“Easy, Nialla. Let’s go home now.”
“And you.” I resisted his attempt to pull me from the chair. “You’ve done me a favor, too, Rafe Clery. What’s going to be your reward?”
He raised his eyebrows in that sardonic way of his when he’s amused with the antics of someone.
“Dear heart, Rafe Clery does favors for no one. And I can take care of myself… and you!”
He set his jaw, and bowing, offered his hand to me again.
“Sure, Mr. Clery,” echoed, unsaid, in my ears.
7
He referred once to that conversation on the way home, to inform me that he’d call Michaels and tell him that Galvano had tried a con game on me in California and was obviously setting me up again. He appeared to have a great deal more confidence in Lieutenant Detective Michaels than I did, but then, I’d had a disastrous confrontation with certain law-and-order elements, and my judgment was a trifle prejudiced.
Rafe drove into the stable yard instead of up to the house.
“First I’m going to take you to the dogs, dear heart,” he said. “ ‘Bout time, too.”
As if they knew they were about to be visited, (the deep canine voices raised a greeting. Rafe ushered me lout of the stable yard, to the right, where a large enclosed run was partly sheltered by huge, long-needled pines and the side of the stable. The dogs were hysterically barking and leaping frantically up the ten-foot fence, but it was not our arrival that had excited them.
Calmly, with great precision of step, Dice was touring their pen on the upper bar. He seemed completely unconcerned by the efforts of the two large silver shepherds, oblivious to the snapping jaws that came rather close to his daintily placed feet. It was as arrant a display of confidence as I’ve ever seen, though I didn’t in the least doubt that Dice could have tangled with both dogs and emerged alive. Quick as shepherds are, they’re no match for the agility of an old campaigning torn.
“Dice! That’s taking an unfair advantage. Get down here, you tease.”
Dice regarded me with some surprise on his white-masked face, and flicked his tail saucily.
“Dice!” Rafe said. “No nice roast-beef scraps! No more chicken hearts.”
He halted the insolent tail mid-arc, as if he believed the threat. He didn’t seem to gather himself, but the next moment there was the flash of white belly fur over our heads. The thick evergreen branch whipped up and down from such an assault. Dice’s complaints faded as he used the upper route to less parlous pursuits.
Rafe chuckled with delighted malice, and his eyes were dancing with mischief as he turned to me. “He’s a dirty infighter, too, isn’t he? But I won’t peach on you and tell the dogs you’re his.” He pulled me close enough to kiss my cheek.
I had to laugh.
The dogs, beautifully marked silvery shepherds, weighing a good hundred and twenty pounds apiece from the look of them, were respectively Dame and Demon. They came readily to Rafe on command, tails wagging, their irritation over Dice completely forgotten. I was introduced, duly inspected with slightly damp whuffles, and then ignored as the two vied for Rafe’s caresses. They all but knocked him over in an attempt to get his favor. He laughed and braced his legs against their enthusiasm, cuffing them playfully. They growled happily as they mouthed his arms and made to nip his ankles. After several passes he ordered them down, and they backed off, with much sheepish running of tongue around their chops. They’d been well trained.
As we left, they were already seeking the sun-warmed corner, circling the chosen spot before they dropped, to recline in Germanic dignity.
“Did you ever have a barn fire?” I asked as we walked back to the house.
“No.” But Rafe’s expression was grim. “But almost. And. that’s the kind of miss I’d rather keep a mile away. A couple of Madam’s cronies elected to take a toss in my hay a few years back. Albert happened to be up with a sick mare and went to investigate the noises in the loft. The goddamned fools were smoking, and one of ‘em tossed a lighted butt into the hay just as Albert got there. He smothered it before it could do more than light some chaff. I put the dogs in a year ago when there was a rash of vandalism and petty looting. Hard-liners will scale ten-foot fences to keep in their habit, but dogs make this farm very inhospitable. Let’s get your loot organized before dinner. I want to see you in something besides green, love.”
After Rafe had brought up all the packages, he muttered something about speaking to Garry and left me. It ought to have been fun for me to put away all the pretty things we’d bought together. Instead I found my pleasure soured by the disquieting scene with Rafe’s mother and Marchmount. I was enervated by reaction. I could not dismiss the Sunbury accidents as easily as Rafe could, to the capabilities of Lieutenant Michaels. Nothing was that simple these days. And I had that awful “thing” about compensation. I’d the gift of Rafe’s protection, the prospect of the kind of life I’d always wanted, and for such riches I’d have to pay. Somebody’s Law of Equity.
But I’d better take my clues from Rafe. A glum, superstition-prone wife would not win his affections. And it was reassuring to think I had some money of my own, even if it was, in effect, blood money.
I put such thoughts out of my mind and dressed for dinner in one of the elegant new gowns. I could scarcely call anything at those prices “dresses.” I put on fancy sandals and a pretty necklace and earrings of dainty shells. I experienced a surge of pure feminine vanity as I looked at myself in the long mirror: by God, I looked like someone!
Mrs. Garrison served Someone and her husband a simple but elegant meal, starting with an excellent muttony broth, a flounder that was as tender and delicate as sole (she knew the man who’d caught it that morning off Lloyd’s Neck, where the flounders were running), and a whipped concoction guaranteed to put flesh on anyone’s ribs.
As she poured second cups of coffee, Rafe gave her a stern look. With a sigh and a slightly apologetic nod to me, she found her cup and joined us.
“Well, Mr. Rafe, Mr. Marchmount’s back. Came in on the afternoon train, and that friend of his arrived by car a little later on. Of course, I told Mrs. Palchi I couldn’t help out right now, but she said there was just them two more.”
“That friend of Marchmount’s doesn’t wear a greasy gray cap, does he?”
“A greasy cap? Lands no, Mr. Rafe. He’s a foreign gentleman and dresses very well, Sam says, though he does favor wild California shirts and those indecent tight pants that flare out.” She seemed unaware that Rafe wore extremely close-fitting pants that flared out.
“No caps in sight?” “None.”
“Can you find out if there has been such a type-racetrack-tout type?” Rafe asked.
“Now, you know perfectly well that kind wouldn’t get in Madam’s house, Mr. Rafe.”
“True enough,” he agreed amiably, “but I still want to know if such a type has been seen there since Madam took up with Marchmount.”
“That I can do easy enough,” she said, and finishing the last of her coffee, arose. “Of course, Mr. Marchmount gave Sam strict orders that he wasn’t seeing anybody.”
“Oh?”
“That’s right. Sam’s to say that Mr. Marchmount isn’t there. Orders from Madam and Mr. Marchmount. Sam said he was slipped a twenty.”
Rafe made a grimace of surprise at me. “Any indication why?”
“Well, it seems as if Mr. Marchmount’s health isn’t too good. And that’s a fact, for Madam took him into a specialist Dr. Bauman recommended. All the way into New York. You ask me, it’s all that drinking and late hours for a man of his age. Can’t burn a candle at both ends, you know. Must say I never thought Madam’d waste so much time on a sick man. Would you be wanting any likkers?” (That’s the way she pronounced it, at any rate.) “Good brandy’ll settle all that rich food, come to think of it.”