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Updated: April 30, 2025
Bowman proposed the health of the happy couple, his bedside manner going over pretty well, as he informed Vandeman and the rest of us that the bridegroom was a social leader in Santa Ysobel, and that the hope of its best people was to place him and his bride at the head of things there, leading off with the annual Blossom Festival, due in about a fortnight.
"Edwards," I called to the brown friar, "can you keep these fellows off me for a minute?" Still not a word from Barbara. Nothing from Vandeman. Less than nothing: I watched in astonishment how the gorgeous leader stopped dumb, while those next him backed into the couple behind, side stepping, so that the whole line yawed, swayed, and began to fall into disorder.
He turned his face to the small window there, and through all that Vandeman said, kept up a steady, maddening tattoo with his fingernails on the sill. "This has to do with what I told you the first night I ever talked with you, Boyne. You threw doubt on Thomas Gilbert's death being suicide. I gave as a reason for my belief that it was, a knowledge and conviction that the man's mind was unhinged."
"How funny you talk, Barbie," Skeet quavered. "What do you think's wrong?" And Ina spoke decidedly, "Worth is one person in the world who can certainly take care of himself, and would rather be let alone." "If you think there is anything we should do ?" Vandeman began anxiously, and Skeet took a look around at our faces and fairly wailed, "What is it? What's the matter?
She'd been in her daughter's room only twice between the reception and that daughter's going away. "But the room was full of other people," a glimmer between lashes. "I could give you the names of those others." "Thank you," I said. "Mrs. Vandeman has already done that. I've seen them all." "You've seen them all?" a long, furtively drawn breath.
"And what in the world are you doing to Barbara?" Mrs. Vandeman said sharply. "Let her alone, Skeet. You'll make her look ridiculous." Skeet stuck out her tongue at her sister, and went calmly on, mumbling as she worked, "Hold 'till 'ittle Barbie child. Yook up at pretty mans and hold 'till."
Cummings raised his brows at me, got my nod of permission, and shot his first question at the prisoner. "Vandeman, where's the money?" "Not within a hundred miles of here," instantly. "You took it south with you on your wedding trip?" Cummings would persist.
Our end of town was drained, quiet; nobody over at the Vandeman bungalow; looking down at the Square as I made my sneak through, I had caught a glimpse of Bronson Vandeman, a great rosette of apricot blossoms on his coat lapel, making his speech of presentation to the cannery girl queen, while his wife, Ina, her fair face shaded doubly by a big flower hat and a blossom covered parasol, listened and looked on.
And all the swaying life and color on the floor stopped as suddenly. Barbara had picked the moment that brought Ina Vandeman and her husband squarely facing us. After the first instant's bewilderment, Vandeman and his floor managers couldn't fail to realize that they were being held up by an outsider; with Barbara in full sight up here by the orchestra, they must know who was doing it.
There stood Ina Vandeman in the gorgeously embroidered robes of a high caste Chinese lady, her fair hair covered by a sleek black wig that struck out something odd, almost ominous, in the coloring of her skin, the very planes of her features.
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