Marjorie gripped Creighton’s arm in tense anticipation. “Do you think we should go in?”
“I don’t see why not.” He pushed the door ajar and took a step forward.
Marjorie tugged him back. “I’m not sure we should be doing this. What if we get caught? We could be charged with breaking and entering or trespassing or … or worse!”
Creighton narrowed his eyes. “What happened to Marjorie McClelland, fearless fact-finding femme fatale?”
“She’s alive and well, thank you very much!” She cast her eyes downward and poked at the cement of the front stoop with the toe of her shoe. “But I was thinking that maybe I should be a bit more … responsible … cautious …”
“Cautious? You thrive on excitement and intrigue, so, as you put it earlier, what gives?”
“I’m scared,” she answered reluctantly. “All right? There, I said it. Are you happy?”
“Scared? I don’t believe it! You wanted to come here and, despite your protests to the contrary, you do want to see what’s behind that door.”
“Yes … yes, I do, but I have a very bad feeling about all of this. Something just isn’t right.”
“What do you think is wrong?”
Marjorie bit her lip in contemplation. “I don’t know. I don’t even know that there is something wrong.” She shook her head and sighed heavily. “Oh, I’m being ridiculous. Probably all that time with Robert.”
Creighton turned up his nose and nodded. “Dreadfully unadventurous, wasn’t he?”
Marjorie didn’t answer. Regaining possession of herself, she pushed past Creighton, fiddled with the lock, and swung the door open wide. “Let’s go!” she added as she jerked her head toward the entrance.
“That’s my g—” Before Creighton could complete the sentence, Marjorie grabbed him by the arm and dragged him indoors.
The interior of the cottage was dim, but their eyesight quickly adjusted to the weak lighting.
“It’s empty,” Marjorie declared as she surveyed the vacant living room.
The ventilation from the open door sent dust balls scurrying across the hardwood floor like tumbleweeds.
Creighton scanned the walls, noting the darker areas where pictures once hung against the nicotine-stained, yellow-tinted plaster. “Miss Carter is a smoker,” he noted.
Marjorie nodded in agreement. “Mmm. My father smoked a pipe, and when I washed the windows twice a year, they were nearly brown.” Her green eyes widened. “I know it’s quite the fashion, but no matter how I tried, I never could get the hang of smoking.”
Creighton smirked. No matter how intelligent, brave, or worldly Marjorie managed to appear, there remained, beneath her imperturbable surface, a naïve little girl. “I don’t think you’re cut out for tobacco, darling.”
“No, I suppose not.” She pulled a face. “Although sometimes I see a film with Jean Harlow or Mae West and I wonder …”
Creighton stepped forward and kissed his future wife on the forehead. “Well, stop wondering. The only person I ever want you to be is you.”
Marjorie giggled and threw her arms about his neck and then looked up suddenly. “What’s that dripping sound?”
He brushed his lips lightly against her hair and moved into the kitchen. “Leaky tap,” he called from the vacant cooking area. “Looks as if Ronnie had a penchant for frying. There’s a pan full of grease on the stove.” He opened and closed the icebox doors and those of the grease-splattered cupboards. “Nothing here but bacon grease, bread crumbs, and—oh, wait a tick.”
Marjorie joined him in the kitchen, where a set of personalized luggage sat by the back door waiting for an eager traveler to snatch them up and tote them to some exotic locale.
He bent down over the slightly tattered suitcases. “V.C.,” he read aloud. “At one time Veronica Carter had money.”
“No,” Marjorie argued. “Those are cheap knockoffs. Mrs. Patterson and I saw a set at Fox’s Department Store just like it when we were shopping for my trousseau. The monogramming was free and you had the option of buying them on time.”
“Fascinating, but it still doesn’t tell us what happened to Ronnie Carter. Or why she left her luggage behind.” Creighton popped the spring mechanism on one of the cases only to find it empty. He continued to pry the remaining two lids ajar. Again, all they contained was air.
“One is missing,” Marjorie noted.
“How do you know?”
