The Hellfire Club Read online

  “Don’t forget about lunch tomorrow,” he answered.

  Once during her period of radioactivity, Nora had forgotten that they were due at the Poplars for a meal. Usually, Davey’s reminders of this distant error struck her as unnecessarily provocative. Tonight, however, his remark suggested a way to put her resolution into effect.

  “I won’t,” Nora said.

  She could help them by drawing nearer to Daisy Chancel” she could soften the blow before it fell.

  7

  A FEW MINUTES after they had wandered out onto the Poplars’ terrace early the next afternoon, Nora left Davey and Alden holding Bloody Marys as they looked out at the sun-dazzled Sound. The announcement that she was going upstairs to see Daisy had met only a token resistance, although Davey had seemed disgruntled to be left alone with his father so soon after their arrival. Davey’s father had seemed pleased and even gratified by Nora’s words. Alden Chancel had grown into a handsome, unruffled old age by getting everything he had ever wanted, and while he had certainly wanted his son to get married, he had never imagined that Davey would marry someone like Nora Curlew.

  Nora quickly traversed the downstairs living room, came out into the marbled entrance, and turned to mount the wide staircase. On the landing she paused in front of the huge mirror. Instead of changing into her usual jeans and top after her morning run, Nora had dressed in white trousers and a loose, dark blue silk blouse. In the mirror these clothes looked nearly as appropriate for lunch on the Poplars’ terrace as they had at home.

  She pushed at her hair without significantly rearranging it and started up the remaining steps to the second floor. A door closed, and the Italian girl, Maria, the short gray-haired woman who decades ago had replaced the famous Helen Day, called the Cup Bearer, at other times referred to more mysteriously as O’Dotto, came out of Daisy’s studio carrying an empty tray. The Cup Bearer, whom Davey had loved, had made legendary desserts, seven-layer cake and floating island; Maria was serviceable, not legendary, and in Nora’s experience prepared excellent French and Italian meals.

  Maria smiled at her and gave the tray a short, emphatic slap against the air, as if to say, So! Here we are!

  “Hello, Maria, how’s Mrs. Chancel today?”

  “Very fine, Mrs. Nora.”

  “How are you?”

  “Exactly the same.”

  “Would she mind company?”

  Maria shook her head, still smiling. Nora knocked twice, then pushed open the door.

  Seated at the far end of a long, cream-colored couch facing a glass coffee table and a brick fireplace, Daisy raised her head from the paperback in her hands and gave Nora a bright look of welcome. The white oak desk at her shoulder, placed at the top of the couch like the crossbar of a capital T, was bare except for an electric typewriter and a jar of yellow pencils” the glass table held a tall vase crowded with fleshy-looking, white Casablanca lilies, a pack of low-tar cigarettes, a gold lighter, a stone ashtray brimming with butts, books in stacks, and a tumbler filled with ice and pale red liquid. Mint green in their own shadows, white aluminum blinds were canted against the sun.

  “Nora, oh goody, what a treat, come in and join me, where’s your drink?”

  “I must have left it on the terrace.” Nora stepped into Daisy’s atmosphere of flowers and cigarette smoke.

  “Oh no, mustn’t do that, let’s have the Italian girl fetch it.” She slid a postcard into the book.

  “No, no, I don’t—”

  Daisy had already leaned forward and taken a little bell off the table. It uttered an absurdly soft, tinkling ring. “Maria,” she said in a conversational voice.

  As if summoned out of the air, Maria opened the door and stepped inside. “Mrs. Chancel?”

  “Will you be a sweetie and bring up Nora’s drink? It’s on the terrace.”

  Maria nodded and left, closing the door behind her.

  Daisy patted the creamy couch and set the paperback, Journey into Light, Hugo Driver’s second posthumous book, on the glass table.

  “I’m not interrupting anything?”

  In the mid-fifties, newly married, forty pounds lighter, Daisy Chancel had published two novels, not with Chancel House, and ever since she had supposedly been writing another.

