neither of the handsome boys was a lank sun-tanned long-eyed Westerner cut precisely to my taste like Patrick. We laughed and sipped and felt fine. Patrick drank Scotch and I bourbon and both were properly short on soda. There was no prospect at the moment of a let-down in our elegant mood.

  When I remembered that we ought to phone Lulu Murphy, Patrick’s secretary, about what hour to expect us home, Patrick said he had done it already.

  “Then everything is perfect,” I said.

  “Everything,” Patrick said. He signaled the waiter for dividends.

  “Desperately,” a low voice said.

  We were both startled. Patrick stood up. It was the girl in the white coat. Close up she had a long-eyed, short-nosed, sweet-mouthed face. Her tan was close to copper and her skin was like satin. Her long eyes were blue-green. Her winged eyebrows and lashes were black.

  “I simply have to have a detective, I said, didn’t you hear me? Desperately, I said. Please smile and act hospitable. I’m your cousin, you know.” With a slight flutter of uncertainty the girl asked, “You are Patrick Abbott?”

  “He’s not Donald Duck,” I said.

  She gave me a look.

  “Did you say cousin?” Patrick said.

  “Certainly,” she said.

  “Well, anything is possible in Hollywood,” I said.

  He held her chair and she sat down. The waiter with the elegant lacquered lock fetched our refills. The girl declined, saying she didn’t drink thanks, and then with cool finesse she nailed me for that Donald Duck item.

  “You must be Jean? Miss Murphy told me that Patrick would believe me, but that his wife would probably make me prove what I said. Smile and chat, for heaven’s sake. And please take a look at my gang. Are they watching me or aren’t they?”

  The dark handsome
boy and the exquisite blonde were gazing into each other’s eyes. The sunny-headed one sat staring at his drink. “Cousin Anne,” I said to the girl in the very beautiful white coat, “there is no one watching.” I remembered then the two gazing at each other. “I mean no one watching you.”

  “My name is Mary. Molly, really. Molly Reynolds. I was born in May, in 1927, in Honolulu, T.H. My mother was a Ponsonby. The Ponsonbys descended from various people including an old rip named Luke Abbott, who sailed out of Boston to the Hawaiian Islands in 1839. Luke was, of course, a missionary. I am telling you all this merely to prove how I happen to be your cousin. Now don’t be trite and remind me that Luke Abbott, like so many of the ancestors of the old families in the Islands, went out there to save souls and cashed in for his foresight on sugar and pineapples. His descendants, I mean.”

  “You’re being trite to mention it, Cousin Molly. Everybody knows that about the Hawaiian Islands, if they know nothing else.”

  “I am merely being brief, Cousin Jean. Tell me, Patrick, are they watching me?”

  Patrick said, “The blond boy is taking some interest, Molly.” Though he didn’t mention it the others were still gazing at each other with that at-last-alone look, which must have been very boring for the blond lad.

  “That’s Timothy,” Molly said. “He doesn’t count.”

  I bristled. “He sure would count with me, Molly. I go for boys with yellow hair and steady green eyes myself.”

  “You misunderstand as usual, Jean,” Molly said coolly. “I adore Tim. He’s sweet and he’s an open book. When I told them you were cousins he believed me right away. The others said nuts.”

  “Why?” Patrick asked.

  “Well, for one thing, Tim is not involved with us. So he has an open mind. We others are closely related. Ronald, the dark one, is my cousin. He is Hiram Ronald Stryker IV. The blonde girl is Ron’s cousin, but not mine. Her name is Clarinda Stryker Eberle.”

  “Clarinda is a pretty name,” I said.

  “Isn’t it.” Her flat statement gave me the brushoff. “Pat, my aunt is going to be murdered.”

  I felt a surge of astonishment. The beautiful, healthy looking girl was obviously crazy.

  Patrick said nothing, so I said, very lightly, I’m afraid, “Which aunt?”

  “I have only one aunt. Enid Stryker. Enid Ponsonby Stryker. She is Ronald’s mother. I haven’t told a living soul what I’ve just told you. I know it sounds fantastic. But we are here on the mainland for that very reason. She was brought to Black Cypress to be murdered.”

  “Where?” Patrick asked.

  “Villa Black Cypress is the name of the Stryker place on the mainland. It’s near Laguna Beach. Tell me, are they looking?”

  “Nobody except Timothy,” Patrick said.

  “Good. I mustn’t stay too long. They will get suspicious. If it occurs to them that you are a detective I—I don’t know what might happen. I told them you were cousins, you see. I’m so glad you’re down here, Patrick. I need you so, and San Francisco seems so far away.” She brushed her hand across her eyes. “We’re going on from here to Romanoff’s. Where are you staying? I’ll keep in touch.”

  She pushed back her chair. Patrick stood up, tall and easy-looking beside the tall wonderful girl. I felt a prick of jealousy.

  She snapped out, “Act like cousins, for gosh sakes!”

  Patrick put an arm around Molly and kissed her. She blushed like mad. My jealousy split my heart wide. And I said coldly, because I was jealous and didn’t want them to know it, “The lovebirds have stopped gazing at each other and are now gazing at us. Is Clarinda by any chance that tall handsome Ronald’s fiancée, Molly?”

  Our new cousin gave me a long look and said, “Certainly not. I am.”

  2

  My husband’s weak grasp on his cash makes him a pet of head waiters. An excellent table was therefore awaiting us at Romanoff’s. A crowd was gathered on the sidewalk outside looking for movie stars, and by the time we were inside the restaurant and seated I had been pointed out as Signe Hasso, Joan Bennett, and Lana Turner with her hair dyed black, and Patrick as usual was hailed as Gary Cooper.

