McNally's Dilemma Read Online Free PDF Page A

efficiency.”
    Melva and I met on the Palm Beach tennis beat and made a good team both on and off the courts. We enjoyed our easygoing relationship too much to ruin it with even a hint of romance, and when Veronica came down from prep school on long weekends, we made it a jolly threesome, munching hamburgers at the Pelican Club. “I like this much better than the Bath and Tennis,” precocious Veronica declared. Out of the mouths of babes...
    When Geoff started courting the widow Manning and she encouraged the attention, I kept an open mind and a closed mouth regarding the affair. PBR had it that Geoff was a tennis pro, but I couldn’t find him listed on any of the tennis pro circuits. He was also touted to be a golf pro, and although he was usually under par, I couldn’t find him listed on any of the golf pro circuits. He was also reputed to be Geoffrey Wolinsky, minor Russian nobility, whose ancestors made it out of St. Petersburg a minute before the Bolsheviks marched in.
    Finally, it was put about by those who had tried and failed to win the heart of Melva Ashton Manning, that Geoff was one Jeffrey Wolinsky of Russian Jewish lineage whose family made it out of Kiev before the Cossacks marched in. Take your pick of any/all of the above. One thing we do know: Geoff was, and this is PBF, a man who found women irresistible, and the ladies, too often, returned the compliment.
    The gate was open and the blinking red light told me the alarm was turned off. For me, or did someone neglect to put it on this evening? I drove up the circular drive to the front door and saw Hattie, Melva’s housekeeper, awaiting my arrival. Hattie was a short, plump woman with gray hair pulled tightly back from her face and knotted into a bun. She wore black dresses with white collars and cuffs. Hattie had been with Melva from before Veronica was born, and Veronica had to be twenty, at least.
    “Mr. Archy. Thank God. It’s terrible what has happened. Terrible. We must help Missy, Mr. Archy. She said, ‘Call the police, Hattie,’ but I said, ‘No, call Mr. Archy. He will know what to do.’” She rambled on in that vein as she led me into the house and to the drawing room, where Melva was seated in a wing chair, smoking a cigarette. She wore a robe over her nightgown and her feet were bare.
    “I gave these up ten years ago, Archy, remember? I said if I ever again took one puff I’d be back to two packs a day, and look at this...” She pointed to an ashtray overflowing with butts smoked down to the filter. A glass and a bottle of Dewar’s stood beside the ashtray. “Would you like a drink, Archy?”
    “I don’t think so, Melva. The cigarettes won’t help, and neither will the Scotch.”
    Her eyes were glassy, like those of a china doll, and just as comprehending. A small woman, Melva now resembled a child trying to fill a grown-up’s chair. Her fashionably short hair was beginning to gray, and I doubt if she would ever attempt to hold back the tide. “Would you like to view the remains, Archy?”
    Hattie let out a gasp and covered her mouth with her fist. This was only going to get worse before it got better.
    “Where?”
    “The solarium,” Hattie answered.
    I made my way down a long hall to a glass-enclosed room overlooking the pool and furnished with potted plants, exotic flowers, wicker furniture, and Geoffrey Williams lying on his back, stark naked, his chest covered with congealed blood. Pants, shirt, and a pair of briefs stood in a heap on the floor not far from his tousled head of hair. A pair of abandoned Gucci loafers completed the inventory of Geoff’s outer- and underwear on his last day in our vale of tears. A gun lay beside the body. How like Melva, to abandon the weapon like a toy that no longer pleased her. There was always someone to pick up after Melva Ashton Manning Williams.
    The only thing I learned from the scene of the crime was that Geoffrey Williams was definitely not Jewish.
    Back in the drawing room