Puzzle of the Pepper Tree Read online

  “Bumpier every damn trip,” complained French.

  Chick showed a mouthful of strong white teeth. Five years with the air mail had burned the seriousness from his hot brown eyes. “It’ll all be nice and smooth when we get Technocracy,” he promised. “They say—”

  Whatever it was that they said was forgotten as he braced both feet against the kicking rudder in an effort to keep the Dragonfly from going completely crazy. The floor beneath their feet fell away and then rose shudderingly, fitfully swaying from side to side.

  The nine passengers in the cabin likewise swayed from side to side, much to their discomfort. Ships plying the sky are capable of inducing in their passengers a mal de ciel as much more intense than ordinary seasickness as their speed is greater than that of vessels briny-bound. The Dragonfly was making nearly two hundred miles an hour.

  Queasiness gripped Phyllis immediately beneath the silver buckle of her plaid jacket, even as it gripped each of the nine. But none of them was hit harder than the man in the brown sport outfit. He began to moan softly, in abject wretchedness.

  Jarred out of their shells, the others began to forget their own lesser misery in the sight of his. Phyllis, with the resiliency of her sex, recovered first. From the cellophane bag which had accompanied her ticket she proffered a last remaining pellet of sugarcoated mint.

  “Hold everything,” she called, above the din of the motors. “Chew this and see if it helps.”

  The man in brown shook his head. He was already chewing gum, his jaws moving mechanically. Drops of sweat were beginning to break out on his forehead.

  Phyllis replaced the gum in her handbag and surveyed the sufferer with a sympathetic but critical eye. She was a good judge of types, and she noted instantly the circles beneath his slightly bloodshot eyes, the liver-like tone of his overmassaged skin.

  But she hadn’t given up playing Good Samaritan yet. “Always hits you worst when you’ve got a hangover, doesn’t it?” she observed conversationally to the bored man behind her. He had swung his round, baldish head above the rolled wool of his high-necked sweater to stare with her at the man across the aisle.

  The man with the freckled ears likewise had turned, and showed a face mildly apprehensive. He could have been any age from forty to seventy, Phyllis thought, and she noted again the childish blue of his eyes.

  He spoke over his shoulder, which he had swung as far forward out of range as was possible, and admonished the man in brown.

  “If yu going to be sick, yust use the container.” His deep Scandinavian bass was kind, yet it held an accustomed note of command.

  The man in brown uttered another moan. Phyllis turned suddenly and addressed the man behind her.

  “How about it, Mr. Tate? What he needs is a hair of the dog …” The plane made another series of breathtaking dips, and when it was on an even keel again, the man she had addressed nodded.

  He felt no surprise that this personable young lady with the bright hair happened to know who he was. There was not a blonde in Hollywood who did not know Ralph O. Tate, Paradox Pictures director, by name and by sight—and if there had been a brunette in Hollywood, she too would have known him.

  Tate pulled from the hip pocket of his white riding breeches a gleaming silver flask and fumbled for a moment with its complicated cap and mouthpiece. Then he leaned back across the aisle, proffering it to the sufferer in brown.

  It was eagerly accepted. Tate held it to the other’s mouth for as long as one might have counted ten, and then took a long pull at it himself.

  Phyllis eyed him hopefully, but Ralph O. Tate was used to being eyed hopefully by blondes. He reached to replace it in his pocket.

  A hail came from the rear seats, where the two young men, likewise in turtleneck sweaters, had recently been matching dimes. They held out beseeching hands.

  “How about it, chief?”

  Tate glared back at them. “You know my rule,” he barked. “No assistant of mine does any drinking on location.”

  The flask disappeared, and the Dragonfly fluttered on through a gusty sky scorned even by self-respecting sea gulls. In spite of all her bouncing, the twin motors on either wing never missed a beat. Steadily the fog-mantled coast line grew smaller behind them, and as steadily a gray-green mountain rose out of the sea far ahead. They were alone above a dappled ocean with only a grotesque and wide-winged shadow dancing across the waves to keep them company.

