A Little Class on Murder Read Free Page A

Ingrid thought this was funny! Just wait til Henny left.
    Henny’s light brown eyes flickered toward her. Annie concentrated on straightening the Phyllis Whitney titles. Annie preferred to arrange an author’s work in order of publication date and she noticed in passing that she lacked this mistress of mysteries’ first title,
Red Is for Murder
. Of course, it was reissued in 1968 as
Red Carnelian—
    “That style of shirt was popular in the seventies, wasn’t it?” Henny mused.
    “No comment,” Annie replied pleasantly.
    Henny’s nose twitched, but she too managed a pleasant tone. “How about a little wager, Annie?”
    “Wager?” Annie knew full well that a weak repetition shifted the conversational balance of power, but she was determined not to engage in a substantive discourse with Henny. It could be injurious to her mental health.
    The champion mystery reader of Broward’s Rock smiled with the bloodcurdling enthusiasm of the marine protagonist in
Jaws
upon sighting a swimmer. “Sure.” She sauntered past the coffee bar to the shelving filled with classic collectibles. “If I win the contest again this month, you put up a bonus.” Her eyes glistened as they fastened on the first editions. “How about Nicholas Blake’s
The Beast Must Die.
” She snatched it up and opened it to the title page. “I thought so! This is one he signed with his real name, Cecil Day Lewis.” Her voice was reverent.
    “Why on earth should I—”
    “But if someone beats me to it and wins the contest,” Henny swept on majestically, “I’ll give you my first edition autographed copy of
The Mysterious Affair at Styles.
”
    Annie’s heart thumped. There hadn’t been a first edition vf (very fine) copy of that book offered in the past forty years! It could be worth ten thousand dollars. Fifteen thousand!
    “In the original dust jacket.” Henny’s tone was dulcet; the devil couldn’t have offered the world more seductively. “Perfect condition.”
    “Perfect condition! Oh my God. Sure. Yes. What a deal!”
    Beaming, Henny gave a touchdown wriggle as classy as any in the National Football League and sashayed up the center aisle. “You’re on!” She paused at the front door. “I
love
a challenge. You’re a sport, Annie.”
    After the door closed behind her, there was a long silence.
    Annie stalked up the aisle and glared at her suspiciously mute clerk. “So you think I shouldn’t have done it?”
    “I didn’t say a word,” Ingrid replied innocently, but thecorners of her mouth twitched. Hastily, she scooped up the latest issue of
Publishers Weekly
.
    “Don’t try and hide,” Annie snarled. Then, plaintively, “I didn’t give her any hints, did I?”
    “Oh no, no. Not one.” Behind
PW
there was a sound suspiciously like a giggle. “No hints. But you sure made her the odds-on favorite to win again. You know how Henny is with a challenge.”
    Annie knew.
    Ingrid took pity. She reached down and grabbed her purse from the second drawer of her desk. “Look, I’ve got an idea. I’ll go catch her. I’ll tell her all about your class—the one on the three great ladies of the mystery—that’ll distract her, for sure.”
    Annie grabbed Ingrid’s slim arm with fingers of steel. “God, no. I’ll give her
three
Nicholas Blakes. I’ll give her that John Dickson Carr title we just got in.”
(The Man Who Could Not Shudder
. Scarce. Priced at $45.) “But I don’t want Henny in my class. Why, she knows more about mysteries than Carol Brener. Or Bruce Taylor. Or Dilys Winn. Or Kate Mattes. In my class! Ingrid, what a lousy idea!”
    “A class on the greatest ladies of the mystery? On Mary Roberts Rinehart?” The rising note of excitement in Laurel’s husky voice was the first indication to Max Darling that his idle chatter, his well-meant,
innocuous
report on his and Annie’s doings, was of altogether too much interest to his mother. When Laurel got that particular tone in her voice, that vibrato—
    Max