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Beware the Young Stranger

MysterousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media

Vallancourt was the last of the foursome to reach the locker room. Coming off the eighteenth green, he had been hailed by a gushing, well-padded matron he barely knew.

She had three out-of-town guests at a cocktail table on the clubhouse terrace, and she insisted on introducing John Vallancourt to them as "our own distinguished diplomat, the man who knows all the secrets of those nasty foreign countries."

Lanky and trim, a silver-and-tan man of fifty-odd years, Vallancourt exchanged small talk, managed a tactful escape, and immediately forgot the incident. He had more important things to think about. Nancy, for instance, his daughter.

In the deserted locker room, he stripped, showered, toweled briskly, and put on the dark gray Italian silk suit he had worn to the club this morning.

He made an admission to himself: he was disturbed. Playing around sixty-five hundred yards of golf course with Keith Rollins today hadn't quieted his sense of caution. Vallancourt had experienced similar emotional radar in foreign capitals when United States prestige and best interests were at stake; and in the solitude of big-game country, when the hunter was cut down to size.

His wariness over Rollins was not because the time had inevitably arrived when there must be a change in his relationship with Nancy. He was prepared for the change. The emergence of his daughter into womanhood was welcome and good. He looked forward to seeing his bloodline extended in Nancy's children ...

Vallancourt thought he was alone. But then he turned and saw Keith Rollins at the far end of the row of lockers. The diplomat's usually warm brown eyes chilled slightly. He wondered how long the man had been standing there watching him.

Keith was smiling as he came forward — a good-looking young man of twenty-two, heavy-shouldered. His face was cut in firm, rather angular lines. He had restless eyes of dark blue, almost purple, under brows as heavily black as his curly hair.

He lit a cigarette. "Afraid we all ducked when we saw the old biddy making for you. Mr. Conway and Mr. Hibbs are in the cocktail lounge."

"I'm used to old biddies," Vallancourt said, also smiling.

Keith squinted through a wreath of smoke. "You play a bang-up game of golf, Mr. Vallancourt. Nancy warned me."

"You don't play so badly yourself. You had me scrambling right down to that wild second-shot gamble on seventeen."

"Maybe next time," Keith said.

In spite of Keith's casual friendliness, the words came out with an I'll-get-you-yet undertone. It struck Vallancourt, coming after a whole day of observation, as being prompted by something more than a mere desire to win. The older man wondered suddenly how often before Keith's need had carried him almost to victory, then turned on him in the final moment, as it had today on the course.

Keith moved ahead, holding the locker room door open for Vallancourt.

"Anyway," Keith said, "today meant a little more to us than a golf game, didn't it?"

"In what way?"

"You wanted to look me over, didn't you?"

There was a flicker of resentment in the nightshade eyes.

"I suppose I did," replied Vallancourt.

They started down the rubber-tiled corridor in the direction of the dining room and cocktail lounge.

"At least," Keith laughed, "I'm glad you didn't suggest a weekend hunting trip in the mountains. I show up better with golf clubs than a rifle." They walked on a few steps, and he went on without a pause. "From what I hear you're pretty good at assessing people. I'd value your opinion of me, Mr. Vallancourt."

"Do you think I've had a proper chance to form one, Keith?"

"Some men in your spot would have formed one right off — even before they met the poor guy."

"And what do you think of me?" asked Vallancourt.

"You're Nancy's father. That's good enough for me."

Clever, Vallancourt thought. Designed to put the opponent on the defensive. Does he see opposition in all people? They reached the end of the vaulted corridor. Wide doors directly ahead swung into the dining room and bar; an archway to their left, fringed with ivy, led onto the terrace. Faint sounds of people drifted to them.

Keith paused, looking through the arch at the sun outside. "I get the message, Mr. Vallancourt. In your silence."

"Keith," Vallancourt said quietly, "aren't you jumping to conclusions?"

"How come?"

"Aren't you actually anticipating that I'm set on forming a negative opinion of you? The contrary is true."

"I know Nancy is all you have, Mr. Vallancourt, how close you two have been."

"It was my job to bring her up, Keith. Her mother died when Nancy was very young."

"More than just a job. Lots of men would have parked her in a school and let it go at that. But all those years in Cairo, Rome, Athens, you kept her with you."

"They were wonderful years." Vallancourt sighed.

"If the Secretary of State or the President need you, you'll go again. You always have. Only this time without Nancy. That must be a grim prospect."

"You're a perceptive young man, Keith, but you're wrong about that."

"I see," Keith said, slowly. "You're glad to see her grown up."

Vallancourt smiled again.

"I've known it was coming, of course."

"You just want to make sure she doesn't fly out of the nest with the wrong pigeon."

Vallancourt felt a prickle on the nape of his neck. This boy, he told himself, carried himself in an eggshell.

"Keith, why don't we give each other a little time?"

Keith's glance slid away. "Maybe you're right, Mr. Vallancourt. I get the feeling we've started off like two tomcats rounding a dark corner from opposite directions." He hesitated. "I don't want it that way, Mr. Vallancourt."

