“Yes,” Miss Furstenberg answered. “Father was rather peculiar in many ways. He had a decided flare for the unusual. Take this estate, for instance. He had it built at great expense to resemble a castle he once saw in Germany.”
“I’ve never visited such an elegant place.”
“It is entirely too flamboyant for my taste, but Father loved every tower and turret. If only things had turned out differently—”
Her voice trailed away, and she stared at the ground, lost in deep thought. Arousing herself, she went on once more.
“If you had known Father, you would understand it was not strange for him to have an alligator on the estate. At one time he kept imported peacocks. The place was fairly overrun with them.”
I offered no comment and moved closer to the edge of the lily pool, gazing into the now-tranquil waters.
“I know what you are trying to imply,” Miss Furstenberg said. “It couldn’t be possible. I refuse even to consider such a ridiculous theory.”
“It does seem rather far-fetched,” I admitted. “Of course, tragedies do occur and those foot-prints—”
“Please, not another word or you’ll drive me into hysterics!” Cybil cried. “You are trying to play upon my feelings so that I will tell you things! You are only trying to get a story! I’ll not talk with you any longer.”
She turned and ran up the path toward the house.
I had overplayed my hand this time. Perhaps. Dad was right. I may have an excess of imagination. Also, too lively a tongue. I honestly had not decided what I would do with any information Cybil Furstenberg might divulge, but it was obvious that I’d been tainted by association with the Greenville Examiner and its over-zealous photographer, Shep Morgan.
Miss Furstenberg had vanished into the house by the time I’d retraced my steps to the garden. The black limousine no longer stood at the front door, so I knew I was expected to get back to Andover by my own efforts.
If Jack was still waiting at the drawbridge, I’d ride home with him, I decided. If he’d given up waiting already and headed back to Greenville, I’d be out of luck completely.
The path which I followed brought me around the rear of the house. As I drew near the massive walls of the Castle, a door opened, revealing a kitchen within. A stout woman in a blue uniform came outside. In her arms, she carried two large paper sacks filled with garbage, which made the bottoms moist.
Just as the woman reached me, the bottom of one of the bags gave away, and a collection of corn husks, watermelon rinds, and egg shells fell to the sidewalk.
“Now I’ve done it!” the woman said. “Splattered my stockings, too.”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” I said, pausing in the pathway.
“This is the only place I have ever worked where the cook was expected to carry out the garbage! It makes me good and mad every time I do it.”
“I should think a house of this size would have an incinerator, so that the garbage could be burned,” I remarked.
“This place doesn’t have any conveniences for the servants,” the cook went on. “You’re expected to work, work, work from morning to night.”
She broke off quickly, regarding me with a suspicious gaze.
“You’re not one of Miss Cybil’s guests.”
“Oh, no, I only came here on an errand. I wouldn’t repeat anything to the family.”
“That’s all right then,” the cook said in relief. “I liked my job here well enough until lately. All month it’s been one dinner party after another. Then we spent days getting ready for the wedding feast, and not one scrap of food was touched!”
“But I suppose Mrs. Furstenberg pays you well.”
“She didn’t give me one extra cent for all the work I did for that wedding. Mrs. Furstenberg always has been thrifty, and she’s a heap worse since her husband went away. Another week like this last one, and I’ll quit!”
“Well, I can’t say I blame you,” I said, leading the woman on. “I suppose Miss Cybil is as overbearing as her mother?”
“Oh, Miss Cybil is all right, as sweet a girl as you’ll find anywhere. I felt mighty sorry for her when that no-account man threw her over.”
I knew by this time that I must be talking with Mrs. Latch, for the footman had mentioned the cook’s name. As the woman walked on with her bundles of garbage, I fell into step beside her.
“It was strange about Mr. Atwood’s disappearance,” I said. “I hear he came to the house and then went away just before the wedding.”
“I can tell you about that,” replied Mrs. Latch with an important air. “Yesterday morning a boy came to the back door with a letter for Mr. Atwood. It’s my opinion he sent it to himself.”
