“Not at all.” Flexing my lips into a smile, I stood. “Ben makes no claim to be a literary genius, and he is certainly not in competition with you. His professional reputation depends on nobody dying.”
Again the eyebrows twitched. “You did assure me, Mrs. Haskell, when I admitted you over my threshold, that unlike your Mrs. Malloy, you are not a besotted fan.”
What a childish manoeuvring for praise! Unwrapping the turban, I rumpled my soggy hair down about my shoulders, sat down, and plumped my cushion. A dazzle of sunlight broke through the curtained windows. The decanters on the buffet glowed red, gold, and bronze. “I know you don’t care one way or the other, Mr. Digby, but I have read two of your books.”
He thumbed the wineglass. “Which ones?”
“At the risk of offending you, Mr. Digby, I have to say that I found both extremely…”
The glass came to a standstill.
“… extremely enjoyable.”
“Trite of you, Mrs. Haskell.”
“Thank you. That last scene in The Butler Didn’t Do It almost did me in. I came out in goosebumps the size of gnat bites. Do you know that right up until Hubert Humbledee swung down from that chandelier, I was certain the bishop’s niece was the one embalming the bodies in the attic?”
Mr. Digby set his glass down on the nest of tables beside his chair and closed his eyes. “The Butler was one of my better efforts, not up to the standard of”-he paused-“some of the others, but I was fairly well pleased.”
I felt a pang of pity for him, goodness knows why. “My husband and I are staging a premiere performance on Friday in honour of the opening of Abigail’s. Would you come?”
Mr. Digby opened his eyes. “I have told you, madam, I go nowhere except The Dark Horse.” He intercepted my glance at the decanter. “You wonder, Mrs. Haskell, why, being such an assiduous hermit, I do not drink here in privacy of an evening. The answer is regrettably prosaic. I am a man haunted by demons. And at night this house spills forth an ambience of gas-light horror.”
I could believe it. There was a desolation to this room, buried under the red plush, which could not entirely be blamed on my damp clothes.
“Perhaps if you were to redecorate?” I suggested brightly. “Danish modern tends to have a dispiriting effect on ghosts.”
His smile was bleak. “Mine are made of sterner stuff.”
I persisted. “The ghosts who prowl the night, are they of any great local interest?”
Mr. Digby brushed a slightly tremulous hand down his yellow waistcoat front and headed back to the decanter. “Of possible interest to you, Mrs. Haskell.”
I had the feeling the subject had been subtly changed. He handed me a glass. “Rumour, borne upon the fumes of slopped bitters at The Dark Horse, Mrs. Haskell, credits the gentleman who built your house with misconducting himself, while in his late seventies, with the two elderly spinsters who inhabited this very house in the latter part of the nineteenth century.”
“Good heavens!” I slopped my Madeira. “That would be my forebear, Wilfred Grantham. His building a house like Merlin’s Court does rather suggest that he dwelt within the enchanted forest of the mind.” I held my glass steady with both hands. “Did you say he was having a fling with both these women?”
The beard creased into a mocking smile. “Spare your blushes, Mrs. Haskell. Unless legend lies, your antecedent did not indulge in orgies. On Monday nights Miss Lavinia was favoured. On Thursdays Miss Lucretia got her turn. And neither sister ever knew about the other.”
“Remarkable.” I rolled up my trouser legs, walked over to the buffet, and refilled my glass. “How-even under the cloak of night-did great-grandfather Grantham enter this house and the allotted bedroom undetected?”
“Ah, Mrs. Haskell”-my host reached behind him and tapped upon the panelled wall, his face reflective-“that is a mystery.”
“Did the sisters ever find him out?”
I thought that he would never answer, but finally he spoke. “You will be pleased to learn, Mrs. Haskell, that I have talked myself out of any growing enthusiasm for you.”
I pushed back some typing paper hanging over the edge of the overloaded desk. “Does this mean you won’t be coming to the party on Friday?”
To my surprise he countered with a question. “Who attends this free-food binge? The ex-chorus girl and the silver-haired, silver-tongued lawyer. The arctic antique dealer and the wife who dreams of being a nightclub singer. And what of the estate agent who refuses to die and his froggy-faced wife? And, yes, the Reverend Mr. Foxglove!”
“Foxworth.”
The liverish lips curled. “I understand, Mrs. Haskell, that a sigh of disappointment swept the county when it was learned you were to wed another.” I could feel him savouring my intake of breath. “But I imagine the church organist didn’t make herself ill crying.”
“Miss Thorn is a very nice woman.”
“Ah! Nice: the ultimate disparagement from one female to another.” Mr. Digby fingered the red velvet curtain. “Speaking of spinsters, will Lady Theodora Peerless adorn your little gathering?”
“I hope so.”
“It seems you will be extremely crowded.” He let the curtain fall. “Hence, I am not interested.”
I looked through the window. The snow edging the glass was like ermine against the red velvet. Five bird feeders dotted the swath of white lawn. “The Aviary is the right name for this house.”
“Originally it was called Rocky Meade. Sort of name Lavinia or Lucretia would pick.”
“Have you lived here long?”
Mr. Digby was back at the buffet. “Five years.”
“Why did you come here?”
“A foolish nostalgia. As a boy I was fond of the place; my family spent several summers here.”
He was driving me into nosiness. “Do you have any family now, Mr. Digby?”
“A daughter… Wren, aged twenty-seven.” Was the tremor of his hands more pronounced? “And to alleviate the necessity of your having to ask where she is, I will tell you-off living with some man who has nothing to recommend him. The old story of the new generation.”
I restrained myself from scanning the room for photographs. To ask what had become of Mrs. Digby struck even me as unconscionably rude.
A sound somewhere outside the room made me forget all else save the hope that Roxie was at the front door. Mr. Digby half-turned.
“That must have been my… my gardener, Mrs. Haskell, come in to make himself a cup of tea. He’s nothing to rave about, but whatever my other sins, I am not a putterer.” He was puttering now, toward the door. “I understand your own gardener has deserted, Mrs. Haskell.”
“Only temporarily. Ben and I have raked the leaves around a bit, but we are going to need someone to bridge the gap. Is this man who works for you fully booked?”
“I doubt it. Whatsit is new in the area and you well know, Mrs. Haskell, how long the natives take to accept anyone whose antecedents don’t date back at least to the days of smugglers in the bay. As for his capabilities, I can attest that he is reliable. He turns up even on days such as this when all he can do is pick up his wages. Your Mrs. Malloy could learn a thing or two from him, but since you continue to be here, perhaps you would like to meet Mother?”
“I would be delighted.”
As the door closed on him, a weighty hush settled on the room. Then I heard voices. Distance made Mr. Digby sound unduly caustic, and the gardener effeminate. My eyes nipped from the desk to the door and back again. A piece of thin yellow paper protruded from the typewriter. Straightening the towel around my shoulders, I rehitched my trousers and tiptoed forward. Just one quick peek to see what Mary Birdsong had in store for her patient readers. Technically it wouldn’t be snooping if I kept my hands behind my back. Chin up, my dear. You did nothing wrong in borrowing your best friend’s earrings. Losing the pawn ticket was the only naughty part.