Hayes. I’ve got half a mind to burn the place down and see how he likes that.”
Then I waited: for all the alarm clocks to go off, or the smoke detectors to begin shrieking, or the windows to slam open and closed by themselves.
But nothing happened at all, and it struck me suddenly that my haunted old house (or my haunted old head, if you subscribed to Ellie's theory) had been eerily inactive since the power came back on.
Or since Jonathan Raines had disappeared.
“Why would he leave it there?” Charmian asked.
I didn’t know how long she’d been standing in the hallway at the foot of the stairs. She came into the room.
“If he had the eyepiece and had torn down the plaster, why would he leave before he looked? He’d done all that work, so why stop at the critical moment? And if he did look, why go out just as he might have discovered something important?”
Good questions, but I didn’t have answers to them, either. “Did you know what he was searching for?” I demanded.
She flushed slightly, biting her lip. “Yes. An extremely valuable violin. A Stradivarius. Everyone else says there’ll be no more ever found. But Jonathan … well.”
So there it was, out in the open. “What convinced him that everyone else was wrong?”
Those remarkable violet eyes were pink-rimmed; she’d been weeping. “Jon … well, he marched to a different drummer, that's all. He got hunches and went along with them. I’m not sure where he got this one from, but it would make his career if he found an unknown Strad. He said he would find it if it killed him.”
She laughed brokenly. “And now … the instrument didn’t kill him, but someone did. I’m absolutely sure, because I know Jon, and he would never have just walked away from a clue that might have put a Stradivarius in his hands in the next moment. Someone lured him. That's why he left just when he was about to discover something. And then …”
The conclusion was obvious. She still believed that someone had killed him.
But the objection was obvious, also: “Men on fishing boats saw him out there on that pier,” I said. “Saw him alone, saw him go over, no one to push him.”
Unless a ghost pushed him off that pier, I simply didn’t see how it could have been done.
And that far, even I was not yet ready to go.
Ellie put her hand on Charmian's arm. “Would you like to come with me and talk to the men?” she asked. “It might calm your mind to know from them how it happened, to hear it from a person who was there at the time. Then you could …”
Rest easier, she had been going to say, or something like it. But Charmian refused this comfort, as I’d expected she might. She didn’t look like the rest-easy type.
“No, thank you. I appreciate your offer. But I don’t want to talk to people who think he fell or jumped, because he didn’t.”
Now that she’d seen what Raines had been doing just before he died, in fact, she looked like a young woman who was bound and determined to find out exactly what was rotten in Denmark.
I waved at the table. “What about the eyeglasses?” I asked. “They’re fake.”
She nodded. “He did that sometimes. When he wanted people to think he was …”
“Geeky?” Ellie supplied.
Charmian smiled. The effect, on that portrait-pretty face, was of sunlight shining through rain. “He wouldn’t have meant any harm,” she added. “I mean, he wouldn’t have stolen it. The violin, if he’d found it.”
I wasn’t so sure. She sounded convinced, though.
“But as I told you, he was the least geeky person you could imagine,” she finished.
Her own use of the past tense made her lip begin trembling again. Troubledly, she fingered the leather of the old book on the table, opening it without seeming to look at it.
Over the years, the glue in the old binding had loosened and become brittle. With a faint crack! the spine separated and the book lay open flat. “I still can’t believe he's gone.”
Gravely
Then I waited: for all the alarm clocks to go off, or the smoke detectors to begin shrieking, or the windows to slam open and closed by themselves.
But nothing happened at all, and it struck me suddenly that my haunted old house (or my haunted old head, if you subscribed to Ellie's theory) had been eerily inactive since the power came back on.
Or since Jonathan Raines had disappeared.
“Why would he leave it there?” Charmian asked.
I didn’t know how long she’d been standing in the hallway at the foot of the stairs. She came into the room.
“If he had the eyepiece and had torn down the plaster, why would he leave before he looked? He’d done all that work, so why stop at the critical moment? And if he did look, why go out just as he might have discovered something important?”
Good questions, but I didn’t have answers to them, either. “Did you know what he was searching for?” I demanded.
She flushed slightly, biting her lip. “Yes. An extremely valuable violin. A Stradivarius. Everyone else says there’ll be no more ever found. But Jonathan … well.”
So there it was, out in the open. “What convinced him that everyone else was wrong?”
Those remarkable violet eyes were pink-rimmed; she’d been weeping. “Jon … well, he marched to a different drummer, that's all. He got hunches and went along with them. I’m not sure where he got this one from, but it would make his career if he found an unknown Strad. He said he would find it if it killed him.”
She laughed brokenly. “And now … the instrument didn’t kill him, but someone did. I’m absolutely sure, because I know Jon, and he would never have just walked away from a clue that might have put a Stradivarius in his hands in the next moment. Someone lured him. That's why he left just when he was about to discover something. And then …”
The conclusion was obvious. She still believed that someone had killed him.
But the objection was obvious, also: “Men on fishing boats saw him out there on that pier,” I said. “Saw him alone, saw him go over, no one to push him.”
Unless a ghost pushed him off that pier, I simply didn’t see how it could have been done.
And that far, even I was not yet ready to go.
Ellie put her hand on Charmian's arm. “Would you like to come with me and talk to the men?” she asked. “It might calm your mind to know from them how it happened, to hear it from a person who was there at the time. Then you could …”
Rest easier, she had been going to say, or something like it. But Charmian refused this comfort, as I’d expected she might. She didn’t look like the rest-easy type.
“No, thank you. I appreciate your offer. But I don’t want to talk to people who think he fell or jumped, because he didn’t.”
Now that she’d seen what Raines had been doing just before he died, in fact, she looked like a young woman who was bound and determined to find out exactly what was rotten in Denmark.
I waved at the table. “What about the eyeglasses?” I asked. “They’re fake.”
She nodded. “He did that sometimes. When he wanted people to think he was …”
“Geeky?” Ellie supplied.
Charmian smiled. The effect, on that portrait-pretty face, was of sunlight shining through rain. “He wouldn’t have meant any harm,” she added. “I mean, he wouldn’t have stolen it. The violin, if he’d found it.”
I wasn’t so sure. She sounded convinced, though.
“But as I told you, he was the least geeky person you could imagine,” she finished.
Her own use of the past tense made her lip begin trembling again. Troubledly, she fingered the leather of the old book on the table, opening it without seeming to look at it.
Over the years, the glue in the old binding had loosened and become brittle. With a faint crack! the spine separated and the book lay open flat. “I still can’t believe he's gone.”
Gravely
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