Free McNally's Gamble by Lawrence Sanders

does that sound?”
    “Yes,” she said, “I think it’s the best way.”
    I had felt certain she would approve. It gave her control of our liaison, y’see—exactly what she wanted.
    I stood up (with some effort) and began dressing. “Then let’s do it that way. Why, we might even have a picnic in here. That would be fun.”
    “Fun?” she said, seemingly surprised by the word. “I’m not sure I know how to have fun.”
    “Yes, you do. You just proved it.”
    Her smile was a revelation. She positively beamed for one brief instant.
    I jotted my phone number on a scrap of discarded drawing paper. Then I leaned down to kiss her upturned face. “Thank you, Nettie,” I said. “Please, do give me a call when you’re in the mood.”
    “Yes,” she said, “I shall. What’s that cologne you’re wearing?”
    “Not cologne. Aftershave. ‘Obsession.’ Like it or hate it?”
    “Like it,” she said, and repeated “Obsession” as if it had a special meaning for her.
    I lifted a hand in farewell, unbolted the door, and stepped outside. I paused to light a cigarette and heard her close the inside bolt on her secret place.
    I was preparing to remount the Miata when a lavender Buick Riviera came purring up the driveway and halted in front of the garage. I waited until the driver alighted and slammed the door. She spotted me and came sauntering. Something insolent in her jouncy walk.
    “And who might you be?” she asked.
    “I might be Ludwig the Second, the Mad King of Bavaria,” I said. “But actually I am Archibald McNally. I have just lunched with Mrs. Edythe Westmore and have been given a tour of the premises by Natalie.”
    “Ah,” she said. “A new friend of the family?”
    “I hope to be. And I presume you are Mrs. Helen Westmore?”
    “You presume correctly,” she said with a smile so scintillant it made my Jumbocharmer look like a night-light. “But friends of the family call me Helen. And may I call you Archy?”
    “It would please me,” I assured her.
    But she wasn’t listening. She was staring at me, up and down, with a look I can only define as appraising. What a bold, almost brazen look it was! I feared she might step forward to examine my teeth and squeeze my biceps to judge their bulk.
    She was a zaftig woman who carried herself with impudent self-confidence. Her manner was more than forward, it was fast-forward, and I reckoned there were few pleasures she denied herself. Women who have a taste for instant gratification scare me. I always think of female arachnids who select an amorous mate, copulate, and then devour the poor chap.
    “I hope to see more of you, Archy,” she said, her voice almost a purr.
    “I’d like that,” I said. I may have stuttered.
    “Ta-ta, luv,” she caroled, gave me a wink and a flip of her hand, and danced up the steps into the house.
    I thought of those spiders again. I’m too young to die.

CHAPTER 10
    I T WAS THEN PUSHING four o’clock, obviously too late to return to my orifice. (I wish I could stop spelling it that way.) So I tooled the Miata homeward, musing on my eventful afternoon with the Westmore women. They were not exactly the three witches from Macbeth but they were not the three Graces either. An odd and intriguing triumvirate I decided.
    When I was seated behind the spavined desk in my very own sitting room, shoes off and tie loosened, I remembered to phone Sydney Smythe at Windsor Antiques. We exchanged cordial greetings, and he then explained the reason for his original call.
    “You know, dear boy,” he said, “I have been thinking about the Fabergé egg you told me about—the one included in the estate of a deceased client.”
    “Ah, yes.”
    “You wished to learn something of its provenance and current market value. I fear I was unable to provide much information, not having examined the egg. But I do possess several excellent illustrated volumes on the art of Peter Carl Fabergé. It occurred to me that if you would open the egg