The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

It’s a lovely place.”
    Sergeant Brown started to enlarge on its beauties but Fredericka cut him short with, “Yes. Well, now I must get my things together.” The young man moved off toward the back door smoothing his beautifully brilliantined hair with a large sunburnt hand before replacing his cap. But just as he opened the screen, he turned back to call loudly: “Now don’t you worry, Miss Wing. When I’m on duty, I’m on duty, if you know what I mean. I’m O.K. as a watchdog.”
    “Watchdog.” Good. It made her think of Peter, and that was good, too.
    As Fredericka went out by the back door she called goodbye to Chris, who answered her cheerfully. Ten minutes later she had made herself a nest in the long grass under an ancient pear tree and had opened her book. In another ten minutes she was fast asleep.
    Chapter 11
    After her nap in the orchard, Fredericka felt much better. She got slowly to her feet and picked up her clean pad of paper, her unused pencil and her unread book. Then she looked at her watch and was amazed to discover that she had slept for three hours. When she got back to the house, Sergeant Brown was nowhere to be seen and, feeling the silence and the loneliness, she managed to bang the screen door as she went indoors. The noise reassured her and it occurred to her that it might also summon her protector. And she was right. In a few moments Sergeant Brown put his head inside the kitchen door where Fredericka was making some fresh iced tea. He took a glass when she offered it to him and lingered a moment to gossip, with his broad back leaning against the door frame and his giant’s feet crossed before him.
    “Have the children kept you busy?” Fredericka asked, sipping her own tea with pleasure.
    “No.” He laughed, and then added: “It’s like having a cat in the house just to keep away mice. Policeman’s the same thing as regards kids.”
    “I’m afraid it’s been pretty boring for you then. I’m sorry.”
    “To tell you the truth I can do with a quiet spell. We’ve had all the fireworks we want in South Sutton for some time to come. Amen.”
    “I would have thought you were young enough to like fireworks.” Fredericka felt that she was being stupid. But even a dull and pointless conversation was better than no conversation at all. The broadness of Sergeant Brown’s back and the sight of the revolver in its holster were very reassuring. She offered him some more tea quickly and filled his glass before he could refuse.
    But she had slept too long. She couldn’t concentrate and, after a time, she couldn’t think of anything more to say herself. Sergeant Brown refused a third glass of tea and muttered something about getting back on the job. As he left, he said over his shoulder: “Nothing to worry about, Miss Wing. You can count on Jim Brown. I’ll stay within call, but if this afternoon’s a fair sample, I’m not going to be wanted much longer—worse luck!”
    As it turned out, the peace of Sergeant Brown’s first afternoon held for two days and two nights, but Thane Carey did not take him off the job of guarding Fredericka and the bookshop. This was a great relief to the new manager, who could not shake her conviction that the peace was a false one, a lull before the final storm. Even at the post office the cheerful voices of the gossips were subdued and heavy with foreboding. In the bookshop, people no longer stopped to talk. Fredericka, who had become unnaturally sensitive, felt that, by having the corpse lie in her hammock, and, even worse, by discovering it herself in the first place, she had assumed the position of chief suspect in the eyes of the town. She thought it unfair to divulge, even to Philippine and those most frequent customers who were becoming friends that she had been freed of suspicion by the chief of police himself. But the loneliness, caused by the unfortunate circumstances of her position, increased. Sergeant Brown’s comforting presence released her from fear but not from worry. The worst of it was that, since the night that Peter Mohun had slept on the office couch, she had seen nothing of him. She thought over the events of that evening and tried to remember every word that they had spoken to each other. But it all added up to the message he had given her in his hateful book. Perhaps that was why he found it necessary to leave her so severely alone.
    On Friday evening as she was washing her dishes and thinking dark thoughts, she