How lucky they had some idea what they had found. It could have been broken up for gravel. I shivered, wondering how much the world had lost through carelessness, or, worse, sloppy scholarship.
After a while I headed for the Egyptian rooms and browsed among the antiquities there, marveling once more at the preservation of artifacts so many hundreds and thousands of years old. Moving from the mummies, which have always held me in a kind of horrified fascination, to the papyri, I was studying one dimly lit display case when a hand on my shoulder made me jump a foot.
“Dorothy Martin, for pete’s sake. How are you? Haven’t seen you for ages. What are you doing here? Oh, sorry, did I scare you?”
“Startled me, that’s all, Charles.” I exhaled and removed my hand from my heart, whose efforts to leap out of my chest were slowing down. “I was a couple of millennia away; thought you were a mummy come to life. How lovely to see you! I’m up for the sales, but I got tired of bargains and came here for a breather. What are you doing out of your cell?”
For Charles Lambert, an archivist from Frank’s university in Hillsburg, was researching ancient manuscripts in England, and spent a good deal of his time in a tiny carrel lent him by the museum.
“Oh, I come up for air every now and then. I’m headed for some coffee. Want some?”
“I’m having tea in an hour or so, but I’d love to sit down and talk. You know, the rest of me doesn’t seem so old, but my feet are about eighty-five.”
“So what’s going on in your part of the world? I haven’t been there for ages,” said Charles when we had found a table in the coffee shop. “Nothing exciting, I’ll bet. The charm of a little backwater like Sherebury is that nothing ever happens.”
“No, nothing much,” I agreed. “Except battle and murder and sudden death.”
“Say what?” He blinked.
“Sorry, I was quoting the
Book of Common Prayer
. Apparently you don’t read the papers, Charles. We’ve had a spectacular murder, hadn’t you heard?”
“Are you kidding?”
“I wish I were. I’m trying to be flippant about it because I’m involved, in a way, and it’s actually rather horrid. A canon of the cathedral was murdered, and I found the body. You can see why I’m past being scared by you.”
“Good Lord, that’s terrible! Who killed him, and why?”
“That’s just what nobody knows, you see. I’m concerned about it, not only because of finding him, but because one of Jane Langland’s young friends seems to be the chief suspect. You remember Jane?”
“No one who’s met Jane could ever forget her. Who’s the kid?”
“A boy named Nigel Evans. Jane is sure he had nothing to do with it, and she’s probably right, but it’s certain that Nigel hated the canon. In which, I may say, he was not alone. Jonathan Billings had a real talent for making enemies.”
“Billings! Do you mean to say that’s who got killed? But I know him! I saw him just the other day, here.”
“Here! What was he doing here?”
“I don’t know for sure, and I wondered about it at the time. See, I met him when I was in Sherebury that time—you remember—working in the cathedral library.”
“Of course. I’d forgotten. Doing something about medieval manuscripts, weren’t you?”
“And old Billings didn’t make it any easier, let me tell you. He has—had—that good old librarian’s idea that all the books ought to be left nice and safe on the shelves. It took the dean to finally convince him I really did need to see some of the stuff. Anyway, I ran into him, oh, a month or so ago, I guess, in the Reading Room. He wanted a book I was using, and he got downright nasty about it. Said he was just in London for the day, whereas I could get it anytime.
Implied
that he was English and I was a damned foreigner and he had a better right to it than I did.”
I sighed. “That sounds like him, all right. Arrogant, demanding, rude. What a description of a priest!”
“He must have made one hell of a lousy priest, but I’ve got to hand it to the guy; he
was
a scholar. But listen, Dorothy, he was up to something that day. I don’t know what. He usually came straight to the point, but this time he was cagey. As if he wanted to ask me something, but didn’t want me to know what he was after.”
“For heaven’s sake, what did he say?”
“Well, he marched over to my reading desk and said he needed the book. Just like that, no please, or excuse me for interrupting, just ‘I need to use that book for an hour.’ And I said I was in the middle of something and wouldn’t be finished until late afternoon, and he argued for a while until an attendant shut him up. And then he got polite—for him—and asked me what I was working on, and if the book helped, and like that. Just small talk, see, but he kept looking at the book as if he wanted to grab it out of my hands. And finally he left.”
“Well, that doesn’t make much sense. I suppose he was working on some new project.”
