The Hellfire Club

'God, what a devil,' Nora said.

'His father said a lot worse than that when he found out.' Helen Day surprised Nora by laughing out loud.77

Davey was in Jeffrey's apartment, where the telephone line was untapped. If she called him, she was under no obligation to reveal his father's treachery. He would believe her in time, she knew, but if she troubled him with Helen Day's revelation while he was still under Alden's spell, he would accuse her of lying. Once he accepted the truth, he would have to burst out of the Poplars, out of Chancel House, out of Alden's life forever. Nora reached out and touched the receiver. The plastic seemed warm and alive. She pulled back her hand, then reached out again. The bell went off like an alarm, and she jumped. Davey.

She picked up the receiver and said hello.

'Nora, is that you?' The man at the other end was not Davey.

'It's me,' she said.

'This is Everett Tidy. I tried to call you before, but you were on the phone. It's not too late to talk, is it?'

'No.'

'I thought you ought to know about something. I don't mean to worry you, but it's got me a little disturbed.'

She asked him what had happened.

'I got two calls. The first was from a lawyer named Leland Dart. He's the father, isn't he?'

Nora asked what Leland Dart had wanted.

'He apologized for taking my time and all of that. He explained that he was the counsel for Chancel House and asked if I was aware that there had been some recent discussion about the authorship of one of their properties. I told him I knew nothing about it. Then he told me the property was Night Journey, and that, as I undoubtedly knew, my father had once had some contact with its author, Hugo Driver. He wanted to know if I was in possession of any papers of my father's which could demonstrate Driver's authorship. If I didn't have the time, he'd be happy to send one of his staff up to Amherst to go through everything for me.'

'What did you say?'

'That nothing my father had written could prove anything about Night Journey one way or the other. Had I examined everything? Yes, I said, and he'd have to take my word for it, there wasn't anything he could use. Then he asked how many journals or diaries my father had left, and where I kept them. Were they on deposit in a library somewhere, or were they in my house? The Amherst College Library, I told him. If he sent a young fellow up to Amherst, would I agree to let him inspect the papers? Not on your life. I said.'

'Then he said that he might need to be in correspondence with me, and he wanted to verify my address. He read out the address of my old house. Was that right? I said that as far as I was concerned, we had no more to talk about.'

'Good,' Nora said.

'Then he asked if I had been discussing this matter recently with any other parties. I told him that was none of his business, either. Had I heard of a woman named Nora Chancel, he asked. Had Nora Chancel come around making inquiries related to Hugo Driver?'

'He asked about me?'

'Right. I said no, I hadn't had any contact at all with you, and if he wanted to have a sensible business discussion, why didn't he call at a sensible hour? Well, he as good as called me a liar, and said you were a fugitive from justice, I should refuse to have anything to do with you, and there would be serious consequences if I ignored his advice.'

'Why would Leland Dart -'

'The next thing he said was that he had a young lawyer already in the Amherst area, and wouldn't I agree at least to meet with the man? No. I would not. He argued with me a little while, and then I heard it.'

'It?'

'The background. People talking. Voices. This strange ringing noise. Then I recognized it, that bell sound a cash register makes when a total is rung up.'

'A cash register?'

'So I said. Are you calling me from a bar?' and he hung up.'

'Oh, no.'

'Are you thinking what I'm thinking?'

'That it was Dick pretending to be his father?'

'I thought about all the stress the man is under. If your son is Dick Dart, maybe you'd be tempted to do some of your business in bars. But after the next call, it occurred to me that it might have been Dick.'

No more than twenty minutes after the man calling himself Leland Dart had hung up on him, Tidy had heard from a Captain Liam Monoghan of the Massachusetts State Police. Everett Tidy was on the verge of being taken in for questioning, perhaps even charged with various crimes, and if he had one hope in the world of escaping these humiliations, that hope was in Captain Monoghan. Monoghan said, I don't think you were aware that this woman was a fugitive from the FBI, and, we have information that Mrs Chancel has altered her appearance. We also have information that she may be in the Northampton area. Is that correct?

'If he'd named any other town, I wouldn't have said anything at all, Nora. I would have thought he was bluffing. But you have to appreciate my position. I want to help you in any way I can, but I am not willing to go to jail That man promised that I'd spend at least one night in jail if I didn't come across, and if that happened, I was afraid I'd involve Jeffrey and his mother.'

'Professor Tidy, Dick Dart cut and dyed my hair, but the police don't know that. The only way they could know it is if Dick Dart told them.'

There came a silence nearly as long as one of Helen Day's. 'I don't think the man I talked to was a policeman,' he finally said.

'What did you tell him?'

'He said he'd be satisfied that I was acting out of innocent motives if I could confirm or deny the information that you were in Northampton. If I continued to obstruct the police, there were people down at State Police headquarters who wanted to bring me in for the night. It seemed to me that the way to do as little damage as possible was to confirm what they already knew, so I told him that I did have the feeling that you had intended to go to Northampton, but I didn't know any more than that. He thanked me for my cooperation and said an officer would be coming over soon to take a statement. I called you as soon as I got off the phone.'

'No officer turned up at your apartment.'

'No. I suppose one could still show up. What do you think?'

'It was Dick Dart both times,' Nora said. 'When he was pretending to be his father, he learned enough to be pretty certain that I'd visited you, so he made the second call to see if he could bluff more information out of you.'

'I'm so sorry.' He groaned. 'Nora, I had no idea I was putting you in danger. How did he figure out where you were?'

'He didn't,' Nora said. 'Northampton was just an educated guess. If he guessed wrong, he'd just have to keep naming towns until he got it right.'

'Do you think I should call the police - the real police?'

'No, don't do that.'

'Get out of there,' Tidy said. 'Go to Boston and hide out until you can be sure you're safe. If you can get there tonight, call me and I'll wire you enough money to hold you for a while. Get Jeffrey to take you.'

'I want to find out if I'm still in trouble, but if I am, I might take you up on that.'

'I have a little house up in Vermont which is looking very attractive right about now. Do you think Dart might still be trying to find out where I live? I hate to think of him being in Northampton, but I have to say that I don't like the thought of him in Amherst, either.'

There was a silence Nora chose not to fill.

'I've been learning a very unhappy truth, the past hour or so.'

'What's that?'

'It is extremely unpleasant to be afraid,' Tidy said.78