Thorn by Fred Saberhagen (reading like a writer TXT) 📕

Brandreth, approaching tiredly, almost reluctantly. Not a cop, probably not a reporter either, although there was nothing specific about him to rule out either possibility. He had long brown hair and an unkempt beard, and looked as if he hadn’t slept all night.

      When the man got close he said: “I was just watching, wondering if anyone was home over here.”

      “The house is vacant now, sir.” Brandreth was wary, but confident. He had several inches and about thirty pounds on the other man, not taking into account the pistol in his belt under his jacket, if this turned out to be a game of some kind. “I’m one of the staff. I just come round periodically to check if everything’s all right.”

      “Oh.” The other considered this, with vacant sadness. He put his hands in his pockets and brought out a big-bowled pipe and put it away again. “I’m Robinson Miller. Mary Rogers was … was a good friend of mine. She used to live here once. Maybe you knew her.”

      “Sir?”

      “Mary Rogers. The girl who was blown up with a bomb last night. I’ve been at the morgue, looking at her, trying to find out something from the police. You ever look at anyone in a morgue? Who’s been all torn to pieces by a bomb?”

      Brandreth had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. Talk about coincidence, this was good. Gliddon would get a chuckle out of this one when Brandreth told him—or would he? “I’m sorry to hear that, sir. There was something on the radio about someone being blown up in a car.”

      “She was out here, at this house, last night, you see. With a man named Thorn, the one the car was rented by. Did you know that?”

      “No, sir, I had no idea she was here last night.” Brandreth found the impulse to smile completely gone. He was watching this dazed man very carefully and at the same time trying to think. “Dorlan, he’s the regular caretaker, would have been here then.”

      Robinson Miller wasn’t really listening. “You see, I talked to the police at the morgue, but I didn’t really say anything important. I wanted to think things over, first. Like I might have an idea of who was behind the bombing. It was these people here, this Seabright bunch, who killed her, one way or another. Oh, I don’t blame you, you just work here. There was a man named Gliddon who worked here too, and he’s supposed to be dead now but he’s not.”

      “He’s not?” Brandreth had no trouble at all in sounding surprised.

      “No he isn’t. Thorn told us that and they killed him, or tried to. Mary knew it, and they killed her.”

      This sounded like it might be too serious to let it get by without taking action. “Sir? You really don’t look well. Would you like to come into the house for a moment? I can get you a cup of coffee, or a drink, or something.”

      Miller sighed. He rotated his head, and rubbed the back of his neck in weariness. “That’s good of you. Maybe I will, if you’re sure they’re all gone. I wouldn’t want to face them just now. I don’t know what I might do.”

      “They’re all gone, I’m sure. Listen, there might be a thing or two I could tell you about the Seabright’s, if you’re interested. I don’t want to get involved, though.”

      Miller suddenly looked somewhat more awake. “A thing or two? Like what?”

      “Oh, not about bombings. Nothing like that. But … look, sir, why don’t you just drive your car in through the gate, and park near the house? There’s been some problem lately with vandalism in the neighborhood.”

      “With my car, it doesn’t matter,” Miller said. But then when Brandreth looked anxious he trudged back across the road and started up his engine. With the gate standing open, they drove both cars in; then Miller waited in his while Brandreth locked up the gate again. Then he followed Brandreth’s car up to the house, where neither car would be visible from outside the gate.

      As he led the way up to the main door, Brandreth looked the place over carefully. The house looked tightly closed up, all right. But as soon as he had unlocked and opened the front door, he stopped; an overhead light just inside was burning, and he had thought that the electricity was supposed to be already turned off. Well, things might go a little easier on this visit if it wasn’t. Like a good butler Brandreth switched the overhead light off now, then gestured deferentially. “The bar’s downstairs, sir. If you’d like a drink.” Downstairs was more certainly private, if things should happen to take a turn for which privacy appeared desirable, as Brandreth was beginning to feel sure they would.

      “It’s morning, but—hell yes, I want a drink.”

      Since the power was still on, Brandreth led the way toward the elevator. Once he had his guest down in the rec room at the bar, he filled an order for Scotch on the rocks, and then tried to reach Dorlan on the intercom that communicated with the caretaker’s quarters. No one answered. Evidently the man and his wife were gone, and the dogs with them, as Gliddon had said they would be. All satisfactory, the place would be lonely as a tomb.

      Brandreth flipped off the intercom and gazed across the bar at Miller, who already looked like a lonely drunk. Half the Scotch was gone. Brandreth asked: “Did I understand you correctly, sir? That you have some reason to think Mr. Gliddon is still alive?”

      Miller looked up, though not as if he really saw Brandreth, or heard him. He chewed his brown mustache. “You know, she just wouldn’t leave it alone. She wouldn’t. She kept harassing Seabright, and threw that stuff on him, and then she went off with Thorn to cook up something more. I don’t know what, but … I guess she never really understood how dangerous the world can be.”

      “Sir,