McNally's Secret by Lawrence Sanders Page A

Barrymore profile had softened. His entire face, in fact, had melted downward, pulling at a broad, high brow that was now pale and shiny with stretched skin.
    “Mr. Wolfson,” I said, “this has nothing to do with the stamps, and if you feel I am prying unnecessarily, please tell me, but are you retired?”
    “Semi,” he said. “I was somewhat of a bookman. Had a sweet little shop on the Square. I am also somewhat of a bibliophile, and somewhat of an antiquarian. I have been a somewhat all my life, Mr. McNally, and have done very well at it, I might add. These days my professional activities are limited. Occasionally I am called upon to serve as a consultant to librarians, private and public, and to make appraisals of rare books prior to sale or auction.”
    “Interesting,” I said. “I have a first edition of Mad Comics. Should I sell it, sir?”
    “No,” he said. “Hold.”
    We all laughed.
    “What about me,” Gina Stanescu said. “I feel left out. Don’t you want to know about me?”
    “I do indeed,” I said.
    “I am forty-one and unmarried,” she stated flatly, “and well on my way to becoming what in your country is called an old maid. A strange fate for the daughter of a mother who has been married six times—is it not? I live in France, in Rouen, where I am the director of an orphanage. And that is the whole story of my life, total and complete.”
    “An orphanage?” I said. “That must be very rewarding work.”
    “Rewarding and frustrating. There is never enough money.”
    “You shouldn’t have said that, Gina,” Wolfson chided. “Now Mr. McNally will suspect you pinched your mother’s stamps to support your home for bastards.”
    I was offended but she wasn’t. She reached out to place a soft hand on one of his veined claws. “Dear Angus,” she said fondly. “You talk like a devil, but I know you have a heart of gold.”
    He snorted. “Of tarnished brass you mean,” he said, and lifted her hand to kiss her knuckles.
    This Gina Stanescu seemed to me a curious woman. She was swathed in a summery gown of miles and miles of white chiffon and wore a woven straw hat with a wide, floppy brim that sometimes obscured her dark eyes. The floating dress and garden hat gave her a wispy look as if she might go galloping through the heather bellowing, “Heathcliff! Heathcliff!”
    But despite that vaporish appearance, her features were as sharp as her mother’s. She had a no-nonsense manner, and I suspected those orphans in Rouen did their lessons and cleaned their plates. I wondered, idly, what the body of Lady Cynthia’s daughter might be like, hidden beneath those yards of billowing silk. The image that sprang to mind was that of a very elegant Japanese sword.
    Wolfson suddenly turned to me. “You are the son of Cynthia’s attorney, Prescott McNally, are you not?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “I have met your father,” he said. “A gentleman of the old school.” His smile held more than irony but less than scorn.
    “He is that,” I agreed and rose to make my farewells. I thanked them for their cooperation and warned I might return with more questions. They couldn’t have been more gracious, but when I returned to the Miata, I heard their muted laughter drifting across the manicured lawn.
    Since no one had invited me to stick around for a spot of lunch, I raced home with a terrible craving for a cold ale and a corned beef sandwich on the sour rye Ursi Olson baked once a week. There was no corned beef in the fridge, but Ursi provided smoked salmon topped with slices of onion, which added up to a very satisfactory substitute.
    Sandwich in hand, I sauntered around to the garage where Jamie was planting a few dwarf palms to make the place look less like a barrack.
    “What’s new?” I asked him.
    “Nuthin,” he said, so I gave him a nudge.
    “I talked to Kenneth Bodin this morning,” I said. “You were right; he’s a big one.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “And not too much between his ears,”