The Flesh of the Orchid

Chapter Six

On a dull, airless afternoon, a month after the death of Steve Larson, a battered Cadillac swept up the drive and came to rest before the front door of the house on Grass Hill.

Veda, who had been watching from a window for the past half-hour, came quickly out on to the terrace and ran to meet Magarth as he climbed from the car.

‘Hello, honey,’ he said, pulled her to him and kissed her. ‘I’ve got it all fixed up for her, and it’s been some job.’ He linked his arm through hers and walked with her into the house. ‘How has she been?’

‘Just the same,’ Veda returned unhappily. ‘You’d never believe it was the same girl, Phil. She’s grown so hard and strange. She rather frightens me.’

‘That’s bad. Does she still sit around brooding and doing nothing?’ Magarth asked, taking off his hat and coat and following Veda into the sitting-room.

‘Yes, and I can’t interest her in anything. I tried to keep the newspapers from her, but she managed to get hold of them, so she knows now about herself. It’s awful, Phil. After she read the papers she locked herself in her room, and I heard her pacing up and down for hours. I’ve tried to persuade her to confide in me, but she so obviously wants to be left alone that I haven’t the heart to worry her.’

‘She was bound to find out sooner or later, but it’s bad she had to find out through the papers. They didn’t pull any punches,’ Magarth said, frowning. ‘Well, I’ve fixed everything up for her now. The money’s hers. She’ll have about four million bucks, which isn’t so bad. Hartman has been helping himself, but we were in time to save the bulk of it.’

‘Any news of him?’

‘He’s skipped. He knew the game was up when we began the investigation. The Federal agents are after him, but I bet he’s out of the country by now. Well, I’d better go up and see her.’

‘Now she has her freedom and her money I have a feeling she plans to leave us,’ Veda said. ‘I do hope she won’t go just yet. Will you try to persuade her to stay a little longer? She’s not fit to be on her own, and she has no friends and nowhere to go. Do be firm with her, Phil.’

‘I’ll do my best, but I have no hold on her. She’s free to do what she likes now, you know.’

‘Well, do try. It’d worry me to death to think of her on her own with all that money and no one to advise her.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Magarth returned. ‘Has Dr. Kober seen her?’

‘Only for a few minutes. He’s uneasy about her and suspects bone pressure after that truck accident, but she refused to be examined. Dr. Travers has also been here, but I wouldn’t let him see her. He says he won’t be responsible for what may happen if she is allowed to be free. I told him I didn’t believe she’s dangerous. But I do think she’s become a little queer, Phil. She’s not a bit like she was when we first saw her.’

‘I’ll go up.’

He found Carol alone in her big, restful room. She was sitting by the window, and she didn’t turn her head as he came in. There was a cold stillness about her that made Magarth uneasy. He pulled up a chair near her, sat down and said with forced brightness: ‘I have good news for you, Carol. You’re a rich young woman now.’

At the sound of his voice she gave a little start, turned. Her large green eyes stared mechanically at him.

‘I didn’t hear you come in,’ she said in a flat, hard voice. ‘Did you say good news?’

Magarth gave her a quick searching glance. The changeless stillness on her white face and the icy blankness in her eyes perplexed and worried him.

‘Yes, very good news. The money is now in your name. I have all the papers with me. Would you like to go through them with me?’

She shook her head.

‘Oh, no,’ she said emphatically, paused, then went on: ‘You say I’m rich? How much is there?’

‘Four million dollars. It is a lot of money.’

Her mouth tightened.

‘Yes,’ she said, laced her slim fingers and stared out of the window. There was a bitter, brooding look in her eyes now, and she remained so still and silent that Magarth said quietly: ‘Are you pleased?’

‘I’ve been reading about myself in the papers,’ she said abruptly. ‘It’s not pretty reading.’

‘Now, look, Carol, you mustn’t believe everything you read in the newspapers...’ he began, but she silenced him with a movement of her hand.

‘I’ve learned things about myself,’ she said, still staring out of the window. ‘I am insane. That was news to me. I am also the daughter of a homicidal degenerate who caused the death of my mother. I have been in an asylum for three years, and if it wasn’t for the law of this State I’d be there now.’ She suddenly clenched her hands. ‘I’m dangerous. They call me the homicidal redhead. They write of my love for Steve, and say that, if he had lived, I could never have married him. They describe that as a lunatic’s tragic love affair—’

She broke off, bit down on her lip and the knuckles of her hands showed white.

‘Please, Carol,’ Magarth said. ‘Don’t torture yourself like this.’

‘But you tell me you have good news... that I’m worth four million dollars, and you ask me if I’m pleased. Yes, I am; very, very pleased,’ and she laughed, a cold bitter laugh that sent a chill up Magarth’s spine.

‘You mustn’t go on like this,’ he said firmly. ‘It’ll get you nowhere. Veda and I want to help you—’

She turned, caught hold of his wrist.

‘Aren’t you afraid I’ll do something evil to you?’ she demanded. ‘They say I am dangerous... like my father. Do you know what they say of my father? It’s here in the paper. I’ll read it to you.’ She picked up a creased and badly folded newspaper that was lying on the floor by her side. ‘This is what they say:

‘Stop,’ Magarth said sharply. ‘I don’t want to listen to any more of that. Carol, do be sensible. Where is all this getting you?’

She dropped the newspaper with a little shudder.

‘And he was my father... I have his blood in my veins. You talk about helping me. How can you help me? How can anyone help me with a heritage like that?’ She got to her feet and began to pace up and down. ‘No... please don’t say anything. I know you mean to be kind. I’m very grateful to you both. But now...’ She paused, looked at him from under her eyelids. There was a cold menace in her stillness that startled Magarth. ‘Now I must be alone. Perhaps I am dangerous... as my father was. Do you think I want to endanger the lives of people like you and Veda?’

‘But this is nonsense, Carol,’ Magarth said sharply. ‘You have been with us for more than a month, and nothing has happened. It only makes things worse if you—’

‘I have made up my mind,’ Carol said, interrupting him. ‘I leave here tomorrow. But before I go there are things I want you to do.’

‘But you mustn’t go... not yet, anyway,’ Magarth protested. ‘You’re still suffering from shock...’

She made a quick, angry gesture of impatience and the right side of her mouth began to twitch.

