The House at Sandalwood Page 20

  I fumbled with the flat, leather sandal lace and ran it between my thumb and forefinger absently as I walked around the kitchen, past the windows. Nothing was visible outside except the foam of the rushing waters that caught the light. It annoyed me to note that no one had closed any of the blinds as far as I could tell, and it was sprinkling now. A temporary shower, perhaps, but it would manage to wet everything all the same. I pulled the old-fashioned kitchen blinds, tested the lock on the pantry door leading outside, came back, and went out into the hall.

  I found myself amused at my own fears. I did not like the silence in this house, but I certainly was not anxious to hear the muffled sounds a prowler might make. I went back into the living room, making my way between the wicker furnishings to the long windows. I looked through the Venetian blind of the north window. My mysterious gray lump was still huddled out there and was still in the same place. Could it possibly be a rock I hadn’t noticed before?

  Ridiculous! There were no rocks that large in the grove. Anyway, whatever it was, it hadn’t moved in the last ten minutes. I closed the blind and went to the opposite end of the house, to the back door beside the golden shower tree. It was unlocked. Mr. Yee must have left by this door. Or Nelia Perez. I locked the door. I had forgotten about Nelia. Perhaps —just perhaps—she had not gone yet. I hurried upstairs and looked for her, but it was soon clear that she had gone for the night as well.

  I snapped on the hall lights and started in to close the blinds in each room. About this time the sounds started again. The wind had come up, driving a sudden, tropical shower before it. In a few minutes every window in the building began to rattle. The upstairs windows were sure to be open. I went into each room to close windows and blinds, remembering with a smile the permanent idea of most old-time citizens of Hawaii that the rain never got anyone wet, and it was somehow disloyal to suggest that windows should be closed.

  By the time I reached Deirdre’s bedroom suite on the northwest corner of the house the storm broke in full force. I hurried to close the windows and then the long, pink, taffeta drapes. Everything in here reminded me of Deirdre’s taste. The big, four-poster bed was curtained in pink—always her favorite color. How carefully Stephen had decorated this room for his wife!

  Actually, I thought, my real and secret reason for agreeing to come to Hawaii had been satisfied. Deirdre’s husband loved her, and everything I had noted since my arrival only helped to convince me that this was true. During those early months of the marriage I had often wondered whether Deirdre’s large inheritance had played a part in Stephen Giles’s proposal. Deirdre was certainly attractive enough, but I knew something of her behavior since my imprisonment, thanks to those women appointed by the court to watch over her, so that I had suspected Deirdre might be too young emotionally for marriage. I looked around the room, remembering that she would not sleep here, so the problem remained. But at least, from all I had observed of Stephen’s care for her, I was certain that her money had nothing to do with their marriage.

  I started to draw the draperies across the wide north window and discovered, just when I had relaxed and begun to feel safe, that the gray lump of matter out in the glade had vanished. The rain was beating through the foliage and I wondered if the thing could have floated away, always hoping it had not floated in the direction of Sandalwood House.

  The doors and windows were locked, but still, I thought, it shouldn’t take much effort to get any of the ground floor windows open. I closed the last of the draperies and made my way back to the hall. There I debated whether I should be brave and go down to the kitchen to rescue my dinner from the oven, or yield to a baser but more honest spirit of cowardice and lock myself in my room. The idea of risking an accident by leaving the oven on all night seemed a trifle drastic, but still I hesitated. Across the hall was Stephen’s room. He might keep a gun there. However, if I were forced to use it, in view of my past history, I would almost be better off dead.

  I considered the worst possibility, that someone from the village was waiting to do damage to the Sandalwood heiau in vengeance for the death of Kekua Moku. In which case, if I minded my own business, I should not disturb my gray, lumpish companion. Since I was in no position to be found with a weapon in my hands, I would let sleeping dogs lie and hope they would stay put as well.

  I went rapidly down the front stairs, not troubling to be quiet. I had left the kitchen and hall lights on. I found nothing suspicious. My oven dinner proved to be a casserole that smelled deliciously of herbs I did not recognize and of Oriental vegetables I had only seen in the windows of San Francisco’s Chinatown. I found myself surprisingly hungry despite my earlier terror of the dark.

  I had a curious fear now. I wanted to eat at Mr. Yee’s big cutting table without exposing my back to the pantry door or the open hall doorway. I pulled a chair around so that nothing but the wall was at my back and ate my dinner, jumping every time the rain hurled a broken palm frond against one of the windows.

  I finished hurriedly, put the dishes and coffee cup in the sink and ran water. The water was muddy. I had taken out the cup and saucer and was drying them when I heard a terrific blow against the west windows of the living room. I dropped the cup and saucer, shoved them aside with my shoe, and went across the hall.

  The living room was a terrible mess. One of the long, floor-length windows had broken under the onslaught of an entire tree trunk—a slender, flowering tree complete with all its foliage and its gleaming white flowers. I might have been able to move the tree trunk but the room was showered with petals, glistening green leaves, and broken branches, not to mention sheets of rain that threatened to inundate the room and all its broken furnishings. As I stood in the doorway, shocked by the damage, I supposed the rain would be cold, but when I made my way into the room, carefully stepping over broken glass, china bric-a-brac and toppled furniture, I found that warm rain was rushing in.

