Genteel Spirits (Daisy Gumm Majesty Books) (41 page)

Anyhow, I saw my family as I sang, and I noticed Billy watching me, a dreamy expression on his face. Again my heart lurched. What was going on here? Blast it, I wished I could stop worrying and take Billy’s altered behavior as a good sign instead of a disquieting one.

Oh, well. There wasn’t a blessed thing I could do about Billy’s health, mental or physical, from the choir loft, so I decided to stop worrying, watch Mr. Floy Hostetter, the choir director, and sing. Maybe the words to the hymn would penetrate my heart and give me some peace.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The rest of that day passed peacefully enough. As usual, Vi presented us with a delicious dinner, which we took at noon on Sundays. I don’t know why, either, except it was traditional to do so.
That day she fixed pork chops and served scalloped potatoes, acorn squash and green beans with them. Butterscotch pudding for dessert. I swear, Aunt Vi was the best cook in the entire world.

Then it was Monday again. Darn.

“But this is the last week,” I assured Billy and Vi at the breakfast table. “The shooting is scheduled to wrap up
about mid-week, and then the only thing left to be done is the editing. So I’ll probably not have to go back to the Winkworth estate until next week, when they aim to take publicity pictures.

“Why do you have to be there for the publicity pictures?” asked Billy, not accusingly, but as if he was honestly interested.

“Because Lola de la Monster will be there, and when she’s there, I’m there,” I said, feeling grumpy about it. “But then it’s over.”

“I think it’s swell of Mr. Mountjoy to be taking us all out to dine on Saturday,” said Pa, who loved his food as much as I loved mine.

“Me, too,” I said, a trifle cheerier than before.

“It’s very nice of him,” said Billy.

I waited for a cutting comment about how Monty could afford to feed us all and a hundred like us, but it didn’t come.

He saw me staring at him. “What?” he asked. “Did I drip on myself?” Vi had fixed waffles for breakfast, and we were eating them with genuine maple syrup sent to us by Ma’s sister in Auburn, Massachusetts.

Oh, as an aside, Pa
had
taught Spike to sneeze on cue, if anyone’s interested.
The brilliant dog
managed to sneeze his way through an entire waffle that morning.

“No. You haven’t dripped,” I said. “It’s just that . . . never mind.” It was just that I wasn’t accustomed to him not showing his bitterness and envy of people like M
onty Mountjoy, whose only claim
s
to fame were that they looked good on a picture screen. I couldn’t say that. Nor could I say that Billy would have looked good on a picture screen, too, if he hadn’t been ruined by the cursed Kaiser and
their
cursed mustard gas. I dropped the subject, which
was one that
only frustrated me.

Billy smiled at me, and I tried not to think
his smile
a sinister portent.

Bother. I was truly good at making mountains of molehills, wasn’t I?

However, my mood had improved a good deal from the prior week, now that I knew this would be the end of my durance vile and that Mrs. Winkworth had been dissuaded from writing any more horrible letters to her grandson and Lola de la Monica. I could almost understand somebody wanting to give Lola a good one—or even two
or three
, for that matter—but I still thought the old lady was a miserable specimen for trying to frighten the grandson who had done so much for her. Monty was much more forgiving than I when it came to his grandmother.

Sam awaited me with arms crossed over his chest when I parked the Chevrolet
at the Winkworth place
. I tried to maintain my almost-good mood from plummeting into my sensible shoes. Well, they were about as sensible as I could get away with and maintain my act as spiritualist extraordinaire. At least they had low heels, so I wouldn’t
be
forever getting them stuck in the dirt.

I have a funny
anecdote
about high-heeled shoes, and it has nothing to do with my story. However, whenever we saw mushrooms growing in either the
front lawn or the back lawn, Ma,
Vi and I went out in our highest heels and walked around
on
the grass
, stamping heavily
. This was supposed to aerate the soil and prevent fungi from growing, according to an article Ma read somewhere. I doubt that the article had advocated puncturing the soil with high-heeled shoes, but what the heck. It worked, so we did it.

That day, however, my shoes were low and comfortable, and the rest of me aimed to be as
relaxed
as possible, too. I figured
calm
shouldn’t be too difficult a thing to
accomplish
, what with Lola’s worries put to rest and Sam unable to arrest Mrs. Winkworth.

Bracing myself, I left the Chevrolet, the door to which Sam had thoughtfully opened for me. Only I don’t think he meant only to be polite. He wanted answers, and it was up to me to give them to him.

“Well?” he demanded before we’d even greeted each other. “Did it work?”

“Good morning to you, too, Sam,” I said.

“Good morning. Did
the séance
work? Will the old
lady
write any more letters?”

Understanding that I’d get no politeness from this quarter, I answered his question. “Yes, the séance worked beautifully, and no, she won’t write any more letters. What’s even better is that Lola was at the séance, and she’s sure I conducted it for her own benefit. She wept
all over
my silk skirt
in gratitude
, in fact.”

Sam shuddered. “Good God.”

“All part of the job,” I told him.

“I like my job better than yours.”

“You’d be lousy at mine.”

“Probably.”

“I’d be lousy at yours.”

“I know.”

Gee, I’d aimed to rile him with my comment, but he must have been so relieved to have the problem of the poisoned-pen letter
s
cleared up, he didn’t take exception. Mildly
astonished
, I walked at his side as we headed for the dressing-room house. “Do you know when the filming on this picture is scheduled to end?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

“Wednesday,” Sam said.

