“But what about the dogs?” I replied. “Surely——”
“Those damn dogs!” she snapped. “They’re so corruptible! Toss ’em a bone and they’re your friends for life. I gave them some scraps one afternoon, and they followed me around for days!”
She narrowed her eyes. “Something’s afoot,” she said.
I agreed with her silently. Something was definitely afoot, and I had a pretty good idea what it was.
Althea finished her gin and poured another. It was beginning to tell on her now. She was weaving just a little, her eyes slightly out of focus. Her cheeks were bright pink, her eyelids coated with violet, and she made a face, taking a gigantic swallow of gin. “I wanted someone else to know,” she said, voice slurring now for the first time. “As for me, I’m keepin’ my doors locked. Agatha can get herself murdered if she wants to, but no one’s sneakin’ up on me!”
“I’m glad you told me, Althea,” I replied. “I-I don’t know just what I’ll do, but—I’ll keep my eyes open.”
“You do that, ducks. Come back and see me again—don’t forget those shoes.”
I picked up the shoes, having almost forgotten them.
“And be careful,” Althea said. “I wouldn’t stay in that house, I can tell you that. Not for a million.”
She led me to the door, orange robe billowing. I stood nervously as she slid back the bolt and unfastened the chain. I was eager to be gone, eager to sort everything out in my mind and think things over. Althea made a clucking noise and squeezed my hand and gave me a gentle push, slamming the door behind me. I heard her ramming the bolt back in place as I walked away.
The day was still gloriously bright, sky pale blue, sunshine splattering, but everything looked gray now, clouded by my own suspicions. Pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fit together, and the picture taking place was a frightening one. I hurried toward the garage, glad that I was driving into Gordonville immediately. There were a great many questions I wanted to ask, and I was almost positive that Charlie Grayson could provide answers to all of them.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Bentley handled beautifully, and it was a pleasure to drive such an expensive, powerful car. The big body was dark brown, trimmed with glistening chrome, the interior dark yellow leather, the top down. The car roared over the country roads with scarcely a bump, and I had the feeling I was in control of a magnificent metallic animal, every spring, every coil, every intricate part created to do my bidding. The breeze stung my cheeks, and the sunlight poured down, making sunbursts on the hood and warming the leather. Approaching Gordonville, I slowed down, the motor purring now. I had been driving too fast, but it had been a release.
I found a parking place across from the village green, in front of the ponderous brownstone town hall with its grotesque Victorian architecture, and walked across the square, pausing to admire the tarnished bronze statue of the Robert Gordon who had established the village. He was a solemn-looking chap, stern bronze features made slightly ludicrous by the pearl-gray pigeon perched irreverently on his shoulder. The daffodils growing around the statue in a neat circular bed nodded bright yellow heads in the breeze, and sunlight washed the ancient blue-gray marble bench across from it.
With shoes in hand, I strolled on across the square toward the cobbler’s shop, passing the pink brick tea shop and the beige brick bookstore with stacks of books behind the murky blue plate glass windows. It was difficult for me to walk past a bookstore without going inside to explore, but there was no time for it now. Perhaps I would come back after I had talked with Charlie.
I had been eager to come into town, eager to see Charlie, but now I found myself dreading that talk. I stepped into the cobbler’s shop, glad I had a legitimate reason to delay a bit. Shoes hung from the ceiling. Racks of shoes stood against the wall, all of them tagged with squares of yellow paper. The cobbler was working at a table littered with tools and scraps of leather, punching tiny holes in a thick tan sole. He finished the job before acknowledging my presence. He was small and stooped, with dark-gray hair, grumpy-looking tanned face and steel-rimmed spectacles, and he wore an apron of thin black leather, the sleeves of his old white shirt rolled up over muscular biceps.
“Want a pair of shoes?” he inquired. “I can make you a smashing pair, quite stylish. I make ’em, I repair ’em. You won’t find better shoes anywhere in England, and that’s a fact. Here, take a look at this.”
