Dream of Fair Woman Page 4

  ‘Why don’t you go over to the hospital where she is,’ said Betty with real curiosity, ‘and see?’

  ‘Yes,’ he sighed, ‘I must do that. I did hope that you ladies could tell me something that would—well—knock out the possibility of her being …’ he hesitated … ‘Dorothy Daw.’

  Peg, who knew the name, gasped.

  ‘What?’ said Betty, looking at her in bewilderment. But she too seemed to have heard that name somewhere.

  ‘Because of the publicity,’ purred the man. ‘My niece, poor child, was born prey for the newspapers. She happens, Miss Prentiss, to be the tenth richest young woman in the world.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Betty and then burst, ‘But her things! This girl, our girl, had the cheapest kind of clothing. All worn and old, and cheap in the beginning.’

  ‘Is that so?’ He sat back and pursed his already naturally narrow mouth. ‘That is certainly very, very strange. Is there anything among her things that would make it impossible for her to be Dorothy?’

  ‘I don’t know what that could be,’ said Betty.

  ‘I don’t either,’ he confessed. ‘But she had, for instance, no chequebook? No jewellery?’ They shook their heads. ‘Well, I’m stumped,’ he said to them both. ‘I want to do whatever is the right thing.’ He spread out his hands. Peg nodded in sympathy. ‘But I do not want to bring in Dorothy’s name at all if that is not necessary. She has had enough pawing from the Press in her day. Now, she only just came back, on Sunday, from a year’s stay in Uganda.’

  ‘Uganda!’ said Betty, the syndrome ‘Africa,-tse-tse fly—sleeping sickness’ leaping into her mind, and then being quickly cast out as popular science in the worst sense. ‘Is your niece missing?’ she inquired.

  ‘She may be,’ he said gravely. ‘She may be. I put her into a cab for the airport on Tuesday, right after lunch. But she was wearing a very good suit, a little feather hat,’ he was making gestures, ‘hand-made shoes and bag to match and carrying a white train case. If this is she, then where are those things?’

  ‘Where was she going?’ asked Betty. ‘Are you sure she didn’t get there?’

  ‘She did not get there,’ said the man, sadly. ‘I telephoned this morning. Her friends in San Francisco had not even expected her. She had not phoned them or wired. So that, you see, is a little mystery in itself. A coincidence?’ he purred.

  Betty began to believe that the girl was Dorothy Daw. ‘Was there anything,’ she leaned forward to ask, ‘that she might have wanted to run away from?’

  ‘My dear, I don’t know.’ He looked startled and spread his hands again. ‘I do not know. She didn’t say. She came in, on Sunday. I met her and took her to my house, of course. I am her … well, not her legal guardian anymore, since she is too old for that … but I manage the … er … estate for her. Dorothy doesn’t want to be bothered by the financial chores and so she hires me to do them.’ He smiled and the corners of his mouth turned up rather saucily. ‘I hadn’t seen her for … oh, more than two … I should say almost three years. She travels, you know. She goes where she pleases. We simply had a reunion. Nothing at all was said about her wanting to … how did you put it?… run away. I see, of course, what you mean. I suppose it is possible. I suppose she could have tried to … disappear, shall we say? To have become anonymous? She might even have gone to the trouble of a disguise. I don’t know. I can’t say. It is true that she … rather dreads the United States. She hates walking in the limelight. She had much too much of that, years ago. That’s why she travels. She says that in the United States she is least free’.

  He sighed. ‘So you ladies assure me that you cannot think of anything …?’

  Betty took a moment to divine his meaning. She felt he was putting it backwards, in some curious way. Then she answered, with Peg that they could think of nothing to deny that the girl might be Miss Dorothy Daw, the tenth richest young woman in the world.

  ‘She wore no make-up, though,’ said Betty. ‘No nail polish. Nothing at all, of that sort.’

  ‘That could be Dorothy,’ he said. ‘It is a strange thing—or maybe it isn’t—how a person who has always had a great deal of money will be the one to care very little about some of the things money will buy. Things that … how shall I say this … that would be budgeted for, by less prosperous people. As a matter of fact, I can imagine that she was on … well … a poor-but-honest kick.’

  ‘She sounds,’ said Betty, ‘like a very unconventional person.’

