I stayed behind to ask Miss Coombs for directions to Gerald Willis’s house. The address Miss Kingsley had provided was, as were so many addresses in England, useful only to those already familiar with the area. “The Larches, Midhurst Road,” didn’t appear in Nell’s road atlas, but I thought it might mean something to the receptionist at a local hotel.
It did.
7.
“The—the Larches?” Miss Coombs’s freckled face turned as pink as one of Emma’s prizewinning peonies. “You’re going to see Ger—Mr. Willis?”
“That’s right,” I replied. “Do you know him?”
Miss Coombs nodded and her cheeks grew even brighter. “That is to say, he stops by once or twice a week for a drink in the lounge. He came in yesterday, in fact, to use my telephone”—her hand drifted over our registration cards to touch the instrument on her desk—“since his own wasn’t working.”
“So I discovered.” I smiled cordially, but couldn’t help staring at the young woman’s fingers as she caressed the receiver.
Miss Coombs followed my gaze to the telephone and quickly pulled her hand into her lap. “Mr. Willis is always having to cope with one little difficulty or another,” she explained, in a professionally chatty tone of voice. “Last month it was a leaky roof, and the month before he had to completely refit the WC. The Larches isn’t in very good repair, I’m afraid. Or so I’ve heard.” Her eyes wandered back to the telephone and she gave an unmistakably wistful sigh. “I’ve never actually been there myself.”
Oh-ho, I thought. What have we here? Was Gerald Willis breaking hearts in Haslemere even as he dallied with his lady friend in London? Miss Coombs was giving me the distinct impression that he stopped in at the Georgian to sample more than its beer. The vague disdain I’d been feeling for Cousin Gerald began to take on a definite shape. It was one thing to wine and dine a sophisticated woman in London, but it was quite another to prey on a provincial innocent like Miss Coombs. It turned my stomach to think of my courtly father-in-law having anything to do with such a snake.
“Can you tell me how to get to Mr. Willis’s house?” I asked again, though by now I was fairly sure that Miss Coombs could tell me the color of his shutters. “I really must see him.”
The young woman hesitated, unsettled, perhaps, by the thought of an American interloper claiming a privilege that had so far been denied her. She hadn’t had the presence of mind to check out the ring finger on my left hand, and on a whim I slipped my wedding band off. If Cousin Gerald thought I was single, he might be more inclined to make a pass at me, and I was looking forward to taking the wind out of his sails.
Miss Coombs’s training prevailed at last, and she pulled a photocopied map from the file cabinet behind her desk. When she’d finished marking the route, she held the map out to me, but I gestured for her to keep it and asked for directions to Saint Bartholomew’s Church. I hadn’t mentioned it to Nell, but I was determined to see those blasted bells before I spoke with Bill. He was bound to ask why we’d gone to Haslemere, and I’d never been able to lie to him convincingly. I had to have something truthful to tell him, even if it was only half-truthful.
Miss Coombs bent over the map once more before handing it to me. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Miss”—she glanced down at the registration cards and corrected herself coolly—“Ms. Shepherd?”
“Thanks, but I think that’ll be all for now.” I left the office without the slightest doubt that the poor woman had a queen-sized crush on Cousin Gerald. After pausing in the hallway to hang my wedding ring on the neck chain that held the heart-shaped locket Bill had given me when he proposed, I sprinted up the stairs, feeling rather pleased with myself. In less than twenty minutes, I’d gotten directions to Gerald’s home, met one of his admirers, and discovered that he was refurbishing a run-down house—turning it into a love nest, I suspected, in which to entertain his country conquests. Eager to impress Nell with my investigative acumen, I burst into the room—and stopped short. A strange woman was leaning over the bed nearest the door, and she appeared to be rifling my suitcase.
“Excuse me,” I said peremptorily, and she turned, but I had to stare long and hard before I realized that the stranger standing not three feet away from me was Nell. Her own father would have needed a second glance.
Nell Harris was always well dressed. Her fashion sense had been honed, and her closets filled, by none other than the famous Nanny Cole, the most sought-after couturiere in London and a longtime friend of the Harris family. I’d come to Haslemere wearing my favorite summer-weight cotton sweater, jeans, and sneakers, but Nell had donned a natty pair of cuffed and pleated gabardine trousers and a demure white linen blouse with delicate embroidery on the collar and cuffs.
