Another oil painting displayed a few musical notes and a date. “Those are the opening bars from 'Starlight and You,'“ she said.
I'd heard the song, of course. It had been popular off and on for years. “What's the connection?”
She looked surprised. “He wrote it.”
“Really?”
“Do I sound as if I'm kidding?” A note of annoyance had crept into her voice.
“Not at all,” I said. “Music or lyrics?”
“Both. Chris was a man of many talents.”
Well, I thought, maybe we had something after all. I was reminded once again of the perils in dismissing a prospective client too quickly.
Another painting depicted him and Elizabeth standing atop a bluff overlooking a moonlit ocean. “They lived on Virginia Island,” she said. “Did I mention that?”
“Yes.”
“It's a gorgeous place. Have you ever been there?”
Virginia Island was halfway around the planet. “No, Ms. Howard, I'm afraid I've missed it.”
She smiled tolerantly. “You need to get out more. Get away from the office and see the world.”
Robin was wearing the Carpathian hat, slanted off to one side. He and his wife stood with their backs to the imager. They were leaning against each other, looking out to sea. Though they were not clasped in each other's arms, it was a remarkably romantic picture.
A photo depicted him walking through a terminal, carrying a small piece of luggage, with a notebook slung over one shoulder. “This one's of special interest,” she said.
“Why's that?”
“He was leaving for that last flight.”
“Did something happen on the flight?”
Another show of disdain. “At the end of it,” she said. But she seemed disinclined to go further on the subject, so I let it slide.
There was always a possibility somebody would be interested. I decided to let Alex make the call. “Very good, Ms. Howard,” I told her. “We'll be in touch with you shortly. If we decide to accept the commission, Mr. Benedict may have some more questions for you. And he'll want to see the actual material.”
She let me see that she had some issues with my competence. “To be honest,” she said, “I'm surprised there'd be any hesitancy on your part. I mean, you've said yourself that you deal in artifacts connected with people of historical interest. If my brother-in-law doesn't fit that description, I find it hard to imagine who would.”
“Ms. Howard, you have to understand that he was a physicist. And I've no intention of demeaning that, but scientists don't usually become celebrated. And it's celebrity that drives the price. We have to be sure he fits the profile in which our clients are interested, and also that we ourselves are in a position to do him-and you-justice.”
She got up. “That sounds like double-talk.”
“I'm sorry if it does. I'm trying to be honest with you.”
“Of course you are. And I assume you won't object if I make the offer to someone else?”
“That would be your choice, Ms. Howard.”
“Just in case,” she said, “I'll leave the chip.”
We walked back out to the front door. It opened, and she strode through onto the deck. “I'm always surprised,” she said, “that these small companies don't train their people better.”
I smiled politely. “How about his AI? Is that available?”
“No,” she said.
“Is there a reason? That could be the most valuable object in the estate.”
“No. Elizabeth wiped it.”
“That's odd. Why would she do that?”
“I have no idea. I didn't realize its condition until after she'd passed.”
Alex wasn't in the building. When Howard arrived, I'd been sending out notification bulletins to clients, letting them know we'd found the artifacts they'd requested or, in several cases, that they were unavailable, or that we hadn't been able to locate them. Often objects just vanish. Someone gets them who's not connected to the rest of the world, or who has no wish to deal regardless of the price being offered. Occasionally, thieves make off with something, and it disappears from view for an extended period. Valuable artifacts have vanished for centuries, only to surface again.
Anyhow, I went back to work and was just getting ready to break for lunch when Alex came in. He'd been doing his workout routine, which now consisted mostly of swimming over at the Delancey pool. He brushed the snow off his coat and gave me a broad smile, the implication of which was that all the world was bright and enticing. I smiled back. “I see Audree was there today,” I said.
He shook his head. “No, she couldn't get off this morning.”
“When you write your autobiography, Alex, I have a title for you.”
“And that would be-?”
“There's Never a Shortage of Beautiful Women at Delancey's.”
He grinned. “It's too long, Chase.”
“Well, I don't know-”
“And you never want to start a title with There.”
“Oh.”
“You have a lot of talent, sweetheart, but you'll never be a writer.” He pulled off his hat and scarf. “It's cold out there.”
It was the first storm of the season, and the earliest we'd seen anything like it as far back as I could remember. He sat down to wriggle out of his boots. “Anything happening here?”
“Mack Darby thinks we should try harder to get the stiletto.” That was the weapon that Nicholas Wescott had used to kill his young bride, thereby igniting the revolution that ultimately wrecked the Fremont Republic.
Alex dropped one boot on the floor. “Keating wouldn't let go of it unless somebody went over there with a gun.”
“I told him that. Not in those words, of course. I don't entirely trust Darby.”
“He's okay. He's a bit intense, but he wouldn't hurt anybody.”
“Anyhow, Alex, he says he wants to try. Says if anybody could persuade him-”
“What's he offering?”
“You'll need to talk to him.”
“Okay. Anything else?”
“You ever hear of Chris Robin?”
“The Chris Robin?”
“A physicist who wrote songs.”
“That's him. He wrote 'Starlight and You.'“ Alex laughed. “Chase, the guy's famous.”
“If you say so.”
“I think you spend too much time in this office.”
“That's more or less what she said.”
“Who's she?”
“His sister-in-law.”
“You were talking to Chris Robin's sister-in-law?”
“Yes. She was here. Has some stuff for sale that belonged to him.”
“That's interesting.”
“Really?”
“Chase, the reason he's well-known doesn't have anything to do with 'Starlight and You.' Or the physics. It's because he disappeared. Nobody knows what happened to him.”
Light finally dawned. The physicist who'd come home from somewhere, had gotten out of a skimmer at his front door, and never made it into his house.
Alex shook his head. Sad story. “But it gives some value to anything connected with him.”
“Yes. I remember now.”
“So tell me about the sister-in-law.”
“Her name's Karen Howard. She's inherited the estate, and she wants to market some of his personal items.”
Alex gave me a broad smile. “Sounds promising. What's she have?”
I showed him the inventory. He looked at it and made some notes. “Okay. The ring will probably bring a decent price. What about the house AI?”
“It got erased.”
He groaned. “How'd that happen?”
“I've no idea.”
He shook off the other boot. “Well, the books might be worth something.”
“She says Robin was in the habit of writing notes in them.”
“Okay. That'll help. You saw some of these, right? The books?”
“Some.”