He sat down with an attitude of pleased accomplishment, tail thumping wildly. But whoever was out there hadn’t vanished in alarm. A hand appeared at the window and a tentative tapping followed.
Another deep-throated rumble. But this one struck me as of the inquiring sort. Was my furry companion wondering if we should let the person in? Had he perhaps realized that both face and hand belonged to someone of his acquaintance? His owner, in fact, out on the roof eager to rescue him after searching fruitlessly for a half hour?
“If you’re wrong about this and you’re forcing me into an acquaintance with a violent intruder, you’d better bare those fangs of yours and if necessary eat him or her.” The dirty glass had made it impossible to tell whether the face was that of a man or a woman, let alone recognize it. Having at least made myself clear to the dog, I stared impotently at the window. A cardboard silhouette of a person couldn’t get through it without being folded to the size of an envelope. I would have to return to the other room and pray like Samson for the blessing of brute strength in hope of shoving the bed under the window. Of course there was no saying that the person outside wouldn’t have given up by that time and gone in search of another entry, such as a strategically placed door. Speaking of which, I suddenly spotted one halfway behind the bed, its dirty whitewash merging it almost imperceptibly into the wall. Even in my relief, the thought crossed my mind that there might also be an outside staircase that served as a fire escape. Also, as I raised the iron latch, why hadn’t our visitor knocked on the door?
The dog stood close as I inched the door open as far as it would go, given the protrusion of the bed. It was a relief to behold a flat ledge of at least six feet that was barricaded by a waist-high railing. The only opening in sight provided access to a fire escape in direct line with the cubbyhole window. Pressed tightly against this, hands squeezing the wall, was a woman with dark hair in a suit the color of last night’s fog. She was also wearing court shoes, which despite their sensibly sturdy heels did not look best suited to climbing to dizzy heights. Judging from her compressed profile, I had never seen her before. It was still misty and she was shivering badly from cold, fright, or both.
“Hello,” I said ineptly as the dog inched his nose forward.
“Oh, thank God!” came the whispered reply.
“Would you like to come in?”
The dog added an encouraging woof to this idiotic question but did not rush forward to offer a helpful paw. If she were his owner, he had an inadequate way of showing it.
“I haven’t been able to move, not even to turn my head since reaching the top of the fire escape.”
This explained her not noticing the door no more than three feet away.
“It took everything I had to force my fingers to tap at the glass when I thought I saw movement in the room.”
“I understand; I’m not particularly fond of heights myself,” I said, stepping cautiously toward her after ordering the dog back inside; it would be dreadful if she backed up in panic and went tumbling down the metal staircase. Tommy Rowley might then find himself confronted with a severe head injury and multiple broken limbs if, I shivered, she weren’t killed outright. Two fatal accidents at Mucklesfeld in the space of hours would lead to stories for years-centuries-to come of the ghosts of two women being glimpsed, one emerging behind the other to drift toward the house on nights when it seemed likely the hovering mist would turn into a full-fledged fog.
I felt clammy thinking about it. But anything was better than looking down. Murmuring encouragement, I reached her, succeeded in unclamping her from the wall, and got her into the cubbyhole one inching step at a time, whereupon I speedily closed the door and sat her down on the bed. The dog then proceeded to greet me with ecstatic wagging, but mercifully did not leap up at me. Someone must have trained him not to bowl people over, I thought. And he had been obedient about going inside when told.
The woman looked in need of a stiff drink, but Lord Belfrey had said that he didn’t keep liquor in the house. Anyway, her prim seating-feet together, hands folded in her lap-caused me to sense that she wouldn’t have accepted one if offered. I’m not much of a drinker, but after standing on a roof I would have swigged an entire bottle of brandy. Why on earth had she come up that fire escape?
“I’m Ellie Haskell.” I smiled encouragingly.
“Livonia Mayberry.”
“Feeling any better?” I asked her.
“It’ll take a minute. I just need to breathe.”
“Of course. I’ll go along to the bathroom and bring you a beaker of water.”
“Oh, no! Don’t leave me! I’ll fall apart if left alone.” She had a small, fluting voice that reminded me poignantly of my nine-year-old Abbey.
“Then I won’t budge an inch.” This statement caused the dog to eye me as if witnessing a halo forming around my head. His interest in our visitor appeared only politely social. After a few moments of silence, I was relieved to see that her color looked better. She was rather pretty in the manner of a woman from the 1950s-the perm that was intended to last. No eye shadow or mascara, minimal lipstick, and a powdered nose. Her light wool gray suit, the cream blouse with the Peter Pan collar, and the navy court shoes all spoke of that era.
“Is he yours?” She looked startled at the sound of her own voice.
“The dog? He came in through the window of the room next door where I was sleeping. I thought when I saw you peering in here that you’d come to claim him.”
“I never saw him before tonight… this morning. But I did follow him up the fire escape. It was madness, but I had to-there was no choice. He’d made off with my…”
“My goodness!” Horror prevented my allowing her to continue. “How long were you out on that ledge?”
“I don’t know.” She twisted her hands together. “It seemed forever. Hours, days… weeks.”
“Why didn’t you go back down?” I knew it was a heartless question even as it left my mouth.
“I froze… shut down completely; I even blanked out about my reason for being up there”-she unknotted her hands to point a finger that looked as if it had been permanently bent in the process at the dog. “I don’t think I would have seen him or my gloves if they’d both been right next to me.”
“Your gloves?”
“He didn’t bring them in with him, I suppose?” Despair mingled with pitiful hope showed in her blue eyes. “He made off with them when I got out of the car.”
The dog put his head down on his paws.
I nipped back to my bedroom and checked. “No sign of them,” I said on returning.
A pathetic, whispering sigh. “Mrs. Knox-she’s my next-door neighbor-was right when she said I would be punished for getting mixed up in such a mad scheme. She said only a fool would consider entering in a marriage contest, especially when there was dear Harold waiting so patiently in the wings. He gave me those gloves, and despite everything I can’t bear the thought of losing them. Without them, I’m not sure I exist.” A sharp intake of breath. “I’m so sorry… I’m still not thinking straight. You’ll be one of them… of us, I mean. A contestant.”
“Oh, no!” Not wanting Livonia Mayberry to think I disapproved of her involvement, as the neighbor had done, I explained-hopefully in not too bragging a voice-that I was married. I was about to add that a friend of mine had just been added to the list, but this would have required me to break the news that death had put one of the other contestants out of the running. “My husband and I and our traveling companion ended up here by accident during the fog and Lord Belfrey kindly allowed us to spend the night.”
“Is he… did he seem nice?”
“Very.”
“That’s a relief.”
“And very handsome. The reincarnation of Cary Grant.”
“Really?” She reacted as if she had just heard that the date of her execution had been moved up to this morning and she had been denied the right to choose hanging versus beheading. “I’d hoped he would be quite ordinary. Good-looking men scare me, I always feel so intimidated around them. Harold is short and going bald and he wears glasses with very thick lenses. But don’t get me wrong. I like his looks. He’s my type; my mother said he was and so does Mrs. Knox. Do you think he will be annoyed that I arrived hours ahead of time and have created such a silly disturbance?”
“Harold?”
“No… well, he’s already upset. He told me not to count on his overlooking my wanton behavior when I came crawling back, but I meant Lord Belfrey.”