The quick shift in the boy's mood was ingratiating. Vallancourt said warmly, "Neither do I."

"Nancy and I wish it could be perfect for us," Keith said. "But, perfect or not, I know how we feel about each other. Nothing can change that, nothing."

"Then we'll have to try to put a light on that corner, won't we, Keith?"

"Yes, sir. Well, I'll cut out now. I know you want to have a drink with Mr. Conway and Mr. Hibbs."

"You're more than welcome to join us, Keith."

"Thanks. I'll take a raincheck."

"Are you seeing Nancy this evening?"

"Yes, Mr. Vallancourt."

John Vallancourt watched the boy move through the archway to the terrace. Then he slowly turned toward the cocktail lounge.

Howard Conway and Ralph Hibbs were at a table near the floor-to-ceiling windows. Vallancourt had little trouble spotting them. Few people were in the lounge; most had sought the terrace in the perfect weather. A promise of summer was in the air.

With gestures, Conway was talking golf. Hibbs nodded morosely; he had had a miserable time of it, from the first tee.

They glanced up as Vallancourt approached the table. Conway lifted his drink. "The old girl inveigle you into addressing the Thursday Literary Society?"

"Not quite."

"Buffoon like that, calling you across the terrace. It would bug me." A robust man whose awkward appearance was misleading, Conway finished his drink and eyed his glass thoughtfully.

"Oh, she probably has her points," Ralph Hibbs said. "If it was a feather in her cap to introduce John to her friends, I'm sure John didn't mind."

"For you, Ralph, everybody's got points," Conway said with a sigh. "What are you drinking, John?"

"A short Scotch will do it."

"I owe you five bucks," Hibbs said. "Let me add a drink for interest." He turned to order from the trim waitress who had come to the table. He was a big, placid, very likable man, in Vallancourt's opinion. He golfed as he did everything else, with sweating, honest effort.

"I might as well shell out, too," Conway said. "You trimmed us today, John."

"Playing over my head," Vallancourt smiled. "Keith was pressuring me. The boy is good."

"If he'd let himself be." For the benefit of the waitress, Conway jiggled his glass. He and Hibbs had a common heartiness of physique, bone and flesh. But otherwise the two men differed. There was a kind of fagged-out quality in Ralph Hibbs, a softening at the edges, a sagging of the jowls, an under-pallor in the full cheeks. His hair had grayed, thinned, and all but vanished. An ophthalmologist had put bifocals on him; an internist had prescribed pills, which Hibbs carried about with him and took faithfully.

Howard Conway's large, firm face, thick hair, quietly clear eyes made Ralph Hibbs seem bumbling by contrast. Vallancourt wasn't at all sure.

"By the way," Hibbs said, "where'd Keith get to? I thought he was waiting for you, John."

"He was. He had to leave."

"Burned off in that sport car, I bet," Conway said.

"Oh, I don't know," Hibbs said. "He's conservative behind the wheel, considering his age. Good with cars. If I add a European make at the agency, I may ask Keith to go to work for me. I think he could sell cars."

"What do you know about the boy, Howard?" Vallancourt asked Conway.

"Not much."

"You're married to one of his aunts."

"But it wasn't Ivy who brought him here to live, John."

"Then he didn't arrive at Dorcas Ferguson's on a casual visit?" Dorcas Ferguson was Ivy Conway's sister.

"No," Conway said, "he's here for good, from what I understand."

"Early today, Keith made a casual reference about his father's being in town."

"Yes, Sam Rollins got rid of that two-bit business of his downstate. Maggie — Keith's mother, the sister between Dorcas and Ivy — died last fall. The Rollinses have no more ties or connections in their old home town."

"Is Sam Rollins staying with Dorcas, too?"

"No," Howard Conway said, "he's living in a small apartment on the north side."

"I'd like to meet him." Vallancourt nodded to the waitress and tasted the mellow Scotch.

Light glinted on Hibbs's glasses as he leaned forward. "You think Nancy is really serious about Keith Rollins, John?"

"Knowing my daughter, I wouldn't be surprised if she decided to marry him. And it's happened quickly, you know. Very quickly."

"I'm sure he's a fine boy. If there's a ... well, a hint of strain in his personality ..."

"You noticed it, too?" Vallancourt said slowly.

Ralph Hibbs shrugged. "It hasn't been long since he lost his mother, you know."

"I was in Europe," Vallancourt said. "I'd never met Maggie Rollins or her husband or son. But I was sorry I could do nothing more than cable a word of sympathy to Dorcas."

"Dorcas managed," Conway grunted.

"Doesn't she always?" Hibbs laughed.

John Vallancourt's Continental whispered its way up the elm-shaded driveway the next day, stopping in the Normandy shadow of Dorcas Ferguson's castle-like home.

Vallancourt was acquainted with the history of the mansion. Dorcas Ferguson's grandfather had built it. Her parents, social gadflies on the fringes of the international set, had lost the estate to mortgage holders in the process of squandering the modest fortune handed down to them. Years later, Dorcas had returned to native soil, paid cash for the place, and restored the house to its original condition.

