Fallen Angels Read Online Free PDF Page A

taxicabs, but I
figured Great-Aunt Agatha wouldn’t have minded. She’d been quite a
good old girl, in spite of belonging to my family, which was
probably why my mother had disliked her.
    Mrs. Chalmers—and her husband if she
had one, I suppose—lived on Wilton Place, near Second Street, in
Los Angeles. As the cabbie drove me there, I decided it was a very
pretty neighborhood, with big houses and awfully pretty yards. I
think that, during my first few months in Los Angeles, the
landscaping impressed me more than just about anything else in my
new home. I suppose it’s easier to have lovely lawns, fabulous rose
bushes, and all sorts of other flowers when the weather never
freezes as it does in Boston. Chloe and Harvey had a gorgeous yard,
and, although Chloe complained occasionally about not having a
swimming pool—swimming pools were de
rigueur amongst the Hollywood set, I had discovered
early in my stay here—I didn’t miss it one little bit. I preferred
the wonderful rose garden.
    Naturally, neither Chloe nor Harvey worked in
the garden. They had a staff of professional gardeners to do the
work, but Mrs. Biddle, their housekeeper, made good use of the
flowers therefrom.
    The taxicab pulled up to the curb in front of
a large white house with a massive porch and a huge double door.
The cabbie opened the door for me. I asked him to wait, and I
walked up a long paved pathway lined with gardenia bushes whose
sweet, cloying fragrance nearly knocked me over. I climbed the
short flight of stairs to the porch, crossed the porch to the
gigantic doors, and twisted the doorbell. I heard the noise it
made, and I waited.
    And I waited.
    And waited.
    Frowning—where on earth could Ernie and Mrs.
Chalmers have gone, and if they’d gone somewhere, why hadn’t Ernie
called me or touched base with Phil?—I decided to take a chance and
grabbed the doorknob. It turned easily. Then I hesitated. Did I
really want to waltz into someone else’s home without having been
invited?
    Squaring my shoulders, I told myself firmly
that I did indeed want to do that, because my boss might be in
trouble. In fact, didn’t I feel a little tingle up my spine? After
thinking about it for a second or three, I decided I didn’t.
    Nevertheless, I gingerly shoved the door open
and walked inside the house. Could this action of mine be called
breaking and entering? I wasn’t sure, and I also wasn’t sure if the
fact that I hadn’t actually broken anything would count if somebody
found me there. Oh, well.
    The door opened onto a foyer-type room, kind
of like the one in Chloe’s house, only Chloe’s house has lovely
tiles on the floor, and this was polished wood covered with a
pretty Oriental rug. The rug looked like a Bukhara to me, although
I’m certainly no expert on Oriental rugs.
    Because I was still nervous, I cleared my
throat and said, “Good afternoon?” in a questioning sort of
voice.
    No answer. Perhaps that was because I’d
almost whispered the words. After taking a deep breath for courage,
I repeated my greeting, more loudly this time: “Good
afternoon!”
    Still no answer.
    Well, pooh. Now what?
    Although my nerves were jangling like the
bells on a Christmas sleigh, I decided it would be cowardly on my
part not to finish what I’d started now that I had officially
entered the house uninvited, so I set out to look for my boss. And,
of course, Mrs. Chalmers.
    I didn’t know the layout of the house, but
having been born and reared in a place remarkably like this one, I
didn’t have any trouble finding my way around. No one was in the
breakfast room. No one was in the kitchen. No one was in the
butler’s pantry or the dining room. Speaking of butlers, didn’t
Mrs. Chalmers have any servants? In a place as big as this? I
figured that a maid would probably pop up when I was searching a
bedroom and screech, so I stopped and said, again loudly, “Good
afternoon! Is anyone home?”
    Still no answer. My nerves had begun to jump
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