Living Spectres: a Chesterton Holte, Gentleman Haunt Mystery

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  “Does it bother you that Missus Kinnon is giving us the cold shoulder?” Poppy asked, a little startled that this should bother her.

  “Not really. I’ve known Eulalle a long time, and I was hoping she might come because of that, but—” She shrugged. “Archibald Wyman will be here—you know him. His wife is visiting family in Maine, so he’ll be alone. The Lowenthals are coming, of course, and Inspector Loring. I can’t wait to see what they think of all this. Elliott Wickman will be here, but he plans to leave early; he’s taking the train to Chicago in the morning.”

  Poppy understood that Aunt Esther was reviewing her guest list aloud rather than reminding her niece about them, so she sipped her brandy and half-listened to what her aunt was saying. She heard the clock in the study chime six, and a few minutes later, the doorbell rang. Poppy sat up, and Esther smoothed the front of her long jacket; Miss Roth appeared and went to open to admit Judge Stephanson, saying, “The ladies are in the sitting room, Your Honor, if you would care to join them?”

  Esther stopped her cataloging of the evening’s company, and called out, “Good evening, Benedict. Come join us.” She stood up and held out her hands in welcome to the distinguished, white-haired man in a dinner jacket who came into the drawing room holding a small bouquet of yellow roses.

  “Good evening, ladies,” he said, and thrust out his bouquet. “By the way, the rain is slacking off.”

  “How thoughtful of you,” Esther exclaimed, and signaled to Miss Roth who was a few steps behind the judge. “These in water, if you would.”

  Stephanson handed to bouquet to Miss Roth, then took Esther’s hands in his and beamed down at her. “How lovely to see you my dear,” he murmured, and bent to kiss her cheek. “I’ve missed you.”

  “You’re looking fit as ever, Ben,” Esther remarked, not quite blushing, and keeping hold of his hands for a little longer than courtesy required. “Please have a seat.” She nodded toward Poppy. “You remember my niece, Poppy Thornton?”

  Poppy had risen from her chair, and now she held out her right hand. “Good evening, Your Honor,” she said.

  “How could I forget you?” Stephanson asked as he shook Poppy’s hand, his style the gallant manner of a generation past. “I’ve been following your reporting on the antiquities scandal all summer, Miss Thornton. You’re a most enterprising journalist.”

  This unexpected compliment startled Poppy, and it took her a little time to summon up an appropriate response. “It’s gratifying to know that someone is paying attention to what has been going on. Thank you so much.”

  Esther had gone to the high-boy and asked, “What can I pour for you, Ben?”

  “You wouldn’t happen to have any single-malt Scotch, would you?” He was about to request something else, but Esther smiled.

  “Yes. I have two bottles. How many fingers?”

  “Two, if you would,” said His Honor, and watched while Esther took a square, three- inch-deep glass from the high-boy, and then removed a bottle with a simple label: Tarrisers. “I hope this will do,” she said as she removed the stopper and started to pour. “I forgot to ask: do you want ice?”

  “It’s lovely the way it is,” said Stephanson. “How do you manage to have that uncommon label among your other offerings—and don’t tell me. I’m not supposed to know such things—I may be retired, but I’m still an officer of the court.”

  Esther handed him the glass and put the Scotch back inside the high-boy. “You’re being cautious.” She picked up her small snifter and lifted it in his direction. “Confusion to our enemies, may they all rot in hell.”

  “Truly,” said Stephanson, and drank. That done, he fixed his pale-blue eyes on Esther. “Is this going to be one of your hodge-podge evenings, my dear? I know how you like to mix people and professions and classes.”

  “You make it sound like a chemistry experiment,” Esther protested. “It’s not that, I promise you. This is a shared party, in part for my being back from Europe and the Soviet Union, and in part for my delight in having my niece move into my house.” She added a little more brandy to her glass. “She and I have varied interests, so that will be reflected in the guests.”

  “Another chemistry experiment,” said Stephanson, grinning. “I hope there are no fisticuffs.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t think there would be,” said Poppy.

  Knowing what was expected of him, Stephanson asked, “Why not?”

