“Don’t be silly, darling. He has far more important things on his mind right now.” So had we all. “Luke, listen—stay where you are. We’ll either call back with instructions or come and get you. If your parents get back, ring through and let me know. If there’s no answer, you’ll know we’re on our way.” It was the best I could do. Noah might have a better idea when he returned.
“Prr-yah?” Belatedly, Errol decided to respond to his name. Blinking sleepily, he crawled out from under the sofa and looked around inquiringly.
“There’s Errol!” Tessa pounced on him, clutching him to her. Immediately he began to struggle to regain his freedom, yowling a protest.
Oh no—he was going to be difficult!
“Stay with me, Errol,” Tessa screamed. “Mummy, I can’t hold him! He’s going to run away and be burned!”
“No, he isn’t,” I said, thinking frantically. I had looked everywhere for Errol’s carrying case without success. I could not believe he didn’t have one. The only place I hadn’t looked was in the Bluebeard’s Room in the basement. Furthermore, I might be able to save some of the more portable treasures Nancy had stored down there. If I couldn’t identify the sentimental treasures, at least I could salvage the most valuable.
I shook the bunch of keys, singling out the one I had never used. There was no spot of blood on it, but it was brighter and shinier than the others—as though it had never been used, or had recently been duplicated from an original. I started for the cellar stairs.
“Ta-taa-ta-taa—” The horn sounded out front, along with a more sedate honk, as two vehicles drew up. I heard car doors slam and went to the front door to meet them.
“Rosemary—” Pixie rushed into the house. She was wearing a suede shift liberally bedecked with wampum beads. There were moccasins on her feet and a feathered headdress on her head, her face was resplendent with full war paint. I hadn’t seen such colors and designs since the last time I had walked down King’s Road. “Rosemary, are you ready? Let’s get out of here while the getting’s good!”
“We’ve got to go and collect Luke,” I told her. “Celia and Patrick have gone off somewhere—he’s all alone in the house.”
“We can manage that.” Noah was immediately behind Pixie. His face was decorated by nothing more than a bemused expression, but it was enough. At some later moment I must get him to tell me his side of the story. “There isn’t that much rush. I checked with the Park Rangers at the lookout tower. The fire is breaking out of the containment area, but it hasn’t reached the All-State Alarm stage yet.”
“Oh, good,” I said. “I’m going down to Nancy’s storeroom to try to find Errol’s carrying case. If you’ll come with me, Pixie, perhaps you can tell me if there’s anything special down there Nancy would like me to save.”
“Sure thing.” Pixie followed me into the cellar, so did Noah. The children trailed along behind us, unwilling to let us out of their sight. Fortunately Errol had calmed a bit and was quiet in Tessa’s arms—but he couldn’t be depended upon to stay that way.
“Oh—tchach!” Pixie made an impatient exclamation as we walked through the playroom. “Rosemary, do you mean to say—” she detoured over to the shadowy steps—“you’ve been leaving the bulkhead door unlatched?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Is it? I haven’t noticed. We never use it.”
“That could be dangerous!” Pixie mounted the steps half way, bending over, then straightened and pushed the doors upwards to demonstrate. They moved easily at her touch.
“You see,” she scolded. “They weren’t locked.” She ducked again and let the doors fall shut. They fell smoothly and in perfect unison, making a small hollow thud—like the sound of a coffin lid falling.
“This house has been wide open—” Pixie reached up and slid home a large iron bolt. “Anyone could have got in here any time they wanted. You’re just lucky that crazy Rudi didn’t decide to sneak in and start one of his fires here.”
“He’d have to know about it first,” I said weakly. The implications were more than I could face at this moment. I had to concentrate on the present danger. Somewhat unsteadily, I walked over to the storeroom.
I inserted the key in the lock, it turned easily. Nancy had obviously oiled it before her departure. Suddenly conscious of everyone behind me, I made a feeble joke:
“I declare this bazaar open—” I intoned, throwing wide the door. Pixie snapped on the lights and we moved forward into the room.
