Genteel Spirits (Daisy Gumm Majesty Books) (6 page)

But back to the class
. . .
.

“All right,” said Mrs. Hanratty. “Humans to the fore! Listen to me and practice. Do you hear me?
Practice
! Any time you meet an unruly dog, you’ll know that its owner hasn’t taken the time to train it. And in order to train your dog,
you
must be trained in the proper method of
teaching
him
how to behave
.”

“Or her,” said a woman I’d already tagged as silly, and who had a
fuzzy
little toy poodle on a
pink
leash.

I didn’t mind poodles, although I considered Spike a much more doggly dog, perhaps because he didn’t have to have his hair cut in such a
frilly
way with puffs and poufs everywhere. Spike looked like a
dog
. What’s more, he looked like a
boy
dog.

Mrs. Hanratty smiled at the woman, who had, after all, paid for the privilege of being there. I’d
learned long ago that one should never show
one’s annoyance
to
a
client
, and I guess Mrs. Hanratty subscribed to the same principle. “Or her,” she said.
“But you must see
, Mrs.
Hinkledorn
,
that Mrs. Majesty has worked very hard with her pet.” She gave the woman’s poodle a small frown. “I suspect you need to practice more with Fluffy.”

Can you imagine anyone naming a dog
Fluffy
? No wonder the poor poodle didn’t obey as well as Spike did.

The class lasted for an hour, and when we got ready to leave, Mrs. Hanratty came over to speak to Billy and me. And Spike, of course. This was special attention, indeed.

“Mr. and Mrs. Majesty, I truly
do
mean to congratulate you on your progress with Spike. He’s doing very well. How old is Spike, by the way?”

Bi
lly and I looked at each other and I said,
“About a year old, I suppose.”

“Ah. That’s good. Sometimes puppies are more difficult to train than more mature dogs.”

Her words reminded me of
one evening shortly after I’d brought Spike home. Billy had handed him a rag, and Spike had pulled Billy’s wheelchair clear across the living room and back while Pa, Sam and the rest of the family laughed hysterically. I decided not to mention the incident to Mrs. Hanratty, whom I doubted would appreciate it.

“Anyway,” Mrs. Hanratty continued. “I do want to congratulate you on your progress
with Spike
. Some people—” She shot a meaningful glance at the poodle lady. “—refuse to become truly responsible for their pet’s behavior.
Obedience in a dog
all depends on the
human
. Dogs are wonderful, but they don’t learn on their own, any more than children do. I know that from experience, believe me.” She gave us one of her hooting laughs, and I have to admit to being rather surprised. I hadn’t pegged Mrs. Hanratty as a mother, although what did I know? But I’d always associated her with dogs, not children.

“Thank you very much,” I said sincerely. “This class has been wonderful for all of us. I think Saturday
is
our favorite day of the week.” I glanced at Billy for confirmation, and he nodded.

“They are. It makes me happy to see Spike and Daisy out there in the ring. You’re an excellent teacher, Mrs. Hanratty.”

“Why, thank you, young man.”

Billy held out his hand, and Mrs. Hanratty shook it. Darned if she didn’t blush!

The three of us
, Billy, Spike and I,
went home pleased as punch
with ourselves
that day.

Chapter Three

It was Harold Kincaid who filled me in on
what I thought were
the details of Sam’s case
, but which turned out not to be the case, which was probably just as well
.
If Harold had been right,
Sam would have been furious
that
Harold had
talked.

As it was, Sam himself eventually
let on why he’d been posted to the Winkworth place during the picture shoot
. I don’t know why he’d been so reticent about the matter at the dinner table, since the reason seemed trivial to me once he’d revealed it
.
I just chalked
up
his reticence
to him
being Sam. Any time he could muddy an issue, he’d do it. Or so I thought in my crabby mood.

The Saturday of Mrs. Winkworth’s séance had finally arrived.
The morning, during which Spike had once again distinguished himself among the other dogs of Pasadena, had been lovely, but I had to go to work that night.
In many ways, I was looking forward to the séance as an adventure. Heck, I was going to meet one of the most handsome and wealthy men on the planet, after all. That fact didn’t stop me from wanting to spend a quiet evening home with my family. But needs must, so I did.

I
drove
our lovely Chevrolet
down Lake Avenue to San Pasqual, where I dutifully turned left, drove to Mrs. Winkworth’s magnificent
estate
, and
pulled
the machine
up to the guardhouse in
front of
a
massive wrought-iron gate. A guard posted at said gate asked who I was, I told him, and he pressed a button to allow me entry into the estate
’s grounds
.

Let me tell you,
the grounds
were
grand, too. I arrived
,
as requested by Gladys Pennywhistle in a follow-up telephone
conversation
, at seven o’clock.
At the time of Gladys’s call,
I’d figured
Mrs. Winkworth wanted to look me over and interview me before she allowed me to perpetrate my spiritualist
ic
gifts on her guests. That was all right with me, since it gave me ample opportunity to study Mrs. Winkworth’s beautiful
home
.

The drive
up to the house
was lined with jacaranda trees, all of which were blooming madly
on
this pleasant May evening. As
I
drove nearer to the house,
one of
the rose garden
s—I learned later that there were several rose gardens on the estate grounds—
came into view. Later in the summer, the roses would bloom like crazy,
and
there were
blossoms
even in May that took my breath away. Flowers
flourished
everywhere. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many
anemones
or
ranunculus
, and the hydrangea hedges made me blink.

