Skylark

by Sheila Simonson

  Behind me, Ann wheezed her way onto the landing.

  "This is my temporary roommate, Ann Veryan." Now why did I say temporary? I felt my cheeks flush. Ann was temporary because Jay, my sole and singular husband, was going to show up a week from Friday, and Ann was staying on three days after Jay arrived.

  Before I could utter something even more misleading, such as "Drop in anytime," Ann caught her breath. "Hello."

  "Delightful. Two American nymphs." Worth cuffed Rollo out of the way. The poodle retreated, whining.

  Ann shook hands, retrieved her bag, and filled the air with southern comfort. I could see her eyes gleaming. It was a wonder the glasses didn't steam up.

  Trevor led us down a handsome hallway and into Miss Beale's tasteful parlor. I could hear Rollo giving tongue in another room. The noise ceased. Ann looked around her, blinking at the splendor.

  As I had discovered on my earlier visit, there was nothing Dickensian about Miss Beale's flat. The furniture would have stocked a San Francisco antique shop, and there were rather too many porcelain doodads for my taste, but the contrast with the dank stairwell was startling.

  A dark woman of about my age rose from among the knickknacks and fixed us with steely grey eyes.

  "My sister, Daphne," Trevor murmured.

  Daphne Worth shook hands as if she were used to doing her duty. She didn't smile. Perhaps she realized her smile would be invisible in her brother's golden presence.

  She was short, round, and dressed in a black gabardine suit that had to have come off the rack at Marks & Spencer. She wore steel earrings and a matching pin that looked as if it might have been designed by an East German boilermaker. The pin was so heavy it dragged her collar askew. Her blouse was a mustard acetate that swore at her delicate coloring. She wore no makeup.

  As Trevor seated us with great charm on the horsehair settee, Miss Beale drifted in. She bore a silver tray upon which reposed a decanter, wine glasses, and a plate of digestive biscuits.

  "Oh, there you are," she murmured. "So glad you could join us. Daphne, dear, do pour for me."

  Daphne took the tray from her and set it on what had to be a tea, as opposed to coffee, table. Miss Beale sat in a wing-backed chair. Her niece poured. Trevor and Ann exchanged politenesses about the dreary weather, and the beauty of the tulips in Kensington Gardens, and the variety of plays to be seen that season. He was gently scathing about the RSC production of Macbeth. Ann made delighted protests.

  Daphne handed out the Waterford wine glasses. Each held a thimbleful of what I took to be Bristol Cream. When she had reseated herself she passed me the biscuits.

  "Americans are daft about Shakespeare." Her voice was low and rather flat, more in expression than timbre.

  "Some are." I risked a biscuit.

  "Take this Rose Theatre flap."

  The Rose Theatre, where Shakespeare's first plays may have been produced, and Marlowe's definitely were, had been found in Southwark on the site of a proposed office building. Preservationists, including Sam Wanamaker, invincibly American even after twenty years' residence in London, were doing battle with Thatcher's Department of the Environment to save the remains. Local feeling was at best tepid.

  "I've heard of it." I nibbled. The biscuit tasted like sweet spiced straw.

  "Bunch of nonsense. Hundreds of men idled because the Americans want a few bits of rotted timber preserved in amber."

  "I noticed an English voice or two among the protesters."

  "Actors," she snorted, dismissing Lord Olivier, then nearly on his deathbed, a clutch of other distinguished British thespians, and half the Dames of the British Empire.

  "I was rather surprised how few Londoners objected to covering the site with a boring high-rise." I took a sip of sherry. It tasted like cough medicine.

  "What Londoners need has nothing to do with Shakespeare. Jobs and housing."

  I could think of a few other things Londoners needed, like very large litter bins in Trafalgar Square. The populace would benefit from a good stiff jolt of Macbeth, too. I made a neutral noise.

  "Rents," said Daphne, "are iniquitous."

  I had no trouble agreeing with that. "But I don't see how preserving the theatre will affect housing. The builders are putting in an office complex. A museum on the site would draw thousands of tourists every summer and that would create jobs."

  "Jobs for Spanish cleaning maids and Lebanese waiters. Not real jobs at real wages."

