Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (113 page)

“Hello, Abner,” Margo said.

“Hello, my pretty. This is a steak place; how do you want it, rare, medium rare or well done?”

“Medium rare.”

“Two medium rare,” he told the proprietor. “But first, ale, a bottle each.”

“Coming up,” the proprietor said, and disappeared. “It’s nice, isn’t it?” Abner commented, and she said yes, it was lovely, every lunch she had had with him was lovely. “I brought you some things to please you,” she told him. “I have to reciprocate somehow.”

He looked at the books, exclaimed over them, and then opened the packet of letters. “Benjamin Brand,” he said. “Shades of Melville.”

“Benjamin? As I remember, it was Ishmael.”

“Same period, same names,” he said, and started reading the letters. “Very sentimental,” he commented, and the ale was brought, but he didn’t touch the bottle. He seemed, instead, to be intent on Benjamin Brand’s letters to his lady. She was just as glad of the hiatus, glancing around with pleasure at the environs, the outlying gardens and the American flag waving in the breeze, and the smell of thousands of flowers.

So that she was startled when he said, “Jesus, would you believe it!” She turned to him, questioning.

“What, Abner?”

His eyes were brilliant. “But darling,” he said. “This last letter, for sake. It has a stamp from Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean, one of the Mascarene Islands. Why, you babe in the wood, it’s a collector’s item, any philatelist would be happy to fork over thousands of dollars for it! Maybe — ”

“For the stamp?” she asked, incredulous.

“Don’t you know
anything
about stamps?” he demanded.

“It wasn’t ever part of my curriculum at school,” she said tartly. “You mean the stamp has value?”

“Take my word for it, it has value, dollar value.”

“How interesting,” she said. “I have ten more of the same.”

His eyes seemed to hang out of his head. “What do you mean, ten more of the same?” he asked, his voice ragged.

“The crew wrote letters at the same time. The same stamps. Ten of them. Noah, Ezekiel, Luke …
you
know, the way they used to be named. It was so heartwarming, their letters … Abner, let go of my arm!”

“But he said. Margo, don’t you
realize?
”

“Realize what?” she asked, but a little thrill ran through her. “Realize what, Abner?”

“Ten more of the same
ten more
…” He became incoherent. my child, if you have eleven of these stamps … eleven …”

“Well, yes,” she said, still chilled with an unknown knowledge. “This last letter and ten more. That makes eleven, if I’m not mistaken. I was always rather poor at arithmetic.”

He looked at her for a long time. Then said, “Eleven of these stamps? My dear child, all told, they are worth about sixty thousand dollars. These are the first stamps issued by a British Colonial outpost, and to boot, they were printed hastily, and wrong. Instead of saying ‘Post paid’ they said ‘Post Office.’ Any stamp collector would give his arm or leg or whatever. If, as you say, you have ten more of these stamps, you’re a rich woman … can’t I get that through your head?”

“And she knew that?”

There was a fractional silence. Then hairy Abner said, “Who knew what?”

“My aunt. I was told she had left me a fortune.”

“Who told you that?”

“A woman in these parts, a friend of my aunt’s.”

“That could be,” Abner said. “Yes, your aunt must have known what these stamps meant in cash value. You’re richer today than you were yesterday. How does that strike you, my child?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“But you should be happy, deliriously happy.”

“I would be,” she said, “if she were alive. She meant so much to me, and now she’s dead. Everything else seems so paltry.”

“Ah so,” Abner said, and looked over at her with comprehension in his eyes. “Just the same, she’s dead, that woman you loved, and she left you this. Why don’t you just be glad for it, and know it was what she wanted?”

“Yes, she must have known,” Margo agreed. “I’m sure she must have known. The palindrome.”

“The palindrome?”

“I didn’t tell you about that. She left a message for me, a palindrome.”

Her thoughts drifted to a telephone conversation,
“You’re to be here tomorrow.”

“I can’t, Auntie.”

“But then, as soon as possible …”

Strong, vibrant voice. And the death. “What are you thinking?” Abner asked.

“That she was … that she didn’t die a natural death.”

“What makes you so certain?”

“I’m not certain. Yes, I am certain. Yes. Now I’m certain. Someone killed her.”

