Shattered Silk by Barbara Michaels

Author:Barbara Michaels [Michaels, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: detective

CHAPTER SEVEN

KAREN sat at the dining room table. On it lay an antique petticoat she was shortening and altering for a customer who had been visibly disconcerted when the waistband didn't begin to go around her purportedly twenty-five-inch waist. Since the petticoat was too long anyway, the solution was simple-take off the waistband and shorten the garment from the top-but the execution was not so easy, for the measurements had to be accurate and the fabric of the new waistband had to match the time-softened muslin of the original.

The scrap of material Karen held in her hand was not designed to be a new waistband. It was the wrong shape and size-roughly triangular, about three inches at the base. Nor, unless her recently acquired knowledge of fabrics misled her, was it old. A polyester-and-cotton blend, brand new and unstained except for a smear of rust from the nail on which it had been caught. It might have been torn from a bed sheet.

Karen had found it that morning, hanging from a nail on the back fence. It was the only visible evidence that someone had been in the yard the night before. As Tony had pointed out, the garden was too neatly tended to take footprints.

Pat and Ruth had a part-time gardener who came several times a week. Apparently his working hours coincided with Karen's, for she had never set eyes on him. Perhaps the gardener would know if there was any sign of disturbance, but it was hardly worthwhile trying to locate him. She had no intention of telling anyone of the incident, including the police. They had already heard from her twice in the last two days, assuming Mr. Bates had passed on the information about Horton. It wasn't exactly a case of the boy who cried "wolf," for there had definitely been a wolf of sorts in her hallway; but she had a feeling the police would get a trifle blase about her complaints if she called them every day. Anyway, the scrap of cloth wasn't evidence-the police would probably think it had been torn from one of her laundered garments-and the story sounded worse than silly, it sounded demented. A ghost in the garden, lady? Well, you know these old Georgetown legends.

Her lips tightly set, Karen put the scrap in an envelope and laid it aside. There was no doubt in her mind that the affair had been designed for one purpose only- to frighten her. After trying the door and discovering he could not get in, the unknown had roused Alexander- perhaps he had thrown gravel at the window-and lingered until the light in her bedroom went on, so that she would be sure to see him. The fog had been a helpful but not essential adjunct to his performance; and the weather forecast would have informed him that some such meteorological phenomenon could be expected that night.

Instead of reducing her to a state of quivering terror, the incident had had precisely the opposite effect.

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