“Your father,” said Thorne inaudibly. “He’s dead.”
She cried: “Oh!” in a small helpless voice; and then she grew quiet.
“I’m dreadfully sorry to have to greet you with such news,” said Thorne in the silence. “We’d anticipated... And I realize how awkward it must be for you. After all, it’s quite as if you had never known him at all.
Love for a parent, I’m afraid, lies in direct ratio to the degree of childhood association. Without any association at all...”
“It’s a shock, of course,” Alice said in a muffled voice. “And yet, as you say, he was a stranger to me, a mere name. As I wrote you, I was only a toddler when mother got her divorce and took me off to England. I don’t remember father at all. And I’ve not seen him since, or heard from him.”
“Yes,” muttered the attorney.
“I might have learned more about father if mother hadn’t died when I was six; but she did, and my people — her people — in England... Uncle John died last fall. He was the last one. And then I was left all alone. When your letter came I was — I was so glad, Mr. Thorne. I didn’t feel lonely any more. I was really happy for the first time in years. And now—” She broke off to stare out the window.
Dr. Reinach swiveled his massive head and smiled benignly. “But you’re not alone, my dear. There’s my unworthy self, and your Aunt Sarah, and Milly — Milly’s my wife, Alice; naturally you wouldn’t know anything about her — and there’s even a husky young fellow named Keith who works about the place — bright lad who’s come down in the world.” He chuckled. “So you see there won’t be a dearth of companionship for you.”
“Thank you, Uncle Herbert,” she murmured. “I’m sure you’re all terribly kind. Mr. Thorne, how did father... When you replied to my letter you wrote me he was ill, but—”
“He fell into a coma unexpectedly nine days ago. You hadn’t left England yet and I cabled you at your antique-shop address. But somehow it missed you.”
“I’d sold the shop by that time and was flying about patching up things. When did he... die?”
“A week ago Thursday. The funeral... Well, we couldn’t wait, you see. I might have caught you by cable or telephone on the Coronia, but I didn’t have the heart to spoil your voyage.”
“I don’t know how to thank you for all the trouble you’ve taken.” Without looking at her Ellery knew there were tears in her eyes. “It’s good to know that someone—”
“It’s been hard for all of us,” rumbled Dr. Reinach.
“Of course, Uncle Herbert. I’m sorry.” She fell silent. When she spoke again, it was as if there were a compulsion expelling the words.
“When Uncle John died, I didn’t know where to reach father. The only American address I had was yours, Mr. Thorne, which some patron or other had given me. It was the only thing I could think of. I was sure a solicitor could find father for me. That’s why I wrote to you in such detail, with photographs and all.”
“Naturally we did what we could.” Thorne seemed to be having difficulty with his voice. “When I found your father and went out to see him the first time and showed him your letter and photographs, he... I’m sure this will please you, Miss Mayhew. He wanted you badly. He’d apparently been having a hard time of late years — ah, mentally, emotionally. And so I wrote you at his request. On my second visit, the last time I saw him alive, when the question of the estate came up—”
Ellery thought that Dr. Reinach’s paws tightened on the wheel. But the fat man’s face bore the same bland, remote smile.
“Please,” said Alice wearily. “Do you greatly mind, Mr. Thorne? I–I don’t feel up to discussing such matters now.”
The car was fleeing along the deserted road as if it were trying to run away from the weather. The sky was gray lead; a frowning, gloomy sky under which the countryside lay cowering. It was growing colder, too, in the dark and draughty tonneau; the cold seeped in through the cracks and their overclothes.
Ellery stamped his feet a little and twisted about to glance at Alice Mayhew. Her oval face was a glimmer in the murk; she was sitting stiffly, her hands clenched into tight little fists in her lap. Thorne was slumped miserably by her side, staring out the window.
“By George, it’s going to snow,” announced Dr. Reinach with a cheerful puff of his cheeks.
No one answered.
The drive was interminable. There was a dreary sameness about the landscape that matched the weather’s mood. They had long since left the main highway to turn into a frightful byroad, along which they jolted in an unsteady eastward curve between ranks of leafless woods. The road was pitted and frozen hard; the woods were tangles of dead trees and under-brush densely packed but looking as if they had been repeatedly seared by fire. The whole effect was one of widespread and oppressive desolation.
“Looks like No Man’s Land,” said Ellery at last from his bouncing seat beside Dr. Reinach. “And feels like it, too.”
Dr. Reinach’s cetaceous back heaved in a silent mirth. “Matter of fact, that’s exactly what it’s called by the natives. Land-God-forgot, eh? But then Sylvester always swore by the Greek unities.”
The man seemed to live in a dark and silent cavern, out of which he maliciously emerged at intervals to poison the atmosphere.
“It isn’t very inviting-looking, is it?” remarked Alice in a low voice. It was clear she was brooding over the strange old man who had lived in this wasteland, and of her mother who had fled from it so many years before.
“It wasn’t always this way,” said Dr. Reinach, swelling his cheeks like a bullfrog. “Once it was pleasant enough; I remember it as a boy. Then it seemed as if it might become the nucleus of a populous community. But progress has passed it by, and a couple of uncontrollable forest fires did the rest.”
“It’s horrible,” murmured Alice, “simply horrible.”
“My dear Alice, it’s your innocence that speaks there. All life is a frantic struggle to paint a rosy veneer over the ugly realities. Why not be honest with yourself? Everything in this world is stinking rotten; worse than that, a bore. Hardly worth living, in any impartial analysis. But if you have to live, you may as well live in surroundings consistent with the rottenness of everything.”
The old attorney stirred beside Alice, where he was buried in his greatcoat. “You’re quite a philosopher, Doctor,” he snarled.
“I’m an honest man.”
“Do you know, Doctor,” murmured Ellery, despite himself, “you’re beginning to annoy me.”
The fat man glanced at him. Then he said: “And do you agree with this mysterious friend of yours, Thorne?”
“I believe,” snapped Thorne, “that there is a platitude extant which says that actions speak with considerably more volume than words. I haven’t shaved for six days, and today has been the first time I left Sylvester Mayhew’s house since his funeral.”
“Mr. Thorne!” cried Alice, turning to him. “Why?”
The lawyer muttered: “I’m sorry, Miss Mayhew. All in good time, in good time.”
“You wrong us all,” smiled Dr. Reinach, deftly skirting a deep rut in the road. “And I’m afraid you’re giving my niece quite the most erroneous impression of her family. We’re odd, no doubt, and our blood is presumably turning sour after so many generations of cold storage; but then don’t the finest vintages come from the deepest cellars? You’ve only to glance at Alice to see my point. Such vital loveliness could only have been produced by an old family.”
“My mother,” said Alice, with a faint loathing in her glance, “had something to do with that, Uncle Herbert.”
“Your mother, my dear,” replied the fat man, “was merely a contributory factor. You have the typical Mayhew features.”