Stranger by the Lake (17 page)

“Give me the names,” Peter said wearily.

I did so. “By the way,” he added, “who was the fellow who died?”

“His name was Charlie Grayson. He owned the inn. He had been having an affair with Vanessa Shaw, and I think she helped murder him——”

“Ho hum,” Peter said. “You're a delightful girl, Susan, but you've got an incredible imagination. I don't mind getting the information, but if you knew how busy we are——”

“Thank you, Peter,” I said abruptly. “When will you be able to call me back?”

“That depends. Tonight, perhaps, but more likely sometime tomorrow. Give me your number.”

I stood in the hall for a moment after I had hung up. Peter's reaction had been all I had expected, and he was a close friend. Any other police officer would have laughed outright if I had gone to him with my story, and the mere fact that I wrote mystery novels for a living would make anything I said even more suspect. No one had paid any attention to Althea when she talked about what she had seen, and no one would pay any attention to me. Althea locked herself up in Dower House and found solace in her gin, but I couldn't sit back and ignore what was going on.

I had to play it very cool, and I had to be extremely cautious. There might be great danger involved in what I planned to do, but I would simply have to risk it. No one knew that I had learned so much. That was a great advantage. I would go about my business as normally as possible, apparently nonchalant, but I would be alert every minute. Contemplating what I was going to do and the possible consequences, I trembled, frightened, but I quickly controlled myself. There was no time for fear, no time for weakness of any sort. It would take great strength, courage even, and I felt sure I had both.

My first concern was for Aunt Agatha. I walked slowly up the stairs, running my hand along the smooth polished mahogany bannister. Aunt Agatha had been firm about her refusal to sell the manuscripts should they eventually be found, and I was certain that Stephen Kirk would not purchase stolen material. The sale would have to be a legitimate one. That meant that my aunt would have to be persuaded to sell, or … I refused to contemplate the alternative. She was an obstacle. Obstacles were removed. Charlie had known too much, and he had been removed.

I felt I was in the middle of some horrible nightmare, everything fuzzy, everything vague. Surely I would wake up soon to find that none of this was really happening. Everything had been so utterly normal just two days ago. I had been on the train, listening to the screech of metal on metal, watching the lovely scenery flit past my window, surrounded by normal people with normal faces, hearing them gripe and complain because the train was behind schedule. Babies had whined and a group of soldiers up front had conducted a noisy poker game in the aisle. I had been content, on holiday, looking forward to seeing my aunt again. I had stepped off the train, into the sheets of pouring rain, and the nightmare had begun, slowly at first, building up to this moment of total unreality.

I was a young woman in slacks and sweater, walking down the hall in an old house. There was nothing unusual in that. I was on my way to visit my aunt who had taken an afternoon nap. What could be more normal? It was impossible to believe that my aunt might be in grave danger, that the house itself posed a threat with its gloomy halls and dark corners, its winding staircases and countless closed rooms. I couldn't believe it, and yet I knew it was real. I hurried towards my aunt's room, wondering how I would ever find the nerve to
go
through with this.

I opened the door quietly, without knocking. Aunt Agatha was sitting up in bed, wearing a light blue bed jacket embroidered with green and gold and dark blue designs. She held a heavy book in her lap, a pair of green horn-rimmed glasses perched on her nose. The bedside table was cluttered with books and magazines and papers, a deck of Tarot cards, a box of chocolates, a glass, a bottle of pills, and on the bed beside her were more books, pencils, a newspaper, an orange, and a box of crackers. She nibbled a cracker as she read, her long plain face screwed up in concentration. I stood just inside the room, watching her. I wanted to burst into tears, and I wanted to scream. Instead, I coughed discreetly.

“My word, Susan!” she cried, slamming the book shut. “You're as bad as Mildred! I was just reading about a coven of witches in Rumania, and I heard you—come over here and
sit!
You look like a ghost standing there in the shadows.”

I sat down on the edge of the bed. Aunt Agatha removed her glasses and yawned. She looked different here in bed. Relaxed, that remarkable vitality not charging full blast, she seemed older, and I thought she looked tired. Her face seemed to sag a bit, and there were tiny mauve bags under her blue eyes. She looked old, vulnerable, and when I took her hand to squeeze it I realized how fragile the fingers were. I had noticed none of this before, but before she had been suffused with that electric quality that gave her every appearance of robust health.

