Terrible Tide (19 page)

“I sure can. Earl’s got a fixed idea this museum scheme is going to make him the great man of Jugtown. These loonies with a righteous cause do tend to think the end justifies the means.”

He rubbed his knuckles against his nose again. “But if Earl’s so fired up to get his museum started, why’s he pinching the exhibits? That’s assuming the doped rum has anything to do with the stuff in Ellis’s dresser.”

“Maybe he’s raising some quick capital to fix the place up.”

“I can’t imagine why. There’ll be money coming with the estate, and Earl’s a well-to-do man in his own right, though you’d never think so to look at him. His father left him a lot of mining stock and he lives on the dividends. That’s how he has time to take on these nonpaying jobs so he can throw his weight around.”

“Then maybe there isn’t any connection between the thefts and the doping. If Earl’s so itchy to get started on his project—”

“I can’t buy that, Holly. The simplest explanation’s most apt to be the right one. I’d say Ellis Parlett and whoever’s working with him just wanted to make sure everybody at Cliff House got a good night’s sleep so they wouldn’t be interrupted at an awkward moment. Your being here creates a new problem for them, don’t forget. When Annie was alone with Mrs. Parlett, they didn’t have to worry so much. She’d hear what she thought was old Jonathan’s ghost prowling around, lock herself in her room, and say her prayers. They must realize it’s going to take more than a phony ghost to keep you quiet.”

Holly sighed. “I hate to admit it, but you’re probably right. And you must be right about Claudine’s not knowing what Ellis is up to as well because if she did, she wouldn’t have hired me. We’d better get Bert up on the couch.”

“Leave him where he is. Serve the old soak right.”

“Sam, we can’t do that! This floor is terribly drafty. He’d catch pneumonia for sure.”

“Small loss if he did.” Nevertheless, Sam bent and slid his arms under his uncle’s shoulders. Take his ankles, will you? One-two-three, heave!”

They lifted Bert to the cot, tucked the afghan around him, and slid a cushion under his head. “Do you think he’ll be warm enough?” Holly fussed.

“He’s got plenty of anti-freeze aboard.” Sam gave his aged relative an affectionate belt on the clavicle. “Throw an old horse blanket or something on top if it’ll make you feel better. I suppose the cold does get into the bones, at his age. He’s really my great-uncle, though he hates to admit it. Sort of like the old cuss, don’t you?”

“I think he’s the most enchanting man I’ve ever met.”

“That so?” He tilted her chin so her mouth would be easier to get at. “Who’s the second most?”

“Stop it! He’ll wake up and be jealous.”

“The hell with him.”

After a while, Sam let her come up for air. “You going to be my girl?” he mumbled into her hair.

“I thought I already was.” Holly took a tighter fistful of his shirt. “Oh, Sam, I wish you never had to let me go.”

“I don’t.”

“Yes you do. I have to put Annie on the pot.”

“Let her pee the bed.”

“She’d rather die. Come on, be good.”

Unwillingly he released his grip. “All right, go tend your babies. I’m going to have a look around outside.”

“Will you come back before you leave?”

“Who says I’m leaving?”

“Sam, I can’t let you upstairs, and Bert’s already grabbed the cot. You’ve got to get a decent night’s sleep, and there’s no way you’d get it here.”

“Yes, Mother.” He tweaked her ponytail. “I suppose I should try to catch Uncle Ben about that rum before he goes to bed. Besides, I promised Roger I’d be on deck early tomorrow to make up for the time I’ve lost and this is no time to start a family feud. I guess I’d better slide along. Lock the door after me and don’t open it to anybody.”

O
NE LAST, CRUSHING SQUEEZE
and Sam was gone, leaving Holly feeling exposed, chilly, and dreadfully vulnerable. She secured the locks, listened to Bert’s gurgling snores long enough to make sure he was safe to be left alone, then went upstairs.

She had a vague recollection that she’d meant to hang around downstairs and find out whether anybody tried to get in the windows she’d screwed shut, but she couldn’t. Not tonight. Annie was going to need nursing again tomorrow and maybe for some time to come. She couldn’t get through another day of trays and sheets and rubbing backs without a decent night’s sleep.

That reminded her, she had two pills to take, not one. It was rather odd, that second half of the prescription turning up in Claudine’s mailbox. Very odd indeed, considering the chloral hydrate in the rum. She’d better skip the pill until she’d talked with Dr. Walker and made darn sure he was, in fact, the one who’d sent it.