He pulled out a stack of hides and slapped them on the counter. They were beautifully dyed: red, green, dark blue, tan, soft and pliable. “Take your pick,” he said eagerly. “You want a pair of red shoes? I’ll whip one up. Factories! The curse of our times. No factory can produce a work of art. Look at those shoes over there.” He pointed to a pair of black patent leather pumps. “Every stitch hand sewn. Look at the craftsmanship.”
“Actually,” I said, “I’m not in the market for a new pair. I’d like to have this pair mended. The heel’s broken off this one, and I think the other heel may be a bit loose.”
He looked disappointed, then disgruntled. He took the shoes from me and examined them, shaking his head. “Shoddy work,” he grumbled. “Sure, I recognize the name stitched inside. You paid a lot for these shoes, but they’re shoddy. That actress woman, she brought in a pair almost exactly like these, with the same label.”
“Oh?” I said, trying not to show my interest.
“Instep was cracked on one of hers. I had to practically rebuild the shoe. Lotta good it did me—I’ve still got ’em. She never came to pick ’em up. Something funny going on there. All right, ma’am, I’ll mend these for you. You want to leave ’em, or you want to wait? It won’t take me more’n twenty minutes or so.”
“I’ll wait,” I told him. He took the shoes over to his table, handling them as though they were contaminated. Clearing a space on his table, he assembled his tools and began to prise off the tiny nails that stuck out on the broken shoe. I was eager to learn more about the actress and wondered how I could bring the subject up again without arousing his suspicion. He tapped and tampered, mending the shoe, while I wandered about the shop examining the shoes and hides and machines. There was a strong smell of oil and sawdust and wax. Although I affected an air of casual curiosity, there was a purpose behind my survey.
I finally found the shoes similar to mine. They were smaller, I noted, and dark gray instead of brown, but the label was the same: chic, expensive. I was more interested in the square yellow tag the cobbler had tied on. It identified the owner as Vanessa Shaw and gave the date the shoes had been brought in, almost a month ago. The name meant nothing to me. If Miss Shaw was an actress, she was an obscure one.
“Are these the shoes you were talking about?” I asked casually.
He looked up from his work. He had secured the heel back on the shoe now and was tightening the heel of the second shoe. He nodded with an expression of disgust.
“Those are them all right,” he informed me. “Tacky things, not fit for a human foot, no matter how much they cost.”
“I find it strange that she wouldn’t have come back for them,” I remarked, holding one of the sleek gray slippers in my hand. “Did she leave Gordonville abruptly?”
“Some folks think so,” he said brusquely.
“Vanessa Shaw——” I said, stretching the words out. “I wonder—you said she was an actress. I saw a Vanessa Shaw in a play a year or so ago. I wonder if it could possibly be the same woman? Small, delicate, quite beautiful, actually, with short black hair and dark blue eyes——”
I had captured his interest now. I had banked on that. Almost everyone in small towns like Gordonville thrived on gossip. The cobbler was no exception. He gave the shoe a final tap, tugged the heel to see that it was securely fastened, and then brought both shoes over to the counter. He wore that eager expression that all good gossips employ: eyes narrowed a little, mouth a bit pursed.
“Ah, she was pretty all right,” he said. “I’ll hand ’er that. Pretty as a picture,
but sly looking. I knew her sort right away. Carrying on with Charlie Grayson, she was, and making no bones about it. I don’t blame Charlie, just felt sorry for ’im. Knew right away she was a fickle thing. A woman like that wouldn’t be satisfied with the likes of Charlie, not for long. He’s a good-lookin’ lad, strong as a horse, makes a good livin’ from the inn. Lotta girls’d be happy to have him, but this one—it was only a matter of time before she ditched him for someone else. Them city girls are a bad lot.”
He muttered something unintelligible and glanced up suspiciously, suddenly realizing that I was a city girl myself. For a moment he glared at me as though I had designs on his virtue or, at the very least, planned to snatch the shoes and dash out without paying. He actually pulled the shoes away from the counter, frowning. I smiled reassuringly and tried to look very sweet and innocent. It wasn’t until I took some bills out of my purse that the look of suspicion left his eyes.
