The Resurrection Man by Charlotte MacLeod Read Free Book Online Page A

those folding clothes racks, trusting soul that she is. Either she has amazingly eccentric taste in clothes, or else she’s some kind of costume designer.”
    He shrugged off the woman in the basement apartment. “As I mentioned, I spotted your tail and his vivacious lady friend as soon as they arrived on the scene. After the three of us had escorted Madame Ouspenska safely home, your two went on down to Berkeley Street, where they parted company. She walked on ahead in the direction of Newbury, he nipped into the alley to check out whether Mr. Arbalest had installed grilles on all the back windows as well as the front. That rather impressed me, your chap could be quite good with a little more experience. However, if you plan to use him often on surveillance, you’d do well to have his eyes tested. Well, I expect I’d better get back before Mr. Arbalest throws a fit. Thanks for your hospitality, ladies, it’s been a pleasure.”
    “Ain’t that the truth,” said Max after he’d seen their unexpected guest safely off and limped back to the library. “Anyone care to venture an opinion as to why Goudge was in such a loquacious mood tonight?”
    “Elementary, my dear boy,” said Brooks. “He knew Bartolo and I were old acquaintances, he assumed I either already knew or could easily find out about Bartolo’s bizarre series of calamities. He’d watched Lydia hailing you and Sarah as old friends; he hadn’t been close enough to hear what she was saying to you, but he thought she must have given you an earful about the atelier. By running on about things he assumed we might already know, he created an atmosphere of confidence and comradeship, or thought he did. Bridge building, I believe it’s called.”
    “Then why did he blow up the bridge by telling us that asinine lie about the man in the alley?”
    “Because his own eyes need to be examined?” Sarah offered. “Because the man was one of the artisans who’d sneaked out of the atelier when he should have been working, and Goudge was covering up for him?”
    “Why?”
    “So that Brooks wouldn’t tell Mr. Arbalest? No, that doesn’t make sense. If the man wasn’t supposed to be there, why would he have made himself so conspicuous hopping around and clapping his hands? I give up.”
    “Whoever it was, he doesn’t appear to fit any of the descriptions Goudge gave us,” said Brooks.
    “Mr. Goudge didn’t actually describe the last two,” Theonia pointed out.
    “But he did say Laer and Dubrec were the most normal of the lot. I don’t see anything all that normal about this chap’s cavorting around in public in a heavy suit under a broiling sun.”
    “If it was a chap, darling. It could have been a woman. One might have a hard time telling, if she was upside down in a baggy sweat suit. In that case, of course, she wouldn’t have been a member of Mr. Arbalest’s guild.”
    “We mustn’t rule her out,” said Sarah. “I suppose, like me, you’ve been picturing Katya the maid as blondish, heavyset, and Slavic because of the Russian-sounding name. But people do give their children odd names. From Mr. Goudge’s description, though, Katya doesn’t sound like the sort of woman anybody would bother to lie about. You don’t suppose Mr. Arbalest is keeping a clandestine mistress in a secret room behind the boiler or somewhere? He’s the one who made those rather odd security arrangements, therefore he’d know how to get around them. How hard would Mr. Goudge be to fool, Max? Is he really as good as he seems to think he is? What do we know about him?”
    “Not a lot. The word around is that he comes from a wealthy Connecticut family and went to Yale or Brown or somewhere suitably Ivy League.”
    “I can believe that.” A loyal Bostonian, Sarah was unimpressed by Yale and Brown. “What did he study?”
    “Nothing, apparently. The way I heard it, he had two hobbies, target shooting and stalking wild animals. He didn’t shoot the animals, apparently,