The Withdrawing Room
by
Charlotte MacLeod


The Withdrawing Room
CHARLOTTE MACLEOD

AVON BOOKS
Copyright 1980 by Charlotte MacLeod
Published by arrangement with Doubleday & Company, Inc.
ISBN: 0-380-56473-4

For Josephine Webster



Chapter 1

"Damn it, Sarah, you can't do a thing like that! What will
the family say?" Cousin Dolph's jowls quivered with empurpled
outrage. Dolph went in rather heavily for outrage.

"Who cares what the family says?" Uncle Jem yelled
back. Jeremy Kelling was not more than five years older
than his nephew Adolphus, but relationships among the
vast Kelling clan came in all sizes and assortments. "I've
never listened to any of them, and I've lived a hell of a
lot more satisfying life than the pack of you put together."

"Bah! You talk a lot, but you never did anything. If I
had five cents for every woman you--" Dolph recollected
that he was in the presence of Sarah, whom he still
thought of as a puling infant notwithstanding the fact that
she'd been married and widowed. "Anyway, I wouldn't
be a dime richer than I am now."

"The devil you wouldn't. If you're so flaming rich, why
don't you stump up for Sarah's mortgage?"

Adolphus Kelling waxed even purpler. "What are you
preaching to me for? Why don't you?"

"Because I didn't come in for old Fred's wad as you're
about to. And I've rioted away my substance as fast as it
came in on wine and wassail, as a sensible man should.
And I've dipped into capital, too, and you needn't start
yelling again because I don't give a damn. At least I
wouldn't give a damn if it weren't for this outrageous
mess over the mortgages. Sarah knows I'd give her the
money like a shot if I had it."

Sarah Kelling Kelling, though many years younger and

8	Charlotte MacLeod

a great deal smaller than either of the combatants, managed
to raise her voice above the tumult. "Shut up, both
of you! I don't want anybody to give me the money. This
is my mess, not yours. I--I'm only grateful Alexander
didn't live to find out what was going on."

This was a lie, and Sarah's voice was none too steady
by the time she'd finished uttering it. Alexander would in
truth have been devastated to learn that his young wife,
whom he'd thought he was leaving amply provided for,
might wind up without so much as a roof over her head.
Yet to have lost him so suddenly and so dreadfully* was
a shock she still hadn't got over and probably never
would.

In a way, Sarah could not herself understand why she
was trying to make Dolph and Uncle Jem listen to this
idea of hers. It would be far easier to chuck the whole
business, let the bank foreclose, and be shut of both the
tall Tulip Street townhouse on Beacon Hill and the far
top large summer estate at Ireson's Landing, about twenty
miles north of Boston. Then there wouldn't be the agony
of waking up every morning and finding herself in the
house alone.

She wouldn't be a pauper in any case. Sarah still had
her own small income from the trust her father had set
up. She'd soon reach her twenty-seventh birthday and be
able to take charge of the principal which had escaped the
looting of the Kelling estate, although her father himself
had not. But to give up so easily, to haul in her horns and
slink off without a fight seemed too much like a betrayal
of the long, lonely battle Alexander had waged to save
something for her.

So she'd thought the matter over, weighed the fors and
againsts, and come up with what she'd honestly believed a
sober, dignified, reasonable solution to her immediate
problem. She might have known that no matter what she
proposed, she'd be precipitating a full-scale family fracas.

"You've got no more knowledge of finance than a goddamn
tomcat," Dolph was informing Jem, neither of them
having paid any attention whatever to Sarah. "You ought
to know I shan't be able to touch a penny of Uncle Fred's
money for at least a year, and then there are all those
charitable bequests to be taken care of. By the time I've

* The Family Vault, Doublcday Crime Club, 1979.

S

The Withdrawing Room	9

paid the inheritance taxes and forked over endowments
for fifty-seven different foundations and whatnot, I expect
to be a damn sight poorer than I am now."

He winced at his own words. The thought of having to
dip into his own pocket was always a painful one for
Dolph. "Money isn't worth a damn these days anyway,
he concluded sulkily.

"A fact which ought to bring you to your senses, it you
had any, and make you realize how much more intelligent
I was to blow mine while the blowing was good than you
were to sit on yours and hatch a rotten egg," said Jeremy
Kelling.

"Bah! And what have you got to show for all your carousing?
Cirrhosis of the liver and a tail feather from one

° "And the fluorescent tassel off Sally Keith's left buttock,"
the retired rou6 added blandly. "Ah, those hallowed
days around the bar at the dear old Crawford
House, with Sally up there twitching and twirling! A bowl
of chips, a pousse-cafe, and thou. Not you, naturally, you
overstuffed lout. Did I ever tell you about Milly, the--

"Will you two stop it?" shrieked his overwrought niece.
"I don't want to hear about anybody's misspent or unspent
youth, I want you to help me start a boardinghouse.
And quit telling me I can't because I'm going to. Do l
need a permit, or what? Dolph, you know everybody at
City Hall. Can't you pull some strings?"	.

"Yes Dolph, pull some strings," said Jem. Strings
don't cost anything. I know you'd never stoop to bribery
because you're too damned cheap."	... ^ m*

His nephew glared and decided to retire into outraged
hauteur. "I daresay I could handle the formalities if Sarah
persists in going through with this crackbram^.sfh^<;-

"I'd be a tot more crackbrained to let the High Street
Bank grab my property without a struggle, wouldn t IJ
farah was, after all! a Kelling herself, bothbybirthand
by marriage to a fifth cousin once removed. What s so
crackbrained about a boardinghouse, anyway? Lots of
perfectly respectable people have done the same. Look at

^^aSFfi forgotten about Mrs. Craigfe. Cambridge
woman, right? And that Longfellow chap stayed with her.
Wrote poetry, of course, but his people were all right, and

10	Charlotte MacLeod

he married an Appleton. Well, I suppose if you make sure
to take the right sort--"

"The hell with that," said Jeremy Kelling. "Take the
ones who don't squawk about the money. Stick 'em,
Sarah. Make the suckers pay through the eyeballs for the
privilege of living in a stately mansion in a fine old historic
district and all that garbage. Put on a show. I'll pop
in and play Autocrat of the Breakfast Table."

"Hell of an autocrat you'd make," sneered Dolph.
"And what do you mean, breakfast table? You never
even drag your rum-soaked carcass out of bed till noon.
Degenerate old souse!"

"Truer words were never spoken, though I must say it's
a refreshing change to hear any truth spoken by you,"
replied his uncle with the courtliness for which the Rollings
were noted. "Getting back to this boardinghouse business,
Sarah, are you in fact planning to serve meals?"

"I'm going to do breakfasts and dinners. That way I
can ask a lot more rent, and since I'm used to cooking for
the family anyway, I should be able to manage without
much difficulty."

"I thought Edith did the cooking," said Dolph.

"All Edith ever did was sit and nurse her bunions and
complain about being overworked."

Firing her mother-in-law's former maid, even though
doing so cost a monthly pension she could ill afford, had
so far been Sarah's one compensation for widowhood.
"I've hired Mariposa Fergus in her place. You remember
that adorable young woman who was such a prop and
mainstay during the funeral? She and Charles are going
to live down in the old kitchen."

"Who's Charles?"

"A friend of hers who looks like Leslie Howard and
talks like a cross between Henry Higgins in Pygmalion
and Sir Percy Blakeney in The Scarlet Pimpernel."

"How the hell would you know? Leslie Howard's been
dead since 1943."

"I used to see the reruns at the Brattle Theater. Anyway,
Charles is alive enough, from what Mariposa tells
me."

"My God, Sarah, you can't have a pair like that fornicatin'
all over the back stairs. Can't you at least make
them get married first?"

"I shouldn't dream of trying. Mariposa says she's tried

The Withdrawing Room	11

it both ways and this is more fun. And Charles would
merely arch his eyebrow with aristocratic hauteur. He
has the most fetching golden curls, but he's going to slick
them down when he butles. His name is Charles C.
Charles."

"The other C. being for Charles, I take it?"

"No, I believe it's for Chelsea. That's where he comes
from. He's an actor by profession, but he's resting at the
moment."

"That means unemployed, Dolph," explained Jem.
"Like you."

"Oh no," said Sarah. "Charles works in a factory daytimes
and he's going to butle here during dinner for his
room and board. He's been yearning to play Mr. Hudson
ever since 'Upstairs, Downstairs,' and he's studying up
madly on whether to serve the hock with the guinea fowl,
though of course we shan't be having any. I do know
scads of ways to fix chicken and hamburg, though, and
I'm marvelous at pinching pennies when I grocery shop.
I had to be, considering what Alexander gave me for a
housekeeping allowance though he meant it for the best,
poor darling."

Dolph shook his jowls. "Forget it, Sarah. You'd need
at least a dozen boarders to make it work and you've only
got three bedrooms in the whole damn house."

"Dolph, that's ridiculous. There's the other basement
room, for one, that Edith used as her bedroom. I thought
I might rent that to a student or something, since they'd
have to share the bathroom down there with Mariposa
and Charles."

"Never get a nickel."

Sarah ignored him. "And I'm turning the drawing
room into a sort of private suite for someone old and rich
who can't climb stairs. I've already had a door cut
through from that powder room in the hall, and I've
spoken to the plumber about putting in a stall shower
there. I'm selling that Mclntire escritoire to pay for the
renovations. It's not under the mortgage, is it?"

"Don't ask," Uncle Jem advised.

"And what, pray tell, will you then use for a drawing
room?" scoffed Dolph.

"Why the hell should she need one?" Jeremy Kelling
sneered back. "Idiotic antediluvian custom anyway, the
ladies withdrawing to sit on their bustles and gossip v/hilc

12	Charlotte MacLeod

the men stayed at the dining table and drank themselves
blotto. When I start seeing double, I'd rather be sitting
across from a daring decolletage than a red nose with a
walrus mustache under it. Did I ever tell you about--"

"I'm sure you did," Sarah interrupted. "You're quite
right, I don't need one. I'll use the library, as I'm doing
now." The high-ceiled room where they sat, with its
book-lined walls, its worn red velvet draperies, the portrait
of the Kelling who'd founded the family fortunes
over the mantel, and the dark old leather sofas and armchairs
grouped around the fireplace was far and away the
pleasantest room in the house.

"And I'll keep Aunt Caroline's room on the second
floor for myself and turn her boudoir into a studio. I did
all that book illustrating for Harry Lackridge, you know,
and I'm sure I can get work from other publishers, to
bring in a little extra money. And on the third floor there
are Alexander's and my old rooms with the bath in between,
and Mariposa has got one of her brothers-in-law,
either past or present, I'm not sure which, to help me fix
up those two in the attic that used to be maids' rooms
and put another bathroom there, so that will give space
for six."

"Ridiculous!" shouted Dolph. "Who's going to climb
all those stairs?"

"Lots of people around the Hill live in fourth-floor
walk-ups. Anyway, if I can't rent them, I'll move up
there myself and rent the second."

"Don't you do it, Sarah," said Jem. "Take the best for
yourself and put on the dog. Treat 'em like dirt and
they'll eat out of your hand. Try to be a pal and they'll
walk all over you."

"I hate to admit it," snorted Dolph, "but the old goat's
right. You stick to your guns. Don't budge an inch for
anybody. Speaking of which, where do you propose to
find these hypothetical lodgers?"
"Advertise, I suppose."

"In the newspapers? My God, that's the last straw!
What would Aunt Bodie--"

"Dolph," shouted his uncle, "if you don't quit dragging
the whole damn clan into this, I'll get Egbert to poke you
straight in the jaw." Egbert, Jeremy Rolling's man for all
seasons, had been known to perform stranger assignments

The Withdrawing Room	13

than this. "Boadicea's a fine one to talk, anyway. She'd
rent her own bridgework if she could find any takers."

"I couldn't possibly care less about Aunt Bodie," said
Sarah, "Furthermore, Aunt Emma's all for it. We talked
over the whole plan while I was staying out there after
--after it was all over. She's the one who thought of doing
up the old maids' rooms, as a matter of fact. I'd forgotten
those attic rooms were ever used for sleeping.
She even gave me some blankets and linen."

"Then why didn't you say so in the first place?" Dolph
snarled. "Emma's got a head on her shoulders, at least."
That from him was highest praise. "Mabel will raise hell
on general principles, I daresay, but who gives a damn
for what Mabel says?"

"And I've also mentioned it to Anora Protheroe,"
Sarah went on, referring to an old and respected friend in
Chestnut Hill, "and she's terribly relieved that I shan't be
trying to stay on here alone. She's going to see if she can't
get me a boarder for the drawing room. You know him,
that Mr. Quiffen who's her husband's old fraternity
brother or whatever."

"Quiffen? Must have met him sometime or other, I
suppose, though I can't recall him offhand. At any rate,
if he's a pal of George's he probably has sleeping sickness
so he oughtn't to cause you any trouble," chirped Uncle
Jem. "You see, Sarah, that's how you work it. Drop a
word here and there to the right people and you'll find
takers fast enough. I'll start alerting the tribe myself.
How are you fixed for beds and stuff, by the way? Shall I
do a little panhandling on the side?"

"No, thank you. I'm reasonably sure I can bring what I
need in from the place at Ireson's. Mr. Lomax, our caretaker
out there, has a friend who will lend him a truck."

"Uses it to lug fishheads to the glue factory, no doubt,
and your mattresses will stink to high heaven by the time
they get here," said Dolph with his customary optimism.
"Well, then, Sarah, since you've made up your mind to
cut your own throat, I'll see what I can do about getting
you a permit."

er 2

After this family discussion, if such it could be called,
Sarah went into high gear. She got Mariposa to round up
a few more brothers-in-law and sold the Mclntire escritoire.
She knew she was getting skinned on the price, but
there was no help for that. Bills for labor and materials
were piling up and she needed cash in a hurry.

Perhaps she could have kept herself going by selling off
the family treasures one by one, but she saw no point in
just surviving. Having people around her and work to do
at least kept her from thinking too much.

Sarah was still handicapped by an arm injury that
hadn't fully healed. She couldn't paint or wallpaper, but
she could do small jobs and drive the 1950 Studebaker
Starlite Coupe that had been bought new for Aunt Caroline
and kept running like a charm by Alexander. That
would have to be sold, too, if anybody was buying Studebakers
these days. She had nobody now to do the repairs.
Garaging and insurance at Boston rates would be far beyond
her straitened means. She'd already made the grim
decision to take the old car off the road at New Year's,
but right now she must have transportation.

When she wasn't urging her work crew to yet more
frantic efforts, she was dashing from the tiny, twisting
streets of Beacon Hill--lined with unbroken rows of elegant
and once-elegant townhouses in brick and brownstone,
with their Bulfinch fronts and wrought-iron grilles,
their window boxes so carefully tended in summer, so festive
now with evergreen boughs and dried scarlet salvia--
out to the deserted Victorian clapboard ark at Ireson's
Landing on the North Shore. There, with the wind howl14

The Withdrawing Room	15

ing around her ears and the ocean pounding on the rocks
in the distance, she roamed her vast, overgrown estate
with Mr. Lomax, the caretaker, marking trees for him to
cut and sell. With firewood at something like a hundred
and fifty dollars a cord, the proceeds ought to pay his
wages and, God willing, leave something over toward the
back taxes. Sarah and Alexander had talked of selling off
some of the land but she couldn't do that now on account
of the pending litigation. She could and did pillage the
house to furnish her empty bedrooms. If she managed to
rent the estate next summer, Mr. Lomax would have to
borrow the truck again and bring back all the beds and
dressers, no doubt, but by then she'd either have money
enough for replacements or else have made such a fiasco
of her boardinghouse idea that she'd have to pitch a tent
out here among the chipmunks and live on roots and berries.

Going to bed totally exhausted every night had its advantages.
Sarah had no time to brood over Alexander,
though she missed him fifty times a day. She couldn't keep
calling the workmen from their more vital tasks to help
her spruce up battered chairs and chests, hang curtains,
do all the puttering odd jobs he'd performed so expertly
and enjoyed so much. Charles and Mariposa did their
best, and it would have to be good enough.

After dinner when Sarah was too worn out to work any
longer, she would put on high heels to raise her five feet
three inches to a more imposing stature, don a black crepe
dress of her mother's that was old enough to be back in
style had any true Boston lady ever given more than a
passing hoot for the vagaries of fashion, sweep her light
brown hair into a twist that lent a few years and an air of
dignity to her small, pale, squarish face, and grant interviews
to prospective tenants.

Jeremy Kelling had been right about applicants. Once
the news got around that the same Sarah Kelling who'd
made headlines a month ago was now opening her home
to paying guests, she had them camping three deep on her
doorstep. Her chief problem was to weed out the insolvent,
the impossible, and the sensation seekers who didn't
really want to move in but couldn't resist a chance to
gawk. For this she relied heavily on the superior worldly
wisdom of her household staff. About 80 per cent of the
hopefuls never got past the vestibule. Those who did got a

16	Charlotte MacLeod

shrewd going-over from the apparently impassive maid
and butler. A muttered, "Honey, this baby's for the
birds," from Mariposa wiped out a beautifully dressed
lady who was an ardent volunteer for one of Dolph's inherited
charities. The merest flicker of Charles's eyelids
turned away several others whose references and manners
appeared impeccable.

Her assistants themselves were impeccable and then
some. The pair had insisted on providing themselves out
of Charles" paycheck from the plastics factory with uniforms
suited to their positions as they conceived them.
Mariposa had elected to set off her trim figure and vivid
coloring in bright orange topped by a frilly white cap with
long orange velvet streamers. Charles was the epitome of
what the well-dressed Eaton Place butler should wear, up
to and including the white cotton gloves, though his were
in fact drip-dry nylon which he felt Mr. Hudson would
have pardoned since Mariposa made him wash them himself.
His dress suit had come from the costumer's with certain
embellishments, but Sarah had persuaded him to save
the red ribbon and the row of medals until he was either
made ambassador to somewhere or offered a bit part in
The Merry Widow.

Indisputably the uniforms lent cachet to the establishment.
The mere sight of Charles in full panoply was
enough to discourage most of the ineligibles. Those who
did manage to run the barricade, having been formally
announced by Charles and then served a minuscule glass
of sherry on a silver tray proffered by Mariposa in her beribboned
cap, were far less apt to quail at the rates Sarah
quoted.

The three had decided together that it would be easier
and what Charles referred to as better theater to assemble
the cast of boarders all on the same day rather than have
them trickle along one by one. Since it was fiscally vital
to set the day as soon as possible, the Tulip Street house
began to look like the setting for a Keystone Cops movie
with people flying in all directions at impossible speeds.

Sarah developed quite a talent as a nagger. When she
flagged, Jeremy Kelling was ready to take over. Either because
of his expert chivvying or because they couldn't endure
to stay and hear any more of his reminiscences, the
plumbers, carpenters, electricians, and decorators made
well-nigh superhuman efforts to meet their deadlines.

The Withdrawing Room	17

Cousin Dolph was as expeditious and no doubt a good
deal more obnoxious in getting the required license.
Thanks to the plethora of applicants, Sarah had her
boarders all chosen well before the last nail was driven
and the last curtain hung.

Mrs. Theonia Sorpende was to have Sarah's old room.
Mrs. Sorpende was a stately, handsome, middle-aged lady
of brunette complexion, almost overpowering refinement,
ineffably gracious manner, and a surprising streak of dry
humor. She said she wouldn't mind the two nights of stairs
a bit, and added with a ruefully amused glance down over
her Junoesque contours that she could use the exercise.
She was a widow and dressed the part in a simple black
dress and coat, though she had relieved the somber costume
with a wine-colored velvet turban and matching
handbag and gloves. She had few acquaintances in Boston
and would be living very quietly. The name she gave as a
reference was Mrs. G. Thackford Bodkin, a friend of
Aunt Marguerite's in Newport. With Mariposa making
thumbs-up signs behind the lady's back and Charles so far
forgetting himself as to mouth a fervent, "Hubba, hubba!"
Sarah dispensed with Mrs. Bodkin and accepted Mrs.
Sorpende on the spot.

Alexander's room would be occupied by a Miss Jennifer
LaValliere, who probably would not be living very
quietly. She was another who needed no investigating
since her grandmother lived just around the corner and
had served on committees with Aunt Caroline. She was
perhaps attractive, if one could have seen beyond the
frizzy hair and the assortment of garments awful enough
to be no doubt the ultra chic of the moment. Sarah hoped
the moment would soon pass.

Miss LaVaUiere had caught the career bug and was doing
a business course at Katy Gibbs, which had also given
her a plausible excuse to get away from her vigilant parents
in Lincoln. What she'd wanted, of course, was an
apartment of her own in town. Mrs. Kelling's boardinghouse
was a family-approved compromise that couldn't
have been wholly acceptable to a nineteen-year-old with
advanced ideas, but the girl was taking it well enough. She
seemed to be an agreeable little thing on the whole. Sarah
couldn't recall that she herself had ever alternated with
such blinding rapidity between ultramundane sophistication
and fits of the giggles, but at Jennifer's age she'd al18	Charlotte MacLeod

ready become a married woman with two big places to
keep and a blind, deaf tyrant of a mother-in-law to cope
with.

On the top floor she was putting Mr. Eugene PorterSmith,
an elderly gentleman of about twenty-seven. He
put Sarah in mind of W. S. Gilbert's ballad of the precocious
baby although he was by no means a fast little
cad like that disreputable infant and certainly not about
to die an enfeebled old dotard at an impossibly early age.
He worked for Sarah's third cousin Percival as an accountant.
Percival vouched for him as a model of rectitude
and what Percy didn't know about recitude wasn't
worth knowing. Moreover, Mr. Porter-Smith was into, as
he said, mountain climbing and proved it by taking the
three flights in high gear without a single puff.

Mr. Porter-Smith looked decorous enough, at any rate,
with his neat three-piece suit and his sand-colored hair
slicked back from a thinnish face that was neither attractive
nor ugly but merely present in the usual place. His
frame was spare and wiry, his height perhaps five feet
nine or ten, his pale blue eyes sharp and inquiring. Mr.
Porter-Smith was obviously a man who liked to know
things; in fact he spouted information on any given subject
at such a rate that Sarah suspected him of reading the
encyclopedia in his spare time, which was surely a habit
no landlady could disapprove.

Her other attic room was assigned to Professor Oscar
Ormsby, a burly, hirsute man of fifty or so who wore
hairy tweed suits and brown turtleneck jerseys and taught
aerodynamics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
just across the river. When Sarah apologized for the
room's being so high up, he grunted, "Hadn't noticed."

That was about all Professor Ormsby did say except to
grunt again as he wrote the check for the first month's
rent in advance, which Charles and Mariposa had drilled
Sarah always to insist on, and ask what happened if he
didn't show up for meals.

Sarah and Mariposa had that one all worked out. "If
you call the house sometime during the day and let us
know you're going to be late, we'll keep something hot for
you. If you don't call, you'll be free to go to the kitchen
when you come in and help yourself to a snack from the
refrigerator. If you choose to eat out, we can't give you a
refund but we do allow you to bring a guest free of

The Withdrawing Room	19

charge any time within the month. With proper notice, of
course. If you haven't missed a meal but still want to
bring a guest, there is a ten-dollar charge. In advance,"
she added, responding to the frenzied pantomime Charles
was going through behind the professor's back.

Uncle Jem had set the fees, and while they were indeed
far from cheap they were still lower than the cost of
maintaining an apartment and much less than living at a
hotel and eating in restaurants. Costs of food, salaries,
utilities, and maintenance would have to be deducted
from the gross, but Sarah figured that with careful management
and her monthly allowance from the trust, she'd
clear enough to stay afloat until she knew where she stood
with the bank.

Her basement room was the only one not yet ready to
let. Sarah was still in a quandry about whom to put there.
She'd abandoned the idea of students. They might not
mind sharing a meager bath with the maid and butler or
object to their occasionally somewhat rowdy behavior offstage
since Charles could hardly be Mr. Hudson all the
time. However, they might intensify the rowdyism and
that would never do. Her upstairs tenants were paying for
class, and class they were going to get. She'd just have to
wait for the right sort of applicant, whoever that might be.
If she didn't, Mr. Quiffen would be sure to raise a stink.

Barnwell Augustus Quiffen, George's old fraternity
brother, had indeed taken the drawing room. Anora and
George had brought him to look at it themselves. It was
the first time they'd been in the house for ages, and Sarah
couldn't help thinking that away from their own everblazing
fireside they looked like a couple of pigmy elephants
gone astray. With both of them clad in baggy gray
tweeds, with George's soft rolls of flab and Anora's short
gray hair and white bristles about her mouth and chin, it
would have been hard for a stranger to say which was the
man and which the woman.

Barnwell Quiffen was a perfect Tweedledee, ovoid in
shape and about to have a battle. He glared around the
beautifully proportioned, spacious room, sniffed at
Anora's exclamations over Sarah's excellent redecorating
job, and snapped, "Where's the desk? I told you this
would be a waste of time. Of course it won't do! I can't
live here without a desk."

"Get him a desk, Sarah," said George sleepily.

20	Charlotte MacLeod

"Quit fussing, Barney," said Anora. "Sarah, Barney
needs a desk to write his poison-pen letters on. What
about that one in the library? You won't want it there anyway,
will you?"

"No," stammered Sarah. "I was wondering where
to--"

"Well, then, just move that little table out and move
the desk in. Come on, Barney, Auntie Anora's got a nice,
big, gorgeous desk for you to feel important at. Show him,
Sarah."

They trooped across the hall to the library and solemnly
inspected the handsome burl walnut desk that Alexander's
father and his father before him had sat behind.
Sarah didn't much like the idea of this fussy little man's
taking their places, but obviously she wasn't to have any
say in the matter. At any rate, she'd have to put it somewhere
or her lodgers wouldn't have room enough to sit.

Quiffen grudgingly admitted the desk would suit his
purpose well enough, but where was the filing cabinet to
go with it? He must have a filing cabinet to hold his important
correspondence.

"Get him a filing cabinet, Sarah," droned George,

"Here's one right here," said Anora. "What's in it,
Sarah? All that old committee nonsense of Caroline's, I
suppose. Chuck it out."

So Mr. Quiffen got his filing cabinet for his important
correspondence, which Sarah vaguely recalled consisted
mostly of writing letters to the papers about what was
wrong with everybody and everything in and around Boston.
If a light bulb flickered on the Cleveland Circle platform
at Park Street Station, if a red tulip popped up in a
bed in the Public Garden where only yellow tulips were
supposed to grow, if (though this was unlikely to happen)
a trombonist at Symphony hit a B-sharp where a
B-natural was called for, Barnwell Augustus Quiffen
would leap to take pen in hand and regret to inform.

Mariposa then served tea, Charles being still at the
factory, and Mr. Quiffen thawed sufficiently to recite excerpts
from his family tree, at which Anora roared, "She's
not planning to use you for stud purposes, Barney. Drink
your tea and leave the poor girl alone. She'll get enough
of you after you move in."

That, Sarah thought, was more than likely to be true.
She'd had nearly enough of old Barnwell Augustus alThe Withdrawing Room	21

ready. However, his readiness to make out a check in advance
for the stipulated month's rental, which amounted
to a good deal thanks to Uncle Jem's agile arithmetic,
made her decide that perhaps, after all, she might be able
to endure the man. Since the Protheroes had managed to
stay friends with him all these years, he must have some
redeeming features. If she failed to discover them, she
could at least depend on Anora to shove him into line
when he got too far out of hand.

r

Chapter 3

Despite everybody's good intentions, Sarah's renovations
didn't get done overnight. Work that had started in late
November was still incomplete when she realized that the
holidays she'd been dreading were actually upon her. This
was all to the good. Whatever her many relatives might
think of her scheme, and Dolph's reaction had been
among the politest, they couldn't fault her for attending to
business instead of accepting their sometimes well-meant
invitations. Nobody expected cheery cards or gifts from a
new-made widow. She ate a stodgy Christmas dinner with
Aunt Appie and Uncle Samuel in Cambridge and spent
a surprisingly riotous New Year's Eve on Pinckney Street
with Uncle Jem, Egbert, and Dolph, who got tiddly on
champagne and recited all he could remember of "Gunga
Din," which fortunately was not much.

On Sunday, January 2, Mariposa swept up the last of the
shavings. On Monday, the third day of a new year that
couldn't possibly be any worse than the one just past,
Sarah found herself seated at the head of her own dining
room table wearing her mother's slate blue dinner gown
and Granny Kay's bluebird brooch, being served in her
public role as mistress from a dish she'd prepared in her
private capacity as cook, by Charles doing his impersonation
of a perfect Scottish butler in a noble English household.

Sarah herself had a sense of total unreality about the
performance, but her lodgers appeared satisfied that they
were getting the genuine article. All except Professor
Ormsby, who stuck to his hairy tweeds and brown turtleneck,
had dressed for the occasion. Mr. Quiffen was cor22

The Withdrawing Room	23

rect In black tie. His clothes were probably even older
than Sarah's gown, since he also was of a caste that didn't
believe in discarding anything that still had good wear in
it just because the garment happened to be a few decades
out of style.

Mr. Porter-Smith, on the other hand, had blossomed
forth in a wine-colored suit with satin lapels wide enough
and shiny enough to skate on. The ensemble was completed
by a matching tie the size and shape of an Amazon
butterfly, and a ruffled pink shirt.

Even he, however, was outshone by Mrs. Sorpende.
She was dressed in black as usual, a long-sleeved, longskirted
gown of dull black crepe beautifully fitted to her
ample though by no means unpleasing figure. This she
had artfully enhanced by an emerald green chiffon scarf
that veiled but did not quite conceal the low-cut neckline.
In her elaborately dressed black hah- was set an aigrette
of green ostrich tips and jewels which, had they been real,
would have given Sarah cause for alarm about burglars.

Charles was trying to remain correctly impassive, but
Sarah could sense his inward rejoicing at having such a
classy dame to pass the crackers to. Professor Ormsby
happened to glance up from his soup and once having
glanced continued to gaze. No doubt Mrs. Sorpende's alluringly
draped corsage was an agreeable change from
wind tunnels.

Poor Miss LaValliere, though a pretty enough child in
spite of the fact that she had subdued her frizz into a sort
of Early Andrews Sisters hairdo, was hopelessly outshone.
She was wearing a conventionally indiscreet tubelike affair
of some clinging substance, but not even Charles
bothered to peek down her unfettered decolletage since it
was obviously not worth the bother. Perhaps she was trying
to discourage the treatment of woman as a mere sex
object, Sarah thought. If so, she could hardly have chosen
a more effective way.
Be that as it might, Jennifer LaValliere was pouring
badly needed money into the Kelling coffers and it was
Sarah's job to keep the girl happy. She started being gracious,
whereupon Mrs. Sorpende and Mr. Porter-Smith
both followed her lead. Miss LaValliere's suddenly becoming
the focus of attention annoyed Mr. Quiffen, who
started acting like a superannuated and very spoiled

24	Charlotte MacLeod

baby. This landlady business was going to be more complex
than Sarah had bargained for.

Luckily she'd had plenty of experience at sticky family
gatherings. She placated the old man by letting him bore
her to excruciation with a diatribe against the Metropolitan
Boston Transit Authority. He rode the MBTA a good
deal, it seemed, for the express purpose of finding fault
with it. His tale of being trapped for half an hour outside
Kenmore Station on the first hot day of summer with the
air conditioning not on and the heat in the car going full
blast might have had more punch if it had been told eight
months earlier. However, Sarah endured his whinings and
snarlings with a practiced look of keen attention, an occasional
shake of the head, and a few murmurs which
Mr. Quiffen might take for whatever he chose to take
them for.

In fact, she hadn't the faintest notion what he was saying
most of the time. She was wondering if the beef stroganoff
would hold out until everybody had got a fair
share. She hadn't realized professors of aeronautics ate so
much. Thanks to some fancy footwork on Charles's part,
though, disaster was averted. If Professor Ormsby wound
up with a great many noodles and a very little beef the
second tune around, he didn't appear to notice, but shoveled
in the last forkful with the same gusto as the first.

There was homemade apple pie for dessert. "The apples
came from our trees at Ireson's Landing," Sarah told
the company, and they made suitably reverent noises.
Little did they ken that they'd be eating plenty more of
these apples before the winter was over. As soon as she'd
been able to think straight enough to start planning her
boardinghouse, Sarah and Mr. Lomax had scooped up
every one that was still salvageable.

At the end of the meal, Mr. Porter-Smith touched his
£	napkin to his lips with a gracefully Edwardian flourish
| and said, as Sarah had been betting with herself that he
would, "My compliments to the cook."

Without batting an eyelid, Charles replied, "Thank
you, sir. I will convey them on your behalf."

They adjourned to the library to drink their coffee,
they dispersed, and Sarah went upstairs to take off her
dress and collapse. The first major hurdle was over.

For the rest of the week Sarah was kept as busy as
she'd been getting ready for her lodgers. Now she must

The Withdrawing Room	25

find out their needs and crotchets, keep the larder
stocked, think up ways to feed Professor Ormsby and still
wind up on the profit side of the ledger. As he never
showed any sign of noticing what he ate provided he got
enough of it, this was not too difficult.

As for the others, Jennifer LaValliere tended to pick
and nibble. Mrs. Sorpende always said she shouldn't, then
did. Mr. Porter-Smith was so overcome by the grandeur
of Charles and the value of the Kelling silver and china
that he'd no doubt have eaten a slice of old boot with
relish if it were served to him elegantly enough. Mr.
Quiffen gobbled, glared around the table to make sure
nobody got a better portion than he, quarreled with anyone
who'd quarrel back, and made himself generally obnoxious
at every opportunity.

Letting the Protheroes bully her into taking George's
old buddy in as a boarder had been a sad mistake. Worse,
it was a mistake she need not have made. Only a day or
so after Sarah had got herself trapped into putting up with
Barnwell Augustus Quiffen, she was visited by William
Hartler.

Mr. Hartler was as cheery as Quiffen was nasty, which
was saying a good deal. He beamed, he chuckled, he reminded
Sarah of those delightful parties at Aunt Marguerite's
where he and she had got acquainted and Sarah
recalled that Mr. Hartler himself had been the main reason
why those particular gatherings had been less Godawful
than the rest.

On those occasions, he'd always had his sister with him.
Sarah recalled her vaguely as a gentle, self-effacing soul,
even shorter than he and a good deal thinner. Her name
was Joanna, but she and William had called each other
by ridiculous nursery nicknames even though they must
both be seventy or close to it. She'd appeared devoted to
her brother and it was Sarah's impression that she'd kept
house for them since neither, to the best of Sarah's knowledge,
had ever married. Then why was William alone
now?

"Oh, Joanna's flown the coop," Mr. Hartler told her.
"She deserted me to spend the winter in Rome with an
old friend from boarding school. Do her good to get away
for a change, but it's pretty ghastly for me, I can tell you.
We got rid of .our place in Newport and put our things in
storage. We plan to find an apartment here in Boston

26	Charlotte MacLeod

when she returns. In the meantime, I'm bumming around
on my own and making a poor job of it. I tried a hotel
but that cost a fortune, so now I've got a room over on
Hereford Street, which means I have to go trailing out to
a restaurant to get anything to eat. It's no fun. No fun at
all. Living here with you would be ideal for my purposes.
Good food, good company, lovely home, ground floor.
I'm not supposed to climb stairs, you know. Doctor's nonsense
about my heart. Other than that, I'm fit as a fiddle."
Sarah believed him. Mr. Hartler could have posed for
Thomas Nast's drawing of St. Nick with his tummy and
his twinkle, except that he was clean-shaven and not
smoking a pipe and withal as spruce and tidy an old gentleman
as any landlady might want occupying her front
parlor suite.

"And it would be so convenient for my work," he
sighed.

"Your work?" Sarah asked in some surprise.
"Volunteer work, of course, but it's important. Most important!
I'm tracking things down for the restoration of the
lolani Palace. In Honolulu, you know."

"As a matter of fact, I do know. Edgar Driscoll had a
fascinating feature story about it in the Boston Globe a
while ago and we had a letter back when my husband
was alive, asking whether we had anything to donate from
the royal visit in 1887."

"And did you?" cried Mr. Hartler eagerly.
"Nothing of consequence. Queen Kapiolani and Princess
Liliuokalani never stayed with us, but they did pop in
for tea one afternoon."
"Here? In this very room?"

"Oh no. They'd have been entertained in the formal
drawing room."

"Mrs. Kelling, could I see that room? Just for a moment?"

Sarah shook her head. "I'm terribly afraid you can't because
it doesn't exist anymore. I've had to turn it into a
bedroom. That's the room you'd have had if you'd only
come a little sooner."

For a moment, Sarah thought Mr. Hartler was going to
burst into tears.

"I feel as if St. Peter had just slammed the pearly gates
in my face," he said with a rueful smile. "To think that I
might have been sleeping in the very same room where

The Withdrawing Room	27

those two wonderful, vibrant ladies sat and drank tea!
Mrs. Kelling, I'm shattered, utterly shattered. I only hope
the fortunate person who occupies it now realizes his great
,good fortune. Would it be someone I know, by any
chance?"

"His name is Quiffen, and he's a friend of the Protheroes.
You've met them, surely?"

"The Protheroes, yes, though only in passing as it were.
But Quiffen? No, I can't say that name rings a bell. Perhaps
I could find a way to scrape his acquaintance," he
added, brightening a little. "If I were to explain what it
would mean to me--I don't suppose he'd be amenable
to a spot of bribery and corruption, by any chance?"

He said it with a whimsical smile, but Sarah wasn't altogether
sure he didn't mean it. "I'm afraid not," she said
firmly. "Mr. Quiffen is very well off and he appears to be
perfectly satisfied with his accommodations. For the moment,
at any rate."

Mr. Hartler took the hint she couldn't resist throwing
in. "Ah, then if you think there may be any chance whatever,
I implore you to keep me in mind. The Harvard
Club will always find me. They'll take a message at the
switchboard. Wonderful people. Most obliging. You're
quite sure it wouldn't do any good for me to explain the
circumstances to this Mr. Quiffen?"

"Quite sure. I really shouldn't try it if I were you, Mr.
Hartler."

If old Barnwell Augustus thought anybody else wanted
the room that badly, he'd dig himself in like a badger for
sheer cussedness, and she'd be stuck with Him forever.
One could only wait and pray.

Chapter 4

Sarah had established the pleasant routine of gathering
her boarders in the library half an hour before dinnertime
for sherry and chat. This helped her get them to the table
on time in a mellow mood, and gave Charles breathing
space to change from working clothes into his butler's rig-
out. It also provided an opportunity to dull people's appetites
with some inexpensive but hearty hors d'oeuvres if
the meal was going to be a trifle on the lean side, as it was
on this particular occasion,

Mariposa was circling the room with a tray of Sarah's
hot, delicious, filling, and surprisingly economical cheese
puffs. Sarah was pouring wine for Mrs. Sorpende out of a
cut-glass decanter she'd been tempted to sell but was now
glad she'd held on to. Though they were filled from gallon
jugs of the cheapest drinkable sherry she could find, the
decanters did seem to have a favorable psychological effect
on the flavor.

All of a sudden it occurred to her that the gathering was
several degrees more amicable than usual. Nobody was
fighting with anybody. No whiny voice was pontificating
about some niggling point in which nobody else except
possibly the encyclopedic Mr. Porter-Smith had the vaguest
interest. Momentarily puzzled, Sarah stopped short
with the decanter in mid-air and looked about. Mrs. Sorpende
continued to hold out her glass with an air of
sweet patience. Sarah recollected herself.

"I'm sorry. It just this moment dawned on me that Mr.
Quiffen isn't here. He's usually so punctual."

"Been hoping he'd get stuck in the subway again, myself,"
grunted Professor Ormsby, taking several more

28

The Withdrawing Room	29

cheese puffs and settling himself where he could ogle Mrs.
Sorpende's decolletage in comfort.

Tonight, that elegant lady had enlivened her favorite
black gown with a huge red silk poppy, and set a highbacked
Spanish comb in her hair. Sarah thought not for
the first time that Mrs. Sorpende would make a far more
impressive landlady than she, and asked her to do the
honors with the decanter.

"Could I ask you to take my place for a moment? I
want to run out to the kitchen and see how things are getting
on."

Actually she was wondering if Mr. Quiffen might have
sent a message that nobody had remembered to give her.
As a rule, both members of her multi-talented staff were
punctilious about such things. In fact, Charles liked nothing
better than to make a stately entrance with a slip of
paper on a silver tray as if he were carrying the good news
from Ghent to Aix. Tonight, though, he might have got
held up at the factory while Mariposa was preoccupied
with the cheese puffs.