  At least, I reminded myself, I finally had a definite job here. And my childlike fear of the house and its loneliness had vanished before this very real problem. I wondered if a cloth or blanket could be hung to keep out the torrential rains temporarily, although I doubted it. I had always supposed tropic rains came and went. I remembered a note from Deirdre saying that it rained in Honolulu on one side of the street while the sun beamed down on the other side. Tonight was more like one of our Los Angeles downpours. A long time in arriving, then turning into floods.

  I should telephone someone, I thought. But first, there must be something that I could use to block that open area. I waded through debris, reached the trunk while my shoulder and head were pelted with a warm shower. And then the hall lights flickered, faded, came on again, and as I swore in furious panic, they went out.

  I straightened, blinked, and tried to focus on the various objects of the room so that I could feel my way back to the kitchen where there was a box of tallow candles next to the cupboards. The damage to this room appeared enormous, but I didn’t know how valuable the furnishings were. They had looked to me like late-Victorian antiques. This would be just one more thing for Stephen Giles to worry about. I took another look at the damage and then saw that the rain had stopped beating across the west end of the room. It beat instead against a barrier.

  My gray, lumpish companion was much closer now. I gasped as I saw it peering in at me through the broken window.

  Sixteen

  There was a certain amount of light remaining in the sky in spite of the rain and the night. I could see that the lump was human and male. I was about to run when the creature began to mumble, to make noises that sounded more pitiful than frightening.

  “Judy ... need a little—little help... I’m soaked... Can’t seem to get ... going...”

  Good heavens! It was poor William Pelhitt.

  I made my way around the tree, managing to slip on several of those glossy leaves, but I did avoid the glittering and dangerous slivers of glass. I got William under the armpits. He was wet through, absolutely soggy.


  “Come on. Right foot. Now the left. Watch it! That’s glass.”

  At least he could move. He must have had a great deal to drink before he came to Sandalwood. He wasn’t as heavy as he appeared. It must be his bad posture that gave the illusion, this and his lack of belief in himself. That was not surprising in the circumstances, and in the company of Victor Berringer. He was a fool to remain here as the butt of Berringer’s contempt and cruelty.

  I got him across the room. As we were about to move into the hall, Pelhitt crashed into the door frame. He groaned. He had bruised his temple and the pain must have been excruciating for a few minutes. But it roused him, and by feeling our way, we managed to get across the hall into the kitchen without further disasters. He fell into the chair I pulled out, and while he huddled there dripping water in pools around him, I fumbled for candles, got matches off the shelf beside the candle box and lighted two candles, melting wax into a dish and a saucer for their bases. I was shocked at Bill Pelhitt’s condition. A razor-thin streak of blood trailed below the bruise, and I grabbed up the dish towel where I had left it at the time the tree crashed through the living room window.

  Bill Pelhitt raised his head, tried a faint smile, which looked more like a grimace.

  “If you—throw—I’ll try to catch.”

  I said lightly, “It’s not necessary. I always wanted to play nurse.”

  I tried to be gentle as I dabbed at the bruise but he took the towel and tried to rub off the blood. I winced at the effort it cost him. I offered to take a candle and get antiseptic from the downstairs bathroom but he said, “Not yet, please. Don’t leave me alone. Lord, but I’m cold! Can I get next to the oven? It feels warm.”

  Together, we shoved the chair over to the oven. The stove was electric, so we couldn’t count on any more heat until the power came back. I got him settled and taking a candle, I ran upstairs and brought down several blankets. Poor Pelhitt was shivering too much to get out of his sodden clothes, so I threw a blanket around him and asked him to dry himself off. He shook his head tiredly, groaned.

  “A drink of water. Never been so thirsty all my...”

  I ran the water, threw it out, and ran a second glass full that was only slightly cleaner. “Here. Try this. If the mud doesn’t clear your head, nothing will.”

  He tried to smile and started to drink, the glass shaking in his unsteady hand. I reached over to help him but he stopped me.

  “What was that?”

  I glanced out around the blind. “Looks like the rain is letting up.”

  “No, no. Listen!”

  We listened together. No doubt about it—there was a rattling noise at the back of the house. Not another tree about to crash through? I remembered the beautiful golden shower tree at the rear door. Bill Pelhitt made a supreme effort to rise but I motioned him back to his chair before the oven. The rattling came again followed by a sudden quiet.

  “He’s gone,” Bill Pelhitt took a long swallow of water and shivered inside his blanket.

  I was sorry I couldn’t agree with his opinion. The wind and the rain had slowed to a gentle purr, but I was sure I heard footsteps at the end of the hall, and I thought how easily a man might leap over the rail of the lower lanai and enter in spite of the locked outside door.

  Bill Pelhitt’s teeth were chattering but he muttered bravely, “Give me a knife.”

  On the cutting board Mr. Yee had left one of his good French knives, shining and polished. I passed it to Bill and we waited breathlessly. The footsteps grew louder and before he appeared in the doorway I knew whom to expect. I was enormously relieved and at the same time I felt far happier than I should have been to see Deirdre’s husband. It was more than mere relief—much more. A feeling I had no right to be having.

