Houses of Stone by KATHY (booksvooks .TXT) 📕

doorstep bright and early next morning—fifteen minutes early, to be precise. The intensity of the dislike that filled Karen at the sight of the pink, round, smiling face surprised her. She was forced to invite Mrs. Fowler in; as she hastily finished breakfast and got her things together, she felt sure Mrs. F. had wanted an excuse to inspect the apartment. Her beady little eyes missed nothing.

The Historical Society turned out to be another waste of time. The premises consisted of two rooms: an antechamber, formerly the upper landing of the mansion, which had high windows and a molded ceiling and no furniture except an antique rug and a mahogany desk; and a small cramped room behind it which contained all the society's records. Karen's hopes plummeted when she saw the piles of dusty papers heaped haphazardly on the shelves. The Historical Society was an ineffectual amateur organization—another of the games the old ladies of the town liked to play. Regally ensconced behind the handsome desk, they awaited visitors who never came and exchanged genteel gossip instead of filing materials.

It was impossible to work with Mrs. Fowler around. She was an accomplished ditherer, and she never stopped talking. Settling Karen at the single small table, she bustled from shelf to shelf shifting stacks of papers and murmuring to herself. "Now where has that box got to? I know I put it here; Flora Campbell must have moved it, she's always shifting things around ..."

The box in question contained the correspondence of a late-Victorian Cartright lady. She had been a tireless traveler and letter writer; the letters had been sent to her friends from all over England and the Continent, and all of them contained a demand that the recipient keep the letter. "She'd go visiting and collect them after she got back," Mrs. Fowler reported with a giggle. "Quite an eccentric, Eliza was. Fancied herself an intellectual. She talks somewhere about having tea with Disraeli."

That particular letter was not to be found, though Mrs. Fowler spent fifteen minutes searching for it—to Karen's poorly suppressed fury. The other treasures eventually deposited on the table consisted of yellowed newspaper clippings, most of them obituaries of turn-of-the-century Cartrights, a collection of rust-stained caps, gloves and moldering fans ("I'm almost certain these came from Fanny . . . unless it was one of the Grants . . .") and seven volumes of Eliza's diaries.

"You can borrow those if you like," Mrs. Fowler said, with the air of one making an enormous concession. "I know you'll take proper care of them."

She had begun glancing at her watch. Karen didn't feel she could refuse the offer, though nothing on earth interested her less than Eliza Cartright's reflections on travel. "I had hoped for something from an early period," she said hopelessly. "Or a genealogy. Surely one of the family must have belonged to the D.A.R. or the Colonial Dames."

"They were members of the Daughters of the Confed'racy, of course," Mrs. Fowler said.

"That's later in time than the period in which I am interested. It is necessary, isn't it, to submit proof that one of your direct ancestors served in the Revolution before you can join the D.A.R. ?"

"Yes, naturally. My dear grandmama traced our family tree when she applied for membership; our ancestor was a Colonel Byrd, who served under Washington and Lafayette."

From what Karen had heard, there had been very few privates in the ragtag American forces.

"Now that's a very good question," Mrs. Fowler mused. "Seems to me there was a genealogy. We might even have a copy somewhere. I'll have a look for it another time."

Gently but inexorably she urged Karen toward the door. Lips compressed, Karen accepted the loan of boring Eliza's diaries. If she could persuade Mrs. Fowler to let her rummage through the shelves by herself, she might find something useful, but she doubted the remote chance was worth the effort. The D.A.R. was a better bet, even if it would necessitate a quick trip to Washington. They might have a copy of the Cartright genealogy, if one existed.

She dropped Mrs. Fowler at her front door and then went shopping, picking up a number of odds and ends she had forgotten the previous night. After returning to the apartment she unwrapped the bundle she had bought at the hardware store. It was a heavy, unwieldy object, but it seemed to work as advertised. Karen stowed it away in the bedroom closet.

When she returned to the living room she saw something she had overlooked when she entered, her arms full of bundles. The envelope must have been slipped under the door. Her foot had kicked it farther inside.

The envelope was sealed but not addressed and the enclosure began abruptly, without salutation. "I spoke with Lisa. She assures me she will offer you the same opportunity she gave Meyer—a chance to examine the papers in her presence. Call her to make arrangements."

He had signed his full name. So much for her effort to establish a friendly relationship. Not even a "sincerely" softened the curtness of the note.

She went at once to the telephone and called the number he had given her. There was no answer.

Did Lisa's willingness to let her have a chance at the papers indicate that Bill Meyer had refused to make an offer, or that Lisa was looking for another bidder in the hope of running the price up? In either case, Karen felt she was already at a disadvantage. If there was anything of value in the collection, the first person to get a look at it would have a head start. Pacing from living room to kitchen and back again, Karen tried to reason with herself. She was behaving like a teenager on a treasure hunt. The worst possible scenario was the least likely, and even if the box contained what would amount to a signed confession by Ismene, that would only be the beginning of a long process. The winner would be the one who dealt most