No, she found Charles bustling up the cellar stairs,
white-gloved and ready to roll. There had been no message.

"Then we shan't hold dinner for him," said Sarah
crossly. "Mr. Quiffen knows the house rules. He'd be the
first to squawk if anybody else kept him waiting."

Mr. Quiffen did not call and he did not come. They ate
without him and found the experience a most agreeable
change. Only Sarah could not escape the little worry that
was nagging at her. It was so very unlike Mr. Quiffen not
to make any kind of fuss whatever.

Perhaps she ought to call Anora Protheroe after dinner
and see if Barnwell Augustus was out there. He might
have got waylaid into hearing George's bear story, which
went on for hours and from which once a victim was
trapped there could be no escape. Sarah's nerves were still
too raw from her own recent tragedies to tolerate any unexplained
absence, even Mr. Quiffen's, without some degree
of apprehension.

After dinner they went back to the library for coffee.
Sarah used the Export China that had been brought back
by one of her seafaring ancestors after a successful deal in
nutmeg graters, chamber pots, and other products of an
advanced Western technology. The cups had the double

30	Charlotte MacLeod

advantage of being so small that they saved a good deal
on coffee and of giving Sarah an excuse to drop an occasional
nugget of family history, thus contributing to the atmosphere
her lodgers were paying for.

Jeremy Kelling had already joined them twice for dinner.
On those occasions the anecdotes had been a good
deal more picturesque. Sarah wished Uncle Jem could be
here tonight to help her out of her preoccupation. However,
he'd gone to some kind of old Barflies' Reunion at a
suitably disreputable saloon for which the group had
been forced to search far and wide, urban renewal having
hygienized all their old haunts out of existence or
into respectability.

Luckily, she could escape before long. Sarah had let it
be known that exactly half an hour after she'd served
the coffee, she would either adjourn to her upstairs lair or
go out to whatever social engagement she- might have,
though since she'd opened her boardinghouse she hadn't
been invited anywhere. She did so tonight, leaving the
others to continue socializing in the library or get on with
their own plans for the evening.

As it happened, nobody was going anywhere. The
lodgers were all still in the library enjoying their unaccustomed
congeniality when the telephone rang at about
a quarter past nine. After several rings, when it became
clear that Charles and Mariposa must be in their basement
quarters reading good books, listening to Bach partitas,
or more probably doing something else, Sarah came
back downstairs to answer it.

According to old-fashioned custom, the original instrument
had been installed in the front hall. This was the
one she answered. As the library door was open, her
boarders could hear, and the babble of conversation died
suddenly as she gasped, "The police station? Yes, this is
Mrs. Kelling. Yes, he does. Mr. Quififen is one of my
boarders. No, I'm not acquainted with his family, but I
can find out who they are. Why? What's happened to
him?"

They told her. She put down the receiver and entered
the library with a face as white as the linen damask tablecloth
she'd have to iron tomorrow. "I'm afraid we
have some bad news. Mr. Quiffen has been in an accident."
"What kind of accident?" demanded Mr. Porter-Smith.

The Withdrawing Room	31

Sarah swallowed hard. "He appears to have fallen under
a subway train at Haymarket Station."

"What the hell was he doing at Haymarket Station?"
That was a stupid question. Oddly enough, it was Professor
Ormsby who asked.

"I have no idea," she replied.

"Is he badly hurt?" was Mrs. Sorpende's more reasonable
inquiry.

"He--" Sarah found she could not go on.

"You mean he's dead?" squealed Miss LaValliere.

"I--I believe it happened very quickly."

"Naturally it would have to," said Mr. Porter-Smith.
"When you consider the weight and velocity of a subway
train--"

Sarah had no desire to consider any such thing. "Excuse
me," she interrupted. "I must call some friends and
see if they can tell me who are his next of kin. Mr.
Porter-Smith, you might pour us each a little brandy, if
you will. I'll get the decanter."

"Please allow me." The young pontificator switched
without effort to his role as mountain climber. He was
out of his chair and across the room in a bound. Sarah
showed him where to find the brandy and the liqueur
glasses. Then she escaped to the kitchen, where there was
an extension telephone, and dialed the Protheroes'.

George was, as she'd expected, three sheets to the wind
and fast asleep by this time. Anora was awake and every
bit as shocked as Sarah had thought she would be.

"Barney wasn't such a bad old wart when you got to
know him," she snuffled, "and we'd known, him forever.
George is going to take it hard." As to relatives, Anora
had to stop and think. "Barney never married. Or anything
else," she added forthrightly. "He could never find
a woman to suit him, and if he had, she'd have known
better than to get stuck with such a pest. I expect you've
had your hands full. But Barney wasn't any worse than a
lot of others, no matter what they say."

The parents were long gone, of course. There had been
a brother, but he was dead, too. However, Anora was
pretty sure she could produce a nephew and a cousin or
two.

"I hope you can," sighed Sarah. "Otherwise this may
wind up as my responsibility. Frankly, Anora, I don't
think I could cope."

32	Charlotte MacLeod

"Of course you couldn't and why should you? George
is one of the executors. Poor old Barney was going to be
one of his. They used to go on about which would get to
plant the other. George can stir his stumps for a change.
Maybe it will buck him up a bit to learn he's the survivor
instead of the survivee. I hope Barney's rent was paid
up."

"Until the end of the week. If his heirs are anything
like him, I daresay they'll demand a refund, since today
is only Wednesday. I'm sorry, Anora. I know you cared
for him."

"Yes, but that doesn't cut any ice. I know what Barney
was like. You should have heard the way he carried on
after your Uncle Fred died and he found Dolph had been
given the chairmanship of one of those ridiculous foundations
instead of him. Anyway, whatever the nephew
says, don't give him a nickel. You've got to be tough if
you're to succeed at that landlady wrinkle of yours,
Sarah. As soon as we've got poor Barney safely underground,
I'll see whom else I can dig up for you."

"That's sweet, Anora, but I already have one. Do you
recall that nice Mr. Hartler we met at Aunt Marguerite's?
His sister is in Rome and he's alone here in Boston, desperate
to get the room. I'm sure he'd move in tomorrow,
unless this thing about Mr. Quiffen turns him off."

"Why should it? Old people know other old people are
going to die. We know we are, too, though we don't believe
it till it happens and maybe not then, if you can
put any stock in that parapsychology twaddle. What do
you want to bet Barney's lodging a complaint with St.
Peter right now? Or more likely trying to hunt up a nastyminded
medium to put a hex on the Secretary of Transportation.
Whatever happened, I'm sure he brought
it upon himself. No doubt he was bending over to inspect
the rails or something that was none of his business in
the first place, and wondering whom he should write to
about it. Now, Sarah, you go lock his bedroom door right
this minute. Don't let a soul set foot over that threshold
until George and Barney's lawyer get there. Especially
the relatives. Those Quirfens are all cut from the same
bolt of cloth, and pretty shoddy material it is, if you ask
me."

"Darling Anora, I do love you so!"

Sarah had been properly brought up not to get sloppy

The Withdrawing Room	33

with people, but she'd also learned the hard way that it
was no good bottling up your feelings until suddenly you
had nobody to tell them to. Maybe that fat old woman
out there in her overheated, overfurnished cavern of a
house with her fat old servants and her fat old drunk of a
husband would forgive being told she was loved.

At any rate, Mrs. Protheroe replied in a gruff but not
snappish tone, "Now don't you fret yourself about this
business for one minute, Sarah. Take a little brandy and
a hot bath, and get some rest."

Sarah obeyed and was glad later that she had. Almost
at the crack of dawn, a sharp-nosed, thick-waisted,
middle-aged man who could be nobody else but Barnwell
Augustus QuifEen's nephew was on the doorstep, set to go
through his uncle's possessions before the landlady
pinched all the goodies. Or so his supercilious expression
implied until Charles, who had taken the day off from
the factory because he thought Mr. Hudson would have
wanted him to, proffered a silver salver and straightened
out the caller with a lofty, "I will tell the mistress you are
here. Would you care to present your card?"

As Mr. Quiffen did not have a card and was much
shorter, less attractive, and infinitely less impressive than
Charles, he was thus put at a disadvantage and meekly
allowed himself to be herded into the library.

Sarah, having anticipated an early-morning visit, was
ready and waiting, but she let the man cool his heels for
five minutes or so before she descended the stairs, correct
in black-and-gray tweed and a discreet strand of pearls.
Having picked up a few tricks from Charles, she entered
the room with exactly the right degree of hauteur.

"Mr. Quiffen?" She held out a limp hand and permitted
him to touch the first two fingers. "Allow me to
express my sympathy on your sad loss. This has been a
shock to us all."

"I'm going to write a mighty stiff letter to the Metropolitan
Boston Transit Authority, I can tell you." No question
about it, here was a Quiffen. "Now would you show
me his room?" the nephew added almost in the same
breath.

"Your uncle had the suite directly across the hall."

Sarah was about to add that he wouldn't be able to get
into it, but the man was over there trying the knob before
she had a chance, so she merely sat down and waited. In

34	Charlotte MacLeod

a moment he was back, his nose twitching as his late
uncle's would no doubt have done in a like circumstance.
"I can't get in. What's wrong with the door?"
"Naturally I instructed my manservant to lock it as
soon as we got word of your uncle's death," Sarah replied
calmly.

"Then would you kindly instruct him to unlock it
again?"

"Certainly, as soon as Mr. Protheroe arrives with the
other executor. I assume you have made the necessary arrangements
to meet him here?"

"Protheroe? That old--why, I never--"

The nephew began gobbling like an infuriated turkey.
Sarah touched the small silver bell at her elbow. Charles,
who had been lurking in the wings enjoying the show, entered
on cue.

"You rang, madam?"

"Charles, would you telephone the Protheroe residence?
Present my compliments and inquire whether Mr.
Protheroe plans to come here this morning. If so, find out
what time we may expect him to arrive, and give Mr.
Quiffen that information. Mr. Quiffen will then either
wish to make a proper appointment and return later or
wait here in the library, depending on Mr. Protheroe's
plans. If he chooses to wait, have Mariposa bring him
some coffee. And now, Mr. Quiffen, I must ask you to excuse
me. I have some things to do."

Giving his comeuppance to this not very pleasant man
who had so obviously expected to barge in and stamp all
over her afforded Sarah no cause for rejoicing. She'd sent
Charles out for the morning papers and found as she expected
that they'd pulled out all the stops. The late Bamwell
Quiffen had "fallen or jumped" in front of the train.
Altogether too much was made of the fact that he'd been
staying with Sarah Kelling, to whom they'd already given
more publicity than anybody but a movie starlet could
ever want.

The brief statement she'd reluctantly made last night
had been twisted beyond recognition. "Penniless Socialite
Forced to Turn Ancestral Mansion into Boardinghouse"
was among the less offensive headlines and "Kelling Murder
Curse Strikes Again" undoubtedly the worst.

Sarah had made a formal apology to the survivors at
the breakfast table, and assured them that their privacy

The Withdrawing Room	35

would be guarded in every way possible. However, they'd
all known her recent history before they'd agreed to take
up residence with her and she got the distinct impression
they were not particularly bowed down by being in the
midst of another sensation, especially Professor Ormsby,
who'd only grunted and helped himself to yet another
fried egg.

Miss LaValliere and Mr. Porter-Smith were no doubt
basking in the interest they could stir up among their respective
classmates and fellow employees by now. Mrs.
Sorpende, on the other hand, had looked genuinely distressed
and expressed a fervent hope that the late Mr.
Quiffen's fellow boarders would be able to avoid any personal
contact with the press. Mariposa and Charles applauded
the feelings of this true gentlewoman and Sarah
again felt a private surge of gratitude at having Mrs.
Sorpende to set an example for the others.

Having wadded up the papers and thrown them away
and dealt with the importunate Mr. Quiffen, Jr., she
turned her attention to more pressing matters. She was
cleaning an upstairs bathroom when Charles ascended the
stairs three at a tune without losing a jot of his Hudsonian
aplomb to announce that Mr. Protheroe was on his way,
that a cousin of the late Mr. Quiffen had already joined
the nephew in the library, and that the new arrival had
his attorney with him.

"Oh, gosh," said Sarah, that having been the strongest
oath she'd been allowed to utter during her carefully
guarded childhood. "Maybe I'd better call up the troops,
myself."

She ran over her short list of possibles. Uncle Jem
would come like a shot, but he'd be of no use in a situation
like this. He and old George would get off in a corner
with her only bottle of whiskey and swap reminiscences
of bears and bares while the battle raged about them as it
was shaping up to do.

She might get somebody from her own lawyer's office,
although she'd have a problem persuading any of the
Messrs. Redfern to drop his writs and rush over here at a
moment's notice. She'd also get stuck for a fee and her
financial position was sticky enough already. It would
have to be Dolph. Her cousin might be a bit slow on the
uptake sometimes, but when it came to a case of bellow

36	Charlotte MacLeod

and bluster, she'd back him against any Quiffen alive.
Sarah leaped to the phone and sounded the alarm.

After delivering himself of the anticipated remarks
about having told her from the first that this scheme of
hers was totally insane and did she have to keep dragging
the family name into the papers, Dolph said he'd be
right over and was. He even took a taxi. Altogether it was
quite an assemblage that greeted George Protheroe when
he arrived, blinking like the dormouse that had been
dragged out of the teapot, and being bullied along by his
wife. Sarah took Anora off to meet her household staff,
leaving the men to fight it out among them with Dolph
yelling louder than all the rest as she'd been proudly confident
he could.
Anora and Mariposa were buddies from the moment
they met. The three women were drinking tea and holding
a strategy session on household matters at the kitchen
table when Charles came in to inform them that the gentlemen,
which his tone implied was rather a loose term
for some of them though it wasn't his place to say so flat
out, had taken an inventory of the possessions in the late
Mr. Quiffen's room. Charles had taken it upon himself to
point out that several of the inventoried articles belonged
in fact to Mrs. Kelling and Mr. Adolphus Kelling had personally
deleted those items from the inventory list.

It had been ascertained from Mr. Quiffen's files that
his will was in the hands of either Mr. Snodgrass, Mr.
Winkle, Mr. Tupper, or Ms. Pickwick of the firm bearing
that name in Devonshire Street and the gentlemen were
about to hie themselves thither. Mr. Protheroe was desirous
of ascertaining the whereabouts of Mrs. Protheroe
since he assumed she would wish to accompany the party,
and what message should be conveyed to him?
"My God," said Anora, "is he always like this?"
"You better believe he isn't," giggled Mariposa.
Anora said she was too old not to believe anything,
gave them all her blessing, and waddled after her husband.
Sarah went back upstairs and cleaned another
bathroom. Now, please God, they'd have a little peace
around here.

Chapter 5

Sarah was scrubbing potatoes for dinner and wondering
how soon she could decently let Mr. Hartler know she had
the vacancy he was waiting for when Charles came into
the kitchen.

"A person wishes to see you, madam," he announced.

"A person?" Sarah put down the potato she was washing
and dried her hands on a dish toweL "What kind of
person? Male or female?"

"I am unable to state, madam. The person is wearing a
great many concealing garments and also carrying two
decrepit paper shopping bags stuffed with trash."

"What for?"

"I have no idea, madam. I have instructed the person
to wait in the vestibule while I ascertain whether you are
at home."

"Why not in the front hall or the library?"

"This does not appear to be the sort of person one
would wish to admit inside the house, madam."

"Oh, come off it, Charles! Neither was that last lot of
Quiffens. Are you trying to tell me this is one of those
poor old souls who go around fishing through the trash
bins on the Common?"

"The person would appear to fall into that category,
madam."

"Did this person say what the person wants with me?"

"The person claims to have information of interest to
you."

"I can't imagine what it might be, but I suppose I'd better
come. Leave the paper bags in the vestibule and bring
the person into the front hall. As soon as I get the potatoes

37

38	Charlotte MacLeod

cooking I'll find out what the person wants. Most likely a
handout."

Sarah hustled the potatoes into the oven, took off her
apron, and went to meet this enigmatic person. When she
caught sight of the visitor perched on the tip-edge of a hall
chair, she understood Charles's unwonted confusion about
sex. Her uninvited caller was bundled into such an assortment
of outerwear, including khaki army pants, rubber
boots, a sailor's peacoat, and a knitted balaclava helmet
that not enough of the presumed human being inside was
visible to afford a clue. However, if this was one of those
pathetic derelicts who wander the streets and sleep in
doorways, its standard of dereliction must be remarkably
high. The coat was threadbare but not unclean and had
all its buttons firmly sewn on. The pants showed signs of
having been pressed in the not too distant past. The navy
blue balaclava was expertly darned in wool that almost
matched, and the boots were wiped free of slush.

"Good afternoon," she said to the helmet. "I am Mrs.
Kelling. I understand you have something to tell me?"

A hand in a much-mended cotton glove pulled the
knitted mask away from the mouth, revealing a somewhat
wrinkled but well-washed and by no means unattractive
woman's face. "How do you do, Mrs. Kelling. I'm Mary
Smith. Miss Mary Smith, I suppose I should say. I didn't
give my name to your man there because he'd have
thought it was an alias, which it isn't. My dad was a Smith
and my mother a Mary and I can show you my birth certificate
with more years on it than I care to count. You
must think I'm a real crackpot butting in on you like this,
but I've got to find somebody who'll listen to me and
you're the only one I haven't tried. You see, I was there.
I saw it happen."

"Saw what happen, Miss Smith?"
"The murder."

"Oh, dear!" Sarah repressed a moan. Ever since the remains
of a long-vanished ecdysiast had turned up in the
family vault on the eve of Great-uncle Frederick's burial,
she'd been pestered by a wide assortment of cranks. She'd
hoped she'd seen the last of them, but evidently she
hadn't. Yet Miss Mary Smith, in spite of her ragpicker's
getup, didn't look like a crank.

"Yes, it was the worst thing that ever happened to me,"
the woman agreed, evidently thinking Sarah was offering

The Withdrawing Room	39

sympathy. "I still get the shivers every time I think of it. I
was on my way home with my day's gleanings. Since my
retirement I've developed sort of a hobby, as you might
say, collecting papers and cans to recycle. I can't take
glass because it's too heavy to carry. Helps the ecology a
little, or so I like to think, and gives me something to do.
But I'm not here to talk about that."

"Please, won't you take off your things and come into
the library?" Sarah still wasn't sure whether Miss Mary
Smith was a nut, a reporter in disguise, or the perfectly
sane elderly woman she appeared to be, but she thought
she'd better find out.

"I don't want to impose on your good nature." Nevertheless,
Miss Smith rolled up her helmet into a neat cap
and began struggling with the toggles of her peacoat. "I
will just slip off this jacket, though, if you don't mind.
Otherwise I won't feel the good of it when I go out. I
never used to mind the cold, but now it seems to go right
through me. That's why I bundle up in any old thing I can
lay my hands on. Anyway, if I'm going to be a ragpicker
I might as well look the part, eh?"

"Here, let me help you." Sarah managed to extricate
Miss Smith from the top layers and led her into the library,
where Charles had already lit the fire and laid out
biscuits and sherry for the evening gathering.

"What a lovely room!" Miss Smith arranged her dilapidations
in a thoroughly feminine manner and took the
glass of sherry Sarah poured out for her. "Thank you,
Mrs. Kelling. I certainly didn't expect such royal treatment
after the brushoff I've been getting from everybody else.
Of course I ought to have known better than to rush up to
that policeman the way I did, dressed like a tramp with
two big bags of garbage in my hands, but that's me all
over. I never think how I look till it's one step too late."

"My whole family are the same way," Sarah agreed,
"and they never give a hoot, so why should you? But do
please tell me--"

"Why I barged in on you like this?" The sherry was giving
Miss Smith more serf-assurance. "It's going to sound
foolish, but just a little while ago, I picked a paper out of:
a litter basket. There was your name and picture staring;
right out at me, and it said where you lived and everything.
It struck me all of a heap, like an omen or whatever
you want to call it. So being, as I said, the kind who leapsi

40	Charlotte MacLeod

before she looks, I picked up my junk and waltzed myself
on over here. I'm sure that man of yours didn't want to let
me in and I must say I can't blame him. But I do think a
citizen has to take some responsibility, don't you?"
"Of course," said Sarah, still nonplused.
"Well, there you are, then. I wasn't about to let anybody
get away with a horrible thing like that, but the policeman
just brushed me off and the reporters thought I
was looking for an easy buck and told me to go home and
sleep it off as if I were some old drunk, which I wouldn't
be even if I could afford to which I certainly can't.
Though this sherry is a real treat," she added politely.

"Anyway, being a senior citizen, I get to ride the T on
the cheap fare, so I was down there on the platform waiting
for my tram. It's good pickings around Haymarket,
you know, on account of the tourists and all. Some of
them slip me a quarter now and then, and if you think I'm
too proud to take it, you can think again. I can't afford
that sort of nonsense anymore.

"But as I started to say, I was standing beside the track
and this stout elderly man in a dark blue overcoat was
standing next to me. He gave me a nasty look and edged
back as if he was afraid I had lice or something, which I
don't in case you're wondering. Of course I couldn't help
noticing. I may have had to shed my pride since I started
trying to live on Social Security but I've still got my feelings.
Then the train came along and everybody started
shuffling forward, you know how they do. The station was
mobbed, as you'd naturally expect at that hour. So anyway
I was still turned toward this fat man in the overcoat,
giving him a look as much as to say I'm as good as you
are, you old goat, because I don't care to be treated like
dirt under somebody's feet. And I distinctly saw a pah- of
hands come out of the crowd and shove that man down
on the track, right in front of the train."
"Oh no!" cried Sarah. "You couldn't."
"There," said Miss Smith. "I didn't expect you'd believe
me any more than the rest. But I'm telling you, Mrs. Kelling,
I had my eye right on this Mr. Quiffen and I know
he was the one because they had pictures of him in both
the Globe and the Herald and I tore them out and I've got
them right here in my coat pocket. I never carry a purse
because it's an invitation to be mugged, even an old derelict
like me. And I have very good eyesight for my age

The Withdrawing Room	41

and that's not the sort of thing a person could forget. And
I tried to tell the starter and I tried to tell the conductor
and I--but I've been through all that, so now I've said my
piece I'll go away and not pester you again. And thank
you for at least not laughing in my face."

"But I'm not laughing at all," said Sarah. "The awful
part of it is, I can believe you because I know how obnoxious
Mr. Quiffen could be. He had a natural gift for
making enemies. I know of only two people in the world
who had a good word for him and they're such old sweeties
they'd like anybody."

Miss Smith nodded. "That doesn't surprise me. He was
always writing the nastiest letters to the papers, mostly
about dumb little mistakes anybody could make. I'd read
them and think how somebody was going to get in trouble
with the boss over that letter, and wonder if this Barnwell
Augustus Quiffen had the faintest idea what he might be
doing to some poor slob with six kids to support."

"I'm sure he neither knew nor cared. If I'd realized
what he was like, I'd never have let myself be talked into
taking him on as a boarder. But please don't broadcast
that, Miss Smith. I haven't said that to anyone else, and I
shouldn't have said it to you."

"Don't fret yourself," the woman replied. "I have nobody
left to tell. I don't visit my old neighbors anymore
because I wouldn't want them seeing what I've come
down to and thinking I was after a handout, and anybody
who knows me well enough to say hello to now thinks I'm
just another harmless nut. Then you do think Mr. Quiffen
might have pestered somebody into doing something desperate
to get rid of him?"

"I don't know that I think so. I simply can't say it's
impossible. You didn't happen to catch a glimpse of the
person you say pushed him?"

"All I can swear to is a pair of dark leather gloves and
the cuffs of a dark overcoat. That's not much to go on,
because no doubt half the men in the crowd were wearing
leather gloves and dark coats. I'm not even sure it was a
man, though the gloves and coat seemed more like a
man's than a woman's. I may have jumped to the conclusion
that it must be, I suppose, because men are more apt
to be violent than women. But there was so much confusion
and milling around, and I was right next to him and
I was scared I'd get pushed under the train, too, and I

42	Charlotte MacLeod

was trying to get back and people were pressing me forward.
It was such an awful moment I couldn't think
straight, or I might have had sense enough to try for a
better look."

"How could you have? It must have been utterly terrifying."
"Well, I hope I never have to go through another one
like that," Miss Smith agreed. And it was no accident,
Mrs. Kelling, and I'm sure he never did it on purpose,
either, no matter what the papers say. I mean, here's this
pompous old prune, which is a fine way to speak of the
dead and it's as well my poor mother isn't alive to hear
me, but that's what he was. And he wasn't thinking about
anything except keeping his distance from me so I
wouldn't contaminate his nice overcoat. And mind you,
he wasn't moving forward, he was stepping back. And I
saw what I saw and I'd swear to it on a stack of Bibles,
no matter what anybody says."

Miss Smith drank off the last of her sherry and set
down the glass. And now I must go along, and thank
you very kindly."

"No," said Sarah. "I can't simply let you go like this,
after what you've told me. First, you've got to promise
that you won't make any further attempt to tell anybody
else this story. If someone did in fact push Mr. Quiffen
under that train and you're the only person who's willing
to come forward and say so, then don't you see that you
constitute a threat to the murderer?"

"Why, I--"

"You say you didn't see the face, but how can he be
sure of that? How can you, for that matter? You might remember
more than the gloves and the coat sleeves once
you've got over your shock and had a chance to think
about it. You've already called attention to yourself by
trying to tell somebody in authority what you saw. I
hope you realize that being brushed off as a crank was
the luckiest thing that could have happened to you. If
your name had appeared in the papers along with mine,
you mightn't have stayed alive long enough to come here
this afternoon."

Miss Smith laughed incredulously. "You make me
sound pretty important."

"You are important. Decent citizens who have the
courage to act on their convictions are always important.

The Withdrawing Room	43

Miss Smith, you must listen to me. You may think I'm
trying to shut you up because I don't want the story to
get around that one of my lodgers has been murdered,
but believe me, I'm not. If this boardinghouse business
flops, I stand to lose my property, but I could live with
that. What I could not bear is the thought that I'd sent
you out into the dark and got you killed."

"Mrs. Kelling!"

"I'm speaking from experience. Give me your address
so that we can keep in touch. I'll let you know anything
I can find out, but I most earnestly beg you, for your own
protection, to keep acting like a harmless crank and trust
me to handle the matter from now on. Will you promise?"

"I might as well, I guess. At least you stand a chance of
getting somebody to pay attention, which is more than I
do. Look, have you got a back door I can sneak out by?
I don't want to embarrass you by running into one of
your other boarders."

"You wouldn't embarrass me, but there's always the
nasty little odd chance one of them might recognize you
and guess what you're doing here. I'll call you a taxi."

"No, don't do that. I live over in the project. If anybody
around there saw me coming home in a cab, they'd
think I must have money hidden in my room. Let me go
on the subway same as I always do."

"All right, if you must, but you're not going alone. I
can't go with you myself right now because I have to cook
dinner, but you must wait till I see what I can arrange."

Sarah touched the bell and Charles came running.

"Charles, fetch Miss Smith's parcels from the vestibule
and her wraps from the closet, and show her down to the
back door. She is doing valuable secret research for the
Ecological Commission and we mustn't let anybody know
she was here. I'm sure I needn't explain, Miss Smith, that
you can rely absolutely on the discretion of my staff.
You'd better wait inside until your escort arrives. We
sometimes have prowlers in the alley, I'm sorry to say,
and Charles's duties will keep him upstairs. I'll try not to
keep you too long, but I beg you to be patient."

Charles couldn't resist this appeal to his sense of
drama. He led Miss Smith and her bags of ecological research
down the back hall in furtive majesty. Now Sarah's
problem was to find the woman an escort.

Cousin Dolph had already done his good deed for the

44	Charlotte MacLeod

day. Anyway, Sarah couldn't see him tootling out to the
project with a woman who looked like a walking ragbag.
Uncle Jem couldn't go because he was already booked to
show up for dinner and keep the boarders' minds off Mr.
Quiffen. He was no doubt getting decked out in his antique
soup-and-fish right now, thinking up a few more
picturesque skeletons to hang on the family tree and
warming his vocal cords with a couple of quick martinis,
knowing he'd get no cocktails from his impecunious niece.

Egbert might possibly be persuaded, but Jem's valet
was getting on in years himself, and had enough to cope
with as it was, riding herd on his wayward employer. Mr.
Lomax would be just the person, but he was an hour's
drive away at Ireson's Landing. Miss Smith couldn't be
left dithering in the alleyway door all evening. There was
only one person Sarah could think of who might realistically
be asked to perform such an errand.

If only he wasn't in Hong Kong or Oxbridge or some
other outlandish place! No, he was at home. Sarah could
have cried with relief when she heard his voice on the
phone.

"Mrs. Kelling! I've just been--"

"I know, reading about me in the papers. I'm terribly
sorry to bother you again, Mr. Bittersohn, but I'm in a
desperate rush to find somebody willing to escort an elderly
lady wearing six sweaters and a balaclava helmet
home to a very tough neighborhood without getting her
killed on the way. I don't suppose you could possibly--"

"Where is she?"

"Right now she's waiting down at the alley door. You
remember, the one you were guarding that night when
Great-uncle Nathan's campaign chair collapsed under
you?"

"I have tender memories of that occasion. Will you be
with her?"

"I doubt it. I have to cook dinner for my boarders. But
I'll nip down and tell her you're coming. Would you mind
giving her your name and telling her Sarah Kelling sent
you? If you'll come to lunch with me tomorrow, 111 be
glad to explain what it's about. Mariposa has the day off
and Charles will be working so I'll be able to talk freely.
Charles thinks she's a spy for the Ecological Commission,
by the way, so if you run into him, please don't disillusion
him."

The Withdrawing Room	45

"I wouldn't dream of it. Who's Charles?"

"Charles C. Charles, my butler. That is, he's--oh, 111
have to explain when I see you. You will come?"

"I'm on my way."

The line went dead, and Sarah hung up, not without a
twinge of regret. It had been rather pleasant talking to
Mr. Bittersohn again, even under such circumstances as
these. But what other sort of circumstance did she exist in
lately? She did wish she could at least wait with Miss
Smith until he came, but she was already late with her
dinner.

Sarah did take a moment to run down to the shabby,
ill-lit back entry with a hastily collected plate of hors
d'oeuvres and tell her strange guest, "Mr. Max Bittersohn,
a very kind, trustworthy man, is coming to take you
home. He'll give you his name and say Sarah Kelling sent
him. Don't go with anybody else. Here's something to
nibble on while you're waiting. I'm sorry to leave you,
but something's boiling over on the stove."

"Think nothing of it. What'll I do with the plate?"

"Leave it on the chair."

Sarah was already halfway up the stairs as she spoke,
for the cooking was indeed in a perilous state and her
food budget too tightly calculated to allow for calamities.
Alexander would be proud of the way she was managing.
Darling Alexander! Why was she thinking of him at this
hectic moment? Was it because she felt the tiniest bit disloyal
at being so glad Mr. Bittersohn was again coming to
the rescue?

Chapter

"Mr. Bittersohn, how very nice to see you again."

Sarah's greeting was conventional enough, but her
voice held a degree of warmth that Cousin Mabel would
undoubtedly consider excessive. As Cousin Dolph had remarked,
who gave a damn about Mabel anyway? Furthermore,
Mabel wasn't here. It occurred to Sarah that
she'd made rather a point of telling her guest that nobody
else would be, either. Her cheeks were pinker than they'd
been for weeks as she shook his warm, square hand.

"I've been meaning to drop you a note of thanks for all
you did--"

"After you solved my case for me?" His smile was as
attractive as she'd remembered it, not the teeth-showing
kind but an amused curve of unusually well-shaped lips.
Mr. Bittersohn was not so handsome as the late Alexander
Kelling, no man could be that, but his somewhat rugged
features were still pleasant to look at. Sarah noticed with
inward amusement that his exuberant waves of dark
brown hair were springing up again where he'd tried to
slick them down, and she still couldn't make up her mind
whether his eyes were gray or blue.
"I did no such thing," she protested. "Here, come into
the library and let me give you a drink. I never dare bring
out the whiskey when my boarders are around for fear
they'll all want some. Like the gentleman dining at Crewe
who found a large mouse in his stew."

She was babbling and she knew it, but what did one
say to a man who'd saved one's life and gotten his reward
by being asked at a moment's notice to escort Miss Mary

46

The Withdrawing Room	47

Smith and her shopping bags back to the project? "You
like scotch with a twist and lots of ice, don't you?"

"Great." He didn't seem to know what to say, either.

"My Uncle Jem taught me to bartend when I was six,
so I'm quite good at it. How's that?"

Bittersohn took a sip. "Perfect. Aren't you going to join
me?"

"I certainly am."

Sarah poured herself a smaller drink, and added water.
"You know, when Miss Smith told me yesterday about
what happened, I was so taken aback that I don't think it
sank in properly. Then I had dinner to cope with, and
Uncle Jem joined us and stayed and stayed as he always
does once he gets over the agony of pulling himself together
to come. Naturally everybody was egging him on
because he really is a marvelous storyteller in a highly
censorable sort of way, so it was awfully late by the time
I got to bed and I went right to sleep. This morning of
course there was breakfast to fix so I honestly hadn't time
to think about what she said till a little while ago. Do you
think she could possibly be telling the truth?"

"I might if I knew what you're talking about"

"But didn't she tell you?"

"Miss Smith told me a good deal about her one-woman
save-the-environment plan but I don't suppose that's what
you're referring to. She did mention something when we
got to that dump she lives in about being glad I was with
her and not having realized what she might be letting herself
in for till Mrs. Kelling pointed it out to her, but Mrs.
Kelling told her not to say anything to anybody else so she
wasn't about to."

"But I didn't mean you. Here, have one of these cheese
things while they're hot. I appear to be in my accustomed
state of utter confusion. I expect I ought to start at the beginning,
which is the financial mess you know all about.
Probably you weren't surprised to read in the paper that
I'd turned this place into a boardinghouse. I couldn't
think of any other way to keep afloat till this business
with the High Street Bank gets settled, if it ever does. I
couldn't bear to knuckle under without putting up any
kind of struggle, and keeping up appearances on a shoestring
is all I'm trained to do."

"I thought you were a commercial artist."

"Well, yes, I suppose I am but I've never made any

48	Charlotte MacLeod

real money at it. I do intend to look for work, but so far
I haven't had time to get a portfolio together. I'm always
having to rush off and call the plumber or whatever just
as I think I'm going to start."

"Don't you have any help in the house?"

"Oh yes, I've been awfully lucky there. Mariposa, that
darling woman who used to clean for us, has come to
stay."

"The one with the dog and the boy friend?"

"You remembered! The dog has gone to live with her
brother in the country, I'm happy to say. Rover was the
sort that needs lots of roving space. The boy friend is still
with us. He's the Charles I mentioned on the phone.
Charles is really an actor but he's resting, as they say, so
he's keeping his hand in by doing a superb impersonation
of a butler. I don't even have to pay him, except room
and board, because he also has a job on some assembly
line attaching gadgets to widgets. I must say I dread the
day when Charles's agent finds him another role. Can I
fix your drink?"

"I'm fine for the moment, thanks. So where does Miss
Smith come in?"

"She showed up out of the blue yesterday about teatime.
Tell me, Mr. Bittersohn, what was your general impression
of her? I know one might assume at first glance
that she must have a bat or two loose in the belfry, but do
you honestly think she does?"

"A crowded subway train isn't the best place to judge,"
he replied, "but my off-the-cuff impression is that Miss
Smith is a gallant old sport trying to make the best of a
lousy deal. She told me she worked all her life for one of
those upper-crust department stores that have been
driven out of business by inflation and the big chains.
They paid peanuts and she had an invalid mother to support,
so she never got a chance to put much away. By the
time her job folded she was too old to get another, and
the Social Security check that was supposed to take care
of her declining years doesn't stretch beyond a ten-by-ten
room in a fleabag and a can of sardines once a week."

"Then how on earth does she live?"

"Makes a game of survival. Collects newspapers out of
trash cans and reads up on who's doling out free meals
to senior citizens. Then she peddles the papers to a junkman
for carfare to get to the grub. She told me she has

The Withdrawing Room	49

some very nice clothes she wears when she goes out in
company; I'd just happened to catch her when she wasn't
dressed up. And she insisted on paying her own dime for
the subway. I was tempted to ask her out to dinner and a
show, but I thought I'd better not try to get fresh on such
short acquaintance. Miss Smith looks as if she might be
a stickler for the proprieties."

"Don't you believe it," said Sarah. "She'd have taken
you on like a shot. She told me she'd got beyond any nonsense
about false pride. So have I, that's why I was so
brazen about hurling you into the breach. There simply
wasn't anybody else, and I didn't dare let her go off
alone. I think she's perfectly sane, too, so when she told
me her story I couldn't take the risk of not believing her."

Sarah drank a little of her scotch. "I'm sorry. I thought
I'd be able to talk about this easily enough, but it's--I'm
just so sick and tired of horrors!"

"That's okay, Mrs. Kelling. Take your time. Maybe I
can guess. Putting the newspapers and the subway together,
would I be correct in assuming that Miss Smith's
story had something to do with this Mr. Quiffen who
boarded with you and fell under the train yesterday?"

"Have you ever been wrong? Miss Smith's story is that
she and Mr. Quiffen were standing next to each other at
the front of the platform. They were more or less exchanging
glares because he didn't like being near someone
who--well, you saw her last night--and she didn't
take kindly to being regarded as a walking pestilence.
Would you?"

"Was he that sort?"

~~ "Oh yes, very much so. I got him foisted on me by
some old friends who thought they were doing me a big
favor, but I realized he was a mistake from the beginning.
If he couldn't find an excuse to be nasty, he'd go looking
for one. If I'd had him on my back for another week
or so, I daresay I might have been tempted to do what--
what Miss Smith claims she saw somebody else do."

"Shove him under the train?"

"So she says. She insists she distinctly saw two hands
wearing brown leather gloves reach out from the crowd
and deliberately push him onto the track at the moment
the train came out of the tunnel."

"Is that all she saw, just the hands?"

"That and an impression of dark coat sleeves. Of

50	Charlotte MacLeod

course the train wouldn't have been able to stop the instant
it hit him, and she was right next to it with everyone
milling and shoving. She was afraid she'd be pushed under
the wheels herself. You know what it's like in the rush
hours. I expect whoever did it just stepped back and got
lost in the crowd."

"Or turned to the guy behind him and yelled, 'Quit
shoving," so that in case anybody else happened to be
looking he could claim it wasn't his fault. It's unlikely
anyone would have paid any attention. People are concentrating
on the train, or maybe guarding their handbags
and wallets for fear of getting their pockets picked, or trying
to keep their bundles and briefcases from getting
knocked out of their hands. It's not a bad way to get rid
of somebody if you have the nerve. You'd simply give
him the push, let the crowd close in around you, step
back and get on the first train going in the opposite direction,
and be away before anybody realized what was happening.
Did Miss Smith report what she saw?"

"She tried hard enough. I gather she must have made
quite a scene. She claims she told the starter, the conductor,
the police, and even some reporters, but none of them
would pay attention to her. That's why she eventually
came to me. She happened to pick up a newspaper that
had one of those 'Tulip Street Curse Strikes Again' stories
with my name and photograph. She took it for divine guidance
or something and beetled straight on over here,
shopping bags and all. It was a dreadfully reckless thing
to do, and naturally I was terrified for her after what
happened that other tune."
"You know that wasn't your fault."

"I know it wasn't, but I can't help feeling it was. Anyway,
Miss Smith was totally oblivious of the fact that she's
a noticeable sort of person with her shopping bags and all
those ragged clothes peeking out from under one another.
And Mr. Quiffen's heirs, or what I presume are his
heirs, had been here earlier like wolves on the fold, and
my boarders were due in for dinner. I had to get her out
of here and I couldn't think what else to do, so I called
you. After this episode I daresay you'll be having your
telephone number changed."

Bittersohn smiled again. "Don't bet on it. Let me ask
you an embarrassing question. Did you want to keep your
boarders from seeing Miss Smith because she looked so

The Withdrawing Room	51

crummy or because you were afraid one of them might
recognize her as having been the witness who made the
fuss? I take it you're ready to believe Miss Smith's story
yourself."

"I have to, don't I? As to the boarders, I couldn't have
cared less about how she looked. I could always have introduced
her as one of my rich relatives. I was only concerned
that one of them might recognize her as the person
who'd tried to be a witness."

"Anyone in particular?"