She wasn’t wearing them any longer.
Nell had traded her pleated trousers for sheer black hose and an exceedingly short black leather skirt, exchanged her demure blouse for a skin-hugging black turtleneck, wrapped herself in an oversized black blazer, cinched it in at the waist with a broad black leather belt, and pulled a black cloche over her curls. Bertie, who sat on the bureau, impassively watching the proceedings, sported a blue-and-white-striped Breton sweater and a tiny black beret. They looked like something out of a Shirley Temple movie scripted by Jean-Paul Sartre.
I closed the door behind me and eyed Nell warily. “Nicolette Gascon, I presume.”
“Mais oui, ” Nell replied, putting a hand to her cloche. “Do you like my disguise? I’ve brought one for you, too.” She nodded toward the bed, where she’d laid out a severely tailored dark-gray tweed skirt and blazer I’d buried at the back of my closet at the cottage; a high-necked pearl-gray silk blouse, plain black flats, and a clunky black briefcase belonging to Derek.
“What am I? The mortician?” I said, fingering the tweeds.
“No,” Nell replied. “You’re William’s executive assistant.”
Nell returned to her unpacking while I sat on the peach-colored armchair beside the bureau and folded my arms. The room was charming—cinnamon walls and pretty floral bedspreads, a marble-topped writing table before a broad, recessed window, fresh flowers in a china vase on the writing table, and a dainty bowl filled with potpourri next to Bertie on the bureau. I was particularly glad to see that we had our own bathroom. The Georgian might be more than two hundred years old, but its amenities were blessedly up-to-date.
“And who is Nicolette Gascon?” I inquired patiently.
“William’s ward.” Nell explained. “We’ve come down from London to bring him some important papers.” Nell paused to give me an anxious glance. “Am I being presumptuous ? Papa says that I am sometimes, and that I shouldn’t be, because it annoys people.”
I had to laugh: “Oh, what the hell, why shouldn’t we pull a fast one on Gerald? He’s probably doing the same thing to William.”
Nell nodded happily. “That’s what Bertrand thought.”
I got up and reached for the tweeds. I wasn’t wildly enthusiastic about changing out of my comfy jeans and sweater, but I couldn’t spoil Nell’s fun. “So this was Bertie’s idea?”
“Bertrand,” she corrected. “He’s going to stay behind to chat up the maids.”
While I changed into the hideous tweeds, I told Nell about my interview with Miss Coombs. “There’s no doubt about it,” I concluded. “Miss Coombs is in love with Cousin Gerald.”
“Really?” said Nell. “So are Mandy, Karen, Jane, Denice, and Alvira. And Mr. Digby wouldn’t be at all surprised if the bartender wasn’t half in love with Gerald, too.”
I paused in my struggle to zip the tweed skirt. “Who ... ?” I asked.
“Mandy, Karen, and Jane are chambermaids; Denice works in the garden; and Alvira’s the cook’s helper,” Nell explained. “Mr. Digby is the porter. He said I reminded him of his granddaughter, and we had such a nice talk. His son-in-law manages the Midlands Bank here in town. Cousin Gerald has an account there. A remarkably large account. He draws on it twice a month.”
My investigative acumen seemed somehow less impressive than it had a short while ago. Nell hadn’t mentioned the Larches yet, but I expected at any minute to hear that Mr. Digby’s great-grandnephew was the plumber who’d refitted Cousin Gerald’s WC.
“So Gerald has ‘vast sums of money,’ ” I mused, recalling Aunt Dimity’s note. “I wonder how he manages that without a job?” I pulled on the tweed blazer and grimaced at my reflection in the mirror. I looked like the Executive Assistant from Hell.
“Mr. Digby told me that he takes the train into the city twice a month, regular as clockwork, right after he draws on his account,” said Nell. “Mr. Digby’s daughter works at the ticket office,” she added.
My reflected grimace turned into a disapproving sneer. The mystery woman in London twice a month, the entire female staff—and possibly the bartender—of the Georgian Hotel once or twice a week, and who knew how many others in between? No wonder the poor boy was trying to dip his hand in Willis, Sr.’s pocket. With a gruel ing schedule of debauchery like that, the expenses could add up.