  The family bankroll melted away as we ate avocados stuffed with shellfish, roast beef Stroganoff, pommes parsley, bouquetiere of fresh vegetables, and various assorted sundries including cherries Jubilee and black coffee. The wine was a Romanée Conti at twenty-odd dollars a fifth. The cognac was octogenarian.

  “What this costs, sharply invested, would in sixteen years put our Mike through college, Pat.”

  “Drink some more of the vino, Jeanie.”

  “You’re trying to anesthetize me.”

  “That’s what good wines are for,” Patrick said. “Don’t look now, but here they come. They’re taking that reserved table opposite the bar.”

  Molly walked ahead of the others and her long blue-green eyes, which were definitely very like Patrick’s, rested on me and moved on as though she had never seen me before. Behind her, and tall and just right for her somehow, walked Timothy Ryan. Lagging behind him came the apricot blonde and Ronald Stryker, clasping hands.

  The blonde Clarinda was dressed in a dark purplish-blue velveteen suit which made her wonderful eyes a deep violet. Ronald Stryker was tall and graceful, with perfect features, hollow temples, trim cheekbones, and great black starry eyes and black hair that looked unruly. There was something boyish in his looks and his shy manner that took you.

  “It’s the mother in me that attracts me to him, Pat.”

  “Let us hope so!”

  They sat down. Molly faced our way but she gave no sign of seeing us.

  “Your new cousin has a very short memory, Pat.”

  “It runs in the family. Darling, have I ever told you you’re beautiful?”

  “Twenty times since we started in on that twenty-dollar wine, darling. But thank you. You’re beautiful, too.”

  “I’ll warm your girdle right here in this expensive public if you dare to call me beautiful.”

  “Well, you are. Like a beautiful cow man, I mean. Ronald Stryker is beautiful in a different way. The Greeks would call him beautiful and make a statue of him throwing discuses or things and nobody would think a thing of it. Poets would write poems and troubadours would sing songs about a lad like Ronald.”

  “Maybe Ronald wouldn’t mind that. Abbott does. So call him beautiful if you wish but be careful what you call Abbott.”

  “Abbott is jealous,” I said. “Abbott is jealous of Stryker. I’ve got one of my intuitions. It says, drop that bunch cold. We’ve got hardly any relations in this world and what we have we like and how many people are that lucky?”

  “Not many. Not many at all.”

  “Then we give Molly the brush, what?”

  “She’s given us it already.”

  “Why?”

  “I guess she changed her mind.”

  “If she has any to change, darling.”

  “Don’t run down my family,” Patrick said. “Look, I don’t want to drop Molly. What relations we have are your relations, Jean. I want some of my own.”

  “Okay, Patrick. Okay then, we keep her on as your relation. She’s going to marry Ronald and he’s beautiful. But what will they do about Clarinda?”

  “Telephone, Mr. Abbott,” the waiter said.

  Oh, that phone, I said, and how we could never get away from it, and then Patrick was gone, and sliding in where he had been was Molly Reynolds. Her eyes were so like Pat’s that for a minute I got a sort of shock. I said coldly, “We were just wondering what you will do about Clarinda?”

  I was sorry at once. Oh, dear. But fortunately she ignored it.

  “Jean,” she said, “I am too impulsive. Psychiatrists rate impulsiveness as one of the minor neuroses.”

  “Minor?” I said. “Well, maybe it is if it doesn’t start something you can’t stop.”

  She tossed her black mane. She had taken off the coat and was wearing a very sharp green dress, with no sleeves and a big
floppy bow at the throat. Her waistline was trim and perfect and she wore a narrow gold belt. Her tan went all the way up her arms to her shoulders. At this time of year, her copper color would have made her the rage in San Francisco.

  “Don’t be so critical, Jean. I am trying to apologize.”

  “Apologize?”

  “For coming to Patrick like that. I am always doing the wrong thing on the spur of the moment, you see. But this time I’ve caught myself in time. So I’m not doing it. I want to get acquainted socially with you two when I can come to San Francisco. But that’s all. I mean, I don’t want Patrick to—to detect for me.”

  I replied with the kind of sweetness you poison air with, “You mean your aunt isn’t going to be murdered?”

  “I mean I’m too impulsive.”

  “You mean you’re slightly nuts, Molly Reynolds!”

  Molly exploded. “Darn it! I mean just what I said. When I phoned your office and Miss Murphy said you were down here I went off the deep end and I moved in on Patrick too fast. I didn’t think long enough first. In other words, I was too impulsive. Now I’m sorry and I want to call it quits.”

  “Molly, have you been drinking?”

  The brandy inhalers still stood by our coffee cups and Molly gave them a cool look and said, “I do not drink, smoke, or take dope, or say nasty things about people behind their backs.”

  “You only indulge in your minor neuroses? Is that it? Well, for clean living give me a double dry martini any time.”

  Molly turned a fine rosy color under her tan. “Will you tell Patrick what I said?”

  “No, I won’t. You’ll have to tell him yourself. I’ve been against your proposition all the time, Molly. So if I tell him he’ll never believe me. It’s your show, and you’ve got to do your own talking.”

  “Oh, dear!” Molly said. Her face began to crumple. “I hate to think how he’ll look when he knows I’ve changed my mind. After all, he’s in my family!”

  What really does all this lovely child? I wondered, beginning to break up inside. I glanced at her crowd. Timothy rested his cheek on his clenched fist and Ronald and that blonde huzzy were eye-holding again.