Murder at Teatime Page 3

  “But if the development goes through, their financial worries will be over,” observed Charlotte. “I bet Chartwell’s going to pay more than two quarts of rum for their land. What do they have? A hundred acres?”

  “About that. But I don’t think the development will go through. The way people in this town talk, you’d think it was a fait accompli. They don’t realize how hard it is to get projects like this off the ground. Not to mention the fact that Frank wants nothing to do with it.”

  Past the rise, the open fields gave way to woods of tall pines. A stone fence ran along one side of the road, indicating that what was now woods had once been pasture.

  They walked in silence, inhaling the bracing, resiny scent. Red squirrels chattered in the trees, and a sparrow whistled. Charlotte threw back her head and studied the pattern made by the pine branches against the sky. Maybe a place without sidewalks wasn’t so bad after all.

  Ahead, the Ledge House barn came into view, a beautiful old structure that seemed to antedate the house. It had probably been part of the original Gilley homestead. Beyond it lay the herb garden.

  “If you don’t think Gilley is responsible,” said Charlotte, picking up the thread of their conversation, “then who do you think is?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe one of the other CCC people,” Kitty replied. “Charlotte, you can’t imagine how worked up they are. They’re already talking about how they’re going to spend all the money they’ll make. Some of them have been really nasty to Frank. To us too, for that matter.”

  “Why you?”

  “They know we’re against Chartwell’s coming in. Stan’s spoken at several of the meetings. And you know Stan—he doesn’t mince words.”

  Charlotte smiled. He was also an outsider. The Saunders had recently been elevated from the rank of mere tourists to that of “year-round summer people,” but they would never have the same status as natives. In New England anyone who couldn’t trace their ancestry back to the Revolution was a newcomer.

  “I know one thing for sure,” said Kitty as they approached the gap in the stone fence that marked the entrance to the herb garden.

  Ahead they could hear the low murmur of conversation punctuated by occasional laughter.

  “What’s that?” asked Charlotte as Kitty turned to open the gate.

  “Wes didn’t poison Jesse. He loved that dog like he loves his own children.”

  3

  They entered the herb garden via a path of crushed pink granite that led to an open area in front of the barn. Two men were seated in lawn chairs in the open area facing the garden. One of them rose to approach them. He was a tall, impressive-looking man with wire-rimmed glasses, a thick red mustache, and a stiff military bearing. He was casually dressed in a golf sweater.

  “Frank Thornhill,” he said, introducing himself. He turned to Kitty: “Kitty, we’re delighted that you and Stan are willing to share your famous guest with us for the evening. We’re sorry he couldn’t be here.”

  Kitty explained about Stan’s show.

  “I’ve been an admirer of yours ever since I first saw you on the screen,” continued Thornhill, turning back to Charlotte. “It was in 1942. I waited in the cold for hours. Rumor had it that you’d be making a personal appearance, but you never showed up. Now I’m finally meeting you in person.”

  “I hope you’re not disappointed,” she said, flashing him the coquettish smile that she reserved for gentlemen admirers of a certain age.

  “On the contrary, you are even more beautiful in person than you are on the screen—if that’s possible.”

  Charlotte smiled again.

  Taking her commandingly by the elbow, he led her toward the cluster of chairs. “I was twenty-five, as I recall, and, I confess, smitten,” he went on, puffing on the pipe he held in one hand. “I can even remember the name of the picture—it was The Scarlet Lady.”

  Charlotte groaned. “That’s one I’ve tried to forget. It was one of those ghastly costume dramas,” she explained to Kitty. “People only went to it to see what I wore—it was my clotheshorse period.”

  “That may be,” said Thornhill with a little nod. “But if I may be impertinent, what a horse!”

  Charlotte laughed the deep, husky laugh for which she was famous. “I’ll have to keep that in mind for my epitaph,” she said. “Now it’s my turn to compliment you. I had the pleasure of climbing the Ledges yesterday.”

  A shadow crossed Thornhill’s face. Of course, Charlotte thought. He would have been told that it was she who’d discovered Jesse.

  “They are very beautiful,” she told him.