"No, but you see, I don't know them. They all came
with recommendations of one sort or another, and we
had preliminary interviews and all that, but what does
that prove? I haven't seen enough of them yet to form any
valid opinions about what they might or might not be capable
of, and Mr. Quifien had got everybody's back up at
one time or another. We haven't actually been pelting
each other with mashed potatoes at the table, but that's
mainly because Charles and I and Mrs. Sorpende, who's a
darling woman, have been ganging up on him whenever
he threatened to become totally unbearable. What sort of
relationship he might have had with any of them outside
the house, of course, I have no idea and couldn't very
well ask."

"You say his heirs were here. Did he leave a lot of
money?"

"I think he must have, from what my friends told me. I
can find out exactly how much and how it was left if you
want, because George Protheroe is an executor. It was
George's wife Anora who sicked Mr. Quiffen on me in
the first place. She told me to soak him plenty since he
could well afford it, and she added that he'd make sure I
earned it, which was the truth, goodness knows. I called
her last night because I didn't know how else to get in
touch with his people. They were all here this morning,
including the nephew and a cousin ready to cart off whatever
they could get their hands on. Luckily, Anora had
warned me to lock his door and keep it locked till George
arrived."

"Did she?"

"Yes, and if you're thinking what I think you're thinking,
you might as well forget it. The Protheroes don't need
to steal from anybody. Furthermore, when I saw what a
delegation I was collecting, I decided I'd better have a

52	Charlotte MacLeod

representative of my own present, so I called my Cousin
Dolph. They went charging through that door in one
seething mass, so I can't see how one of them could have
pocketed anything of Mr. Quiffen's without getting
jumped by the rest. Shall we go in to lunch?"
"In the kitchen?"

"No, the dining room." Sarah recalled that the last
meal she'd cooked for Mr. Bittersohn had been breakfast,
and that he liked his eggs the consistency of old leather.
That was one small part of her adventures she'd never
mentioned, even to Aunt Emma.

"We're very high-toned these days," she went on with
a self-conscious attempt at airiness. "I'm sorry we can't
give you the full treatment, with Mariposa buttering your
buns for you and Charles being grand in his butler suit,
but perhaps you can come to dinner one night soon.
Please help yourself to the salad, as the footman happens
to be off today. I hope you like chicken."

"My mother should hear you ask that. She's one of the
old chicken soup crowd."

"That's true, it's supposed to be a cure for all ills, isn't
it? I'd better make some, and keep my remaining boarders
healthy."

"Tell me about them."

Sarah was surprised to realize how little she had to tell.
"Well, there's Jennifer LaValliere. She's the young
granddaughter of a woman who lives here on the Hill,
and she's going to Katherine Gibbs. At least I presume
she is, because she brings home a textbook now and then.
And a Mr. Porter-Smith, who does something or other in
an accounting firm that one of my third cousins has an
interest in."

"What's the name of the firm?"

"Come to think of it, I don't know. Kelling and somebody
or other, I suppose."

"How old is this Porter-Smith?"
"Getting on for thirty, I should say."
"Oh?" said Bittersohn in what struck Sarah as a rather
deliberately noncommittal way. "Good-looking guy?"

She shrugged. "So-so. He's rather alarmingly well
dressed but pleasant enough in a chatty sort of way. Anyway,
I knew Percy wouldn't send anybody who's fiscally
irresponsible and that's my chief concern right now. Then
I have Professor Onnsby, who teaches aerodynamics at

The Withdrawing Room	53

MIT and a charming lady named Mrs. Theonia Sorpende,
whom I think I mentioned before. She and Professor
Ormsby are both on the middle-aged side and he appears
to be quite struck with her. Mrs. Sorpende's what
my Uncle Jem calls a fine figure of a woman."

"Where did you collect her?"

"She found out about me from some friend of Aunt
Caroline's sister Marguerite, so she called and asked if
she could come and see the room. And she was such a
delightful change from most of the others I'd been seeing,
and she liked the house and didn't mind the stairs,
so I took her on."

"Without checking her references?"

"Well, actually, no. I just grabbed her before she could
change her mind. Mrs. Sorpende's a widow with no children."

"How do you know?"

"She told me so. Otherwise she doesn't talk much
about herself."

"Doesn't she?" For some reason Bittersohn didn't look
altogether happy. Perhaps the chicken wasn't up to his
mother's standard.

Sarah's guest ate for a moment in silence. Then he asked,
"How did your boarders react to Quifien's death?"

"They made the right noises when they heard the
news, all except Professor Ormsby, who seldom says
much of anything, but nobody acted particularly shattered.
To be quite frank with you, I think we were all a
little bit relieved to be rid of him, in spite of the shocking
way he went. And right now, much as I'm upset about
what Miss Smith told me, I'm wondering how soon I can
decently rent his room again, because I'm so desperately
hard-up for the money. What do you think, Mr.
Bittersohn?"

He shrugged. "How soon could you find another tenant?"

"Oh, I have one already. He's quite an old man, like
Mr. Quiffen, but much pleasanter. Oddly enough I got
him through Aunt Marguerite, too. He was bitterly disappointed
when he found I didn't have a place for him
because the drawing room is exactly what he wanted. It
has its own bath and it's on the first floor. He's not supposed
to climb stairs, you see, and he wants to be back
on the Hill. I believe he and his sister used to live around
here somewhere before they moved to Newport. Then
they decided they wanted to come back here, but she
was invited to visit an old friend in Italy for the winter so
they broke up their other place and put everything in
storage. He's tried a hotel and the regular sort of rooming
house and hates them both. I told him I'd let him
know when a vacancy came up because I already had a
hunch Mr. Quiffen and I were going to part company

54

The Withdrawing Room	55

before long. But of course I never dreamed it would happen
like this."

"What's this other man's name?"

"Hartler. William Hartler. You may possibly know him,
since he's more or less in your field."

"Is he? I don't think I've ever heard of him."

"Well, actually he's not a professional like you. He's
simply trying to track down some things for the Friends of
the lolani Palace."

"The Hawaiian royal treasures? They've got some
very good people working on that project. This chicken
is excellent, by the way. Ever see the lolani Palace yourself?"
"No, I've never been to Honolulu. Or anywhere else,
for that matter. My father always took the 'Why should
we travel? We're already here' line, and Alexander and I
never could afford to travel even if we'd been able to
leave Aunt Caroline. You've been there, I suppose?"

"Once, on business. I was tracking a guy who'd stolen
a nice Degas from some people in Brookline. Also a
Puvis de Chavannes, though why they wanted that one
back is beyond me." Bittersohn was a one-man detective
agency specializing in the recovery of stolen art objects
and jewelry, either for the desolated owners or for insurance
companies that suspected the desolated owners
might have arranged their own burglaries in order to collect
on the policies.

"How did the palace come into it?"

"Oh, that was a stroke of luck. When the guy found out
I was on his tail, he panicked and tried to get rid of the
paintings by peddling them to the curator, making believe
King Kalakaua had presented them to a great-aunt
of his. Unluckily for him, the curator's an acquaintance
of mine and knew what I was there for. Also, the Degas
happened to be a late one, painted in 1899. Kalakaua
died in 1891 and his sister Liliuokalani, who succeeded
him, reigned for only three years, until the revolution of
1893."

"What a lot you have to know!"

"Knowing is what I get paid for. Want to come to the
art museum with me sometime? I could bore you stiff
with my profound erudition."

"I'm sure you wouldn't," said Sarah, and, for some
reason, blushed. "But imagine anyone's getting a Degas

56	Charlotte MacLeod

and a Puvis de Chavannes for a present. Did King
Kalakaua actually do things like that?"

"Oh yes, he was no piker. I wish you could see that
palace. It has a hundred and four rooms."

"So Mr. Hartler was telling me. He's promised to show
me photographs, though I hope not of all the hundred
and four. He seems tremendously caught up with this
project. That's the main reason he wanted to come back
to Boston, where he thought the pickings would be better.
You know, I expect, that Queen Liliuokalani married
into a Boston family. Mr. Hartler claims to be connected
with the Dominises through his mother, though he didn't
explain how. Anyway, when she was still a princess,
Liliuokalani and Queen Kapiolani, who was Kalakaua's
wife, visited Boston. That was in 1887, when they were
on their way to Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. Everybody
wanted to entertain them and they gave the most
marvelous presents in return. When I told Mr. Hartler
they'd actually been to tea in the very room he could have
had if Mr. Quiffen hadn't already taken it, I thought he
was going to break down and cry."

"Maybe we'd better find out where this Hartler was
when Quiffen got the push," said Bittersohn, only half
joking.

Sarah laid down her fork. "You certainly know how to
brighten one's day, don't you? It can't possibly have been
Mr. Hartler. He wouldn't have been able to climb down
the stairs, for one thing, and he's much too old."
"How old?"

"Older than Mr. Quiffen, anyway, from the look of
him, and a good deal frailer. He walks with a cane. Mr.
Quiffen was stout and strutting and had this Horatius-atthe-bridge
way of planting his feet. It must have taken a
fairly hefty push to knock him flat. Still, I suppose one
shouldn't take anything for granted."

"Well, don't worry till you know you have something
to worry about. I know somebody who's been involved
in the palace restoration. He's out of town just now, but
I'll have a talk with him as soon as we can connect, and
see what he knows about Hartler. In the meantime, you
might as well go ahead with whatever plans you want to
make. No doubt Hartler will be panting on your doorstep
pretty soon anyway. He reads the papers, too, I exThe Withdrawing Room	57

pect. You don't happen to own any of those royal
treasures yourself, by chance?"

"Which Mr. Hauler wants to steal as soon as he moves
in? I wish I did. I'd sell them like a shot. We did have a
gorgeous peacock feather fan with the Hawaiian coat of
arms on a silver plaque in the center, but when the lolani
Palace people started canvassing Boston families for donations,
Alexander thought we ought to give it to them, so
we did. I don't suppose the fan was worth much compared
to most of the other things. King Kalakaua is supposed to
have spent a hundred thousand dollars on furnishings
alone, and of course that was an enormous sum in those
days. Then there was all that royal family jewelry that
had been handed down from one generation to another,
and a staggering amount of other stuff."

"I know, and much of it auctioned off for peanuts after
the revolution," said Bittersohn.

"Yes, and all us Yankee horse traders right in there
bidding our heads off," Sarah added. "I shouldn't be surprised
if some of the Kelling jewels came from there, but
we'll never know now. At least I have Granny Kay's bluebird,
thanks to you."
She touched the exquisite enameled brooch with the
ruby eye and the one magnificent baroque pearl dangling
from its beak that was all Bittersohn had managed to salvage
for her out of the once-fabulous collection.

"And I do have a photograph of the fan. Alexander
took it before we sent the fan off, because he thought we
should keep some sort of record in the family. I can show
you that if you like. Or are you like my Uncle Jem? He
says he only likes pictures of fans if they have fan dancers
behind them. Mr. Bittersohn, what am I going to do about
Miss Mary Smith?'*

"The best thing you can do for that woman is to stay as
far away from her as possible and concentrate on running
your boardinghouse. Officially, you know nothing about
Mr. Quiffen's death except what everybody else knows.
He was just somebody who rented a room from you and
met with an unfortunate accident. You take it for granted
you're entitled to rent the room again as soon as his things
have been removed. How far in advance did he pay his
rent?"	(

"Only through the end of this week."

"Then there's your answer, right? Tell this Mr. Harder

58	Charlotte MacLeod

he can move in Monday, or whatever day is convenient
for you. The longer the room stands empty, the more
likely he is to have found another place and the harder
time you may have filling it. By the way, you still haven't
told me who's living in the basement. You've got those
two rooms down there as I recall, plus the little one with
the furnace and laundry business. Does the maid have one
and the butler the other, or what?"

"At the moment, it's a case of 'or what,*" Sarah told
him. "Mariposa and Charles share the old kitchen, which
is the larger and looks out on the little back yard where
they plan to make a garden next spring if we're all still
here. I hope to rent the front room that used to be Edith's
bedroom as soon as I can get it fixed up, but I'm in a
quandary as to who'd take it. I don't much want students
because as you must have gathered, this whole enterprise
is based on snob appeal. I took a chance on Jennifer LaValliere
because she has family nearby and if they heard
of any goings-on they'd ship her back to her parents in a
hurry and she knows it. But if I got the sort who smoked
pot and played disco records and whatnot, they'd blow
the scene, as Charles might say in an unguarded moment.
I've got to have somebody who's willing to go along with
the stately home act, yet not mind having to use the cellar
stairs and share a bath with a couple who are just good
friends."

'Them wedding bells shall not ring out, eh?"
"Not according to Mariposa. She appears perfectly
happy as she is. Anyway, she's not quite sure about her
last two divorces. She's been getting them through some
mail-order operation in Uruguay and it does sound a bit
chancy, wouldn't you say?"

"I don't know that I'd say chancy." Bittersohn was eying
the last mushroom on his plate. "It's a shame I have
no snob appeal."
"Oh, but you have tons!" gasped Sarah. "Mr. Bittersohn,
you--you wouldn't possibly consider--oh, dear, I
know you already have a place and I'm being--pretend
you didn't hear me. I'll get the dessert. Do you care for
cheese with your apple pie?"

"Cheese costs money, doesn't it? You know, if you happened
to be considering me as a prospective tenant, you
could deduct the cost of this meal as a business expense."

The Withdrawing Room	59

"How could I ever think of you as a business expense?
But as a tenant--Mr. Bittersohn, are you serious?"

"You need a tenant who's trained to keep a straight
face under any and all conditions, right? And I need a
place to hang out when I'm in town, don't I?"

"But you already have one."

"Wrong. I've had one. They're turning the building into
condominiums and I either have to buy a scroungy apartment
I have no desire whatever to own or get out by the
first of the month. You wouldn't want to see me sitting in
the middle of Bowdoin Street with all my worldly goods,
namely two suitcases and a genuine hand-carved teakwood
back-scratcher presented as a token of esteem by a
grateful client, would you?"

"Of course not, but--I can't believe it!"

"So call up the real estate agents. I'll give you their
number. They'd sell you my place this minute, if you don't
mind paying an arm and a leg for two crummy rooms
overlooking several acres of pigeon droppings. I may be
homeless by the time I get back there, for all I know. Mrs.
Kelling, I don't smoke, I don't shine my shoes on the bedspread
because my mother brought me up right, I don't
own any disco records and wouldn't play them if I did. I
pay my rent a month in advance because I never know
when or for how long I'll be called out of town, and whatever
you charge couldn't be any worse than I'm getting
stuck for now. I'd need to install a private phone, which
of course I'd pay for myself. I sometimes have slightly1
weird visitors at odd hours, but I could make them come
and go by the alley door in order not to tarnish your
image. I'd as soon be in the basement because I'd probably
feel more at home with the hired help than the paying
guests. Do we have a deal or don't we?"

Sarah hesitated, then laughed. "Go give those sharks
your notice and pack your back-scratcher. Your room will
be ready for you by Monday morning."

Chapter 8

It took a good deal of doing, but by Monday morning,
fresh white paint was dry on the walls of what had been
part of Edith's lair for so many grievance-filled years. The
room looked twice as big and bright as it ever had before.
Sarah and Mr. Lomax had brought in the best of what
they could glean from the now-depleted house at Ireson's
Landing: a pine chest, a comfortable armchair and hassock,
a couple of lamps, a sturdy table and ladderback
chair that she hoped would be an adequate substitute for
a desk. Mr. Bittersohn must have to do some kind of paperwork
in that strange profession of his.

She'd splurged on a new mattress and box spring, got
Mr. Lomax to screw wooden legs into the frame, then sat
down at the old Singer and run up some bright red print
pillow covers to make the bed look more like a studio
couch and brighten the faded blue denim spread. She'd
made little curtains to match the pillows, and put pots of
nephthytis and sansevieria on the high, narrow, sidewalklevel
windowsills, knowing nothing less hardy would survive
there. Charles gave the worn old brick floor a good
scrubbing and waxing, and Mariposa laundered the least
faded rag rugs Sarah could find at Ireson's. By the tune
Sarah had everything in order, her two helpers were insisting
this was the best-looking room in the house and they
ought to charge more rent.

"Mr. Bittersohn is a very distinguished man in his profession,"
she replied primly. "We could hardly expect him
to live in a dump."

"Classy guy, eh?"

60

The Withdrawing Room	61

"Very classy, but not a bit stuffy. You'll like having him
here."

"You like him yourself?" Mariposa asked a shade too
innocently.

"He saved my life not long ago, among other things. I
owe him a debt of gratitude."

"We still collect the rent, though, don't we?" Mariposa
took the family finances much to heart.

"Certainly we do. I'm not that grateful."

In fact, she was. However, Sarah had known by instinct
that Mr. Bittersohn would have been horrified if she'd so
much as hinted at his getting the place for nothing,
though she knew people with far greater pretensions to
gentility who'd have leaped at the chance. She'd compromised
by naming a lower price than she'd meant to
charge. Mr. Bittersohn had insisted it ought to be much
higher, and named his own. At last they'd split the difference
and come up with what Uncle Jem had set as a reasonable
rate in the first place. Sarah had broken down
and told him so, whereupon they'd laughed and parted
with mutual satisfaction.

At least Sarah hoped the satisfaction was mutual. On
her side there could be no question. The more she
watched Professor Ormsby wolfing his food and listened
to Mr. Porter-Smith enumerate the mountains he had
climbed, the more impatient she became to have Mr. Bittersohn
at her dinner table.
As for Mr, Hartler, he'd been on the doorstep with an
armload of belongings almost before Sarah had got
around to telling him he could come. Getting his room
ready had been no problem. Mr. Quiffen had barely lived
in it long enough to track up the rug. The heirs had been
only too happy to remove the dead man's personal effects.

Anora had approved Sarah's taking quick action. So
had George, once his wife had managed to prod him
awake long enough to get official consent for the clearingout
of Mr. Quiffen's possessions. Even Dolph showed a
grudging admiration of his young cousin's acumen in not
being done out of a week's rent for which she might
otherwise have to sue the Metropolitan Boston Transit
Authority. Dolph had already been considering legal action
on the grounds that Quiffen would have wanted it
that way.

62	Charlotte MacLeod

Doubtless Dolph was right. Barnwell Augustus Quiffen
had been an incredibly cantankerous, vindictive old man.
The problem would be not to find out who'd had a serious
grudge against him, but to sort out one from the many.
Sarah had learned a hard lesson about meddling in situations
she wasn't equipped to handle, though. She put Mr.
Quiffen as far out of her mind as she could, and concentrated
on the tasks that lay at hand.

With not one but two new lodgers to. welcome, Monday
night's dinner had to be a gala occasion. It certainly was.
Mrs. Sorpende wore her emerald green aigrette. Miss
LaValliere, having evidently realized her jersey stovepipe
wasn't going to get her anywhere, blossomed out in a confection
of pink ruffles that blended charmingly with Mr.
Porter-Smith's wine-colored dress suit, enhanced tonight
by an extra-narrow bow tie and an extra wide cummerbund
in a swashbuckling blue-and-burgundy plaid.

Mr. Hartler bustled in all smiles and enthusiasm, wearing
the ancient and baggy black tie that was evening uniform
among men of his generation and background. He'd
hardly been introduced to the company when he made a
beeline for Mrs. Sorpende's aigrette and proceeded to
enthrall the lady under it with a description of the blue
velvet gown trimmed with peacock feathers that Queen
Kapiolani had commissioned from B. Altman's for her
state visit to Queen Victoria. Professor Ormsby stood silently
by wearing a black turtleneck instead of a brown
one as his concession to the festivities, either lost in altitudinous
abstrusions or wondering how Mrs. Sorpende
would look in blue velvet and peacock feathers.

Charles was almost ready to announce dinner and Mr.
Bittersohn had not yet appeared in the library. Sarah was
wondering nervously whether he was going to show up
when she heard Jennifer LaValliere breathe, "Oh, wow!"
As far as Sarah could recall, Max Bittersohn was
dressed exactly as he had been the night Harry Lackridge
introduced them, in a dark gray worsted suit, a plain
white shirt, and a heavy silk four-in-hand tie of sober pattern.
He wore no ornament of any kind, not even cuff
links or a tie clasp, and he made everybody else in the
room look like the leftovers from a rather tacky masquerade
party.

It had been the same that time at the Lackridges:
Harry in his silly old maroon velvet smoking jacket so

The Withdrawing Room	63

disturbingly like Mr. Porter-Smith's getup, Bob Dee wearing
a turtleneck jersey and sports jacket, Alexander with
his aged dress suit that, like Mr. Hartler, he was determined
to get the good out of. For a moment she could see
nothing but a blur of tears.

However, landladies do not break down in front of their
paying guests. In a moment, Sarah was collectedly performing
introductions and Miss LaValliere was gurgling
fab, or neat, or whatever the catchword of the moment
happened to be. Mrs. Sorpende, though gracious as ever,
was less effusive. In fact Sarah had an odd feeling the
woman might even feel a trifle wary, though she couldn't
for the life of her understand why.

To be sure, Mrs. Sorpende was much the elder of the
two. Bittersohn couldn't be more than ten years older than
Sarah herself, while Mrs. Sorpende must be a wellpreserved
fifty-five or more and Sarah, though she had no
cash to spare, would have been willing to place a small
wager on the "more." Did Mrs. Sorpende think Bittersohn
too attractive a man for a young widow to take into her
home? Was she afraid he might seduce Miss LaValliere,
or vice versa?

Or did she fear he might be impervious to her own
more mature charms? Why should she care, with Professor
Ormsby panting into her aigrette and Mr. Hartler
hurling himself into her silken net before she'd even had
time to get it spread, as Cousin Dolph, Uncle Jem, and
who knew how many other well-heeled bachelors of suitable
age had already shown a disposition to do?

Perhaps Sarah was imagining things. At any rate, Mr.
Bittersohn didn't appear to notice any coolness in the atmosphere.
They'd agreed in advance that she was to present
him simply as a consultant on art objects and
paintings, and let the others interpret the description any
way they chose. Mr. Porter-Smith evidently took it to
mean appraiser and began airing his own knowledge of
finance in the art world, which he made to sound far too
intricate for any but the keenest minds such as Eugene
Porter-Smith's.

Mr. Bittersohn listened with every appearance of respect.
Mr. Hartler managed to tear himself away from
Mrs. Sorpende long enough to interject a word about the
lolani Palace and was overjoyed to learn that Mr. Bittersohn
had been there. The lady ought not to have been

64	Charlotte MacLeod

bothered by his defection, as Professor Ormsby at once
closed in and began expounding some fascinating nugget
of aerodynamical lore to the green chiffon scarf that only
half screened her magnificent ramparts.

The dinner was excellent, the conversation much improved
by the removal of Mr. Quiffen and the addition of
jolly, voluble Mr. Hartler and quiet but impressive Mr.
Bittersohn. Charles passed the sauceboat and refilled the
wineglasses with even more lofty dignity than was his
wont. This, his demeanor made clear, was a real jazzy
turnout.

Sarah was in the habit of rotating her boarders at the
table so that nobody could complain of feeling slighted.
Tonight she'd put Mr. Hartler and Mr. Bittersohn beside
her. After Charles had cleared away the main course and
was having a gorgeous time setting fire to a chafing dish
full of canned peaches that Sarah had found on sale and
turned into a modified version of p&ches flambees, Bittersohn
surprised her by saying in a somewhat louder tone
than he'd been using, "About those illustrations you
promised to do for me, Mrs. Kelling. I hope it's not uncouth
to mention business at the table, but my publisher's
pressing me for a delivery date. Do you think we could
discuss them sometime soon?"

"Why, of course." Sarah was surprised. She'd thought
his idea about a book on antique jewelry had been
dropped. Did he really mean to go ahead with it, or was
this an excuse to talk with her about something else, such
as Mary Smith and Mr. Quiffen? Anyway, she'd better
play along.

"I'm so sorry. I did promise to get back to you ages
ago, didn't I?"

As the rest of the boarders looked puzzled, she explained
to the table at large, "My husband and I used to
do a good deal of book illustrating. He was a marvelous
photographer. That's some of his work on the walls."

She'd finally got to hang some of Alexander's framed
prints in the dining room where she'd always wanted to
put them but had never been allowed to while her
mother-in-law was alive. Everybody admired the exquisitely
sensitive photography for a moment in respectful silence,
then Miss LaValliere burbled, "Can't we see some
of yours?"
"If you like. There are several books in the library that

The Withdrawing Room	65

we worked on. My contributions are mostly just little line
sketches. That's how Mr. Bittersohn and I happened to
become acquainted. We were introduced by his publisher,
who recommended me for a book he's doing. But then I
--well, you all know what happened so we shan't go into
that. I do still have those photographs I'm supposed to be
working from upstairs in my studio, Mr. Bittersohn. Perhaps
you and I might have our discussion there later this
evening instead of boring everybody else with it now."

"I don't want to push you," he protested quite convincingly.

"But I need to be pushed. I knew I should be getting
back to the job and I simply couldn't make myself get
started."

"Creative work must be terribly difficult," said Mrs.
Sorpende. She was looking politely unconvinced, Sarah
thought. Either they weren't acting as well as Sarah had
thought, or else Mrs. Sorpende was a remarkably perspicacious
woman.

"I'll bring down some of the photographs to show you,
if Mr. Bittersohn doesn't mind." Maybe that would wipe
the skepticism off that Mona Lisa face. "They're quite
breathtaking. This book is about antique jewelry, a subject
on which Mr. Bittersohn is quite expert, though he's
too modest to say so himself."

"How can I be modest, since I'm writing a book about
it?" the man replied.
"I thought you'd been dragooned into doing it by the
Jewelers' Guild or whatever they call it. Didn't you say
you'd been given a grant?"

"I didn't, but apparently our mutual whatever-you-callhim
did."

"Oh, dear, wasn't I supposed to tell?"
"It doesn't matter. In any event, I expect all these people
are mainly interested in the fact that I'll be downstairs
instead of up so they won't have to listen to me pounding
a typewriter over their heads."

Or not pounding one, as the case might be. As for
Mariposa and Charles, they were too racket prone themselves
in their leisure time to hear or care, and too decent
to snitch on the man in any case.

Sarah established her bona fides as an illustrator by
displaying four books she and Alexander had worked on
together and one she'd done alone. Then she went to get

66	Charlotte MacLeod

Bittersohn's photographs from the studio she'd created by
selling everything out of what Aunt Caroline had called
her boudoir and moving in a banged-up chest, table, and
chair. As the room was on the front, she'd added plain
white curtains for respectability. It was a pleasant enough
place now, she thought as she scrabbled in the drawers.
And how very nice she hadn't remembered to throw out
these supposedly useless photographs when she changed
rooms. At least they could serve to convince Mrs. Sorpende
of what might possibly even be the truth.

The buxom beauty did show a polite interest in the
jewelry. Mr. Harder did a quick run-through to see if
the Hawaiian diamonds were represented, found none,
and went back to talking about King Kalakaua's customgilded
showcases. Miss LaValliere gushed without even
bothering to look, and asked Mr. Bittersohn how one
went about choosing the right engagement ring and had
he happened to give anybody one recently? When the
ritual half-hour was up, he sprang from her side like a
startled chamois and leaped to follow Mrs. Kelling up the
stairs.

er

"Now," said Sarah when she'd brought an extra chair
from her bedroom and got them seated in the studio,
"what do you want to talk about? I'm sure it's not necklace
clasps."

"No, but you may have to draw some," said Bittersohn.
"La Belle Dame Sans Merci wasn't buying, did you notice?"

"Of course I noticed. Why do you think I made all that
fuss about the photographs? You mustn't call her merciless,
though. At least she had the grace not to say what
she thought."

"It's probably not the done thing to call your landlady
a liar."

"Never mind her. Have you found out something?"

"Sort of. Look, how well did you know this Quiffen before
you took him on?"

"Not well enough, obviously, or I shouldn't have done
it. I'd seen him a few times at the Protheroes' but never
paid much attention to him, or he to me. There was always
a crowd around because George can't stay awake
for more than ten minutes at a stretch and it does get dull
for Anora. He was just one of those people you think you
know and then find out you don't."

"Wouldn't your Mr. Hartler fall into the same category?"
"Yes, I suppose so, but don't you think he's a dear?"

"I'd just like to get a look at some of those royal Hawaiian
art treasures he's collecting," said Bittersohn cautiously.

67

68	Charlotte MacLeod

"Why? Do you think he's being swindled? What could
that have to do with Mr. Quiffen?"

"I haven't the remotest idea if he's being swindled, nor
do I see any connection with Quiffen. Put it down to professional
curiosity. What I want to talk about is your
cousin."

"Which cousin? I have thousands."

"Adolphus Kelling. Didn't I hear you mention him in
connection with your Great-uncle Frederick?"

"Cousin Dolph? Of course. His own parents died young
and he was brought up by Great-uncle Fred and Greataunt
Matilda more or less as their own son. He's going to
inherit their estate. What about him?"

"Hasn't he also been managing the funds or something?"

"Dolph was legally appointed conservator after Aunt
Matilda died because by then Great-uncle Frederick had
lost quite a few of his marbles and couldn't be trusted
two inches with a checkbook. He'd always fancied himself
as a Great Public Benefactor, you know, and Dolph
had been his aide-de-camp or something of the sort for
years. Dolph's still fighting the good fight in Uncle
Fred's name and I expect he always will. It keeps him occupied
and makes him feel important, and I daresay they
have accomplished a certain amount of good in a halfbaked
way. What's Dolph up to now?"

"That's a good question. To put it in a nutshell, this
Barnwell Quiffen had hired a private investigator to look
into the way your cousin has been administering his uncle's
estate."

"Whatever for?" gasped Sarah. "Do you mean Mr.
Quiffen thought Dolph has been--what do they call it--
cooking the books?"

"Diverting funds to his own pocket was the expression
Quiffen used to the detective."

"But that's absurd. Why should he? Dolph got all his
parents' money to begin with and I can assure you he's
not one to fling it about, though he does take me to a nice
restaurant about once a year so I can't exactly call him a
cheapskate But he always adds up the bill at least three
times before he pays it. And Uncle Fred's money was
coming to him in any case, so he'd just be stealing from
himself if that's possible."

"Did he know he was due to inherit?"

The Withdrawing Room	69

"Heavens, yes. Everybody did. Every time the family
got together Uncle Fred used to stalk around like General
Pershing declaiming, 'To you from failing hands I
throw the torch. Be yours to hold it high.' And Dolph
would swell up like a blowfish and bug out his eyes and
say in that pompous way of his, 'I shan't let you down,
Uncle Fred.' And he wouldn't. I know Dolph very well.
He's pigheaded and slow-thinking and has a low boiling
point and can be the most awful bore, but he's so honest
it's a downright pitiful, and he does have a sense of duty
to the family. He used to get a bit testy with Uncle Frederick,
as who didn't, but he never balked at doing whatever
Uncle Frederick wanted, even when he should have."
"Such as when?"

"One sterling example was the frogs. You know how
somebody's always making noises about there being no
frogs in the Frog Pond? Of course it's impossible now that
the pond's all concreted and dry hah0 the tune, but Greatuncle
Frederick decided Boston must have its frogs regardless.
So he made Dolph bring a great, dripping
sackful into town on the subway, all croaking like mad.
Then Great-uncle Frederick made a speech and dumped
them in. Needless to say, the frogs weren't having any of
this. They hopped straight over to the pond in the Public
Gardens. Those that didn't get squashed crossing Charles
Street hung around making a ghastly racket till another
public-spirited soul went over and collected himself a
frogs' legs dinner and that was the end of that.

"But none of Great-uncle Frederick's money was
squandered on that episode. Dolph wouldn't go out and
buy frogs. He spent a whole day wallowing around in a
swamp with an old minnow net he'd had as a boy, catching
wild ones.-Furthermore, the swamp was on a piece of
property his parents had left him so they were his frogs in
the first place, if one can be said to own a frog. And that's
more or less typical of how Dolph operates. Mr. Quiffen
must have been imagining things. Only--"

"Only Quiffen's dead, isn't he?" Bittersohn reminded
her gently. "And we've both decided Miss Smith was telling
the truth about having seen somebody push him under
the subway train. And this cousin of yours must spend a
fair amount of time down around Government Center
and City Hall on his civic business, mustn't he? Would he
be apt to go over near Haymarket?"

70	Charlotte MacLeod

"Oh yes, all the time. They have some excellent restaurants
in the area and Dolph's always having working
luncheons, as he calls them, with somebody or other,
which are apt to stretch on for hours. As I mentioned,
Dolph doesn't stint when it comes to food."

"Does he ever ride the T?"

"Always. He lives not too far from Chestnut Hill Station,
so he walks down and comes in on the Riverside
line. Anybody'd be crazy to bring a car into the city. Anybody
save thee and me, of course." Sarah laughed nervously,
remembering the elegant automobile Bittersohn
kept parked in the Under-Common Garage.

He smiled too, perhaps glad of an excuse to get off
this awkward subject for a moment. "Still got the old
Studebaker?"

"Yes, but I'll have to give it up by the end of the year.
It costs so much to insure and garage, and I don't have
Alexander anymore to do the mechanics. It tears me to
pieces to think of letting it go. Do you think there's any
hope of finding a buyer?"

"A 1950 Studebaker in mint condition? I'd say you
may be able to ease the pain of parting by a considerable
amount. Want me to ask my brother-in-law what the
prospects are?"

"I'd love it. I could use a little easing of pain about
now. Mr. Bittersohn, did that detective find out anything
about Dolph?"

"All I know so far is that Quiffen had launched an investigation.
What he planned to do with the information
if he got any, I have no idea."

"I have," said Sarah. "He'd have written to the papers
about it. That's what he always did. And they'd have
pounced on the story because of all the publicity Greatuncle
Frederick's funeral has already stirred up. Look at
the to-do they made about me this past week, just because
Mr. Quiffen happened to have been living in my
house. I've already had two poison-pen letters accusing
me of having been his mistress and driving him to suicide."

"My God!" Bittersohn looked appalled.

"Oh, I don't care. By now I've been slammed around
so much that I'm used to that sort of thing, but it would
kill Dolph to be plastered all over the front pages as a
suspected embezzler. Will this never end?"

The Withdrawing Room	71

"Hey, don't look like that! Put your head down. I'll get
some brandy."

"No, please," Sarah fought to get herself together.
"We're supposed to be having a quiet little business conference,
remember? You might just get me a glass of water
from the bathroom if you don't mind. I'm not going to
faint, don't worry. It's only that--things keep coming."

"I know. Believe me, I didn't want to tell you this. I
wouldn't have, but I was afraid Quiffen might already
have started dropping hints about the investigation
around town, maybe even here in the house, I thought
you'd be less shocked by hearing it privately from me,
and perhaps be able to alert your cousin to squash any
rumors before they get out of hand. I'm sorry, Mrs.
Kelling."

"You're not half so sorry as I am." Sarah took the glass
he handed her, and drank from it. "That sounds nastier
than I meant it to. I did ask for your help, didn't I? If you
find out my boarder was killed by the cousin who wangled
me a boardinghouse license, that's simply my tough luck,
isn't it?"

"Want some more water?"

"Oh, stop being kind! You're making me ashamed of
myself. Seriously, Mr. Bittersohn, I cannot picture Dolph
sneaking up and shoving an old man in front of a train. I
don't say he wouldn't be vindictive if he found out what
was going on because he certainly would, but that's just
not the way he operates. His idea of revenge would be to
arrange a public meeting in Faneuil Hall, drag Mr.
Quiffen up to the podium, and denounce him in front of
the audience as a cur and a rotter. He'd then demand a
complete audit of his handling of Great-uncle Frederick's
funds from time immemorial."

"Including the frogs?"

"I shouldn't be surprised if someone brought that up,
plus a few of their more spectacular lunacies, like the
time Great-uncle Frederick overheard some boy teasing a
girl about going down to the Esplanade that night to
watch the submarine races. He at once got it into his head
that the Russian Navy was doing subversive activities up
and down the Charles River. He fumed around and got
Dolph believing it, too. Finally the pair of them went
storming into the National Guard Armory, demanding

72	Charlotte MacLeod

that troops be sent to guard the Hatch Memorial Shell so
that Arthur Fiedler wouldn't get bombed."
"I'm surprised I missed that one."

"Well, you can believe a lot of other people didn't.
Anyway, by the time the meeting was over, everybody
would have come to the conclusion that Dolph wasn't fit
to handle cookie money for a Girl Scout, and the family
would have to appoint a conservator for him, too. Actually
Dolph is sound enough on the fiscal end. His lawyers
handle all the complicated parts, and he has a firm of
certified public accountants to check on the lawyers, so
unless a great many reputable people are in cahoots together,
I cannot believe there's anything behind this investigation
of Mr. Quiffen's except his usual nastiness.
But the fact remains that Mr. Quiffen's been killed. If we
go stirring up trouble for the murderer, he or she would
be awfully stupid not to bring out this story about the detective
trailing Dolph. It would make a perfect red herring,
wouldn't it?"

"I'm afraid it would," Bittersohn agreed. "That's another
reason why I thought we might as well face the issue
now instead of later."

"And naturally you wanted to see how I reacted to the
idea that Dolph might be guilty. I don't blame you, Mr.
Bittersohn. But I just can't go along with it because it
doesn't fit in with all the things I know and feel about
Dolph. One does have to reply on one's instincts about
people to some extent, doesn't one? You did. And you
were right, weren't you?"
"For what that's worth."

"It was worth everything to me. All right, Mr. Bittersohn,
suppose we do this: if you can get Miss Smith to be
somewhere nearby, I'll get Dolph to take a walk with me.
I don't know that you've ever met him but he's a tall,
rather stout man; large enough to be noticeable in a
crowd. Knowing me, Miss Smith could identify him and
perhaps recall if she'd seen him on the platform that
night, or at least tell you whether his gloves and coat
sleeves are the right color."

"Would he be wearing the same ones, though?"
"Of course. Dolph is no fashion plate. He had to buy a
new topcoat last year when he got so fat his old one
wouldn't button and he's so afraid he won't get his investment
back that he practically wears it to bed. And Aunt

The Withdrawing Room	73

Emma gave him a nice pair of gloves to go with the coat,
so he wears them, too."

"It's a thought. How would you get him to go with
you?"

"Easily enough, I should think. Dolph has been helping
me with some of this legal rigmarole I've had to go
through. I can ask him to go to the lawyer's with me, then
pretend I've mixed up the appointments or something.'

"Won't he be furious?"

"Not really. Dolph loves to rant at people for wasting
his precious time. It tickles his ego. Before we get there, I
can casually ask him if he happened to be in Haymarket
Station around the time Mr. Quiffen was killed. That
would be natural enough. They'd known each other from
the Protheroes' and he had dinner with us one night while
Mr. Quiffen was living here. I can say one of my other
boarders was there and thought he caught a glimpse of
Mr. Kelling standing head and shoulders above the hoi
polloi."
"And shoving Quiffen onto the track? What sort of answer
do you expect to get?"

"Oh, Dolph would tell me the truth, one way or another.
Subterfuge isn't his strong suit. I've sometimes wondered
if Dolph's such a rotten liar because he's so
fanatically honest or if it's the other way around. If you
don't think my idea would work, I can invite him to dinner
again and let you pump him yourself."

"No, it would be far better for Miss Smith to get a look
at him. Could we arrange it for tomorrow, do you think?"

"I can try. Dolph should be home by now, unless he's
gone to a banquet at the Home for Retired Woolgatherers
or some other of Great-uncle Frederick's philanthropies.
But how can we reach Miss Smith?"

"We shan't have to. She has a regular daily route. Very
organized lady. I got her schedule in case we needed her
for any reason, such as this, and also because I thought
we should keep an eye on her. She and I had lunch together
this noon, as a matter of fact."

"You didn't!"

"We certainly did. She was down at Quincy Market and
a guy came along with a hot dog wagon, so I stood treat.
Diamond Jim Bittersohn they call me down among the
pushcarts."

"That sounds like fun," Sarah said wistfully. "Miss

74	Charlotte MacLeod

Smith is a marvelous woman. I do wish I could get to
know her better. Would it be safe, do you think, for me to
at least smile and nod if we should chance to meet?"

"I don't see why you mightn't stop and give her a quarter
or something."

Sarah flushed. "You mean the lady of the manor condescending
to notice the poor beggar woman? That's not
what I meant at all."

"I know that," said Bittersohn, "but it's a way to make
contact, isn't it? Somebody sees you fishing in your purse
and handing this down-and-outer a com, they assume
you're performing an impulsive act of charity. If you stop
to pass the time of day, you're just being good-natured.
Furthermore, the old sport could use the dough."

"So could the young one. Miss Smith and I have a good
deal more in common than meets the eye. But she did say
people offer her money and she always takes it, so I daresay
that would be the best plan. What's her schedule for
tomorrow?"

