White Fire (25 page)
All in all, a most satisfactory rise.
As she put away the teacup and was folding the napkin, she became aware that a man was standing in the doorway. She was much too well bred to show surprise, but she paused just a moment before giving the napkin a final fold and placing it away in her desk. He was a rather striking-looking man—tall and pale, with white-blond hair and eyes the color of glacial ice, dressed in a well-cut black suit—but she did not recognize him, and visitors were usually announced.
“Forgive me,” he said in an American accent—southern—accompanied by a charming smile. “I don’t mean to intrude, Ms. Pembroke. But the secretary in your outer office was away from her desk, and, well, we
did
have an appointment.”
Dorothea Pembroke opened her book and glanced at the current day’s page. Yes, indeed: she did have an eleven fifteen appointment with a Mr. Pendergast. She recalled that he had particularly asked to see her, as opposed to an administrator—most unusual. Still, he had not been announced, and she did not hold with such informality. But the man had a winning way about him, and she was prepared to overlook this breach of propriety.
“May I sit down?” he asked, with another smile.
Miss Pembroke nodded toward an empty seat before her desk. “What, may I inquire, do you wish to speak with me about?”
“I wish to visit one of your properties.”
“Visit?” she said, allowing the faintest tinge of disapproval to color her voice. “We have volunteers out in front who can assist you with that.” Really, it was too much, her being bothered with such a trivial request.
“I do apologize,” the man replied. “I don’t wish to take up your valuable time. I spoke about the matter with Visitor Services, and they referred me to you.”
“I see.” That did put another spin on things. And, really, the man had the most courtly manners. Even his accent spoke of breeding—not one of those harsh, barbarous American drawls. “Before we get started, we have a little regulation here. We require visitor identification, if you please.”
The man smiled again. He had beautifully white teeth. He reached into his black suit and removed a leather wallet, which he laid open upon the table, exposing a brilliance of gold on top with a photo ID card below. Miss Pembroke was startled.
“Oh! Goodness! The Federal Bureau of Investigation? Is this…a criminal matter?”
The man gave a most winning smile. “Oh, no, don’t be the slightest bit alarmed. This is a personal matter, nothing official. I would have shown you my passport, but it’s in the hotel safe.”
Miss Pembroke allowed her fluttering heart to subside. She had never been involved in a criminal matter and looked on such a possibility with abhorrence.
“Well, then, Mr. Pendergast, that is reassuring, and I am at your service. Please tell me the property you’d like to visit?”
“A cottage named Covington Grange.”
“Covington Grange. Covington Grange.” Miss Pembroke was not familiar with the name. But then again, the Trust had hundreds of properties in its care—including many of England’s greatest estates—and she could not be expected to remember all of them.
“Half a moment.” She turned to her computer, moused through a few menus, and entered the name into the waiting field. Several photos and a long textual entry appeared on the screen. As she read the entry, she realized she did have a faint recollection of the site. No wonder the people at Visitor Services recommended the man speak to an administrator.
She turned back. “Covington Grange,” she said again. “Formerly owned by Leticia Wilkes, who died in 1980, leaving it to the government.”
The man named Pendergast nodded.
“I’m very sorry to tell you, Mr. Pendergast, that a visit to Covington Grange is out of the question.”
At this news, a look of devastation crossed the man’s face. He struggled to master himself. “The visit needn’t be a long one, Ms. Pembroke.”
“I’m sorry, it’s quite impossible. According to the file, the cottage has been shut up for decades, closed to the public while the Trust decides what to do with it.”
Poor man—he looked so desolated that even Dorothea Pembroke’s hard and ever so correct heart began to soften. “It’s suffered serious damage from the elements,” she said, by way of explanation. “It is unsafe and requires extensive conservation before we could ever allow anyone inside. And at present, our funds—as you might imagine—are limited. There are numerous other properties, more important properties, that also need attention. And, to be frank, it is of marginal historical interest.”
Mr. Pendergast looked down, clasping and unclasping his hands. Finally, he spoke. “I thank you for taking the time to explain the situation. It makes perfect sense. It’s just—” And here, Mr. Pendergast looked up again, meeting her gaze— “It’s just that I am Leticia Wilkes’s last remaining descendant.”
