I wasn’t exactly a rabid bibliophile, but this bothered me.
“You’re not using the dust jackets?” I asked.
“Oh, no.” She wrinkled her nose slightly. “They’re just so … gaudy. The books themselves are better, but the colors are all wrong for my room. This will be so much nicer, don’t you think?”
Nicer as long as you had no particular desire to read any of the books. With her system, Robinson Crusoe and The Life Cycle of the Dermestid Beetle looked pretty much the same.
“Hey, could you save the covers for me?” I asked. “I have a project I could really use them for.”
“Happy to,” she said. “I was just going to throw them away.”
“Great! Just stack them neatly in this box, and let me know when you’ve got a stack big enough that you want me to haul it away.”
“No problem,” she said. “You can take those now.”
I set one of the boxes the books had come out of where it would be handy. Then I gathered up the twenty or so covers she’d already discarded, stacked them loosely, and carried them down via the back stairs, waving at the Quilt Ladies as I passed.
“You heard about the photographer at ten tomorrow?” I stopped to say.
“We’ll be ready!” Vicky sang out.
Nice to see someone was optimistic. They did seem to be working frantically on something. A quilt in Christmassy fabrics of red and green, with a lot of gold metallic tracery on them. But whether or not the room looked exactly as they wanted it to, it should look fine in the photographs.
Down in the garage I found a box for the discarded covers.
“I don’t know why I care,” I muttered. There probably weren’t any valuable books in there. Chances were, people who cared about dust jackets would turn up their noses at Violet’s book collection.
But it bothered me, so if possible, I’d try to reunite them at the end of the show house.
Of course, there was always the chance she’d sell the books back to the thrift shop without the covers at the end of the show. Maybe I should talk her into donating them to the library, for the tax break. She’d probably go for that. And I could give our head librarian a heads-up that the dust jackets would be arriving separately.
Back into the house. Eustace had now put one or two dishes, vases, or bits of glassware on every shelf in his ever-so-many cabinets. I paused to watch him for a minute or two. He was now standing and studying the effect, pausing every once in a while to switch a couple of items, or adjust one a few millimeters in one direction or another.
“It’s just not right,” he said. “It’s too much of a muchness. What else can I put in these wretched cabinets?”
“Well,” I said. “In my kitchen, a lot of that space would be given over to food. Teas, spices, canned goods. But I don’t suppose you want that gaudy modern supermarket look.”
Eustace’s face froze for a moment, then he beamed.
“You’re a genius! Yes! Decorative tea caddies! Elegant spice jars! And perhaps a few vintage grocery items! I must go shopping!”
He grabbed up his coat, hat, and scarf and dashed toward the garage, presumably heading for the back door there.
“A genius,” I murmured. “I like that.”
In the great room, Mother was rearranging the logs in the fireplace into a more pleasing configuration while Tomás and Mateo dabbed little bits of gold on things.
In the dining room, Linda had assembled several dozen pieces of wooden or plastic fruit and was painting them all gold. Another theme. I should probably refrain from pointing out what happened to King Midas.
I grabbed my coat and hat from the coat closet. I didn’t have to take off for the rehearsal for fifteen minutes or so, but with all the designers focused on something, now seemed a good time to make my escape.
“You heading out?” Randall appeared from the basement.
“Family stuff. Are you—”
My phone rang. It was Stanley Denton
“Remember that so-called charity you asked me to check out?” he said. “Designers of the Future?”
“So-called? What have you found out about it?”
“Not a whole lot, but enough to be very suspicious.”
“Hang on,” I said. “Let me put you on speaker so Randall Shiffley can hear.”
“Okay.”
“Hey, Stanley,” Randall said. “What’s up?”
“Meg had me look into the charity Clay Spottiswood designated to receive the proceeds if he won the contest,” Stanley said.
Randall looked puzzled and glanced at me.
“Because I’d never heard of it, and someone told me Clay had founded it, and it didn’t seem in character for him,” I explained.