Sailor Take Warning by Richard Bolt

Author:Richard Bolt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: MYSTERY/SUSPENSE
Publisher: Encircle Publications
Published: 2018-10-29T18:54:38+00:00

Chapter 14

As I drove west from Cambridge on the Mass Pike, I pondered the invitation from Creedon. His invitation both flattered and puzzled. Flattered, because a man with a billion-dollar enterprise like ZIDEX was asking me to his home to look over his collection of classic guitars. False modesty aside, though, people in his position just don’t invite MIT researchers of my middling rank and repute out on a social basis unless there is something behind it. I was curious what that something might be.

Turning off the Pike, I drove a couple of miles into the very upscale suburb of Weston, and, just where I was told I would see it, spotted the small weathered sign saying “Oakhill - Private Way.”

I turned right onto a deeply rutted road that eventually transformed itself into an immaculately groomed gravel drive. As I approached the brick gatehouse, a fiftyish, powerfully built man in a green ski parka stepped quickly out and signaled me to pull up. I showed him my invitation note from Creedon, which he perused impassively. He squinted at my car, consulted a small notebook, then, breaking into a broad smile, waved me on, pointing to where the drive widened in a semi-circle in front of a grand Georgian-style manor house.

As I got out of my car, a slim young man with slicked-down brown hair greeted me warmly from the steps in that same androgynous voice I’d heard over the phone. A kind of junior majordomo or whatever in his lemon-hued blazer, he led me inside and, after taking my coat, escorted me through the foyer and down a central hall, at the end of which French doors opened onto a brick-paved indoor patio. Opposite me, across the patio floor, a double staircase descended to a vast orangery lined with sculptured yew hedges framing flowerbeds that could have graced Monet’s wondrous gardens at Giverny. The patio itself extended left and right perhaps seventy feet on either side. On the left side, toward the end, John Creedon rose from a wicker chair.

“Good afternoon, Professor Rundle,” he called out as he approached. “Hope you didn’t have trouble finding the right lane. They insist on unobtrusive signs in this town, and sometimes one can barely read them.”

“No trouble,” I said.

“Something to drink before we head up to the gallery?”

Creedon spoke in a pleasing voice, his enunciation precise and clipped. The quality of his speech triggered some memory association—something someone had said—but I couldn’t zero in on what exactly it was.

“Scotch neat would be perfect,” I replied.

He ordered it from the yellow-jacketed young man, and the same for himself. He sat me down in a wicker chair opposite his, and for maybe ten minutes Creedon made small talk. How did I like MIT? Was I up for tenure? He muttered something about knowing some people on Academic Council. Then he said, “But what you really are here for is to see some of my guitars. How do I know of your interest, you might wonder? Well, I saw your New American Physicist article on the acoustics of stringed instruments.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.