With a throaty sound, half chuckle, half sneer, the man arose and started around the house, I followed close on his heels with Flo and the rest of the girls tagging after.
“If you want to look inside, there’s a shutter off on the east livin’ room window,” Mr. Kip informed us. “Everything’s just like the old lady left it.”
“You don’t mean the furniture is still in the house?” Abigail said.
“There ain’t nothing been changed. I never could figure why someone didn’t come in an’ haul off her stuff, but it’s stood all these years.”
I went to the window that Truman Kip pointed out and flattened my face against the dirty pane.
“He’s right!” I told the others. “The furniture is still covered by sheets. Why, that’s funny.”
“What’s funny?” Flo asked.
“There’s a lady’s hat lying on the table.”
“It must be quite out of style by this time.”
“On the contrary, it looks to be the latest fashion, and there’s a purse lying beside it.”
At the other side of the house, an outside door squeaked. We turned in the direction of the sound and then stared as if gazing at a ghost. An old lady in a long blue silk dress with lace collar and cuffs stepped out onto the veranda. She looked beyond us toward Truman Kip who leaned against a tree. He straightened to attention.
“If it ain’t Priscilla Covington. You’ve come back.”
“I certainly have returned. High time someone looked after this place. While I’ve been away, you seem to have used my garden as a chicken run.”
“How was I to know you was ever coming back? Anyhow, the place has gone to wrack and ruin. A few chickens more nor less shouldn’t make no difference.”
“Perhaps not to you, Truman Kip. But you know I am home now, so I warn you—keep your livestock out of my garden.”
I was acutely aware that the members of the Palette Club, too, were trespassers.
“We’re very sorry,” I told Mrs. Covington. “Of course, we never dreamed that the house was occupied, or we wouldn’t have peeped through your window. We came because we wanted to sketch the old wishing well and your lovely home.”
Mrs. Covington came down the steps toward us.
“I quite understand. This place has been unlived in for years,” she said in a far milder tone than she had used in speaking to the stonecutter. “You were doing no harm. You may look around as much as you wish. But first, tell me your names.”
One by one we gave her our names, answering other questions which the old lady asked. She kept us so busy that we had no opportunity to ask any questions of our own, but at last I managed to inquire: “Mrs. Covington, are you planning to open up your home again? Everyone would be so happy if only you should decide to live here.”
“Happy? Well, maybe some people would be, and others would not.”
“Roseacres could be made into one of the nicest places in Greenville,” said Florence.
“That would take considerable money,” replied Mrs. Covington. “I’ve not made any plans yet.” Abruptly she turned to face Truman Kip, who had been staring at her unrelentingly since she’d come out of the house. “Must you stand there gawking? Get along to your own land, and mind, don’t come here again. I’ll not have trespassers.”
“You ain’t changed a bit, Mrs. Covington, not one bit,” the stonecutter muttered as he shuffled off.
Truman Kip’s dismissal had been so curt that the rest of us turned to leave the grounds as well.
“You needn’t go unless you want to,” Mrs. Covington said, her tone softening again. “I never could endure that no-good loafer, Truman Kip. All the stepping stones are gone from my garden, and I have an idea what became of them!”
An awkward silence descended. I tried to make conversation by remarking that we were especially interested in the old wishing well.
“Is it true that wishes made there have come true?” Abigail Whitely asked.
“Yes and no.” Mrs. Covington smiled convincingly for the first time. “Hundreds of wishes have been made at the well over the years. A surprising number of the worthwhile ones have been granted, so folks say. Tell me, did you say your name is Abigail?”
“Yes, Abigail Whitely.”
“Whitely—odd, I don’t recall the name. Have your parents lived many years in Greenville?”
“My mother and father are dead, Mrs. Covington. My brother and I haven’t any living relatives. Mr. and Mrs. Sanderson took us in, so we wouldn’t have to go to an orphans’ home. They have three children of their own, and I’m afraid we’re quite a burden.”
“Where do the Sandersons live, my child?”
“We rent a cottage at the Dorset Tourist Camp.”
