Anything Goes

something to cheer her up. In a way, it’s like coming out of a cave. The light is sort of scary at first. But she’s free of that awful man now and she’ll come to appreciate that. I told her to take a little lie-down this morning. I didn’t want her in the kitchen just yet.”
    Lily smiled. The contrast between Mr. Prinney’s carefully measured and well-thought precision of speech and Mrs. Prinney’s blunt pronouncements was strange. Almost like switching languages entirely. “And where’s Robert?“
    “Try to guess,“ Mrs. Prinney said with a smile. “He just ran down to the garage to have a chin-wag with that automobile he loves so much.“
    “And the Countess Duesenberg is doing fine,“ Robert said from the kitchen screen door. “As I hope we all are this morning. Lily, are you okay?“
    “I’m still a bit stupid. Don’t ever let that doctor near me again with his little black bag of drugs.“
    “You needed to sleep like a drunk,“ Robert said. “Everybody does, now and then. At least you did it in a bed. Remember the time we found Binky Silver sleeping it off in a rowboat out on the Cape? He walked like a crab for two days afterward.“
    “Robert, you do me a world of good,“ Lily said with a laugh. “What was that?“ she then asked, catching a view of something moving outside behind Robert.
    He turned and glanced out the door. “It’s a dog. It’s been hanging around all morning. I tried to make friends with him, but he wasn’t having it.”
    Lily looked out the door, but the dog had disappeared.
    Breakfast was light by Mrs. Prinney’s standards. Fruit, cheese, milk, apple juice, coffee, scrambled eggs and bacon. There was a huge plate piled high with fluffy biscuits and butter. Enough to easily feed a half dozen more eaters. How, Lily wondered, did the woman do it? Single-handedly clean up the blood of a murder victim and still fix biscuits? Lily put away so much food that she feared she’d have to loosen the belt of her dress. She could use a little ‘lie-down’ herself, but didn’t want Mr. Prinney to get a chance to clam up.
    “Could we continue our conversation?“ she asked him, as she finally finished her breakfast.
    “Not for a bit. I have some letters that must go out. Later in the day?”
    She didn’t dare push him. “Robert, would you take me for a walk? I need some fresh air and I want to see those paths Mimi told me about.“
    “Best wear trousers, dear,“ Mrs. Prinney said. “There are some thorny plants in the woods.”
    Lily obediently went upstairs to change, took a quick peek into Mimi’s room on the third floor where she was napping and went back downstairs. Robert was waiting at the back door. “Wait just a minute more,“ she said, and returned shortly with the last couple pieces of bacon wrapped in butcher paper.
    “You’re still eating? How can you?“
    “It’s not for me, Robert. It’s for the dog.”
    “What’s this about a conversation with Mr. Prune?“
    “I finally got him to talk about the boat wreck and the people on it. And most important, the reason for the trip.”
    She started to explain as they strolled toward the woods where there was an opening in the dense growth.
    “You mean Uncle Horatio planned this nice little boat ride to humiliate one of the guests? Not quite the ‘done thing,’ do you think?“
    “Mr. Prinney accepted it as something Uncle Horatio would do. He went on about how honest and forthright he was.“ It was odd that Robert had developed this posthumous dislike of someone he didn’t even know, while Lily’s feelings were moving in the opposite direction.
    “A stiff-necked prig, it sounds like to me. With no social graces,“ Robert groused.
    “And probably a serious threat to one of the others,“ Lily said. “He told me about the two we didn’t know. One of them, I believe it was Winningham, is a frail arthritic man who is a mildly incompetent banker. His father had handled Miss Flora’s financial affairs and Mr. Prinney says Uncle Horatio had some loyalty to him.“
    “Or knew something to his detriment,“ Robert said. “People with money can get real mean about money.“
    “So can people without it,“ Lily said. “But this man had to use two canes to even walk and was the first to be put on the dinghy.“
    “Okay, count him out,“ Robert said, carefully holding back a branch of a vicious-looking shrub so Lily could pass safely. “Good Lord! Look at that!”
    The back of a huge house