  Phyllis rested her chin on the back of her seat and turned both of her gray-green eyes full on Mr. Ralph O. Tate. Even if she had missed on sharing a drink with him, she had succeeded in breaking the ice, and she was resolved not to let it close over again.

  “Oh, Mr. Tate,” she broke in upon his reverie in a voice a little desperately bright and pleasant—“Oh, Mr. Tate, it seems to be getting quieter now, don’t you think?”

  “It was!” Tate grunted inhospitably.

  Phyllis blinked at that one, but before she had decided upon which retort not to voice, there sounded another plaintive wail from behind them.

  The man in the brown sport outfit croaked something, in a voice halfway between a choke and a gasp. All of the well-fed, massaged plumpness had been drained from his face, leaving only wide-open eyes and mouth. Whatever temporary respite he had gained through a gulp of Tate’s liquor was gone, and in spite of the fact that the plane had subsided to a gentle rocking, he fought to rise against his straps.

  “I’m dying!” he gasped. Above the roar of the twin motors his voice came clear and frightened. “I’m dying—I don’t want to die!”

  The other passengers were all turning toward him again, feeling the real chill of the panic which possessed him. Fear can be as contagious as smallpox, and it moves more quickly.

  “I’m dying—get me down!”

  There is an ironclad rule on every airline that in cases of real or imagined danger the spare pilot takes a seat with the passengers, to reassure them with his own calm acceptance of whatever the situation may be. French didn’t need to have Chick motion him back into the cabin before this whining nuisance got the women hysterical.

  He brushed past Phyllis and dropped into the vacant seat. Leaning across the aisle, he placed his hand on the shoulder of the man who thought he was dying.

  “You’re all right,” said French cheerily. “Just quiet down now. Why, I’ve been flying ten years, and never died yet.”

  The other passengers were smiling now, all tension gone. The frightened man murmured something, lost in the roar of the motors.

  “We’re coming up to the landing,” French assured him. “Have you down in a jiffy, and you’ll forget that we struck this bumpy air. Just lean back and relax.”

  The other leaned back, but he did not relax. He still seemed to have something to say. French drowned him out with good-natured reassurances.

  “Want the container? No? Chew some gum, it helps.”

  The man in brown was already chewing gum. His hands moved waveringly toward his face and then dropped to the arms of the leather seat. Phyllis saw that his lips and mouth were almost white. But he was quiet now, staring at the freckled ears of the man in front of him.

  “It won’t be long now,” French told him comfortingly.

  The plane coasted down on so sharp an angle that Phyllis felt her vanity case slide from her lap. Suddenly the starboard windows showed that they were dropping along the steep slope of a bright green mountain. As if to make up for her bronco-like antics in the air, the Dragonfly came to rest on the water in the lee of the cliff softly as a tired sea gull.

  A little ahead of them Phyllis saw a half-moon of beach, bisected by a concrete runway that led up to a cheerful little yellow building, bright with colored tiles and landscaped gardens. Beyond the gardens waited an open bus, a bright red bus with a sprinkling of brightly dressed people aboard.

  Even the green-blue water through which the Dragonfly nosed her way was several shades more brilliant than other water, and the fish which darted away on either s
ide were a bright yellow gold in color.

  French brushed past Phyllis again and knelt to spin the crank which dropped two gray rubber doughnuts of landing gear. With a precision that was beautiful to watch, Chick rolled the dripping amphibian up the runway and out upon a concrete turntable. He roared the motors once and then cut them dead.

  French ran swiftly back along the aisle and unlocked the door in the rear. Then he looked at his watch.

  “Sixteen minutes running time,” he announced. “One at a time please, going out.”

  Obediently the passengers filed out, singly. Forgotten was their common discomfort, their common sympathy and terror. French, standing on the cement, helped them to alight, and saw that each took his own baggage.

  Phyllis was last, and she came down the step with a bag in one hand and a black case in the other which showed a frantic muzzle behind its wire window.

