Terrible Tide (8 page)

“Now dearie, don’t you go blaming Claudine. It’s not easy for her.”

“Then why doesn’t she make it easier? If Claudine’s so concerned about her great-aunt, I can’t for the life of me understand why she never comes to see her.”

“Claudine would never do that!”

Annie sounded so upset that Holly dropped the subject and sat down to her chicken soup. Didn’t they ever have salads or fresh fruit at Cliff House? She’d have to try a little diplomacy about the shopping list when Earl Stoodley came back for the afternoon’s photography session.

T
O HER SURPRISE, CAWNE
returned alone. “Why, Geoffrey,” Holly exclaimed, “what happened to our beloved trustee?”

“Earl found he had pressing business elsewhere. I suspect he’s become disenchanted with the glamorous world of photography. I hope you’re not?”

“Oh no, I’m still enchanted as anything. What shall we do next?”

“Stoodley tells me there’s a wig stand on which a distant relative of Queen Anne once parked his peruke. That sounds intriguing, don’t you think? Could Mrs. Blodgett find it for us?”

“I expect so. She’s upstairs right now, giving Mrs. Parlett her back rub. I’ll go and ask.”

“No, Holly, please don’t leave me alone.”

“Why not? Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the ghost?”

“No, I’m afraid of Stoodley, to be honest. He’s terrified of losing his prize exhibits, and I don’t want anyone ever to say I was given the chance to pinch something. I’m sure he phoned here as soon as he got home, to give you dire warnings against letting me roam about on my own.”

“Nothing of the sort,” said Holly. “He did give me a strong warning against letting people into the house and so did Claudine Parlett, but Earl says you’re to have all the help you want. You must be on his top security clearance list.”

“Well, well!” Cawne found that idea vastly amusing. “If Stoodley knew what a jungle the groves of academe can be, he’d think twice about turning me loose in here. Be that as it may, I’d still rather you stayed close to me. For more reasons than one, if I dare say so.”

Holly wasn’t sure how to take that. “So that while I’m watching you, you can keep an eye on me? Maybe Earl Stoodley’s been talking to you, too.”

“I assure you he hasn’t.”

Cawne looked so discomfited that Holly apologized. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I didn’t realize what I was taking on till I got here. I thought Cliff House would be full of mustache cups and antimacassars. Instead, here’s all this priceless stuff. It’s scary.”

“I can see it would be,” he agreed. “For me their value is in their historical associations, but I know some people do pay tremendous sums for the dubious privilege of owning pieces that ought to be in public museums. Well, since we have to wait for the wig stand, what shall we do to fill the time? I’ll let you pick one.”

“How about this Bible box? See how well it’s preserved?”

“If you say so.” Cawne didn’t act thrilled by her choice, though he started loading his camera while Holly set up the shot.

“Would it be too hokey to set a candlestick next to the Bible box and maybe lay a pair of those tiny Ben Franklin spectacles on the table? I think there’s a pair in the back parlor. We could go together to look for them,” she couldn’t resist adding.

“So we could, like Jack and Jill. I’m rather up on nursery rhymes. One of my young lady students did a paper on Mother Goose. Your idea sounds delightful. What we need is a pewter candlestick. Is there one about, do you know?”

There wasn’t, only fancy Victorian wrought-iron affairs that Geoffrey said wouldn’t do at all. They settled for a squat green glass inkwell with a somewhat moth-eaten turkey quill stuck into the neck. The feather’s vertical arc would break up the austere squareness of the box.

Holly fussed with her props, taking out the huge leather-bound Bible and opening it to the pages where births and deaths had been recorded down through the generations. The inkstand could suggest somebody was about to add a new leaf to the family tree.

But there’d never be any more babies at Cliff House. Soon Earl Stoodley would be happily scrawling “Died” after Mrs. Parlett’s name, and that would be that. She wished she’d picked a different subject.

Geoffrey must have wished so, too. He was polite about her arrangement but wasted little film on the shot. After a couple of exposures, he asked, “What next?”

Holly couldn’t help feeling dashed. “Aren’t you going to take any with the lid open?”

“I don’t see why. There’s nothing interesting about the inside.”

