Cirak's Daughter

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “James, on the other hand, was a gallant loser but an insufferable winner,” said Harriet Compton.

  “So Bill lost a game, popped his cork, and beaned Cox over the head with the cribbage board?” MacRae shook his head. “Cox was no pushover. I’d have had to see that one to believe it.”

  “Too bad you didn’t. Where were you the night Mr. Cox was killed? In Meldrum, by any chance?”

  “No, as it happened, I was at Logan Airport on standby, trying to catch a flight to Paris.”

  And Logan was in Boston, perhaps an hour and a half’s drive from Meldrum.

  “How did you find out about the murder?”

  “What makes you so sure it was murder?” he shot back. “You’ve heard the official verdict, haven’t you?”

  “Official horsefeathers.” Harriet Compton snorted. “Somebody did a spot of arm-twisting over that case, and you can’t tell me they didn’t. Who put the fix on, do you know?”

  MacRae shrugged. “If I knew, do you think I’d have kept a story like that under my hat? As I told you, I wasn’t around when it happened.”

  “But surely you’ve heard people talking about it since you got back,” Harriet insisted.

  “No, as a matter of fact there’s been surprisingly little said about Cox, at least when I’ve been around. Maybe that’s because Sue Giles is generally the center of all the town gossip, and I can see why she’d keep quiet if there was any chance Bill might be involved. I guess I didn’t want to hear you on that one, Jenny. Bill used to fix my bike for me when I was a kid. He was always such an easy-going guy, it’s no wonder Sue managed to cover up his temper fits. But it’s not only Sue who doesn’t want to talk about Cox. Even my grandmother steers clear of that subject. You must have noticed that yesterday. She just makes some kind of remark about what a gr-rand man he was, then turns you on to something else.”

  “One can understand why,” said Harriet Compton with a knowing look. “I gathered from what little she did say yesterday that there was a good deal more than mere neighborliness between them.”

  “My grandmother and Cox?” yelped the photographer. “At her age?”

  “Her age is probably pretty darn close to my age, young man, so watch your tongue. Furthermore, I wish you’d kindly tell me where you kids get the idea that anybody over forty is ready for the glue factory.”

  “Okay, if you say so. I suppose anything’s possible.”

  MacRae began to laugh. “Jenny, how about that? If my grandmother had married your father, you’d have been my aunt.”

  “Perish the thought! I’ve got more relatives than I need already. Aunt Harriet, do you think that’s why Mrs. Gillespie was so positive Father wasn’t serious about Mrs. Firbelle? He wouldn’t have gone so far as to hand them both the same line, would he?”

  “Short of actually marrying either of them, which he knew darn well he couldn’t get away with, I can’t imagine James boggling at anything that would help his game along. For all I know, he was making a play for every woman in Meldrum.”

  MacRae’s eyes narrowed. “And what exactly was his game, may I ask?”

  “James was a—he’d written a few screen plays years ago, and he had an idea for another. He was here gathering material for a story line he wanted to develop. We’d—happened to get together in Baltimore before he came, and he’d told me that much. He didn’t go into details as to how he planned to go about it, but it looks to me as if he’d cast himself as a sort of small-town Don Juan to see what different women’s reactions would be.”

  “If that’s what he was up to, he deserved what he got.”

  “What right have you to say that?” Jenny blazed. “You didn’t know him.”

  “I thought you didn’t, either.”

  “That’s enough,” snapped Harriet Compton. “Larry, you only know what you saw of James, and Jenny only knows what she’s been told. Neither of you has a right to judge him, and that’s not what’s important now anyway.”

  “Then what is?”

  “Finding out who killed him and why, because Jenny isn’t safe until we know.”

  “Jenny?” said MacRae blankly. “What’s her father’s death got to do with her?”

  “Larry, can’t you get it through your skull that we just don’t know? We don’t accept the accident theory; and misadventure doesn’t mean a darn thing, as you must realize yourself. We assume James was killed, either on the spur of the moment or as a result of a murder plot. If it was because of something he had, then Jenny may have inherited both the thing itself and the threat that goes with it. If it was on account of something he did, there may be dangerous repercussions for her.”

