The Withdrawing Room Author:Charlotte MacLeod What's the proper way for a Boston landlady to react when her most obnoxious boarder gets squashed by a subway train? — Young Sarah Kelling of the Beacon Hill Kellings doesn't much mind losing Barnwell Augustus Quiffen. She already has a far nicer applicant for the drawing room suite, now that money problems have forced her to turn her historic ... more »brownstone into a boarding house. And curmudgeonly old Mr. Quiffen had been a mistake from teh first with his quarrels, complaints, and endless nosey-parkering.
But was Quiffen her only mistake? What about her other tenants, especially that statuesque enigma Mrs. Eheonia sorpende? And is dear old Mr. Hartler really such a pleasant change? Sarah hadn't bargained for his chatter about the Iolani Palace or the strangers who'd be invading her home to peddle bogus Hawaiian antiques. Nor had Sarah expected the odd eyewitness who shows up insisting somebody pushed Mr. Quiffen under the train, or the dreadful tension that builds when she realizes she's again involved with murder.
This time Sarah needn't face her problem alone. She has Mariposa and Charlges, her dauntless maid and butler. She has Cousin Dolph the frogman and Uncle Jem the retired roue. She has Miss Mary Smith, the gallant bag lady who knows all the best trash bins in town. And she has her basement boarder Max Bittersohn, an art expert with a very special sort of expertise.« less