“You must be glad it’s almost over.”

“I am.” He shook his head and began muttering about wasting the taxpayers’ money on frivolities like moving pictures and things like that.

I let him rant. His
indignation was well-earned, as far as I could
ascertain
. It did seem rather excessive to have a detective and two uniformed policemen at a picture set
for weeks on end
. I’d begun to disbelieve the studio’s claim about Germans wanting to steal Dr. Fellowes’s invention as much as Sam did.

Boy did we get that one wrong! As we approached the dressing-room house—which was still pretending to be an old southern plantation—we heard the uproar.

“What the devil is going on?” Sam asked.

It was a rhetorical question, of course, since I’d just arrived at the Winkworth estate
and didn’t know any more than he did
. So I said, “Beats me,” and we hurried our steps.

Poor John Bohnert was throwing a fit almost equal to those pitched by Lola de la Monica when we finally got the set.

“I can’t
believe
the damned thing was stolen from a gated estate!” he bellowed in his best directorial voice. “It’s insane!”

The two uniformed policemen appeared as puzzled as John. One of them spotted Sam and me and ran over to us.

“What’s going on?”
Sam asked, his aura of authority
having taken
full command
of him
.

The uniform, the same Thomas Doan who’d approached my automobile
on
my very first day at the picture shoot, said, “Somebody stole Dr. Fellowes’s invention.”

“Somebody
what
?” Sam
roared
.

I decided this was a job for the police and not a spiritualist, so I sneaked away to where I saw Harold, Lillian and Gladys
standing
in a clump. I didn’t see Dr. Fellowes anywhere. I expect he was tearing his hair out
someplace
else.

“Did someone really steal Dr. Fellowes’s invention?” I asked the trio as I approached.

“Sure did,” said Harold. “Unless the studio’s done it as a publicity stunt.”

“Would they do that?” I asked, appalled.

Harold tilted his head to one side. “I honestly don’t know.
I wouldn’t put too much past the publicity folks.
”

“Well, if they did, they ought to be arrested,” said Gladys. “Poor Homer is beside himself.”

Boy, I’d like to see that. Imagine
it
: two Homer Felloweses. The mind boggled.
“I’m really sorry. I guess they
actually
did need the police.”

“Not that
the police
helped in this case,” said Lillian.

I glanced over to see Sam, who looked as if he was really steaming. Officer Doan appeared cowed, and his fellow uniform was cringing. Sam in a rage was something to avoid if at all possible. “I’m sure that’s exactly what Detective Rotondo is explaining to his men right this minute.”

“Glad I’m not a policeman,” said Lillian.

“Me, too.”

We all heard John Bohnert holler, “But we
can’t
shut down production! We’re already behind! Damn it, at least let us shoot in
side
the house!”

“Oh, Lord,” muttered Harold. “First Lola, and now this.”

“Speaking of Lola . . .”

“She’s not being any trouble,” said Gladys. She added, “So far.”

“
It’s true,” said Harold. “The séance calmed her down a whole lot.”

“Well, I’m glad for that, at least.”

We watched Sam and the policemen argue with John Bohnert for another little while, and then John snatched his tweed cap from his head and flung it to the ground. He said, “Fine, then. Do your damned search.” He raised his gaze to heaven, from whence
, evidently,
cameth no help. “This picture will
never
get finished!”

“You can start filming again after my men have searched
this
house. If
we don’t come up with anything
here, we’ll search the rest of the grounds and the other houses. I’ve got to make a telephone call right now.” Sam clearly didn’t care about the picture shoot. His de
te
ctival instincts were finally being called into play, and he was in his element.
“I can’t see how anyone could have got a piece of equipment that large out of this place without anyone noticing. It’s probably just been
stored
in the wrong place or something.”

“My men don’t
store
equipment in the wrong places,” said John angrily.

Sam said, “Huh,” and turned to give directions to Officer Doan and his cohort.

I said stupidly, “I guess they’re going to search the place.”

“Hope they find the invention,” said Harold. “I’ve got to plan costuming for another picture and can’t be spending much more time here. Besides, Mother and Algie are returning next weekend, and I aim to
host
a welcome-home party
for them
.
I have to plan that, too.”

“It’ll be nice to see your mother again,” I said politely, not really meaning it. Mind you, Mrs. Pinkerton was by far my very best
client
but she tended to panic over trifles, and I was forever being called to drop everything and rush to her mansion to read tarot cards or manipulate the Ouija board or something.
Although I needed the work, life had been quite peaceful during her absence—well, except for the last couple of weeks.

* * * * *

The missing-invention problem turned
out to be a tempest in a teapot
after all, and Sam turned out to be right. Dr. Fellowes’s precious machine was found to have been
packed
in a case meant to house some other piece of equipment. Don’t ask me what, because I don’t know. Anyhow, John’s precious schedule was only delayed another hour or so while the police
conducted their ultimately successful search of the premises
.

Lola didn’t throw a tantrum all day long.

Nor did she throw one the next day or the next.
Thus it was that
I learned something
,
now that everyone seemed to be behaving themselves: motion-picture making was a big, fat bore
, just as Harold had told me it was
. In fact, Sam and I played gin rummy during that final Wednesday. I’d asked Billy if he wanted to come to the se
t to see how pictures were made
but he declined, saying Sam ha
d told him all about it
and he could be bored at home quite nicely and didn’t care to go out to accomplish the same state of ennui. I couldn’t blame him.