Chapter 13
“Bup-bup-bup—no cats. I can’t abide cats.
I’m terribly allergic. They’ll have to wait outside if you want to come in.
” Mr. Splint had opened the door to their knock, and this was the first thing he said to them.
Then, he sneezed explosively. His visitors stood blinking on the stoop in sudden bewilderment.
“Right,” Mrs. Chrysler said, recovering quickly with a bright and winning smile. “No trouble at all, young man. Very understandable.” She grimaced privately at Katherine. “Very understandable indeed. Brother Hoode”—this was aimed at Ruben—“remain here, will you, with our charges?”
With Mouser still curled around his neck, the old man nodded and leaned his back resignedly against the brickwork, supporting himself with his cane. At a word from Katherine, the rest of the cats sat at his feet, in varying shades of resentment.
“That’s better now, then, is it?” Mrs. Chrysler asked, gesturing her intent to enter the office now. Mr. Splint stepped back and allowed her and Katherine to follow him inside.
“How can I help you?” he asked stiffly.
The interior of the office looked nothing like Katherine remembered, but, then again, a lot of remodeling had probably been in order after Ruben exploded that safe.
Not to mention the younger generation likely had different ideas about interior design.
Steely gray seemed to be the theme in vogue, although here and there a potted plant sat in a corner, as if trying to, unsuccessfully, warm the coldness.
The place used to have quite an open lobby, Katherine recalled, with a large private office set in the back.
That was where the safe had been, behind a large painting over the late Splint’s desk.
Now the foyer was cramped with small, half-walled cubicles, and a smaller main office looked out over them, with large, lobby-facing windows dressed in broad vertical blinds.
The boss could opt for privacy, it seemed, or watch his minions with a sharp, all-seeing eye.
“Is this the place to be if we have some property to sell?” Mrs. Chrysler asked innocently.
As hoped, Mr. Splint’s eyes shone hungrily. “Certainly is,” he said, quite transformed at the prospect of an acquisition. “Come into my office, won’t you?”
The two women accepted his invitation, and Katherine observed that the office no longer bore any paintings over its gleaming metal desk.
Nothing big enough to hide a safe, anyway.
A couple of small prints hung on the wall behind glass, lacking frames, looking quite austere.
Two chairs for company squatted in front of the desk, lower than the chair behind it, Katherine observed, likely to make visitors feel comparatively small and unconsciously at a disadvantage.
Luckily, furniture tricks like this one had not the slightest impact on her or Mrs. Chrysler.
“You were saying?” Mr. Splint invited her to continue, gesturing to the two chairs.
“Oh, Margaret, will you look at that?” Mrs. Chrysler said instead of answering, borrowing her pseudonym for Katherine from yesterday and angling to gawk at one of the prints on the wall behind the desk.
Katherine noted that there was a small, weathered sofa unobtrusively in the corner, hidden from view from the guest chairs, as well as a desperate-looking ficus nearby.
A narrow, unassuming closet door appeared behind it, but no potential hidden compartments were immediately apparent, nor bookshelves that might rotate.
“That’s Ed Splint, isn’t it, and his family?”
The younger Splint before them did a double take at the image Mrs. Chrysler was pointing to, and stammered, “Yes, that’s my father, Edward, and his first wife, my mother.”
“Isn’t it nice to see a business kept in the family,” Mrs. Chrysler gushed.
“Mmm, I suppose. And your name, madam?” Mr. Splint held a fountain pen expectantly, looking keen to sit down at his desk.
“Oh, we’re just a couple of old fuddy-duddies who used to know your father.”
“Ah. But you said you had property to sell?”
“Yes, yes. And that must be your sister?” Mrs. Chrysler persisted in her pointing.
The girl in question stood close to her father in the image, with an air of knowing a whole lot more than you did.
The boy next to her looked pretty miserable and had his mother’s hand on his shoulder.
“The resemblance is striking,” she went on effusively. “Twins?”
“Uh, yes,” Mr. Splint replied slowly. “As a matter of fact.”
“Who’s older, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Um, I am, technically. Although you wouldn’t guess it.” He smiled a tight, seemingly well-practiced smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Katherine decided to test something. “We met Ms. Angela the other day,” she said, speaking for the first time since meeting Mr. Splint, whose desk nameplate indicated that his first name was Angelo.
“Oh, did you?” Angelo Splint shuddered, nearly imperceptibly. “That’s nice,” he said carefully.
“See her often, do you?”