  ‘You could say so,’ he said, with a trace of bitterness. He became suddenly a little impatient. ‘She is not conscious? She doesn’t speak? What is this mysterious illness? Is it really serious?’

  ‘I don’t think they know what it is yet,’ said Peg, in a fluster. ‘They would have let me know, you see. I have considered myself responsible because, after all, she was taken ill in my house.’

  ‘Oh, my dear lady,’ he said, his pale lids fluttering, ‘how good of you to be concerned about a poor stranger—as she must have seemed to you. But if she is my niece, of course you must feel relieved of any burden. With our deepest appreciation.’

  Peg couldn’t answer. Betty went with him to the door.

  Then Peg called after. ‘I’ll phone my son, Mr Daw. He works at the hospital and he can guide you. Show you just how to get to see her. I do hope—I do hope that she will soon recover.’

  ‘So do I,’ he said, ‘which goes without saying.’

  With many thanks he bowed himself away.

  When Betty returned from the door Peg was already on the phone, pouring the whole story into Matt’s ear.

  When she had hung up, Betty said, ‘I don’t know, Peg. It looked as if she never had worn any jewellery. No watch or ring marks.’

  ‘Well, but if she was being poor-but-honest in Uganda for a year …’ sputtered Peg.

  ‘She sounds whacky,’ said Betty.

  Matt was on the hospital steps when the big black car came slipping around the park. Mr Leon Daw took no account of regulations. He left his vehicle in a doctor’s slot beside the entrance and came to where Matt was standing with somewhat of a bounce.

  ‘You are, of course, that very kind Mrs Cuneen’s son,’ said Mr Daw, shaking hands. (Matt didn’t care for being told who he, of course, was.) ‘And I must say to you,’ the man continued, ‘that if this girl is Dorothy Daw I’ll want your advice as to how, in some substantial way, we can show your mother our profound gratitude.’

  Matt felt himself freezing.

  ‘I’ll want Dorothy under my own doctor’s care,’ Mr Daw went purring on. ‘The very best of everything. Poor dear. Do you know what this illness is?’

  ‘They’ll find out,’ Matt said. ‘She’s in good hands.’

  ‘Of course. Of course,’ purred Mr Daw, scenting offence taken. They pushed into the lobby, where he stopped. ‘By the way, did you see or speak to her that Wednesday morning?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Matt. ‘By the time I saw her she was … sleeping.’ His throat swelled.

  ‘I see.’ Mr Daw began to walk. ‘Now, how do I find her?’

  ‘I’ll take you there,’ Matt said stolidly. The man had the right.

  ‘Dr Cuneen …’

  ‘Mister …’ Matt corrected quickly.

  ‘I see. Then, Mr Cuneen, you can’t tell me whether her condition is serious and if so how serious? Or whether she … will recover?’

  The man had stopped again. His light blue eyes peered at Matt under arched brows that gave his face an expression of skittishness. ‘I want the truth,’ he added, as if with great daring.

  ‘Nobody knows the truth yet,’ Matt told him. ‘For that reason alone, it is what you would call serious.’

  ‘But do they think she will come out of it?’ Daw asked impatiently.

  ‘Possibly. Possibly she will never regain consciousness,’ Matt felt weary of the layman’s demand for a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, as he told the truth.

  Then suddenly, as the blue eyes went wincing and blinki
ng away, Matt fell-in-hate with this fellow. It was like a conversion. He was absolutely sure that he did not trust this Leon Daw, did not like him, in fact, loathed everything about him, his looks, his mannerisms, his very flesh. Matt did not want the girl to turn out to be Miss Dorothy Daw, the tenth richest young woman in the world. He did not want her to belong, in any way, to Leon Daw. He did not want this man to take the sleeping girl away.

  But Matt led him along the main corridor. There was a truth about her and it must stand.

  They turned into the side corridor and saw a knot of nurses at the far end of it. Matt lengthened his stride, taking them swiftly to that open door, halfway along. In Room 124 the sun slanted through the blinds, but she lay sleeping in soft shadow.

  Leon Daw went tiptoe, soft as a big cat, towards the bed. Matt went with him, watchfully. ‘Not too close,’ he warned. He didn’t know why. Daw’s face seemed pinker and it was gathered to solemnity.