  He beamed, displaying a mouth full of large teeth yellowed to the shade of old ivory. “Thank you. My grandfather was a banker who was devoted to two things: his bank and his wildflowers, especially his trailing arbutus. I spent a lot of time with him as a boy and I decided then that some day I’d have a wildflower garden, too, although I still don’t have any trailing arbutus.”

  “The mayflower,” said Charlotte.

  “Yes. The sweetest fragrance of all. They’re on the protected list now, you know. I’m afraid I’m at least partly to blame. I’ve picked far too many in my day, including more than a few from my grandfather’s garden.”

  They had reached the chairs, where a fat man was seated facing away from them, puffing on a big cigar.

  “This is my dear friend Felix Mayer,” said Thornhill, thumping him soundly on the shoulder. “Felix has been my book dealer and general book factotum for nearly thirty years. The greatest book dealer in the country.”

  Felix turned around. “The world, my dear Herr Professor,” he corrected in a thick German accent. “The world.”

  “I beg your pardon, Felix. The world, by all means.” Thornhill thumped his shoulder again. “Three hundred pounds of pure culture.”

  “I beg to correct you again, my dear Herr Professor,” said Felix, raising a perfectly manicured forefinger. “Two hundred and eighty-nine pounds, but”—he chuckled—“I agree that it is all culture.”

  He was a fat, pink, roly-poly man with a shiny bald forehead and steeply arched eyebrows that were suspended high above his lively hazel eyes. He wore a white suit, a black and white striped tie, and black and white wing tip shoes. A gold-tipped Malacca cane leaned against the arm of his chair.

  Thornhill introduced him to Charlotte, whereupon he rose and bowed elegantly from the waist, clasping his hands behind his back like a Prussian officer. “May I kiss the lady’s hand?” he asked.

  “By all means,” replied Charlotte, extending her wrist in her grandest dowager empress manner.

  “I am most pleased to make the acquaintance of the First Lady of the American cinema,” he said, bowing again as he kissed her hand. He repeated the performance for Kitty, whom Thornhill also introduced.

  Charlotte wondered briefly if he would click his heels, but much to her disappointment, he didn’t.

  “Felix will be staying with us through the Fourth,” said Thornhill, who had watched the performance with great amusement.

  “Ja,” said Felix as he pulled out their chairs. “Book dealers are a form of parasite. We grow fat on the business of our wealthy clients. I am taking advantage of our dear host’s hospitality to make some contacts. Many very rich book collectors spend their summers on the coast of Maine.”

  “Make hay while the sun shines, eh Felix?” said Thornhill sententiously. “Now, what can I get everyone to drink? Gin, Scotch, vodka …”

  Charlotte asked for a gin and tonic, as did Kitty.

  “Are you a book collector as well, Mr. Mayer?” asked Charlotte as he helped himself to the hors d’oeuvres on a cocktail table.

  “No,” he answered, wolfing down a caviar-topped cracker. “I enjoy the pleasure of handling books, but I have no desire to own them.”

  She was surprised. “Why is that?”

  “For the dealer, books do not represent permanence and security the way they do for the collector. In fact, for the dealer, books a
re a sort of memento mori. They are continually passing from one set of hands to another as the result of a divorce, a loss of money, a death … The occupation of book dealer,” he continued, raising his forefinger again, “is an occupation with a lesson to teach in the price of misfortune and the fragility of human life.”

  “This is a man,” said Thornhill as he mixed the drinks at a bar tray, “for whom the obituaries are as important as the stock quotations are for a stockbroker. He makes a daily practice of scanning the obituary columns of the newspapers on two continents for possible sources of consignment material.”

  Felix chuckled. “You know what they say about the great Felix Mayer?”

  “What?” asked Charlotte.

  “That he can hear the death rattle before the doctor is called in.”

  “What a gruesome thought!” Kitty exclaimed.

  “Well, my dear friend,” said Thornhill as he passed around the drinks, “if that’s why you’re here, you had better reevaluate your powers of prognostication. I assure you that although my ticker may not be in the best of shape, I’m not planning to give up the ghost until I’m good and ready.”

