The House at Sandalwood Read online

  “There you are, sweetheart. You were such a long time I nearly starved to death. You must be quicker tomorrow if you don’t want me to fade away entirely.”

  She giggled and I saw then that he held his arms out and she went into them. Over her head he smiled at me. “Good morning, Judy. Did you sleep well? I hope the early shower didn’t wake you.”

  Deirdre was murmuring against his shoulder, “You’re so silly. Fade away! I can feel your muscles—you aren’t fading away.”

  After a minute or two, Stephen reminded her, “We’ve got to show Judy to her chair. That’s the polite thing to do. Remember, I told you when Dr. and Mrs. Nagata were here? We must look after our guests.”

  “Of course I remember! I’m not a baby!” Taking his hand as he released her, she brought it around her waist and grinned at me. “Your place is where the place setting is. Anybody knows that. Now, darling—” she said to her husband, “let’s eat so you won’t fade away.”

  I went quickly to my place between the settings for Stephen and Deirdre at the head and foot of the long table. Stephen seated his wife and then me, and we held an absurd, long-distance conversation about my flight the previous day, the possible agreement to prevent a dock strike, whether there would be more showers today...

  Over the fresh, golden papaya, the excellent coffee, bacon, eggs, and hot cross buns, I tried to bring up the subject of my purpose here. I had not been able to eat half the breakfast offered, but such bountiful meals seemed to be the custom, and there was a graciousness about it. The Gileses could apparently afford all the endless dishes no one touched, and that reminded me of my job as housekeeper. Each time I tried to mention it, one of them switched things around, made a little joke, or went on to mention something else so that I had to think up new opportunities to get the matter settled. But it never was settled. When we all got up from the table, I still knew no more about my real position at Sandalwood. I even wondered if I was invited to breakfast to provide added subjects of conversation in case Deirdre and her husband ran out of things to talk about. I snuffed out this idea but apparently buried it in my subconscious mind, for it recurred several times.

  As Deirdre said good-bye to her husband, I started toward the kitchen. I had just gone in through the pantry when the cook, Mr. Yee, pointed behind me.

  “Someone is looking for you, Miss Cameron.”

  I turned and almost ran into Stephen Giles. Momentarily, he had lost the slightly amused, almost parental manner he used so successfully with Deirdre. Now he was businesslike. I remembered my first impression of him: that I felt his bronzed face might be admirable but that it also suggested an impetuous, impatient man.

  “Judith, I don’t want any rubbish about your being a servant. Do you understand me?” I nodded, but even so he repeated, “Do you? Your real job is to look out for my wife. The housekeeper title was merely to satisfy the red tape, to get you free.”

  “I’ll look out for her—you know that. But I don’t like to interfere, and I won’t interfere in any way.”

  I had not been entirely correct about him. His eyes were not hard, though they were serious. “I have discovered Deirdre needs someone—a companion. Someone she can trust. And frankly, you are the only one who seems to have been—loyal.”

  “Loyal?”

  “That’s the right word. Through almost nine years that I know of.”

  In a deeper sense, I thought, it really was the right word. And I realized that we understood each other without having spelled out the problem. Another part of that loyalty.

  “You may count on me, I promise you.”

  “Good.” He held out his hand and clasped mine. He turned away, then thought of something. “Did we mention the Berringers yesterday in Honolulu?”

  I wasn’t sure. I had talked to someone about them yesterday afternoon, but wasn’t it Ito Nagata who had mentioned them?

  “I know a little about them. Ingrid Berringer was Deirdre’s school friend. They came to Hawaii after graduation. Then...”

  “I met and married Deirdre. It all happened fast.” I looked at him and he smiled. “I know. I make up my mind in a hurry. At any rate, the Berringer girl stayed around Waikiki for a few days. She tried for a secretarial job with us but hadn’t enough experience. So it is rather odd and annoying that these Berringers should be hounding my offices about the girl. We haven’t seen her in almost a year. She was over here on Ili-Ahi a few times before our marriage. And that does it!”

