The Flying Red Horse Page 3

  “She’s not Kim’s either. But she latched. The trouble she’s made!”

  “How come?”

  “She handed him a doughnut.” Sally laughed again. “While the rest of us were buckling down to winning the war, Rosemary did her bit in a made-to-order Red Cross uniform.” Sally’s attractive face grew sober. “I’m talking like a cat. I don’t feel nice doing it, either.”

  “Don’t worry about Kim, Sally. She’d much rather hook Lucius Brady.”

  “Brady?” Sally laughed again. “Two of a kind. He’s just as slithery as she is. Oh, what good is money, Jean? For us it has ruined everything. We used to be so happy. We had a wonderful life. And now here we are, parked in this stupid, dull house. Why? Because Iles struck it rich.”

  “He is proud of Amanda and the house, Sally.”

  Sally’s mouth quivered.

  “How mean I am!” she said. “Yes, you are right, and I am ashamed of myself for being so selfish. Iles loves Amanda. And he thinks he loves the house, for her sake. The answer is that I’ve got to get out of here. Pronto.”

  Struck by the change in her voice, Pancho left the basket and came and sat beside her. She stroked his smooth coat. The position of his ears changed with every change in her tone.

  “He’s exactly like Sam,” Sally said, giving him a fond smile. “I’ll tell you about Sam, Jean. I found him in the creek. I couldn’t understand it. Sam was too smart to drown. So I took him to a vet for a post-mortem. He had been poisoned with cyanide.”

  “Poisoned?”

  “Amanda said at first it must have been some neighbor who was annoyed with Sam. That was nonsense. Dachshunds don’t annoy anybody. They don’t bark unless it’s necessary. They patrol the grounds but they don’t go bothering the neighbors. Iles said maybe it was a prowler. But Amanda decided then that he was struck by a car, and then drowned. She’s stuck to that story. And both Rosemary and Amanda said that, after all, why the fuss, since Sam was only a dog. I said that was exactly why there was a fuss, that there was no real protection for dogs except the kindness of human beings. There are no police to protect dogs. If people love them they are fairly safe. Otherwise not. It’s a terrible crime to poison a helpless creature. You could shoot a person for that and it would stand up in court in Texas.” Sally modified that. “At least in West Texas,” she said.

  “Sally, why don’t you get a job somewhere?”

  “That’s my idea. I’m going to West Texas and get a job. We had a wonderful life out there. My mother died when I was tiny and Iles’s sister Ann lived with us. She was a lot like Iles. We went wherever he was and lived in whatever we could find to live in. If there was any decent furniture we thought we were lucky. We always made our own curtains, out of muslin or denim, and we had some real silver and nice dishes and our own cooking utensils and linens, and in no time at all Ann and I would make a place home, even though it was just a shack.” The bitterness came back. “Now we live like this, have four cars, a private plane, and worry all the time about going broke. It didn’t used to make any difference. When we had money we used it. When we didn’t, we pulled in our belts. But I liked the life we led then and I’m going back to it.”

  “With Kim, maybe?”

  Sally’s voice saddened, and up went Pancho’s ears.

  “I’m afraid not. Some things you just can’t take. Look, I’m talking too much. I don’t really blame Amanda for wanting this place. It’s her idea of living. She’s a town woman. She grew up in Dallas. She thinks life out in the oil fields too uncomfortable and silly for words. But it’s Rosemary I’m laying for, and I mean it.”

  “You don’t mean that, Sally.”

  “No, I guess not. Juliana is alone and she wants Rosemary with her. But Juliana bores Rosemary. Also, there’s a man in this house. Gosh, I’m awful.”

  “No, you aren’t Sally. And you’re also a hundred times more attractive than she is.”

  “No. I’m too long-stemmed.”

  “Oh, no. You tall gals are the nuts these days. Kim is afraid of Rosemary. Why?”

  Sally did not answer.

  “How long have you known Kim?”

  “Since college. We were together a lot. And then he joined up. And then so did I. They sent me East and Kim stayed ages in Texas before he was shipped out to Japan. We didn’t see each other for three years.”