“Didn’t the boy tell you where he had gotten the letter?”
“He said it was given to him by one of Mr. Atwood’s friends. A man in a boat.”
“Oh, I see,” I said. “By the way, who is the head gardener here?”
“Do you mean Peter Henderson?”
“A fairly old man. Gray hair, stooped shoulders, and I might add, an unpleasant manner.”
“I guess that’s Peter. He’s not much of a gardener, in my opinion. And he feels too high and mighty to associate with the other servants. He doesn’t even stay here nights.”
“Is he a new man?”
“Mrs. Furstenberg hired him only three days before the wedding. I don’t think he’s done a lick of honest work since he came here.”
“And Mrs. Furstenberg doesn’t mind?”
“She’s been too busy and bothered to pay any attention to him,” the cook declared. “But she always has time to boss me. I tell you, if dishes aren’t prepared perfectly, she raves!”
“No wonder Mr. Furstenberg was forced to leave home,” I said, feeling quite sly and mean. “You can’t blame him for running away from a violent temper.”
“Oh, the Furstenbergs never had any trouble with each other,” Mrs. Latch said. “Mr. Furstenberg would just laugh and not say a word when she jumped on him. They were never heard to quarrel.”
“Then it seems odd that he went away.”
“Yes, it does,” agreed the cook. “I never did understand it. And then the way Mrs. Furstenberg changed all the servants!”
“You mean after Mr. Furstenberg left?”
“She fired everyone except me. I guess she knew she couldn’t get another cook half as good if she let me go. Right away, I struck for more money, and she gave it to me without a whimper. But ever since then she works me like a dog.”
Mrs. Latch clattered the lid of the garbage can into place and turned toward the house. As I once more fell into step with her, she paused and regarded me with sudden suspicion.
“Why am I telling you all this, anyway? Who are you? You’re not one of those sneaking reporters?”
“Do I look like a reporter?” I asked.
“Well, no, you don’t,” admitted Mrs. Latch. “But you’re as inquisitive as one. You must be the girl who brought Miss Cybil’s new dress from the LaRue Shoppe.”
I hesitated too long over my reply, and the woman gazed at me sharply.
“You are a reporter!” she exclaimed with conviction. “And you’ve been deliberately pumping me! Of all the tricks! I’ll tell Miss Furstenberg!”
“Wait, I can explain.”
Mrs. Latch paid me no heed. With an angry toss of her head, she hurried back into the house.
I had overstepped myself once again. I’d better be getting away from the estate while the getting was good, I decided. I turned and ran down the walk toward the river, only to stop short as I reached the boat dock. The drawbridge was in its open position, and the old watchman did not appear to be at his usual post. I had no way of reaching the mainland.
CHAPTER 12
I looked about for a means of crossing the river. There were no small boats available, and the only person who stood on the opposite shore was Jack Bancroft. The other reporters and photographers, evidently tiring of their long vigil, had gone
away.
I cupped my hands and shouted to Jack: “How am I going to get over there? Can you lower the bridge?”
“The mechanism is locked,” Jack called back. “And the watchman won’t be back for an hour.”
I walked a short distance up the shore searching for a boat. The only available craft was the large launch which I could not hope to operate. I might return to the house and appeal to Miss Furstenberg, but such a course was not to my liking.
As I considered whether or not to ruin my clothing by swimming across, Jack called my attention to a small boat some distance up the river. The boy who was fishing from it obligingly rowed ashore after I waved him in.
“I’ll give you a quarter to ferry me across,” I offered.
“I’ll be glad to do it.”
I stepped into the boat and then asked: “Aren’t you the same lad I saw here yesterday?”
The boy nodded as he reached for the oars.
“I remember you,” he answered.
“You fish here nearly every day.”
“Just about. I caught some nice ones today.”
Proudly, he held up two large fish for me to see.
