Ladies of Chance

Chapter 4

It was an unusual tea in a lot of ways. Any afternoon tea would seem unusual to me, of course. But I suppose that on the surface, Mrs. Axelrod’s tea wasn’t any different from hundreds of such gatherings of people who don’t know what else to do with themselves.

I was looking for beneath-the-surface stuff. The sort of thing a man wouldn’t notice unless he was on the look-out for it.

Dolly had inadvertently let the hint slip the night before, and I made her promise to take me. She wasn’t sure, but she had heard two or three things from different women that made her believe Mrs. Axelrod’s home was being used as a gathering place where recruiters for the gambling syndicate got in touch with their victims.

I’ll say one thing for the syndicate, it chose swanky surroundings to make its pick-ups.

Dolly and I rolled up to the island estate in a taxi promptly at four o’clock. Dolly was wearing a filmy dress that trailed out behind her, and I had on striped trousers and a cutaway — bought on Flagler Street that morning from a nance of a clerk who assured me it was the correct attire for an afternoon tea. I had to take his word for it.

I had visited joints like the Axelrod place before, but never as a tea guest. We drove across an arch bridge to reach the island, along a curving drive to a thick hedge of purple bougainvillea, turned in through massed flower beds to what looked like the entrance to an ancient Grecian temple.

It was the Axelrod residence. I got out of the cab feeling that something was wrong somewhere. These people couldn’t be mixed up in what I was looking for.

The feeling persisted while Dolly and I were handed over from a uniformed doorman to what I suppose was a butler and then to a fat lady in a lace dress with diamonds who was receiving at the door.

That was Mrs. Axelrod. She looked through us and we went past her into a cathedral-like room filled with an assortment of women and demi-men drinking everything in God’s world except tea.

They stood and sat about in little groups of from two to ten, flooding into the conservatory and spilling over into the gardens in the rear that were surrounded by a high wall.

The Axelrod liquor bill must run into heavy dough if they have many teas. There were a dozen or more servants circulating with trays of drinkables. Although there were no signs to that effect, there was a spirit of “If We Don’t Have What You Want — Ask For It” about the servants and their eagerness to see that no one was left thirsty.

That’s the first off-color hint I got. It seemed to me that the Axelrods were being a little bit freer with their liquor than wealthy people are ordinarily. Somehow, an atmosphere of persuasive bonhommie hung over the gathering, or was being rapidly fostered by the dizzying selection of drinks passing around. It was incongruous in that chastely beautiful setting, like watching a lorgnetted dowager get tipsy and let her hair down. Hard to describe, but that’s the feeling I had as Dolly and I moved among them.

I came on a tray of side-cars and put three down the hatch in rapid succession while Dolly was toying with a frothy concoction that stunk of absinthe and chartreuse.

A foppy little mustache with a mincing footed thing in trousers came up as I was setting my third glass down. He was sporting a jewelled cigarette holder half a foot long and murmured, “Gad, what a beastly crush.” His lips looked suspiciously more colorful than nature generally touches the lips of men. I started to tell him to go on and roll his hoop when I recalled my cutaway and striped trousers. It wasn’t his fault if I looked like a pal of his or something.

I grabbed another side-car and carried it with me before he began pawing my hand.

Dolly had faded out of the picture somewhere. I was surrounded by chattering femmes, many of them horse-faced, some not too old and so-so on looks, with here and there a radiant young thing out of place in the gathering.

I kept my eyes and ears open without getting to first base. No one seemed to be talking about anything more important than Mrs. Van De Water’s latest affair with her newest footman. I overheard some long-shot talk about the races, but when I edged in it wasn’t anything more than a couple of dames who had taken a licking at Hialeah last month.

I wandered through the conservatory and into the garden, fortifying myself with a couple more side-cars enroute. The air was clear in the garden, and there was an unobstructed view across the bay to Miami. I was contemplating it with some pleasure when a quiet voice said, behind me:

“Bridge is a fascinating game... but I find it rather dull unless one plays for stakes high enough to provide interest.”

“And my dear Mrs. Travers...” The second voice was twangy and shrill, “...no one in Miami dares to risk more than a cent or so a point.”

