But nothing could have happened to Noreen. It was nonsense to connect her absence with Maire’s sudden terror, with the ghostly, ringing ‘Oun.’
Behind her, on the floor, Maire said interestedly, “What’s that?” and Elizabeth turned to watch Jeep scribbling intently on a sheet of paper.
“Bear,” said Jeep tersely.
“Where’s his head?”
The pencil never faltered. “Got no head,” Jeep said in a tone precluding further discussion, and the telephone rang.
It was Lucy Brent, asking her in mock-tragic tones to come over and see the puppy Steven had given her for Christmas. “It looks like an overgrown mouse—and oh, God, stop that—it isn’t liking what I gave it for breakfast. Come over and help me bear this, will you?”
“I can’t. Constance is out and,” Elizabeth said, peculiarly reluctant, “Noreen isn’t back.”
“Oh, but I thought she . . . well, well,” said Lucy with a kind of reviving sparkle. “I’ve got the car today—do you suppose I could shut this creature into the bathroom with some newspaper and come over there? Does one do that with a month-old puppy?”
She arrived three-quarters of an hour later, just after Elizabeth had installed the children with a basket of blocks on the dining-room floor. She entered like a commando, looking piercingly all around her as though Noreen might be concealing herself behind a chair, challenging Elizabeth at once. “Of all days to be left to your own resources—but then you’re entirely too easy-going with servants. Have you heard from her at all?”
“No. I’m quite worried, as a matter of fact.”
“Worried?” Lucy produced her lorgnette and stared. “My good girl, why? She’ll come back when she’s ready, when she’s gotten over Christmas—with a dying uncle or an ailing niece to account for all this. They always do.”
Elizabeth listened to the crisp dismissing voice and looked at Lucy’s haggard, faintly haughty assurance, and thought about Noreen’s huge frightened eyes. She felt her annoyance bobbing up like a cork, and she made no effort at all to restrain it. She said, “Lucy, be fair. You don’t like the girl, you never have. If you have any reason to distrust her, or if you know something about her that I don’t, I wish you’d tell me.”
In the startled second of silence that followed, Maire aimed a block expertly at Jeep’s head, and there was an instant storm of tears. Elizabeth lifted him soothingly to her lap and informed Maire that if there was any more throwing of blocks she would confiscate them at once; Jeep went back to the dining-room and said furiously, “Mama says you are a bad, bad gel.”
And Lucy had had time to recover herself, to look hurt and surprised. “I didn’t mean to upset you, Elizabeth—heavens, I hardly know the girl. It’s just that an absence after Christmas does look rather like head-holding.”
“If it were that,” said Elizabeth, “and it’s very difficult to believe that it is when you know her, she’d call me—with an excuse, I admit, but she’d call.”
Lucy shrugged. Elizabeth thought, watching her. She does know something about Noreen, or thinks she does. Is that why they’re so hostile to each other?
And then, because it was never very far from her mind, she thought about the Hotel Savoia, and it stung across her consciousness like an electric current: Is it possible that Noreen knows something about Lucy?
Lucy was prepared to retreat; she said mildly, “Well, the fact remains that she isn’t here and hasn’t called you. She’d be rather a handful to kidnap. What’s your explanation?”
“I don’t know.” She was taken up, for the moment, with the memory of Noreen’s eyes meeting Lucy’s that day on the stairs, level, equal, unafraid. Recognizing? She said again, slowly, “I don’t know. . . .”
Lucy changed the subject briskly. “She’ll turn up. It’s a nuisance for you, that’s all, stopping your work dead . . . have a nice Christmas?” She had put away the lorgnette, and her eyes looked bright and candidly enquiring. Lucy had known where Elizabeth’s presents were stowed, had stood at the door of the cabinet one day, saying ruefully, “Aren’t you lucky, you’re all done. . . .”
“Very nice.” Careful; she would never get anywhere if she couldn’t seem as casual as whoever it was who hated her. “Did you?”
“Well, of course, a puppy—” Lucy smiled oddly. “You know, I think it’s symbolic on Steven’s part. We’re to have the patter of four little feet instead of two, and something to tie Lucy down. It’s rather sweet in a way, don’t you think?”
Her eyes were bitter. Elizabeth felt embarrassed and unwilling, as though she were looking at a part of Lucy that was inadvertently showing. She said crisply, “Steven thought you’d like a dog and he bought one. As a matter of fact, I’d like one myself for the children, and for when Oliver’s away.”
Lucy stood up, changed and laughing. “Elizabeth dear, if there’s one thing I envy you it’s your nice sensible head.”
“Thank you,” said Elizabeth equably. “I’d do anything for your good walking ankles. Do you have to go? It’s not quite four-thirty.”
“I know.” Lucy was moving toward the door, fastening the hood of her black raincoat. “But Steven’s coming home early, or at least his office said he’d left for the day when I called. Do let me know if I can baby-sit for you, or if you hear anything about—”
It was unfortunate that Steven Brent chose exactly that moment to execute a light triple tap at the door.
“. . . Tuesday, if you’re free for lunch,” Steven was saying, five minutes later. “Crale’s been wanting to meet you for some time.”
Lucy’s car, pulled into the drive where Steven hadn’t seen it, had driven away in the snowy half-dark almost at once. He had been startled at the sight of
