Who's Sorry Now? (6 page)

Lily said, "It would naturally make you sad to know that, if that's the case, he didn't confide in you at the time."

“Well, now it's neither here nor there," Mr. Prinney said rather prissily. "What we need to do is take a tally of what's here." He paused for a moment and frowned. "Robert, a few minutes ago you told me you hadn't found the key. How did you manage to open the glass door?”

Robert had the good grace to look embarrassed. "That day I went to New York, remember?"

“Yes, I made a note of it, per your great-uncle's will.”

“I was shopping for Lily's birthday and met up with a guy on a street next to Central Park who sold me a set of lock picks and a badly written set of instructions.”

“You
picked
the lock?"

“Yes," Robert admitted. "Everyone who lives here has commented at one time or another wondering why the bookcases are locked, and there is no sign of a key."

“What do we do now?" Lily asked. "Is it our money? It apparently isn't mentioned in the will. Does that mean we can't use it until we serve our full ten years of providing for ourselves?"

“It's a tricky question, isn't it?" Mr. Prinney agreed. "The intention of his will is that you have to earn your own living for ten years. However, whatever money is here wasn't accounted for. I'll have to think this out carefully. But first, we need a complete account of how much cash is here."

“How are we going to explain this to the rest of the residents? We need to lock them out," Lily said in her usual practical manner.

Robert said, "Couldn't we just say that the library is out of bounds until some important estate business is completed?"

“We could," Lily said, "but this seems to be everybody's favorite room in which to sit
an
d
smoke, read, play cards, listen to the radio, or have a drink. Besides, Mimi would go haywire if she couldn't dust and polish in here every day."

“How's this?" Robert suggested. "We let Mimi come in to clean first thing in the morning, then we lock it up for a couple of hours a day. Lily makes a detailed account of how much was in every book. After she's done, we put the books back. Then Mr. Prinney locks the records up in the safe at his office. We just keep adding to the records.”

Lily gawked. "Robert, that's brilliant. I applaud you for this idea. Frankly, I wouldn't want to spend whole days counting money. Much as I like cash.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

DR. MEREDITH,
the pathologist, had packed up and left early that Wednesday morning, saying to Lily as he saw her come down the stairs, "Dr. Toller isn't going to release that skeleton until he's through with it." He clearly disapproved of this behavior. "I could see him last night from my bedroom window. He was crouched over the hole where the second bush was with a lantern, digging around. I do appreciate your letting me stay overnight, and have thanked Mrs. Prinney for putting me up and feeding me, and left a tip for the maid. I wish I had time to stay and thank everyone."

“No thanks are required, Dr. Meredith. Mrs. Prinney loves to cook, and the maid loves to clean. It was nice to meet you. Have a good trip home.”

As the residents assembled for breakfast, Mr. Prinney announced that the library would be closed and locked for several days from eight in the morning until eleven. It would be open for Mimi to clean or anyone to visit until one in the afternoon. It would be locked again at that time and be free to use by four-thirty. He emphasized that he, Robert, and Lily had important information to go over regarding the estate. It wouldn't interest or influence anyone else who lived at Grace and Favor.

Everyone was naturally curious. Emmaline Prinney took her husband aside in his home office and asked, "The estate isn't in financial trouble, is it?"

“Don't worry. Quite the opposite is true. But I can't tell you more," he assured her.

When Chief Walker, Mrs. Tarkington, and Phoebe Twinkle left for work, Mr. Prinney joined Robert and Lily in the library, saying, "Robert, get your lock picks and open this first door again. Lily, would you use the fresh ledger I put on the big table to take down what Robert and I count and name the book the cash came from?"

“I'd be glad to be the one sitting down comfortably," Lily said with a sigh. "My back hurts a bit from bending down yesterday to wash off all those beads.”

Robert already had the hang of the lock picks, and they got started.

After the third book in the row, which contained well-used one-dollar bills, Elgin Prinney took down the fourth one, and it was half full of fifty-dollar bills. There was, to his surprise, a sheet of paper in Horatio Brewster's handwriting on top of the fake book.

