Mary Beth took the bracelet, examining it, touching one finger to the little silver skein of embroidery floss and then to the tiny button next to it. “It is awfully cute. Some of the ones I’ve seen are just too big and junky looking. This one is beautifully made and really quite delicate.”
“Does that mean you’ll carry them in the shop?” Alice lifted her eyebrows hopefully. “They’re really popular right now.”
“This is a needlework shop, not a jewelry store.”
Mary Beth’s tone was firm, but Alice was the consummate saleswoman.
“But you know women who do needlework will just eat this up. Come on. You want one yourself, don’t you? I can tell you do. I know it’s not much, but I thought it might in some tiny way help you keep the shop going until everything is settled one way or the other.”
A touch of a smile tugged at the corner of Mary Beth’s mouth. “They’re awfully cute.”
“And you’d get half the retail price in commissions. What do you say?”
“I don’t know.” Mary Beth glanced at Annie.
“What would it hurt to try?” Annie toyed with the bracelet Mary Beth still held, running her finger lightly under the dangling charms, making them dance. “I’ll be your first customer.”
Mary Beth closed her hand, and the dancing stopped. “No, really, I can’t. I don’t have time for this kind of thing. I don’t want to be a Princessa rep or a rep for anybody. I don’t want to sign up for anything or take training or go to meetings or—”
“No, no.” Alice waived one hand to stop her. “You don’t have to do any of that. I’ll be the rep. I’ll take care of the paperwork and ordering the merchandise and everything else. All you have to do is let these sit on your counter here—right where all the good little impulse items go—and sell themselves. You take half the money, and I send the rest to the company. Now what could be easier than that?”
Again Mary Beth glanced at Annie.
“Sounds like a great deal to me,” Annie said.
Alice held up another Princessa box, this one smaller than the one that had held the bracelet, and gave it a little rattling shake. “They have matching earrings.”
“Oh, all right!” Mary Beth held up her hands in surrender as the bell on the front door jingled again, and Peggy and Gwen came into the shop. “I’ll give them a week.”
“Give what a week?” Gwen asked as she put her knitting bag in her usual chair.
“Oooh, I love these. Look at the little tape measure.” Peggy took the bracelet and draped it across her wrist. “Are you selling them, Alice?”
Alice shook her head. “Mary Beth is. Aren’t they too cute? You know, Wally should get you one for your birthday next month.”
“Good idea.” Peggy admired the bracelet for a moment more and then passed it to Gwen. “I’ll tell him to surprise me.”
“Pretty,” Gwen said, handing it back to Mary Beth. “But I’m dying to know more about your clock. I heard it was stolen from the repair shop. What did the police say? When do you have to go to court?”
“Looks like never, I’m afraid. The police released him after questioning because they have no evidence.”
Mary Beth sat down in one of the cozy chairs, and the others joined her, Alice and Gwen and Peggy talking over each other, expressing varying degrees of surprise and outrage, and asking what had happened. By the time Mary Beth had explained the situation to them, they all had their projects out and had started working.
“Oh, but your beautiful clock!” Peggy pulled a length of red thread from her spool and snipped it off. “What are you going to do, Mary Beth?”
“I don’t guess there’s much I can do. Annie and I were talking about this before Alice came in. Whoever picked up the clock must have known my name and Annie’s, and that the clock was at that particular shop.”
“I don’t know who that could be if it wasn’t this Frank Sanders person.” Alice squinted at the piece of pale blue linen she was cross-stitching, counting threads until she found the right place to start her next color. “But how did he know about the shop?”
“He definitely wasn’t the one who picked up the clock,” Mary Beth told her. “The police even checked that he really does have his own hair. The guy who took the clock was nearly bald.”
“Frank Sanders would be too,” Annie said, “if Mary Beth had her way.”
Again the bell on the door jingled, and Stella came in.
“Sorry I’m a bit late. Jason had taken something apart in the engine, and it took him a little longer than he thought to get it running again so he could drive me here. What have I missed?”
Gwen sighed. “Mary Beth was just telling us that the police can’t do anything about getting her clock back.”
“I was afraid that might happen. It’s a pity, Mary Beth, dear, and I’m sorry, but I’m not surprised.” Stella sank into a chair and took her knitting from her bag. “It’s not like they can post an officer to watch every petty thief twenty-four hours a day.”
Alice squinted at her pattern and then took another stitch. “I wish there was something we could do. Some way we could make him tell us where the clock is. He must have it hidden somewhere.”
“Well, he’s not likely to just tell us if we ask nicely.” Annie thought for a moment. “There has to be some way to make him show us where it is.”
“Like that Sherlock Holmes story,” Gwen said, “where he pretends the house is on fire to make the woman show where she’s hidden the picture she’s using for blackmail.”
Annie tapped the arm of her chair with the tips of her fingers. “Except we wouldn’t know what to set on fire.”
“Pretend to set on fire,” Gwen reminded her.
“Pretend to set on fire. We’d still have to have some idea where he has the clock before that kind of plan would work. But the basic idea is right. We have to figure out some way to make him give himself away.” Annie shrugged. “Well, no need for us all to sit around all morning. Let’s get back to work, and maybe one of us will think of something. All we have to do is figure out how to light a fire under Mr. Sanders.”
