The Silver Ghost by Charlotte MacLeod Page A

it’s all over, then I’m going back to Shrewsbury and bawl my eyes out. I suppose Crimpy-boy’s got the case all solved?”
    “Naturally,” said Myre. “Tough luck, Mel, this happening right in the midst of your party.”
    “Thanks, Reg, but the revel’s almost over, thank goodness. The parking lot’s empty, except for—” She threw a glance at Sarah. “We have another complication. Minor, I hope.”
    “Melisande and I have been looking for Aunt Bodie,” Sarah explained. “We’ve asked everywhere and nobody’s set eyes on her since early in the banquet. Tick’s just got the bright idea of borrowing a helicopter they use at Station XBIL for doing the traffic reports. We’re going to take binoculars and search the bee fields.”
    “What do you mean, we?” Max demanded.
    “Well, the helicopter’s not very big and Bodie is my aunt, after all.”
    “She’s Lionel’s aunt, too, and he doesn’t have a baby at home. For God’s sake, Sarah! Maybe she got a headache and left quietly so as not to break up the party.”
    “Lionel’s already gone to take his mother home. And Davy’s as much your child as mine, if you’re thinking what I know you’re thinking. Darling, I truly am concerned about Aunt Bodie. She’s much too healthy to get headaches, and she’s the last person on earth to sneak away without taking proper leave of her hostess, even if Abigail weren’t a particular friend. Besides, her car’s still in the parking lot.”
    “Are you sure that’s her car?”
    “Max, come on! How many beige and gray 1946 Daimlers are you likely to find on the road these days?”
    “In this crowd, I wouldn’t dare guess.”
    Melisande wasn’t one to stand by in silence. “You needn’t get uptight about who’s going to ride in the helicopter, Max, it’ll be Tick and the pilot. Tick wouldn’t give up his seat to anyone on earth. He absolutely adores getting up high and looking down. I can’t bear to, myself. And Sarah’s quite right about Bodie Kelling. This isn’t like her at all. We’ve asked all her friends, and nobody’s caught so much as a glimpse of her since about halfway through the banquet. We’ve searched the house and the gardens. We’ve just taken a quick scoot around the bee fields in the honeybug to see if she might have gone for a long walk and sprained her ankle or something. If Tick doesn’t spot her,” Melisande shrugged her impressive scarlet-clad shoulders, “I don’t know what to think.”
    “No chance she drove herself off in the Silver Ghost?” Reggie Myre ventured.
    “Aunt Bodie wouldn’t do that, not without getting permission from some member of the family,” Sarah protested. “Besides, how could she have got into the car shed? Unless—”
    She caught her breath. “Aunt Bodie did want to see the Rollses, she said so during the morris dancing. She was coaxing Mrs. Gaheris to come with her when the heralds came out to announce the banquet, so they went into the pavilion instead.”
    “But she wouldn’t get up and walk out in the middle of a meal,” Myre protested. He himself certainly wouldn’t, from the look of his beltline.
    “Actually, that’s something Aunt Bodie would do,” Sarah replied. “She’s rather a health nut, and hates the idea of people gorging themselves. She herself didn’t intend to eat much, she said so, and she’d find it a bore to sit there watching a roomful of moving jaws. It would have been quite like her to get up and go for a walk, if only to set a good example to the rest of us. Don’t you think, Melly?”
    “Oh yes, Bodie’s like that.”
    “And she evidently didn’t know Bill wasn’t letting anyone into the car shed this year or she wouldn’t have suggested to Mrs. Gaheris that they go. Or else she’d have thought the rule didn’t apply to her, which would also be like Aunt Bodie. So if she happened to arrive here at just the wrong moment—”
    Max put his arms around Sarah to stop the shivering. “Okay, kid,