“Why are you
looking
at me like that?” she asked peevishly.

“No reason. You—you just look tired.”

“Fiddlesticks!”

“You
are
tired,” I said, peering at her closely.

“I am,” she snapped, turning her mouth down irritably. “I suppose I may as well admit it! Paul fusses over me so—I hate to let him think he's right. I
have
been overdoing it, Susan. I do get tired, but I loathe not being up and about. This afternoon—well, I've decided to stay in bed for the rest of the day.”

“Should I phone Paul?” I asked, worried.

“If you start clucking over me I'll throw back my head and scream! I simply got carried away in the basement this morning. I overdid things. I have enough sense to realize I'm sixty-two years old and require a dab more rest than I did at sixteen, so I decided to rest up for tomorrow. We plan to start on the attics then. We've searched them once, but we didn't really take things apart and give them the thorough going-over they require, just looked through the trunks. I don't think the papers will be in a trunk. I think they'll be tucked away somewhere, in a secret compartment, maybe, or maybe behind some loose bricks.”

“Did you take your pill?” I asked, ignoring her transparent attempts to divert the conversation from her health.

“Yes, I did,” she replied, wrinkling her brow. “You should have seen Mildred simper. Great triumph for her. I wanted to slap her face! I took my pill and I took my nap and now I've decided to stay in bed. That's all there is to it.”

“If you don't feel better tomorrow——”

“I'll feel splendid tomorrow!”

“Aunt Agatha——” I said impulsively, “let's—let's go to Majorca. I planned to go two weeks from now, but—let's leave tomorrow. I'll buy your ticket and pay all your expenses. The change of scene will be wonderful.” I saw the look of astonishment on her face, but something prompted me to go on. “I know it's spur of the moment, but spur-of-the-moment things are such fun and—and I think you should get away from Gordonwood for a while. The trip would be marvelous for you.”

“Have you taken leave of your senses?” she asked calmly.

I stared down at the dark green carpet, realizing my outburst had been prompted by cowardice.

“I couldn't possibly leave Gordonwood now,” she said, “just when we're on the brink of something so exciting. I appreciate the invitation, dear, but you know it's out of the question.”

“Of course,” I replied, my voice lethargic.

“Whatever made you make such a suggestion?” she asked, peering up at me with shrewd blue eyes. “You just arrived yesterday, and already—is something
worrying
you, Susan?”

“Nothing whatsoever,” I said lightly. I gave her a reassuring smile, but I wasn't at all sure it was a convincing one. She continued to peer at me, those blue eyes so sharp, so wise. I couldn't tell her about what I had learned, of course. My job was to protect her, not to make her worry. She tapped her fingernails on the cover of the book she had been reading, a sly expression on her face.

“I think
I
know what's wrong,” she said. “I think it's Craig. You're falling in love with him, aren't you?”

“Don't be absurd.”

“Oh, I notice things, dear. I notice the way he looks at you, and I notice the way you act around him—tense, self-conscious. Two healthy, attractive people—it was bound to happen. He's a slippery one, but you can pull him in if you use the right tactics. Forget all this foolishness about dashing off to Majorca, dear. You can't run away from it—a trite statement but true nevertheless.”

“I can't run away from it,” I said in a flat voice. “I realize that. For a moment I thought I could.”

“Craig's an exceptional young man.”

“Quite,” I said, looking away from her. “Aunt Agatha—Craig stayed at the inn for a while, didn't he?”

“Indeed he did, until I asked him to come stay at Gordonwood. It made no sense for him to spend all that money for a room when I had so many here going to waste.”

“He would have been at the inn during the time Charlie was carrying on with that woman,” I said. “Isn't that right?”

“That's right, but I shouldn't let it bother me. From all accounts she was a common little thing, hardly the type to have interested a man like Craig.”

“But he would have met her there.”

“I don't see how he could have avoided meeting her. Anyway, she disappeared shortly after Craig came to Gordonwood. Probably met a traveling salesman and took out for parts unknown. It must have been
something
like that. No one saw her leave, and she would have been noticed if she'd been at the station. The man probably had a private car.”

