Read Online The Palace Guard by Charlotte MacLeod - Free Book Online

artistically arranged on the glass. Very efficient job. Also a very painful way to go, one might think. It must have taken him a while to die, unless the paint remover was gingered up with a pinch of strychnine or something.”
    “Are they going to do an autopsy?”
    “Have to, I suppose. How did your visit with Mrs. Tawne go?”
    Sarah could readily understand why he’d want to change the subject. “It was interesting, in a way,” she told him. “C. Edwald Palmerston dropped in unexpectedly. Mrs. Tawne seemed ever so glad to see him. And I met an admirer of yours.”
    “Do tell. Which one?”
    “Countess Ouspenska, no less.”
    “Ouspenska?” He took another spoonful of soup. “What does she look like?”
    “In a word, hell. Slavic and suffering. I’d say, though, that she must have been absolutely stunning when she was a good deal younger and in better repair.”
    “Oh, I know who you mean now. Good old Lydia. She used to be Nick Fieringer’s girl.”
    “She was C. Edwald Palmerston’s girl, too.”
    “Small world. Does Mrs. Tawne know that?”
    “I couldn’t say. The countess greeted him like an old acquaintance against whom she held a grudge, but she didn’t unburden her soul, as it were, until she and I had gone to her studio. And then she talked mostly about you.”
    “What’s to unburden about me? My God, Mrs. Kelling, you don’t imagine Lydia and I were ever—”
    “No, I don’t. That was the burden of her plaint. That you hadn’t, I mean. She”—Sarah blushed—“appeared to be under some misapprehension as to—”
    Luckily Charles poked his head into the kitchen just then. “Oh, Mr. Bittersohn. I heard movement overhead and thought that might be you fixing yourself a snack since you weren’t in to dinner. I was about to offer my assistance but I see you are capably provided for. May I fetch you a glass of sherry, perhaps? Or a cold beer? Mariposa and I keep a six-pack or two on hand for our personal use.”
    “No, thanks, Charlie. I’m sort of off liquor tonight. Just tell me if you happen to know a former actress named Lydia Ouspenska.”
    Charles carefully shut the basement door, cocked an ear to make sure Mariposa wasn’t on her way upstairs, then murmured, “I have met Countess Ouspenska, sir.”
    “She’s madly in love with Mr. Bittersohn,” Sarah couldn’t resist putting in.
    “I have always found her to be a person of unexceptionable taste and discrimination, madam. She comes from a noble Russian family.”
    “She’s a Polish sign painter’s daughter from Chelsea,” said Bittersohn. “The way I heard it, the Countess Ouspenska act came from a play she was in, back during World War II when all the real actresses were doing their bit for the lads at the front. Lydia never got far in the theater. Her real forte was seeing what the boys in the back room would have. How’s she doing these days, Mrs. Kelling?”
    “Not too well. All her former sources of income have walked out on her. Charles, how could you be such a cad?”
    “Madam, I must beg leave to protest. My connection with Countess Ouspenska has been confined to a short run at the Charles Street Playhouse, where we both had walk-ons, and since then to an occasional exchange of pleasantries over a libation or two at Irving’s.”
    “I didn’t know you hung out in Coolidge Corner, Charlie,” said Bittersohn.
    “Officially, sir, I do not. However, all Mariposa’s relatives live over the other way in Jamaica Plain and environs, and there are times when we theatricals require our freedom of expression. If I can render no further service here, may I return to my quarters?”
    “You have our gracious permission to retire. On your way downstairs, you might try to recall whether Lydia’s ever said anything to you about Madam Wilkins’s palazzo.”
    “I shall endeavor to do so. Hasta la vista, señor, señora.”
    “Mariposa’s teaching him Spanish though I don’t know why she bothers. It looks to me as