The Hellfire Club

'Did you happen to notice if the vehicle was parked there at the time?'

'Yes. I saw it parked right there.'

'How long were you in the bookstore?'

'Maybe five minutes.'

'And then you go into Dinah's. They give you a table, you look at the menu, right? Somebody takes your order, right? How long did that take?'

'About another five, ten minutes.'

'So we have forty to forty-five minutes in Dinah's. And in that time, you ate lunch and managed to read half of that book?'

'Oh.' Nora held up the book. Her finger was still inserted between the pages.

'Dinah, we have a big problem here.' He adjusted his cap.

He put his hands on his hips. Nora prepared herself for imminent arrest. The cop sighed. 'Do you have any idea at all of what time it was when your friend dropped you off on the corner?'

She looked up at his cynical young face. 'Around four-thirty,' she said.

'So you've been in this vicinity for more like two hours, isn't that about right, Dinah?'

'I guess it must be.'

'We don't have much of a sense of time, do we?'

'Apparently not.'

'Apparently not. But that's how long you have been wandering around this part of Holyoke. In all that time, did you happen to see a woman who would be, say, about ten years older than you are, about your height and weight, with chestnut-brown hair down to just below her ears?'

'Are you looking for her?'

'She might have been wearing a long-sleeved, dark blue silk blouse and blue jeans. Five six. A hundred and ten pounds. Brown eyes. She probably came here in that car that was towed away.'

'What did she do?' Nora asked.

'Let me try one more time. Have you seen the woman I described to you?'

'No. I haven't seen anyone like that.'

He took his foot off the bench and flipped the notebook shut. 'Thank you for your cooperation, Dinah. You can go.'

She stood up. 'Thank you.' She went across the curb, and Jeffrey got out of the MG. When she stepped down into the street, the policeman said, 'One more thing, Dinah.'

She turned around, half-expecting him to handcuff her. He shook his head, then bent down to pull her case from beneath the bench. 'Good luck in all your endeavors, Dinah.'66

Jeffrey did not speak until they were out of Holyoke and accelerating onto I-91. With her legs stretched out before her and the rest of her body tilted back at a surprisingly relaxed angle, Nora felt as if she were being carried along on a conveyance more like a flying carpet than an ordinary car.

'I was worried about you back there.' Jeffrey shifted gears to overtake a moving van bulling along at a mere ten miles over the limit, and the magic carpet lengthened out and sailed into the wind.

'Me, too.'

'I didn't recognize you. This… transformation. It's quite a surprise.'

'There have been a lot of surprises lately.'

'I must say, if you're anything to go on, more women ought to be-'

'Don't. Please? Just don't.' Jeffrey looked abashed, and to mollify him she said, 'I'm glad you didn't yell my name.'

'All I really meant was, it's a relief to see you like this. You know, apart from the…' He drew a circle around his face with an index finger.

'The transformation.'

'Better disguise than a hat and a pair of dark glasses.'

'Dick Dart has strong feelings on the subject of cosmetics.' Saying his name out loud made her chest feel tight. 'He's still out there somewhere.'

'You're sure of that?'

'Pretty sure. The cop who was questioning me while you were being so sensible said they were looking for an old dame with brown hair. No, he didn't, don't look dismayed. But Dart couldn't have told them about the new me, or right now the FBI would be dragging me away in leg irons.'

Jeffrey nodded while levitating into a new lane. 'I noticed Hashim and Shull, those two human andirons. Charming couple.'

'They were at Mount Avenue?'

'For a couple of hours yesterday and this morning, while they were setting up the phone equipment and talking to Mr and Mrs Chancel and your husband.' He glanced at her with the consciousness of introducing a new and difficult subject. 'The old manse has been a little chaotic the past few days.'

For the moment, she avoided the lopic of her husband. 'Weren't you afraid they'd see you?'

'I would have been if they'd ever seen me. Mr Chancel had me bring him lunch in the library because he had to do a lot of business over the phone. The andirons were in the kitchen, so I just got a glimpse of them as I went past the door.'

'Tell me about Davey. Is he moving back to the Poplars because the FBI wanted him there?'

'Or was it his father's idea, you mean? A little of both. The agents did want to keep an eye on him, and Mr Chancel was after him to help take care of his mother. To tell you the truth, I did wonder if Mr Chancel was getting rid of us in order to pressure Davey back into the Poplars.' Jeffrey looked over at Nora to see if this had been too critical of his employer.

'Could you put your radio on, Jeffrey?'

'Sorry.' He reached for the dial. 'I should have thought of that earlier.'

With another smooth change of gears, the magic carpet flew around a brace of plodding cars. An announcer with a buttery voice said it was a glorious evening in Hampden, Hampshire, and Berkshire counties, and proceeded to go into details.

'How bad is Daisy?' Nora asked.

'She discovered All My Children, and it seems to have cheered her up. Someone named Edmund kidnapped someone named Erica in Budapest and kept her in a wine cellar, but then the Erica person decided she wanted to stay kidnapped in order to get back at someone named Dmitri. My aunt told me all about it. I gather that Mrs Chancel feels that your story is similar to the Erica person's. You're a romantic heroine.'

'Lovely.'

'She's reconsidered whatever you said to her about her book. My aunt has been bringing her sections, and she rewrites them, propped up in bed.'

'Before and after All My Children.'

'During, too. It's inspirational.'

'Is Alden helping her?'

'Mr Chancel isn't allowed in her room.' Jeffrey paused; apparently he had said all he wished to say about the Chancels. 'Could you tell me why you claimed to be writing a book about Shorelands?'

'Dick Dart has this mission. He wants to keep anybody from proving that Hugo Driver didn't write Night Journey, so he wants to eliminate people connected to writers who were at Shorelands that summer. The man I talked to left for Cape Cod right after he called Merle Marvell, so he's safe, but that still leaves one. A professor in Amherst. I'd better get in touch with him soon. Dart has his address.'

'You said two men. The writers they had connections to were… ?'

'Creeley Monk and Bill Tidy. Why?'

'Not Katherine Mannheim.'

'No, but her sisters started all the trouble, I guess.'

Jeffrey nodded. 'Would you fill me in on this mission of Dart's, and tell me whatever you know about Shorelands and Night Journey?'

'Jeffrey, who are you? Why do you care?'