The Big Steal (29 page)

Michelle tossed her coat over the back of a chair. I sat down in another. “Let's start from the beginning,” I said.

“It was a Tuesday, oh, two … no, three weeks ago now. I'd come in for work as usual. Ever since the place was officially closed and I didn't have to be concerned about phone calls and inquiries from tour groups, I'd been trying to make some progress in organizing this mess. Usually on Mondays I would make a check of the whole house—well, most of the whole house—to make sure everything was OK. I started doing it on Monday since nobody had been in the house over the weekend with it being closed and all. I mean, with whole wings closed off, why bother? Plus, I couldn't hear the phone or the door or anything when I was in the other parts of the house. But that Monday I'd had a dentist appointment so I didn't get to work till almost eleven. And then this car full of ladies showed up.
They didn't know the house was closed, so I had to go through all that.”

“Didn't they see the sign?”

Michelle laughed. “I'm sure they were chatting too much to notice something like a sign.”

“Did you turn them away?” I asked.

“No. They were real nice and they'd made an effort to get here all the way from Waynesboro. They seemed really sad about the closing, and it turned out that one of them was visiting from out in Wyoming or Montana, or somewhere out there. I mean, what else could I do? I only showed them around the front rooms, but it still took a lot of time. Then one of them wanted to go to the ladies' room.”

Michelle let out a sigh and a moan. “I couldn't say no, but maybe I should have. After she went, the toilet wouldn't stop running, so I had to call the plumber and before I knew it, the whole day was gone. That's how come it was Tuesday before I got a chance to check on things.”

“And you set the alarm Monday night after the plumber left.”

“Of course I did,” she said resentfully. “And
no
, I didn't leave the plumber alone, and
no
, he didn't roam around the house by himself.”

I could tell she'd gone over all this many times already.

“And he only went out to his truck a couple of times, and I saw him both times, and he didn't have anything with him. Anyway some of the things that were stolen, or broken, were from the back of the house and upstairs. Not everything was from the front rooms. He couldn't
possibly
have gotten into those parts of the house.”

“And you didn't notice anything missing from the front rooms when you were showing the ladies around?” I asked.

“Are you kidding? With them chattering and asking questions and the house having been closed up since Friday and them not even supposed to be here?”

“I was just thinking that maybe something like the very valuable
missing
Jacob Hurd eighteenth-century coin silver teapot might have been in the parlor, or dining room,” I said. If I owned that seventy-five- or eighty-thousand-dollar piece of American history, I wouldn't bother to put anything else out, other than maybe a table to set it on and a chair to sit in so I could stare at it.

“It was in Mazie's bedroom,” Michelle said casually. “Anyway, it wasn't very big, maybe only …” She held her hands one above the other, then adjusted her upper hand down. “Maybe only four or five inches tall. With so much stuff sitting around, it would hardly be missed.”

Her comment reinforced my strong opinion that Michelle had a long way to go before she became a serious antiques connoisseur. But more importantly, the mention that the teapot had been in Mazie's bedroom pulled at my heartstrings. At least Mazie had this one treasure she could openly enjoy and admire without having to slip into some secret place.

“That's true,” I said, reluctantly agreeing with Michelle. “So then what happened?”

“OK. On Tuesday I finally got the chance to get into the east wing. Anyway, I checked the morning room first. They called it that because it's where the morning sun comes in.”

I refrained from adding that in the English tradition, the morning room was also where the lady of the house often gave
her servants instructions for the day. I wondered if Mazie had used it for that purpose.

“Well, I no more than opened the door, and I got that sick feeling you get when you know something is wrong. The rug was rumpled under in one corner, which struck me as strange. Then I noticed the lampshade on the floor lamp all catawampus like somebody had bumped into it. Then I saw that Delft plate lying on the hearth all broken up. At first I thought maybe a squirrel or a bird had gotten in through the chimney. That happens, you know,” she said. “I looked all around, but nothing else was disturbed. Then when I got up to the room right above—” She pointed upward, and said, “That's one of the French rooms, but I always called it the blue room because of all the blue upholstery.”