‘I have made my plans and no one will stop me,’ she said, a curious grating note in her voice. ‘For a month I have sat here making plans. I would have gone sooner if I had money. Now I am ready to go.’

Magarth saw it was useless to argue with her. She was in an implacable mood, and, looking at her, he realized that Dr. Travers had some foundation when he said she was dangerous.

‘But where are you going?’ he asked. ‘You have no friends, except Veda and I. You have no home. You can’t go off into the blue, you know.’

Again she made the angry, impatient gesture.

‘We are wasting time. Will you take over my affairs? I know nothing about money and I don’t want to know anything about it. I have talked with the lawyer. He tells me I should appoint someone to look after my investments and to represent me. My grandfather had a number of business activities that have come to me. Will you represent me?’

Magarth was startled.

‘I’ll gladly do what I can,’ he said, ‘but I have my other work—’

‘You will be well paid. I have made all the arrangements with the lawyer,’ she went on in the same cold, impersonal voice. ‘You can give up your newspaper work. You and Veda can marry. You want to marry her, don’t you?’

‘I guess so,’ Magarth said, ran his fingers through his hair. The turn of the conversation embarrassed him.

‘Then you will see my lawyer? You’ll discuss it with him?’

He hesitated a moment, then nodded.

‘All right,’ he said, added, ‘but what do you intend to do?’

‘When can I have some money?’ she asked abruptly, ignoring his question.

‘As soon as you like... now, if you want it.’

‘Yes, now. I want two thousand dollars, and I want you to arrange that I can draw cash anywhere in the country at a moment’s notice. I want you to buy me a car and have it here by tomorrow morning. Go and see the lawyer and bring me the necessary papers to sign so you can take over my affairs immediately. I wish to leave here tomorrow morning.’

‘Won’t you wait a little longer?’ he asked. ‘You’ll be all alone...’

A sudden glow like fever came into her cheeks.

‘Please do what I say or I must find someone else,’ she said with raised voice. ‘Where I am going and what I intend to do is my affair.’

Magarth shrugged.

‘All right,’ he said unhappily, got to his feet. ‘I’ll do it.’

She put her hand on his arm, and for a moment the hardness in her eyes softened.

‘You are very kind,’ she said in a low tone. ‘Don’t think I’m ungrateful. I don’t know what I should have done without you and Veda. I hope you will both be very happy.’

‘That’s O.K.,’ he said, and managed to smile. ‘You know how I feel about you. I do wish you’d think again. Veda and I want you to stay with us. I don’t know what you are planning to do, but I have a hunch nothing good will come of it...’

‘I have made up my mind,’ she said quietly and turned away. ‘Will you leave me now? Will you please tell Veda that I am leaving tomorrow morning? I don’t want to see anyone tonight.’

Magarth made a final appeal.

‘Won’t you take me into your confidence, Carol?’ he pleaded. ‘I might be able to help you. Why do you insist on going off on your own, when you have two people who would do anything for you? Tell me what you plan to do, and I’ll help you.’

She shook her head.

‘No one can help me,’ she said. ‘What I have to do can only be done by myself, and alone. Please leave me now.’

‘All right,’ Magarth said, admitting defeat, and he crossed to the door.

When he had gone Carol went to the window and sat down. She remained motionless for some moments, her cold, clenched hands pressing against her temples.

‘Wherever you are, Steve, my darling, love me,’ she said softly. ‘I am so lonely and afraid, but I will find them. They will not escape me, and I will make them pay for what they did to you. I will be as ruthless and as cruel to them as they were to us. I have nothing left to live for but to make them pay.’

She was still sitting before the window when the pale autumn light faded, and rain, which had been threatening all the afternoon, began to fall.

Rain was still falling the next day, and dirty grey clouds, lying low on the hills, formed belts of mist that brought darkness to the late afternoon.

A black Chrysler coupe, its fenders splashed with mud, nosed its way up the steeply rising by-road which led to the old plantation house so recently occupied by Tex Sherill.

Carol stopped the car before the crumbling porch, got out and stood for a moment while she surveyed the dark building for any sign of life.

The rain dripped dismally from the eaves on to the wooden stoop and made a soft whispering sound. The blank face of the house was tight in darkness, and Carol wondered if it were empty.

She mounted the wooden steps and tried the door-handle. The door was locked. She rapped with her knuckles on the hard panel and waited. She had to rap several times before she heard a faint step on the other side of the door. She rapped again insistently, and the voice of Miss Lolly came through the letterbox, ‘Who is it?’

‘Carol Blandish. I want to speak to you.’

She heard Miss Lolly catch her breath, then the door opened a few inches, stopped as the chain on the inside prevented it opening further.

‘Why have you come back?’ Miss Lolly asked out of the darkness.

‘I want to talk to you,’ Carol said, leaning against the door-post and speaking close to the narrow opening.

‘But you can’t come in,’ Miss Lolly said. ‘I want to be left alone.’

‘You helped me before. I was hoping you would help me now. I am looking for the Sullivans.’

Miss Lolly drew in a sharp breath.

‘What do you want with them?’ she asked fiercely. ‘They are hunting for you, you little fool. Leave them alone!’

‘They shot my lover,’ Carol said in her hard flat voice. ‘Do you think I’m going to leave them alone after that?’

‘Oh!’ There was a moment’s silence. ‘Revenge?’ Miss Lolly asked, a new and eager note in her voice. ‘Is that what you want?’

‘I want to find them,’ Carol said.

The chain grated, then the door opened.

‘Come in,’ Miss Lolly said out of the darkness. ‘I am alone here now. Mr. Sherill left soon after you did.’

Carol followed her down the long dark passage into the back room, where a lamp burned brightly on the table. The room was full of old, shabby furniture, and it was not easy to move about without touching something.

Miss Lolly kept in the shadows. Carol could see her big tragic eyes looking at her. Around her throat was twisted a white scarf, hiding her beard.

‘Sit down,’ Miss Lolly said. ‘So you are looking for them? If I were younger I would look for them too.’

Carol opened her light dust-coat, pulled off her close-fitting hat. She shook out her hair with a quick movement of her head.

‘Do you know where they are?’ she asked as she sat down.

‘But what can you do to them if you do find them?’ Miss Lolly said, a note of despair in her voice. ‘What could I do? They are so cunning, so quick, so strong. No one can do anything to them.’