But there was. As Holly raised the lid to put the Bible back in, she noticed a little stain on the wood, shaped exactly like a swimming duck. She slammed down the lid, praying Geoffrey wouldn’t notice her hands were shaking. Now she knew why the box was in such a remarkable state of preservation. That stain was her own blood.

It had happened the first time Fan had dragged her along on a lumber raid. In wrenching a board loose, Holly had slashed her finger painfully. She’d got no sympathy.

“Don’t bleed on the wood,” Fan had screamed. “The stain will never come out.”

The warning had come too late. A drop had already fallen on the dried-out board. Holly remembered how she’d stood appalled, watching the blood spread into that oddly whimsical shape while Fan railed at her.

“Now see what you’ve done! Roger will have a fit.”

He’d been none too happy, at any rate. The board was perfect for his need but barely adequate even if he used every inch. There was no way he could cut around the blemish. She could still see him turning the board this way and that, peering to make sure the stain hadn’t seeped through to the right side while she’d stood wailing, “I only bled a little!” It wasn’t the sort of episode one would be apt to forget.

And this must be why time, tribulation, and Annie’s rotten housekeeping hadn’t dulled the finish on that exquisite, supposedly precious little table Holly’d been marveling at yesterday. It hadn’t been here long enough.

“I wish we could find that wig stand,” Cawne was complaining.

What was she to say? “Stick around, my brother’s probably making it right now.” Holly struggled to keep her voice casual. “I expect Annie will be down in a minute. Come on, let’s go holler at her up the stairs.”

She wished he’d leave her alone so she could think. If this so-called Mrs. Brown was tricking Roger into supplying duplicates for stolen antiques, Holly must let him know right away so he wouldn’t get in any deeper. But was Mrs. Brown the one responsible? Maybe it was Fan who tricked him, or maybe Roger was pulling a fast one on his doting wife. Or maybe they were working the racket together and Holly herself was cast as their innocent accomplice. Who’d ever believe she hadn’t come here on purpose to help them rob Cliff House of its valuables?

She was in a more dangerous spot right now than she’d been the instant before that floodlight blew up. And all she could think of to do was act as if she didn’t know it.

“Annie,” she called, trying to sound normal, “are you almost finished up there? We’re trying to find a wig stand.”

“A what?” The housekeeper came to the head of the stairs and began picking her way down, cumbered by an armload of soiled bedding. “Just let me get these sheets down to the washtub.”

“I’ll take them.”

“No, dearie. I’m used to it and you’re not. She can’t help herself, poor soul.”

“Oh.” Holly stepped back. No wonder Annie never got around to cleaning, if this was the sort of thing she’d been coping with every day by herself. Yet Annie was smiling when she came back to them.

“Now, where did I last see that wig stand? Seems to me we stuck it out in the woodshed behind those boxes of stuff left over from when Mathilde’s cousin Lenore’s daughter-in-law Delphine closed out her millinery shop.”

Sure enough, the precious relic turned up behind a stack of perished cartons filled with bedraggled veiling and artificial flowers. Cawne was aghast.

“Was there no limit to the junk that woman saved? Here’s a restoration job for your brother, at any rate,” he remarked as he tried to make the broken legs stand upright.

Holly shivered. It would be all too easy for Roger to provide Cliff House with a brand-new genuine antique wig stand. What sort of mess had he gotten his family into?

“I
’D SAY WE’VE DONE
a creditable day’s work, wouldn’t you?”

Without waiting for her answer, Geoffrey slung the strap of his camera case over his shoulder. “You won’t mind my leaving the rest of the stuff here? It’s such a nuisance dragging it back and forth. See you tomorrow.”

“Good night,” was about all Holly could manage. What jolly sport she was going to have steering him away from the fakes. Geoffrey mightn’t know much more about antiques than he did about photography, but he’d surely smell a rat if too many pieces kept turning up in a perfectly preserved state. If only she’d paid more attention to Fan’s scrapbook, so she’d know what to stay clear of!

Why did Fan keep such a damning record, anyway? Surely its very existence must prove she at least was innocent. Roger, too, because he knew all about the scrapbook.

No, that didn’t follow. Judging from the way she went around ripping other people’s property apart in broad daylight, Fan must think she could bulldoze her way through life, doing whatever she pleased and never getting caught. As for Roger, he was fanatical enough about his work to want its records preserved no matter how risky they might be.