“No, not really,” he answered in an easier tone. “We keep in touch mainly through correspondence.”
“Well, you both must be so busy, running such a large business as this, I imagine,” Mrs. Chrysler effused.
“A development office and a rest home? And goodness knows what else? That’s why we wanted to see each of you, you know.
Time to give up the old family acreage and settle in somewhere else like Eagle Heights, you see.
All that land, don’t know what to do with it.
” She laughed at an unnatural and ingratiating pitch, to indicate she had far fewer brains than necessary to comprehend her options fully.
Mr. Splint licked his lips. “Well, you’ve certainly come to the right place,” he replied, once again inviting them to sit with an open hand.
“Before we start,” Mrs. Chrysler said smoothly, “it would be such a walk down memory lane—do you think we might have a tour of the place?”
“Of what? Here? The office?”
“Yes, dear. Like I said, we knew your father many years ago. Such… strong memories, and the place looks so different from how it did then.”
“Well, I’m sure it must. But really, ladies, there’s not much to see. Just desks and cabinets. A potted plant or two. Nothing much of interest to you, I’m sure.”
Mrs. Chrysler nodded glumly, then brightened. “Do you have a powder room we might use?”
“I’m afraid it’s only for my private use,” he said sternly. “There is an outhouse at the end of the block open to the public, I believe.”
“Er, I’ll wait.”
Once again, Mr. Splint opened a hand in a won’t-you-sit-and-we’ll-get-going gesture.
The two women plunked down obligingly, and Katherine noticed that her friend kept her yarn bag on her lap rather than thumping it down on the floor next to her as she usually did when she wasn’t up to something.
“So where do we start?”
“Well, how much land do you have?” Mr. Splint asked, pulling out a drawer to withdraw some papers and reaching to dip his pen in the inkpot.
“How much would you say, Margaret?”
“Oh, at least two hundred acres,” Katherine answered promptly.
“Been awhile since it’s been surveyed,” Mrs. Chrysler said.
“We can help you with that,” Mr. Splint said helpfully. “We’d insist upon it.”
“Delightful. You must have a lot of holdings.”
Mr. Splint puffed a bit. “We do. We do. But no acreage is too big or too small,” he assured her in a singsong tone, clearing his desk of a trespassing smidge of lint.
“That’s good to hear,” Katherine said. She decided to conduct another little test. “And what about the mineral rights?” she asked, recalling a phrase she’d heard Melinda Storage use.
Mr. Splint’s left eye twitched a bit. “Mineral rights?” he repeated carelessly, making sure that smidge was gone for good.
“You know, if there’s anything valuable under the ground. How do you handle that in the selling price?”
“I’m afraid that’s not anything we deal with,” he blustered in reply. “The land around here doesn’t contain anything of value, as far as our surveyors have been able to determine.” He chuckled lightly, although his pale angular face flushed slightly.
“So,” Mrs. Chrysler said, “how would our land be appraised, then?”
“Well, we have a contractor who does that,” Mr. Splint said, seemingly relieved to be back to the business of reeling in a bite on the line.
“There is a small fee, of course, so first you’d enter into an agreement with us…
” He shuffled his papers a bit until he found the one he wanted and slid it to her side of the desk.
“Just some basic information about you to start, and an understanding that the purchase price will be less the assessor’s and surveyor’s fees… ”
Mrs. Chrysler nodded knowingly and put up a hand in the wait sign.
“Need my extra-strength reading glasses for that small print,” she chuckled heartily and made a show of rooting around in her bag.
Katherine noticed that she slipped a pincushion around her wrist as she did so.
She also slipped Ruben’s hefty wooden notary stamp into her pocket.
“Golly, I know they’re in here. You’d think I’d be able to put my hands on them when I wanted them. ”
“Take your time,” Angelo Splint said with strained bonhomie, and leaned back in his chair.
As he did so, Katherine noticed something that Mrs. Chrysler must have seen from the start—the desk was of such sparse design that Mr. Splint’s stork-like legs were visible underneath, and as he reclined, his long, thin feet and shiny shoes drew very close to them.
“Ah, here we go—whoops!” Mrs. Chrysler pantomimed dropping something to the floor, although Katherine did not see or hear anything fall. “Don’t worry, I’ll get them!” She thumped her yarn bag down on the tile and bent over in her chair. “Here they are—but, what the—oh, no!”
And with that, Mrs. Chrysler poked the man smartly in the ankle with a pin.
“Ow!”