  “And meanwhile Rosemary handed him a doughnut.”

  Sally laughed again.

  I stood up. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Sally. What about Pancho?”

  “Oh, Jean, you won’t take him away?”

  I laughed. “Not if you really want to keep him. He’s in luck. Very elegant quarters for a mere visiting dog.”

  She tucked Pancho under one arm and saw me to the hall door. Suddenly she kissed me on the cheek, and simultaneously Pancho licked my chin. I stepped out into the hall.

  As I did, I saw Rosemary, in what looked like a black lacy ensemble, float across the back end of the hall. A door closed.

  She had not seen me, I thought. I walked into the main upstairs hall and along the railing which guarded the stair well and started down the stairs.

  I heard an angry voice. I slowed down and kept near the wall.

  Amanda said, “You’re such a fool!”

  “Oh, Sister,” Juliana said, in her metallic and now supplicating voice. “Please. I want you to approve, dear.”

  “Well, I don’t. And I never will.”

  “But it’s all right. And it makes me so happy.”

  “Happy!” Amanda snorted.

  “Oh, dear,” said Juliana. There were tears in her voice now. “I thought you would be pleased.”

  “Well, I’m not. You are not going to do it, hear?”

  There was the sound of a stinging slap. A woman gasped.

  I hurried around the newel post and into the living room. Whatever Juliana was not to do, I did not hear.

  There was no one in the living room. Above the mantel a portrait of Amanda looked rich and correct. The artist had imitated Gainsborough. A painter in modern style might have caught the chic witchery of Amanda’s interesting face. Or he might have been clever and malicious, and with a few twists of his brush, made her look like Juliana.

  A door stood open into a little hall which separated the living room and the bar.

  The bar was Iles’s own spot. On the wood-paneled walls were framed photographs picturing life in the oil fields, gushers and derricks, and groups of working men clustered around pipelines and oil pumps. A collection of guns rested on racks along one wall.

  On the high rattan stools, Iles, Patrick and Lucius Brady sat with their highballs. As I entered they stood up. I declined a drink and took a stool and they sat down and resumed their talk. Iles was telling about a new well in Upton County, Texas. It tapped heretofore unimaginable reserves, he said, but the cost of such drilling was not at present practicable.

  He seemed relaxed and happy.

  A door stood open on the lawn. The moon was shining and I could see a white path winding away into darkness.

  Chapter 4

  Five minutes or so later, Amanda Dollahan came in and told Lucius Brady that Juliana wished to go home. Her face looked pink but otherwise she was perfectly composed.

  “Why don’t you drive back here after you drop Julie, Lucius?”

  Lucius pled a need for sleep, and told us each and all with a gracious formality, goodnight. Iles did not press him to stay.

  After Amanda and Brady had gone out his mood changed. He seemed preoccupied and gloomy.

  “We must be going, too, Pat.”

  “Oh, don’t go yet,” Iles said, quickly. “I’ve got things to talk over, Pat. You can think about them and we’ll continue our talk at breakfast. Is seven too early for you? I want to have plenty of time with you, see, but also I’ve got to be in Odessa before noon.”

  Amanda returned, mentioned a headache, and asked if we would excuse her. I said we’d be going as soon as I could break up Pat’s and I
les’s huddle. She told us goodnight, kissed Iles’s cheek, and again left us.

  Iles poured himself and Patrick more whisky. I again refused a drink, being anxious to end the party. I longed for a cup of coffee. There was an electric coffee machine behind the bar, but its operation would take time.

  I felt oppressed. There was a lot of hate under this roof.

  Iles took a fine old cognac from a compartment behind the bar.

  “Can’t I tempt you with this, Jean?”

  I gave in, and had a small jigger in a big crystal glass.

  “Not even our friend Brady gets that, Jean. I reckon he thinks maybe I don’t know there is such fine liquor. He’s got me down as a roughneck that can’t do better than tell rye whisky from corn.” His deep laugh boomed. “Funny what your women folks fall for sometimes. That fellow sure takes a mint of money out of Texas.”

  “Oil money comes easy, Iles,” I said.

