The Theban Mysteries

by Amanda Cross

  “To your going to my home? No. Nor to your questioning my servants, if you find that necessary. I trust you to confine yourself to what is strictly essential. But I haven’t much hope of your finding out what happened, and I think you are deluding yourself if you have hope. As to my grandchildren, they are perfectly capable of telling you to go to blazes.”

  “Do you intend to take any action against the school?”

  “Because of my daughter-in-law? Certainly not. What would be the purpose of that?”

  “They might be accused of negligence.”

  “I doubt it. You apparently have plenty of people to testify that the dogs would not have frightened her and left.”

  “One can always get people to testify to anything, perfectly sincerely I mean. Nothing is certain. And it might be presumed that her body’s being found there was sufficient evidence of negligence.”

  “Are you trying to persuade me to sue?”

  “Certainly not. But I don’t know what I may discover. Miss Tyringham has, with extraordinary honor and courage, it seems to me, opted for the truth, if it is discoverable. I happen to think seeking the truth is also the intelligent plan to pursue, but naturally I would. We can’t know what we may discover, and I want to be certain that you do not suppose me to be suggesting collusion.”

  “I see. Well, there is no benefit I can discover in suing the school. Not even in suing it for the radical ideas it has inculcated into my granddaughter. After all, I was always free to remove her. You’re suggesting that once you set foot on a road such as this you must follow it to the end, without knowing, before you get there, what the end will be. I understand that. To be frank, if I could have convinced everyone and ended the whole affair with the story of how I had been responsible for my daughter-in-law’s presence in the school, I would have been pleased. But, if that is not possible, one must accept the necessary revelations.”

  “This question is none of my business,” Kate said, “but if Patrick had been drafted and gone into the army, would you have taken any steps to keep him away from the fighting in Vietnam?”

  “I would have, certainly, using what contacts and influence I had.”

  “And that doesn’t strike you as wrong, the way Patrick’s defection strikes you as wrong?”

  “Not in the least. What contacts and influence I have I have earned. And, if they had not been sufficient, Patrick would have had to go. I would never have interfered with his country’s decision about him.” Kate shook her head. “Miss Fansler, the police questioned the man who for forty years has made my shirts and sold me my ties. As soon as they left him, he called me up to tell me so. His desire to warn me was based on long knowledge of me and my reputation.”

  “That’s quite different, I think. One is a network of personal devotion, which I defend. The other is a network of influence, which I deplore. Oh, I know, we all use influence. But your shirt man did not lie to the police.”

  “Of course not.”

  “But, if your grandson failed to go to Vietnam, someone with less influence would have gone in his place.”

  “I realize that. That is the way of the world, and it doesn’t do to pretend the world is not a jungle.”

  “Well,” Kate said rising, “we haven’t time to argue it now. I don’t believe you believe all you’re saying. I don’t believe you would manufacture napalm. Or am I wrong? You would manufacture it, but you would not personally drop it on babies.”

  “One has to face the consequences of one’s beliefs. You liberals want all America’s benefits free.”

  “I haven’t put a name to you,” Kate said.

  “I apologize. I ought not to have done so.” And he bowed Kate from the room, urging her to visit his apartment whenever she chose. There would be someone there to let her in.

  “I’m going for a walk first,” Kate said, “or a bus ride. I’ll go to your apartment later this afternoon, if that’s all right. Perhaps we’ll meet again.”

  “I shall be honored,” Mr. Jablon said in his formal way. Kate noticed, with sorrow, the absence of tears or anger. He had found his defenses and taken his position securely behind them.

  She decided to stroll about for a look at the houses wherein dwelt the members of her seminar. It was an excuse, really, for Kate loved prowling the streets and riding the buses and subways. Streethaunting, Kate called it, after Virginia Woolf’s phrase, and she had been addicted to it all her life.

