Wherever Lynn Goes (21 page)

“Maybe so,” she replied, unconvinced. “Still, I wish there were some way of knowing.”

“I have no reason to doubt he was in Australia.”

“Your aunt—when she gave you the letters, they were already opened?”

“Yes. I told you, she read them all herself first.”

“Were they still in their envelopes?”

“Mandy, I don't see why you keep harping on—”

“Try to remember, Lynn. Indulge me.”

I sighed wearily. Casting back in memory, I saw Aunt Daphne coming into my bedroom, red curls tumbled, a sour, disapproving look on her face. She was wearing a purple dress printed with red flowers, and she smelled of gin. “Here's another letter from your father.” I saw myself, small, in pigtails, reaching for it. I pressed my brows together, concentrating. Had there been an envelope? I saw her already gnarled hand, nails chipped, a large, loose garnet ring on one finger. It was holding a sheet of paper—a single sheet, no envelope. I told Mandy.

“But that doesn't prove anything,” I protested.

“Perhaps not.”

“I think you're being absurd. Just because of those telephone calls—”

“It has nothing to do with them,” she said quickly—too quickly. “I suppose I was just disappointed they didn't tell us more about him. Anyway, it's not worth pursuing.”

She got to her feet and stretched languidly, affecting an indifference that wasn't at all convincing. I knew her too well to be taken in by this sudden reversal. Slightly annoyed, I gathered up the letters, stacking them together. As I was starting to put them back in the box, I noticed the card.

It was large, wedged face down in the bottom of the box. I pulled it out. Once white, it was now a dingy gray, and the black ink had faded to violet. The message was written in the same crude handwriting as the letters:
I hope you will follow the right path. Love, Daddy
. The platitude was typical of those most of the letters had ended with:
I
hope you eat all your spinach, I hope you study real hard, I hope you mind your Aunt Daphne
, and so forth.

“What's that?” Mandy inquired.

“A card. He must have sent it when he mailed me the box. One corner was stuck in the seams at the bottom.”

“Let's see.”

I handed it to her. Mandy read it, shrugged, and gave it back to me, still affecting that disinterest that didn't fool me a minute. I put letters and card back into the box and closed the lid, noticing again that the fit wasn't quite right—the lid buckled slightly.

“Well, I guess we'd better hurry. Both of us will have to bathe, and you promised Myrtle you'd get there early. I'll drive you there, pick you up when it's over.”

“I thought you were going to come with me—”

“To a jumble sale?” Mandy looked horrified. “Friendship extends just so far, luv. I'm sure you'll manage nicely, but personally, I'd rather be shot.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

A firing squad really might have been preferable after all, I reflected as Mandy drove the Rolls around the square toward the vast brown church where the jumble sale was to be held. Set far back from the street, copper spire rising nobly above the huge oaks that surrounded it, the church was protected by a walled courtyard with high iron gates. At twenty after twelve, a hoard of chattering women was already milling about impatiently in front of the gates. Armed with umbrellas, shopping bags, and great heavy purses, they cast angry glances at the church, eyed each other suspiciously, shoved closer to the gates. They looked more like plump, red-cheeked Amazon warriors in print dresses than genteel matrons.

“My God, they're going to storm the place,” Mandy said, pulling up at the curb. “The mob in front of the Bastille must have looked just like this.”

“Mandy, you can't desert me now.”

“I have things to do,” she said firmly. “I'll pick you up at three.”

“Where are you going?”

“Here and there. I want to see Douglas about something, and then I'm going to drive over to Merrymead. I understand they have a large library. There's something I want to check up on.”

“Can't it wait?”

“Stiff upper lip, luv,” she replied, ignoring my question. “You'll have fun managing the bookstall. If you happen to see any early Peter Cheyney or James Hadley Chase thrillers, put them aside for me. Look, here comes Myrtle.”