Holly put on a fresh nightgown and went to change Mrs. Parlett’s diaper, hoping she herself would never come down to having some stranger powdering her withered buttocks so she wouldn’t develop bed sores. At least old Mathilde still had somebody to do it, in spite of Earl Stoodley. Holly brought fresh water and propped up the lolling head. There’d been water in the carafe on the night stand, but she didn’t dare trust anything that had been sitting around Cliff House, not now.

“Come on, take a sip for Holly.”

The lids fluttered, showing a glimpse of those incredible eyes. Was Mathilde signaling that she understood? Anyway, she was drinking. After a moment, Holly took the glass away.

“That’s enough for now. I don’t want you having to sleep in a puddle.”

She surprised herself by bending and kissing Mathilde’s cheek. “Sleep tight. I’m going to see if Annie’s okay.”

Holly was in the bathroom getting warm water and a washcloth for Annie when the phone rang. She limped downstairs and snatched up the receiver, expecting to hear Sam’s voice. To her surprise, it was Claudine.

“Holly, I know it’s late to phone, but is everything all right?”

“Why?” Holly asked her. “Should something be wrong?” Such as people passing out from knockout drops, or pills the doctor didn’t send?

“It’s just that with Annie down sick, and your bad leg—”

“Claudine, I told you about that before you hired me.”

“I know, Holly, and I’m not blaming you. Truly I’m not. I expect I made the job sound a lot easier than it is. But you looked so nice, and I was so desperately worried—”

Now was as good a time as any to speak her piece. “Maybe it’s none of my business,” Holly said, “but I think you’re making things unnecessarily hard for yourself and all of us by refusing to enter Cliff House. After all, Mrs. Parlett is old and helpless now.”

“Holly, you don’t understand.” Claudine was sobbing, making no attempt to pretend she wasn’t “I’m not harboring a grudge. I’m past that I just—can’t come.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t tell you. I don’t even know why I’m talking to you. Oh God, what am I going to do?”

Abruptly Claudine’s voice changed, became firm and crisp as usual. “You’ll have to manage as best you can. I’ll check with you in the morning. Good night.”

She clicked off. Holly stood there with the receiver in her hand until it started making exasperated noises at her.

“Oh, shut up!” She slammed it back on the hook and slumped into a chair. It was easy enough to guess why Claudine had broken off that strange conversation. Somebody had come in, somebody who mustn’t know how upset she was. Ellis was the obvious person, but why should she hide her feelings from her own brother?

Why shouldn’t she? Roger was Holly’s brother, but would she ever try to share an emotion with him? Claudine was Ellis’s big sister, the dominant one. Maybe she hadn’t wanted him to know she could cry. But why not? She was human, surely; more human than one would have expected. And if it wasn’t Ellis, who was it? Why couldn’t Claudine have said something like, “Oh hello, Mary. I’ll be right with you,” so Holly would understand why she’d had to ring off like that?

Holly thought of phoning Sam and getting him to sneak over and find out who the visitor was. And what if he got caught spying on Claudine? He needed his rest after all that backing and forthing to Saint John, and she didn’t need him getting hurt. Anyway, there was only one person other than Ellis who’d be likely to barge in on Claudine at this hour. That would be her fellow trustee, Earl Stoodley.

And that made a lot of sense. Simple, venal common sense. Those mining stocks of Earl’s must have stopped paying dividends, so he’d decided to mine Cliff House instead. As trustees, he and Claudine had a clear field. Who else could set up a security system to keep out anybody who might realize genuine antiques were being exchanged for fakes? Who else could make a great fuss about a museum while secretly stalling things along until the house had been milked of everything worth stealing? Who else had a ready-made outlet for the loot?

Claudine’s anxiety about keeping her great-aunt alive made sense, too, in an ugly way. She must be worried sick over what could happen when Mrs. Parlett died and Earl ran out of excuses to keep the appraisers away from Cliff House.

Likely it wouldn’t have been hard for a wily old fox like Stoodley to rope Claudine in. He’d have known how to harp on Claude’s having been done out of his so-called rights; how to rub salt in the wound of Alice’s being disinherited and given such a hard life when money might have even prevented that mysterious terminal illness. He could have talked young Claudine into thinking she was only taking what should have been due to her and Ellis in the first place.

