style="font-size:15px;"> “How did your father make out with him? I believe you said they played bridge a good deal.”
“I’ve no idea. And it wouldn’t have mattered to Father. He played because he loved the game. Furthermore, I want to see Mr. Magruder again.”
“All right,” said Tim. He spoke with forced easiness because he didn’t want Sybil to see his disapproval. “You have his number, haven’t you?”
“I seem to have lost it.”
“Wasn’t it in your bag?”
“It was. I’m afraid it fell out when I was chipping in on the cab fare home.”
“Maybe he’s listed in the phone book.”
“No. I looked.”
“I always mistrust people who aren’t in phone books,” said Tim. “Private phone numbers and foreign titles are considered very mistrustful in my provincial circles.” He grinned, but Sybil’s answering smile was distraught.
“Tim,” she said, “I wonder if our friend Jake would know how to reach him?”
“Must you keep referring to Jake as our friend?”
“He grows on me in retrospect. I wonder if the police would let us talk to him.”
“They might later on. I hardly think today would be the ideal time to ask them.”
Sybil thoughtfully buttered a piece of toast. “I suppose that’s true,” she said.
“Besides,” added Tim, “we ought to be setting out for this dream cottage of ours pretty soon. I’d like to see it by daylight.”
“I’d make a little joke about a daydream cottage,” said Sybil, “if I weren’t so anxious about Mr. Magruder. Aside from everything else, we owe the dream cottage to him.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Don’t you?”
“I don’t know,” said Tim. “This war bride outfit sounds awfully respectable.”
“And you don’t think my father’s friends are respectable?”
“Well,” said Tim, “his daughter was awfully forward for a lance corporal.”
“Don’t try to mollify me,” said Sybil, looking mollified. “Besides, how else could the war bride people have found out about us?”
“I’ve been running an ad in the papers. Veteran needs roof for British bride. They might have seen that.”
“Darling,” said Sybil, “you don’t mind if I go on thinking Mr. Magruder arranged it for us, do you?”
“No, dear.”
“And you won’t be stuffy about me wanting to see him again?”
“No, dear.”
“Goodness, you’re being tractable,” said Sybil. “May I have a mink coat?”
“You could,” said Tim, “if there weren’t such a wide distinction between a Ph.D. and a John D.”
Chapter Five
Banshee Castle
It was after three when they finally set out for Merry Point. In the mists that lay over the Jersey flats as they emerged from the Holland Tunnel, there hung already a desolate sense of approaching nightfall. Oncoming cars mostly had their lights on, yellow blobs bursting through the grayness, their wheels whirring shrilly on smooth wetness as they passed. Traffic moved swiftly, weaving, jockeying for advantage at stop signals, as though everyone wanted to get the journey over with, to get out of the cold fog and into warmth and cheer.
“Reminds me of Liverpool,” shivered Sybil.
“I have a feeling,” said Tim, “that Liverpool will seem like the Riviera to you when we get to Merry Point.”
When they left the main highway and swung toward the coast, the sense of desolation deepened with the fading afternoon. Traffic thinned out, a relief at first, then dwindled to the point of loneliness. Roadside stands were shuttered, dine-and-dance places stood dark and gaunt. Signs advertising boating, bathing, and bungalows rattled mockingly in the wind. Occasionally they passed a shabby bar-and-grill or hamburger joint with its neon lights lit, but such forlorn bravado merely emphasized the general abandonment.
Even these relics of quasi civilization petered out as they pushed south into the pine belt. Then the road ran somberly straight through endless tracts of pine trees, murmuring in their own funereal twilight. Mile after mile, the dark green wall rustled past.
Once a lithe, brown shape bounded across the road in front of them, and Tim said, “Must remind you of the family deer park.”
“Was that really a deer?” asked Sybil.
“Sure.”
“Well,” said Sybil, “if my family ever had a deer park like this, I’m glad they didn’t tell me about it.”
Suddenly the glow of lights appeared in the distance and, almost before they knew it, they were coming into what, according to the map, must be the town with the railroad station five miles from Merry Point. Bankville, it was called, and it was a relief to enter its bright main street after the brooding woodland. Behind the lines of parked cars, shop windows were cheerful, bulbs glittered around the marquee of a movie house, potted shrubs lent wistful elegance to a little red-brick hotel.
“I suppose this’ll be our shopping and whoopee center,” said Tim.
“We just passed a likely-looking pub,” said Sybil. “I might add, why?”
“Because we probably wouldn’t leave it,” said Tim.
“Who wants to leave it?” asked Sybil.
“Get thee behind me,” said Tim. But, having put the pub and the lights of Bankville behind him, he had to admit to himself that a spot of Dutch courage might have helped matters. Again the walls of pine closed in, fragrant and oppressive. It was decidedly dark by now, and the road that branched off to Merry Point was narrow and elusive in the mists swirling in front of the headlights. Among the trees, dark and shiny patches of water began to appear. Then, abruptly, the woodland ended, and the harsh, salt smell of marsh and sea rushed over them.
They emerged onto a flatland of stunted trees and waving reeds, palely illumined by a white and mist-hung moon just rising from a black expanse that had to be the ocean. On the sandspit that rose slightly from the marshland, rows of houses were dimly silhouetted like a village of cardboard.
“That must be it,” said Tim.
“Darling,” said Sybil, “let’s go right straight back to that pub.”
“And let down your Mr. Magruder?”
“I’m sure Mr. Magruder
