Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith (best books to read now .TXT) 📕

with an affectionate smile at Melinda. "She really knows the houses and the countryside up here. Let her help you." Vic smiled directly at Mr. Carpenter.

       He nodded slowly at Vic, looking as if he were thinking of something else.

       "Trixie, go in the other room," Melinda said nervously to Trixie, who was sitting in the middle of the floor staring at all of them.

       "Well, she might be introduced first," Vic said, getting up. He pulled Trixie gently to her feet by both hands. "Trixie, this is Mr. Carpenter. My daughter, Beatrice," Vic said.

       "How do you do?" said Mr. Carpenter, smiling but not getting up.

       "How do you do?"Trixie said. "Daddy, Can't I stay?"

       "Not now, hon. Do as your mother says. You'll probably see Mr. Carpenter again. Run out and play and we'll finish our game n a little while." Vic opened the front door for her and she ran Mr. Carpenter was eyeing him sharply when Vic turned around.

       Vic smiled. "Might as well let the child get some air on a day like this-Oh, look." He picked up Trixie's copybook from the cocktail table. "Don't you think that's a pretty handsome page? Look at it compared to last week." He opened the book at an earlier page to show Melinda.

       Melinda tried to pretend interest, tried quite well. "It looks fine," she said.

       "I'm teaching my daughter calligraphy," Vic explained to Mr. Carpenter. "She's just started in school and they put her in a class beyond her age group." Vic turned over the pages of Trixie's copybook with a fond smile.

       Then Mr. Carpenter asked how old Trixie was, asked a question about the weather around Little Wesley, and then stood up. "I must be going. I'm afraid you'll have to drive me back," he added to Melinda.

       "Oh, I don't mind a bit! We might go by that-that place we were talking about in the woods."

       "Charley's place," Vic supplied.

       "Yes," Melinda said.

       "Well, you must come back again," Vic said to Mr. Carpenter. "I hope you enjoy your stay. Kennington's a fine place. We're very proud of it."

       "Thank you," Mr. Carpenter said.

       Vic watched them until Melinda drove off, and then he turned back to the croquet game. Trixie had banged the balls all over the lawn. "Now, where were we?" he asked.

       As he played, and gave Trixie pointers that were usually not followed, Vic thought about Mr. Carpenter. It would be much more fun not to let Melinda know he suspected anything, Vic thought. Then there was the possibility that he could be wrong, that Mr. Carpenter was a psychotherapist and nothing else. But would a psychotherapist get into a car with a strange woman and be driven around in search of a house to rent? Well, that was barely possible, too, he supposed. But Mr. Carpenter was not Melinda's type for a boyfriend, that was one thing he felt sure of. He had an unmistakable air of being serious about something, whatever it might be, the look of a man who didn't let himself be distracted. Still, he was quite handsome. A detective agency might well have chosen him for a job like this. For the second time Vic tried to remember if he had seen Mr. Carpenter anywhere on the streets of Little Wesley or Wesley. He didn't think he had.

       Melinda was back in a very short time, not long enough for her to have gone by Charley's house. She went into the house without saying anything to him. When Vic had finished the game with Trixie, he went into the house, too. Melinda was washing her hair in the bathroom basin. The bathroom door was open.

       Vic took the 'World Almanac' down from the bookcase and sat down with it. He read about the antidotes for arsenic poisoning. She came out of the bathroom, went into her own room, and Vic called:

       "Did you get Mr. Carpenter back all right?"

       "Um-hm."

       "Show him Charley's place?"

       "Nope."

       "He seems a nice fellow."

       Melinda came in in her robe, barefoot, a towel around her head."Um-hm, I think he is. He's got a lot of brains. The kind of man you'd like to talk to, I should think." There was the old nagging challenge in her tone.

       Vic smiled. "`Well, let's see more of him—if he's got any time for us."

       On Monday, Vic called Kennington Institute from his office. Yes, they had a Mr. Carpenter there. Mr. Harold Carpenter. He was not always at the Institute the woman on the telephone said, but she could take a message. "Is this in regard to a house?" she asked.

       "Yes, but I'll try again," Vic said. "I haven't found anything yet for him, but I wanted to keep in touch. Thank you." He hung up before she could finish her question of what real estate company he represented.

Chapter 14

They were playing it very carefully, Mr. Carpenter and Melinda, Vic thought, if Mr. Carpenter was a detective. Even after a week Vic wasn't quite sure, and he had seen Mr. Carpenter two or three more times. Once he had come to the house for cocktails and once Melinda had asked him to drop in at the Mellers', who had given a cocktail party with about eight guests. Here Mr. Carpenter met the Cowans and the MacPhersons but not the Wilsons, because the Mellers—like the Cowans—had crossed the Wilsons off their list. Horace talked for a while with Mr. Carpenter at the party, and later that evening Vic asked Horace what they had talked about. Horace said they had talked about brain injuries, and asked where they had met him. Vic told Horace what Melinda had told him about their meeting. In fact, there was only one thing interesting about the evening at the Mellers'. Vic noticed that Melinda paid more than necessary attention to Harold Carpenter. Vic thought it was deliberate, and for the benefit of their