“I think you showed me that room,” I said. That was the room drowning in drapes.

She nodded. “It had been one of the docent's favorite rooms, and she always kept flowers in the vase on the dressing table. It had been knocked off and was in a thousand pieces. So was one of the figurines—you saw it on the table with the Delft charger, the figurine, that is. The vase was smashed to smithereens. There was nothing I could do with it but sweep up the pieces. That's when I called Houseman. He called the police.”

“And you're sure the alarm was working,” I said for no reason other than to hear the words from Michelle Hendrix's mouth.

“I have answered that question so many times I'm
sick
of it,” she said impatiently. “Yes. If you don't believe me, just ask Houseman. He'd even had the security people out a week or
so earlier to upgrade the system when the board had voted to close the house. They were trying to save money so there was some talk about cutting off the service, but that didn't make any sense.”

“And the alarm system would have been even more essential then than ever, without anybody here, especially on the weekends,” I said thinking aloud. “But then again … Michelle, just how close is the nearest house? Would anyone even have
heard
the alarm if it had been triggered?”

“Not likely. It used to be that if it went off, the call went to Jake Nichols's house.”

“And who is he?” I asked.

“You mean who
was
he. In the old days the Wyndfields didn't have any guards or security. Once the house became public, though, Jake Nichols was hired on for security, but he was more than that. Jake was from these parts and he knew everything that was going on. If the housekeepers were gone or the gardeners were on break, Jake stepped right up and did what was needed. Everyone loved him. You see, after the Wyndfields died and the foundation took over, eventually all of the staff left. A few of them stayed on for a while, but then the old folks like my mother and grandmother retired or died. Soon it was all new people holding down the jobs. They didn't feel any particular loyalty to Wynderly. A lot of them probably figured it was only a matter of time before the place folded anyway. Naturally the board thought Wynderly needed more security. Who can blame them?”

“And Jake Nichols. How did he come into the picture?”

“Well, he'd retired from his construction job, and since he lived right down the road, he was perfect for the security
job. He tried the job for a while, but finally gave up. I mean wouldn't you? Each time one curator left or got fired, another one would come in from up north or out west or somewhere. Every few months Jake had a different highfalutin boss telling him how to do his job, and he'd lived in these parts his whole life. How would
you
like that? By the time I got here, Jake was the only person left, him and Patsy Jones, the housekeeper. Now it's just me.”

“Does the alarm still signal his house, even though he no longer works here?”

“No, that's part of the problem. Now it goes off in the security company's headquarters, but the company didn't have any record of a call coming in. But why
would
they when the alarm wasn't triggered? There
wasn't
any forcible entry,” she said wearily. “How many times do I have to tell people? The doors were all locked and latched. And the windows—”

“They're casement windows anyway,” I broke in. “I noted that as soon as I got here. There's not much way for anyone to crawl in and out of those. Sideways maybe, if you were really small, and could wedge yourself between the outer frame and the center bar, but even that would be difficult. Plus you could only crawl
out
. There's no way you could open these old casement windows from the outside to crawl
in
when there's no outside latch or handle.”

I walked over to the casement window behind Michelle's desk. I placed my palm against a single windowpane and spread my fingers. Its panes were the usual rectangular sort, measuring about four and a half or five inches wide by about eight inches high, and banded on all sides by metal stripping.

I turned back to face Michelle. “And many of the windows
in other rooms have leaded diamond panes that were never intended to be opened,” I said.

She nodded in agreement.

“But let's just pretend that somebody opened one of these windows and managed to crawl out … then how would he close it? The cranks are inside.”

“I pointed that out to the police,” Michelle said shaking her head. “They sent a bunch of young guys over here after it happened. When I said something about the casement windows they looked blank. I'm not sure they had even seen casement windows. Around here all the houses have those Colonial-type double-hung, up and down windows,” she said. “I've never noticed any casement windows other than at Wynderly. I even walked the guys around the house and showed them how the windows had gotten painted shut over the years.”

