“I don’t deal in that medium anymore.” He smiled at Hank. “Of course, I make exceptions for my best clients.”
“Can’t understand why you got out of the art market, Perry. You were one of the best. You had a gift for finding canvases no one else could. If another gallery told me, ‘Impossible,’ I’d come to you and you’d say, ‘I’ll have it for you next week, sir.’”
“I needed a change. Dealers and galleries specializing in paintings are a dime a dozen in New York. The competition is murder. So I came home. I’ve found my niche here. So, I didn’t actually leave the art world, only changed countries and stock.”
“You do have some lovely pieces, Mr. Perryman. Like that tapestry that used to be in the window.”
“A contemporary piece by a local artist. It sold rather quickly. I expect to have some more of the artist’s work next month, if you’re interested. And I have a few similar pieces by different artists on hand. I’d be happy to show them to you.”
“Sorry, I have to catch a train. Maybe some other time.”
As she walked the rest of the way to the train station she wondered what Jasper Koors would think of the lengths a boor like Hank Wayne would go to to get his hands on one of Koors’s works.
She arrived home to an envelope slipped under the door. It bore no postage or return address and only her name in neat block letters marched across the front. She removed a single sheet and sank onto the entryway bench as she read its depressing contents:
Gethsemane—
Thank you for looking after Carraigfaire these past few months, and thank you for removing the cloud from Uncle’s reputation.
Although I’d planned to turn Carraigfaire into a museum dedicated to my aunt and uncle, recent developments forced a change in plans. As a result, I’m afraid I must ask you to vacate the cottage by—
She crumpled the note. An eviction notice. She cursed Billy for being too chicken to tell her face to face he’d sold out to Hank and for betraying Eamon and Orla’s memories for money. Even a lot of money.
She ran to the music room and grabbed the grimoire.
“Quondam vos eratis quod nunc ego sum, tu es quod ego erit fio. Invoco te. Levate velum inter regna vivos et mortuos. Erunt cum mihi in hoc loco. Quaeso vestra virtutes facere quae oportet fieri. Ut inveniam gratiam in conspecto tuo, meo obsecro,” she recited at the top of her lungs. Nothing happened. She slammed the book against the piano keyboard. Harsh tones filled the air to match her angry mood.
“Damn it, Eamon, where are you? What’s a girl got to do to summon a ghost?”
Six
Jackson arrived back at Carraigfaire before midnight but only just. Despite his haggard appearance—jacket and pants rumpled, shirt collar limp—he assured Gethsemane everything was all right. No amount of coaxing could entice him to divulge details about his interrogation. Guilty over her promise to keep her deal with Yseult secret, she stopped pushing him to talk. She didn’t argue when he excused himself to call his wife and son.
She left him sleeping when she arose early the next morning to catch the train back to Ballytuam. She wore a floral dress and a long cardigan. A scarf hid the miniature camera dangling from a chain around her neck. She grabbed her violin and headed for the station.
In Ballytuam, she stood on the station platform as the train pulled out and stared up at the mansion on top of the hill. Olivia lived there. Named Essex House by the English ancestor who purchased it in the seventeenth century, the stone structure had dominated the landscape for over five hundred years.
Gethsemane walked up now familiar streets. She passed the Perryman Gallery. The fire screen remained in the window. She stopped in front of Ryan’s auction house. Shades remained drawn, and no people moved about. She wondered if the office had closed. If the art world worked anything like the music world, bad news traveled fast. Word of the attempted theft would have spread and certainly would have been bad for business.
She passed several more galleries, a half dozen solicitors’ offices, a tea shop, and a pub before reaching the Essex House gates. Heavy wrought iron and a call box protected the automobile entrance, but the pedestrian entrance consisted of only an arch in a stone wall. She walked through. A stroll past meticulous formal gardens along a path through a green lawn that would have been the envy of any golfer brought her to the mansion’s front door. The heavy knocker looked as though it might have rusted in place a hundred years ago. A modern doorbell button had been installed in the ancient doorframe. She rang the bell.
