Duncan Maclain 04 Blind Man's Bluff aka Blind Date with Death by Baynard Kendrick

Author:Baynard Kendrick [Kendrick, Baynard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2020-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter VII

1

Spud Savage came into Rena’s bedroom early Sunday afternoon. The Captain had bought tickets for the symphony concert at Carnegie Hall, four tickets. Spud stretched himself out on the bed, lit a cigarette, and watched his wife arrange her dark wavy hair which was beginning to show the faintest streaks of gray.

He smoked his cigarette half down before he said, “Lovely gal!”

“Thanks, old dear,” said Rena. She blew a kiss into the dressing table’s triple mirror.

“Self-complacent dame, aren’t you?” Spud returned her aerial caress and gave a derisive grin. “You know I’m not referring to you. You’re just—well, skip it, before I slop over!”

“Sybella Ford, I suppose?” Rena half-turned her head and expertly patted her hair. “There’s an ash tray on the table beside you. Quit putting them on the floor.”

“What do you think, Rena? Is it serious? Dinner last night, concert this afternoon—he’s even asked her to go to the airport to see me off tonight.”

“She bullies him, darling. He was dancing last night, remember?”

“Nuts,” said Spud. “You’ve bullied him for years—and me.”

“And you married me,” Rena reminded him.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Spud. “I never thought of that before.”

“Not any more than you’ve thought of marriage in connection with Duncan Maclain. He’s a man, Spud—strong, handsome, brilliant. Both of us have been so close to him we’ve begun to regard him as a machine.”

“He’s sensitive as the devil. If she hurts him—” Spud crushed his cigarette in the tray.

“So sensitive that it’s an armor, darling, a shield against anything false or tawdry.”

“You must like her.”

“I think she’s wonderful, and so do you.” Rena came and sat beside him on the bed. “You’re selfish in only one thing, Spud—your affection for Duncan Maclain.”

“He’s met plenty of women before.”

“So had you before you married me.”

“But that’s different.” Spud slipped an arm about her slender waist.

“Quite,” she agreed. “He’s blind, Spud. It would take him longer to make a selection. For twenty-four years he’s been learning to move with greater swiftness, but at the same time, darling, he has learned to move with increasing care. If he has picked Sybella Ford to marry, he knows he’s right. She’s been chosen with the same unerring facility with which he strikes a key on his typewriter. Duncan Maclain can never erase an error, Spud. He’s had to master perfection. He can’t be wrong.”

“Damn him!” Spud said fiercely. “I love him because he can’t be wrong and can still carry on under such an inhuman strain. What’s Sybella got, Rena, that other women have lacked? Why should she appeal to Dunc’s emotions and fascinate his screwy brain?”

“She has a dead man to thank for that, Spud.”

“Hadfield?”

“Yes. She was a friend of his for several years. It got her accustomed to being around a man who was blind. She lost all the nervous gawkiness most women have around them which Duncan is so quick to feel. He was equally at ease with her from the instant she stepped into his office last Tuesday. You watched her last night.

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