“You’re guessing,” Gilbert told Lucia.
“No I’m not,” she replied. “The wealthy think their servants are so much wallpaper. I heard quite a bit before I left, and since my friend Gisela replaced me, I kept right on hearing things.” She got up and refilled the coffee cups. “Of course, when Arthur and Dolores were in public, they acted as happy as hogs in slops. And Dolores and Felicia were always ice-cold polite to each other. Until Felicia died, of course.”
The kitchen was wonderfully warm and bright. Mark leaned back in his chair. He eyed the people ranged around the table: Leslie’s elegantly sculpted features and Lucia’s grandmotherly ones, Jenny’s commanding jaw line and Hilary’s Bambi eyes, Gilbert’s audacious moustache and Preston’s affable smile. He thought, I can trust everyone here. They’re family. The thought would have been relaxing but for the darkness that had gathered outside the window, silently, when he wasn’t looking.
“Maybe Arthur and Dolores were like Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson,” said Hilary. “The Duke and Duchess of Windsor. There was so much scandal over their marriage they didn’t want the even bigger scandal of divorcing.”
Preston said, “Odd you should bring that up, Hilary. If Edward Coburg was Edward VII’s son, Arthur was Edward VIII’s cousin.”
“I heard that rumor,” said Lucia. “Jenny, you might be related to the royal family.”
Jenny’s brows rose and fell in caustic comment. “I’m impressed.”
Laughing, Preston reached for the cardboard box Mark had left by the sideboard. He dug around and produced several pictures and a sheaf of photocopies. “I don’t have any bombshells as big as yours,” he said to Jenny and Hilary, “because this is just supposition. Call it a sparkler, maybe. Here are Vicky and Edward, Arthur’s parents. Jenny’s grandparents.”
Two sepia-tinted faces peered upward from the tablecloth. The pretty if somewhat petulant woman wore a typical turn-of-the-century hairdo, her tresses piled so high on her head she seemed to be balancing a hassock. The man’s face was almost obscured by a moustache, beard, and sideburns; only his dark, liquid eyes peered almost furtively out. The woman didn’t look like the ghost, Mark thought. But then, the ghost hadn’t really had a face. “Hair was as much in fashion then as in the sixties,” he commented.
“It’s hard to see much behind the facial shrubbery,” said Hilary, “but Kenneth does have those eyes.”
Jenny pulled the pictures closer, her expression not so much greeting long-lost relatives as wondering why these people had decided to show up for dinner.
“And here is Edward VII’s son Albert, called Eddy. Or ‘Collar and Cuffs’ because of his long neck and arms.” Preston set down another photo, of a young man in tweeds posed against a rock. His face was squashed between a cap and a high collar; only his large, luminous eyes showed he was alive and not a stuffed dummy. “Maybe he died in 1892,” Preston went on. “Maybe he came here. Have you ever wondered why, if Eddy did become Edward Coburg, he was cut off from his inheritance and exiled?”
Gilbert was reading one of the copies. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Nope. There’s actually a theory that Eddy was Jack the Ripper.”
The lights dimmed. Mark felt his shoulders contract; he took Hilary’s cold hand beneath the table. A car drove by outside, and next door the wind chimes jangled. Jenny’s voice was very steady. “On what evidence?”
“Only circumstantial,” Leslie told her. “Eddy even has an alibi for the date of one murder. Of course, witnesses had all sorts of reasons, from money to patriotism to affection for old Queen Victoria, to lie.”
“Appearances being all,” Jenny replied. Her eyes were as dark as those of the men—or man—in the photographs. They narrowed, collapsing time and space into a black hole of possibility.
“Supposedly Eddy caught syphilis from a prostitute,” said Preston. “That’s why he went around cutting—murdering them. By all accounts he was a pretty weak character, not too bright, and easily led. It’s just as well he never became king. I don’t know whether Edward Coburg had any diseases, but he certainly did murder his wife in the same manner as Jack the Ripper.”
“What matters,” said Hilary with a concerned glance at Mark, “is whether Arthur believed his father was Jack the Ripper.” She didn’t add, “and whether Jenny believes he was.”