“May I help you?” asked the uniformed maid who answered the door. Her frazzled blonde hair, frown, and cross tone of voice told Gethsemane that she wanted to be anything but helpful.
“I’m Gethsemane Brown. I’m—”
The maid cut her off. “Are you auditioning?”
Gethsemane held up her violin case.
“You’ll be wanting to see Mr. Delaney then. This way.”
Gethsemane hesitated. Yseult hadn’t mentioned a Mr. Delaney. Who was he?
“Step quick.” The maid’s frown deepened. “Bad enough you lot canceling last minute. Dyspepsia.” She snorted. “Out on a drunk’s more like it. Sending us scrambling for a replacement right before the missus’s hooley. Don’t keep us waiting.”
Gethsemane hurried to keep up with the maid, a short wiry woman in her mid-twenties. She guessed from the young woman’s brisk stride and set of her shoulders questions would be neither acknowledged nor appreciated. She examined her surroundings as best she could while moving at such a quick pace. She followed the maid through high-ceilinged hallways. Their heels echoed off polished wooden floors. The walls hung heavy with framed artwork, both paintings and textiles. Samplers, tapestries, and quilts mingled with watercolors, oils, and sketches from chair rail to crown molding. Any museum would have envied Olivia’s collection.
The maid stopped without warning in front of a room off a side hall. Gethsemane avoided colliding into her by an inch. “Wait here,” the maid said. She gestured toward the room, then departed as suddenly as she’d stopped without waiting to see if Gethsemane followed her instructions.
She didn’t. She ducked into the room and waited until she heard the maid’s footsteps fade away. Why not get a jump start on the search for a bill of sale? She poked her head into the hall to verify the maid’s absence, then walked back the way she’d come. She didn’t get far before she heard other footsteps, heavier and slower than the maid’s, approaching.
She scurried back and examined her surroundings. She stood in a music room, much larger than Carraigfaire’s. Almost as large as the entire cottage. The cavernous space dwarfed the Steinway grand in the corner. A dozen chairs and music stands clustered near the piano. More than needed for the sextet Yseult said Olivia hired for the party. More like a small orchestra. Yseult didn’t know everything.
“Do you play the piano?” a man’s voice asked behind her.
“Quite well.” She held up her violin case. “And the violin.” She greeted the speaker, a man in his early fifties, the hair on his head still dark but a bit of gray visible in the meticulously barbered stubble on his face. Her paternal grandfather, a tailor, would have loved the man’s bespoke suit, cut to flatter his broad shoulders and narrow waist. His patterned silk tie complemented both the midnight blue of his suit and the Mediterranean blue of his eyes. His cufflinks matched the suit’s mother-of-pearl buttons. The polish on his black leather oxfords rivaled that of the floor.
“I’m Ray Delaney, Mrs. McCarthy-Boyle’s estate manager and exclusive personal assistant.”
“I’m Gethsemane Brown, a musician from Dunmullach.”
“Please play something.” He sat in an armchair near the Steinway and slipped a gold-plated cigar lighter from his pocket. Gethsemane eyed it.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to smoke. Mrs. McCarthy-Boyle forbids it inside Essex House. Doesn’t want the
fumes to get into the textiles. Please play.”
“Which instrument?”
“Your choice.” He fidgeted with the lighter, flipping it back and forth, over and under his fingers like a magician about to perform sleight of hand.
“How about both?” She sat at the piano and played Scarlatti’s “Sonata in D Minor, K. 141.”
Ray rose from his chair to stand near the piano. He kept his eyes on her hands as they flew over the keyboard. He, and the lighter, remained motionless until the last notes faded away. “Brilliant.”
She thanked him and removed her violin from its case. “Let’s hear something fun.” She shouldered the instrument and played “Captain Heuston’s Lament.”
Ray grinned. He pulled a smartphone from his pocket and slipped the lighter in its place. He scrolled down the screen. “I don’t see your name on the list.”
“List?” She kept her gaze on her violin as she put it away. He had a list.
