Boston landlady Harriet Sutton discovers a note about a conspiracy to murder someone - a note that must have come from one of her tenants.
When a tenant is murdered, she asks psychiatrist-sleuth Dr Basil Willing to investigate. Her son, a Vietnam veteran whom the police consider a victim of combat fatigue who may be capable of anything, is under suspicion. And as the mystery unfolds, Harriet Sutton tries desperately to prove them wrong.
Release date:
October 14, 2013
Publisher:
Orion Publishing Group
Print pages:
256
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When she first came to Boston, Harriet Sutton went straight to the office of Jabez Coppard, of Coppard, Bradford and Slesinger. He was the lawyer who was settling her
husband’s estate.
He was obviously a rich man’s lawyer who begrudged wasting even a few moments on anyone whose estate was so small, but there was no getting out of this. Richard Sutton’s grandfather
had been a client of Jabez Coppard’s father, and these things still count in Boston.
He was older than she had expected from his letters. He moved so slowly you expected to hear him creak, but his voice was strong. She had a feeling that his wits might be quicker than those of
many a younger man.
“I’d like to live here,” she said. “Wouldn’t Boston be cheaper than New York?”
“Have you many friends here?”
“I have few friends anywhere. A Navy wife is a rolling stone.”
Jabez glanced at the papers on his desk. “You have one child, a son, Thomas. Where is he living?”
“He’s traveling abroad.”
Her voice discouraged questions. If Jabez wondered why she didn’t talk about her son, he was too wily to let it show.
“I want to start all over again,” said Harriet. “I’d like to buy a house on Beacon Hill.”
“Why?”
“I could go without a car there. Most places you want to go to are within walking distance. It’s zoned as a historic landmark neighborhood. It can’t be turned into Broadway and
Forty-second Street overnight. And then a lot of the houses were built in the early 1800s. I like high ceilings and open fireplaces.”
For the first time, he smiled. “My dear Mrs. Sutton, have you any idea what Beacon Hill houses cost today? You’d be lucky to pick up a small one for anything less than two hundred
thousand.”
“I see.” She could not hide her disappointment. “Can you suggest anything more practical?”
Jabez Coppard allowed his eyes to stray to the sky beyond the window.
“There are always ways of getting around things. Even in that neighborhood there are a few little, rundown streets on the Cambridge Street slope of the hill where you might get a bargain.
Say a smallish house, in need of paint and repairs, at half the price of a good house on a better street.”
“But within the historic landmark zone?”
“Of course. You could pay less than half the sum due in cash and take a mortgage on the rest.”
“Even that would take almost every penny I’ve got.”
“But you could get income from the house itself.”
“How?”
“Live on all or part of the ground floor yourself. Put in a few small bathrooms and kitchens on the other floors and let them to tenants. The rental income should take care of mortgage
payments, insurance, taxes, and upkeep. So you would be living rent-free.”
“You’re assuming I’d be able to find tenants for all the apartments?”
“Why not? There’s a shortage of decent places to live on Beacon Hill now.”
“But what if taxes and other costs go up?” said Harriet.
“Surely you have other resources besides the little bit of capital you want to invest. A Navy pension perhaps?”
“Dick was retired before the Navy Survivors Benefit Program became law, but I do have a Social Security income as the widow of a captain, and I’ve been earning a little extra by
writing.”
“Writing? You?”
If only she didn’t look so much like the little woman who never opened a book, people would not react with such unflattering astonishment.
“Magazine stuff mostly, short stories, light verses. Can you recommend a real estate agent?”
“I can do better than that. My grandson, George, is our specialist in real estate law. He should be able to make some suggestions. Come to think of it, I know of one house that might be
made to order for you, a little house on Peachtree Lane.”
Jabez spoke into an intercom. “Miss Craig, will you please ask Mr. George to come into my office now?”
George Coppard was everything his grandfather was not—young, amiable, frank. You could not be in his company for a moment without feeling completely at ease. That is one of the most
valuable traits a man can have.
The moment Harriet saw Peachtree Lane she was hooked. It was shabby, but it was a dream street, a quiet dead-end, paved with herringbone brick, planted with maple trees. Some marble steps needed
washing. Nearly all the window boxes could have used a lick of paint, but each of the old brick houses had a Boston bow window.
While George Coppard searched his pockets for the key, Harriet looked around her.
This house got more sun and sky than its neighbors because there was a gap in the row of houses across the street, noticeable as a missing tooth. Weeds had grown high and thick there so the lot
must have been vacant for some time.
They stepped into a hallway. George threw open a door on the right.
Harriet stopped with a little gasp.
The wallpaper was faded, but its pattern was so much more concerned with design than nature that it looked almost modern. Each panel showed a garden of stylized flowers with a fountain at their
center. Jets of water rose in geometrically reciprocated curves. Ranged in symmetry on either side were peacocks, doves, and fruit trees confronting one another in heraldic pairs.
“French?” asked Harriet.
“The pattern has an English name—‘The Squire’s Garden.’ It was probably imported during the heyday of wallpaper between 1780 and 1848. You don’t see much in
the South or the West. People in Northern seaports like Boston grabbed it as soon as it was brought ashore.”
“Why would anyone want to sell a house like this? It’s not haunted, is it?”
George laughed. “No more than any other old house. My grandfather says the present owner, Nancy Bradford, is in her eighties. She has no children and she wants a warmer climate.”
After they had seen the other floors and the garden, they came back to the hall.
“You’ll have to have a builder give you an estimate before you sign anything,” said George. “Then, if the estimate is feasible, you’ll be all set.”
Harriet looked at him. “There must be a catch in this somewhere, but where?”
George considered this for a few moments.
“I can think of only one,” he said at last. “If you’re going to live in such close quarters with your tenants, you’ll have to pick them pretty carefully.”