  “But then why should anyone be concerned over here on Ili-Ahi?”

  “Because there seems to be a story going the rounds that the Berringer girl visited Ili-Ahi two days or so after our marriage.”

  “While you were on your honeymoon?”

  “There was no honeymoon.”

  That left me briefly nonplussed. Before I could think of any comment at all that would not be embarrassing, he saluted me with a jaunty flip of three fingers to his forehead and went out by a back door that I hadn’t noticed before. It was probably near the downstairs lanai. By the time I reached the front stairs, intending to go up and see if Deirdre was in her room, I heard her call to me from the veranda.

  “Here I am, Judy. Hurry! Hurry!”

  Not knowing what to expect, I rushed out and found she simply wanted a companion for nothing more important than a walk across the island to the village where Ilima’s people had lived and sustained the pureblood line for almost two hundred years.

  As we crossed the green open space and entered onto the path to the west of the Sandalwood heiau, the Hawaiians’ kapu ground, I thought I heard someone call to us. I stopped, but Deirdre pulled on my arm.

  “Come on!”

  I looked back. The path had wound around a huge growth of bougainvillea intermingled with stiff, shiny vines, and I couldn’t see what was happening at the big house except that someone was out in front, waving to us. “It looks like that pretty daughter of Ilima’s,” I said.

  “Let’s pretend we didn’t see her. I like Kekua, but she is a bit on the nosy side. Judy, come on. I want to show you the rapids and the falls above the river.”

  She was much too anxious to get me away from the house. I went back a few steps, saw Kekua motioning to me. She was looking very sexy in a white bikini that contrasted with the deep mahogany of her flesh. Tentatively, I started toward her. She began to run in my direction. We were still several yards apart when she called to me.

  “They’re here. They insist on talking with Mrs. Steve. I was down swimming when I saw the boat come across. Steve’s boat missed them by a hair.”

  With a sinking feeling, I thought that in spite of all the millions of people in the world, she could only be talking about Ingrid Berringer’s father. At the same time, I was sure this explained Deirdre’s frantic desire to get away from the house. Either she had known they were coming this early or she had guessed it. It was too bad they had missed Stephen Giles on the way down, but perhaps their boats had passed each other. As the two men suddenly appeared on the steep, rising path, I saw that they were alone. A tall, thin, forty-ish man with salt-and-pepper hair, cold eyes, and a certain elegance walked ahead, very much the leader. He was accompanied by a shorter, stockier man with the ingratiating face of a natural follower. I could see that even at this distance. There was no doubt in my mind that the tall, thin man with the frosty hair and eyes was Victor Berringer, and I didn’t like to think of Deirdre, confused at best, in the grip of that frosty man.

  Five

  Kekua went around me, passed Deirdre with a flippant, “Ahoy!” and dashed back to the strangers. Berringer and his friend had stepped up onto the veranda, but as I approached the house with Deirdre hanging back behind me, the tall, frosty man said something to Kekua. She nodded and went off past the bushes masking the gulch at the back of Sandalwood. The man took long strides down the wooden steps toward us.

  Deirdre whispered, “Don’t let him talk to me. Please send him away.”

  “Well, then,” I said fir
mly, “you should tell him yourself that you don’t wish to see him.”

  “No, no. He wouldn’t pay any attention.”

  “Tell him and he will go away.” I didn’t know whether I had convinced her or not until we reached the veranda, but meanwhile, the formidable gentleman reached us. I had been right about the frosty eyes, which were more gray than blue. I was surprised at Kekua’s admiration—they looked as though they could cut one down at twenty paces. For a moment, I feared they would cut me down! I was momentarily tongue-tied when he demanded of me, “Mrs. Giles! I do not like to be made a fool of. Furthermore, I don’t intend to be.”

  “Then, in the first place,” I began, “you really should know that I am not—”

  “However you may be used to being treated, madam, I have been trying to speak with you for three days. And this time I will not be put off. May we go somewhere and discuss this thing? I intend to get the answers to some questions. I’m sure you appreciate my anxiety, Mrs. Giles.”

