The Love Talker, page 21
With genuine dismay she contemplated the picture she had constructed. It fit together with the neatness of a jigsaw puzzle—motive, means, opportunity. The only missing piece was the identity of the poor fool who was Doug’s assistant; but that was a minor point.
The girl might be innocent of everything except gullibility.
Still, there was no proof. Laurie was enough of a historian to know that several different, equally convincing theories can be built from the same scraps of evidence. Anyway, why should it horrify her so? A lot of people had relatives who were in jail—or who ought to be in jail.
A muted whine from the dog made her start. Duchess was dreaming of bones or beefsteak or something equally delectable; her jaws had relaxed into a broad grin. So much, Laurie thought, for the theory that dreams might be messages from another world, premonitions of blessings and disasters yet to come. Did the spir
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its of departed ancestors come to dogs, warning them to steer clear of traps and highways? Duchess looked like a canine caricature of a medium Laurie had once visited; the woman had twitched and moved in the same way.
The house was so quiet. For the first time in her life Laurie did not feel at ease within its walls. Perhaps it knew she was harboring vile suspicions about the young heir.
She snatched up a coat and went outside. No comfort there either; even the sun had gone back on her.
Heavy clouds barricaded the sky. Laurie put her hands in her pockets. Why couldn’t she ever find a pair of gloves? She walked along the path. Insensibly her steps turned toward Jeff’s cottage. Should she confide her suspicions to him? It would be the basest of betrayals, pure treason against the family name; but if Doug really was the miscreant responsible for the attacks on Lizzie, he had to be stopped.
Avoiding the boxwood alley she circled the toolshed and paused for a long suspicious look at the garage before proceeding. The doors were closed. She had forgotten; the car was at the body shop, and so was Jeff.
A flicker of movement where there should be none made her draw back in the shelter of the shed wall.
No, her eyes had not deceived her; the curtain moved again, as if someone had
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lifted a corner in order to peer out. Someone was in Jeff’s cottage.
Doug was on his way to Baltimore. Uncle Ned had gone to Frederick with Jeff…. Her mind ran down the list of possible allies before facing the unpleasant conclusion that she would have to deal with this herself.
By the time she returned to the house, called the police, and waited for them to arrive, the intruder would probably be gone.
At least she could provide herself with a weapon.
She eased open the door of the toolshed and surveyed its contents. Quite an arsenal—shovels, axes, picks, rakes. Dismissing the sharper, more lethal instruments, she selected an ax handle which had lost its head and was, presumably, awaiting repair. It was light enough to be easily wielded and heavy enough to stun an ad-versary without seriously maiming him.
Her heart pounding, she scuttled across the open space between the shed and the cottage and stood on tiptoe to peer in the window. But the curtains were drawn; she could see nothing. As she stood debating her next move, the doorknob started to turn. Laurie flattened herself against the stone wall, her club ready.
The door opened about four inches. A head appeared. Laurie bit back an exclamation. The face was monstrous—solid, dead black, with 286 / Elizabeth Peters
white banding the staring eyes and the circle of the mouth. A ski mask made quite an effective disguise.
The burglar would have seen her if he had bothered to look in her direction, but apparently he was not anticipating an ambush. He stepped briskly out and turned to close the door. Laurie brought her club down.
At the last possible minute she realized that there was something hauntingly familiar about the pattern of the plaid shirt and the posture of the long legs. She let out a cry of surprise, and tried, not altogether successfully, to alter the direction of her swing. The intruder whirled and threw up his arm. The club hit it with a resounding thwack. The burglar staggered and sat down.
“Damn it,” Laurie exclaimed. “I thought you’d gone to Baltimore.”
Doug pulled off the ski cap. His hair stood on end and his eyes bulged with fury.
“I told you to stay in the house! My God, I think my arm is broken.”
“Let me see.” Laurie squatted. Doug shook his head violently and tried to retreat without standing up.
“Oh, don’t be silly. I didn’t know it was you.” She pushed his sleeve back, took his elbow in one hand and his wrist in the other and tried to bend the part in between. Doug objected loudly.
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“It’s not broken,” Laurie said. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me what you were going to do? And what were you doing?”
Doug did not answer the first question. “Searching the place, of course,” he snarled.
“Why the ski mask?” Laurie answered her own question. “You couldn’t resist the fun of disguising yourself and playing master spy. I don’t suppose you found anything, did you?”
“No.”
“He’s too smart to leave evidence lying around,”
Laurie said contemptuously. “You mustn’t judge others by yourself, dear brother. Why don’t you get up?”
“I’m thinking of fainting,” Doug said.
“You aren’t hurt.” She looked at him more closely.
He was a little pale. “Are you?”
“I think it’s a greenstick fracture. But never mind.”
Doug got to his feet. “Get back in the house, will you?”
“Where are you going?”
“Where I said I was going. Baltimore. See you later.”
He lifted the garage door, ostentatiously favoring his right arm, and vanished inside. The car started with an ill-tempered roar, as if echoing its owner’s sentiments, and departed with gravel spurting out in all directions.
