Рекс Стаут - The Last Drive and Other Stories

Early the following morning they started for New York in the roadster. It was the last day of August, and the pulse of summer was beginning to wane; on the foliage were the first faint signs of the season’s death; the air, though hot, was not oppressive, and when they got to the Albany road they found the breeze from the river cool and brisk. Nella was at the wheel; in the past two weeks she had become expert.

Canby took advantage of the occasion to tell her certain things that he thought she ought to know.

“I’m going to make application today for appointment as your legal guardian,” he informed her as they rolled along at thirty miles an hour. “That means that I will be responsible for you just as a father would be. Before you agree to that you ought to know definitely what to expect. I have an income of something over twenty thousand a year. I own Greenhedge. There is no one else in the world dependent on me, and another thing I will do today is make you the sole beneficiary in my will — that is, you’ll get everything when I die. I’m not a wealthy man as New York goes nowadays, but I have enough.”

When they arrived in New York he explained his plans for the day; and in accordance with them, at Forty-second Street he transferred Nella to a taxi-cab and handed her a well-filled purse. He had sufficient confidence in her taste to feel no anxiety for the propriety of her purchases; and besides, any advice from him on the subject would be worse than useless. So he left her, after appointing a rendezvous with her at one o’clock.

Downtown, in the brokerage office in which he had an interest, on Cedar Street just off Broadway, his sudden appearance caused a degree of surprise. Matters of business kept him there for over an hour, after which he departed to keep an appointment arranged over the telephone with his attorney. More surprise here, profound and sustained, at his abrupt announcement of the acquisition of a ward; it ended with the lawyer’s assurance that the legal phase of the transaction would present no difficulties whatever; he would enter the application that day, and in a week or so the thing would be done. Then the alteration of the will was attended to, and it was half an hour after noon when Canby found himself again on the street.

He crossed the sidewalk to the curb, opened the door of the roadster and was getting in when he heard his name called from behind:

“Mr. Canby! It’s a wonder you wouldn’t look at a fellow! When’d you come in?”

It was Tom Linwood, smiling as always, resplendent as to attire and assured as to countenance. They talked a little, the young man asking with mock solicitude concerning the state of his uncle’s golf score.

“You see,” he explained, “I’m naturally interested, because if he ever gets a seventy-nine he’ll die of joy and I’ll be a rich man... By the way, how is Miss Somi?”

Canby replied that Miss Somi was very well, and thoughtlessly added that she was at the moment uptown shopping.

“No! Is she really?” Young Linwood’s face brightened. “You don’t happen to know just where she is, do you? Perhaps she’d take luncheon with me.”

“I’m on my way to take her to lunch now,” replied the guileless Canby.

“Yes? By Jove, that’s fine! You don’t mind if I come along?”

And almost before Canby knew how it happened they were seated side by side in the roadster on their way uptown.

They were at Sherry’s a few minutes before one, and a little later Nella entered. Her face was flushed and her eyes were beaming with the unprecedented joy of the morning’s experience; in three hours she had bought a thousand dollars’ worth of clothes. Ineffable delight!

She came forward to greet Canby with so pervasive an air of happiness that for a moment he feared one of her demonstrations of fond gratitude there in the restaurant lobby. Then she caught sight of his companion.

“Oh! Mr. Linwood!” she said prettily.

The luncheon that Canby had looked forward to with so much pleasure proved rather an uncomfortable affair for him. In the first place, they had barely finished the clams when he began to reflect that Tom Linwood was an uncommonly handsome young man, and the trouble was that Nella seemed to have noticed it too; the Lord knows, she kept her eyes on him enough. And Tom, with incredible cunning, having discovered that Nella was under the spell of her first shopping orgy, began to describe in detail the frocks he had seen at Newport that summer. Fine masculine subject for conversation! But what really caused Canby discomfort was the sight of the youth in the brown eyes calling to that in the blue.

They had nearly finished when Canby, hearing a woman’s voice pronounce his name, turned to find Mrs. Ponsonby-Atkins approaching with her daughter Marie. She stopped to talk and inquire about his sister, while Marie chatted with Tom Linwood; there was absolutely no help for it, and he finally introduced “Miss Somi, my ward.” Good breeding held fast; Mrs. Ponsonby-Atkins never blinked an eyelash; but, as she moved away, her back seemed somehow to be saying in her own picturesque manner: “Fred Canby with a beautiful Latin princess for a ward! Where the devil did he get her?” Not that he was ashamed of Nella — far from it — but the encounter was inopportune and undesired.

And finally, out on the sidewalk, young Linwood calmly invited himself to Greenhedge for the coming week-end. He would arrive early Saturday afternoon, he declared, if it would be no inconvenience; and Canby, perforce, assured him it would not.

Alone again with Nella, bad humor was out of the question. He suggested a matinée. She clapped her hands in delight; so he telephoned to Greenhedge that they would not be home for dinner, and got tickets to something on Broadway. Her first visit to a theater other than movies. Nella was entranced; and Canby, with his eyes on her rather than on the stage, was entranced also. In the third act, when the heroine defied her wicked father, the brutal detective and the world in general, Canby felt Nella’s little hand creeping into his; his fingers closed over the trembling captive and held it fast till the curtain fell. For that twenty minutes he scarcely breathed.

After it was over they started for home, stopping at a roadhouse not far beyond Yonkers for dinner. The night was cool and pleasant when they resumed their journey two hours later; a crescent moon hung in the clear sky with its attendant twinkling stars, and the smell of the harvest was in the air. Nella, tired out from her unusual day, let Canby have the wheel; she seemed thoughtful and talked scarcely at all.

Whey they arrived at Greenhedge, a little after ten, everything was quiet. The gardener had waited up to put the car away, and in the house they found Mrs. Wheeler, who replied to Canby’s inquiry with the information that Mr. Linwood had gone to bed half an hour before. She added, turning to the girl:

“Your things came, Miss Nella.”

“No! Really? So soon? Where are they?”

“Upstairs, in your room.”

“Oh! Come, I must show you!”

She took Canby by the hand and half dragged him to the stairs. He protested that it was late, that she was tired and should rest, that it could wait till morning, but she wouldn’t listen to him. At the door of her room, however, she suddenly halted.

“You stay here a minute,” she commanded, and went in alone, leaving him there in the dark hall. He kicked his heels while the minute lengthened into five, ten; and finally he rapped on the door.

“All right, you may come,” her voice sounded from within; and he turned the knob and entered.

The room was flooded with light, so that the contrast with the hall blinded him for a moment. Then he looked at Nella. She stood in the middle of the room with Circe’s smile on her lips and a laughing light in her blue eyes. That was as far as Canby got in detail; he had an impression of a smart blue frock, entrancing little slippers and a drooping, lacy hat that framed her piquant face with loveliness. He looked, and caught his breath.