“Never once. I’ll admit my eyes aren’t what they used to be, but I’ve got Earl and his inventory to back me up. He’d squawk fast enough if he found anything missing. No dearie, the only explanation that makes sense to me is a ghost. I don’t know if it’s Uncle Jonathan or Aunt Maude or Cousin Edith or who, but I say it’s a Parlett.”
“What does Bert say?”
“Nothing much I’d care to repeat,” Annie answered primly, “but he’s as stumped as I am.”
“And Claudine?”
“Tells me to say my prayers and keep my door locked, as if I needed to be told.”
“Then they both—” Holly hesitated, not sure how to go on without hurting Annie’s feelings.
“They don’t think I’m dreaming, the way Earl Stoodley does, if that’s what you’re driving at. They know me, you see.”
Holly nodded. She understood now why both Bert and Claudine had shown such a peculiar mixture of eagerness and hesitation about finding a companion for Annie. She ought to resent being put on the spot like this, but she didn’t. For once, she was finding herself needed as a responsive human being instead of merely a prop to dress a stage or focus a lens on. She gave Annie a little hug.
“If it’s one of the Parletts, you shouldn’t have to worry about coming to any harm. You’ve done plenty for them over the years, haven’t you?”
“I’ve done the best I could, dearie, and I’ll keep on as long as the Lord spares me and the family needs me.”
They got to bed at last. Annie must have passed a peaceful night, for Holly never got waked up. She slept until almost eight o’clock, but the extra sleep left her surprisingly unrefreshed. Annie, on the other hand, was chipper as a sparrow.
“That’s the first decent night’s rest I’ve had since I can remember when. Set yourself down, dearie, and let me fix you a nice bowl of porridge. I’ve already fed Mrs. Parlett.”
Holly shuddered at the lumpy, gluey gray mass Annie was offering. “Thanks, but I’d rather have toast and a boiled egg, if we have any.”
“Land, yes, eggs enough to start our own henyard. They’re in that brown crockery bowl in the pantry.”
She started to go for the eggs but Holly stopped her. “I’ll do it, Annie. You shouldn’t be waiting on me. I meant to be down in time to cook breakfast for you.”
“Ah, it takes an old fox to beat a young chicken,” Annie bubbled. “You sure you won’t have any porridge? You young things, always fussing about your figures! When I was a girl, boys liked a girl with a waist they could really get hold of. Land alive! Aunt Maude must be rolling over in her grave, me saying a thing like that. Anyway, dearie, you’d better eat hearty. We’ve a big day ahead of us.”
“Why? What’s happening?”
“Professor Cawne telephoned just a little while before you came down. He’s coming out here with Earl Stoodley to take pictures, and he says you’re going to be in on it.”
Holly dropped her egg into the pan too quickly and cracked the shell. “Blast! Yes, I did promise to help but I thought he’d give me a day or so to get squared away first. I don’t know what shots he’s planning to take, what he wants for props or backgrounds—”
Since Annie didn’t have the faintest idea what she was talking about and since she couldn’t do anything now anyway except muddle through, Holly quit sputtering and concentrated on making toast the way Annie showed her. You speared a slice of bread with a long fork, lifted a stove lid, and held the bread close to the shimmering red embers just long enough, but not too long or you’d wind up with charcoal. It was remarkably good toast, when you managed it right. Holly was working on her third slice when Earl Stoodley’s Ford and Geoffrey Cawne’s gray Jaguar swished up to the front portico.
Both men jumped out and started lugging in a great deal of equipment. Stoodley tripped over the leg of a tripod and almost went flying on his fat face. That brightened Holly’s morning a little. Puttering around with things she knew and understood was fun, too, even with Earl making inane comments and the floodlights giving her the creeps every time she got too close to one.
Geoffrey Cawne hadn’t just been modest about calling himself an amateur with a camera, she found. He didn’t know the first thing about rigging reflectors to eliminate shadows or other technicalities.
