He gave me a brief nod and turned away, and I looked up at the tall townhouse that Greville had moved into about three months previously, and which I’d never visited. It was creamy gray, gracefully proportioned, with balustraded steps leading up to the black front door, and businesslike but decorative metal grilles showing behind the glass in every window from semi-basement to roof.
I crossed the grassy garden and went up the steps, and found there were three locks on the front door. Cursing slightly I yanked out Greville’s half ton of keys and by trial and error found the way into his fortress.
Late afternoon sun slanted yellowly into a long main drawing room which was on the left of the entrance hall, throwing the pattern of the grilles in shadows on the grayish-brown carpet. The walls, pale salmon, were adorned with vivid paintings of stained-glass cathedral windows, and the fabric covering sofa and armchairs was of a large broken herringbone pattern in dark brown and white, confusing to the eye. I reflected ruefully that I didn’t know whether he’d taken it over from the past owner. I knew only his taste in clothes, food, gadgets and horses. Not very much. Not enough.
The drawing room was dustless and tidy; unlived in. I returned to the front hall from where stairs led up and down, but before tackling those I went through a door at the rear which opened into a much smaller room filled with a homely clutter of books, newspapers, magazines, black leather chairs, clocks, chrysanthemums in pots, a tray of booze and framed medieval brass rubbings on deep green walls. This was all Greville, I thought. This was home.
I left it for the moment and hopped down the stairs to the semibasement, where there was a bedroom, unused, a small bathroom and a decorator-style dining room looking out through grilles to a rear garden, with a narrow spotless kitchen alongside.
Fixed to the fridge by a magnetic strawberry was a note.
Dear Mr. Franklin,
I didn’t know you’d be away this weekend. I brought in all the papers, they’re in the back room. You didn’t leave your laundry out, so I haven’t taken it. Thanks for the money. I’ll be back next Tuesday as usual.
I looked around for a pencil, found a ballpoint, pulled the note from its clip and wrote on the back, asking Mrs. P. to call the following number (Saxony Franklin’s) and speak to Derek or Annette. I didn’t sign it, but put it back under the strawberry where I supposed it would stay for another week, a sorry message in waiting.
I looked in the fridge which contained little but milk, butter, grapes, a pork pie and two bottles of champagne.
Diamonds in the ice cubes? I didn’t think he would have put them anywhere so chancy: besides, he was security conscious, not paranoid.
I hauled myself upstairs to the hall again and then went on up to the next floor, where there was a bedroom and bathroom suite in self-conscious black and white. Greville had slept there: the built-in closets and drawers held his clothes, the bathroom cabinet his privacy. He had been sparing in his possessions, leaving a single row of shoes, several white shirts on hangers, six assorted suits and a rack of silk ties. The drawers were tidy with sweaters, sport shirts, underclothes, socks. Our mother, I thought with a smile, would have been proud of him. She’d tried hard and unsuccessfully to instill tidiness into both of us as children, and it looked as if we’d both got better with age.
There was little else to see. The drawer in the bedside table revealed indigestion tablets, a flashlight and a paperback, John D. MacDonald. No gadgets and no treasure maps.
With a sigh I went into the only other room on that floor and found it unfurnished and papered with garish metallic silvery roses which had been half ripped off at one point. So much for the decorator.
There was another flight of stairs going upward, but I didn’t climb them. There would only be, by the looks of things, unused rooms to find there, and I thought I would go and look later when stairs weren’t such a sweat. Anything deeply interesting in that house seemed likely to be found in the small back sitting room, so it was to there that I returned.
I sat for a while in the chair that was clearly Greville’s favorite, from where he could see the television and the view over the garden. Places that people had left forever should be seen through their eyes, I thought. His presence was strong in that room, and in me.
Beside his chair there was a small antique table with, on its polished top, a telephone and an answering machine. A red light for messages received was shining on the machine, so after a while I pressed a button marked “rewind,” followed by another marked “play.” A woman’s voice spoke without preamble.
“Darling, where are you? Do call me.”
There was a series of between-message clicks, then the same voice again, this time packed with anxiety.
“Darling, please please call. I’m very worried. Where are you, darling? Please call. I love you.”
Again the clicks, but no more messages.
Poor lady, I thought. Grief and tears waiting in the wings.
I got up and explored the room more fully, pausing by two drawers in a table beside the window. They contained two small black unidentified gadgets which baffled me and which I stowed in my pockets, and also a slotted tray containing a rather nice collection of small bears, polished and carved from shaded pink, brown and charcoal stone. I laid the tray on top of the table beside some chrysanthemums and came next to a box made of greenish stone, also polished, which, true to Greville’s habit, was firmly locked. Thinking perhaps that one of the keys fitted it, I brought out the bunch again and began to try the smallest.
I was facing the window with my back to the room, balancing on one foot and leaning a thigh against the table, my arms out of the crutches, intent on what I was doing and disastrously unheeding. The first I knew of anyone else in the house was a muffled exclamation behind me, and I turned to see a dark-haired woman coming through the doorway, her wild glance rigidly fixing on the green stone box. Without pause she came fast toward me, pulling out of a pocket a black object like a long fat cigar.
I opened my mouth to speak but she brought her hand round in a strong swinging arc, and in that travel the short black cylinder more than doubled its length into a thick silvery flexible stick which crashed with shattering force against my left upper arm, enough to stop a heavyweight in round one.
6
May fingers went numb and dropped the box. I swayed and spun from the force of the impact and overbalanced, toppling, thinking sharply that I mustn’t this time put my foot on the ground. I dropped the bunch of keys and grabbed at the back of an upright black leather chair with my right hand to save myself, but it turned over under my weight and came down on top of me onto the carpet in a tangle of chair legs, table legs and crutches, the green box underneath and digging into my back.
In a spitting fury I tried to orient myself and finally got enough breath for one single choice, charming and heartfelt word.
“Bitch.”
She gave me a baleful glare and picked up the telephone, pressing three fast buttons.
“Police,” she said, and in as short a time as it took the emergency service to connect her, “Police, I want to report a burglary. I’ve caught a burglar.”
“I’m Greville’s brother,” I said thickly, from the floor.
For a moment it didn’t seem to reach her. I said again, more loudly, “I’m Greville’s brother.”
“What?” she said vaguely.
“For Christ’s sake, are you deaf? I’m not a burglar, I’m Greville Franklin’s brother.” I gingerly sat up into an L shape and found no strength anywhere.