Carol turned her head, and for a moment the two women looked at each other. Miss Lolly was startled to see the hard, bitter expression on Carol’s face, and the icy bleakness of her eyes.

‘I will make them pay,’ Carol said softly, ‘no matter how cunning and quick and strong they are. I will make them pay if it takes me the rest of my life. I have nothing else to live for.’

Miss Lolly nodded, and her fingers touched the scarf at her throat.

‘I feel like that too,’ she said, and two tears ran out of her eyes and dropped on to her hand. ‘You see, Max cut off my beard.’

Carol didn’t move nor did her expression change.

‘Why did he do that?’ she asked.

‘Because I let you go,’ Miss Lolly said, clasping her hands. ‘I would rather they had killed me. I’m a vain old woman, my dear: it may seem horrible to you, but I loved my beard. I have had it a long time.’

‘Tell me what happened.’

Miss Lolly drew up a chair, again adjusted the scarf round her chin, sat down. She put out a hand hopefully, but Carol drew away, her face cold and hard.

‘Tell me,’ she repeated.

‘They came back two days after you had gone. Frank remained in the car and Max came in here. I was a little frightened, but I sat where you are sitting now and waited to see what he would do to me. He seemed to know you had gone, for he didn’t ask for you. He asked for Mr. Sherill, and I told him he had left here. He stood looking at me for a long time, then he asked why I hadn’t gone too, and I told him there was nowhere for me to go.’ Miss Lolly fidgeted with her scarf, then went on after a long pause: ‘He hit me over the head, and later when I came to they had gone. He had cut off my beard. You may remember it?’ She looked wistfully at Carol. ‘It was a very beautiful beard, and he burnt it. He’s a devil,’ she said, raising her voice. ‘He knew nothing would give me more pain than that.’

‘And Frank?’ Carol asked.

‘He remained in the car,’ Miss Lolly said, looking bewildered. ‘I don’t know why, for he is cruel, and it is not like him to keep away when someone is going to be hurt, but he remained in the car.’

Carol smiled. Looking at her, Miss Lolly felt a chill run down her spine.

‘He stayed in the car because he is blind,’ Carol said. ‘I blinded him after he had killed Steve.’

Miss Lolly remained still. She was surprised that she felt a shocked kind of pity for Frank.

‘Blind? I wouldn’t wish anyone to be blind,’ she said.

Carol made an impatient movement.

‘Where are they?’ she asked, a harsh note creeping into her voice. ‘If you know, tell me, but don’t waste my time. Every moment I remain here means they are getting further away from me. Where are they?’

Miss Lolly shrank back, alarmed at the suppressed venom in the green eyes.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘but they had a room upstairs where they kept their things. They took everything when they left except a photograph which had slipped between the floorboards. That may tell you something.’

‘Where is it?’ Carol demanded.

‘I have it here. I was looking at it when you knocked.’ Miss Lolly opened a drawer, took out a photograph, laid it on the table under the white light of the lamp.

Carol bent over it.

It was a photograph of a girl whose dark hair was parted in the middle; the broad white line between the parting was pronounced. It was a curious face: a little coarse, full-lipped, wide-eyed and fleshy. There was something magnetic about it: sensual, animal quality; an uncontrolled wantonness; a badness that was scarcely concealed by the veneer of polished sophistication. Under the brazenly skimpy swim-suit she wore was a shape to set a man crazy. Across the bottom of the photograph, scrawled in white ink and in a big sprawling hand, was the inscription: To darling Frank from Linda.

Without change of expression, Carol turned the photograph, read the name of the photographer stamped on the back: Kenneth Carr, 3971 Main Street, Santo Rio. Then she once more turned the photograph to study the girl’s face.

Miss Lolly watched her closely.

‘She is the kind of woman a man wouldn’t forget easily,’ she said, leaning forward to peer over Carol’s shoulder. ‘She’s bad, but attractive. A man would return to her again and again. Find her, and I think you will find Frank.’

‘Yes,’ Carol said.

Santo Rio is a small, compact little town on the Pacific Coast: a millionaire’s playground. It has no industry unless you call every form of lavish and luxurious entertainment an industry; in which case Santo Rio’s industry is a thriving one. The main bulk of its citizens earn their living by entertaining the rich visitors who come in their thousands to Santo Rio all the year round. Gambling, racing, yachting, dancing, ordinary and extraordinary forms of vice, night clubs, theatres, cinemas and so on employ those people who are not smart enough to stand on their own feet and run their own rackets.

The smart ones — of whom Eddie Regan was a leading member — make a comfortable living out of blackmail, con tricks, being gigolos or practising any other nefarious racket that brings in easy money.

Eddie Regan was tall, wide and handsome. He had black curly hair, a tanned complexion, excellent teeth as white as orange pith, and sparkling blue eyes that proved irresistible to rich, elderly women who came to Santo Rio to kick over the traces, probably for the last time.

Eddie made a reasonable income as a dancing partner to these elderly women, and supplemented this income from time to time by blackmailing them when they were foolish enough (as they often were) to furnish him with evidence which they would be reluctant for their husbands to see.

Making love to elderly women was not Eddie’s idea of a good time, but he was smart enough to realize his talents were only suited to such a career, and so, being a man of considerable vitality, he consoled himself with youthful beauty in his off-duty hours.

His present consolation was Linda Lee, the subject of the photograph that had been overlooked by the Sullivans when they had packed up and left the old plantation house for good.

Eddie had come upon Linda quite by chance. He had been lounging on the beach one afternoon keeping an eye open for any elderly woman who happened to look lonely when he observed Linda coming out of the sea for a sun bath. Now, Linda had the kind of figure that looked its best in a wet swim-suit: anyway, Eddie thought so, and he was, in his way, an expert on such matters. Elderly women were immediately banished from his mind as he gave his undivided attention to the sensational torso that was moving his way.

Eddie had seen nothing like it before, and in his long life of amorous experiences he had seen many pleasing sights. Without hesitation he decided it was imperative that he should become closer acquainted with this torso, and as soon as its dark-haired owner had settled down on a beach wrap and handed herself over to the hot rays of the sun, he crossed the strip of sand dividing them and sat down by her side.