  ‘Ah …’ he breathed. Then he whispered, ‘How long has she been this way?’

  ‘Since some time on Wednesday,’ said Matt, in normal tones.

  The man glanced at him nervously and then back at the girl. Matt looked at her, too. They had skinned back her hair and tied it somehow; it lay smooth and neat to her head. Her face was totally revealed, pure, serene, quiet in beauty.

  Matt heard Leon Daw suck in his breath. ‘But she will wake? She will wake, won’t she?’

  Matt could only shake his head.

  ‘What are the chances?’ the man whispered urgently.

  ‘Do you know her?’ Matt countered. ‘They don’t know anything about her. They have no clue. Who is she?’

  Leon Daw wiped his mouth with his fingers. ‘Ah, yes, Ah, poor dear Dorothy. Yes, this is she.’

  ‘You are sure?’ said Matt crisply. (‘So be it,’ his mind said, ‘alas.’)

  ‘Of course I’m sure.’ Now the man used voice, but softly. ‘I’ve known her since she was’—he took out a handkerchief—‘a baby. She’s not my blood niece, you know. Her grandfather married twice. I was a stepbrother to her father. But I took the name. We are family. All that’s left. How young she looks, to be … so … so stricken.’ He turned away and Matt followed him out of the room.

  ‘Now, then,’ said Mr Daw, putting his handkerchief back into his pocket. (Quite dry, thought Matt with a flash of anger.) ‘I asked you what the chances are that she will wake. I do not want her waking up in a strange place—’

  ‘I’m not a doctor,’ Matt said shortly.

  ‘What are they doing?’

  ‘Nothing, until they have a very sound idea what the trouble is. They’d better not.’

  ‘You mean to say they are doing nothing?’

  ‘They are watching, testing. How can they do what they don’t know yet they ought to do?’ Matt was disgusted with a layman’s idea of science.

  ‘I see, I see.’ Leon worked his mouth. Then he said sharply, ‘Now then, to whom ought I to speak about taking her out of here immediately?’

  Matt blinked.

  ‘You must see that I’ll want her somewhere where something will be done. I’ll arrange it as soon as possible.’

  The man turned to walk and Matt turned with him, feeling an unreasonable anger.

  One of the nurses came running. She was a young one with a rosy face and she said breathlessly, ‘Oh, Mr Cuneen, have you heard?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They know who she is, now!’

  Leon Daw became as still as a cat.

  ‘Her name is Alison Hopkins,’ the nurse went on excitedly. ‘She’s a starlet in the movies. Her mother is with Mr Atwood now.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘Her mother!’ burst Leon Daw on a gust of breath. ‘Her mother is dead! Her name is Dorothy Daw.’

  Matt looked at the angry face, the blue eyes popping from pink flesh, and felt an unreasonable inner leap of glee.

  ‘Where is this so-called mother?’ The man’s poorly shaped mouth could be vicious. ‘What’s going on here? Who is in authority?’

  ‘I’ll show you,’ said Matt mildly.

  Mr Atwood had a small office tucked away in the north wing. Matt tapped on the door, and feeling justified by this fantastic emergency, he opened it before he was bidden to do so. The Administrator was behind his desk, his head up, his look alert. Dr Jon was standing beside him, stiff and frosty towards a breach of etiquette. In the chair at the other side of the desk there was sitting a woman, with her head swivelled around on a taut neck.

  ‘What is it, please?’ said Atwood hostilely.

  ‘Mr Atwood, Dr Prentiss, this is Mr Leon Daw,’ said Matt with crisp urgency. ‘He has just identified the girl in 124 as his niece Dorothy.’

  The men’s faces understood and changed. The woman did not move. Perhaps her eyes became a little glassy.

  Dr Jon said, just as crisply, ‘This is Mrs Bobbie Hopkins. She identifies the girl in 124 as her daughter Alison.’

  Mrs Bobbie Hopkins said, foolishly, ‘How do you do?’ Then, belatedly, she gasped.

  She was not a large woman, but one a bit too stout for her height, and sternly corseted in. Her hair was a reddish colour that nature not only had not produced but probably never would. She had drawn all around her blue eyes with various coloured pencils and pastes. Her mouth was painted a rich red some of which colour was also on her front teeth. She had a burning cigarette in her right hand and now, as Leon Daw moved with his cat tread to look down at her, she squashed it in the ashtray with an emphatic gesture, as if to declare war.