“Of auditioning musicians.”
Now what? Yseult hadn’t mentioned a list. “I’m an add-on.” She stepped toward Ray but caught her foot on the piano bench. She stumbled into him and knocked his phone out of his hand. “I am so, so sorry. Good thing I play better than I walk.” She scooped up his phone and handed it back to him. But not before she glimpsed the names on the screen. If she could improvise music from magic spells she could improvise a cover story from a list. She borrowed a name. “Lucien Gervais told me about the auditions. It was too late to make an appointment, so I just showed up today and hoped for the best. I guess, technically, that makes me a gate-crasher instead of an add-on.”
“How do you know Lucien?”
“Oh, you know, just around, the way one does. We performed together in Moscow, I think it was, or maybe Prague. The cities start to blur after you’ve been to so many.” She leaned close to Ray and lowered her voice. “True confession. Lucien didn’t actually tell me about the auditions. I eavesdropped. I overheard him mention them to someone else and decided to scoop him. Not strictly ethical, I know, but I couldn’t pass up a chance at a gig like this.”
Ray slipped the phone back into his pocket and offered Gethsemane his hand. “Congratulations on your scoop. Be here tomorrow, half past ten. That’s half past ten sharp. It will be the only time to rehearse with the other musicians. Although, given your demonstrated skill, I doubt you’ll have any difficulty.” He eyed her outfit. “Do you have something black?”
“Don’t all women have at least one black dress?” She didn’t, but would have one by tomorrow.
“Brilliant. Until tomorrow, then.”
Gethsemane called after him. “When do I meet Mrs. McCarthy-Boyle?”
“Meet her?” Ray’s eyes narrowed. “What for?”
“Shouldn’t I? It’s her shindig. She’s hiring me.”
“Mrs. McCarthy-Boyle doesn’t concern herself with the minutiae of hosting a fundraiser. I handle all the arrangements. You only need to concern yourself with showing up on time and performing well.”
“You do all the work and she gets all the credit. Such is the lot of the hired help.”
Ray drew himself up to his full height and sniffed down his nose. “I am Mrs. McCarthy-Boyle’s confidential personal assistant—”
Glorified hired help with a chip on his shoulder. Gethsemane held up a hand. “I’m not insulting you, Mr. Delaney, I’m empathizing. Most of my ancestors have been the ‘help’ at some point in their lives. Come to think of it, I’m the entertainment, so I fall into that category, too. I understand what it’s like to work hard to make someone else look good.”
Ray’s expression softened. “Yes, one does what one must.”
“At least you get to live in a gorgeous mansion filled with priceless artworks. Has this place always belonged to Mrs. McCarthy-Boyle’s family?”
“Her late husband’s family, but, no, not always. The Boyles are Anglo-Irish, descended from the Earl of Cork. They purchased the property during one of the many plantations of Ireland. The original landowners were Irish Catholic nobility.”
“Take land away from people you don’t like, give it to people you do like. Where’ve I heard that before?”
“I’ll say goodbye again.”
“One last thing. May I have a copy of the playlist for the party?”
Ray took out his phone. “Give me your mobile number and I’ll text it to you.”
“No phone. I, um, lost it and haven’t replaced it yet.”
Ray pulled a small notebook from another pocket and scribbled. He tore out a sheet and handed it to Gethsemane.
“Thank you. I’ll have the pieces ready by ten thirty tomorrow morning. I’ll work hard to make Mrs. McCarthy-Boyle look good.”
Ray left. Gethsemane followed him into the hall and watched until he disappeared around a corner.
Before she could move, the maid reappeared from the other direction. “I’ll show you out.”
A lithe elegant woman with thick silver hair worn in a single braid appeared in the hall behind the maid. “Maire, see if the cleaners have delivered my dress yet. If not, tell Ray to call and get after them.”
“Yes, Mrs. McCarthy-Boyle.” Maire ducked her head and hurried away.