Linda was quite pleased to have company. Maybe Eddie’s handsome face and sunburnt, manly chest had something to do with it, but whatever it was, she received his advances graciously, and in a minute or so they had become old friends: in under an hour they were lovers. -That was the way Eddie liked his women: smooth, polished, quick and willing.

Eddie, who was a cynic, fully expected that by the end of the week Linda’s charms would have palled; as the charms of so many other young women who had also been quick and willing had palled in the past. But, instead, he found himself thinking about Linda night and day; neglecting his work to be with her; and even passing up a golden opportunity to levy a little blackmail just to take her out to an expensive night club.

Their association had now lasted three weeks, and so far as Eddie was concerned he was eager and as amorous as the day the association first began. He was even willing to secure proprietary rights over Linda, a step he had avoided in the past as not only unnecessary, but as a direct menace to his freedom.

Linda, however, had no wish to lose her independence and freedom. Receiving Eddie every day and two or three nights a week as a lover was one thing; but Eddie as a complete lord and master, to say nothing of being a permanent lodger, was something else besides.

So Eddie was kept in check and was not allowed all the freedom he might wish. He was baffled by the luxurious standard by which Linda lived. She owned a charming little villa which boasted its own private beach and a small tropical garden which a negro gardener attended to with colourful and fertile results, and which was hidden away in a quiet secluded spot along the coastline.

The villa was furnished in style and comfort; the meals provided by the negro cook were excellent. The upkeep of such an establishment must have been considerable: where then did the money come from? Where did the money come from to keep Linda supplied with the smartest clothes, the smartest shoes and the smartest hats to be seen in Santo Rio? Where did the money come from that bought the glittering blue Road Master Buick in which Linda drove around town or out into the country when the spirit moved her?

Linda had explained away her wealth as a legacy received from an uncle who had made a fortune in oil. But Eddie was a little too smart to believe that, although he allowed her to think he accepted the story. Linda was just not the type to have an uncle in oil.

The obvious explanation never occurred to him. He was confident that Linda could be in love only with him. He decided that Linda had devised some new kind of racket to keep herself in luxury, and he was curious to discover what the racket was.

But the obvious explanation was the answer. Linda had a lover, who was so besotted by her that he had set her up in this magnificent luxury although he seldom saw her, as his business took him all over the country. But never for a moment did he forget her, nor, even when associating with other women, did he cease to imagine that it was Linda he held in his arms.

Linda was quite content to let this man supply her with money, to keep her in luxury and to demand so little of her. She thought him a bore and a ghastly little sensualist (as he was), but far too useful to break with. The fact that he so seldom visited the villa (he saw her only four or five times during the year) more than compensated her for what she had to put up with when lie did make his visit. He was generous and wealthy, and in her opinion harmless, but here she made a serious error of judgment. But then she had never heard of the Sullivan brothers, and if she had she wouldn’t have believed that this fat-faced man she called Frank was one of the dreaded brothers. She might have been a little less careless and a little more faithful to him had she known this fact.

She had met Max once or twice and had taken a dislike to him. He was the only man she had ever met who was not influenced by her beauty and who had not looked a second time at her sensual and sensational figure.

Max had scared her. His eyes had the same glittering stillness as a snake’s; and Linda was terrified of snakes.

It is doubtful too whether Eddie would have been quite so enchanted with Linda had he known that she was the mistress of one of the Sullivan brothers. Eddie had heard a lot about the Sullivans, although he had never seen either of them. But what he had heard of them would have been quite sufficient to have cooled his ardour for Linda if he had learned the truth at the beginning of his whirlwind courtship. Now, however, he was rather far gone, and even the threat of the Sullivans might not have deterred him.

This day, then, on a hot, sunny afternoon, Eddie drove along Ocean Boulevard in his cream and scarlet roadster (a parting gift of silence from one of his elderly women friends) and felt that all was well with the world.

He made a dashing, handsome figure in his close-fitting white singlet and immaculate white flannel trousers. His big muscular arms, the colour of mahogany, were bare, his large smooth brown hands rested on the cream-coloured steering-wheel and his carefully manicured nails glittered in the sun.

He drove with a wide smile on his face because he was exceedingly proud of his big white teeth and he saw no reason why he should not show them. Many a female heart fluttered as lie drove along and many a female head turned to look after him. Eddie was aware of the sensation he caused and was gratified.

He arrived at Linda’s villa a few minutes after 3.30 and found Linda pottering in the garden, in which flowers of every hue and shade put technicolour to shame. Linda was wearing white duck slacks, red and white open-toed sandals over bare feet and scarlet toenails, a scarlet halter that, accurately speaking, should have been a size larger to conceal what it attempted to conceal, although Eddie found no fault with it, and on her pretty nose she wore a pair of red horn sunglasses with the lenses the size of doughnuts.

As she moved her curves jinked before her, and her smooth hips flowed like molten metal under her close-fitting slacks.

Eddie sprang from the car, ran across the lawn and jumped a flower-bed with athletic ease as she turned to greet him.

‘I was wondering if you were coming,’ she said in her carefully cultivated deep-throated drawl. ‘I thought it would be fun to go for a swim this afternoon.’

But Eddie had other ideas.

‘Not yet,’ he said firmly, and touched her wrist with his brown fingers and then moved them along her arm to her shoulders and behind her neck. ‘By six the water will be perfect. We’ll wait until six.’

She relaxed to the touch of his fingers. No one she had ever met had such an exciting touch as Eddie. His fingers seemed to emit sparks of electricity that flowed down her skin.

‘Then come inside and have tea,’ she said, linking her arm through his. ‘Would you like that?’

Eddie thought it was as good an excuse as any to get her into the house, and together they wandered into the cool, sun-screened lounge, which looked on to the garden through folding glass doors.

Linda took off her sunglasses and dropped on to the white, suede-covered divan with a little exclamation of pleasure. She raised her shapely brown arms above her head and regarded Eddie with a cool smile. She looked a little older than the photograph that had been left in the old plantation house; her eyes were harder and her lips not quite so ready to smile, although they smiled for Eddie; but then Eddie was favoured and he knew it.

‘Ring the bell, darling,’ she said, closing her eyes. ‘And they’ll bring tea. I’ve asked them to cut you some of those tricky little sandwiches you like so much — remember?’

But at the moment tricky little sandwiches were not of the slightest interest to Eddie. He stood over this voluptuous creature and experienced a sudden difficulty in breathing. Blood pounded in his ears and his heart raced uncomfortably.

