Unsettled Spirits (7 page)

When I entered the room, it was to find Mrs. Wright in a deep discussion with, of all people, Mrs. Pinkerton! Oh, dear. What did this mean? Mrs. Pinkerton saw me first. She leaped up out of her chair—quite a feat for so large a woman—and rushed at me. I braced myself for the blow, but she surprised me and stopped before she hit me. That didn't happen often.

"Oh, Daisy, I do hope you can help poor Vera! Evans has
vanished
!" Vera, in case you wondered, was Mrs. Wrights' first name.

"My goodness," I said in my staid, spiritualistic voice.

"But do come on in, Mrs. Majesty," said Mrs. Wright, also standing. She didn't lunge at me, thank God. Mrs. Pinkerton was the only one who did that on a regular basis.

I wafted across the floor in my practiced, spiritualist's glide, and sat on a chair near the two from which the women had risen. They sat, too. "Now," I said in order to get things going and to preclude Mrs. Pinkerton taking charge of the conversation, "what's this about Evans?"

"He's gone," said Mrs. Wright. "Vanished." She lifted her arms in a helpless gesture.

"Into thin air," supplied Mrs. Pinkerton in a dramatic whisper.

Interesting. "Did he take his personal belongings with him?" I asked, trying to be practical. Heck, maybe the guy had become sick of butlering and lammed it out of Pasadena for greener pastures. If there were any pastures greener than those in Pasadena; I wasn't sure about that. Pasadena was a pretty place.

"No. That's what's so strange," said Mrs. Wright. "All of his personal belongings are still in his room. But he left on Friday to go to out for a bit, and nobody's seen him since then. I'm terribly worried about him."

"Hmm. Have you been in touch with the police department?"

"The
police
?" Mrs. Wright pronounced the word kind of like Mrs. Pinkerton did; as if the police were foreign and unpleasant beings that had no place in her vicinity, and the very word tasted nasty on her tongue. I suppressed my sigh.

"Oh, I don't think it's a police matter," said Mrs. Pinkerton.

"A man is missing, and you don't believe you should tell the police? It's been what? Today is Tuesday, so he's been missing for nearly four days. Don't you think you should call the police and tell them this? Perhaps something terrible has happened to Evans. Perhaps he dropped dead on the street or something. Perhaps he's lying now on a cold marble slab in the morgue." I didn't know if morgues had cold marble slabs, but it sounded good. The two women both gasped, so I guess I got my point across.

"Oh, dear!" said Mrs. Pinkerton, covering her mouth with her hand.

"Good gracious," said Mrs. Wright, doing likewise.

Rich folks. Gotta love them. "Does Evans have any family to whom you might drop a line? I don't believe you're doing Evans any favors by not taking his disappearance seriously."

"Oh, but I
am
taking his disappearance seriously," cried Mrs. Wright, this time slapping a hand to her bosom. "The household can't even
run
without Evans overseeing things! Everything is at sixes and sevens, and nobody knows what to
do
."

"I can't even imagine trying to get along without Featherstone," whispered Mrs. Pinkerton, who also thought Featherstone was a peach, although I'm sure her reasons for thinking so were different from mine. Featherstone even had an English accent. How much more perfect can a butler get?

"Well, then, does he have any family?"

Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Pinkerton exchanged glances, and Mrs. Wright looked at me. "I... don't know. I haven't gone through his things."

Oh, for Pete's sake. "Why not?" I really wanted to know. Heck, if Sam disappeared, I'd break down his cottage door—he lived in a little cottage in a court on South Los Robles Avenue—and rifle through everything I could pick up if it would help me locate him.

"It... I don't know. It seems so intrusive somehow."

Mrs. Pinkerton nodded vigorously. As for me, I was getting more than a little bit tired of the both of them.

"Mrs. Wright, it's entirely possible that Evans got hit by a car or something. Perhaps he's languishing in the Castleton Memorial Hospital with a severe case of amnesia. Perhaps he collapsed with a heart problem. You need
to talk to everyone who knows him, and to the police, if you truly want to find him. And if he
does
have family somewhere, I'm sure they'd like to know he's missing. Or maybe he's with them. Unless you get in touch with
someone
, how are you going to find out where he is?"

The two women exchanged another glance or two, then Mrs. Pinkerton said, "I knew Daisy would know what you should do, Vera. She's so wise for a woman of her tender years."

Oh, boy. I was glad neither my mother nor Sam was there to hear that. They'd both have doubled over laughing. Anyhow, an idiot would know to call the family and/or the police when someone vanished. Common sense was a faculty most of my extremely wealthy clients didn't need to have, I reckon, because they had enough money to hire other people to think for them.

"I suppose you're right," said Mrs. Wright, doubt plain to hear in her voice. "Still... the police?"

"If you don't have information on how to get in touch with any of his family members, then yes, you should call the police," I said, and firmly too.

"I have it!" cried Mrs. Pinkerton, going so far as to clap her pudgy hands. "
Daisy
can do it! You know that policeman fellow, Detective Ro... Ro... Whatever his name is, don't you, dear? You can ask
him
!"

She'd known Sam for as long as I had, yet she claimed never to remember his name. And she'd even thrown a party for him not long back. Well, the party was for me, too, but honestly. "Detective Rotondo generally works on homicides, Mrs. Pinkerton. I don't know if he'd be the correct person upon whom to call about handling a missing-person case."

"But he could direct you!" Mrs. Pinkerton was sure proud of herself for thinking of Sam, even if she refused to learn his name.

Mrs. Wright seemed happier, too. "Oh, my, that would be so kind of you, Mrs. Majesty. Would you mind awfully?"