  “Why should that be?”

  “Why shouldn’t it? Think of the possibilities, Larry. Suppose, for instance, you took a picture of a group of people, just a random shot with no regard to the actual persons in it. Now, suppose that in the group there happened to be a criminal who’d gone to a lot of trouble to provide himself with an alibi that was supposed to show he couldn’t have been where you now possessed visual proof that he was. How safe do you think you’d be unless he was able to get the film away from you before you managed to have it developed?”

  MacRae shrugged. “I see your point. I could get bumped off and never know why.”

  “Exactly. And James bought this house furnished, when it had been standing idle ever since that old Mrs. Brady, I believe her name was, died. We don’t know what may have been going on here all that time. All we know is that James didn’t stay alive long after he moved in. We don’t know if whatever may or may not have been in the works here has been resumed. We do know Jenny has seen one prowler near the place.”

  “I did, you know,” said Jenny quietly. “At first I thought it was you, but now I’m sure it was someone else. And I do get—feelings about people. I can’t explain them, either, but they happen. I wasn’t trying to scare Mrs. Firbelle that night. I was scared myself, if you want to know. And you weren’t exactly helpful.”

  The photographer flushed as red as his mustache. “You don’t have to remind me. Jenny, I’m not asking you to forgive me, but try to look at it from my point of view. I knew your father was hanging around my grandmother, and I get feelings, too. I didn’t like what I felt when I saw them together. It never occurred to me that he might be—well, courting her. To tell you the truth, I thought he was after her money. I was expecting him to try selling her some phony oil stock or something like that.”

  “James happened to be a wealthy man,” said Harriet Compton stiffly, “and he was not in the habit of robbing widows.”

  “Yes, but Larry wouldn’t know that,” Jenny argued, rather to her own surprise. “After all, Father was up to something, even if it wasn’t anything dishonest—or not what he’d consider dishonest, anyway. And looking prosperous is part of a confidence man’s stock in trade, isn’t it? I don’t see where that was such an unreasonable mistake for Larry to make. You can’t blame him for being concerned about his grandmother, can you? So I suppose when I turned up looking just like my father and trying to make the neighbors think I knew nothing about him—which happened to be more or less true, though Larry wouldn’t have believed that, either—it must have looked as if I were in Meldrum to carry on the family business. Is that what happened, Larry?”

  “Pretty much,” he admitted. “I should have known better.”

  “You probably would have, if I hadn’t worn that stupid wig and that slinky purple dress.”

  “You never told me about the slinky purple dress, Jenny,” said Harriet Compton, who seemed to have recovered her good humor.

  “I was too ashamed.”

  “Maybe they’ll have another rummage sale,” Larry consoled her. “All right, so where are we? You told Mrs. Firbelle she was in danger.”

  “No, I didn’t. I said there was danger around her.”

  “Same thing, isn’t it?”

  “Not necessarily. Maybe—do you suppose I was getting some kind of hunch about my
father? Maybe somebody killed him because he was stringing her along as well as Mrs. Gillespie, and this other person got jealous. Mrs. Firbelle doesn’t have any old boyfriends hanging around, does she?”

  “Not so you’d notice it,” Larry answered. “Frankly, I can see somebody plotting to kill Mrs. Firbelle a lot easier than I could believe anybody’d want to marry her. She has the personality of a cobra, if you ask me. As for her money, you just have to look at that niece of hers to see how freely she throws it around. So let’s suppose your presentiment, or whatever you call it, was true. Somebody was planning to bump off Ma Firbelle and decided to kill James Cox first because Cox was paying too much attention to her and getting in the way. Or maybe Cox realized what was in the wind and tried to warn off the would-be killer or something. He was a bright guy, as I probably don’t have to tell you.”

  “He was bright enough not to go messing around with a murderer,” Harriet Compton objected.

  “All right, I won’t argue the point. What I mean is that the prowler Jenny saw would hardly have been after Mrs. Firbelle. Why would he back off for six months after he’d killed Cox, and then appear again on the same night Jenny had warned Mrs. Firbelle she was in danger?”

