Trust Me On This by Donald E Westlake

Author:Donald E Westlake [Westlake, Donald E]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Donald E Westlake
Published: 2010-11-10T07:30:40.930000+00:00

"Did you clean the Mercer suite?"

Now the expression was suspicious. "Yes, ma'am."

Ida extended toward her a folded green bill, saying, "You dropped this."

"Oh, no, ma'am," the maid said, calm and positive in her competence. "I couldn't have."

"Well, it was there," Ida said, brisk and impatient. "Do I look as though I need a dollar? I work for the Weekly Galaxy, they pay me plenty. A lot more than my sister, she's a waitress. Here, make sure."

The maid doubtfully took the bill, which Ida had folded so that all the numbers were inside, and so that the bill was already in the maid's hands when she opened it and saw those repeated digits: 100. "Oh, no, ma'am," she said, almost in a panic, trying to push the bill back into Ida's hands. "This isn't mine!"

Ida backed away, lifting her hands as though the bill scared her, too. "That's a hundred!" she cried. "It isn't mine! We're in enough trouble with the management here, I don't want anybody saying I took money."

"But " The maid looked at the hundred-dollar bill in her hand, looked hopelessly around the room as though for a place where she could safely put it down, then looked back at Ida. "I don't know what to do," she confessed.

"I tell you what," Ida said. "Maybe it was dropped by whoever was here with the Mercers just before they left. If I leave it with you, you could pass it on to Who would that be?"

The maid looked keenly at Ida. The bill crackled in her fingers.

"Lady Beatrice Romeysholme," Ida announced,

her mouth curling around the syllables of the name. "Widow of an army general known as the Dunce of Dunkirk."

Jack frowned. "I thought Dunkirk was a success."

"A successful retreat," Ida pointed out. "He made it necessary. The British press gave him the horse laugh the rest of his life, so naturally the widow hates reporters."

Jack nodded, sad but noble. "They always blame the messenger," he said.

"Sure," Ida agreed. "Lady Bee has kind of a castle over on the west side of the island. Up on a bluff over the water. Very tough to get into." "Servants?"

"Old retainers," Ida said. "Been with her since Magna Carta."

"I look ahead of me," Jack said, "and I see oblivion."

Boy, with his dreamy infected smile, floated over to say, "I understand the happy couple have been rediscovered."

"You're quick, Boy," Jack told him. "You've got what I call a nose for news."

Ida studied her nails. They were long and sharp.

"They're with a compatriot of mine, I understand," Boy went on.

"In a manner of speaking," Jack agreed.

"I suppose, really," Boy said, "one ought to drop in on dear old Lady Beatrice."

"That's a great idea, Boy," Jack said.

"I'm sure we'll get along famously," Boy said, drifting toward the door. "Ta."

Jack watched him leave. Slowly, a smile overlaid the lineaments of despair on his features. "Now, why," he asked, "do I find myself feeling this unreasonable sense of happiness?"

Amid that mix of New England fishing village, undeveloped sand

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