I almost tripped over a Victorian rosewood tea-trolley.
“There’s Errol’s carrying case!” Tessa’s sharp eyes spotted it in a far corner of the room. She dashed to get it.
I stood rooted, spotting other things. A Chinese Chippendale mirror leaned against one wall. A Landseer stag-at-bay dominated a corner. A carriage clock and a silver-topped claret jug stood atop a Pembroke table …
Oh, there were lots of items I didn’t recognize—presumably Nancy’s. But the others … What were they doing here? How had they got here?
“That’s Nancy’s mother—” For an insane moment, I thought Pixie was heading for the stag-at-bay, but she veered off and pulled a Forties’ pastel from beneath the Pembroke table. She straighted with it and looked around in some confusion.
“And that’s Arnold’s Do-It-Yourself tool kit,” she identified. “But it would be a favor to Nancy if you let that get burned up. She’d want her grandmother’s ivory manicure box—it’s going to go to Donna someday, but—” Pixie frowned. “It’s strange. There’s a lot of stuff here that’s not Nancy’s. It seems vaguely familiar—but I can’t quite place it.”
It did not seem the moment to tell her that I could.
“Errol’s all right,” Tessa said with satisfaction. She had unceremoniously dumped Errol into his carrying case; he was wailing protest and grievance. “We can go now.”
“Yes …” I agreed blankly.
“Don’t worry,” Pixie said comfortingly. “Even if the fire reaches the house and demolishes it, the cellar ought to be all right. They used to be called storm cellars, you know—because you could ride out a hurricane or a cyclone down here, no matter what happened to the rest of the house. You can probably leave everything here and it will be quite safe.”
“Probably—” Noah had been prowling the farther reaches of the room—“but I wouldn’t like to bet on it.” He paused by a large packing crate and inquired of it politely, “Would you, Mrs. Meadows?”
“Oh, there you are, Rosemary!” Celia emerged from behind the packing crate quite as though she’ had been expecting to find me there. Only a note of hysteria in her voice belied the attempted social tone. “Patrick—here’s Rosemary!”
“Oh, uh—” Patrick crept out from behind the matching packing crate. “Hello, Rosemary. We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“Try again,” Noah suggested drily. “That one doesn’t quite hold water.”
“Celia—Patrick—” Pixie was agog. “What are you doing down here?” She looked again at some of the semi-familiar objects, this time placing them in context. “Oh …” she said, then abruptly enlightened, “Ooohh!”
“I’d suggest we leave now,” Noah said, “and sort this out later. Pitti-Sing and her kittens are waiting for me in the car and she’ll be getting worried if I’m not back pretty smartly.”
Rebuked, we followed him upstairs. Dexter and Timothy brought up the rear with much whispering, nudging and snickering. They were taking an inordinate interest in Celia and Patrick.
“I don’t understand,” Celia said. “Why have you come back so early? And what were you all doing in the storeroom?”
It seemed that we might more fairly ask that question, but Noah countered with a different question:
“Didn’t you hear the Fire Whistle? The second one—for the North woods?”
“We’ve been busy,” Celia said primly. Then the full import of the question struck her. “The North? Oh no! We just heard the signal for the town—No!
”
We stepped out on to the porch, the sky red above us. A great rolling explosion echoed in the distance.
“That’s it!” Pixie said. “They’ve begun dynamiting the fire-break.”
Something pattered like shrapnel on the roof of the porch. I hoped it was just stones and dirt—not burning pine cones.
“Luke—” Celia said desperately. “Luke—”
“We’ll get him,” Patrick said. “He’ll be all right.”
“The house is going to burn down—” Celia began to laugh hysterically. “It’s going to burn anyway!”
“Celia—” Patrick said warningly.
We went down the steps, down the path. Stones were pattering all around us.
