Lemon in the Basket Page 17

  “Yah, I’m not going to worry, believe me.” She had been sullen. “Sure, now your fancy family is going to come and get you into some jail.”

  “No, no. Not yet.” Rufus had been, by then, at the door to the passage. “How does this open?”

  “My God, you can’t even work a door lock!” She had turned the little latch on the inside of the bedroom door and opened the door for him. “I’m not …” She had stood there, on her stockinged feet. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  He had looked at her and his mouth had turned into that little chirruping silly smile. “In the pages of history,” he had mumbled.

  Then what he’d done, she didn’t want to think about. He hadn’t tried to kiss her, but he had touched her cheek and even as she recoiled, Rufus had said, “I don’t matter. But you mustn’t worry, Lurlene. Honey-Lu? Just remember. You were always the girl for me.”

  Lurlene had shut the door, swiftly. She had listened and thought she heard his steps going toward the back way down. She had remembered to lock the door again, and scrambled back to the bed and felt so sick she’d thought she was going to die.

  Her heart was banging away at the moment. “So go ahead, strangle me,” she whined up at Duncan. “Just because I couldn’t stand to see my own husband … and he cares about me. I mean, maybe nobody else does, but he does!”

  Maggie said, in her cool voice that cut into Lurlene’s rising hysteria and seemed to cut it down, “If Rufus had walked into the guards or the police or the newspapermen, outside, wouldn’t we know it by now?”

  Duncan let Lurlene go then. “It would seem so,” he murmured.

  Lurlene couldn’t stand the look on his face. She said, “Oh, you’ll hear!”

  “What?” Duncan demanded.

  But Lurlene had to remember herself. Wait. Wait. Wait. “I don’t know,” she whimpered. “Nothing. Nothing. What’s the matter with you people? I didn’t do one bad thing. Nothing. Nothing. So torture me. Just go ahead. Torture me.”

  Maggie said, as if Lurlene did not exist, “I must go down, Duncan.”

  “Sure enough,” he said. “Violence is stupid. That’s the civilized premise.” His voice was back to normal. “I won’t strangle her.”

  Downstairs, it became apparent that the King was preparing to leave the party. He had returned to the big room, flanked by his two cohorts, and was speaking to the Princess. His phone call could not have been upsetting. They did not seem excited. They seemed to be saying a pleasant good evening to each other. They took all eyes.

  The four men, who had conferred so briefly and quietly in the Judge’s study, were now distributed among the guests. Only they knew that there had been no phone call.

  It was the Judge who noticed that the King’s third man had not yet reappeared.

  Maggie came floating down the stairs, all smiles, just as the Judge started up. “What is it, William?” She put her hand on his arm, turning him to walk down beside her. The Judge could feel a certain vibration in her.

  “Oh, it’s that colonel, Maggie darling. I saw him go up, a while ago. The King seems to be thinking about leaving.”

  “Oh?” said Maggie. Al Asad had seen her and was even now moving toward her under full sail. So Maggie spoke to the Judge, but pitched her voice to the King. “But Colonel Gorob just excused himself, dear. When I happened to mention that His Majesty was on the telephone to Alalaf. I’m quite sure he came down. I have the impression that he left the house. You could ask.”

  The King snapped some words to one of his men who immediately slipped away through the front door into the clamor out there.

  “I didn’t notice,” the Judge said, feeling lost.

  The King came to his hostess and his host, to make his formal farewells. His eye was frosty. He was very stiffly correct.

  When his man slipped in again, with a word or two for the King’s ear, Al Asad smiled with thin lips. He turned toward the big room to incline his head very slightly to the entire assemblage there, dismissing them.

  The Judge murmured to the other man, “I’m sorry that your Colonel Gorob seems to have drifted off.”

  “His Majesty has sent him on an errand,” the man said coldly.

  “Oh, I see.”

  The King, then, with entourage, departed. Outside, it was discovered that His Majesty (who spoke no English) was too fatigued for a cumbersome interpreted interview at this time. Al Asad wished to return to his hotel at once. Motors began to stutter. The Judge and Maggie and the Princess stood in the open door to wish their royal visitor Godspeed. The royal visitor entered his limousine without a backward glance at them.