“Have you found it so?”

“Decidedly, I have. Now, in Detroit we used to have the most exciting games...”

“There are exciting games here if one knows where to go.” Mrs. Travers spoke with intriguing casualness.

“Truly?”

“Oh, yes, indeed.”

“I do wish I could discover something like that. I’ve been so frightfully bored this last month.”

I slowly turned away from a contemplation of the bay. Two women were seated on a bench behind me. One was tall, with a slender, well-put-together figure. She wasn’t any chicken and had been around. Quietly dressed in lustrous gray, with nice hands and feet. The other woman was short, bony, and flat-nosed. She looked as though her face might have been lifted by a surgeon who didn’t know his business. She had on too much jewelry and her petticoat showed.

The tall, slender woman was speaking: “I can help you... if you’d really like to know where to go.”

“Would you?”

“Let me take your telephone number. I’ll make inquiries tonight and give you a ring tomorrow.”

“I’ll be so grateful, Mrs. Travers.”

“No trouble at all,” Mrs. Travers murmured. She wrote down the phone number with a tiny gold pencil taken from her purse. I moved away and found another tray of side-cars not in use.

The flat-nosed woman went back to the conservatory after a little more conversation. Mrs. Travers remained on the bench. I picked up two side-cars and went across the lawn to her.

She didn’t see me coming. She was sitting with her hands folded in her lap, staring across Biscayne Bay as I had been doing a few moments ago, oblivious to everything about her.

She had nice lips but her eyes were hard. I sat down beside her and held out a glass. “You look like a woman with a secret sorrow. Let’s drown them together.”

I didn’t startle her. She withdrew her eyes from the bay and looked at me. Speculatively, with cool amusement. She took the glass.

“Thanks,” she murmured.

“This is my lucky day,” I told her.

“So?” Long lashes veiled her eyes as she set the glass down.

“I’ve had six of these.” I gestured toward my empty glass. “Side-cars make me impetuous. Do you mind?”

She turned back to me and lifted long lashes to give me a glimpse into the smouldering depths of eyes I had first thought cold and hard. “I rather think I like impetuous young men.”

There it was. We were off to the races. I got the tray of drinks and brought them over to the bench.

She was Lucile Travers, divorced.

“You’re not a part of this,” I told her. “Any more than I am. You and I could raise a lot of hell if we set our minds to it.”

She raised her eyebrows and set down her fourth cocktail glass empty.

“Listen, darling.” I had hold of her hand. My voice quivered a little with weariness after my set-to with Dolly the night before. “I can go for you in a big way,” I went on, setting myself to the job. “What say we drift away from here where we can be alone?”

Her eyes narrowed, widened as she caught in her breath sharply. The garden was full of people, but there were only the two of us.

“I’d love it.” She spoke the words lingeringly. “I have seen two or three women I must speak to first. Let me attend to that...”

“I’ll sit here,” I promised.

She stood up, sinewy and straight. Touched my hand and moved away. I lifted another glass and watched her intercept a young girl coming from the conservatory. One of those radiant young things whom I had thought didn’t belong at this tea.

The late sun touched her brown hair with a glint of gold. They stood ten feet from me and talked. The girl was less than an inch shorter than Lucile. Her gray eyes were looking past Lucile at me as she talked.

I stared at her — without pretending not to. She wasn’t beautiful, but she had something. One look told me she was a girl I could go for. Yes, and damn it, one look told me she felt exactly what I felt.

That’s all there was to it. Her eyes were fixed on mine all the time she was talking to Lucile. I put down another side-car and told myself over and over that I mustn’t get sidetracked from the main issue. I could imagine what Lucile was saying to her. I looked away from the girl while I thought of her walking into the same trap Dolly was in — and June Benton had been in.

That was almost too much. Then she and Lucile were walking away together. I sat there and cursed for thirty consecutive minutes. Then Lucile came back.

She was through, ready to beat it. She had her own roadster there. The sun had vanished and swift darkness came on.

We got out without seeing Dolly or Mrs. Axelrod. I crawled into the driver’s seat and Lucile pressed herself very close beside me. She gave me the name of a middle-class Miami hotel and I started driving.