Маленькая хозяйка большого дома / The Little Lady Of The Big House

8

“Cigars! And boxes of candy, gloves, or anything,” Ernestine said, smiling.

“But I don’t know Mrs. Forrest’s records, either,” Graham protested. “However, if in five minutes—”

“Ten minutes,” Paula said, “and to start from opposite ends of the pool. Is that fair? If you touch me, you win.”

Graham looked his hostess over with secret approval. She was clad, not in the single white silk slip, but in a coquettish suit of changeable light blue and green silk—almost the color of the pool; the skirt slightly above the knees; with long stockings, and tiny bathing shoes. On her head was a jaunty swimming cap.

Graham walked down to the other end of the hundred-and-fifty-foot pool.

“Paula, you’ll be caught for sure,” Dick warned. “Evan Graham is a real fish man. I saw the rock he dived from at Huahoa. That was after his time, and after the death of Queen Nomare. He was only a youngster—twenty-two. And he did it. So, get ready!”

“It’s almost a shame to play tricks on so reputable swimmer,” Paula said while both waited the signal.

“He may get you before you can turn the trick[55],” Dick warned again.

“All OK,” one of Dick’s guest, Bert, assured. “I went in myself. The pipe is working. There’s plenty of air.”

“Ready!” Dick called. “Go!”

Paula climbed the scaffold and jumped into the water. The moment she entered the water, Graham swung out on the platform and waited. He was confident that he could outspeed her, and his dive entered him in the water twenty feet beyond her entrance.

But at the instant he was in, Dick dipped two flat rocks into the water and struck them together. This was the signal for Paula to change her course. Graham heard the noise and wondered. He swam to the far end at high speed. He pulled himself out and watched the surface of the pool. Little Lady was drawing herself out of the pool at the other end.

Again he ran down the side of the tank, and again she climbed the scaffold. She swam toward the west side of the pool. They almost were in the air at the same time. In the water and under it, he could feel the agitation left by her progress; but the water was so dark he could see nothing.

When he touched the side of the pool he came up. Paula was not in sight. He drew himself out, panting, and stood ready to dive in at the first sign of her. But there were no signs.

“Seven minutes!” said Rita, Ernestine’s sister. “And a half! … Eight! … And a half!”

But they saw no Paula Forrest. Strangely, Graham saw no alarm on the faces of the others.

“She’s been under water over two minutes, and you’re all too calm about it,” he said. “I’ve still a minute—maybe I don’t lose,” he added quickly, as he stepped into the pool.

As he went down he turned over and explored the cement wall of the pool with his hands. Midway, possibly ten feet under the surface, his hands encountered an opening in the wall. He boldly entered. There was a pipe and at the end of it a little room, and he could stand up.

His fingers touched a cool smooth arm that shrank convulsively at contact while the possessor of it cried sharply. He held on tightly and began to laugh, and Paula laughed with him.

“You frightened me when you touched me,” she said. “You came without a sound, and I was a thousand miles away, dreaming …”

“What?” Graham asked.

“Well, honestly, I had just got an idea for a gown. And the only jewellery, a ring—one enormous ruby that Dick gave me years ago when we sailed together.”

“Is there anything you don’t do?” he laughed.

She joined with him.

“Who told you about the pipe?” she next asked.

“No one. I just understood.”

“It was Dick’s idea. You will find him full of whimsies. He liked to scare old ladies into fits by stepping off into the pool with their sons or grandsons and hiding away in here.”

“Well?—going to stay there all night?” Bert’s voice came down the pipe.

“It’s time to go back,” Paula suggested. “It’s not the coziest place in the world. Shall I go first?”

“By all means—and I’ll be right behind.”

“Somebody told you,” was Bert’s prompt accusal, when Graham rose to the surface of the pool and climbed out.

“And you were the scoundrel who rapped stone under water,” Graham said. “It was a crooked game[56], a conspiracy, and a felony. It’s a case for the district attorney.”

“But you won,” Ernestine cried.

“I certainly did, and, therefore, I shall not prosecute you, nor any one of your crooked gang—if the bets are paid promptly. Let me see—you owe me a box of cigars—”

“One cigar, sir!”

“A box! A box!”