McNally's luck Read Online Free PDF Page A

put my completed notes aside and glanced at my Mickey Mouse wristwatch (an original, not a reproduction). I saw that I had a quarter-hour before my presence was required in my father's study, to listen to what was troubling our client. I spent the time recalling what I knew of Roderick Gillsworth.
    He was a poet, self-proclaimed. His first book, The Joy of Flatulence, was so obscure and prolix that critics were convinced he was a genius, and on the strength of their ecstatic reviews TJOF sold 527 copies. But Gillsworth's subsequent volumes didn't do as well, and he accepted employment as poet-in-residence at an exclusive liberal arts college for women in New Hampshire.
    There he married one of his students, Lydia Bark-ham. She was heiress to a fortune in old money accumulated by a Rhode Island family that began by making string, graduated to rope, moved on to steel cables, and eventually sold out to a Japanese conglomerate at such a humongous price that one financial commentator termed it "Partial revenge for Pearl Harbor."
    Lydia and Roderick Gillsworth moved to Palm Beach in the late 1970s and, despite their wealth, bought a relatively modest home on Via Del Lago, about a block from the beach. They lived quietly, entertained infrequently, and apparently had little interest in tennis, golf, or polo. This did not make them pariahs, of course, but they were considered somewhat odd. According to Palm Beach gossips (the entire population) the Gillsworths had what the French label a mariage blanc, and what your grandmother probably called a "marriage in name only." Naturally I cannot vouch for that.
    Roderick continued to write poetry, but now his slim volumes were privately printed, handsomely bound in calfskin, and given as Christmas gifts to personal friends. The McNally family had eight of his books, the pages still uncut. The most recent collection of his poems was titled The Cross-Eyed Atheist.
    When I entered my father's study on the ground floor, Gillsworth was already lounging in a leather wing chair. I went over to shake his hand and he didn't bother rising. I was an employee and about ten years younger than he, but I still felt it was bad manners. My father sat behind his big leather-topped desk, and I drew up a straight chair and positioned it so that I could observe both men without turning my head back and forth.
    "Archy," the don said, "Mr. Gillsworth apparently has a personal problem he wishes to discuss. He is aware of your responsibility for discreet inquiries and the success you have achieved in several investigations with a minimum of publicity."
    "No publicity," the poet said sharply. "I must insist on that: absolutely no publicity. Lydia would never forgive me if this got out."
    Father stroked his mustache with a knuckle. That mustache was as bristly as his eyebrows, but considerably wider. It was the Guardsman's type and stretched the width of his face, a thicket that was a sight to behold when he was eating barbecued ribs. "Every effort will be made to keep the matter confidential, Mr. Gillsworth," he said. "What exactly is it?"
    Our client drew a deep breath. "About three weeks ago," he began, "a letter arrived at our home addressed to my wife. Plain white envelope, no return address. At the time Lydia was up north visiting cousins in Pawtucket. Fortunately she had left instructions to open her mail and forward to Rhode Island whatever I thought important and might require her immediate attention. I say 'fortunately' because this particular letter was a vicious threat against Lydia's life. It spelled out the manner of her murder in such gruesome and sickening detail that it was obviously the product of a deranged mind."
    "Dreadful," my father said.
    "Did the letter give any reason for the threat?" I asked.
    "Only in vague terms," Gillsworth said. "It said she must die to pay for what she is doing. That was the phrase used: 'for what she is doing.' Complete insanity, of course. Lydia is the most innocent of