Aunt Dimity and the Next of Kin (18 page)

“Do you?” I said. “What sort of pattern?”

“Wait a minute,” I told her. “I’ll check the album.”

I retrieved the photograph album from the oak desk, scanned the dates on the pictures, and picked up the journal again.

“He was twenty-four the last time he appeared in the album,” I reported.

I hadn’t, until then. I stared down at the journal in amazement. “If she moved to Oxford to be near Kenneth, she must have known where he was all along.”

“I must have misinterpreted the photo album,” I said, disconcerted. “If Kenneth didn’t disappear—”

But he did disappear, Lori. Twice.
Dimity emphasized her point with bold strokes of royal-blue ink.
He vanished once in his midtwenties, and again after Miss Beacham came to Oxford. Both departures occurred after a period of fraternal harmony.

I stared at the journal in confusion. “I don’t understand. You keep saying that Kenneth disappeared. If Miss Beacham
knew
he was in Oxford, how . . . ?”

Dimity’s fine copperplate flew across the page.
Miss Beacham may have known where Kenneth was, but that does not mean that she was allowed to communicate with him.

I blinked rapidly as the meaning of Dimity’s words slowly came home to me. “Are you saying that he cut her out of his life when he moved to Oxford? He pretended he didn’t have a sister? He
ignored
her?”

“Because he’s a jerk?” I suggested.

I rested my head against the armchair’s high back and let my gaze wander from Reginald to the moth-eaten hedgehog who shared his niche. Smiling, I recalled a photograph of Hamish in his heyday, his kilt neatly creased, his plush hide properly fluffed, and his brown eyes twinkling. He’d been through the wringer since then, and every twist and turn had left its mark. Poor Hamish was a sorry shadow of his former self. I gazed at him a moment longer, then sat up as a fresh idea occurred to me.

“Blinker wasn’t surprised when I told him that Miss Beacham had died,” I said slowly. “It was as if he’d been expecting it. He said she had
big eyes
. No one else we talked to today seemed to notice that Miss Beacham was going downhill—not even Joanna—but Blinker did.”

My brief smile faded quickly. “What I’m getting at is, maybe Kenneth’s the kind of guy who can’t stand to watch someone he loves deteriorate. Maybe he ran away the second time
because
his sister was ill.”

“His old neighbors may be able to fill in a few gaps,” I said. “Gabriel and I are tackling them on Monday.”

“For the time being,” I said, and frowned thoughtfully. “All I have to do is pry the wedding ring off of Joanna’s finger and give Gabriel’s flat a makeover and neither one of them will be lonely anymore.”

“Let’s just say that Gabriel and Joanna hit it off,” I said. “Only, Joanna’s husband died five years ago and she’s still wearing her wedding ring. And Gabriel’s been divorced for a year, but he still hasn’t gotten around to replacing the furniture his rotten ex-wife took with her. If he’s going to invite Joanna back to his flat, he’ll have to have something better for her to sit on than a nasty green vinyl chair. And if she’s going to accept his invitation, she’ll have to lose that wedding ring.”

“Go ahead and laugh,” I said, wrinkling my nose at the journal. “I may be turning into a Finch-certified busybody, but I’m doing it for their own good. Both of them are stuck in the painful past, Dimity. I see it as my duty to pull them into a much happier present. And I have to do it quickly. Gabriel’s even more miserable than I thought.”

“Lack of job satisfaction,” I said. “He told me he paints lies for a living. A real artist, according to him, doesn’t waste his gifts painting flattering pictures of fat cats.”

“Very,” I stated firmly. “I’ve seen his work. It’s amazing. Besides, he wouldn’t be so bitter about his work if he really was just another clever hack.”

“He’s found one already.” I grinned. “He’s panting for a chance to get Joanna’s face on canvas. The poor guy sculpted her profile in lasagna this afternoon.”

“Don’t worry, I’m on it,” I declared. “Both of them are coming to Emma’s party tomorrow, and Gabriel’s bringing his sketchpad. He thinks he’s going to sketch horses, but I’m going to encourage him to focus on one mare in particular.”

“I’m all ears,” I said.

Fourteen

I thought I’d have to hog-tie the twins to keep them from I bolting for Anscombe Manor at dawn the following day, but Annelise again demonstrated her wisdom and inestimable worth by putting them to work in the solarium, painting banners congratulating Emma Harris and Kit Smith on the birth of the Anscombe Riding Center. Many pots of paint and three king-sized white bedsheets were sacrificed to the cause, but it was a small price to pay for keeping the twins happily occupied until ten o’clock, when the day-long festivities were scheduled to begin.

Whatever gifts Emma had sacrificed to propitiate the weather gods had been favorably received: It was a gorgeous day. The skies that had cleared the night before remained clear, the temperature was cool but pleasant, and the gentle breeze blowing up from the south would keep the atmosphere at Anscombe Manor from becoming
too
horsey.

Since English weather gods were notoriously fickle, Bill, Annelise, Rob, Will, and I tossed our rain jackets and Wellington boots in the back of the Rover anyway, then piled in and drove the short distance from the cottage to the curving, azalea-lined drive that led to Anscombe Manor.

