The Mystery of the Scar-faced Beggar - M. V. Carey [15]
The office smelled of sea water and rubber boots and seaweed and mildew. There was a wooden bench against one wall, and a table with brochures about sport fishing and charter trips to the Channel Islands off the coast.
The red-haired woman covered the mouthpiece of the telephone with her hand.
“Be with you in a minute,” she said.
“No hurry,” said Jupe.
The older woman looked up, and suddenly Jupe felt pierced by her gaze. A thrill of fright went through him. The woman’s dark eyes were strangely knowing, as if she were aware of Jupe’s thoughts. Yet her smile was absent-minded. She seemed unaware of the effect she was having on Jupe. After a glance at him, she went back to her ledger.
Uncomfortably, Jupe turned away and looked out at the dock. The young man in the windbreaker had finished checking the engine of the Maria-III. He closed the hatch, jumped from the boat to the pier, then came whistling towards the office.
“Okay,” said the red-haired woman. “We’ll expect forty-three on Saturday. If there are any more, let me know, huh?”
She hung up as the man in the windbreaker came in.
“Can I help you?” she said to Jupe.
“I was wondering if you’ve seen a wallet?” said Jupe. “Has anyone turned one in?
Mr. Sebastian lost his wallet a day or two ago.”
“Mr. Sebastian? Was he here recently? I didn’t see him. Ernie, did you row him out to his boat? Want to check the rowboat? See if there’s a wallet in there.”
“There isn’t,” said the man in the windbreaker. “Mr. Sebastian was here two days ago. I bailed out the rowboat after I brought him back to the dock. I’d have found a wallet if he’d dropped it in the boat.”
He looked at Jupe in a puzzled way. “How come Mr. Sebastian didn’t come himself? Or telephone?”
“He’s busy,” said Jupe. “He was at a couple of places in the last two days, and he doesn’t remember where he had the wallet last. I said I’d check for him. You get better results that way. If you just call, people don’t always take time to look for lost things.”
Jupe was about to go on to say that Mr. Sebastian had seen a man with grey hair and dark glasses and a scar on his face, but before he could describe the blind beggar, the older woman looked up at him.
“You ask about a wallet,” she
said. “That is strange. Last night I
dreamed of a wallet.”
The younger woman smiled.
“My mother-in-law is a terrifying
person,” she told Jupiter. “She
dreams dreams that sometimes
come true.”
“It is not I who am terrifying,”
said the older woman. There was a
trace of accent in her speech, and
it grew stronger now. “Sometimes
the dreams make me afraid. Last
night I dreamed that a man came
who is a stranger. He picked up a
wallet from the ground and put it in his pocket, fast.
“He was a strange man, that one. He had grey hair like my Vincenzo’s hair before he died, but he was not small and old like Vincenzo. He was younger, and he had black glasses. On his face was a scar, like someone cut him once with a knife. He tapped his way with a stick like a blind man, but he knew that I was watching him. He was a danger to me, I knew. It was a bad dream, and very real.”
She looked around to the younger woman. “It makes me uneasy, Eileen.”
Next to Jupe there was a sound that was almost a gasp.
Jupe turned. Ernie had gone pale, and it seemed to Jupe that he shook slightly.
“What’s the matter, Ernie?” said the younger woman. “Does that description fit anyone you know?”
“Oh, no!” Ernie spoke quickly and too loudly. “It’s just scary when Mrs. Denicola does that.”
“I know what you mean,” said the younger woman.
No one spoke for a moment. Then Jupe thanked the two women and backed out of the office. He hurried across the highway to Pete, who was still watching the surfers in a dreamy way.
“We have just hit the jackpot!” said Jupe. “The old lady in the office there is Mrs.
Denicola, and the younger woman is her daughter-in-law, and she says the old lady dreams true dreams.”
“You mean she dreams about things that are going to happen?” said Pete.
“Maybe,” said Jupe,