"Boston Common, which should be an easy one. Look
for her somewhere near the information booth about
eleven o'clock."

"Perfect. I'll phone Dolph right away. Thank you, Mr.
Bittersohn."
"What for?"

"I'm not quite sure at this point. But thank you anyway."

Chapter 10

Dolph was at home and not unwilling to be pressed into
service on an errand Sarah had managed to think up,
though he did make a long business of consulting his engagement
book and holding a one-man debate as to
whether he could postpone a vitally important meeting
with somebody or other for half an hour.
"How long is this going to take, Sarah?"
"Not more than a few minutes, I shouldn't think."
That was the absolute truth, as all she had to do was
hand over to the secretary a filled-out form she could perfectly
well have dropped into the mail and didn't have to
deliver for another six weeks in any case.

"It's just that I'd feel more confident if you were with
me," she added, "in case any questions come up." Such as
"Do you think we'll have snow for Christmas?" or some
other burning issue.

Punctual to the dot, Dolph arrived at the house on Tulip
Street, wearing his dark brown overcoat as expected,
along with the nice brown leather gloves Aunt Emma had
picked out for him and a natty brown Homburg which
Uncle Fred had regretfully set aside during the Hoover
campaign of 1928 because it was too reminiscent of Al
Smith's brown derby, a Democratic symbol; but had prudently
saved against a time when, as now, it might come
in handy again. The hat alone should have been enough
to catch Miss Smith's eye.

As they crossed the plaza by the fountain, which had
been turned off for the winter, Sarah spied Miss Mary
Smith diligently combing through a trash container. As
Dolph turned to howl fulminations after a child on a

75

76	Charlotte MacLeod

skateboard, Sarah managed to pass her a quarter and a
brisk nod. Miss Smith said, "Thanks, miss. Much obliged,
I'm sure," and went on stuffing papers into her shopping
bags.

She hadn't betrayed by the slightest flicker of an eyelash
whether or not either Sarah or Dolph was known to
her. Mr. Bittersohn must have briefed her well, or else
Miss Smith was a very clever lady. If only nothing awful
happened to her!

Dolph continued his oration on the perfidy of skateboarders
all the way to Mr. Redfern's office, then engaged
Miss Tremblay, the lawyer's long-suffering secretary, in an
unnecessary catechism about the innocuous form they'd
brought in. It wasn't until they were back outside the
building and ready to go their separate ways that Sarah
managed to ask the question she'd been working up to
ever since her cousin's arrival.

"By the way, Dolph, I meant to ask you. I wonder if
you happened to be at Haymarket Station the night Mr.
Quiffen was killed."

"How the hell do you expect me to remember that?" he
snorted. "I have important matters on my mind, Sarah, as
you sometimes appear not to realize."

"I do realize, Dolph, and I'm truly grateful to you for
giving up so much of your valuable time to my personal
affairs," Sarah replied humbly as she was expected to do.
"It's just that one of my boarders happened to be strolling
past the station on her way home to dinner that day, and
she'd noticed a tall, distinguished-looking man in an awfully
smart overcoat going in. She thought it might have
been you, and was concerned that you might have been
unfortunate enough to get involved with the--the accident."

"Oh. M'er, dammit, Sarah, I just can't remember.
Haven't got my engagement book with me."

"But surely you'd recall all that commotion, with policemen
and ambulances and whatnot, and the trains being
held up."

"Damn trams are always getting held up. Fires, rowdyism,
accidents, mismanagement, damned bureaucratic incompetence."
Dolph shot out his cuff and glared at his
wristwatch. "Got to run. Best regards to the good lady.
Kind of her to be concerned. Find your way back all
right?"

The Withdrawing Room	77

"Of course. Have a good lunch."

Sarah had no intention of going straight back to Tulip
Street. After that frustrating excursion she felt the need
of a little extra exercise. Besides, it wouldn't hurt to pick
up a fresh bottle of India ink and some drawing paper.
Mrs. Sorpende was sure to ask before long how the artwork
for Mr. Bittersohn's book was coming along.

She wasn't far from an art shop, though it lay all too
near the bank that was holding so tenaciously to those either
valid or fraudulent mortgages. It might be years
before she learned whether she or they owned the properties;
in the meantime she must keep on paying the interest
and the taxes, and perhaps take a few lessons in
recycling from Miss Mary Smith.

At the moment, what the court would decide was the
least of her worries. Her biggest concern was, had Dolph
been evading any straight answer about being in the subway
on that fatal evening, or was he simply being Dolph?
And what sort of verdict would Mr. Bittersohn be getting
from Miss Mary Smith?

Were they sharing another pushcart lunch today, maybe
eating some of those enormous hot pretzels Sarah had
often longed for as a child and washing them down with
bottles of poisonous-looking orange soda, the kind she'd
never been allowed to buy because it had chemicals in
it? What must it be like to do exactly as one pleased?

At least she'd bought roasted chestnuts from the
chestnut man!s pushcart in the wintertime, she and Alexander,
and popcorn in the summer to feed the ducks
from the swanboats on the pond in the Garden where
Uncle Fred's frogs had gone, back when she was a child
and Alexander a young man who hadn't yet started to
count the pennies. That was something, she supposed,
though it didn't seem to be much help to her now. Sarah
forced herself, as she often had to do these days, to get
her mind off her dead husband and on current subjects
such as whether the skimpy leftovers from last night's dinner
could possibly be turned into something interesting
for tomorrow's breakfast.

By devious routes she wound her way back to the
house, feeling a little better for the exercise, and was
fishing in her purse for the door key when a man came
out carrying a large package wrapped in brown paper.
He paid her no attention whatever, a fact that took her
78	Charlotte MacLeod

somewhat aback. Sarah wasn't used to being ignored on
her own doorstep.

Once she got inside, however, all was explained. Mr.
Hartler came bouncing out of his room, insisted on taking
her coat, and hung it up for her.

"Did you meet that chap going out? Thought he had
one of the palace treasures. I had to tell him it was nothing
of the sort. We get them all the time, you know. They
come rushing in all fired up and saddle me with something
or other. I go through the fuss and bother of trying
to get the piece authenticated, then finally have to write
the poor chaps to come and take it away because some
great-aunt has been dreaming up family fairy tales. They
don't mean to cheat, you know, it's just the romantic notion
of owning something they can associate with royalty."
"But surely some of the things must be genuine," said
Sarah. "Otherwise, why should you bother?"
"Oh yes, once in a while I strike a real treasure, like
this little beauty."

He darted back into the former drawing room and reappeared
holding a delightful Victorian trinket box in
chased silver and enamel. "See, here's your royal coat
of arms, a shield with red and blue stripes and the three
white circles, and the two spear-carrying warriors guarding
it. Beautiful workmanship, isn't it?"

"Lovely," Sarah agreed. "The same crest was on that
fan I told you about. I always thought those circles with
the stems must represent the different islands joining together
as one kingdom."

"You're very acute, Mrs. Kelling."
Mr. Hartler didn't say she was very correct, but neither
would he have been likely to tell her she was talking nonsense.
Mr. Quiffen would have, at the slightest excuse,
with that sharp little nose of his dipping and twitching
like a parrot's beak, his voice grating and squealing till
one felt like stuffing a napkin into his mouth to shut him
up.

That was the awful part. Sarah could understand only
too well how somebody might have murdered BarnweU
Augustus Quiffen simply to stop his wrangling for a
change. Somebody who liked to hold the floor himself,
perhaps. Somebody who could explode like a charge of
dynamite at the slightest annoyance, the way Dolph had

The Withdrawing Room	79

carried on about that child on the skateboard who'd
skidded too close to his precious overcoat. She'd been
awfully positive to Mr. Bittersohn about Dolph's being a
yeller instead of a hitter. Was she really all that sure?

When would Mr. Bittersohn be coming home? Sarah
was beset by such a seething mixture of impatience and
dread that she rushed to the kitchen, began chopping
carrots at a furious rate, and almost lost her left forefinger
under the cleaver.

The near-accident sobered her down. It was foolish to
think of Dolph as a prime suspect just because Mr. Quiffen
had got some paranoid notion about him and was
rich enough to follow it up in a particularly nasty, underhanded
way. After all, the old man had managed to antagonize
her and everybody else in the house on a very
short-term intimacy. He must have acquired a long list of
enemies with grudges stretching back years and years.

And why should she have expected Mr. Bittersohn to
drop his own work and rush to the rescue of a woman
who couldn't even afford to pay? With art thefts becoming
more fashionable every day, he must already have
plenty of profitable cases on his hands. She'd meant to
deal with her own problems. Only she hadn't expected
to have to cope with anything like Miss Mary Smith.

Sarah stared down at the small mountain of raw carrot
she'd accumulated. "What on earth am I going to do with
all this?" she wondered. Put the surplus to soak in cold
salt water and pray for guidance, perhaps.

Or make a carrot pudding. Anora Protheroe's cook
and her now deceased but still lovingly remembered cat
Percival had been particular friends of Sarah's ever since
the little Kelling girl used to be sent out to pet the nice
kitty while the grownups visited. Cook had taught her the
recipe ages ago. This elegant but economical dessert, so
like plum pudding but so much lighter and more digestible,
was always hailed with delight at Anora's dinner
parties. Sarah had made it for her father a few times,
quite successfully. The one time she'd tried it here, Aunt
Caroline had snapped, "Much too spicy," and laid down
her dessert fork and spoon with disdain.

Perhaps her boarders would be less critical. Anyway,
it was something to do with all these carrots and a good
excuse to use the old tin pudding mold that had hardly
ever been taken down from the top pantry shelf after

80	Charlotte MacLeod

Uncle Gilbert died and the cook was let go. Edith had
foisted the cooking off on Sarah by the simple expedient
of never producing an eatable meal. The young bride
had often found it excellent therapy during her difficult
marriage. Now in her sudden widowhood she turned to
her pots and pans even more eagerly.

After the pudding was mixed and set to steam Sarah
still had some minced carrot left so she hunted out a recipe
for carrot bread that could be baked and kept until
needed in the secondhand freezer her henchman Mr.
Lomax had got for her at a pittance from some people
who were moving out of state. In order not to waste the
oven heat, she threw together a batch of muffins for
breakfast and an apple cobbler from the fruit she and
Mr. Lomax had salvaged. She'd serve the cobbler tonight
and save the pudding for tomorrow, she decided.
Cook always said it tasted better after standing a day.

All in all, Sarah passed a far more productive afternoon
than she'd expected to, forgot about Mr. Quiffen in
her anxiety over the pudding, and was unmolding her
creation with total success and immense relief when Max
Bittersohn entered the kitchen.

"Wow, what are we celebrating? Do you do this every
day?"

"No, I was just trying to get ahead of the baking for a
change. The pudding's for tomorrow, but you may have a
muffin if you like."
"You mean a muffie. That's what my mother calls
them. She makes a batch now and then to relieve the
monogamy."

"Does it?"

"Who knows? My mother tends to invent her English
as she goes along."

"She sounds delightful. Why don't you invite her and
your father in to dinner sometime?"

"They don't go out much."

Of course, they probably kept a kosher home. Sarah
mentally kicked herself. Well, no doubt it would have
been a mistake to have them anyway. One oughtn't get
on family visiting terms with one's boarders, ought one?
Only Mr. Bittersohn wasn't exactly in the same category
as her other boarders, was he? If he wasn't, he'd better
be. And she'd better get back to the business at hand.

"Did you have a chance to talk with Miss Smith?"

The Withdrawing Room	81

"I did."

"What did she say about Dolph?"

Bittersohn shrugged. "She was sure she'd seen him
around, but she couldn't say just where or when. It might
have been that day or it might not. It might have been
Haymarket Station or someplace else. He looked too tall,
but he might have been bending over. The overcoat might
be the right color, but it was so hard to tell under those
lights. The gloves were okay, but she wasn't sure about
the size of the hands. It added up to what you might call a
doubtful maybe. Did you get anything out of your
cousin?"

"I flopped completely. In the first place, I couldn't
manage to put a word in edgewise until the very last minute.
When I made my little speech, Dolph just did a bit of
snapping and snarling about rotten service on the T, then
looked at his watch and rushed madly off toward the
Parker House. I honestly can't say whether he was dodging
my question or being his usual sweet self. You'd have
to know Dolph to understand."

"Then maybe you'd better arrange for us to meet,"
said Bittersohn. "So that's all you have to report?"

"Not quite. I think you can stop worrying about Mr.
Hartler's being taken in by swindlers. As I was coming in
this noontime I met a man who'd just had his genuine
Hawaiian art treasure rejected. He was going out with
whatever it was, neatly wrapped in brown paper. Mr.
Hartler came out and told me all about the agonies he
goes through having to turn down most of the stuff people
bring in because he can't get it authenticated.

"He says they don't mean to defraud him, it's jast that
families tend to attach romantic tales to their heirlooms.
I could understand what he meant. Remember we were
speaking the other day about that old campaign chair in
the cellar?"
"The one I was sitting in when the mouse ran up my
pant leg. There can't be much left of it now."

"There isn't, but I'd stuck the pieces in the broom
closet and Uncle Jem found them while he was prowling
around trying to find where I'd hidden the whiskey. He
dragged them out to show the boarders, and to hear him
tell the story you'd think Great-uncle Nathan rode that
chair up San Juan Hill two lengths ahead of Teddy Roosevelt.
Mr. Hartler did show me a sweet little trinket box

82	Charlotte MacLeod

that I know is authentic because it's got the same crest on
it as the fan we turned in."

"Bully for him," said Bittersohn, reaching absentmindedly
for another muffin. "Well, I'd better get out of here
before my high-class landlady catches me hobnobbing
with the cook. Am I supposed to dress for dinner, by the
way, or do I maintain a discreet distance in rank from the
upstairs gentlefolk?"

"You do whatever you feel comfortable doing," Sarah
told him. "I hope you don't think Mr. Porter-Smith's cummerbund
was my idea, but it seems to make him happy
so I go along as best I can. Now, scat! I see Charles coming
in through the alley gate and you're not supposed to
know I do the cooking. Charles thinks it might lower the
tone. Thank you again for your trouble today. I'm sorry
it was such a complete bust."

Chapter 11

As Sarah had anticipated, Mrs. Sorpende did express a
polite hope at dinner that Mrs. Kelling was making satisfactory
progress with her artwork.

"I've progressed to the point of buying myself a new
bottle of ink," Sarah replied. "My cousin and I had to go
and do some legal business which rather took up my tune.
He sends you his particular regards, by the way."

"How kind of him."

Mrs. Sorpende smiled. Professor Ormsby made a low
growling noise. Miss LaValliere and Mr. Porter-Smith exchanged
knowing glances. Mr. Bittersohn went on eating
his ham, a fact which Sarah noted with relief. She'd forgotten
to ask whether he observed Orthodox dietary restrictions,
but she might have known there'd be nothing
orthodox about Mr. Bittersohn.

After dinner, Miss LaValliere suggested going over to
the Common to see if the Christmas lights were still up,
but found no takers. Mrs. Sorpende had letters to write
and so did Mr. Hartler. Professor Ormsby had to give a
paper over at MIT, and Miss LaValliere could walk over
with him if she wanted to, but Miss LaValliere didn't
want to. What she wanted was Mr. Bittersohn, but Mr.
Bittersohn had unspecified business elsewhere. When Mr.
Porter-Smith, who preferred to go someplace where he
could show off his new cummerbund, suggested the alternative
of dropping down to a coffee house on Charles
Street, Miss LaValliere faced reality and accepted.

Sarah left Mariposa and Charles to practice togetherness
in the kitchen and went upstairs to grind out an illustration
or two. She picked one of the photographs at

83

84	Charlotte MacLeod

random, and began making a detailed sketch of the clasp.
Trying to make out its intricacies tired her eyes, so she
began inventing them as she went along, as Mr. Bitter-
sohn claimed his mother did with the English language.
What difference did it make? The sketch was only for
window-dressing, anyway.

Sarah hadn't drawn anything since she'd made that fatal
sketch of the family vault. She'd had to screw up her
courage even to pick up a pencil. Once she got into it,
however, she began taking some of the old pleasure in
what she was doing. Before she quite realized, the clasp
had turned into a design for earrings to go with Granny
Kay's bluebird.
What a charming idea! She'd never have them, probably,
but it was fun making believe. She'd turned on the
FM radio that she'd brought up from the library when she
was setting up her private lair and found WXHR was
playing C6sar Franck's Symphony in D Minor, which she
loved and hadn't heard in ages. All at once Sarah realized
she was, for the first time since the day Alexander died,
quite happy.

Her first reaction was guilt. How could she know any
joy, with another murder on her hands and Dolph perhaps
involved? Then she got angry. Why shouldn't she?
Barnwell Quiffen's nastiness and Dolph's temper weren't
her fault, were they? Anyway, how could she be a hundred
per cent sure Miss Mary Smith hadn't been building
an amusing little fantasy, just as she herself had been dohag
with the earring design?

But the pleasure was gone. The sketch was finished, the
concert was over. Sarah switched off the radio and got
ready for bed. She took two aspirin and tried to read
Schopenhauer. Even his dreary prose took a long time to
put her to sleep.

She woke feeling strangely confused, but this was no
time for confusion. Because of her boarders' varying time
schedules, Sarah had elected to serve breakfast Englishstyle
from assorted dishes on the sideboard, with herself
presiding over the coffee urn and Mariposa fluttering decoratively
about in her orange ribbons to poke more bread
into the pop-up toaster or take away used plates and cups.

Professor Ormsby was always the first one down, and
Mrs. Sorpende most often the last. After the queenly matron
had eaten her way through whatever was left from

The Withdrawing Room	85

previous depredations, Sarah and Mariposa would retire
to the kitchen to wash dishes together and talk business.

Because both of them were always so busy keeping the
house in order and the lodgers happy, this was about the
only chance they ever had for real conversation. Though
they kept up the pretense of an employer-employee relationship
in front of the others, the pair of them had become
real partners in their private war on poverty. Mariposa
served as acting general as often as Sarah took her
turn at the dishpan. She was a great deal the more knowledgeable
of the two in many ways, had an original turn of
mind and an often hilarious way of expressing her ideas.

Today, however, Mariposa was in no mood to be
funny. As Sarah was scrubbing egg off forks, she said, "I
got to talk to you about something."

"Then spill it. Hand me that silver polish, will you?
What's the big problem?"

"It's Mrs. Sorpende. I'm worried about her."

"After the breakfast she just ate? Surely it's not her
health? I cannot imagine how that woman manages to
keep her weight under any sort of control."

"She skips lunch," said Mariposa.

"How do you know?"

"Simple logic, as Charles would say. If she had the
dough for a sandwich, she'd spend it on something else.
You know she washes out her underwear in the bathroom?"
"Actually I didn't, but what if she does? Unless she
leaves it hanging where it will drip all over Miss LaValliere."

"Uh-uh! She'd never leave it where anybody could see
it. You know why?"

"She's too modest?"

Considering the amount of frontage Mrs. Sorpende exposed
to public view every evening, Sarah didn't think
that could be the right answer, and it wasn't. Mariposa
sniffed in contempt.

"Because it's in rags, that's way."

"So is mine."

"Yeah, we got to get you something decent. It's bad for
the image, you sitting in front of that silver urn with holes
in your underpants. What if there was an earthquake or
something? But anyway, yours was good quality to start

86	Charlotte MacLeod

with. Hers is nothing but junk. And how many dresses
you ever see her wear?"

"Why, I haven't the faintest idea. I never kept track.
She seems to have a different outfit about one night in
three."

"Seems to, right. But you take away all them scarves
and flowers and beads and stuff, and what would you
have?"

"A plain black dress, I suppose. She always wears
black."

"You said it, honey. One plain black long dress for
evening and if that didn't come from Filene's Basement
then I'm Queen Liliuokawhoozis. And one plain black
short dress for daytimes and one plain black coat and one
pair of plain black leather pumps and one pair of black
vinyl boots and a drawer full of fake flowers and cheap
scarves and five-and-ten jewelry, and one pair of nylons
and some knee-highs that have been darned real nice, and
anybody that takes the trouble to sew up a run in a pair
of forty-nine-cent knee-highs--"

"Mariposa, you've been snooping through her dresser
drawers!"

"Honey, you got class. Charles has got class. We get
too much class around here, this place is going to fold up
flatter than a four-flusher's wallet. Me, I got no class. I
never could afford it. And believe me, honey, that lady
can't afford none, either. She's not behind in her rent, I
hope?"

"Why, no. She pays right on the dot, like everybody
else."

"How?"

"Hands it to me in a little envelope. Oh, you mean
does she pay by check or whatever? Actually she always
pays cash. Come to think of it, she's the only one who
does. Everyone else writes me a check. Is that supposed
to mean something?"

"It sure does to me," said Mariposa. "You start a
checking account, you need money to start it with, right?
You don't keep a big enough balance, you pay a service
charge for every check, right? You add up a few service
charges, you got the price of another pair of them fortynine-cent
knee-highs you can wear under that jazzy black
dinner dress nobody's going to know the difference,
right?"

The Withdrawing Room	87

"But, Mariposa--"

"Don't go buttin' me, honey. I figure she's got a little
savings account someplace. That way she gets maybe a
buck or two interest on her money instead of paying out.
She takes out a week's rent, she hands it to you, she eats
what you give her, she doesn't spend a cent more than
she has to anyplace else. She keeps on doing her dance
of the seven veils, maybe she can kid you along for a few1
more weeks she's the society dame she makes herself out
to be. But anytime she don't come across with the rent on
time, you better have a sick aunt who needs that room in
a hurry."

"Really, Mariposa! I'd hardly make a sick aunt climb
two flights of stairs."

"Then you got a well aunt. Look, maybe what you better
do is come down with a sore throat and let Charles
handle it. I guess you never had much experience at giving
anybody the bum's rush, huh?"

"But I like Mrs. Sorpende," wailed Sarah. "I like her
the best of the lot, except--well, of course I'd known
Mr. Bittersohn before."

"You'd known Mr. Quiffen before, too, honey. I
haven't noticed you hanging out any black crape for
him."

"Maybe you don't see as much as you think," Sarah
snapped back. That was as close as she'd ever got to being
cross with Mariposa. "If you have all that surplus
energy to work off, I wish you'd do something about that
front hallway instead of counting the holes in people's
underwear. It's always a mess these days, I can't think
why. We've never had this problem till the past day or
so."

"It's all them visitors Mr. Hartler has sashaying in and
out all the time. Don't even wipe their feet and act like
they done you a favor letting you open the door for them.
Mr. Hartler may be one of your fine old Boston gentlemen
but he's sure got some mighty peculiar friends."

"They're not his friends," Sarah corrected. "They're
just people trying to sell him things that are supposed to
have come from that lolani Palace he's always talking
about."

"Then how come they all come in empty-handed and
go out carrying bundles?"

"Because they've left their pieces to be authenticated

88	Charlotte MacLeod

and he's had to let them know they're not what he's looking
for and would they please come back and take them
away. I suppose they're all cross and disappointed, and
that's why they don't bother to be polite."

"That's no excuse for bad manners." said Mariposa
huffily. "Specially not in a high-class joint like this.
Charles says inability to cope with frustration is a sign of
immaturity. How does that grab you? Anyway, I guess
that's why Mr. Hartler told me not to bother cleaning his
room. He's afraid I'll pinch some of those genuine fake
antiques, I bet."

"I'm sure he thinks nothing of the sort. It's just that
he's so wrapped up in this business about the lolani Palace
that nothing else seems important to him. If Mr.
Hartler doesn't want us dusting things that don't belong
to him, that's understandable, but we're certainly going
to keep the room clean. Otherwise we might start having
earwigs and cockroaches and heaven knows what. I think
I'd better have a little chat with him about that. I'm also
going to tell him to make sure his callers wipe their feet.
After all, this is a private house. Semi-private, anyway.
Now I have to go to the bank and deposit the rent checks,
and pick up Aunt Emma's order at Boston Music Company,
which I forgot to do yesterday, and buy whipping
cream for that pudding we're going to serve tonight. Anything
else?"

They did their heavy marketing on Saturdays when
Charles was available to carry the bags, trundling off in
the Studebaker to a run-down neighborhood store Mariposa
knew of where the food was a lot cheaper. However,
there was always something to be got at the last
minute so the neighborhood grocers got their share of the
Kelling business as they always had. Mariposa mentioned
one or two items, Sarah put on her coat and left the
house.

She crossed Beacon and cut through the Common to
the handsome building that had housed Boston Music
Company years before either she or her parents had been
born. She was walking slowly, keeping an eye peeled for
a possible glimpse of Miss Mary Smith, when she spied a
commanding figure in a black coat, a plum-colored velvet
turban and scarf, and plain black boots strolling some
distance ahead of her. Sarah had no conscious intention
of shadowing her boarder, but she found herself altering

The Withdrawing Room	89

her path slightly to keep Mrs. Sorpende in view. It soon
became obvious that she was making a beeline for the
women's public rest room.

That was odd. No, perhaps it wasn't. Mrs. Sorpende
was, after all, a middle-aged woman who had drunk three
cups of coffee with her breakfast. But she'd only just left
the house. Sarah had heard her go out while she herself
was collecting her purse and gloves. Might Mrs. Sorpende
have been taken with sudden cramps or something?
What was a landlady's responsibility in such a circumstance?

One couldn't very well enter the rest room, too, and
catch so dignified a person in what was more than likely
to be an undignified situation. On the other hand, one
didn't like to go away and leave her in possible distress.
Maybe one should simply hover at a discreet distance
and wait to see how Mrs. Sorpende looked when she
came out. Sarah stationed herself behind a convenient
Ulmus procera (Boston Common trees wear erudite
name tags) and lurked.

Chapter 12

Mrs. Sorpende did not come out. One or two others did.
Sarah saw a child of fourteen or so, who ought to be in
school at this hour, slouching from the building in a pair
of too-tight blue jeans, a fuzzy fake fur jacket so short
that it might indeed lead to severe kidney disturbances,
and backless mules with fantastically high heels she
didn't have the remotest idea how to manage. The girl
was puffing inexpertly at a cigarette and made Sarah want
to cry out of pity for her.

There was a tweedy woman who tied two afghan
hounds to the doorknob by their leashes and made a fast
trip in and out. Right behind her Sarah caught sight of a
black coat emerging and sighed with relief for her own
feet were getting cold with standing. However, it was on
a stooped old woman who had a ratty scarf tied over her
head and a pair of broken-out red sneakers on her feet.
She was carrying a large plastic trick-or-treat bag that
must date from many Halloweens ago. Another amateur
ecologist, no doubt.

And still there was no sign of Mrs. Sorpende. By now
Sarah felt she had good reason to be concerned. Indelicate
though she might be, she walked over and went in.

The place was surprisingly clean, and totally devoid
of life.

"Well, you idiot!" she said aloud.

Had she really seen Mrs. Sorpende come in here? Of
course she had, she wasn't blind. Had the woman left by
another entrance? No, there wasn't one. Then Mrs. Sorpende
must simply have come out and slipped quickly
around to the other side while Sarah's attention was mo90

The Withdrawing Room	91

mentarily diverted by that pathetic child in the fuzzy
jacket or the old woman who might have been Miss
Smith but wasn't. God willing, the boarder hadn't happened
to notice young Mrs. Kelling making a fool of herself
behind that elm tree.

Feeling very cross with herself, Sarah went along about
her business. It was one of those days when nothing goes
right. She had a long wait at the music store while some
odd mix-up about Aunt Emma's order for the parts to
Cosi Fan Tutti was straightened out. She got into the
wrong line at the bank as one always does, and after
having stood on one aching foot then the other for some
while, found she'd been blessed with a trainee teller who
could not cope with the complexities of depositing five'
rent checks and one trust fund allowance and handing
Sarah back the little extra cash sum she allowed herself
for emergencies.

The store she usually went to for cream was out of it,
for some unexplained reason, so she had to go elsewhere
and pay a good deal more. All in all she got back to the
house far later than she'd meant to, and her temper was
not sweetened by finding that she hadn't brought her door
key with her. She poked the bell, dropping Aunt Emma's
package in the process and scattering Mozart all over the
vestibule. At last Mariposa came downstairs from the
third floor where she'd been mopping bedrooms, and let
her in.

"I thought you were going to clean up this hall," was
Sarah's ungracious greeting.

"I did," Mariposa protested. "I mopped and dusted
and vacuumed as soon as you left."

"Then somebody's messed it up again in a big hurry.
We simply can't let this sort of thing go on. Is Mr. Hartler
in his room now, do you know?"

"Yes, but he's got somebody with him."

"Somebody with muddy feet, no doubt. Stand guard
here, will you, and let me know the second he's free. I'll
be in the kitchen."

However, Sarah never got to the kitchen. As she was
going down the long hallway that led past the dining
room, she happened to look in. A woman she'd never
seen before was coolly opening the china cupboard and
taking out one of Great-grandmother Kelling's Coalport
vases.

92	Charlotte MacLeod

All the resentments of that frustrating day, all the anger
Sarah had been so carefully brought up to suppress,
came surging out. She charged at that woman with a
ferocity she'd never realized she could show, and
snatched the vase from her hand.

"How dare you?"

The woman was not the least bit intimidated. "How
dare I what? Look, I didn't come here to be insulted.
That's not a bad piece. Reproduction, of course, but not
bad. Tell you what, I'll give you fifty dollars for the pair.
What do you say?"

What Sarah said was, "Mariposa!" and she said it in a
shriek.

The maid came running. "What's the matter--
madam?" she added hastily, seeing the stranger.

"Go put the night latch on the door," Sarah ordered,
"then come straight back here and help me count the
silver."

"Hey, just a minute," yelled the strange woman. "You
can't hold me here against my will."

"Can't I?" Sarah was a trifle more collected now. "You
entered this house against mine. How did you get in?"

"He opened the door for me, naturally. Your boss."

"My what?"

Mr. Hartler must have heard the commotion, for he
popped into the dining room, beaming as usual. His irate
landlady wheeled to attack.

"Mr. Hartler, can you explain why I found this--this
person rifling my china cabinet? She claims you let her
in. Is that true?"

"Why, I suppose I must have, if she says so," he replied.
"Yes, I believe I do recall going to the door. But
you see, I happened to have someone else with me at the
time, so I--dear me, what did I do? I'm so excited, you
see. This chap I have in my room now--"

"Mr. Hartler, I'm not interested in your excitement. I
am demanding to know why you're turning my house
into a pigsty and letting strangers roam freely where they
have no business to be."

"Just a second," interrupted the strange woman.
"Whose place is this, anyway? Is she crazy, or what?"

Sarah got her answer in first. "I am Mrs. Alexander
Kelling. This is my house and Mr. Hartler is my boarder.
I've allowed him to carry on his--"

The Withdrawing Room	93

"Yes, yes," the old man bubbled. "Mrs. Kelling has
been most kind, most kind indeed. I'm afraid she finds me
a dreadful old nuisance. Now, Mrs.--I'm sorry, but I'm
afraid I didn't quite catch your name--perhaps it might
be better if you came some other time when we're not
quite so--er--preoccupied."

"I should prefer that she not come at all," said Sarah
coldly. "She's just offered me fifty dollars for a pair of my
great-grandmother's Coalport vases."

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What a pickle. Mrs. Kelling, I
do apologize most humbly. Most humbly indeed. Here,
Mrs.--er--I'll just show you to the door."

"Hold it!" barked Mariposa. "We didn't count the silver
yet."

"But surely--that is--"

"Mr. Hartler, take your visitor to the front hall and
stay there with her until we finish here," Sarah ordered.
"As soon as we've made sure nothing is missing, we'll
come and release the night latch so she can leave. In the
futureryou must schedule your appointments far enough
apart so that this sort of thing never happens again. You
must also instruct your callers to leave their boots outside
and quit using my oriental rug for an ashtray. I don't
know what sort of people you're entertaining here, but if
they can't behave in a civilized manner, you'll have to see
them somewhere else. Have I made myself clear?"

"Yes, yes. I'm a dreadful old man and I do apologize,
Mrs. Kelling. I give you too much trouble, too much trouble.
Please come this way, Mrs.--er--"

The woman was sputtering, "Well, I must say!" and
Mr. Hartler was soothing her with, "Yes, yes, all my fault.
Terrible misunderstanding," as he led her into the hall
and courteously shut the door behind them.

Counting the family treasures was no doubt a hollow
gesture at this point, but Sarah and Mariposa did it anyway.
Nothing appeared to be missing, but it was clear that
the Coalport vase wasn't the only thing Mr. Hartler's errant
visitor had handled. Sarah worked as fast as she
could, not being at all sure whether she was in fact within
her rights in keeping the woman locked in the hall, and
having no desire to find herself in the papers again, this
time charged with kidnapping. It wasn't more than fifteen
minutes before she went out and released the lock.

94	Charlotte MacLeod

"Well," snapped the woman as she flounced out, "I'm
certainly never coming here again!"

"Splendid," Sarah replied. "I shall look forward to not
seeing you."

That was about the rudest she'd ever been in her life.
She'd thought an explosion might relieve her feelings, but
it didn't. By six o'clock she had a raging headache. When
Max Bittersohn phoned to say he wouldn't be in to dinner,
she almost burst into tears.

"But I was going to give you the carrot pudding," she
wailed, then realized what a fool she was making of herself
and felt even worse.

"Save me a piece," he replied. "I'll be in sometime or
other. I wish I could have given you more notice, but I
just checked with my answering service and they tell me
I've got to see a man about a Matisse."
"That's quite all right."
It wasn't all right. Sarah was appalled to realize how
much she'd been counting on Mr. Bittersohn for moral
support. Now what was she going to do?

It was a mercy she'd done all that cooking the previous
afternoon. Otherwise, Sarah might never have got through
dinner. She set things in motion as best she could, then
went upstairs "for a couple of aspirin and half an hour's
rest before having to begin the evening performance. The
prospect of having to make polite conversation in particular
with Mr. Hartler after the dressing-down she'd had to
give him was almost more than she could face.

Maybe she ought to have gone in and apologized after
his obstreperous visitor was gone; but, damn it, why
should she? This was her house, not his.

With the help of Uncle Jem, Sarah had drawn up a
tough, practical set of house rules. Mr. Hartler had got a
copy as had everybody else. Guests were to be received
publicly in the library or privately in the tenants' own
rooms. They were to come and go at reasonable hours,
and to behave in a seemly enough fashion so that they
wouldn't be a nuisance to anybody else. They were to
enter the dining room only if proper arrangements had
been made and the extra fee had been paid.

Under no circumstances whatever did any outsider have
the right to wander unescorted through the house handling
the landlady's personal possessions as if they were
trinkets in a gift shop. If Mr. Hartler couldn't abide by
the rules, then Mr. Hartler would have to leave. And if
Mrs. Sorpende had to be ejected for nonpayment of rent,
then she could go and housekeep for him and he could
buy her some new underwear.
Feeling a trifle better for her rest, Sarah took a shower,
put on more make-up than she was accustomed to and a

95

96	Charlotte MacLeod

gray satin dress Aunt Emma had owned in younger, slimmer
days, and went downstairs to be gracious if it killed
her.

As she was crossing the hall into the library, Mr.
Hartler burst through the front door, still in his daytime
outerwear: tweed hat askew on his tumble of white hair,
tweed-lined poplin storm coat buttoned awry, arms laden
with bundles. "For you, Mrs. Kelling," he panted. "Apologies.
Horrible old man. Now I'm late. Must change at
once. Shopping impossible this tune of day. Should have
realized. Wicked old man. Happy old man!"

He bounded into his room, leaving Sarah to open her
presents. There were a dozen voluptuous white roses, a
lavish flask of benedictine, a three-pound box of expensive
chocolates. As an apology, she had to admit, this was
no mean effort.

Once he'd rejoined the company in his usual evening
attire, though, self-abasement was forgotten. His afternoon
caller--not that unfortunate woman who had, as he
put it, behaved so naughtily, but the other one--had
brought in photographs of what purported to be no fewer
than seven out of a set of sixty-two dining room chairs
King Kalakaua had commissioned from a Boston firm in
1882 and never collected. Paeans of joy, Mr. Hartler was
going to see them that very evening! He was so excited he
didn't think he'd be able to eat his dinner and he fervently
hoped Mrs. Kelling would forgive him if he didn't.
Before they'd even got to the table, Sarah's head was
throbbing. Everybody was thoroughly fed up with Mr.
Hartler and his sixty-two chairs. Miss LaValliere, who'd
got her hair done that afternoon in an even more grotesque
fashion than usual, went into sulks when she
learned Mr. Bittersohn wasn't there to be impressed. Mr.
Porter-Smith became morose in consequence since he
was, after all, a good deal closer to Jennifer's age than
Bittersohn was and besides, he'd seen her first.

Since Professor Ormsby never bothered to talk anyway,
dinner could have become a total disaster were it not for
the consummate tact and skill of the puzzling Mrs.
Sorpende. She complimented Miss LaValliere on her coiffure
and Mr. Porter-Smith on his erudition until she got
them both to act civil. She jollied Professor Ormsby into
telling a genuinely funny anecdote about something that
had happened at a faculty meeting. She couldn't get Mr.

The Withdrawing Room	97

Hartler out of the clouds long enough to eat his dinner,
but she did manage to tone down his raptures to endurable
level.

By the time they got back to the library they were all
in reasonably good humor with themselves and each other.
Charles had presence of mind enough to serve the bene,
dictine with the coffee even though Sarah forgot to tell
him. That reminded her to open her opulent box of candy
and pass it around. Bonhomie was restored, at least on
the surface, and that was enough for her.

Nevertheless, Sarah made her escape as soon as she
decently could, and the party broke up with her. Professor
Ormsby had another paper to read. Mr. Hartler got
Charles to call him a taxi and charged off in hot pursuit
of King Kalakaua's chairs. Mr. Porter-Smith failed to interest
Miss LaValh'ere in scaling the outside of the
Bunker Hill Monument by moonlight, but she consented
to display her new hairdo at the coffee house. Mrs.
Sorpende was the only one not going anywhere, so Sarah
left the chocolates conveniently close to her on the coffee
table, as a tacit acknowledgment of her magnificent performance.

Either the sweets were too tempting, though, or not
tempting enough. Sarah had barely got into a robe and
done her face when she heard deliberate, stately footsteps
on the stairs. Though she couldn't have been less in the
mood for company, she was impelled to open her bedroom
door.

"Mrs. Sorpende, would you mind coming in for a moment?"

"Why, certainly." With her usual serene courtesy but a
tiny pucker between her well-plucked eyebrows, the older
woman stepped into the room. "Was there something--"

"I simply wanted to thank you for taking over so marvelously
this evening. I'm sure none of the others noticed
because you did it so gracefully, but I can't tell you what
it meant to me."

The tears Sarah had felt like shedding ever since Max
Bittersohn's anxiety-provoking phone call spilled over at
last. She groped on her dressing table for a tissue and
tried to stem the flow.

"I'm sorry," she sniffled. "I didn't mean to do this. It's
just that ever since I lost my husband--"

"Dear Mrs. Kelling, I do understand. Only I did most

98	Charlotte MacLeod

of my crying before mine went," said Mrs. Sorpende in
an unusual burst of self-revelation. "Believe me, if I was
of any help to you at all this evening, I can only say that
I'm grateful for the opportunity."

What a darling she was! "Do sit down a moment if you
have nothing better to do," Sarah urged. "This slipper
chair is quite comfortable, unless you think it's too low.
My mother-in-law often used it, and she was even taller
than you."

"That- beautiful, tragic woman," said Mrs. Sorpende.
"It's strange to realize that I'm sitting where she sat.
When I read in the papers--but I'm sure you'd rather
talk of something else. Mr. Hartler's new chairs, for instance?"
She laughed in her gentle, pleasant way. "He is
a real enthusiast, isn't he? Though one does sometimes
get the impression that his enthusiasm isn't universally
shared."

"It certainly isn't by me! As you may have gathered
from all that largesse he was showering on me tonight, we
had a bit of a set-to this afternoon. I had to straighten
him out in no uncertain terms about the string of visitors
he's been having. They've been creating such a nuisance
that I completely lost my temper. Now, of course, I wish
I hadn't."

"I expect we all wish that sort of thing now and then,
but think what a dull world this would be if everyone
were perfect. You must find it difficult, having your lovely
home filled with a motley collection of strangers like us."

"Once in a while I do," Sarah admitted, "but on the
whole it's far less difficult than trying to stay here by myself.
I'd be lonely and worried about how to manage, and
nervous about being alone in this big place. Now I'm so
busy all the tune that I don't have a spare moment to
worry in. Anyway, this was never my home."