The heavy oaken door swung open and Dorcas's matronly housekeeper, Mildred Morgan, smiled out at him. "Good morning, Mr. Vallancourt. Miss Ferguson is expecting you."

The housekeeper ushered him into the spacious entry hall and took his hat.

Vallancourt liked this house, for all its size. It was sound and solid, qualities which Dorcas, like her grandfather, esteemed. She had put a great deal of herself into the house, Vallancourt thought, in the décor and furnishings. The lack of pretentiousness appealed to him. It was the home of a woman of character.

"Miss Ferguson will be right down," Miss Morgan said. "Mrs. Conway is waiting, too. Would you care to join her?"

Vallancourt nodded.

"May I get you something, Mr. Vallancourt? A cup of coffee?"

"Thanks, no."

He stepped into a long, friendly living room. Ivy Ferguson Conway was at the grand piano, playing a sentimental melody badly.

"Morning, John." Ivy swung herself around on the bench. Vallancourt detected a nervousness in her manner. "Do you have a cigarette?"

He offered her the thin, engraved gold case Nancy had given him on his last birthday, and held a light for her, thinking that if Dorcas was a throwback to her grandfather, Ivy, her younger sister, was the orthodox product of her parents.

Ivy's life was a continuity of cocktail and bridge parties, fashion shows, country club gossip, and shallow squabbles with Howard, her husband. Occasionally, she and Howard went abroad, and when Ivy referred to these trips it was always with an accent of condescension for foreign places and foreigners.

She gave a first impression of prettiness, being delicately made, with a fragility of feature. She had small eyes and mousy hair worn in a casual trim. Although she was in her thirties, girlishness clung to her.

"Oh, damn!" She coughed, her hand fluttering to her throat. "John, must you smoke these unfiltered weeds?"

"Don't inhale," Vallancourt suggested.

"Then what's the use of smoking?" Her glance kept going beyond him, to the living room entryway.

"Are you expecting someone, Ivy?"

"No," she said quickly. "You're Dorcas's only caller. I dropped in while she was phoning you this morning."

Vallancourt waited.

Her eyes pinched at the corners. "Aren't you going to ask me what she has on her mind?"

"I assume Dorcas will explain the call."

"Sure. The way she wants it explained." Ivy's nervousness was suddenly gone. She snubbed out her cigarette as if she were pressing the hot coal against something more animate than an ashtray.

"John, you're right in suspecting him," Ivy said.

He made no pretense of not understanding to whom she was referring.

"Howard told me," she said, "how you were sizing him up yesterday, during and after the round of golf."

Vallancourt lit a cigarette.

"I see," she said icily. "You don't care to discuss it."

"Is there a reason I should, Ivy?"

"Oh, most naturally not!" Her gaze was haughtily fixed on a point over his head. "Nancy, of course, is merely your daughter, and Dorcas will come in here with a whitewash brush in hand."

"Without a sense of fair play? Dorcas?" John said gently.

"Better drop the rules in the trashcan, John. I know you would value Dorcas's opinion over mine. But any human personality has its foolish zone. Including Dorcas's. No matter what she tells you, remember this: Keith Rollins is a bastard, John!"

She picked up a small handbag from the piano bench, rose, and started stiffly from the living room. But before she reached the foyer she stopped and turned.

"John ..."

"Yes?"

She was worrying the handbag. "Do make allowances for me." The rosebud mouth pleaded; she was very much the little girl now. "Having Keith brought into this house after what happened ... It upsets me to think about it." Then she hurried out, leaving Vallancourt frowning.

He was standing at the windows overlooking the long terraced lawn when Dorcas Ferguson appeared.

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, John. I had a call from Baltimore."

"I didn't mind. This house is a pleasant place in which to wait." The statement was a half-truth. Today, some of the pleasantness was gone from the house.

She glanced about the room. "Did Ivy leave?"

Vallancourt nodded.

Dorcas was paler than when he had last seen her. He had met her five years ago, when he and Nancy had returned home for the summer. He had formed a strong feeling for her almost at once.

She was not a beautiful woman, although she was lithely attractive, wide-shouldered and tall, in contrast to Ivy. Dorcas's almost Indian face was dominated by a firm and generous mouth, high cheekbones, and large dark eyes. Her glistening black hair, stranded with silver, swept in a high widow's peak from her wide forehead.

She took his hand in both of hers. "It's so good to see you again, John."

"Could I say less?" Vallancourt smiled.

She gestured him to a deep chair. He sat down, and she began to pace in a fretful manner that was uncharacteristic of her.

"Dorcas ... if you have something difficult to say, please remember how I feel about you."

She gave him a grateful look. "It's about Keith, John."

"I suspected as much."

"I want you to like him."

"I've the same wish," he said.

"But you don't."

"That's not quite true, Dorcas. After all, I haven't had a chance to get to know the boy."

She eased herself to the edge of a chair. "But you do have reservations."

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Excerpted from Beware the Young Stranger by Ellery Queen. Copyright © 1965 Ellery Queen. Excerpted by permission of MysterousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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