  Stephen stopped at the sight of us, looking so amazed in the sudden, blinding light of the candles that I almost laughed. His thin nylon jacket and slacks were as soaked as Bill Pelhitt, and his hair had fallen across his face. He was just as amused at the first sight of us.

  “I see you’ve been out in our local weather. What they call in Honolulu ‘liquid sunshine.’ ”

  “We’re so glad to see you,” I managed to say and then repeated it as if there were no other greeting in the world.

  He came in, touched my cheek gently with cold, wet fingers that, nevertheless, were warm to my heart. “Are you all right? I was so worried when I saw the power had gone, and there was no sign of life. I thought they might have ... you are all right?”

  “Fine. But Bill is sick. Please look at him.”

  As I spoke he was carefully taking the knife away from Bill.

  “You won’t need that now. You look pretty done in. Here. Let’s get you dry.” He reached for the fallen blankets, but Bill seemed to resent the attention. Stephen asked him, “What were you doing out in that cloudburst?”

  “Visiting Judy.”

  That took me unaware, but I nodded as Stephen questioned me with a glance. He didn’t like this. He seemed upset over Bill’s use of my nickname, but at least he was getting Bill dried off.

  “I think he has a temperature,” I said, but temperature or not, he certainly was suffering from a bad chill.

  Bill tried vainly to wriggle out of Stephen’s clutches while making half-hearted protests, “Let me go! ... can d-do it. I’m fine...”

  “Quiet!” Stephen ordered him. “You’re on your way to pneumonia if you aren’t careful. You’d damn near have to lie down in the rain to get this wet.” Bill looked at me furtively. I made no sign of understanding how close to the truth Stephen’s casual comment might have been, for I suspected Bill had been lying there in the grove since sometime soon after he had quarrelled with Berringer. Apparently, Berringer had gone on, leaving Bill in his unsteady condition, and this was the result. Stephen glanced around. “Look, darling, would you mind—” His mouth twisted a little. “That is—Judith ... could you get the couch ready in my study? There are linens—”

  “Yes. I know where the linens are.” I took one of the candles and started out, then hesitated. “Is there some way we could get Bill warm?”

  “I don’t need anything. Will you please leave me alone?”

  We ignored Bill because evidently he was not quite himself. He very probably was delirious. Stephen suggested then, “There’s a hibachi here. We can warm up some of those stones on the path outside the pantry door, wrap them in towels. Pretty old idea and not much use in Hawaii, but they helped my mother once, and you never know.” Bill was complaining with as much vehemence as he could muster. Stephen tried to buck him up. “The sooner we wring you out, old man, the sooner you can go home.”

  But Bill objected querulously even to this. “Don’t call me ‘old man.’ ”

  Stephen apologized in a careful voice. “Sorry. Figure of speech.”

  I took the top linens from the shelf in the closet and ran to the study. I stripped the cover from the studio couch and threw on gaily flowered pink sheets and a blanket. I had forgotten pillowcases, but I rolled up the extra blanket I had brought. It would serve as a pillow. I called to Stephen.

  “It’s all right. Damp in here, though.”

  They were already in the hall and Stephen supported Bill Pelhitt who managed a small smile. I took his other side and we got him to the couch. He murmured, “Not drunk now. Honest.”

  “Of course, you’re not, Bill. Now just relax. That’s it.” I felt his forehead. He certainly had a fever. Stephen nodded. He himself still looked as if the downpour had Scotch-taped all his clothing to his body. I suggested, “I’ll help Bill. Hadn’t you better change too? You’ll find yourself fighting pneumonia if you don’t.”

  “Don’t worry. It isn’t the first time I’ve crossed Kaiana Bay and gotten drenched. First, we’ve got to get the hibachi going. Can you take over while I get the thing started?”

  So I sat down on the edge of the couch, rearranging sheets and blankets around Bill Pelhitt. He drew back with an embarrassment I couldn’t understa
nd until I realized Stephen had stripped him of the soggy clothes and under all these blankets he was naked.

  For some reason I felt as sorry for him as if he had been a helpless child. In other circumstances I might have been surprised or even amused at his sudden modesty, but he must have been through a great deal since the disappearance of the girl he loved, and I liked him nearly as much as I pitied him. I felt that some friend ought to give him stern advice when he felt better able to take it. He would have to stand up to Victor Berringer.

  In a remarkably short time Stephen had the little black hibachi smoking and burning in the kitchen and was able to heat stones in the coals of the briquets he used. I furnished towels in which to wrap the stones. It occurred to me, very belatedly, that we must call for a doctor from Kaiana, but when I broached the subject as we were carrying the wrapped stones to the study, Stephen shook his head.

  “I couldn’t get through to you half an hour—no, an hour ago, from the Kaiana airport. However, we’ll try if he doesn’t show any improvement. All right, Pelhitt. You may not believe it but you’re going to feel better pretty soon.”

  Bill’s teeth were still chattering but he managed to get out a polite, “Awfully ... good of you.”