Who was Johnny Sims to decide against them all?
CHAPTER 9
It was alm«st five o'clock in the afternoon by the time they turned into a road that ran between vast flats of what seemed to be pure sand. Johnny had seen this country when rows of twisted sticks stretched across as desolate and unproductive-looking a landscape, as one would see this side of the moon. At this season the sticks were hidden in green.
This private road, thought Johnny, was the 'long, long driveway' that Chnton McCauley had walked on a midnight, long years ago. It made a loop around a knoll with a tuft of trees upon it that stood up like a hairy wart on the smooth face of the land. Johnny noted another road leading away to the back.
He took the narrow tum-o?F into the thicket of trees that curved up to the door of a huge wooden house of Victorian design which was painted, gingerbread and all, a soft pale piuplish color. The efiPect was rather pleasing.
They parked and went up the steps. Double wooden doors with old-fashioned etched glass in their upper portions. The doors to which Clinton McCauley had fitted his key? Johnny punched a bell-button,
A neat maid opened the doors. Dorothy asked for Nan. They were let in.
They stepped upon a red carpet. Surely, thought Johnny, not the same red carpet upon which Clinton McCauley had found the candlestick lying. But, if not, it was a replacement that repeated. There was a lot of red carpet. The hall was fifteen feet wide and it went far and deep into the old mansion. He thought he could tell, by an alteration in the hght, where the stairs went up, on the left, about half-way back.
To their inmiediate right, an arch was shut off by two tightly closed sliding doors. To their left an arch had no doors at aU and from this room, as if she came around tlie comer somehow, Nan appeared.
She moved hghtly. Johnny saw that she had regained that dancing air, the effect of some inner joy that he, J. Sims might have to destroy. Behind her loomed Dick Bartee, the tall blond man, easy in his own place, not a type who showed surprise. Then the two girls were exchanging httle jabberings of surprise and explanation.
Johnny said to Dick in the proper undertone, 'I wonder if I could wash?'
Bartee nodded. ''Under the stairs. Just go on down the haU.'
So Johnny set off upon the red carpet. He knew very well that he might not be within these walls but this once, and he wanted to look at the study. It lay across from the bottom of the stairs that wound up in a square pattern to the left. Johnny went into the little lavatory, remained a judicious time. When he opened its door he did not step out. He stood and inspected, across the fifteen feet of the hall, the old man's study where Christy McCauley had been beaten to death with an iron candlestick seventeen years ago.
The small square room was wide open. Sliding doors here, too, but not shut. There was a mantel piece diiectly opposite, in the outside wall. There were glass-covered bookcases, a hbrary table. The safe, he thought, was probably behind the picture, a rustic scene that hung over the mantel. At least he couldn't spot it, elsewhere. Then, with shock, his exploring eyes perceived that he was being watched by a lizard gaze from the wrinkled old face of an ancient woman in a wheel chair.
Johnny was nobody to skulk sheepishly away. He moved out of the lavatory, closed its door, marched across the red carpet, entered the study. 'Ma'am,' he addressed her, 'my name is John Sims. I am a friend of Nan Padgett.'
The old lady regarded him with some interest.
'How do you do?' he said.
'They haven't come to take me to my tea,' she said. 'So I don't do very well.'
'Then I'll take you,' he said, 'if youll tell me where.'
The old lady let out a rusty chuckle. 'To the parlor,' she said. 'I want my tea.'
Johnny saw how to release the brake on the wheelchair. Then he got behind it and pushed it out into the hall. He turned to his left and the old lady did not object. So Johnny pushed on towards the front doors and then he turned her into the big room from which Nan had come.
'Motherl' said a man's voice. 'Oh, I see!'
The old lady was chortling witii delight. 'Young man's name is John Sims,' she said triumphantly. 'Well? Tea?'
The man who had spoken held out his hand. 'Thanks for bringing my mother in, Mr. Sims,' he said pleasantly. 'I'm Bart Bartee.'
A thin worft^n with bronze hair, a sharp prow of a nose and a small chin hurried to take his place at the pushing-bar of the chair. 'I'm Blanche Bartee. You surprised us.'
'Surprised you, didn't I?' said the old lady with relish. 'Miss Adams makes me wait.' .
'No reason why you should wait,' said Blanche soothingly. She pushed tlie old lady to a position down the huge room.
'I should think not. In my house,' the old lady said.
Bart spoke. 'Come in. Come in. Sit down. Mother has tea, but the rest of us have something a little more stimulating. Join us?'
'Thanks.'
Then Johnny was seated with a glass in his hand and he was assembling his impressions. The big room was charming. The furnishings were old but stately and attractively well cared for. It was the room of a moneyed family, who did not need nor wish to be up-to-the-minute in fashion. The things they'd had for years were precious and significant. He was within the stronghold of the Bartees. Young Bart
was master here. His wife was not the mistress. The old lady was the mistress of the house.
A woman in a white uniform came pushing a teacart, apologizing. The old lady nibbled and sipped and twinkled
