Red Gardenias by Jonathan Latimer Read Free Book Online

thought. "Maybe Carmel signed her notes to Richard with the name Delia."
    "She didn't. Her handwriting's different."
    "You've been busy, haven't you?"
    "One of us has to work."
    Crane retired into high dudgeon. He had begun to be a little alarmed about Ann Fortune. It would be an awful thing if she solved the case singlehanded. He would never live it down. He had a dreadful feeling he might have to go to work.
    "I need a drink," he said, and then, as Ann looked at him, added, "of nice warm tea."
    Presently he saw they were entering Brookfield. Middle-sized houses, many with fine lawns, sat under great oak and chestnut trees. There were gardens, filled with the yellow and white and orange flowers of late fall, around the houses and barbered hedges around them. Twice the clear stream forced the road to arch its back with stone bridges.
    The village had a double main street with a partition of young trees in the middle. The stores had evidently been influenced by Tudor England. Their dark, exposed beams and red bricks contrasted with clean sidewalks and Paris-green grass. A one-story building had two display windows: one read, Daphne Gray, Beautician; the other, Charles G. Jameson, Real Estate.
    Ann parked the sedan at an angle to the curb, and they went into the office and found an old man in a pair of slippers tinkering with a radio. He wore a coat and trousers and a shirt, buttoned at the collar, but no tie.
    "Fix one o' these?" he demanded.
    Crane said he couldn't. He showed the old man a card from the American Insurance Company, said he was an investigator, and asked him about the Maxwells. He didn't know very much about them.
    "I recollect they paid Chuck in advance for two years," he said in a reedy voice.
    "Then the lease hasn't expired?" Ann asked.
    "No, ma'am. They got until next May." He looked curiously at Crane. "What you investigatin', Mr Maxwell's death?"
    Crane asked, "How'd you know he'd died?"
    "The house ain't been used this summer. And besides, another feller was inquirin' about him last January. I suspicioned he was dead then."
    Crane and Ann exchanged glances. Both were thinking Richard March had died soon after the man's inquiries, in February.
    "What'd the man want to know?" Crane asked.
    There was a sly look about the old man's bright eyes, as though he shared some secret with Crane. "Wanted to know what Mrs Maxwell looked like."
    "Did you tell him?"
    "We couldn't. Me and Chuck never laid eyes on her."
    "Did he want to know anything else?"
    The old man chuckled. "Wanted to know how much they used the house." He didn't make any noise, just shook inside.
    "How much did they?"
    The old man gave Crane that sly, secretive look. "It seemed kind of odd. They paid a right fine price for the house." He looked down at his slippers. "But they only came week ends."
    Crane asked if he'd seen Maxwell, and he said he had. He thought his name was assumed, but he wasn't sure.
    "You've no clue to who he was?" asked Ann.
    "Your speakin' of that's a funny thing." The old man looked at her with a pleased smile. "'Bout a month ago I seen a picture that looked a lot like the feller who was askin' for him in January. It was in the newspaper."
    "Who was it?"
    "John March, the one that died in his garage."
    Crane flicked a glance at Ann, then asked, "Do you think Mrs March and Mrs Maxwell were the same person?"
    "I got my idears."
    Ann was wearing a three-quarter length black caracul coat, fastened at the neck with a gold chain and cut so that it hung like a tunic to just about the knees. She undid the coat and found a photograph in an inside pocket.
    "Would you know Mr Maxwell?"
    "I reckon so," said the old man.
    Crane stared at her with reluctant admiration. He could see it was a photograph of Richard March. Tall, tanned and blond, he looked like a movie actor in gray slacks and an open shirt. Ann handed the picture to the old man, smiled at Crane.
    He made a face at her. She was too darned efficient. He thought he had better go