“Hmm," Mr. Prinney said. "It was as I suspected. He did leave money in the market until it reached its last peak and demanded cash for what remained. But there's more.”

He handed the sheet of paper to Robert to read the rest. "It reads as this," Robert said. " 'If either of my heirs are canny or ambitious enough to open this case before the duration of the specifIc terms of my will, regarding the ten years, they will be allowed to open one book at six-month intervals and share equally and with Mr. Prinney, Esquire, the proceeds. I threw the key in the river. Not all the books in this bank of shelves contain anything, and my heirs aren't allowed to open another one when that is the case. All the other bookcases are all real books. If they wish to read them, they may do so. At the end of the ten years, if they've followed the conditions of the will, the rest will be theirs at that time.'

“ 'Signed this last day of September, 1929, by Horatio Brewster.'"

“Does this mean we get the tens in the first book now?" Lily asked.

“I suppose so," Mr. Prinney replied.

Robert retrieved the first book, and he and Mr. Prinney counted out the ten-dollar bills. A nice round nine hundred dollars. Three hundred for Lily, me, and you, Mr. Prinney."

“I don't think I can accept my share," Mr. Prinney said. After all, I live in a great big house that isn't mine for free."

“But that's what Great-uncle Horatio wanted," Lily said. "What's more, you do your share by taking care of the estate for us. You should be paid for it."

“Lily's right," Robert agreed. "You must take your share. Sometimes, according to this letter, it won't be anything."

“I'm giving a quarter of mine to a charity," Lily said. "Maybe the Red Cross or something else that's providing help for the poor."

“I'll do the same," Robert said, not quite as enthusiastically as Lily.

“So shall I then," Mr. Prinney said.

“Will you keep our shares in the safe here?" Lily asked. "I want to think who to give it to fIrst. And I don't want to hide it under my mattress."

“I'd be glad to. I don't suppose we need to take account of all these books right now. We already know what's in the first ones we opened."

“Couldn't we at least shake the rest of them and
see
if they're real books, or just empty boxes?" Robert asked. "I don't think we're supposed to do that," Mr. Prinney said. "The letter from your great-uncle doesn't specifically mention such a thing."

“I thought you'd say that," Robert said with a hint of self-pity.

“Let's divvy up the money and Mr. Prinney can put it in the safe," Lily said. "I want to see what else Dr. Toller has found under the other bush."

“You're letting yourself in for a lot more work helping him," Robert warned.

“I know. But I find this skeleton business interesting. I might spend some of my money taking some classes about anthropology."

“God forgive. You can't mean that you're going to be dragging bones in here for your homework, can you?"

“I just might," Lily said, handing her share of the tens to Mr. Prinney.

To prove it, Lily went outside to see what Dr. Toller was doing today. The second bush had been turned over and apparently inspected for anything interesting.

Anything in the roots of the bush, sir?" she asked.

“Not a thing," Dr. Toller said. "I'm up to the pelvis of the body but can't go on until I've dug down to the legs and feet. Would you like to help?"

“I'm a little afraid of digging into something I shouldn't. But I'll sift and dispose of dirt you take out if you'd like."

“That would indeed be a help. I was hoping those two nice young Harbinger boys would be back today to help out again."

“Harry probably will be here eventually but Jim isn't especially interested, I'm sorry to say. Harry found this as fascinating as I do," Lily said, not at all sure this was the complete truth. Harry was the smarter of the two and if decisions about a roof were required, he was the one who needed to be there to decide how it was to be done properly.

Dr. Toller had accumulated a lot of buckets to wash off the bones and others to put the dirt in. Then the dirt would be returned to the holes in the ground after the sifting. Each time he excavated a bucket full of soil, he'd pass it up to her to put on the pile that was rapidly building up.

Pretty soon she could see the skeleton's upper legs start to appear, then the knees. "Does this tell you anything?"

“Just that she did a lot of things squatting. Probably grinding corn on a stone, or making the balls of clay that the beads were made of. Young as she is, there seem to be slight signs of rickets as well."

“What are rickets?" Lily asked.

“It's a little complicated. You need calcium to grow good bones, but it's impossible to do so without vitamin D."