‘I think we’ll skip tea,’ he said, and bending over her, caught her up in his arms and began to walk swiftly across the big room to the door.

Linda was worldly enough to realize that, unless she took immediate evasive action, she would miss her tea, so she began to kick and struggle, but Eddie had not developed his muscles for nothing, and he continued on his way without any considerable inconvenience, climbed the stairs, kicked open the door of Linda’s luxurious if over-ornate bedroom, and laid her, still struggling, on the bed.

‘Really, Eddie,’ she gasped as soon as she could get her breath, ‘you are the most disgusting man I have ever met. No! Don’t you dare touch me! You’re not always going to have your own way. I mean it this time! We’re going right back to the lounge, and we’re going to have tea, and then we’re going to have a bathe...’

Eddie drew the blue and white curtains across the windows without paying the slightest attention to this diatribe. Having satisfied himself that the room was now cloaked in a dimness that created a more intimate atmosphere, he returned in time to prevent Linda from getting off the bed.

‘Everything in its proper order,’ he said firmly. ‘Tea and a bathe later,’ and he took Linda in his arms with the intention of smothering her resistance with kisses, which, from experience, he was confident would quickly bring her to unconditional surrender.

But this afternoon Linda felt perverse, and had no inclination to submit to Eddie’s rough, violent wooing. She was getting a little tired of being taken for granted. Cave-men were all very well once in a while, but too much of that kind of thing was too great a strain on a girl’s nerves; so when Eddie, a confident gleam in his eyes, grabbed hold of her, she gave him a resounding box on his ears.

‘I said no!’ she told him angrily.

For a second or so Eddie sat staring at her, his big hands still gripping her back, his face still close to hers, but his eyes were no longer confident: they were angry and a little spiteful, and the desire in them was by no means checked.

‘So you want a fight, do you?’ he said. ‘Well, you’ve certainly come to the right guy if that’s what you want.’

Linda scrambled hastily off the bed and made a dart for the door. She had had one fight with Eddie in the early days of their tempestuous wooing, and the following morning found her not only covered with unsightly bruises but also feeling that she had been fed through a wringer. She had no desire to repeat the experience.

Eddie’s long arm shot out, grabbed her, jerked her across the bed.

‘Now, please, darling,’ Linda begged as she found herself helpless in his grip. ‘Please, darling, let me go. Don’t you dare hit me... you know how I bruise. Eddie! You’re not to... Oh! You beast! Oh! Oh! Eddie, stop it! The servants will hear you!’

A few moments later, bruised, smarting and breathless, she surrendered.

‘You are a devil, Eddie,’ she panted, digging her fingers into his hard, smooth shoulders. ‘You’ve hurt me... you’ve bruised me... but, damn you, I love you.’

He grinned down at her, ran his fingers through her thick hair, his finger-tips exploring the shape of her hard little skull.

Her arms strained him to her, and she crushed her mouth against his.

There was a long stillness in the room while they were caught up in the vortex of their passion. The hands of the little clock by the bedside moved forward, its blank face seeing nothing of what went on in the dim-lighted room. The evening sun slowly crept round the house and reflected on the blue and white curtains.

Eddie was the first to awake. He moved his head, stretched his thick arms luxuriously, sighed, opened his eyes. Then suddenly his stomach turned a somersault and his heart stopped beating for a split second and then began to race. A man was sitting on the foot of the bed, watching him.

For a full minute Eddie stared at this intruder, believing he was still asleep and dreaming. The man was a nightmare figure, dressed in black, whose white, lean, granite-hard face hung over Eddie like an apparition from a horror play.

Eddie clutched Linda, who woke with a start. Terror struck her speechless, for she instantly recognized the figure in black. She was so paralysed with fear that she could make no move to cover her nakedness, and lay still as a statue, her heart scarcely beating.

‘Tell your gigolo to get out of here,’ Max said softly. ‘I want to talk to you.’

The sound of Max’s voice broke the hypnotic spell that had gripped both Linda and Eddie.

Linda gave a horrified scream and snatched up a big cushion with which to cover herself. Eddie sat up with an oath, his eyes blazing with embarrassed fury, his great hands closed into fists; but that was as far as he got.

There was a flash of steel as a knife jumped into Max’s hand. He leaned forward and with incredible swiftness traced the point of the knife lightly down Eddie’s face, down his neck and chest to his stomach. It was as if a feather had touched Eddie, but instantly a thin line of blood appeared where the knife-point had touched him.

At the sight of the knife and the line of blood Eddie’s fury and courage oozed out of him like oil from a leaky can.

He was tough enough when it came to handling elderly rich women, and even to fighting with Linda, but cold steel made him sick to his stomach.

‘Don’t touch me!’ he gasped, his fine brown complexion turning to a muddy white. ‘I’m going... don’t touch me with that knife.’

‘Get out!’ Max said, his dead eyes fixed on Eddie’s terrified face.

‘Sure,’ Eddie spluttered, scrambled off the bed, huddled into his clothes. He had no thought for Linda and he didn’t even look her way. His one burning desire was to get away from this dangerous thug, and he couldn’t get away fast enough. ‘I’m going... just take it easy.’

Max leaned forward and wiped the blood from the knife off on to Linda’s thigh; as he did so he looked at her and his thin lips curled in contempt.

She shuddered, but made no move. The knife terrified her.

‘Don’t leave me, Eddie,’ she whimpered, but Eddie was already on his way; the door slammed behind him.

Max rose to his feet, put away his knife and picked up a silk wrap that was lying across a chair. He flung it at Linda.

‘Put it on, you whore,’ he said.

Utterly demoralized, Linda put on the wrap with trembling hands. This awful man was certain to tell Frank. Then what would Frank do? Kick her out? Would she have to go back to being a show-girl again? Lose all this luxury, her freedom, her car and her beautiful clothes? She felt so bad that when she had put on the wrap she slumped back on to the bed.

Max leaned against the wall. He had tilted his hat over his nose, and now he lit a cigarette, looking at her from over the flame of the match.

‘So you couldn’t take his money without cheating,’ he said contemptuously. ‘I warned him, but he’s a sucker for a bitch like you. Well, from now on it’s going to be different. From now on you’re going to earn your money.’

Linda flinched.