The manor’s lovely setting had been made even more attractive by Emma’s clever planning and hard work. Where the azaleas ended, white-painted wooden fences began, defining lush green pastures north and south of the drive. Will and Rob nearly deafened the rest of us by calling hearty hellos to the horses grazing there: Rocinante, the chestnut mare; Pegasus, Emma’s trusty hack; Zephyrus, Kit’s majestic black stallion; and Toby, the mild-mannered, elderly pony upon whose back my sons had learned to ride. The horses returned the boys’ greetings with a chorus of snorts and neighs, except for Toby, who was a bit deaf.

Anscombe Manor sprawled at the far end of the drive, at the foot of a chain of steep hills that stretched north and south for twenty miles or so. Anscombe Manor was a fourteenth-century manor house that had come down through the ensuing centuries collecting architectural souvenirs along the way—two stone-clad wings ending in a pair of mismatched towers; odd stretches of crenellated wall; a priest’s hole in the master bedroom; an internal staircase leading to a bricked-in doorway beyond which there was nothing but air; and a curiously deep subcellar that had, according to local legend, once been used as a dungeon. The house’s south wing hid the graceful nineteenth-century stable block from view.

Several new storage buildings had been erected toward the rear of the property, each painted dark green to blend in with the surroundings, and a new brick-walled manure bin had been built at a decent distance from the house. A white-fenced, open-air exercise arena had been added just to the south of the stables, girdled by trees that would provide a pleasant canopy of shade once they came into leaf. The layout of the Anscombe Riding Center seemed to my uneducated eye to be modest, neat, tasteful, and efficient, which was exactly what I would have expected from Emma.

An enormous white-and-blue-striped marquee had been set up on the lawn to the right of the manor house—Emma had wisely decided not to take the fine weather for granted—and many cars were already parked in front of the house on the driveway’s wide graveled apron. More than half of the cars belonged to friends and neighbors.

“Finch is taking an interest,” Bill commented as we cruised slowly past familiar vehicles.

“I’d expect nothing less,” I declared. “The ARC is the biggest thing that’s happened in Finch since Pruneface Hooper died. The villagers are showing their civic pride.”

“The villagers heard about the free food,” Annelise murmured knowingly.

“If you feed them, they will come,” Bill intoned.

Bill took the drive’s left-hand branch and parked beside a caterer’s van in the cobbled courtyard behind the manor house. As soon as the twins were loosed from their car seats, they were off and running toward the stables—hog-tying would have been fruitless. Annelise followed at a more leisurely pace, carrying the forgotten banners.

Bill and I stayed behind to talk with Derek Harris, who sat side by side with Hamlet, the Harrises’ black Labrador retriever, on the doorstep leading to the kitchen. Hamlet, who was getting on in years, ambled amiably over to greet us, but Derek remained hunched on the doorstep, coffee mug in hand, blinking sleepily.

“Well,” Bill said, “are you going to join the merry throng or lurk here all day, guzzling coffee?”

“Guzzling coffee is a necessary prelude to joining the merry throng. Emma had me up at the crack of dawn, setting up the marquee.” Derek drained his mug and placed it on a nearby windowsill. “Let us throng,” he said, and walked with us through the short passageway that connected the courtyard to the stable yard. Hamlet decided that he’d fulfilled his guard dog duties by licking our hands and retired to a patch of sunshine under the kitchen windows.

The stable yard was already occupied by a small knot of strangers who stood near the stable’s main entrance, listening to Kit Smith. Kit glanced our way and nodded, but continued to address the small group without pausing. “As you can see, we’re a small operation and we intend to stay small. Shall we take a look inside?” He steered the group into the stables and out of sight.

“Our first batch of potential paying customers,” Derek murmured. “The villagers must be in the marquee, gorging themselves on our rather expensive hors d’oeuvres. Come on. Let’s get some food before they scoff the lot.”

The marquee was, as Derek had predicted, filled with friends and neighbors greedily consuming the wide range of elegant finger foods provided by the caterer. Emma stood halfway between the buffet tables and the entrance, looking faintly befuddled, as if the villagers’ voracious appetites had taken her by surprise.

Derek paused in the tent’s flapped entry to take in the scene before bellowing, “Good morning!”

His shout silenced the buzz of conversation.

“Thank you so much for joining our little celebration,” he continued as all faces turned toward him. “Now, if
everyone
will follow me, I’ll give you a tour of our new facilities. Step this way, ladies and gentlemen.”

The last line was less a suggestion than an order. The villagers, knowing full well that they’d been caught red-handed in multiple acts of shameless plundering, ducked their heads guiltily and shuffled past Derek, who herded them toward the new outbuildings. Emma waited until they were out of the tent, then heaved a sigh of relief.

“They’re like locusts,” she said, coming up to me and Bill. “The caterer’s had to bring in more supplies and it’s not even noon yet.”

“Derek will make them work it off,” said Bill. “A forced march around the pastures will teach them the error of their ways. How’s it going, apart from the locusts?”