The Palace Guard by Charlotte MacLeod

Author:Charlotte MacLeod [MacLeod, Charlotte]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 9780743459129
Publisher: ibooks
Published: 1981-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

TRAFFIC WAS EVEN WORSE than they’d expected. By the time they passed the clock on the Arlington Street Church, Sarah was aghast to see that it was almost a quarter to five.

“Mariposa will be having kitten fits!”

“There’s a phone in the office. If we ever get there, call her and tell her you’ve been unavoidably detained. Can’t she start dinner without you?”

“Yes, I left everything ready, but what am I going to say? She won’t settle for unavoidably detained.”

“Then tell her you got caught in a revolving door and have been going around in circles ever since.”

“That’s exactly how I feel. I hope there’s lots of cold cream in that makeup kit you got with the costumes.”

“What for?”

“To get this silly greasepaint off with, of course.”

“What’s wrong with soap and water?”

“Nothing except that it won’t work.”

“Oh, Jesus!”

Luckily they got to the Little Building soon afterward. It was in the theatrical district, and a nearby drugstore had what they needed. Sarah bought a box of tissues, too, and took a grim satisfaction in making Bittersohn pay for them. Then they went up to the small, depressing office, where their clothes lay sprawled across the desk and chair.

Sarah made her call, told Mariposa she’d been held up at the lawyer’s and please to start without her. “I’ll be along as soon as I possibly can,” she added before Mariposa could express her feelings, and hung up.

Bittersohn was taking an experimental poke at the cold cream and not liking it. “What are we supposed to do with this stuff?”

“Smear it on your face, then wipe it off with tissues. With any luck the makeup will come, too.”

“Show me.”

Sarah plastered her own cheeks with the white grease, then in exasperation did his, too. They scrubbed and smeared until both were more or less back to their normal hues.

“Now we must change. Will you go first, or shall I?”

“Why don’t we just turn our backs and be ladies and gentlemen?”

“All right, it is getting awfully late.” And Cousin Mabel was quite some distance away. Sarah flipped the dirty Venetian blinds shut, retreated behind the desk to give some semblance of privacy, and unwrapped her sari. Then came the problem of getting out of that blouse, and there she stuck, literally. She managed to get the bottom up just far enough to immobilize her shoulder joints. Her arms were useless. She squirmed, she struggled. Nothing would budge. At last she gasped, “You’ll have to help me.”

“My God, how did you ever get into this thing in the first place?” Bittersohn tugged with all his might. The blouse came off, and there was Sarah.

That did it, of course. She’d known this was going to happen sooner or later. She hadn’t expected it to happen in a grimy office on the Windy Corner with Bittersohn in his undershirt and herself in nothing but a pair of panty hose and both their faces greasy with cheap cold cream. And Mr. Porter-Smith, like as not, already on his way

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