The Fat Lady's Ghost
Page 5
“As soon as Alex is ready, we’ll arrange a private viewing for you at the school,” promised Mr. Hinkley.
“I shall be first to see it? You make sure nobody else gets ahead of me? Of what is the subject matter, please?”
Suddenly a malicious grin spread over the young artist’s thin features. “It’s a portrait,” he said, “of Corin Johansen. This girl right here.”
Chapter 7
“Of all the rotten tricks!” Corin fumed as she took her place on the model stand. “Tying me up as your model, when I’m up to my ears already.”
“Serves you right for opening your big mouth,” said Alex rudely. “See if you can sit still for a change this time, will you? And try to look halfway pleasant. Oswega isn’t going to want you glaring at him for the rest of his life.”
She sighed, arranged her features into a more agreeable expression, and settled down for another tedious session of posing. This was what she got for trying to do somebody a favor. Hours and hours of sitting and watching Alex putter around making faces at a half-empty canvas, while her own work went undone. A person would think the faculty would want a promising design student to concentrate on her studies; but all they cared about was Alex and his old portrait. Hink had even arranged for him to have one of the life studios for his exclusive use every afternoon from two to four. No matter what she was doing, she had to drop it and freeze to this merciless wooden chair with her bones aching and her feet going to sleep, and pretend she enjoyed being part of the furniture.
“Stop scowling, can’t you?” growled Alex for the fiftieth time.
He would not even let her look at the canvas, so she could not tell whether he was making any progress or not. Once he savagely scraped away a whole section of the painting, undoing several days’ work with one sweep of his palette knife. After a week, however, he had relaxed and now seemed to be painting with more confidence.
She was posing in a blue-green dress against a darker blue background, her flaming hair and pale flesh tones the only exciting color accents in the picture. Occasionally, Mr. Hinkley would come into the studio, take a long look at the canvas, speak a word or two to the artist, and go out. Sometimes he nodded at the model. More often, he hardly seemed to notice her, except as part of the painting.
By the time Alex put down his palette, she was always ready to stamp out of the studio forever. But it took her so long to flex her weary muscles and get the pins and needles out of her feet that they generally wound up walking back to Madame Despau-Davy’s together, Alex carrying her portfolio as a sort of half-hearted thank you for her effort. Sometimes they even talked a little on the way.
Back at the house, Corin would climb the stairs to her room, dump her things, work for a while, go down to the kitchen for a quick meal, then go back upstairs to finish her evening’s assignment. Her only recreation was stopping in the back yard to watch the landlady put the ocelots through their regular evening’s workout. She had become so entranced by the fascinating animals that she was not even self-conscious about applauding at the end of the act.
Once she mentioned the ocelots to Alex, as they walked home. “I don’t know why none of you ever come down to watch them perform. They’re out of this world.”
“I guess it’s because we all saw Selim perform,” he replied somberly.
“Was he all that great?”
“Selim was so old and crippled with rheumatism that he couldn’t even get up the stairs. He stayed down in the kitchen most of the time. Miss Garside used to keep a fire burning in that big old stove for him all the time. He’d sprawl out in front of it like a house cat. The Madame used to grind his meat for him because he’d lost all his teeth. Angela and the twins used to squeal and pretend they were scared of him; but you couldn’t be, really, because he was so darned helpless. That’s what we thought, until the night he killed Miss Garside.”
“Oh, no!”
“Oh, yes. We didn’t actually see him do it, but it was plain enough what had happened. Angie went to make coffee—we all used the kitchen more or less at that time—and found the two of them sprawled on the floor, dead. She yelled like a banshee, and Steve and I went running down. From the way they were lying, we figured he’d jumped her from behind and knocked her down. According to the doctor, it was the shock that killed her. She had a weak heart from carrying so much weight around all those years.”
“But how did the leopard die?”