  “Now, see here,” I tried to bring Deirdre forward but she nudged me so hard I was breathless for a couple of seconds.

  We had reached the house where the younger, stockier man stood, with a hesitant smile and a hand outstretched to take mine.

  “Please ... please ...” Deirdre whispered in my ear, and then she dragged along behind me as Mr. Berringer escorted me into the house. I decided to see just how nasty Victor Berringer was going to be in pursuing his absurd suspicions before I turned Deirdre over to him and acknowledged that she was Mrs. Giles.

  I looked around the long, desolate living room, saw nothing that looked like a bar, and went into the hall. Then I remembered the comfortable room at the back of the house. The two men followed me, and Deirdre scuffed along behind us. I asked the men to mix their own drinks at the tiny portable bar across one corner of the room. The Japanese housewoman brought ice, and Mr. Berringer’s companion went to the bar. Both men took Scotch and water. The male “companion” watched Berringer take up his glass before pouring his identical drink. I was too keyed up to have a drink, and Deirdre didn’t even want to go near the bar. Anyway, I wished to keep my wits sharp, as sharp, I hoped, as this stranger. He introduced his companion with a brief movement of his glass punctuated by the tinkle of ice.

  “This is William Pelhitt. Willie and my daughter had a—an arrangement. They intended to marry, eventually.”

  “Intend, Vic. Excuse me. Intend,” William Pelhitt put in with a kind of nervous, fluttering smile. “Glad to know you, Mrs. Giles. I’ve been in love with Ingrid since—well—since she was about fourteen, I guess. We sort of had it settled we’d be married later on, after she got out of that fancy college.” He glanced at Deirdre, obviously curious about her identity. I glanced at her and opened my mouth, but Deirdre shook her head faintly.

  I thought, well, why inflict this angry Victor Berringer on the poor girl until he has simmered down?

  Berringer had apparently stored up endless suspicious little details he could use against Deirdre. Although he was not unattractive physically, I found him quite implacable, a man who saw nothing but his own view.

  “Mr. Berringer,” I began as quietly as possible, hoping to calm the atmosphere, “I appreciate your anxiety, but your daughter is a grown woman. She told you she was thinking of going on to the Orient, so it seems to me that...”

  “What theories you may expound, madam, are of no interest whatever to me. William here received a card from my daughter which suggested that she was on her way to Tokyo, but this seems not to have been true.”

  “But why? What would make her change her mind? And why should it have taken you so long to discover that she hadn’t left?”

  William Pelhitt spoke up in an uneasy way, with frequent glances at Berringer, which suggested he took all his cues from the older man.

  “You see, she sent the card by surface mail and it came weeks after her last letter, so we figured the card told us where she was going, what she was up to. We didn’t hear anything from her after that, for months. Not that this is unusual with Ingrid, but finally, he—we sent cables to Tokyo, and they hadn’t heard of her, so we flew there, but couldn’t discover a thing. Then we got to checking the last letter she sent Vic, and found...”

  “But Tokyo is huge. I read that somewhere,” Deirdre put in, startling us all. I am sure the men had forgotten her presence. Whether or not she intended it, she sounded younger than ever. I was by now so ruffled at Mr. Berringer’s manner I decided to delay Deirdre’s introduction.

  William Pelhitt looked to me for an explanation of the girl’s identity, but in the second or two that he looked at me, puzzled and questioning, I saw another man, one not entirely cowed by his long relationship with his companion. I had a sudden notion that he suspected Deirdre was the real Mrs. Giles. The pleasant fullness of his likeable face would probably become substantial and plump in his forties or fifties. He seemed far more human than Victor Berringer who was so chillingly arrogant.

  At Deirdre’s observation about Tokyo, Berringer gave her a scathing look. Quickly and contemptuously, he returned to the matter at hand.