“Beauties,” I said. “I take it the motorboats haven’t been bothering you as much as they were.”
“It’s been pretty quiet on the river today. Want to see something else I fished up?”
“Of course. What did you hook? A mud turtle?”
The boy opened a large wooden box which contained an assortment of rope, fishing tackle, and miscellaneous articles. He lifted out a man’s high silk hat, bedraggled and shapeless.
“You fished that out of the water?” I said, leaning forward to take the hat from him. “Where did you find it?”
“Up there a ways.”
The boy motioned vaguely toward the Furstenberg estate.
I turned the hat over in my hands, examining it closely. I found no identifying marks, yet I thought it could have belonged to Thomas Atwood, for he had worn a hat resembling it on the day of the wedding. The point indicated by the boy was not far distant from the Furstenberg lily pool.
“How would you like to sell this hat?” I asked.
“It’s not worth anything.”
“I’d like to have it,” I said. “I’ll give you another twenty-five cents.”
“It’s a deal.”
I offered the boy a fifty-cent piece, and a moment later he beached the boat. Jack was waiting to help me ashore. He looked at the hat which I hugged close but didn’t say anything about it in the presence of the boy.
“Son, how would you like to earn three dollars?” Jack asked the boy.
The boy’s eyes brightened.
“Say, this is my lucky day!” he exclaimed. “What doin’?”
“It’s easy,” Jack told him. “All you need to do is to be here for a couple of days with your boat. You’re not to allow anyone to use it except me.”
“And me,” I added. “I’ll need taxi service myself if I come back here.”
“That’s all right,” agreed the boy.
“Here’s a dollar on deposit,” Jack said. “Now remember, be here tomorrow from eight o’clock on, and don’t hire out to any other person.”
“I won’t,” the boy promised.
Jack took my elbow and escorted me to the press car.
“So, you found Atwood’s hat?” he said.
“It resembles the one he wore. The boy fished it out of the river.”
“Then that looks as if the fellow was the victim of a plot!”
“I’ve thought so all along,” I said.
“What else did you learn? You seemed to be very chummy with Miss Furstenberg.”
“I’ll not be from now on. I rather overstepped myself this time.”
As Jack backed the car around in the dusty road, I told him all about my meeting with Cybil Furstenberg.
“So, Miss Furstenberg doesn’t like questions? And she refuses to notify the police? Well, after we publish our story in the Examiner, it won’t be necessary. The police will come to do their own investigating.”
“I can’t believe she is trying to deceive the authorities,” I said. “She seems to have a sincere affection for Thomas Atwood.”
“It may be pretense.”
“She wasn’t pretending the day of the wedding. Atwood’s disappearance was a great shock to her.”
“Well, even so, she may know a lot more than she’s letting on.”
“I think that myself. She closed up like a clam when I talked about her father.”
The car came to the main road and a short time later entered the town of Sunnydale. As we stopped for a red light, I touched Jack’s arm.
“Look over there. See those two men standing in front of the drugstore?”
“What about them?” Jack asked.
“They’re G men who attended the Furstenberg wedding. Shep pointed them out to me.”
“You don’t say! Maybe we can learn a fact or two from them.”
Jack parked the car at the curb and sprang out. I watched him walk over to the men, introduce himself, and show his press credentials. I was too far away to hear the conversation. In a few minutes, Jack returned to the car looking none too elated.
“You didn’t learn anything, did you?” I asked as we drove on again.
“Not very much. Government men never will talk. But they did admit they were here trying to locate James Furstenberg.”
“Then they think he is in the area.”
“They had an idea he would show up at his daughter’s wedding, but it didn’t turn out that way.”
“Did you say anything to them about Thomas Atwood’s disappearance?”
“Yes, but they wouldn’t discuss it. They said they had nothing to do with the case.”
I lapsed into silence as the car went on toward Andover. I sorted over the evidence which I had gathered that day, trying to fit it into a definite pattern.
“Jack,” I said at last.
“Yes?”
