Authors: Elisabeth Grace Foley
Tags: #historical mystery short mystery cozy mystery novelette lady detective woman sleuth historical fiction colorado
He smiled down at her, and leaned his head
tiredly against the cushion of the seat, without taking his eyes
from her face. The marks of two sleepless nights, and the days of
anxiety, showed plainly on his face in the strong daylight.
“Poor darling,” said Charity softly, touching
his arm gently with her free hand. There was happiness, though,
too, in her eyes as they dwelt on his tired face; a quiet joy in
knowing that she was loved so much as to cause this concern. “Did I
frighten you very much?”
Randall tried to laugh, not succeeding too
well. “Frightened hardly seems like a big enough word.”
Charity was looking down as she spoke, a
little carefully. “Were you…afraid that the things they said about
me were true?”
Randall moved his head awkwardly against the
cushion, and stared across at a ray of sunlight on the opposite
seat as he tried to think of the right words for his answer. “No,”
he said after a moment. “Never all the way. I didn’t realize it
then…but I know now that I didn’t really believe it. But I was
surely scared for a while, because the more I thought, the more I
realized that I didn’t know anything about you that could prove it
all wrong. Nothing! Charity, do you realize that I don’t even know
your middle name?”
“I can remedy that easily enough,” said
Charity, gravely, but with a delightful little glimmering of humor
in her voice. “I can tell you all sorts of things, in fact. What
more about me would you like to know?”
“Everything,” said Randall impulsively.
“Everything there is to know. I want to know all about you—every
last, littlest detail, so I’ll have that many more things to love
you for.”
“And where shall I begin?” said Charity
softly, her cheek against his arm.
“Don’t begin now,” said Randall. “You don’t
have to. The nicest thing is, I’ve got all the time in the world to
learn.”
* * *
“May I help you, Mrs. Meade?”
Mrs. Meade looked up from an assortment of
yard goods that she had been sorting her way through for the past
quarter of an hour without any apparent object. “Oh, no, thank you,
Mr. Benton,” she said rather abstractedly. “Thank you, I’m only
looking about.” She gave him a pleasant nod and a smile and turned
to the next table.
The storekeeper could not help wondering, as
he returned to his counter, exactly what it was that Mrs. Meade was
looking for, since by this time she had looked over nearly every
display in the store. Whatever the object of her search, she did
not seem particularly satisfied with the results, yet neither did
she seem impatient, for she was the last customer of the evening,
and showed no inclination towards leaving any time soon.
The deeply colored sunset, the same that cast
its rays over Denver in the hour that Edgerton and his companions
were traversing that narrow street, was streaming into the shop,
its red glow falling over the displays as if the windows had been
tinted with blood. The aroma of supper cooking drifted out from the
living quarters at the back of the store, hovering around the
counter where Benton was going over the day’s accounts and hoping
that Mrs. Meade would find whatever it was she wanted before the
meal was ready. Older ladies always did take such time making up
their minds.
Mrs. Meade was frowning at a hurricane lamp
with a hopefully positioned price tag, displaying the original
price prominently crossed out and a more attractive one
substituted, when a series of thuds overhead and a thunder of
footsteps down the stairs from the second floor made her turn, in
time to see the young deputy sheriff stumble down the last of the
stairs and make for the front door.
“Is something wrong, Richard?” called Mrs.
Meade.
“It’s Miss Lewis—she’s been taken ill. I’ve
got to go for a doctor.” And he jerked the door open, tripped over
his own feet and then again over the threshold, and somehow managed
to get out of the store and, it is devoutly to be hoped, down the
outside steps without further catastrophe.
Mrs. Meade did not wait to see, however, nor
did she return to her shopping, but crossed the store to the
staircase and ascended. Quietly she opened the door to the
seamstress’ room.
Diana Lewis did not look ill. She was by the
mannequin at the other end of the room, her head bent slightly and
her mouth a sharp, set line, working away at the white dress as if
her life depended upon it. Mrs. Meade watched her for a moment, and
then she stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.
Diana Lewis whipped round with a startled
gasp. She stood staring at Mrs. Meade, one hand clenched and her
thin body rigid.
“No, Miss Lewis,” said Mrs. Meade firmly,
“I’m afraid it won’t do.”
* * *
So the next morning when Edgerton and Andrew
Royal, having come directly from the railway station, mounted the
stairs and opened the door, they both halted momentarily and
blinked in surprise at finding a tableau almost exactly like the
one they had left—Diana Lewis seated on the sofa, and Mrs. Meade
ensconced in an armchair, looking thoroughly mistress of the
situation. The only new element was Royal’s young deputy, who sat
on a chair over near the sewing-table with a guilty, mortified
expression on his boyish face.