One thing sure, Holly had better stop trying to clean up Cliff House. That film of dust over everything here might be all that stood between her and the county jail. What she ought to do was walk straight out this door and keep going.

And how far would she get, half crippled and almost broke? What would she live on? How would she manage without her luggage? And how soon would she be extradited back to Jugtown as an accessory to grand larceny? As it was, she’d have a lovely time trying to convince a jury she’d come here just to get away from Howe Hill. Running away would amount to a confession of guilt.

Holly slumped back to the kitchen and dropped into a battered chair that smelt of Bert Walker. She was wondering whether the relief of warming her sore feet would be worth the effort of opening the oven door when Annie bustled into the room.

“Land alive, dearie, you look like the skin of a nightmare dragged over a gatepost. Doesn’t that Professor Cawne know enough not to work a person half to death when she’s just out of the hospital? Lean back and rest yourself. I’ll pour you a nice cup of tea.”

She filled two time-crazed ironstone mugs, topped them up with milk, and passed one to Holly. “There you go, dearie. That’s the stuff to put hair on your chest.”

“I shouldn’t wonder if it did.” Annie’s tea was a potent brew. Nevertheless, the hot drink did make Holly feel a little better.

Annie dragged another chair close to the stove, fetched her own mug, and settled herself cozily. “There now. It’s a Godsend having you for company, dearie. You can’t imagine how dismal it’s been these past few years with never a soul to talk to but Bert Walker for a little while in the evenings and Earl Stoodley when he takes a mind to poke his nose in, not that Earl’s any treat. Anyway, a woman needs another woman. More tea?”

“No thanks, that was fine.”

Holly had to smile back at the dumpy old woman in the worn-out housedress. Annie was in this mess as deep as she. Naturally people would think she’d been taking bribes to overlook what was happening, for all her wild talk about footsteps in the night and doors that wouldn’t open. How could you run out on somebody so decent and loving, who thought you were a Godsend? Holly gave Annie’s wrinkled hand a pat, hauled herself out of the chair by brute force, and went to soak away some of her anxiety in that marvelous zinc bathtub.

Bert was in the rocking chair when she got back downstairs. “Sam dropped me off,” he explained. “Said he’d be back about ha’past seven to pick me up. He’s gettin’ awful considerate all of a sudden.”

“Nice for you.” Trying to ignore his trollish leer, Holly went to inspect the larder. Tired as she was, she’d rather cook than face another of Annie’s suppers.

With supplies so limited, she couldn’t vary the menu to any extent, but Bert and Annie probably weren’t much for gourmet cooking anyway. She made gravy from bouillon cubes, threw in whatever she could find by way of seasoning, and heated slices of weary leftover beef in the savory sauce. She got a crispy brown crust on the fried potatoes and opened a tin of stewed tomatoes as an antidote to this surfeit of carbohydrates. She thought of hot biscuits but couldn’t bear the thought of baking them in such close proximity to Bert’s reeking socks. Canned plums and the tag-end of Annie’s molasses cake would have to do for dessert.

While things were cooking, Holly nipped outside and picked a few scrawny chrysanthemums from what must once have been a perennial border. Cliff House ought to have formal Victorian flower beds with gorgeous clashes of red and yellow blooms. There should be boxwood and yews clipped into fantastical shapes like chessmen and sitting ducks.

Why couldn’t she have thought of aardvarks or zebras or anything but ducks? Now that telltale bloodstain was back in her mind. Now she, like Annie, had a specter to haunt her. What a shame she didn’t dare explain to the housekeeper, “That’s no ghost you hear. It’s just crooks sneaking the Parlett heirlooms out of the house and bringing in copies.” If Annie knew that, she’d be laying for them with the dust mop!

Returning to the kitchen with her skimpy bouquet, Holly caught Annie sidling toward the whiskey bottle, empty glass in hand.

“I thought I might just get myself another little sip, dearie. These raw nights do get into a body’s old bones.”

Maybe that was why the thieves were so cocky about coming here. Annie did like her nip before supper, and gossip might have spread that Mrs. Parlett’s housekeeper reeled to bed dead drunk every night. Fan might have heard some such tale during those early visits to the Women’s Circle, and it would be like Fan to act without bothering to find out the tale wasn’t true.