“Better have proof,” he said. “Better have proof.” He leaned across the table, filling her wine glass. “Drink up,” he said. “Drink up,
Bubeleh …
”

They ate and drank. “We’re Adam and Eve,” Abner said, “a man and a woman. The first man and the first woman. I’m Adam and you’re Eve. Happy to make your acquaintance, Eve. What the hell did you do with my rib? I have a sharp pain.”

“Adam,” Margo said slowly. “Adam.”

“The first man,” Abner said, lighting a cigar.

“Yes, yes. But Adam! The Adam desk! Ed Corliss found the letters in the Adam desk … the desk in the Long Room, he said. Well, the desk in the Long Room is an Adam desk. I told you about the palindrome … she knew she was in danger, and she wrote that message to me — MADAM, I’M ADAM — and gave me a clue. Abner, you must realize now — I realize now — she knew something was going to happen, and she wanted me to have security … those letters …”

He thought about it. Finally looked up at her. “Yes,” he said. “You could be right. That she was afraid, and wanted to secure your future. The palindrome? That’s very revealing. She must have …”

“She must have been threatened,” Margo said.

“It seems logical enough,” he admitted.

“More than logical,” she said coldly. “She sensed what was in store for her and took steps.”

“As if I were there I can see it,” she said, talking rapidly. “She knew what she knew … and apparently she loved me, as Clara — Pompey’s sister — said. I was her blood, and she wanted me to inherit, and made out her will that way. But there was a malignant presence, and she knew that, so she wrote me that code thing, the palindrome, and Ed Corliss found the letters in the Adam desk, and now, according to you, I’m richer by sixty thousand dollars, maybe more. And that being the case, what will they do now?”

“Who’s they?” Abner asked. “Who stands to gain by your not being there?”

“John,” she said promptly.

“Why?”

“Because he’s lived there from boyhood on. If not for me, he’d stay there, be curator.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, can’t you see that?”

He thought about it. “Yes,” he finally said. “I do see it.” He narrowed his eyes. “You may have guessed the truth, that she was afraid, that she knew something was in the wind. You say, John, without hesitation. Are you sure you’ve given this enough thought?”

John … a hand dashing dark hair back. Long lean legs crossed indolently. Until she came home from her wanderings, John had every right to expect that he would be lord of the manor. She did
not
suspect Douglas. Any fool could see that Douglas was madly in love with his acres. So if not Doug, then John … who else?

“Drink up,” Abner said. “Get some alcohol down your gullet, you need it. And if I seem absent minded it’s only because I’m doing some thinking. Yes, and let them know, tonight, about the stamps. I want them to know. I won’t be there for dinner tonight, I’ll be an absentee. Yes, I mean that. Because I want them to hear about the windfall that’s come your way. If you have eleven stamps of the Mauritius vintage 1847, as you assure me you have, then you are richer by, say sixty thousand dollars, than you were yesterday. Let them know that; it may make all the difference. And Margo — ”

“Yes, Abner?”

“Call me at any hour, even if it’s four in the morning,” he said. “Don’t hesitate. I’ll be there, if you need me, and I want you to remember that.”

“Yes, Abner.”

“Just don’t forget it,” he said, and got up. “You drive me home now,” he said. “And remember what I said.”

“You’re not coming to dinner tonight?”

“Not tonight,” he said. “For reasons known only to myself. You just tell them about the stamps, and we’ll take it from there. And Margo — ”

“Yes, what?”

“Be careful.”

“I’ve learned to be,” she said. “I thought I’d made it clear.”

“Then be
more
careful,” he said, and they drove back to Cranford, where she dropped him off at the Lion’s Head Inn, and then went on home. The thrill of fear was very much like the thrill of pleasure … engaging the nerve ends, and tickling the scalp. Afraid? Yes … very. Forewarned, however, was forearmed.
I won’t be caught napping again
, she thought, and informed them at dinner.

“Letters with valuable stamps, collector’s items,” she said, watching their faces. “Abner Zeiss thinks about sixty thousand, nothing to be sneezed at, you must agree. It means I can keep this house, live here.”

“In the sticks?” Norma asked incredulously.

