The tiptilted nose lifted a couple of inches, and there was a dangerous gleam in her eyes.
“Danny Boyd,” she said in a gritty tone, “you promised to be serious for a moment!”
“I’m a serious Boyd,” I assured her. “An albatross, no less.”
She winced, then lit herself another cigarette to help her recovery. “Since you left with Clemmie yesterday afternoon,” she said in a low voice, “so much has happened that I’m confused—and just a little scared, Danny. Yesterday I thought you must be crazy, but now I’m wondering if you’re the only one who’s sane.”
“What happened?”
“You remember, just when you were leaving, you told me to take a look at Sweet William’s pen?”
“Did you?”
She shook her head. “I was going to, but Pete stopped me. He said he’d take care of it and for me to go into
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the house. I guess I was jumpy after what had happened, so I did. He came back after a while and said it must have been your idea of a joke or something—there was nothing at all in the pigpen except the boar.**
Her face had an intent, half-frightened look as she went on with her story.
“Pete said he’d have to tell Mr. Hazelton what had happened to Clemmie and called him. Then he said I’d better stay in the house because there was no telling what a maniac like you would do next, and maybe you might decide to come back. He went outside again and I did as he’d said—I stayed inside the house. I was worried sick about Clemmie and what was happening to her.
“About an hour later I heard a car drive in, so I looked out the window, thinking maybe Pete had been right and you’d come back. But it was the police—State troopers. I saw Pete talking to them, and then they all walked off toward the pigpens. They were gone maybe fifteen minutes, then they came back to the house.
“There was a Sergeant Dixon in charge and he seemed awful mad about something. He used the phone but I didn’t catch everything he said, only a word here and there. ‘Hoax’—‘Have New York check on Houston’ —that was about all. He asked me who I was and did I know a man named Houston. I said I was employed by Mr. Hazelton and I’d never met Mr. Houston, but I knew he was Mr. Hazelton’s attorney. Then the police left.
“I asked Pete what it was all about, and he said it must have been some crazy practical joke of yours—you must have called the troopers and told them your name was Houston and they should look at the pigpens. It still didn’t make any sense to me.
“Then, this morning—just after lunch it would’ve been, I guess, they brought Clemmie back, and Martha with her.”
“Who’re they?”
“Mr. Houston and another man called Tolvar. They’re staying at the farm for an indefinite period as far as I
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can make out. Tolvar frightens me somehow—do you know him at all?”
“We met for the first time last night,” I said. “He’s the athletic type—used me for kicks.”
“I can’t say I go much for Mr. Houston, either,” she went on. “He’s nothing but a fish—I’ll bet there’s not one drop of warm blood in his veins! But what really worries me is the girls, Danny. Now both of them are being kept prisoners on the farm, and the others aren’t making any secret about it. If one of the girls wants to go for a walk around the farm even, then either Tolvar or Pete goes with them. They watch the girls all the time.”
“How’s Clemmie?” I asked.
“Still on a downswing,” Sylvia said soberly. “She’s been that way since they arrived, and it’s getting worse the whole time. I told Mr. Houston I thought maybe she should see a doctor, but he said I was overanxious. Before I left this evening I put her to bed under sedation.” “And Martha?”
“I don’t know her very well,” she said. “She doesn't seem any different to me. Aloof, unfriendly, arrogant— she lives in a world of her own the whole time. She was the one who went out walking the whole afternoon— with Pete right alongside her of course.”
“I see you got your troubles, honey-chile,” I said. “Which one was so urgent you wanted me up here?” “Danny,” she lowered her voice to a whisper. “I want you to prove to me I’m not crazy!”
“We can try the Boyd High I.Q. Rating Test,” I suggested. “You only need answer ‘Yes’ to one question and you have a hundred per cent pass which gives you a very superior I.Q. and the opportunity to experience something unique.”
“I’m not fooling, Danny,” she said tensely. “I want you to take a look at something—out at the farm.” “Such as?”
“A pigpen,” she said simply.
It looked like a sudden end to a beautiful evening. I lit another cigarette and thought regretfully of that double booking at the Biltmore going to waste.
“A pigpen, I’ve seen already,” I told her.
“This means a lot to me, Danny. Will you take a look at it—please!”
••Why Is it so important?”
“I don’t want to tell you—not until you’ve seen it That way you’ll be unbiased. It wouldn’t take long and it means so much to me, Danny!”
“What with Tolvar, Houston and Pete guarding the girls so close, it’s a wonder they let you out tonight,” I said lightly.
“I’m allowed one day and two evenings free a week,” she said. “I had a feeling they were glad to get me out of their hair for a while tonight.”
“How did you get from the farm into Providence— drive yourself?”
“There’s a beat-up station wagon that belongs to the farm—I drove that.”
“The only trouble with me taking a look at the pigpen is that one of the boys might object,” I said.
“They don’t have to know anything about it—if we leave the station wagon on the road and walk in—we don’t even have to go near the house,” she said.
“I guess not.”
“Will you do it?”
“I always was a sucker for a pretty face!” I told her. She smiled demurely. “Why, Danny—you haven’t looked at my face once during the whole evening!”
It was ten after midnight when we reached the farm. I’d driven Sylvia back from Newport into Providence, and she’d picked up the station wagon from outside the hotel. Then I’d followed her out to the farm in my own car. She stopped the station wagon a couple of hundred yards down the road from the farm gates while I made
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a U-turn and left my car facing toward Providence, and well off the road.
The air was crisp, and the moonlight much too bright. I could feel my spine prickling gently as I walked back across the road to where Sylvia waited for me. It could be a trap—Tolvar could have set up the whole thing with the blonde nurse as bait—and if they had, I was walking right into it There was still plenty of spare burial space inside the pigpens. I remembered dismally.
We walked in through the gates and down the edge of the tracks toward the house. Lights showed in a couple of rooms which didn’t make me feel any better. When we were fifty yards from the house, Sylvia started to make a wide circle around it toward the pigpens which were some distance away from the back of the place.
Finally we reached the pens and Sylvia stood very close beside me, then shivered suddenly.
“O.K.,” I said. “What now?”
“Take a look at Sweet William,” she said softly.
I walked across to the pen and looked in. The moonlight was nearly as bright as day—in the center of the pen was a huge sow sleeping peacefully with her litter tucked in comfortably around her edges.
There was a slight rustle of Sylvia’s dress as she moved up close beside me again.
“He’s not here,” I said. “What gives?”
“Yes, he’s here,” she said in a tight voice. “Two pens further along.”
I checked and she was right—two pens further along and there he was. Once seen, Sweet William could never be forgotten.
“You see?” Sylvia said in a small voice. “You didn’t remember the right pen.”