Jenny sighed. “Arthur had a portfolio of original Jack the Ripper material. He believed what was said about Edward. He didn’t want his parents’ money. He wouldn’t allow pictures of them in the house. First he traveled to get away from the house, then he brought his collections home with him, to make Osborne his alone.” She got up abruptly and walked over to the sink, staring out the window at the lights of the neighborhood filtered through the trees. That’s all she needs, Mark thought. Bloodstains on her DNA.
Preston said, “Sorry, Jenny.”
Lucia started gathering the dessert plates. “Come on, Jenny, help me do the dishes.”
With a bleak smile, Jenny picked up a dish towel.
“Edward Coburg’s identity is only marginally relevant,” Leslie pointed out. “Sure, Nathan might have discovered the stories about Eddy and Jack. The question is, what did Nathan do to get himself murdered?”
“Nothing!” Hilary replied hotly.
Mark squeezed her hand. “Nathan was a threat to someone,” he explained. “He knew something about the artifacts. He might have known something about Felicia’s murder. He had something going with Sharon. There’s a connection among those things—there has to be.”
“Even though Felicia had been dead fifteen years and divorced thirty when Vasarian traced the artifacts to Arthur?” Gilbert asked.
Everyone sat caught between doubt and disgruntlement while water splashed and dishes clinked. At last a shrug like a sine wave rippled around the table. “Vasarian sure wasn’t around when Felicia was killed,” said Leslie. “Sharon and Kenneth—Travis, too, for that matter—were just kids. Dolores was out of town. Arthur stood trial, yes, but his alibi stood up. Maybe one of them killed Nathan, but how could any of them have killed Felicia?”
Preston picked up the box and dumped its contents onto the table. Several envelopes were labeled, “Newspapers 1975”; others were labeled “Trial transcripts”. “The details are in here.”
“I think maybe I’ll ask around,” said Lucia.
Mark couldn’t quite focus on the newspaper articles, even though some of them he remembered seeing years ago as he followed the story from medium to medium—jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. His head felt hollow, his stomach overstuffed. Interesting, how chili peppers cured nausea.
Beside him Hilary yawned and spread out the photographs of the costume ball. In some of the pictures the participants’ faces were revealed; in others they were masked. Leslie and Gilbert arranged the photos, matching costumes, identifying each person. At last Preston said, “Zapata’s right—they’re all here. Dolores as Cleopatra, I guess, and Kenneth might be Alexander the Great.”
“Look at Sharon’s Victorian outfit,” said Gilbert. “You think she’s imitating either her grandmother or her grandmother’s ghost?”
A breeze at the back of Mark’s neck came from the flutter of Jenny’s dishtowel. She stood polishing a plate, peering over his shoulder. “I would have thought Vasarian saw himself as one of the Three Musketeers, or as Cardinal Richelieu, for that matter. But he’s dressed as a crusader, a Knight Templar!”
Mark had to admit Vasarian looked good, his silver hair complementing the chain mail, the white tunic and its red cross simple and attention-getting. “He’s carrying a sword. A big one. I wonder if it’s real….” Even if it were, he told himself, Nathan wasn’t killed with a sword.
Hilary rubbed her eyes. “I’ll take all this stuff home with me and study it over the weekend.”
Preston dumped out another envelope, revealing photo after photo of horses contorting themselves in front of recalcitrant cows. There was Travis, his usually va
cant expression intent, his stocky body leaning gracefully to the side, he and his horse defying gravity in perfect accord.
“Zapata said there was some controversy,” Mark pointed out, “and that they had to go to instant replay. That means he’s on videotape, too.”
“Rats,” said Leslie.
The multiple eyes of the photographs seemed to glance suspiciously from side to side. Mark blinked sand from his own eyes. Suddenly the lights were too bright and the voices too loud. Hilary was drooping visibly; the others were becoming frustrated. He could sympathize with that. “Put everything back in the box, Preston. I’ll read those clippings when my brain’s working again. Thanks for the delicious dinner, Lucia.”
“Get some rest,” Lucia counseled.
Everyone expressed his or her appreciation and trooped out the front door. Just outside the streetlamp’s circle of light was the white blotch of a police car with one of Zapata’s minions leaning against its fender.
“No nightmares, now,” Mark directed Jenny.