  “Because everyone is too fond of Aunt Esther to behave so badly,” said Poppy; she was beginning to feel less edgy about the evening and wondered if Holte was observing the start of the festivities. As an afterthought, she added, “And if guests should come to blows, there will be a police inspector here to control them.”

  As if in response to her thoughts, the sconce-light over the high-boy flickered.

  “Not another light-bulb going,” Esther said, exasperated. “We just replaced three of them not two days ago.”

  “But not this one, I’m guessing,” Stephanson pointed out.

  “No; not this one.” Esther sighed. “Well, if it fails, we’ll have to bring a pair of candelabras into the room. I must ask Miss Roth to make sure we have some ready. Excuse me,” she said, and hastened off to the kitchen.

  Left alone with Poppy, Stephanson did his smooth best to strike up polite conversation. “How are you enjoying your new home, Miss P. M. Thornton?”

  “Oh, Poppy, please,” she said. “I’m still getting used to it, of course, but I’m liking it very well, thank you.”

  “What do you think of the neighborhood?” Stephanson pursued with determined courtesy. “I trust you’re learning your way around.”

  “I like it. We have a professor and his family on one side, and a civil engineer on the other. I haven’t met the neighbors behind us yet.” She paused. “But I suppose you know that.”

  “Yes; fine people, both families.” He waited a moment, then went on, “Hagen Kristman is a colleague of mine, now that I’m teaching. I like to think that your aunt introducing us some dozen years ago helped me in securing the position I have now.”

  “She introduced you?” Poppy asked, then answered her own question. “Of course she did; how like her.”

  Stephanson nodded. “She’s always willing to extend herself. And speaking of extending herself, Esther told me that you have a cat,” he said.

  “That I do, not by plan; he more or less followed me here,” Poppy told him, not wanting to get into a discussion of family politics with more guests sure to arrive shortly. “His name is Maestro, and my Aunt Josephine sent him over to join me when I moved from her house, saying he missed me. He’s confined upstairs for tonight. I’m afraid he isn’t very sociable.”

  “Not many cats are,” Stephanson allowed, taking another sip. After a second or two, he asked, “Do you enjoy working at the Clarion?”

  “Not always. The demands of the work can be grueling, and often it’s difficult to see a story through to the end. But I do get great satisfaction out of covering crime; I feel that when I cover a crime, I’m helping to bring the miscreant to justice, and to alert the public to danger,” except, she added to herself, when I am the object of the offense; she lobbed the conversational ball back at him. “Now that you’re off the bench, what do you do to fill your time?”

  “I teach, as I’ve mentioned: three pre-law seniors’ classes a week on Constitutional law,” he said. “And I’m trying my hand at gardening. I haven’t much to show for my efforts, or not yet, but I’m liking it more than I feared I would. I don’t want to end up one of those doddering old men, pottering about in a confusion of plants. At present, I’m attempting to get three apple trees growing.”

  “That must be challenging,” said Poppy. “The classes, not the gardening.”

  “I’d say quite the reverse; the young men in my classes are pretty well prepared for law school, and my main job is to review the fine points. Having spent thirty-two years on the bench, I can do it almost automatically. Gardening, o
n the other hand, is completely new territory for me.”

  “That doesn’t seem—” Poppy began, only to be interrupted by Aunt Esther’s return to the sitting room.

  “Any failure of light-bulbs will be off-set by candles. I have it all arranged.” She picked up her abandoned snifter and drank down what remained of its contents. “Let them come. We’re ready for them.”

  SEVENTEEN

  FERNALD AND BERNADETTE STANTON WERE THE FIRST TO ARRIVE, ON THE STROKE of six-thirty. He was in a dark-blue business suit; she was in a short, ivory-taffeta evening gown strewn with beads and sequins. They turned their coats over to Miss Roth and came into the drawing room with great enthusiasm. By the time Esther had got their drinks, Primrose North and her son Denton were at the door, and shortly after them, Mildred and Humphrey Fairchild joined the party; they moved from the sitting room into the larger parlor where they were more comfortable.

  “Oh, Poppy!” Mildred cried merrily, “What a delightful house.” She came to offer an awkward hug, her six-month state of expectation interfering with their greeting hug. “And where is your Aunt Esther?”