“Now, before you say anything, Andrew, you
must understand that it was not Richard’s fault,” said Mrs. Meade.
“Anyone might have been taken in.
You
might if you had been
the one to stay with her. She
was
an actress once, as she
told us, and I have no doubt a very convincing one, too.”
“What, do you mean she made an attempt at
escape?” said Edgerton.
“Oh, yes. I thought she would. But since I
was expecting it, I was able to be here and prevent it.”
“
Expecting
it?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Meade. “You see, I never
believed for a moment that a woman who could cold-bloodedly arrange
for another girl to be murdered would give up those pearls so
easily. Fear couldn’t drive a woman to do such a thing, but greed
might. That story she told us yesterday was, if you’ll pardon the
expression, so much hogwash. Oh, I’ve no doubt those people who
abducted Charity were as vicious as she said—but surely, if she was
clever enough to fashion this scheme she could have thought of a
way to give them what they wanted and still make her own escape.
But she didn’t want to give them the pearls
. That was clear
all along. Those letters—the letters left in Charity’s room—they
were the most telling thing. They were intended to convince
us
that Charity was Mary Taylor. Remember that third letter
that Diana Lewis wrote herself? That was to create the impression
of
flight
. Why do that, if she expected Charity to be
returned unharmed—and to establish her identity? No, what she
really wanted was for Mary Taylor to be dead, so Diana Lewis could
move quietly away to enjoy the profits of her robbery.”
Edgerton seemed to have a suspicion of what
was coming. “Then the pearls…on the shawl…”
“They were false, of course. Meant to deceive
both us
and
the kidnappers. She hid the real ones here, in a
place no one would ever think of looking for them, intending to
collect them and make her departure when it was convenient. Her
identity being found out yesterday was a blow, but she still
thought she had a chance. While you were gone she feigned illness,
alarmingly enough to send Richard rushing for a doctor—timing it
for the moment when the Bentons would be at supper and the evening
train for the west just about to depart. But as I said, I rather
expected she would try, so I made a point of lingering in the store
yesterday afternoon, and—well—”
Mrs. Meade finished with a quaint,
half-embarrassed smile, as if to intimate that she could not think
of anything more to add.
“You wouldn’t happen to know,” said Edgerton,
“where the pearls
are
—would you, Mrs. Meade?”
Mrs. Meade rose from her chair. “Come over
here, Mr. Edgerton, and I’ll show you.”
Edgerton laid the silk shawl, which he had
carried with him from the train, across the sewing-table and
followed her. Andrew Royal, his mouth open under a limp moustache,
looked at the shawl with an expression of utter betrayal.
Mrs. Meade drew near the mannequin and
extended her hand to touch the white dress. “Look at the pearl
beading on the yoke. She always did such exquisite embroidery,” she
said reminiscently, “especially with beading. The pearls are all
there—
on Charity’s wedding-dress
—and they’ve been there all
the time.”
###
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The Parting Glass: A
Mrs. Meade Mystery
Mrs. Meade is not the only one in Sour Springs who
is shocked at the news when Clyde Renfrew is accused of drunken
assault on a woman. Clyde, a sober, steady young rancher, seemed
the last person likely to do such a thing. Between an emphatic
witness and Clyde’s own apparent reluctance to defend himself, the
case seems open and shut. But Mrs. Meade—who seems to have a knack
for being just across the hall when things happen—has a few ideas
of her own…The second entry in the Mrs. Meade Mysteries series,
approximately 12,500 words long.
The Oldest Flame: A
Mrs. Meade Mystery
Mrs. Meade had been looking forward to a pleasant
visit with old friends—but their house party turns to disaster when
a fire destroys the house during the night. Even worse, the fire
appears to have been deliberately set. Which of the people who were
in the house that night is responsible? There are several
possibilities, and Mrs. Meade is not sure which is the most
distressing…The third entry in the Mrs. Meade Mysteries series,
approximately 17,800 words long.
More books by this author:
Wanderlust Creek and
Other Stories
The Ranch Next Door
and Other Stories
Some Christmas
Camouflage: A Short Story
Elisabeth Grace Foley is a historical
fiction author, insatiable reader and lifelong history buff. She
has been a finalist for the Peacemaker Award for Best
Independently-Published Western Novel, for
Left-Hand Kelly
,
and is also the author of short story collections
The Ranch Next
Door and Other Stories
and
Wanderlust Creek and Other
Stories
. Her work has appeared online at
Rope and Wire
and
The Western Online
. Her other books include a series of
short historical mysteries, the Mrs. Meade Mysteries; and short
fiction set during the American Civil War and the Great
Depression.
Elisabeth’s Blog:
http://www.thesecondsentence.blogspot.com