‘Don’t tell him,’ she implored, holding her wrap close to her. ‘It won’t ever happen again. I promise. Frank loves me. Why spoil his life?’

Max blew a long stream of tobacco smoke down his pinched nostrils.

‘You’re damn right it won’t happen again,’ he said. ‘And I’m not spoiling his life and I’m not telling him.’

Linda stared at him, began to control her trembling limbs.

‘I don’t trust you,’ she said. ‘I know meanness when I see it. You couldn’t keep quiet—’

‘Shut up!’ he returned. ‘He’s come home now for good. And you’re going to stay with him, do what he tells you, sleep with him when he feels that way, take him around, shave him, keep his clothes in order, read to him. You’re going to be always at his side to help him. You’re going to be his eyes.’

Linda thought he had gone crazy.

‘What do you mean — be his eyes? He has his own eyes, hasn’t he?’

Max smiled thinly. He crossed over to her, caught a handful of her hair in his fingers, dragged her head back. She made no effort to break his hold, but stared back at him, her eyes dark with terror.

‘And if you try any tricks I’ll fix you,’ he said. ‘I warn once, never twice. If you run away, if you’re unfaithful to him, I’ll find you wherever you are and I’ll burn his name across your face with acid.’ He released her and raising his hand he hit her heavily across her mouth, knocking her flat across the bed. ‘What he can see in a tramp like you I don’t know, but he was always a sucker. Well, he wants you, and he’s going to have you: there’s nothing else left for him.’

As he went to the door Linda sat up, her hand on her lips. He opened the door, went out on to the landing. She heard him call, ‘Frank; she’s waiting for you.’

She remained sitting on the bed, unable to move, staring at the open door, listening to a slow shuffling step on the stairs with growing horror.

Then Frank came in, his sightless eyes hidden behind black-lensed glasses, a stick in his hand guided him to the bed.

He looked sightlessly over the top of Linda’s head. There were pent-up desire, self-pity, urgent animal longing in his fat white face.

‘Hello, Linda,’ he said, his hand groping towards her. ‘I’ve come home.’

The next two weeks were nightmare weeks for Linda. Never, as long as she lived, would she forget them. She had no leisure from Frank’s incessant demands. When he wasn’t making mauling, hateful love to her, he was wanting to be read to, to be taken for rides in the car, to be waited on hand and foot. His blindness soured his already vicious temper and he vented his spleen on her. Now he could no longer see her beauty she quickly lost her influence over him. He refused to let her buy clothes (and in the past Linda never let a day pass without replenishing her already bursting wardrobe). ‘Wear what you’ve got,’ he would snarl. ‘I can’t see you in new things, so what the hell?’ Worse still, he controlled the money now, and became miserly, cutting down expenses, keeping Linda without a nickel.

She was driven to distraction, for she feared to leave him, knowing that Max was capable of carrying out his threat. She had no privacy and could not move a step without hearing the tap of his stick and the plaintive whine of his voice asking where she was.

She longed to see Eddie again, and poured out an account of her sufferings to him in long and hysterical letters.

Eddie was also suffering. He had not realized how crazy he was about Linda until their separation. Now that he dared not go near the villa he became moody, slept badly and thought continually of Linda’s charms. His racket and consequently his income suffered.

One afternoon, some sixteen days after Max’s dramatic appearance in Linda’s bedroom, Eddie was sitting in a drug store idling an hour away before he called on one of his elderly clients when he noticed a girl come in and sit on a stool not far from him.

It was a slack hour of the day, and Eddie and the girl were the only two people in the place. More from habit than interest, Eddie looked the girl over. She was shabbily but neatly dressed. Under a dowdy little hat a mass of raven black hair struggled for freedom. She wore horn spectacles, and in spite of her lack of make-up she was attractive. But Eddie had seen so many beautiful and glamorous women that such a poorly dressed, unsophisticated object was of no interest to him. He observed, however, that in spite of the shabby clothes, the girl had an exceptionally good figure, and her long, slender legs held his attention for a moment before he resumed reading his newspaper.

He heard the girl speaking to the soda-jerker, a little bald-headed guy whose name was Andrews and with whom Eddie was friendly.

‘I’m looking for part-time work,’ the girl said in a quiet, well-modulated voice. ‘You wouldn’t know anyone who wants a companion for the evening or someone to mind the children, would you?’

Andrews, who liked to help people when he could, swabbed down the counter, wrinkled his forehead and considered the question.

‘Can’t say I do,’ lie said at last. ‘Most folks around this little town don’t have children and don’t need companions. It’s a kind of gay little town, if you know what I mean.’

‘I’ve got a job,’ the girl explained as she stirred her coffee, ‘but it doesn’t pay too well and I thought something in the evening might help out.’

‘Yeah, I see how it is,’ Andrews said, scratched his head. ‘Well, I don’t know of anyone, but if I hear of something I’ll pass it on.’

‘Oh, will you?’ the girl said, brightening. ‘I should be very grateful. Mary Prentiss is the name. May I write it down? I live on East Street.’

Andrews found her a pencil and paper.

‘If there’s a blind person who needs a companion,’ the girl went on as she was writing, ‘I have had training with blind people—’

‘Sure, but there ain’t many blind people in Santo Rio. In fact, I don’t know any at all,’ Andrews said. ‘But I’ll keep my eyes open for you.’

Eddie watched her go, tipped his hat over his handsome nose and considered the idea that had suddenly entered his head. With a feeling of growing excitement he decided the idea was inspired.

‘Let’s have that dame’s name and address, Andy,’ he said, sliding off his stool. ‘I know a blind guy who’s aching for a little female society.’

At eleven o’clock the same evening Eddie found Linda waiting for him at the secluded and prearranged rendezvous, a quarter of a mile or so from the villa.

Their first wild, passionate greeting over, Eddie drew her down beside him on the sand and, holding her close, began to talk.

‘Now, listen, honey, we haven’t much time. That dope I sent you won’t keep him quiet for long, but long enough for me to tell you I’ve got an idea.’

‘I’ve been waiting for you to get an idea,’ Linda said, clasping his hands. ‘If I hadn’t been certain you’d have thought of something I think I would have killed myself.’

Eddie made sympathetic noises, although he was as sure as Linda was herself she would not have done anything as drastic as that.

