Locked rooms - Laurie R. King [53]
“I'm Auntie Dee, dear child. Your mother's very best friend in all the world. She used to bring you over to my house so you could play dollies with my Flo. Although you usually ended up in a tree or down the street with her brother Frankie's friends,” she added reluctantly, as if the memory was a somewhat shameful one.
I had to admit, in a tree with the boys sounded more like me than dollies with Flo. Although what my quiet, intelligent mother would have seen in this woman was beyond me.
Still, I did what was required of me. “Auntie Dee, of course, how ever are you, and dear Flo?”
During the course of the monologue that followed, I glimpsed Holmes coming out of the lift, dressed for the day. Give him credit, he did raise a questioning eyebrow in my direction. But there was little point in inflicting this female person on him, so I gave him an imperceptible shake of the head and lowered my eyes until I was gazing soulfully into my companion's face. The motion, or perhaps the fact of her audience actually turning attention onto her, silenced her for a moment, a gap I took advantage of.
“Er, Auntie Dee, I haven't had breakfast yet. Would you care to join me?” A lie, but casual interrogation of this woman might prove informative.
Again came the wince-making seven descending notes of laughter, and she reached out to slap my hand playfully. “How silly of me, of course you're standing here starving to death, when all the while I came to your hotel to whisk you away to breakfast at your old Auntie Dee's own table. If you're free, that is, of course.” She looked vaguely around, showing that she had registered something of Holmes' presence before he had faded into the palm trees. But before she could spot him, I took her hand in an imitation of childish glee.
“Of course I'd love to come. Shall we get a cab, or do you have a car?”
She looked at me askance, speech for once difficult to retrieve. But only for a moment. “Don't you want to go and get your hat or something?” she asked.
I might have been proposing to walk into Union Square wrapped only in a bath-towel. However, I thought perhaps I wouldn't take her to our rooms, even if Holmes had left.
“Oh, I'm only going to my old second home, aren't I?” I asked. “No need for formality here, is there?”
Thus bereft of hat, coat, and gloves, I walked out of the hotel in my half-nude state towards the waiting car, only to pause at the sound of not-so-distant drums.
“What is that noise?”
“Oh, the Loyalty Parade down on Market Street,” she answered.
Now that I looked more carefully at the flow of traffic and pedestrians, it was obvious that some major disruption was going on a couple of streets down to my right.
“I hope we don't have to get across it,” I said, climbing into the car, but fortunately she too lived in Pacific Heights, five streets up from the house I was slowly beginning to think of as mine. Aunt Dee's, however—I could not call her otherwise for the moment, as she had yet to provide me with her full name—was higher up, far more ornate, and possessed a front garden no one would mistake for a jungle. The car rolled to a halt under the imposing Greek pillars of the portico and a man with a face like an ebony carving came out, surreptitiously tugging his white gloves into place. He held the door for my companion, allowing the driver to do the same for me.
“This is Miss Mary Russell,” she told her servant. “Tell Mrs La Tour that we require breakfast.”
“Yes, Mrs Greenfield,” the man murmured. I was grateful for the name, which rang not the faintest chime of familiarity. His, however, was another matter.
As Dee Greenfield turned to the door, she told me, “You won't remember Jeeves, Mary; he's only been with us for two years.”
Startled, I looked straight into the black eyes of the butler, seeing in their depths a well-concealed spark of humour. “Jeeves?”
It was she who answered, over her shoulder. “Yes, his name was Robert, but we could hardly have that, could we, it was my husband's