The Withdrawing Room (18 page)

That was no little white lie. It might have started out as one but it wouldn’t be for long. If Sarah was any judge of character, Joanna Hartler was cast in the same mold as Cousin Mabel. Cousin Mabel would never have drawn a peaceful breath, notwithstanding the death of a beloved brother or of the whole vast Kelling tribe, until she’d got in touch with Aunt Marguerite and everybody else who’d ever known Vangie Bodkin and found out precisely what connection she’d had with Theonia Sorpende and if she’d had none, why hadn’t she? Mrs. Sorpende might have been wicked or foolish or just plain unlucky, but she was going to be the target for a great many wagging tongues in any case. And those tongues could wag Sarah right out of business if she didn’t find a way to shut them up very, very soon.

Exhausted as she was, Sarah appeared at the breakfast table before anybody else. She poured coffee. She agreed with Mr. Porter-Smith’s observation that the barometric high moving rapidly eastward from the Great Lakes meeting the barometric low moving rapidly northward from Cape Hatteras might well result in precipitation which could take the form of rain, sleet, snow, or a mixture of all three at the same time, Boston’s weather being what it is.

She listened to Miss LaValliere’s plaints and Professor Ormsby’s grunts. She thanked Mr. Bittersohn politely when he told her she looked like hell. She waited until Mrs. Sorpende had finished a late and leisurely breakfast as usual. Then she put on a coat she hadn’t worn for years, tied a scarf down over her head and face as far as it would go, and lurked.

Sure enough, it wasn’t long before Mrs. Sorpende came out the front door in her black coat, plum-colored turban and matching scarf, and that large black handbag that looked like leather but on close inspection was not. Sarah let her get a good start, then followed.

She’d somehow expected Mrs. Sorpende to take the same route across the Common that she’d followed before, and that was exactly what happened. Again her quarry made a beeline for the public convenience.

Now what? Did she make a fool of herself as she had the other day? No, luck was with her. Not far away stood a familiar shopping bag, and beside it the bundle of garments that could only be Miss Mary Smith, industriously sorting through one of those concrete trash containers that are supposed to look like tree stumps.

Pretending to be cleaning out her handbag, Sarah sauntered up to the stump. “Miss Smith,” she murmured, “did you happen to notice a large woman in a black coat and purple turban go into the lavatory a moment ago?”

She dropped a clean tissue, last week’s shopping list, and a dollar bill she could ill spare into the stump. Miss Smith deftly retrieved the right scrap.

“Yes, she comes every day.”

“Where does she go when she comes out?”

“She never comes out.”

“What?” Sarah forgot she was acting. It was a good thing nobody happened to be within earshot at the moment.

“Keep your voice down,” said Miss Smith primly. “Just watch. In a minute or so you’ll see an old scavenger like me wearing red sneakers and carrying a Gilchrist’s bag. She’ll cross the street and head for Temple Place. Go hide in a doorway and wait.”

So that was it. Why hadn’t she guessed the first time? She’d seen Mrs. Sorpende ring enough changes on that one black dress. The coat didn’t look shabby with its elegantly coordinated accessories. But unwind that velvet turban, take off the matching scarf and gloves, pull an old paper shopping bag, a pair of sneakers, and a ratty scarf out of that oversized pocketbook, take off your high-heeled boots and walk with a stoop to reduce your height, use the scarf to hide your face and the bag with a few newspapers on top to conceal your other belongings, and a well-dressed matron could become a shuffling bag-woman quickly enough. But why?

Sarah followed Miss Smith’s advice and slipped across Tremont Street when the lights changed. Pretending to be enthralled by a display of rock-and-roll records, she waited with her back to the street. Sure enough, just as the proprietor inside was beginning to look hopeful, a pair of red sneakers and a bag from a store that had gone out of business were reflected in the glass. Sarah waited three seconds, then followed.

Most of the facades along Tremont Street have been remodeled out of all resemblance to their original concepts, but some of the buildings behind those tatted-up fronts have changed hardly at all. Tucked in among the showy display windows are modest doorways leading to tiny lobbies with self-service elevators and bulletin boards oddly assorted names: optometrists, furriers, toupee makers, dental laboratories, embroiderers, jewelers, hairdressers; some of them so eminent they had no need for more pretentious quarters, some who could afford no better, some who just needed a place to work and liked the convenient location and the view over the Common. It was into one of these doorways that Mrs. Sorpende ducked.

