Death Among the Ruins by Pamela Christie Page B

red hair and princely manners.”
    “You don’t say so! Well, I must admit he does have the nicest manners as ever I saw in a cat,” said the housekeeper, patting his tail. “But we shall have to wait and see what the missus says when she gets back . . . if she ever does get back, that is. ”
     
    Long after Arabella had left the others, Belinda staggered through the door to the Beaumont party’s private parlor, and dropped onto a chair next the desk.
    “I must remonstrate with you, Bell!” she cried faintly. “After you left, I was made to sing all the English ballads the world has ever known!”
    “How could that be my fault?” Arabella asked, busily writing the aforementioned description of her fellow guests.
    “Because, if you had only been there, you might have had half of them. It was very ill-mannered to leave us so abruptly.”
    “Ill-mannered? I was ill-mannered? What about the others?”
    “I fully understand your exasperation with that horrid Osvaldo fellow,” said Belinda, “but I fail to see why you cannot be more amenable towards Father Terranova. After all, he only wants to throw some water off your balcony and mutter a few meaningless words. What is that to you?”
    “All words are meaningless, in and of themselves, Bunny. We make them mean something by the intention that impels their utterance.” Arabella shut the notebook. “And I do not care for that man’s meaning. I disliked him the moment I saw him. He wants to intrude himself into our rooms and leave his noxious stamp upon them, like some . . . randy tomcat. I do not want him in here, I do not want him on my balcony, and I particularly do not want him baptizing the helpless dead, who are in no position to object.”
    “Well, I don’t see that it matters,” said Belinda. “They are dead, after all.”
    “No, your sister is quite right, Miss Belinda,” said Mr. Kendrick, stepping through the open doorway. “To those of us who believe in any sort of an afterlife, what is done to the soul, either before or a thousand years after it leaves the body, matters very much indeed.”
    “I believe in an afterlife,” said Belinda. “However, I do not believe that the actions of a living person can have an effect on anyone’s soul but his own.”
    “That is true for most people. But clergy are different, you see. We do have authority over the souls of others, and our authority comes straight from the Almighty. If Father Terranova baptizes everyone who lies buried in Herculaneum, those souls will all go to heaven. The question is, do they have the right to be there?”
    “More importantly,” said Arabella, “do they want to be snatched from whatever pagan twilight they now inhabit with their friends from all over the ancient Roman empire, to spend eternity with a lot of Christians? What could those two groups possibly have in common, apart from the accident of having been born on the same peninsula? The ancient Romans hated the Christians. I do not think they would like it at all.”
    “What a silly conversation,” said Belinda, yawning. “What were you writing, Bell, when I came in, just now?”
    “I was making an entry in my new CIN.”
    “Oh?” asked the rector interestedly, believing he had heard the word “sin.” “Is it anything for which I may be of assistance?”
    “No, thank you, Mr. Kendrick. A ‘CIN’ is a criminal inquiry notebook.”
    “I thought you said it stood for ‘crime investigation notebook, ’” said Belinda.
    “I daresay I did. But ‘criminal inquiry’ sounds well, too. In fact, I think it sounds better. Last year, Mr. Kendrick, I kept a blue one, if you remember. I find it helps to store all my findings in one place.” She stroked the cover. “This time, I’ve chosen a parchment-colored book,” she said, “to remind me of my own dear parchment-colored ponies. How I should love to be able to ride one of them now! All that time spent on the ship was most debilitating.”
    “What have you