  He gave me a level glance under his thick graying eyebrows. “When it finally comes.”

  “It must be fun to have it.”

  “The fun is getting it, honey. It’s thinking ahead about what it’s going to be like. It’s spending it in your mind ahead of time. It’s the big money I’m talking about, not just an ordinary strike.”

  “You sound like your daughter Sally.”

  “She’s a great kid. But it was a tough life for a little girl. She don’t remember all the hard knocks. The heat and the dust storms and the scorpions and rattlesnakes. She used to ride her pony across that country and pop the heads off the snakes with a little pistol. Luckily Sally was always quicker than any snake.”

  At ten minutes past one I said we had to go. Iles had not yet mentioned what he wanted to talk to Patrick about at breakfast.

  He saw us to the car. We left him standing at the end of the flagged walk, a tall and suddenly lonely-looking man, with the moonlight gleaming on his white hair.

  “It’s going to rain,” he called, as we started away.

  We moved on in the dappled moonlight.

  “He didn’t want us to leave, Pat. For some reason or other he didn’t want us to go.”

  “He’s got something on his mind.”

  “Business?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll bet it’s Lucius Brady. Amanda and Juliana were quarreling tonight. In the dining room. Juliana was standing up to her, too. Until she got slapped.”

  “Wow!”

  “You said Juliana told you why she was so happy tonight?”

  “Right.”

  “Is she going to marry Brady?”

  “I told you it was a secret.”

  “Nothing else could have made their quarrel so fierce.”

  “Then Amanda’s a fool. Iles is a good man. They’re scarce.”

  The winding street ended at a thoroughfare banked with honeysuckle and dense shrubbery. Patrick turned right towards Turtle Creek Boulevard. He stopped on a bridge over the creek. He unlatched the catches which fasten the top to the frame of the windshield.

  “It’s going to rain, Pat.”

  “Then we’ll put the top up again.”

  When he pressed the button which lowers the top the extra strain killed the motor. In the sudden quiet the air hummed with the sound of the creek. There seemed to be a sort of dam or waterfall over which the water fell heavily.

  Patrick peered out his side of the car.

  “There’s a big black cloud. We’ll leave it up.” He fastened the catches and put his arm around me. “Gee, you’re nice.”

  “I am not. I am a very catty woman and an ungrateful guest. I hated this party, Pat.”

  “Remember the first time I kissed you?”

  “Um-m.”

  “Glad I did?”

  “I’ll say.”

  “Me, too.”

  “You’re awfully amorous for some reason.”

  “Texas, honey. There’s a lot of loving in Texas.”

  “Well, so long as the loved one is me. Did Rosemary make a pass at you when you drove her downtown?”

  “Now, sugar. Down here in Texas us men don’t talk bad talk about nice little gals.”

  “Stop kidding, Pat. She’s not nice. She’s making trouble for Sally. A straight-thinking girl like Sally is no match for one like Rosemary, either.”

  “Rosemary looks mighty purty and sweet.”

  “Stop it!”

  Patrick laughed and lit a cigarette. “Okay. Spill it!”

  “Well, Sally wanted to talk to me. She didn’t stay home tonight because of Pancho, but because of some trouble from Rosemary. She wasn’t explicit but Rosemary has made trouble between Sally and Kim Forsythe. It happened while he was in the service. Sally knew him first, at the university, but Rosemary latched onto him during the war. Sally said she handed him a doughnut. I guess it was the usual stuff. Glamorous home-girl making hay while the sun shone. Rosemary has money of her own, but she lives by her own choice with the Dollahans. Amanda is for her, of course. Iles is away a lot, I expect, and he just lets the thing slide. Getting around to Sally’s dog Sam, he was poisoned. Sally had an autopsy done.”

  “Who poisoned the dog?”

  “She doesn’t know. Amanda said at first it might have been a neighbor. But she told us, remember, that he got hit by a car and drowned trying to get home across the creek.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Not specially. Sally was just blowing off steam. And then sorry right away, as nice people are, because she’d done it. She’s going to get a job and get out of that house. She was quite nice about Amanda.”

  “What does quite mean?”

