Midnight Part 22

There was no gainsaying the fact that Naomi Lawrence was a beautiful woman. Dressed simply for an evening at home in a strikingly plain gown of a rich black material, and with her magnificent neck and shoulders rising above the midnight hue--she caused a spontaneous thrill of masculine admiration to surge through the ordinarily immune visitor in the gray suit.

Her face was almost cla.s.sic in its contour: her coloring a rich brunette, her hair blue-black. No jewelry, save an engagement ring, adorned her perfect beauty, and Carroll felt a loathing at the idea that this magnificent creature was the wife of the stoop-shouldered, sour-faced man who stood scowling by the living room table.

He gravely acknowledged the introduction of the young lady upon whom he had called: feeling a faint sense of amus.e.m.e.nt at Lawrence's overt disdain--and a considerable embarra.s.sment under Naomi's questioning, level gaze. For a few moments they talked casually--but that did not satisfy Evelyn, and she dragged him into the parlor--

"--just the eleganest jazz piece--" Carroll heard as through a haze "--just got it--feet can't keep still--play it for you--"

He found himself standing by the piano, the door between the music room and the living room unaccountably closed. Evelyn banging out the opening measures of the "elegant jazz piece."

He was still staring moodily at the closed door when the din ceased and he again heard Evelyn's voice. "A penny for your thoughts, Mr. Carroll. A real honest-to-goodness-spendable penny!"

"I was thinking," he remarked quietly, "that your sister is a very beautiful woman."

"Naomi? Shucks! She isn't bad looking--but she's _old_. Abominably old! Thirty!"

He glanced down on the girl and smiled. "That does seem old to you, doesn't it?"

"Treacherously! I don't know what I'd ever do if I was to get that old.

Take up crocheting, probably."

The conversation died of dry-rot. Carroll was not at all pleased. His excuse--the plea that he had come to call upon Evelyn--had been taken too literally. He had fancied--in his blithe ignorance of the seventeen-year-old ladies of the present day--that he could engineer himself into a worthwhile conversation with the Lawrences. Since meeting them, he was doubly anxious. There was a thinly veiled hostility about the man which demanded investigation. And about the woman there was a subtle atmosphere of tragedy which appealed to the masculine protectiveness which surged strong in his bachelor breast.

But Carroll was a sportsman. The girl had carried things her own way--and he was too game to spoil her evening. Therefore, he temporarily gave over all thought of a chat with the Lawrences and devoted himself to her amus.e.m.e.nt. He informed her that the jazz music she had strummed was simply "glorious" and that he regretted he knew very little popular stuff. She leaped upon his remark--

"Oh! do _you_ play: _really_?"

He was in again. "I have--a little."

"I wonder if you would? Here's the _grandest_ little old song I bought downtown--" and she placed on the piano a gaudy thing with the modest t.i.tle--"All Babies Need Daddies to Kiss 'Em." Its cover exposed a tender love scene wherein a gentleman in evening clothes was engaged in an act of violent osculation with a young lady whose dress was as short as her modesty. Carroll shrugged, placed his long, slender fingers on the keys--shook his head--and went to it.

He played! A genuine artist--he tried to enter into the spirit of the thing and succeeded admirably. The itchy syncopation rocked the room. His hostess snapped her fingers deliciously and executed a few movements of a dance which Carroll had heard referred to vaguely as the s.h.i.+mmy. In the midst of the revelry he gave thought to Eric Leverage and chuckled.

He played the chorus a second time--then stopped on a cras.h.i.+ng chord.

Evelyn's face was beaming--

"Gracious! You can play, can't you?"

"I used to--Suppose we talk awhile."

She agreed--reluctantly. They seated themselves in easy chairs before the gas logs. Evelyn glanced hopefully at the chandelier. "I wish the belt would slip at the power house, don't you?"

"Why?" innocently.

"Oh! just because Bright lights are such a nuisance when a girl has a feller calling on her. And these logs give a perfectly respectable light, don't they?"

"Indeed they do--but perhaps we'd better leave the others on."

She sighed resignedly. "I guess we'd better. Sis is so darned proper and Gerald is an old crab--they might say something."

"I suppose they might. By they way, didn't they think it was--er--strange: my coming to see you tonight?"

She turned red. "Suppose they did--what difference does that make? I'm not a child and if a gentleman wants to call on me I guess they haven't got any kick."

"What did they say when you told them I was coming?"

"They didn't believe me at first. Then Sis said you were too old--and you're not old at all--and Gerald said--he said--" she giggled.

"What did Gerald say?"

"He said, 'd.a.m.ned impertinence!'"

"H'm-m! I wonder just what he meant?"

"Oh! goodness! It doesn't matter what Gerald means. He makes me weary.

He's simply _impossible_--and I can't see what Sis ever married him for."

"I suppose she saw more in him than you do. They must be very happy together."

"Happy? Poof! Happy as two dead sardines in a can. They can't get out--so they might as well be happy. Besides, he's away a good deal."

"He is, eh? When was his last out-of-town trip?"

Carroll was interested now--he had steered the conversation back to matters of importance: "Oh! 'bout four days ago--you know--the day dear Roland was killed by that vampire in the taxicab."

"He was away that night: all night?"

"Uh-huh! All night long. And would you believe that Sis--who is scared of her shadow at night--was the one who suggested that I go spend the night with Hazel? And it's certainly fortunate she did, because if she hadn't I wouldn't have been with Hazel all night and you awful detectives would probably not have believed her story that she was at home in bed, and then you would have arrested her for murdering Roland--and she'd have gone to jail and been hanged--or something. Wouldn't she?"

"Hardly that bad. But it was fortunate that you were there. It made the establis.h.i.+ng of the alibi a very simple matter. And you say your sister--Mrs. Lawrence--is nervous at night?"

"Oh! fearfully. She's just like all women--scared of rats, scared of the dark, scared of being alone--perfectly disgusting, I call it."

"Quite a few women are that way, though--"

"I'm not. I'm scared of snakes and flying bugs and things like that. But I don't get scared of the dark--pff! Who's going to hurt you? That's what I always say. I believe in figuring things out, don't you I read in a book once where--"

"But maybe you do Mrs. Lawrence an injustice. Maybe she isn't as afraid at night as you imagine."

"She is, too."

"Yet you say she let you spend the night at Miss Gresham's house when Mr. Lawrence was out of the city and there wasn't anybody on the place but the servants--"

"Worse than that: the servants don't even live on the place. She spent the night here all alone--!"

"Then all I'll say is that she is a brave woman. When did Mr. Lawrence get back from Nashville?"

"Oh! not until ten o'clock the following morning. And believe me, he was all excited when he read about Roland in the papers. Poor Roland! If you were only a girl, Mr. Carroll--you'd know how terrible it is to have a man who's crazy about you and engaged to your best friend and everything--go and get himself murdered. Why, when I read the papers that morning, I couldn't hardly believe my own eyes. I just said to myself 'it can't be!' I said it over and over again just like that. Having faith, I think they call it. I was reading in a book once about having faith--"

She talked interminably. Carroll ceased to hear the plangent voice. He was thinking of what she had just told him--thinking earnestly. He knew he was desperately anxious to have a talk with the Lawrences, to talk things over in a casual manner. And tonight was his opportunity. He knew he'd never have another like it. He didn't want to be forced to seek them out in his capacity of detective.