Authors: Lawrence Sanders
McNally's Risk (34 page)
“Horsey.”
“You mean she looks like a horse?”
“Boards ʼem. Got a farm out near Wellington.”
“That’s interesting. Racehorses? Polo ponies?”
“Show horses. Jumpers.”
And that’s all he could tell me about the Forsythes. I finished lunch and handed him a tenner. The Olsons drew a generous salary, of course, but I never considered Jamie’s confidential assistance was included in their monthly stipend so I always slipped him a pourboire for extra services rendered. My father would be furious if he ever learned of it.
Before I returned to the Forsythe manse I went up to my digs and loaded a Mark Cross attaché case with yellow legal pads, file cards, a small magnifying glass, and a roll of gummed labels. Since I was going to be on stage I figured a few props would help authenticate my role as an earnest cataloger of libraries. I also took along my reading glasses, although I hate to wear them in public. They make me look like a demented owl.
The Forsythes’ front door seemed stout enough to withstand a battering ram but was fitted with a rather prissy brass knob in an acanthus design. I pulled it and heard chimes sound within. A moment later the heavy portal was swung open and I was greeted by Sheila, the pretty and nongiggling maid.
“Me again,” I said, giving her my 100-watt Supercharmer smile. (I decided to hold the 150-watt Jumbocharmer for a more propitious time.)
“Oh sure,” she said, stepping back to allow entrance. “You know your way to the library?”
“If I get lost I’ll scream for help,” I said. “What’s your last name, Sheila?”
“Hayworth,” she said. “And no, I’m not related to Rita.”
Saucy, this one.
“You could have fooled me,” I said. “The resemblance is striking.”
We both laughed because she was a shortish blonde on the zoftig side and looked more like
Klondike Annie
than
The Lady from Shanghai.
She waggled fingers at me and sashayed away. She was, I noted, wearing high heels, which I thought rather odd for the maidservant of a genteel and apparently hidebound family.
After two wrong turnings in those lugubrious corridors I finally located the library. The door was ajar and I blithely strolled into my designated “combat center.” Then I stopped, entranced. A woman, perched high on the wheeled ladder, was reaching up to select a volume from the top shelf. She was wearing an extremely short denim skirt.
Her position in that literary setting
forced
me to recall Browning’s apt observation: “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1993 by The Lawrence A. Sanders Foundation, Inc.
cover design by Jason Gabbert
978-1-4532-9825-1
This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
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