  She put both bags into the hands of the waiting bus driver, turning a deaf ear to the eager whines for freedom. She was looking back, over her well-rounded shoulder, and her eyes were filled with a vague alarm as they met those of the young pilot.

  “The man—the man who said he didn’t want to die! He doesn’t get up!” Her voice was puzzled.

  French stared at her and then went slowly up and into the cabin, just as Chick appeared in the doorway of the pilots’ room, pulling off his gloves. Together they bent over the man in the brown sport outfit, who had ceased to strain against his bonds.

  He hadn’t wanted to die, but he was dead.

  CHAPTER II

  UP A SLOPING WALK of varicolored tile moved the passengers of the Dragonfly, through the landscaped formal garden with its fountain, stone benches, and gay sun-brellas, toward the waiting red bus at the gate. Their transient unity was gone—the kaleidoscope had shaken, and this scattered design of humanity had rearranged itself.

  Leading the way, a stained canvas sea bag at his side, was the freckled man with the bright blue eyes. He walked with a swing, glanced neither at the looming mountains nor at the picturesque Spanish villa which served as an office, and spoke to nobody.

  Behind him, hand in hand, was the young couple—the girl with the red curls and the youth with the rapt expression and the slickened hair. They were gazing at the dark hump of mighty Mount Orizaba to the west, but they did not see it.

  Fourth, fifth, and sixth in the scattered procession came the three men in turtleneck sweaters—the great Ralph O. Tate ahead, carrying a cigarette, and his henchmen close behind, carrying suitcases, brief cases, and still cameras. The seventh was the paunchy T. Girard Tompkins, whose elk’s tooth swung wildly as he strode along.

  Last came Phyllis La Fond, plaid skirt whipping in the wind. She was still looking back over her shoulder—looking down to the smooth slope of concrete where the Dragonfly was poised on its turntable.

  As she watched, the white-uniformed figure of Lew French appeared in the door of the plane. His mouth was open. He dropped to the ground, and then set out for the yellow villa at a ludicrous trot. Almost immediately he reappeared and trotted back to the plane, with an older man in a blue uniform and carpet slippers in tow.

  As she stood there, halfway between plane and bus, Phyllis sensed rather than saw that up the slope the others were already engaged in a scramble over baggage and seats, sweeping over against the farther rail the three or four sightseers who had ridden out from town to witness the arrival of the Dragonfly.

  The driver, a round young man whose few and lazy movements threatened constantly to burst the seams of the tight blue overalls which contained him, was already racing his motor as a gentle hint to hurry her along.

  But Phyllis still stared at the Dragonfly. In a moment, the blue-clad official half fell out of the plane and came laboring up the walk.

  “I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen,” he announced as soon as he could get his breath. “But you’ll have to get off.”

  There was a moment of silence. Then Director Ralph O. Tate passionately inquired as to why the hell must they get off and who the hell said so?

  “My name is Hinch,” explained the man in blue. “I’m manager of the airline, and we’ve—we’ve had an accident. A man has been taken sick, and we’ll have to use the bus to rush him over to the town.”

  There was a note of intensity, almost of desperation, in the voice of Mr. Hinch. But even more compelling than his command was the sight of the man in brown who was being carried swiftly up the walk between the two pilots, his new brown-and-white oxfords scraping on the tile.

  “We’ll try to get the bus back for you folks just as soon as we can,” Hinch promised. “Or—it’s just a short walk to the town.”

  Phyllis looked at her fragile sandals. “Say!” she said. “I’m not going to hike, and I’m not going to stand here in the hot sun—”

  She was interrupted by a defiant, decisive voice from the front seat of the bus, where a tall and angular lady had up to now held against all comers the place of honor next the driver.

  “Young man!”

  Hinch turned from his shepherding of the other passengers, baggage and all, to see a pair of somewhat glittering eyes turned full upon him. “Young man, that girl is right. I paid my fifty cents for a round-trip ride, and I have no intention of waiting here in this blistering sun, or of walking back either, at my age!”

