Anything Goes

I’ll see if the invitation is still open.“
    “Mrs. Prinney! You don’t have to give up your social life to feed us!“
    “Then how would you eat?“
    “We’d manage. Do you know the Winslow family well?“ Lily asked.
    “Oh, no, dear. They’re outsiders. Very high-society New York people. Though they have spent a lot more time here, I think, in the last couple years. Mr. Prinney knows Major Winslow, of course. Major Winslow and your uncle had quite a few business dealings together and Mr. Prinney was involved in the legal side. But it was strictly business.”
    Lily smiled. Mrs. Prinney was a nice woman and if she was calling the Winslows ‘outsiders’ it seemed to imply that Lily and Robert weren’t. This was surprisingly comforting.
    What was not comforting was the thought of breaking it to Robert that they had to dine with the Winslows. She’d provided him with half an excuse, but realized she couldn’t endure a dinner with them without Robert’s presence. They were such boring people and Robert would be the only person who could save the evening and her sanity.
    Lily found him in the garage, polishing the Duesenberg. “Lunch has been delayed a bit,“ she told him. “You’ll wear the paint off that automobile if you don’t quit polishing it three times a day.“
    “Have you had a talk with Mimi? She needs to make a complaint to the police. That husband of hers needs a good stint in the slammer.“
    “Not yet, but I will later. I thought I should let her calm down a little first. And I suspect Billy Smith has done a good deal of time in jail without any improvement. Umm, Robert, I have bad news.
    We’ve been invited to the Winslows’ house for dinner tonight. I couldn’t think of an excuse fast enough.“
    “Lily!“
    “I’m sorry. But if we go now and get it over with, and then don’t return the invitation for a good long time—say a couple years—they won’t invite us again.”
    Robert grinned. “I’d almost forgotten about the old tit-for-tat rule. I’m losing my social skills.“
    “I’ll say. You’ve got a smudge of wax on your forehead, too. Clean up and come to lunch. I just overheard a conversation I want to tell you about later.”
    Lily went back to the house and to her room to wash her hands and think about what she’d overheard Billy saying. Mimi had finished her room and left it sparkling clean and the freshly ironed sheets on the bed had created a sunshine scent. Lily sat down on the bed and drew a deep breath. There was a slight ‘thunk’ as her handbag slid off the foot of the bed. How was she going to tackle Mimi? Had she any right to interfere in the maid’s dreadful marriage? she wondered as she bent down. The handbag had opened and spilled the contents everywhere. She started picking things up, still thinking about Mimi. Her compact, her house keys—which was silly, as nobody ever locked up the house—the little gold rouge container that had a bent hinge and never stayed closed properly, a cigarette lighter Robert had dropped in the hall, several coins ..
    Where was the paper money? She’d had a ten-dollar bill in her handbag. She got down and flipped up the bed skirt, thinking it must have gotten under the bed. But it wasn’t there. She dumped the handbag back out on the coverlet. She must have put it in her wallet. But there was no ten-dollar bill in it. She searched the little side pocket where she kept extra hairpins. No, not there either.
    How could she have lost ten dollars? That was a lot of money and they didn’t have it to spare. She mentally went over the day, trying to think what she could have done with it. She’d put it in her handbag before she and Robert had gone to Bannerman Island in the morning, thinking if they had car trouble she might need it. But they didn’t and she hadn’t opened the handbag since then.
    Had she lost the money or had someone taken it? She’d left the handbag in her room as soon as they’d returned and the only people who’d been in the room since then—that she knew of—had been Sissy and Mimi and herself. Sissy wouldn’t have taken it. Not because she was honest, but because the Winslows were rich.
    That left Mimi.
    Unthinkable.
    But...
    Lily had also lost her favorite scarf. When she got dressed this morning, she’d meant to wear it in the automobile as it went so well with her green patterned skirt and jade cotton sweater. But the blue and green paisley scarf had gone missing, too.
    “You’re