Delicious! (13 page)

On the Monday after Thanksgiving, the Timbers Mansion smelled even worse. I climbed the stairs, juggling coffee in one hand and a bunch of roses in the other, burying my nose in the flowers. In the hallway I kept my eyes straight ahead, trying to avoid the broken furniture, the dumpsters, the tape across the doors. I put the roses in a vase, took a sip of coffee, and sank gratefully into my chair. Then I picked up the phone and called Mrs. Cloverly.

It was pathetic, really, that this crazy old lady in a trailer park had become such a necessary presence, but when I talked to her I could almost fool myself into thinking that nothing had changed. She’d spent the weekend cooking, and her three vile dishes kept us busy for an hour.

But when I hung up, the silence was so thick that I jumped when a board creaked in the hall.

It was not my imagination: Someone was out there, walking toward me. I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my body. I stood up. At least they wouldn’t catch me unawares.

The footsteps stopped outside my doorway and an apprehensive voice called, “Is somebody there?”

I knew that voice! I ran into the hall and threw my arms around Sammy.

“What on earth are
you
doing here?” he asked. “Are you attempting to terrify me into an early grave?”

“How the hell did you get in?”

“I will have you know that my key still works. And I was sternly admonished to retrieve my personal effects at the earliest possible opportunity.”

“Then why didn’t you come sooner?”

“For this?” He waved a hand, indicating the decrepit hallway in which we stood. “I was high up in the mountains when your missive reached me. I screamed. I wailed. I wept. I returned to Istanbul and began peregrinating through the city like a demented chicken, intending to change my tickets and embark on the next New York—bound conveyance. I was at the airline office when a thought struck: I was behaving like an ass. This was the last waltz, and nobody was about to question my expenses. So I snatched up my tickets, rented a limousine, upgraded myself to the presidential suite, and made reservations in Istanbul’s finest restaurants. Young Arthur be damned!” He looked me up and down and added frankly, “It seems that you should have done something similar, my dear. Whatever you have been up to has done you very little good.”

I put my hand up to my hair, remembering that I hadn’t bothered to comb it this morning. I wished I’d washed my face. I saw nobody during the week, and some mornings I was tempted to come to work in my pajamas. Still, it was humiliating to be caught like this. “Forget about me. What will you do?”

“Dear one, do not waste a moment fretting over me.” He smoothed his tweed suit. “I was in this business before you were born. I know everyone. Now that I have returned, I shall have three offers before the week is out.” He pulled me down the hall. “Come help me pack.”

Sammy sniffed suspiciously and said, “What is that deplorable aroma?”

I shrugged it off. “Dead mice behind the walls, I think. Nobody comes to clean anymore.”

“Hmmf.” Sammy stood in front of his closed door, staring angrily at the yellow tape. “Unsanitized?” He ripped it savagely off. “Unsanitized?”
He fit the key into the lock. “What a barbaric notion.” The door swung inward, creaking on its hinges, and I held my breath.

His lovely orchids were dead. They lay shriveled against the wall, mere skeletons now, their fronds groping blindly. But everything else had survived, and I picked up the beautiful copper teapot, happy to find it unharmed. Sammy snatched it from me, running his fingers across the patina as if it were a beloved pet. He looked again at the pathetic plants, then pulled them gently off the wall and deposited them in the garbage. “Ruby—Young Arthur’s secretary, you know—has been leaving daily messages, insinuating that if I fail to clear out my office, everything will be forfeit to Pickwick. But you have yet to explain your own presence here. Wait.” He held up a hand. “Allow me to conjecture. The Guarantee?”

“You’re very perceptive.”

“I take it Mrs. Cloverly continues to be your number-one customer?”

I couldn’t help smiling. “Not anymore. The new crazies put her efforts to shame.”

“Goody.” Sammy sounded delighted. “Tell!”

“I’ll do better than that.” Suddenly feeling lighthearted, I went off to get the most absurd letter of the day.

Sammy laughed until he was wheezing. When he had finally sobered up, he gave me an incredulous look. “This is how you are currently employed? Responding to women who request refunds for antique recipes?”

“There’s apparently no statute of limitations on the Guarantee.”

He began to laugh again. “I will wager that Emmajane miscopied the recipe. Did you seek the original?”

“It wasn’t in the database.”

“And the recipe index?”

“Jake took his back issues with him.” I hesitated a moment. “I’d have to go to the library to do that. And …” I gestured upward.

“You are loath to venture into that long-locked room. I quite comprehend. Have no fear.” He patted my arm. “I shall accompany you. Have you the key?”

“I bet it’s in one of the drawers in Jake’s desk. The desk is so big they didn’t bother moving it out.”