“I’ve been thinking about that myself,” admitted Harriet. “I am going to look for people who are working writers like myself.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re the only people who will understand if I say I mustn’t be disturbed when I’m writing. Other people would tap on the door and say: ‘I hate to
disturb you, but you’re only writing so it doesn’t really matter and I do want to ask you a question: How do you get your ideas?’ ”
George grinned. “How are you going to find these working writers?”
“I thought I’d ask my agent and some of my editors. If you can think of anybody, please let me know.”
As soon as she moved in, she sent a cable to Tommy at his last address, telling him where she was.
There was no answer.
It was nearly Christmas before she found tenants for all the apartments. She decided to welcome them with a housewarming party the day after Christmas.
She spent that afternoon rearranging Christmas decorations she had been carrying all over the world for years, artificial evergreens that would survive in any climate, miniature ornaments that
were easy to pack.
There were bobèches to catch candle drippings, enhanced with doll-size Christmas wreaths. There was a little Christmas tree that revolved on a music box while it played carols.
There were Swedish candleholders with cherubs cut out of thin brass suspended above them. They revolved, too, in the up-draught from candle flames while tiny chimes tinkled.
Her eye fell on a framed photograph of Tommy as he had been twelve years ago. Everyone would notice it. Sapphira Clay would ask questions. How old is he? Where is he? When is he coming home?
What is he doing now?
With a sigh, she folded the leather frame and put the photograph away in a desk drawer. Nothing could check such curiosity, but only a fool would give it an opportunity.
As she was lighting candles, she noticed a tang of ammonia in the air. Cleaning fluid, of course. She opened a window on the street side of the living room. She passed through an archway to the
bedroom and opened the glass door to the balcony on the other side of the house. A breath of wind touched her hair.
It was still light enough to see the roof-line of houses on the other side of the garden, black against a steel sky. What had those Arabs said in Kuwait? As long as you can tell a white thread
from a black thread, it is still daylight.
So it was still daylight, for she could see something white floating in the air beyond the open window, falling drowsily as a feather, rising briskly as a bird, dipping, turning, darting.
While she was watching, it plunged through the open door to the balcony and skidded to a stop at her feet.
Paper. Writing on it. Typewriting.
There were no trashcans in her garden. The wind must have snatched this paper from another open door or window. It was a light breeze, playful as a kitten. She didn’t believe it had
strength enough to carry anything all the way from a house in the next street. She couldn’t imagine such a gentle wind forcing anything through a right angle from one of the houses next
door.
This paper must have fluttered down from a window above hers in her own house.
Before she could make a conscious decision to read it or not to read it, her glance took in the first two words in bold, capital letters:
BURN THIS
After that she had to read the rest.
I never thought I could hate anyone enough to kill, but now I do. I’ve lost all feeling for the sanctity of human life.
Once you said you would kill Nemesis, if only you knew who Nemesis was. Remember? I have news for you. I know now.
You’ll be surprised when I tell you who Nemesis is. You’ll be even more surprised when I tell you that Nemesis is living here, in this same house with us, now.
No one else knows. So, if we can make it look like natural or accidental death, no one will suspect either one of us.
Fun and games. We’ll know what’s going to happen and Nemesis won’t. Essence of drama (see Aristotle). Do you have the immoral courage for this? Or are you afraid to put your
precious hide in jeopardy?
There’s not much risk. How could we be singled out as suspects when Nemesis has made life wretched for so many others?
And so to business. My plan is this:
End.
No signature, not even initials.
Just an unfinished sentence.
Or was it an interrupted sentence?
For a few moments the letter had disturbed Harriet, but now she saw the obvious explanation.
In a house full of working writers, any one of them might be writing a detective story, possibly under a pen name if he felt that popular fiction was demeaning.
All her tenants were coming here this evening. She had only to show them this paper and one would confess to having written it. Then they could have a hearty laugh about her moment of panic when
she first saw the words: BURN THIS.
The room was growing chilly. She dropped the Nemesis letter on the mantelpiece and hurried to close both door and window.
She was putting a match to the fire, already laid on the hearth, when the doorbell rang.
George Coppard stood on the doormat. “Merry Christmas!” Snowflakes were falling behind him as he held out a flower pot. The plant had flat, pointed leaves and large
blooms in a pink so pale it was almost white. “Poinsettia, a new color.”
“Ghost flowers! Now all other poinsettia will always look blatant. Please help yourself to Scotch and, while you’re about it, pour me a glass of white wine.”
They stood before the fire, toasting one another.
“Apartments all rented now?” asked George.
“Five are.”
“Isn’t that all?”
“There’s an attic you and I missed when we first looked at the house. I’ve added a small bath and a smaller kitchen. That makes it a studio.”
“Four flights up?”
“But a view over the rooftops to the river when you get there.”
“I hope it didn’t cost the earth.”
“No, merely the moon.”
“Are you looking for another tenant?”
“No, I have someone in mind.”
George looked as if he expected her to go on, but she changed the subject.
“This housewarming is really unnecessary. People here got to know each other while they were moving in.”
“Quick work for Boston.”
“I know, but they’re all writers. They know each others’ work and they have friends in common. It’s like living in a village.”
“Not quite. There’s a new invention called the airplane. It’s made Boston a suburb of New York.”
George glanced through the archway toward the garden windows where the sun’s last rays were gilding the balcony and the steps down to the garden.
“I’m glad you have that garden to yourself.”
“But I haven’t. That’s not the only entrance. Every tenant can reach it through a door in the hall that leads to the basement and—”
“Harriet, my very dear!”
The front door was still open. The woman who stood on the threshold was dark and slender and swathed in mauve, all filmy scarves and floating panels that drifted languidly about her when she
moved. Each . . .
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