as there isn’t enough room on this island for a mouse to hide away all day. He seemed to be talking as if there was some permanence to his visit. Oh, well.’ Abby shook her head and headed back into the house. ‘I’m going to have a bath. And I might take a look in the other bedrooms to see if anything is happening. Care to join me?’
Cleo understood words like ‘bath’ and ‘dinner’, even though the need for a bath was totally beyond comprehension. But she was a willing companion, no matter what the object. The pair of them strolled into the house and up the stairs. As they went into the hall Cleo found her little yellow ball, her favourite toy, and picked it up.
At the top landing Abby stopped and contemplated. It was a huge house, with rooms to spare, all built as additions on the original salt-box. Most of the floors of the additions did not quite match the original construction. As a result there were steps up or down, or slanted floors galore at the junction-points. But the upstairs hall, part of the original construction, looked to be smooth and level and about the size of two lanes at a bowling alley.
Uncle Teddy had been as eccentric as his house. In the course of a wild and woolly life he had won and lost four fortunes, and on the day he died, fighting all the way, he had been drawing up a scheme to make another. His house was built for a monarch, but Uncle had hardly occupied it for more than a summer month each year. And, with the flavour of the turn of the century, it was referred to as a summer cottage.
Abby stroked Cleo’s neck. ‘And he would have made another fortune too, if time hadn’t run out on him.’ The dog woofed agreement. They walked to the end of the hall and looked in the rooms along the way. Abby hadn’t cleaned any of the other bedrooms other than the one she normally used when she came to Umatec Island. Her assigned room was the one furthest from the bathroom, but she had always enjoyed the walk down the hallway. She found luggage and signs of inhabitation in two of the other rooms. Someone was evidently living, very neatly, in Uncle Theodore’s old room and someone else was living, fairly messily, in the room next to hers. Interesting.
The bathroom took up the entire east end of the house. The tub was big enough for three or four and made of Vermont marble. It stood on a two-foot platform above the tiled floor. The entire east wall was glass. The old man had liked to soak in his tub with a drink in one hand and a cigar in the other, and watch the boats go up the channel.
‘Dancing girls,’ Abby said, chuckling. ‘Oriental music. Houris?’ Her dog, who had followed close behind her, backed off into the corner next to the door. ‘Some day,’ she mused, ‘I’m going to find out just what a houri is.’ She had a vague idea from reading translations of The Thousand and One Nights, but could never drive herself to actually look up the word, afraid the dictionary might tell her more than she cared to know.
Abby turned on the hot-water tap. From a distance she could hear a click and a roar as the generator came on line. In a moment the hot water poured out of the ornate spout very satisfactorily.
‘I’ll say one thing for Uncle Teddy,’ she told her dog. ‘He never stinted on something he really wanted.’ Cleo laid her head on the cold floor between her front paws. Abby swayed to what she thought was oriental music, and slowly stripped as she gyrated and sang. It was more Hawaiian than oriental, but for a girl who hardly ever stirred more than twenty-five miles from Washington it was a good approximation. A hot bath was the Spencer family recipe for relaxation from cares and Abby was falling into the family habit and forgetting the unexplained people on the island. They could wait—the bath, however, was a necessity!
With a copious gesture she sprinkled bath powder over the water. There were three different kinds. She used some of each. Suds swelled up and over the sides of the tub as she climbed in, sat down, and sighed with relief. The suds came up past her chin. She shovelled a path for herself, and then leaned back and closed her eyes.
The warmth welcomed her, soothing her body and her mind. Gradually her hands drifted smoothly down her long, soft curves. She sighed again, and blew away a suds-cloud that threatened her nose. ‘There’s no doubt about it,’ she told Cleo. ‘I’m in love with Harry Farnsworth.’ And again she sighed at her foolishness. Harry Farnsworth was a character in one of Selby Jones’s detective stories. A fictional character. Tall, blond and powerful, with a sabre scar high on his right cheek. How stupid can a girl get, to fall in love with a fictional character? Disgusted with herself, she pushed it all out of her mind, and began scrubbing.
The sound of a door slamming brought her up sharply. Umatec was too small an island for more than one house. The only thing that came to mind was the small boy and the owners of the luggage in the bedrooms. Access to the island is by small boat only and I know I didn’t invite anyone, she thought. So why should I lock the doors? The little boy—where the devil did he come from? And this father he was bragging about? An escaped criminal from the maximum security prison?
Footsteps. They rattled up the bare wooden stairs and then disappeared into the depths of the hall carpet. Oh, God! Abby sank down into the suds, wishing for a periscope or a weapon—or both. Her hands slid around the sides of the tub. Nothing.
‘So. That’s where you’re hiding.’ An indignant accusation levelled by an angry little boy.
‘I am not hiding, I’m bathing. What the devil are you doing in my bathroom? And what, may I ask, is your name?’
‘My name is Harry. My father is coming. You’d better get out of there. If he finds you there—lordy, if he finds me here!’
Abby sat up and pushed the suds away from her face. The little fellow was trembling. Scared, or just cold? He was barefoot, and still wore nothing but the tatty bathing suit.
‘Your father won’t hurt you,’ she said. ‘That’s against the law.’
‘Law? My father doesn’t care about no laws. And you don’t know him. He’ll murder me when he catches me.’
‘I find that hard to believe,’ Abby said. ‘After all, we live in a civilised community.’
‘Yeah, civilised. I used some of his good paper to draw on yesterday and he’s just found out. He’ll kill me, lady. Believe! Where can I hide?’
‘He wouldn’t dare—’ Abby stopped in mid-sentence. Somebody dared. The downstairs door slammed again. Really slammed, so that parts of the old house shook.
‘Harry? Harry!’ There were noises as the man downstairs stomped through the living-room, the kitchen, the study, and back to the foot of the stairs.
‘Harry Farnsworth, you’d better get down here before I tan your hide. Harry!’
Harry Farnsworth? It couldn’t be, but there it was. I’m dreaming, Abby told herself. Dreaming it all! Harry Farnsworth is a fictional character in a book!
But the boy believed that Harry was reality. He listened for a moment as the footsteps came up the stairs—heavy footsteps, something on the order of King Kong. The boy looked around for a place to hide. The footsteps reached the upper landing. The next scene was choreographed out of an old Bixby movie. The boy looked over his shoulder at the sudsy tub, then back towards the stairs. Abby, on cue, not willing to share her tub, came up out of the water covered from head to toe with suds, slipped on the marble floor, and skidded off into a corner. She clutched madly as she skidded, and came to a halt with two massive bath-towels wrapped around her.
The boy screwed up his courage and jumped head first into the tub, instantly disappearing into the blanket of suds.
‘Well, I thought the boy was lying,’ drawled a deep male voice, supported by a massive pair of shoulders and as stern a look as Abby had seen since she left St Alban’s Catholic high school. The good Mother Superior, somewhat puzzled by the gangling size of the girl, had spent years trying to convert her into a neat, obedient doll. With not much luck. And now this—whatever—and in her bathroom! She jerked herself up to a sitting position and brushed away enough suds to be able to see clearly.
‘And just what the devil are you doing in my bathroom?’ she demanded.
‘Your