Free Nothing Can Rescue Me by Elizabeth Daly

them, Sally, I should hesitate to invite them into my life.”
    â€œBut it’s really rather gratifying; it shows that Florence is really in rapport.”
    â€œWith the spirit world?”
    â€œOf course.”
    Gamadge produced Chapter Nine. “Did you study these interpolations?”
    â€œI saw each one once, after it came.”
    â€œDid they impress you at all? Did their rhythms fall upon your ear with any grandeur? Did they, in fact, damn it all, strike you as the sort of thing that could possibly originate with a being who would exhort Goodwin to dance round a tree?” Gamadge paused to draw breath.
    â€œI don’t know what you mean, Henry. That Demon one—”
    â€œThat Demon one is literary. Literary. Mine came from my kindergarten; Florence’s were produced by four men of genius—Poe, George Herbert the seventeenth-century English religious poet, John Ford, and Christopher Marlowe—Elizabethan dramatists.”
    â€œYou mean they are quotations?”
    â€œThey are.”
    â€œHow very, very interesting.”
    â€œYou think a spirit of any kind whatsoever would bother to send somebody else’s stuff through, via planchette or via that typewriter there?”
    â€œNobody knows what they’d do, Henry.”
    â€œYou’re just talking about spirits so that you won’t have to think the thing out. I bet you have a notion who did it, which you won’t admit even to yourself.”
    â€œI haven’t any notion.” She looked distressed.
    â€œYou’ve known all these people all these years.”
    â€œThat’s just it. None of them would play such a trick on Florence.”
    â€œWould they play such a trick on one another, though?”
    â€œWhat?” she seemed dazed.
    â€œI do wish you’d use your wits on it. They used to be good ones—must be good still, if you’re able to run a dress shop and make it pay.”
    â€œIt doesn’t pay now, and I’ve changed since you knew me; I’m more than forty-five—I’m old and stupid. Did you hear that I’ve had to let Bill go?”
    Gamadge had a sudden clear vision of Bill Deedes, his face calm and gay, vaulting over a tennis net. He said gently: “Yes. Too bad.”
    â€œI wish he had ever tried to get on with Florence. She’s been awfully good to me, but she never cared much for Bill.”
    â€œPeople like Bill can’t pretend, Sally.”
    â€œNo.”
    Gamadge put Chapter Nine back into his pocket. “I’ll have more to say after lunch. Do you suppose cocktails are ready? I could manage one, couldn’t you?”
    â€œI’m dying for one,” said Mrs. Deedes.

CHAPTER SIX
Explosive
    Gamadge and Mrs. Deedes left the office by the door leading to the hall. Another door faced them, which belonged to a large cupboard under the stairs. This had always been crammed with hats, coats and overshoes, games and garden implements, skates, golf bags, archery bows and arrows, dog leashes and walking sticks; and it had smelled outrageously of rubber, leather, and lubricating oils.
    Gamadge looked at it, and then looked over his shoulder at another door along the hall. “I suppose that’s the new closet and dressing-room,” he said.
    â€œYes, and it’s such a comfort. It has racks for our coats, and there’s even a little flower room and sink.”
    â€œThis one must be quite cleared up.”
    Mrs. Deedes smiled. “It is. We can shut the griffons in here when they bark too much.”
    â€œThey don’t smother?”
    â€œNo, they like it.”
    â€œLike it?”
    â€œThey often rush in without being told to after they’ve been barking at plumbers.”
    â€œReally?” Gamadge stood looking down the hall, which ended in darkness and a swing door. A short passage corresponding to the one on the second floor led to the back stairs and the entrance to the cellar