on with another man.’ ” Now it was her turn for her eyes to avoid mine. Was I missing something? My eyes fixed on a man with an abundance of glossy black curls seated at the corner table. Mr. Daffy? Yes, but a drastically changed Mr. Daffy. Pale, hollow-cheeked, thin. Or was it that all the stuffing seemed to have gone out of him? He saw me looking at him, but instead of bouncing out of the chair and foisting his relentless sales technique on me, he actually shrank back in his chair, his ripe olive eyes growing dull. So this is what I got for refusing to sell Merlin’s Court! After a minute, he walked slowly over to the table.
“Well, well, ladies. Fancy seeing you here! You weren’t looking for me by any chance, were you?” He was inching backward as he spoke.
“No, I’m afraid not.” I felt guilty about it.
“Good, good.” His face broke into a trembling smile. “I’ve been having these odd notions recently that I’m being followed, that… the bloodhounds are after me, closing in.” He wiped a hand across his sticky brow. “All nonsense, of course. But I think I’ll see my doctor, get a tonic. Here, let me give you another of my cards.” He dropped one in my hand, as if it were hot, and virtually fled out the door.
We were on the outskirts of Pebblewell when I noticed the first beading of moisture on the windscreen. In seconds water sheeted down, puddling in our laps. And, to make matters worse, the road kept getting narrower until it looked like a smoker’s breath. A glance over the stupidly low wall to my left showed waves far below, whipped by the wind into a spiteful froth, encouraging me to drive as straight a course as possible. Minutes later, seeing became the number one problem. Heinz scraped against the wall, which now seemed to be on my right. Add to that our feet being underwater and I had to agree with Ann that it might be wise to pull over and wait out the deluge. But pull over which way? Right meant running up the side of the cliff; left meant going over the sea wall. Time out for a moment of prayer.
Miraculously, the gusting wind lifted my hair away from my eyes and through the downpour I espied two towering pillars. Affixed to one was an unreadable sign board. The essential point was that between them ran a steepish track, pathway, lane, whatever.
“Mind if we pull in here?” I asked.
Ann removed her hat, shook it free of water and replaced it. “I’d mind if you didn’t.”
Not trusting Heinz to stay parked on an incline, I drove up the short rise. We were in an avenue, darkened to heavy shadow by the thick overhead branches. Rain drummed against the windscreen. Turning off the engine, I wiped my face on my soggy coat sleeve and apologised to Ann for bringing her to this pass.
“Ellie, really-this makes an interesting interlude in my uneventful life.” Her lips smiled serenely but her eyes were hidden by rain-spattered glasses.
“I wonder where we are?”
Ann lifted the glasses to her forehead then lowered them, without looking round. “Sorry, Ellie, I’m quite useless when it comes to getting my bearings.”
I glanced around. This avenue was undoubtedly pleasant at times, but now the sea was muffled to a soft, ominous stomping.
Never mind, we were about to get out of here! To my joy, I could count the raindrops landing on my upturned palm. A cheery word to Ann, a flick of the ignition key, a trounce on the accelerator, and… Nothing.
This is all Ben’s fault, was my unwifely thought.
“Do you think…?” suggested Ann.
“No.”
We sat and listened to the trees drip.
Ann buffed the face of her watch, then pulled up the collar of her beaver coat. “We’ll be all right, Ellie.”
Easy for her to talk. Beavers dress for this weather.
Being females of passably quick brains, it occurred to us that there might be light at the end of this tunnel-er- avenue. We climbed out of the car and trudged forward until we emerged from groping shadow to a bleariness wherein drenched sky and earth merged. We stood at the edge of a semicircular sweep of lawn, ornamented by mossy statues and bordered by box hedges, glossy and olive-black with rain. Beyond the lawn rose a huge, granite slab of a house. Its windows were so heavily mullioned they looked barred; its double doors led out onto a pillared terrace.
Ann’s arm brushed mine. “Ellie, this has to be The Peerless Nursing Home.”
“A bit grim, isn’t it? I see why Lady Theodora didn’t repine-”
At that moment the huge doors cracked open to reveal a woman dressed as a nurse. Two dogs, one white, one black (quite small but with such oversized heads they had to be transplants), bombarded out from behind her, barking furiously.
Ann’s elbow jabbed me. She stumbled over my foot. “I don’t like dogs.”
I didn’t like the nurse. She had stepped swiftly back inside and closed the door. Gripping Ann’s arm, I warned her to keep her voice down. The animals ceased plunging up and down the terrace. They froze. Necks arched, muzzles pointing to the silvery haze above, they sniffed the air. The gloom of the place, as well as the chill damp, seeped into my pores. Particularly menacing was the fact that the dogs’ eyes never once swivelled our way.
Until, that is, Ann blundered up against a tree. Hands moving in slow motion to her throat, she let out a moan and, before I could grab her, flung around and was gone, stumbling across the lawn.
The dogs came down the terrace steps like bullets.
“Ann, don’t! You’re encouraging them to play. If you will only…” I caught up with my elegant friend as she scrambled to climb the hedge. Her wits had completely gone. A forty-foot tree would have made better sense.
She threw off my hand. “Ellie, leave me alone!”
The air bristled with fur and canine breath.
“Heel, Virtue! Heel, Sin!”
The words were spoken calmly and conversationally, by a male standing several yards away. His face swam before my eyes. The danger was past. Tails whirring, sniffling with puppyish pleasure, the dogs now gamboled about the black-trousered legs.
“Home!”
Ann had grabbed me around the waist and was holding me in front of her like a shield. I didn’t blame her. My legs had gone peculiar. I wanted Ben. I wanted to sit by the fire, sipping Ovaltine, writing to Dorcas and Jonas.
All of a sudden Ben was no longer the husband who hadn’t quite measured up to his potential; he was the lover who had awakened me.
Slowly, Ann detached herself from me. The dark glasses cast semicircles of shadow and her face gleamed as though with rain, but she was steady on her feet.
“How can I be of help to you, ladies?”
There could be no mistaking those melancholy eyes, the black hair swept back from the high forehead. At close quarters Dr. Bordeaux looked more than ever like a poet suffering for his art. I could visualize those bone-white fingers clenching the quill-
I extended my hand, and he brushed it with his fingertips before letting it fall as though amputated. I blundered into explanations about the car. There was a clammy sort of fascination about this man. How many of the stories whispered about him were true? Perhaps a doctor’s license to practice was revoked only if the murder victims complained personally.
Dr. Bordeaux held Ann’s hand longer than he did mine. Was he taking her pulse?
“Do you have any idea what is wrong with your auto, Mrs. Haskell?”
“It won’t start.”
His eyes were black, not brown. I had never seen black eyes before. Yes, I could picture him tucking a little old lady into bed and murmuring, “Sleep, Mrs. Jones, a sleep unbroken by dreams or waking.” The spooky atmosphere of The Peerless Nursing Home grounds was clearly not conducive to my mental health.
“I will take a look at the car and see if I cannot have you both speedily upon your way. I wish I could invite you to wait in our reception rooms, but we are in the process”-he smoothed back his hair-“of varnishing the floors.”
With the dogs running in and out? I wondered. Ann said hastily that she would prefer to stay outside on their account.
Dr. Bordeaux glanced toward the massive house. “We are rather isolated here. And Virtue and Sin do make us