Miss Pembroke looked at him in surprise.
“She was my grandmother. Of the family line, only I remain. My mother died of cancer last year, and my father was killed in a train accident the year before. My…sister was killed just three weeks ago, in a robbery gone bad. So, you see…” Mr. Pendergast paused a moment to collect himself. “You see, Covington Grange is all I have left. It is where I spent my summers as a boy, before my mother took us to America. It contains all the happy memories I have of my lost family.”
“Oh, I see.” This was a heartbreaking story indeed.
“I just wanted to see the place one last time, just once, before the contents go to wrack and ruin. And…in particular, there’s an old family photo album I remember paging through as a boy, put up in a cupboard, which I’d like to take—if that’s all right with you. I have nothing,
nothing
, of the family. We left everything behind when we went to America.”
Miss Pembroke listened to this tragic story, pity welling up in her heart. After a moment she cleared her throat. Pity was one thing,
duty
quite another.
“As I’ve said, I’m very sorry,” she said. “But for all the reasons I’ve told you, it’s simply out of the question. And in any case all the contents belong to the Trust, even the photographs, which might hold historic interest.”
“But they’re just rotting away! It’s been over thirty years and nothing’s been done!” Pendergast’s voice had taken on a wheedling tone. “Just ten minutes inside? Five? Nobody would have to know besides you and me.”
This insinuation—that she might be privy to an underhanded scheme unbeknownst to the Trust—broke the spell. “That is out of the question. I am surprised you would make such an overture.”
“And that’s your final word?”
Miss Pembroke gave a curt nod.
“I see.” The man’s air changed. The forlorn expression, the faint tremor in the voice, vanished. He sat back in his chair and regarded her with quite a different expression than before. There was suddenly something in the expression—something Miss Pembroke could not quite put a finger on—that was ever so faintly alarming.
“This is of such importance to me,” said the man, “that I will go to unreasonable lengths to achieve it.”
“I’m not sure what that means, but my mind is made up,” she said with absolute firmness.
“I greatly fear that your recalcitrance leaves me no choice.” And, reaching into his pocket, the FBI agent pulled out a quire of papers and held them up.
“What is this?” she demanded.
“I have information here that might prove of interest to you.” The man’s tone of voice had changed, as well. “I understand your family used to reside at Chiddingham Place?”
“Not that it can be of any interest to you, but they still do.”
“Yes. On the fourth floor. The material I think you’ll find to be particularly interesting concerns your grandfather.” He placed the papers on her desk with a courtly motion. “I have here information—
incontrovertible
information—that during the final months of his business, just before he went bankrupt, he borrowed against the value of the stocks of his own shareholders in a desperate attempt to keep the company alive. To do so, he not only committed serious financial fraud, but he also lied to the bank, claiming the securities as his own.” He paused. “His criminal actions left many of his shareholders penniless, among whom were a number of widows and pensioners who, subsequently, died in abject penury. I fear the story makes highly unpleasant reading.”
He paused.
“I’m sure, Ms. Pembroke, you would not wish the good name of your grandfather—and of the Pembroke family by extension—to be sullied.” The man paused to display his white teeth. “So wouldn’t it be in your best interests to give me temporary access to Covington Grange? A small thing. I think it would work out best for everyone—don’t you?”
It was that final, cold smile—those small, even, perfect teeth—that did it. Miss Dorothea Pembroke went rigid. Then, slowly, she rose from her chair. Just as slowly, she picked up the papers the man Pendergast had left on her desk. And then, with a disdainful motion, she tossed them at his feet.
“You have the effrontery to come into my office and attempt to blackmail me?” Her voice remained remarkably calm, surprising her. “I have never in my life been subjected to such appalling behavior. You, sir, are nothing more than a confidence man. I wouldn’t be surprised if that story you told me was as false as I suspect that badge is.”
“True or false, the information I have on your grandfather is rock-solid. Give me what I want or I hand it over to the police. Think of your family.”
