Odor of Violets, Baynard Kendrick [best short novels .txt] 📗

apparently hasn’t arrived, but I’d rather have you.”

Norma started to protest, and decided it would only make her late arrival in Hartford more conspicuous. She stepped into the car and sank back into the welcome seclusion of the corner, smiling a mechanical smile.

Bunny picked up a communicator beside him and spoke to Al Rutgers, his combination pilot and chauffeur. “Might as well go home, Al. Cranford isn’t coming tonight. Stop at The Crags and drop Mrs. Tredwill.”

The big Lincoln moved off with a swish of chains in slush, turned right up the Asylum hill, and started out Farmington Avenue for West Hartford.

“Well,” said Bunny. “That’s that. What have you been up to on such a day?”

“Shopping, of course.” Norma lighted a cigarette, surprised to find how easy it was to lay the foundation for a complicated tissue of lies.

“Good Lord.” Bunny chuckled. “You must love your home to take a milk train.”

“Oh, I took in a show,” said Norma, and regretted it instantly.

“Pretty soft to have a husband who gets tickets for everything,” Bunny declared scornfully. “What did you see?”

Norma watched the great Colonial bulk of the Aetna Life building slip by. Her mind was a blank. Trying her best, she could only think of the name of a single show.

“Hellz-A-Poppin.”

“I thought you and Thad saw that before.”

“We did.” She opened the window a crack and dropped out her cigarette. Somehow she must end Bunny’s questions. Everything she said gave her more explaining to do. She plunged on recklessly: —

“Thad wasn’t with me. I went with some people you don’t know. I could see it again, for that matter. It’s a swell show.”

Bunny leaned back beside her. The car was silent while he busied himself with a cigar. He pulled out an electric lighter on a cord. Norma felt that his habitually humorous round face looked grave in the reddish glow as he puffed on his cigar. He restored the lighter carefully to its place, and said: —

“Somebody told me Thad went to New York today.”

“He did.”

“Oh.”

“Oh hell, Bunny. Don’t you, of all people, get stuffed-shirty with me. Thad’s twenty-five years older than I am—but I knew that when I married him. Just because I slip into New York on the sly to buy a few Christmas surprises, and happen to go to a show, is no reason for Hartford to be clucking its tongue at me.”

“Norma, my dear!” His voice was hurt. The fine cloth of his camel-hair coat reflected his strong pull on the cigar. “You’ve got me wrong, entirely. I’d as soon cast aspersions on Bea.”

“Forget it, darling.” Norma felt she had blundered. She reached across and patted his hand. “I’m always too sensitive about Thad and me when I’m tired—”

It was a temptation to go on; to share her secret with Bunny, who was clear-headed and competent. It would be heavenly to relieve the strain by talking things over with him and his wife. She could count on understanding from delicate, brilliant Bea. But that must wait. The first—and most essential—thing was to hear Babs’s story. Until Babs returned, and talked, there was nothing that Norma dared to do.

They were passing through West Hartford center, deserted except for a few cars parked in front of the diner.

“Coffee?” asked Bunny.

Norma shook her head. “A steak wouldn’t get me out into that snow.”

“You’re awfully quiet,” he said with pleading seriousness. “Honestly, Norma, I’ll feel terrible if you’re annoyed over anything I’ve said, and so will Bea. I was really only—”

“I’ve told you, Bunny, it’s me.” Norma laughed, and hoped it didn’t sound forced. “I’ve bought a television set for Thad, which he’s been wanting for ages. All I ask is that if you and Bea come over to the house before Christmas, you won’t give my trip to New York away.”

“I’ll do even better,” Bunny assured her. “If anything comes up you can tell them that you spent the afternoon and evening at our house. I’ll pass it on to Bea. Your nefarious schemes won’t be given away.”

“Thanks,” said Norma. “You’re a grand conspirator. How is Bea?”

“Not very well,” he told her gravely. “I think I’ll send her to Florida later on. The cold and the snow get her down. She’s been in bed for a couple of days.”

“Give her my love. I’ll try to stop over tomorrow, or the following day.”

“She’ll be glad to see you.”

The lights of West Hartford dropped behind. The Lincoln turned left at the Farmington cutoff. A couple of lights marking The Crags showed like crushed blurred dandelions hung above the road in the storm. At the edge of Tredwill Village, Al Rutgers, at the wheel, turned left again. With whirring chains the big car managed to fight its way up the snow-choked roadway to the top of Tredwill hill.

Norma gave Bunny and Al Rutgers a brief good-night and thanks, and stood in the doorway under the porte-cochere until the automobile drove away. The Crags seemed vast and vacant when she stepped inside. The servants occupied another wing, and Norma was grateful for the reassuring touch of Cheli’s manuscript on a chair before the fireplace. At least, she wasn’t facing the prospect of breakfasting alone.

About to start upstairs, Norma stopped with her foot on the bottom step. Bringing with it a disturbing premonition, the telephone began to ring in a closet, which served as a booth adjoining the downstairs hall.

2

“Babs!”

Young Stacy Tredwill stood just inside the door of the Ritters’ apartment and listened to the sound of his own voice echo back down the length of the corridor.

A shaded table lamp was burning in the foyer. Farther along, to his left, more lights showed brightly from the living room. He put his hat on the table beside the lamp, slipped out of overcoat and muffler, and hung them up in the coat closet.

In the living room he turned out some of the wall lights, softening the glare. Babs must have come in and gone out again—probably for cigarettes. She always forgot everything—lights