The Collected Stories of Amanda Cross by Amanda Cross Page A

deliberate way, “but the photograph was dropped off at the paper anonymously; that is, it was left at the reception desk, and no one remembers who left it. It was marked ‘urgent,’ but bore no message other than the name of the minister in the picture.”
    “An invisible person left it,” Kate announced. “Didn’t they check out the picture?”
    “I was just coming to that, dear,” Georgiana mildly said, while Kate wondered if stressful impatience could shorten one’s life by decades, as seemed likely. “The newspaper sent out an ‘investigative reporter,’ ” Georgiana ever so lightly emphasized the phrase, “and he found the–er–woman in the picture. She admitted readily enough that it was indeed she, and that the man with her was indeed the minister, whose photograph the reporter showed her. She had not known who her ‘client’ was, but this was not the first time she had ‘serviced’ him. Poor Matthew Finley was quite embarrassed at having to report this unseemly business. When they had verified all this, the newspaper people decided to print the picture.”
    “The rest is history,” Kate said. “Georgiana, may I stay on a day or two more? I think I may be able to find Flavia. But I’m going to have to visit your old people’s home, Merryland, as soon as possible.”
    “Merryfields, dear. We’ll go this very minute, if you’ll just let me get ready. Surely you don’t think one of those old people did Flavia in?”
    “I think they did the naughty minister in,” Kate said. “But only time will tell.”
    “If you want any information from the old people, Kate,” Georgiana said, pausing on the staircase, “perhaps you had better let me try to elicit it. Your rather, well,
Northern
manner might just confuse them, and take more time in the end. Besides, they know me. Now what is it you’re trying to discover?” Kate, who could not but see the force of Georgiana’s words, had to consent, but she wondered if she would survive waiting for Georgiana to return with her information. I told Kate later that now, at last, she knew how
I
felt when she left me so cruelly suspended in the course of investigations.
    Georgiana allowed Kate to go with her to Merryfields, but not to accompany her upstairs on her visits to the old people. “You’ll just upset them; even if you don’t speak (and we know how unlikely that is, dear), just the presence of a stranger may very well put them off their stride. Now you just sit in the waiting room and
wait
.” No one but Georgiana could have got away with it.
    But when she came down again a considerable time later, it was clear that she thought she had got what Kate wanted. And Kate, when she heard it, thought so too. “Though what this has to do with Flavia’s disappearance, I cannot imagine,” Georgiana announced in the face of Kate’s excitement.
    Georgiana reported that the dear old ladies had told her
all
about the visits of her dear friend from the North: Flavia. They tended to wander and to repeat themselves, but there was no doubt the conversation had certainly turned to the Divine Church of the Air, which they watched assiduously. Surely, they told Flavia, their dear Minister was talking to each of them personally, because he had read their letters, had answered them personally,and was grateful that their contributions, slight as they were, were helping to spread the word of God and lead others to be born again to Christ. Each lady had shown Flavia her letters, typed of course but addressed to her personally, with the minister’s promise to pray for her with special fervor and by name. Each old person, however deserted in this world, was not forgotten by God or by His minister on earth and the Divine Church of the Air. The ladies had even trusted Georgiana with a few of their letters, which Georgiana produced.
    “How much money did they send?” Kate asked. Of course Georgiana didn’t like to ask the
exact
amount, but it had been as much as