Julia cocked her head.
“This may sound churlish, but I want to be published because my poems are worthy, not because Pablo fixes it with his friends. I’d like to catch Goldsmith’s eye on my own, Miss Kydd. Julia.” He looked up, almost defiantly. “I want to be a great poet. I want to be a professor like Longfellow or Lowell and write poems schoolchildren learn and then recite to their children. Poems of America. Poems of all men. For everyone.”
“And this prize is a lovely way to begin,” Julia said stoutly. She felt honored by his confession, his cautious admission of what modesty insisted one deny. There was something fragile about Logan in his youthful yearning for greatness. She understood both the yearning and the pressure to subdue it. She knew about ambitions. She knew what it was to hunger for an excellence one had been taught was by definition beyond reach. Truly great poets were never colored. No woman could master fine typography. Appreciate the masters’ work, one was told. Never aspire to transcend it. Speak softly, or the jackals will devour your confidence, leaving you with only shame. It was a bitter thing to be made ashamed of your dreams. Julia felt an urge to throw wide her arms and protect Logan Lanier from the jackals, the sneering Billie Fischers of the world. She couldn’t, of course, but her heart swelled for him nonetheless.
Reluctant or unable to say more, Logan slid the pamphlet into his coat pocket and took up his glass. Pearls of perspiration crowned his hairline. He couldn’t bear another moment of this conversation. Time to change the subject. Time for the more vital questions.
She watched the ice cube circle his slowly revolving glass. “I’m worried about Eva Pruitt. Have you heard where she might be?”
He blinked. “No. Nothing.”
Julia waited, expecting at least some murmured lament for their friend’s dilemma. But Logan’s mouth had gone flat, his eyes murky. Puzzling. Billie’s schadenfreude she understood; Logan’s reticence baffled her. “I understand Jerome Crockett is missing too.” Her voice lifted, edging into her real work.
With each passing day Julia’s conviction had grown that Jerome was a far better suspect than Eva. Unfortunately, Philip had quashed her reasoning with news that witnesses had seen Jerome early that morning, several blocks from Carlotta’s at the time Timson had been shot. Worse, this meant the police were no longer searching for him, figuring they already had their killer. With Eva sequestered firmly under Wallace’s watch, they were simply looking for evidence to convict her.
Julia didn’t believe those witness reports for one minute. Witnesses could be bribed. They could lie for any number of reasons. In her mind, Jerome’s apparent alibi only made him more suspicious.
Logan scowled. “I wouldn’t know.”
His denial was too quick. “But he’s your friend,” she said. “You must know where he might be.” If she could tip off police, they could at least question him, find some cracks in his convenient alibi.
“If he’s smart, he’s in Chicago, registering for fall classes,” Logan said in a rush, as if his friend might overhear and object. “There’s nothing he can do for Eva. I just hope he has the sense to save himself.”
“Save himself from . . .” Julia’s thought trailed as she hoped Logan would explain. That prospect disappeared when a curt interruption severed their conversation.
“I understand you’re to be congratulated, Mr. Lanier.” The lady banker stood beside them. The woman’s sharp features softened, but not so far as to yield a smile.
Logan squared his shoulders and thanked her as if she’d offered extravagant good wishes. “It’s a great honor,” he said carefully. “I hope I can fulfill its expectations.”
Julia wondered at the somber clichés, but the woman wasn’t listening. She had already turned her green-gray eyes to Julia.
“Might I ask you to introduce your friend, Mr. Lanier?” she said.
“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Goldsmith,” he replied with a hasty solicitude that pained Julia. “May I present Miss Julia Kydd?”
“Coral Goldsmith.” The woman extended her hand. “Would you excuse us, please, Mr. Lanier? I’d like a private word with Miss Kydd.”
Logan was no less astonished than Julia, but more accommodating. Julia bristled at his dismissal, but before she could think of a civil objection, Pablo Duveen quieted the party with ringing crystal.
“Lanier!” he bellowed from the living room.
Logan straightened. He took two quick breaths and fingered his cuff links.
“Logan? Where are you, pet? Where’s my prize poet?” Duveen clapped as Logan stepped into view, and the guests joined in amiable applause. “Every pawty needs a pwize poet.” Duveen splashed a kiss on the younger man’s cheek. “Isn’t he luscious?”
Low laughter skidded through the room.
Duveen pulled Logan toward the piano, where people made room for them. “We must have a poem,” he announced. “No, three.”
More applause, as well as rustling to retrieve drinks or take up fresh ones.
Logan turned to the crowd. “First, I’m grateful to Pablo, who put in a good word for me with the judges.”
“A thundering good paragraph.”
Logan blushed. “Yes. A great help.”
Several seconds of silence followed. Just as a current of resuming conversations began to hum, a sonorous “On Lazarus’s knee” rolled from Logan’s round face. With that single slow, six-jointed note, a poem had begun.
Julia had often seen poets recite their work, but never in such an intimate setting. From her place at the edge of the dining room, she watched Logan’s gaze sweep the corners of the ceiling, then settle above the bookcase as his voice swelled. He spoke as if without breathing, each word melting into the next like notes from a pensive cello. It was beautiful.
A warm grip closed around her right wrist. Coral Goldsmith’s voice slid into her ear. “Would you be so kind as to step with me into Pablo’s study?”
Julia stiffened. Whatever power this woman commanded over the others, she had no right to compel Julia as she pleased. Then opportunity quelled indignation: this imperious stranger was Arthur Goldsmith’s wife.