“The more I hear about Cousin Gerald, the less I like him,” I said aloud. I handed Nell the town map, bid Bertrand adieu, and picked up my briefcase. “Now let’s go and find out what this lowlife has to do with my father-in-law.”
I didn’t actually close my eyes when we went through the five-way intersection at the top of the High Street, but I considered it. Derek had told me that the redevelopment of England’s south coast was putting a strain on the infrastructure, and I now saw what he meant. It was half past four and rush hour was well under way—fleets of semis lumbered along roads built for oxcarts, and increased commuter traffic choked all the main arteries. Once we’d passed the crossroads, however, the congestion let up and I relaxed.
It was a lovely drive. The forests of southern England had been thinned by the great gale of ‘87, but there were still plenty of tall trees around Haslemere, and the Midhurst Road was a dappled ribbon winding between them.
“There it is.” Nell spotted the sign before I did. It was small and white and hanging from an iron post at the mouth of a grassy drive that led back into the woods, and it had “The Larches” painted on it in green letters.
“Cousin Gerald must value his privacy,” I commented, turning cautiously into the drive. There were no other houses in sight, and we drove a good fifty yards into the trees before we got our first look at the Larches.
It wasn’t what I’d expected. Cousin Gerald’s woodland retreat was a graceless two-story box covered in patchy clam-gray stucco, with a few scraggly shrubs on either side of its nondescript front door. Whatever Gerald was spending his money on, it wasn’t his home.
“What a revolting little house,” Nell exclaimed.
“Ugh,” I agreed. “No sign of William’s car,” I added as I switched off the engine.
“It might be round the back,” suggested Nell. “Shall I have a look?”
“Too late,” I said.
Our arrival had been noted. The front door had opened and a tall, rawboned woman in a cotton housedress stood on the threshold, wiping her hands on her apron and watching us alertly.
“Let me do the talking,” I murmured to Nell as we got out of the car. My rare-book hunts had given me ample experience with dragon-lady housekeepers, and I wasn’t about to let this one frighten me away. I hefted the briefcase and, with Nell trailing a few steps behind me, marched up to the front door. “My name is Lori Shepherd,” I declared, “and I’ve come to see Mr. Gerald Willis.”
“Of course,” said the woman, with a disarmingly sweet smile. She patted the iron-gray bun at the nape of her neck. “I’ll fetch him for you. Won’t you come—”
“It’s all right, Mrs. Burweed,” a deep male voice called from inside the house. “I’ll see to our visitors. You can go back to your meringues.” Mrs. Burweed nodded pleasantly before disappearing into the house, and a moment later a man took her place.
“Hello,” he said, “I’m Gerald Willis.”
8.
If an angel could be six foot two, with softly curling chestnut hair, a generous mouth, and a chiseled chin as smooth as any choirboy‘s, then Gerald Willis was an angel. His blue-green eyes were filled with light, like chips of glacier ice, and fringed with long, dark lashes beneath delicately arched brows. He was wearing small round spectacles, and as he took them off he smiled, and a solitary dimple appeared in his left cheek.
I thought I heard a heavenly choir sing.
“May I help you?” he asked, with emphasis, as though he’d said it once already.
He was about Bill’s age, but fit, with a stomach as flat as a Nebraska wheatfield. He wore a dark-brown shirt of old, soft cotton tucked into jeans so faded they were nearly white. The black leather belt that hugged his hips reminded me of the one Nell had wrapped around her outsized blazer and was equally superfluous—Gerald’s snugly fitting jeans were in no danger of drooping.
“Have you come about the telephone?” he inquired.
I tried to speak. I could feel my lips move, but the words refused to come, so I stood there mouthing air like a stranded guppy.
“No, we have not come about the telephone.” Nell’s voice seemed to come from some distant planet. “I’ve come to see my grandfather. I know he doesn’t want to see me, but I won’t be turned away.” In an aside to me she added, “I’m sorry I lied to you, Miss Shepherd, but I must see your employer face-to-face. Pardonnez-moi....” Whereupon Nell shouldered her way relentlessly past a dumbfounded Cousin Gerald and sailed into the Larches, calling, “Grandpapa! I know you’re here! Come out at once!”