So now all Holly had to do was call in the Mounties and—what? Prove Roger’s only customer, Mrs. Brown, was in fact just a front for Earl Stoodley? Expose her brother as a maker of fakes instead of a dedicated master craftsman? Maybe Roger and Fan were in on the thefts and maybe they weren’t, but who was going to believe they’d dealt with the alleged Mrs. Brown in sublime innocence and good faith? Who’d accept the fact that Roger’s sister had been fool enough to take and keep a job at Cliff House without being a party to the ongoing fraud?

After all, what difference would it make if she kept her mouth shut? The antiques were gone, probably sold and resold until they’d never be traced. The museum would be talked of but never opened, not while Earl Stoodley could keep things snarled up in confusion and red tape. Those pictures he was supposedly so keen on letting Geoffrey Cawne take would somehow never get printed. Roger’s handiwork would sit gathering dust at Cliff House while he sat a few miles away at Howe Hill wondering why Mrs. Brown never came back to buy any more of his masterpieces.

Or maybe Earl would skip with Mrs. Brown, whoever she might be, leaving Claudine to sweat it out alone. He might even find another house to burgle in the same leisurely fashion, hiring Roger to turn out his expert copies and stick on his pathetic little brass plaques, persuading himself that he was thereby spreading his own fame.

Keeping quiet wouldn’t work. Sooner or later the truth would have to come out. No matter who escaped, the Howes were going to be in the soup. Aside from that, Holly herself couldn’t be a party to such a crime. Cliff House was a part of Canada’s heritage. The ripping-off wasn’t over, it was still going on and it had to be stopped. Feeling older than Mrs. Parlett, Holly heaved herself out of the chair and went back to bed.

But not to sleep. Her mind wouldn’t quiet down. There was something, there had been something for a while now, nagging at the back of consciousness; something she’d learned but hadn’t connected up.

And she knew what it was! Holly shot out of bed again, grabbed her bathrobe, and slipped downstairs. She didn’t know why she was moving so soundlessly, risking a bad fall by not turning on lights. Annie wouldn’t mind being wakened, and it would take more of a hullabaloo than one exhausted assistant nursemaid could make to bring Mrs. Parlett back from Never-Never Land.

Nevertheless she didn’t flick on the flashlight she’d brought along until she was inside Jonathan Parlett’s library with the door shut and the heavy draperies pulled tight across the windows.

The book ought to be on one of the lower shelves. She was sure she’d noticed it when she was prop-hunting for Geoffrey Cawne. Yes, here it was: a thick volume covered in dark red buckram with gold lettering. Dr. Somebody’s Home Medical Guide. She had to thumb through the pages a while before she found the reference she wanted. It wasn’t a word many people knew. She wouldn’t have, herself, if she hadn’t been stuck in that hospital ward for so long next to an LPN with a broken hip who fancied herself as an expert on rare diseases.

So that was that, another simple answer to an impossible question. Holly shut the book and put it back on the shelf as guiltily as if she’d been caught reading someone’s secret diary. Then she went to wake Bert.

“B
ERT! BERT, WAKE UP.”
Holly shook and pummeled the hired man until he quit snoring and began to grunt.

“Whassamarr?”

“Get up. I have to talk to you.”

“Cripes.” He swung his bandy legs over the side of the cot and hunched over, clutching his head. “Who hit me?”

“You’ve been drugged.” She hauled him upright and skated his unwilling feet over the varnished linoleum. “Come on, you need fresh air.”

“Quit shovin’. Can’t you let a—”

Blam!

The explosion sent them both reeling into the back entry-way, which probably saved their lives. The stovepipe shot across the kitchen in a spurt of blazing orange. They’d barely got the door unlocked when the whole kitchen was one mass of flames.

“Christ A’mighty!”

Bert was either swearing or praying. It seemed impossible they could be safe out here in the yard, sucking in shuddering lungfuls of smoky, cinder-laden, but still breathable air. Bert reacted the faster, in spite of being still half doped.

“We got to get help!”

He made a dash for the truck, but Holly grabbed at his sleeve.

“Wait, Bert Annie’s in there. Come on!”

Cursing and yelling, he ran after her, around to the front of the house where they might still have some hope of getting in. Holly wrapped a fold of her bathrobe around her fist and smashed out one of the windows she’d been so proud of bolting shut. Somehow, they got through without tearing themselves to pieces.