High Rhymes and Misdemeanors (13 page)

“Actually we were curious about one of your books,” Peter said.
“That Hour Foretold.”

Lady Venetia continued to smile, but Grace caught the flicker of her beady eyes.

“My masterpiece,” she murmured.

“In the course of your research did you happen across any reference to—”

“To …?” Lady Vee cut in quite sharply.

“To some item of value associated with Augusta Leigh? Perhaps a gift from Byron?”

“What kind of gift?”

“Jewels?”

“Jewels?” Was it Grace’s imagination or was there a hint of relief in Lady Venetia’s expression. “Not that I recall. Of course B. was a generous man.”

“No family jewels?”

“I’m sure you don’t mean that the way it sounds.” Lady Vee smiled coyly.

Even Peter looked slightly uncomfortable.

Lady Venetia refilled her sherry glass and mused aloud, “I suppose there were the Wentworth jewels, but they would have been the typical heirlooms of a noble house. You would be more a judge of that kind of thing than I.” She gave Peter a sly smile. “I can’t remember any particular reference to Byron’s mother’s jewels, nor the Milbanke woman’s. No, Peter, my
deah,
I really can’t think of any jewels associated with Byron. Why?”

“What about a missing manuscript?” put in Grace, disregarding Peter’s look of displeasure.

Lady Vee nearly choked on her sherry. “Manuscript? What manuscript?”

“We were hoping—”

“No manuscript,” Peter cut in. The look he shot Grace reminded her of the look she used with great effect on her unruly tenth graders.

“But Miss Hollister has said—”

“Miss Hollister has old manuscripts on the brain,” Peter said with less than his usual charm. “They are her forte, you see. She’s a highly respected professor of Romantic literature.”

This exaggeration had an instant effect on Lady Vee, who froze, the thimbleful of sherry an inch from her lips. “Indeed?” she managed.

“Yes,” said Peter. “Her help has been invaluable.”

“Inval …?” Lady Venetia blinked. “You mean in regard to these … these jewels?”

“Now that would be telling,” Peter returned with a coyness to match Lady Vee’s. He set his sherry glass aside and rose in a fluid movement. Grace had to admire both his poise and his sense of timing; the old woman was practically goggling her dismay. “A friend of mine believes such an item may soon come on the market.”

“If such an item exists, and were to come on the market, I would be very much interested,” Lady Venetia said. “I would hope our many years of friendship would entitle me to the right of first refusal?”

Peter, already strolling toward the doorway, tossed back casually, “You will certainly be one of the first to hear from me.”

They were halfway down the grand marble staircase before Grace got out, “There! You see, I
knew
—”

“This isn’t proof.”

“You know darn well—if you don’t believe she’s involved, why did you set yourself up?”

“I didn’t. I was already set up. Delon was murdered in my house, remember?”

Grace found it difficult to argue, trotting to keep up with Peter’s long strides.

They went out through a brick courtyard. A section of the original stables had been converted to a garage. A silver Rolls Royce was parked in the drive. The chauffeur knelt beside it, polishing the sparkling chrome work.

Grace barely spared the man a glance, then did a double take and stopped in her tracks.

Peter’s viselike grip started her moving again.

“Did you see—” She tried to look back over her shoulder.

“Later.”

A wall of hedges shut the courtyard from sight. They climbed into Peter’s Land Rover. Peter started the engine.

“Didn’t you see who that was?” Grace demanded, turning to stare at him.

“I saw.” Peter reversed smoothly in a wide arc, one arm across the back of the seat.

Grace was gazing in the rearview disbelievingly. “But Peter, it’s Mutt!”

The police were dragging the tarn behind Craddock House when Peter and Grace returned, following their visit to Lady Vee’s.

“What are they looking for?” Grace asked Peter’s stern profile.

“What do you think they’re looking for?”

She had almost forgotten about the poor little murdered man in the secret passage, preoccupied as she was by the promise of a long-lost work by Byron.

Her eyes met his. “Will they find … it?”

Peter turned away from the window. “If they look hard enough.”

After this he opened the shop and conducted business as though nothing more were on his mind than matching the right customer to the right antiquity.

Grace amused herself thumbing through some old copies of
Punch
and reading up on the life and times of Lord Byron.

The afternoon passed without event, but toward teatime the searchers signaled a find. Glued to the window, Grace watched the commotion by the water’s edge as the minions of the law bustled around the thing they had recovered from the cold deep water.

At last the body of Danny Delon was loaded into an ambulance and carted off into the dusk.

The official cars departed. The tarn was once again still as black glass, reflecting the sinking sun and crooked shadow of trees.

The guttural roar of a Harley split the silence. As Grace watched, a lone black figure on a giant chrome bike pulled out of the woods and disappeared down the highway.

“They found him,” Grace informed Peter when he came upstairs for dinner a couple of hours later.

“Did they?” He seemed unmoved. “Then I suppose we can expect another visit from the local constabulary.”

He went in to wash, the subject apparently closed.

“Well, Miss Hollister, what an impression of our country you must have!” Chief Constable Heron said, ushering Grace into his inner office and closing the door on Peter, who had already had his turn at being questioned. “Have a seat, young lady.”

It was some time since anyone had referred to Grace as a “young lady.” She decided it was sort of sweet. She had a seat and a cup of tea and tried not to let her wariness show. Heron was practically rubbing his hands in satisfaction at having separated her from Peter.

