Linda Lee, Incorporated: A Novel

"I kind of thought you'd feel like that about it. It would look too much like worrying about Lynn, wouldn't it?" Lucinda made no reply, and after a moment of dumb staring at the ceiling a shadow of complacency modified Nelly's fretful look. "I guess it's all over with Lynn now, as far as you're concerned, isn't it?"

"Yes," Lucinda said with the slowness that spells restraint – "as far as I'm concerned, it's all over."

"I'm awfully sorry," the girl asserted, her voice in turn carrying the colour of complacency – "I mean, sorry for you. You must've been awfully stuck on Lynn."

"Yes…" To offset a choke in her voice Lucinda added with a hard laugh: "Awfully!"

"It's terrible to have to give up a man like Lynn… Don't I know!"

Lucinda bluntly changed the subject. "What will you do now?" she asked – "I mean, after this blows over. Will you go on with your picture work in the East?"

"I don't know… I guess not… Nobody's likely to give me another chance… Lynn isn't going to be able to keep the truth from leaking out inside the business, of course; and he's terribly popular, his friends will take good care I don't get another job. I guess I've gone and fixed it for myself in the picture business, all right, no matter what… Unless, of course, I might maybe change my name or something."

"But this picture my husband is making: he won't be able to go on with it with you out of the cast, I presume."

Nelly laughed outright. "I guess that won't worry Mr. Druce a terrible lot. You don't suppose he cares two whoops what happens to that picture now, do you?"

"Why not? Why did he start making it, unless?.."

"Why don't you know, Mrs. Druce? I'd 've thought you'd 've been wise to that dodge all along. All Mr. Druce went into the film business for was to be near you."'

"You believe that?"

"Why!" – the girl laughed again – "it's just as plain as paint to anybody in the know; I mean, anybody that knows you two are married but living separate on account of some row or something. All Mr. Druce cares about pictures a person could put in their eye and never know it. He just wanted a good excuse to be near you and take care of you in case anything … like tonight … or if he thought you was beginning to take Lynn too seriously or anything… Anyway, that's how I figured it from the very first. He had it doped it would cramp Lynn's style to see me around the studio all the time, and maybe make him break it off with you. And so did I. Only I guess neither of us guessed how hard Lynn had fallen for you."

"You haven't told me how my husband happened to engage you."

"Well, he just went after me and wouldn't take no for an answer. He's like that, you know. Of course, I don't know what the trouble was between you two, but I don't see how you ever stood out against a man like him, Mrs. Druce."

"Where were you when he found you?"

"Back home. You see, after Lynn gave me that hundred … and what happened … I was afraid to stay in Hollywood, I didn't know what else he might do to me. And besides, I simply couldn't stand seeing you stepping out with him all the time, it made me simply wild. So I went right back to Findlay."

"Findlay?"

"The place in Ohio where my people live."

"And that's where Mr. Druce found you?"

"I'd only just got back when a man came to town, Mr. Roberts he said his name was, and said he'd got me a swell offer to go back to the Coast and act for a new company just starting. I kind of thought there was something fishy about it, because I never was much in pictures; and why should they send somebody all the way to Findlay to get me when they could 've got plenty just as good right here in Hollywood? Anyhow, I was afraid of Lynn, so I said nothing doing. Next I knew, Mr. Druce himself come to see me and said I'd got to go back to Hollywood with him and make pictures and I could write my own contract. Of course, as soon's I heard his name, I tumbled to what it was all about; and I thought if you got to seeing a lot of your husband you'd give Lynn the air … chuck him, I mean … and maybe … Ah! I don't know…"

She was quiet for a moment, in wide-eyed, wondering abstraction. "Somehow I never got over being crazy about Lynn, you know," she said in a quieter tone than she had yet used – "not even when he treated me meanest."