Laurie waited until Doug was out of sight be 288 / Elizabeth Peters
fore she tried the door of the cottage. It was unlocked.
Fine burglar he is, she thought; he didn’t even have to pick the lock. The fact that Jeff didn’t bother to lock his door argued that his conscience was clear—or that he had been careful to dispose of any incriminating clues. All the same, Laurie decided she might as well have a look.
Since she didn’t know what to look for, she found nothing of interest. Jeff was fanatically neat; his shoes were lined up in a straight row, his clothing arranged in symmetrical piles. He even squeezed his toothpaste from the bottom of the tube and rolled it up as he used it.
Laurie sauntered toward the typewriter. She had always been curious about Jeff’s novel. Here was her chance. After all, she told herself, she had to find out whether he was really a writer. Maybe the pages were blank. Maybe he was typing out Gone With the Wind, to give an illusion of industry.
The page she picked up was numbered 375. It was a rough draft, crisscrossed with X’s and blurred by ty-pos. The heroine was named Lady Isabeau. She had the face of an angel from heaven and the heart of a devil from hell. At least that was what Raimond thought of her. Raimond’s identity was not clear, but his intentions were. His jerkin open to the waist, displaying his broad hairy chest, he stood over her, his The Love Talker / 289
hands on his lean hips, as she cowered against the wall of the castle keep. Her hands fluttered, vainly trying to cover her bare…
“Hmm,” Laurie said. She turned to the next page.
Some time later she reached the end of the completed part of the manuscript. Jeff had run out of steam on page 396, and Lady Isabeau was still vainly trying to cover herself with her clouds of silken blond hair, Raimond having removed the alternatives piece by piece. He had also mentioned a few incidents in the lady’s career which justified his appraisal of her character, and Laurie couldn’t conjure up much sympathy for her, despite the fate that lay in store for her—probably on about page 415, at the rate Jeff was going.
Laurie was tempted to go back to the beginning, but her conscience was bothering her; it was a dirty trick reading someone’s manuscript without permission. He might have a best seller on his hands at that. His style wasn’t particularly polished, but the readers of this brand of fiction did not demand polish.
Having restored the papers to their original condition, she left the cottage. Maybe she ought to drop Jeff a gentle hint about keeping his door locked, if she could do so without giving herself away. The aunts would swoon if they ever got a look at a page of that manuscript.
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Or would they? She was falling into the same old error of thinking of them as petrified people, without emotions or human instincts. She had promised herself she would avoid that kind of youthful ignorance. Perhaps this would be a good time to ask Ida if she might look at the family album. There was nothing more she could do at the moment, except watch over Lizzie and hope Doug would find a clue in Baltimore. Assuming, of course, that Doug wasn’t the guilty party himself.
She found the aunts in the parlor, busy with their fancywork. Ida’s pink knitting was a good ten inches long, but her needles did not click with their usual brisk rhythm. Lizzie was also heavy-eyed and lethargic.
Laurie admired her needlepoint, a complex, if sacchar-ine, depiction of furry kittens. Lizzie looked at her suspiciously.
“Thank you, darling, it is kind of you to say so, but if you are hoping, by means of flattery, to make me forget the trick you played on me this morning—”
“What trick. Oh—you mean persuading you to show Doug the pictures? I didn’t plan that, Auntie. You misunderstood.”
“Never mind,” Lizzie said, more graciously. “We’ll just forget the whole thing, darling.”
“I wish we could, Aunt Lizzie. I still think—”
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Lizzie raised her hand. “Now not another word. I don’t intend to refer to the subject ever again.”
Laurie recognized the technique. It was the same one Lizzie always employed when one of her enthusiasms had run its course. Like a repentant drunk the morning after, she wiped out all memory of her excesses and refused to refer to them. The system had always worked before, but this time, Laurie feared, Lizzie had started something she could no longer control.
“Auntie,” she began.
“Sit down, my dear, you look tired,” Lizzie said. “You may stroke Angel Baby if you like.”
Laurie sat, but declined the offer of Angel Baby. The cat was looking particularly seductive and that, Laurie knew, was often the prelude to a vicious attack. Ida’s old Siamese was curled up on the couch. Laurie patted her, thinking as she did so that it was too bad human beings didn’t age as gracefully. Sabrina’s blue eyes had lost their sapphire brilliance and there were white hairs around her muzzle, but she had held up a lot better than her mistress, though her age in cat years was almost as great. She opened one eye when Laurie stroked her, gave a brief, rusty purr, and went back to sleep.
Ida was delighted to produce the photo albums—not one, but several of them.
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“I am glad you are taking an interest in the family history,” she said. “As the last of the Mortons—”
“Doug wouldn’t like to hear you say that.” Laurie smiled.
Ida blinked. “The last of the Morton women, I meant to say. Men do not care for such things, more’s the pity.”
Laurie remembered having seen the albums before, but that had been years ago, when she was small enough to find the old-fashioned costumes hilariously funny and the youthful versions of her aunts and uncle quite unbelievable. Now she studied the faded photos with sympathetic interest, although there were many faces she did not know. Ida insisted on naming each of these and giving a brief biography, so the viewing went slowly. Lizzie didn’t even pretend to be interested.