Sarah’s heart sank. She’d go up in the elevator, and that would be that. But she did not go up in the elevator. As Sarah recklessly opened the door, she glimpsed the red sneakers disappearing up a filigreed wrought-iron staircase that must antedate the elevator by many years.

Having come this far, Sarah was not about to quit. She tagged after the sneakers, expecting them to stop at the second floor. But they didn’t. The staircase was sturdily built in late Victorian style, and the sneakers made no noise on its worn marble treads. However, the paper shopping bag, bumping and crackling against the railings, gave her sounds to follow without letting herself be seen. She was on the third landing when she heard a door immediately overhead being unlocked, opened, then locked again.

Sarah turned and went back the way she’d come, feeling somewhat winded. If this was part of Mrs. Sorpende’s daily routine, no wonder she bounced up and down those stairs to the third-floor bedroom so nimbly.

In the lobby, Sarah studied the bulletin board. There didn’t seem to be much on the fourth floor except a dental laboratory, a china-painting shop, and—aha!—a tearoom that gave readings. Sarah knew about tearooms. Cousin Mabel adored them. Some were cozy, and had been around the downtown area so long they were practically Boston landmarks. Others were not, and folded so quickly that one wondered why the proprietors, so glib at foretelling their patrons’ futures, hadn’t checked on their own before they laid out the rent money. This place was strange to Sarah, but she could guess what she might find there: shabby plastic-covered chairs and tables, a minuscule sandwich, a cup of bitter tea half full of leaves, and three dollars worth of chat, from some earnest soul who had shown remarkable psychic powers since earliest childhood. Maybe Mrs. Sorpende was an addict like Cousin Mabel, but why should she put on such an elaborately unbecoming disguise just to get her tea leaves read?

Sarah poked the “up” button, got into the elevator, and stepped off at the fourth floor. It was obvious to her at a glance that Mrs. Sorpende’s secret life was not involved with china painting, at any rate. Nobody was in that tiny shop except a youngish woman in a paint-streaked smock. She came eagerly forward. “Can I help you?”

“I was—just interested,” Sarah stammered. “I’m an, artist of sorts myself, and one always wonders about chances to make a little extra money, doesn’t one?”

“One sure does,” replied the proprietress with feeling. “I honestly don’t know what to tell you about the commercial possibilities. It would depend on how good you were and how much you know about marketing, I suppose. I do some restoration, myself. Most of my customers are antique dealers and hobbyists.”

They got into talking shop, and Sarah was so delighted to find someone she could chat with about art that she spent more time than she’d meant to. She also blew some of her grocery money on china-painting supplies. She’d been wondering what she could possibly give as thank-you presents to Aunt Emma, Anora Protheroe, and some of the others who’d been particularly kind during her recent ordeal. Plates and cups of her own design would be both appropriate and affordable, and would give her a chance to learn a new skill that could perhaps be utilized to some profit.

Well, at least she’d accomplished something, but not what she’d come for. Mrs. Sorpende wasn’t getting her dentures repaired, either. The laboratory doors were ajar and Sarah could see five or six earnest men bending over plaster casts of people’s jaws but no middle-aged, stoutish woman with black hair and red sneakers.

So it had to be the tearoom, as she’d known all along it would be. The time she’d spent with her new chum in the china shop turned out to have been a fortunate delay, as they were just opening for business. A middle-aged woman wearing a voluminous gypsy costume and talking with a nasal down-Maine twang came forward, beads and bracelets clanking in merry greeting.

“Well, our first customer of the day! You’ve got a lucky face, dear. I can tell that just by one look at you.”

Then she’d better take a second look, Sarah thought, sitting down in the rickety chair that was pulled out for her and depositing her fragile bundle of blank china on the chair closest by.

