McNally's Caper (4 page)

“Me again,” I said, giving her my 100-watt Supercharmer smile. (I decided to hold the 150-watt Jumbocharmer for a more propitious time.)

“Oh sure,” she said, stepping back to allow entrance. “You know your way to the library?”

“If I get lost I’ll scream for help,” I said. “What’s your last name, Sheila?”

“Hayworth,” she said. “And no, I’m not related to Rita.”

Saucy, this one.

“You could have fooled me,” I said. “The resemblance is striking.”

We both laughed because she was a shortish blonde on the zoftig side and looked more like
Klondike Annie
than
The Lady from Shanghai.
She waggled fingers at me and sashayed away. She was, I noted, wearing high heels, which I thought rather odd for the maidservant of a genteel and apparently hidebound family.

After two wrong turnings in those lugubrious corridors I finally located the library. The door was ajar and I blithely strolled into my designated “combat center.” Then I stopped, entranced. A woman, perched high on the wheeled ladder, was reaching up to select a volume from the top shelf. She was wearing an extremely short denim skirt.

Her position in that literary setting
forced
me to recall Browning’s apt observation: “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”

S
HE HEARD ME ENTER
and turned to look down at me coolly. “You must be Archibald McNally,” she stated.

I confessed I was.

“I am Geraldine Forsythe. I understand you are to compile a catalog of father’s books.”

“That is correct, Miss Forsythe, but please don’t let me disturb you. I intend to work as quietly as possible with no interruption of the family’s daily routine. Your father suggested I make this room my headquarters, but whenever my presence is inconvenient for you, do let me know.”

“No,” she said, “it’ll be no problem.”

She began to step down from the ladder and I hastened forward to assist her.

“I can manage,” she snapped at me. “I’ve been doing it for years and haven’t fallen yet.”

So I stood aside and waited until she was standing on the parquet floor facing me. And we were almost eye-to-eye, for she was quite tall, rangy, with wide shoulders and a proud posture. I guessed her age at forty-plus. She had a coffin-shaped face with remarkable eyes, as astringent as an iced dry martini.

I noted the novel she had selected:
Mansfield Park.

“You admire Jane Austen?” I asked.

“Not particularly,” she said curtly. “But I no longer read books written by men. They don’t address my concerns.”

That seemed to me an uncommonly harsh judgment. “Have you tried the Bible?” I asked as pleasantly as I could, but she glared at me.

“Are you a trained librarian?” she demanded.

“Unfortunately I am not,” I replied, “but I don’t believe this project requires philological expertise. It’s really just a matter of taking inventory, isn’t it?”

“Like a grocery clerk,” she said, and there was no mistaking the sneer in her voice.

“Exactly,” I said equably. “The only problem I anticipate is locating books borrowed by family members and staffers and not returned to the library.”

I was thinking of that missing first edition of Edgar Allan Poe.

I thought Geraldine blushed slightly but I wasn’t certain.

“I assure you,” she said stiffly, “I shall immediately return all the books I have borrowed and finished reading. And I’ll leave you a note of those still in my possession.”

“Thank you for your kind cooperation,” I said politely.

She stared at me, looking for sarcasm and not finding it. Little did she know that she was facing the King of Dissemblers. She started to move away, then turned back to stare again.

“I have a feeling I’ve seen you before,” she said, and it was almost an accusation.

“That’s possible,” I replied. “I’ve lived in Palm Beach most of my adult life, and the town isn’t all that big.”

“Are you a member of the Pelican Club?” she asked suddenly.

I admitted I was.

“That’s where I saw you,” she decided. “I went there once. No, twice. It’s a dreadful place. So vulgar.”

I smiled. “We prefer to think of it as unpretentious, Miss Forsythe.”

“Vulgar,” she insisted, paused, then said, “If you’d care to invite me there some evening I’d like to confirm my first impressions.”

Shocked? My flabber was gasted. I mean we had been clawing at each other’s throat for the past several minutes—in a civilized manner, of course—and now the lady was asking for a date. Connie had been right; Geraldine was a strange one.

“It would be a pleasure,” I said gravely. “This evening?”

She gave that a moment’s serious thought as if she had other social engagements that required her presence.

“Very well,” she said finally, “but not for dinner. Later, and only for a drink or two.”

