Chocolate Cobweb Read online

  “Couldn’t I go?” Amanda had asked. So sweet, so willing.

  CHAPTER 21.

  THEY STACKED THE DISHES, FANNY applauding. It was getting late when they came, at last, into the studio. Tobias was in his favorite chair. Fanny poked up the fire to a brisker blaze, saying she did like a fire, although she retreated at once to a far chair with its back to the length of the room beyond, and sat on her foot and fingered her diamonds.

  Mandy drifted near one of the two chairs that flanked the small round table and stood there, hesitating politely, watching her hostess. Ione had brought with her from the kitchen a tumbler of milk. She said cozily, “I’ll just fetch us all something. Toby, dear, I think you really must … Come help me, Amanda.”

  Thone had hobbled to the wide window. He had pulled the cord that drew the curtains together. Now he stood, still, leaning on the crutch, holding a hem of the neutral-colored stuff with one hand to make a gap, as if he looked to see how the night had fallen before he let the curtain drop and shut it out.

  Ione turned on a lamp over the little bar in the corner. “Fanny, dear, will you have what we’re having?”

  “Anything,” said Fanny moodily. She was watching her dear friend Tobias, whose head lay on the chair, whose face was white and tired. “Something troubles you, Toby?” she asked softly.

  “No, Fan. No.” He opened his eyes at her and it was as if her words had put alarm there. He looked haunted for a second.

  Back of the bar, Ione took down the chloral. Carefully, she dosed the milk, shaking the powder from its fold of paper while Amanda stood and watched her.

  The fire sputtered.

  “Thone?” Ione’s right hand went to the familiar bottle. “The same, dear?”

  “The same,” he answered dreamily, not turning. Ione lifted the bottle, judged its remaining contents, nodded and smiled at Amanda. And Mandy’s lips drew easily into the answering smile. Ione took down glasses, four dainty stemmed glasses. She filled one.

  “I’ll just take Toby his,” she said. “Will you pour some for the rest of us, my dear?” She took the milk and one liqueur.

  Amanda moved around behind the bar. She looked stupidly after Ione’s back. It bent graciously to her guest. “Fanny?” Then to her husband. “Now, drink this, Toby.” The little paw touched his tired head in a brief caress.

  Fanny sniffed at her glass and snorted. But she said no word. Amanda stifled a gasp and picked up the bottle. Obediently, in that drifting yet stubborn do-as-you’re-told state, she poured three glasses full of the liqueur. It sparkled and winked at her.

  Thone seemed to moon at the night with an unfocused gaze. But he did not. His eyes were focused and alert. He could see the bar, the shelf behind it, the glasses, the whole lit corner reflected in the window glass. He saw Amanda take a drink up in either hand.

  Ione had timed it neatly. She was trotting back. The plump little lady, the slender girl met, crossed paths. “That’s right, my dear,” said Ione. “Thone? Aren’t you going to sit down?”

  “Um … put it on the table,” he murmured. He seemed to fumble with the crutch. It stuttered on the carpet. The curtain trembled in his hand, but did not fall yet.

  Back of the bar, Ione, as she quickly and precisely shook one dose into the fourth and only remaining glass of liqueur, seemed to be fussily busy at making all neat, at putting the drug away. Thone let the curtain go, very gently. It settled softly and hid the mirror in which he had seen what he had been waiting for. A single dose. He’d seen. Now he was sure.

  It was the second time, he thought quite calmly, she’d been watched in a window glass. She had a blind spot there. She didn’t seem to know it could make a mirror.

  He swung around. Mandy had put one glass on the round table. She stood, holding the other in her hand. She half turned. Ione was coming around the bar with a bright fixed smile on her jolly little face, and nothing at all in her hands. Oh, it was neat. It was deft. It was so simple. For one did not call out to one’s elder and hostess, “Hey, you left yours on the bar!” One murmured, as Mandy did, “Shall I put yours here?” One put it on the end table near the sofa corner, Ione’s corner. One minded one’s manners if one had been well brought up. Quite so.

  They met. They crossed for the second time. “Thanks, dear.” Ione touched the girl’s arm. In gratitude. For the fourth glass waited, on the bar, and Amanda went to get it.

  “This must be mine,” said she cheerfully.