“Ow!” Tessa complained. “They hurt, Mummy.” She was still carrying Errol’s case and could not protect her face adequately.
“Here—give me Errol—” Even as I took over the case, I became aware of a strangeness about the stones: they were all white; they bounced as they hit the ground; when they finally settled, they perched uneasily, then began to melt.
The deep rolling sound came again, climaxed by a great crash; the landscape sprang into bright relief. Large gobbets of water began to mix with the stones.
“It’s hail!” Pixie halted and turned her paint-streaked face upwards. “It’s raining and hailing! It worked!”
“Rain!” Celia cried. “Rain!”
The rain was gathering force. The parched earth could not drink it in immediately. Pools of water formed at our feet; rivulets followed the slope of the land.
“Thank God,” Noah breathed.
We stood there, faces upturned, glorying in the gorgeous soaking downpour. The hail disappeared but the rain continued, settling in for the night. Already the red glow in the sky was lessening.
“It’s raining—really raining!” Celia was sobbing with relief. “You can’t do it now—it’s too late!”
“Celia!” Patrick caught her by the shoulders and began shaking her.
“It’s too late,” Celia insisted thankfully. “The house is saved. It’s not just the rain, Patrick—we’ve been rumbled!”
Chapter 18
We met at the entrance of the hospital. Pixie, Gino and I had just donated our pints of blood; Celia, Patrick and Noah were on their way in to donate theirs.
“How is he?” Noah asked.
“Holding his own.” Pixie reported what we had been told. “Greg’s pretty tough. He’ll pull through.” She glanced at Gino and said hastily, “Of course, it’s too bad—”
“It is better that Rudi died,” Gino said heavily. “Better he should have died before he ever come to this country—before he was born, even. I am shamed that my cousin—”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Noah said quickly. “How were you to know?”
“His family were too eager to send him to me—I should have suspected something wrong. Instead, I thought it was just ambition. It offered so much for him, if he had been the right sort. A partnership eventually, at least. Instead, I have lost my restaurant and must start over. If people will still come to a Gino’s Place after what I have done to the town.”
“You just go ahead and rebuild,” Pixie said. comfortingly. “We’ll all come back. Nobody is responsible for what their relatives do—thank heavens!”
Amen to that. I carefully refrained from looking at my would-be fraudulent sibling and her husband. In the postmortems after their discovery, they had admitted planning the desperate gamble to pay off their debts and regain solvency. For months, they had been denuding their home of its most valuable contents, while leaving them on the household inventory held by the insurance company. At first, they had simply sold them to the Singletons. Later, when I had agreed to occupy the Harper residence, they had planned to secrete Celia’s most prized antiques in the storeroom. Celia had duplicated the key before handing it on to me; she had also unbolted the bulkhead door so that Patrick could gain access to the cellar without my knowledge. What a shock I had given him when I opened the guest room window the other night and leaned out. They had not known that I had changed from the master bedroom at the front to the cheerful little guest room overlooking the bulkhead. After that, had come Celia’s pressing invitations, designed to get me away from the house so that Patrick could make the last trips with the remainder of the antiques, before firing their house while it could be blamed on sparks from the blaze in the North woods.
At least, I tried to look on the bright side, Celia had not lied to me completely. Patrick was ill—but not dying. It had been one last summer in her beloved home she had been pleading for when I overheard them.
“You are all very kind:” Gino smiled at Pixie and then at the rest of us. “It is a pleasure to live here at Edgemarsh Lake with you. And now I must go for a consultation with the architect who will design the new Gino’s.” He descended the steps and walked away slowly.
“Isn’t it ironic?” Pixie looked after him. “Gino’s Place was the most successful business for miles around. He must have been just about the only person in town who didn’t need to collect on his fire insur—” She broke off abruptly, glanced at Patrick and turned bright red.