“I’ve always thought I should enjoy living that way,” Mrs. Covington said. “Big houses are entirely too much work. If I decide to clean up this place, it will take me weeks.”
“Can’t we all help you?” suggested Florence, transparently eager to see the inside of the house.
“Thank you, my dear, but I shall require no assistance,” Mrs. Covington replied, abruptly turning starchy again. “Do come again whenever you like.”
That was our cue to leave, so we did. During the bus ride to Greenville, the members of the Palette Club speculated upon why the old lady had returned to the city after such a lengthy absence. One by one the members got off at various street corners until only Abigail, Florence and I remained.
“Abigail, you’ll have a long ride to the opposite side of the city,” I said as Florence and I prepared to leave the bus. “Why not get off here and let me drive you home in Bouncing Betsy? It won’t take long to retrieve her from the garage.”
“Bouncing Betsy?”
“Jane’s heap of scrap iron on wheels,” said Flo. “But she unwisely imbued her with a personality so now it’s virtually impossible to part with her.”
“Oh, it would be too much trouble to drive me home, Mrs. Carter,” Abigail protested.
“I want to do it,” I insisted. Taking the girl by the elbow, I steered her to the bus exit. “Why not come along with us?” I suggested to Florence.
“Perhaps I will, if Bouncing Betsy will make it all the way home, but I shouldn’t count on that happening.”
Bouncing Betsy is my ancient Peerless Model 56. She’s called Bouncing Betsy because her suspension is shot to bits. I will admit that she is less than reliable, but I can’t bear to trade her in on a new model, even though I’m now a prosperous lady-of-letters working on her third novel for a legitimate publisher. Even though it’s been almost two years now since I parted ways with the odious Mr. Pittman of Pittman’s All-Story Weekly and ceased to turn out overwrought romantic bilge under the nom de plume of Miss Hortencia Higgins, I haven’t quite yet grasped that I’m a respectable lady novelist with quite a stash of cash in the bank.
“Betsy hasn’t been running so well lately,” I explained, “I think she has pneumonia of the carburetor.”
“Or maybe it’s just old age sneaking up on her,” Florence suggested.
When we reached the garage, and I’d paid the running tab on my account—I have open credit with practically every grease monkey in Greenville—I backed Bouncing Betsy out of the garage.
“Jane always handles an automobile as if she were en route to a three-alarm fire,” Florence told Abigail.
I did not deign to defend myself from that baseless accusation.
We arrived at the Dorset Tourist Camp and rolled through an archway entrance into a tree-shaded area.
“Our cottage is at the north side,” Abigail said, pointing to a shabby white cottage with peeling paint and frayed curtains at the window.
I stopped the car beneath a large maple tree nearby. Immediately three small girls who had been playing close by rushed up to greet Abigail. Their hands and faces were filthy, their frocks unpressed and torn, and their hair appeared never to have been combed.
“Are these the Sanderson youngsters?” F
lorence asked.
“Yes,” Abigail answered, offering no apology for the way the children looked. “This is Betty, who is seven. Emmy is five, and Jean is our baby.”
Flo and I had no intention of remaining at the camp, but before we could drive away, Mrs. Sanderson came out from the cottage. Abigail introduced her.
“I always tell Abigail to bring her friends home, but she never will do it,” the woman declared heartily. “I do enjoy having a little company from time to time. Come inside and see our place.”
“We really should be going,” I said. “I have an appointment with a dastardly Duke who may or not have actually been killed by a speeding locomotive while pursuing our worthy heroine across Siberia—”
Everyone stared at me until Flo said, “She’s a lady novelist. The dastardly Duke and the worthy heroine in question are of the fictional variety.”
“I’m working on a new novel,” I said, “and I’m rather behind schedule, truth be told. Besides, if I turn my back on my heroine—the tragically impoverished Lady Ramfurtherington—for too long, she tends to develop a mind of her own and engage in unsanctioned actions which add unwelcome complications to the plot. You start allowing characters to have a mind of their own and the story becomes quite convoluted.”
