Corpses at Indian Stone Read Online Free Page B

director of corporations--anything successful and important. He was leading Aggie toward the door. "Got a car?"

    Danielle came to the window with her branched candlestick to watch them leave.
    Aggie glanced up from the controls. She stuck out her tongue. It took three noisy attempts to get the car in gear.

    "My daughter's with me for the summer, too," the surgeon said. "First time since--
    " he broke off. "About Sarah?"

    "She thinks it's tetanus. I don't. No rigor. Not the look in the eyes--"

    The other man chuckled. "We aren't diagnosing people by facial expression these days, Aggie."

    "You ought to."

    While the surgeon made his examination Aggie waited in a dismal circuit of anxiety for his aunt, and irritation at Danielle. Outdoors, the slow wattage of nature leaked bluely up into the sky with a hue that was not normal in daytime, but dawn's sickly counterpart of noon. He could hear his aunt's voice buzzing in her room--and once she laughed. She'd gossip on her deathbed, he thought. Presently he went out on the porch and examined the luminous murk, breathed the air, lighted his pipe. He sat quiet--
    turning his head with consummate slowness when he heard a pattering sound on the road.
    Dog, he thought straining his eyes. Black dog. Funny-looking one. Like a fox. Was a fox.
    He puffed his pipe; the animal, seeing the eddy of smoke, also saw the man. It vanished.

    Sarah's door was opening. Aggie heaved himself tiredly from the porch railing and hurried into the living room. Danielle's father was replacing things in his bag with hands so swift and dexterous it was interesting to watch him do even that.

    "Got to quarantine Sarah," he said.

    "How's that!"

    "Mumps."

    "Mumps?" Plum echoed.

    "She gave a banquet to a slew of refugee kids. Right interval. Right symptoms.
    Wouldn't stake my reputation on it--but I wouldn't bring her a pickle for breakfast, either.
    Not if I valued my life. In a person of her age--mumps can be serious. Keep her in bed.
    You had 'em?"

    The bearded man was grinning with relief. "Me? Sure. Both sides." Then his left eyebrow lifted in an expression of solicitous mirth. "Boy, will that be a blow to Sarah!"

    CHAPTER 3

    Aggie slept late. When he came downstairs, he found old John preparing his breakfast. "Heard your shower," John said. Aggie gazed at the bright sunshine and the wind-ruffled trees. It was a fine day. He learned that Sarah was "up and swearing" and he carried a cup of coffee into her bedroom.

    She was sitting in a mighty rocker, enveloped in the red kimono, and smoking a cigarette. "This," she said, looking at the cigarette, "makes me feel as if my jaws were full of hot wires. Mumps! Imagine it! Disgraceful!"

    "You said something of the sort, early this A.M."

    "Sit down, Aggie. Drink that coffee. I want you to summon your strength. I've got work for you."

    "Good," he answered. "I mend pipes, spray flowers, build shelves, fix old rock walls, repair tools--"

    "Not that kind of work. My grapevine's in operation and I need a field agent. A person can't snoop--with mumps!"

    He chuckled and shook his head. "For you, Sarah--anything but that. No espionage. You forget. I'm the original social mouse. I hate people. I would rather face a juramentado than a hostess."

    "And what is that?"

    "A juramentado is a hopped-up holy man on a killing jag against infidels."

    Sarah wrinkled her nose. "No. matter. You can't let your favorite relative sit here sweating with curiosity day in and day out. My grapevine has already been working by telephone. By servants' murmurs, carried to me from Windle and from Chillie. I have a host of inquiries in mind. Myriad things that must be known. Problems. Indian Stones is seething with enigmas."

    He eyed her. "You're serious, aren't you? What enigmas?"

    She cleared her throat. "Tell John to bring me more coffee. Never mind. I'll yell."
    She yelled, and went on, "What did you think of Danielle Davis?"

    "That she was the kind of woman about whom the