  Nora had nearly, but not quite, ceased to believe in this book, of which she had never seen any evidence on her infrequent visits to the studio. Davey had long ago refused to talk about it, and Alden referred to it only euphemistically. Daisy’s manner at evening meals, rigid and vague, suggested that instead of working she had been drinking martinis supplied by the Italian girl. Yet once there must have been a book, and that Daisy maintained the pretense of work meant that it was still important to her.

  “Not at all,” Daisy said. “I thought I’d read Driver again. Such an inspiring writer, you know. He always inspires me, anyhow. I don’t know why people never took to Journey into Light.” She gave Nora a mystical smile and leaned forward to tap the book approvingly with her thick fingers. Her hand drifted sideways to capture the tumbler and carry it to her mouth. She took a good swallow, then another. “You’re not one of those people who think Journey into Light is a terrible falling off, are you?” Daisy set down the drink and snatched up the cigarettes and lighter.

  “I never thought of it that way.”

  Daisy lit a cigarette, inhaled, and as she expelled smoke waved it away. “No, of course not.” She tossed the pack onto the table. “You couldn’t, not with Davey around. I remember when he read it for the first time.”

  Someone knocked at the door. “Your potion. Come in, Maria.”

  The maid brought in the Bloody Mary, and when she proffered it to Nora her eyes sparkled. She was pleased to see Daisy enjoying herself.

  “When will things be ready?”

  “Half an hour. I make fresh mayonnaise for the lobster salad.”

  “Make lots, Davey likes your mayonnaise.”

  “Mr. Chancel, too.”

  “Mr. Chancel likes everything,” Daisy said, “unless it interferes with sleep or business.” She hesitated for a moment. “Could you bring us fresh drinks in about fifteen minutes? Nora’s looks so watery. And have Jeffrey open the wine just before we come down.”

  Nora waited for Maria to leave the room, then turned to find Daisy half-smiling, half-scrutinizing her through a murk of cigarette smoke. “Speaking of Hugo Driver, is there some kind of trouble with his estate?”

  Daisy raised her eyebrows.

  “Davey got up in the middle of the night to watch the movie of Night Journey. He said that Alden wanted him to take care of some kind of problem.”

  “A problem?”

  “Maybe he said it was a nuisance.”

  At these words Daisy lowered her eyebrows, lodged the cigarette in her mouth, and picked up her glass. She nodded slowly several times before withdrawing the cigarette, blowing out smoke, and taking another mouthful of the drink. She licked her lips. “I always enjoy your visits to my little cell.”

  “Did you ever meet Hugo Driver?”

  “Oh no, he was dead before Alden and I were married. Alden met him two or three times, I believe, when he came here for visits. In fact, Hugo Driver slept in this room.”

  “Is that why you use it?” Nora glanced around the long, narrow room, trying to imagine it as it had been in the thirties.

  “Could be.” Daisy shrugged.

  “But is your own work like Driver’s—is that the kind of thing you’ve been working on?”

  “I hardly know anymore,” Daisy said.

  “I guess I’m a little curious.”

  “I guess I am, too!”

  “Has anybody ever read what you’ve been writing?”

  Daisy sat up straight and glanced at the bookshelves next to the fireplace, giving Nora a view of soft, flat white hair and the outline of a bulging cheek. Then she turned to look at her in a way unreadable but not at all vague. “A long time ago, my agent read a couple of chapters. But over the years, we .
. . drifted . . . away from each other. And it’s changed a lot since then. Several times. You’d have to say it changed completely, several times.”

  “Your agent wasn’t very helpful.”

  Daisy’s cheeks widened in a brief, cheerless smile. “I forgave him when he died. It was the least both of us could do.” She finished off her drink, dragged on the cigarette, and blew out a thin shaft of smoke that bounced like a traveling cloud off the vase.

  “And since then?”

  Daisy tilted her head. “Are you asking to read my manuscript, Nora? Excuse me. I should say, are you offering to read it?”

  “I just thought . . .” Nora did her best to look placating. Her mother-in-law continued to examine her out of eyes that seemed to have become half their normal size. “I just wondered if . . . if a reader might be helpful to you. I’m hardly a critic.”