Darn it anyhow! What was it with these rich people refusing to do the least little thing for themselves or their servants? But I knew upon which side my own personal bread was buttered, so I smiled spiritualistically and said, "Of course. I'll be happy to talk to Detective Rotondo for you, Mrs. Wright."

She thanked me profusely, and then I got out the Ouija board. Rolly conveniently manifested himself through my fingers, and he spelled out (did I mention he was a poor speller? Well, he was, mainly because I was ten when I thought him up, and it was too late to change his illiterate status now) the same advice I'd given Mrs. Wright. Mrs. Pinkerton sat by, staring at the planchette moving across the board, her hands clasped, in awe of my mysterious ability.

After Rolly was through dispensing advice via the Ouija board, Mrs. Wright asked for a tarot-card reading, so I dealt out a five-card horseshoe pattern, and interpreted the cards precisely the way I'd had Rolly interpret his advice.

When I was finished with Mrs. Wright's reading, Mrs. Pinkerton said, "Oh, my, Vera, it looks as if Daisy was absolutely correct. You need to go through Evans' room and see if you can find any relations of his to get in touch with. And the police, of course, although Daisy has kindly offered to do that for you."

I hadn't either. I'd been coerced into telling Sam about the missing Evans. I didn't point out Mrs. P's mistake.

"Thank you so much, Mrs. Majesty," said Mrs. Wright. "Madeline is right about you." Madeline was Mrs. Pinkerton's first name. "You're wise beyond your years."

Oh, brother.

However, she gave me a big wad of money and, since Mrs. Pinkerton begged me to deal out a tarot pattern for her, too, I went home that day fairly floating in mazuma. All in all, I considered my morning a success. I guess the evening was, too, although Sam, who came to dinner again, didn't seem to care much that the Wrights' butler, Evans, had disappeared.

Eyeing me with disfavor, he said, "What does she want me to do about it?"

I shrugged. "Tell the people in charge of missing persons, I guess." I had, after several minutes of questioning Mrs. Wright, determined that Evans' first name was Daniel, so I gave Sam that information, too.

"She does realize that calling the police means she and her staff will be questioned, doesn't she?" Sam had dealt with rich people before, and his experiences with them hadn't been as enriching as had mine. That's because wealthy people just
hated
to have police cars in their yards and uniformed officers in their houses. Besides, they didn't hand him wads of money, as they did me.

"Probably not." I couldn't help myself; I smiled. The notion of uniformed police officers invading the Wrights' mansion and questioning the personnel and family therein tickled my funny bone.

"It won't be any fun," said Sam, who seemed to know what I was thinking even when I wished he didn't.

"Not for you, it won't," I said. "I'd like to be a fly on the wall when they do it, though."

My mother said, "Daisy."

But my father and Aunt Vi both laughed.

Chapter 6

The rest of that week passed peacefully enough. Ma, Pa, Aunt Vi, and I had piled the library books we'd read on the table beside the front door, so on Thursday, since I had no appointments, I decided to visit the library after Pa and I walked Spike. We had a lovely neighborhood to walk in. Marengo Avenue itself was lined with pepper trees that fairly dripped leaves and peppercorns at certain times of the year. In February, their branches still sort of dripped, but they weren't shedding anything in particular. Spike loved his walks and left little liquid remembrances of himself wherever we went.

When I got to the library my favorite librarian, Miss Petrie, was back on duty, and she was as delighted to see me as I was to see her. After dumping my stack of already-read books on the returns table, I scurried over to her little booth. Or whatever you call those things where reference librarians hang out. I guess one could call it a cubicle, but that doesn't sound any better than a booth. Oh, never mind.

"Oh, Mrs. Majesty, I've saved so many books for you!" Miss Petrie said with a big smile. She was... well, kind of homely, actually, with big glasses and mouse-brown hair, which she knotted in a bun on top of her head. I think she could be quite good-looking if she went to some effort, but I guess she didn't feel like it. I couldn't fault her for that. Most days I didn't want to fix myself up, but I did it anyway for the sake of my image.

"Thank you! I always love the books you save for us. And so does my family. I've missed you."

"Thank you. I spent a couple of weeks with my parents in Oklahoma." She frowned. Originally from the Tulsa area, she still had family there. While I'm sure her parents were fine people, she also had some family members whom she'd just as soon everybody forget about. After having been peripherally involved with a couple of them, I didn't blame her. "The good side of my family," she added because she and I both knew about the other side.

"How nice. I'm glad my parents live here in Pasadena and I don't have to travel to see them."

"Hmm," said she, frowning slightly. "If I had your family, I'd probably wish they lived closer to me, too. But never mind families. Look at these." She bent down—she was sitting on a high stool—and hauled out a pile of books I was surprised she could lift, what with her being sort of skinny and all. She plopped them on the desk and smiled proudly.

"Oh, my goodness! Look at all of those!" I whispered, but I was delighted and whispering was a strain.

"There are several westerns for your father," said Miss Petrie. "And then I'm not sure you'll enjoy this one, but figured you might give it a try. It's
Sleeping Fire
, by Gertrude Atherton."

"Ah," said I, thinking nerts on that one. Not that I didn't appreciate Miss Atherton's creativity and so forth, but her earlier books hadn't been to my taste which, I guess, is low, because I prefer Mr. P.G. Wodehouse and other funny stuff like his.

She laughed softly. "You never know. You might like this one better than her last couple. But look here! Two new books by Mr. P.G. Wodehouse."

And, lo and behold, there appeared before my eyes
The Inimitable Jeeves
and
Leave it to Psmith
. "Oh,
thank
you!"