“I’m fond of this part of the country.”

John looked up. “So after all, you won’t leave,” he said.

“I can’t quite believe it, but there you are.”

Pompey went downstairs, to the cellar, and brought up a bottle of Mumm’s. Wiping off the cobwebs, he put it between his knees and popped the cork. “She saved this and some others for your wedding,” he told Margo. “However, this is as good an occasion as any.”

They drank, clinking glasses. “To you,” Norma cried, lifting her glass. “To you, Margo, you always were the winner.”

And she watched their faces, but there was no face that gave itself away. There was only laughter, congenial laughter, and nothing to raise her suspicions. When Abner called, at just after nine, she confessed that it had all been very pleasant and nothing to tell other than that.

“Maybe it’s only my imagination too,” he said.

“Maybe,” she agreed, half willing to settle for that.

“Meet me for lunch tomorrow in Comstock,” he said. “Pompey will give you directions.”

“About one?”

“More or less.”

• • •

It was New England at its best, a Greek Revival house, run down in these days, but once as splendid as could be; it was simply that times had changed and the 20th century taken over the 19th. The room in which they dined on lake trout and buttery asparagus had once seen ladies and gentlemen sipping claret and flirting, lovely faces hiding behind feathered fans and men in morning coats, bowing from the waist.

“Sic
transit,”
Abner said in his Bronx accent.

“Yes, indeed,” Margo answered.

“So you told them about your good fortune,” he said.

“Yes, they said very best wishes and that seemed to be that.”

“No peculiar expressions?”

“None whatever.”

“That’s rather hard lines,” he said. “After all, we have to prepare for the third and final act.”

“As dramatic as that?”

“I have this feeling that, yes, it’s as dramatic as that.”

She palmed a chin in her hand. “You’ll form some ideas, possibly. At dinner. You have insight I don’t claim to possess. You may see what I failed to see.”

“Not tonight,” he said. “There’s a little library in Roundsville I’ve been told about. I’ll stay the weekend there. Tell Pompey I’ll eat like a pig on Monday.”

“You’re deserting me?”

“Only for the weekend. Nothing ever happens on weekends. Brownstones are robbed from Monday to Friday, but on the weekends never. You’ll be all right for the nonce …”

He lifted his arm, and the waiter came over. “A repeat on the apple pie,” he said. “Mother never made it better.”

They walked through country gardens later. Flower beds with heliotrope borders, century-old elms with their branches reaching into the sky, the spire of a local church spiking into the blue.
Europe is lovely
, Margo thought,
but so is America
, and she remembered what she had sung in Assembly many, many years ago.

It was a quiet dinner hour. Norma was absent. “Working overtime,” John said.

They drank their martinis, almost silent, later picked at their dinner. Pompey said, “What’s the problem, you don’t like flank steak?”

“It’s fine, just that I’m fagged out,” Margo said.

“This fresh asparagrass cost an arm and a leg, how come you let it get cold? Everything going to waste.”

The candles flickered.

Later, in the Long Room, John said, “Let’s go to the Tap Room for drinks, Margo.”

“It’s too late,” she objected.

“It’s just after nine,” he pointed out.

“But I’m tired. You must be too.”

There was a long, uneasy silence. Then he said, “Very well, Margo, I get the message. No need to say more.” She started to protest, but he left the room, erect and stiff, and a few minutes later she heard the sound of his car zooming down the driveway. Pompey came in, collecting glasses and overflowing ashtrays from the cocktail hour. “Mr. John go out?” he asked. “Seems I heard his car.”

“He wanted drinks at the Tap Room.”

“Why didn’t you go with him?”

“Because I didn’t want to.”

“If it was Mr. Douglas, you’d go, ain’t that so?”

“All right, Pompey, let it go.”

He grinned. “Just the same, it would be different if it was Mr. Douglas.”

“Maybe. But it wasn’t. I’m going to bed.”

“You just do that. I’ll make you a nice breakfast, some of the left-over steak, and jumbo eggs, corn fritters, probably. Come on, give Pompey a kiss and then scoot up.”

She pressed her lips to his weathered cheek.

“That’s my girl,” he said. “Now you get on up. You got shadows under your pretty eyes.”