  “I hardly want a critic.” Daisy leaned forward over her stomach and stubbed out the cigarette. “It might be interesting. Fresh pair of eyes and all that. I’ll think about it.”

  A rap sounded at the door, and Maria came in with two tall drinks on a tray. She removed Daisy’s empty glass and placed Nora’s second beside her nearly untouched first. “I give you extra jar mayonnaise to take home, Mrs. Nora.”

  Nora thanked her.

  “Are the boys doing all right down there, Maria?”

  “Doing beautiful.”

  “No shouts? No threats?” Nora had rarely seen this side of Daisy.

  Maria smiled and shook her head.

  “Are they talking about anything interesting?”

  Maria’s smile went rigid.

  “Oh, I see. Well, if they ask, which they won’t, you can tell them that everything we’re talking about is interesting.”

  It struck Nora that the closest relationship Daisy had was with Maria.

  Daisy surprised her again by winking at her. “Isn’t that right, dear?” This bright, lively Daisy had appeared immediately after Nora had suggested looking at her manuscript.

  Nora said yes, it was interesting, and Maria beamed at her before leaving.

  “What do you think they’re talking about downstairs?”

  “Want to make a publisher’s heart go trip trap, trip trap, like the baby goat walking over the bridge? Show him a nice, juicy crime, what he would call a ‘true crime.’ ” Daisy smiled another mirthless smile and took a swallow of the fresh drink. “Don’t you love that term? I think I’ll commit a true crime. Right after I commit a nonfiction novel. Trip trap, trip trap, trip trap.” She opened her mouth, rolled up her eyes, and patted her heart in mock ecstasy. “I know, I’ll commit a true crime by writing a nonfiction novel about Hugo Driver!” Daisy giggled. “Maybe that’s what I’ve been doing all these years! Maybe Alden will give me a million dollars and I’ll go away to Tahiti!”

  “Maybe I’ll come with you,” Nora said. It would be fun going to Tahiti with this Daisy Chancel.

  Daisy wagged a fat forefinger. “No, you won’t. No, you won’t. You can’t go away and leave Davey all alone.”

  “I suppose not,” Nora said.

  “No, no, no,” Daisy said. “Nope.”

  “Of course not,” Nora said. “Are you really writing a non-fiction novel?”

  The older woman was nearly gloating, as if she knew secrets so outlandish that she could hint eternally without ever divulging them. Nora took in her shining, slightly filmy eyes and understood that Daisy was going to let her read her manuscript.

  8

  “SURE, EVERY WOMAN in Westerholm is frightened,” Alden said. “They’re supposed to be.”

  “What do you mean, supposed to be?” Nora asked.

  “You think I’m defending murder.”

  “No, I just want to know what you meant.”

  He surveyed the table. “When Nora looks at me, she sees the devil.”

  “A nonfiction devil,” said Daisy.

  “Dad, I don’t think I understand, either.”

  “Alden wants people to think he’s the nonfiction . . . true crime . . . devil.” Daisy had reached the stage of speaking with exaggerated care.

  “The devil does, too,” Nora said, irritated.

  “Exactly,” Alden said. “Wherever this fellow goes, he’s hot stuff. He gets his weekly copy of the Westerholm News, and he’s on the front page.”

  He helped himself to another portion of lobster salad and signaled Jeffrey, generally referred to as “the Italian girl’s nephew,” to pour more wine. Jeffrey took the bottle from the ice bucket, wiped it on a white towel, and went to the end of the table to refill Daisy’s glass. He moved up the table, and Nora put her hand over the top of her glass. Jeffrey gave her a comic scowl before he went to the head of the table.

  Nora had never known what to make of Jeffrey. Tall, of an age somewhere between forty-five and fifty-five, his speech without accent, his fair brown hair thinning evenly across his crown, Jeffrey was an unlikely relative of Maria. Nora gathered that she had produced him some ten years before when Alden had begun to talk about hiring someone to answer phones, open doors, run errands. Jeffrey had clever eyes and a graceful, guarded manner that did not preclude playfulness. Some days he looked like a thug. Nora watched him offer the wine to Davey, turn away to twist the bottle into the ice, and return to his post at the edge of the terrace. In a close-fitting dark suit and black shirt, Jeffrey was having one of his thug days. Daisy reminded her of her private theory about Jeffrey by saying, “You’re usually more . . . original . . . than that,” and tapping her fork on the table in rhythm with her words.