‘We’ve both been through hell,’ he said, ‘but, although this idea isn’t the complete cure, it’ll help. I’ve found a girl who wants a job as a companion. You must persuade Frank that a change now and then will be good for him — a change of company, I mean. Persuade him to hire this girl to come in two or three evenings a week to read to him.’

Linda twisted round, her eyes stormy.

‘Do you call that a good idea?’ she demanded. ‘Where will it get me? Do you think he’ll let me out of his hearing even if he does have a companion?’

Eddie smiled down at her.

‘That’s where you’re kidding yourself, honey,’ he said. ‘You’re forgetting one thing: the guy’s blind. He can’t see how lovely you are, and his interest is going to flag unless you help him to keep the memory green, which, of course, you won’t. Sooner or later he’ll want to hear a new voice, to have someone different around no matter how crazy he is about you at the moment. I’ve talked to this girl. She’s got a good voice, although she’s not much to look at. And, more important still, she has a swell shape. (Not so good as yours, precious, but good enough.) I’ve given her the nudge that she might have to be more than a companion to this guy, but that she’ll be paid well. She didn’t bat an eyelid. I’ll bet you in a while Frank will want to be alone with her. From what you’ve told me about him he won’t be content to sit and listen to a girl reading to him every evening. He’ll want to make a pass at her, and you’ll be in the way. Soon he’ll be suggesting you take a walk, or do a movie or something, and with a lot of persuasion you’ll go.’ He pressed her to him. ‘And you’ll find me waiting right here for you whenever you can get away. Now, don’t interrupt. Let me finish. It’ll take time, but there’s no other way round it. We don’t want this guy Max shoving his oar in. He scares me. I don’t scare easily,’ Eddie added, not wanting her to think he was yellow, ‘but when a guy uses a sticker the way he does, I’m scared and I stay scared. Once we get Frank used to the idea, we can find him any amount of girls to keep him amused. It’ll cost dough, but right now I’m making plenty, and to get you to myself even for a day is worth all the money in the world. In a couple of months, if you play your hand right, don’t let him get near you; snarl and snap at him, he’ll be glad to be rid of you. Then you and me can get out of this burg without Max turning sour. How do you like it?’

Linda turned it over in her mind. She was sufficiently stupid to dislike the idea of setting up a rival in her home. There was a dog-in-the-manger streak in her nature that rebelled against the thought of another woman enjoying the luxuries of the villa, but if she were to escape from Frank this seemed the only logical way, unless...

‘I wish he was dead,’ she said between her teeth. ‘I wish someone would rid me of him for ever.’

‘You can get that idea right out of your pretty little head,’ Eddie said with great firmness. ‘If it wasn’t for Max it might be arranged, but if anything happened to Frank, Max would know who to look for. I’m not taking that risk for you or anyone else.’

And so, reluctantly, Linda agreed to give Eddie’s idea a trial.

Rather to her surprise, the idea worked out exactly as Eddie had predicted.

After a week of carefully preparing the ground, Linda suggested to Frank that he might care to have someone in to read to him, and went on to describe Mary Prentiss (whom she had not as yet seen) in such glowing terms that Frank rose immediately to the bait.

Linda had been irritable and sharp-tempered during the past week, had avoided Frank’s questing hands, snapped and snarled at him along the lines suggested by Eddie, until Frank was growing tired of the sound of her querulous voice. The idea of having someone fresh in the house appealed to him.

Mary Prentiss called the following evening, and Linda made it her business to meet her at the gate so she should have an opportunity of talking with her before she met Frank.

Linda was agreeably surprised when she saw the shabbily dressed figure coming along the narrow beach path. This was no dangerous rival, she consoled herself. If Frank could but see her, tie wouldn’t look at her twice. It amused Linda to know that he was all worked up, imagining his new companion to be as glamorous as herself.

‘The fat fool would get a shock if he could see her,’ she thought spitefully.

Mary Prentiss did manage to look very plain, although her big green eyes were undoubtedly beautiful. But the dowdy clothes, the lack of make-up and the awful hair style seemed to neutralize the effect of her eyes.

Linda was a little puzzled to see how white and haggard she became when she introduced her to Frank. She thought for a moment the girl was going to faint, but she appeared to control herself, and, still puzzled, Linda left them alone together.

She noticed an immediate change in Frank when the girl had gone. He was more cheerful, less trying and openly enthusiastic.

Each evening for the next week Mary Prentiss came after dinner to read to him, and, acting on Eddie’s instructions, Linda was always present. She watched Frank, noted his growing restlessness, his lack of interest in the books Mary Prentiss selected for her reading. The girl was as impersonal as a nurse. Whenever Frank’s groping hand reached out for her, Linda asked him sharply if there was anything he needed, and the hand was quickly withdrawn, and Frank’s fat, sensual face darkened with frustrated disappointment.

A week later Eddie’s prediction came true.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ Frank said abruptly one afternoon. ‘You don’t get out enough. It’s not right that you should stay in night after night when I have someone to read to me. Take yourself to a movie tonight. The change will do you good.’

So that night, when the girl who called herself Mary Prentiss came as usual to read to Frank, she found him alone.

‘Isn’t Miss Lee here tonight?’ she asked quietly, as she drew up a chair and selected a book to read.

‘No,’ Frank said, and smiled. ‘I’ve been wanting to be with you for some time — alone. You know why, don’t you?’

‘I think so,’ Mary Prentiss said, and laid down the book.

‘Come here,’ Frank said, his face suddenly congested.

She stood close to his chair and allowed his hand to stray over her. There was a look on her face of intense loathing and horror, but she remained still, with closed eyes and set mouth. It was, to her, as if a filthy, repulsive spider with obscene and hairy legs were crawling over her bare skin.

Then suddenly she drew back out of his reach.

‘Please don’t,’ she said sharply. ‘Not here. I have a code of honour. Not in the same house... I’m thinking of Miss Lee.’

Frank could scarcely believe his ears.

‘What’s she got to do with it?’ he demanded thickly.

‘This is her home,’ Mary Prentiss said in a low voice, and vet her eyes were watching Frank’s face with desperate intentness as if she were trying to read his mind. ‘But at my place...’ She stopped, gave a little sigh.

‘Don’t be a dope,’ Frank said, heaving himself out of his chair. ‘This is my home too. To hell with Linda. What did she ever do for me, except spend my money? Come here. I want you.’