Holly tried to persuade him that the little galleried table would be a good subject to start on, both because of its historical interest and because it was small enough to give few problems photographically. Like a typical amateur, though, Geoffrey set his heart on an immense armoire that stood in a next-to-impossible location, was too heavy to move, and had stacks of assorted junk piled in front of it. They spent half the morning just clearing away debris, sweeping the floor, dusting and polishing the armoire, and draping a white bedsheet behind it to provide a less distracting background than the dismal, stained wallpaper.
Earl Stoodley toiled gamely, keeping up a brave pretense of knowing what the activity was all about. Annie Blodgett hovered wherever she’d be most in the way chirping, “When are you going to take the picture?” over and over like an elderly parakeet until Holly shooed her away to make them all a nice cup of tea. She for one desperately needed it.
Then they had to drink the tea. Then they had to focus the camera. Then they had to figure out why Geoffrey’s expensive strobe flash wouldn’t go off when it was supposed to. Then at last they took the picture.
Once he’d got rolling, Geoffrey took a great many exposures: with the cabinet doors closed, with them open, with one open and the other shut, then the closed door open and the open one shut. He shot from the front, the right, the left, from a high angle, from a low angle. Annie wondered how many pictures of that old wardrobe he was going to put in his book, for the land’s sake.
“One,” Cawne replied cheerfully.
“Then why in tarnation didn’t you take just one?”
“That’s not how it’s done,” Earl Stoodley told her.
“Cat’s foot, Earl! You know no more about it than I do.”
Annie was really perking this morning, no more the cringing little crone who’d peered so timorously at them through the curtains only a day ago.
“Earl’s right, Mrs. Blodgett,” said Cawne. “The idea is to take a great many different pictures, then pick out the one that shows the subject to best advantage. That’s how professional photographers work. Right, Holly?”
“Absolutely. Sometimes they may take as many as thirty or forty shots just to get one that’s right in every way. We’re not doing too badly on shooting time compared to some sessions I’ve been involved with. Of course a lot of the time the model’s just sitting around trying not to chew her fingernails no matter how frustrated she gets.”
She held out grubby hands with two nails already broken off. “Good thing I’ve retired from modeling, or you’d have to find yourself another prop girl.”
“I’d hate that.” Geoffrey’s smile was worth the loss of a few fingernails.
By now it was well past noon. Holly expected Annie to offer the men a bite to eat but she didn’t, not even when Earl started croaking about how his stomach told him it was dinnertime.
“So it is,” said Cawne in apparent surprise. “I must get along or my housekeeper will be annoyed. Is there any chance of coming back and taking another shot or two this afternoon, do you think?”
“You come right ahead, Professor,” Stoodley took it upon himself to answer. “And Holly, you help him like you been doing. This is more important than running that old Hoover. We’ll have to bring in a professional cleaning crew anyway.”
When Mrs. Parlett died, he meant. At least he had sense enough not to say so. The men went away, leaving their equipment strewn around, and the women turned toward the kitchen.
“Annie, why didn’t you offer to fix them a sandwich or something?” Holly asked her.
“And have Earl Stoodley throw it up to me forever after about feeding outsiders at the estate’s expense, even if it was himself that ate
the grub? You don’t know Earl the way I do, dearie. I don’t know’s I’d go so far as to call him dishonest, but I sure wouldn’t trust him to sell me a horse, as Uncle Jonathan used to say. Not that I’m in the market for one, or ever will be. What do you want for dinner?”
“What’s on the menu? By the way, how do we manage about groceries?”
“Claudine phones once or twice a week and asks what I need. Then she gets it and either Earl or Bert brings up the bundles. That’s one reason I have to watch my step. Earl knows to a penny what we spend on food here, and don’t think he’s above prying around in the pantry to make sure I haven’t snuck in an extra can of beans.”
“How do you account for what Bert Walker eats?”
“Why should I have to? Bert’s hired help, same as you or me. Jonathan Parlett never begrudged a decent meal to anybody that worked for him and neither will I, long as I’m running this kitchen. I told Earl Stoodley so to his face, and I guess Claudine must have stuck up for me because I never heard any more about that. We might as well open a can of chicken soup. I can always get that down Mrs. Parlett with no trouble. Chicken’s her favorite, Claudine says. I get sick and tired of it, myself.”
