The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

Intelligence.” What you don’t know, and neither do very many other people, is that, during the war, I was an O.S.S. officer, and, well, I’ve kept up my interests in crime detection on a peacetime level, ever since. Perhaps, since for some reason I feel I can trust you (and I trust I’ve learned to be a good judge of character, too), I can go as far as to tell you that I still am an army officer on the administrative side. I am technically on leave for this job which is considered by the government to be of considerable importance. And while I don’t somehow feel that our Catherine was an oh-so-beautiful spy, there is always the chance that murder so close to Sutton College could have serious implications. And even if this turns out to be a village affair, as well it might, Thane Carey doesn’t seem to mind my being in on it under the circumstances.”
    Fredericka looked at him directly. “I appreciate your confidence in me, Peter,” she said simply. “I—well, I do realize that I’ve not been much help to date, but I think I can honestly say that I’m far more afraid of uncertainty and black magic than I am of facts, no matter how horrible they are. I’m grateful to you for giving them to me and—well—for offering me the job of Watson to your Holmes. I’ll try to be of some use. And now I’m going to sleep on this—thanks again to you.”
    “Good girl.” Peter smiled and as she stood up, he did too. “Not scared of bears chasing you up the stairs, are you?” he asked.
    “Not when the army is within hail,” she answered, and then said: “What time do you want breakfast?”
    “Six-thirty.”
    “Good grief. Well, I’m not quite so sure now that I like being a female Watson, and you may have to thump on the ceiling at six.”
    “O.K. I want to get away from here before your Chris or friend Carey arrive. I’d never hear the last of this.” He fished in his pocket awkwardly. “I picked this up when I got my toothbrush.” He handed her a small book. “You can borrow it for a very limited time. It’s my bible but it—well, it sort of explains things.”
    Fredericka took the book from him, and sensing that he did not want to say more, muttered a quick “Thanks” and “Good night,” and started up the stairs.
    But, once more, Peter called her back. “What was worrying you so much when I found you and your pals in the drugstore?”
    “Oh that—I tried to tell you before—I had just decided that the box must belong to Catherine, but that’s ancient history now.”
    “Yes, but you score again for deduction. Good night.”
    “Good night,” Fredericka said once more and, this time, succeeded in leaving him.
    As she undressed slowly, the memory of her evening’s encounter with James faded. It was good to know that Peter was in the house and within call. So it was Murder. It was true that she had known it all along. She had felt it in the very atmosphere, even before she had seen Catherine’s face as she lay dead in the hammock.
    Fredericka got into bed determined not to take another pill—to think of nothing—to let her mind slip easily into unconsciousness—to feel secure and at peace for this blessed protected night. But when she had put out the light, her thoughts raced madly around the problems and strange happenings of this new life. How different it had proved from what she had expected and how different, too, from the apartment-to-library and library-back-to-apartment routine that had been her whole existence for the last ten years of her life. She tossed and turned, felt hot, then cold. And inevitably, she began to think about Peter Mohun—and to wish that it had been he who had wanted to kiss her. The thought embarrassed her and she blushed hotly in the darkness: Until this moment she had deliberately avoided all thought of him as a man. He had been her kind friend, he was now her Sherlock Holmes and, for the time being, her watch dog. She must not, must not, must not, think of him in any other way…
    There had been no one in her life since Stephen Good who had married someone else. She had always persuaded herself that Stephen had been the only love of her life—that there would never, could never, be anyone else. But she had been a child then, barely twenty. For fifteen long years since then, she had lived on this belief. But was that only because the men she had met afterwards had failed to “capture her imagination” as he had done? Somewhere she had read