  “You’re assuming the prowler was at the party, or somehow knew about the warning,” said Harriet Compton.

  “Well, yes, I suppose—”

  Larry turned red as his mustache and shut up. Jenny knew why. He himself had been there, but his grandmother hadn’t because her cat was sick. Elspeth had no use for Marguerite with her air-rs an’ graces. But she’d surely never have harmed James Cox. She’d thought him a grand man. Or so she said.

  Jenny couldn’t remember having mentioned to Harriet that Elspeth wasn’t at the Gileses’ buffet. Apparently she hadn’t, because Harriet was still pondering Jenny’s suggestion.

  “Perhaps it was just that the opportunity hadn’t presented itself before. The killer wouldn’t have dared strike twice within too short a period; and I shouldn’t think a woman Mrs. Firbelle’s age would be out that late at night very often, especially in a place like Meldrum. It’s all guesswork, of course.”

  “Yes, and the more we guess about it, the more impossible it sounds.” Larry must have decided that idea was a waste of time, because he quickly changed the subject.

  “Getting back to Cox, I’m more inclined to buy your suggestion that he simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. As to why the prowler came back that night of Sue’s party, assuming it was the same guy, he could have been expecting to find the carriage house vacant, thinking Jenny was still over at the Gileses’. For all we know, he could have been in and out of the carriage house any number of times before Jenny moved in and maybe hidden something there that he was anxious to get back. Was that why you two cleared all that stuff out you gave to the rummage sale? If somebody was after something, you were trying to make him understand you’d searched the place and it wasn’t there any more?”

  “I never even thought of that,” Jenny admitted. “I was tired of banging my shins every time I turned around, that’s all. It never once occurred to me that one of those ghastly jardinieres might have a false bottom or whatever. But what would they hide?”

  “Who knows? Jewelry, cash, drugs, stuff taken from housebreaks in the area, maybe. It was just a thought, and probably not a very good one. What do you say, ladies? Shall we get this show back on the road before everybody in Meldrum starts wondering whether we’re stuck in a padded cell back there at the hospital?”

  Harriet Compton started drawing on her gloves. “I’m about ready for one, myself. You’re right, Larry, we’d better put this show on the road. Jenny and I are dining at the Firbelles.’ It’s supposed to be informal, but I daresay the matriarch expects us to arrive dressed to the eyeballs in honor of the occasion.”

  “No doubt,” Larry drawled. “Maybe Jenny should have hung onto her hair.”

  18

  “I’m itching to see what the front part of the Firbelles’ house is like,” Harriet Compton remarked as they strolled up the sidewalk in their new frocks from Louise’s Boutique. They’d decided to make a formal entrance this time instead of cutting across the back yard.

  “I’m not,” Jenny grumbled. “I don’t know why, but every time I so much as think about this place, my temperature drops about two degrees.”

  “And you don’t mind saying so. You may not know it, young woman, but you’ve come a long way in the past couple of days.”

  “Because I’m learning to accept myself, you mean? A person more or less has to, sooner or later. I have to live with my so-called Cirak streak, so I may as well make the best of it.”

  “What’s it telling you now, Jenny?”

  “That I’d a darn sight rather be going to Elspeth Gillespie’s for another high tea. What do you bet they serve us New England boiled dinner?”

  Her stepmother chuckled. “You’re James’s daughter, all right. He was always going on about Yankees being culinary assassins. He loved to bumble around the kitchen, putting garlic into everything I cooked. I only wish I could have been a fly on the wall when he threw those fancy dinners Beth was telling us about. I can see him now, pouring champagne with his tongue in his cheek.”

  “Was he like that?”

  “Oh, yes. James was a great clown. He’d keep a joke running for months on end if he took the notion. Sooner or later he’d have come back to the apartment and regaled me for days with his adventures in Meldrum, following me around with a half-eaten salami sandwich in his hand, roaring his head off at his own jokes and expecting me to laugh with him. And I would have, Jenny. Lord! The fools women make of themselves over men.”

