by Maia Chance
“I see.” Jillie did say that Theo had behaved in a rushed and awkward fashion. If he’d been about to sick up, he would have seemed rushed and awkward.
“Satisfied?” Theo asked.
I glanced at Berta. She nodded.
“Yes, thanks,” I said to Theo. “Have a delightful evening, boys!” I picked up the end of Cedric’s leash and tugged him out of the office.
“Theo knew in advance that he stood to inherit,” I said to Berta once we were back outside on the quadrangle. The rain had let up, and the crisp evening air was smoky with the scents of autumn. “Marvelous bluffing, Berta.”
“Thank you.”
“And I didn’t buy his line about the lady graduate-student friend at Hunter College. Hunter College ladies are bona fide bluestockings. If he even mentioned stenography courses to one of them, they’d throw their coffee in his face.”
* * *
Back at the Old Whaler’s Inn, I parted ways with Berta in the upstairs corridor. I still hadn’t told her that I’d invited Eustace along to spy on the holiday cottages on the waterfront. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, even though I fully realized that this was just as unpartnerlike as I had accused her of being.
I found my small room. Although stale with mildew, slope-ceilinged, and furnished with dumpy antiques, it was indeed equipped with its own tiny bathroom as well as an electric fire. I changed into thick woolen layers, reapplied my lipstick, and, inspired, added my new fisherman’s raincoat and hat. I’d purchased them to make that shopkeeper sing, but I decided I may as well put them to good use. Then I wondered what to do with Cedric. I couldn’t leave him in my room, because he had a bad cushion-chewing habit. Nor did I wish to entrust him to Knobby Wrists. I’d probably find Cedric’s bangs greased and down-combed upon my return.
“You may leave the dog with Mother,” Knobby Wrists said when I explained that I needed to venture forth—for exercise—in the rain and did not wish to subject my dog to the ill weather. “She enjoys dogs. You will find her in the kitchen.” He pointed past the staircase, where light leaked from a cracked door.
“Thank you,” I said, and with Cedric in my arms, I went with trepidation to the kitchen.
It turned out that cadaverous, monotone clerks sometimes have old dears for their mothers. Mrs. Lancaster—that was her name, she told me—stood over a pot of something bubbling and delicious-smelling, and agreed to look after Cedric. “I’ll feed him, too, if you like.”
“All right, but his eyes are bigger than his stomach.”
“His stomach looks plenty big to me.”
* * *
Berta, with her handbag slung over her arm, was speaking with Knobby Wrists at the front desk when I returned. She, too, had taken the practical step of donning her new yellow raincoat and hat, and she resembled an enormous rubber ducky. She turned to me with a victorious glitter in her eye. “Mr. Lancaster tells me that a lady matching the description of our friend has been letting the cottage with the blue door, just down the path from the Carvington Fish Company warehouse.”
The front door opened and Eustace strode in with a baffle of wet wind. “Good heavens, is that you, Lola?” he said to Berta.
“No.” Berta flipped up the brim of her hat.
“Oh. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Lundgren.” Eustace turned to me. He wore a posh-looking oiled canvas coat, tall hunting boots, and a tweed hat with the brim turned down. “Hello, Lola. So nice to see you again. Heavens, you do look rather sweet in that getup.”
“These old things?” I smoothed my rubbery cuff.
Berta gave a ladylike snort.
“Well, then, shall we be off?” Eustace said.
Berta started, and then sent me a frown. This was the first she was hearing of Eustace accompanying us. I shrugged, which only made her frown deepen.
“And how are things at Montgomery Hall, Lord Sudley?” she asked.
“A bit tense, truthfully. I get the distinct impression Theo would like me to leave posthaste.”
“Is Mr. Eccles still there?” Berta’s face was cherubically blank.
“Oh yes. Still sorting out reams of papers and so forth, and he’s urging Theo to write out a will of his own.”
My scalp prickled. In the opulent world I’d inhabited for the duration of my adult life, new wills always spelled ill will. Sometimes they even spelled malice.
