Muller, Marcia, [McCone 01] Edwin of the Iron Shoes(v1, shtml) Read Online Free PDF Page A

register, then sat down on the mauve velvet settee next to Clothilde. Forcing my mind away from van Osten's awful eyes, I queried the headless dummy, "Now, where the hell am I supposed to begin?"
    I had a lot to learn. Didn't antique dealers refer to furniture by periods, for instance? Chippendale, Hepplewhite, Louis XIV? How was I ever going to be able to attach a meaningful label to each and every object in the shop, plus keep my eyes open for clues to the killer?
    I smiled faintly, picturing my finished inventory: "One old table, three older chairs, one whatchamacallit, four something-or-others, one object that looks like it could be an umbrella stand." A crash course in antiques was in order. I'd have to stop by the lirary later on to pick up some general books on the subject.
    Joan had been an expert. She'd been a dealer for twenty years or more and could tell the value and antecedents of any piece after a single glance. When a customer came in, she had a way of drawing him or her into a fantasy world, where every object in the shop came alive with its own special past. I felt a fresh sensation of loss as I remembered the first time I'd come to the shop early last October.
    A tiny, gray-haired woman in a blue smock and slacks had greeted me, a feather duster in her hand. "Welcome to Joan's Unique Antiques!" she'd announced with a wide grin. "I'm Joan Albritton, and this is Clothilde."
    She gestured at the headless figure on the settee. The dummy was clad in a long gown of red sequins, which clashed horribly with the mauve upholstery.
    "Clothilde," Joan Albritton had gone on, with a glance at me, "used to be an extremely successful
haute couture
model in Paris, and still would be had it not been for her foolish heart. You see, she fell in love with a man from San Francisco and followed him here, only to find he was married, with thirteen kids. So she ended up on Salem Street working for me and pining for her lost love. You can tell she completely lost her head over the fellow!"
    I chuckled and bowed to Clothilde. "Pleased to meet you."
    Joan's sharp eyes watched me with pleasure. "Maybe you prefer children to glamour girls though. Come this way." She led me down an aisle, stopping here and there to flick the feather duster at imaginary cobwebs.
    "This is Edwin of the Iron Shoes, named for his very uncomfortable footgear."
    The mannequin, aloof, stared away from us, his pale-blue eyes fixed on the wall. His face had a semi-gloss to it, and the artist who had painted his features onto the carved wood had given him apple cheeks, blossoming with health.
    "Hello, Edwin," I said.
    Joan's smile grew wider. "Personally, I think Edwin would have preferred a pair of tennis shoes, don't you? As it is, he's been forced into a life of contemplating the arts instead of running around with the other little boys. Edwin's not for sale, but the painting is. I have to change it often so he doesn't get bored."
    With his halo of painted gold hair and little boy's sailor suit, Edwin looked very much the innocent on a first trip to the art museum. The painting he studied was of some shepherds and their flock, in a wheat-colored field. The landscape reminded me of parts of Italy or, for that matter, parts of Southern California. The shepherds didn't look too different from some of the fellows I saw walking around San Francisco.
    "Are you an art lover by any chance?" Joan Albritton asked me.
    "I don't know much about art, probably less than Edwin does. It's a nice painting, though."
    "Oh. Oh, yes, it is." She turned from Edwin and led me toward the front of the shop.
    "Of course, there's Edwin's playmate." She reached for a cloth doll with long yellow braids. "She's very changeable though." Flipping the doll, she revealed a second one, an old-fashioned Aunt Jemima, hidden among its full skirts. "And then there's Bruno. He gets in on the fun, too."
    She gestured at a stuffed German shepherd standing nearby. For a few seconds I couldn't take my eyes