There was no identifying sign outside the Belvedere Road mansion. The road led you through the housing development, and then suddenly the development was behind you, and the road dead-ended at a forest of oak and Cuban laurel. Nothing cultivated here, everything in its wild and natural state, the only sign of civilization being a macadam driveway wide enough to permit the passage of a single automobile. The driveway curved leisurely through stands of eucalyptus and hummocks of slash pine, still-water ponds glistening under the shade of the trees. And then the road widened to become a two-car passage flanked by bougainvillea and hibiscus, winding past the bay itself to end at last in a circle before a magnificent structure perched on the shore.
The house was in the Spanish style cherished by the first wave of rich settlers in Calusa, massive tan stuccoed walls and orange tiled roofs, chimneys standing like sentinels, arches and niches wherever one looked, the whole lushly embraced by a staggering variety of palms and blooming plants.
I parked the Ghia in a paved area a short distance from the front entrance, walked to it, lifted a heavy black cast-iron knocker, let it fall, lifted it again, let it fall a second time.
The woman who answered the door looked like a prison matron — the sort of attendant you expected to find on the violent ward of a mental hospital. I made an immediate association with the attendant Sarah had dubbed Brunhilde. She was perhaps five feet six inches tall, a stocky woman with iron-gray hair and eyes to match, wearing a white uniform and white rubber-soled shoes, the overall effect being one of a sudden winter chill.
“Yes?” she said.
I had almost anticipated a German accent.
“I’m Matthew Hope,” I said. “Mrs. Whittaker is expecting me.”
“Yes, please come in,” she said. “I’m Patricia, the housekeeper.”
I followed her into a courtyard surrounded by the various wings of the house, arched, green-awninged windows overlooking a fountain and blue-tiled pool in the center of the airy space. Goldfish swam in the pool. The fountain splashed in the sunlight. Patricia opened a pair of French doors at the far end of the corridor, and suddenly we were on a wide, emerald-green lawn that sloped downward toward a swimming pool perched on the bay itself, sparkling in the sunshine and stretching interminably toward the distant horizon.
“Mrs. Whittaker?” Patricia said, and a woman sitting near the pool turned to look at us.
Sarah had told me her mother was sixty-three years old; she looked ten years younger. She was wearing elegant white hostess pajamas, sashed at the waist with a gold rope belt that echoed the gold of her sandals and the sunlit blondeness of her hair. Her eyes were as green as Sarah’s, and she had the same narrow-boned, somewhat frail appearance. She rose at once.
“Mr. Hope,” she said, coming toward me, her hand extended, “how kind of you to come.”
I had phoned her earlier this morning to ask whether she could see me sometime today. She had sounded reluctant when I spoke to her. Now she made it sound as if she had extended an unprompted invitation to visit.
“It’s kind of you to see me,” I said, and took her hand. Her handshake was firm and strong.
“Nonsense,” she said. “I understand you’re trying to get Sarah out of that dreadful place. Nothing would suit me better.”
I looked at her.
I could see neither guile nor deceit in her frank green eyes.
“Shall we sit by the pool?” she asked. “It’s such a glorious day. I’ve asked Patricia to bring us some tea and cookies.”
A blue-tiled patio surrounded the swimming pool. A flight of pelicans hovered gracefully against the intense blue of the sky. At the water’s edge, a white heron preened for a moment, and then stalked off elegantly. We sat at a glass table, I in the sun, Mrs. Whittaker opposite me in the shade of an umbrella.
“You’ve been talking to Sarah, have you?” she said.
“Yes, I have.”
“She seems fine, doesn’t she? I can’t imagine why they insist on keeping her there.”
“Have you visited her recently, Mrs. Whittaker?”
“Last month sometime, I suspect it was. I’d visit more often, but the doctors there tell me it isn’t good for her. Can you imagine anything as nonsensical as that? A girl’s own mother not being good for her — whatever that’s supposed to mean. Actually, we got along beautifully on my last visit. I took her some books she was eager to read — she’s an omnivorous reader, you know. Some spy novels, the latest Ludlum — whatever it’s called, his titles are impossible to remember. She adores spy novels, with all their intricate double- and triple-crosses, she simply dotes on them. Le Carré, too, I took her the one that’s in paperback now. She seemed pleased and grateful. I imagine it must get terribly boring there, don’t you think? Sitting around all day with people who are... well, you know,” she said, and abruptly folded her hands in her lap. “Where can Patricia be?” she wondered aloud. “I asked her to bring hot tea because it’s supposed to have a more cooling effect than iced tea. It has something to do with perspiration and evaporation, I’m sure I don’t understand it at all, but that’s what the Chinese drink when it’s very hot. Not that I find today’s temperature the slightest bit uncomfortable. In fact, it’s really quite pleasant, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is. And this is such a lovely spot.”
“Ah yes, Horace had a fine eye for beauty. He bought so much land when he first came to Calusa, you know, but he always had this location in mind for his future home. For when he married. I met him only later, of course. Horace was a good deal older than I, you see — and a good deal richer, too.” She smiled. Her smile reminded me of Sarah’s. “We didn’t travel in quite the same circles. In fact, when I met him I remember telling my mother he was far too old for me. And far too ugly as well. He wasn’t ugly at all, as a matter of fact, quite handsome. But I was a young girl — nineteen when I met him — and he was ten years older than I, and, well, he seemed ancient to me. I kept putting him off — ah, here’s Patricia now, she undoubtedly went by way of Boston.”
The maid who’d let me into the house came out onto the terrace carrying a tray loaded with a silver tea service, cups, saucers, spoons, napkins, a small bowl of fruit, and a platter of cookies.
“Ah, You’ve brought fruit as well, Patricia, how clever of you,” Mrs. Whittaker said. “Did you remember spoons? Ah yes, there they are. Mr. Hope? Do you take milk or lemon?”
“Milk, please,” I said.
“Sugar? One lump or two?”
“One, please.”
“Now do help yourself to the cookies and fruit,” she said, pouring. “Thank you, Patricia, this is lovely.”
Patricia nodded and started back for the house. At the French doors, she paused and looked out over the bay. I followed her steady gaze. A cruiser was on the water, standing dead a hundred yards offshore. I looked at Patricia again. She was still staring out over the bay, oblivious of the fact that I was watching her.