In this pensive mood she mused on: "You know, sometimes I think it's all wrong the way women, like you and me, take everything a man wants to hand out to us, just to hold him. They keep telling you it's the only way; but the way it looks to me, it hardly ever works … I mean, unless the man's crazy about you, like Mr. Druce…

"Of course, I know it isn't any of my business, Mrs. Druce, but I haven't got any hard feelings towards you on account of Lynn and all, not any more, and I'm perfectly sincere when I say I think you'll be making one big mistake if you don't make it up with Mr. Druce as soon's ever you can now…"

The house telephone came to Lucinda's rescue: Mr. Druce was calling, if Miss Lee would be kind enough to overlook the lateness of the hour…

Lucinda promised to get rid of Bel as soon as she could, and in return exacted the girl's promise to rest quietly and not worry. Then she shut herself out into the sitting-room, and had almost immediately to answer the door.

Bel's light motor-coat hung from his shoulders with empty sleeves, by which device he was able to make no parade of the fact that his right arm was in a sling. His features were drawn and grey, his speech slow with weariness, but his eyes keen, steady and (Lucinda made sure, looking sharply) wholly unsentimental; while his greeting, characteristically abrupt – "Still up, eh?" – was accompanied by ironical recognition of her unchanged evening costume.

"I waited up for you," Lucinda replied sufficiently to both words and look. "How's your arm?"

"Nothing to brag about, but no worse than I thought. A bit stiff and sore, that's all."

"You look fearfully tired, Bel. Won't you sit down?"

Irony again tinged his flying smile. "No, thanks. Won't stay but a minute. I promised, so here I am. But I'm dog-tired, and as soon as I've turned in my report, I'll cut along."

"Well?.."

"He's got one chance in a thousand to pull through. Say what you like about that young woman – she can shoot. Only one shot went wrong, merely smashed his shoulder. One of the others just missed his heart, the third drilled through his lungs. Wouldn't give a great deal for all the show he's got."

Grim watchfulness was rewarded by her slight start, a swift darkening of Lucinda's eyes, but no flinching, after an instant a slow nod, nothing more. "Nothing to say?" Bellamy demanded in pitiless humour.

"Thank you for letting me know."

"And that's all?"

"Was there something you expected me to say, Bel? Sorry to disappoint you…"

"Well: you knew the fellow better than I – "

"If it interests you, you may as well know now what I didn't – not before tonight."

"You didn't know Summerlad was married – ?"

"If another man dared ask me that question, I think even you would resent it."

"Perhaps. Daresay it's the husband's astigmatic point of view. However, I didn't mean to be offensive."

"Do you seriously ask me to believe that, Bel?"

"Damn it, Linda! you always did have the faculty of putting me in the wrong."

"Isn't it more true that you haven't yet mastered the faculty of always putting yourself in the right?"

"Perhaps we'd better let it go at that. One thing's certain, I'm none too happy in my efforts to express myself tonight. Daresay I'd better clear out before I make things worse…" Nevertheless he delayed. "That girl … she got away. Not a trace…"

"Are they – is anybody looking – ?"

"The police have got that job in hand. I had rather a time with them, you know. They didn't fancy my story at all, at first, couldn't see why the devil I had let Nelly escape. The circumstance that she'd shot me in the arm didn't seem to carry any weight; in fact, I gathered they didn't put it beyond me to shoot myself in the right arm to divert suspicion. Only one thing saved me: Nelly had thoughtfully lost her handbag outside the window, with an extra clip of cartridges in it."

"She must have meant to make sure… I mean, it wasn't an affair of impulse, then?"

"Oh, she'd had in mind what she meant to do for a long time. I don't know how long, but she let a hint fall the other night, when she'd had a bit more drink than she needed, and I spent the best part of the evening trying to talk her out of it. She fobbed me off with a half-promise in the end; but I wasn't satisfied. And tonight, when she wasn't on hand to keep a dinner appointment, and one of the bellhops told me he'd seen her boarding a trolley for Beverly Hills… Well: my chauffeur says we broke all existing records, getting out to Summerlad's. Why we weren't arrested neither of us knows. Lucky…"