repairman requires access to the museum,” he informed us. “Is there
anything else I can help you with?”
“No,” I said, getting to my feet. “I guess I’ll just have to find another cleaner.
Thank you very much for your time, Mr. Craven.”
“Not at all,” he said. “I’ll show you out.”
Our exit from the apartment was considerably more hurried than our entrance had been,
but neither Bree nor I commented on it until we were seated in the Rover.
“Is it my imagination or did he seem eager to get rid of us?” I asked.
“It’s not your imagination,” Bree replied. “If you ask me, he’s been up to no good
with Amanda Pickering.”
“He did react a bit oddly when I mentioned her,” I agreed.
“A bit oddly?” Bree scoffed. “He was Mr. Charming Chatterbox until her name came up.
Then he went all quiet and twitchy.” She did a passable imitation of Miles Craven
looking shifty-eyed while he smoothed his cravat and plucked at his sleeve.
“Okay,” I conceded, “his reaction was more than a bit odd. He doesn’t strike me as
a womanizer, though. Quite the contrary.”
“You can’t judge a book by its cover,” Bree reminded me.
“You can judge some things,” I countered. “His clothes didn’t come off a department
store rack and his furniture must be worth a fortune. I judge, therefore, that he
has expensive tastes, which means that the Jephcott Endowment must pay him a generous
salary. Either that, or . . .” I gave Bree a meaningful glance.
“Or,” she said, catching on, “he pays himself a generous salary without the endowment’s
knowledge.” She peered at the dummy camera facing the parking lot. “It would explain
why he hasn’t installed a proper security system in the museum. He doesn’t spend a
lot on guards, either. Les and Al earn a pittance.”
“Security systems and competent guards cost money,” I said, “money a refined gentleman
might prefer to spend on smoking jackets and period furniture.” I gazed thoughtfully
at the museum’s main entrance. “I wonder if my donation went into the endowment’s
coffers or into Miles Craven’s bank account?”
“Maybe Amanda knows where the donations go,” Bree said. “Maybe that’s why he wouldn’t
give us her address. He doesn’t want us to talk to her because he’s afraid she’ll
expose his little racket.”
I looked at Bree and started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“If jumping to conclusions were an Olympic sport,” I said, “we’d both be gold medalists.
We’ve classified Miles Craven as a womanizing embezzler in under a minute. Must be
a world record.”
“I’m having second thoughts about his womanizing,” said Bree, “but he must be up to
something shady. Why else would your interest in Amanda make him nervous? Why else
would he refuse to give us her address?”
“Maybe he just doesn’t want me to poach his cleaning woman,” I said reasonably. “Dependable
cleaning women are rarer than troika saltcellars these days. If Amanda worked for
me, I wouldn’t want to share her.” I put the key into the ignition. “All I know for
sure is that Miles Craven didn’t look, sound, or act like a worried curator. If you
ask me, he still doesn’t know that the silver sleigh is missing.”
“No blunderbuss,” said Bree, nodding.
“Not one shot fired over the parapet,” I agreed. “I say we stop speculating about
Miles Craven’s theoretical foibles and start solving Daisy Pickering’s very real dilemma.”
“I concur,” said Bree. “Next stop, 53 Addington Terrace.”
“Oh, dear,” I said, grimacing.
“Something wrong?”
“Let’s put it this way,” I said, starting the engine. “Upper Deeping has many lovely
streets, but Addington Terrace isn’t one of them.”
Eight
W hen travelers dream of seeing the “real” England, they seldom have places like Addington
Terrace in mind. The street was
Willa Sibert Cather
CJ Whrite
Alfy Dade
Samantha-Ellen Bound
Kathleen Ernst
Viola Grace
Christine d'Abo
Rue Allyn
Annabel Joseph
Serenity King, Pepper Pace, Aliyah Burke, Erosa Knowles, Latrivia Nelson, Tianna Laveen, Bridget Midway, Yvette Hines