He linked an arm through mine, leading me into Jake’s nearly empty office. “At one time the library was my favorite room in this entire edifice,
but when Jake pronounced it off-limits, I quite forgot its existence. It has been eons … I would appreciate a last look.”

The key was where I’d expected it to be. I snatched it up, and together we climbed the grand, dusty staircase. As we rose, the evil funk grew so strong that Sammy pulled out a handkerchief and held it to his nose. “No doubt it is the stinking corpse of the magazine, rotting around us. The smell! How do you bear it?”

“You get used to it.”

He patted my hand and looked at me, eyes filled with pity. “Oh, my dear.” His voice was soft. “Oh, my dear.”

We walked through the sad shambles of what used to be the art department and stood before the scarred library door. It was a solid piece of wood, but when I put the key into the lock, it sighed softly as it swung inward on its hinges. We tiptoed into cool darkness, the air scented with an ancient perfume that mingled paper, leather, and, oddly, apples. The Persian carpet was so soft that I felt as if I were floating into the long, high, book-lined room. The curtain-shrouded windows provided no illumination, and I fumbled for the light switch. As I turned it on, the room became infused with a soft golden light that fell across heaps of books lying on long oak tables, as if phantom readers had just put them down, planning to return at any moment.

Deep suede armchairs were scattered invitingly around the room; the Tiffany lamps above them gave off a jewel-like glow. A huge, ancient globe, taller than I am, stood in one corner, and in the other a giant dictionary perched regally on a wooden stand. “I had forgotten how beautiful this room is,” Sammy whispered with a kind of reverence.

I walked to a desk in the middle of the room; it was fantastically decorated with inlaid wood, a midnight sky depicting the signs of the zodiac. The chair behind the desk was as tall as a throne, and when I sat down on the dark-blue velvet cushion, it seemed to enfold me in an embrace. I looked at the shelf next to the chair, unsurprised to find that it held back issues of
Delicious!

While Sammy went off to explore, I settled into the chair, leafing through the back issues in search of Nutty Apricot Lace Cookies. If the recipe had been there, I would certainly have found it, but by the time I put down the December 1979 issue, I was positive that Mrs. Gifford’s recipe came from some other magazine.

“Come here!” Sammy’s voice was muffled, as if it was reaching me from a great distance. I stood up, but I could not see him. “I am in the nether regions of the library. Make haste!”

I followed the sound of his voice, but when I reached the back wall, Sammy was still nowhere to be seen. “Where are you?”

“Are you standing beside the very last shelf?” His voice was coming from behind the wall.

“Where are you?” I repeated.

“Go around to the end of the bookcase and give it a hearty shove.” I walked to the edge of the shelf, put both hands in front of me, and pushed. It vibrated a bit, moved forward an inch, then rocked back into place.

“Do not be delicate. Harder!”

This time I put my whole body into it, and the shelf rolled sideways, revealing a small doorway hidden in the wall. Sammy’s head suddenly appeared, like a turtle from its shell. “Please join me.” He was obviously thrilled that he’d surprised me, and he gave me a delighted grin before his face vanished.

The narrow doorway was about four feet high, and as I squeezed through I wondered how Sammy had managed it. I found him standing in a small dim room, the size of a child’s bedroom, illuminated by a single lightbulb. Floor-to-ceiling shelves covered all four walls, and they were absolutely stuffed with papers. “What is this?” I whispered. “Did you know it was here?”

“I could not be more astonished.” Sammy’s face was filled with wonder. “I was poking through the shelves when I discovered an extremely rare travel guide from the 1860s. I dropped it—you know how maladroit I am—and when I bent to retrieve the book, I saw the wheels on the bottom of the bookcase. And”—he stopped dramatically—“where
there are wheels, there must be a reason. So I pushed. Voilà! A secret chamber, replete with hidden treasure.” He gestured toward the shelves. “Letters!” He pulled a file from the shelf. “Thousands of them, correspondence extending all the way back to the dawn of
Delicious!
”

“But what are they doing here? Why are they hidden?”

Sammy opened the file. “I have absolutely no notion.” He took out a sheet, which crackled with age. “But I will hazard a guess that they were squirreled away years ago and simply forgotten. It is possible that no living soul knows of their existence.”

“So weird.”

“The mystery of
Delicious!
” Sammy sounded thrilled. “Is it not glorious? We have uncovered a secret; with any luck it will prove to be deeply sinister. However …” He held up the paper in his hand, and I could see that it was covered with clear, legible writing. “I am not very sanguine on that score. This one, it appears, was penned by a young girl, a mere child.”

I looked over his shoulder as he began to read:

“ ‘November third, 1942, Dear Mr. Beard—’ ”

“Why is she writing to James Beard?”

“I suppose it was because he was a regular contributor to
Delicious!
If you will allow me to continue, I am certain we will discover the reason for this letter.” He cleared his throat and began to read again: