Ralestone Luck Part 30

"It was then that--that--"

"I was smashed up? Yes. And Rupert came home without warning to find things very messy. I was in the hospital when I should have been in some corrective inst.i.tution, as Aunt Rogers so often told me during those days. Ricky was also in disgrace for speaking her mind, as she does now and then. To make it even more interesting, our guardian had been amusing himself by buying oil stock with our capital. Unfortunately, oil did not exist in the wells we owned. Yes, Rupert had every right to be anything but pleased with the affairs of the Ralestones.

"He swept us off here where we are still under observation, I believe."

"Then you don't like it here?"

"Like it? Madam, 'like' is a very pallid word. What if you were offered everything you ever wished for, all tied up in pink ribbons and laid on your door-step? What would your reaction be?"

"So," she was staring into the fire, "that's the way of it?"

"Yes. Or it would be if--" He stooped to reach for another piece of wood. The fire was threatening to die again.

"What is the flaw in the masterpiece?" she asked quietly.

"Rupert. He's changed. In the old days he was one of us; now he's a stranger. We're amusing to have around, someone to look after, but I have a feeling that to him we don't really exist. We aren't real--" Val floundered trying to express that strange, walled-off emotion which so often held him in this grown-up brother's presence. "Things like this 'Bluebeard's Chamber' of his--that isn't like the Rupert we knew."

"Did you ever think that he might be shy, too?" she asked. "He left two children and came home to find two distrustful adults. Give him his chance--"

"Charity!" Ricky ran lightly downstairs. "Why didn't Val tell me you had come?"

"I just dropped in to inquire concerning your patient."

"He's better-tempered than Val," declared Ricky shamelessly. "You'll stay to dinner of course. We're having some sort of crab dish that Lucy seems to think her best effort. Rupert will be back by then, I'm sure; he's out somewhere with Sam. There's been some trouble about trespa.s.sers on the swamp lands. Goodness, won't this rain ever stop?"

As if in answer to her question, there came a great gust of wind and rain against the door, a blast which shook the oak, thick and solid as it was. And then came the thunder of the knocker which Letty-Lou had polished into s.h.i.+ning life only the day before.

Val opened the door to find Mr. Creighton and Mr. Holmes huddled on the mat. They came in with an eagerness which was only surpa.s.sed by Satan, wet and displaying cold anger towards his mistress, whom he pa.s.sed with a disdainful flirt of his tail as he headed for that deceptive fire.

"You, again," observed Charity resignedly as Sam Two was summoned and sent away again draped with wet coats and drenched hats.

"Man"--Holmes argued with Satan for the possession of the hearth-stone--"when it rains in this country, it rains. A branch of your creek down there is almost over the road--"

"Bayou, not creek," corrected Charity acidly. Lately she had shown a marked preference for Holmes' absence rather than his company.

"I stand corrected," he laughed; "a branch of your bayou."

"If you found it so unpleasant, why did you--" began Charity, and then she flushed as if she had suddenly realized that that speech was too rude even for her recent att.i.tude.

"Why did we come?" Holmes' crooked eyebrow slid upward as his face registered mock reproof. "My, my, what a warm welcome, my dear." He shook his head and Charity laughed in spite of herself.

"Don't mind my bearishness," she made half apology. "You know what pleasant moods I fall into while working. And this rain is depressing."

"But Miss Biglow is right." Creighton smiled his rare, shy smile.

Brusque and impatient as he was when on business bent, he was awkwardly uncomfortable in ordinary company. The man, Val sometimes thought privately, lived, ate, slept books. Save when they were the subject of conversation, he was as out of his element as a coal-miner at the ballet. "We should explain the reason for this--this rather abrupt call." He fingered his brief-case, which he still clutched, nervously.

"Down to business already." Holmes seated himself on the arm of Ricky's chair. "Very well, out with it."

Creighton smiled again, laid the case across his knees, and looked straight at Ricky. For some reason he talked to her, as if she above all others must be firmly convinced of the importance of his mission.

