Read There Was an Old Woman for Free Online

Only—she won’t.”
    â€œNo, I won’t,” said Sheila. “I won’t ruin your life, Charley. Or mine for that matter.” Her lips flattened, and Charley looked miserable. “You’ll hate me for this, Mr. Queen. My mother’s an old woman, a sick old woman. Dr. Innis can’t help that awful heart of hers, and she won’t obey him, or take care of herself, and we can’t make her. . . . Mother will die very soon, Mr. Queen. In weeks. Maybe days. Dr. Innis says so. How can I feel anything but relief at the prospect?” And Sheila’s eyes, so blue and young, filled with tears.
    Ellery saw again that life is not all caramel candy and rose petals, and that the great and hardy souls of this earth are women, not men.
    â€œSometimes,” said Sheila, sniffing, “I think men don’t know what love really is.” She smiled at Charley and ruffled his hair. “You’re a jerk,” she said.
    The roadster nosed along in traffic, and for some time none of them spoke.
    â€œWhen Mother dies, Charley and I—and my dad, and the twins—we’ll all be free. We’ve lived in a jail all our lives—a sort of bedlam. You’ll see what I mean tonight. … We’ll be free, and we’ll change our names back to Brent, and we’ll become folks again, not animals in a zoo. Thurlow’s furious about the name of Brent—he hates it.”
    â€œDoes your mother know all this, Sheila?” frowned Ellery.
    â€œI imagine she suspects.” Sheila seized her young man’s arm. “Charley, stop here and let me out.”
    â€œWhat for?” demanded Charley suspiciously.
    â€œLet me out, you droogler! There’s no point in making Mother madder than she is already. I’ll cab home from here, while you drive Mr. Queen into the grounds—then Mother can only suspect I’ve been seeing you on the side!”
    â€œWhat in the name of the seven thousand miracles,” demanded Ellery as he got out of his host’s roadster, “is that?”
    The mansion lay far back from the tall Moorish gates and iron-spiked walls which embraced the precious Potts property. The building faced Riverside Drive and the Hudson River beyond; between gates and house lay an impressive circle of grass and trees, girded as by a stone belt with the driveway which arched from the gates to the mansion and back to the gates again. Ellery was pointing an accusing finger at the center of this circle of greenery. For among the prim city trees stood a remarkable object—a piece of bronze statuary as tall as two acrobats and as wide as an elephant. It stood upon a pedestal and twinkled and leered in the setting sun. It was the statue of an Oxford shoe. A shoe with trailing laces in bronze.
    Above it traced elegantly in neon tubing were the words:—
    THE POTTS SHOE
    $3.99 EVERYWHERE

4 . . . She Gave Them Some Broth without Any Bread
    â€œIt’s a little early for dinner,” said Charley, his robust voice echoing in the foyer. “Do you want to absorb the atmosphere first, or what? I’m your man.”
    Ellery blinked at the scene. This was surely the most wonderful house in New York. It had no style; or rather, it partook of many styles, borrowing rather heavily from the Moorish, with Gothic subdominant. It was large, large; and its furnishings were heavy, heavy. There was a wealth of alfresco work on the walls, and sullen, unbeautiful hangings. Knights of Byzantium stood beside doorways stiffly on guard against threats as empty as themselves. A gilded staircase spiraled from the foyer into the heaven of this ponderous dream.
    â€œLet me take the atmosphere in bits, please,” said Ellery. He half-expected Afghan hounds to come loping out of hidden lairs, bits of rush clinging to their hides, and Quasimodos in nut-brown sacking and tonsured pates to serve his shuddering pleasure. But the only servant he had seen, an oozy