"But I was under the impression--" Mrs. Sorpende
caught herself. She'd almost fallen prey to vulgar curiosity.

"Oh, I've lived here ever since I was married, if that's
what you mean, but this had been my mother-in-law's
home for a great many years by then. Since she was both
bund and deaf, we had to keep everything exactly as she
herself had arranged it, so that she could find her way
around. It's hard to feel you really belong in a place when

The Withdrawing Room	~ 99

you don't feel free to so much as pull a chair out of line.
If you'll forgive my mentioning chairs again."

They both had a little laugh over that, then Sarah had
a bright idea. "Would you excuse me for one second? I'm
just going to run into the studio. It used to be Aunt Caroline's
--that is, my mother-in-law's boudoir."

She came back with a huge armload of lace, georgette,
and crepe de Chine. "Would you be terriby offended if I
were to offer you a few of her things? You've been so
sweet and I--it would please me if you were to have
something that belonged to the house. She was a famous
beauty in her day, you know, and when her husband was
alive she always dressed in the most exquisite clothes.
You wouldn't believe what I found when I cleaned out
her closets. Everything was far too big for me, of course,
so I passed most of it out among her friends and relatives."

Cousin Mabel had managed to wind up with the lion's
share as always, and what she intended to do with all
those beaded chiffon evening gowns, only the Lord in His
infinite wisdom knew.

"But there are still some negligees and nightgowns and
undies, camisoles and those floppy-legged step-ins and so
forth, that are quite lovely. You have such a charmingly
imaginative way of dressing that I've been thinking you
might find them rather fun to play around with."

In fact, Sarah had thought no such thing until a moment
ago. It was just that she'd happened to find the garments
in the basement room where they'd been stuck
and forgotten after Aunt Caroline's death. Rushing to get
the room ready for Mr. Bittersohn, she'd thrust them back
upstairs in the former boudoir because she couldn't think
offhand what else to do with them. Now, watching Mrs.
Sorpende's face aglow at sight of the soft colors and rich
fabrics, she was grateful for her oversight.

"Oh, Mrs. Kelling! I'm simply overwhelmed. Are you
sure you care to part with these wonderful things?"

"Quite sure. I'd never use them myself, and they're not
the sort of stuff one cares to pass on to outsiders. I only
hope some of them fit."

"They will, I can assure you, one way or another. I'm
very clever with my needle. Such lovely, lovely materials!
I feel like the Queen of Sheba just touching them. Or
should I say Queen Liliuokalani?"

100	Charlotte MacLeod

"No, don't. I used to think that was such a lovely name,
but if Mr. Hartler says it one more time, I'm planning to
throw a full-scale tantrum."

They giggled again like two well-brought-up little girls
who knew perfectly well they shouldn't be making fun of
nice, nutty old Mr. Hartler. Then Mrs. Sorpende said she
must go along upstairs and let Mrs. Kelling get some rest.
Knowing what she really meant was that she couldn't wait
to try on her new hole-free underwear, Sarah let her go.

Surprisingly, the headache was almost gone, too. Sarah
finished her preparations for the night, got into bed, and
had read less than a paragraph of Schopenhauer before
she switched off the light and drifted into sleep.

Sarah was having a lovely dream of being in a public
restaurant with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. The
Prince was singing along with the orchestra in an extempore
serenade to the Queen, who was wearing a lovely
frock and matching hat in moss green and looking quite
lovely, terribly embarrassed, and tremendously gratified
as who wouldn't. Then Sarah realized the drumming
noise she was hearing didn't come from the orchestra accompanying
His Royal Highness but from somebody's
loud tapping at her bedroom door.

She sat up, switched on the bed lamp, and snatched
for her robe. The time, according to her alarm clock, was
twenty-seven minutes past one.

"Who's there? What's the matter?"

"It's me." Charles must be badly shaken. "You better
come. We got the fuzz downstairs."
"The what? Oh, my God!"

Sarah couldn't find the sleeves of her bathrobe, got
her slippers on the wrong feet and had to change them,
made an ineffectual sweep at her hair with a brush, then
rushed downstairs. Police at this hour weren't selling
tickets to the Policemen's Ball. Was it Uncle Jem? One of
the boarders? Was he, or she, in jail, in the hospital, at
the morgue?

By now Sarah was practically on first-name terms with
everybody in the division. "Hello, Sergeant McNaughton,"
she sighed. "What's the matter now?"

"Hi, Mrs. Kelling. Sorry to keep bothering you. You
got an elderly gentleman named--uh--Hartler living
here?"

101

102	Charlotte MacLeod

"Yes, I have. What's he done now?"

"Would he be a little guy maybe five feet four or five,
good head of hair for a man his age. Wearing sort of oldfashioned
evening clothes with a black cashmere overcoat
and black patent leather elevator shoes."

"Is that what they are? I've always thought he had
bunions or hammer toes or something and needed those
orthopedic ones you have to have made specially. Yes,
that's Mr. Hartler, at least it sounds like him. I'm reasonably
sure he didn't stop to change after dinner. He was
in a mad rush to get out."

"Where was he going, Mrs. Kelling?"

"To look at some chairs that are alleged to belong at
the lolani Palace in Hawaii. Mr. Hartler's been trying to
collect furniture and whatnot for the restoration. Sergeant
McNaughton, what's this all about? Have you caught
him trying to buy stolen property? Is he in jail?"

She ought to have remembered Sergeant McNaughton
was too experienced a law enforcement officer to let himself
get switched off from what he was doing. He waited
politely until she'd finished talking, then asked, "Where
were these chairs supposed to be?"

"He didn't say, at least not to me. Mr. Hartler and I
aren't on the chummiest of terms at the moment. He's
had swarms of people in and out of here about this lolani
Palace business of his, and they've been making a nuisance
of themselves. I got fed up this afternoon and
pinned his ears back in no uncertain terms. He apologized
and we more or less smoothed things over for the
moment, but when he got going on those chairs, I was in
no mood to ask politely interested questions. Charles,
you got him a taxi and put him into it, didn't you? Do
you recall his giving the driver an address?"

"He did not do so in my presence, madam. Mr.
Hartler was still thanking me in a profuse, not to say
fulsome manner when the vehicle departed."

Sergeant McNaughton didn't bother to ask in which
direction. Tulip Street, like so many others on the Hill,
was one way and barely passable at that. The cabbie
would have headed straight for Beacon Street because
there was nowhere else he could go. Mr. Hartler needn't
have given him any direction until they were in a position
to change course.

The Withdrawing Room	103

"If he was only going a short distance, like say over to
Arlington Street, would he have bothered with a cab?"

"In this case, I should think he might," Sarah replied.
"He was all of a twitter to get at those chairs, and riding
was faster than walking. And it was dark and raw, and
though he's lively enough for his years, he does have a
heart condition."

"How's the condition of his bankbook?"

"Fine, as far as I know. I believe Mr. Hartler is quite
well-off."

"In the habit of carrying a wad of cash around with
him?"

"I couldn't say. He spent a fair amount of money on
me this evening. After that blasting I gave him, he rushed
out and bought me a big bunch of roses, and some expensive
chocolates, and a bottle of benedictine. He probably
paid cash, because he hasn't been living back in
Boston long enough to have charge accounts around the
Hill, I shouldn't think. What's the matter? Has he been
robbed?'

"I shouldn't be surprised," said Sergeant McNaughton.
"We found nothing in his wallet except some personal
papers and an I.D. giving this address. Loose change in
the pockets, that's all."

"You mean you had to search him? Then he's--"

"Afraid so, Mrs. Kelling. Hey, somebody catch her!"

After that, things became fuzzy. Sarah had a dim
awareness that Mr. Bittersohn had somehow manifested
himself in a maroon bathrobe and was yelling at the policeman.
"Why didn't you hit her over the head and be
done with it? How much do you think she can take?"

Mariposa was being rude in Spanish. Charles was trying
to get the madam to drink something that unfortunately
turned out to be the benedictine Mr. Hartler had
brought. Sarah got sick to her stomach just smelling it.
Poor Sergeant McNaughton was trying to apologize. Sarah
didn't want any more apologies. She'd had one too many
tonight already. She sat up, noting with surprise that she
was on the library couch although she had no idea how
she'd got there, and shouted, "Shut up, all of you!"

They were so astonished that they did.

"Charles, give that stuff to Sergeant McNaughton. He
needs a drink more than I do. Mariposa, go make some

104	Charlotte MacLeod

coffee. And put some more clothes on before you freeze
to death. And straighten your cap!"

Mariposa must have become suddenly aware that a
sheer black nylon peignoir set and her ruffled cap worn
backward with the orange ribbons dangling down over
her nose did not constitute an adequate uniform, for she
bolted toward the kitchen. Charles, with a low bow, presented
the liqueur to the policeman. Sergeant MeNaughton,
having given it a suspicious sniff, drained the
tiny glass.

At that point Mrs. Sorpende joined the party wearing
a sumptuous ecru satin negligee that Sarah thought
looked vaguely familiar although she couldn't recall ever
having seen the lady en deshabille before. The other
lodgers must still be asleep. With any luck, they'd stay
that way.

"Now," said Sarah, "would you all please quit dithering
and sit down? You're making me dizzy. Mr. Bittersohn,
what are you doing with that whatever-it-is?"

"Covering you up," he said, suiting the deed to the
word. "You've got to be kept warm. You're in shock."

"I daresay I am and I'm sure I have every right to be,
but isn't that your good overcoat?"

"It's the first thing I could find. Lean back."
Sarah did, and found a nest of pillows had been prepared
for her. They felt extremely comfortable. She was
tempted to close her eyes and drift back to wherever she'd
been a moment ago. Perhaps she did, because after a
while she heard whispering and rustling and scraping of
chairs to which she did not deem it necessary to pay attention.
Then she smelled coffee and somebody said, "Do
you think we should wake her?" and somebody else said,
"No, let her sleep," and she sat up again.

"Set the tray here, Mariposa. Mrs. Sorpende, will you
take sugar?"

"I'll take the pot. You lie still and let me pour. Here,
drink this. Mr. Bittersohn, would you be good enough to
steady the cup for her?"
Mr. Bittersohn would be good enough. Sarah sipped,
made a face though she knew landladies weren't supposed
to make faces, and said she didn't care for sugar, thank
you. Mr. Bittersohn and Mrs. Sorpende both told her to
drink it anyway because sugar was good for shock.

Perhaps it was. At any rate, the room came slowly back

The Withdrawing Room	105

into focus. Sarah made sure everybody else had coffee,
too, especially Mariposa, who might have taken a chill, although
Mariposa was now engulfed in a large and lurid
robe that must date from Charles's pre-Hudsonian period.
Then she called the meeting to order.

"Now, Sergeant McNaughton, if you're quite sure you
feel up to talking, would you kindly tell us what this is all
about? Where did you find Mr. Hartler?"

Sergeant McNaughton uncrooked his little finger, set
down his empty cup, cleared his throat, and became official
again. "I must remind you, Mrs. Kelling, that no formal
identification has as yet been made. However,
considering that the victim answers your description, has
his name on identification papers, stamped inside a hat
that was found nearby, embroidered inside his overcoat
and suit coat, and printed in indelible ink on his underwear
--"

"And he's not here and his bed hasn't been slept in,"
Charles prompted sotto voce. "We looked, remember?"

"Oh yeah, thanks. Anyway, we can assume for purposes
of investigation that he's the guy. The body was
found in the Public Garden right beside that fancy birdhouse
down by the pond on the Arlington side before you
get to the bridge. The foot patrolman who discovered the
body deduced from the evidence that the victim had been
mugged and robbed. Acting on approved police procedure,
he then--do you want the whole report?"

"No," said Sarah. "Just give us the gist. Was Mr.
Hartler--had he already--"

"We don't get 'em much deader, Mrs. Kelling. He'd
been dealt a number of blows on both the front and the
back of the skull with a heavy instrument. There's no
way we can see that it might have been anything other
than deliberate homicide. The medical examiner's report
isn't in yet, but we think he was knocked out from behind
and then--well, you said to skip the details."

"When did it happen?" asked Bittersohn.

"Sometime close to midnight, probably. Not long before
he was found, anyway."

"Then I expect he'd have been on his way back here,"
said Sarah.

"Walking? But you say he had a bad heart. Why didn't
he call another cab?"

"Sergeant, how do I know? Maybe there wasn't a

106	Charlotte MacLeod

phone where he was. Maybe he just decided to walk. Mr.
Hartler was--unpredictable. Wouldn't you say so, Mrs.
Sorpende?"

'Totally, I should say, although I'd only known him a
few days," the older woman agreed in her deliberate,
well-bred voice. "Mr. Hartler appeared absorbed in this
project of his almost to the point of monomania. If those
chairs did in fact prove to be what he was looking for, I'd
think he'd have been so excited he wouldn't know
whether he was walking or flying. I must admit I amused
myself this evening wondering what he'd be like when he
came back. I pictured Mm rushing through the house
waking us all up to spread the good tidings, and I was
thinking what various people's reactions would be if he
did. Then of course I realized our excellent Charles
would hardly permit such a disruption to occur."

The excellent Charles allowed the merest ghost of a
gratified expression to flit across his handsomely composed
features. Mariposa said, "Damn right he wouldn't." Mrs.
Sorpende kindly pretended she hadn't heard.

McNaughton nodded to Mrs. Sorpende, then turned
to Sarah. "This lady says she hadn't known him long.
What about you, Mrs. Kelling?"

"I'd met him a few times over the years at my Aunt
Marguerite's. Actually she's only an aunt-in-law, but I'm
sure you don't care about that. Anyway, Mr. Hartler had
heard, I suppose from her, that I was opening my house
to lodgers and got in touch with me. At that time I'd already
rented the room he wanted to Mr. Quiffen. Then
when Mr. Quiffen was killed--would you all mind if I
were to faint again?"

"Don't be funny," snarled Bittersohn. "Charlie, can't
you find something to give her besides that goddamn benedictine?
McNaughton, do you think there's any chance
you can keep this away from the papers?"

"Jeez, I don't know, Max. You mean this old Mr. Hartler
had the same room Quiffen did, the guy that got hit
by the train? Boy, that ought to be good for a few more
headlines."

"Remind me to recommend you for the tact medal,
Mac. Why don't you get out of here and go see if you
can lose yourself somewhere?"

"Okay, Max, if that's how you feel. Mrs. Kelling, I

The Withdrawing Room	107

hate to keep pestering you like this, but do you know of
any relatives we could notify?"

"Mr. Hartler had a sister, but he told us she'd gone to
stay with a friend in Rome. No doubt he'd have her
address in his room. Charles, did you lock his door after
you looked in to see if he was there? If you did, go get
the key."

"Stay where you are, Mrs. Kelling," said Bittersohn.
"You're not up to this."

"I know, but it's my responsibility, isn't it?" Sarah untangled
herself from the overcoat and stood up, Mrs. Sorpende
assisting her on one side and Mr. Bittersohn on the
other. "You might as well join the party, Sergeant MeNaughton.
It's just across the hall."

Sarah herself had been making a point of staying out
of the lodgers' rooms herself and leaving the cleaning to
Mariposa, in order to avoid being tagged a snoopy landlady.
She hadn't set foot in the erstwhile drawing room
since they'd got rid of Mr. Quiffen's things and spruced
it up for Mr. Hartler. It was going to need resprucing.
During his so-short stay, the old man had contrived to
make an unholy mess of the place.

Uncle Gilbert's beautiful desk was heaped with papers.
The file drawers that had been installed to hold Mr. Quiffen's
vituperative but neatly organized correspondence
hung half open, revealing a welter of newspaper clippings,
travel folders, plastic leis, and, for some reason, a tattered
felt pennant bearing the slogan, "Let's Hear It for Hawaii!"

Vases, cardboard cartons, trinkets, jardinieres, bits and
pieces of antique or semi-antique furniture were crammed
everywhere. The somewhat threadbare but still precious
oriental carpet that Sarah had paid to get professionally
cleaned before she started renting her rooms now looked
as though it would have to be sandblasted.

"He wouldn't let me clean," said Mariposa defensively.
"I told you so yesterday."

"I know you did," Sarah answered. "That's another
thing I meant to scold him about. Ridiculous, isn't it? I
suppose we might as well tackle that beastly desk first."

The task that had looked impossible turned out to be a
cinch. Almost on top of the heap lay a letter on flimsy
air-mail stationery from an Italian hotel.

"Dear Wumps," it began. "You were right as usual! II

108	Charlotte MacLeod

I was a fool to have come and, as you see from this heading,
I've had to move out. It wasn't so much Dorothea's
DRINKING that I found impossible to cope with, though
you know my views on EXCESS, but there were OTHER
problems I cannot bring myself to put on paper, EVEN
TO YOU!!! I refuse to remain in such an ATMOSPHERE
and have already started haunting the airline
offices. I can't tell you what flight I'll be on because I intend
to take the FIRST CANCELLATION THAT
COMES UP!!

"So glad to hear you are comfortably settled with dear
little Sarah Kelling, though that leaves ME out in the
cold! Anyway, perhaps she will have a SPARE CORNER
I can crawl into until I can find a place to stay. I will
come DIRECTLY THERE from the airport so that we
can talk over what to do. Sarah will pardon the liberty,
I'm sure. Such a sweetly pretty little thing, I always
thought, and such NICE MANNERS. Give her my best
regards. Hope to see you SOON!!!! Hastily, Bumps."

"Well, that's better news than we'd bargained for,"
said Sarah. "It's dated over a week ago so she may even
be on her way here by now. Poor soul, it's going to be a
dreadful homecoming for her. They always appeared to
be so very devoted."

"Bumps and Wumps," mused the sergeant. "Were they
twins?"

"I don't believe so," Sarah replied. "I'm quite sure
Miss Hartler is several years the younger. I don't honestly
remember her very well."

"Here's a picture," said Mariposa, who'd been running
a stern housewifely eye over the dresser. "Maybe it's her."
Sarah took the pretty silver frame out of Mariposa's
hand. "Oh yes, now I recall the hat. She always wore
the same one, or else she kept buying them all alike. Apparently
she still does, because this picture must have
been taken quite recently. That reminds me, Mariposa,
we'd better get in some cranberry juice. That's all she
ever drinks, because it's good for the kidneys, or the liver,
or something. She got me off in a corner once and told
me all about it, but I'm afraid I wasn't paying much attention.
She really is the mousiest creature! I can't imagine
why this Dorothea person invited her in the first
place."

The Withdrawing Room	109

"There doesn't seem to be a picture of the brother,"
said McNaughton. "Would you say they looked alike?"

"But you saw his face."

"Well, no. You see--"

"Shut up, Mac," snapped Bittersohn. He took a firm
grip on Sarah's arm, and she was grateful for his support.

They searched among the rubble awhile longer, but
found no address book, and nothing to indicate the presence
of a more accessible relative. It appeared they would
have to wait for Bumps to make the formal identification
of Wumps.

(f^lli flnmhpf ll ^

'OJLlia.jJ' IL<CJI. JLC'

"There's something I have to tell you."

Sarah was in her place behind the coffee urn, trying to
be poised and collected although her hands were rattling
every cup she touched. Professor Ormsby, Miss LaValliere,
and Mr. Porter-Smith were in their places. Mr.
Bittersohn and Mrs. Sorpende had not appeared. That
was not surprising, considering what time they'd got back
to bed. Sarah herself would rather have kept on sleeping
forever, but that ingrained sense of duty had compelled
her to come and break the news before her boarders got
it somewhere else.

"Tell us what?" yawned Miss LaValliere. Then she
smirked. "I know. Mr. Hauler's eloped with Mrs. Sorpende.
That's why he's not here."

"I wish you were right," Sarah answered. "Last night,
we had the police in. They'd found a man we're quite
sure was Mr. Hartler near the birdhouse in the Public
Garden. He'd evidently been beaten and robbed on his
way back from seeing those chairs he was so thrilled--"

Sarah steadied herself with a sip of hot coffee. "The
last I knew, he hadn't been officially identified, but since
they found his name on his clothes and in his wallet--"

"Great Scott!" gasped Mr. Porter-Smi^h. "You mean he
was killed?"

"I'm afraid I do."

"But that's awful! I mean, two in a row! I mean--"
Miss LaValliere didn't seem to know quite what she did
mean, but there was nothing affected about her agitation.

"I know how you feel," said Sarah. "Considering what's
happened during the very short tune you people have
been living here, I shouldn't blame you one bit if you
packed your bags and left this instant. I must have some
magnetic attraction for disaster."

110

The Withdrawing Room	111

"Garbage!" roared Professor Ormsby. "Unscientific
swill! What time did this alleged assault take place?"

"Sometime close to midnight, the police said it must
have been."

"In the Public Garden? Still wearing his tuxedo?"

"Yes."

"Well, there you are, aren't you? Who wears tuxedos
these days? Rich old men and waiters. Waiters go off
duty with their pockets full of tips. Rich men have gold
cuff links, studs, collar buttons, whatnot. Gold worth five
hundred dollars an ounce or some such monstrous price.
Don't keep track myself. Don't walk through the Garden
alone at night, either. Perverts. Dope addicts. Harder
was an old fool. Quiffen was a worse fool. Trouble you
for the marmalade."

"Of course." Sarah passed the cut-glass jar in its little
silver basket. Professor Ormsby was right. Mr. Hartler
should have known better than to be wandering around
alone at that hour, practically asking to be mugged. Mr.
Quiffen should have kept his nose out of other people's
business. Neither death had anything to do with her. If
only she were sure of that!

"I quite agree with Professor Ormsby," Mr. PorterSmith
pontificated. "Mr. Hartler, having lived away from
Boston for a number of years, may not have been aware
that an area where he had perhaps been accustomed to
wander freely as a younger man was now unsafe for our
senior citizens late at night. Mr. Quiffen was an elderly
person who indulged, if I may say so, rather freely in the
pleasures of the table, and was of an unusually choleric
disposition. Therefore, he almost certainly suffered from
an elevated blood pressure that might well subject him to
occasional fits of dizziness. That both should have met
their demise--I mean demises--"

"How about demeese?" Professor Ormsby suggested
helpfully.

Mr. Porter-Smith flushed, but stuck to his guns. "As I
was saying, this is a most unfortunate coincidence, but
surely nothing more than that. Professor Ormsby, if you
happen to have left any marmalade in the jar, I believe
I shall also partake."

Miss LaValliere wasn't quite ready to buy the mere
coincidence theory, but neither did she wish to move in
with her grandmother, which would be the only way her

112	Charlotte MacLeod

parents would continue her allowance if she left Mrs.
Kelling's. When Mr. Porter-Smith passed her the marmalade,
she took it.

However, she was almost as silent as Professor Ormsby
for the rest of the meal. When Mr. Porter-Smith realized
he had the floor to himself, he took full advantage of the
circumstance, while Sarah sat and wondered what time
they'd all three got in last night and where they'd gone
beforehand. And what about Cousin Dolph?

That was what Professor Ormsby would doubtless call
a damn fool question. Dolph hadn't even met Mr. Harder
yet.

But he had. The very expression, "damn fool," brought
back a far too distinct memory of one of Aunt Marguerite's
more disastrous parties. Aunt Caroline had dragooned
Dolph into going with them, and he'd ranted all the way
home about which was a bigger damn fool, that babbling
jumping-jack Hartler or his damn fool of a cranberryswilling
sister.

That had been six years ago or more. Sarah couldn't
remember what had set Dolph off about the Hartlers,
but she knew from experience that it seldom took much.
Furthermore, since the Hartlers were so chummy with
Aunt Marguerite, they were more apt than not to have
met the Protheroes and therefore to have had at least a
passing acquaintance with George's old buddy Barnwell
Quiffen.

Suppose for instance that Dolph had happened to run
into Mr. Hartler last night during their respective wanderings.
Considering the circles they both moved in, such a
meeting was by no means impossible. The man who
owned King Kalakaua's chairs, assuming they were indeed
genuine, might well have been one of the old guard and a
friend of Dolph's. Or both might have taken the same
notion to stop in at the Harvard Club or the Ritz for a
nightcap. The club was on Commonwealth Avenue, only
a few blocks from where the body had been found, and
the hotel was on the corner of Arlington and Newbury,
directly across the street from the Garden.

No matter what he thought of the Hartlers, Dolph
wouldn't snub a man he'd met in the home of a family
member, especially if Mr. Hartler offered to pay for the
drinks. Suppose he misunderstood something the older
man said. That wouldn't be unlikely. Mr. Hartler's speech

The Withdrawing Room	113

had been so rapid and so prolix that he'd often been hard
to follow, and Dolph's was not the swiftest brain in town.
What if Dolph had jumped to the conclusion that in taking
over Mr. Quiff en's room, Mr, Hartler had got hold of some
evidence that private detective had turned up? What if
he'd thought Mr. Hartler was seeing himself as the man to
whom from failing hands Mr. Quiffen had thrown the
torch?

Well, what if he had? Sarah could see Dolph yelling the
place down and maybe getting them both thrown out. She
could not see him deliberately beating an older, smaller
man's face to an unrecognizable pulp. Could she?

If Dolph had deliberately shoved Barnwell Quiffen under
a moving subway train, then Dolph was a homicidal
maniac and there was no telling what he might do. But
surely that was ridiculous. Anyway, Dolph wouldn't have
faked a robbery. He couldn't think that fast, for one thing.

He could very quickly have made himself scarce, however.
The Arlington Street subway entrance was only a
short sprint from where the body had been found, and
who was to say more than one person hadn't been involved
in the crime? Suppose that after he'd been killed,
one of those drug addicts or perverts Professor Ormsby
was so vehement about might have come along, taken
advantage of the chance to rob a prosperous-looking
corpse, and kicked Mr. Hauler's face in just for the fun of
it. That was sickening even to think of, but such things
did happen.

Sarah didn't think she could sit there any longer watching
Professor Ormsby mop up egg yolk with his toast. She
was trying to think of a plausible reason to leave the table,
when Mariposa "handed her the most cogent one possible.

"Mrs. Kelling, she's here!"

Sarah blinked. "Who's here?"

"She says she's Mr. Hartler's sister and she wants to
know if her brother's up yet."

"Show her into the library. Excuse me, please, everyone."

Sarah remembered Miss Hartler the moment she laid
eyes on her. As far as she could recall, the woman was
wearing the identical outfit in which she'd appeared some
four years ago at Aunt Marguerite's, totally without style
or color interest. The same might have been said of the

114	Charlotte MacLeod

wearer. Miss Hartler bore a family resemblance of sorts to
her brother and had his abundant white hair, which could
have been her redeeming feature if she hadn't got it
cropped far too short by some dropout from barber college
and hidden most of what was left under a truly awful
hat. At the moment, she was showing an unaccustomed
spark of something that could almost be taken for animation.

"Dear little Sarah!"

To Sarah's secret horror, Miss Hartler insisted on planting
a dry-lipped kiss on her cheek. "I was so sorry to hear
of the terrible, terrible deaths of your dear Aunt Caroline
and her devoted son! And of course Mr. Frederick Kelling,
too. Such a tragic loss to the city! I hope you got my
little note?"

"Why, I--yes, of course. You were so kind to write."

Sarah hadn't the slightest recollection as to whether
she'd heard from the Hartlers or not, there had been so
many condolences. But she'd diligently acknowledged
them all, or thought she had, with Aunt Emma's help.
"I'm sure I sent a reply. But if you were in the process of
going abroad--"

"Oh, I expect William opened the envelope and tossed
away your message without bothering to show me. That
would be just like him. Big brother still doesn't quite believe
little sister's learned to read yet, you know. Where is
old Wumps? I can't wait to surprise him! He'll never
dream I could be here so soon, but I simply camped at
that airport until they found me a seat. Did he tell you I
was coming?"

"He told me how much he missed you," Sarah temporized.

"I can well imagine! Wumps and I have always been
very close, you know. It was quite an adventure for me to
leave him as I did, and as things turned out, a dreadful,
dreadful mistake. But I shan't bore you with my sordid
history! Which is Wump's room? Isn't he up yet, the lazy
thing? Perhaps I might just tiptoe in. I can't wait another
second to see him!"

She rose and started for the door. Sarah took her arm.

"Miss Hartler, you--you'd better sit down again.
There's something I have to tell you."

"About Wumps? What is it? Is he ill? In the hospital?"

The Withdrawing Room	115

Sarah shook her head. "I'm afraid it's a great deal
worse than that, Miss Hartler. He was--assaulted last
night in the Public Garden."

"Oh no! Not Wumps!" Miss Hartler stared at Sarah,
then buried her face in the dun-colored silk scarf she
had twisted around her wizened throat.

"No positive identification has been made yet, but his
name was on his things, and he never came back last
night. We found your letter on his desk, and I'm supposed
to let the police know when you arrive so that you can--
I'd better get you some brandy."

"No, please, I couldn't touch it. Just--just let me be
alone in his room for a little while. Wumps dead? You do
mean dead, Sarah?"

"I'm afraid I do. Here, let me help you."

Miss Hartler sorely needed help. Her legs could barely
support her. She wobbled across the hall and collapsed
on the bed, her face pressed into the clean sheet Charles
had so neatly turned down for the old man who'd never
come back. Sarah decided the kindest thing was to slip
out and leave her there by herself until those thin old
shoulders stopped heaving so convulsively.

Mariposa met her when she stepped back out into the
hall. "Did you tell her?"

"I had to, didn't I? She wants to be alone in his room,
so I came away. I didn't know what else to do. She looks
so frail, and she's taking it awfully hard, as I knew she
would. We ought to call a doctor, but we'd never get one
to come."

"You go on back and have yourself a cup of hot cofiee,
honey. She'll get over it pretty soon. Old folks don't mind
death the way young ones do. That's what my grandma
says, and she ought to know by now. Come on, honey,
you got to take care of yourself first, else you'll be no
good to nobody."

"I know. Thank goodness one of us manages to stay
sane around here."

Sarah gave Mariposa a hug and kiss, greatly shocking
Mr. Porter-Smith, who was emerging from the dining
room correct in what the well-dressed accountant's assistant
should wear and making a beeline for the goldinitialed
attache case he had left prominently displayed in
the front hall.

By now Professor Ormsby had finished ravening over

116	Charlotte MacLeod

the eggs and gone off to his classes. Miss LaValliere was
still at the table nibbling at a piece of toast and muttering
over a book she ought no doubt to have stayed home
and studied the night before. Sarah took some scrambled
eggs she didn't particularly want, and sat down to eat.
When she and Miss LaValliere had finished and the two
remaining boarders showed no sign of appearing, Sarah
took the used dishes out to the kitchen, where Mariposa
was already busy at the dishpan.

"I wonder if I should take Miss Hartler in a cup of tea
or something?" she remarked. "She's just off the plane
from Italy and goodness knows how long it's been since
she had anything to eat. That reminds me, there's a stack
of her luggage in the vestibule we'll have to do something
about."

"No sense bringing it in, till we find out where she intends
to go," said Mariposa. "Only have to lug it out
again."

"That's true, and it'll be safe enough with the outer
door locked. At least we shan't be getting any more of
King Kalakaua's whatnots dragged through the hall. That's
not very kind of me, is it? Poor old Wumps, what an awful
way to go!"

"Oh, I don't know." Mariposa lifted a soap bubble on
her shapely fingers, and blew it away. "He was prob'ly
dancing along like he always did, thinking about them
chairs, and then, whammo! Quick and easy. I wouldn't
mind something like that for myself. Live it up till I'm
ninety-five, then get shot by a jealous wife."

Sarah wouldn't have believed she could laugh that
morning, but she did. By the time they'd finished the
dishes, she felt up to facing Miss Hartler again. She went
and tapped on the drawing room door.

"Miss Hartler? It's Sarah. May I come in?"

"Yes, dear." The voice seemed to come from very far
away.

"I was wondering if I might get you something? Tea
and toast, perhaps?"

Miss Hartler struggled to raise herself from the pillows
into which she'd been weeping. Her eyes were red, her
hair disheveled, her clothes a mess. She wiped a sodden
handkerchief across her blotched, terribly aged face.

"Thank you, dear. Perhaps a cup of very weak tea? I

The Withdrawing Room	117

never touch stimulants as a rule, but this--this--I knew I
should never have left him. It's all my fault!"

Her shoulders began to heave again. Sarah said, "I'll get
the tea," and fled.

As she was fixing a tray, Mr. Bittersohn came up the
stairs from the basement. "What's happening?" was his
greeting.

"The sister has arrived," Sarah told him. "She's in his
room crying her eyes out, poor soul. I'm trying to get her
to drink a cup of tea. Would you mind terribly just going
into the dining room and helping yourself? There's coffee
in the urn and things on the sideboard. Mrs. Sorpende
should be down soon."

"So?"

"Oh, don't argue!" Sarah picked up the tray and left.
He wasn't arguing, but she had to take it out on somebody.
Strange that she should pick Mr. Bittersohn.

Miss Hartler was up off the bed, at any rate. She'd evidently
been to the bathroom and tried to do something
about her face and hair. Though her eyes were still very
red, she was a little more composed. She seated herself at
the desk and pushed some of the litter aside.

"Dear Sarah, how kind! But really I don't think I--"

"Now, Miss Hartler, you mustn't give way. Your
brother wouldn't have wanted that." Sarah was dragging
out all the cliches she could recall that had been visited
upon her during her own recent bereavement. "He was
such a cheerful person. We must try to remember him as
we knew him."

"Ah, but nobody knew Wumps as I did."

Miss Hartler poured an inch or so of tea from the pot
and added a great deal of milk. She peered at the arrowroot
biscuits Sarah had put on the tray, then slowly picked
one up and took an apologetic nibble. "We were so close,
you know, so very close. Not that we lived in each other's
pockets, of course. I had my church work, and
Wumps had his own enthusiasms."

"The lolani Palace," said Sarah.

"Ah, yes, that famous lolani Palace! Wumps was a
zealot, you know, Sarah. A genuine zealot. I see he's
been collecting again." She waved the arrowroot biscuit
at the bibelots that covered every available space.

"I'm not too sure how much he'd actually collected,"

118	Charlotte MacLeod

Sarah replied. "He said most of the things he'd got proved
not to be genuine and had to be given back. We've had
people in and out of here--"

"Don't tell me! I've been through it all. Tracking up the
rugs and letting their wet umbrellas drip on the floor. And
the reason Wumps wanted to move back here was that we
weren't getting enough of them. He thought Boston would
be his Happy Hunting Ground. I must confess, Sarah dear,
that I positively quailed at the mere thought. That was
why, when I got this invitation from an old schoolmate to
join her in Rome, I packed my bags and fled. But Dorothea
has changed. Sadly, sadly changed. I suppose I have,
too. Ah, me, time flies."

Making a pathetic attempt to put on a brave face, Miss
Harder picked up her teacup. "Sarah, I've been trying to
think what to do, and it seems the sensible thing--I'm
trying so hard to be sensible, you see. Wumps was always
the strong one, but I don't have him to lean on anymore
so I must manage as best I can alone. I thought if you'd
let me stay here for just a few days, until we can get the
dreadful, dreadful funeral over with--our plot is in Mount
Auburn, you know, like yours--perhaps you'd know how
to go about making the arrangements--I've never had to
--when dear Mother and Father--"

She mopped her eyes and took an infinitesimal sip of
the cooling tea. "That will give me a chance to find out
how I stand and do something about all this stuff Wumps
had left. Dear Sarah, you won't mind, will you? I have nobody
else to turn to! If you could just have your man
bring in my bags--"

"He's--not here just now," Sarah answered, rather
stunned by this sudden turn of affairs.

Of course it made sense for Miss Harder to use her
brother's room. His rent was paid till the end of the week,
and she had nowhere else to go, except a hotel or the
YWCA. Somebody had to sift through this welter and decide
what to do with it, and who could be better qualified
than his own sister? But to have Miss Hartler around oozing
gloom and respectability on top of everything else was
going to be plain ghastly.

Well, it wouldn't be for long. If Mr. Porter-Smith's dinner
jacket and Miss LaValliere's hairdo didn't drive the
woman out, Mariposa and Charles, in their own adroit
ways, would manage.

Nevertheless, Sarah didn't give in without a struggle. "But
--but we'd have to clean the room first. I couldn't let you
move in here with the place in such a state."

"Oh, I can do that. Please let me. I'm so used to cleaning
up after Wumps, you see. It would be like having
him back, just for a little, little, precious while. Just have
your maid bring in the vacuum cleaner and a duster, and
I'll have everything spotless in no time. This will be the
last chance I'll ever--" Her voice quavered and she hid
her face again.

What could one say to that? Anyway, there were all
those breakable objects belonging to heaven only knew
whom, and it would be better for Miss Harder to undertake
the responsibility. Sarah went and got the cleaning
materials, and left Miss Hartler to it.

Or thought she did. Miss Hartler couldn't figure out
how to turn on the vacuum cleaner. Miss Hartler needed
a sponge, a scrubbing brush, disinfectant, fresh linens,
glass polish, brass polish, silver polish, a mop, a wall
brush, a reviving glass of cranberry juice. Miss Hartler,
in one way or another, took up Sarah's entire day.

There was the dreadful trip to the morgue to make her
formal identification of darling Wumps. Luckily he'd had
an old triangular scar on his right wrist that made the experience
a degree less harrowing than it might have been
but still bad enough for Miss Hartler to need another glass
of cranberry juice before she felt up to facing the vicar
concerning dead Wump's last rites. She was astonished to
learn Sarah wasn't personally acquainted with the dear

119

120	Charlotte MacLeod

vicar. Sarah was rude enough to reply that she at least
knew the undertaker.

"Yes, yes, we must see the undertaker. How terrible!
But dear Wumps wouldn't want old Bumps to let him
down, would he? I always called him Wumps because
when I was a baby I couldn't say William. And he retaliated
by calling me Bumps because I kept falling down
when I tried to walk. I'm afraid a lot of the bumps were
Wump's own doing. He had such an impish sense of humor,
even as a little boy. You must have adored having
him here."

"He was with us such a short time," Sarah murmured.

It wasn't pleasant to recall the blasting-out she'd given
him so soon before he'd gone out to his death, even more
painful to think that if she'd kept her mouth shut he might
have had the chairs brought to him and still be alive.
Nevertheless, Sarah couldn't be hypocritical enough to
pretend Mr. Hartler had been an unmixed blessing, and
she couldn't really believe his sister had always found
him so, either.

But she herself had got furious with Alexander sometimes,
and that didn't make the hurt any less when she
lost him. She hadn't ducked the fact that he'd been murdered,
though, as Miss Hartler was doing. The police
were naturally pressing her to search among the papers
for anything that might reveal if he had an enemy, an
article of exceptional value, and particularly if there was
any information as to whom the man with the chairs had
been, if in fact such a person existed. The sister was putting
all that out of her mind, not reading the papers but
just stacking them neatly and waxing the desk; fussing
about the stately high-church service, about whether
Wumps would have preferred a gray or a mahogany
casket, about what music he would have preferred and
what flowers to choose. Sarah thought of suggesting they
fly in a ukulele band and a hibiscus lei from Honolulu because
by that time she was getting thoroughly fed up with
Miss Hartler, but she couldn't because she was cursed
with too decent a nature.

Late in the afternoon she managed to get Miss Hartler
back into the fresh-cleaned drawing room for a rest and
herself rushed to the kitchen, trying to cram a day's work
into two hours. Uncle Jem phoned to ask if she wanted
him to rally around and she yelped back, "No, for God's

The Withdrawing Room	121

sake, don't!" Dolph didn't bother to call, he just came,
taking it for granted that his presence would be required
on so grave an occasion.

For that, Sarah was grateful. Miss Hartler knew Dolph,
and his pompous solemnity struck just the right note with
her when she emerged from her seclusion in a highnecked,
long-sleeved gown of some lank material and
some dark color, smelling faintly of mold and moth balls.
As Dolph mouthed the correct phrases, Sarah couldn't
help thinking that if he had by some wild chance been
the instrument of William Hartler's demise, he was showing
either remarkable self-possession or a degree of loopiness
to which not even Great-uncle Frederick had ever
attained. She found herself eying him as a mouse might
watch a crouching cat. Was he dangerous, or was he only
asleep. What would she do if she found out her familiar
bumbler of a cousin had become a criminal lunatic? Go
stark raving herself, most likely.

The lodgers were gathering. Mrs. Sorpende was first
down, and Sarah was interested to see that she had, in
respect to the demised, filled in her low-cut dinner gown
with an elegant jabot of rich ivory-colored satin that just
might, not long before, have been the legs of a pair of
Aunt Caroline's step-ins. However it had been achieved,
the effect was so flattering that Dolph suddenly ran out of
platitudes on the subject of family bereavement and sidled
over toward the sofa on which Mrs. Sorpende liked best
to sit.