"It is a very queer story, Miss Ralestone, a very queer--"

"Said the mariner to the wedding guest." Holmes snapped his fingers at Satan, who contemptuously ignored him. "Or am I thinking of the Whiting who talked to the Snail?"

"Perhaps I had better begin at the beginning," continued Creighton, frowning at Holmes who refused to be so suppressed.

"Why be so dramatic about it, old man? It's very simple, Miss Ricky.

Creighton has lost an author and he wants you to help find him."

When Ricky's eyes involuntarily swept about the room, Val joined in the laughter. "No, it isn't as easy as all that, I'm afraid." Creighton had lost his nervous shyness. "But what Holmes says is true. I have lost an author and do hope that you can help me locate the missing gentleman--or lady. Two months ago an agent sent a ma.n.u.script to our office for reading. It wasn't complete, but he thought it was well worth our attention. It was.

"Although there were only five chapters finished, the rest being but synopsis and elaborated scenes, we knew that we had something--something big. We delayed reporting upon it until Mr. Brewster--our senior partner--returned from Europe. Mr. Brewster has the final decision on all ma.n.u.scripts; he was as well pleased with this offering as we were.

Frankly, we saw possibilities of another great success such as those two long historical novels which have been so popular during the past few years.

"Queerly enough, the author's name was not upon the papers sent us by the agent--that is, his proper name; there was a pen-name. And when we applied to Mr. Lever, the agent, we received a most unpleasant shock.

The author's real name, which had been given in the covering letter mailed with the ma.n.u.script to Mr. Lever, had most strangely disappeared, due to some carelessness in his office.

"Now we have an extremely promising book and no author--"

"What I can't understand," cut in Holmes, "is the modesty of the author.

Why hasn't he written to Lever?"

"That is the most unfortunate part of the whole affair." Mr. Creighton shook his head. "Lever recalled that the chap had said in the letter that if Lever found the ma.n.u.script unsalable he should destroy it, as the writer was moving about and had no permanent address. The fellow added that if he didn't hear from Lever he would a.s.sume that it was not acceptable. Lever wrote to the address given in the letter to acknowledge receipt, but that was all."

"Mysterious," Val commented, interested in spite of himself.

"Just so. Lever deduced from the tone of the letter that the writer was very uncertain of his own powers and hesitated to submit his ma.n.u.script.

And yet, what we have is a very fine piece of work, far beyond the ability of the average beginner. The author must have written other things.

"The novel is historical, with a New Orleans setting. Its treatment is so detailed that only one who had lived here or had close connections with this country could have produced it. Mr. Brewster, knowing that I was about to travel south, asked me to see if I could discover our missing author through his material. So far I have failed; our man is unknown to any of the writers of the city or to any of those interested in literary matters.

"Yet he knows New Orleans and its history as few do today except those of old family who have been born and bred here. Dr. Hanly Richardson of Tulane University has a.s.sured me that much of the material used is authentic--historically correct to the last detail. And it was Dr.

Richardson who suggested that several of the scenes must have actually occurred, becoming with the pa.s.sing of time part of the tradition of some aristocratic family.

"The period of the story is that time of transition when Louisiana pa.s.sed from Spain to France and then under the control of the United States. It covers the years immediately preceding the Battle of New Orleans. Unfortunately, those were years of disturbance and change.

Events which might have been the talk of the town, and so have found description in gossipy memoirs, were swallowed by happenings of national importance. It is, I believe, in intimate family records only that I can find the clue I seek."

"Which scenes"--Ricky's eyes shone in the firelight--"are those Dr.

Richardson believes real?"

"Well, he was very certain that the duel of the twin brothers must have occurred--Why, Mr. Ralestone," he interrupted himself as the stick Val was about to place on the fire fell from his hands and rolled across the floor. "Mr. Ralestone, what is the matter?"

Across his shoulder Ricky signaled her brother. And above her head Val saw Holmes' eyes narrow shrewdly.

"Nothing. I'm sorry I was so clumsy." Val stooped hurriedly to hide his confusion.

"A duel between twin brothers." Ricky twisted one of the b.u.t.tons which marched down the front of her sport dress. "That sounds exciting."