Murder Comes to Eden. Leslie Ford

it from. Except old David. There are stars in the crown that’s awaiting him, beautiful stars.” He smiled. “And perhaps, in yours,” he added. “Or is it your son’s? I’m told he is the one who touched Celia Fairlie’s heart. She didn’t seem quite so remote to me when I saw her last. Perhaps he’ll bring her back to us. Who can tell?”

      It had been a long time since Spig had thought of that, as he thought of it now stopping in the door, the nasturtiums in the crystal bowl, there on the shadow where a man’s heart had bled, a bowl of fire and gold, alive and glowing in the cool twilight room with its small windows and dim walls of satiny pine.

      He started towards the terrace, deciding against a private drink, and stopped as he heard Mag Cameron’s husky, downright voice raised a little from the entrance hall just behind the big fireplace.

      “. . . be a very good painter, Art, but you’re the son of a female mongrel hound along with it,” she was saying, clearly meaning it. “If you don’t like the O’Learys’ rum, don’t come here. The O’Learys have a liquor budget—with four kids and this place to support they don’t have the money for Scotch to pour down your gullet, or ours, either. They’re sweet and we all love them . . . and nobody’d miss you if you left right now and stayed a thousand years. And one thing more—you’d better damn’ well quit all those psychological passes you’re making at Molly O’Leary. They’ll get you no place, and they’re very apt to get you a lot of bones broken too small to put together again.”

      “By whom, love?” Art Dunning’s voice, amused and mocking, answered hers.

      “I could name a dozen. Three ought to be enough. Joe Cameron’s one. Hal Potter’s another. And then there’s Spig. You’ve heard of him, I expect. He’s the big red-headed guy that’s married to the girl.”

      “And hasn’t brains enough to see the kind of girl he’s married to,” Dunning added easily. “He treats her like a plough horse. He hasn’t the slightest conception of what she really is. He married her before she was old enough to have any idea of it herself, and kept her producing these brats . . . buried out here, cooking, and cleaning and making beds, without the faintest idea of what life really is.”

      “And you’re planning to show her?”

      “I’m not discussing my plans with you, Maggie. And I’d think you’d quit being the earth-mother and worry a little about yourself, sweetie. Or did you know Joe Cameron simply slathers every time he looks at the gal?”

      “Joe Cameron and every other male on Eden’s Neck,” Mag Cameron said calmly. “That’s why I’m warning you. It’s all open and above board. The idea of termites would offend them horribly.”

      “Mag, you’re divine, you really are. It’s you I’m in love with. You must let me paint you.” Dunning laughed, the malice crackling underneath. “Such swivets you go into about nothing, honey. Like yesterday at the Potters’. Poor Anita.”

      “All I told Anita Ashton was to shut up. If she and Stan don’t want Stan’s child, that’s all right. But it’s not all right to tell the simple old rector that the poor O’Learys need the money Stan pays for Molly A.’s board and keep—especially when it’s a damned lie. Stan doesn’t pay them a bean, and never has. Molly A.’s a lucky child—nobody knew how lucky till Anita’s own brat came to live here when she got kicked out of that last school of hers. If any sixteen-year-old ever needed the hind end of a hairbrush it’s Anita’s child, Lucy Bronson. Telling me she’s been drinking martinis since she’s six years old.”

      “Five as I recall it. She was very precocious . . .”

      “I’m sure of it. But she’s not drinking them at my house and not snitching nary another one when my back’s turned. Our kids aren’t precocious, thank God. They’re just ordinary oafs that stay home nights, and that’s the way I’d like to keep them. And I don’t want to hear any more about Lucy’s tricks or Anita’s marriages, past or present. Not from you. You’re such a malicious little toad you’d knife the only friends you’ve got without greying a hair of your black, old goat’s beard. And where are they, by the way, your friends the Town Planner and his bride? Molly said——”

      “Oh, Molly invited them,” Dunning said. “But they’re busy, packing. To go abroad. Or didn’t you know?”

      “I didn’t,” Mag Cameron said. “When?”

      “Oh, pretty soon. Old Stan’s been invited to lecture in London. They say.”

      “You mean he hasn’t. Come on. I’ll listen to this one. I know you’re dying to tell it. What’s the catch?”

      Dunning laughed. “Maggie mine, I wouldn’t tell you for all the yellow bees in the ivy bloom. You’ll find out. I won’t spoil the show. As a matter of fact, Stan is giving one lecture. His publishers arranged it, by request. Anita’s.

      “You mean they’re getting out. Is that it? What for?”

      “To avoid the stink, I presume, love. For old Stan, I mean. Anita would adore it. But you don’t have to worry. It won’t hurt you people way over your side of Eden’s Neck.”

      “It’s this side it’s going to hurt?” Mag asked sharply. “Spig and Molly? And you think you’re in love with Molly? And this is the way you show it?”

      “Oh, don’t you worry, Maggie. I’ll be right here to pick up the pieces. I’m keeping the studio till fall. Or till I finish my gallery of you rural types. That you’re going to love, Mag. My New York show. We’ll send you a card.”

      “Look, Art Dunning,” Mag Cameron said. “White things squash. Excuse me now, will you? I’d like a drink. Some nice, clean, antiseptic rum.”

      “I’ll come with you, honey. That’s henna you use, isn’t it? Not meant to deceive. So different from poor Anita’s peroxide. It’s very hard to stay twenty-nine with a sixteen-year-old around and not admit you were a child delinquent. But don’t be alarmed. I’m just fixing you in my camera mind. You and Miss Crazy Fairlie—then my gallery’s almost complete. There’s still Molly, but . . .”

      Spig O’Leary’s knuckles were white where he gripped the hand-hewed chestnut mantel as Dunning’s mocking voice lost itself against the backdrop of laughter from the terrace. There were white ridges along his jaw and a cold nausea in the pit of his stomach. It was a good thing he’d mastered his first impulse to go out and throttle the bearded little bastard when he started talking about Molly. Dunning could wait. He dropped his hands and stood a moment longer then turned and went very quietly back through the children’s hyphen and out the kitchen door, keeping in front of the native cedars so that neither the people on the terrace nor the children up in the garden would see him, until he reached the woods and made his way along the trail to the Ashton’s garden. He went around it on the grass to the front door.