“How do you get vitamin D?"

“From sunshine mostly," Dr. Toller said. "She may have grown up in a cave."

“Wouldn't there have been a fire in the cave?" Lily asked.

“Probably. But a wood fire doesn't provide enough natural light, or none at all, I suppose.”

As he was still uncovering the legs of the skeleton Lily made up an excuse to go help Mrs. Prinney with something she was preparing for dinner.

An hour later, Dr. Toller came in and asked Mimi where Miss Brewster was. "I have something important to show her.”

Mimi delivered the message to Lily, who was in her bedroom, reading a book with Agatha lying at the bottom of her bed.

She ran downstairs, Agatha so excited that something interesting might be happening that she was right on Lily's heels.

Dr. Toller was deep in the hole. "Look at her feet.”

Lily squatted down to look. The skeleton was wearing pretty moccasins, entirely intact. Dr. Toller had carefully removed them and washed them off. They had tiny, pretty beads all over the front.

“How on earth did those survive?" she asked. "Beeswax, most likely. I can't think of anything else that would have so thoroughly impregnated the leather well enough to preserve them so perfectly. I also have unearthed the pelvis."

“What are you going to do with the skeleton now that you have the whole thing?"

“I owe it to the pathologist to send it to him. We've agreed that once he's gone over it, it will go into a museum. Someday, someone will figure out how to date old bones. I hope it's within my lifetime. Do you think the Harbinger boys would make me a crate in which to ship her?"

“Why are you calling the skeleton ‘her'?" Lily asked.

Only slightly embarrassed to explain in detail, he merely said, "A woman's pelvis is designed to separate to let a baby's head through the birth canal. A man's isn't.”

Her,
Lily thought. She'd still been thinking of the skeleton as "it." From now on, the skeleton would be a girl.

Dr. Toller was still staying at Grace and Favor but was late for dinner, so Mr. Prinney made a further announcement about the library. "It appears that we've already resolved the problem that Miss
an
d
Mr. Brewster and I were dealing with. So feel free to use the room anytime you wish.”

Everybody was obviously curious. But they were too polite to ask questions.

Lily changed the subject. "Dr. Toller should be here soon. He has interesting things to tell you about the skeleton. Especially about her moccasins."

“What about them?" Robert asked.

“I should let Dr. Toller tell you. But I can hardly keep it to myself. She was wearing small moccasins. They're completely intact and very pretty. He says they were probably soaked thoroughly in beeswax. Aside from a scrap of leather, and the other beads that were loose in the soil, that's the only article of clothing that survived. The beads are smaller than the other ones that were found.”

A moment later, Dr. Toller arrived, apologizing for being late but proudly showing around the small shoes.

“Poor little girl," Phoebe said. "Can you tell how she died?"

“No, I'm afraid I can't," Dr. Toller admitted. "There was no sign of an injury. No broken bones, at least. It could have been a disease. Smallpox or measles. The bones don't tell me."

“She might have been one of my family," Chief Walker said.

“You're an Indian?" Toller asked.

“Only an eighth part. But the old genes were passed down."

“Do you think she was buried there before or after this house was built?" Robert asked.

“I know bones. I don't know houses. Do you know when it was built?”

Everyone looked at Mr. Prinney for an answer.

He thought for a minute or two, and said, "Mr. Horatio Brewster inherited it from his Aunt Flora. She was born around 1850, as I recall. She was known to have been born and grown up here. So the house must have been here since at least that date. I can check the records at the city hall. They might still exist."

“But she was a couple feet outside the foundation," Robert pursued. "No matter when the house was built, she wasn't dug up then, or she wouldn't have been found this week."

“I was telling Miss Brewster a little while ago that the skeleton should be preserved at a museum. Right now it's impossible to guess when she died. But someday science will figure out a way to determine this. I hope some of us survive until that happens and one of you finds out."

“I'm going to stay one more day, Mr. and Mrs. Prinney, if Miss and Mr. Brewster agree. I want to see her bones well packed into a crate. Then you can present me with your bill for feeding and housing me.”