Alice-Miranda In New York 5 (15 page)

Alice-Miranda leaned in too and read the words aloud. ‘“An anonymous gift to the museum, 1971.” Daddy would have been a little boy then and Grandpa was still alive, wasn't he?'

‘This is a mystery, indeed!' Dolly Oliver declared before her stomach let out a gurgly whine. ‘Oh dear, I think that tummy of mine is telling me that our detective work will just have to wait. Where would you like to have lunch?'

Alice-Miranda giggled as Mrs Oliver's stomach registered another high-pitched complaint. ‘I know exactly what I want. Let's go and see Mr Gambino and Mr Geronimo.'

The tiny child slipped her hand into Dolly's.
She glanced back at the painting. She had a strange feeling about that picture and one way or another she was going to find out how it came to be in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, so very far from home.

Hugh Kennington-Jones stared out of the open window at the skyline on the other side of the park. Down below, the streets thrummed to the sound of the Monday morning traffic but he was blissfully unaware, lost in his own thoughts. He didn't hear the knock at the door either and was still gazing into the distance when Mrs Oliver placed the tea tray on the corner of his desk.

‘Sir?' she asked.

‘Oh Dolly, I didn't even hear you come in,' Hugh apologised.

‘If you don't mind me saying, Mr Hugh, whatever is in that diary seems to be causing you some nasty frown lines.'

‘It's like a jigsaw puzzle that's missing several critical pieces. And I don't want to bother Cee with any of it. She's got enough on her plate. Morrie Finkelstein is coming over for a private tour of the store this morning and I know she's anxious to see if she can't put this feud behind them.'

Dolly set about pouring Hugh a strong cup of black tea.

‘Is there anything I can do?' she asked. ‘You know I have some time on my hands. One can't spend all day dancing and cooking,' she smiled.

The mystery of Nanny Bedford's diary had deepened over the weekend. Hector phoned to tell Hugh that the coroner's report into the accident which claimed Hugh's mother's and brother's lives was missing. There was no proof that his brother had been with his mother that terrible night.

‘Oh Dolly. I have a feeling that there has been a terrible injustice.' He shook his head slightly before lifting the china cup to his lips.

‘How do you mean, sir?'

Hugh hesitated. ‘You must promise not to tell a
soul. Cee has enough to worry about at the moment and I really don't want to get anyone's hopes up.'

‘Of course, sir. I think you should know me well enough by now,' she replied.

Hugh nodded. ‘I don't think my brother died in that car accident with my mother.'

‘What makes you say that?' Dolly gasped.

‘Nanny's diary. She writes about the blazing rows my father and Xavier were having just before the accident. I think my brother wanted to make his own way in the world and my father would have none of it.'

‘If you don't mind me asking, sir, how did you come to have Nanny Bedford's diary?'

‘Do you remember when Cee found my father's old desk in the attic at Pelham Park? It was when she was overseeing the renovations.'

Dolly nodded. ‘Yes, she was thrilled to bits but I wasn't sure what happened to it after that.'

‘Cee had it sent to the office and I've been using it ever since. I thought it was a fitting link to Father. Well, a few months ago, I knocked over a steaming cup of tea and it burned a mark into the top of it. I sent it away to be restored and asked that they give the whole thing a proper clean-up while
they were at it. When it was returned several weeks ago there was a letter taped inside the top drawer and a note from the cabinet-maker saying that he had found it in a hidden compartment.'

‘And the letter?'

‘It was to my father from Nanny Bedford, written just before he died – when I was eighteen. She said that I should know the truth. Well, when I saw that letter I looked her up, but she had passed away just a month before. Then my man Hector found this.' He pointed at the diary. ‘Clearly the poor woman was sufficiently terrified of my father and his reach that she never revealed the full extent of his secrets.'

‘I'm not sure if Alice-Miranda has mentioned this, sir, but when we were in the Met on Saturday, I came across a painting that I was sure I'd seen somewhere else, a long time ago. It took a moment for me to remember, but I'm just about certain that it was at Pelham Park the time I accompanied your mother-in-law there.'

‘No, Alice-Miranda didn't mention it. You're sure, Dolly, that it was from Pelham Park?'

‘Well, sir, I am getting old but it's a lovely painting and I remember commenting to your mother-in-law that it was a pity it wasn't on display in a public part
of the house. But then again, your father's art collection was extensive, as I recall.'

‘Perhaps Father donated it,' Hugh suggested.

Dolly arched her left eyebrow. ‘Really, sir? Your father?'