12
Mary Beth carried her groceries into the house that evening, trying to keep from dropping anything. She always tried to carry too much at once, attempting to cut down on the number of trips from her car to the house. Invariably, it ended up being harder and took more time to keep everything balanced and intact than it would have if she had taken more trips with smaller loads.
She managed to get everything into the kitchen and was starting to put things away when the telephone rang. Why did people always have to call just as she got home? She decided to ignore the call, at least for the moment, and kept on putting frozen items into her freezer. The answering machine finally picked up, and she stopped for a moment, listening for the message that would follow the beep.
“Mary Beth, it’s Melanie. I need you to call me right away.”
Melanie again. And as usual, she sounded ticked off. She could wait.
“I told you not to bother Amy with your problems,” Melanie continued. “I mean it. Call me!”
“All right. All right,” Mary Beth muttered as she grabbed one of the grocery bags. “As usual, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’ll call you. Give me just a minute.”
She made the mistake of holding the bag at the top rather than supporting it at the bottom. Before she got to the pantry, the paper tore through. Various cans of soup, fruit and vegetables thudded to the floor. A can of spaghetti sauce rolled until it bumped into the refrigerator and came to a stop.
She closed her eyes, forcing herself not to scream in frustration, when the telephone started ringing again.
“Listen, Mary Beth, I can’t imagine why you think Amy should have to deal with—”
Mary Beth snatched up the phone. “What is it, Melanie? I just got home and haven’t had a chance to even catch my breath. What exactly is going on?”
“I knew you were there.” Her sis
ter sounded pleased to be offended. “I’m too busy to play telephone tag with you. I’d appreciate it if you’d just answer your phone when I call. It’s not like I just call up to chat.”
“Heaven forbid.”
There was a moment of silence.
“You know I’m very busy.” Melanie’s voice was frigid. “I certainly don’t have time to keep calling you about this. I told you before to not bother Amy with your problems.”
“I haven’t bothered Amy with my problems. I’ve hardly had time to speak to her since the last time we talked about this. What’s wrong now?”
“She’s still badgering me about buying that building you’re in and renting it out to you. Now she’s even asking me to have some of our designers work on original patterns for crochet and knitwear for your shop to carry exclusively. It’s a ridiculous idea, and I’d appreciate it if you’d stop putting this sort of thing into her head.”
Mary Beth closed her eyes. It would be a brilliant idea. Melanie was certainly in a position to arrange that sort of thing, but Mary Beth would never expect it of her. “Listen, it’s sweet of Amy to try to help me, but really, it’s not necessary. I have someone who designs patterns for the shop already, and she does a fabulous job. I know you’re busy, and I know you’re not interested in investing in Stony Point or A Stitch in Time or having your name associated with it. Let me make it as clear as I can: I don’t expect anything from you. You have your own business to run. I’ll call Amy and tell her to leave you alone about this. Will that meet with your approval?”
“I already told her I wasn’t doing anything of the kind. You don’t need to call her. She thinks I’m a tyrant as it is.”
Mary Beth fought the urge to rub in her own rapport with Amy. No need to dump gasoline on that fire. “What do you want me to do? I’ve already said I didn’t ask her to talk to you about this. I can call her and tell her plainly that I’m not asking for anything from you and ask that she not discuss the matter with you again. Or I can refrain from calling her about it. I can’t do both, and I can’t do neither. Which would make you happy?”
Melanie fumed in silence for a moment.
“Do whatever you want,” she said at last and hung up.
Mary Beth clicked off the telephone, and as much as she would have liked to hurl it across the room, she instead set it with a forced gentleness into the charger. The moment she did, it rang again.
I don’t need more of this right now, Mel.
She let it ring twice more and then picked up.
“Hello?”
“Is this Mary Beth Brock?”
The voice on the other end of the line was female, very businesslike, and unknown to Mary Beth.
“Yes?”
“This is Officer Wiesner with the Brunswick Police Department. I’m calling regarding the charges you filed against Frank Sanders in the matter of your antique clock.”
“Oh yes! Have you found out anything else? You haven’t gotten the clock back, have you?”
“I’m sorry, no, and I don’t want to get your hopes up at this point. I’m sure the officer who took your information told you it’s fairly rare for us to recover this type of thing.”
Mary Beth sighed. “Yes, he did.”
“But there is one thing we’d like to ask you about. Can you come into the station sometime?”
“What is it?”
“We’re hoping you can tell us that. It’s just a piece of notepaper with some writing on it. We’re not sure it has anything to do with the case at all, but we’d like to see if there’s anything about it that you recognize.”
“What kind of writing?”
“It’s just a little poem, not very good, and some directions. Mr. Sanders claims it was something he made up himself. But, if you could come by and look it over, it might—”
“I’ll be there first thing tomorrow.”
****
“Come in! Come in!” Annie practically pulled Mary Beth into the living room of Grey Gables and over to the sofa. “Sit down. Let me see it.”