  ‘Madame,’ he said in his purring way, ‘if you are speaking of the girl whose picture was in this morning’s paper, then I fear you’ve made some mistake.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Mrs Hopkins shrilly. ‘You out of your mind or something? That’s my kid. I ought to know.’

  Matt backed up against the wall near the door to listen and observe. Dr Jon seemed to have stepped back with the same intention. Fred C. Atwood, a man with a face like a bloodhound’s, remained silent, although alert.

  But now Leon Daw turned on the Administrator. ‘I don’t know what you people think you are doing,’ he barked. ‘I want my niece removed, at once, for intelligent treatment, and away from any more wicked invasions by irresponsible people. I’ll make the arrangements now. May I use your telephone?’

  ‘You may not,’ said Atwood quietly, ‘until we know a little more about this. You say you recognise that girl?’

  ‘I do. She happens to be my niece.’

  ‘Well, I certainly should know my own baby,’ cried the woman. ‘Say who is this creep? What right has he got to come barging in here and calling me a liar? Is he calling me a liar?’ She was heaving at the bosom and she clutched it. ‘I told you all about it. When I saw her picture I was … Oh, I can’t tell you how it hit me. Poor kiddie! That’s my little baby girl lying there, so sick, and she might even die, and now this man …’

  Mrs Hopkins was preparing to weep. Matt, who had been searching her face for any resemblance, felt a flash of disgust with her feminine tactics. To weep would not alter the truth. But what was it? The woman’s face was so made-up, so beaten into what might, with very low lighting and a good deal of charity, seem still young and fair, that although Matt conceded that she might once have been a pretty little thing, it was difficult to judge just now. There was the straight small nose, the well-rounded chin. But the resemblance, if such it was, did not constitute proof. Or even conviction.

  ‘Listen,’ the woman sobbed, ‘I told you. She took off. I was looking for her myself because somebody wants her for a big part. I mean, I didn’t know she was sick in the hospital, for crying out loud. I woulda been here, long ago.’

  It was Dr Jon who told her to be quiet and by some personal magnetism held her so, as he began to pry into Leon Daw’s knowledge about his niece’s health. Had Dorothy Daw a physician in Los Angeles? Not that Mr Daw knew. Where then, in what part of the world, had she been treated by a physician? M
r Daw did not know. She travelled, he said haughtily. Had she had an illness, say within the year? Mr Daw had heard of nothing important. He was a perfect blank. But he kept his control, although sweat appeared on his forehead.

  ‘What about … Does Mrs Hopkins know anything?’ put in Matt.

  The Administrator was shaking his head.

  So Matt said boldly, ‘As you know, I admitted the patient on behalf of my mother, who holds herself responsible. I don’t see how we can surrender this girl to either of these people until we are sure which one has the right.’

  Atwood was nodding gravely.

  Leon Daw turned on Matt and said nastily, ‘If it comes to a question of proof, I am prepared to bring a few other people to support my identification. That is, if you are really refusing to take my word.’ His word, he implied, was backed by status and record, and they must be insane to doubt it.

  Matt was unawed. ‘I understood my mother to say that your niece had been out of the country for years. So how …?’

  ‘I mean to bring people who saw her here, since Sunday.’ The man was furious and sweating.

  ‘Well,’ cried Mrs Hopkins, who had been held back long enough, ‘don’t kid yourselves that I can’t bring around quite a few people who know Alison.’

  ‘Didn’t I understand you to say,’ put in Dr Jon, ‘that your daughter had only recently returned from Spain?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mrs Hopkins. ‘She came home two weeks ago. But her agent knows her, for God’s sake. She’s not exactly an unknown.’ The woman glared triumphantly. ‘She’s in motion pictures.’

  ‘Ah, in motion pictures,’ purred Leon Daw, with enlightened contempt. ‘I see. I see.’

  ‘You don’t see a thing,’ shrilled the lady. ‘You think you’re so smart. Let me tell you, Alison is a dedicated artist. She’s studied for years. She’s had some very good credits. She’s going places. And you don’t go places without …’

  ‘Without publicity?’

  The woman goggled at him. The paint on her face seemed to detach from the skin, as if underneath there was another face.