Henry Gamadge 08 The Book of the Dead by Elizabeth Daly

Author:Elizabeth Daly [Daly, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781937384234
Publisher: Felony & Mayhem Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Burn the Book

GAMADGE AND LUCETTE DAKER found a table under the awning of the Grill Bordeaux. Gamadge, laughing, put her with her back to Prometheus, since she didn’t care for him, and faced the west himself. Lucette had a splendid view of all the other people at the tables, a view she appreciated vocally.

“I have too many flowers in my hat!”

“Is three too many?” Gamadge looked at the “hat,” which consisted of the three flowers, and—so far as he could judge—nothing else.

“They only have one.”

“Why any?”

“Just to show they’re not at home!”

“That’s putting the finger on it.”

He had ordered an oldfashioned for Lucette, since she said she was used to them, and a Martini for himself.

When the drinks and the canapes came, Lucette remarked that Uncle Howard always said good Bourbon couldn’t hurt you.

“Did Mrs. Crenshaw always say so too?”

“She doesn’t drink.”

“What a woman.”

“Mr. Gamadge, you think I’m awful about her; but it’s just that I can’t bear people who never say or do anything they mean. For instance she puts brown rinse on her hair.”

“Without meaning to?”

“Of course she means to. They do it at the hairdressers’ whenever she has a shampoo. At first she said she didn’t know they were doing it, and then—when her hair got too gray for her to pretend any longer—she said it wasn’t a dye because it washes off!”

“Disingenuous of her, very.”

“She doesn’t need oldfashioneds; she’s oldfashioned enough herself.”

“That is unworthy of you; and I don’t mean morally.”

Miss Daker laughed.

“But to be oldfashioned, in your sense,” continued Gamadge, “doesn’t mean to be without emotion, you know. Far from it. People may have lots of emotions, repress them rigorously, and call it self-control—a quality once highly thought of.”

“I don’t think Aunt Genevieve has any emotions.”

“You mustn’t be too sure.”

Lucette Daker took a sip of her oldfashioned. Then she said in a thoughtful tone: “I know her pretty well.”

“Do you? So her friends in Sundown would say; but their judgment of her wouldn’t be yours.”

“They don’t know her!”

Lucette Daker had emotions, and just now they were getting a little the better of her; Gamadge, seeing that she was trembling slightly, called for the check. “Mustn’t keep Binney waiting.”

They went through 49th Street to Sixth Avenue. A young, stockily built man in white, with his sailor’s cap on the side of his cropped head, started eagerly forward as they turned the corner. Ignoring Gamadge, he advanced to seize Lucette by the arm, just above her elbow. “You got here, kid!”

“Yes, Judd, here I am.” She gently freed herself from what Gamadge thought of as the grip populi. “I want to introduce you to Mr. Gamadge. He’s been awfully kind, and I told him all about us and everything.”

Binney looked up, nodded, and said: “Thanks.” Gamadge’s presence evidently did no worse than bore him; this thirty-seven-year-old civilian could be no more to his loved one than a mentor, and not a permanent one at that. But Binney’s expression was not hospitable.

“Very glad to make your acquaintance, sir,” said Gamadge.

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