Miss Hartler then settled into an attitude of gentle
melancholy. Sarah presented each of the others as he or
she arrived, each offered condolences, then each settled
down to enjoy the customary period of relaxation before
dinner. However, it was not so easy to enjoy an innocent
glass of preprandial sherry with Miss Hartler recoiling
from the tray as from a striking cobra every time Charles
passed within recoiling distance.

Mr. Porter-Smith's well-meant urging that she take a
glass with him as medical studies had proven that moderate
amounts of alcohol taken before a meal could be a
valuable aid to general health and well-being earned him
nothing but a stiff-lipped, "Thank you, I never touch
spirits."

Miss LaValliere's attempts to cheer Miss Hartler up
with an account of the senior Mrs. LaValliere's most re122	Charlotte MacLeod

cent attack of shingles did strike a responsive chord since
Miss Hartler had once served on the altar guild with Miss
LaValliere's grandmother; but both the granddaughter
and her topic were soon exhausted.

Professor Ormsby didn't even try. Once he'd been
coerced into shaking hands and grunting some obligatory
word of sympathy, he took the other end of Mrs. Sorpende's
sofa and glowered across her jabot at Dolph. Mr.
Bittersohn, again the last to arrive, was more compassionate.
He drew a chair close to Miss Hartler's, shook his
head when Charles offered him a drink, and began talking
to her in a low, concerned voice.

At first, Miss Hartler appeared to respond. Then for
no reason that Sarah could see, she became monosyllabic
and at last so totally withdrawn that it was a relief when
Charles announced dinner and she said piteously that she
really didn't think she could face it and mightn't she
please just have a little something on a tray in her room?

That meant extra work for the staff and a quick reshuffling
of the table, but Sarah couldn't have cared less.
She was so relieved to get out from under this wet blanket
that she didn't even try to change the subject when Mr.
Porter-Smith began explaining what the capital gains tax
meant to her, although in fact it meant nothing at all
since she wasn't having any gains these days, only losses.

By degrees, the group relaxed. With Dolph present the
atmosphere was bound to be a trifle on the stuffy side
anyway; but he, with his duty to Miss Hartler behind him,
Mrs. Sorpende beside him, and a good dinner in front of
him, waxed as genial as Dolph knew how to wax.

Mr. Bittersohn's thoughts seemed to be elsewhere.
Surely he couldn't have taken offense at Miss Hartler's
sudden cooling-off in the library. An elderly woman
who'd come straight from an overseas flight to find her
beloved brother murdered and herself at the morgue having
to identify his battered corpse could hardly be expected
to keep a stiff upper lip for any extended length
of time. Sarah dropped a gentle hint to that effect, and
Bittersohn gave her a look that puzzled her a good deal.

After dinner, she told Charles to serve the rest of Mr.
Hartler's benedictine. She wasn't sure why. Was the gesture
in tribute to his memory, or was it an expression of
a wish to get rid of everything pertaining to the Hartlers
as quickly as possible? Anyway, they all had some; then

The Withdrawing Room	123

Dolph announced with blowing of horns and fanfare of
trumpets that he was late for an important meeting, and
took his departure. Mrs. Sorpende went upstairs, perhaps
to remodel another item of lingerie. Professor Ormsby had
papers to correct. Mr. Bittersohn said he had to work
on his book, which was surely a lie. Miss LaValliere, in
desperation, asked Mr. Porter-Smith to help her with her
bookkeeping homework.

Sarah watched Charles collect the empty liqueur
glasses, then decided she'd better check in on Miss Hartler.
She found the sister in her nightgown, which was not
to say scantily clad, since Miss Harder wore the sort of
garment R. H. Stearns used to carry for Boston ladies
who went in for modesty. Nevertheless, Miss Hartler
made a point of covering her yards of cotton with several
more yards of flannel wrapper as she came to open the
door.

"I know you're exhausted," Sarah told her, "so I
shan't stay. I just wanted to make sure you have everything
you need for the night."

"Dear little Sarah! You grow more like your Aunt
Marguerite every day."

Sarah winced. One Marguerite in the world was already
one too many for her. However, since there was no
blood relationship there was little likelihood of resemblance.
Miss Hartler must either be hallucinating or trying
to pay a compliment. One might as well take the more
charitable view.

"Do sit down and talk to me a moment," the woman
went on. "I feel so--so terribly alone."

"Of course you do," said Sarah. "That's only natural.
One gets over it sooner or later, or so they tell me."

"Ah, yes. We must comfort and support one another in
our bereavement. I can see how valiantly you're trying
to cope, and I admire your strength. But, Sarah dear, I
can't help wondering--of course it's not my place to say
anything, but--well, quite frankly, dear, I really don't
think that if I'd been in your place I'd have been quite so
quick to fill my home with a somewhat peculiar assortment
of strangers. I only say this because I'm so much
older. We old folks can't resist spreading our wisdom
around where I'm sure it's not wanted. Personally, I'd be
the last to interfere--"

"And there's no earthly reason why you should feel any

124	Charlotte MacLeod

need to do so," Sarah interrupted, a good deal more briskly
than she'd meant to. "I get all the advice I can handle
from Cousin Dolph and my uncle, who lives a few streets
over, and the rest of my relatives. As to my boarders, I'm
chiefly concerned that they pay their rent on time and
obey the house rules, of which I'll give you a copy first
thing in the morning. So far the only one who's given me
any serious trouble was your brother. If I'd known what a
dreadful nuisance that lolani Palace project of his would
turn out to be, I doubt if I'd have taken him on. However,
he was always pleasant in other respects and got
along with the rest of the group even though he did manage
to keep us in an uproar a good deal of the time."

"Oh, Sarah!" Miss Harder shook her white head
sweetly and sadly. "I know Wumps was just a prankish
schoolboy at heart and sometimes got a bit overexuberant,
but at least he was our own sort. What do you know
about those others? Little Jennifer LaValliere is all right,
I suppose. Flighty and silly, but I've met her grandmother.
This Porter-Smith, as he calls himself--"

"Came highly recommended by my Cousin Percy."

"Oh. And that man Ormsby--"

"Professor Ormsby is a distinguished member of the
faculty at MIT."

"Ah, these mad scientists! Inventing those dreadful
clones and goodness knows what else. Still, I suppose
MIT is respectable enough as colleges go these days.
However, that rather dangerous-looking young man who
runs an art gallery or whatever it is. Bittersohn, he calls
himself."

Miss Hauler inched closer and lowered her voice to a
shocked murmur. "I was trying to make conversation with
him before dinner, as one does, and since little Jennifer
and I had been talking about her grandmother's work on
the altar guild, I happened to ask if his own mother was
involved in any such thing. He made the most incredible
reply. He said, 'No, she doesn't even get to sit downstairs.'
Now, Sarah dear, of course you're a young thing
and you wouldn't know, but I'm very much afraid that
man is a Jew."

For a moment, Sarah was so furious and disgusted she
couldn't even speak. Then she managed to say through
stiff lips, "I am perfectly well aware that Mr. Bittersohn is

The Withdrawing Room	125

a Jew. His people are neighbors of ours at Ireson's Landing."

"Good beavens! Did your dear Aunt Caroline know his
mother?"

"Mrs. Bittersohn is very selective in the people she
chooses to know." Sarah could be bitchy, too, given the
kind of provocation she was getting now. "However, as
you learned this evening, the son is not the least bit snobbish,
provided one doesn't try to o 'erstep the line. And
he doesn't run an art gallery, he's an internationally
known art expert. His work requires a great deal of travel,
so he finds it convenient to have a pied-a-terre here, and
I must say I consider myself unusually fortunate to have
him as a tenant."

"Dear me, I had no--I must--" Miss Hartler floundered
a bit, then chose another victim. "Then this Mrs.
Sorpende--this femme fatale, who is making sjich an obvious
play for your cousin's fortune--what's she an international
expert in, or would it be indelicate to ask? May
one know where on earth you managed to become associated
with a woman like that?"

Sarah played her trump card. "Through Aunt Marguerite."

"Marguerite? But she's never once mentioned--we
were always such great friends--how could I have
missed--"

"I believe Mrs. Sorpende is not personally acquainted
with Aunt Marguerite." Few people would be, if they
knew what they were getting into when they accepted the
introduction, in Sarah's opinion. "She heard about my
venture from a mutual acquaintance of theirs."

"Oh? Then I must know that person, at any rate. Who
was it?"

The only way to end this distasteful conversation,
Sarah supposed, was to satisfy this nasty old creature's
curiosity once and for all. She racked her brain for the
name Mrs. Sorpende had given. "Something with a B, I
think. Brown? Baxter? Burns? No, Bodkin, that was it.
Mrs. G. Thackford Bodkin."

Miss Hartler emitted an odd little whinny. "But, my
dear Sarah, how could she? Vangie Bodkin has been dead
for two years. I've never been to a lovelier funeral."

Chapter 17

Sarah passed another terrible night. After she'd got Miss
Hartler quieted down, she'd taken the almost unprecedented
step of phoning Aunt Marguerite on her own initiative.
Her ostensible reason was to pass the word about
Mr. William Hartler's impending funeral. In fact, she
wanted to make sure Vangie Bodkin's had already taken
place.

Yes, Mrs. Bodkin was well and truly demised. Yes,
Joanna Hartler had been her bosom friend and had wept
copiously at the interment. No, Marguerite had never happened
to run into a Theonia Sorpende. What was she like,
and why didn't Sarah bring her down sometime?

That was what had upset Sarah so dreadfully. Aunt
Marguerite was not one to forget a name or deny an acquaintance,
however slight. She liked to pass herself off
as the most sought-after hostess in Newport. Since she
was far from being that, she had to do a good deal of
seeking on her own hook. If the late Vangie Bodkin had
ever so much as mentioned Theonia Sorpende in her hearing,
she'd have insisted on Vangie's bringing the woman
to one of her teas, cocktail parties, luncheons, dinners,
charity balls, and certainly to what she called her Sunday
afternoon salons.

Even if Mrs. Sorpende had turned out to be Mrs. Bodkin's
poor relation or favorite manicurist or the lady who
took up her hems, she'd probably still have got invited.
Aunt Marguerite would have managed somehow to check
out her appearance and conversation, found her more
than presentable, and at least put her on what Sarah and
Alexander used privately to call the desperate list: rea126

The Withdrawing Room	127

sonably well-mannered nobodies who could be called
upon to fill in the gaps when too many somebodies fought
shy of being salonized. If Mrs. Sorpende had been involved
in a scandal, that would make her even more
desirable because then she could be pointed out and whispered
about behind her back. Aunt Marguerite had aped
a famous Washington hostess by embroidering herself a
sofa pillow with the message, "If you can't think of anything
nice to say about anybody, come and sit next to
me," and she practiced what she preached.

So unless Mrs. Sorpende was an adept with the oiuja
board, she must have learned from somebody other than
Vangie Bodkin that Sarah Kelling was renting rooms.
Then why hadn't she given that person's name as a reference,
instead of telling a lie that could so easily get
found out? There was no second Mrs. G. Thackford Bodkin;
the widower was still a widower and living, so far as
Miss Hartler knew, in semi-seclusion.

But exactly how secluded was Mr. Bodkin? If he was
acquainted with Aunt Marguerite, and now in the position
of being an available extra man, she must be pestering
him with invitations right and left. Surely he must have
to respond sometimes, if only to decline, unless he'd gone
senile or something. Miss Hartler had no information on
that point. She'd merely described him as a quiet sort of
man and gone on exclaiming over the perfidy of Mrs.
Sorpende's having taken Vangie Bodkin's name in vain
while Sarah tried to make believe she herself must have
got the name wrong.

G. Thackford Bodkin was not the sort of name one got
wrong. Mrs. Sorpende must have heard it somewhere,
somehow, and who was to say that even if she didn't
know the wife, she hadn't been acquainted with the husband?
Her own marriage had not been happy, Sarah deduced
that from her one little confidence over the lingerie.
If Vangie Bodkin was an ultimate of Joanna Hartler, she
couldn't have been any Cleopatra, either. Perhaps the
two disappointed spouses had become clandestine lovers,
and perhaps Mr. Bodkin had mentioned Sarah Kelling's
lodging house venture to Mrs. Sorpende after he'd got the
news from Marguerite.

Maybe that was why she'd come up here to Boston. After
a decent interval, Mr. Bodkin would follow, pretend to

128	Charlotte MacLeod

strike up an acquaintance with an attractive stranger, and
marry her.

But if the two years that had already passed since
Vangie's death wasn't a decent enough interval, then
what was? Mrs. Sorpende was no chicken and Mr. Bodkin
probably well into his seventies. More likely, she'd decided
she'd better get on a streetcar that was moving.

Everybody knew Sarah Kelling was broke, but everyone
also knew Sarah had rich relatives, that some of them
were bachelors, and that one of those bachelors was about
to become a great deal richer than he was already. And
Mrs. Sorpende had already met him and been a smash
from the start, but Dolph was a fusty old prig and if he
found out she'd been carrying on with one of Marguerite's
neighbors on the sly, he'd back off in a hurry. And if
Mrs. Sorpende did have a scandal in her past, either Mr.
Bodkin or any other person or circumstance, who'd have
been likeliest to know and most eager to use it against her
if he got the chance?

She must have sized up Mr. Quiffen right away as a
troublemaker of the first water. She might also have
known he was having Dolph shadowed. Who knew what
her sources of information might be? If Mrs. Sorpende
did want to find out anything about anyone, the odds were
there'd be some man ready and willing to tell her. And if
she saw her way clear to snaring the heir to Great-uncle
Frederick's fame and fortune, and if nasty old Barnwell
Quiffen posed a present threat to either Dolph's or her
own prospects, might not a big, hefty woman without a
decent shred of underwear to her name take drastic steps
to remove that threat?

Suppose Mrs. Sorpende had got rid of Mr. Quiffen with
a minimum of fuss and bother? Suppose that by a hellish
coincidence she'd found his room taken over almost at
once by a man from Newport; a man whose sister had
been the bosom buddy of the woman she'd falsely named
as a reference; a garrulous indiscreet old man who of
course knew Vangie Bodkin was dead and might know a
good many other things she wouldn't care to have him
blurt out at some inconvenient time. Mightn't she be
tempted to try her luck again?

Mrs. Sorpende had gone straight up to her room after
he'd left the house on the night he died, but Sarah knew
how easy it would have been for her to sneak down the

The Withdrawing Room	129

back stairs again. By then, the rest would have gone their
various ways, Sarah would be on the second floor, Mariposa
and Charles in the kitchen or the basement. Mrs.
Sorpende's coat was in the front hall closet, she'd simply
have to put it on and go out. If anybody did happen to
see her, she could have pretended she needed something
at the drugstore or wanted a breath of air or had decided
to drop in on a sick friend. Sarah had known better
than to give her boarders door keys, but Mrs. Sorpende
had only to snap the latch back so that she could return
without having to ring the bell, provided she made it before
Charles put on the night lock sometime around midnight.

Mr. Hartler might very well have told her where he
was going about those chairs. Mrs. Sorpende had that
pleasant, gracious way of chatting at least a few minutes
with everyone in the company. It would have been
natural enough for her to observe, "I hope you're not going
far on such a cold night," or something of the sort.
He'd almost certainly have replied, "Oh no, just over to
Fairfield Street," or wherever it happened to be.

She'd then have known just how and where to arrange
a supposedly accidental meeting, and suggest a cozy
stroll through the Garden on their way back. It really was
lovely with the lights in the trees and the golden dome of
the State House in the background. He'd have accepted,
either to oblige a lady or because he was happy the
chairs were authentic or down in the dumps because they
weren't. Bashing him over the head would have been an
extremely unladylike thing for her to do, but it was the
most plausible way for him to die there and she could
have managed easily enough, being so much larger,
younger, and stronger. With his bad heart, he might have
died from the shock of the blow alone.

And she could have rushed back to the house, up the
rear staircase, and been ready to put on Aunt Caroline's
elegant negligee and do her act of kindness when Sarah
collapsed after hearing the news. How did she happen
to be awake when everyone else on the upper floors slept
through the disturbance?

Mr. Bittersohn had been awake, too. He'd also been
out for the evening, and he'd never said where. Maybe
he himself wouldn't mind getting his whack at those seven
chairs, if they were worth as much as Mr. Hartler had

130	Charlotte MacLeod

seemed to think. But Mr. Bittersohn would never do a
thing like that!

Anyway, what about the rest of them? How did Sarah
know Professor Ormsby was really giving a paper at
MIT? Or that Mr. Porter-Smith and Miss LaValliere
had been together at that coffee house the whole evening?
Or that some totally unknown person hadn't come along
and committed a haphazard murder for no reason other
than to get at the money that was missing from Mr. Hartler's
wallet? Why should she get so wrought up just because
Mrs. Sorpende had happened to drop a little white
lie about her social connections?

That was no little white lie. It might have started out as
one but it wouldn't be for long. If Sarah was any judge
of character, Joanna Hartler was cast in the same mold
as Cousin Mabel. Cousin Mabel would never have drawn
a peaceful breath, notwithstanding the death of a beloved
brother or of the whole vast Kelling tribe, until she'd got
in touch with Aunt Marguerite and everybody else who'd
ever known Vangie Bodkin and found out precisely what
connection she'd had with Theonia Sorpende and if she'd
had none, why hadn't she? Mrs. Sorpende might have
been wicked or foolish or just plain unlucky, but she was
going to be the target for a great many wagging tongues
in any case. And those tongues could wag Sarah right
out of business if she didn't find a way to shut them up
very, very soon.
Exhausted as she was, Sarah appeared at the breakfast
table before anybody else. She poured coffee. She agreed
with Mr. Porter-Smith's observation that the barometric
high moving rapidly eastward from the Great Lakes meeting
the barometric low moving rapidly northward from
Cape Hatteras might well result in precipitation which
could take the form of rain, sleet, snow, or a mixture of
all three at the same time, Boston's weather being what it
is.

She listened to Miss LaValliere's plaints and Professor
Ormsby's grunts. She thanked Mr. Bittersohn politely
when he told her she looked like helL She waited until
Mrs. Sorpende had finished a late and leisurely breakfast
as usual. Then she put on a coat she hadn't worn for
years, tied a scarf down over her head and face as far as
it would go, and lurked.
Sure enough, it wasn't long before Mrs. Sorpende

The Withdrawing Room	131

came out the front door in her black coat, plum-colored
turban and matching scarf, and that large black handbag
that looked like leather but on close inspection was not,
Sarah let her get a good start, then followed.

She'd somehow expected Mrs. Sorpende to take the
same route across the Common that she'd followed before,
and that was exactly what happened. Again her quarry
made a beeline for the public convenience.

Now what? Did she make a fool of herself as she had
the other day? No, luck was with her. Not far away
stood a familiar shopping bag, and beside it the bundle
of garments that could only be Miss Mary Smith, industriously
sorting through one of those concrete trash containers
that are supposed to look like tree stumps.

Pretending to be cleaning out her handbag, Sarah sauntered
up to the stump. "Miss Smith," she murmured, "did
you happen to notice a large woman in a black coat and
purple turban go into the lavatory a moment ago?"

She dropped a clean tissue, last week's shopping list,
and a dollar bill she could ill spare into the stump. Miss
Smith deftly retrieved the right scrap.

"Yes, she comes every day."

"Where does she go when she comes out?"

"She never comes out."

"What?' Sarah forgot she was acting. It was a good
thing nobody happened to be within earshot at the moment.

"Keep your voice down," said Miss Smith primly. "Just
watch. In a minute or so you'll see an old scavenger like
me wearing red sneakers and carrying a Gilchrist's bag.
She'll cross the street and head for Temple Place. Go hide
in a doorway and wait."

So that was it. Why hadn't she guessed the first tune?
She'd seen Mrs. Sorpende ring enough changes on that
one black dress. The coat didn't look shabby with its elegantly
co-ordinated accessories. But unwind that velvet
turban, take off the matching scarf and gloves, pull an old
paper shopping bag, a pan- of sneakers, and a ratty scarf
out of that oversized pocketbook, take off your highheeled
boots and walk with a stoop to reduce your height,
use the scarf to hide your face and the bag with a few
newspapers on top to conceal your other belongings, and
a well-dressed matron could become a shuffling bagwoman
quickly enough. But why?

132	Charlotte MacLeod

Sarah followed Miss Smith's advice and slipped across
Tremont Street when the lights changed. Pretending to be
enthralled by a display of rock-and-roll records, she
waited with her back to the street. Sure enough, just as
the proprietor inside was beginning to look hopeful, a
pair of red sneakers and a bag from a store that had gone
out of business were reflected in the glass. Sarah waited
three seconds, then followed.

Most of the facades along Tremont Street have been
remodeled out of all resemblance to then- original concepts,
but some of the buildings behind those tatted-up
fronts have changed hardly at all. Tucked in among the
showy display windows are modest doorways leading to
tiny lobbies with self-service elevators and bulletin boards
oddly assorted names: optometrists, furriers, toupee makers,
dental laboratories, embroiderers, jewelers, hairdressers;
some of them so eminent they had no need for more
pretentious quarters, some who could afford no better,
some who just needed a place to work and liked the convenient
location and the view over the Common. It was
into one of these doorways that Mrs. Sorpende ducked.

Sarah's heart sank. She'd go up in the elevator, and
that would be that. But she did not go up in the elevator.
As Sarah recklessly opened the door, she glimpsed the
red sneakers disappearing up a filigreed wrought-iron
staircase that must antedate the elevator by many years.

Having come this far, Sarah was not about to quit. She
tagged after the sneakers, expecting them to stop at the
second floor. But they didn't. The staircase was sturdily
built in late Victorian style, and the sneakers made no
noise on its worn marble treads. However, the paper shopping
bag, bumping and crackling against the railings, gave
her sounds to follow without letting herself be seen. She
was on the third landing when she heard a door immediately
overhead being unlocked, opened, then locked
again.

Sarah turned and went back the way she'd come, feeling
somewhat winded. If this was part of Mrs. Sorpende's
daily routine, no wonder she bounced up and
down those stairs to the third-floor bedroom so nimbly.

In the lobby, Sarah studied the bulletin board. There
didn't seem to be much on the fourth floor except a dental
laboratory, a china-painting shop, and--aha!--a tearoom
that gave readings. Sarah knew about tearooms. Cousin

The Withdrawing Room	133

Mabel adored them. Some were cozy, and had been
around the downtown area so long they were practically
Boston landmarks. Others were not, and folded so quickly
that one wondered why the proprietors, so glib at foretelling
their patrons' futures, hadn't checked on their own
before they laid out the rent money. This place was
strange to Sarah, but she could guess what she might find
there: shabby plastic-covered chairs and tables, a minuscule
sandwich, a cup of bitter tea half full of leaves, and
three dollars' worth of chat from some earnest soul who
had shown remarkable psychic powers since earliest childhood.
Maybe Mrs. Sorpende was an addict like Cousin
Mabel, but why should she put on such an elaborately
unbecoming disguise just to get her tea leaves read?

Sarah poked the "up" button, got into the elevator, and
stepped off at the fourth floor. It was obvious to her at a
glance that Mrs. Sorpende's secret life was not involved
with china painting, at any rate. Nobody was in that tiny
shop except a youngish woman in a paint-streaked smock.
She came eagerly forward.

"Can I help you?"

"I was--just interested," Sarah stammered. "I'm an
artist of sorts myself, and one always wonders about
chances to make a little extra money, doesn't one?"

"One sure does," replied the proprietress with feeling.
"I honestly don't know what to tell you about the commercial
possibilities. It would depend on how good you
were and how much you know about marketing, I sup,
pose. I do some restoration, myself. Most of my customers
are antique dealers and hobbyists."

They got into talking shop, and Sarah was so delighted
to find someone she could chat with about art that she
spent more time than she'd meant to. She also blew some
of her grocery money on china-painting supplies. She'd
been wondering what she could possibly give as thankyou
presents to Aunt Emma, Anora Protheroe, and some
of the others who'd been particularly kind during her recent
ordeal. Plates and cups of her own design would be
both appropriate and affordable, and would give her a
chance to learn a new skill that could perhaps be utilized
to some profit.

Well, at least she'd accomplished something, but not
what she'd come for. Mrs. Sorpende wasn't getting her
dentures repaired, either. The laboratory doors were ajar

134	Charlotte MacLeod

and Sarah could see five or six earnest men bending over
plaster casts of people's jaws but no middle-aged, stoutish
woman with black hair and red sneakers.

So it had to be the tearoom, as she'd known all along it
would be. The time she'd spent with her new chum in the
china shop turned out to have been a fortunate delay, as
they were just opening for business. A middle-aged
woman wearing a voluminous gypsy costume and talking
with a nasal down-Maine twang came forward, beads and
bracelets clanking in merry greeting.

"Well, our first customer of the day! You've got a lucky
face, dear. I can tell that just by one look at you."

Then she'd better take a second look, Sarah thought,
sitting down in the rickety chair that was pulled out for
her and depositing her fragile bundle of blank china on
the chair closest by.

The proprietress offered a mimeographed menu that
offered a meager choice of sandwiches and Peach Delite
Salad, which Sarah knew from her experiences with
Cousin Mabel would most likely be a dab of cottage
cheese and half a canned peach. People didn't come to
such places for the food. She ordered a cheese sandwich
she didn't want The tea came as a matter of course. The
hostess said briskly, "Now, since you're the first, our
readers happen to be all unoccupied at present Take
your pick."

The pick was not large. Two other women dressed like
the hostess in floppy blouses, wide skirts, and a great deal
of costume jewelry were sitting at the table in the corner
nearest the kitchen. The one facing Sarah was tiny and
wizened. The one with her face turned away was large
and stately, with exquisite hands and a long black braid
hanging down below her flowered kerchief. Sarah said
with her heart in her mouth, "I'll take the black-haired
lady, please."
Whatever else she might be, Mrs. Sorpende was a
trouper. She brought in the skimpy lunch with the aplomb
of a high priestess, took the chair opposite Sarah, and
waited in an attitude of serene contemplation until the
sandwich was eaten and the tea drunk. Then she picked
up the cup, spilled the dregs into the saucer, went through
the usual routine of poking among the wet leaves, and
said with a rueful smile, "I see you are about to part with
one of your third-floor tenants."

The Withdrawing Room	135

"Surely you've picked the wrong leaf," Sarah replied.
"If you mean what I think you do, then please be assured
that what my tenants do outside the house is no business
of mine provided, as Mrs. Pat Campbell once remarked,
they don't do it in the street and scare the horses. One
tenant in particular must have led an exceptionally blameless
life. Otherwise she'd know that the police might take
a dim view of any landlady who'd evict one of her boarders
while they're investigating the murder of another.
Therefore I can't do anything but apologize for any awkwardness
the present situation may have created and continue
to muddle through as best I can. Is there any sign
the tenant will cooperate?"

"I am sure you can count on the tenant's fullest
co-operation," said Mrs. Sorpende, her regal manner belied
by the tears in her eyes.

"Good. And the tenant can count on mine. I realize
how annoying it could be for a professional person to be
pestered by her housemates for free advice at odd hours."

"Speaking of professionals ..." As the proprietress
happened to be passing the table on her way to greet an
elderly man who must be a favored regular customer,
Mrs. Sorpende picked up the cup again and poked at the
soggy residue. "Are you aware that you may have somebody
in the house whose profession is quite different from
what he says it is?"

"Who, for instance?"

"Offhand, I'd say your handsome author is a plainclothes
policeman."

Sarah's heart skipped a beat. "Why do you say that?"

"Because I can smell them in the dark. My life has not
been wholly blameless and my experience has been vast.
Since you're paying for advice, here's mine: don't waste
too much of your time on illustrations that will probably
never get printed or paid for."

"Thank you for telling me," said Sarah with perhaps a
shade less gratitude than Mrs. Sorpende might have felt
entitled to expect. "I hope you'll keep your suspicions to
yourself, though, until I've had a chance to do some checking.
If this man is putting on an act he may have a perfectly
valid and possibly important reason for doing so.
On the other hand he may be what he represents himself
to be and I shall get paid for my work. And quite frankly,
I could use any spare cash that's coming just now."

136	Charlotte MacLeod

"Who couldn't?" The strain Mrs. Sorpende must have
been under exploded into a nervous little giggle. "Please
don't think I'm hinting for a tip. I shouldn't accept one if
you ottered."

"Good, because I don't think I have any extra money
left anyway." Sarah laid her last three dollars on the table,
pulled on her gloves, picked up her china, and
walked out.

As she left, the proprietress gave her a toothy smile
and said, "Come again." Sarah smiled back automatically
but she wouldn't be returning. She'd already got what she
came for, and a little more besides.

Chapter 18

As Sarah came over the hill, she found a station wagon
blocking Tulip Street and somebody loading the last of
several items into the back. None of them, she was relieved
to see, had ever belonged to the Kellings. Miss
Hartler must be getting rid of the stuff Wumps had
amassed, and the sooner the better for both her and her
unhappy landlady.

It would be lovely if Miss Hartler decided of her own
volition to go back to Rhode Island where her friends and
her church work were. If she didn't, Sarah was quite prepared
to do the deciding for her. One couldn't go on
ladling cranberry juice over a wet blanket forever.

At least Miss Hartler must be up and functioning, if
she'd bestirred herself to make people come and get their
spurious artifacts. In fact, when Sarah entered the front
hall, the woman came popping out of the drawing room
much as her late brother would have done.

"Oh, Sarah, there you are. That maid of yours didn't
seem to know where you'd gone or when you'd be back.
I don't think she even understands what I'm saying half
the time."

"I'm sure Mariposa understands perfectly well," Sarah
answered. "However, if you've read that list of house
rules I put on your tray, you must have learned that the
staff are responsible only to me."

"Yes, dear, and I was trying to obey. I knew I mustn't
go interfering in the kitchen, but I did think somebody
ought to let your cook know as early as possible about
putting dinner forward."
"Putting dinner forward? Whatever for?"

137

138	Charlotte MacLeod

"Why, my dear, you know we're to have the--the
viewing this evening. Only of course there can't be one
because dear Wumps--but naturally people will wish to
pay their respects--and I naturally assumed--"

"The visiting hours are to be at the funeral parlor,
aren't they? You don't mean to tell me you've invited
anybody here?"

"Well, no, not tonight But we're supposed to be there
from half-past seven until ten o'clock. That means we
shall have to serve dinner an hour early in order to--"

To her credit, Sarah managed to reply in a calm, level
voice. "Miss Hartler, if you'd like a tray in your room at
six, I'll be glad to see that you get it. Afterward, Charles
can call a taxi for you. The household will stick to its
usual schedule. No doubt some of us will go to the undertaker's
this evening, but we'll have plenty of time after
dinner."

"But, Sarah, I was counting on your support!"

This was a bit much. "Then you weren't thinking very
realistically, were you? I'm sure you have plenty of old
friends who'll be only too willing to help you get through
the funeral. You also have the undertaker and his assistants
whose job it is to manage everything for you. As for
myself, I have this big house to run and six people paying
me a good deal of money to stay in it. My boarders work
hard all day, they come here afterward expecting a period
of relaxation and a leisurely home-cooked meal. If I were
to disappoint them, I'd be liable for a breach of contract
Anyway, I don't intend to."

"Surely, in a house of mourning--"

"I'm sorry, but this is not a house of mourning. It's a
boardinghouse, and your brother was one of the boarders.
I know that sounds cruel, but it's something you absolutely
must understand. Mr. Hartler may have meant the
world to you, but to me he was no more than a casual acquaintance
and the others had never even met him until
last Monday. Of course we all feel dreadful about what
happened to him, but you can't expect us to heap ashes
on our heads for a man we hardly knew."

The sister's blue lips quivered. "Everybody loved
Wumps."

"I'm sure his friends loved him," said Sarah as gently
as she could. "Would you like me to call any of them? I
do understand how painful all this must be for you, and

The Withdrawing Room	139

I'm quite willing to do anything I reasonably can. Have
you eaten lunch? How about a grilled cheese sandwich
and a glass of cranberry juice?"

"Oh no, thank you. I shouldn't dream of putting you to
the trouble. As to the telephoning, I've already got in
touch with dear Marguerite and one or two others.
They've promised to spread the word around. By the way,
Marguerite will be driving up later this afternoon with
Iris Pendragon and she wasn't sure who else. Perhaps you
might care to call her back, and explain about dinner. She
naturally assumed you'd be putting them up."

"Then she'd better change her mind in a hurry. I
haven't a spare bed in the house, and we don't take extra
guests at dinner without at least a day's advance notice.
They're all rich as Croesus, they can go to the Copley
Plaza or somewhere. And pay for it themselves:"

"Sarah, your own aunt!"

"She's only my aunt by marriage and I'm no longer
married, so that doesn't count anymore. We'll invite her
and the rest of her crew back here for a glass of sherry or
something after the funeral, if you want."

"Oh, as to that--well, dear, there was nothing else I
could do, was there? One has to make a gesture, and this
is the only home I have now."

"How many gestures did you make?" Sarah asked with
a sinking feeling in her stomach.

"My dear, how can I possibly know? I did explain,
didn't I, that I'd only spoken to a couple of the people
personally. The matter is quite out of my hands by now.
Friends will surely rally around. Dear Wumps was so very
popular. Marguerite may have some idea of how many
to expect."

By this time, Marguerite was no doubt chartering a
plane to fly dear Wumps's old buddies in from Honolulu.
Sarah groaned.

"I don't know where you thought I was going to put
them all. I don't even have a drawing room anymore.
We'll have to stuff those vases and whatnot under the bed
and open up the room you're sleeping in."

"No, please! We can't let anybody in there."

"Suit yourself. Then they'll just have to stand out on
the sidewalk and you can hand their refreshments through
the library window."

140	Charlotte MacLeod

"Sarah, I must say I did expect a little cooperation
from you, considering what I'm paying for this room."

"So far you're not paying anything, Miss Hartler.
You're simply using up the week's rent your brother had
already paid."

"Well, naturally I intend--"

"We'll talk about that when the time comes, shall we?"
Sarah had already made up her mind what she was going
to say. "What you don't appear to realize is that you've
put me in an impossible position. If there were any way
to get in touch with all those people who have no doubt
by now been invited to come here after the funeral, I'd
insist that you tell them you've arranged for a little reception
at a hotel or somewhere, as you should have done in
the first place. Perhaps you could have the vicar make an
announcement after the service."

"Sarah I That would be unthinkable."

"And probably useless because there are sure to be a
bunch who'll dodge the ceremonies but show up for the
free drinks. There always are. All right, you've stuck me
with it and I'll have to make the best of it. But we'll have
to use that room whether you like it or not, so you'd better
start putting things away and at least give people a
place to stand."

"I can't. I'm simply not up to it."

"You were energetic enough yesterday. Thank goodness
it's clean, at least. Come on, I'll help you."

"No!" Miss Hartler threw herself across the doorway in
a dramatic gesture quite out of keeping with her usual
mousiness. "If my brother's last haven is to be invaded,
then I will make it ready as best I can. This is a cruel,
cruel imposition!"

"It certainly is." Sarah gave up trying to be considerate.
"And you'll have to give me the money for whatever
you intend to serve."

"But can't you simply give me the bills after this is,"
Miss Hartler choked, "all over?"

Jeremy Kelling had drawn up one inviolable rule that
was not on the list. "When it comes to money, don't trust
'em one cent's worth. Get everything in advance, cash on
the button." It was a good rule, and Sarah was not about
to break it.

"No, I'm sorry but I can't. Surely Aunt Marguerite's

The Withdrawing Room	141

told you how desperately hard-up I am? What were you
planning to offer them?"

"Oh, dear, I hadn't--you're being so very--I suppose
I mustn't--couldn't your cook just make some little sandwiches,
and perhaps petits fours? And a nonalcoholic fruit
punch for those who don't want sherry, though I suppose
some will expect cocktails--and tea and coffee for those
who insist on--"

"Nobody's going to want fruit punch but you," said
Sarah. "We'll stick to sherry and biscuits and a few
spreads or dips or something. Unless you want to hire a
caterer, though I can't imagine you'd be able to find one
at the last minute willing to take on an unspecified number
of people. Give me fifty dollars and I'll do the best I
can. If there's any left over I'll return it to you with an
itemized statement of what I spent."

"But, Sarah, Wumps would have hated such a meager
--"

"We're not going to argue about this, Miss Hartler. We
can't put on a big spread because we haven't the room.
Anyway, I don't want them hanging around. You'll have
to get them all out of here by five o'clock so that we can
scramble the place together and have things presentable
for my boarders. By then you'll be exhausted and glad to
see them go, anyway. Believe me, I know. Now would
you please give me the money?"

Tight-lipped, Miss Hartler went and got fifty dollars out
of her handbag, then shut herself in the drawing room
and began banging things around. At last Sarah was free
to get rid of her coat and her china and find herself a bite
to eat.

It was no doubt rotten of her to be treating an old
woman this way, but it had been pretty scaly of Miss
Hartler to pull such a trick on her, too. She and her
brother had been peas in a pod, no doubt about that, both
thinking they could do as they pleased in somebody else's
house.

Sarah tried several times to reach Aunt Marguerite and
straighten her out on the entertainment situation, but the
line was always busy. When she at last did get through,
she was informed that the mistress had already left for
Boston in the limousine with several friends. The mistress
and her coterie didn't know it yet, but they were in for a

142	Charlotte MacLeod

cool reception if they came here with any great expectations.

They did, of course. Marguerite swooped in dripping
mink and gush, wanting to know where the chauffeur
should put up the car.

"Tell him to drive around the block and pick you up
in half an hour," Sarah told her before Miss Hartler could
get a word in. "They're holding a couple of rooms for you
at the Copley."

"But I thought we'd be staying here!"

"I could put you up at Ireson's Landing if you want to
rough it by yourselves. There's no heat or light and the
water isn't turned on, but you could use oil lamps and
camp around the fireplace. That's absolutely the only
scrap of extra room I have, Aunt Marguerite. I've even
got tenants in the attic and the basement I thought you
understood."

"Well, apparently I didn't. I must say, Sarah--"

"Must you?" said her former niece-in-law wearily. "I
did try to get you on the phone to make the position clear,
but first your line was busy and then you'd already left.
Bring your friends in for a cup of tea if you want. You
can have a little visit with Miss Hartler, but you'll have
to sit in the library. She's sleeping in what used to be the
drawing room."
"Good heavens! Poor Caroline must be positively Spin1,	ning
in her grave."

|]	Even Marguerite realized that was not a tactful remark.
She went back to the front door and called in her
friends. "This way for tea, girls. The loo's down the hall,
Iris, since you were about to ask. Show her, Sarah."

"It's only reachable through the front bedroom now.
I've had some remodeling done. You can use mine, Mrs.
Pendragon. First door to your left at the head of the
stairs. Miss Hartler, please make your guests comfortable
while I get the tea."

It was jolly well going to be tea, too, although Sarah
knew perfectly well that when Marguerite and her crowd
said tea they meant something else. Not being served
cocktails would get them out of here faster than hints,
snubs, or even threats of bodily harm.

No doubt, she mused as she warmed the pot and set
out the tray, Miss Hartler was in there now telling them
I1	how unutterably horrid Sarah was being about Darling

The Withdrawing Room	143

Wumps's terrible, terrible tragedy. Granted, it was a terrible
tragedy and granted Sarah was being horrid. However,
she had every intention of being even horrider it

Miss Hartler showed any sign of wishing to linger on here
once darling Wumps was safely underground.

She lugged in the tray, noted the expressions of shocked
disappointment with sardonic satisfaction, left Aunt Marguerite
to pour, and went back to the kitchen for more hot
water. As she was refilling the kettle, Mr. Bittersohn came
in through the back alley door.

"Hi, Mrs. Kelling. What's new?"

"Don't ask," she snarled, "I'm in the midst of a full-scale
snit"

"Any special reason?"

"Go open that back hall door for a moment"

He obeyed. The blast of gabble from the library hit like
a sonic boom.

"My God! Have you started a turkey farm?"

"Oh, no, that's just Aunt Marguerite and a few of her
friends from Newport who breezed in here a few minutes
ago expecting me to give them dinner and put them up for
the night. And if you think that's a racket, wait till tomorrow
afternoon. Miss Hartler very sweetly invited all dear
Wumps's old friends back here after the funeral."

"What the hell did you let her do that for?"