“Then why don’t you ask Claudine to buy something else for a change? How does Claudine know what Mrs. Parlett likes anyway, if they’ve been on the outs all this time?”
“Now dearie, don’t you go blaming Claudine. It’s not easy for her.”
“Then why doesn’t she make it easier? If Claudine’s so concerned about her great-aunt, I can’t for the life of me understand why she never comes to see her.”
“Claudine would never do that!”
Annie sounded so upset that Holly dropped the subject and sat down to her chicken soup. Didn’t they ever have salads or fresh fruit at Cliff House? She’d have to try a little diplomacy about the shopping list when Earl Stoodley came back for the afternoon’s photography session.
Chapter 9
TO HER SURPRISE, CAWNE returned alone. “Why, Geoffrey,” Holly exclaimed, “what happened to our beloved trustee?”
“Earl found he had pressing business elsewhere. I suspect he’s become disenchanted with the glamorous world of photography. I hope you’re not?”
“Oh no, I’m still enchanted as anything. What shall we do next?”
“Stoodley tells me there’s a wig stand on which a distant relative of Queen Anne once parked his peruke. That sounds intriguing, don’t you think? Could Mrs. Blodgett find it for us?”
“I expect so. She’s upstairs right now, giving Mrs. Parlett her back rub. I’ll go and ask.”
“No, Holly, please don’t leave me alone.”
“Why not? Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the ghost?”
“No, I’m afraid of Stoodley, to be honest. He’s terrified of losing his prize exhibits, and I don’t want anyone ever to say I was given the chance to pinch something. I’m sure he phoned here as soon as he got home, to give you dire warnings against letting me roam about on my own.”
“Nothing of the sort,” said Holly. “He did give me a strong warning against letting people into the house and so did Claudine Parlett, but Earl says you’re to have all the help you want. You must be on his top security clearance list.”
“Well, well!” Cawne found that idea vastly amusing. “If Stoodley knew what a jungle the groves of academe can be, he’d think twice about turning me loose in here. Be that as it may, I’d still rather you stayed close to me. For more reasons than one, if I dare say so.”
Holly wasn’t sure how to take that. “So that while I’m watching you, you can keep an eye on me? Maybe Earl Stoodley’s been talking to you, too.”
“I assure you he hasn’t.”
Cawne looked so discomfited that Holly apologized. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I didn’t realize what I was taking on till I got here. I thought Cliff House would be full of mustache cups and antimacassars. Instead, here’s all this priceless stuff. It’s scary.”
“I can see it would be,” he agreed. “For me their value is in their historical associations, but I know some people do pay tremendous sums for the dubious privilege of owning pieces that ought to be in public museums. Well, since we have to wait for the wig stand, what shall we do to fill the time? I’ll let you pick one.”
“How about this Bible box? See how well it’s preserved?”
“If you say so.” Cawne didn’t act thrilled by her choice, though he started loading his camera while Holly set up the shot.
“Would it be too hokey to set a candlestick next to the Bible box and maybe lay a pair of those tiny Ben Franklin spectacles on the table? I think there’s a pair in the back parlor. We could go together to look for them,” she couldn’t resist adding.
“So we could, like Jack and Jill. I’m rather up on nursery rhymes. One of my young lady students did a paper on Mother Goose. Your idea sounds delightful. What we need is a pewter candlestick. Is there one about, do you know?”
There wasn’t, only fancy Victorian wrought-iron affairs that Geoffrey said wouldn’t do at all. They settled for a squat green glass inkwell with a somewhat moth-eaten turkey quill stuck into the neck. The feather’s vertical arc would break up the austere squareness of the box.
Holly fussed with her props, taking out the huge leather-bound Bible and opening it to the pages where births and deaths had been recorded down through the generations. The inkstand could suggest somebody was about to add a new leaf to the family tree.
But there’d never be any more babies at Cliff House. Soon Earl Stoodley would be happily scrawling “Died” after Mrs. Parlett’s name, and that would be that. She wished she’d picked a different subject.