  Thone checked the stiffening of his jaw muscles. He moved to stand behind the table. No one could tell whether Amanda knew what she held in her hand, what she carried so steadily down the room. She walked past Fanny and went, smiling, to the chair near Tobias. She put the little glass down on the round tabletop, at her left. She drew up her knees and clasped her hands around them and sat, as Belle used to sit, as she herself now sat so often.

  Fanny looked on sourly. Fanny turned her own glass, by its stem, round and round.

  Ione settled into her sofa corner, and her little feet dangled, not quite touching the floor. Thone moved around, sat down, and on opposite sides of the bare round tabletop, their two glasses, his and Mandy’s, rested between them.

  Ione lifted her drink. She twinkled at them, at the young people. “Come, Thone, drink your drink. Here’s to us!” she chirped. She sipped. Her eyes, as she sipped, did not cease watching.

  How had it happened? How was it that they sat here, pinned in her full view, so helplessly side by side under those unwavering dark and wary eyes? Thone’s hand picked up his glass. Had to. He looked down at its innocence glumly.

  “What’s that you’re all drinking?” asked Tobias suddenly.

  “Just a liqueur, Toby,” soothed Ione. Fanny’s lips tightened but she said nothing.

  There was such tension here, the silences, the intervals were screaming. As if all their nerves were tightening, like strings, and screaming with the strain. Tobias’ chest felt heavy. He had begun to feel as if somewhere at the back of his skull there’d be a cracking. His brain was far behind his intuition. It was lost. His thought churned helplessly. A group of people by the fire, after dinner. Nothing. Then, why …?

  Ione said, glancing daintily at her wrist, “I wonder if it isn’t nearly time, Amanda, dear. You mustn’t be out too late, you know. I think, perhaps …” The head nodded, indicating, instructing.

  “Of course,” Amanda said. She unclasped her hands. Her feet came to the floor. Her fingers went to the stem of her glass. Had to pick it up. Had to obey.

  Take it. Touch it to your lips. All’s ready. All is prepared. Drink it, touch it, and go and die.

  Thone sat like a statue. Too bad. Too bad. Here the whole ragged business must fall apart. Now plot and counterplot must go no further. Ah, so close. To know so much, and now to fail. But he couldn’t let Amanda take the stuff! Not really. No. That mouth toward which the rim of the glass was moving, that lovely mouth, must never touch it!

  Tobias said hoarsely. “Why, where’s Amanda going?”

  “On a little errand,” said Ione lightly. Then to Amanda, “You’ll want the car, dear, won’t you? Can you find the keys?”

  His eyes started—Tobias’ eyes—from his head. His hand jerked. The milk slopped over. It dribbled on his trousers. The tumbler slipped out of his slackening hold and fell on the rug.

  CHAPTER 22.

  IONE CRIED OUT. AMANDA PUT HER drink, gladly, quickly, on the tabletop, and slipped out of her chair, crouching to snatch at the rolling tumbler.

  “Here, take my handkerchief,” said Thone calmly. “Ah, too bad.”

  “Toby, dear!” Ione was alarmed.

  Tobias was looking down at Mandy’s soft hair, at her pretty back, the rich glow of her dress, at her hand scrubbing spilled milk with Thone’s handkerchief. “I’m terribly sorry,” he said, quite normally. His eyes turned in his head. He thought, None of them notice! None of them remember. I must not speak now of Belle. For none of them realize this echoing. It’s a coincidence. Only to me
is it all so horribly the same.

  Fanny was plain furious. Her eyes licked angrily at Mandy’s back. “You’d better have your stuff that helps you sleep, Toby, and get to bed. You’re jittery. You need to rest. You must have rest.” She switched her wrathful gaze to Thone.

  “I’ll fetch more milk,” said Ione, with a wild worried look around. She hurried away. Her little feet pattered nervously. She almost ran.

  Mandy, on her knees, mopped at the spot. Tobias, pinching his trouser leg, half rose out of the chair. Fanny was glaring. “I can’t drink this stuff!” she said.

  But Thone gave no heed to Fanny. He put his glass of Herbsaint on Mandy’s side of the table. He took up the drink that had been prepared for her. He held it, as he had been holding his own. He sat quite still and his mouth slipped into a small, strangely triumphant little smile.

