I was so wound up with projections that Merlin had growled twice before it registered as a warning.
“Easy, boy,” I said for Merlin had risen. “Down! I’ll go see who it is.”
I carefully closed the kitchen door to keep him in and preserve the warmth. I was still so bemused I didn’t so much as glance out the dining room window. I even opened the front door wide. When I realized who my visitors were, it was too late to slam it. Beatty’s foot was across the sill. Just behind him stood Marian and Donald Warren.
“Alone, Miss Murdock?” Beatty smirked.
I knew then that he knew I was. Fleetingly I wondered about the phone call Regan had gone to answer at the station. Merlin started to bark furiously. I heard his claws scrabbling on the kitchen door.
“Constable Beatty was kind enough to drive us out here,” Lieutenant Colonel Donald Warren announced in that patronizing nasal voice I remembered all too well.
“You look so wan, dear Carlysle,” Marian Warren said, insipidly correct.
Beatty firmly pushed the door wider and stood aside for Marian to enter. The three of them stood indecisively in the hallway. I said nothing.
“My, it’s cold here,” Marian Warren said pointedly. Merlin barked continuously.
“Oh, I was hoping you didn’t have that beast here with you,” she said, shuddering delicately. “I hope you have him chained up. Donnie always swore he was vicious. He certainly sounds like it.”
I glanced at Warren whose face had taken on that look of intense strain which proximity to Merlin always produced. In spite of that, Lieutenant Colonel Warren looked revoltingly fit, his wounded arm carried conspicuously in a black silk sling.
Warren was not an ill-favored man. His face was full, his features even, and he carried himself well. He looked the proper officer image and if you didn’t know what an indecisive person he was, what little insight he had into anything beyond the end of his rather Roman nose or the pages of the Manual of Arms, you’d have been reassured about the quality of officers running the war. As a matter of fact, he looked more the model of the proper officer than my father had. The natural gauntness of Dad’s rough face always seemed forbidding. Dad, although the same height and general build as Warren, appeared too thin, his tunic dropping from bony shoulders to a hipless torso. The comparison was even more distasteful to me now.
“Isn’t there any warm room in this house?” Marian Warren demanded petulantly, drawing her thick Persian lamb coat tighter to her.
She hadn’t changed. She still looked skillfully plucked and painted. I’d bet anything she was wearing a crepe dress, floral pattern, under that coat. Naturally she wore silk stockings and had high heels on under the rubbers she wore as a concession to the unplowed countryside.
Merlin gave voice to unrestrained displeasure at the sound of her voice.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Warren,” Beatty said, his hooded eyes glinting smugly. “That dog’s too hurt to stand on his feet.”
I didn’t bother to contradict him because I felt I could handle Beatty without Merlin’s help today. He wouldn’t dare anything in front of the Warrens.
Another fact registered with me, Donald Warren was aware that Merlin was seriously injured. It was probably the only reason he had come under the same roof. He not only hated Merlin; he was terrified of him.
“Shut him up, Carlysle,” Warren ordered through set lips, “no one can hear a word with that racket going on.”
I allowed sufficient time to pass for Warren to realize I issued the command on my own, not because he ordered me to.
“I’m so cold, Carlysle,” Marian Warren complained again.
“I’ll light a fire in the living room,” I said with no graciousness and continued with a bald lie. “The only other room we keep warm is the kitchen. And Merlin’s in there.”
Beatty opened the living room door, displaying a familiarity with the house that I didn’t like. He strode over to the fireplace and knelt to light the fire.
“If Beatty would be so kind as to light the fire for us,” I suggested sarcastically.
The room was more than chilly; it was frigid. The clammy damp cold seeped through my double sweaters. I refused to budge from this room and ignored the desire to shiver.
“There. This fireplace draws well. Take the chill off the room in a sec,” Beatty said genially.
“Unless your presence is official .” I said acidly to Beatty.
“It is,” Warren replied with unctuous mien. He planted his square body directly in front of the fireplace, hugging any warmth.
Beatty looked at me, a smirk on his mule’s face. His eyes took in the fact that I was dressed in a skirt and sweaters. I inwardly cursed the fact that I had no protection from such insolence.
“I fear I am forced to exercise amost unpleasant duty,”
Warren continued. Beatty’s smutty look was driven from my mind. “I must recover some stolen property from you.”
“Stolen property? What stolen property?” I demanded.
“Oh, come now, Carlysle. You received your father’s footlocker and his personal effects. You don’t imagine those parchment books and those valuable stamps are legitimate spoils of war? I know he thought to make restitution - “
“What are you talking about?”
“I told Division that I would handle the matter as tactfully as possible.” His face lengthened with simulated regret. “There will be no publicity and, in view of your father’s otherwise satisfactory record as an officer, this will be forgotten. But only if restitution can be made to the French authorities.”
“What are you saying?” I demanded, the chill forgotten as anger rose in me - hot white anger at the snide implication in Warren’s words. “How the hell can you imply anything so ridiculous?”
“Come off it, girlie,” Beatty put in jeeringly. “You hand the stuff over and we’ll leave. Otherwise I have a search warrant right here. You defy it and I’ll have you in jail.”
“Go ahead. Search. You won’t find anything stolen here.”
If Regan and I hadn’t been able to find that locker, they couldn’t.
“Come now, Carlysle,” Warren snapped, his pose abandoned, “don’t be tedious. We know you have all your things here.”
“Because your second-story man couldn’t find them at Mrs. Everett’s?” I taunted.
“I told you she’d be difficult,” Marian said.
“You’re damned right I’ll be difficult. The very idea of you two ghouls coming here, slandering my father when all the time .”
My voice had risen in outrage and roused Merlin who began barking frantically, banging his body against the door.
“Shut that goddamned dog up,” Warren bellowed, his face white, his eyes darkening with apprehension.
“Only because he’s wounded and don’t think I don’t know who caused that,” I cried. “Merlin, shut up!”
Merlin whined in protest, but he stopped barking and battering the door.
“Search the house, Constable,” Warren directed Beatty in the offhand manner he used with anyone below his own rank. His manner did not set well with Beatty whose good opinion of himself did not include subservience to anyone. I did not miss that quick flare of irritation as Beatty trudged down the back hall. As he passed the kitchen door, Merlin growled. Beatty cursed him but continued.
“Really, Carlysle, you’re making a difficult duty very unpleasant for Donnie. Only the fact that your father served so many years with him persuaded Donnie he must intervene, for the reputation of the regiment. Why your father - “
“Spare me your interpretation of duty,” I snapped. I never could stand the sound of that woman’s voice; there was a whiny edge that grated on my nerves.