Part 18 (2/2)
She replies serenely: ”Oh, bless you, it's quite all right. Thomas,” indicating the servant who has appeared behind her, ”will bring up your bags. I suppose you'll want to wash up. Colonel MacFay is waiting dinner for you, but you don't have to hurry.”
She leads them upstairs into their rooms. One is for Nick and Nora, with a connecting bath leading to the nurse and Junior's room.
MACFAY LIVING ROOM.
In the MacFay living room are four people.
Colonel Burr MacFay is a tall, scrawny man of seventy, actually still vigorous, but a hypochondriac and suspicious of those around him, though his bark is worse than his bite.
Lois, his adopted daughter, is a girl of twenty-very pretty, with a sweet and simple manner.
Dudley Horn, her fiance, is a large man in his thirties. He is an engineer, MacFay's right-hand man, rather good-looking, and affects a candid, open-faced, man's-man manner.
Freddie Coleman is MacFay's secretary, a nice boy of twenty-two or twenty-three, who is very much in love with Lois and is writing a play in his spare time.
Colonel MacFay is complaining over a gla.s.s of sherry, his voice a nasal whine: ”I won't have it. I won't put up with it. I'm not a child and I won't have it.”
Horn, leaning against the mantelpiece, holding a Scotch and soda, says good-naturedly: ”What's the good of saying we won't put up with it when we are putting up with it?”
Freddie, leaning forward in his chair, frowning earnestly, says: ”But maybe he did kill him.”
MacFay, glaring at Freddie, whines impatiently: ”Him! Him! I'm the one that doesn't want to be killed.”
Lois, patting a collie that is standing with its head on her knee, looks anxiously at her foster-father and starts to say: ”But, Papa dear, you-” as Nick, Nora, and Asta come in. Asta goes over to investigate the collie.
MacFay greets Nick and Nora: ”Come in! Come in! You're late.”
Nick: ”Had a little trouble. Did your chauffeur tell you about the black man in the road?”
MacFay presses his lips together, says nothing.
Nick: ”He wasn't there when we went back.”
MacFay, explosively: ”I don't care about your black men and your roads. I care about what happens to me. I-” He breaks off, pushes his face into what is meant for a smile. ”You know Dudley.”
Nick and Nora say: ”Yes,” and shake hands with Horn.
MacFay: ”And this is my adopted daughter, Lois, and my secretary, Mr. Coleman.”
When the introductions have been acknowledged and Lois has given Nick and Nora each a drink, MacFay says: ”Dinner is waiting. Come on, bring your drinks in.”
As they go into the dining room, Lois tells the servant to feed the dogs.
Dinner is served by two badly trained servants who keep looking over their shoulders as if frightened, and jump at every unexpected sound. One of them, turning from putting soup on the table, knocks Nick on the elbow with the b.u.t.t of a pistol in his pocket.
MacFay, who attacks his soup hungrily, complains after each spoonful. ”They know this isn't good for my stomach. I ought to have some kind of light broth, but they don't care-n.o.body cares what happens to me.” He empties his plate before the others are half through and has a second helping. When he has finished that, between complaints that it is so badly cooked that it wouldn't be food for him even if it weren't too heavy, he bangs his spoon down on a plate and says to Nick: ”I'm not a child-I won't be frightened.”
Nick asks: ”What is there to be frightened of?”
MacFay replies: ”Nothing, nothing but a lot of idiotic and very pointless trickery and play-acting.”
One of the servants grumbles sullenly over the dish he is taking from the table: ”You can call it anything you want to call it, but I seen what I seen.” n.o.body pays any attention to him.
Nick says: ”What kind of trickery and play-acting?”
MacFay puts his arms on the table, leans over them toward Nick, and says: ”Suppose you had a man working for you and he did something they put him in jail for. He did it, you didn't do it, and you even tried to get him off and to get his sentence cut down, but you couldn't. And now, after he gets out, he comes to you and says it's all your fault and wants you to give him a lot of money. And when you're not fool enough to do that, he says he hopes you're not going to be pig-headed about it because he's dreamed twice about your dying, and the third time he dreams things, they come true. He says he hopes you're not going to die before your conscience makes you do the right thing by him. What would you think?”
Nick says: ”I wouldn't think I ought to hurry up my dying on his account.”
MacFay stares at Nick blankly for a moment, then says: ”You'll excuse me, but that's just about as stupid an answer as I've ever heard.”
Nora nods brightly at Nick and a.s.sures him: ”Yes it is.”
One of the servants says to the other: ”A fat lot of help this new guy's going to be to us.”
MacFay taps his gla.s.s with a knife and says angrily to the servants: ”Shut up! Where's the roast?” He points to Nora's gla.s.s. ”Her gla.s.s is empty.” He holds up the knife and complains: ”See how they take care of my silverware. It hasn't been cleaned decently in a month.” He puts the knife down, pushes back his plate, and leans over the table. ”Listen,” he whines to Nick, ”this isn't April-foolery, this man means to murder me. He came here to murder me, and he will certainly murder me unless somebody does something to stop him.”
Nick asks: ”But what has he done so far?”
MacFay shakes his head impatiently. ”That isn't it. I don't ask you to undo anything that he's done. I ask you to keep him from killing me. What has he done? He's terrorized the whole place-that's what he's done.”
Nick asks: ”How long has this been going on?”
MacFay says: ”A week, ten days.”
Nick asks: ”Do you think the black man on the road is part of it?”
MacFay retorts: ”I don't think anything about it. You used to be a detective. I asked you down here to help me, not to bring me more wild stories.”
Nick asks: ”Have you said anything to the local authorities?”
MacFay whines: ”I'm not altogether a fool. Of course I have, but what good did it do? Has he threatened me? Well, he told me he has dreams about me dying, and I know him well enough to know that's a threat. But to the sheriff it isn't a threat. Have I any proof that he is responsible for all these things that have happened-that he's turned this place upside down? The sheriff says I haven't. As if I needed proof! So it comes to this: The sheriff promises to keep an eye on him. *An eye,' mind you. Here I have, with my family and servants and the guards I've hired, twenty people with forty eyes, and he comes and goes when he wants, so what good's the sheriff's *eye'?”
Nick asks: ”Who is this fellow?”
One of the servants mutters: ”It's not him, it's that black devil.”
MacFay says: ”Church is his name-Sam Church. He's an engineer-worked for me ten years ago.”
Nick asks: ”How long was he in jail?”
MacFay says: ”Ten years. He got out a month ago.”
Nick: ”You think he really means to kill you?”
MacFay bangs on the table and shouts: ”No! No! No! I don't think he means to kill me, I know it!”
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