“What about Coral?” I asked.
“Still loafing about. I can’t think why Theo hasn’t tossed her out. She really seems to give him the pip. I suppose it’s because she’s so dashed pretty.”
“I gathered that Miss Murden has been kept on,” I said. I thought of the extra click on the line earlier.
“Yes, Theo agreed he requires a housekeeper and, well, Miss Murden is already ensconced. Shall we be off?”
* * *
Approximately ten minutes later, Eustace and I were lurking in the dark beneath a tree across from the waterfront buildings. Berta had toddled away with the camera to the Carvington Fish Co. warehouse, where she intended to take some photographs provided she could locate the light switch.
What had happened to Ralph? I hadn’t seen him since we left Theo’s office at Fisk Hall. Had he given up on tailing us? He wasn’t the type to throw in the towel.
“It’s the cottage with the blue door,” I whispered to Eustace over the swish of salty wind. “No lights on. Our impostor must not be at home. Let’s go.” I couldn’t wait to find out who this woman truly was.
“Do you mean to … break in?”
“I do it all the time,” I said. “Is that troubling?”
“No, actually, it’s rather … stimulating.”
We crossed the road and Eustace tried the doorknob.
“Dash it all,” he said. “It’s locked.”
I wiggled the sash window nearest the front door. “It’s not latched, but it’s a little swollen from all this rain—ah—there we go.” I got the window mostly open, slung a leg over the sill, and ducked inside. Eustace followed and closed the window behind him.
The darkened cottage was furnished with humble furniture, faded quilts, hooked rugs, and driftwood bric-a-brac. In the little kitchen, food-crusted pots and pans littered the stove, and an unlit kerosene lantern sat on the table.
“That must be the lantern she was carrying in the woods the night before last,” I whispered. “That was her!”
“Lola,” Eustace murmured behind me.
I turned. “What is it?”
His dark eyes glittered, and the thin blue light from the window made his features more Mr. Rochester–like than ever. He was leaning slowly toward me with the very specific look of focus men get when they’ve got One Thing on the brain. He murmured, “Good God, you’re so deuced alluring when you’re playing at detective.”
“I’m not playing,” I said, drawing back with a frown. “If there is nothing else here in the kitchen, let’s check the bedroom.” As an afterthought, I peered into the icebox. A bottle of milk and two eggs.
We went up the creaky staircase to the single loft bedroom. A suitcase sprawled open on the floor, and a few books sat on the nightstand. I went to the nightstand and Eustace went to the suitcase.
The topmost book was a ten-cent romance titled Lady Clarissa’s Fall. Underneath lay a well-worn copy of Lost Treasures of the United States, by Mordecai Kennington III. “Good golly!” I said. “This is the book Berta saw in Glenn Monroe’s valise—not the same copy, of course. This one’s much more worn. The impostor is a treasure hunter! I knew it.”
Eustace came over and looked over my shoulder. I flipped Lost Treasures of the United States open to the bookmark—a grimy joker playing card—to a chapter titled “Treasures of the Nautical Northeast.” A passage had been underlined in pencil:
This local legend is all the more piquant for having a ghost story wrapped up in its threads. The old sages of Carvington swear that a spectral woman in white guards the treasure buried on the estate. Whether she is the widow of whaler C
aptain Montgomery, a colonial dame, or perhaps some tragic Pequot maiden, no one is able to agree. The sages do agree, however, that whoever draws too near the hidden treasure will be haunted by the woman in white. It was even reported to me that in 1881, a young woman visiting from Maine was pushed to her death on the Montgomery mansion’s stairs by the ghost. Another account tells of the ghost walking for eternity back and forth along the old colonists’ farm wall, now deep in the trees of the estate, while yet another account claims that in 1902, a history professor from the nearby college was attacked with a large stone by the specter near the old Indian oyster-fishing place, and that he languished for weeks before dying. What these anecdotes suggest about the location of the lost treasure is up to the reader to decide.