“That’s what we never could understand. Apparently she managed to whack him with a poker and fracture his skull just before she collapsed. It was the weirdest thing I ever saw, both of them lying there like—I don’t know. Like old rag toys some giant’s kid had thrown away.” His jaw tensed. “None of us have cared much for cats since then. Or for the kitchen.”
“That sounds completely crazy to me,” said Corin. “Why would Selim suddenly pounce on Miss Garside like that, when they’d been friends for so long? Especially when he was so old and feeble?”
“How should I know? He was a jungle animal, after all. They never get really tame. Maybe she stepped on his tail. Maybe she had something he wanted, some meat or something. Maybe he just felt mean.”
“But couldn’t it possibly have been an accident? Did Madame Despau-Davy think the leopard had killed Miss Garside?”
“Of course not. She just kept moaning, ‘I can’t understand it. Rosie would never hurt dear Selim,’ and bawling her eyes out. She wouldn’t let the police dispose of Selim’s body. She hired a truck and got Jack and Steve and Will and me to drive her out to a family burying ground she owns up in New Hampshire and bury the poor old brute beside some friend of hers named Tommy.”
“Tommy was the lion who worked with her and Selim in their circus act,” Corin explained.
“That figures. You couldn’t help feeling sorry for the old girl. She was really cut up. I don’t know whether she felt worse about Rosie or the leopard. She went around looking like death warmed over until Leo arranged with some of their old circus buddies to get her those four ocelots.”
Corin stared at him. “Leo did?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Nothing, only—it’s so funny. I’ve never once laid eyes on him since I’ve been in the house. I’d like to meet him.”
“Don’t count on it. He’s—he doesn’t mix much.”
“Why not?”
“Well, he’s an older guy and,” Alex seemed to be choosing his words with care, “he’s not too well.”
“That’s a shame. He must be pretty decent if he went to all that trouble to make his landlady happy. He must like her a lot.”
“We all do, I guess. She’s a great old girl.”
Corin smiled. “She’s cute with her animals. She makes me applaud after I watch them perform, so their feelings won’t be hurt.”
Alex laughed shortly, but said nothing more. Going up the stairs, they bumped into Steve, Will, and the twins.
“Hi,” chorused Jeanie and Jennie. “Join the group. We’re going out for Chinese food.”
“Can’t,” said Alex. “I’ve got to work.”
“And I have my supper all cooked,” said Corin, a shade regretfully. “I made a big pot of Norwegian meatballs last night, and I’ve got to eat them up.”
“Honestly, Corin, we think you’re the bravest girl we ever met,” cried the twins.
“Why? just because I’m not afraid to use the kitchen? It isn’t as though I’d ever met Miss Garside, you know.”
“You mean you haven’t seen her yet?” asked Will with a look that was half teasing and half something else.
“How could I meet her? She’s been dead for a year.”
“But we saw her two months after her funeral,” shrieked the twins.
“Jennie screamed,” said Jeanie.
“And Jeanie almost fainted,” said Jennie.
“And then we both ran like mad,” they declared in unison, “and we wouldn’t set foot in that kitchen again for a million billion dollars.”
It was too silly. People didn’t believe in ghosts any more.
Or did they?
Chapter 8
“Of all the nutty stories,” Corin thought as she stirred her pot of meatballs, trying hard not to look over her shoulder. Rosie Garside’s ghost, for the love of Pete! The twins had probably seen a curtain blowing; or something.
A soft footfall sounded behind her. She turned with a yelp, scalding her finger in the steam from the pot.
“I’m so sorry, my dear,” said Madame Despau-Davy. “I should have called out. I just came back to look for Sheba’s rubber mousie. The silly puss left it about somewhere, and now she’s pouting. Did you burn yourself badly?”
“No, it’s nothing. It was just that, well, the twins had been telling me some wild story about seeing Miss Gar-side’s ghost down here.”
“I’m afraid it isn’t a wild story,” corrected her landlady gently. “I’ve seen her myself.”
“You have?” Corin could not seem to operate her lower jaw properly.