‘No,’ she said firmly; ‘but if you will come with me it would be different. I would have no scruples then, but it is being in this house...’

‘All right,’ Frank said, and laughed. ‘I haven’t been out for a long time. Let’s go. She won’t be back until midnight. Where’s your place?’

‘East Street,’ she told him, her green eyes lighting up. ‘I have a car. It won’t take us long.’

Frank caught hold of her, tried to find her face with his lips, and for a moment she nearly lost control of herself, but she drew away, shuddering, and said, without betraying the sick horror that gripped her, ‘Not yet... soon, but not yet.’

‘Well, come on then,’ Frank said impatiently. He was not used to being dictated to by his women. He caught hold of her arm and let her lead him from the house and along the narrow beach path. She guided him into the seat of a black Chrysler coupe that was parked in the shadows, out of sight of the villa. ‘How can you afford to run a car like this?’ he asked suspiciously, as his fingers touched the fabric of the seat and he felt the springing and the leg room.

‘I borrowed it,’ she said in the same cold, flat voice, started the engine and drove quickly towards the lights of the town.

‘How I miss my eyes!’ Frank snarled suddenly. ‘You wouldn’t know what it feels like to be driven without seeing or knowing where you are going.’ He brooded for a moment, added, ‘It’s like being taken for a ride.’

‘Is it?’ she said, gripping the steering-wheel until her knuckles showed white.

He ran his hand down her leg.

‘Hurry, sweetheart,’ he urged. ‘You’ll find me a very satisfactory lover.’ Asked in a lower tone, ‘Have you any experience?’

She shuddered away from him.

‘You’ll see,’ she said. ‘You’ll know soon enough.’

She drove rapidly along Ocean Boulevard, pulled up under a street lamp in the main street. The theatre traffic roared past them, the sidewalks were crowded.

‘Why do you stop?’ he asked impatiently, listening to the traffic and the murmur of the crowd passing them. ‘Have we arrived?’

‘Yes; this is the end of your journey,’ she said.

There was a jarring note in her voice that made him jerk his head round and stare sightlessly at her.

‘What’s the matter?’ he demanded, reached out and caught her wrist. ‘If you think you can back out of it now... no one plays tricks with me—’ He broke off as his sensitive fingers felt the puckered scar on her wrist. ‘What’s this?’ he asked sharply, a chord in his memory stirring.

‘A scar,’ she said, watching him closely. ‘I cut myself.’

His memory groped into the past. Then he remembered seeing such a scar on the wrist of the Blandish girl, and he stiffened. His highly developed instinct for danger warned him to get away, but his desire for her swamped it. Why think of Carol Blandish — she was miles away.

‘I once knew a girl who had a scar like this,’ he mattered, his fat face tightening. ‘She was mad. Damn her! She blinded me.’

‘I know,’ Carol said softly, and wretched her wrist away, ‘and now, I am going to kill you.’

An icy chill ran through Frank’s body.

‘Who are you?’ he quavered, groping for the door-handle.

‘Carol Blandish,’ she said. ‘I’ve waited a long time for this moment. First you, and then Max,’ and her fingers closed round his wrist in a grip of steel.

Blind panic seized Frank. If he could have seen her, could have been sure she wasn’t pointing a gun at him, could be sure that in a second or so no bullet would smash into him, he wouldn’t have acted as he did, and as Carol had hoped he would act. But the suffocating darkness that pressed in on him, the knowledge that he was trapped in a car with a dangerous, revengeful, mad woman, paralysed his mind. His one thought was to get away from her and into the crowd so she could not reach him.

He broke free from her grip, threw open the car door and stumbled blindly into the street. The moment his feet touched the ground he began to run.

Carol slammed the car door, gripped the steering-wheel as she leaned forward to watch the dark figure run blindly into the headlights of the oncoming traffic.

‘Look, Steve,’ she said with a sob in her voice, ‘there he goes. I hand him over to you.’

Frank heard sudden shouts around him and the squealing of car brakes. He floundered forward in his blindness, thrusting out his hands into a darkness that was so thick he could almost feel it, and he heard himself screaming.

The onrushing traffic frantically tried to avoid him. Cars swerved, crashed into one another. Women screamed. A policeman blew his whistle.

A cream and scarlet roadster suddenly shot out of the intersection and hurtled across the road. Eddie, a little drunk, his arm round Linda, had no chance of avoiding Frank. For a brief second he saw Frank facing him, the bright headlights of the car beat on his sweating, terrified face. He heard Linda scream, ‘It’s Frank!’ and he swerved, crammed on his brakes. The fender of the car hit Frank a glancing blow, threw him across the road and under the wheels of a speeding truck.

In the confusion that followed no one noticed the black Chrysler coupe pull away from the kerb and drive silently away into the darkness.

Max followed the nurse along the rubber-covered corridor of the Waltonville Hospital. His face was expressionless, but his thin nostrils were white and pinched.

The nurse signed to him to wait and went into a room, closed the door after her.

Max leaned against the wall, thrust his hands into his pockets. There was a bored look in his eyes: he wanted to smoke.

The nurse came to the door after a few moments, beckoned to him.

‘No more than two minutes,’ she said. ‘He is very ill.’

‘Dying?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why not say so? Think I’ll cry?’ Max said impatiently.

He walked into the room, stood by the bed and looked down at Frank. The fat face was yellow, the lips were blue. He scarcely seemed to breathe.

‘Here I am,’ Max said curtly, wanting to get it over.

Frank struggled to speak, and Max had to bend over him to catch the halting words. He was reluctant to do this because Frank’s breath was bad.

‘It was Carol Blandish,’ Frank gasped. ‘She said I was the first, then you. I knew her by the scar her wrist.’

Max straightened.

‘You were always a sucker for women, you fat fool,’ he said bitterly. ‘You asked for it.’ Then he added, ‘She won’t get me.’

Frank’s breath suddenly heaved up in a gasping rattle. Max looked at him, lifted his shoulders.

‘So long, sucker,’ he said.

The nurse came in, looked quickly at Frank, then drew the sheet over his face.

Max was studying her. She was young and pretty, and lie tapped Frank’s dead shoulder.

‘That’s one of ’em you won’t make a pass at,’ he said, tilted his hat over his eyes and went out.