  Felix continued munching, his hazel eyes sparkling with amusement. “That is not why I’m here, as you know,” he said. “However, should you decide to, as you put it, give up the ghost …”

  “You, my dear friend,” interrupted Thornhill, “will have the pleasure of selling my collection. As you well know.”

  “Thank you, my dear Herr Professor.”

  “Always on the lookout for a commission, eh Felix?” teased Thornhill.

  Felix set down his plate, wiped his mouth, and belched quietly. “Please,” he said. “We are in the book-collecting business, are we not? In our business, there is an old saying: ‘Collectors thrive among the dead.’ If the great collections of the past had not been broken up, where would you have acquired your books? The noblest function of the collector is to hand down the achievements of civilization from one generation to the next. Les morts aident les vivants. The dead help the living, nicht wahr?”

  Thornhill raised his glass to Felix. “Well-said, my good man. Well-said.”

  “Would you gentlemen mind terribly if we excused ourselves for a moment,” asked Kitty after they had toasted Felix’s observation. “I’d like to give Charlotte a tour of the herb garden before the other guests arrive.”

  “By all means,” said Thornhill. “Speaking of herbs, my niece Frances, who will be along shortly, has asked me to invite you, Miss Graham, to an herb luncheon tomorrow. Our cook, Grace Harris, likes to experiment with herb recipes. She’ll be trying out some new dishes on us.”

  “I’d be delighted,” said Charlotte. “Thank you.”

  “Meanwhile Frances is planning a little celebration for us this evening. Some of her pagan rites. I’m sure you know all about it, Kitty.”

  “Yes,” said Kitty, her eyes sparkling. “In observation of the summer solstice. It’s today, you know. We celebrate six festivals a season.” She counted them off: “May Day; Midsummer, to celebrate the longest day of the year; Lammas Day—that’s on August first, to celebrate the beginning of the harvest; St. Fiacre’s Day on August thirtieth, to celebrate the patron saint of gardeners; Michaelmas on September twenty-ninth, to celebrate the end of the harvest; and All Saints’ Eve which is the same as Halloween.”

  So the Midsummer Festival was Kitty’s “something special,” thought Charlotte. She wondered what she was letting herself in for.

  Leaving the men to their book talk, Charlotte and Kitty entered the garden, which was set in a protected area between the barn and the house, on the site of an old apple orchard. The gnarled trunks of the old apple trees studded the herb beds, creating the impression of a fairy tale garden.

  Ledge House was a popular stop on the garden club tour circuit, Kitty explained. During the season, groups came out a couple of times a week, combining a climb up the Ledges with a visit to the herb garden.

  “We’ll begin with the colonial gardens, and work our way back,” she continued eagerly, leading Charlotte down a gravel path that ran through the center of the garden. “I’ll give you the same spiel I give the other visitors. Fran lets me give the garden tour when she’s busy.”

  Charlotte nodded. Kitty was never more vivacious than when she was in the grip of a new enthusiasm, and the herb bug seemed to have bitten her especially hard.

  “We have a total of thirteen gardens, each with its own theme,” Kitty said. “We also have fields across the road where we grow herbs in larger quantities, and we have several growers in the area who supply us with herbs. We ship our seeds, plants, and herb products all over the country.”

  They were approaching a garden laid out in the form of a wheel, with brick paths forming the spokes. In the center stood a tall cross—twenty feet or more in height. The crosspiece was gaily decorated with a wreath of dried herbs and colored streamers that waved in the breeze.

  “The maypole,” explained Kitty, in answer to Charlotte’s mystified stare. “It’s a pagan fertility symbol, celebrating the renewed fertility of nature. The custom comes from the phallic festivals of ancient Egypt and India. Did you know that phallos means pole?”

  Charlotte raised an eyebrow.

  “Fran’s is a standing maypole,” she continued. “It stays up all year, to symbolize immortality.”

  Kitty led her through the gardens, each of which bore a signpost giving the garden’s theme. Each garden also had an ornament that provided the focal point for the plantings: a wooden shrine, a birdbath, a sundial. Charlotte leaned over to smell the herb that surrounded a straw bee skep.