  "A true dilemma," I murmured, wishing that someone would rescue me and tuck me into my nice bed. Didn't Lebanese--or Czech--waiters need real wages, too?

  "There's no dilemma. We won't be compelled to live in a bloody museum."

  Miss Beale clucked. "Really, Daphne dear. Such language. Daphne teaches at the infant school in Greer Street, Mrs. Dodge. Delightful children, and such good families."

  "The little girls who wear the boater hats? I saw them walking to the Natural History Museum yesterday." The longer I talked to these people, the more American my accent and vocabulary sounded to me. "Cute kids."

  Daphne's mouth twitched in a morose smile. "Little devils."

  "Lark...what a lovely name." Trevor, blue eyes earnest, turned to me, pleading. "I may call you Lark, mayn't I?"

  "Why not?" Call me anything, O prince, but call me.

  "This woman has never seen Cats. Help me persuade her."

  "You should see Cats," I echoed, obedient.

  Ann gave a faint shriek. "But it's so expensive!"

  "Nevertheless." He smiled like a sunny seraph.

  "I'd rather see Daniel Day Lewis do Hamlet." Ann batted her eyelashes at him, I would have sworn to it. "But if you insist, Trevor." And they were off on a discussion of the Lloyd Webber musical, then four years into its run and rather stale. Miss Beale beamed at her nephew, and he preened and grew even more eloquent.

  The word expensive had reminded me of the rent. I was groping for a genteel way to raise the subject when Ann segued smoothly from theatre to finance. She hauled her giant handbag to her lap and turned on Miss Beale her warmest smile.

  "I know this isn't the proper occasion, ma'am, and it's sadly pushing of me, but I'd be just so relieved if you'd let us give you next week's rent?" Her voice rose, turning the statement into a question. "You've been so kind, and it's such a lovely apartment, just what we wanted..." And so on.

  At the first mention of the word rent, Miss Beale stiffened, but she was unprepared for the full battery of Ann's deference. By the time we left, Miss Beale was projecting regal graciousness and had accepted the rent for both weeks. She wrote out the receipt in a clear copperplate hand.

  Trevor watched Ann's performance with every appearance of amused interest, Daphne with sullen distaste. Bloody Americans flashing their wealth. I could almost hear her contempt. I writhed a bit myself, but Ann was so convincing I bade our hostess goodbye feeling obscurely grateful to her for taking our filthy Yankee lucre.

  Trevor offered to accompany us down what he called the Stygian Staircase.

  "I'll come, too." Daphne rose. "I must go, Auntie." That delayed us another five or ten minutes while Miss Beale protested and fetched coats. Trevor took his and gave his aunt a kiss on the cheek that made her bridle and blush. I would have blushed, too. Daphne shook hands. Rollo yipped in the distance.

  Trevor joggled the light switches with a practiced hand, and we descended, Ann much more rapidly than she had come upstairs. While Trevor held the heavy front door against the wind, we slipped out into the rain. Daphne followed close on his heels. We had left the little gate that led to our flat unlocked.

  I was so tired by then I was seeing double, which made fitting the key in the door lock difficult. I turned it and tried the door. Locked. I turned it the other way. Success. I felt a tiny stir of alarm, but switched the hall light on.

  Ann was making her adieux in the areaway. I was about to turn and go back out for a farewell or two of my own when I saw that my bedroom door was wide open. A faint draft of fresh ai
r touched my cheek.

  I backed out the door and into Ann.

  "What is it?" She sounded peeved.

  "Something's wrong."

  Trevor and Daphne stared at me.

  I stared back. "Someone's broken in. They may still be there."

  "Are you sure?"

  I explained about the bedroom door. I had closed it because the bed was unmade. I didn't mention Milos's papers, but they were on my mind.

  I heard Ann give a small moan as the same thought struck her. Rain gusted in our faces.

  "There's must be another explanation," Daphne was saying in brisk, no-nonsense tones.

  Trevor's hair ruffled in the wind. "The crime rate is rather lower here than in the States, you know. I daresay you left the door ajar, and a draught stirred it open."

  "There shouldn't be a draft. All the windows were closed. Locked."

