Free Terrible Tide by Charlotte MacLeod Page B

“I only bled a little!” It wasn’t the sort of episode one would be apt to forget.
    And this must be why time, tribulation, and Annie’s rotten housekeeping hadn’t dulled the finish on that exquisite, supposedly precious little table Holly’d been marveling at yesterday. It hadn’t been here long enough.
    “I wish we could find that wig stand,” Cawne was complaining.
    What was she to say? “Stick around, my brother’s probably making it right now.” Holly struggled to keep her voice casual. “I expect Annie will be down in a minute. Come on, let’s go holler at her up the stairs.”
    She wished he’d leave her alone so she could think. If this so-called Mrs. Brown was tricking Roger into supplying duplicates for stolen antiques, Holly must let him know right away so he wouldn’t get in any deeper. But was Mrs. Brown the one responsible? Maybe it was Fan who tricked him, or maybe Roger was pulling a fast one on his doting wife. Or maybe they were working the racket together and Holly herself was cast as their innocent accomplice. Who’d ever believe she hadn’t come here on purpose to help them rob Cliff House of its valuables?
    She was in a more dangerous spot right now than she’d been the instant before that floodlight blew up. And all she could think of to do was act as if she didn’t know it.
    “Annie,” she called, trying to sound normal, “are you almost finished up there? We’re trying to find a wig stand.”
    “A what?” The housekeeper came to the head of the stairs and began picking her way down, cumbered by an armload of soiled bedding. “Just let me get these sheets down to the washtub.”
    “I’ll take them.”
    “No, dearie. I’m used to it and you’re not. She can’t help herself, poor soul.”
    “Oh.” Holly stepped back. No wonder Annie never got around to cleaning, if this was the sort of thing she’d been coping with every day by herself. Yet Annie was smiling when she came back to them.
    “Now, where did I last see that wig stand? Seems to me we stuck it out in the woodshed behind those boxes of stuff left over from when Mathilde’s cousin Lenore’s daughter-in-law Delphine closed out her millinery shop.”
    Sure enough, the precious relic turned up behind a stack of perished cartons filled with bedraggled veiling and artificial flowers. Cawne was aghast.
    “Was there no limit to the junk that woman saved? Here’s a restoration job for your brother, at any rate,” he remarked as he tried to make the broken legs stand upright.
    Holly shivered. It would be all too easy for Roger to provide Cliff House with a brand-new genuine antique wig stand. What sort of mess had he gotten his family into?

Chapter 10
    “I ’D SAY WE’VE DONE a creditable day’s work, wouldn’t you?”
    Without waiting for her answer, Geoffrey slung the strap of his camera case over his shoulder. “You won’t mind my leaving the rest of the stuff here? It’s such a nuisance dragging it back and forth. See you tomorrow.”
    “Good night,” was about all Holly could manage. What jolly sport she was going to have steering him away from the fakes. Geoffrey mightn’t know much more about antiques than he did about photography, but he’d surely smell a rat if too many pieces kept turning up in a perfectly preserved state. If only she’d paid more attention to Fan’s scrapbook, so she’d know what to stay clear of!
    Why did Fan keep such a damning record, anyway? Surely its very existence must prove she at least was innocent. Roger, too, because he knew all about the scrapbook.
    No, that didn’t follow. Judging from the way she went around ripping other people’s property apart in broad daylight, Fan must think she could bulldoze her way through life, doing whatever she pleased and never getting caught. As for Roger, he was fanatical enough about his work to want its records preserved no matter how risky they might be.
    One thing sure, Holly had better stop trying to clean up Cliff