He seemed lost in thought. Then his eyes locked on mine and he said, “They are not actually brother and sister.” He got up, poured us more coffee, and returned the pot to the stove.
“How do you figure that?”
“It’s not something I figured; Stan told me. Val Mallard was an adopted child.”
“Well, that explains a few things.”
He nodded. “Stan’s brother Charles married a delicate woman. Physically delicate… you know, frail. It was thought she couldn’t have children, so they adopted the boy. Years later she became pregnant with Judith…a mid-life baby, a great surprise.”
“I’ll bet.”
“There didn’t have to be any great conflict with that. Sometimes those things work out fine, and Stan told me they really did try. Charles and his wife did everything possible to raise them equally, to play no favorites. But from the beginning there was anger, resentment, extreme jealousy.”
“A modern-day Cathy and Heathcliff,” I said.
“Except that love was at the bottom of it all in that story, and here you have just hate.”
“I thought something was out of whack when I questioned them. Judith said something—it didn’t make sense at the time and I let it get past me. Something like, ‘If you’re looking for all the living Ballards, I’m it.’ ”
“Yes. I don’t know what good it’ll do you…”
“It could be a motive for murder.”
“If they were going to murder anyone, it would be each other.”
“Maybe. Or maybe they enjoy the hate.”
“Now you’re talking in riddles.”
“You’ve got to allow for the quirks of human nature,” I said. “Maybe they like what’s going on between them. You know what I mean. The sweet sorrow, the hate that’s really love, the pull of opposites in a single emotion. Maybe they’d be lost without each other. This is the stuff Shakespeare wrote about, isn’t it? If you kill off a hate object, it’s over. So much better to do him in in other ways… to get the better of him in business, to rook him out of his eyeteeth… That you can savor all your life.”
“I don’t believe it,” he said, but I had a feeling he might believe it, deep in his gut.
“You still know something you’re not telling me,” I said.
“It’s nothing… harmless.”
“I think I’ll have to ask you to let me be the judge of that.”
He shook his head. “It’s just something Stan told me. It couldn’t have any bearing on this.”
“I think if Mr. Ballard were here, from what I know of him, he’d want you to tell me.”
“That may be, but he’s not here, and I can’t go back on him.”
“There are things that make no sense at all about this deal. The man had ten thousand books. I know he got them from the clubs; I’ve been through every statement going back almost fifty years. They’re legitimate, they’re in his name, they’re annotated in his hand. He writes in the margin when he received a book and when he read it. The books were appraised and the appraiser, who is a helluva respected authority, found nothing of value. And yet, in the last two days, two hundred books have turned up. They did not come from the clubs. They were fine first editions… very desirable, very valuable, worth maybe twenty-five thousand dollars. I don’t know where they could’ve come from but here in this house.”
“Unbelievable,” he said. “People really pay that much, just to own a first edition?”
“Sometimes more than that. Are you telling me, Mr. Green-wald, that neither you nor Mr. Ballard knew what first editions can be worth?”
“We never discussed money. In our generation money was a man’s private business. Besides, it’s so uninteresting. We didn’t care about money.”
“Somebody did. Were you here when the woman came to look at the books?”
“I was minding my own business. Stan told me how it had gone, after it was over.”
“He told you the woman had appraised the library as worthless.”
“That’s what he said, yes.”
“You never met the lady?”
“No.”
“Is there any way I can persuade you to talk to me?”
“That’s what I’ve been doing.”
“You have nothing else to say to me?”
“Not at this time.”
I got up to leave.