  The procession moved. Bulbs flashed. Motors snarled. Sirens wound up for screaming.

  When all of it had died away, the Judge closed the door of his house against the suddenly silenced night. He saw the weariness that crossed Maggie’s face and he patted her. “It went well,” he said comfortingly.

  “I am glad, William.” She gave him a wan smile. Then she turned on her hostess-ness and began to move among her guests, urging them please to stay and, at the same time, clearly stating that the party was really all over, now, and they might as well go home. The Princess, for her part, had subdued her golden glow and seemed tired.

  The Judge, saying farewell to what guests had been peculiarly his own, had for some time felt his mild elation ebbing away. It wasn’t like Maggie to have said what she seemed to have said that she had said. She seemed to have warned off this suspected spy, and the King had not liked that. Besides, when could the King have sent Gorob on an errand? And for whom, or what, had Maggie’s eyes been searching the very shrubbery outside, and why had he continued to feel that vibration in her? Humph!

  At last, at last the house was left to itself.

  23

  Downstairs, the servants still chattered softly as they continued to clear away the debris. Upstairs, in the west wing, Zora was still frantically packing. Upstairs, in the Judge’s bedroom, the family was still gathered, together with the Princess.

  Since the party’s demise, several things had already happened.

  Duncan had found out, by a few cautious questions to the guards, that Rufus had left the grounds and so had Colonel Gorob. But in sequence, and not together.

  Dr. Mitchel Tyler had already come back to this room and gone away again. Whatever dismay he had felt, to find Rufus missing, he had not complained aloud, but in a series of sharp questions he had extracted from Lurlene the information that Rufus had been taking a drug, over and above any doctor’s advice. Mitch had pried out of her a description of the pills and what she remembered, or had ever known, of their composition.

  He had then given his opinion that Rufus, in all probability, was not going to drop dead in the street, but he must be much addled in his mind, his thought processes would be fuzzier even than normal, and his actions therefore absolutely unpredictable. Rufus might, Mitch said, simply fall apart, lose energy, and do nothing. “Except talk,” he had added bleakly.

  (Talk is all we need, Duncan had thought. “The civilized professor hit me and tied me, hand and foot. The Doctor left me injured. In the Judge’s house, a crime was hushed over. My mother, the actress, put on an act and my talented and respectable sisters-in-law lied and lied, under her direction. They drugged my wife.”)

  None of this was said, at the time. Mitch had whisked off again, back to the hospital where he would set up a kind of early defense line against the chance that Rufus would come there.

  Duncan had already telephoned to Ed Duveen, and certain other known cronies, and with deep caution had asked in a vein of humorous wrath that if his brother was there, would Rufus kindly come to the phone and tell Duncan Tyler whether he had gone off with Duncan’s car keys. Because if he had, he was darn tootin’ going to bring them back. Rufus was not, and had not been, near any of those telephones.

  Jaylia had already been called to the Judge’s phone to listen to Al Asad’s decree. The royal plane was leaving somewhat earli
er on the next day than had been previously planned. His Majesty intended to be on board at nine A.M. If the boy and his mother were there and ready, well and good. But if, for some reason, they could not be, then they must follow later.

  No reason was given. Uncomfortable possibilities existed. Something they knew nothing about was happening in Alalaf? The old King was scudding before a storm that only he knew was breaking? Or something had already happened here? If so, they knew not what or where. They were waiting for a blow that may have already fallen.

  Phillida was sitting with her hands clenched, and from time to time she pounded her own thigh. Maggie was lying back in the Judge’s other bedroom easy chair, looking fragile and exhausted. Jaylia had refused a seat; she was too restless. At the moment, she was leaning against the wall. Duncan was standing. He watched his father. The Judge was standing. His long face was grave as he looked down at Lurlene, who, disheveled, frightened, and on the defensive, was still half-lying on his bed.