“Oh, yes. It couldn’t have been anyone else. Even on the astral plane, Rosie’s figure was quite unmistakable.”
Corin shook her head. The ghost of a Fat Lady in this cozy old kitchen? How did anybody expect her to believe a fairy tale like that? But Madame Despau-Davy was looking at her steadily, her kind old face wrinkled in honest concern.
“Mind you, my dear, I wouldn’t have allowed you to so much as set foot in the kitchen if I thought there could be the slightest danger in your being here. But Rosie was the sweetest, gentlest creature who ever lived. I cannot believe, even as a ghost, that she could do harm to anyone.”
“Then you really think—” the girl was speechless.
“I know exactly how you feel, my dear. I thought the twins were having an attack of what we used to call the vapors, until I saw Rosie with my own eyes. She was standing right over there by the door to the stairs. But as I moved toward her, she vanished.”
“You went toward her? I’m afraid I’d have moved away, as fast as I could.”
“Oh, no, my dear. I beg of you not to do that. I feel sure Rosie is trying to tell me something I desperately want to hear.”
“You mean that Selim didn’t really kill her?”
“Exactly. How penetrating of you, my dear. Of course, being an intelligent girl and an objective listener, you realized immediately that the—I suppose I must call it the official version of the story—was ridiculous.”
“It sounded pretty crazy to me,” said Corin. So did the unofficial version, for that matter.
“Dear old Selim loved Rosie,” said her landlady with absolute conviction. “He would no more have sprung at her than he would have turned on me. Besides, the poor sweetie was so crippled with rheumatism that day that he could hardly raise a paw. He was getting old,” sighed the ancient trainer. “Ah, well, perhaps it’s as well he went quickly. But to say his beloved friend Rosie killed him is an outrage. She would never have harmed one hair of his dear old black velvet head. She knew he had no teeth left, and that I kept his claws clipped because he would rip up the rugs in Leo’s room. She would have realized he couldn’t possibly do her any harm, even if he should make a playful dab at her. No, it was all some dreadful accident, I’m sure. And Rosie wants to tell me so.”
“That’s what I said,” Corin replied. “But Alex doesn’t seem to think it could have been; and he was here right after it happened.”
“But,” insisted her landlady, “if we reject the theory that Selim attacked Rosie, which is impossible; and that Rosie defended herself by striking Selim with enough force to fracture his skull, which is absurd; what have we left?”
Leo. The girl suddenly remembered him. Evidently the leopard used to go into his room and tear things up. What if he got angry and struck the old beast, perhaps without actually meaning to kill it? What if Rosie had seen the animal die, and the shock had been too much for her badly overstrained heart? Could that be why he had got Madame Despau-Davy the ocelots, because he felt guilty about having caused the two deaths?
It was the first theory that made any sense; but some instinct told her to keep quiet about it until she was more sure of her ground. “I suppose there wasn’t anybody else down here at the time,” she ventured. “I was thinking that possibly Mister—the man who has the basement room—might have heard something.”
“That’s the strangest part of all,” Madame Despau-Davy shook her curls. “Leo didn’t hear a thing. Of course, he had his radio going. He has one of those little transistor things you plug into your ear, and he listens to it all the time.”
“Then you can’t really know whether the radio was on, because nobody else would have heard it anyway,” her young boarder pointed out.
“But of course it was,” replied the landlady. “He said so.”
Corin went back to stirring her meatballs. Leo had lied, that was all. But how could she say so to this simple-hearted old woman who seemed to think everybody in the world was as honest as herself? She’d just like to back that mysterious Leo into a corner and ask him a few pointed questions!
“I’ll run along to the pusses now and let you eat your dinner,” Madame Despau-Davy was saying. “Do promise me one thing, my dear. If Rosie should ever speak to you, come at once and tell me what she says.”
“I’ll do that,” said Corin.
