Mrs. Wiggins by Mary Monroe

Author:Mary Monroe [Monroe, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2020-12-10T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

I WAS SO CAUGHT OFF GUARD, MY FIRST THOUGHT WAS TO RUN OUT the back door and keep on running. But common sense told me that that would have been a big mistake. I couldn’t leave Mrs. Dowler in a lurch. My lips was quivering, but I managed to smile and say in the most cheerful tone I could manage, “Good morning, Mr. Oswald. I’m Maggie Wiggins. I do the laundry for your sister, every Monday and Tuesday. She just left to go pick up something from the store.”

I was so nervous I started sweating right away. I reached out my hand to shake his. The way he looked at it, you would have thought I had a wart on every finger. He grunted and dismissed me with a sharp wave.

“Uh . . . she fixed you some breakfast, but she said if you want anything else I’m to take care of it.”

Mr. Oswald let out his breath and looked me up and down. His gaze stayed on my bosom way longer than it should have. I didn’t know what to think when he winked at me and smiled.

“When I want something from you, I’ll let you know. Now you get!”

I scurried into the pantry to get the iron and the board. I figured if I took long enough, he’d be gone by the time I got back to the kitchen. So, to kill time, I rearranged all the canned goods on the shelves, twice.

Ten minutes later, when I thought it was safe to leave the pantry, that sucker was still in the kitchen and was just putting a bowl of grits and a cup of coffee on a tray. This time when he looked at me, he didn’t look so mean.

“And another thing, don’t you ever enter my room without my permission. I got valuables lying about, and I want to keep them. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, sir.” I didn’t even look at him as I set up the ironing board.

Mr. Oswald heaved out a loud breath and headed back toward the staircase.

I didn’t want to jump the gun, but I had a feeling he had something nasty on his mind that involved me. That was usually the case when a man looked at a woman’s body the way he’d looked at mine. I immediately pushed that thought to the back of my mind. I didn’t think he would be brazen enough to take advantage of me in Mrs. Dowler’s house. But he had already got it in his mind that I was a thief! I had never stole nothing before in my life, and I was not stupid enough to start by swiping things from white folks now.

This was going to be a long day. A little voice in my head told me that every other day was going to be just as long with Mr. Oswald living in the house.

It never took me more than a couple of hours to do all the ironing. After I had done that, I went out to the garden to sprinkle the arsenic Mrs.

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