  The age of Miss Hildegarde Withers has been classed as “indeterminate.” If so, it was the only undetermined thing about that sharp-tongued but amiable schoolma’am. Her long and slightly equine visage bore traces of recent sunburn, and her temper was as ruffled as the silken scarf of blinding green which fluttered from her neck. In her hand was a sketchbook, with which she gestured, and over her shoulder was an open umbrella of black cotton.

  “I came to Catalina for my first vacation in five years—and not to take a walking tour,” she continued. “I have no objection to riding with a sick man, and I’m sure he is too ill to object to a fellow passenger. Besides, I’ve had some experience with first aid, and I might be of some—”

  She stopped short as she got her first good look at the man who had been sick. The two pilots were engaged in easing him up onto the rear seat of the bus. Miss Withers got to her feet and gripped the back of her seat with both her chamoisette gloves.

  “What’s wrong with him?” she demanded. The timbre of her voice had subtly changed.

  Chick looked at French, and French looked at Chick. Then they both looked at Hinch.

  “Why—I think it’s a heart attack,” that worthy explained. “We’ve got to rush him to the infirmary at Avalon. It’s quicker than sending for Dr. O’Rourke. Now we’ve got to hurry, will you please—”

  Miss Hildegarde Withers folded her umbrella and closed it with a snap. Then she edged her way out on the footboard of the bus and stalked back to where the man in brown was lying, face to the sky, along the rear seat.

  With a circle of wide, startled eyes upon her, Miss Withers bent over the man who lay staring at the sky. If she flinched inwardly, the bearing of her angular frame did not show it as she stripped off her gloves.

  She touched the hand of the man in brown, and then she pressed her fingers to his temple.

  “There is no need to hurry,” she said calmly, as she faced them all. “This man is not sick. He is dead.”

  There was an audible, frightened gasp from the girl in the blue corduroys. But Manager Hinch protested.

  “We can’t be sure …”

  The grizzled man with the sea bag and the freckled ears was standing close beside Miss Withers. His blue eyes were open very wide. “Ay have been forty year at sea,” he said softly. “Ay have seen men die. He was dead on the plane—Ay knew it.”

  The pilot Chick ventured a halting question.

  “Ay am a faller who minds his own business. Anybody who knows Thorwald Narveson will tell you that.”

  Captain Narveson blinked his innocent, China-blue eyes, and stared all around him.

  Pilot Lew French broke the st
illness. “It was his heart, all right. He was awful sick when he struck the rough air, and scared besides. Told me when he bought his ticket he couldn’t stand the air. Said he’d had a bad time coming out on the Transcontinental.” The hot California sun was beating down on the upturned, mildly wondering face of the man who centered their attention. French drew off his uniform coat and covered him. “Well, let’s get him to Avalon.”

  The fat youth in the overalls, his hands trembling with excitement, jingled the starter for a long minute before he discovered that his ignition switch was off.

  “Seems strange to me that a man who lived through a plane ride across the continent would die of fright on a twenty-minute jaunt like this,” Miss Withers cut in. She saw the blue eyes of Captain Narveson upon her, speculatively.

  Miss Withers had a strong impulse to mind her own business, following his undoubtedly excellent example. “—if you ask my opinion,” she amended a little tardily. After all, this was not her absolute domain in the third grade of Jefferson School back on a side street in Manhattan. She was some three thousand miles from her old friend and onetime fiancé, doughty Inspector Oscar Piper of the New York City Homicide Squad, on whom she had leaned so heavily on the previous occasions when she had been faced with death in its more sudden forms.

  To these harried men in uniform she was no more than a meddlesome old maid, and they wasted little effort in concealing this feeling.

  “Come on, ma’am,” insisted Hinch. “You’ll have to get down.”

  The Withers dander began to rise, and her umbrella appeared, tightly clenched in one hand.

  “This man is dead,” she repeated softly. “No one knows whether or not it was a natural death. He should never have been moved from the flying machine at all. The best thing you can do is to send for the coroner and the police at once, and let them take charge.”

  But the others showed no sign of listening to her. Hinch made the mistake of advancing to put his hand on her arm. “Come on, ma’am, get down!”