A Groom With a View

daring to be chummy with them. They're really dreadful snobs.'

“But last night they were the senior members of the Thatcher family present at the lodge. If she had discovered something and was being honest about it, wouldn't they be the ones she'd tell?'

“I guess so,' Jane said. Then she thought for a long moment. 'What if she actually knew them? Before now, I mean. Or knew of them?'

“What do you mean?'

“They're all of an age. And nobody waits until they're seventy to become a dressmaker,' Jane said. 'She said she'd sewn a wedding dress for Marguerite way in the past. What if her association with them caused her to know some secret about one or the other?”

Shelley's eyes lit up. 'I like it,' she said. 'Maybe she made maternity clothes fifty years ago for the virginal- and-damned-proud-of-it Aunt Iva. They wouldn't remember someone as lowly as a seamstress, but she'd remember doing a secret job for a high society type.'

“And the aunts knew perfectly well who she was and what she knew and despite their bickering, they'd stick together against an enemy.”

The cat jumped off Jane's lap and walked away, as if disapproving of the conversation. Jane laughed. 'So we know what the cat thinks of that theory.'

“Pretty bad, huh? A bit of a stretch?' Shelley asked.

“Just a bit. Shows a good imagination though. You get an A for effort.'

“Okay, forget the aunts for the moment. It's easy to imagine them destroying someone with a few well- chosen words, but not with raw physical effort. If it has to be someone here, what about Uncle Joe?'

“Motive? And let's try to stay away from secret pregnancies and Nazi connections.'

“The treasure, of course,' Shelley said confidently. 'He's been here for ages, diligently searching, pulling up floorboards, checking the backs of drawers, peeling up bits of linoleum, pawing around in the stuffing in the animal heads, tapping on walls for secret passages—'

“Digging up the gardens?' Jane put in.

“Yes, and he's found nothing. Then this cranky old lady whose heavy sewing machine he has to take upstairs finds the treasure. And it's going to be turned over to Jack and the aunts. Not a penny for loyal Uncle Joe. So he pushes her down the stairs, nips into her room — or wherever she said it was — and snags it.”

Jane nodded. 'And why would she have chosen to tell him, of all people, about it?”

Shelley slumped in her lawn chair. 'Good question. Unless it was a complaint. 'Here, my good man,' ' Shelley said, pretending to be Mrs. Crossthwait, ' 'when you've got that sewing machine in place, get rid of that rolled-up document stuck down the throat of that awful bear rug's head.' How's that?”

Jane grinned. 'Let me guess. The rolled-up document is proof that Uncle Joe was once a mass murderer.'

“Or Nazi sympathizer,' Shelley said cheerfully. 'Take your pick.”

Eleven

one of the football players broke away from the game and went inside, nodding politely to Jane and Shelley and coming back out a few minutes later with his hands full of sodas, which he passed around. Another went inside the lodge as the first was coming out and he, too, returned a few minutes later.

“I guess I should check on how the shower is going,' Jane said lethargically.

“They'd find you if they needed anything.”

“Still, I need to appear to be earning my keep. Be right back. If Jack Thatcher catches me sitting down, he'll probably take a hundred bucks off my fee.”

“Where is he, anyway?'

“He and his pals are off looking at a lake somewhere on the grounds, I think,' Jane said. 'Probably planning where the ninth green ought to be. Wait here.'

“You plan to leave me here watching an amateur football game? No way,' Shelley said.

As they approached the side room, Jane was pleased to hear lots of chatter that sounded downright friendly. Apparently the earlier ice had been broken. Eden and Layla were coming out the door. Eden was heading toward the hallway to the monks' rooms, presumably for a potty break, and Layla was halfway to the kitchen. 'Do you need something?' Jane asked Layla.

As she was speaking, Mr. Willis shoved open the kitchen door, balancing a tray of more champagne cocktails. 'That's what I was looking for,' Layla said. 'We're all getting giggly-tipsy. Aunt Marguerite is telling what she considers risque stories.”

Layla looked so girlish and happy Jane had the urge to hug her. 'You're having fun, aren't you?'

“If it weren't for Mrs. Crossthwait, this would have been my best weekend in years.'

“You're not missing your children?”

Layla laughed. 'No, not a bit. Should I feel guilty?'

“Absolutely not,' Jane said.

Jane and Shelley oozed in the door and caught Livvy's eye. 'Anything you need?' Jane mouthed.

Livvy was surrounded by a pile of wrapping paper and ribbons. Somebody had fetched a rather wicked-looking knife from the kitchen to help open gifts. Jane guessed nobody wanted to go to Mrs. Crossthwait's room for scissors.

Livvy pushed the paper and ribbon aside, got up, and came over. 'I need a box to put everything in so none of the little things get lost. There might be some in the attic. Would you mind—?”

“Not at all,' Jane said.

As she and Shelley went up the stairs, Shelley said, 'She was actually smiling slightly. And it looked like a real smile.'

“I can't wait for this to be over,' Jane said. 'Things seem to be going well now and maybe we'll just coast on through the rest.”

Jane reached out to push the attic door. It wouldn't open. She tried again, thinking it was just stuck, maybe from all the rain and humidity. 'That's strange. It seems to be locked.'

“Locked? It wasn't locked yesterday. We looked in here, remember?”

Jane stared at the door. 'How very odd. I'll see if there's a seam ripper in Mrs. Crossthwait's room.'

“Is there a connection between those thoughts?' Shelley asked, trailing along.

Mrs. Crossthwait's room was a bit of a mess. The police had gone through her luggage and all her sewing materials. They hadn't deliberately vandalized the room, but it was pretty untidy. 'We'll have to come back here later and pack everything up,' Jane said. 'Ah, here's the seam ripper. I can open the lock with it.'

“What a peculiar skill,' Shelley said.

“Doesn't every mother know how to get a little kid out of a bathroom when he's locked himself in?' Jane asked.

“After I had to crawl in the ground floor bath? room once to rescue Denise, I had the locks taken off,' Shelley said, 'and put little hooks up high so I could lock myself in, but they couldn't.”

Jane took the seam ripper, went back into the hall, and sat down in front of the door, studying the lock.

“Where did you ever learn a skill like this?' Jane smiled. 'From a Frenchman that I was desperately, madly in love with.'

“And you didn't marry him?'

“Couldn't. He was thirty and I was ten. My dad was attached to the embassy in Paris and we had a house outside the city. My folks wanted my sister and me to attend the local school to improve our French. A lost cause in both our cases. Monsieur Baptiste LeClerc was the math teacher. He taught us to pick locks. It was supposed to illustrate some mathematical principle, in theory. Actually, I think he was teaching us to be his accomplices. Halfway through the term, he disappeared. My mother later told me he'd been arrested for breaking into houses.”

Shelley laughed. 'Training you girls to be little Oliver Twists, huh?'

“He was divine. A dark sweep of hair he was always tossing back artistically. The longest, most beautiful eyelashes I've ever seen. If I'd met him as an adult, I'd have wanted to smack him into shape. But when I was ten, he was so romantic.' She prodded gently at the lock for a moment and there was a snick. Jane opened the door. 'Don't ever mention to Mel that I know how to do this.”

There was a primitive path through the junk in the attic and some fairly fresh-looking cardboard boxes at the