“Chance would be a fine thing,” she replied skeptically.
Hilary shook her head in agreement. Yeah, Mark thought, I don’t think there’s any chance at all we’re going to avoid nightmares. He settled the cardboard box beneath his arm, took Hilary’s hand, and plunged into the rose-scented darkness.
Chapter Twenty
Someone was expounding on rose cultivation—grafting, rooting, mulching. Hilary struggled into wakefulness and realized the voice wasn’t emanating from her dreams. Her clock radio was dutifully telling her it was time to get up and go to work, but instead of the usual newscast it was broadcasting the weekend lawn and garden show.
It was Saturday. She closed her eyes, waiting for her brain to shed what was apparently a coating of molasses. “Sorry about setting your radio,” said a sleepy male voice, “but I have to work today.”
Hilary’s eyes flew open again. Mark had told the police officer outside Lucia’s house that he would be staying with Hilary at the condo. The officer had followed them there and hovered solicitously while they checked the doors and windows. On the late news a brief mention of a drive-by shooting had featured Frank Yeager giving the play-by-play to the reporter.
When Mark and Hilary had climbed into bed together, they’d exchanged wry smiles and gone to sleep. She decided she liked waking up with him, too. “I’ll put on the coffee. English muffin? Eggs? Lark’s tongues?”
“Anything, thanks.” He and his paisley pajama bottoms wove their way toward the bathroom.
Hilary went down to the kitchen. “Hello, Minnie,” she said to the tiny rodent shape whisking away at her approach. She fed Mark and sped him on his way with a kiss. “I’ll drop by later on. But you’d better take this key, just in case.”
He returned her kiss, with interest. “Keep everything locked, okay?”
“Don’t worry.” Hilary locked the door behind him. She carried Preston’s box of papers into the living room and sat down on the couch, tugging her jeans down her thighs so that the clasp of the inseam wasn’t quite so snug. The sensations she’d experienced Thursday night played themselves over and over in the back of her mind, a soundtrack accompanying her every thought. First the pleasure, then the pain, then the comfort, and at last the deadening sickness—the scene might have been painted by Dali or Bosch. Overall, though, it had been a positive moment. Thanks to Mark.
No thanks to the neighborhood murderer. Hilary sympathized with the Coburgs’ carpenter; she seemed to feel eyes on her back, even here in her own living room. Someone had been watching her and Mark. She squirmed more in rage than embarrassment, and adjusted her jeans again. At least she wasn’t facing this, too, alone. The friendly faces around Lucia’s table last night had been like a new improved jumbo-sized family.
With a grimace of determination—by clinging to determination she might forget fear—Hilary pulled the photos of Felicia’s sweater from the box and two needles and a ball of yarn from her knitting bag. She cast on a row of stitches and began imitating the patterns in the sweater. Maybe Felicia had left a message like, “Dolores will kill me on March 22.”
She considered the initials of the pattern names. She drew imaginary lines from nobble to nobble. That series of leaf stitches was probably meant to signify a rose. Surprise, surprise.
Hilary went to the phone and called Lucia. “I was wondering whether you found Felicia wearing a jacket or a sweater….Just a blouse, despite the cold night?…Yeah, maybe she’d had the sweater on and taken it off somewhere in the house. Maybe someone picked it up and hid it—the crate that contained the figurine had a wisp of pink yarn caught on it….No, nothing specific, just brainstorming. Thanks.”
Pouring herself more coffee, Hilary tackled the photos of the costume ball. Nathan had been killed between nine-thirty and eleven-thirty. Unfortunately there was no way of telling when these pictures had been taken.
Unmasked, the Coburgs were easy enough to identify. Kenneth’s dark, heavy-lidded eyes and square chin were a living version of a Roman portrait bust, making his vaguely Greco-Roman outfit very appropriate. But his legs, encased in shining greaves, were rather spindly, not nearly as nice as Mark’s in a kilt. Sharon was quite pretty in her flounces and piled Gibson Girl hairdo, smiling secretively at the camera as though she were wearing a leopard-skin bikini beneath her voluminous skirts. Dolores’s earrings looked like chandeliers, but then, Cleopatra probably had carried half the wealth of Alexandria in her ears. The Egyptian sheath set Dolores’s slender figure off to perfection, even though the black wig and heavy eye shadow made her look as pale as the ghost on Osborne’s staircase. Vasarian looked very noble in his knight’s garb, ready to battle any number of dragons. There were fewer photos of him; he’d been at the museum until ten, supposedly.