Geoffrey must have wished so, too. He was polite about her arrangement but wasted little film on the shot. After a couple of exposures, he asked, “What next?”
Holly couldn’t help feeling dashed. “Aren’t you going to take any with the lid open?”
“I don’t see why. There’s nothing interesting about the inside.”
But there was. As Holly raised the lid to put the Bible back in, she noticed a little stain on the wood, shaped exactly like a swimming duck. She slammed down the lid, praying Geoffrey wouldn’t notice her hands were shaking. Now she knew why the box was in such a remarkable state of preservation. That stain was her own blood.
It had happened the first time Fan had dragged her along on a lumber raid. In wrenching a board loose, Holly had slashed her finger painfully. She’d got no sympathy.
“Don’t bleed on the wood,” Fan had screamed. “The stain will never come out.”
The warning had come too late. A drop had already fallen on the dried-out board. Holly remembered how she’d stood appalled, watching the blood spread into that oddly whimsical shape while Fan railed at her.
“Now see what you’ve done! Roger will have a fit.”
He’d been none too happy, at any rate. The board was perfect for his need but barely adequate even if he used every inch. There was no way he could cut around the blemish. She could still see him turning the board this way and that, peering to make sure the stain hadn’t seeped through to the right side while she’d stood wailing, “I only bled a little!” It wasn’t the sort of episode one would be apt to forget.
And this must be why time, tribulation, and Annie’s rotten housekeeping hadn’t dulled the finish on that exquisite, supposedly precious little table Holly’d been marveling at yesterday. It hadn’t been here long enough.
“I wish we could find that wig stand,” Cawne was complaining.
What was she to say? “Stick around, my brother’s probably making it right now.” Holly struggled to keep her voice casual. “I expect Annie will be down in a minute. Come on, let’s go holler at her up the stairs.”
She wished he’d leave her alone so she could think. If this so-called Mrs. Brown was tricking Roger into supplying duplicates for stolen antiques, Holly must let him know right away so he wouldn’t get in any deeper. But was Mrs. Bro
wn the one responsible? Maybe it was Fan who tricked him, or maybe Roger was pulling a fast one on his doting wife. Or maybe they were working the racket together and Holly herself was cast as their innocent accomplice. Who’d ever believe she hadn’t come here on purpose to help them rob Cliff House of its valuables?
She was in a more dangerous spot right now than she’d been the instant before that floodlight blew up. And all she could think of to do was act as if she didn’t know it.
“Annie,” she called, trying to sound normal, “are you almost finished up there? We’re trying to find a wig stand.”
“A what?” The housekeeper came to the head of the stairs and began picking her way down, cumbered by an armload of soiled bedding. “Just let me get these sheets down to the washtub.”
“I’ll take them.”
“No, dearie. I’m used to it and you’re not. She can’t help herself, poor soul.”
“Oh.” Holly stepped back. No wonder Annie never got around to cleaning, if this was the sort of thing she’d been coping with every day by herself. Yet Annie was smiling when she came back to them.
“Now, where did I last see that wig stand? Seems to me we stuck it out in the woodshed behind those boxes of stuff left over from when Mathilde’s cousin Lenore’s daughter-in-law Delphine closed out her millinery shop.”
Sure enough, the precious relic turned up behind a stack of perished cartons filled with bedraggled veiling and artificial flowers. Cawne was aghast.
“Was there no limit to the junk that woman saved? Here’s a restoration job for your brother, at any rate,” he remarked as he tried to make the broken legs stand upright.
Holly shivered. It would be all too easy for Roger to provide Cliff House with a brand-new genuine antique wig stand. What sort of mess had he gotten his family into?
Chapter 10
“I’D SAY WE’VE DONE a creditable day’s work, wouldn’t you?”
Without waiting for her answer, Geoffrey slung the strap of his camera case over his shoulder. “You won’t mind my leaving the rest of the stuff here? It’s such a nuisance dragging it back and forth. See you tomorrow.”
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