  “Horehound,” explained Kitty. “Used by the colonials to relieve coughs.”

  Leaving the colonial garden, they headed back toward the long garden paralleling the barn, where Kitty led her through the Shakespeare garden, ornamented with a bust of the bard; and the saints’ garden, ornamented with a statue of St. Francis. At the third garden, she paused near an iron cauldron.

  “This garden is our biggest attraction,” she said. “The witches’ garden. It contains the herbs the witches used in their magic, both black and white. On this side are the poisons and drugs used by the black witches, and on that side, the medicines and tonics used by the white witches.”

  Taking a seat on a garden bench of weathered teak, Charlotte studied the bed before her, which was dominated by a clump of violet-blue flowers on five-foot stalks. The flowers were oddly shaped: the lower petals were protected by a darker top petal that flopped over them like a hood. Some of the plants looked as if they’d been dug up: the turnip-shaped roots were scattered on top of the ground and the flower stalks lay wilting in the sun. Picking up one of the toppled stalks to right it, Charlotte watched in fascination as a bee reached its long tongue into the little hooded shelter.

  She was about to ask the flower’s name, but Kitty was already onto the next garden. “This way,” she said. “The centerpiece of this series of gardens.”

  “The Elizabethan knot garden,” interjected a woman who had just emerged from the barn. Walking past Felix and Thornhill, who were still deeply engaged in conversation, she joined Charlotte and Kitty by the cauldron.

  She was tall, with a long face framed by gray hair in a Prince Valiant cut. Her eyes were obscured by thick eyeglasses. She was dressed entirely in green: green slacks, a green turtleneck, and a short cape of green wool. The only non-green items in her ensemble were a long strand of amber beads, several bangle bracelets, and a ring with a huge yellow stone.

  “Fran, I’d like you to meet my good friend Charlotte Graham,” said Kitty. “Charlotte will be staying with us for a week or two. Charlotte, this is Frances Thornhill. My employer,” she added with a smile.

  As Charlotte shook Fran’s hand, she felt a peculiar numb sensation in her fingers, and wondered if it was from the plant she had just touched. How extraordinary! she thought. She would have to ask Kitty the plant’s name.

  “Nice to meet
you. It’s a replica of a sixteenth-century design,” said Fran, nodding at the knot garden. “The idea is to create a knot effect by using herbs in an interlacing pattern. We use germander, hyssop, wormwood, box …”

  She was interrupted by a greeting from a young couple who had just entered through the garden gate.

  “Oh good, Daria and John are here,” said Kitty.

  Led by Fran, the three women rejoined Thornhill and Felix, where they were introduced to the new arrivals. The young woman was Daria Henderson, a bookbinder who was repairing some of Thornhill’s books, and who Thornhill described as the conservator of his collection.

  “Getting all the books in tiptop shape, right, Daria?” said Thornhill.

  “Yes, sir,” she replied amiably, with a dazzling smile.

  She wasn’t conventionally beautiful—her features were too bold and angular—but with her thick, curly black hair, her perfect white teeth, and her nut-brown complexion, she was very striking.

  The young man was John Lewis, a botanist on the faculty of a Midwestern university. He was the Ledge House scholar-in-residence, one of a series of young scholars whom Thornhill invited each summer to use his library. He was staying in the gardener’s cottage across the road.

  “John is compiling a computer-generated index of the contents of my collection of early printed herbals,” explained Thornhill.

  John nodded in acknowledgment.

  In contrast to Daria, John was tall, blond, and thin, with wire-rimmed eyeglasses, a protruding Adam’s apple, and a goofy, lopsided grin.

  “I’m glad we’re all here,” said Fran once the introductions were over. “We can begin. If you’ll excuse me a minute, I just have to get some things out of the barn. We’re going to have an herb-scrying session.”

  “Scrying?” said Charlotte.

  “You’ll see,” said Fran, striding off toward the barn.

  The new arrivals took their seats, and Thornhill took their drink orders. While Thornhill mixed the drinks, Charlotte asked John about his work.