Who's sorry now? by Jill Churchill Read Free Book Online Page A

expect us to show up when we said we would.”
    After dinner, Robert quietly alerted Mr. Prinney and Lily that he wanted a private meeting with them. Mr. Prinney didn’t ask why, but his curiosity was clear.
    Mrs. Prinney and Mimi were tending to the two guests, both of whom had a change of clothes so Mimi could just brush up and press the things they’d worn all day; Chief Walker had gone to his office in town to clear up some paperwork; Mrs. Tarkington had retired early to read a book; and Phoebe was in her own room turning up a hem for one of her best customers. Mrs. Prinney was already preparing a dessert for the next day.
    Lily and Robert could count on getting Mr. Prinney to themselves, where in the library the threesome would not be disturbed.
    But just in case, Robert suggested that Mr. Prinney lock the door from the inside for a short time.
    ”Why is that?” the attorney asked.
    ”You’ll see in a moment,” Robert said.
    Robert had gone in earlier in the day, again picking the lock where the books he’d discovered yesterday filled with money—were. He’d shut the glass door, but had done so carefully so that the lock didn’t engage. He signaled to Mr. Prinney to come close and opened the door.
    ”You found a key?” Mr. Prinney exclaimed.
    ”Not exactly. I found another way to open it. I want you to look at two of these books. He selected the two that he and Lily had examined and put them on the big table in the middle of the room. ”Open them, please.”
    ”Good heavens! I--I hardly know what to say. I always believed these were all real books,” Mr. Prinney said.
    ”Maybe the rest of them are,” Lily said.
    Mr. Prinney closed both books. ”Did you count the money in these?”
    ”We didn’t have time,” Robert said.
    Mr. Prinney moved to one of the comfortable chairs by the French doors to the balcony outside. He sat silently for a long time, and both siblings kept a good eye on him, wondering what he was thinking.
    Finally Mr. Prinney tented his fingers and said, ”I have to admit that I’m a bit disappointed.”
    ”What is there to be disappointed about?”
    ”Your great-uncle didn’t live here very long between his Aunt Flora’s death and his own, but as soon as he moved to Voorburg, he put all his financial matters in my hands. Then later, he had me write his will. I thought I knew about all his assets, but he never mentioned the money in the fake books. I knew he’d sold all his stock early in 1929. That was when he bought the then-fertile farms in the Midwest, and the extensive properties near Los Angeles. Later he mentioned that he should have waited until later because the stock market hit its all-time high a month or two before the Crash. I suspect now that he did hold on to some of it until then and took the money in cash.”
    Lily said, ”It would naturally make you sad to know that, if that’s the case, he didn’t confide in you at the time.”
    ”Well, now it’s neither here nor there,” Mr. Prinney said rather prissily. ”What we need to do is take a tally of what’s here.” He paused for a moment and frowned. ”Robert, a few minutes ago you told me you hadn’t found the key. How did you manage to open the glass door?”
    Robert had the good grace to look embarrassed. ”That day I went to New York, remember?”
    ”Yes, I made a note of it, per your great-uncle’s will.”
    ”I was shopping for Lily’s birthday and met up with a guy on a street next to Central Park who sold me a set of lock picks and a badly written set of instructions.”
    ”You picked the lock?”
    ”Yes,” Robert admitted. ”Everyone who lives here has commented at one time or another wondering why the bookcases are locked, and there is no sign of a key.”
    ”What do we do now?” Lily asked. ”Is it our money? It apparently isn’t mentioned in the will. Does that mean we can’t use it until we serve our full ten years of providing for ourselves?”
    ”It’s a tricky question,