I got the feeling Mrs. Winkworth liked her flowers. I wasn’t surprised to see two magnificent magnolia trees standing guard at the portcullis.
I figured she’d had them planted there as a reminder of her genteel southern roots. It must have cost somebody—probably Mrs. Winkworth’s grandson—a bundle to plant adult trees like that. Unless they were there when he’d bought the estate, although I doubted it, magnolias not being as plentiful in Pasadena as they were in
South Carolina
; at least I
didn’t
think they were.

Gladys had told me to drive my Chevrolet under this spectacular piece of architecture
—the portcullis, I mean—
and park in
a small paved
area at
the back of the house. I might be a spiritualist, but I was still hired help, and hired help
entered
through the back
door
. I didn’t mind, being accustomed to such treatment by that time. Many of my regular clients like Mrs. Pinkerton and Mrs.
Bissel
were happy to have their staff greet me at the
ir
front door
s
, but when I worked at a house that was new to me, I tried to be polite and follow tradition. This seemed to me as though it might be especially important when it came to the elderly southern belle who was Lurlene Winkworth.

As soon as I stepped out of the Chevrolet, however, who
should rush
up to
greet
me but Harold Kincaid! Boy, was I happy to see him.

“Harold! I didn’t know you were going to be here!”
I gave him a friendly hug, which he returned.

“Monty asked me to come.”

“I didn’t realize you knew him
all that well
,” I said, surprised. Harold had told me lots
of stuff
about the picture business,
and he’d also told me that Monty Mountjoy liked to read and listen to music,
and Gladys had mentioned he and Mr. Mountjoy were acquainted,
but
I hadn’t expected them to be such close friends that Harold would be invited to Mrs. Winkworth’s séance
.

Harold took
the
bag into w
hich I’d placed my
tarot cards
—
in case a
nyone wanted me to do a reading
after the séance
—
in one hand, and hooked my arm
through
his
on his other side. “I know him,
all right, and he’s in some
pretty
hot water. I’m hoping you can help us out with it.”

Oh, dear. I didn’t like the sound of that, especially when my mind instantly connected Monty Mountjoy’s hot water with Sam Rotondo’s next assignment
. The one he refused to talk about
. “Oh?” I tried not to sound as troubled as I felt.

Harold led me to a back door that didn’t look like one, being every bit as beautiful, if not as
elaborate
, as the front one. But here, too, flowers abounded. A cunning Cecile Brunner rose arched over a trellis right before you got to the door, and geraniums lined the
brick
path
leading to it
. By the way, in Pasadena
geraniums grow like weeds, and it
had
astonished me when I
learned that people in colder climes cultivated them with the same vigor and care they devoted to other plants. Somewhere nearby, I smelled the heavenly aroma of a
couple of
—or perhaps a
couple of
dozen—gardenia bushes.

“Boy, this place is really a doozy, isn’t it? The gardens are almost more beautiful than your mother’s.”

“They’re infinitely more spectacular than Mother’s
gardens
,” said Harold in a no-nonsense voice. “Monty’s grandma loves her flowers almost as much as she cherishes her sacred southern roots.” I got the impression Harold wasn’t particularly impressed with either of Mrs. Winkworth’s partialities.

Then again, Harold had once told me that his special friend Del attended “Our Lady of Perpetual
Malice
” Church in Pasadena. He
’d
meant Saint Andrews. Harold wasn’t impressed by much, probably because he grew up as a rich boy in the upper echelons of Pasadena society, whereas I’d climbed a perilous ladder to gain
small
glimpses
into
that same society, and I still felt as though I was merely peeking into heaven when I visited a place like Mrs. Winkworth’s.

“I asked Gladys to have you come early,” Harold continued
, surprising me
yet again
, since I’d
assumed
Mrs. Winkworth had wanted to inspect me before allowing me at her guests
. “You and I need to talk to Monty before this shindig begins.” He opened the back door, I stepped inside, and Harold shut the door behind us. He studied me
critically. “You look smashing
as always, my dear. I presume you stitched that magnificent ensemble on your trusty Singer?”

I smiled, pleased that he’d noticed. Then again, Harold was a costumier, and he always
took note of
people’s clothes. In fact, I had a superior wardrobe, thanks to the trusty
White, not Singer,
sewing machine Harold had mentioned. I bought
material
on sale at Maxime’s Fabrics on Colorado Boulevard, and had a swell bevy of beautiful, tasteful evening gowns to wear when I conducted séances or attended spiritualistic parties. In those days, lots of rich folks enjoyed throwing spiritualistic parties. Spiritualism was the “in” thing, which made it handy for me.

That evening, I wore a fashionable but sober-hued velvet gown. Well, it was black, and I guess that’s about as sober as you can get, isn’t it? Anyhow, it was supposed to be a tubular shape, and it pretty much was, except where my hips
marred the
straight
line
. Naturally, I wore my bust-flattener. The dress was augmented by a bias-cut, diaphanous, hip-length silk-chiffon cape that attached to
it
via narrow, beaded ribbons. I’d done the beading myself, by golly, with beads purchased cheaply at Nelson’s Five and Dime. The beading was repeated on the V-shaped hip yoke and the edges of a short, straight train in back. I made sure never to let the sun damag
e my skin, which appeared milky
white against the black of my gown. Believe me, I cultivated my spiritualist persona
religiously
, and it was nice to know that someone
besides me
appreciated my efforts. I felt elegant that night, and
I was glad
that
Harold thought
I looked it
, too.