  “This is very serious, Lurlene,” he was telling her, in his deep and quietening voice. “You must try to understand, now. If it becomes known, if the news is broadcast to the world, that Rufus,” the Judge kept his voice from wincing, “attempted to assassinate Prince Saiph this evening, there go any American hopes in Alalaf. But much more important, there go some lives there. American lives, as well as others. Don’t you realize that?”

  “Well, but I mean, he didn’t. The kid’s O.K., isn’t he? I mean, I didn’t even know a thing about it, so what did I do wrong?”

  The Judge was wondering whether Lurlene, in her state, even believed that there was such a place as Alalaf, with living people in it.

  “There was Tamsen, you see,” he went on, since he was not speaking exclusively to Lurlene. It was useful to list things for the purpose of arranging them in order, for the purpose of reasoning about them. “The boy was wearing a knife. He threw it and hurt Tamsen. How do you suppose that could be explained, without saying that he threw it to protect himself? And against what?”

  “Honest, I never … Listen, I didn’t know Tamsen got hurt. I’m sor-ry.” Lurlene’s “sorry” was a hostile whine. Why are you blaming me? it said. Not my fault.

  The Judge, however, suspected that it was, in some degree, her fault. “You didn’t guess what Rufus intended to do here this evening?” The Judge sounded unimpassioned, still—but he would have liked the true answer to this question. He felt that Maggie would, too. Only he could know how Maggie felt. Only he knew how much this hurt.

  “No,” Lurlene screamed the lie. “No. How could I know?”

  “These things were done—have been done,” said Jaylia restlessly.

  “Yes.” The Judge sighed. But he went on. “Now that Lurlene has let Rufus go, since we were not able to keep him here until we could in some way find out how to help him—”

  Yah. Yah, thought Lurlene. Tie him up! Sure. That’s a big help. Her face turned sullen.

  “Now that Rufus has gone off alone,” the Judge went plodding on, “he will, most probably, either in the act of trying another assault of some kind, or in collapse somewhere, tell the world all about what has been done here. And when this happens, the consequences I mention may all follow.”

  (Worse than before, the Judge thought. Worse than before.)

  “But he’s crazy,” burst Lurlene. “Didn’t Mitch say he’s practically nuts? So O.K. So how come all this stuff has got to follow?” She used the Judge’s word, one not natural to her.

  Phillida said, “Damn! Mitch does such wonders! Oh, damn, damn and damn!” Nobody hushed her. She hushed herself.

  “There’ll be local consequences,” said Duncan, speaking as his father had spoken, gravely, filling out the list so that reason could consider the total situation, “for me, as well as for Mitch. I will almost certainly be removed from my nomination, gently or otherwise. You may not be on any more committees, Phillida. They may think better of naming the theatre, Maggie, as you realize. The Judge won’t get his appointment, of course. Rufus is a gone goose, one way or another. If it gets really bad … I suppose Lurlene will be one of the most infamous women.” He could no longer keep all anger out of his voice.

  Maggie said wearily, “Oh, hush, dear. We know.”

  But Lurlene was falling deeper into the mattress and a small alteration was taking place on her mouth. Yah! she was thinking, that’s right. Hey, I get it! I see what Rufus was getting at. I’m going to be the famous one! Now she let herself know what she had known, already.

  “Where did Rufus go?” asked Duncan for the nineteenth time.

  Lurlene had told them, eighteen times, that she didn’t know. This time, she didn’t even answer. Love takes strange forms, she vaguely mused. But you had to admit, it kind of built you up. Oh, that poor slob! Still, say Rufus was nuts. Lurlene wasn’t. And you might as well figure what’s probably going to happen to you. She could tell about his … uh … career, and how his folks always … Well, no, now … Wait. Everybody was going to see that, good and plain. Yah, the wonderful, wonderful Tylers!

  “We are bound to find out where he has gone, sooner or later,” the Judge said with a certain dryness. He was glancing at his watch. “By the way,” he added with a somewhat miraculous resumption of a twinkle, “I’m glad you chose not to tell me what aiding and abetting was going on over my head.”

