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. I have no guarantee that her taste inwomen is any better.This conversation was beginning to get on my nerves. There are no guaranteesin life.Now, if that s all you wanted to say to me. No.I waited.I waited some more.Finally, I couldn t stand it. Mr.Wolfe? I feel very peculiar asking this, he said,  but I feel that I have to.What areyour intentions toward my daughter? My intentions? I don t want her throwing her reputation away on you if you re just having agood time with her.My God, he wanted to know whether I was going to make an honest womanof her.Was it ever too late for that.Even if I could, of course, which of course Icouldn t. I m not sure what you re asking.He frowned at Buster, who was starting to paw his trousers. I m asking what sin this for Cassie. That s a question for her to ask, I said, annoyed. Are you going to throw theball to the dog now, or what?Silently, he flipped it over to me.It was damp.Yuck.More to get rid of it thanto pacify Buster, I lobbed it toward the back fence. You re not going to give me an answer, Mr.Wolfe observed. I ll give her an answer.If she asks.Which she hasn t.If you ll excuse me. One more question.Making a production of it on purpose, I checked my watch. We ll be late if wedon t leave soon.What s the question? How are your parents going to behave when you take Cassie home?I sighed. I don t know.Probably no better than you did. I won t have that, he warned. Neither will I.Don t worry about it.Between the two of us, we can handle myfamily. I thought that over for a second. Except maybe my mother.You d getalong with her, you know.She hasn t approved of anything since the  50 s.Unexpectedly, he laughed. All right.You pass. Sir? Her mother and I wanted to see what you re made of.We still don t like it, butwe suppose you ll do.At least this weekend didn t scare you off.I gave him a very narrow once-over, searching for signs of insanity. The foodfight came close.Was that a test, too? Ah.Yes.That. He looked away sheepishly. We didn t plan that part.But I mglad you brought it up.About that woman. You mean Va the maid? We appreciate the thought, but it wasn t necessary for you and Cassie to hireus a maid for the day.62 Hell for the HolidaysNo, and it never would have occurred to us to do that, either.But we d neededa cover story.That one was the best we could come up with. Our pleasure. We did think it was odd for a maid to be throwing food.But Cassie said shedid it so she could make extra money cleaning up after dinner.We understand now.That s good entrepreneurial thinking.No, it was fast thinking on the part of a skilled professional liar: his daughter.Iwas very proud of her. She s an operator, all right. We still thought we saw a few odd things.But. He shrugged. Never mind.We were talking about the maid.I d like to give her a tip for doing such a good job.Elizabeth says the crystals on the chandelier are as clean as she s ever seen them. Don t bother.We ll be paying her enough, I said with conscious irony. There was cranberry sauce on the ceiling, Devlin.I think getting it off is worthan extra fifty. Whatever.But make your wife pay.I saw her do it.Mr.Wolfe smiled again. Cassie might turn out like her mother, you know. Takes more than that to scare me. Wait twenty years, he advised. Let s go back now.You ve got a flight to catch.It almost ended the way it started.All our luggage was parked by the front door,waiting to be carried out, and no sooner did I pick up a bag than Mr.Wolfe took it.Itook it back.He reached for it again.Only Cassie s quick intervention stopped ascene. I thought we agreed to a truce, I told him through gritted teeth.He glared right back. We also agreed we don t like each other.That much, we did agree on.Grudgingly, I put out my hand.Grudgingly, heshook it.Then Mrs [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]