“You do beautiful work,” I said, handing him the bills.
He rang the amount up on the battered old cash register and started to return the change. I shook my head, smiling for all I was worth.
“Oh, no,” I said, shameless. “You keep the change. You did such a good job, and so quickly. I really should give you more.”
My ploy was quite obvious, but it worked beautifully. The grumpy old man rubbed the front of his leather apron and grinned. I could tell that I had made his day. “Take pride in my work,” he said. “Not everyone appreciates a good job nowadays. Some people think a label’s all that counts.”
“What happened to the girl?” I asked, interrupting him before he had a chance to launch into another tirade about factory-made shoes.
“The actress? She vanished. Lotta people thought Charlie had something to do with it. Some even said he’d murdered her. You know how people talk. Long-tongued gossips—a bunch-a old women wagging their tongues. This town is full of ’em. If you want to know what I think, I think she ran off with that man she was seeing.”
“She was seeing someone else?”
“Oh, she was sly about it, all right, but she was seeing him. I was working late one night, went out to the alley in back of the shop to throw some scraps away, and I saw her with him. They were standing just inside the alley, talking real intensely. Both of ’em looked startled when they heard me rattling the lid of the trash bin.”
“Did you know the man?” I inquired, ever so casual.
“Couldn’t rightly say. His back was to me, and he was wearing a heavy overcoat and a black hat, brim pulled down. Could’ve been anyone, though there’re not many men in this town who’d be brainless enough to fool around with a piece of goods like her. No, I figure it was some stranger passing through. I figure she ran off with him.”
He started wrapping the shoes up in brown paper, and I didn’t want to press him further. I had already learned a great deal, and it wouldn’t be wise to ask any more questions. He handed me the neat brown parcel, and I thanked him again.
“You ever want a new pair of shoes, you let me know. I’ll make you a smashing pair. Red shoes, or even boots. I make smashing boots.”
“I’ll do that,” I replied. “You’ve been very kind.”
I stepped back outside, very pleased with what I had learned. Gordonville was such a quaint, peaceful little town with its mellowed brick shopfronts and shady sidewalks and turn-of-the-century atmosphere, yet my aunt had compared it to Peyton Place. I was beginning to see why. I strolled toward the inn, immersed in my thoughts, and at first I paid no attention to the man peering into a shop window halfway down the block. He was wearing a pair of hand-tooled leather boots. They were unusual boots, and I wondered vaguely if the cobbler had made them. A bell seemed to ring in my mind, and I stopped abruptly, staring at those boots.
They were cowboy boots, the kind a Texan would wear.
The man was tall and lanky, loosely built, wearing an expensive pearl-gray raw silk suit elegantly tailored to fit his rangy frame. His face was deeply tanned, the features broad and open, and his hair was sandy blond, cut much shorter than was currently the fashion in England. Despite his expensive attire, there was something essentially rugged about the man. I had no doubt that he was American, and the boots indicated that he was probably from one of the Western states.
I frowned, wondering why I should be so interested.
It seemed someone had mentioned a Texan. Who? Where had I heard something about a man from Texas? I pressed my brows together, concentrating, and then I remembered. Last night at the dinner table Aunt Agatha had told us about a Texan named Stephen Kirk who had been pestering her about the Gordon papers. He had phoned her from London. He had wanted to drive down to Gordonwood to discuss a sale. He had offered her over a million dollars in American money for the manuscripts. I was willing to bet twice that amount that the man peering into the shop window was the same Stephen Kirk.
I had to find out. It took me only a moment to decide my approach, and then I removed the ribbon that held my ponytail in place and shook my hair loose and tugged at my sweater until it fit outrageously tight. I took a deep breath and got into character and walked towards him, stopping a few paces from where he stood.
“Why—Stephen Kirk,” I cried. “As I live and breathe—what are you doing in Gordonville?”
The man whirled around, startled. He stared at me, clearly not recognizing me but intrigued just the same. His eyes were very blue, and they lingered on the sweater for a few seconds. His wide, thin mouth spread into a pleasant grin and he nodded.