  She put her face and the seams of her gloves straight. “Well, kid, here we are. Mind your manners and don’t spit the olive pits under the table, as your father used to say.”

  Jenny had barely time to give her windblown hair a nervous pat before the door was opened by a maid in a black taffeta uniform and hemstitched white apron. She took their wraps.

  “Will you walk into the parlor, ladies?”

  Said the spider to the flies. Jenny didn’t dare look at her stepmother for fear they’d both giggle.

  The Firbelles’ front parlor was straight out of Guided Tours of Gracious Homes. It was all there; the polished Heppelwhite furniture; the family portraits from Itinerant Signpainter to Institute of American Artists; the Lowestoft bowls heaped with burnished chrysanthemums; the firelight striking discreet gleams from the polished brass andirons.

  Marguerite Firbelle was sitting in the wing chair to the right of the fireplace, exquisite in amethyst velvet, doing crewel work. Jack Firbelle lounged in the left-hand wing chair, correct in a dark Brooks Brothers suit, doing nothing. Beth Firbelle crouched on a hassock between them, dowdy in the hand-crocheted sack she’d worn to the Gileses’ party, knitting on yet another disaster in the making, her yarn dangling out of the tacky drawstring bag. All three rose to greet their visitors.

  “Oh, it’s so good to see you!”

  Beth was welcoming them as though it had been years instead of hours since they’d last been together. Was this because she felt the disagreeable scene in the church hall had somehow been her fault, and she was trying to make it up to them for that miserable drive to the hospital with Bill Giles? There was no earthly reason why she should. They’d volunteered for the job. Perhaps it was because she wanted to think of them as more her acquaintances than her aunt’s. In this house, where everything spoke of Marguerite and all she stood for, that might be desperately important to a poor relation. The contrast between Beth’s shabbiness and the time-mellowed beauty of her surroundings was devastating. Jenny did her best to return Beth’s effusiveness.

  “What’s that you’re knitting? It looks fascinating.”

  “Just a pullover. I don’t know why, but I never seem to have anything to wear.” Beth held out the half-finished front for Jenny to see. As expected, it looked like a lost cause already. “Samp
son’s were having a sale of yarn, but all the best colors were gone by the time I found out about it.” Naturally.

  After a genteel insufficiency of domestic sherry served by the maid in priceless Sandwich glass goblets, they went in to dinner. The food was New Englandish enough, but mercifully not boiled dinner. The maid presented first a tomato-flavored clam chowder, which tasted suspiciously like a leftover from the church luncheon. She then placed in front of Jack Firbelle a small roast of beef from which he expertly shaved paper-thin slices. Jenny could have done with less expertise and a thicker slice, but she was interested to learn that Jack had at least one talent.

  Dessert was slivers of pumpkin pie served on magnificent old Tobacco Leaf plates. Coffee arrived on a silver tray back by the fire, in tiny, translucent cups some Firbelle ancestor had brought back from Canton in the clipper ship Red Jacket. Marguerite told her visitors about him in that light, sweet voice that tinkled like her coin silver coffee spoons.

  “And now,” she said, “Jack has arranged a little treat for you. He wants to show you what Beth and I think are some rather exceptional slides he’s taken of our local bird life.”

  “We’d love to see them.” Jenny didn’t mean it. She was getting more edgy by the minute, watching Beth yank at that repulsive-looking yarn while Marguerite Firbelle did her lady of the manor act. Despite all the surface grace and charm, there was a tension here she found one degree short of unbearable. What was going on in this museum of a house?

  “The slides sound wonderful,” said Harriet Compton in her no-nonsense way, “but first I’d like to use your bathroom.”

  “Certainly. I’ll show you.” Beth jumped up from the hassock as if she, too, felt it would be a relief to escape from the parlor. “Jenny, would you like to come and see the upstairs while Jack’s setting up the projector?”

  She and Jenny made small talk about the dull gold wallpaper that had come from the orient as linings for tea chests while Harriet used what Beth delicately referred to as the facilities.