"I didn't let her, she simply went ahead and did it. And
we can't call it off because everybody's been calling everybody
else and nobody has the remotest idea who's been
notified and who hasn't I've told that crowd in there they
can either freeze to death in the dark at Ireson's Landing
or go to a hotel at their own expense. A moment ago I
actually found myself wishing I had Mr. Quiffen back.
He was the nastiest person I've ever come across, but you
knew he was going to be awful, so you could plan your
strategy accordingly. The Hartlers have both been angels
by comparison, and they've driven me to screaming
frenzy. Don't bother trying to explain it, I have to go and
pour some boiling water down Aunt Marguerite's back."

"Sounds like a great idea to me."

Bittersohn held the door and she went on down the
hall with her hot water. When she returned with a trayload
of used cups, he was still in the kitchen, munching
on one of the Ireson's Landing apples.

"Did you?" he asked.

144	Charlotte MacLeod

"Did I what?" said Sarah abstractedly, fishing under
the sink for the dishwashing liquid.

"Pour boiling water down Aunt Marguerite's back."

"Oh, that. No, I'm sorry to report that my loftier nature
prevailed. I did give them lapsang souchong instead
of martinis, though, and I quite pointedly refrained from
inviting them all to dinner. I hope I was inhospitable
enough so that they won't show up tomorrow, either, but
no doubt they'll have forgotten by then. They haven't an
ounce of gray matter among them. Here, if you intend to
hang around the kitchen, you might as well grab a dish
towel. There's no room for drones in this hive. Why
aren't you out detecting something, anyway?"

"It's my afternoon off.'"

"Oh, good heavens 1" Sarah almost let a Spode saucer
get away. "I quite forgot tomorrow is Mariposa's afternoon
off, and her niece is in a play at school and she's
promised faithfully to be there. And Charles can't possibly
take another day off from the factory because he's
already missed once this week and they'll dock him if he
takes another, and he can't afford that because he's saving
up to buy a new tooth."

"What for? He's already got a tooth, hasn't he?"

"Yes, lots of them, but he broke one off playing soccer
and he thinks it's hampering his stage career so he wants
to get it capped. Mariposa and I keep telling him it looks
--what's that ridiculous word--macho, because we're
scared to death he may be right. If he gets a good role,
we're up the creek, but of course I can't deliberately
stand in his way."

"So you plan to face the screaming mob alone tomorrow?"

"Actually I was planning to see if I could borrow Egbert
from Uncle Jem."

"Why don't you ask Mrs. Sorpende to pitch in? She
likes to be helpful, doesn't she?"

"Yes, but she's got a job already."

"Doing what?"

"Telling fortunes in a soi-disant gypsy tearoom. And if
you ever breathe a word about that to one living soul,
I'll put my own personal hex on you, and if you think I
don't mean it, go ask Miss Hartler. I've really been treating
her miserably today and I suppose I ought to hate
myself for it, but, honestly! Asking thousands and thou-

The Withdrawing Room	145

sands of people to my house without so much as breathing
a hint to me first, and then throwing a kitten fit
because I told her she'd have to let us use the drawing
room."

"Did she, now?"

"She certainly did! And she was going on about fancy
sandwiches and little frosted cakes as if-- Oh, don't mind
me! They'll get cheap sherry and crackers out of a box
and if they don't like it that's just too bad."

"Maybe nobody will come."

"You know better than that. They'll flock in droves
because he got his poor old face bashed in. People are
such ghouls! And 111 be rushing back and forth trying to
wash enough glasses and make sure nobody puts lighted
cigarettes down on the furniture, and you simply have no
idea what it's going to be like. Consider yourself lucky
that you won't have to find out."

"Mrs. Kelling, do you think I'd fink out on a pal in a
crunch? Sorry, I forgot this is going to be an upper-crust
brawl. I will abide by thy right side and keep the bridge
with thee, or at least I'll send a trusted member of my
investigative staff to keep an eagle eye on the furniture."

Bittersohn dried a final saucer and hung the damp
towel neatly on the rack, as Alexander might have done.
"Now, if we're quite through here I'll just step down the
hall and see if Miss Harder would like some help juggling
the lolani Palace around. I assume the tumult and the
shouting have temporarily died?"
"Oh yes, they cleared out as soon as they saw I really
meant tea. It would be awfully nice of you to help Miss
Hartler, if she'll let you. I offered and she did a Sarah
Bernhardt about handling dear Wump's precious relics,
but perhaps she'll be more receptive with you."

"Why should she be?"

"Elderly maiden ladies are apt to be more gracious
with kind young men, aren't they? Besides, she started
grilling me about my tenants yesterday, and I explained
that your people are neighbors of ours at Ireson's Landing,
and that your mother doesn't call but you yourself
aren't a bit snobbish. Could you try to combine a pose
imperious with a demeanor nobly bland?"

"You can bet I shan't be too deucedly condescending
to that old bat, anyway." And with that gracious promise,
Bittersohn was gone.

In less than three minutes, Bittersohn was back in the
kitchen. "Miss Hartler does not require any help, thank
you. She wonders if it would be too much of an imposition
to remind Mrs. Kelling that she was promised a tray
in her room before she goes to fulfill her sad duty. A glass
of cranberry juice and a poached egg on toast will do
nicely. It will be unnecessary for your butler to call a cab
as dear Marguerite has kindly offered to send the limousine.
She would find it a great comfort if any of dear
William's former housemates would care to pay a brief
visit to the undertaker's this evening although she realizes
that is rather too much to hope for since, as dear
Mrs. Kelling took the trouble to point out, we knew him
for so short a time. I expect that means show up or else,
eh?"

"It means do as you please, as far as I'm concerned,"
Sarah replied. "I'll go myself, of course, and I daresay
Mrs. Sorpende won't mind going with me. And it wouldn't
kill Jennifer LaValliere to put in an appearance because
Miss Hartler knows her grandmother, who'll no doubt be
there, too. And if she goes, Mr. Porter-Smith might tag
along for the ride. I'm sure Professor Ormsby won't. I
rather doubt if he ever happened to notice Mr. Hartler's
existence, much less his demise."

"Ormsby does tend to have a single-track mind," Bittersohn
agreed. "Or would you call it double-track?
Sorry, that was rude and uncouth. Do you mean that's
what she does for a living? Read tea leaves, I mean."

"I don't know whether she earns a living by it, but
that's what she was doing this morning, and that's what

»	146

The Withdrawing Room	147

she's been doing for some while, according to what Miss
Smith told me. We had a little tete-a-t6te over one of

the trash cans on the Common."

Sarah gave him a brief rundown of her morning's adventure
and its strange outcome. "Would you have believed
such a thing possible?"

"No. I naturally assumed she modeled corsets for stylish
stouts," Bittersohn replied. "It doesn't make sense. She's
intelligent, good-looking, well dressed. Nice appearance,
anyway. Has a pleasant personality and talks like a duchess.
Surely a woman like Mrs. Sorpende could find a better
job than that, unless she's just doing it for kicks."

"She can't be. She's desperately hard-up. At least Mariposa
thinks she is, and Mariposa's an expert on poverty.
And a teashop wouldn't pay much, would it? Besides, it
was so--so out of character for her to be there. I'd begun
to think she and I were getting to be perhaps not quite
friends, but certainly something in that general direction.
And now I realize I don't know her at alL Excuse me, I
have to get at the toaster."

Sarah fussed over the tray she was preparing for Miss
Hartler. "Mr. Bittersohn, do you think I did the right thing
In telling her she oughtn't to move out while the police are
hunting for whoever killed Mr. Hartler? You see, I can't
help wondering."

She told him what she'd been thinking about Mrs. Sorpende
and Dolph. "That's ridiculous, isn't it? I'd have
been doing her a terrible injustice if I'd asked her to move,
wouldn't I?"

"Not only her. What about Ormsby? You want a
blighted romance on your hands on top of everything else?
All I can say is, you did just about what I'd have done,
Mrs. Kelling, if that makes you feel any better."

"Oh, it does! Would you hand me that tiniest frying
pan? Murders come and murders go, but trays go on forever,
it seems. What on earth is keeping Mariposa? She
ought to be setting the table by now."

As Sarah was lifting Miss Hartler's poached egg out of
the frying pan, Mariposa rushed up the back stairs, wearing
a brand-new uniform of royal purple with fuchsia trimmings.

"Sorry I'm late, but I went shopping. How does this
grab you?" Hands on hips, she twirled in a very good imitation
of a professional model. "Charles said I better get

148	Charlotte MacLeod

something less jazzy than that orange job I been wearing,
because we've got to act dignified at a time like this. I
blew thirty bucks of the tooth money."

"It was worth every nickel," Bittersohn assured her solemnly.
"Don't you think so, Mrs. Kelling?"

"I only wish you'd been here this afternoon to serve tea
to my aunt-in-law and her friends," said Sarah. "You'd
have knocked them dead."

"Invite 'em back," said Mariposa.

"I would if I thought it would really work. Here, you
can take Miss Hartler's tray to her instead. She'll be impressed,
I'm sure."
"Though I hope not favorably," Sarah added after
Mariposa had got through the swinging door. "Oh, dear, I
do wish I didn't have to go through this business tonight.
The mere thought of it makes me sick to my stomach."

"I tell you what," said Bittersohn, "after we finish eating,
I'll bring my car around and drive you over, along
with anybody else who wants to go."

"That's awfully kind, but why should you get stuck with
a miserable evening? I could get the Studebaker."

"Mrs. Kelling, you wouldn't take that precious antique
out in the cold night air? It might catch cold in its plugs.
Besides, I think my brother-in-law has a customer for you,
so you'd better not risk scraping a fender."

"Has he really? How much did he say--"

Bittersohn named a figure and Sarah gasped.

"As much as that? But this person's never even seen the
car."

"Actually, I believe he did go over it when they had it
at the station last month. He was ready to make an offer
then, but Ira and Mike didn't think you'd want to hear
about it. This is a serious collector, and he knows what a
1950 Starlite Coupe in top condition should be worth. Ira
says it's a fair price. You might get more if you held off,
but since you're planning to take the car off the road
pretty soon anyway there doesn't seem to be a great deal
of point in letting a bona ride buyer slip out of your
hands."

"No, I don't suppose there are all that many, are there?
And I'd have to pay storage. I'd never dare leave the
Studebaker out at Ireson's after what happened to the
Milburn."

The Withdrawing Room	149

Bittersohn studied her face. "You'd rather refuse,
wouldn't you?"

"Naturally I would, but I'm not stupid enough to do it.
Please tell your brother-in-law that I shall be happy to accept
whatever offer he thinks reasonable, and that I shall
expect him to deduct the usual agent's fee with my sincere
thanks."

"Ira wouldn't take a fee from you."

"Why not? Most other people would, like a shot, if they
ever got a chance. I must say your family isn't much like
mine. You're tremendously kind to take so much trouble
over my affairs, and Fd be delighted to ride with you this
evening if you're sure you want to go."

"I want to go. Tm studying the tribal customs of the
Wasps. Miss Harder will be there before us, I gather."

"Oh yes, ages before. She did suggest omitting our little
happy hour and having dinner early so that we could all
go together, but I did not take kindly to the suggestion.
You know, I think that's what's been giving me fits about
the Hartlers. Poor old William was sweet in his way, but
he was so utterly wrapped up in his own quirks and quiddities
that he couldn't imagine everyone else might not
want to share his enthusiasms. The sister's just like him,
only without charm. At least Mr. Quiffen was willing to
loathe you on your individual merits. Now do me one
more favor, since you're in such a generous mood, and go
nobble Mr. Porter-Smith and Mrs. Sorpende as they come
in. Tell them I shan't be dressing for dinner tonight since
I and anybody else who wants to will be going over to the
undertaker's, and there won't be time to change."

"It's not the done thing to show up in your cummerbund?"
"Nor your rhinestone tiara with the green chicken
feathers. Mariposa's new uniform has no doubt strained
Miss Hartler's nerves to the breaking point already. I have
enough ado to cope with my own hysterics, let alone hers
as welL If we can just get through tomorrow!"

"We shall overcome."

Bittersohn vanished. Mariposa reappeared. Charles
burst forth in white-gloved effulgence to escort Miss Hartler
out to the waiting limousine. Sarah cooked like mad,
then whisked off her apron and dashed to the library to
dispense sherry and small talk.

She was at least as nervous at having to face Mrs. Sor-

150	Charlotte MacLeod

pende after that bizarre encounter in the teashop as the
fortuneteller herself must be about what sort of reception
she'd get tonight. Mrs. Sorpende was no coward, though.
She was already in the library when Sarah entered. Sarah
solved the problem in the only way she knew, by tackling
it head-on.

"Oh, Mrs. Sorpende, I'm so glad of the chance to have
a word with you. It looks as if this may turn into a rather
sticky evening. Miss Hartler is expecting us all to troop
over in a body to pay our respects to her brother's remains,
and I'm sure not everyone will want to go. Is there
any hope of your helping me carry the torch? Mr. Bittersohn
has offered to drive us there and back."

"How kind of him," Mrs. Sorpende replied warily. "Will
it be just the three of us?"

She knows Mr. Bittersohn's a detective, Sarah thought.
She told me so. She thinks he and I plan to get her alone
somewhere and give her the third degree. Oh, God, do I
have another Aunt Caroline on my hands?

"I hope not," she said aloud. "I'm particularly determined
to push Jennifer LaValliere into going if I can. Her
people were acquainted with the Hartlers when they lived
in Boston, and it wouldn't hurt her to show a little character
for once, do you think?"

"Why not? She's already shown just about everything
else she owns," the woman answered with a flash of her
usual calm amusement. "I've reached an age where I can't
boast of any special rapport with the modern generation,
but I'll certainly do what I can to persuade her if you
want me to. And Mr. Porter-Smith is an amiable young
man, I'm sure he'd be willing. If you care for a professional
character reading on Professor Ormsby, however,
I'd advise you not to waste your breath."

"That strikes me as very sound advice," said Sarah,
laughing with relief that the tension was broken. "Let me
give you some sherry."

One by one the others trickled in. Professor Ormsby, a
male chauvinist to his boot heels, showed obvious distress
at seeing Mrs. Sorpende in her high-necked daytime frock.
Mr. Porter-Smith was naturally chagrined at having to
keep on his mundane business suit. Miss LaValliere pouted
when Sarah made the observation that her grandmother
would be expecting to see her at the funeral parlor, but

The Withdrawing Room	151

brightened when she found out she'd get to ride in Mr.
Bittersohn's car.

On the whole, they got through dinner comfortably
enough. Professor Ormsby managed to content himself
with noting how trimly Mrs. Sorpende's black dress accented
the Rubenesque contours of her well-girdled figure.
Jennifer LaValliere had the supreme and astounding tact
to say to Mr. Porter-Smith, "Why, Gene, I didn't realize
what broad shoulders you have." By the time they drank
their coffee, the atmosphere was quite agreeable.

Then Mr. Bittersohn vanished to get the car. Sarah
went through the routine of asking who wanted to go to
the undertaker's. Professor Ormsby, in accordance with
predictions, grunted and went upstairs. The rest got into
their wraps and waited for Mr. Bittersohn out on the steps,
since picking up passengers on Tulip Street invariably
led to honking horns and bellowed insults from cars
blocked in their efforts to get down the narrow, twisting
lane.

"Mind sliding in under the wheel, Mrs. Kelling?"

Bittersohn had Sarah in the front seat before Jennifer
LaValliere could get to it. She showed signs of wanting to
sit in the middle, but Mr. Porter-Smith showed a burst of
rrachismo by stuffing her in back beside Mrs. Sorpende
and climbing in after her. She had to content herself with
gurgling down the back of the driver's neck about what a
fabulous car it was, and asking questions that Mr. PorterSmith
took it upon himself to answer at great length. All
in all, Sarah enjoyed the short ride a good deal more than
she'd thought she would.
They found Miss Hartler holding court in front of a mercifully
closed casket surrounded by many expensive floral
tributes which probably should have included one from
the group at Tulip Street but didn't because Sarah simply
hadn't thought of sending any. She and her entourage got
what very nearly amounted to a brushoff from Aunt Marguerite
and the Newport contingent, who'd appointed
themselves ladies-in-waiting to the chief mourner. That
was fair enough, since they'd got the same sort of treatment
from her, but Sarah did feel a trifle embarrassed at
having dragged her boarders over here for so little purpose.

Luckily Dolph was in the room feeling a bit out of
things since he hadn't known Hartler or Hartler's friends

152	Charlotte MacLeod

all that well, and bustled over to greet them. Anora
Protheroe, who never missed a funeral if she could help it,
was also ready to chat. The dowager Mrs. LaValliere
soon collared Jennifer and trotted her off to meet some
people. Mrs. Sorpende was taken over by Dolph and Mr.
Porter-Smith entertained Anora with an account of picturesque
funeral customs among the ancient Franks and
Teutons.

Sarah looked around to make sure Mr. Bittersohn
wasn't being neglected, and found him in affable conversation
with a well-dressed, attractive-looking couple in
their fifties.

"Mrs. Kelling, have you met the Saxes? They've been
active in the lolani Palace project."

"Mrs. Kelling, this is a pleasure," said Mrs. Saxe, taking
her hand cordially. "How could you ever bear to part
with that beautiful fan you and your husband sent us?"

"Don't suppose you have any more of Queen Kapiolani's
house gifts kicking around?" asked Mr. Saxe.

"Not unless they're hidden under Miss Hartler's bed,"
Sarah told him. "I'm so sorry about those chairs that Mr.
Harder thought he'd turned up. His sister can't seem to
find any information about who has them among his papers.
I expect whoever it is will get in touch with you or
somebody else, though."

"I must confess I'm not exactly holding my breath in
expectation," Mr. Saxe admitted. "Hartler was a wellmeaning
old chap, but to be quite candid with you, he
had more enthusiasm than expertise. I'm afraid he got
badly cheated a few times. We finally had to ask him not
to bring in any more of his great finds till he'd got them
authenticated. And even his authentications weren't always
authentic, I'm afraid."

"Darling," said his wife, "I'm sure Mrs. Kelling doesn't
have to be told that poor Mr. Hartler was soft as a grape,
and getting softer by the minute, though he was a sweet
old thing in his way. I'd been wondering for some time
what was going to happen to that man, and I must say I
can't help being a little bit relieved that he went quickly,
though of course it's utterly ghastly that it happened as it
did. Still, I think I'd rather be knocked on the head myself
than shut up in a high-class looney bin."

"I'll remember that when the time comes, dear."

"Thank you, darling. Mrs. Kelling, do have Max bring

The Withdrawing Room	153

you over to visit us soon. We're always at home on Sunday
evenings and we have some marvelous things that
will be going over with the next shipment. George would
adore telling you all about them. Now don't you think
we've done our duty here? There's such a mob we'll
never be missed. Could we give you people a lift back to
the Hill?"

"Thanks, but I have my own car and a load of passengers
to round up," said Bittersohn somewhat abstractedly.
"Good to see you both."

The Saxes smiled and faded through the crowd. Sarah
turned to Mr. Bittersohn. "Then Mr. Hartler wasn't really
a Friend of the lolani Palace at all?"

"Sounds more like an enemy to me. I'm not sure what
their membership setup is, but he obviously didn't hold
any sort of official position."

"I can't believe it! Rather, I couldn't if I hadn't known
Great-uncle Frederick. He's the only other person I've
ever seen get totally involved in something that was none
of his business. No wonder Mr. Hartler was so scatty
about letting his visitors wander around loose and mess up
the house. I should have realized from the beginning that
he was missing on one or two cylinders, as Alexander
would have said. Don't you think it's strange Miss Hartler
would go tootling off to Rome and leave him on his own
in a city he'd been out of touch with for so long? Of
course she may not have realized because she adored him
so and I'm not sure she isn't a bit shaky in the brain herself.
Or perhaps she didn't feel able to cope so she
blocked it out and tried to escape. People can be awfully
blind about things they don't want to see."

"That's right," said Bittersohn. "How about introducing
me to your ex-auntin-law?"

"Whatever for?" gasped Sarah.

"I just want to ask her something."

"And I'm sure she'll want to ask you something. Like
are you married and can you play bridge and what are
you doing for dinner tomorrow evening. You don't realize
what you'd be getting into, Mr. Bittersohn. Meeting Aunt
Marguerite is like getting a formal introduction to the giant
squid in a horror movie."

"That's a risk I'll have to take."

"Then on your own head be it" Sarah wriggled back

154	Charlotte MacLeod

through the mass of humanity with him and went through
the ceremony with what grace she could muster.

"This is Mr. Bittersohn, who has my downstairs room,
Aunt Marguerite. You didn't meet him before because he
was parking the car. He's an art expert."

That bit of information was, she knew, superfluous.
Aunt Marguerite wouldn't have cared if he was the window
washer. Sarah got shunted to the periphery and
buttonholed by Iris Pendragon, who was so eager to know
how Sarah had ever managed to latch on to anything so
gorgeous that she couldn't hear a word of what he'd
wanted to ask Aunt Marguerite. Poor man, little did he
ken what a spate of invitations he was calling down on his
head from this gaggle of bored women. But perhaps he
met a great many bored women in his profession. Perhaps
he didn't find them all boring, either. Sarah rather wished
she hadn't thought of that.

In any event, he must have developed a knack for
dealing with them. In less time than she'd thought possible,
he'd managed to break away and put a protective
wall of bodies between himself and her and the ladies
from Newport.

"Mrs. Kelling, could you help me round up our passengers?
I've got to take you home and then get back to
work."

"Yes, of course. I didn't realize--"

But he was already gone from her side and heading
toward Miss LaValliere, who would need no coaxing.
Sarah, able to slip under people's arms and elbows because
of her slender littleness, managed to reach Mrs.
Sorpende, who was better equipped than she to serve as
a battering-ram. This crowd was horrendous. What if
they all showed up at the house tomorrow?

They wouldn't, surely. Some, like the Saxes, must be
people who'd felt an obligation to put in an appearance
but would be unlikely even to attend the funeral. And no
doubt there were a number who'd never met Mr. Harder
at all but merely wanted to be in on a sensation.

The papers had played up Mr. Hartler's gruesome
murder, but somehow the fact that he'd been Sarah Kelling's
second boarder to die by violence had been kept
out. How Mr. Bittersohn and Sergeant McNaughton had
managed that she couldn't imagine, but she'd be grateful
to them both forevermore. No doubt she was being

The Withdrawing Room	155

pointed out right now as the dead man's landlady and the
story would leak to the press sooner or later, but by then,
God willing, the funeral would be over and Miss Hartler
gone and she wouldn't have to call the police to control
the hordes.

Between them, she and Mr. Bittersohn got the group
herded out of the place and walked down to the elegant
car that was parked around the corner. Miss LaValliere
suggested dropping in somewhere for a drink, and was
shattered to learn that she'd be driven straight back to
Tulip Street and left standing on the sidewalk while Mr.
Bittersohn drove off into the night alone. Sarah was none
too happy about that, either, but right now she wasn't too
happy about anything.

Chapter 20

Sarah stayed downstairs after they got home, not because
she wanted to, not because she had to. Aunt Marguerite's
chauffeur would drive Miss Hartler to Tulip
Street after the visiting hours were over. Charles would
be on the alert to meet the car and help the old woman
into the house. Having her back would be no joy, and the
sooner they could get her out of here, the better for
everyone. Nevertheless, Sarah waited.

There were so many things that could happen to a
person her age, especially if that person might not happen
to have all her wits about her. Look what had happened
to the brother.

But exactly what had happened to William Hartler?
Was he robbed and killed by that still-unidentified man
who'd lured him from the house with a beguiling story
about King Kalakaua's dining room chairs? How did the
man know the crime would be worth the effort? Most
people with any sense at all didn't carry large sums of
cash around in the city.

Maybe the man had insisted he must be paid in cash
that same night and Mr. Hartler had withdrawn a large
sum earlier in the day when the banks were open. No,
that wasn't possible, because the man was still in Mr.
Hartler's room when Sarah had returned to find that
odious woman ransacking her china closet. That was his
excuse for having left the woman where he couldn't keep
an eye on her. Mr. Hartler hadn't gone anywhere afterward,
except for his quick shopping spree on Charles
Street just before dinner.

Sarah's impression was that Mr. Hartler had known

156

The Withdrawing Room	157

nothing of the chairs until the man with the photographs
showed up. If he'd got wind of them earlier, he'd surely
have been bending everyone's ear at breakfast, or shouting
the glad tidings to Mariposa over the roar of the vacuum
cleaner.

Miss Hartler had insisted to the police that dear Wumps
was always careful about money, though she didn't seem
to have the foggiest idea about the true state of his affairs.
She'd also been unable to find any reference to the
man with the chairs among his papers, but that didn't
mean anything. There probably had been no letter, only
the personal interview. Mr. Hartler would have made a
note of the address and stuck it in his pocket for later
reference. After he found the right place, he'd have
thrown the note away, or lost it in his excitement, or had
it taken from him either inadvertently or on purpose.

After what the Saxes had said, Sarah thought it quite
possible someone had been setting the old man up for a
swindel. If the chairs were authentic, the seller would
have been more apt to get in touch with the curator or
one of his approved agents, of whom Mr. Hartler had
certainly not been one. That woman who'd given her
such a hard time in the dining room might have been
there for that specific purpose, to distract anybody else
who might be in the house so that the man could dangle
his bait before the gullible Mr. Hartler and get away
without being seen.
If that was the case, she'd done her job well. She'd got
both Sarah and Mariposa so busy counting the spoons that
they hadn't given a thought to what was happening out
front. The woman had been a stranger to Mr. Hartler. He
couldn't even recall whatever name she'd given him. After
the previous visitor had gone, she'd made no effort to
accomplish what she'd supposedly come for, but cleared
out as fast as she could. Whoever the woman was, she'd
been no shrinking violet. If she'd left something of value
for appraisal, wouldn't it have been more in character for
her to insist on getting either her money or her property
before she left?

Everything fitted in nicely, except the murder. Swindlers
didn't usually kill their victims; Mr. Bittersohn had
told her so. Why should they? It was easier and less risky
to get the money and slip away before the purchaser realized
he'd been stung.

158	Charlotte MacLeod

What if Mr. Hartler had got there and realized he was
dealing with the same person who'd tricked him in some
previous deal? And why should he recognize the man on
the second visit when he hadn't spotted him back in his
own bedroom? Anyway, what if he had? Surely an expert
confidence man could fast-talk someone so easily
fooled into believing the previous episode was merely
some dreadful misunderstanding, or that he himself had
been taken in by a third party. Or he could have paid
Mr. Hartler back with a rubber check and gone hunting
for a new victim.

If anybody had tried such a stunt on Barnwell Quiffen
instead of feckless old Wumps, murder might have been
the only way out. Left alive, Mr. Quiffen would have called
the police, filed a lawsuit, sent damning letters to every
newspaper between Boston and Los Angeles, and put his
own private eye on the trail. But Mr. Quiffen had been
dead and buried a week ago. Why try to drag him into
this just because he'd happened to occupy the same room
for almost as short a time, and meet almost as violent an
end?

Suppose more than one swindle was going on. If Mr.
Hartler could let himself be gulled by a whole series of
bogus antiquarians, mightn't he also be apt to fall for a
scheme set forth by, say, a young man with an urge to
rise in the world, an expert's knowledge of figures, and a
gift for talking wisely on a wide range of subjects? Or
an old friend's wide-eyed granddaughter with a thirst for
adventure and a pair of strait-laced parents keeping her
on a short leash and a tight allowance? Or a noted professor
with some great scientific project to finance, or a
lady with a handsome front and a murky past who was
earning a hand-to-mouth existence reading tea leaves?

Or, she might as well face all the possibilities, an art
expert who knew the lolani Palace at least as well as
William Hartler did? Or a frustrated actor who wanted
his tooth capped, or the woman who was in love with him
and had no money except what she got washing dishes
and mopping floors for a hard-up widow with back taxes
and interest on two mortgages to pay? Maybe if she'd
happened to think of it in time, Sarah herself would have
had a go. Well, she could rule herself out, but how did
she really know what anybody else would do if the temptation
was great and an easy mark available?

The Withdrawing Room	159

Sarah didn't want to dwell on such thoughts. She didn't
want to think about Miss Harder and what was to become
of the old woman, either, but she couldn't help it. There
weren't any relatives to look after her; that was why
Bumps had stuck so close to Wumps all these years. Anyway,
relatives didn't come with any guarantee. What
about those two sharks who'd rushed over here as soon as
they heard of Mr. Quiffen's death? What had they ever
done for old Barnwell Augustus while he was alive, except
perhaps to make sure he didn't stay that way?

Since she was making up a list of possible swindlers,
why exclude either the nephew or the cousin? They both
knew Mr. Hartler was going to take over the dead man's
room because she'd told them so when she was urging
them to get his stuff out quickly. They'd probably had
some sort of casual acquaintance with Mr. Hartler, since
he seemed to know everybody, and knew what a cinch
he'd be to deal with. And, as Mr. Bittersohn would probably
say, would she buy a used car from either of them?

But they had Mr. Quiffen's money now, or would have
once the estate was settled. And what if one of them
couldn't wait that long? And what if one, or both, might
be in for a disappointment? She'd been so busy with her
own concerns, she'd never checked back with George and
Anora to find out who got how much. That cantankerous
man might well have left a secret will cutting them both
out and turning over the lot to some casual acquaintance
out of pure cussedness. Somebody like William Hartler
and his lolani Palace project, for instance.

Oh, that was absurd 1 Why didn't she concentrate on the
most immediate problem? Did Miss Hartler have anybody
to protect her interests, or did she not? Precisely how dangerous
would it be to tell her she had to move?

How many of that mob there tonight really cared about
her and how many simply felt they ought to put in an appearance?
Aunt Marguerite was putting on a great show
of being Joanna's loyal friend, but Sarah knew how much
that was worth. How many times had she herself entreated
Aunt Marguerite to invite Aunt Caroline, her own and
only sister, for a week or a few days or even overnight so
that Sarah and Alexander could have a little time to themselves?
How many times had Marguerite found urgent and
pressing reasons why she didn't care to be bothered?

There were lots of delightful people in Newport. Sarah

160	Charlotte MacLeod

had met quite a few of them at those many parties which
had meant a long drive down and a long drive back and
often stark boredom in between. But she'd never met anyone
interesting at Aunt Marguerite's more than once or
twice. The only acquaintances who stuck were the ones
like Iris Pendragon, who hadn't the wit or the wisdom to
find places in more discerning company. And William
Hartler, who was quaint and fun in his way and didn't
care whom he talked to so long as he got to talk, and his
sister Joanna, who went wherever Wumps went.

After all, if the Hartlers had been particularly close to
anybody in Newport, they'd have been reluctant to uproot
themselves at their time of life and move back to Boston.
If they'd had strong ties in Boston beforehand, they'd
never have gone to Newport in the first place. That disappointing
trip to Rome was an example of how they operated.
Miss Joanna couldn't ever have taken the trouble to
know this Dorothea, who turned out to be totally different
from the classmate she'd thought she remembered. People
didn't change a great deal as they aged, they only became
more like whatever they'd started out to be in the first
place.

Even Alexander must always have had that boy-stoodontheburning-deck
streak in him, or he'd have found
some way to break away from Aunt Caroline. Then he
and Sarah would never have married, and his young
widow wouldn't be sitting here wondering who was going
to get murdered next. A footfall sounded in the hallway,
and she jumped a foot.

It was Mrs. Sorpende. "I thought you might be down
here, Mrs. Kelling, after I rapped at your door and got
no answer. You're waiting for Miss Hartler, I expect."

"Yes, I felt I ought to. I don't know why, particularly,
except that she's an old woman going through a dreadful
experience, and I've got her on my conscience because I
plan to get rid of her as fast as possible and I'm wondering
what's going to happen to her after that."
"And what about me?"
Sarah blinked. "What do you mean?"
Mrs. Sorpende was standing square in front of her,
those lovely, tapered hands twisted into an ugly, whiteknuckled
knot. "Please, Mrs. Kelling, don't try to spare
my feelings. Just tell me. Do I stay or go?"
All Sarah could think of to say was, "It depends."

The Withdrawing Room	161

"On what?"

How did one answer that? On whether you happen to
be the person who's killing off my boarders? Sarah hedged
as best she could.

"Mrs. Sorpende, I can't tell you at this point because I
don't know. I started this boardinghouse thing in the hope
of helping myself out of a dreadful mess, as you know. So
far all it's brought me is worse trouble. I may be able to
carry on with it, or I may not. As for you personally, if
you think I feel any more embarrassed by your job than I
do about my Uncle Jem's pretensions to satyriasis or my
Cousin Dolph's making a jackass of himself in public
about once a week, forget it. I want Miss Harder out because
she's even more disruptive than her brother was and
harder to get along with than Mr. Quiffen. You know I
like you as a boarder because I've already told you so.
That's as plain as I can put it."

"That's as plain as anyone could want it. You're a most
unusual woman, Mrs. Kelling."

"Am I? Perhaps so. I never had a chance to be usual. I
didn't even go to school. I learned from my parents and
out of books. I've never been anywhere except to visit
among the family. My husband was also my fifth cousin
once removed, whom I'd known all my life. That's hardly
a normal sort of existence, is it?"

"No, I don't suppose it would be, from your point of
view. As it happens, I myself had much the same sort of
upbringing. The main difference was that you lived comfortably
in a stable environment, and I slept in the corners
of empty stores, in whichever city we hadn't yet been
driven out of."

"Your people were refugees?"

"No, they were gypsies. At least my mother was. My
father, as far as I know, was a college student who happened
to be doing research in sociology and got more
closely involved with his subject than he meant to. I
haven't the faintest idea what his name was. My mother
hadn't got around to asking when the police came and
moved her family on. She didn't even know she was pregnant
until it was far too late to go back and try to find
out. She was fourteen at the time, which didn't constitute
an acceptable excuse for her behavior according to our
rules."

"But she was only a child!"

162	Charlotte MacLeod

"Gypsy girls aren't children at fourteen, Mrs. Kelling.
Anyway, she never got a second chance to stray. From the
time I can remember, my mother was worked like a dog
and watched like a hawk. She'd managed to pick up a
little schooling here and there. I myself was never allowed
to attend school for fear I might pick up the sorts of ideas
that were supposed to have led to my mother's downfall,
but she taught me what she could.

"We read anything: scraps of newspaper we found La
the gutter, billboards, cracker boxes, movie posters. One
of my aunts, who was more sympathetic than the rest,
used to shoplift a book for us now and then. It might be
anything from Peter Rabbit to How to Make Out Your Income
Tax, but we'd pore over it as if it were the world's
greatest treasure."

"I've always been the same way," said Sarah, trying to
establish some sort of rapport with this haunted creature.
"I even read the labels on aspirin bottles. But do go on."
As if by some compulsion, Mrs. Sorpende kept pouring
out her story. "I suppose I didn't have as bad a life as
some. Gypsies are indulgent with their children as a rule.
Even I, the little bastard, was never beaten or left to go
hungry. I was often cold, but that was on account of the
miserable places we lived in, and I was seldom clean because
there'd be no hot water or soap. But I survived, and
learned to dukker. Tell fortunes, that is. I did it rather
well, perhaps because reading gave wider scope to my
powers of invention, but I was hopeless at the little tricks
that tend to go with the fortunes. Consequently I never
made more than the legitimate fees, and that didn't boost
my stock in the family much.

"To make a long story short, when I was about twelve
or thirteen, my mother simply gave up and died. The
night of the funeral, I ran away. I stole a dress off a
clothesline, leaving my gypsy clothes in its place to persuade
myself I wasn't really stealing, and lied about my
age and got a job in a diner washing dishes. The pay
wasn't much but the food was all right and I didn't mind
sleeping on the floor behind the counter because that was
the only sort of bed I knew.

"Then the counterman got funny. I broke a plate over
his head and ran off again, and lied a little harder and got
myself promoted to waitressing in a greasy spoon restaurant.
I was on my way up. By the end of that year, I

The Withdrawing Room	163

owned a good pair of shoes, a decent dress, and even a
warm winter coat. I'd learned how to sleep in a bed and
eat with a knife and fork. I even knew what a napkin was
for. I'd discovered the public libraries where I could get
all the books I wanted without paying a cent, and I'd settled
on my life's ambition. I was going to be a lady."

She laughed at herself. "That sounds absurd to you, I'm
sure, but it meant everything to me. Some day I'd live in
a grand house and be waited on by a maid and a butler.
I'd wear a long evening gown and jewels in my hair when
I came down to dinner. That was the dream I sustained
myself with while I was slinging hash and dodging grabby
hands and fishing nickel tips out of the cigarette ashes
and gravy. Some day they wouldn't be treating me like
this. Some day they'd respect me. Some day I'd be somebody.

"Well, I shan't bore you with my whole life's history. I
took lessons in elocution and deportment, once I'd found
out what those words meant, from a drunk who'd played
bit parts with Gloria Swanson and Theda Bara. That was
as close as I ever got to greatness. I attracted the wrong
sort of man and made a rotten marriage that lasted far
too long. Now I'm back telling fortunes and clearing up
dirty dishes. But I'm living in a beautiful house with a
maid and a butler to wait on me, and I come sweeping
down to dinner in a long evening dress with jewels in my
hair. Your hard luck gave me the chance to fulfill my
lifelong dream. If that's any consolation to you, take it
and welcome."

"It is and thank you. But would you kindly tell me why,
if it's been your lifelong dream to become a fine lady with
jewels in your hair, you go slopping down Tremont Street
in dirty sneakers and a frowsy kerchief? Surely that's not
part of the dream, too?"

Mrs. Sorpende flushed. "No, that was an attempt to
protect my position with you. Since the distance between
here and the teashop is so short, I worried about being
recognized. I know it's a dreadfully tacky disguise, but it's
easy and didn't cost me anything. My means are a good
deal more than straitened, as you must realize by now. I
hoped that if I could manage to keep my two identities
separate, I might squeak through a few more weeks here.
No doubt you find the whole performance absurd, but

164	Charlotte MacLeod

please try to realize that illusion has been my way of life
for a very long time."

"I do realize, but wouldn't you like to indulge in a spot
of reality for a change? I suggest you throw away those
ghastly sneakers and dress as you want to. If anyone from
the house should happen to find out about the tea-leaf
reading, tell them it's your hobby. If they ask whether I
know, tell them yes and I may be hitting you up for a job
any day now. Oh, and one other thing. Did you ever actually
meet Vangie Bodkin?"

"Is that her first name? No, I'm afraid it's just something
that stuck in my head from the society pages. My required
reading, you know."
"Perhaps you should start reading the obituaries, too,"
Sarah suggested gently. "It appears Mrs. Bodkin's been
dead for quite some while. I think that's Miss Hartler's
car stopping out front now. Good night, Mrs. Sorpende."

Chapter 21

Miss Hartler was in a state that fluctuated wildly between
overwhelming gratification at the number of people who'd
turned out to say good-by to dear Wumps and overwhelming
grief at the thought of tomorrow's funeral. Charles got
her into the house and strong-armed her into drinking
enough brandy to quiet her down so that Sarah and Mariposa
could put her to bed.

"Thank heaven that's done," sighed the weary landlady.
"Has Mr. Bittersohn come in the back way, by any
chance?"

"No, madam," said Charles. "The gentleman has not
yet returned."

"Then we'd better leave the front hall light on and the
night latch off."

"Mr. Bittersohn will be more apt to come through the
alley, madam. As you may recall, you yourself gave him
a set of keys to the basement door because of his necessarily
irregular hours."

"So I did. Turn on the alleyway lamps so he won't fall
over the trash cans and scoot along to bed yourselves.
He'll show up sooner or later, no doubt."

Mr. Bittersohn did not show up. Mariposa reported at
breakfast time that his bed had not been slept in.

"Maybe he slept someplace else, huh?" she suggested
with an innocent smile.

"Go take Miss Hartler her poached egg," said Sarah
crossly, "then get your mind out of the gutter and on to
the dishes. If your niece's play starts at eleven, you'd better
be out of here by ten. What if the subway breaks
down again?"

165

166	Charlotte MacLeod

She still hadn't told her faithful allies about the impending
swarm, and she didn't want to start preparations
in front of Mariposa for fear the helper would insist on
staying and miss her big family event. There wasn't all
that much to do, anyway. The house was clean, she had
plenty of crackers and things for people to nibble on, and
a whole case of sherry obtained at a substantial discount
from a friend of Charles's who was alleged to have come
by the wine honestly.

Uncle Jem, Dolph, and the invaluable Egbert had all
agreed to lend a hand, and she was fairly confident Mr.
Bittersohn would send that staff member he'd promised
even though he himself had not appeared by noontime
when Miss Harder tottered out of her room swathed in
musty black and quavered, "Marguerite should be here
any minute. Aren't you ready, Sarah dear?"

