Free The House at Sandalwood by Virginia Coffman Page B

ill-mannered letter seriously. Not until we had returned to Hawaii from Tokyo and discovered what I consider proof that Ingrid never left Hawaii. Mrs. Giles, when did you see my daughter last?”
    I felt like a player who had memorized her lines badly. When was the last time Deirdre had seen Ingrid Berringer? I decided to stick to the brief remarks Stephen Giles had made less than an hour before.
    “The last time was after the wedding. I don’t know what day, but almost immediately after.”
    “When did she leave.”
    “Very soon.”
    “Alone?”
    I said with perfect truth, “I didn’t see anyone with her.”
    “But did she operate a motorboat, a launch, or was she taken back to Honolulu in a yacht? Ingrid is hardly the sort of girl to operate her own boat. She is a very popular young woman and besides, she would not depend upon her own skill.”
    “I gathered that.”
    “Then perhaps you will be good enough to tell me why no one knows how she returned to Kaiana from here ... if she did return. And there is no record of Ingrid’s having come in by inter-island plane from Kaiana to the Honolulu airport on Oahu.”
    “Hardly conclusive. There are other ways of reaching Honolulu. She might have gone by ship, you know.”
    William Pelhitt interrupted us with unexpected gallantry. “Now, look here, Vic. She’s right. In fact, it’s even possible Ingrid went on to Hong Kong with friends, on a freighter or something. And she mentioned Tahiti once or twice. Remember?”
    “Without her passport?”
    “What!” I was startled and glanced over at Deirdre. She was interested but certainly was not shocked or alarmed. She had been looking from one to the other of us as if we were talking about some intriguing mystery story whose details were entirely foreign to her. And surely, I hoped, they were! “Without her passport, and some of her clothes.”
    “We aren’t sure about the clothes, Vic. I mean, she might have just—not wanted them.”
    “Well, we are sure she left her Honolulu apartment without a word to the owners. And don’t tell me she always does these impulsive things, William. She doesn’t strew passports over the globe.”
    A door closed somewhere and there were steps in the hall. The servants were probably talking about this odd conference. I heard voices faintly outside the room. Mr. Berringer saw me glance at the door and turned just as it opened and Stephen Giles walked in. He didn’t notice his wife at once but saw Mr. Berringer and me. We were standing in the sunlit sector of the room, obviously arguing.
    “What is all this?” Stephen demanded. “Berringer, what the devil are you doing here? I thought it was you when we passed in the channel. I told you my wife was ill and knew nothing about Miss Berringer’s activities. I also told you I didn’t want you hounding the members of my household.”
    “Your wife seems perfectly fit. In every respect,” Victor Berringer added, clipping off each word. “She has answers for everything. She is, in fact, almost too well prepared. I expect her to take the Fifth Amendment any minute.”
    Stephen was just as authoritative, and had the facts at his disposal. “Then why, may I ask, are you browbeating a total stranger who was two thousand miles from these islands when your daughter visited Honolulu?”
    The icy veneer of Victor Berringer cracked a little. In his arrogant, slightly sinister self-confidence, the man had been unshakable. Now he backed away from me, staring. I felt that something had to be said in order to smooth over this awkward moment, yet my real impulse, perhaps resulting from the tension of the last half hour, was to laugh at his absurd mistake. I didn’t though. Instead, I said, “Mr. Berringer, you haven’t given me a chance to introduce myself. I am Mrs. Giles’s aunt and her companion.”
    “Am I to understand—” Berringer cleared his throat. “This young woman is not Deirdre Cameron Giles?”
    Before either Stephen or I