She suspected that leaving Peter to cool his heels while she was interviewed was a deliberate ploy, designed to make him fear what she might be blabbing. She knew it was vital that she did not reveal anything about Lady Vee’s connection to the lost manuscript, but she had seen enough episodes of
Columbo
to know how tricky the police could be in their interrogations. Of course she was not being interrogated, she was filing a report. Still, she felt as though she was going to be interrogated despite the tea and sympathy.

The chief constable smiled at her with fatherly reassurance, though his currant-colored eyes stayed sharp and shrewd on her face.

“Now tell me about the evening before last, Miss Hollister.”

Grace related the version of events she and Peter had agreed upon.

The chief constable jotted down some notes and said, “So this man demanded your handbag, and you declined to give it to him?”

Keep it simple, stupid, Grace warned herself.

“It all happened so fast,” she excused.

“Of course, of course. Most upsetting. But you did run a short way down the street? With your hand-bag?”

“I guess so. I don’t remember that part really.”

“And during this, the other man held a gun on Mr. Fox?”

“Right.”

“And did you have the impression that these gentlemen knew each other?”

“The muggers?”

The chief constable frowned. “Mr. Fox and the man with the gun, Miss Hollister.”

“Uh … well, no.” She added hastily, “I couldn’t hear what they said, of course.”

“Of course.” Heron stroked his mustache like the villain in a nineteenth century melodrama. Except Heron was the good guy and Grace was keeping company with thieves. “I imagine we’ll lift a print or two off his revolver.”

“Oh. Yes.” Grace drank more tea.

Outside Heron’s window the sun was shining and bees were humming. It was a lulling sound, but Grace knew she could not afford to be lulled. She had to stay “frosty,” as her students would say.

“How well do you know Peter Fox, Miss Hollister?”

Cautiously, Grace answered, “As I told you, we only met the other night.”

“The night you pulled him out of the stream at Kentmere?”

Grace nodded.

“But you are staying with him now? I thought you were going to meet friends in Scotland?”

Grace smiled and shrugged. “It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind, Chief Constable.” Good God, she sounded like someone out of a book! The kind of book she discouraged girls from reading.

“Would you by any chance have an idea as to the identity of an unidentified man we found in the lake behind Craddock House?”

“Me? No. I saw you searching for him yesterday. Did someone report him missing?”

The chief constable said patiently, “If that were the case he would not be unidentified, Miss Hollister.”

“Of course. I was thinking perhaps one of the village inns …”

“You think he might have been vacationing locally?”

“I have no idea. It seems logical, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t. I believe the man was a criminal.”

“Well, I guess criminals take vacations like everyone else.”

Heron eyed her for a long moment, then cleared his throat. “You seem like a nice girl, Miss Hollister. Will you take a word of advice?”

“I don’t know. I’ll listen to it.”

“Shake loose Peter Fox. He’s a ‘wrong ’un.’ Oh, I know he seems an affable chap, but he’s been involved in some most unsavory dealings.”

She had been determined not to discuss Peter, but she heard herself saying, “But he’s legitimate now surely?”

Heron shook his head. “Once a thief, always a thief. He’s been in trouble, one way or another, since he was a boy. And now … well, matters may be more serious.”

She knew she must not address the implication of murder. She tried to express natural curiosity. “Oh. Then he’s lived here all his life?”

“Er. No. Fox is a stranger to these parts. Only lived here four or five years. But we got the complete dossier on him when he settled here.” He shook his head. “Some people find that kind of thing romantic. Stealing jewels. But all it comes down to is taking what isn’t yours because you don’t want to do a decent day’s work.”

“I don’t approve of stealing, naturally,” Grace said. “But I do believe people can change—if they want to.”

Heron said heavily, “But that’s the catch, miss. How many crooks really want to?”

Peter was not in the waiting room when Grace left Heron’s office. The constable looked up out of his paper and shrugged when she asked where he had disappeared.

Thanking him, Grace stepped outside the police station. Tourists strolled along the shady street carrying shopping bags and cameras. The architecture in this part of Innisdale was a little more modern, mostly Edwardian period. On the far side of the promenade was a park, and through blossoming trees, she could see a small black wrought-iron bandstand. She almost expected to hear Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band tuning up.

There were a number of inviting shops housed in the Edwardian buildings: bakeries, jewelers, a confectioner, another antique store, even a fortune-teller’s. There was also a Barclay’s Bank, which reminded Grace that she had yet to replace her traveler’s checks, although she had faithfully canceled all her credit cards after the theft.

She considered walking up the street to the library, but she had no idea how long she would have to wait for Peter. Instead, she walked toward the car park. Grace spotted the Land Rover but no Peter. She reached the vehicle and checked the doors, but the Rover was still locked. Odd.

It seemed safe enough in the broad daylight. She crossed the street and paused in front of a shop window offering hats: wonderful hats. Dream hats. The kind of hats the late Princess Diana had made fashionable once more. Hats with feathers or wisps of veil or fabulous bows. Grace gazed longingly through the glass. Inches from her nose perched a black felt wide-brimmed hat trimmed with violets and white cabbage roses and green velvet leaves. The perfect hat to go with her black dress coat at home. The hat she had been looking for all her adult life.

For a few moments Grace stared in the window reflecting that she had no money, no charge cards—nothing with which to purchase the perfect hat.

Appropriately enough, a shadow blotted out the sun. Grace realized that someone loomed up behind her. She could see his reflection in the glass. A tall, tall figure in a white suit and … a turban.

Grace gasped and whirled around.

The man behind her was enormous, tall and broad as a genie poured fresh from the bottle. He was Indian, perhaps that was what triggered such outlandish analogy. He was an outlandish-looking man. His cheeks were tattooed and he wore gold earrings. He stared down at Grace, who stared up at him.