  The Stark home, the Oliver home, the Kirkland home, the McCarthy home were all within walking distance of one another (or what Reed called Kate’s idea of walking, which was anyone else’s concept of a pilgrimage), but she had to take two buses to reach Morningside Heights. This was dangerous territory, Kate had heard, and she approached it with a certain wariness. Several uniformed guards patrolled the street, however. Kate, who liked to talk to people on jobs, stopped one and asked him what he was guarding.

  “President’s house,” he said, pointing to a large redbrick building.

  “The President of Columbia?” The man nodded.

  “You never know when someone’s going to take it into his head to stage a riot,” he said. “Maybe their building’s been torn down or something. Then there’s the park thing.”

  Kate followed his glance across to Morningside Park, part of which had been leveled, apparently with a giant bulldozer. No trees, no rock outcroppings remained.

  “What happened?” Kate asked.

  “They were going to build a gymnasium.” The man shrugged his shoulders.

  Kate found that Irene Rexton’s house was only a block or so down from the President’s house, and she crossed over to it under the benevolent eye of the guard. The outer entrance was open, the inner door was locked; the lock was released only if a tenant pressed a button. Beyond, Kate was certain, was a self-service elevator. From the number of names on the directory, Kate concluded that there were two apartments to a floor, and only six floors. She pressed the button marked Rexton, but was hardly surprised to receive no answer. Irene was in school and the parents, one gathered, in Papua or somewhere. Or nearer to hand, perhaps, talking about Papua.

  Kate wandered out again to talk to the guard. “Do you stay here in the evening too?” she asked.

  “One of us does, in front of the President’s house. Or just inside.”

  “Thank you,” Kate said. She walked toward Broadway, and bought herself a hotdog, complete with sauerkraut and mustard, from a man with a cart. She walked down the street munching it, and looking no credit to the Theban, which frowned, ineffectually, upon its students eating on the street. Feeling by now walked out, Kate hailed a non-rush-hour taxi, and sank back to light a cigarette. She wondered if she had any stock in the company that made it, considered this for a while, and decided not to bother to find out. There was no question, living up to one’s principles was very uphill work.

  The taxi dropped Kate at a large building on Park Avenue, the Jablon address. Her taxi door was opened by a doorman who bounced out of the building eagerly and inquired, once he had placed her safely on the sidewalk, whom she wished to see.

  “Mr. Jablon, whom I have just seen, is expecting me to call here,” Kate said, with all the Fansler presence she could muster. The doorman directed her to the correct elevator, which she reached passing, by her count, three uniformed men on the way. She had planned to go upstairs and speak, or try to speak, to Angelica, descending when the evening shift would have come on, at which time she could question them about the night of Mrs. Jablon’s death, or try to. Reed had pointed out that the police had been there before her, but Kate had read that policemen had IQs of 98, average she told Reed, appalled; imagine what some of them are.

  “A hundred and thirty,” Reed had answered. But Kate was not comforted.

  The elevator man delivered her to the third floor, and waited until the door was open and Kate was admitted. A well-run building, with a well-run staff, Kate observed morosely. She had wildly hoped for negligence and confusion.<
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  Kate explained her mission to the uniformed maid who opened the door for her. “But,” Kate concluded, “I only want to see Angelica if she is quite happy to see me. If not, I shall go away until she feels better.”

  “If you will wait a minute, madam, I’ll see.” The maid allowed Kate to step inside and closed the door behind her. There were chairs in the large and formal foyer, but Kate stood. In a moment the maid passed through again, merely nodding at Kate, and was followed by a young man with long hair and beard, cutoff blue jeans and a distinctly regrettable shirt.

  “You must be Miss Fansler,” he announced, rubbing one extremely dirty foot against the other. “I’m Patrick Jablon.” A Tom Sawyer with sex, was the immediate thought which flew into Kate’s mind. “Angelica burst into tears again when she heard you were here, but from long experience I can tell they are tears of relief and gratitude. Ah, the patient herself.”

  An extremely damp and woebegone Angelica stood in the doorway, barefoot like her brother, but dressed in a long nightgown which looked as though it had been selected at a department store, not discovered in a rubbish heap.

