Part 31 (1/2)

Gail had apparently told him about that, and a tear streaked incongruously down Tully's stained face. Nevertheless, he struggled on again.

”Belle was okay. Real good to me. She never deserved what happened to her. It was that crazy kid of Noah Armand's corning back here to mess everything up!”

”What's he talking about?” I asked Gail, and Jon put a hand on my arm.

”Hillary,” Gail said. ”But of course you wouldn't know, would you? He didn't want you to find out until he was ready. He's always used his stage name. He came out to Colorado nearly a year ago, though of course he didn't show his face in Jasper. He didn't want to be recognized later. But he was all around here in the mountains, and in Denver and Boulder, finding out what he could. That's when I met him and he told me some of what he planned. I guess I wanted to help him. It wasn't hard to get a nursing job at Morgan House, where I could be on the inside. You never suspected, did you, how well Hillary and I knew each other?”

All along I had thought Gail was going to the Timberline to 339.

see Mark Ingram. I felt a little sick over my gullibility, but totally bewildered as well. Somehow I managed the words. ”Hillary is-Noah Ar- mand's son?”

”He'll tell you himself. Just get up there to the mine. I'll stay here with Tully if you'll just go.”

I looked at Jon, but he was shaking his head. ”Not right away. Not until you've told us a few more things, Gail. What about Belle Durant?”

Gail covered her face with her hands. ”That was awful. I don't think Hillary intended what happened. He'd gone to Domino and talked to Tully. By that time Tully knew who Hillary was, and he'd told Belle. I guess at the ball she wanted to give Hillary a chance to explain before she blew everything into the open. Hillary said he took her up to those gallery dressing rooms, where they could be away from the crowd. But after he knew, he had to stop her talking. Whatever he did must have frightened her, because she ran out on the catwalk to get away from him, and then fell through. That's what he told me.”

I felt increasingly ill and I must have looked it, for Jon came to put his arm around me, though he didn't let up with Gail.

”Then you've been helping him all along?” he said. ”Even when it came to murder?”

She shrank away from the words.

Apparently Tully had been listening, for now he managed to prop himself up on one elbow. ”Lange tried to kill Ingram too. Shot at 'im and missed. City boy!”

Gail pushed Tully down. ”Hus.h.!.+ You've got to lie still.” Then she looked up at us. ”Will you go to the mine now? Just go up there and help him.” She seemed more distraught than I'd ever seen her.

”I'll see if I can find out what's happening,” Jon said. ”Are } ou all right, Laurie? You'd better stay here.”

34.

I wasn't all right. Maybe I never would be all right again, but I wouldn't stay behind with Gail for anything. Nevertheless, there was one last question I had to ask her. Not a trivial question, because I had the feeling that it tied in with everything else.

”What became of my grandmother's jewelry, Gail?”

She answered listlessly. ”I've got it right here in my bag. Hillary gave it to me to keep for him a little while ago. Tully knew where Caleb Hawes had hidden it, and Hillary got that out of him.”

Jon took the box from her and opened it. The bullet was there.

”We'll need a lantern,” Jon said.

”There's another one at the mine,” Gail told him. ”I'll keep this one here.”

We went out into cold and windy moonlight. This time we didn't take the horses. Jon led the way up a steep path, past the tailing dumps, and I scrambled after him up to the narrow road that had once serviced mine equipment. I still felt numb with horror and disbelief.

The opening to the Old Desolate loomed ahead of us, a black gash into the mountain, the door still off its hinges.

”Wait here,” Jon whispered. ”We can't trust him for a moment.” He took his gun from its holster and held it ready in his hand.

Inside the mine I could see faint light. As Gail had said, one of Tully's lanterns burned far into the tunnel.

”Lange?” Jon called. ”Where are you, Lange?”

I remembered how a voice could echo in there, and found myself tensing. But there was no answer-only a deep, vast silence, once the echoes had died away.

”Stay here,” Jon said over his shoulder. ”I'll go in as far as the shaft.”

Even the moonlight at my back carried menace with it now, 341.

and I wouldn't wait anywhere without Jon. The thought of Hillary terrified me, but I followed close on Jon's heels. Lantern light lay ahead, and he turned his strong flashlight on the rough rock walls of the pa.s.sage. Underfoot there was rubble, and once I stumbled.

Neither of us called out again. If Hillary was able to hear, if he wanted to hear, he would know we had come.

As we went deeper into the mountain, the dark earth smells of the mine seemed to rush out of the depths toward usfrighteningly familiar. This was a place where I didn't want to be, but there was nothing else to do except move quieth after Jon. Quietly, so that the rocks wouldn't hear my footsteps.

”Here we are,” Jon said, heedless of sound, and I saw that we'd reached the big room where the main shaft had been sunk into the heart of the mountain. Ahead yawned black emptiness.

From behind us a voice spoke-Hillary's voice, high-pitched with excitement. ”Stay right there! And drop that gun ou're holding, Maddocks.”

I swung around and saw him standing half shadowed in the lantern light, a rifle in his hands. That same rifle that had stood behind the bar at the Timberline? The one that had been used in the attempt on Ingram's life? I felt sick again with shock and despair.

Jon dropped his revolver, and Hillary stepped forward to prod him with the rifle.

”I saw you going down into Domino,” Hillary said. ”So I told Gail to make it good about my being trapped. She's scared enough by this time to do as I say.”

”But why?” I pleaded. ”Hillary, tell me why all this has happened?”

Light from the lantern on the rocky floor threw shadows eerily up his face. ”You were such a pushover, Laurie. I knev, I had to meet you if I was going to pay off your grandmother, 342.

and Ingram too. I had to get you out to Jasper. I'd found out about your aunt in Dillon, and I meant to look her up, maybe meet you if you were around. You saved me a lot of trouble by walking into the theater that day. Then your grandmother sent for you, and all I had to do was tag along.”

”For the money?” I said. ”Was that it?”

His voice came down from its strung-up pitch, sounding almost gentle. ”In a way I fell for you, Laurie. For a while you needed me, and maybe I'll put you into a play yet.”

Jon's arm tightened about me. ”Why do you want us here, Lange? What game are you playing now?”

Again Hillary's voice changed, turning rough-that marvelous stage voice that knew so well how to play on the emotions. Only this was no longer playacting.

”Playing? A game? No, it's not that anymore. You're going to suffer a little now. The way my father suffered, because of Persis Morgan. Because of Mark Ingram. You're going to help me pay off a debt.”

”Gail told us,” I said. ”Is it true? Are you really Noah Armand's son?”

The pressure was rising in him now, keying him up to a dangerous pitch. Yet somehow he managed to hold himself in check. He wanted me to know every bit of it-so the debt he spoke of would be paid.

”Of course it's true! Though I never knew the story until a year ago, when my father died. In a mental inst.i.tution. Think about that, Laurie. I was with him at the end, and his mind cleared for a little while, so he could tell me the story. About how badly Persis Morgan had treated him. About how Ingram had left him to die here in the mine, and then had gone off with all that money from Persis Morgan.”

”Did he also tell you that he killed my father?” I asked.

”That too!” Hillary was driven now by a stronger pa.s.sion than I had ever sensed in him before. A pa.s.sion of strange and 343.