Somewhere in the House Read Free

spoonful.”
    She poured out his tea. Roberts came in with cakes and sandwiches, saw that Gamadge was supplied, left the plates on a stand beside the table, and handed Gamadge his cup. Then he retired.
    â€œHe won’t come back until I ring,” said Mrs. Leeder, “and he won’t listen. He knows all our secrets, and he loves us all. What was I saying? Oh—about the plans of the family for this afternoon. Uncle Gavan plays bridge at his club on Saturday; afterwards he’s going to pick Aunt Cynthia up—she’s at the first Clayborn Quartette concert of the season. Did you know that Grandmother founded the Quartette?”
    â€œI knew she did a lot for string music in New York.”
    â€œNone of us cares much for it any more, but Aunt Cynthia thinks one of us ought to go to the concerts. I’m afraid art is dying out among the Clayborns, though Seward still does some designing; but he resigned from the firm in 1934. Graff Textiles.”
    â€œBeautiful work they turned out.”
    â€œHe really ought to have been an artist, but he’s never been quite strong. He rests in the afternoons until Roberts calls him for tea, and that”—she gave him her dim smile—“accounts for Seward. Elena is his only child, and I suppose I ought to explain that Garth was the only child of another Clayborn, now dead. Both his parents died when he was a baby, and he was installed here then.”
    Gamadge felt in his pockets; she said: “Won’t you try one of our cigarettes?”
    â€œThank you, I’ll stick to mine. But let me—” Gamadge followed her glance, which was directed towards the little table at his elbow. It was crowded with objects, including his cup of tea, but he saw no cigarette box there.
    Mrs. Leeder smiled again. “You’re looking at one of Seward’s and my masterpieces. He has a splendid studio and work-room on the top floor, and he used to have lots of hobbies. So did I, before I was married.”
    A book, nicely bound in old morocco, lay on the little table. Gamadge picked it up, opened it, and found it no longer a book; its pages had been glued together and neatly hollowed out into a box. It held cigarettes.
    â€œYou made this? A nice job,” he said, offering it to her. “I like these things.”
    She took a cigarette, and Gamadge lighted it for her. Then, after lighting one of his own, he turned the box in his hands.
    â€œWe made lots of them,” said Mrs. Leeder, “out of old books of Grandfather’s that the family said we could use. The house is full of solanders, and we gave them to people for Christmas.”
    â€œSolanders? Well…a solander really means a box made to look like a book; perhaps it’s in order to use the term for a book made to look like a box.”
    â€œYou have a passion for accuracy, Mr. Gamadge, haven’t you?”
    â€œPeople complain of it.”
    â€œI don’t.”
    Gamadge looked at the gold letters on the faded crimson spine. He read aloud: Journals of Sir Arthur Wilson Cribb in the Punjaub , 1861 .
    â€œUncle Gavan seemed to think that we shouldn’t be vandals,” said Mrs. Leeder, “if we made a solander out of that book.”
    â€œWell, of course Cribb wasn’t Sleeman or Sherwood, Shakespeare or Meadows Taylor,” said Gamadge, “but I’m not at all sure that I should have made a box out of his journals in the Punjaub.”
    â€œNo? Why not? Do you mean you actually know the book?”
    â€œI’m slightly acquainted with it, or was.”
    â€œOh dear, what have we done? Was he important? Was he an army man?”
    â€œCivil servant. But we won’t,” said Gamadge, laughing, “waste time on him this afternoon; or on Thagi, the Sacrifice of Sugar, and the Consecration of the Pickaxe.”
    â€œWhat on earth?” Her dark eyes questioned his in pleased wonderment. “You do know everything,