“My duty is to my office and the truth. No less, no more. If you wish to destroy my family’s name, if you wish to drag us through the muck, if you wish to take what little financial security we have—so be it. I shall live with that. What I shall
not
live with is a breach of my responsibility. And so I say to you, Mr. Pendergast—” she extended her arm, pointing a steady finger at the exit, her voice quiet yet unyielding— “leave this building at once, or I shall have you bodily ejected. Good day.”
Standing on the front steps of the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, Agent Pendergast glanced around for a moment, the look of exasperation slowly giving away to a very different expression: admiration. True courage sometimes revealed itself in the most unlikely places. Few could have resisted such a thorough assault; Miss Pembroke, who was, after all, just doing her job, was one in a thousand. His thin lips twitched in a smile. Then he tossed the papers into a nearby trash can. And—as he descended the steps, heading for the station and the train back to London—he quoted under his breath: “‘To Sherlock Holmes she is always
the
woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex…’”
M
ockey Jones was smashed again and glad of it. Jones often thought of himself in the third person, and the little voice in his head was telling him that here was Mockey Jones, titubating down East Main Street, feeling no pain (or cold), with five expensive martinis and an eighty-dollar steak in his gut, his loins recently exercised, with a wallet full of cash and credit cards, no job, no work, and no worries.
Mockey Jones was one of the one percenters—actually one of the one-tenth of one-tenth of one percenters—and, while he hadn’t actually earned a dime of his money, it didn’t matter because money was money and it was better to have it than not have it, and better to have a lot of it than only some. And Mockey Jones had a lot of it.
Mockey Jones was forty-nine and had left three wives and as many children scattered in his wake—he gave a little bow as he proceeded down the street in homage to them—but now he was unattached and totally irresponsible, with nothing to do but ski, eat, drink, screw, and yell at his investment advisors. Mockey Jones was very happy to live in Roaring Fork. It was his kind of town. People didn’t mind who you were or what you did as long as you were rich. And not just millionaire rich—that was bullshit. The country was lousy with cheap middle-class millionaires. Such people were despised in Roaring Fork. No—you had to be a billionaire, or at least a centimillionaire, to fit into the right circle of people. Jones was himself in the centi category, but while that was an embarrassment he had gotten used to, the two hundred million he had inherited from his jerk-off father—another bow to the memory—was adequate for his needs.
He stopped, looked around. Christ, he should have pissed back at the restaurant. This damn town had no public restrooms. And where the hell had he left his car? Didn’t matter—he wasn’t stupid enough to get behind the wheel in his condition. No way would there ever be the headline in the
Roaring Fork Times
:
MOCKEY
JONES
ARRESTED
FOR
DUI
. He would call one of the late-night drunk limo services, of which there were several, kept busy squiring home those like Mockey who had “dined too well.” He pulled out his cell phone, but it slipped out of his gloved hands and landed in a snowbank; with an extravagant curse he bent down, picked it up, brushed it off, and hit the appropriate speed dial. In a moment he had arranged for the ride. Those martinis back at Brierly’s Steak House had sure tasted good, and he was looking forward to another when he got home.
Standing at the curb, swaying slightly, waiting for the limo, Mockey Jones became vaguely aware of something rapidly intruding on his right field of vision. Something yellowish—and glowing unnaturally. He turned and saw, in the Mountain Laurel neighborhood on the eastern hillside just at the end of town, not even a quarter mile away, a large house literally exploding in flames. Even as he watched, he could feel the heat of it on his cheek, see the flames leaping ever higher into the air, the sparks rising like stars into the dark sky…And—oh, dear God—was that someone in an upstairs window, silhouetted by fire? Even as he watched, the window exploded and the body came tumbling out like a flaming comet, writhing, with a hideous scream that cut like a knife through the midnight air, echoing and re-echoing off the mountains as if it would never end, even after the burning body had disappeared below the fir trees. Almost immediately, within seconds it seemed, sirens were going off; there were police cars and fire trucks and bystanders in the streets; and—moments later—television vans with dishes on their roofs careening about. Last of all came the choppers, plastered with call signs, sweeping in low over the trees.