And on the inside.
Torrant left it after one silent try. Back into the main corridor then, shadowy at one o’clock on a February day—and how much darker at night? But still, would it be possible to enter at the side door, return books, go into the stacks, slip out again—and then, perhaps half an hour later, reverse the process without being noticed? Certainly not, under Mrs. Biscoe’s alert eye.
Here were History and Medicine. Torrant flipped on the light at random, gazing down the neat empty aisle, and was diverted by the brilliant wash of light that came out into the corridor. At night it would be even brighter, an open advertisement of a presence there . . . all of it mockingly possible, until you came upon the locked door at the back.
Meticulously, because he had built so much on Annabelle Blair’s ostentatious errand here, Torrant went on flipping switches. In P to Z, at the back of the corridor on the fiction side, he came upon the leaf.
It was an undistinguished leaf, maple probably, tom and long-browned. Torrant had taken a few heedless steps away from it before it occurred to him, idly at first, that the leaf was still moist and that, at the back of the stacks and two-thirds of the way down the aisle, it was rather a long trip for a leaf on a shoe.
He went rapidly back, and was not surprised to find the three steps leading down from a short passage at the end of the aisle, and the door at the bottom.
A janitor’s door, obviously, because opposite it was a small closet with mop, broom, dustpan, wax, a wad of soiled cloths. Torrant opened it and turned the knob from the outside; it was unlocked, possibly because it gave on a dark clump of cedars that almost hid it. A notice typed in red said, “Keep Out,” and, “Positively no admittance.”
Nothing said about exits.
A raw gust of wind came slicing through the cedars, meeting and beating back the library warmth. Torrant closed the door carefully, mounted the stairs and left the stacks. At the desk Mrs. Biscoe said helpfully, “Did you find something?” and he gave her, she thought, the oddest smile, and said seriously, “Yes, I did, Mrs. Biscoe, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t be allowed to take it out.”
The Bluebird Cafe was crowded. Torrant stood abstractedly just inside with none of his usual fury at waiting in restaurants; he was thinking how close he had come to missing that small important door. It must be unlocked as a rule during library hours, because Annabelle Blair had had to be very sure of it.’
At his elbow, startlingly close, Simeon’s voice said pleasantly, “They seem to be full up here. I have a booth down here—will you join me, Mr. Torrant?”
The carved parrot face smiled, the dark tired eyes looked preoccupied. He had finished his lunch; he gave his attention to an untouched cup of coffee while Torrant, glancing through the menu for something the chef could not do much to, ordered a chicken sandwich and a bottle of beer. The waitress left, and Simeon said, “How did you find Annabelle this morn-mg?
“Her usual self,” said Torrant, deliberately non-committal.
‘‘Really? I stopped by, as you probably noticed, and I thought perhaps she wasn’t feeling well. As it is, I believe I’m being punished for last night,” Simeon said, smiling a little.
Torrant said nothing. He suspected this man-to-man air, he wondered whether, in spite of the Renault parked in front of the Mallow house, Simeon really thought he had been inside with Annabelle at the time of that unavailing knock. He doubted it, but he wanted to see where this was going.
Simeon said, “I had an appointment with Annabelle early last evening and I’m afraid I stood her up, quite unintentionally. I dropped in to see Mrs. Kirby, and what with one thing and another,” he glanced up wryly, “I lost track of the time. Annabelle’s anxious about some papers of Gerald’s, and I suppose it does sound rather offhand.”
It didn’t sound offhand to Torrant; it sounded like a deliberate explanation of Simeon’s movements the evening before. Or was all this merely an extension of the smile Simeon had worn turning away from Annabelle’s door—self-congratulation at this show of feeling on her part? He hadn’t married her after Martin had been disposed of; he looked like a man who had no use for marriage, but the Mallow estate was a considerable enhancement.
Torrant’s lunch arrived, and he poured his beer. “I take it you’re interested in real estate in Chauncy.”
“Only the piece Gerald bought,” said Simeon frankly. “For one thing, it’s too big a deal for Annabelle to handle, for another, it’s bad for her to be bound to this town under the circumstances. For a third—” the beaky face was disarming, “like most of Gerald’s deals, it’s a very good thing.”
Torrant listened with the surface of his mind; he had a feeling that all this was embroidery. Simeon was not a man to explain his motives without a further motive. Had he, just possibly, acted for Annabelle Blair at the pond last night?
Logic rejected that instantly. Even if there were a loophole in the time he said he had spent with Mrs. Kirby, this man would not be used as a tool by anyone. Torrant knew that in the same sharp undeniable way he knew that Simeon had stood by while Annabelle shepherded Martin to his death.
Had he tired of her by that time, or had they decided to wait for the bigger game, the Mallow
