Love for Sale

especially the one in disguise, might be a public figure everyone had seen in the newsreels at the Voorburg movie house and could easily identify. The man she’d spoken to on the telephone seemed so efficient and well-bred, he couldn’t possibly have anything to do with gangsters. Although Phoebe might be right and they could be Communists. Some of them were very well educated.
    Lily was about to go upstairs to see how the furniture moving was going, when the front doorbell rang. A woman in her late fifties, with a neat gray bun and sensible shoes, introduced herself as the principal of the local grade school. “I’m Mrs. Betty Tarkington.“
    “I remember you, Mrs. Tarkington. We dispensed the potato salad at the Fate last summer,“ Lily said, using the villagers’ pronunciation of fête.
    “ Does your brother happen to be available? I need to speak to him.“
    “Come in, please,“ Lily said. “He’s not free right now. We’re having guests in a day or two and he’s moving a table and chairs around. Could I help you?”
    Lily invited her into the library; its windows overlooked the Hudson River, and it was her favorite room in the sprawling mansion.
    Mrs. Tarkington wandered toward the windows. “What a wonderful view you have here.“ She came back and sat down in a chair across from Lily’s. “I’ve lost a teacher. Just temporarily. I think you also met her at the Fate. Miss Millicent Langston.”
    Lily smiled. It tickled her that even the school principal, who surely knew Fate wasn’t the right pronunciation, used it as the other villagers did.
    “The young woman who was telling us how much potato salad to put on each plate to make it last?“ Lily asked.
    Mrs. Tarkington nodded. “She usually makes herself memorable. But I received a telephone call from her saying the oddest thing. Apparently she has what she called a ‘hot’ appendix. It flares up every couple years and then it’s all right again. She said the doctor in her hometown told her she should have it out when it wasn’t infected. Less danger of complications. It seems he’s about to move away and wanted her to come home and let him do the surgery before he left. Wouldn’t trust the job to anyone else.“
    “So she left?“
    “Just so. She said he told her it would take two or three weeks to fully recover.“
    “Where does my brother Robert come into this?“
    “I was wondering if Mr. Brewster could be her substitute.”
    Lily wondered why Mrs. Tarkington had thought of Robert instead of herself, but didn’t ask.
    Mrs. Tarkington caught Lily’s frown and guessed what she was thinking. “So many men are out of work these days.“
    “I see. I’ll go fetch Robert for you, but he won’t be able to do this for you for at least a week. Unless...“
    “Unless what?“
    “Could you divide the day up between Robert and me? For reasons I’m sorry I can’t explain, Robert has to take breakfast, lunch, and dinner up to our guests.”
    Mrs. Tarkington thought for a moment. “I suppose that’s a possibility.“
    “I could take the morning and lunchtime. Then Robert could take the afternoon. Dinner will be served long after school is dismissed. Excuse me for being realistic, but are you offering to pay us?“
    “Of course. I was just about to say so.“
    “Let me find Robert and see if he’s willing.“
    Robert and the Harbinger boys were just finishing up the furniture job. Lily told him, “We’ve been offered a teaching job at the grade school. The regular teacher has gone somewhere to have her appendix out.“
    “Dr. Polhemus isn’t doing it, is he?“ Robert asked with horror. The town doctor wasn’t one of his favorite people. He was always gossiping about his patients’ ailments to anyone who would listen.
    “No, she went back to wherever she lives to have her own doctor do it. I thought I could take the morning through the lunchtime, and you could handle the afternoon classes.“
    “What are these classes you’re assigning me to?”
    “Come downstairs and we’ll talk it over with Mrs. Tarkington.”
    When they entered the library, Mrs. Tarkington was looking over the bookshelves. “Are the books on all these locked shelves real books?“ she asked.
    “We don’t think so,“ Robert said. “We believe they’re just fake spines because they all look alike. But nobody has ever found the key to unlock the doors, and we can’t afford a locksmith just to satisfy our curiosity.“
    “I think almost any