“Because the ones I saw were sold in a set of four and they were graduated in size. The smallest is a train case for makeup and toiletries. The next biggest is a valise—it’s used for short overnight stays. That big one,” she tapped it with the toe of her right foot, “is about two and a half times the size of the valise and for lengthy trips. But there’s supposed to be a case in between the two. Something that the average woman could take along for a week away, say to Niagara Falls for a honeymoon?”
“I don’t think Veronica was going on a honeymoon, hanging about the likes of Michael Barnwell.” He grinned from ear to ear. “And as for our honeymoon, my dear, considering what I have planned, the valise would be quite adequate.” He ended the statement with a wiggle of his eyebrows.
Marjorie mimicked the gesture but quickly regained momentum. “Sounds lovely, but at the moment, we’re faced with the matter of a missing suitcase.”
“Simple. Veronica ‘Ronnie’ Carter packed her things into it and ran away with Michael Barnwell. Case solved.”
“The case isn’t solved. We haven’t a shred of evidence to support your theory and I, for one, would like some cold, hard facts before I tell a poor young mother that her husband has run off with another woman.”
Creighton bit his bottom lip in thoughtful silence. “I would too, but we can make some pretty strong assumptions.”
“Assumptions? All we have to go on is Mrs. Sullivan’s story, an empty house, and a piece of luggage that may or may not be missing. That leaves a lot of holes, not the least of which is the matter of this key.” She raised the small metallic object in the air. “Is it important to this case? And, if so, what does it open?”
“Is it for the front door?”
“No, I checked it on the way in.”
“And,” Creighton stepped back and examined the back kitchen door, “it’s not for this either. But we still haven’t checked the rest of the house.”
Marjorie nodded and proceeded down the dark narrow passage that connected the living room and kitchen to the remainder of the bungalow. The hallway—if one could call it that, for it was all of twelve feet long—contained three doorways of varying size. Marjorie grabbed the handle of the door to her immediate right and turned it until it clicked. The door swung inward to reveal a medium-sized, square room whose only contents were a bare mattress and a small lamp with no shade.
Creighton walked around the perimeter of the bed and scanned the floor. “Nothing here,” he remarked before he stepped back into the hallway.
Marjorie joined him and selected the narrow door at the end of the hall as the next area to investigate. She was disappointed to find an empty linen closet. “Two down, one to go,” she commented as she directed Creighton to the last unexplored door.
He pushed it open, exposing a small closetlike space lined with cracked white ceramic tiles. To the left stood a small pedestal sink, beside it an old-fashioned pull-chain toilet, and, against the far wall, beneath an open window, a cast-iron bathtub sporting peeling paint and a reddish-brown circle around the drain.
Creighton twisted the cold-water tap of the sink, causing the pipes to bang loudly and a rust-colored substance to ooze from the faucet. He grimaced and quickly turned the tap back to the right. “Even a jigger of scotch won’t help that.”
Marjorie, meanwhile, was checking the medicine cabinet.
“Find anything?”
“A broken eyelash curler, a stub of styptic pencil, and an empty bottle of Evening in Paris,” she answered and closed the door of the cabinet abruptly.
“Hardly
the sort of discovery that will crack the case wide open.”
“No, but maybe …” her eyes grew wild as she stepped onto the toilet seat.
Creighton recognized that familiar gleam. “Oh no, what have you thought of now?”
“I remember—” her words started and stopped as she strained to reach the top of the tank. “I—was—paging through—one of—ugh—one of Robert’s detective magazines—and there was a story—about—oof—some gangster—who—hid—something—important —on top of—one—of—these.”
“What was it?”
She felt along the top of the tank with her fingertips. “I—don’t—remember. Guns—bootleg—whiskey—something.”
“Ah. Umm, darling? That doesn’t look very sturdy. Why don’t you step on the lid instead of the, er … ?”
“There—isn’t—one—oh!” No sooner had she answered than her right foot slipped off the seat and dangled ominously over the bowl of rusty water below. Thrown completely off balance, she waved one arm while clawing frantically at the tank with the other.