The proprietress offered a mimeographed menu that offered a meager choice of sandwiches and Peach Delite Salad, which Sarah knew from her experiences with Cousin Mabel would most likely be a dab of cottage cheese and half a canned peach. People didn’t come to such places for the food. She ordered a cheese sandwich she didn’t want. The tea came as a matter of course. The hostess said briskly, “Now, since you’re the first, our readers happen to be all unoccupied at present. Take your pick.”

The pick was not large. Two other women dressed like the hostess in floppy blouses, wide skirts, and a great deal of costume jewelry were sitting at the table in the corner nearest the kitchen. The one facing Sarah was tiny and wizened. The one with her face turned away was large and stately, with exquisite hands and a long black braid hanging down below her flowered kerchief. Sarah said with her heart in her mouth, “I’ll take the black-haired lady, please.”

Whatever else she might be, Mrs. Sorpende was a trouper. She brought in the skimpy lunch with the aplomb of a high priestess, took the chair opposite Sarah, and waited in an attitude of serene contemplation until the sandwich was eaten and the tea drunk. Then she picked up the cup, spilled the dregs into the saucer, went through the usual routine of poking among the wet leaves, and said with a rueful smile, “I see you are about to part with one of your third-floor tenants.”

“Surely you’ve picked the wrong leaf,” Sarah replied. “If you mean what I think you do, then please be assured that what my tenants do outside the house is no business of mine provided, as Mrs. Pat Campbell once remarked, they don’t do it in the street and scare the horses. One tenant in particular must have led an exceptionally blameless life. Otherwise she’d know that the police might take a dim view of any landlady who’d evict one of her boarders while they’re investigating the murder of another. Therefore I can’t do anything but apologize for any awkwardness the present situation may have created and continue to muddle through as best I can. Is there any sign the tenant will co-operate?”

“I am sure you can count on the tenant’s fullest co-operation,” said Mrs. Sorpende, her regal manner belied by the tears in her eyes.

“Good. And the tenant can count on mine. I realize how annoying it could be for a professional person to be pestered by her housemates for free advice at odd hours.”

“Speaking of professionals...” As the proprietress happened to be passing the table on her way to greet an elderly man who must be a favored regular customer, Mrs. Sorpende picked up the cup again and poked at the soggy residue. “Are you aware that you may have somebody in the house whose profession is quite different from what he says it is?”

“Who, for instance?”

“Offhand, I’d say your handsome author is a plainclothes policeman.”

Sarah’s heart skipped a beat. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I can smell them in the dark. My life has not been wholly blameless and my experience has been vast. Since you’re paying for advice, here’s mine: don’t waste too much of your time on illustrations that will probably never get printed or paid for.”

“Thank you for telling me,” said Sarah with perhaps a shade less gratitude than Mrs. Sorpende might have felt entitled to expect. “I hope you’ll keep your suspicions to yourself, though, until I’ve had a chance to do some checking. If this man is putting on an act he may have a perfectly valid and possibly important reason for doing so. On the other hand he may be what he represents himself to be and I shall get paid for my work. And quite frankly, I could use any spare cash that’s coming just now.”

“Who couldn’t?” The strain Mrs. Sorpende must have been under exploded into a nervous little giggle. “Please don’t think I’m hinting for a tip. I shouldn’t accept one if you offered.”

“Good, because I don’t think I have any extra money left anyway.” Sarah laid her last three dollars on the table, pulled on her gloves, picked up her china, and walked out.

As she left, the proprietress gave her a toothy smile and said; “Come again.” Sarah smiled back automatically but she wouldn’t be returning. She’d already got what she came for, and a little more besides.

A
S SARAH CAME OVER
the hill, she found a station wagon blocking Tulip Street and somebody loading the last of several items into the back. None of them, she was relieved to see, had ever belonged to the Kellings. Miss Hartler must be getting rid of the stuff Wumps had amassed, and the sooner the better for both her and her unhappy landlady.

It would be lovely if Miss Hartler decided of her own volition to go back to Rhode Island where her friends and her church work were. If she didn’t, Sarah was quite prepared to do the deciding for her. One couldn’t go on ladling cranberry juice over a wet blanket forever.

At least Miss Hartler must be up and functioning, if she’d bestirred herself to make people come and get their spurious artifacts. In fact, when Sarah entered the front hall, the woman came popping out of the drawing room much as her late brother would have done.