Masked, the Coburgs and their henchman blended into the crowd. A second knight was wearing a long, concealing cloak. A woman in a Scarlett O’Hara outfit looked somewhat like Sharon. And there was a Roman in a toga, and some kind of gold lame enchantress with black hair….
With a snort of impatience Hilary put the photos away. Any of the Coburgs could’ve ducked out long enough to murder Nathan. Vasarian could have killed him after leaving the museum. Or Travis could have—the Coliseum and the cutting horse contest were only a couple of miles from Osborne. Hilary wondered what he and Sharon had been fighting about in their car.
Maybe Sharon had been coming on to Nathan in order to keep an eye on him, and blew the whistle on him when he found out about the fake artifacts. Not that Hilary could see Sharon and/or Travis engineering such a scam. They could all be working together, Dolores, Kenneth, and Vasarian the brains, Sharon and Travis the brawn. Except Hilary had no proof anyone but Vasarian was dishonest. And that didn’t mean he had wielded the knife.
She rinsed out her coffee cup, returned to the couch, and compared her square of knitting to the photo. On the back of the sweater, among the ripple, zigzag, and lozenge stitches, were the squiggles she hadn’t been able to identify. They looked as though they’d been drawn on top of the other stitches…. “Idiot!” she exclaimed. “They’re letters!”
Her fingertip traced a capital A, then a small r and a t. Beyond a row of garter stitches was a capital F. Arthur and Felicia? Hilary tried the photos upside down. If she squinted just a bit, she could make out right angles, and a protuberance…. An impression of Osborne House?
She tossed her knitting onto the couch, shoved the photos into her purse, and took off for the excavation.
The sky wasn’t as hazy as it had been yesterday. The overcast had curdled, and the sun swam amid lumps of gray and white cloud. There was no breeze, and in fact seemed to be very little air.
The dig looked like a crossword puzzle, unexcavated angles of ground separating tidy squares of foundation or fence line or root. Most of the students had come today, but even so, they were spread thinly across the debris, working on half a dozen trenches. The burned lump of the infamous space heater sat truculently on t
he rim of the garage excavation.
Mark and Jenny stood beside the toolshed gesturing at the field. Mark’s tie-dyed purple shirt proclaimed, “Of all the things I’ve lost, I miss my mind the most.” Jenny’s shirt was yellow, announcing, “Glasgow’s Miles Better”. Hilary felt underdressed in her pink shirt with the Cats logo, but she felt sure Graymalkin would approve.
The little cat was stalking something among the crape myrtles lining the foundation of the house. As Hilary watched, two mockingbirds exploded from the underbrush. Graymalkin spun in mid air. The birds made strafing runs at her back until she disappeared shamefacedly beneath the porch.
“…just shops, gas stations, some houses,” Mark was saying. “No banks with vaults or anything like that. For years there was a brick wall between Osborne and the buildings, but that was settling pretty badly by—well, by the mid-seventies. It’s the clay soil here, it contracts and expands. Very few houses have cellars—especially not the newer ones. You get fault lines in the foundations as it is.”
Jenny’s characteristic compressed energy made her nod more expressive than someone else’s hair-pulling and foot-stamping. “I just hope Arthur put the Cross in something more waterproof than a wooden crate.”
Wincing at the prospect—as though the Cross being chewed by rats wasn’t bad enough—Hilary pulled out the pictures of the sweater. “Look—Art-F, and a rose, and a schematic of Osborne.”
“You sure the F doesn’t come before the Art?” Mark asked with an impish grin. “Some kind of editorial comment?”
Hilary pushed at his chest. Jenny laughed. From the garage came Amy’s supersonic giggle. “What is it?” Preston asked from his drawing board.
“Another dried up garden hose,” said Hong.
Sighing, Mark strolled over to look.
“Do you think Felicia was hoping to get back together with Arthur?” Hilary asked Jenny. “In spite of what he did to her?”
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