Creighton stared, open-mouthed and helpless at the silent, frenetic ballet before moving into position behind his fiancée. “Marjorie,” he shouted. “Don’t worry, I’ve got—”
“Aaaaaahhhhhh,” she wailed as she teetered back and forth upon her porcelain perch. Instinctively, she reached out for something with which to steady herself and was relieved when her fingers met with cold metal.
The relief was short-lived, however, for the object did nothing to help her regain her balance. Instead, it moved beneath her grasp and seemed to be growing longer.
The chain.
Marjorie felt herself falling backward toward the hard tile wall. She closed her eyes and braced herself for the worst.
“Marjorie,” Creighton ordered as he positioned himself behind her. “Let go of—!”
Creighton’s words were drowned out by a loud ploop followed by a resounding whoosh. Cold water rushed against her right ankle.
She opened her eyes to find that her torso was safely cradled in Creighton’s arms, but her foot was wedged firmly in the siphon part of the bowl. She struggled to pull herself free, but the suction created by the flush, as well as the increasing pressure caused by the cascade of fresh, albeit rust-tinged, water made it impossible.
“I’m stuck! Oh Creighton, help!”
Creighton obediently let Marjorie’s left leg drop to the floor and then, placing a hand under each of her arms, braced himself against the wall. “All right, on the count of three, pull! Ready? One … two … three … go!”
The couple pulled as hard as they could, grunting and groaning with every tug, yet, despite all their efforts, the only visible results were Marjorie’s dress being yanked to scandalous heights, Creighton being pinned, by an overzealous Marjorie, against the wall, and an ever-expanding pool of murky water on the floor.
“It’s no use,” he sighed. “We’re going to have to remove your shoe.”
“Oh no! I love these shoes.”
“Well, it’s either you or the shoes, darling.”
“There’s no other way to get my foot out of there?”
“There is, but I don’t think you want me summoning the Hartford Fire Department to get your foot out of a loo.”
“Not particularly,” she pouted. “Go ahead and take the shoe off.”
“Me?” he nearly shouted. “It was your idea to stand up there, and it’s your shoe.”
“Please,” she pleaded. “That water is so—so—brown.”
“Mmm, right up Jameson’s alley. Too bad he isn’t here to lend a hand.”
Marjorie sulked as she smoothed her dress into place.
Creighton chuckled. “You needn’t bother. Any enjoyment I might derive from the sight of your bare thigh is mitigated by what’s at the other end of your calf.”
She placed her hands on her hips and thrust her nose into the air. Water continued to stream onto the tile floor.
Creighton laughed even harder. “Only you could manage to get caught in such an absurd situation. And only you could still try to look dignified with your foot in a—well, a crapper.” Still chuckling, he removed his jacket, slung it over the bathroom door, and proceeded to roll up his sleeves.
Marjorie jolted to life. “What are you doing?”
“You know precisely what I’m doing. I’m taking off your shoe.”
“Oh thank you, Creighton! You’re so good to me.”
He bent down, dipped one hand into the rusty water and pulled it out again. “Anything for you, my dear. Anything …” He scrutinized the flesh of his palm, grimaced “… for …” and then plunged it back into the bowl “… you.”
It took Creighton thirty minutes to extricate Marjorie from her watery captivity.
She immediately leaned against the tiled bathroom wall and massaged her sore foot. The tops of her toes were bruised and a red line marked where the vamp of her shoe had dug into the metatarsal area. “Whew, that’s much better. Now all I need is my shoe and—hey, where’d my shoe go?”
Creighton pointed at the siphon. “Down there.”
“No, there has to be a way to get it back. What about a plunger?”
“Did you see any?”
Marjorie shook her head.
“Neither did I,” he continued. “But what’s even worse than the loss of your shoe is that if we don’t find a way to shut the water off, this place will be flooded.” Creighton bent down and, reaching behind the bowl, grabbed a small, rusty valve. “This should do it,” he announced.
He knelt down and attempted to push the regulating device to the left. Marjorie watched admiringly as the muscles in her fiancé’s forearm tightened and tensed as he utilized more and more strength in the endeavor. Flakes of corroded metal yielded to the pressure and sprinkled downward; however, the valve still held firmly.
