Thorn

else. The people who run them . . . did you get a chance to look at the painting closely? It's really so beautiful.'

'I agree.'

'I certainly wouldn't have sold it to that creep who's got it now. I'd have made sure he never got his hands on it, and I'm sure he knew I felt that way.'

There was a little silence. 'May I refresh your drinks?' Thorn offered.

'You see,' Mary explained suddenly, 'I got to know Del because I helped out his niece when she was a runaway. I met Helen in Chicago, when she was ready to give up being on the road. I was a kind of official social worker then.'

'You were a nun,' her lawyer interjected.

Mary gave him a glance. 'I hadn't taken my final vows. Anyway, I was able to help Helen get her head together somewhat. Delaunay appreciated that, and at his request I wound up living with them here in Phoenix for a couple of months. Helen's parents came along too, at his urging. The old man was grateful to me for helping Helen, that's all there ever was between us.'

'I see.' Mr. Thorn considered Mary's lush figure, the full veins in her throat. He was unsure whether he ought to envy the young lawyer with whom she was apparently living now, and/or feel regret on behalf of the dead old man who had been only grateful. There wandered into his mind the image, thin and dark, of the other attractive woman who had been at the auction room. Stephanie Seabright, mother and sister-in-law respectively of the two victims. A woman desperately wanting to be young, to start over, perhaps, somehow . . .

Mary had paused for a full breath. 'Excuse me, Mr. Thorn, but you're not an American, are you?'

'I am not. Though I have made my home in America for the past year. I like your—'

'You see, we have in this country a very serious and tragic problem, of teenagers, some kids even younger, who find their homes, if you can call some of them homes, just completely unendurable. So the kids take off, hitchhiking or what have you, and quite a number of them, more than you'd think, wind up as murder victims. Nobody's done a really good study yet to demonstrate how many.' Mary smiled eagerly, giving the impression she enjoyed either the lack of that crucial study or the prospect of reading what it would someday reveal. 'The others, the relatively lucky ones, are sexually abused, robbed, molested. They wind up in jail, on dope, in prostitution.' Mary continued to smile. No doubt it was unconscious.

Mr. Thorn said: 'I see the problem. It is not a new one.' Several floors below his suite, a radio was softly playing a lament that concerned, if his old ears were to be trusted, the fate of a limestone cowboy. Very little surprised him any more.

'There are official means of attempting to deal with the problem, of course. Courts, agencies, juvenile homes. They all can do some good but it's not enough. I intended to sell that painting and use the money to show what can be done. I intended to set up a halfway house for runaways.'

'Ah.' Mr. Thorn appeared to be giving the suggestion his most thoughtful consideration. Then he nodded. 'That sounds like a most worthy plan.'

Mary, who had perhaps not expected such quick and unqualified agreement, blinked at him and slowed down. 'I really can't think of anything that's needed more.'

'Amen,' said Robinson Miller.

Thorn asked: 'This plan of yours, I hope, has not been abandoned?'

'No. Not at all. We've had to postpone things, of course, but—'

'Then you would be willing to accept a contribution?'

The sudden, innocent joy in Mary's eyes realized some of the potential beauty that her habitual fierce smiling tended to obscure. She looked at Miller. 'We could at least start an account, Robby . . . I'm very grateful, Mr. Thorn.'

Only grateful. 'I was wondering,' asked Mr. Thorn, meanwhile slowly drawing out a checkbook, 'if you intended to return to the Seabright house for any reason? I assume you have moved out.'

'I haven't been back since that night. Except once for a police re-enactment. But I do still have a few things there, if Ellison hasn't had them burned. They'll have to be picked up sooner or later, I suppose.'

'Might I come with you when you do that?'

'Why?' asked Miller bluntly.

Thorn opened the checkbook on his bony knee and drew a pen from his breast pocket. 'I have been trying to arrange a meeting with Mr. Seabright, in his late brother's house. I have phoned several times and have been told that he will see no one. He has not returned my calls. I hope to arrange, somehow, a simple invitation to cross the threshold of that dwelling. No more than that.'

Miller opened his mouth, glanced at Mary, closed it again. His eyes came back to the open checkbook on Thorn's knee, the pen poised over the blank check. At last he repeated Mary's earlier question. 'You're his rival in the sense of—collecting?'

'Yes. Precisely. I should like very much to get a look at his collection.'

'He's not very likely to give any friend of mine the grand tour, you know,' said Mary doubtfully. 'In fact I don't think he'd let either of us in the house. More likely he'd just have my things thrown out the front gate, and us with them.'

'I ask only that you do what you can to help me cross the threshold. After that I shall manage for myself. Agreed?'

'Agreed.' She was still doubtful.

'As for your projected charitable home—' Thorn wrote, tore out a check with a crisp noise, handed it across. 'Something on account, shall we say? I hope to be able to continue my support of the project once it has begun.'

Mary's eyes widened, looking at the small piece of paper. 'Thank you! Jeez, what can I say? Oh, Rob, this is a start, a real start.'

Miller looked, made as if to whistle, then raised puzzled eyes to Thorn. 'I'll say. Thanks. You must have a real affinity for lost causes.'

Chapter Four

The Vicar of Christ lay dying in a tent on the lonely, rain-sogged beach at Ancona, where he had had himself brought that he might keep a personal watch for ships. Inside his fevered brain, phantasmagorical armies of Crusaders had been embarked, and he did not want to miss the first sight of their rendezvous here, at the place he had ordained—the hosts of the Emperor, the massed cavalry squadrons of Philip the Good.

I arrived overland, to find the coastal town swarming with churchmen. But as I had expected, there was no sign of any military or naval force of consequence. A Swiss mercenary escorted me to the Pope's tent, and waited by my side till word came out that His Holiness would see me. Inside, a pair of gray-robed monks were in absentminded attendance upon the old man propped up with pillows.

The Holy Father, looking clearheaded enough at the moment, beckoned me close to him. 'You are welcome,' he murmured in Italian as I knelt to kiss his ring. 'And your companions? Men at arms? How many have you brought?'

I was sure he recognized my name, but it did not seem to have alarmed him. 'I am alone, Holiness,' I answered, standing as he motioned for me to rise. Actually of course my presence had nothing to do with Pius's call for swords about the cross. The trail of King Matthias's wayward sister had led me to Venice, and in that city I had been told she had come here. According to my Venetian informant, she had embarked—in what capacity was uncertain—on one of the two galleys of Venetian volunteers that city had actually dispatched to take part in the Papal fiasco. The ships were now anchored in Ancona's harbor, and my first move on arriving at the port had been to locate and question some of their sailors. These told me that no woman, high-born or low, who answered Helen's description had been aboard either ship. Having offered the seamen gold for confirmation of her presence, I was compelled to believe their regretful denials.