pseudo-Victorian style. In the sitting room four unmatching chairs had been drawn up around a table. A man was sitting in one of them.
The new arrivals were quickly introduced to Keogh's brother-in-law John Southerland, who had come with him from Chicago. Southerland was about twenty-eight, the same height as his boss—a little under six feet—and solidly built. His light brown hair still retained a tendency to curl. At the moment he was either starting a beard or badly in need of a shave.
Maria, studying Joe Keogh's impressively tough-looking face, decided that his looks did him no harm in his business. She'd already learned that he had been a Chicago cop before marrying Southerland money.
'Have a seat.' Keogh indicated the chairs around the table. His voice was mild, almost nondescript. 'Glad you guys made it up here. They tell me the weather might be getting worse any time now.'
An exchange of comments on the weather was interrupted by a tap at the door. John Southerland opened it to admit, as a trusted colleague, Mr. Strangeways.
Brief introductions were performed. Another small chair was brought from somewhere, and presently five were seated around the table.
A pause ensued. It seemed to Maria as if Keogh, now that he had his two reinforcements from Phoenix, wasn't sure of how to go about explaining the job to them.
'What we've got here is—has the possibility of being—a strange case,' he said at last, and paused, frowning, shooting a quick glance at Strangeways, who gazed back at him impassively.
Wind, beginning to pick up velocity in late afternoon, moaned at the window.
Bill cleared his throat. 'Who's the client?' he asked Keogh directly.
When Keogh seemed to hesitate, Maria put in: 'They told us down in Phoenix that this was a missing person, a seventeen-year-old girl—and that the case had what they described as possibly interesting complications.'
Strangeways sat with his arms folded, attentive but unmoving.
Keogh looked at Southerland. 'You tell 'em.'
The younger man cleared his throat and began, 'Client's name is Mrs. Sarah Tyrrell. She's about eighty years old, give or take a few. Her late husband, Edgar Tyrrell, was a fairly well-known sculptor back in the early nineteen-hundreds. He was born in England, but spent his most productive years here. His stuff is enjoying something of a revival now, I understand, and the old lady is well off financially.
'The missing girl is Sarah Tyrrell's niece, or rather grandniece, if that's the proper word.'
'It is,' said Strangeways shortly. Everyone glanced at him.
John resumed: 'Cathy's father—adoptive father, whatever that might signify—is Mr. G. C. Brainard, a lawyer who deals in art. I don't know that he's too happy about our being called in at this late date to investigate his daughter's disappearance—anyway something's bothering him. Anyway someone recommended us to the old lady, and she insisted on calling us in, and he tends to humor her, as I suppose is usual among people with wealthy aunts. Is that a fair way to put the situation, Joe?'
Keogh only squinted, in a way that Maria Torres took to mean he wasn't entirely sure. He glanced at Strangeways, who gave him a moody look in return, but no comment.
'Mrs. Tyrrell is staying here?' Bill asked, when no one else seemed eager to talk.
'Not in any of the hotels,' Joe Keogh explained. 'There's a building called the Tyrrell House, a little bit west of here, right on the rim. It was her husband's studio in the early thirties, and it's the house where the two of them lived together. It belongs to the Park Service now, of course, but part of the agreement when the government took it over was that Mrs. Tyrrell would have the right to use the place whenever she wanted during her lifetime. She and Brainard are staying there.'
'Was Cathy staying in that house,' asked Maria, 'when she disappeared?'
'No,' Keogh shook his head. 'It's more complicated than that. She was in one of the regular lodges—not this one—with a small group of her friends from boarding school. Everyone agrees that Cathy had never been anywhere near the Grand Canyon before her visit at Thanksgiving.
'The kids did some of the usual tourist things, hiked around, took pictures. They had camping equipment with them, and they debated whether to take a mule ride down to Phantom Ranch—that's an overnight trip to the bottom of the Canyon and back—but decided not to. Then, on the second day of their visit, for some reason, Cathy began acting strangely. Or so her companions thought later. She left them suddenly, saying something about going for a walk. They assumed she meant that she was going to the Visitor Center or the general store. But a few minutes later, a disinterested witness saw a girl who looked like Cathy Brainard, and was dressed like her, carrying a pack and equipment as if for an overnight hike, starting down Bright Angel Trail alone.
'As far as we know, that witness was the last person to see Cathy Brainard anywhere.'
Bill said slowly: 'I'm no expert, but that doesn't sound to me like a planned kidnapping. Maybe some lunatic encountered her and—'
Joe nodded. 'I agree. There've been no demands. Kidnapping's a federal offense, of course, and the feds did come here and look around. But they pretty quickly decided that the girl had most likely just walked off on her own, a deliberate runaway. And a fatal accident wouldn't be too surprising; that kind of thing happens to someone in the Park practically every year. By all reports she's a good hiker, or an energetic walker anyway, and in a few hours she could have gone all the way down to the river at the bottom of the canyon, and drowned. The Colorado's deep and swift, and very cold. It wouldn't be surprising if a body was never found.
'Or she could have simply got off the trails, perhaps got herself lost, and fallen into a hole or off a cliff somewhere—you'll see how very possible that is, once you get a close look at the terrain. Have either of you had a chance to do that, by the way?'
Bill and Maria shook their heads. 'Never been here before,' Bill said. 'We tried today, but it was too foggy.'
Maria said: 'I presume none of the girl's schoolmates are here at the Canyon now?'
'No reason to think they are. I haven't had the chance to talk to any of them yet, and it's one of the things I want to do, of course, eventually.'
Bill asked: 'And the witness at the head of Bright Angel Trail? Who was that?'
'Good question. A middle-aged lady schoolteacher, long since gone home to Ohio. No reason to doubt her story.'
'How'd she happen to notice Cathy, among what I suppose was the usual throng of tourists?'
'Cathy came up to her and asked her where it might be possible to get a map of the trails in the Canyon. The teacher remembered the girl who spoke to her, because she thought the youngster seemed worried or disturbed. Later she could describe what Cathy looked like, how she was dressed. I don't doubt it was our girl.'
Maria nodded, eyes gleaming faintly. 'I wonder what disturbed her suddenly?'
Strangeways gave her a sidelong glance of interest, but did not comment.
Joe Keogh continued the briefing. 'Some more information, possibly relevant. I get the feeling that young Cathy is likely to inherit old Aunt Sarah's money one day—if Cathy is still alive. There seem to be no other close relatives, except Cathy's father, of course. Old Sarah gives nephew Brainard a hard time, from what I've seen. And sometimes vice versa. They have a business relationship now but that's about it. Whereas the old lady was—is— much attached to Cathy.'
'A possible conflict of interest,' commented Strangeways, 'between this Brainard and his adopted daughter.'
Maria decided that this unexplained colleague had a commanding air about him, despite the fact that he seldom spoke. He might be thirty-five at the most, she thought. His dark hair and beard were full and short, and he wore a dark turtleneck shirt or sweater under a brown jacket that in the arrangement of its pockets suggested to her vaguely that it had been designed for a hunter rather than a skier to wear. The more she looked at Strangeways the more certainly she felt him to be in some way truly out of the ordinary. It wasn't easy, try as she might, to pin the feeling down any more specifically than that.
'You think he made her vanish?' Joe Keogh asked him, somewhat deferentially.
'Stranger things have happened, Joseph.'
'That's for damn sure.' Keogh sighed, ran fingers through his sandy hair, and looked as if he wanted to ask Strangeways another question or two. But perhaps the presence of his new recruits constrained him. Turning to them, he began questioning them on mundane matters. Maria and Bill quickly ran through their qualifications and experience.