Patrick and Celia retained their bright social smiles, showing no reaction to Pixie’s gaffe. I looked at them curiously, wondering if there was anything else they knew that they were not telling me. There had been another frantic letter from Nancy in the morning post:
Dear Rosemary, she had written,
No matter what you might hear—don’t worry. It just looks a lot worse than it really is. The builders tell me that it can all be put right very quickly—and it will never show when they’ve finished. It won’t cost all that much, either. Naturally, we’ll pay for it ourselves, although I think Lania ought to contribute something, if not half. After all, her kids did their share of the damage. But we’ll work that out between ourselves—it has nothing to do with you.
The good news is that Esmond has begun to feel totally comfortable with us. For the first time yesterday, the darling leaped up on the kitchen table and stole a lamb chop! I’m so happy that he has accepted us at last.
The workmen are at the door, so must close now. Don’t worry about anything. By the time you get back, you’ll never be able to see that it happened.
Kisses to Errol—
Nancy.
Don’t worry. My home had been in one piece when I left it. My cat had never been a thief. What was it all about? Had she also written to Patrick, confiding in him?
Patrick looked back at me with a guileless smile. Now that his scheme had been thwarted, both he and Celia were looking more relaxed—and years younger. Celia was talking about finding a job and they were both due for a talk with their Bank Manager later in the week. It would take time, but they would sort out their finances in a more socially responsible manner.
“If you’d care to hang around for about half an hour,” Noah said to me, “I can give you a lift back.”
“Thank you,” I said, “but I’ve grown braver. I’m using the Harpers’ car now.” It was silly not to use transport when I had it available. Just as it was silly to worry about road accidents when worse could befall you through no fault of your own when you were quietly going about your own business at home.
“Fine,” he said. “I’m glad to hear it.” He did not look particularly delighted.
“Pixie is coming to dinner tonight,” I said. “Why don’t you come along, too? I’m not a bad cook and it’s about time I began to repay some of the hospitality I’ve been receiving.”
“I’d like that.” This time he did look pleased. “Thank you.”
“Don’t forget,” Celia said. “We’re still going on that whale watch. Next week.” There was a lilt in her voice. She could look forward to it now, knowing that her home would still be standing when she returned from the expedition. This time it would be a pleasure trip—not an alibi.
“Fine,” I said.
“And we’re taking a trip or tw
o across the border before you leave,” Pixie reminded me. “It’s silly to be so near to Canada and not visit Montreal and Quebec—they’re such beautiful cities.”
“Fine,” I said again. A sad detached feeling began slipping over me. John had planned sorties across the Canadian Border, too. We had been so thrilled and excited about it.
I said my goodbyes and walked down the steps slowly and turned towards the car.
At the foot of the steps, I stopped and lifted my face to the cool rain-washed breeze. The scent of wet ashes still hung in the air, but it was fading. Over towards the lake, the sky was dotted with dark glorious rain clouds. It was a beautiful day in a beautiful country.
Perhaps, some day, I would discover what one did in Illyria.
WHISKERS AND SMOKE
Also by Marian Babson
NINE LIVES TO MURDER
THE TWELVE DEATHS OF CHRISTMAS
THE DIAMOND CAT
PAWS FOR ALARM
OUTSTANDING PRAISE FOR MARIAN BABSON
The Diamond Cat
“Babson’s latest exceptional plot will please cat fanciers, humorists, and mystery lovers … The fun continues.”
—Library Journal
Nine Lives to Murder
“Quite simply, the cat’s meow.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A giddy, fizzy farce that’s a treat for any cat aficionado.”
—Baltimore Sun
“Hilarious.”
—Hartford Courant
“Cute … I liked it a lot.”
—Mystery News
“Clever and witty entertainment.”
—Booklist
“Fanciful … First-rate.”
—Library Journal
“As usual, Babson’s strengths lie in her characterizations and her wit … Should keep you turning the pages right through to the finish.”
Whiskers & Smoke Page 17