Aunt Dimity and the Lost Prince by Nancy Atherton Read Free Book Online

“I’ll take out-of-town guests there if they insist on
     going, but I always try to talk them out of it. The exhibits there are even creepier
     than our Monday morning haul.” She eyed a headless wooden monk with disfavor and tossed
     it into a recycling bin.
    “Some of the exhibits are quite beautiful,” I said.
    “Beautiful exhibits? At Skeaping Manor? Don’t make me laugh,” Florence scoffed. “The
     displays are nothing but creepy. The curator is creepy, too. Miles Craven—did you
     meet him? Just as twisty as his exhibits.”
    “He didn’t seem twisty to me,” I protested. “A little theatrical, maybe, but not twisty.”
    “He’s creepy,” Florence said firmly. “How could he not be? He
lives
there, for pity’s sake. How could anyone live in Skeaping Manor and
not
be creepy?”
    “He lives in the museum?” I said, surprised.
    “In a flat round the back,” Florence confirmed. “Myrna Felton saw him in the garden
     one day, dressed like an Edwardian undertaker and declaiming poetry.
She
thinks he’s balmy. So does Barbara Halstow.
She
saw him . . .”
    While Florence cataloged Miles Craven’s many eccentricities, I made my way through
     the layers of clothing in my trash bag, placing sweaters, wool skirts, corduroy trousers,
     and winter-weight tights in separate piles on the table. It looked as though a child
     had outgrown her wardrobe, and though the clothes were far from new, they were clean
     and in acceptable condition. Nothing caught my attention until I reached the the last
     item at the very bottom of the bag.
    A pale pink winter parka lay there. It was a sad little jacket, worn and faded, its
     pink hood trimmed with a matted strip of gray polyester fur. The moment I saw it my
     mind spun back to Skeaping Manor’s silver room, and Florence’s rattling rant gave
     way to a young girl’s dreamy soliloquy.
    . . . The gentlemen wore diamond studs in their stiff collars and gold links in their
     cuffs. They ate and drank late into the night while the world outside grew darker
     and colder. . . .
    I glanced at the clothes I’d already placed on the table, saw a purple skirt and a
     pair of black woolen tights, looked again at the pink parka, and knew beyond doubt
     that the child who’d outgrown her wardrobe was Daisy Pickering.
    Dazed by the unsettling coincidence of finding Daisy’s jacket at the shop so soon
     after seeing it on her, I reached into the bag to confirm by touch what my eyes had
     already told me. A pang of pity shot through me when I felt a lump in one pocket and
     realized that she’d left something in it—a small, cherished toy, perhaps, something
     that meant as much to her as Reginald did to me.
    I slipped my fingers into the pocket and withdrew the forgotten object. The thought
     of returning it to Daisy was foremost in my mind when what in my wandering hand should
     appear but a miniature sleigh pulled by three tiny horses. Three
silver
horses. Pulling a
silver
sleigh. A glittering, exquisitely wrought silver sleigh—a masterpiece of the silversmith’s
     art. However much I blinked and stared, there was no mistaking it. The forgotten object
     I’d retrieved from the pink parka was the silver sleigh I’d last seen at Skeaping
     Manor.
    I was thunderstruck. I didn’t gasp or squeak or cry out in surprise because my entire
     head had gone numb. Though the silver sleigh rested firmly in the palm of my hand,
     I half expected it to vanish in a puff of fairy dust. When it didn’t, I was forced
     to ask myself a painfully obvious question: How had the priceless artifact ended up
     in Daisy Pickering’s pocket?
    “Found a snake?”
    “What?” I said, startled out of my ruminations.
    “Have you found another snake?” Bree asked. “You’ve been looking into that bag for
     the last five minutes. What’s in it? A Cotswold cobra?”
    “A jacket,” I said. I pulled the pink parka out of the bag with my free hand, gave
     it a shake, and held it up for