Everyone stared at me—people so often insist on taking everything I say literally—until Mrs. Sanderson said, “It will only take a minute to step inside. I want you to meet my husband—and here’s Ted.”
I caught a glimpse of a tall young man as he skittered around the back side of the ramshackle cottage.
“Oh, Ted,” Mrs. Sanderson called out. “Come here and meet Abigail’s friends.”
“Don’t bother about it, Mrs. Sanderson,” Abigail said. “Please, leave Ted be.”
“Nonsense!” the woman replied and called again. “Ted! Come here, I say!”
With obvious reluctance, the young man approached the automobile. He was tall and skinny and bore a strong resemblance to Abigail. I felt certain that I had seen him before, yet for the minute I could not recall where.
“How do you do?” the young man said as he was presented to Flo and me.
“Ted found a little work to do today,” Mrs. Sanderson told us. “Just a few minutes ago he brought home a nice plump chicken. We’re having it for dinner.”
Ted gazed over the woman’s head, straight at his sister. Seeing the look which passed between them, I knew where I had seen the young man. Without a doubt, Ted Whitely was the one who had stolen the chicken from the old stonecutter.
Chapter Three
The discovery that Abigail’s brother had stolen Mr. Kip’s laying hen was disconcerting to me. I said goodbye to Mrs. Sanderson and applied my foot to the self-starter, but before Old Bets could shudder to life, Mrs. Sanderson was sticking her head in at my window.
“You can’t go so soon,” the woman protested. “You must stay for dinner. We’re having chicken, and there’s plenty for everybody.”
“Really, we can’t remain,” I said. “Florence and I both are expected at home.”
“You’re just afraid you’ll put me to a little trouble,” Mrs. Sanderson insisted, swinging open the car door and tugging at my hand. “You have to stay.”
Taking a cue from their mother, the three young children gave Flo the same treatment, and Florence and I were soon being herded toward the rickety front stoop of the cottage. Ted immediately started in the opposite direction.
“You come back here, Ted Whitely,” Mrs. Sanderson called after him.
“I don’t want any dinner, Mom.”
“I know better,” Mrs. Sanderson contradicted him cheerfully. “You’re just bashful because we’re having two pretty ladies visit us. You stay and eat your victuals like you always do, or I’ll box your ears.”
“Okay,” Ted agreed, glancing warily at Abigail again. “It’s no use arguing with you.”
I wished to remain for dinner about as much as I’d have wished to be suddenly surrounded by a pack of ravening wolves with nothing to defend me but a parasol and a trio of hatpins. I might force my fictional heroines to endure such vicissitudes, but I’ve no personal desire to undergo such trials myself.
However, being savaged by wildlife suddenly seemed a more attractive prospect than being forced to savor livestock procured by petty larceny while trying not to meet the eye of the thief across the dinner table.
I was certain that Flo did not wish to remain either, yet I knew of no way to avoid staying for supper without offending the aggressively hospitable Mrs. Sanderson. The woman briskly herded us inside the cottage.
“It’s nice, isn’t it? We have a little icebox and a good stove and a sink. We’re a bit crowded, but that only makes it jollier.”
A man in shirt sleeves lay on one of the day beds which occupied the living room, reading a newspaper. I wondered who occupied those beds at night. I could not imagine how Mrs. Sanderson managed to shoehorn so many occupants into a tiny one-bedroom cottage.
“Meet my husband,” Mrs. Sanderson said as she prodded him in the ribs. “Get up, Pop! Don’t you have any manners?”
The man amiably swung his feet to the floor, grinning at Florence and me.
“I’ve been poorly lately,” he said as if feeling that the situation required an explanation. “The Doc tells me to take it easy.”
“That Doc said that over twenty years ago,” Mrs. Sanderson said, an edge to her voice. “Pop’s been resting easy ever since. But we get along.”
Abigail and Ted, who had followed us into the cottage, looked acutely embarrassed by that remark. I hastily changed the subject to a less personal one by taking an interest in a fat book which lay on the table.