Goose bumps tingled my arms. “If I believed in ghosts, I’d say that the treasure was either hidden in the house—near the stairs, perhaps—buried along this stone wall, or else buried at this old Indian oyster-fishing spot. I saw that stone wall. But where could the oyster-fishing spot be?”
“Well, oysters grow in shallow, protected waters,” Eustace said. “Coves and bays and so forth.”
Mental note: Tell Berta about the real estate preferences of oysters.
I returned the book to the nightstand. “Was there anything interesting in the suitcase?”
“Only clothing. Oh—and a small theatrical makeup kit.”
“Theatrical makeup?” Greasepaint. That scrap of golden paper I’d found outside the conservatory yesterday …
“Mm. I suspect our impostor is an actress.”
Downstairs, the front door banged shut.
“Oh dear,” Eustace murmured.
I looked around desperately. No closets, no wardrobe, and no way my womanly bulges would compress enough to fit under that bed.
“What does a professional detective do in this sort of circumstance?” Eustace asked me.
“Run.” I dashed to the windows and looked out. The porch roof was right there, and not too steep. I unlatched the window, wiggled up the sash, and squeezed through. “Hurry!”
Out came Eustace’s big boot. He made it out and we were both clinging to the windowsill, standing on the slippery porch roof. Eustace edged to the drainpipe, grabbed it, and slowly slid down. I slid down next. I’d made it halfway when the drainpipe groaned and split off from the side of the house. I clung like a bug, legs kicking into nothingness, as the drainpipe slowly bent to a right angle and deposited me neatly on the wet ground.
We ran across the dark road to the tree. We were both panting when we stopped, and when we looked at each other, we burst out laughing.
“Oh, Lola Woodby, I am perishingly fond of you,” Eustace murmured, and drawing me close, he kissed me silly. My knees wobbled, my breath quickened, and various things tingled and fluttered because, well, Eustace was an awfully good kisser. His hands on my shoulders were firm and comforting, and he smelled wonderful, too, like shaving balm from Selfridges and peppermints from Harvey Nichols and, faintly, the sort of saddle soap reserved for the tack of prizewinning Arabian horses.
My heart alone was unresponsive. It sat in my chest, beating placidly, refusing to join in the festivities. Which was perfectly fine with me. My heart had done nothing but hurt me.
My eyes happened to rove past Eustace’s shoulder. A man-shaped silhouette assembled itself in the grainy shadows beside the impostor’s cottage.
Ralph.
He dissolved back into the darkness. He’d seen me in Eustace’s arms.
Well, super. It was best that he knew I had no intention of going stale on the shelf.
22
Eustace and I kissed a little longer, although I couldn’t seem to keep my mind on it anymore.
“Look,” I said, pulling away. “I see a woman through the cottage windows.”
We watched as a figure moved to and fro in the main-floor rooms. She wore a dark fisherman’s raincoat, but her gray, frizzy head was bare. She was, without question, the woman who had claimed to be Isobel Bradford the day Rudy was shot. She’d been here all along, a mere mile from Montgomery Hall. She could have shot Rudy. Surely she could have stolen into the house and poisoned Glenn’s Alkacine, too, or maybe she had even done that before she left the house the first time.
She could be our killer.
“I have a good mind to march right in there and demand an explanation,” Eustace said.
“No. Look—she’s going out again. Let’s follow her. If we confront her, she’ll probably lie, but if we catch her in the act of treasure hunting, even take some photographs…” I squinted toward the fishing warehouse. “Berta should be done by now. I wonder what’s keeping her.”
“Well, you haven’t the time to wonder,” Eustace whispered, “because there goes your quarry.”
The impostor stepped out of the cottage, carrying a shovel and the unlit kerosene lantern. She peered up and down the road, and then headed toward the Montgomery estate.
Eustace and I waited until she was on the path leading up the slope toward the forest. Then we followed. At the top of the path, I looked down at the moonlit sea. Wind buffeted up off the water, stinging my cheeks and filling my ears. Just past the breakers, a small boat was sailing west.
“I wonder why that boat doesn’t have any lights on,” I said.
