Puzzle for Wantons by Patrick Quentin

Author:Patrick Quentin
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Media
Published: 2018-03-25T04:00:00+00:00

XIV

Chuck and Mimi sprang apart. It was much too late. As usual, Chuck was wearing tight cowboy pants and a tartan lumber jacket, open at the neck. But all the customary swagger that went with them was gone. Mimi had the unexpected decency to be embarrassed, too. Her lips were half parted in something that was meant to be a dear-little-girl smile but which looked more like the snarl of a trapped weasel. The white rose was still at her bosom. It was crushed now. One of its petals slipped loose. We all of us, stupidly, watched it twirl to the ground.

All of us, that is, except Lorraine. She was watching Mimi. In spite of the frivolous curls, the frivolous face, the frivolous sweeping gown, there was a stillness about her that was impressive.

She said, “You can pack your things, Mimi. You’ll be leaving immediately.”

Her tone was magnificently contemptuous; she was a mistress firing a slatternly maid.

Lover had been staring at his fiancée and at Chuck with astounded incomprehension. Now, his plump chin quivering, he turned to Lorraine.

“There must be some—some explanation.”

“Of course there’s an explanation,” said Lorraine. “If you hadn’t been so infatuated, you’d have seen this coming on for days. She worked it so’s she drove into Reno alone with Chuck that night we all went down. In the car she no doubt demonstrated how clinging and feminine she could be. Then she had him rhumbaing with her. That was to show how glamorous and sexy she could be. Then she started poking fun at me, pointing out how crazily I dressed. When Chuck kidded me out of wearing that swimming suit, for example, that wasn’t his idea. It was Mimi. She was making him see how flighty I am, just to point up how artistic and other-worldly she is herself. Then, later on, she started cooing over him and getting him drinks when he was tired. That was to show what a lovely, lovely wife she could be. Slippers in front of the fire every night.” She gave a weary shrug. “The whole thing’s been so obvious it’s made me sick.”

Chuck was looking down at his feet. Mimi still didn’t say anything. Lover, pitifully at sea, stammered, “But Lorraine, she’s—she’s engaged to me.”

Lorraine put her hand on his arm. “Dear, I haven’t wanted to interfere in your life, haven’t wanted to say anything. I suppose I was wrong as usual. You’re so easy to fool—it’s taking candy from a kid. Heaven knows where you picked her up. Las Vegas, wasn’t it? Why do you imagine she got engaged to you? You’re not exactly an Adonis, my poor dear. Don’t you see? Because you were my half-brother, you looked like a good catch. But when you brought her here she started to realize that the money hadn’t been left to you, it was a different matter. And there was Chuck, the big-time gambler with his own club in Reno—a much more promising victim, even though he was engaged to me.

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