Flanked by three hefty dames who were built like soccer stars, Myrtle came down the steps of the church and marched briskly across the courtyard. The crowd rushed foward as she approached the firmly padlocked gates. There was a great uproar, violent pushing and shoving, bags swinging viciously, umbrellas poking. Shrill voices rose as she began to unlock the gates, but Myrtle's strident sergeant-major bellow easily soared above the rest of the noise. “Back!” she roared. “We open at
one!
” Leaving two of her co-workers to guard the gates, she shoved her way through the constantly swelling throng and approached the Rolls, extremely self-important. She looked preposterous in a green crepe dress and matching hat. A tacky gray fox furpiece hung around her neck. Her plump cheeks were flushed, her merry eyes alight with excitement, as she leaned through the window of the car.

“Here you are at last, ducky! I was beginning to worry, then I saw you driving up. Thought I'd better come out and provide a bodyguard. You'd never make it through that mob! Aren't they something? Our jumble sales are always popular!”

“So it would seem,” I said, heart sinking.

“We always have such terrific bargains. The girls can hardly
contain
themselves! They come from miles around, hoping to snap up treasures. Oh, I see you brought some more loot! We can use every scrap. The box is there in the back seat, Fenella. Get it!”

Fenella had steel-gray hair and belligerent black eyes. She must have weighed over two hundred pounds, a formidable figure who would have made the fiercest professional wrestler back against the ropes in terror. Without a word, she opened the door, scooped up the heavy box in one mighty heave, and hoisted it out and up on one shoulder as though it contained feathers. Myrtle gave her an approving smile and opened the front door for me. I climbed out, casting a pleading look at Mandy, who blew me a kiss and drove away, leaving me at the mercy of Myrtle and her crew.

“Out of the way!” Myrtle cried lustily, thrusting her way back through the throng and dragging me with her. “Step aside! Gates open at one and not a minute before! Back! Don't wave that umbrella at
me
, Alice Hendricks! You'll wait out here just like the rest of 'em!”

Fenella bringing up the rear with the box balanced on her shoulder, we reached the gates without being pulled apart, although I did get slammed on the back with a bulky purse. Once through, Myrtle clanged the gates shut and re-locked the padlock. Feeling myself trapped in a world of P. G. Wodehouse characters gone berserk, I followed Myrtle and the others into the dim foyer and down a flight of stone steps to the basement, where the level of chaos was, if anything, even more frenzied.

“Your stall's over here, ducky,” Myrtle said, leading me past tables stacked with dishes, bric-a-brac, clocks, tea cosies, and crocheted doilies. “Lovely of you to help out like this. You were just splendid at the funeral, ducky, so noble. I meant to call on you again and bring a casserole, but every minute's been taken up here. Someone has to take charge or they'd botch the whole show. Mmm, heavenly smell.” This as we passed the cake stall, lovely cakes of every description arranged in tiers. “Bertha Clemmons won first prize for her angelfood, though everyone knows she used a mix! Over here, ducks. I thought you'd be more at ease with the books.”

Like all the others, the bookstall was homemade, painted white, with a slightly tilted roof. The long, flat counter in front was laden with hundreds of books, half of them neatly upended with the titles showing and the rest heaped in wildly disordered stacks. Myrtle opened the gate at one side and led me in. The shelves under the counter were crammed full of more books.

“We're in quite a dilemma,” Myrtle explained. “All the books haven't been priced yet, just those neatly arranged there. You'll have to mark them yourself, ducky. It's quite simple—those with dust jackets fifteen pence, those without ten. The really battered ones and all the paperbacks are five pence each. After you've marked them, put them in front with the others. The idea is to keep replenishing the stock as they take them away. None of those under there has been priced yet. I'd help, ducky, but I've got to attend to things—”

“I think I can manage.”

“You're a peach, a regular peach. You don't have to worry about collecting the money. Everything's paid for at the cash register. We have half an hour yet. You oughta be able to price most of these before the mob arrives. Here's a pencil. Well, ta ta for now.”

Myrtle adjusted the gray fox around her neck, straightened the brim of her hat and, throwing me a merry smile, hurried away to referee an argument that was raging on the other side of the room. As opening time approached, the din rose, the activity increasing to a point of near hysteria. Ignoring it through sheer willpower, I began marking the books, quickly. I discovered three Peter Cheyneys and two early James Hadley Chase epics and, quite shamelessly, marked them at five pence each and stuck them on the bottom shelf for Mandy. I had the books on top of the counter marked in twenty minutes or so, then I began arranging them in neat rows. The huge clock on the wall showed ten minutes till one, seven till, five, then both hands pointed to one and there was a thundering noise overhead and wild shrieks as if from a tribe of attacking savages. The invasion had begun.