  “There wasn’t time for pros and cons, William,” said Maggie. “Besides, you had your part to play.”

  Then she lifted her chin and her face announced, by a very suspicious look at the Judge, a certain lifting of her spirits. “I’m sure you were very good at it,” she said.

  “Oh, I’m all right in a character bit,” the Judge said, chuckling. Jaylia was turned toward him now, alertly. Phillida had lifted her head and her hands were opening. Duncan himself suddenly ceased to despair.

  “There is luck, you know,” the Judge said, because he was very old, he had lived a long time. “Don’t forget that there are often surprises. Good ones, as well as bad ones.”

  “And time’s going by,” cried Duncan. “If they can just get away, before it blows!” He had forgotten Jaylia’s presence. He was including her in the pronoun “they.” (They, the foreigners.) “We could then clobber Rufus, as insane. Which he is. Does Mitch know they’ve got to make this plane early? I want to call the hospital. Who is going to watch Lurlene?”

  “I,” said Phillida promptly. “I’ll watch her, never fear.”

  Duncan actually laughed. “O.K., Tiger,” he said and left the room. The Princess watched him go.

  Lurlene lay very low. “And like—he was one of the Tylers, but he married just a poor girl—and it was a real love story and always faithful.…” Tears were in her eyes.

  24

  Colonel Gorob, riding in the third taxicab he had taken since he had left the Tyler house, judged that he must have obscured his tracks sufficiently. He was now proceeding to a spot within walking distance of his real destination.

  He was going to his new masters, or their local representatives. He had not hesitated to run out on the old. That woman had obviously been very sure of her information (which was correct, of course), and so had her son been, and the Colonel putting this together with his earlier suspicions that Al Asad had mysteriously ceased to trust him, was able to decide, at once, not to risk staying around to be exposed, or worse. In the first place, discovered and uncovered, he immediately ceased to be of any use, there, to his new masters. In the second place, imprisoned or dead, he would be of no use to anyone at all, including himself. So he was going to his new masters, and he would lay the situation before them and soften their sense of loss by presenting an idea that might still enable him to save the day.

  Meantime, Gorob pondered his mistake. He realized that it had not been an error in reasoning, because he had not, strictly speaking, been reasoning. He had made a bad guess. He had chosen, from four or perhaps five remarks that one Tyler or another had made in his hearing, the wrong three to put tog
ether.

  “Guinea-pigs,” Duncan Tyler had said, “as in Guinea pigs.” Gorob was still baffled by this. Guinea pig, in the American patois, meant something to do with science, did it not? But science, as far as he could see, was perfectly irrelevant. (Very annoying. But the Colonel dismissed it.)

  Now, he had guessed (and not unintelligently, really) that some woman connected with the household had been in that house this evening wounded by a knife. But he had been wrong. He ought not to have eliminated the name.

  Gorob was now coming up with a revised guess that Alice Foster was, of course, the “Alice” and that someone in Alalaf had finally got close enough to that annoying and interfering old woman to sink a knife into her. He was afraid, however, that she was not dead. He was inclined to believe that she had been on the telephone. That would be like her. It was possible that her would-be assassin had been captured and induced to tell too much. It was possible that he had been a fellow employee of the Colonel’s and had known too much. The Colonel felt disgusted. Still, he had not been captured. Hah, that woman, Maggie Tyler, had been indiscreet, in the end.

  But he must turn his mind to the future. His new masters must be served; he must, in some way, substitute for his lost usefulness. But surely the idea that had come to him was an effective service, even more valuable than his original assignment.

  They would be interested to hear—as the Colonel had been interested—that, on the morrow, the old King and the young Prince would both be traveling on one aircraft. If such an aircraft were to vanish into the ocean—a fine place for vanishing, incidentally—affairs would most certainly come to a sharp crisis in Alalaf, immediately. Not only would his new masters find the ensuing confusion most helpful and no doubt an opening, into which they could leap, but the Colonel himself might retrieve his own hopes of power. For who else, as trustworthy as he, had been trusted for so long in that country?