The Polka Dot Nude by Joan Smith

Author:Joan Smith [Smith, Joan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Contemporary Romantic Suspense
Publisher: Belgrave House
Published: 1989-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

Between finding my research all intact and being on speaking terms with my neighbor again, it felt like Christmas in June. Of course a few stray questions still bothered me. Like, was he or wasn’t he Hume Mason? If he was, why had he helped me find the research, and if he wasn’t, what was he doing with that box from Belton in the trunk of his car, to say nothing of the letter in his desk urging him to complete his manuscript? If he wasn’t Hume Mason, what was that pile of literary rubbish doing beside his typewriter? You wouldn’t think a professor with a fine reputation would write that kind of junk. Then I remembered the advance mentioned, and Brad’s expensive life-style.

He certainly wrote something unbecoming to a professor of literature, and he wrote it for Belton. Belton seemed to have cornered the market on best-sellers recently. They had not only Hume Mason, but Rosalie Wildewood and Madison Gantry and . . . Madison Gantry!

My God, that was it! He was Madison Gantry! I laughed out loud for relief and joy. All his modest praise of this writer came back to me. “Gantry isn’t quite as illiterate as most of the escape writers.” I dropped my filthy clothes and moccasins in a garbage bag and tied the top in a knot so I wouldn’t have to touch any of it after my shower. Or better, a long soak in the tub, with a copy of Madison Gantry’s Pavane for a Polish Princess to keep me company. All his titles used alliteration and some musical term. Brad was interested in music, and alliteration would come naturally to a poetry critic.

It was a very enjoyable soak. I knew who had written the book as soon as Max Gerter, the hero, who happened to be an ex-professor of literature, began preparing spaghetti Caruso in chapter three. Before long, bosoms were flowing all over the place, hearts were throbbing, pulses were quivering, and loins were shuddering. There was no doubt in my mind who had written it. The only question now was why Brad had wanted my copies of Rosalie’s diaries, and what that one had been doing on his desk, when he said he was writing an essay on her. Maybe he really was an innocent fan—he had her picture on his bedside table. But was he so keen a fan that he went to her funeral? It must have been Cary Grant’s younger brother. There was one other question too, but I had an inkling of the answer to it. Why hide that he was Madison Gantry? Stupid pride, which boasted of that sedative of a book on Eliot, made him ashamed of these detective stories.

I was in an expansive mood. I wouldn’t admit I’d discovered his secret, but I’d tell him I’d read Pavane for a Polish Princess and loved it. I’d praise the literary touches of Max Gerter, the detective hero. I wondered why he’d made him of German extraction, instead of Irish.

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