  “Hello,” Kate said. “I’ve come to see how you are, and to talk to you. I’ve been walking around all day, and once I sit down I shall not get up again, probably for hours, so if you want me to go, please say so now rather than after I’ve put up my feet.”

  “You might as well come in,” Angelica said. She started to lead the way toward her room and then apparently thought better of it. “Let’s go in here,” she said, leading the way toward the living room. “Would you like anything?” she asked, apparently reminded by the room’s formality of some of the simpler laws of hospitality.

  “As a matter of fact,” Kate said, collapsing thankfully into a large lounge chair complete with ottoman, which she had been eying greedily from the foyer, “I’d love a cup of tea.”

  “I’ll tell Nora,” Angelica said. “Patrick will talk to you.”

  Patrick lay down on the floor, put his dirty feet up on the silk couch, and lit a cigarette, tossing the match at a distant ashtray which, inevitably, he missed.

  “Do you smoke?” Patrick asked her.

  Unsure any more what that question implied one’s smoking at, Kate removed her own cigarettes from her purse and held them up in answer. She wriggled out of her coat, since no one had taken it from her, and leaning back, closed her eyes and put up her feet.

  “Do you really want tea, or would you like Scotch or something? You don’t have to stick with the tea just because you asked for it. We are all sufficiently impressed.”

  “Are Scotch and tea mutually exclusive?” Kate asked.

  Patrick got to his feet and crossed to a beautifully equipped bar. “Ice?” he asked. Kate nodded. He brought the drink across to her, putting the glass, which had dribbled, down on a polished mahogany table. Kate lifted the glass immediately and wiped the table off. She then sipped the drink rather quickly, so as not to have seemed to be wiping up after him. But he was not deceived.

  “All your generation drink,” he announced.

  “And all yours smell,” Kate pleasantly said. “Cheers!”

  Eleven

  ANGELICA and the tea arrived together, the tea wheeled in on a tea tray with a silver teapot and everything handsome about it, Angelica in clothes which resembled her brother’s, but were cleaner and rather less picturesque.

  “Shall I pour you a cup of tea, madam?” the maid asked.

  “Thank you,” Kate said. “If I might have a cup, I’ll help myself to the six or eight I intend to have afterward. No thank you, no cookies. I don’t suppose you two will join me.” Angelica shook her head; her brother did not trouble to answer. “Just sugar, thank you, no cream or lemon. Thank you very much.”

  Kate sipped the tea from the delicate teacup, and regarded the Jablons over its rim. She felt in no hurry, since they were unlikely to leave her until they had extracted from her, as they thought likely, all the information they could. One look had been sufficient to convince them that Kate was a source of information, certainly the best sort they were likely to come across for a while, and Kate was amused to realize how worried she had been about her welcome. Angelica, to do her justice, seemed glad that Kate had troubled to come out of personal interest, and said so.

  “I was very concerned about you,” Kate said, “and I did come to offer you some sort of comfort, if I could, though I felt convinced that you would find relief only in the truth, even if not expressed by the hitting of a mattress, or in dialogue with a pillow. Rather a good idea, that, I think; if you are forced to talk to someone, even a pillow standing in for someone, you get your thoughts and emotions into a certain order. Don’t glare, dear; I’m quite serious.”

  “Someone’s been talking to you.” Angelica glowered.

  “I am not a pariah,” Kate pleasantly said. She watched a certain determined stubbornness pass over Angelica’s face. It is not easy, when talking to a professional teacher more than twice your age, to learn more than you give away, and it was to the credit of Angelica’s intelligence that she was aware of this.

  “You know,” Kate said, putting down her teacup and picking up her Scotch, “I came here prepared to ask a great many questions, not only of both of you, but perhaps of the servants as well and certainly of the elevator men.”

  “The elevator men?”