  “Right here,” said Esther, from her place next to the high-boy. “Good to see you, Mildred. And you, Humphrey.”

  “It is a delightful house,” said Poppy, catching a little of Mildred’s speech cadences from her; Poppy indicated the couch. “Sit down, Milly, please, and tell me how you are.”

  “You can see how I am,” Mildred answered with a laugh. “Humphrey can tell you that I’m doing very well. But I can’t wait for November. The doctor thinks I’m likely to have something more than turkey this Thanksgiving.” She held her hand up to take her husband’s. “Humphrey has been a prince through all this, an absolute prince.”

  Humphrey Fairchild, a large, florid man with thinning, fair hair, and a self-satisfied expression, just thirty, beamed at Mildred. “You’re an angel, Milly.” He turned to Poppy. “I can’t tell you, Miss Thornton, how many times I have thanked my lucky stars that I married Milly.” He half-bowed in the direction of his wife. “What would you like to drink?”

  “I don’t know.” She took a moment to think, and in that moment, Professor Langton Timms and his wife Beatrice came through the door; Beatrice’s energetic greeting drowned out Mildred’s answer, and she had to repeat, “I think a little brandy, with soda—we’ll be having wine with dinner, and I don’t want to get tipsy. Top-heavy as I am, I need to keep my balance.” She laughed, and Humphrey chuckled.

  Before Poppy could go to get her drink, Mildred detained her. “Oh, Poppy, did you see the dreadful story in the Tattler—not that I read the Tattler—but still?”

  “What dreadful story?” Poppy asked, pausing in her mission to get Mildred her drink.

  “The one they’ve published about the Butterworth girl? She claims that she and GAD Pearse are engaged, and that he’s been missing since July, and that his family is doing nothing to find him.”

  Poppy stopped. “No, I haven’t seen that,” she said, a cold feeling going through her that was nothing like Holte’s non-touch. She would have to pick up the Tattler in the morning and see what damage had been done. “You stay here, Humphrey; I’ll fetch Mildred’s brandy-and- soda.”

  “Well, do you think there’s anything to it?” Mildred looked from Poppy to her husband.

  “Surely not,” said Humphrey. “You can’t put any stock in what the Tattler prints. Last month, they claimed that there were Russian refugees escaping into Alaska. That’s hardly responsible reportage, is it Poppy?”

  Poppy gave no response, but continued on to the high-boy, and saw that Aunt Esther had opened the pocket-doors between the parlor and the sitting room. “Milly would like a bit of brandy with soda, if you have any to spare.”

  “I can manage that; I have a little of everything, including port and sherry,” said Esther, “but I’ll save the more expensive bottle of sherry for Jo.”

  “That’s probably wise,” said Poppy.

  A few seconds later there was another flurry of excitement as more company came into the sitting room from the entry-hall. Leading the group, Beatrice Timms was resplendent in a rustling gown of dark-red taffeta with cap-sleeves and a scalloped hem, and smelling of Attar of Roses; she headed straight for Judge Stephanson, her husband trailing behind her. “Your Honor! How nice to see you again!”

  Poppy watched this encounter, and very nearly dropped the brandy-and-soda she was carrying to Humphrey and Mildred. She glanced back quickly at Aunt Esther, and saw her brows come together in a frown that was quickly banished. “I’ll just take this to Milly,” Poppy said, and did.

  Beatrice moved in nearer to Stephanson, a smile fixed on her rouged lips. “I was hoping you might be here tonight Your Honor, knowing you and Miss Thornton are such good friends.”

  Stephanson took a step back, and assumed a more formal manner. “Good evening, Missus Timms.” He made a point of looking past her to Langton Timms. “And good evening to you Professor. A pleasure to see you.”

  “And you, Judge,” said Timms, shaking Stephanson’s hand.

  The next ten minutes was a clamor of new guests coming into the parlor, among them Cornelius and Eunice Lowenthal, he in a dinner jacket that strained around his barrel chest, she in a beautifully made dress of lavender faille. Poppy excused herself from Mildred’s side and went to introduce the Lowenthals to the rest of the company.

  “You look very nice,” Poppy’s boss said to her, clearly out of his depth in this crowd. “Good of your aunt to throw you this party.”