“That's probably it,” I said.

“You don't need to worry about any mysterious woman, Susan. Just worry about wearing the right sort of perfume.”

I stood up, not wanting to tax her any longer. She needed to rest, and as long as I was in the room she would continue to chat and exert herself. She leaned back against the fluffy pillows, watching me.

“What are you going to do for the rest of the day?” she asked.

“I don't know. I think I'll go down to the library for a while.”

“Would you take this chapter, dear?” She rummaged among the papers on the nightstand, pulling out a sheaf of long yellow pages fastened together with a paper clip. “I forgot to take it down this morning, and Craig will want to work on it later on. You might read some of it. Fascinating material.”

I took the pages from her and leaned down to kiss her cheek. She told me to pay her another visit later on tonight, and I promised to do so. I started out of the room, pausing at the door. I turned to face her, realizing there was something I had forgotten.

“Aunt Agatha—do you lock your bedroom door at night?”

“Of course not! What a preposterous idea.”

“Would you start locking it?” I asked, trying to keep my voice as airy as possible. “I know it's foolishness on my part, but—all that talk at the table last night. I—I'd just feel better if I knew your bedroom door was locked.”

“I've never heard anything so foolish! It's absolutely neurotic. We have the dogs, and——”

“Will you promise to lock your door, Aunt Agatha?”

“I suppose so, if it will make you
feel
better.”

“It will make me feel much better.”

“Really, Susan, you're acting most peculiar! The first thing you do is dash off to Gordonville as though it were a matter of life or death that you get a silly shoe repaired, and now——” She gave an exasperated sigh, throwing her hands up. “This whole family has always been madly eccentric. I guess I'll just have to indulge you.”

“Indulge me,” I said, smiling.

Aunt Agatha patted her short, sandy hair and pulled the beautifully embroidered bed jacket around her. She gave me a disgruntled look, picking up the heavy book and slipping the comical green glasses back on. Reaching for another cracker, she ignored me and started reading about the coven of witches in Rumania. I felt much better as I closed her bedroom door behind me and started back downstairs.

The library was a lovely high-ceilinged room with Persian carpets of orange and gold and green spread over the dark, gleaming parquet floor. Long green velvet draperies hung at the windows, parted to let in the afternoon sun, and the furniture was perfect: a sofa and chairs of dark gray leather, tables of dark mahogany holding large, ornate lamps. There was a huge old leather-topped desk in one corner, littered with books and papers, a gold and bronze globe on a mahogany stand beside it. The bookshelves rose from floor to ceiling, filled with books: musty old volumes with limp, battered bindings, sets gorgeously bound in brown and dark orange and gold leather, modern novels with bright jackets, paperback thrillers stuck helter-skelter next to weighty, impressive tomes.

The fireplace was gray-green marble, smoothly polished, and a portrait of Sir Robert Gordon hung over the mantel. Framed in dark brown wormwood, the portrait dominated the room, that powerful, magnetic figure seemingly standing watch over everything in sight. Posed against a backdrop of stark desert, blazing yellow sand, and flat brown hills, Sir Robert wore a native burnoose of green and white striped linen, immense folds of cloth cloaking his body, the hood pulled up to frame the cruel, sinister face. He was as dark as an Arab, with wide, thin mouth, hawklike nose and eyebrows that arched like dark wings. The eyes were coal black, piercing, peering out with savage ferocity.

I stared at the portrait, fascinated. Here was the man who was responsible for all this. He had lived with fierce abandon and fantastic courage, streaking across the drab Victorian era like a mighty comet, one of the most daring, intelligent, and colorful men in the history of that or any other age. He had explored Africa when it was still the Dark Continent, following the Nile to its source, discovering lakes and waterfalls and lost cities in the dense jungles, dwelling among the cannibals and returning to write books that shed light for future explorers. Disguised as an Arab, he had penetrated the holy city of Mecca when discovery would have meant immediate execution. His exploits in Arabia had been no less spectacular, and in the United States he had gone to Salt Lake City and written a definitive book about the Mormons. I found it incredible that one man could have done all those things, even more incredible that he was able to write over forty books. His own works were crammed with exotic lore, and his translations had brought the classics of the East to Western civilization.