Southern Ghost

As she scraped, a thumb-size mouse skittered wildly across' the grave. The cat flowed through the air, smooth as honey oozing from a broken hive, but he was too late. The frantic mouse disappeared into a hole beneath the roots of a huge cypress. The feline's tail switched in frustration; then, once again, he tensed, but this time, despite the glitter in his eyes, the cat didn't pounce.

The sluggish, slow-moving wolf spider, a huge and hairy tarantula, would have been easy to catch.

But the ginger tom made no move.

Did the prowling cat know that the slow-moving arachnid possessed a potent poison? Or was it merely the ever-present caution of his species, the reluctance to pounce upon an unfa­miliar prey?

The cane hissed through the air.

Miss Dora gazed without expression at the quivering re­mains of the spider. She wished she could as easily dispose of the unexpected communication that had brought her to this mournful site.

Chapter 5.

Max Darling whistled 'Happy Days Are Here Again' as he turned the Maserati up the blacktop toward Chastain. He was looking forward to the coming meeting with more excitement than he'd felt in a long time. In his mind, he heard once again Courtney Kimball's intriguing voice, young but self-pos­sessed, a little breathy, very South Carolina.

He walked into the new waterfront restaurant and his spir­its rose when vivid eyes sought his in the mirror behind the bar. The young woman who swiftly turned and slipped down from the stool and walked to greet him, a graceful hand out­stretched, would capture attention anywhere.

Max was assailed by a mйlange of immediate impressions: remarkable blue eyes, a beauty at once apparent yet elusive, a projection of confidence and dignity. But, paramount, was her intensity.

Her first words caught at his heart.

'I need you.'

Chapter 6.

Annie Laurance Darling put down the telephone at the front desk of Death on Demand, the loveliest mystery bookstore this side of Atlanta, and didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Whichever, she had only herself to blame.

Who was always exhorting her husband to apply himself, to work hard, to devote himself to duty?

She, Annie Laurance Darling. Although, in truth, she had eased off recently, ever since Max began to avoid talking about his office. She had stopped asking about his cases or lack of them, concerned that she might have hurt his feelings with her well-meant admonitions to hew to the course. She hadn't pasted any helpful dictums to his shaving mirror for at least a week. (Amazing—and soul-satisfying to strivers—the encour­aging mottoes intended for underachievers: The early bird gets the worm. Little by little does the trick. Put your shoulder to the wheel. Toil, says the proverb, is the sire of fame. Under the influence of poverty or of wealth, workmen and their work are equally liable to degenerate. . . .)

Obviously, however, her efforts had not gone unap­preciated; witness the call she'd just received from Max. So now that Max was involved in a case, how could she complain?

'Dammit, Agatha, you'd think he could arrange work for office hours!' Annie slammed her hand down on the counter­top.

The sleek black cat atop the bookcases devoted to Agatha Christie lifted her elegant head to stare with unblinking am­ber eyes at Annie. (Was it simply coincidence that the cat considered these particular shelves to be her own or were there matters involved here beyond ordinary human understand­ing?)

'And what's so confidential he can't even tell his own wife?'

Annie heard the hurt in her own voice. And what was so urgent, so important that Max had called to say he wouldn't be home for dinner—and not to wait up for him tonight. She glanced toward the front windows. She'd just put up the CLOSED sign and was tallying the day's receipts while waiting for Max to walk down the boardwalk from Confidential Com­missions, one of the more unusual businesses on the South Carolina resort island of Broward's Rock. Annie always thought of Confidential Commissions as a modern-day equiva­lent to the good offices performed by Agatha Christie's detec­tive of the heart, Mr. Parker Pyne. Max rather liked that analogy, but he was also quick to point out that he was neither a private detective nor a practicing lawyer, but merely a consultant available to those with problems outside the ken of the licensed professionals.

It had become a happy ritual, the two of them coming together at the close of the business day, each with much to tell. At least, she always had much to tell. But this week Max had said even less than usual. In retrospect, she realized he'd been quite closemouthed, merely observing that things were picking up at the office. Of course, Annie'd swept right on with her reports, how Henny Brawley, her best customer, had sent a postcard from England to report on her tour of Shrews­bury Abbey, the home of Ellis Peters's incomparable Brother

Cadfael ('Annie, I actually saw the small altar to St. Winefride!'), and how busy it had been in Death on Demand—'Would you believe a busload of clubwomen from Charleston?'—since Ingrid Smith, her chief assistant, was bedridden with a spring flu.

Annie felt deflated, a suddenly empty evening ahead. Max hadn't even said where he was going. Dusk was falling, and soon the air would cool sharply. Nights could be shivery in the spring despite the reassuring harbingers of the new season: the call of the chuck-will's-widow, the rachet of swamp frogs.

'I wonder if he has his sweater with him?' Her voice seemed to echo in the empty store.

Agatha yawned, a nice equivalent to a human shrug, then rose, stretched, and dropped to the floor to pad lightly down the central corridor toward the back of the bookstore.

Annie followed, pausing to alphabetize several titles in the Romantic Suspense section: My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier, Danger in the Dark by Mignon Eberhart, Widows' Plight by Ruth Fenisong, Alive and Dead by E. X. Ferrars, and The Clue of the Judas Tree by Leslie Ford.