  “It’s also for her,” said Poppy, pulling the Lowenthals out of the way as Howard Dale made his way through the parlor with a tray of broiled clams on toothpicks to offer to the increasing number of guests. “What would you like to drink? I’ll go pour it myself if you would like to find a place to sit.”

  “Scotch or Bourbon. No ice,” Lowenthal said.

  “Lemonade, if you have it,” said Eunice.

  “I’ll ask my aunt, but I believe we have some in the refrigerator.” Poppy motioned to Stephanson, and was relieved to see him start toward her. She introduced the judge to her editor and his wife, and then said, “I’m going to get them some refreshments, and they’re new here. Would you mind—”

  “My pleasure,” said Stephanson, and proceeded to engage the Lowenthals in easy small-talk, beginning with, “I often read the Clarion, and wondered how you manage to bring out a paper every day, without fail, as you do? It must be very demanding work. How do you manage to accomplish that, day in and day out?”

  Lowenthal warmed to his favorite subject. “It’s a real scrum sometimes. I could tell you stories of the near misses we’ve had, Your Honor.”

  “I’m all ears,” said the judge, and sat down next to Lowenthal; Missus Lowenthal sat down on the ottoman next to the occasional table where she could listen to her husband.

  Lowenthal all but preened. “It can be a near thing, I can tell you,” and he launched into the tale of one of his favorite incidents.

  Making her way through the gathering, Poppy encountered the new waiter, Abner Bridges, near the kitchen door. “Would you be good enough to bring in the pitcher of lemonade? One of the guests has asked for it.”

  “Just as soon as I hand around these deviled eggs,” he said and continued on toward the parlor.

  Poppy shook her head and was about to go into the sitting room when the doorbell sounded.

  Miss Roth, standing in the entry-hall, was waving to attract Poppy’s attention, and as soon as she caught Poppy’s eye, she motioned to her to come. “Your guest is here,” she informed Poppy as she approached.

  Poppy took a moment to decide who Miss Roth meant, and then smiled as she saw Inspector Loring standing in the doorway; he was in his best dark suit with a somber black bow-tie in front of the well-starched collar on a very good white shirt. “Oh, Loring,” Poppy said as she took his hand. “I’m so glad you’re here. Come in, come in.” She tugged him in the direction of the parlor, toward E
sther, who was still at her station by the high-boy. “Aunt Esther, may I introduce Inspector J. B. Loring?”

  Aunt Esther smiled and held out her hand to Loring. “You certainly may, Poppy. How very nice to meet you, Inspector. I must tell you that I’ve been looking forward to welcoming you to this house ever since I came home.” As they shook hands, she added, “And let me offer you my belated thanks for all you are doing to bring my odious nephew to justice for his treatment of my niece, and anything else he may have done. I’m glad you’re not letting the matter drop.”

  For a moment Loring looked nonplused, but he recovered himself enough to say, “No thanks needed.”

  “No,” said Aunt Esther with a quick, wicked half-smile. “I didn’t think so.” Then she indicated the array of bottles before her. “What’s your pleasure?”

  “Do you happen to have any rum among all that contraband?” he asked.

  “Jamaican rum, coming up. Do you want ice?”

  Loring nodded. “Yes, please.” While Esther poured out his drink, he looked around the room. “Quite a do you’re having.”

  “I certainly hope so; that was my intention,” said Esther, and handed him a glass with just over two fingers of dark rum in its depths. “I hope you’ll enjoy yourself this evening, Inspector; feel free to help yourself to the contraband. If there is anything else you’d like, don’t hesitate to ask. If I’m busy, I’m sure Poppy can assist you.”

  The light over the high-boy flickered once more, and Poppy was almost certain that she heard a quiet, ghostly snicker in her left ear.

  Loring noticed the faltering light as well, and glanced at Poppy. “Morse code, do you think?”

  To her dismay, Poppy flushed. “More likely an old bulb,” she said, and drank down the last of her brandy. “Come; I’ll introduce you around.” She slipped her arm through his and led him about the room. “I should warn you: Aunt Esther will be keeping an eye on you.”

  “And why is that?” he asked.

  “Because you’re my friend,” Poppy said, wholly unaware of the faint smile that softened his mouth.