An hour passed. An hour and a half. The basement was warm and stuffy. The walls were denuded of pictures, only the grimmest-faced ancestors and the tackiest prints remaining. The tables and stalls were thoroughly ransacked, the best bargains long since carted off. The first violent wave of humanity had come and gone, and although the basement was still crowded, people were browsing now, fingering articles doubtfully and passing them by to search for better buys. The woman at the cash register mopped her brow with a linen handkerchief. Fenella fanned herself with a palmetto fan.

As I stood at my stall, idly watching the crowd, a feeling of uneasiness came over me. I had no idea why, but I suddenly felt uncomfortable. The feeling had come upon me suddenly. One moment I had been relaxed, slightly amused, eager to finish up here and be gone, and the next I was ill at ease, my nerves on edge. I was receiving vibrations, responding to some intangible force that hadn't been here before. Looking up, I saw Myrtle hurrying toward me.

The green hat was crushed. The gray fur hung limply around her neck. She stopped in front of the counter, an excited look on her plump, rosy face.

“Don't look now, ducky,” she whispered dramatically, “but he's
here!
”

“Who? What are you—”

“That man—the brute who kept pesterin' poor Daphne. He's here. I saw him with my own
eyes!
”

“Are—are you sure?”

Nodding emphatically, she glanced over her shoulder like a conspirator and then nodded again, leaning toward me.

“Over there, by the dress racks. It's him, ducky. I'm positive. He keeps
staring
at you.”

That explained it. I could feel his eyes on me, and, remembering Cassie's story, I felt my skin prickle. Trying to seem casual, I glanced toward the dress racks. A large man in an overcoat was standing against the wall, partially hidden by one of the racks. The smile vanished from my lips. His face was broad, features blunt, his eyes glowing like dark coals. For perhaps half a minute I stared directly into those eyes, hypnotized by them, and then he stepped behind the rack.

“Are you all right, ducky?”

I nodded, passing a hand over my forehead.

“I like to have dropped my teeth, seein' him there. I was chattin' with Stella Dickerson, admirin' the beads she'd bought, when I happened to look up and there he
was
, big as life.” Myrtle pulled out a bag of chocolates and popped one into her mouth. Her brown eyes were full of excitement. “I recognized him immediately. Isn't likely I'd forget a mug like his, is it? He just stood there against the wall, starin' at you with that menacing look in his eyes—”

“He—you're certain he was the man you saw that night?”

“Positive, ducky, absolutely positive. I wonder what he was doin' here? He wasn't buyin' anything. He just stood there, starin' at you—you look a bit pale, ducky. I think you need—”

“I'm perfectly all right.”

“—a glass of lemonade, with ice. That'll fix you up. They're sellin' it at the snack stall. You just sit down on that stool there, ducky. I'll fetch it right away.”

Myrtle scurried off. There was a stool behind me, but I didn't sit down. I rearranged the remaining books, trying to gain control of myself. The sight of him had given me a shock. My nerves were still on edge. The man had gone. I knew that without even looking up. It was as though some evil force had departed, taking the vibrations away. I kept thinking about Cassie, about the sounds we had heard outside the mill. Had he followed me through the woods? Had he been lurking by one of the windows, listening to our conversation? As I had stared into those dark, hypnotic eyes I had felt a definite threat. He hadn't even tried to disguise it.

My hands had stopped trembling. I took a deep breath, wondering what I should do. He had murdered my aunt. I was certain of that. He had murdered Colonel March, too. Should I phone the police? Lloyd would be here soon, sometime this afternoon. The men from Scotland Yard already knew everything, Lloyd had told them, and they were probably in Cooper's Green now, investigating. Lloyd … Thank God he was coming. He would take charge of everything. I must pull myself together. I must remain calm, particularly around Myrtle. I mustn't let her suspect anything.