“Rusted through,” he declared as he rose to his feet. “There has to be a main shutoff somewhere. Did you happen to see a cellar door?”
“No. Well, not inside at least. Perhaps out back.”
They retreated back down the hallway, through the kitchen and out the back door, Marjorie hobbling the whole way on one shoe and one bare foot.
“Aha!” Creighton exclaimed as he stepped down onto the dilapidated brick stoop.
Marjorie followed his gaze to a set of metal Bilco doors, fastened with a shiny steel padlock. Forgetting her semi-shod state, she bounded excitedly down the steps, twisting her ankle in the process.
“Careful, sweetheart,” he warned.
She paid no heed to the tinge of pain in her foot but went directly to the lock. “7905,” she said aloud as she read the serial number etched below the keyhole. “Well, that answers that question.” She passed the key to Creighton. “Here, you open it. You’re the plumber.”
He took the key, inserted it into the lock and turned it. The lock sprung open with minimal effort. “Strange that Barnwell should have a key for the cellar in his pocket.”
Marjorie shrugged. “Maybe he had to do the same thing you’re doing.”
“Turn off the water because Veronica got her foot stuck in a—?”
“I meant,” she interrupted, “fix the plumbing.”
“Ah, right,” he said with a nod and a wink. He bent down, grasped the handle of the topmost door, opened it, and then repeated the process with the second, exposing a set of subterranean stairs.
The stairway, however, wasn’t the only thing to emerge into the daylight, for as the couple pulled the doors back, a horrible odor rose to the surface. Marjorie covered her nose with her hands.
Creighton stepped forward and, placing an arm around her shoulders, shielded her nose and mouth with a monogrammed handkerchief.
“Oh Creighton! What is that?”
“Probably a dead mouse,” he asserted.
“A dead mouse? You haven’t been in Connecticut very long have you? The only way a mouse could make a stink like that is if it were eighty pounds and four feet l
ong.”
He pulled a face. “No, you’re right. Here, hold this,” he handed her the handkerchief. “I’ll go down to take a look.”
Marjorie leapt forward, letting the handkerchief fall to the ground. “Oh no, Creighton! I don’t want you going down there by yourself.”
He held her close and stroked her hair soothingly. “No, Marjorie. You wait here. It’s probably just stagnant water from a leaky pipe.”
She drew him close and buried her face in his shoulder. “You know it’s not a leak either.”
“I know better than to try to shield you, darling, but just trust me this time. Go to the car and wait there.”
“No, I want to stay with you. Besides, I’ve come this far. I want to see this through to the end—dead mouse, stagnant water, or otherwise.”
Creighton sighed wearily. “All right. Come on, but let’s grab a flashlight first.”
They went to the front of the house where the Phantom was parked. Through an open window of the bungalow, they could see Mrs. Sullivan keeping her house “spic-and-span.”
Creighton reached into the glove box and retrieved a flashlight. He tested it by flicking the on switch several times. Satisfied that the battery was strong enough for the task at hand, he nodded to Marjorie. “I’m going down there. You stay here.”
“No!” she shouted. “We agreed!”
“Marjorie, you’re staying here if I have to lock you in this car myself!” he boomed.
She timidly sunk bank into the passenger seat of the Phantom. Creighton strode off to the backyard. He did not enjoy utilizing such bully tactics—it wasn’t in his nature—but he was willing to do whatever was necessary to ensure that she was protected.
He walked slowly down the flight of stairs, the beam of his flashlight picking out objects with every step of the journey. When he felt that he could travel no farther and that the odor was too overwhelming to be ignored, he focused the light on the floor beneath his feet. A surge of bile rushed up his throat and he might have vomited on the spot if he hadn’t turned around to find Marjorie.
“Creighton,” she implored as she slid her arms around his neck. “Creighton, don’t be angry. I wanted to be here with you. I—” Her eyes slid to the floor of the cellar, causing her body to tense and her vocal cords to issue forth a high-pitched scream the likes of which Creighton had seldom heard before.
Shadow Waltz Page 3