"Whatever made you think I was going with you, Miss
Hartler? How could I? One of us has to stay and get ready
for all those people you've invited."

"But surely your servants--"

"It's their day off. Isn't that the car outside?"

The funeral was set for one o'clock. At half-past
twelve, as Sarah was finishing a cup of tea and brooding
about how she got herself into these things, the doorbell
rang. That must be the person Mr. Bittersohn was sending.
She answered it with a good deal of curiosity.

Sarah had vaguely expected a lantern-jawed individual
in a trench coat with the collar turned up and the belt
gutted in. What she found was an elderly lady in a slateblue
coat with a little gray mink collar, and a blue velour
bat perched at a chic angle on her freshly coiffed silver
hair. The woman was no taller than she. As they met face
to face, Sarah thought she looked somehow familiar.
Then light dawned.

"Why, Miss Smith! What a marvelous surprise, and
how lovely you look. Do come in."

"Didn't recognize me, eh? Mr. Bittersohn said this
would be the best disguise I could put on. I'm sorry I
couldn't wear black since it's a funeral, but this is the only
good outfit I own, and I didn't want to shame you in front
of everybody the way I did before."

She took off the coat to reveal a matching shirtwaist
dress with a pleated bosom and a row of tiny covered buttons
marching down the front. "Is my dress all right? I

The Withdrawing Room	167

bought it on my employees' discount at the going-out-of-
business sale. Figured I might as well have a good one
since I knew I'd never be able to afford another. He gave
me the money to have it dry-cleaned and get my hair
done. Such a fine young man. His mother must be proud
of him."

"Actually I believe she's sorry he didn't become a podiatrist,"
said Sarah. "Your dress is exquisite. I only wish
I had one as lovely. Can I give you some lunch?"

"Well--"

"Would you mind coming into the kitchen? I was just
having a bite, myself."

As she was getting out another cup and plate, Miss
Smith settled herself with a sigh of pure joy. "My, this is
nice. I can't tell you how comfortable it feels to sit down
at a real kitchen table again. Not that they don't give us
good meals at the Senior Citizens, but it's always those
long tables with some old codger jamming an elbow into
your ribs and gumming at you to pass the ketchup. Not
cozy, if you know what I mean."

"I shouldn't think it would be. Do you take milk and
sugar in your tea? Or would you prefer coffee? I can make
some in a second."

"No, tea's fine and I've got into the habit of taking it
with just sugar. We always pinch those little envelopes out
of the sugar bowls when we get a chance. They know we
do, of course, but they make believe they don't see. I have
a little hot plate in my room where I live and I can keep
tea bags and sugar but not milk because it goes sour on
me and who can afford it these days, anyway? But you
shouldn't be waiting on me like this. I came to work, and
don't think I won't. Mr. Bittersohn said I should keep my
eyes peeled, too, just in case I recognize anybody."

"There'll be plenty to do in a little while, never fear.
Eat your sandwich while you have the chance. I'm going
to cut us a piece of cake." As Sarah had suspected, without
her swaddliag wraps Miss Smith was thinner than she
ought to be.

Right now, though, she was supremely happy. "This reminds
me of when my mother was alive, not that we lived
in any such style as you but we did have a lovely flat in a
three-decker over on Savin Hill Road. I wouldn't want
you to think I've been a derelict all my life."

"I certainly don't think you're one now," Sarah assured

168	Charlotte MacLeod

her. "You have too much gumption ever to be a derelict."

Miss Smith, she decided, must be a good deal younger
than she looked in her working clothes; probably still in
her late sixties. She'd treated her weather-beaten face to
make-up from some carefully saved hoard, with pale pink
lipstick and even a dab of blue eye shadow that intensified
the somewhat faded color of her eyes. One or two small
pieces of old gold jewelry that had no doubt been her
mother's or grandmother's enhanced her well-chosen, wellfitted
dress. She'd no doubt be one of the best-dressed people
present this afternoon. Her manners were infinitely
better than Professor Ormsby's, her conversation livelier
than Mr. Porter-Smith's and far more sensible than Miss
LaValliere's. If only she had some money!

The doorbell rang again. Sarah excused herself.

"Please go on with your lunch. That will be some more
of my crew."

Uncle Jem and his long-suffering gentleman's private
gentleman stood there, both of them got up as waiters.
Jeremy Kelling had hung a massive chain and emblem
from one of the disreputable chowder and marching societies
he belonged to around his neck, and announced that
he hosied to be wine steward. Dolph charged in as they
were getting rid of coats and demanded to know what sort
of tomfoolery the old idiot thought he was getting up to on
a day of mourning. Jem retorted that any day Dolph
showed up automatically became a day of mourning.
Leaving them happily engaged in their usual exchange of
pleasantries, Sarah went back to Miss Smith.

"My uncle and my cousin are here, along with my uncle's
man, Egbert. If you're sure you've had enough to eat,
you might as well come and know the worst."

Miss Smith gave a nervous pat to her impeccable hairdo,
rinsed her hands at the kitchen sink, freshened her
lipstick, and followed Sarah into the library.

"Miss Mary Smith, may I present my Uncle Jeremy
Kelling, my Cousin Dolph Kelling, and Mr. Egbert
Browne, who's the only sane one among us?"

Everybody claimed to be very pleased to meet everybody.
As Dolph shook hands he said, "Mary Smith, eh?
Seems to me I've heard that name before. Haven't we met
somewhere?"

"I've heard you speak at any rate," Miss Smith replied,
not sure whether Dolph was trying to be funny or not,

The Withdrawing Room	169

which in fact he was not. "You spoke to a group at the
North End Senior Citizens not long ago."

"M'yes, so I did. And you were there? Fancy that."

"Yes, I thought you made some interesting points about
the needs of seniors, but there was one topic I was sorry
you didn't address yourself to. What this city really needs
is a chain of recycling depots where people can bring old
papers and cans and bottles and stuff they pick up, and
maybe get paid a small sum for their efforts. That would
help solve the litter problem, cut down on the proliferation
of rats and other vermin, aid the conservation effort, and
provide employment and a little extra income for the elderly
and the underprivileged."

"By George, that's brilliant! And the stuff they collect
could be sold to recycling plants and before long the enterprise
would be at least partially self-supporting."

"I don't see why it shouldn't. But it would need a good
chunk of capital to get started, and somebody with a lot
of drive and public spirit."

"And know-how."

That was an expression Dolph had recently learned and
was using far too frequently. Jeremy Kelling started to
make rude noises, but Sarah hauled him away by brute
force.

"Uncle Jem," she hissed in his ear, "if you queer Miss
Smith's pitch, I'll break your neck. Come help me fill some
glasses."

He was in truth of little help, sloshing the jugs around,
sneering at the labels, and howling, "Rotgut! Bellywash!"
and similar expressions of connoisseurship. However, they
managed to get a couple of trays set out and Sarah deployed
her forces.

"Dolph, you're the biggest and burliest. You be doorkeeper.
If you suspect anybody's trying to gatecrash,
make it plain that this gathering is for relatives and close
friends only. If diplomacy doesn't work, feel free to use
crude and violent methods. Miss Smith, you hover in the
dining room to let me know if the food starts to run out
and keep an eye on the silver. I found one of Mr. Hartler's
visitors trying to swipe a Coalport vase the other day.
Egbert, you pass things around."

"What about coats, Mrs. Kelling?"

"Don't encourage people to take them off, and then
they won't stay so long. If they must, they can dump them

170	Charlotte MacLeod

on Miss Hartler's bed. Uncle Jem, you stay with the sherry
and make believe you're the one who has to pay for it.
Restrain your natural generosity. We've got to break this
thing up as quickly as possible. I'll be the odd-job man."

"I thought Mr. Bittersohn would be here," said Miss
Smith.

"So did I," said Sarah rather worriedly, "but we'll have
to manage without him."

They did. Egbert and Miss Smith were supremely competent.
Jeremy Kelling was capable of serious effort in the
dispensing of spirits, and adroit at insulting anybody who
tried to get more than a fair share. Dolph's bulk and ferocious
hauteur were enough to discourage the uninvited
and perhaps some of the invited. They did have a mob as
anticipated, but it was a well-controlled mob.

By half-past four the place was pretty well cleared out.
Aunt Marguerite talked of ordering the limousine and
Miss Hartler was soothing her nerves with a glass of cranberry
juice. Then, at last, Mr. Bittersohn arrived.
Chapter 22

Max Bittersohn had not come alone. With him was a
large woman wearing a hand-knitted coat of bright kelly
green and a crocheted chartreuse tam-o'-shanter. Her
face was kindly, her eyes brimming with sympathetic
tears. She rushed up to Miss Hartler and engulfed her in
a mighty embrace.

"Oh, you poor, poor woman! And you loving him so,
and coming so faithful and trying so hard, and him giving
you the slip and winding up in a coffin, God rest his
soul."

Miss Hartler struggled to free herself. "Let go of me!
Who are you, anyway? I don't even know you,"

The woman released her clutch, stepped back, and
nodded her tam-o'-shanter vigorously several times. "It's
unsettled her wits, that's what. My mother went the same
way when she heard about the ladder breaking and Dad
almost to the top with his load of bricks, may he rest in
peace. I'm Mrs. Feeley, Miss Green. You remember me.
I took care of your brother these past two months and
more. And a handful he was, I can tell you, always at
me about that lolani Palace of his and why hadn't I got
him those sixty-two dining room chairs like he told me to?
But a happy soul for all his notions and it was a terrible
thing the way he went."

"I'm not Miss Green! I don't know any Miss Green!"

"If you don't, then who does? Be easy, now. If ever
there was a sister that had nothing to blame herself for,
it's you. Bringing him his supper in a paper bag, even,
after he got it into his head he was being poisoned and
both of you used to better things as anybody could see.

171

172	Charlotte MacLeod

And no wrong done on my part and no offense taken,
you know that. But as soon as I saw that picture in the
paper I says to my husband, 'Phil,' I says, 'they've made
an awful mistake. That's no William Hartler, that's our
Mr. Green. I better go tell the police.'

"And Phil says to me, 'You keep out of it, Theresa.
First thing you know the cops will start asking us do we
have a license, which we don't.' So I didn't go, though
the Lord knows nobody could have got better care than
Mr. Green got from us, as you well know, Miss Green,
and there's still three days' worth owing to us not that
I'd be so mean as to press you for it at a time like this."

"The woman's out of her mind," Miss Hartler insisted.
"Or else she's trying to get her name in the papers, or
worm money out of me under false pretenses."

"Theresa Feeley is as honest as the day is long," said
a voice from the dining room door. "I knew her for years
in Dorchester."

"Mary Smith!"

Mrs. Feeley wheeled and smothered the smaller
woman in her yards of knitting. "If you're not a sight for
sore eyes! And look at you now, in your beautiful clothes
with your hair dressed fit to meet the Queen of England,
among all your swell friends. No wonder you never have
time for the likes of your old neighbors anymore."

"Theresa, you know I'd always have time for you. It's
just that--well, it's a long story."

"Ah, and you'd be the one to tell it. Such a gift of the
tongue you always had. Many's the time I've said to Phil,
you watch that Mary Smith, I said. She'll make her mark
in the world. And never too busy or too proud--"

"Theresa, let's talk about me some other time. Right
now, I'm sure these people want to know all about how
you took care of Mr. Hartler. That was his real name, not
Green."

"Oho, I see the way of it now. The sister told me
Green because she didn't want her high-and-mighty
friends to know her brother had gone soft in the head,
see, not that I blame her and there's many another would
do the same. Anyway, whoever he was, we gave him the
big back bedroom that gets the sun and there he stayed
most of the time, babbling over his books and his pictures
and making believe he was writing letters to important
people though no more could he write than a two-year-

The Withdrawing Room	173

old, poor soul. Scrawls on a piece of paper is all they
were.

"And here would come the sister almost every day after
dark, maybe around suppertime or a little later, bringing
him something to eat that he liked, which was mostly
hamburgers and ice cream. He was losing weight because
he wouldn't eat and she was trying to fatten him up, see.
Then after he ate, she'd take him for a little walk just
down the street and back. They'd be out maybe ten minutes,
then back they'd come and off she'd go.

"But that night he died they didn't come back and
they didn't come back and finally she came back by herself,
crying her eyes out. 'He's given me the slip,' she
says, 'knocked me down and ran away which I'd never
have believed. The police are hunting him now but they
say I can't bring him back here. They'll be taking him to
a place where there's bars on the windows and locks on
the doors so we'll have to pack his things and call for a
taxi.' And we did and she took the suitcases and went off
and that's the last I've seen of her till this very minute."

"That's a lie!" screamed Joanna Hartler.

"It's the honest truth and may God strike me dead on
the spot if it isn't. And she forgot to pay me the three
days that was owing, too. I didn't say anything at the
time thinking she'd remember when she got him settled,
see, but she hasn't so far, and now here she is calling me
a liar to my face which I'm not and never was, as Mary
here can tell you."

"Who else might be able to tell us something?" asked
Bittersohn. "People who've seen Miss Hartler entering
and leaving your house, for instance?"

"Well, there's my husband Phil and my son Mike and
my daughter-in-law Rita and anybody that lives on the
street, I shouldn't wonder, the nosy lot that they are. And
there's my grandson Kevin that wants to be a news photographer
and took some fine pictures of them unbeknownst,
and here they are."
Mrs. Feeley had a sense of the dramatic. From the
cavernous drawstring bag that matched her tam-o'shanter,
she whipped out a sheaf of photographs. They
clearly showed the Hartlers in various poses: William
writing at a desk in a room where a crucifix hung over
the bed; Joanna walking up a wooden staircase wearing
slacks, a long tweed coat, a trailing scarf, a crocheted

174	Charlotte MacLeod

beret that looked like a boudoir pillow, carrying the sort
of smallish old-fashioned satchel that used to be known
as a Boston bag; both Hartlers walking arm in arm under
a street light with a sign on it that read, "Buses for Columbia
Station."

"See, Mary." She showed them to Miss Smith. "That's
them, plain as plain."

"But that's the man in the subway," cried Miss Smith.
"The one who pushed Mr. Quiifen under the train. I remember
now. I'd watched him coming down the stairs and
noticed he was wearing elevator shoes. They looked so
out of place on a man his age."

"Are you sure?" snapped Bittersohn.

"Quite sure. At least I know he was there when it happened."

"And when was this now?" said Mrs. Feeley.

"About a quarter to five on the afternoon of January
14, at Haymarket Station. The paper said he jumped or
fell, but he was pushed and I'd be willing to swear this
was the man who pushed him."

"Mary, love, far be it from me to give you the lie, but
you see, dearie, that couldn't of been him. I'm not saying
he wouldn't have done it. A man in his condition, who's
to say what they might do if they took the notion. I'm not
saying he couldn't have done it because didn't he turn up
in the Public Garden with his head bashed in, poor soul,
when I'd have said he'd barely wits enough about him to
find his own way to the bathroom if your friends will excuse
me for speaking so plain, much less all the way to
Haymarket Station. But I'm saying he didn't do it because
we never let him out of the house by himself.
Those were the sister's orders and that's what we did.
Either Phil or myself was right there to keep an eye on
him every minute, Phil being retired now as you maybe
didn't know. You can ask Mrs. O'Rourke on the first
floor if you don't believe me, because that one never
misses a move we make."

While she was talking, Bittersohn had taken the photographs
and silently handed them to Sarah. "Wait a minute,"
Sarah interrupted after she'd puzzled over them for
a moment. "That's not Mr. Hartler. I mean, it's like him
but it's more like--if he and Miss Hartler had changed
clothes--"

"And that's what you did, isn't it, Miss Hartler?" said

The Withdrawing Room	175

Bittersohn. "All the time your brother was supposedly
staying here, you were masquerading in his place."

"Don't be insane! How could I?"

"Quite easily, I should think. For one thing, none of us
knew Mr. Hartler except Mrs. Kelling, and she didn't
know him very well. You and he must have been just
about the same height when he wasn't wearing his elevator
shoes."

"That they were," Mrs. Feeley interposed. "No taller
than an elf he was in his dressing gown, but always in
them uplift shoes when she took him out walking.
Wouldn't pass the door without 'em. I made bold to ask
herself once why she didn't wear high heels on her shoes
the way her brother did and says to me, "Wumps would
never stand for that,' she says. 'He has to be taller because
he's the man of the family.' She always called him
Wumps, don't ask me why, and a stranger name for a
grown man I never did hear. And their voices were about
the same pitch only he talked fast and loud and she always
spoke soft and sort of pitiful like she's doing now
when she isn't screeching her head off, not that you can
blame her and I'd do the same in her place which I hope
I never will be. And she could have put something in her
cheeks and her clothes to make her look fatter the way
the actresses do on TV, though they weren't so like in the
face that you couldn't tell them apart when you got them
together."

"That's why she had to bash his face in after she killed
him," said Bittersohn. "As for killing Quiffen, she could
simply have borrowed her brother's overcoat and shoes
one day. He had more than one pair of those elevator
shoes, didn't he, Mrs. Feeley?"

"Eight or ten of them, and all custom-made. He must
have been a dressy man in his day. And she took the
overcoat to be cleaned, I remember that, because she said
she'd taken him in for ice cream and he'd slopped chocolate
sauce all down the front which I didn't see myself because
she had it folded over her arm when she went out."

"This is totally absurd," Miss Hartler insisted, her face
whiter and more pinched than ever. "I adored Wumps!
And I never even knew this--this Quiffen."

"Oh, come, Joanna," drawled Iris Pendragon. "You
were absolutely certain you had old Barney hooked thirty
or forty years ago, but he wiggled off the line. Beastly lit176	Charlotte MacLeod

tie man, anyway. I never could understand why you ever
wanted him in the first place except for his money, and it's
not as though you didn't have plenty of your own."

That was what got to Miss Hartler. "I did not! Wumps
got every penny, and he doled it out to me in dribs and
drabs as if he'd been Daddy Warbucks and I were Little
Orphan Annie. And he was getting crazier and crazier,
and squandering thousands upon thousands on stuff for
the lolani Palace that they wouldn't even accept, and
there wasn't going to be anything left for me."

"All you had to do was go to court and have him declared
mentally incompetent," Dolph protested. "You
could have got yourself appointed conservator. That's
what I did with Uncle Fred."

"Yes, Dolph, and then you had to play nursemaid to
the old halfwit for the rest of his life, didn't you? Just because
you're stupid, you needn't think everyone else is. I
told Wumps once that I'd murder him if I ever got the
chance, and I got it and I took it and don't expect me to
pretend I'm sorry. My one regret is that I didn't kill
Wumps forty years ago. And furthermore, you might have
the courtesty to admit I did give him a lovely funeraL"

Chapter 23

It was not an easy pinch. Miss Hartler had no intention of
going quietly now that she'd had a taste of power, and
Sergeant McNaughton had gentlemanly scruples.

Miss Mary Smith had none. She applied a superbly efficient
arm lock and snapped at Sarah, "Get a blanket and
a rope." By the time the police wagon arrived, the prisoner
was well under control.

Once Aunt Marguerite managed to get it through her
head that Sergeant McNaughton hadn't charged to the rescue
in the nick of time but had simply been lurking in the
back hall ready to close in when Max Bittersohn gave him
the signal, and that the sergeant was a married man with
five children and no inclination to attend parties in Newport,
she yawned.

"Well, Sarah, if you've nothing in the house but this
ghastly sherry, I think we'll pop on back to the hotel.
Sweet of you to have us, of course, and I must admit this
has been a more interesting afternoon than I'd expected.
So Joanna actually killed old Wumps at last? Pity it wasn't
the other way around. One can always use an extra man
even if he is a little bit gaga. Iris, do you happen to recall
what I did with my gloves?"

Mrs. Feeley rode off with Sergeant McNaughton to give
her statement and present the evidence her grandson
Kevin had so fortunately supplied. The few remaining
gapers on the sidelines took Jeremy Kelling's broad hint
that the entertainment was well and truly over. By the
time Sarah's boarders began trickling back to the house,
the used dishes were piled in the sink, the ashtrays emp-

177

178	Charlotte MacLeod

tied, and the windows thrown open. Cold as it was, everybody
felt a need for some fresh air.

"Miss Smith, you'll stay to dinner, won't you?" Sarah
coaxed.

"Er, h'mph." Dolph cleared his throat noisily. "I've
been hoping I might prevail on Miss Smith to join me for
dinner at the Ritz. This recycling scheme of hers wants a
lot of discussing. A lot of discussing."

"My God," gasped Uncle Jem. "To think I should live
to see the day!"

"What the hell, I'm human, ain't I?" snarled his
nephew. "I'll admit that living with Aunt Matilda all those
years was enough to put any man off women forever, but,
dammit, I--well, hell, I'm human, ain't I?"

"Maybe you are at that," Jeremy Kelling replied, gazing
with a wild surmise upon this new facet of a man he'd
thought he knew and loathed. "Godspeed, my boy. The
speedier the better, I'd say. You know what happened to
those frogs of yours the minute you turned your back."

"I'm so sorry, Miss Smith, but they always go on like
that," Sarah explained, trying to conquer her hysterics.
"Dolph is an idiot in some ways and he's usually a good
deal slower off the mark than this, but he's honest, loyal,
dependable, and filthy rich."

"And I'm sixty-seven years old and lonesome as hell if
anybody wants to know," her cousin added without acrimony,
"and that was the most beautiful arm lock I've ever
seen. How about it, Miss Smith? Feel like recycling an old
frog hunter into a Prince Charming? Hey, that's not bad.
Come on, you're a sport, take a chance. Mind if I call you
Mary?"

"Why, no," said Miss Smith after brief consideration. "I
don't think I'd mind a bit."

"Bless you, my children. Come on, Egbert, let's go
home and mix ourselves a large pitcher of martinis,"
crooned Jeremy Kelling. "Be sure to let me know the next
time you're throwing an after-the-funeral binge, Sarah. I
wouldn't miss it for anything."

"You certainly do know how to cheer a girl up."

Sarah kissed both her uncle and Egbert with a lifetime's
affection. "Thanks a million times. I'd never have got
through this afternoon without you. And Dolph, of course,
and--may I call you Mary?"

She gave her cousin about-to-be a hug. "Dolph does

The Withdrawing Room	179

need a wife desperately," she murmured. "Heaven knows
what you'll be letting yourself in for--but you won't
chicken out, will you?"

"I never have yet, have I?" Miss Smith rearranged her
good velour hat on her nicely waved hair and fastened
her little mink collar. "Then I expect I'll have the pleasure
of seeing you again soon--Sarah."

"Why don't we make that very soon? Now that I have
a vacancy, Dolph must bring you back here to stay."

"Damn good idea," said Dolph. "Keep an eye on her
so she won't go hopping off."
"Oh, Dolph." Sarah suddenly remembered something.
"Speaking of keeping an eye on people, have you any
idea why Barnwell Quiffen put a detective on your trail?"

"Detective, eh?" Dolph was tickled silly by this news.
"Why the hell didn't you let me know sooner? Have some
fun with him, eh? Buy a false mustache. Leap in and out
of--"

"Frog ponds?" Jeremy Kelling suggested innocently.
"Hell of a lot of leaping you ever did, you great tub of
lard. Sarah, where did you get this notion about detectives?
Why would Quiffen do a thing like that?"

"Because he hated my guts," said Dolph promptly.
"Kicked him off the Committee for Common Cleanliness.
Had to. Tried to make a stink about me misusing funds
because I wouldn't go along with that damn fool notion
of Uncle Fred's. No disrespect to the dead, of course, and
I realize Uncle Fred was a great man, but damn it, he did
get some funny ideas in his later years. Went into Woolworth's
and saw some parakeets wearing diapers, so he
went ahead and ordered a hundred gross of 'em."

"Of parakeets?"

"No, damn it, of diapers. Going to make the pigeons
wear 'em."

"What?" shrieked Sarah. "Dolph, are you seriously trying
to tell us Uncle Frederick meant to put diapers on all
the Boston Common pigeons?"

"Hell, no. He didn't mean to do it himself, he meant
me to. That's where I drew the line. I mean, what the
hell, I suppose I could go out with a few barrels of popcorn
and trap the damn birds, but where would I go from
there? Got to be changed, ain't they? Anybody thinks
I'm going to spend the rest of my life hanging around
the Common powdering pigeons' bottoms can damn well

180	Charlotte MacLeod

think again and so I told the judge when I went to have
Uncle Fred declared mentally incompetent. And he agreed
with me," Dolph added triumphantly.

"But Quiffen kept yammering about that hundred
gross of parakeet diapers till I told him to shut up and get
out. Had it in for me ever since. Didn't dare risk a faceto-face
showdown so he sneaked in a detective. Wish I'd
known. I'd have shown him I'm a tough man to meddle
with. You remember that, Mary. Mary Kelling. Sounds
pretty good, eh? Where the hell have you been all my
life, anyway?"

As Miss Smith was making a prettily flustered good-by
to Mr. Bittersohn and Mr. Bittersohn was offering to drive
over and help her clean out the room she wouldn't be
needing anymore, Mrs. Sorpende entered the house. The
two former bag ladies exchanged startled glances, then
warm smiles.

"How delightful to see we have mutual acquaintances!
I don't believe we've met, though I feel I know you. I'm
Theonia Sorpende."
"And I'm Mary Smith."

"But she won't be for long," said Dolph cockily.
"Come on, Mary. Damn it, this is an important occasion.
A man doesn't get engaged every day."

"If you're going to be engaged to me, you'll have to
clean up your language." Mary Smith was getting off on
the right foot.

As they left, Mrs. Sorpende's gracious smile turned
to a twinkle of polite amusement. "Ah, me, I seem to
have been merely the plaything of an idle hour. How
wonderful they've found each otherl Miss Smith has
great strength of character."

"She'll need every ounce of it when she marries
Dolph," Sarah replied. "Still, living with him can't possibly
be much worse than scrounging in trash barrels."
"Oh, then you know?"

"Certainly I know. How do you think I found out about
you? We all have to get by as best we can, don't we?
Now why don't you nip up and get dressed for dinner?
Wear your lovely dress with that gorgeous red poppy,
will you? I need to look at something bright and cheer1}
ful for a change. Now I must fly. I'm head cook and as||
sistant bottle washer around here, in case you hadn't
|i caught on, and dinner's going to be late and I'm counting

The Withdrawing Room	181

on you to keep Professor Ormsby from chewing the furniture."

When she got out to the kitchen, she found Mariposa
in her new purple and fuchsia uniform, washing up
glasses and fuming. "Why didn't you tell me everybody
was coming back here this afternoon? I could have
stayed."

"I didn't know myself," Sarah lied. "Miss Hartler
asked them without telling me."

"Some nerve! Where's the old witch now? I'd like to
give her a big, fat chunk of my mind."

"Never mind her, Mariposa, she's gone and she won't
ever come back. Go set the table for six, will you? Then
come and get a tray. We're going to be long on appetizers
and short on dinner tonight."

Quickly Sarah furbished up the metaphorical funeral
baked meats into an impressive array of canapes, and
filled the decanter from the last jug of sherry. She opened
cans of pea and tomato soup for puree mongole, made a
fast exploration of the refrigerator and emptied everything
she could find into a large casserole, spread cheese
over the top, and thrust it into the oven to bake. She
slashed a head of lettuce into serving portions and
poured some of her premised vinaigrette dressing over
them. Mariposa could get their emergency cache of vanilla
ice cream out of the freezer and spoon it into parfait
glasses with creme de menthe and a few chopped nuts. It
was the fastest dinner she'd got so far and please God it
would be edible.

Then she ducked up the back stairs, took a fast
shower, swept her light brown hair up into a knot, and
put on the pretty gray satin Aunt Emma had given her.
Running late, Sarah was not surprised to find her company
already assembled when she got back to the library.
Charles was doing the honors. Mariposa, she hoped, was
back in the kitchen stirring the soup and fixing the desserts.
Mr. Porter-Smith had on a black bow tie and a
somber cummerbund in deference to what he'd obviously
supposed would be a solemn occasion, and was looking
askance at Mrs. Sorpende's flamboyant adornment.

Sarah soon fixed that. "Oh, you did wear your flower!
How sweet of you. I told Mrs. Sorpende I needed something
cheerful to look at tonight," she explained to the
room at large. "You wouldn't believe what's been hap182	Charlotte MacLeod

pening in this very room. Mr. Bittersohn, would you--"
His eyes turned battleship gray and she caught herself in
the nick of time. "Oh, you're already set for sherry. Forgive
me if I act a bit flustered, everyone. It's because I
am. Charles, tell Mariposa to turn down the gas under
the soup and come in here, then I shan't have to go
through the whole performance twice. Professor Ormsby,
do have some more of those pate things. Dinner's going
to be late, I'm afraid, though we'll hurry it along as best
we can."

"No rush," said that loquacious man with his mouth
full. "No place to go tonight. Where's Niobe? Her door's
open."

"So it is. I'm sorry, I forgot to close it. That used to be
the drawing room, as I may have mentioned, and we
had to open it up again this afternoon because a lot of
people came here after the funeral. That's why we're
running so far behind. It was Miss Hartler's idea to invite
them without asking permission. She appears to have
been full of ideas."

Sarah sipped at her own sherry until Mariposa joined
the group, ribbons aflutter and eyes wide. Then she told
her tale. What with numerous interruptions of, "How
ghastly!" from Miss LaValliere and trenchant questions
from Mr. Porter-Smith, the tale was long in the telling.
They were finished with the appetizers and the soup, and
well into the surprisingly tasty casserole before she got
through. Even then, nobody was satisfied.

"But what about all them strangers messin' up the
hall?" Mariposa put in despite the scandalized Charles's
attempts to shush her. "How come we found that woman
snooping through the china closet?"

"I simply don't know," said Sarah. "Mr. Bittersohn
. . ." She groped for suitably noncommittal words
in order to avoid another blast from those boreal gray
eyes. "You know about antiques and things, and you
were awfully clever about leading Miss Hartler to confess
this afternoon. Would you have any ideas?"

"I wasn't so clever," he objected. "You were the one
who broke her down with that point about the clothes."

"It appears to me that the police sergeant who managed
to track down Mrs. Feeley and stage that dramatic
confrontation is also in line for some well-deserved kudos,"
Mr. Porter-Smith added a bit resentfully, no doubt thinking
The Withdrawing Room	183

that he himself would have been covered with
Holmesian glory by now had not Cousin Percy required
his services at the office.

"Sergeant McNaughton did a marvelous job," Sarah
agreed, although she knew perfectly well who deserved
the kudos. "But getting back to Mariposa's question, Mr.
Bittersohn, couldn't you at least take a guess?"

"I could try. You may recall that I was talking with
your aunt last night at the undertaker's? She told me then
what Miss Hartler mentioned this afternoon, that the
brother inherited the parents' entire estate on the understanding
that he look after his sister."
"That was a risky sort of thing for them to do," said
Mrs. Sorpende. "Look what happened to the Dashwoods."

"Who are they?" asked Miss LaValliere.

"Characters in a book by Jane Austen. Do go on, Mr.
Bittersohn," Sarah urged before Miss LaValliere could
ask, "Who's Jane Austen?"

"Evidently Miss Joanna didn't fare much better than
Elizabeth and Marianne Dashwood, according to your
aunt. Dear Wumps kept her short of cash. After he got
too sick to function, she ought to have had herself appointed
conservator, as your Cousin Dolph suggested, but
that would have meant exposing Wumps's mental deterioration
and that wouldn't have served her purpose. She
might have forged his name to checks to keep them going,
but there was a big element of risk in that. So what she
did was to sell various antiques her brother had collected
from people who were under the impression they were
making donations to the lolani Palace. That woman Mariposa
mentioned was acting more like a customer than a
sneak thief, wasn't she?"

"A pretty sharp customer," said Sarah. "She offered me
fifty dollars for that pair of Coalport vases over there in
the china cabinet. She tried to convince me they were reproductions."

"Which of course they're not," said Bittersohn. "Sounds
more like a dealer, which would make a lot more sense
though a lot less c£sh. Miss Hartler could drop into a shop
with a nice little piece to whet their appetites and tell
them she had plenty more like it at home. That could explain
why she bumped off Quiffen when she learned he'd
beaten her to your drawing room. A house like this is exactly
the sort of background she'd need."

184	Charlotte MacLeod

"And his having jilted her ages ago wouldn't make her
any less reluctant to give him the shove," Sarah agreed.
"Hell hath no fury, and so forth. That woman did act confused
about whose house it was. Remember, Mariposa?
And Mr. Hartler--I mean Miss Hartler--kept interrupting
and fussing about what a nuisance he--I mean she
was, which was certainly true. I'll bet he'd--oh, you
know what I mean--given the impression he owned the
place."

"No doubt," said Bittersohn. "Miss Hartler would have
been posing as an old widower with a place too big for
him and investments that weren't paying off as well as
they used to, wanting to get rid of his stuff and move to a
retirement home or somewhere. You couldn't blame outsiders
for swallowing a story like that once they got a look
inside this house. It was an ideal setup, and not a badly
organized operation for an amateur."

"Don't you think, Mr. Bittersohn, that Miss Hartler
must have been planning this whole thing for quite some
time? Take that hotel stationery from Italy, for instance.
She must have got hold of it ages ago, when she and her
brother took a trip to Rome with Aunt Marguerite, just
so that she could write a letter to leave around explaining
why she'd been gone and why she was coming back at
the right moment to be in on the obsequies. I wonder
how she managed to find Mrs. Feeley to dump poor old
Wumps on all that time?"

"Through an advertisement, I expect," Mrs. Sorpende
put in. "People are always putting little ads in the classified
section saying they're willing to board an elderly person
who requires tender, loving care. Sometimes they
mean it, sometimes they don't. This Mrs. Feeley sounds
ideal. She lived close enough to Boston so that Miss
Hartler could get back and forth easily. She was a kind,
responsible, and also unsophisticated and sentimental sort
of person who'd respond favorably to the picture Miss
Hartler was trying to paint of herself as a loving sister
trying to do her best for her senile older brother without
committing him to an institution. Miss Hartler couldn't
take him to a real nursing home because they keep records
and wouldn't care to have her disrupt their schedules
by taking him out for walks whenever it suited her purpose.
Since the Feeleys were not only kind but also unli-

The Withdrawing Room	185

censed, she thought she could depend on them to keep
their mouths shut no matter what happened."

"But I don't get it," wailed Miss LaValliere. "I mean,
you're saying that when Mr. Hartler lived here he was
really Miss Hartler all the time, right? And when he went
out to that Feeley place he was Miss Hartler because Mr.
Hartler was already there, right? I mean, how could he?
I mean, how could she? I mean I don't get it."

Sarah exchanged covert smiles with Mrs. Sorpende.
"That's because you didn't see those photographs Mrs.
Feeley brought with her. To begin with, the two of them
were very much alike, even to their voices. You just didn't
notice because he was so bouncy and jolly while she was
droopy and whiny. He appeared taller and fatter but that
could be done with elevator shoes and a pillow under the
belt."

"Yes, but their clothes?"

"That was the easiest part. Mr. Hartler used to wear a
poplin raincoat and one of those squashable tweed hats,
as you've perhaps noticed. The coat was reversible. On
the poplin side it buttoned at the right, like a man's. The
other side was a dark tweed and buttoned left like a woman's.
That's what Miss Hartler had on in the pictures,
along with a trailing woolen scarf and a great floppy beret
with crocheted flowers on it. She'd have left Boston wearing
the man's hat and elevator shoes, with the beret and
scarf stuffed down the front of the coat to give her a
tummy. Somewhere alone the line, she'd reverse the coat
to the tweed side, put on the beret and scarf and a pair
of woman's shoes she had with her, and hide the man's
hat and elevator shoes in a bag she was carrying."

"The point on which I crave elucidation," said Mr.
Porter-Smith, "is where Miss Hartler kept her brother after
she took him from the Feeley house until the time he
turned up dead in the Public Garden. It would seem that
he must have walked there since one could hardly picture
that frail elderly woman carrying him; therefore, he must
ipso facto have remained alive during the entire interval.
However, your thesis as I understand it is that Miss
Hartler took Mr. Hartler away from his lodgings, came
back here by herself in an understandably boisterous
mood, rejoined him later in the evening and remained
with him until she walked him over to the place where his

186	Charlotte MacLeod

body was found, and killed him. That seems an incredible
feat."

"Oh, Gene, you always have to make things harder,"
said Miss LaValliere. "She probably just dumped him at
a movie. That's what I'd do."

"From the way Mrs. Feeley described the brother, I
doubt whether Miss Hartler would dare leave him by
himself in public," Sarah objected. "What I think is that
she had a place all arranged to hide him in. When she
came here disguised as Mr. Hartler that first time, she told
me she was living at a rooming house on Hereford Street.
I suspect the room was much closer to the Garden, perhaps
around Arlington or Berkeley. She didn't give it up
when she moved here pretending to be her brother. It
hasn't been very long, after all, though it seems forever.
I'd say she walked him from the Feeley house down to
Savin Hill Station, brought him a few stops on the subway,
then took a cab the rest of the way to wherever the
hideout was."

"But why not take a cab the whole distance?"

"Because then there'd have been a cabbie working the
Savin Hill area who could testify he'd picked up an old
couple at that tune and taken them to a Back Bay address,"
Bittersohn answered for her.

"And he might remember what that address was," said
Sarah. "Aren't they supposed to keep logs, or tell then1
dispatchers where they're going?"

"Good point, Mrs. Kelling. By taking the cab from
some other station, Miss Hartler would be cutting down on
the chance of being identified."

"Then why take a cab at all? Why not stay right on the
subway to Park Street and then transfer to the Green
Line?"

"They were old people and that would mean climbing a
lot of stairs as well as being exposed to the risk of meeting
somebody who'd recognize them. The brother was unstable
and excitable, and would be more apt than not to call
attention to himself in one way or another if they stayed
on the train for any length of tune. A cab was faster and
safer. Furthermore, if they pulled up at the rooming house
in a cab and were spotted by some other resident, it would
be easier for Miss Hartler to pretend she was just some
good Samaritan bringing an old fool home from a party
where he'd had too much to drink. She could then lock

The Withdrawing Room	187

old Wumps in the room with those bogus lolani Palace
treasures to keep him happy for a while, get straight back
into the cab, and be taken to South Station or maybe Columbia,
ride to Savin Hill on the Red Line, do her act
with Mrs. Feeley about having lost him, collect his stuff,
and disappear."

"Where to? Back to the room?"

"No, I think she must have gone first to that big motel
near Logan Airport and checked in under a false name
with her brother's luggage, which also contained a good
many of her own possessions. No doubt Mrs. Feeley found
certain cases already packed and locked when she went to
clear out his room. Since the Hartlers had been to Italy in
the past, the luggage already had the sort of customs stickers
on it that Mrs. Kelling would expect to see when Miss
Harder arrived here in an airport taxi."

"By the time she'd done all that," said Mrs. Sorpende
in a tone that sent shivers down every spine around the
table, "she mustn't have had long to wait."

"Not long," Bittersohn agreed. "She went back to the
rented room on the trusty old MBTA, kept Wumps
amused until the neighborhood quieted down, then took
him over to the Garden and did him in."
"With what?" demanded Mr. Porter-Smith.
"I'm not sure you want me to answer that."
"Yes, we do," Miss LaValliere insisted.
"Okay, then. Apparently she took off one of his heavy
elevator shoes on one pretext or another, hit him from behind
with the heel, then put the shoe on her own foot and
kicked in his face with the toe."

"Ugh!" Miss LaValliere turned an unbecoming shade
of green. "Well," she added after some thought, "maybe
at least that will be a lesson to brothers who go around
sawing the high heels off their sisters' brand-new shoes."
"The saddest stories yield the profoundest morals," observed
Mrs. Sorpende with a perfectly straight face. "And
then Miss Hartler went back to the motel and enjoyed a
sound night's sleep, no doubt. Do you know, Mr. Bittersohn,
what puzzles me most is how the Feeleys were located
so quickly. There must be scads of those little
unlicensed private nursing homes in the greater Boston
area."

"Just routine police work," Bittersohn replied with a
jaw-cracking yawn he was unable to stifle.

188	Charlotte MacLeod

"No doubt," said Sarah. "And while this routine police
work went on all last night, all this morning, and most of
the afternoon without a break, Miss Hartler beguiled the
time mourning dear Wumps, Iris Pendragon told me Joanna
had always been surprisingly good at amateur theatricals.
Charles, we'll have our coffee here at the table
tonight. And you'd better take away Mr. Bittersohn's ice
cream. He's about to fall asleep in his plate."