  “Naturally. The question was, of course, how you got her out of the house without being seen. It’s all very well for the police to question people, but we all know how overworked the police are even when doing their jobs, and it seemed unlikely that the staff here would admit to having been, say, involved in a poker game in the basement at the operative moment. I thought that some incisive questions and the gentle waving of ten-dollar bills might discover more than the police had. Do you mind if I get myself another cup of tea?” Since this question elicited no response whatever, Kate removed her feet from the ottoman and, rising, walked to the tea table to refill her cup. “Perhaps I can push it nearer, to save steps,” she said, suiting the action to the words. She put a teaspoon of sugar in the tea, stirred it, sat down again, and put up her legs.

  “Look,” Patrick said.

  “No,” Kate said, “you listen. Where was I?”

  “You had just determined to bribe the elevator man to get the evidence you wanted.”

  “Crudely put, but accurate. I have, however, undetermined, which saves my character for the moment, not to mention my money. Because of course she wasn’t removed from here; she couldn’t have been. Not after I saw how this building works. A different set of men, of course, but run strictly and on the best old-fashioned principles. Did you say something?”

  Patrick had, some fatigued obscenity, but he did not choose to repeat it.

  “As to the other girls, they each live in a house of the same sort as this, not quite so stiff in its manner, perhaps, but unlikely to find itself with a wholly deserted lobby at ten o’clock in the evening or, shall we say, nine-thirty. I had planned also to ask you a great many questions, if you would allow me, and a few pointed ones if you wouldn’t, but I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going to ask you anything. I’m going to tell you something instead. All right?”

  “Miss Fansler,” Angelica said, “I haven’t been feeling very well. In fact, I just got back from the hospital and …”

  “Yes, my dear, as Miss Tyringham would say. And I thought it very wise of you to go to the hospital, murmuring incoherently under sedation, having hysterics, in short, refusing to say anything at all. It was certainly understandable that you would be feeling awful. There are not many people who are absolutely better off dead, but I’m afraid your mother may have been such a person. Does that sound frightful? It was meant to. My version of mattress hitting and pillow talking. Though when people we have wished dead die, we have to try a little harder not to dive straight down a well of remorse, particularly if we’ve killed them.”

  “This is blackmail,” Patrick said.r />
  “Yes, it is, rather. Because, if you don’t listen to the story, someone else may, and that could be disturbing since you don’t know yet what the story is. When I’ve finished it, however, if you want me to, I will simply leave. I am like your grandfather in this, if in nothing else: If I give you my word, I will keep it. Terrible as he made you feel, if he told you that he would do something in two hours, you would believe, would you not, that indeed he would keep his word?”

  “O.K., you’ve made your point. No doubt the two of you share all the same honorable attitudes. You’ve probably already been to see him?”

  “I have, as a matter of fact. I’ve just come from his office, well, a few hours ago anyway; I asked his permission to come here and see you, and we talked about Vietnam and one or two other things. We don’t see eye to eye on any of them, not a single one, but I was reminded of duels in the age of chivalry when there were agreed-upon rules, and one abided by them. I think your grandfather is mistaken, but that is neither here nor there. Mrs. Banister could probably handle this best, but for certain reasons …”

  Kate, looking down at the brother and sister, both regarding her with looks unpleasantly compounded of distrust, curiosity, and disdain, was reminded of Miss Tyringham’s class in ethics, the results of the questionnaire. Clearly, Kate told herself, I can’t do anything right, but I can at least not be accused of hypocrisy.

  “Mrs. Banister hasn’t got anything to do with it,” Angelica said.

  “With what?” Kate asked. She raised her eyes to meet Angelica’s.

  “Oh, cool it, Angie,” Patrick said.

  “Sorry,” Kate said. “Believe it or not, I’m trying like hell to be straightforward and simple, in fact, I’m oozing sincerity from every pore, but I sound as though I were leading you up the garden path. Why is communication so bloody difficult?”

  “Because you’re trying to find something out,” Patrick said. “You’re manipulative.”

  “Oh, balderdash,” Kate said. “I beg your pardon. Back to the beginning, one step after another, stop me if I set a foot off the line, that is, if you care about the truth at all. You always say you do, your generation. I sometimes wonder if there are such things as generations. It’s like talking about all women, all men, all children—nonsense, really. Here we go.”