“You’ll probably laugh at this, but I have a theory about Thomas Atwood’s disappearance.”
“Go ahead, spill it.”
“Yesterday, when Shep and I were waiting at the drawbridge, we saw a motorboat cruise down the river. It was driven by a burly-looking fellow who paid no heed when we tried to hail him.”
“You’re not suggesting that the man may have had something to do with Atwood’s disappearance?”
Jack seemed amused by my theory.
“I knew you would laugh.”
“Your theory sounds pretty far-fetched to me, I’ll admit. It happens there are any number of burly, tough-looking boatmen on the Grassy. You can’t arrest a man for a crime just because of his appearance.”
“All the same, there is supporting evidence. Mrs. Latch told me that Atwood’s note had been handed to her by a boy who in turn received it from someone in a boat.”
“Boats are rather common, too. Your theory is interesting, but that’s all I can say for it.”
“All right,” I said. “I was about to tell you another idea of mine. Now, I won’t do it.”
No amount of coaxing from Jack could induce me to reveal my thoughts, and he soon gave up. We made the remainder of the drive to Andover in silence. It was well after five-thirty when we finally drew up in front of the City Club.
I was not surprised to find the doors locked and no sign of Florence or Mrs. Radcliff.
“I thought they would go home without me,” I said to Jack. “I only wanted to make certain. On to Greenville, now, I suppose.”
The road led through pleasant countryside and then swung back toward the Grassy River. The sun had dropped below the horizon by the time we reached the town of Claxton.
“Thirty miles still to go,” Jack sighed. “I’m getting hungry.”
“Two souls with but a single thought,” I said.
Directly ahead was a roadside gasoline station with an adjoining restaurant. Jack eased on the brake.
&
nbsp; “How about it, Jane? Shall we invest a few nickels?”
“I could do with a sandwich. Several, in fact.”
Not until Jack had parked the car did I notice the dilapidated condition of the building. It stood fifty yards back from the main road, its rear porch fronting on the Grassy.
“Strange how one is always running into the river,” I said. “It seems to twist itself over half the state.”
Jack seemed not to hear me. He was gazing at the restaurant with disapproval.
“This place doesn’t look so good, Jane. Say the word, and we’ll drive on.”
“Oh, I’d brave anything for a beef barbecue,” I said.
Through the screen door, I caught a discouraging glimpse of the cafe’s interior—dingy walls, cigarette smoke, and a group of rough-looking men seated on stools at the counter. On the threshold I hesitated, losing courage.
“Let’s not go in,” Jack said in an undertone. “They’ll probably serve cockroaches in the sandwiches.”
I half turned away from the door, only to stop short. My attention focused on two men who were sitting at the far end of the cafe drinking coffee from heavy mugs. In the indistinct light, I could not be certain, but I thought that the heavy-set fellow in shirt sleeves was the same boatman I had seen near the Furstenberg estate.
I resisted Jack’s tugging on my arm as he sought to lead me back to the car.
“This place isn’t half bad,” I insisted. “Let’s try it and see what happens.”
I reached for the knob of the screen door, and without waiting for Jack, entered the cafe.
CHAPTER 13
I ignored several empty tables at the front of the dreary restaurant and selected one not far from where the two men sat. They stared at me with insolent, appraising eyes. I was confident that the heavy-set man was the same fellow I had noticed near the Furstenberg estate.
A waiter in a soiled white apron shuffled up to take our order.
“Hot roast beef sandwich and coffee,” said Jack. “With plenty of cream.”
“Make mine the same,” I said, without looking at the menu.
All my attention was taken up by the two men who were now talking together in low tones. After scrutinizing me for a moment or two, they’d lost interest. I think Jack’s glares might have had something to do with it, and now they did not even glance in our direction. The heavy-set man bent nearer his companion and with the point of his knife drew a pattern on the tablecloth.
Jane Carter Historical Cozies: Omnibus Edition (Six Mystery Novels) Page 35
