His mind veered. He tried to imagine the scene between a weak frightened man and his bold rough-and-tough fifteen-year-old son. The man begged the boy to save him from banishment? Or did the bold son offer to go steal back a pin, partly for the hell of it? Whose idea was this housebreaking? Nathaniel was dead and could not say, and was a liar, anyhow.
Johnny could not help wondering whether the bold son was craftier than Nathaniel could have known. To take with him a scared young girl, and involve her in doing what was forbidden, doing what was illegal, and fearfully exciting, and done in the^ght and in the dark.
Why did Dick take Blanche at all? Johnny started up from tie mattress. Unless it were for the purpose of fooling her in the dark! So easy to do!
Again, there was a choice of what to believe about this Dick Bartee. Believe a tangle of craft and deceit, deep plotting, improvisation at that, a quick snatching at opportunity. Or, beheve something much simpler—just a wild kid who didn't see why a spot of burglary wouldn't be fun, in a good cause.
(Take care, J. Sims, which way your own prejudice and your desire is going to point you.)
He tossed. Try the other pin, then. Christy's pin. It had been in the safe. Agreed. Taken out at the time of the killing. Agreed. By whom?
If by McCauley, then McCauley put it in his pocket where the police found it. Simple. Believable. And believed for seventeen years.
But if by Dick, then Dick not only took it away with him
but had had the incredible nerve to keep it handy. Then, in a day or so, Dick had seen the wonderful opportunity to get rid of it and in so doing, 'prove' his own innocence, with Blanche for witness, and also frame McCauley—in depth and in secret. For protection. The protection of whom? Of Dick Bartee.
Doubt. Johnny could not help doubt. On both sides. What nerveless crust to keep that pin handy I
Johnny didn't know who had killed Christy.
In their big front bedroom, Blanche and Bart were not asleep, either. They faced each other in anger.
''You are a grown man,' she said, 'and honest. Maybe you can't miderstand a child who was afraid and wasn't altogether honest. Although it made no difference!'
'If he fooled you—'
''How could he fool me? You are the one he fools,' Blanche said, 'right now. How is it that you permit your mother to give Dick her bit of stock in the vineyard? How is it you permit Dick to put up Nan's capital and come out with half of your rightful business? Where you've put your life. That's just your pridel' she cried furiously. 'Your mother would Like it.'
Bart tightened his lips.
'And you fooled me,' she cried with no restraint. 'I thought I was going to be your partner. I thought this was going to be my house. I am not your partner but your servant. And this is your mother's house. All right, I understand. I know she is old and it was her house and you didn't want to dethrone her. Because of your pride, Bait. She never preferred you. So you proudly will defer to her. It's coals of fire.'
'Be quiet,' he ordered.
'I could have waited,' Blanche sobbed, beyond obedience. 'I was waiting. I thought it was generous of me. But now, you've given my share, here, to your mother all these years. If you now give your share to Dick Bartee, Bart, I won't stay—'
'Be quiet,' Bart said and it was not a command. 'Please, Blanche,' he begged her. 'I am committed. I can't help it, nowl If Sims can ever prove—' Bart said. 'I must be careful. It's too easy to believe what you'd hke to believe.'
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She was quiet and in a moment he said painfully, 'My mother hasn't been generous towaid you.'
'No,' Blanche said.
'Nor have I,' he said. 'But I want you to stay. This is your house.'
Johnny woke late to the ringing of his phone.
Bart Bartee was calling him. He was taking the girls on a tour of the winery this morning. Would Johimy like to join them? For color? For atmosphere?
Johnny sensed something changed in Bart. He accepted.
It was nearly eleven o'clock, before the tour shook itself together and began. Johnny, the two girls and Dick, Bart led to the spot where the wine-making process normally began. (All of them were passive under Bart's guidance as if, by sheer fatigue, hostilities were in abeyance.) The grapes were harvested, Bart explained, in the fall. Trucks brought them in and dumped them upon a water-washed sunken platform, from which they were sluiced into a slot and conveyed to the crushing machine.
The machines were silent now. Bart did not linger here. Johnny received the impression that here was one place where money was needed.
They followed the pipes through which the juice of the grapes would nm and came into the building where, in huge imcovered vats, it was left to ferment. They were shown the sumps in the floor, filled with cooling apparatus, used Bart said, to control the fermentation, especially in the making of sweet wines. Johnny 'learned about the natural yeast on the grape, the killing of it, the substitution of the vintner's own strain.
Bart knew what he was talking about.
Nan was being brightly attentive. This was her future. Dorothy was relishing the sights and smells. It was Dorothy who perceived the nature of this business. 'The grapes do it by themselves,' she exclaimed.
Bart smiled. 'Nature, given conditions that are just so, makes a fine wine,' he told them. 'If the conditions are
