The Hellfire Club

controversial.'

'Little me?' Dart said, pressing a hand to his chest. Some members of the group chuckled.

'I also want to inform you that two other creative people, old friends of ours, are with us today. Frank Neary and Frank Tidball. We call them the two Franks, and it's always a pleasure when they join us.'

The two older men murmured their thanks, mildly embarrassed to have been identified. Their names sounded familiar to Nora. Frank Neary and Frank Tidball, the two creative Franks? She didn't think that she had ever seen them before.

'You might be interested in how this old lady in front of you learned so much about Shorelands. My name is Lily Melville, and I've spent most of my life in this beautiful place. Lucky me!'

One of those people capable of saying something for the thousandth time as though it were the first, Lily Melville told them that Georgina Weatherall had hired her as a maid of all work way back in 1931, when she was still really just a child. It was the Depression, her family's financial situation meant she had to leave school, but Shorelands had given her a wonderful education. For two years she had helped cook and serve meals, which gave her the opportunity to overhear the table talk of some of the most famous and distinguished writers in the world. After that, she took care of the cottages, which put her into even closer contact with the guests. Regrettably, in the late forties Miss Weatherall had suffered a decline in her powers and could no longer entertain her guests. During the years following her departure from Shorelands, Miss Melville frequently had been sought out by writers, scholars, and community groups for her memories. Soon after the trust had acquired the estate in 1980, she had been hired as a resident staff member.

'We'll begin our tour with two of my favorite places. Miss Weatherall's salon and private library, and proceed from there. Are there any questions before we begin?'

Dick Dart raised his hand.

'So soon, Mr Desmond?'

'Isn't that very attractive suit you're wearing a Geoffrey Beene?'

'Aren't you sweet! Yes, it is.'

'And am I wrong in thinking that I caught a trace of that delightful scent Mitsouko as you introduced yourself so eloquently?'

'Mr Desmond, would you join me as we take our group into the salon?'

Dart skipped around the side of the group and took her arm, and the two of them set off down the hallway ahead of Nora and the others.

They had visited the salon, library, lounge, and famous dining room, where a highly polished table stood beneath reproductions of paintings either owned by Georgina or similar to those in her collection. Like her library, her paintings had been sold off long ago. They had strolled along the terrace and descended the steps to admire the view of Main House from the west lawn. Lily spoke with the ease of long practice of her former employer's many peculiarities, representing them as the charming eccentricities of a patron of the arts; she invited the remarks, variously startling, irreverent, respectful, and comic, of the poet Norman Desmond, who now accompanied her down the long length of the west lawn toward the ruins of the famous gardens, restoration of which had been beyond the powers of the trust.

Nora fell in step with the two Franks and wondered again why their names seemed familiar. Certainly their faces were not. Without quite seeming to be academics, both Franks had the bookish reserve of old scholars and the intimate, unintentionally exclusive manner of long-standing collaborators or married couples. They had been amused by some of Dick Dart's comments, and the Frank with the gray crew cut clearly intended to say something about Mrs Desmond's interesting husband.

Here are your telephones, Nora told herself. You can get these guys to go to the police. But how to convince them?

'Your husband is an unusual man,' said Gray Crew Cut. 'You must be very proud of him.'

'Can I talk to you for a second?' she asked. 'I have to tell you something.'

'I'm Frank Neary, by the way, and this is Frank Tidball.' Both men extended their hands, and Nora shook them impatiently. 'We've taken Lily's tour many times, and she always comes up with something new.'

Tidball smiled. 'She never came up with anything like your husband before.'

Dart and Lily had paused at the edge of a series of overgrown scars, the remains of one section of the old gardens. Past them, an empty pedestal stood at the center of a pond. Lily was laughing at something Dart was saying.

'You can hardly be a poet if you don't have an independent mind,' said Neary. 'Where we live, in Rhinebeck, up on the Hudson River, we're surrounded by artists and poets.'

Nora took an agonized look across the lawn. Dart spoke to Lily and began walking quickly toward the group moving in his direction, Nora and the two Franks a little apart from the others.

'Wasn't there something you wanted to say?' Neary asked.

'I need some help.' Dart advanced across the grass, smiling dangerously. 'Would you please take my arm? I have a stone in my shoe.'

'Certainly.' Frank Neary stepped smartly up beside her and held her elbow.

Nora raised her right leg, slipped off her shoe, and upended it. There,' Nora said, and the two men politely watched the fall of a nonexistent stone. 'Thank you.' As Neary released her arm, she watched Dart striding toward her with his dangerous smile and remembered where she had heard their names. 'You must be the Neary and Tidball who write the Chancel House crossword puzzles.'

'My goodness,' Neary said. 'Frank, Mrs Desmond knows our puzzles.'

'Isn't this lovely, Frank?'

Nora turned to smile at Dart, who had noticed the tone of her conversation with the Franks and slowed his pace.

'You know our work?'

'You two guys are great,' Nora said. 'I should have recognized your names as soon as I heard them.'

Dart had come within hearing distance, and Nora said, 'I love your puzzles, they're so clever.' Something Davey had once said came back to her. 'You use themes in such a subtle way.'

'Good God, someone understands us,' Neary said. 'Here is a person who understands that a puzzle is more than a puzzle.'

Dart settled a hand on Nora's shoulder. 'Puzzles?'

'Norman,' she said, looking up with what she hoped was wifely regard, 'Mr Neary and Mr Tidball write those wonderful Chancel House crossword puzzles.'

'No,' said Dart, instantly falling into his role, 'not the ones that keep you up late at night, trying to think of an eight-letter word for smokehouse flavoring?'

'Isn't that great?'

'I'm sure you three have a lot to discuss, but we should catch up.' Dart smiled at the two Franks. 'I wondered what you were talking about. Do you have an editor over there at Chancel House?'

'Yes, but our work doesn't need any real editing. Davey makes a suggestion now and then. He's a sweet boy.'

The four of them came up beside the rest of the group, and Lily said that after viewing the pond, they would be going on to Honey House, at which point the official tour would conclude. Anyone who wished to see the Mist Field, the Song Pillars, and Rapunzel was free to do so.

'You gentlemen come here often?' Dart asked.

Together, swapping sentences, Neary and Tidball told their new friends that they tried to visit Shorelands once a year. 'Five years ago, we stayed overnight in Rapunzel, mainly so we could walk through Main when it wasn't filled with tourists. It was tremendously enjoyable. Agnes Brotherhood was full of tales.'

'What kind of tales?'

Neary looked at Tidball, and both men smiled. Neary said, 'There's a big difference between Lily and Agnes. Agnes never liked Georgina very much, and back then she was willing to gossip. Frank and I heard stories that will never be in the history books.'

Lily had begun to speak from the raised flagstone ledge surrounding the pond. Frank Neary raised a finger to his lips.