Hugh frowned. Dolly was right. His father wasn't renowned for his philanthropic endeavours. ‘But Mother was a generous soul. Perhaps she gave it away without Father knowing.'

‘Sir, I don't think so. The citation says that it was donated anonymously in 1971. Your mother died in 1970, didn't she?' Dolly replied.

Hugh took another sip of his tea. He gulped loudly and set the cup back onto the saucer.

‘Take a look for yourself, Dolly.' Hugh motioned towards the diary. ‘If my brother is alive, then where is he? And why did he just disappear?'

Dolly picked up the weathered book and looked thoughtfully at its burnished leather cover and yellowed pages.

‘I have to go and meet Cee downstairs. Morrie will be here shortly,' Hugh informed her. ‘But you might as well read it properly. See if there's anything I've missed.'

‘I'll just clear the tray,' she said.

‘No, I'll take it to the kitchen,' said Hugh. ‘You stay here. And when you're finished please just lock it in the top drawer.'

Downstairs on the ground floor, Cecelia Highton-Smith was pacing. She had walked the length and breadth of the cosmetics counters and checked and rechecked product placements, signage, and even the colour of the paint on the feature walls.

‘Cecelia, dear, you're going to wear a furrow in that marble floor,' Gilbert Gruber called from the mezzanine above, where he had been watching her.

Cecelia stopped and looked up at him. ‘Oh Gilbert, I'm wound up like a top. Morrie Finkelstein is due any minute and I don't know how this meeting is going to go.'

‘I've just taken a call that's not going to give you any more confidence, I'm afraid. I'll be right down.' Gilbert scurried away to the stairs.

‘What is it?' Cecelia asked as he approached her.

‘It seems that several more of our suppliers have entered into exclusive arrangements with
Finkelstein's in the past few days. I don't know what Morrie is promising them but this is getting out of hand.'

‘I don't understand. Everyone knows we're about to reopen,' Cecelia fumed.

‘Perhaps Hugh can help,' Gilbert soothed.

‘I don't know, Gilbert. He's been terribly preoccupied the past couple of weeks – disappearing here and there to secret meetings. Whenever I ask, he says that it's just Kennington's business and nothing to worry about, but I've never seen him so distracted.'

Gilbert's telephone rang in his pocket. It was security to let him know that Morrie Finkelstein had arrived and was on his way up from the parking garage.

‘Hello darling.' Hugh slid in beside his wife and kissed her cheek.

‘Oh there you are, thank heavens. He's here.' Cecelia managed a tight smile.

‘I thought you might like to give him the grand tour and then I've arranged for you to have lunch in the corporate dining room, Cecelia,' said Gilbert, placing a calming hand on her shoulder. ‘Don't worry about Morrie. You've known him for a very long time. And these bullyboy tactics of his – well,
I'd suggest you give as good as you get and he'll likely back down completely.'

‘Gilbert's right, darling. Morrie has no right to steal our suppliers and we need to let him know that it's not on. We've never approached anyone he has an exclusive agreement with and he needs to pay you the same courtesy,' said Hugh firmly.

‘Yes, you're absolutely right.' Cecelia smoothed her skirt and adjusted her blazer lapels.

The lift bell chimed and out marched Morrie Finkelstein, dressed from head to toe in black and wearing a smile that would scare spiders from their webs.

‘Here we go,' Cecelia whispered, before saying loudly, ‘Morrie, how lovely to see you.'

On Monday morning, Alice-Miranda met Quincy, Ava and Lucinda at the fifth grade lockers before class. She told them all about her day with Mrs Oliver at the Met, and Sunday when her parents took her to Yankee Stadium to watch a baseball game. Alice-Miranda fizzed with excitement about the crowd and the action and said that the best part was when the man in front of her caught a fly ball and the whole place erupted with cheers.

‘Did you have a good weekend, Lucinda?'
Alice-Miranda noticed that her friend was unusually subdued.

‘Same as always,' Lucinda replied. ‘It's not fair. You get to have so much fun and all I do is go to the stupid salon with Mother and her horrible friends and their awful daughters.'

‘Surely it can't be that bad,' Alice-Miranda soothed. ‘There must be a couple of girls you get along with.'

‘It's worse than that bad.' Lucinda looked as if she might cry. ‘Papa picked a dress that was way too tight – it felt like a sausage skin and Bethany Barrington called me a giant wiener all afternoon.'

‘Why didn't you wear another dress?' Alice-Miranda asked.

‘Because I have to wear the dress Papa picks out for me. It's always been that way,' Lucinda sighed.