“Drawing the Human Form?” I said. “This is quite advanced. It must belong to Abigail. She’s quite a gifted artist, certainly far better than anyone else in our little club.”
“She got it from the library,” Mrs. Sanderson responded carelessly. “Ted and Abigail always have their noses in a book. They’re my adopted children, you know. My own flesh and blood never did cotton to book learnin’. And Pop here is only interested in that book because of the drawings of naked ladies. Abigail, I told you not to leave that book around where the little nippers could get at it.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Sanderson have been very kind to us,” Abigail said in a small voice as she turned the color of a lobster, snatched up the book and put it behind her back.
“Stuff and nonsense, Abigail. You’ve more than earned your keep. Well, if you’ll excuse me now, I’ll dish up dinner.”
I wondered how so many persons could be fed in such a small space, especially as the dinette table accommodated only six. Mrs. Sanderson solved the problem by giving each of the three little ones a plate of food and sending them outdoors.
“Now we can eat in peace,” she announced, squeezing her ample body beneath the edge of the low table. “It’s a little crowded, but we can all get in here.”
“I’ll take my plate outside, too,” Ted offered.
“No, you stay right here. I never did see such a bashful boy. Ain’t he the limit?”
Having arranged everything to her satisfaction, Mrs. Sanderson began to dish up generous helpings of chicken and potato. It smelled appetizing and looked well-cooked, but save for a pot of tea, there was nothing besides the chicken and a large bowl of mashed potatoes.
“We’re having quite a banquet tonight,” Pop Sanderson remarked appreciatively. “I’ll take a drumstick, Ma, if there ain’t no one else wantin’ it.”
“You’ll take what you get,” his wife retorted, slapping one drumstick onto my plate and the other onto Flo’s.
The food was much better than I had expected, but neither Ted nor Abigail seemed hungry, and Mrs. Sanderson immediately called attention to their lack of appetite.
“What’s the matter, Ted? Why you’re not eating? Are you sick?”
The boy shook his head and got to his feet.
“I’m not hungry, Mom,” he mumbled. �
�Excuse me, please. I have a date with a fella downtown, and I have to hurry.”
Before Mrs. Sanderson could detain him, he left the cottage.
“I can’t understand that boy anymore,” she observed with a sad shake of her head. “He ain’t been half himself lately.”
The younger members of the Sanderson family made up for Ted and Abigail’s lack of appetite. Time and again they came to the table to have their plates refilled until all that remained of the chicken was a few bones.
I was certain that Abigail knew we were eating a stolen chicken and was deeply humiliated by her brother’s thievery. To spare the girl further embarrassment, I said that Flo and I had better be going. However, as I was presenting our excuses, there was a loud rap on the door of the cottage. As Mrs. Sanderson looked out from the curtained window, she abruptly lost her jovial manner.
“He’s here again,” she hissed to her husband. “What are we going to tell him, Pop?”
“Just give him the old stall,” her husband suggested, unperturbed.
Reluctantly, Mrs. Sanderson went to open the door. Without waiting for an invitation, a well-dressed man of middle age entered the cottage. I immediately recognized him as George Roth, the owner of the Dorset Tourist Camp.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Sanderson,” he began, his manner falsely cheerful. “I suppose you know why I am here again?”
“About the rent?”
“Precisely.” Mr. Roth consulted a small booklet. “You are behind one full month in your payments, as, of course, you must be aware. The amount totals seven dollars and seventy-five cents, payable in cash.”
“Pop, pay the gentleman,” Mrs. Sanderson commanded.
“Well, now, I ain’t got that much on me,” her husband prevaricated, responding to his cue. “If you’ll drop around in a day or two, Mr. Roth—”
“You’ve been stalling for weeks. Either pay or your electric power and water will be cut off!”
“Oh, Mr. Roth,” pleaded Mrs. Sanderson, “you can’t do that to us. I got three little ones at home.”
Jane Carter Historical Cozies: Omnibus Edition (Six Mystery Novels) Page 73
