The Hellfire Club

'In Massachusetts.'

He paused for a moment. 'Would you prefer me to keep quiet about this? Or would you like me to speak privately to anyone in particular?'

'I don't know yet,' she confessed, understanding that 'anyone in particular' meant Davey. Jeffrey's tact extended to his private life.

He weighed this. 'Are you all right?'

'I think that remains to be seen. I guess I'm trying to decide what to do. Everything's so complicated.' She fought the desire to break down into tears. 'Jeffrey, I'm sorry to do this to you, but I don't exactly feel safe right now.'

'No wonder,' he said. 'All sorts of people are trying to find you.'

'Don't make me ask a lot of questions. Please, Jeffrey.'

Nora could all but hear him thinking. 'I'll try to tell you what I know, but don't hang up and disappear on me. okay? Nobody's listening, I'm alone in my room, and you're fine as long as you stay where you are, at least for now. You're at a pay phone?'

'Yes.' Her anxieties ebbed.

'All right. It's a good thing you called on this line. The other ones are all tapped.'

'Oh, God,' she said. 'They still think I kidnapped Natalie Weil.'

'They're acting that way.' An ambiguity hung in the air while he hesitated. 'From what I overhear, Mrs Weil isn't making a lot of sense.' There was another brief silence. 'For what it's worth, I don't think you went near her.'

'What about Davey?'

'Davey's under a lot of pressure.'

'He's staying with his parents?'

'Yes. Pretty soon he'll be right here.'

'With you?'

'In my apartment. In what used to be my apartment. Until yesterday he was staying in your house, at least at night, but with all the excitement, Mr Chancel persuaded him to move back here. He put his foot down about staying in his old bedroom, but after Mr Chancel… um, temporarily changed the conditions of my employment, he agreed to take over my place.'

'Alden fired you?'

'Mr Chancel called it a provisional suspension. He was very sorry about it. Our salaries will be paid through the end of the month, and if conditions are right, we can return. If not, he'll give us two months' severance pay and sterling recommendations.'

'Us?'

'My aunt and me. I'm packed up, and when she finishes we'll be leaving.'

Nora discovered that she could be shocked. 'But Jeffrey, where will you go?'

'My aunt is going to stay with some cousins on Long Island. I'd drive her out there, but she won't let me, so I'm dropping her at the train station, and I'll stay with my mother for a while.'

Nora had never considered that Jeffrey might have a mother. He seemed to have arrived on the planet fully formed, without the customary mediation of parents. 'He ordered you and Maria out so that Davey could stay in your apartment?'

'Mr Chancel told us that his business was not doing as well as it should, and that for the time being he had to make certain sacrifices.'

It sounded to Nora as though the German deal Dick Dart had mentioned had fallen through. Good. She hoped that Chancel House would dwindle and starve. For a time, her attention wandered from whatever Jeffrey was saying.

'… but still. Here's Merle Marvell asking about that time, that place, and right away we get suspended, or fired, or whatever it is.'

'I'm sorry, Jeffrey, I faded out for a little bit. What happened?'

'Merle Marvell asked Mr Chancel if the firm had signed up a woman to do a book about… a certain subject. A few writers. Someone had just called Mm asking about it, and he thought it sounded funny because he'd never heard of it.'

'Hold on, hold, on.' Nora tried to grasp what he had said. 'Merle Marvell told Alden someone was asking about a woman who claimed to be writing a book?'

'I'm sorry for bringing it up. I wondered… sorry. Forget it.'

'Jeffrey-'

'My aunt would jump down my throat if she knew I brought this up. The Chancels have always been very generous to us. Look, is there anything I can do for you? Do you need money? I'm coming up to Massachusetts anyhow, so I could bring you whatever you need.'

'Jeffrey,' Nora said, and then thought that she probably would be in need of money before long. But that was not Jeffrey's problem; his problem sounded closer to home. 'Did this woman's book have to do with a place called Shorelands? And what went on there in 1938?'

Jeffrey did not respond for a moment, and then said, 'That's an interesting question.'

'I'm right, aren't I?'

Again he considered his words. 'How do you know?'

'Well, I hope you'll keep this to yourself,' she said, 'but I'm the woman.'

Jeffrey managed a partial recovery. 'The woman pretending to be writing the book about Shorelands in 1938 was you.'

'Why does it matter to you?'

'Why does it matter to you?'

'That's a long story. I think I'll get off now, Jeffrey. I'm getting nervous.'

'Don't hang up,' he said. 'This might be straight out of left field, but have you ever heard of a woman named Katherine Mannheim?'

'She was at Shorelands that summer,' said Nora, more baffled than ever.

'Were you looking for information about her? Was Katherine Mannheim why you cooked up this story about a book?'

'What's all this to you, Jeffrey?' Nora asked.

'We have to talk. I'm going to pick you up and take you somewhere. Tell me where you are and I'll find you.'

'I'm in Holyoke. At a pay phone on a corner.'

'Where?

'Ah, this is the corner of Northampton and Hampden.'

'I know exactly where you are. Go to a diner or something, go to a bookstore, there's one down the street, but wait for me. Don't run away. This is important.'

The line went dead. Nora stared at the receiver for a second and then dropped it on its hook. No longer quite aware of her surroundings, she stepped away from the telephone and tried to make sense of what she had just learned. Jeffrey had overheard Alden's half of a conversation with Merle Marvell. Mark Foil, no fool, had called Marvell to check on 'Emily Eliot,' and the puzzled editor had immediately telephoned his boss at home. Why was Alden at home? Because the president of Chancel House had to face the unpleasant task of firing two long-standing employees? Or because Daisy had not recovered from her fit, and the great publisher had to deal with the consequences of dismissing her caretakers? Nora could not imagine Alden fetching drinks and bowls of soup to his stricken wife… Ah, of course: tricky Alden, getting, as usual, exactly what he wanted. Daisy's weakness had forced Davey back to the Poplars. Alden had put him under his thumb by linking his concern for his mother to the hypothetical independence of separate living quarters over the garage. Getting what you wanted was easy if you had the morals of a wolverine.

Nora's satisfaction at having worked out this much evaporated before the remaining mystery, that of Jeffrey. Why should he care about an obscure, long-dead poet?64

Nora walked slowly to the edge of the pavement There, side by side in the next block, stood the plate-glass window of Unicorn Books and a dark blue awning bearing the words Dinah's Silver Slipper Cafe. As if on cue, her