“Excellent,” I said. “Suppose I stop by around nine o’clock.”

“That will be satisfactory,” she said in a schoolmarmish fashion. “I assume informal dress will be suitable?”

“Perfectly,” I assured her.

She gave me a chilly nod and stalked from the room. She left me, I must admit, shaken and bewildered. I couldn’t even begin to fathom her mercurial temperament nor understand her motives for wanting to revisit a saloon she had decried as vulgar. One possibility, I mournfully concluded, was that Geraldine Forsythe’s elevator didn’t go to the top floor. More evidence of the basic nuttiness of human behavior.

I actually worked as a cataloger for more than an hour. I started separate pages for each of the north, east, south, and west walls of the library. I then counted the number of bookshelves on each wall and made a note of that. I assigned a key number to each shelf—N-l, E-2, S-3, W-4, and so on—and began counting the number of volumes on each shelf.

I was busily engaged in this donkeywork when my labors were interrupted by the entrance of a stocky woman clad in twill jodhpurs and a khaki riding jacket. She was carrying a crop and brought with her the easily identifiable scent of a stable, but not so strong as to be offensive. I rose to my feet and shook the strong hand she offered.

“Constance Forsythe,” she said. “The older Mrs. Forsythe, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. And you’re Archibald McNally?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. I hope my presence here won’t be an inconvenience.”

“Not to me,” she said with a short laugh. “I’m out at the barn almost every day. Do you ride?”

“No, ma’am, I do not. Horses and I have an agreement: I don’t ride them and they don’t bite me.”

“That’s smart,” she said. “They can give you a nasty chew if you’re not careful. Listing my husband’s books, are you?”

She said “my husband’s books” not “our books.”

“Yes, I’m preparing a catalog,” I told her. “I’ve just started.”

“I don’t know why Griswold wants a catalog,” she said. “Insurance, I suppose, or estate planning. Something like that. Your father is our attorney, is he not?”

“That’s correct. Prescott McNally.”

“I met him years ago. A gentleman of the old school, as I recall.”

“He is that,” I agreed.

She wandered about the library flicking her riding crop at the shelves of leather-bound volumes. “I’ve read damned few of these,” she commented. “Not very spicy, are they? Geraldine is the reader of the family. Have you met my daughter, Mr. McNally?”

“Yes, I had that pleasure about an hour ago.”

She snorted and it sounded amazingly like a whinny. “I’m glad you found it a pleasure. Most young men are put off by Gerry. She has a tendency to speak her mind. Gets it from me, I imagine.” She turned suddenly. “Are you married, Mr. McNally?”

“No, ma’am, I am not.”

She nodded. “Who was it that said every woman should marry—and no man?”

“I believe it was Disraeli.”

“He was right, you know. If I had been a man I would never, never have married.”

I smiled, amused by this forthright woman. She was bulky and had a mastiff face, ruddy and somewhat ravaged. I wondered if she was a heavy drinker as horsewomen frequently are. But there was no denying her brusque honesty. I thought of her as the leviathan of the Forsythe Family with all these little sloops bobbing about her.

“You’ve met everyone in the house?” she asked me.

“I believe so. Of course I already knew your husband and son. Do they ride, Mrs. Forsythe?”

I heard the whinny again. “Not those two,” she said. “Unless the horse is wood and bolted to a merry-go-round. I’m the only nag nut in the family. Well, that’s not exactly true. Sylvia comes out to the farm occasionally when she gets bored with her harpsichord. She rides very well indeed.”

“And your grandchild, Lucy?”

“That darling! I’m going to get her up on a pony if it’s the last thing I do.”

“Mrs. Forsythe,” I said, “perhaps you can answer a question that’s been puzzling me for years. Why do so many young women—I’m speaking mostly of teenagers—become enamored of horses?”

She gave me a mocking grin. “That’s easy,” she said. “Because horses are big, strong, handsome, affectionate, and loyal. Everything the lads they know are not.”

I laughed. “Now it
does
make sense.”

“Usually young girls grow out of it,” she continued. “After they realize they can’t go to bed with a horse. Then they settle for a man.”

“We all must compromise in this life,” I said jokingly.

But suddenly Mrs. Forsythe was serious. “I wish Geraldine had learned that.” She looked at me speculatively. “Perhaps you can teach her,” she added.