“True,” I said. “On a house this old and with, what, way over a hundred windows, you can be guaranteed the painters would slap a couple of coats over the outside windowsills onto the casing. There's no way they'd bother to open each window to paint every part separately. Yep, every time Wynderly's been painted, the windows have become more theftproof.”

“So that's how we ended up with no suspects,” Michelle said, giving me a half-questioning, half-resolved look. “Except me.”

“That's not exactly the case,” I said hesitatingly. “The security company … Any chance you know any of the people who work there?”

“Are you kidding,” she asked. “It's Luck Security—the same company everybody around here uses. My cousin Emmett's worked for them for years. He says he doesn't know
why people even bother to put the alarms in, though—
nobody
ever breaks in around
here
.”

I swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “A guy about, oh, about fortysomething, kind of gruff-looking and with real crooked teeth?”

“You
know
him?”

“Not personally,” I said. “But Michelle, I think it's time for you and me to have a real heart-to-heart.”

Dear Antiques Expert: Among my grandmother's things we have found a beautiful ivory crucifix. It still has its paper sticker from France where she visited in the 1930s. I know there is a lot of fake ivory on the market, so how do we tell if this one is real or not
?

You're right, ivory has long been counterfeited. Most fake ivory objects are made of plastic or resin, and some have even been soaked in coffee or tea to make them appear antique. To test your piece, start by holding it against your cheek. It if is cold, it may be ivory. Next, heat a pin to red hot and on a hidden surface try to pierce the object. The hot pin will go into plastic, but not ivory. If the crucifix passes these tests, it may be real and should be authenticated by an expert.

M
ISS
M
ARY
S
OPHIE'S MAID
greeted me at the door. “Mrs. McLeod will see you in the library. She's by the fire.”

It was the first time since the foundation's board meeting that I'd heard Miss Mary Sophie's last name. It sounded strange.

“Don't you look pretty,” I said, for indeed, dressed in a
cornflower blue sweater and gray tweed suit and with her hair just done she looked quite nice.

“Thank you, my dear, and it's good to see you again,” Miss Mary Sophie said, putting the day's mail to one side. She pointed to the same chair where I had sat before. “It's too early for tea or sherry. Can Nora get you something else?”

“Miss Mary Sophie, to tell you the truth, I'm famished,” I said. “Even a glass of water sounds good.”

“What have we, Nora? Some chicken salad left from yesterday? How does that sound? Just fix a plate, Nora, and …” She turned to me, looked over the top of her glasses, and said, “
Ice
tea, of course, this time of day.”

I didn't even care if it was sweetened or not. “That would be lovely. Thank you, Nora.”

We exchanged small talk about the weather, how spring would soon be here, and other meaningless topics. If she knew of Dr. Fox's accident, she didn't mention it, nor did I. Nora had come and gone and I'd downed half the sandwich and tea before Miss Mary Sophie asked, “So, Sterling, what brings you back to see me?”

In the car from Wynderly to Oakcliffe, I'd rehearsed what I would say. The way I had it figured, I would be leaving sometime tomorrow. Matt and I would discuss things tonight, and then tomorrow morning we'd spend time at Wynderly looking over the premises. I'd probably join Peter at Milton for the afternoon session of the auction, and then we'd drive back to Leemont. In other words, come Saturday night I'd be out of here. What people around here thought of me once I was gone was of little consequence. Still, I had to be cautious. Eventually the foundation would learn of Hoyt's deception and the
fakes—I hoped from Matt—but it would still be my word against what the community had been told for decades. Because dreams were going to be dashed, it was important that I not go blindly forward, spouting false accusations based on erroneous suppositions. It was imperative that I have some backing from a knowledgeable source. Miss Mary Sophie seemed my only hope, though what she would, or could tell me, I didn't know. That had been my long-winded reasoning. But now facing Miss Mary Sophie, I felt terribly awkward. I began gingerly.