She made the promise tongue-in-cheek; but when the old woman had left her alone in the big room with the dark corners, she did not find the idea of taking messages from the ghost of a Fat Lady quite so amusing. She caught herself positively wolfing down her meatballs in order to finish her meal and get out as fast as possible.
“Now, let’s cut this out right now,” she told herself sternly. “I said I wasn’t going to get involved with anybody in this house, and that includes Rosie Garside, dead or alive. I’m darned if I’ll get panicked into leaving this kitchen. I’m going to stay right here and do just as I please, for as long as I like. I think I’ll bake a cake.”
She rummaged around for a cake pan of the right size, wishing the insides of the vast old cupboards were not quite so dark and chilly.
“At least a Fat Lady’s ghost couldn’t fit in here,” she tried to joke with herself as she poked into a narrow cabinet. “What is this funny old thing, I wonder?” She dragged out the odd-shaped gadget she had found tucked back in a corner behind a pile of time-darkened pans. “Look at the curlicues on the handle. I’ll bet that Victorian motif could be worked up into something interesting.” She carried the utensil out under the light, to get a better look at the design. “It must be some kind of fruit squeezer or potato ricer or something. You move the handles apart and this round lid comes up and—” Corin peered into the inside, dumbfounded. “And you find a ruby necklace. Oh, my gosh!”
From its outlandish hiding place, the circlet of glittering stones flashed crimson fire. As she moved to touch them, the red sparks seemed to turn all at once into tiny danger signals. Hastily, she lowered the lid over the jewels and thrust the old ricer back where she had found it.
First that huge diamond ring, and now this fabulous necklace! What could they be doing in a place like this?
Was the ring still in the rolling pin? She took the wooden implement out of its drawer and studied the handles uneasily. Was it just her imagination, or did they both seem to be screwed in straight tonight? She removed the handles, one after the other, and prodded gingerly into the cavities with an ice pick. The ring was gone.
Had Madame Despau-Davy been wearing it? Corin shut her eyes to get a better mental picture of the old animal trainer, as she had last seen her. No, the woman was wearing only her usual assortment of Woolworth baubles. Real diamonds would surely have stood out in contrast enough to be noticed.
“Maybe she was afraid I’d find it, so she took it out and hid it somewhere else,” thought the girl. But that made no sense. Why would the landlady l
et a boarder use the kitchen at all, if she was afraid of having her valuables stolen?
Jewelry was good for only two things: to wear, and to raise money on in an emergency. Was Madame Despau-Davy in financial trouble?
Corin did some mental arithmetic. The woman must get well over a hundred and fifty dollars a week from her boarders. And she’d said something about having saved a little. And she could always go up on her rents if she needed more money to run the house. Maybe the present boarders would object; but she could always find people willing to pay for such attractive accommodations in a convenient location.
Perhaps she had to raise a large sum in a hurry, though Corin could not imagine why. The woman certainly was not sick. She spent nothing on herself. Her clothes looked as though they had been left over from circus days. The house seemed to be in perfect shape, so there could be no problem of expensive repairs. Maybe Madame Despau-Davy had sold her ring to help out a relative or an old circus chum. If so, it was her own business.
Nevertheless, Corin could not help wondering. What sort of landlady would manage her finances by selling her jewelry and using the kitchen pots and pans for safe-deposit boxes with the ghost of a Fat Lady to guard them?
She decided not to make a cake after all. It was getting late, and she still had homework to do. And, besides, she admitted to herself, she simply did not feel up to meeting Rosie Garside that night.
Chapter 9
The next two weeks were gone almost before Corin realized they had begun. Jack managed to drag her out to another of his fancy restaurants for dinner the second Sunday, in town, she stipulated firmly. She was not going to get involved in another of those endless automobile rides. She did agree to an English movie at the Exeter; and she fell in love with the delightful old theater that had once been a church and with the gracious lady in the ticket booth.
But even Jack did not dog her footsteps so persistently as Alex. When she was not posing for her portrait, he was following her around with a sketching pad, making quick line drawings in charcoal. Some of them were amazingly good.