  Jeffrey had been hired to cover for Daisy.

  “I’m not finished, my dear.”

  “Then please, please enlighten us.”

  Alden smiled universally at the table. His perfect teeth gleamed, his white hair shone, a flush darkened the smoothly tanned broad face. In a blazer and snowy shirt, the top button opened over a paisley ascot, with bright, expressionless eyes and deep indentations like divots around his mouth, Alden looked just like the kind of person who hired someone like Jeffrey. Nora realized how much she disliked him.

  “Think of how many copies the Westerholm News is selling. People who never looked at it in their lives are buying it now. And this isn’t true just of our rinky-dink little paper. The tabloids in New York jump up and salute every time another lady is slaughtered in her bed. And do you think the security system business in Fairfield County is having the usual August lull? What about the handgun business? Not to mention fencing, yard lights, and locksmiths? How about television reporters, the photographers from People?”

  “Don’t forget publishers,” Nora said.

  “Absolutely. What’s your best guess on how many books are being written about Westerholm at this minute? Four? Five? Think of the paper that will go into those books. The ink, the foil for the covers. Think of the computer disks, the laptops, the notebooks, the fax machines. The fax paper. The pencils.”

  “It’s an industry,” Davey said. “Okay.”

  “A darn bloody industry, if you ask me,” said Daisy. Nora silently applauded.

  “So was World War Two,” said Alden. “And so was Vietnam, Nora, if you’ll forgive me.”

  Nora didn’t think she would.

  “Ah, if looks could kill—but did or did not unit commanders have a certain amount of shells they were supposed to fire on a daily basis—not officially, I mean, but pretty specific anyhow? Didn’t we use up a tremendous amount of uniforms and vehicles over there, didn’t we build bases and sell beer and buy tons of food? Wasn’t somebody manufacturing body bags? Nora, I know I’m flirting with danger, but I love it when your eyes flash.”

  He was flirting with her, not danger. She looked across the table at her husband and found him gazing at the napkin in his lap.

  “Gee, I love it when your eyes flash, too, Alden,” she said. “It makes you look so young.”

  “Actually, Nora, you’re the oldest person at this table.”

  For both her hus
band’s sake and Daisy’s, Nora forced herself to relax.

  “You were tempered in ways the rest of us were not, and that’s why you’re so beautiful! I’ve admired beautiful women all my life, beautiful women are the saviors of mankind. Just being able to see your face must have pulled a lot of guys through over there.”

  She opened her mouth, closed it, and looked back at Alden. “Aren’t you sweet.”

  “You must have had a great effect on the young men that passed through your hands.”

  “I think your viewpoint cheapens everything,” Nora said. “Sorry. It’s disgusting.”

  “If I could snap my fingers and make it so that you’d never gone to Vietnam, would you let me do it?”

  “That would make me as young as you are, Alden.”

  “Benefits come in all shapes and sizes.” He distributed a smile around the table. “Is there anything else I can clear up for you?”

  For a moment nobody spoke. Then Daisy said, “Time for me to return to my cell. I’m feeling a little tired. Wonderful to see you, Davey. Nora, I’ll be in touch.”

  Alden glanced at Nora before pushing back his chair and getting up. Davey stood up a second later.

  Daisy grasped the top of her chair and turned toward the door. “Jeffrey, please thank Maria. Lovely lobster salad.”

  Jeffrey’s courtly smile made him look more than ever like a dapper second-story man disguised as a valet. He drifted sideways and opened the door for Daisy.

  9

  ALDEN AND DAVEY took their chairs again. “Your mother’ll be right as rain after her nap,” Alden said. “Whatever goes on in her studio is her business, but I have the feeling she’s been working harder than usual lately.”