The Hellfire Club

Again Helen Day waited a long time to speak. 'I wish I could discuss that subject, but I can't.'

'I already know. There was something just like it in Daisy's book.'

'Daisy was furious with both of them.'

'She didn't want him, either. I'm surprised they ever had a child in the first place.'

Helen Day said, 'I suppose they were surprised, too.'

'You were at the Poplars when the first one was born. You saw them go through all that.'

'I did.'

' 'The uproar,' you called it.'

'That's exactly the right word. Noise day and night, shouting and yelling.'

'And you think Davey ought to know why his parents have always treated him the way they do. That he was only a way for Alden to stay in his father's will.'

Silence.

'Alden made you promise, didn't he? He made you promise never to tell Davey about this.' Another recognition came to her. 'He made you leave, and he gave you enough money to start up your own business.'

'He gave me the chance I needed.'

'You've been grateful ever since, but you've never felt right about it.'

After a pause, the old woman said, 'He shouldn't be playing the same dirty trick on his son that his father played on him. That makes me very unhappy.'

'Did they even want the first child? They must have had it because of Lincoln.'

'If you guess, I'm not telling you. Do you understand? Keep guessing. You're doing an excellent job so far.'

'So they didn't. How did the first one die?'

'I thought you said that Daisy wrote about this in her book.'

'She did, but she changed everything.' An amazing thought flared in Nora's mind. 'Did Daisy kill the baby? It's a terrible thing to say, but she's almost crazy enough to have done it, and Lincoln and Alden wouldn't have had any trouble hushing it up.'

'The only thing Daisy Chancel ever killed was a bottle,' said Helen Day. 'What would you do with an unwanted baby?'

'You gave yours to your relatives.'

'But what would most people do?'

'Give it up for adoption,' Nora said.

'That's right.'

'But then why make up a story about it dying? It doesn't make sense.'

'Keep guessing.'

'You give up one child and then adopt another one? I don't even know if that's possible. No agency would give a child to a couple that had given their own away.'

'Sounds right to me,' said Helen Day.

'So the first one died. It must have been a crib death. Unless Alden murdered it.'

'What did Daisy put in her book?'

'It was all mixed up. There was a child, and then it was gone. The Lincoln character rages around, but half the time he's in a Nazi uniform. Lincoln Chancel didn't wear Nazi uniforms, did he?'

'Mr Chancel collected Nazi flags, uniforms, sashes, armbands, things like that. After he died, Alden asked me to burn them. You have to guess, Nora. Do you guess the baby died?'

'I guess it didn't die,' Nora said. 'I guess it was adopted.'

That's a good guess.'

'But…' A moment from Daisy's book played itself out in her mind: Adelbert Poison squabbling with Clementine on his rotting terrace. Nora tried to remember what he had said about Egbert - some word Daisy had written. What had actually happened to Davey, the only sequence of actions which made sense out of these uproars, came to her an instant before she recalled the word, which was reclaim. It felt as though a bomb had gone off in her chest.

'Oh, no,' she said. 'They couldn't have.'

After she said what was in her mind, she had no doubt that she was right. They had Davey adopted, and then Lincoln made them take him back. There was no first Davey. Davey was the first Davey.'

'Sounds like a pretty good guess to me,' said Helen Day. 'The Chancels have grand imaginations. Everyday truth doesn't stand a chance.'

Nora let her idea of their crime speak for itself. 'Neither one of them ever wanted him. They had to take him back for the sake of the money. They would have been happier if he had died.'

'And Alden's been making him pay ever since.'

'He's been making him pay ever since,' Nora echoed.

'I was right about you. You do see more than most other people.'

'They lied to him all through his life. How old was he when they got him back?'

'About six months. The other family didn't want to lose him, but Lincoln made Alden and Daisy go up to New Hampshire, and they said all the right things and got him back.'

'Everybody believed that their child had died. The only person who knew what had happened was you. When Davey got older, they were afraid you'd tell him the truth, so they made you leave.'

Helen Day sighed. 'One of the hardest things I ever did in my life. I could see Jeffrey whenever I wanted, and I knew he was with people who loved him. But Davey was all alone. When Mr Chancel died, they just ignored him. They're fine people, but they didn't want to be parents.'

Nora was still reeling. 'How can you say they're fine people when you know what they did?'

'It isn't so easy to judge people when you understand them. Alden has a cold heart and he's a bully, but I know why. His father. That's the pure and simple truth.'

'I bet that's right,' said Nora.

'You never knew Lincoln Chancel. Mr Chancel had more energy, brains, and drive than any other six men put together. He was a fighter. Some of the things he fought for were wrong and bad, and he didn't give a hoot about the law unless it happened to be on his side, but he didn't pussyfoot through life - he roared. There were times when I was angrier at him than I've ever been at anyone, but there was something magnificent about him. I always thought Mr Chancel was a lot like my sister, with everything turned inside out. Neither one of them was very nice, but if they'd been nice people they wouldn't have been so impressive.'

'But he was a monster.'

'You have to have a saint inside you to be a monster. Mr Chancel caused a lot of damage, but his heart wasn't cold, not at all. When I went to Shorelands, who do you suppose tried hardest to find my sister? Who talked Georgina into letting me stay four days? Mr Chancel. Who went out into the woods with me and the policemen? He had his businesses to run, he had his ticker tape and his telephone calls, but he did more to help find Katherine than any of those writers.'

'I see,' said Nora.

'I hope you do. And he saw what kind of shape I was in, with my husband dead and my son gone and my heart broken over poor Katherine, and he offered me a job at twice what I was getting, plus room and board.'

'You feel strongly about him.'

'Some things you don't forget. If Mr Chancel had lived, he would have told Davey the truth, I know that.'

'Should I?' Nora asked.

'You do whatever you think is best, but that's the kind of person you are anyhow. I just want you to remember that I didn't tell you, because I do what I think is best, too, and I don't go back on my promises.'

'Look, didn't they have to have some kind of burial? There was supposed to be a body.'

'Private burial. In the graveyard behind St Anselm's. Just Alden, Mr Chancel, and the rector. Short and sweet, and the only man crying at the funeral was Mr Chancel, because Alden knew damn well that what they were burying was a couple bricks packed in a shroud! so they wouldn't slide around in the coffin.'