Gethsemane shook Olivia’s hand. Olivia’s perfect manicure made her self-conscious about her own plain short nails. O’Reilly said this woman could be his grandmother, but only her hair color betrayed any clue to her age. She epitomized timeless beauty with pale blue eyes and a glow to her flawless fair skin.
“Mrs. McCarthy-Boyle. A pleasure to meet you. I’m Gethsemane Brown.”
“Yes.” Olivia’s finishing school voice bore no hint of brogue. “Ray told me you’ll be joining my little band.”
Told her? When? He’d only been gone a moment before she came in. Gethsemane noticed the slight bulge of a phone in Olivia’s pants pocket. Ray must have texted her. So much for not getting involved in the minutiae of party planning.
Olivia continued. “Ray says you’re a brilliant instrumentalist. I hope you won’t find your talents underutilized by performing in such a small venue.”
“Not at all. It’s for a good cause. And I’d hardly describe Essex House as a small venue.”
“You have an interest in sick children?”
“Who doesn’t want to help sick kids?” Did Olivia suspect her of something? Or did she have a generally suspicious nature? She got the feeling Olivia only ever said half of what she knew. Cagey, like Yseult. Capable of palming off a forgery.
“I thought you might have an interest in art. So many people want to come to Essex House to see my pieces. I’m not boasting when I say it’s one of the world’s premier textile collections. Enthusiasts go to amazing lengths to try to see it.”
Olivia’s sly smile set Gethsemane on edge. The older woman baited her. She refused to take it. “I’m sure your collection deserves the title of world’s premier, but I’m afraid my artistic tastes run to the musical rather than the visual. Not that I failed to notice the lovely pieces you’ve displayed in your halls. It must have taken decades to amass so many fine things.”
“Centuries. My husband’s family started collecting art in the 1800s.”
Dare she push her luck? Getting bounced from the house wouldn’t help Yseult, which meant it wouldn’t help Jackson. “With so many artworks, how do you guard against forgeries? It would take a lifetime to research and authenticate every piece. Seems like you could slip a fake into the bunch and no one would ever notice.”
Olivia stiffened. “I am not an amateur. I only deal with reputable galleries and auction houses, and each piece is authenticated prior to purchase. My collection has impeccable provenance.”
“Right. Of course. I mean, I wouldn’t buy a violin labeled Stradivarius without first verifying it was a genuine Strad.”
Olivia smiled thinly and turned.
“One more question, Mrs. McCarthy-Boyle?”
“Yes?” Gethsemane noted the exasperation in Olivia’s tone. She’d been relegated from party-crashing art fangirl to hired help impinging upon the mistress’s time.
“Don’t you worry about security? Just the part of your collection I’ve seen would probably net enough to buy Mars and a rocket ship to shuttle you back and forth. Aren’t you afraid someone might steal something? You have so many pieces, a thief could walk out with one and it wouldn’t be missed for a week.”
“I assure you I’d notice immediately if one of my artworks went missing. And although I haven’t placed my security system on public display, I do have one. An excellent one. Simply walking out with stolen art would not be an option.”
“But everything’s insured?”
Olivia’s eyes narrowed. She stepped toward Gethsemane and lowered her voice. “Why do you ask?”
Gethsemane arranged her face into one of the innocent expressions her students used when they explained how the dog ate their homework. “No reason. I read in the paper about that international art theft investigation being reopened. Guess it got me wondering how its victims recouped their losses. Musicians worry about theft.” She held up her violin case. “I insured my violin.”
“Yes, I can see how you’d be concerned. A rare instrument carries as much value as a rare painting. And you have to worry about loss, too. Much easier to leave a Stradivarius in a taxi than a Picasso.”
“True that.”
The sly smile returned. “I’m fortunate such a gifted musician came available on short notice. Quite lucky. What are the chances?”
Baited again. Olivia wasn’t going to let her off easy. Had Ray repeated her Lucien fib? She stuck to the story, just in case. “I could claim luck rolled my way, but honestly, I overheard an opportunity to earn a little extra income—while helping sick children—so I grabbed it. Can’t blame a girl for looking out for her bottom line. Can you?”
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