To Play the Fool

“The titles of her articles and the one book look like what you need. I should have some of them Monday or Tuesday, if you want to look through them before you see her.”

“Good idea. If she calls and I’m not here, see if you can get a real phone number or an address from her. Want another coffee?”

“No, this is fine. Could you stick that tape into the machine for me?”

Kate obediently fed the indicated videotape into the mouth of the player, turned on the television, and, while she was waiting for the sound to come up, looked at the box: The Pirates of Penzance.

“Another heavy intellectual evening, I see,” she said, grinned at Lee’s embarrassment, and went off to do the dishes. Lee thought Gilbert and Sullivan hilarious,- Kate would have preferred the Saturday-morning cartoons.

After a while, she heard Jon’s voice above those of the cavorting sailors. A minute later, he came into the kitchen, dressed in his mauve velour dressing gown, and took two glasses and a squat bottle out of the drinks cupboard.

“We really must have a crystal decanter,” he complained, pouring out a thick red-brown liquid. “Would you like a glass?”

“What is it?”

“Port, my dear. I thought it might be fun to reintroduce gout as a fashionable disease.”

“No thanks. Say, Jon? Just now Lee said something about installing a lift on the stairs. Do you know anything about that?”

“Yes, well, I thought it might not be a bad idea.”

“I agree. I suggested it three or four months ago and she nearly bit my head off.”

“Did she? Well, times change. I admit I did bitch—a small bitch, a gentle bitch—about the state of my knees on those stairs. And, er, I also pointed out that she could probably deduct the depreciated cost of it as a business expense, now she’s working again.” Jon studied his fingernails for a moment and then looked up through his eyelashes at her—difficult to do, as he was four inches taller than she. Kate began reluctantly to grin, shaking her head.

“By God, you’re a sly one. And she fell for it. I’d never have believed it.” He laughed and whisked the glasses off the counter. “Jon?” He turned in the doorway. “Good work. Thanks.” He nodded, then went to join Lee in front of the television.

An hour later, Linda Ronstadt was bouncing around a moonlit garden in her nightie, flirting with her pirate, when the phone rang. Kate picked it up in the kitchen, where she had retreated with a stack of unread newspapers.

“Martinelli.”

“This is Professor Eve Whitlaw, returning your call.” The voice was low, calm, and English.

“Yes, Dr. Whitlaw, thank you for phoning. I am the—”

“Is that pirates?”

“Sorry?”

“The music you’re listening to. It is, yes. Not perhaps their best, but it has a few delicious moments. You were saying.”

“Er, yes. I am Inspector Kate Martinelli of the San Francisco Police Department. We are investigating a murder that occurred recently in Golden Gate Park. The reason I am calling you is that one of the persons involved refers to himself as a ‘fool,” and I was told by the dean of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific over in Berkeley that you might be able to tell me exactly what this man means when he uses that description.“ By the time Kate reached the end of this convoluted request, she was feeling something of a fool herself, and the sensation was reinforced by the long and ringing silence on the other end of the line.

“Dr. Whit—”

“You’ve arrested a Fool for murder?” the English voice said incredulously.

“He is not under arrest. At most, he’s a weak suspect. However, he’s a problem to us because it’s very difficult to understand what he’s doing here. The interviews we’ve held have been… unsatisfactory.”

The deep voice chuckled. “I can imagine. He answers your questions, but his answers are, shall we say, ambiguous. Even enigmatic.”

“Thank God,” Kate burst out. “You do understand.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, but I may be able to throw a bit of light into your darkness. When may I meet this fool of yours?”

“You want to meet him?”

“My dear young woman, would you ask a paleontologist if she would care to meet a dinosaur? Of course I must meet him. Is he in jail?”

“No, at the moment he’s in Berkeley. He will be back in San Francisco by Saturday, I think, and I could put my hands on him by Sunday. Perhaps we could arrange a meeting on Monday?”

“Not until then? Ah well, it can’t be helped, I suppose. However, my dear, if you lose him, I shall find it very hard.” There was a thread of steel beneath the jovial words, and Kate had a vivid picture of an elderly teacher she’d once had, a nun who used to punish tardiness and forgotten homework with an astonishingly painful rap on the skull with a thimble.

“I’ll try not to lose him,” she said. “But I wonder if before then you and I could meet.”

“A brief tutorial might well be in order. Tomorrow will be difficult, the entire afternoon is rather solidly booked. Let me look at my diary. Hmm. I do have a space in the early afternoon. What about one—no, shall we say twelve-thirty?”

Dr. Whitlaw gave Kate an address in Noe Valley and the house telephone number, wished her enjoyment of the remainder of Pirates, and hung up. Kate obediently poured herself a tiny glass of the syrupy port and went out to sit between Lee and Jon on the sofa, watching the equally syrupy ending of the operetta.

¦

TEN

¦

When Francis came forth from his cave of vision,

he was wearing the same word “fool” as a feather

in his cap, as a crest or even a crown.

At under five and a half feet with shoes on, Kate was not often given the chance to feel tall, except in a room full of kids. In fact, when the door opened, she thought for a moment that she was faced with a child. It was the impression of an instant’s glance, though, because no sooner had the door begun to open than it caught forcibly on the chain and slammed shut in her face. The chain rattled, the door opened again, more fully this time, and the person standing there, colorful and gray-haired and of a height surely not far from dwarfism, was not a child, but a woman of about sixty.

“Doctor Whitlaw?” Kate asked uncertainly.

“Professor, actually. You’re Inspector Martinelli. Come in.”

Kate stepped inside while the woman reached up to fasten the chain.

“I was told that I must always bolt and chain the doors in this city. I live in a village, where a crime wave is the neighbor’s son stealing a handbag from the backseat of a car. I’m forever forgetting that I’ve put the chain on,- I nearly took my nose off the other day. Come in here and sit down, and tell me what I can do for you. Will you take a cup of tea?”

She had a lovely voice. On the phone it had sounded gruff, but in person it was only surprisingly deep, and the accent that had sounded English became something other than the posh tones of most actors and the occasional foreign correspondent on the news. Her accent had depth rather than smoothness, flavor rather than sophistication, and made her sound as if she could tell a sly joke, if the opportunity arose. Kate couldn’t remember the last time she’d drunk tea, but she accepted.

They sat at a round, claw-foot, polished oak table, between a cheerful pine kitchen and a living room bursting with gloriously happy plants, tropical-print fabrics, and African sculpture. Professor Whitlaw brought another cup from the kitchen (using a step stool to reach the cupboard) and poured from a dark brown teapot so new that it still had the price sticker on the handle. She added milk without asking, put a sugar bowl, spoon, and plate of boring-