Mary Beth took a folded piece of paper out of her purse and spread it out on the coffee table. “It’s just a copy they made for me at the police station. They said it’s definitely in Sanders’s handwriting. It was on his desk when they searched his place. The detective thought he was being a little funny about it, though Sanders claimed it wasn’t anything. That’s why they made a copy, for what it’s worth.”
Annie studied it for a moment:
I hide my face behind my hands,
But still my voice you hear,
And to the treasure of my heart
This path will lead you near
Stand between the trees,
face to the north, move west to east,
from the west move south to north
from the east move north to south
from the north move east again
from the south move downward
and then the key
“This first part’s got to mean a clock,” she said. “What else hides its face behind its hands and has a ‘voice’?”
Mary Beth nodded. “That’s what the police think, too, and that’s why they were interested in it. But I don’t know what the rest of it means, and they said they can’t prove it wasn’t Frank Sanders’s bad attempt at blank verse.”
Annie bit her lower lip, thinking. “Why would he write poetry about a clock anyway? I know he really liked yours, but that would be a little bit much, wouldn’t it?”
She read the page over again, slowly this time, saying the words half under her breath. Then she froze.
“‘And then the key.’ Mary Beth, ‘and then the key’! What if this is another clue from Geoffrey Whyte for Angeline?”
“But how—”
“Did you say the clock was something passed down from your great-great-grandmother along with the desk and the table?”
“Yes. And the vase that got broken too.”
“Exactly. There was a clue in the table—the original clue. There was also one in the vase—the key with the lion on it.”
Mary Beth nodded.
Annie picked up the paper from the coffee table. “Suppose the desk had this clue in it. That would explain why he was so interested in the clock.”
“But there was nothing in the desk. And nothing in the clock. He almost took it apart when he was looking at it before.”
“We think there was nothing in the desk. Remember that hidden cubby hole, ‘the deeper secret place’ in the desk? What if he found this clue in there? You said you didn’t know about it, that your family didn’t know about it. What if this was part of a clue Geoffrey Whyte put there in the 1860s and nobody ever knew it was there?”
Mary Beth exhaled heavily. “I don’t know. By itself, this really doesn’t mean much—just a silly rhyme and some directions. It does sound a little like a treasure hunt. Who knows what’s at the end of it? Maybe Geoffrey left Angeline a love letter or an engagement ring. Maybe it was Confederate war bonds, and you know what they’d be worth by now.”
“Yeah, next to nothing. But you’re right. Frank Sanders wouldn’t know about the clue we found or that this leads to anything of value. He wouldn’t have risked jail time based on this by itself. There must be more. Either there was something else in the secret cubby, or he knows something about Geoffrey and Angeline that we don’t.” Annie leaned back into the couch cushions and frowned. “He’s not likely to admit anything at this point, that’s for sure.”
“This clue talks about a key. Do you suppose he found a key hidden in the desk too?”
“He might have.” Annie picked up the paper again, and her eyes narrowed. “I’d sure like to see the original of this. There may be a lot more to it that he didn’t copy down. There has to be some way to find out what all he does know.”
“Sounds pretty hopeless. The police say they won’t be doing any more investigating unless I can come up with some new evidence against Sanders, and I sure don’t know what tha
t would be.”
“We’ll just have to think of something then, won’t we?”
The corners of Mary Beth’s mouth turned down. “I guess I just have to let it go. It was just an old clock, but I did love it. It was such a beautiful antique.”
“And I was hoping we could solve Geoffrey’s little puzzle too. Still, whatever it led to in the 1860s might be gone now. I’m sorry things have turned out so disappointingly for you lately.” Annie glanced at her friend. “How are things going with Mr. Huggins? Is he still determined to sell out?”
“Still. He doesn’t really have much choice at this point.” Mary Beth sighed. “I’m running out of time, and the Burly Boy people are really pressing him to sell to them. Poor man, he’d do a lot better to sell to them than take what he’s asking me for the place. I just wish I had the money to do it. Actually, I wish he could keep the place and that his wife wasn’t so bad off.”
“I’ll keep them in my prayers.”
“They’ll appreciate that.”
Annie was silent for a minute, wracking her brains for some way to make Sanders reveal where he’d hidden the clock. The trees. There had to be trees out by the old Whyte place in Virginia.
“We’re not going to give up quite yet,” she assured Mary Beth. “As a matter of fact, I think, first thing tomorrow, I’ll drop by the mayor’s office for a few minutes.”
“The mayor’s office?” Mary Beth’s forehead wrinkled. “Why the mayor’s office?”
Annie grinned. “You’ll have to trust me on that one.”
13
The next morning Annie drove up Main Street and found a spot to park not far from Town Hall. After she got out of her car she took a moment to look down the charming street with its worn brick sidewalks and old-fashioned lamp posts. It was like a little piece of the past safely tucked away for everyone who lived in or visited Stony Point. She didn’t want to lose it to so-called “progress.” She wasn’t going to lose it, if she had anything to say about it.
She walked across the street into the Town Square, a planned green space in the center of town which was crowned by a crisp red, white, and blue flag snapping in the sea-scented breeze. She made a beeline toward Town Hall, went inside and strode into the mayor’s waiting room.
The Key in the Attic Page 10