  "But..."

  "There's a pay phone on the corner. I'm going to call the police." The flat did not have a phone. I had liked that. No intrusive wrong numbers or telephone solicitors. Now I yearned for a telephone.

  "I'll run back up to Auntie's," Daphne offered, reluctance and doubt palpable in her voice.

  "Up five flights of stairs? It'll be quicker to call from the corner. Please stay with Ann, though. I don't think she should be here alone." Before they could object I started down the sidewalk, head bent against the wind.

  I was not wearing a raincoat, and the cold cut right through my wool suit. By the time I reached the space-age phone booth I was half running.

  I got there and remembered I hadn't brought my purse with the handy-dandy card for use in pay phones. Sheer frustration made me want to bawl. I huddled for a moment in the dim shelter, panic rising in my throat, teeth chattering. To calm myself I read the instructions printed on the telephone. No toll necessary for emergency calls.

  I lifted the receiver and tapped the number. Not 911. 999. The dispatcher said something.

  "I'm sorry. I didn't understand what you said. I'm trying to report a burglary. It may still be in progress."

  She had trouble understanding me, too. Eventually she took the message and told me she would notify the appropriate people. I had to be content with that.

  I scurried back to our building and down the steps. Ann and the Worths had gone in. I could hear them talking in the foyer in low voices. I banged on the door, and Trevor let me in.

  "Did you reach the police?"

  "Yes. They're coming. You shouldn't have entered the flat."

  "It was bloody cold in that wind." Daphne's voice had an edge, and her eyes were cool with disbelief. "Besides, there's nobody here."

  "Have you checked?"

  "We're about to," Ann said. "We didn't hear anything. I turned on the light in the living room." She could do that from the hallway.

  "Then let's go in and sit down and wait for the police. I don't want to mess up the evidence."

  Trevor gave a short laugh. "Evidence of what? I beg your pardon, Lark, but I think you're imagining things."

  "Possibly." I was still shivering, though no longer from cold. "Let's go into the living room."

  Ann led the way. At the arch she stopped short. Daphne bumped into her. "Uh oh."

  Trevor craned. "'Strewth. You were right."

  I said through my teeth, "Don't just stand there blocking the way."

  The living room had been tossed. The Hide-A-Bed had been pulled down and the bedclothes churned. The drawers of the chest lay upended on the heap of sheets. Beyond, I could see that the cupboard and refrigerator doors hung open. Drawer holes gaped.

  Ann was moaning. She moved to the couch-cum-bed and reached toward the tumbled pile of clothing.

  I backed into the hallway. "We shouldn't disturb the evidence. They'll want to photograph it."

  The others were picking their way through the room. Daphne had got as far as the kitchen.

  "Come out of there!" I heard my voice sharpen. "Come out into the hall."

  With backward glances and much clucking they complied.

  "I daresay I should take you ladies back upstairs to Auntie." Trevor's eyes darkened with earnestness. "I apologize for doubting you, Lark."

  I took a long breath. My shivering had eased. "It doesn't matter. We'd better wait here, though, until the police come. You could run up and let your aunt know what happened, Trevor."

  "She'll be most concerned for you."

  I nodded. And for her real estate. That was natural. "Is there any point in disturbing her tonight?"

  Daphne said, "She'll be walking Rollo very soon anyway. I'll go up, too, shall I?"

  When neither of us objected, she went to the door. After a moment her brother followed her out. We heard their voices fade.

  Ann and I looked at each other. Ann's lip was trembling.

  "I know," I said wearily. "Me and my stupid photocopies."

  She gave a damp sniff. "I'm scared."

  "I am, too."

  "It's not your fault, Lark. As soon as I put the originals in my handbag, as soon as poor Milos was stabbed, this was in the cards. They didn't find the papers tonight, so they'll guess the police have them. I reckon that means we're out of danger."

  "But if they'd found the copies..." I leaned against the wall. If they'd found the copies they would have assumed we knew what was in them. "I'm glad you made me get rid of them." That was an understatement. I was also glad Ann was still capable of reasoning. I was too tired to think. "What do we do now?"