“Mm. Seems a bit foolhardy.”
We plunged into the dark trees, and our pace lagged as we strained to make out the path. Wind shuffled the branches overhead, and racing clouds made the moonlight flicker like a movie projector.
“There she is,” I whispered to Eustace, pointing. “She’s keeping to the path.”
“Walking with a good bit of purpose, too, as though she’s already decided where she’ll dig this evening.”
On and on the impostor walked, keeping to the trail that followed the tumbling stone wall. I developed a blister on my right pinky toe. Perhaps T-straps had not been the wisest choice.
As we approached the field that extended to the house—I could see its lights winking between the trees—a woman’s voice somewhere behind me said, “Lolaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.”
For crying out loud.
I spun around in time to see—oh golly—a white form flit behind a tree trunk.
“Eustace!” I whispered. He was hiking ahead, oblivious. Why hadn’t he heard the voice? Was it because of the wind? Why hadn’t he noticed me stopping? “Eustace!” I whispered, more loudly.
Still, he kept going. I hesitated for a split second. I could yell for Eustace or run after him—two methods that would alert the Isobel Bradford impostor to our presence—or go to the tree behind which the white form had disappeared and sort things out. Alone.
I went to the tree. Forced myself to the tree, even though it felt as though the air had grown frigid and honey-thick.
Wait. Wasn’t that what the air always did in Spectral Stories?
I reached the tree. Slowly, very slowly, I tiptoed around it, sticks and leaves crunching underfoot in the darkness. On the other side was—nothing.
WHACK! Something hit the back of my head with pitiless force. Stars exploded, and I was falling forward.
I broke my fall with my hands, my right wrist trilling with pain. Panting, I lifted my head. I caught the briefest glimpse of that wicked white form before it disappeared behind another tree trunk.
I scrambled to my feet, woozy and flooded with pain. I staggered through the underbrush in the direction the form had gone, screaming “EUSTACE! EUSTACE!”
“Lola?” I heard him shout in the middle distance. “Lola! Where are you?”
“Over here!” I cried. “Come quickly!”
I reached the second tree behind which the apparition had disappeared, circled around. Again, nothing.
Except—pounding footsteps coming closer, closer—
A bulky shape in a raincoat with a shovel and a swinging, unlit lantern stampeded past.
The Isobel Bradford impostor. She’d heard Eustace and me yelling, and she was running back to
her rented cottage.
Oh no. She would not get away this time.
“Hold it right there!” I shouted.
I suppose my tone was not sufficiently masterful, because she continued to run.
I started after her, but immediately tripped on a tree root.
“Allow me to handle this,” Eustace said, appearing out of the shadows pushing, of all things, a bicycle. “And look what I’ve found. I’ll just—”
“No!” I yelled. “This is my investigation and my suspect—rats, she’s going to get away.” I ripped the bicycle handlebars from Eustace, threw my leg over, and, despite the wobbling front wheel and my throbbing wrist and head, pedaled furiously in the direction the impostor had fled.
“Lola!” Eustace called after me.
The going was bumpy, and wet branches raked and stung my cheeks, but soon the jogging silhouette of the impostor was once more within view. I dug deep into the pedals, closer, closer—when she glanced back, I saw the whites of her eyes—
My front wheel hit a rock. I pitched over the handlebars and felled the impostor like a lioness upon a gazelle. Or perhaps a rhinoceros upon another rhinoceros.
She struggled beneath me in a tangle of raincoats, crying, “Get off!”
I pinned her shoulders with all my strength. We were both breathing hard. “The police are on the way,” I lied, “but maybe I’ll let you go if you tell me what you’re doing out here.” She could’ve been the murderer, of course, but I had no other way to coerce her.
“Promise?”
“Sure.” I sat back heavily, and the impostor struggled upright.
“Why are you following me?” She stood. Her frizzled gray hair was a cloud around her face. Her eyes gleamed like black buttons.
“I’m a detective,” I said, getting to my feet. “Who are you, and why did you steal that invitation from Isobel Bradford’s brownstone in Boston?”