‘Couldn't you have got a bigger size?' Ava asked.

‘No, he prides himself on knowing exactly my size, or so he thinks.'

‘That's just stupid,' Ava said.

‘Come on, Finkelstein, being an Upper East Side princess must have
some
good bits,' Quincy said, with a little smile at her.

‘I'd trade it all in a second to know what real life is like,' said Lucinda as she foraged around in her locker.

‘We had some real-life action on the subway on Friday when Alice-Miranda befriended this random homeless guy and Quincy and I thought we'd all end up . . .' Ava gulped and ran her finger across her throat.

Alice-Miranda defended him. ‘Mr Preston was lovely and very talented too. I didn't think for one second that he was going to hurt us and I hope he's not really homeless because that would be too terrible for words.'

The bell rang, scattering girls this way and that. Alice-Miranda grabbed her books and closed her locker.

‘Come on, Lucinda,' she said as she slipped her hand into the taller child's. ‘And you're never going to believe who we saw a photograph of on the wall at the Armstrongs' club . . .' Alice-Miranda told her friend all about their great-great grandfathers and the lady called Ruby Winters.

The girls hadn't noticed Alethea standing at the end of the corridor. Having spent all week at camp getting the cold shoulder from Gretchen, she was as
miserable as ever. But her mother refused to move her to yet another school.

‘She's going to pay for what she's done,' Alethea breathed, before turning on her heel and scurrying upstairs to class.

The morning lessons flew by and Alice-Miranda was looking forward to the afternoon art class at the Met. Mr Underwood explained that today they were having a tutorial from a renowned artist. Alice-Miranda was hoping to stop by the information desk and see if she could find out any more about that painting hanging next to
The Dance Class.
The rest of the weekend had been so busy she'd quite forgotten to tell her parents about Mrs Oliver's discovery.

During the lesson before lunch, the girls were working on their projects for the Science Fair. Lucinda had been paired up with Alice-Miranda and they were creating a sculpture of icebergs in the Arctic, to demonstrate the effects of global warming. There was plaster of Paris all over the desk, and about as much covering the floor.

Ava and Quincy were surrounded by styrofoam, which they were cutting up to make a model of the solar system.

‘Now, girls, you'll need to take your projects down to the storeroom,' Mr Underwood instructed.

Just as he finished his sentence the bell rang. ‘But before you go, you have to get this place spick and span. And I hear there are burgers for lunch today as a special treat, but no one's leaving before this room is cleaned up.'

The class sprang into action. Felix hoped the girls wouldn't be too disappointed to find that they were vegie burgers.

‘And be on time this afternoon. I'll meet you at the back doors.'

Alice-Miranda and Lucinda balanced their construction on a sheet of plywood and teetered towards the storeroom at the end of the hall.

‘It's starting to look like the Arctic, I think,' Alice-Miranda commented.

‘Sort of,' Lucinda replied. ‘We need to get more chicken wire and build up some of those icebergs a little more.'

Alethea appeared and blocked the hall. ‘What's that rubbish?'

‘Hello Thea. It's our Science project,' Alice-Miranda replied.

‘It's the Arctic,' Lucinda added, ‘and we're going to show how the polar cap is melting and the polar bears are getting stuck out in the ocean on chunks of ice.'

‘Who cares about smelly old polar bears? I think it's stupid,' Alethea spat. ‘Like you!'

‘Thea, there's no need to be nasty. I've apologised to you about the park and you know I didn't let go of Maisy on purpose,' said Alice-Miranda.

‘Yes, you did.' Alethea narrowed her eyes. ‘And one day you're going to pay for what you've done.' She pushed her hand into the wet plaster and caused the side of the construction to cave in.

‘What did you do that for?' Lucinda shouted.

Alethea shrugged her shoulders and stalked off down the hallway.

Lucinda wrinkled her nose. ‘I can't believe I thought she was nice when we first met her. She's awful.'

‘She's lonely,' Alice-Miranda replied.

‘Well, she doesn't deserve to have any friends with an attitude like that.'

‘Everyone needs a friend, Lucinda,' Alice-Miranda smiled.

The girls deposited their model onto a shelf and tried to push the side back into place.

‘Come on, let's get some lunch,' Lucinda said as they headed off to the bathroom to wash their hands.

‘I'll meet you there in a little while,' Alice-Miranda replied. ‘There's someone I want to see first.'

Alice-Miranda raced upstairs to the sixth grade lockers. She was hoping to find Gretchen. Alone.