Then, apparently feeling she had said enough, she left the library abruptly, leaving a slight odor of eau de equine in her wake.

I sat down again at the desk. But I didn’t immediately return to my work. There was no mistaking Mrs. Forsythe’s intention, and I spent a few moments recalling all the instances when anxious mommies had attempted to interest me in their unmarried daughters. I am not claiming to be a great catch, mind you, but neither am I an impecunious werewolf, and so I am fair game.

I do not condemn the mothers for trying desperately to ensure their little girls’ futures. Nor do I blame the daughters, for they are frequently unaware of mommy’s machinations and would be horrified if they did know. Nor do I feel any guilt in slinking away from maternal schemings with as much speed and dignity as I can muster.

I spent an additional hour listing books in the Griswold Forsythe library and meticulously recording title, author, publisher, and copyright. This was all camouflage, you understand—a subterfuge to convince everyone (including the thief) that I was engaged in a legitimate pursuit. My labors were as exciting as tracing the genealogy of the royal family of Ruritania.

Finally I revolted against the tedious task and made preparations to depart. I carefully left my preliminary notes atop the desk where they could easily be examined by any interloper. But first I plucked two sun-bleached hairs from my scalp (when the job demands it, your hero will endure any agony) and placed them on pages 5 and 10 of my manuscript. It was, I thought, an artful method of determining if anyone was interested in inspecting my work.

I then left without encountering any of the residents, although I heard raucous laughter coming from the kitchen area. But when I approached my fiery Miata, parked on the bricked driveway in front of the Forsythe mansion, I found Anthony Bledsoe eyeballing the car. He was clad in a uniform of sedate gray alpaca, but his hands were thrust deep into his trouser pockets—bad form for a properly sniffish butler.

The surliness I had noted early that morning had apparently dissipated, for he greeted me with a small smile. “Nice wheels,” he remarked.

“Thank you,” I said. “Hardly a Corniche but it suits me.”

“Fast?” he inquired.

“Enough,” I replied.

He walked slowly around my chariot and I thought I saw longing.

“What do you drive?” I asked him.

“My mother’s car,” he said dolefully. “An Oldsmobile. Six years old and ready for a trade-in.”

“I don’t think she’ll go for a two-seater like this,” I observed.

“No,” he said, “but I would.”

He gave the car a final admiring glance and turned away. “Anthony,” I called, and he looked back. “What time do Mr. Forsythe and his son customarily return from their office?”

“Four o’clock,” he said. “Exactly. Every day. You can set your watch by those two characters.”

It was not an appropriate demonstration of respect for his employers. I didn’t expect him to tug his forelock in their presence, you understand, but he might have spoken of them without scorn. I am somewhat of a traditionalist, y’see. I mean I always remove my hat when a funeral cortege passes by and, at the start of baseball games, I have been known to hum the national anthem.

I drove home reflecting that although Connie Garcia had labeled the Forsythes as “dull, dull, dull,” I was finding them a fascinating and perplexing family of crotchety individuals. Eccentrics, I reckoned, and one of them had recently adopted stealing as a hobby. But for what reason this deponent, at the time, kneweth not.

I changed to swimming trunks (in a modest tie-dyed pattern) and went for my daily swim in the Atlantic, one mile north and return in a gently rolling sea as warm as madrilene. I returned to my rookery to shower and dress. Since I was to meet Geraldine Forsythe later that evening I selected my rags with care: a jacket of cranberry silk over slacks of olive drab. The polo shirt was Sea Island mauve and my loafers were a pinkish suede.

I thought the final effect was eye-catching without being garish, but at our preprandial cocktail hour my father took one look at my costume and exclaimed, “Good God!” But you must realize his sartorial preferences include balbriggan underwear and wingtip shoes.

Dinner that evening was a delicious feast. Ursi Olson had located a rack of out-of-season venison somewhere and, after marinating, served it roasted with a cherry sauce spiked with cognac and a frosting of slivered almonds. What a dish that was! It made one believe that human existence does have a Divine Purpose.

Before my father retired to his port, pipe, and Dickens I asked if he would provide me with a copy of the list of items Griswold Forsythe II had reported as missing. He promised to supply it and asked what progress I had made in my investigation.