“Oh, yeah, he mentioned his latest book. lie didn’t say what it was about, though.”
“I know he just got back from a trip—to Greece, I think. I never really paid any attention to the man, except that on the rare occasions I went into the cathedral library, it was pleasanter if he wasn’t around. I’m afraid he won’t be a great loss, poor man.”
“To scholarship, he will. He knew his stuff. Not my period, really, first century, but he was good. Pity.”
The real pity was that the only good word anyone had found to say about him was so dry and academic. Perhaps it would count at the Pearly Gates, though. I hoped.
I was more than ready for my tea when my taxi dropped me at the Ritz. One look at the Palm Court banished both exhaustion and the shade of Canon Billings. That bastion of luxury and elegance was all it had ever been, a glorious Edwardian nonsense in pink and green and gold. Lynn and Tom were waiting at the table to which I was escorted with as much ceremony as if I were a duchess, many of whom, I had no doubt, had occupied that same elegant little pink velvet chair. Could the service have had something to do with my hat?
Tom gazed at it in a state of shock, and Lynn grinned broadly but forebore to comment. “We ordered for you, Dorothy. We knew you’d be tired and hungry. Indian all right, I hope?”
The Indian tea was more than all right. It was ambrosial. Without apology, and with very little conversation, I worked my way through six different kinds of sandwiches, scones with strawberry jam and cream, and several cups of tea. When I had made choices from the bountiful pastry tray and polished off the confections, I felt as sated and content as Esmeralda after her turkey. I stretched myself in my chair with a sigh of utter fulfillment.
“You saved my life, I think. That was elegant, thank you very much indeed.”
“Had a tough couple of days, have you, D.?” asked Tom, who had offered a few desultory remarks while I gorged myself, but had tactfully stayed off the subject of Sherebury.
“Moderately. Not too bad, I guess, considering. I
am
getting tired of being haunted by Jonathan Billings, though. I even ran into him in the British Museum, figuratively speaking.” I related my encounter.
“Funny,” commented Tom. “Funny man in a lot of ways, I hear. Well, if things get too much for you down there in the boonies, you can always come up and stay with us for a while.”
“I’ll remember that,” I said with real gratitude. “This has been wonderful, you two, but I’ve got a train to catch. Remind me that I owe you one.”
I intended to do some more hard thinking on the way back, but British Rail had, from its somewhat decrepit collection of rolling stock, provided one of the old compartment-style coaches for the train home. I made for it like a homing pigeon, and five minutes out of Victoria I was asleep. I would have slept right past my station if the guard hadn’t remembered my hat from the morning and wakened me. There are some advantages to being conspicuous.
T
UESDAY MORNING
. Dark, damp, dismal. The rain had turned once more to thick fog that blanketed the town, condensing on every surface and dripping steadily from every gray twig. It had crept into my old house through all the chinks and settled in a fine mist on everything I touched, including the cat. Emmy was as irritable as I. No cat likes to be wet, and her attempts to lick the moisture from her fur simply made matters worse. Naturally it was all my fault. In the delicately balanced relationship of feline and human, there is one basic assumption: When anything is amiss, from insufficient food to disagreeable weather to the annoying behavior of another cat, the human is to blame. Conversely, when life is good, when peace, harmony, and warmth prevail, the cat’s smug look will tell you who gets the credit. Of course.
She gave me no peace until she got me to turn on the electric heater in the parlor, then ignored it completely, stalked into the kitchen, and commented crossly on my procrastination in the matter of breakfast.
“I should like to point out, Esmeralda, madam,” I said with some asperity (after preparing her food), “that there are people in this world who prefer dogs to cats. Dogs, who offer uncritical adoration at all times. Dogs, who do as they are told and don’t change their minds every five minutes. How would you like a dog in this house?”
Esmeralda turned away from her dish, gave me a long, thoughtful look, rolled onto the base of her spine with one rear leg pointing skyward, and began attending to matters of personal hygiene. Sufficient comment.
I brewed myself tea, letting it get cold while I overcooked an egg and burned some toast. After toying with the unappetizing mess for a few minutes, telling myself it was terrible to waste food, I gave up and dumped it all into the sink. The truth was, I finally admitted to myself, neither the weather nor the cat nor an inedible breakfast was at the heart of my bad temper. It was the memorial service.