“Howdy, ma’am,” he drawled. It was quite a drawl.
“Do Texans actually say ‘Howdy’?” I inquired, batting my eyelashes. “It’s such a charming word——”
“We’re pretty charmin’ fellows,” he replied, quick on the uptake. “Do I know you?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten,” I said, pouting. Think sexy, I told myself.
“Uh—let’s see, was it that party in Mayfair last month? Lady Somebody-or-other——”
“Lady Florence Whitelaw,” I said.
“That’s right. I’m not very good at names. Swell party——”
“You seemed to enjoy it. You were drinking quite a lot, as I recall, and all the women found you absolutely fascinating. They simply flocked around you, and you were telling the most interesting stories.”
He smiled sheepishly and shuffled his feet. Stephen Kirk was a tall, good-looking man with a considerable amount of boyish charm. He reminded me of one of the Western heroes in the American television series that were so popular over here. He looked like he could rope a steer or knock a man down without blinking an eye, yet at the same time he could blush and stammer in the presence of a pretty girl. There wasn’t a sophisticated bone in his body, and that made him all the more appealing. I felt rather guilty at my deception, but he was buying it.
“Nice to see you again—uh——”
“Winifred,” I said, “but all my friends call me Winnie.”
“Nice seein’ you, Winnie,” he said. His blue eyes were full of boyish pleasure. As though he’d suddenly been handed a brand new slingshot, I thought. He tried not to stare at the sweater, but it was a losing battle. There was an honesty about the man. Honesty, not innocence. He knew his way around where women were concerned. I sensed that immediately, playing upon it without the least shame.
“Look,” he said, “is—uh—is there anyplace ’round here where a fellow could buy a girl a drink?”
“It’s rather early,” I replied, “but the tea shop is right down the street. They serve tea and cakes——”
“I’d be mighty pleased to treat you,” he said, that wonderful grin still lingering on his lips.
“I’d be mighty pleased to accept,” I replied.
Stephen Kirk threw back his head and roared with laughter. It was a rich, lusty sound, thoroughly enchanting. Hooking his arm in mine, he led me down the sidewalk, taking great, manly strides, the heels of his boots clicking loudly. I had to
trot a little to keep up with him. People stared at us, undoubtedly amazed to see such an unusual couple in their midst. I was elated with my success. I was really rather good at this sort of thing, I thought, wondering if Mata Hari had found it as easy. When we reached the tea shop, he held the door open for me, executing a curt little bow as I passed in front of him.
The tea shop was charming, with soft beige walls and lace curtains and small marble-topped tables. On each table there were vivid blue larkspurs and yellow daffodils, freshly cut, arranged haphazardly in white vases. The proprietor was a tall, thin woman with fluffy gray hair and wrinkled face. She wore a long-sleeved mauve dress and a white organdy apron, and she was obviously startled to see us come in.
“Howdy, ma’am,” Stephen Kirk greeted her as she approached us. “Can you fix us up with some goodies?”
She raised her eyebrows, alarmed, not understanding a word he said.
“Tea and cakes,” I said, “and some sandwiches if you have them.”
“Cucumber or watercress?”
“Ham,” he said. She stared at him in bewilderment.
“Watercress,” I told her, smiling.
Stephen pulled out a chair for me, helped me get seated, and then sat down across from me, spreading his long legs out awkwardly. I noticed his hands: long and slender, very tan, quite strong. He stared at me, his blue eyes open and honest, and I wondered just how I was going to go about getting the information I needed. Everything had worked well so far, but I was suddenly at a loss. I would have to be extremely careful. Stephen Kirk was no fool.
“Tell me about yourself,” he said. I loved his drawl. He drew each word out slowly, slurring it just a little. “What’s a pretty lass like you doin’——”
“In a place like this? I’m visiting relatives, actually. My aunt lives in Gordonville and I came to see her. I simply had to get away from London for a while. Frightful drag, all that rush. Gordonville’s a bit of a drag, too. No interesting men around.”
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