She went to get lunch, and Ida proceeded methodically through album after album.
Ida’s father had obviously been an enthusiastic amateur photographer. There were dozens of shots of the aunts and Uncle Ned as babies and children. Propped against pillows, swathed in yards of lace-trimmed muslin, they stared at the camera with round, unsmiling eyes. The family resemblance was clear even at that tender age. All the fat, lace-enveloped babies might have
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been the same, though even then Lizzie was decidedly plumper.
The babies grew into children, holding dolls or rolling hoops. The girls were all pretty, though Lizzie was the beauty of the family. Mary, Laurie’s grandmother, had a sweet, gentle face. Her wedding picture was charming, despite the short white dress and kid slippers; her eyes shone with happiness, and her tall young groom reminded Laurie of Anna, especially around the eyes.
But the real surprise was Uncle Ned. Having out-grown the chubby cheeks and gap-toothed smile of childhood, he became a strikingly handsome boy. The Morton heritage was pure Scot, virtually undiluted by other nationalities; yet Ned’s high cheekbones, finely cut lips, and thin nose suggested a Latin strain—a grandee of old Granada turned buccaneer, ravaging the coasts of Britain and the female inhabitants thereof.
“He’s gorgeous,” Laurie exclaimed.
“We have always been considered a handsome family,” Ida said. “The Morton features are quite distinctive.”
Lizzie called them to lunch then, and afterwards the aunts went to take their naps. Laurie returned to the parlor. She felt restless and ill at ease. The weather might be partially responsible 294 / Elizabeth Peters
for her mood; the skies were somber, suggesting snow.
The albums were still lying on the table. She opened one at random. There was nothing for her here, just sad reminders that youth must fade and beauty wither.
Laurie stared with melancholy fascination at a snapshot of Uncle Ned. He held what was obviously a brand-new bicycle; his wide smile radiated the pride of ownership. He must have been about sixteen when the picture was taken, Laurie thought.
As she continued to look at the picture she became conscious of a strange sensation at the pit of her stomach. Uncle Ned’s face. Particularly his smile….
What was it about his smile?
The answer struck her with an almost audible click, as if she had been probing clumsily at a lock with a hairpin and had finally struck the crucial spot. No—no, she thought, it can’t be! But supposing it were…. Her mind raced wildly, picking up the pieces—the same bits of evidence she had considered earlier that day.
But this time they clicked neatly into place, with no empty spaces to distort a damning picture of guilt.
Chapter 11
The album slid unregarded to the floor as Laurie got to her feet. Moving like a robot, her dazed mind still molding her fantastic theory into shape, she went to get her coat. Duchess, dozing under the kitchen table, leaped up and began bounding up and down. Coats meant that people were going out, and sometimes they took her along.
Hastily Laurie scribbled a note and left it on the kitchen table, weighted down with a salt shaker. She considered the hopeful dog for a moment and then shook her head. There was no danger in the errand she planned now, no need for a guard dog, even if Duchess had qualified for that title. And there were practical difficulties as well.
“I’m sorry,” she told Duchess. “I’d take you if I were driving, but I guess I’ll have to walk. You’d run off and get lost.”
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With both cars out she had no alternative but to walk. She was in no mood to wait. Not only was she curious to discover whether her theory was really correct, but she was concerned about Lizzie. The amiable, dotty old lady seemed to feel that she had the situation well in hand, but her niece feared that this time Lizzie had raised demons that would not be easy to exorcise.
If this new idea was right she might be able to nip the plot in the bud that very afternoon, before Lizzie got into more trouble.
But as she closed the door on Duchess’s long, re-proachful face, a thought occurred to her. It was worth looking, at any rate.
She was in luck. The big garage held another car, a rusty, aged Ford. She had thought Jeff might have some means of transportation; he wouldn’t use the Lincoln for personal errands, and there were no buses in this rural area.
She found an extra set of keys, carefully labeled, in one of his dresser drawers. Laurie thanked heaven for his neatness. Now if the car would start…
It was worn on the outside but, like all Jeff’s posses-sions, it did the job it was supposed to do. The engine started right away. Laurie drove out.
The snow had not yet begun to fall, but if she was any judge of weather it would before long. The clouds were the color of dark slate. In the sullen, threatening light the Wilson house
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looked like something out of a horror film, a dismal bastion of smug complacency and prejudice. Even if it’s true, Laurie thought, I can’t entirely blame her. She must feel like a trapped animal. Anything—anything!—to get away. They’re all egotists at that age, they don’t feel for other people—especially old people.
Wilson’s truck was not there. With bad weather approaching, he would surely work until the last possible moment. His presence would not have deterred Laurie, however. He was a fat, stupid bully, and in her present mood she had no doubt of her ability to stand up to him.
She had brooded over the photo albums longer than she had realized. The girls were already home from school. When Mrs. Wilson opened the back door, Laurie saw Betsy at the table, smearing jam messily on a piece of bread. Mary Ella sat next to her.
Laurie pushed past Mrs. Wilson with scant cere-mony.