  Fanny said, in a low strangling voice, “Thone, in God’s name …”

  He lifted his eyes. Fanny’s face, so trained, so practiced, so able to show what she felt, showed now her perfect astonishment. Then fear. Bewilderment, then pain. Then panic.

  Ah, no! He groaned inside. His smile vanished. All trace of it went out of his consciousness. Fanny would blurt out something. Fanny would say, would ask. Fanny had seen what he did and she was going to spoil it yet! Now! Now that he had succeeded. Now that Mandy was safe and all was well and it could proceed. Now that he had the danger here in his hand, and Gene waited in the canyon and they would so soon know.… He fastened his eyes on hers. He moved his lips. He made faces that said, Hush, hush.

  It was no use. Fanny was going to spoil it all, unless he could … He juggled the crutch. He put the glass down to grasp it. No, he could not get up and go to her. It was too awkward. He beckoned, instead.

  Fanny obeyed. She got up and came toward him, drawn, fascinated, willing, for just this moment, to be silent and listen.

  Mandy, kneeling, still scrubbed. She was speaking some reassuring words about the stain.

  Thone turned in the chair, caught at Fanny’s arm. The henna head came down. He whispered, “Be still. Let it go. I’ll tell you later. Fanny, if you love me …”

  And in this moment, Tobias, half standing, pinching the trouser leg still with his left hand, took his trembling right forefinger and turned the table. Turned the round revolving tabletop. Quietly, unseen by anyone, unseen by Mandy, crouching there, unseen by the two who were whispering so frantically, unseen by Ione, now hurrying back, it slipped around. The glasses, in a stately figure, like an old dance, followed each other on the turning rim. They changed places.

  Mandy said, “There, I think that does it.” She sat on her heels.

  A mask slipped over Fanny’s face. She glided past Thone and leaned as if to inspect. “Yes, child, I should think so.”

  Ione, pattering in, caught them as they were posed in her dark glance. She said cheerily, “No harm done. None at all. I’ll have this for you in a minute, Toby dear.” Tobias fell into the chair as she carried his fresh milk to the bar. Mandy got up.

  “For heaven’s sake,” said Thone, squirming irritably, “sit down, everybody. Drink your drink, Mandy. Elsie can clean that, can’t she?”

  “Why, of course she can,” said Ione quite gaily. “Mustn’t cry over spilled milk, anyhow.” She trilled her laughter.

  Tobias lay as he had fallen. He was ill—ill.… No one must leave this house, having drunk from a dubious glass. No one. That was the impulse. But ah—he was ill. He was not clear in his head. He was somehow entangled with the past. He was not seeing clearly.

  Thone, whom he called in his heart The Boy, as if he were the only best boy, the whole generation of wonderful male youth distilled in this boy, his dear own—Thone could have meant no harm. It was nothing that he’d changed so swiftly, in so slick a fashion, one glass for another under Tobias’ startled eyes. No, it meant nothing. It could mean nothing.

  He could not have put any alien substance in one of those glasses. Not Thone! Ah, nol Never!

  One had only to wait and see this proved before his eyes. How meaningless it was. For Thone would drink of the wrong glass and remain here, and take it in this room. And he, Tobias, would observe how nothing happened, and he would know himself to have been an old fool. A terrified old fool, worked on by memories, putting past horror into present … nothings.

  For Thone would not wish to injure Mandy, sweet pretty Mandy. What Tobias had heard him saying could not apply to Mandy. Not bear to have her look at him? Resent her here? Not Thone, who had his mother’s generous heart. Not Thone, who was surely, surely … Oh, what a fool I am! Not so small as to hate, not so narrow as to resent, not so stupid as to strike out, blind and angry …

  Ah, if he was cool to this pretty child, it was only because of that old affair, the other girl who’d wounded and frightened him so that he never quite dared be himself. Tobias could understand. He knew all this. He knew it well. He knew The Boy.

  He was sorry, now, that he’d so impulsively changed the glasses around again. He regretted his panic, that brief loss of faith. He should have had faith!

  In The Boy. This man … grown and so long away …

  He began to shudder. Ah, God, but he lacked … He had no faith … since she’d left him. He was lost, lost, since she’d taken her life away. He had understood nothing since. Nothing. And he was nothing, since she’d gone so enigmatically, so cruelly, cruelly, out of the world. He was only a nervous, shattered old fool, who should have died, not hereafter, but herebefore.…

  “Toby, my dear! You’re having a chill!”