He’s a womanizer, I was reminding myself urgently. He’s a threat to Willis, Sr. He‘s—Grandpapa? Nell’s words finally penetrated the dense fog shrouding my brain, and I gaped at Cousin Gerald in stark confusion. Grandpapa ? What script were we working from now?
“Oh dear,” Gerald said, with a sympathetic wince. “Child-minding for the boss?”
I nodded, more grateful than Gerald could know for his prompt assessment of the situation. The double shock of seeing him in the all-too-attractive flesh and Nell in yet another role had turned me into a gibbering idiot. I had no doubt that I looked exactly like a hapless employee saddled with the boss’s spoiled brat.
“I assume the grandpapa in question is William Willis?” Gerald asked.
“Uh ...” I informed him.
“Never mind,” Gerald said kindly. “I’m sure it’ll sort itself out. In the meantime, my housekeeper is preparing tea. Would you care to join me, Miss ... ?”
“Shepherd,” I managed.
Gerald ushered me into a small entry area at the bottom of a narrow staircase. He eased the briefcase from my unresisting grasp and placed it on the floor beside a rickety-looking telephone table. As he straightened, the phone rang, and he started slightly.
“Good Lord,” he said. “Is it working?” He picked up the receiver and covered it with one hand before nodding toward the hallway. “Back parlor, third door on the right,” he told me. “You go on ahead. I’ll be with you in a moment.”
I stumbled back a step or two, turned, and fled blindly up the hall, raising a hand to find my wedding ring through the gray silk blouse, and gripping it between my fingers like a talisman, while snatches of Gerald’s phone conversation floated to me from the entryway.
“Yes, I know, Doctor.... It’s only just been fixed.... It was inconvenient for me, as well.... No, I’m sorry, but—could you please speak up? ...”
His voice was soft as velvet, rich as old wine, seductive as a Siren’s song, and, desperate to be beyond its reach, I fumbled for the doorknob on my right, slipped hurriedly into the room, closed the door behind me, and slumped against it breathlessly, so relieved by the ensuing silence that a moment passed before I realized I’d opened the wrong door.
I was standing in what appeared to be a storeroom. Drapes had been drawn tightly over the windows, and wooden crates had been piled along one wall. Opposite the
stacked crates stood a plain wooden table, an old gray office chair on wheels, and a bookcase filled with auction catalogues and colorful volumes on art and art history. An open crate had been left on the floor beneath the table, surrounded by the crumpled balls of yellowed newspaper that had apparently been used as packing material.
The wooden table held a green-shaded brass reading lamp—the sole source of illumination—as well as a fountain pen and an index-card file, but I noticed none of those things at first. My attention was focused wholly on one object, a gleaming, golden object I’d never thought to see outside the walls of a museum.
It was about fifteen inches tall, in the shape of a cross, with a graceful, flaring base that allowed it to stand upright on the table. Its surface was covered with a complex interlace pattern—of Celtic origin, I thought—and at its center, where the arms met, there was a large, circular rock crystal surrounded by a fluted, gem-encrusted sunburst. The bejeweled sunburst seemed to capture all of the light from the reading lamp and throw it in a dancing, sparkling stream in my direction. I moved toward it, entranced.
It was a reliquary, I was certain, a glorious, sacred vessel created to hold what my old boss, Stan Finderman, irreverently referred to as “Crusader trophies”: a sliver of the True Cross, a lock of some saint’s holy hair—I’d seen one once in Ireland that had been built to hold Saint Lachtin’s entire arm. Some reliquaries were made of ivory, others of fantastically carved stone, but the one that stood before me was made of gold.
It was not pristine. Many of the sunburst’s precious stones were missing, and the arms were gouged in places, but its purity of line gave it an appeal far beyond its obvious monetary value. I couldn’t resist the urge to touch it, to pick it up and turn it beneath the lamp, to watch the play of light along its flligreed surface, the spark of fire in its glittering gems. I wondered who had made it, who had owned it, and how it had come to rest here, in a shabby pillbox of a house in southwest Surrey. With a sudden thrill, I wondered if each crate stacked against the far wall was filled with similar treasures. If Gerald sold one a year, it would keep his bank account bulging till kingdom come.
Aunt Dimity's Good Deed Page 5
