Suspicious Circumstances Read Online Free PDF

the goldfish, I’ll go stark, staring mad and eat my own foot.’ She looked pitiful. ‘You wouldn’t like that, would you? You wouldn’t like to see the secretary’s secretary eating her own foot.’
    She was smiling again. I wished the smile had been just a little less infectious.
    Reluctantly, I said, ‘Okay. Harrow up my soul.’
    ‘It’s about Guess-Who? The lovely late Norma Delanay and her Plunge.’
    I had hoped it would be anything but that.
    ‘What about it?’ I said.
    The telephone rang. Still watching me under the lowered lashes, Delight Schmidt picked up the receiver and cooed into it in a phony musical voice.
    ‘Hello, hello? … Oh, good morning Los Angeles Times … No, no. No she isn’t … No comment … You’re welcome.’
    She put the receiver back on the stand.
    ‘So!’ she said. ‘Well, here we go. On the night Norma plunged, your mother was having a cozy little dinner at home here with Pam and Uncle Hans and Gino and me. With no lovely borrowed servants because it was the lovely borrowed servants’ night off. If anyone, the Chief of Police, for example, were to ask, that’s what they’d be told.’
    ‘Well, what about it?’ I said.
    Delight Schmidt looked enigmatic. ‘I’m looking enigmatic,’ she said.
    ‘For God’s sake, go on.’
    ‘Ah, that’s better. I can see the soul harrowing up just a teeny bit at the edges. Hold on while the tale unfolds. On the night that Norma plunged, your mother wasn’t having a cozy little dinner at home here with Pam and Uncle Hans and Gino and me. I was having a cozy little dinner by myself, and your mother and company were having a cozy little dinner chez Ronald Light and Norma Delanay.’
    I forgot she was Delight Schmidt and a menace of epic proportions. I forgot everything except the harrowing of my soul which was indeed going on full spate.
    ‘Ronald Light phoned that evening,’ she continued. ‘I took the call myself. I didn’t listen in, of course, because I’m a glorious ethical secretary’s secretary. But around six o'clock they all piled into the Mercedes and, just before they piled, your mother swooped on me like a gorgeous bird of paradise and pecked my cheek and said, ‘Darling, if any vastly amusing calls come in, we’ll be at Ronnie’s all evening.’ And then, around eleven, they all came scurrying back. I was in my room reading a deathless work of literature to improve my mind, but I heard them. And next morning your mother — how I adore her! — pecked me again and said, ‘Dearest Bernice (she still gets me mixed up every now and then) just remember that you and I and Pam and Uncle Hans and Gino had a cozy little dinner at home last night and never stirred out of the house. You remember that?’ And I said, ‘Yes, Miss Rood, I remember that vividly.’ And she enfolded me in a tender embrace, reeking of Joy, and said, ‘Darling, call me Anny.’ ‘
    She sat down on the edge of the pool, gazed into the rather murky green water and said, ‘Goldfish, I love you.’ Then she looked up at me sideways. ‘I haven’t told a soul,’ she said. ‘I’ve stood squarely behind my employer. I have a beautiful nature. But unhappily I’m also a blabbermouth of the world. I knew that if I didn’t confide in someone instantly, it would all pop out like a champagne cork at the most embarrassing moment for everyone.’
    She got up again and did the undermining sexy South American dance steps with the telephone.
    ‘There,’ she said. ‘The Dance of the Relieved Blabbermouth.’ She stopped dancing. ‘Nicholas.’
    ‘Nickie,’ I said.
    ‘I shall call you Nicholas. It’s more respectful. Nicholas, what do you make of that?’
    I didn’t say anything.
    ‘Look who plunged down the stairs,’ she said. ‘Look who’s playing Ninon de Lenclos.’
    Suddenly I felt panic. ‘You’re not going to tell anyone?’
    ‘Didn’t I make it plain that I adore your mother? Didn’t she save me from the rumps of MGM stallions?