I absolutely did not want to go to Canon Billings’s memorial service this afternoon. I’ve always hated funerals, whatever they’re called, with an unreasoning passion. When I’ve been close to the person who died, or to the family, it’s all I can do not to make a fool of myself, so I sit there with clenched teeth getting a dreadful headache from suppressed tears. I can never think of the right thing to say to the family; in fact I usually can’t say anything at all over the lump in my throat. When I
haven’t
liked the person it’s worse. I sit, then, thinking of the waste, wishing I could have been nicer while they were alive. Of course, ever since . . . well, the last few months, all funerals had reminded me of . . . anyway, I didn’t want to go.
I had to go.
I didn’t need to let it spoil the whole day, however, reminding myself of my resolution to be positive. Why didn’t I go over and talk to Jane? My curiosity about Charles Lambert’s odd conversation with Billings at the BM demanded satisfaction. Maybe Jane would know what the canon had been working on before he died. And—oh, inspiration!—I could take Jane that teapot I was definitely having second thoughts about. Besides, she had central heating, and made an awfully good breakfast when she was in the mood.
I refused to put on anything subdued. Time enough for that later. Red. Red sweater and a Royal Stewart kilt I had bought in an unwise moment. It did nothing at all for my figure, but a great deal for my morale. And that hat crocheted out of bits and pieces of brilliantly colored yarn. So there!
“Dorothy. Good to see you. Come in. Cup of tea?”
“Here, I even brought you something to make it in. A Harrod’s bargain.”
“Hmmm.” Jane held it at arm’s length to get a good look through the bottom of her bifocals, then looked at me appraisingly over the top of them. We both burst out laughing.
“Oh, goodness, you’re right, it really is awful, isn’t it? All those roses . . . here, I’ll take it back.”
“You will not,” she said firmly. “A gift is a gift. Perfect for the jumble sale in February.” She put it on the hall table and closed the door on the fog. “Had any breakfast? Just getting around to it ourselves.”
Ourselves? Oh, yes, Nigel. I’d actually forgotten about him, and I found myself ambivalent about meeting him. Although I wanted to make my own judgment about his character, nothing I’d heard indicated he’d be a comfortable companion at the breakfast table, or anywhere else, for that matter. “Oh, I don’t want to intrude,” I temporized.
“Nonsense.” Jane snorted with a sound exactly like a horse. “Bacon or sausage? Or both?”
“Whatever you’re having.” I followed her meekly into the kitchen, expecting to find Nigel but seeing only assorted dogs noisily finishing their meal. Jane, too, has her priorities straight: Feed the animals first.
“How is Nigel?” And where is he, but I didn’t ask.
“Well enough. Bit depressed. Went out to fetch a bottle of milk.”
“Jane, he won’t want me here, he’ll be feeling touchy about strangers. I’d better . . .”
“Afraid of him, Dorothy? He didn’t murder anybody, you know.” She was placidly assembling eggs, meat, butter.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, I never thought he did! I just don’t know what to talk about. Will he in fact talk to me? George says he’s arrogant and rude, and even you implied he was difficult.”
“He’ll talk to you,” Jane said with a chuckle, slicing homemade bread competently against the bib of her apron with a wicked-looking knife. “Talk the hind leg off a donkey when he wants to. Didn’t say he was difficult; he’s impossible. In some moods. But he’s only rude when someone’s stupid; you should get along.”
“Thank you—I think. But I want to know a little more about him. He’s Welsh, you say. Well, of course he is, with a name like Evans.”
“Half Welsh. Mother was English. That’s where the Nigel came from. Born in Wales, didn’t live there long. Father died, mother moved back to Birmingham. Boy picked up odd jobs, whatever he could do. In and out of school, I gather. Mother made money any way she could, but there was never much. When he was twelve or thirteen she died.”
How like Jane to skate past the ways Mrs. Evans might have made money. Jane took people as she found them.
“Then it was orphanages and foster homes, and somewhere along the way they found out he could sing. He’s bright, as well,” she went on, turning sausages. “Got the scholarship to King’s—ouch!” A sausage had burst and spat hot fat at her. “You know the rest. Had to leave King’s, at a loose end. Hitching here and there looking for work, found it at the cathedral, and got into university. Was going to join the cathedral choir as soon as there was an opening.”