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

if they conduct most of their conversations in sign language.” Sarah laughed and blushed. “I must have spent a little too long with Countess Ouspenska. Getting back to her finances, Mr. Bittersohn, did you know she supports herself these days by manufacturing antique icons?”
    “Are they any good?”
    “As good as they can be, I should say. She showed me one that was almost finished and I’ll bet even you would be hard put to tell the difference between the copy and the original.”
    “Where did she get the icon she copies from?”
    “She owns about a dozen different ones. I couldn’t tell whether they were all genuine, of course, but they looked awfully good to me. She said, she’d never part with them because they’re what keep her from starving in the gutter. But what struck me most was that if she’s such a clever forger—”
    “Yes, one might wonder, mightn’t one? You’re thinking about that Romney, I expect, and maybe a few dozen other things. That wouldn’t explain Brown and Witherspoon, though, would it? I can’t see Lydia ever bumping off a man.”
    “She’d kill them with kindness, I suppose.”
    “Why, Mrs. Kelling! For a nice little girl from Beacon Hill you’re getting awfully free in your talk all of a sudden.”
    “It must be the dissolute company I’m keeping. Would you like me to visit Countess Ouspenska again and pump her about the Madam’s?”
    “No, I want you to stay away from her and also from the palazzo. I’m putting another of my secret agents on the case tomorrow.”
    “How impressive. Who is he?”
    “He prefers to be called Bill Jones. Bill knows every hot painting that’s been peddled in and out of Boston for the past thirty years.”
    “Does he steal them himself, or what?”
    “No, he just likes to keep track. One might call it a hobby. Bill’s a highly successful commercial artist, as a matter of fact. You’d probably enjoy meeting him.”
    “Then why don’t you bring him to dinner?”
    “Maybe I will. What’s up now, Charlie? I thought you’d retired to your quarters.”
    The butler, who had manifested himself in the doorway, stiffened to attention. “Mr. Brooks Kelling has arrived. He wished to be announced.”
    “Did Mrs. Tawne come with him?” Sarah asked with a sinking feeling.
    “No, madam. He is in the library with Mrs. Sorpende.”
    “Why, the little dickens! Give him another few minutes’ billing and cooing time while Mr. Bittersohn finishes his supper, then show him up to the studio. Was that what you wanted me to say, Mr. Bittersohn?”
    “Precisely that.” He gobbled the last few bites of food. “Shall we dance?”
    As they went up the back stairs it occurred to Sarah to wonder if her other boarders were aware how much time Mr. Bittersohn had been spending in that upstairs sitting room lately, and how the soi-disant Countess Ouspenska had got the notion she and he were carrying on what might delicately be described as a close relationship.
    Jennifer LaValliere and Eugene Porter-Smith went about together a good deal. Had one of them happened to drop a remark down at one of the coffee houses they frequented that somehow got passed on to her? Or was Sarah getting herself gossiped about more than she realized by appearing in public so often these days with Mr. Bittersohn?
    But how could anybody who knew Sarah Kelling also know Lydia Ouspenska? Mr. Palmerston did, for one, but he was barely on speaking terms with Sarah and whatever liaison he’d had with the countess had obviously been over long ago. Dolores Tawne would have had to jump to some awfully swift conclusions since she’d met the pair for the first time Sunday night in what could hardly be called a compromising situation.
    Nick Fieringer did. And Nick had been sitting here with them both last night making suggestive remarks about beautiful ladies, and there was no denying the fact that it was a cozy, intimate sort of place and that Sarah’s own bedroom happened to be on the