“If you don’t mind. Somewhere around E below Middle C, I think.”
“Where’s that?”
“Right here.” Unhesitatingly, Persis put her finger on one of the strings. “See if you can rake the light sideways, so it’ll shine in underneath.”
“Can you see what’s causing the ting?” Muriel Green was not to be left out.
“Stand back out of the light, Muriel,” her husband told her. “Let Persis see what she’s doing.”
“Daddy, look!” Even though she’d known all along what she was going to see, Persis felt a great surge of relief when the dazzle of precious stones caught the flashlight’s beam. “There it is.”
“There what is?” her mother demanded.
“See for yourself.”
Persis stepped aside. Mrs. Green stuck her head under the propped-up lid of the baby grand.
“Charles! Charles, it’s the brooch! I can’t believe it. How did it ever get down there?”
Her husband shrugged. “Don’t ask me. Seems as if I remember seeing you and Loni over here Saturday night, throwing Persis’s music around. Maybe the brooch got tucked inside the pages or something, and you knocked it between the piano strings without noticing.”
“That’s right, blame me. If you’re so sharp, why couldn’t you have thought to get that flashlight and look in here before? Persis, didn’t you hear that ting when you were practicing?”
“Mama, I haven’t had time to practice. Yesterday I didn’t dare touch the piano, because you had that awful headache. This afternoon I didn’t get a chance because I was helping Loni pull herself together, then I had to fix dinner for Daddy,” Persis replied in a suitably injured tone. “If you’ll get me a ruler or something, I’m quite sure I can poke the brooch out where we can get at it.”
“All that walking for nothing.” Her mother was sighing. “I must have gone into every jewelry store in Lowrey and couldn’t find a thing. And here it was, practically in plain sight all the time.”
“Maybe that’ll teach you to stay out of stores,” her husband told her, coming over to the piano with a paper knife out of his desk. “How’s this, Puss?”
“Perfect. Slim enough to—ah, here we go. Let me just give it another little scoot. Mama, your hands are the thinnest, reach in and pick it up.”
“I’m almost afraid to touch it,” Muriel Green said with unusual humility.
But she did. Half a second later, she was holding the ruby and diamond heart up to the lamplight.
“I hope to heavens Mama never finds out about this. I’d never hear the end of it. You know, Charles, now that I get a good look at this brooch, I must say I don’t think much of Mrs. Cowles’s taste. I’ll bet she gave it to Loni simply because she didn’t care for it herself. Honestly, I almost wish she hadn’t bothered.”
“You and me both.” Her husband sighed. “Why don’t you ask her to take it back?”
“Charles, we can’t do that. She’d be mortally offended.”
“Who cares? We’re too highbrow for the Cowleses, anyway. Parents of a famous piano player!”
“Daddy, I’m not famous yet, or anywhere near it,” Persis protested, though not very hard.
“What are you talking about, Puss? You won the gold medal, didn’t you?”
“Sure, in a state-wide competition. That gives me forty-nine other winners I’ve still got to beat.”
“I’m sure none of them got taken out to dinner by Frederick Lanson.” Muriel Green sniffed. “Not that the Cowleses would even know who he is.”
“It’s Lanscome, Mama.”
How sweet it was! No more put-downs, no more ridiculous clothes, no more having to play reluctant lady-in-waiting to Princess Loni, no more haircuts. Persis was on top now, and she was going to have her revenge. “I’d better write it down for you so you won’t sound stupid when you meet him,” she added kindly.
“Oh, heavens, what shall I wear? What shall I say? How am I going to manage? With the wedding so close and Mary acting so snippy if I ask her to do the least little thing—Charles, do you think he’d be offended if we simply asked him to dinner at the club?”
Persis stared at her mother in amazement. Mrs. Green’s voice was shaky, her hands trembling, her face so pale you could have traced the outlines of her rouge with a pencil. She reminded Persis of—of what? Of those little kids Friday night at the recital, half paralyzed with stage fright because they were being made to step outside their small, familiar worlds and perform on a bigger stage, with strangers looking on and judging.
Persis knew all about stage fright. She’d had it herself often enough, but never like this. She’d always been well-enough prepared, on good enough terms with herself and her music to know she’d be able to do what was expected of her. Muriel Green wasn’t sure. Maybe she’d never been sure. Maybe that was why she had to keep running around fussing and screaming, changing this, changing that, always having to be right, always insisting nobody could do anything but herself. Maybe she was scared to death that if she didn’t keep up her act, people would find out she was really just one of the girls at the club.
Whatever Persis Green turned out to be, she’d never be that. She didn’t need to punish her mother. Muriel Green was handling that job already. As gently as if she were talking to that shivering youngster who’d needed his shoelaces tied so he could walk to the piano without falling on his face, she said, “Don’t worry about it, Mama. I expect Mr. Lanscome will be too busy to bother about dinner. He’ll most likely want us to go over to Lowrey and meet him at the school. Afterward, if you want, we can get together with Gran Green and go out to a restaurant or something.”
“Gran Green? Why does she have to get involved?”
“She’s already involved,” said Persis. “She’s promised to put me up at the apartment any time I need to stay over. And I expect she’ll be coming to concerts and stuff at school.”
“That’ll be fun for Mother,” said Charles Green. “She’ll get a kick out of representing the family.”
“I can’t see why she should be the one,” huffed Muriel Green. Scared or not, she was no quitter. “Persis is my daughter, not hers. Now, Persis, about your hair. I’m sorry that stupid Antoine made such a mess of it, truly I am. I knew I should have stayed and told him what to do. I’ll have to scout around and find you a more reliable hairdresser. As for your wardrobe—”
Here we go again, thought Persis. It was pathetic, it was maddening, but what could you do? Stick her off at the club to play bridge with the girls? Persis glanced at her father and shrugged. Then she smiled. After a moment, he smiled back. She sat down at the piano and started belting out “The Wedding March” from Tannhauser.
“What’s so funny?” her mother demanded. “What are you playing that piece now for?”
“Just trying to get back in the groove,” Persis told her. “Hey, Pop, I don’t know about you, but I’m still hungry from that lousy casserole. What do you say we go out for pizza?”
About the Author
Charlotte MacLeod (1922–2005) was an international-bestselling author of cozy mysteries. Born in Canada, she moved to Boston as a child and lived in New England most of her life. After graduating from college, she made a career in advertising, writing copy for the Stop & Shop Supermarket Company before moving on to Boston firm N. H. Miller & Co., where she rose to the rank of vice president. In her spare time, MacLeod wrote short stories, and in 1964 she published her first novel, a children’s book called Mystery of the White Knight.
In Rest You Merry (1978), MacLeod introduced Professor Peter Shandy, a horticulturist and amateur sleuth whose adventures she would chronicle for two decades. The Family Vault (1979) marked the first appearance of her other best-known characters: the husband and wife sleuthing team Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn, whom she followed until her last novel, The Balloon Man, in 1998.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any
means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1984 by Charlotte MacLeod
Cover design by Jason Gabbert
ISBN 978-1-5040-4505-6
This 2017 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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CHARLOTTE MACLEOD
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