  “Well, she said she’d hate to be so selfish as not to want her father to be happy. And things like that.”

  “Do you think he’s happy, Jean?”

  “On the whole, I would say yes. He seems so proud of everything, including his wife.”

  Patrick said, “I surmise Iles has been used to honest womenfolk. He probably had a good mother and his sister was on the square. His daughter, also. It would take him a while to get wise to any double-dealing on the part of a wife. A woman gets all the breaks to start with when a man is like Iles. But heaven help her if she does do him dirty, and he finally finds it out.”

  “Well, it isn’t as bad as all that, is it?”

  “Iles wouldn’t exactly like it if Amanda had poisoned Sally’s dog.”

  “Sally doesn’t think it was Amanda. She thinks it was Rosemary.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. There’s trouble there all around. Look at the way both Rosemary and Amanda walked out on the party. I saw Rosemary just as I left Sally’s room. She had changed to a dark outfit. She was crossing the back end of the hall in that wing of the house. I got the feeling that she had started somewhere and had turned back for some reason.”

  Suddenly above the hum of the waterfall we heard a dog barking hysterically.

  I sat up straight.

  “That’s Pancho!”

  “Sounds like him.”

  “Positive. I wonder what’s up?”

  “Probably chasing a cat.”

  The barking stopped abruptly. It had been so frantic the sound had reached us above the noise of the water. It had me worried. I thought about Sam.

  “Let’s go back for Pancho.”

  “Look, to find a kennel, at this hour.…”

  “Pat, we’re going back!”

  Patrick started the car. We turned right on the boulevard, right again at the next turning, then right again and back along the narrow one-way street.

  The house looked just as it had ten or twelve minutes before. The moon shone. Light was showing downstairs in the right wing, through a window which was probably in Iles’s bar.

  Suddenly a figure came running around the house from the right. It crossed the lighted window. I recognized Sally Dollahan.

  She clutched something in her arms.

  Patrick was after her instantly. He caught up as Sally reached the
service entrance.

  “Sally?” he said quitly.

  “Oh!” she cried. “Take him, Pat. I shouldn’t’ve kept him in this house. But I was so careful. I waited to take him out until I thought they were in bed. But he yanked himself free. Somebody was there.”

  The leash dangled from his collar. Patrick was running expert fingers over the dog.

  “Where did you find him, Sally?”

  “At the foot of the terrace steps. Almost in the creek. His leash had caught on the railing or he would have been washed away. Whoever it was tried to drown him.”

  “He’s all right.”

  Patrick handed the wet dog to me.

  He dashed around the house in the direction from which Sally had come. I moved as fast as I could with ten pounds of wet brown dog. I could feel Pancho’s heart beating along in its usual healthy dog fashion.

  Sally stayed with me. She was crying now, not making much noise but crying as hysterically as the dog had been barking a few minutes ago.

  We passed the outside door of Iles’s bar. It was closed. On around the house we came to the short wide flight of stone steps which led from the lawn to the terrace parallel with the creek. The moon was under the black cloud. It was hard to see and, carrying the dog, I walked slowly. Sally went ahead. Patrick had disappeared in darkness. Something glinted on one of the terrace steps. Shifting the dog to one arm, I stooped and picked up a piece of jewelry. I dropped it in my bag, a complex operation, because Pancho was reviving and ready to continue the chase.

  Suddenly lights came on. Patrick blinked as he came up the steps at the other end of the terrace.

  The door opened. Iles Dollahan stepped out.

  “Thought you folks had left?”

  “We heard the dog, and came back.”

  “Oh, Iles!” Sally cried. “Somebody tried to kill Pancho.”

  “I reckon it wasn’t that bad, honey,” Iles said.

  I handed the squirming dog to Patrick. Iles was damned complacent. I was angry for another reason too. My beautiful best outfit was generously spotted now with water Pancho had acquired in Turtle Creek.

  “Where’s Rosemary?” Sally demanded.

  Iles said, “She’s upstairs. I saw her just now as I was going up to bed. Then I heard you all walking around so I came down to see what was up. Is the dog all right, Pat?”