“You’ve always loved a challenge.”
“I know Evelyn Villiers’s interest in the legend of the green maiden is important. I just can’t figure out how.”
“Tell me about it.”
I went through the whole thing—the marked book in her bedside table, the framed photograph over her bed, her love for the river (denied by Lucy), and the comment she’d made to the housekeeper, Mrs. Wright, about the legend being wrong. Then I told her about what she’d said that day in the shop—wagon bell—and then finding the Anglo-Saxon words on a wooden beam in the pub at Dunmow Parva.
“If a theory is sound, Kate, it will account for all the facts, including the ones that appear to have no apparent connection with the others—the outliers. Remember the elephant’s amber eye.”
Last December, when I was trying to piece together clues to a series of deaths at Finchley Hall, my mother told me a story about seeing a photograph of what you assume is a dry, cracked river bed—until you notice, way up in the corner, the elephant’s amber eye. That tiny detail changes everything. “So you think I’m right to pursue it?”
“Your powers of logic and reasoning are impeccable.”
“Got them from you, Mom.”
“I believe you did. Now, what is it you think the professor can tell you?”
“I think he can translate the Anglo-Saxon phrase, which might tell me why Evelyn Villiers said it, which might tell me what changed in her life.”
“And led to her death.”
“Exactly. Now I need a reason for the professor to talk to me.”
“What did you do last year when you and Ivor wanted that reclusive collector in Bury to agree to see you?”
“We offered him something he couldn’t resist.”
“And that’s what you’ll do now.”
“Any suggestions?”
“You’ll think of something.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” I heard voices in the background. “Do you have to go?”
“Not before I tell you what I found online. Two weeks ago, an auction house in Paris sold a rare early Meissen figural group called The Mockery of Age, like the one you said was missing from the Villiers Collection.”
“Actually, several more from that same collection are missing as well—the only name I can remember at the moment is The Indiscrete Harlequin. I’ll e-mail you the others.”
“I’ll check the listing and text you the Mockery photograph as soon as we hang up.”
The photograph had appeared in the posted results of an auction in Paris exactly a week before Evelyn Villiers brought the húnpíng into Ivor’s shop. The selling price, disclosed to online subscription holders only, had exceeded estimates. The Meissen figural group wasn’t necessarily the one Wallace Villiers had purchased—exactly how many were produced, I didn’t know—but the timing was suggestive. I knew almost certainly that the piece had been on the mantel until quite recently. What I needed was the actual auction catalog, which would give as much of the provenance, the history of ownership, as was known. Requesting the catalog would take time, though. And the auction house was unlikely to disclose the name of the seller—to me anyway. I didn’t know what they would do if the police got involved, but I didn’t have enough factual evidence to mention it to Tom yet. Maybe Evelyn Villiers sold the pieces herself. She had a perfect right. What bothered me was the possibility—and it was only a possibility—that she’d been the victim of some dishonest person who’d been stealing from her. Had she discovered the theft? Was that the trigger that sent her to Ivor’s shop?
I returned to Ivor’s bedside. The linens had been changed, and the clean scent of soap suggested he’d been bathed. He seemed more settled now. Perhaps he felt more comfortable. Once I thought I saw his eyelids flutter, but he didn’t open his eyes.
I pulled up the visitor’s chair close to the bed. “I know you can’t help me right now, Ivor, but I need to find something to offer your professor friend in Essex—some piece of information that will gain his trust. Maybe then he’ll tell me more about the green maiden legend and translate the phrase I saw in the pub. So what can I offer him—and how do I contact him?”
Ivor slept as soundly as an infant.
I leaned back and slipped off my shoes.
The machines blinked reassuringly. Several get-well cards, formerly displayed on Ivor’s tray table, had fallen to the floor. I picked them up and slipped them in the drawer beside Ivor’s watch and cell phone.
Ivor’s cell phone. The professor’s e-mails would be in the history.
Had he heard about Ivor’s fall? Not likely. He probably hadn’t heard about the moon landing.
I picked it up.
Don’t you dare, my conscience warned me. Invasion of privacy.
Too late. I was already scrolling through Ivor’s texts. There weren’t many.
There it was, the back and forth about the package delivery.
Quickly, before my conscience could come up with a scathing rebuke, I tapped out a message:
Ivor Tweedy here. My friend Kate Hamilton has discovered some interesting new information about the green maiden.
I deleted interesting and substituted startling. Then I added Are you interested? and pressed “Send.”
“I’m sorry, Ivor,” I said to the sleeping form, but somehow I knew his only regret would be missing out on the action.
The reply came in less than five minutes.
Monday. Nine AM.
Yes! Now all I had to do was come up with that startling new information.
I checked my watch. Five o’clock.
I had less than forty-eight hours to find it.
Chapter Thirty
Sunday, May 19
Lucy and I met at Hapthorn at nine AM. This time she drove her own car. Thankfully, the rain had subsided, but the skies were hazy and the river hadn’t receded. A mist hovered over the soaked earth, nearly obscuring the half-submerged wooden bench along the bank.
I punched the code in the lockbox, and we entered through the old laundry.
“The musty smell is getting worse,” Lucy said. “I think it’s coming from the cellar.”
“Should we go down and check?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Mother’s solicitors are sending someone over to examine the house before we