  “Is it too much to ask if we might be alone and uninterrupted for a few minutes, madam? I would like to learn what I—what we can before discussing the matter with the local authorities.”

  Deirdre caught her breath. That gasp troubled me, but I did not pursue the reason for it. I said with false calm, “If you will kindly ask your questions, you will relieve all of us, including yourself.” I was at least honest in that. “I would appreciate your telling me just what Miss Berringer’s last letter had to do with this persecution of us at Sandalwood.”

  “Yes,” Pelhitt put in, obviously trying to please both me and Berringer. “We owe you an explanation. You see, the letter, as it happened, was written three weeks after the card.”

  “Don’t rattle so! Get on with it!”

  “Just let me finish, Vic. The letter said she was coming over here to—whatever it’s called—this island, to have it out with that ... with her friend Deirdre.”

  “ ‘With that silly moron Deirdre’ was how she described you. A bit offensive, and hardly accurate,” Berringer added without a smile to soften the remark. “But my daughter often had bad manners. She claimed that if your new husband had faced the truth about you—whatever that was—after two days of marriage, she would have no difficulty in winning him away from you. She was drunk when she wrote the letter. Obviously.”

  “Obviously,” I echoed just as sharply.

  He moved nearer, as though to exclude Deirdre and William Pelhitt from our conversation.

  As I stared at him, hoping to intimidate him into at least a semblance of good manners, Victor Berringer set his glass on the side table behind me where the sunlight caught it and glistened on the melting ice within.

  “I certainly didn’t take such a rambling and ill-mannered letter seriously. Not until we had returned to Hawaii from Tokyo and discovered what I consider proof that Ingrid never left Hawaii. Mrs. Giles, when did you see my daughter last?”

  I felt like a player who had memorized her lines badly. When was the last time Deirdre had seen Ingrid Berringer? I decided to stick to the brief remarks Stephen Giles had made less than an hour before.

  “The last time was after the wedding. I don’t know what day, but almost immediately after.”

  “When did she leave.”

  “Very soon.”

  “Alone?”

  I said with perfect truth, “I didn’t see anyone with her.”

  “But did she operate a motorboat, a launch, or was she taken back to Honolulu in a yacht? Ingrid is hardly the sort of girl to operate her own boat. She is a very popular young woman and besides, she would not depend upon her own skill.”

  “I gathered that.”

  “Then perhaps you will be good enough to tell me why no one knows how she returned to Kaiana from here ... if she did return. And there is no record of Ingrid’s having come in by inter-island plane f
rom Kaiana to the Honolulu airport on Oahu.”

  “Hardly conclusive. There are other ways of reaching Honolulu. She might have gone by ship, you know.”

  William Pelhitt interrupted us with unexpected gallantry. “Now, look here, Vic. She’s right. In fact, it’s even possible Ingrid went on to Hong Kong with friends, on a freighter or something. And she mentioned Tahiti once or twice. Remember?”

  “Without her passport?”

  “What!” I was startled and glanced over at Deirdre. She was interested but certainly was not shocked or alarmed. She had been looking from one to the other of us as if we were talking about some intriguing mystery story whose details were entirely foreign to her. And surely, I hoped, they were! “Without her passport, and some of her clothes.”

  “We aren’t sure about the clothes, Vic. I mean, she might have just—not wanted them.”

  “Well, we are sure she left her Honolulu apartment without a word to the owners. And don’t tell me she always does these impulsive things, William. She doesn’t strew passports over the globe.”

  A door closed somewhere and there were steps in the hall. The servants were probably talking about this odd conference. I heard voices faintly outside the room. Mr. Berringer saw me glance at the door and turned just as it opened and Stephen Giles walked in. He didn’t notice his wife at once but saw Mr. Berringer and me. We were standing in the sunlit sector of the room, obviously arguing.

  “What is all this?” Stephen demanded. “Berringer, what the devil are you doing here? I thought it was you when we passed in the channel. I told you my wife was ill and knew nothing about Miss Berringer’s activities. I also told you I didn’t want you hounding the members of my household.”