  Ah, empty and lost was he, with only Ione to cling to now. “I don’t know,” he said. “Ione, I don’t know.”

  “Take it easy, Dad,” said Thone quietly.

  The shuddering stopped.

  “There, dearest. Your milk.” Ione hovered over him. “He’ll be all right,” she told the rest.

  Amanda took her glass, sighing.

  “Of course he will,” said Fanny. Her face was smooth but her body seemed to huddle in the chair.

  CHAPTER 23.

  AMANDA FELT EASIER. SHE KNEW IT was going to be all right now. Soon she could get up and go out of this room, and for her the worst would be over. At least she would be alone. She would not have to smile and smile and keep her muscles slack when they fought to tighten. She sipped at her drink.

  She thought, What fear can do! She thought it tasted very especially strong and nasty. If she hadn’t known, as Thone had told her, by their code, when he’d said to drink it … If she hadn’t known he meant her to do just that … She fought not to wrinkle her face and close her throat against the stuff. Well, it was the last time, the very last time she’d ever try to down this Herbsaint and pretend she liked it.

  Of course, he’d done it when the milk was spilled. She’d turned her back and fussed over Tobias and the spot, to help all she could. She knew, vaguely, it was the total tension that had upset Tobias and made him drop his glass. But there was no time to think too much about that.

  A little minute, now, to choke this down, ignoring the dark eyes she could feel, sly, upon her. And then to leave. Escape and breathe and go down and permit in the lonely dark a heartbeat or two, or a nervous tightening of the hand.

  She drank it as quickly as she could and rose with a burning throat. “I’d better go.”

  “Yes, dear. They’ll be in the checkroom in my name. The keys are in the hall, Amanda.”

  “I must say good night.” Amanda made her manners. “Good night, Miss Austin. Good night, Mr. Garrison—all.”

  “Good night,” said Fanny shortly. Tobias gave her only a wan smile. She was a crimson blur to his eyes.

  Thone said easily, “I’d ride along but this damned foot … You’ll have to excuse me.”

  “Oh, please don’t come,” said Mandy, almost too quickly.

  “I’ll put the floodlights on in the garden,” said Ione pleasantly. “But take my flash, too, dear. You mustn’t stumble.”

 
“Oh, I won’t stumble,” sang Amanda joyously. “Good night. Good night.”

  To get away would be so good!

  She walked around the sofa, up the one step, took the keys off the hall table and the black flashlight, snatched her woolly jacket from where it lay on a chair, and her purse. Ione had followed.

  “I shall wait up,” said that little lady gently. The dark eyes were pitying and almost kind.

  “Thank you.”

  “Thank you, my dear. You’re very sweet to do this for me.”

  Amanda managed one last smile. She put her feet on the stairs.

  Ione listened to the nervous haste of her descending footsteps. Then she went briskly through the kitchen to turn on … the floodlights.

  Deep in the canyon, Gene Noyes leaned on the trunk of a sycamore. He had left his car back a ways, near enough to somebody’s house to count as if he’d gone in there. Walking farther into this gulch, he’d spotted the garage easily enough. He gazed at the white blot it made in the darkness. He wanted to smoke but thought he’d better not. He could just see the lighted house from here, where he leaned at the far side of the lower road. But not much of the slope leading down. The wall and the treetops hid the lower part of it.

  It was chilly, waiting there. But he had not waited long when he saw the lights go on. Suddenly, floodlights, shooting down from the corners of the house, made day-bright the terraces, the steps, the paths. Foliage and flower sprang into exquisite and uncanny beauty. Gene saw only the upper bit of this fairyland. The rest was just a glow from beyond the wall.

  He drew deeper under the tree. Then he saw that a car was mooching slowly along the lower road toward him, coming very softly and with dimmed lights. It was a police car.

  Ducking and dodging along the far margin of the road, he ran to meet it. “Wait,” he said, panting. “Listen.”

  The car seemed to listen. At least, it stopped. Lieutenant Kelly put his head out. “Who are you?”

  “I’m supposed to be watching. You?”

  “Garrison’s?”