Anything Goes

literally snarled. Lily suspected he’d had lots of unpleasant contacts with the police and didn’t want another one.
    Billy spat on the kitchen floor and slammed out of the house.
    “Oh, Miss Brewster, I’m so sorry.“ Mimi was crying. “If I’d known he was around town, I’d have kept the doors locked.“
    “No, we can’t turn the house into our own jail, Mimi,“ Lily said. “But I warn you, if I ever find him in the house again, I will call the police. Try to get that message across to him. And please get that floor cleaned.”
    Lily hated to be hard on Mimi, but since Mimi herself was the attraction, it would have to be Mimi who kept him away.
    Or the police.
     

Chapter 8
     
    Jack Summer turned up at the door to Grace and Favor Cottage quite early the next morning. He asked to see Robert. Mimi showed him to the library and fetched Lily because she couldn’t find Robert.
    “You’re an early bird, Mr. Summer,“ Lily said.
    “I managed to hitch a ride up the hill. And please call me Jack. Mr. Summer is my father,“ he said with a smile. The first one she’d seen on him. It wasn’t a bad smile. Sort of goofy and crooked with a hint of a dimple.
    She wasn’t quite ready to be on first-name terms with a reporter she hardly knew and didn’t quite trust, so instead she answered, “You’ll have a nice ride down the hill, too. My brother got the Duesenberg running. Have you had breakfast? No? I haven’t either. I’ll ask Mimi to bring it in here for us.“
    “Thanks. Your brother isn’t here?“
    “He’s polishing the car. He was asking me where rags are kept at five this morning. As if I’d know,“ she said with a laugh.
    Lily went to the kitchen to ask for breakfast in the library and when she returned, said to Jack, “What brings you here? Have you learned anything about our uncle’s death?“ After her run-in with Billy Smith the afternoon before, Jack Summer was downright welcome company.
    “I looked up the articles about your uncle in the paper and copied them out since you seemed to want to know more about it.”
    Robert suddenly appeared at the door, disheveled and chirpy. “She’s a beauty, Lily. Want to take her for a spin? Oh, Summer, old boy. Didn’t know we had company.“
    “Mr. Summer came to show us the newspaper articles about Uncle Horatio. We’re having breakfast in here. Tell Mimi if you want some and tidy up a bit.”
    Breakfast appeared at the same time Robert returned. As Mimi seemed to have the inclination to linger, they chatted about the automobile while they ate, though Lily was itching to get her hands on the newspaper articles. Robert was the one who instigated the investigation, but he was now obsessed with the Duesenberg just as Lily was getting really interested in Uncle Horatio.
    She barely remembered her uncle. He was a big man, but she’d been a child the one time she met him—everybody had looked big to her then. “Portly“ was more the word. He had a large walrus moustache and big square yellow teeth like the keys on an old piano. That much she did recall. He’d given Robert and her sweets, probably over her mother’s polite objections. Was he the ogre Robert suggested and had goaded someone to a frenzy or was he just a nice old man who died tragically in an accident? When they were finished eating and Mimi had finally gone off with their plates, there was another interruption. Mr. Prinney came into the room, looking harried. “You haven’t seen my notary seal anywhere, have you?“
    “A notary seal?“ Lily asked. “I don’t think so.“ Mrs. Prinney came in from the kitchen as Lily spoke. “Did you enjoy—oh, Elgin, what are you doing here? I thought you were at your office.“
    “I brought my notary seal home last night and can’t find it now.“
    “That’s the little thing you stick in the wax? You dropped it in the bedroom. I have it in the kitchen.“ Mr. Prinney headed for the kitchen and Mrs. Prinney hung back, shaking her head fondly. “He’s only done that twice in his life and both times this year. Last time it went missing, he found it just where it was supposed to be and he’d looked there three times already. Men!“
    “Breakfast was wonderful,“ Lily said, hoping to draw the interruption to a close.
    But Mrs. Prinney went into quite a song and dance about how she made the oatmeal, just as her granny had taught her when she was a mere slip of a girl. “ ‘Emmaline, my girl, if you can make up a big pot of