  She took a shaky breath. "Wait. Explain about this afternoon. I don't see why we have to mention the photocopies. The thief was after the originals."

  "Probably."

  "All the same, I wish you'd tell me why you copied them." Her voice was plaintive.

  More guilt. God knew she deserved an explanation. I tried to formulate a dignified rationale for my impulse and gave up. My brain felt like wet sludge. "It was just curiosity," I admitted. "I guessed that the papers had to do with the stabbing. If so, they're important to somebody besides Milos, someone unscrupulous. I wanted to know why, and what I'd got myself mixed up in. Then there's Milos."

  "I'm going to the hospital first thing tomorrow."

  "I'll go with you. Do you trust Milos?"

  She cocked her head and thought then gave a single, decisive nod.

  I sighed. "I do, too. He's a decent man. The police were bound to confiscate those papers as soon as we mentioned them, and I knew we had to mention them. I started to wonder when Milos would see them again. Evidence can gather dust for years. If we're wrong, and the papers aren't connected with the stabbing, then they're probably something Milos is working on, maybe even his translation of Macbeth. I don't think he should have to wait around for the police to release his work."

  Ann was smiling a little. "Won't your daddy be surprised."

  I groaned. I would have to call my parents--and Jay. But there were five hours between London and New York and eight between London and California, and what times should I call them? My head spun, though addition and subtraction are not ordinarily beyond me.

  Within minutes Constable Ryan arrived, followed by Miss Beale with the Worths and Rollo in tow. Rollo took exception to Ryan, and a minor scene ensued. Miss Beale wrung her hands. Daphne departed into the gale with the poodle in the lead, and our second interrogation of the day began.

  Trevor hung around looking distressed and ornamental. When the evidence crew, the Scene of the Crime team in British usage, appeared and began sifting through the mess, Miss Beale sent her nephew home. He made a token protest, but he was yawning.

  Daphne returned sans Rollo, whom she had taken upstairs. The ladies left at midnight, Miss Beale still emitting anguished chirps and Daphne still scowling. Inspector Thorne, who looked as if he had pulled a sweater and trousers over his pajamas, arrived ten minutes later.

  Sgt. Wilberforce did not appear at all.

  Chapter 5.

  At half-past six that morning I went running.

 
; Our session with the police had lasted until nearly 2:00 a.m. When it was over at last, Ann and I cleared off our beds--my room had been trashed, too--and collapsed.

  I was so tired I thought I'd sleep around the clock, but I came wide awake at a quarter of six and knew at once there was no hope of going back to sleep. I stared at the smooth plaster ceiling for a few minutes, thinking about Milos, Milos's papers, and the trouble they had caused.

  Then I got up, used the loo, and changed into warm-ups. They were the most comfortable clothes I owned. I had no intention of doing anything strenuous. I needed comfort. My body ached all over, and my right elbow had turned purple where I'd cracked it falling under Milos.

  I thought of brewing a pot of coffee, but Ann was making deep noises, not quite snores, that suggested she would sleep for the next six hours if undisturbed. I am not a dog in the manger. I found my key to the flat, zipped it and my coin purse into the pocket of my jacket, and let myself out the door.

  It was chilly out but clear. The storm had blown the usual pall of smog away. London has filthy air, almost as bad as Los Angeles, and I had decided to avoid running while I was there. Sucking in all that carbon monoxide had to be dangerous. Still, that morning the air was like crystal.

  I took in the blue sky and the sleep-sodden neighborhood in one comprehensive glance. The English are not early risers. Sight of the phone booth on the corner reminded me that I had to call my husband. It was six o'clock. Subtracting eight hours made it 10:00 p.m. at home. Jay would be at the house and wide awake.

  I got through without delay by dialing the AT&T operator in New York and charging the call to my credit number. The phone rang twice, and Jay picked it up before the third ring.

  "Hello?" He sounded tired. I could hear instrumental jazz playing in the background.

  "Hello, darling. Evening class?"

  His voice warmed. "I just got home from the last session. Do you mind if I tape you?"

  "What?"

  "I miss your voice, Lark. Next time we do something insane like traveling separately, I'm going to make you tape me a bedtime story. I don't sleep worth a damn without you."