The Thirteenth Tale

grandson. He looked nice.

'You know, he never spoke much about his early days. He was a reticent man. But there are things I wish I knew. Like why he married so late. He was in his late forties when he married my mother. I can't help thinking there must have been something in his past-a heartbreak, perhaps? But you don't think to ask those questions when you're a child, and by the time I'd grown up… ' She shrugged sadly. 'He was a lovely man to have as a father. Patient. Kind. He'd always help me with anything. And yet now I'm an adult, I sometimes have the feeling I never really knew him.'

There was another detail in the photograph that caught my eye.

'What's this?' I asked.

She leaned to look. 'It's a bag. For carrying game. Pheasants mainly. You can open it flat on the ground to lay them in, and then you fasten it up around them. I don't know why it's in the picture. He was never a gamekeeper, I'm sure.'

'He used to bring the twins a rabbit or a pheasant when they wanted one,' I said and she looked pleased to have this fragment of her father's early life restored to her.

I thought of Aurelius and his inheritance. The bag he'd been carried in was a game bag. Of course there was a feather in it-it was used for carrying pheasants. And I thought of the scrap of paper. 'Something like an A at the beginning,' I remembered Aurelius saying as he held the blur of blue up to the window. 'And then an S. Just here, toward the end. Of course, it's faded a bit, over the years, you have to look hard, but you can see it, can't you?' I hadn't been able to see it, but perhaps he really had. What if it was not his own name on the scrap of paper, but his father's? Ambrose.

From Karen's house I got a taxi to the solicitor's office in Banbury. I knew the address from the correspondence I had exchanged with him relating to Hester; now it was Hester again who took me to him.

The receptionist did not want to disturb Mr. Lomax when she learned I didn't have an appointment. 'It is Christmas Eve, you know.' But I insisted. 'Tell him it's Margaret Lea, regarding Angelfield House and Miss March.'

With an air that said It will make no difference, she took the message into the office; when she came out it was to tell me, rather reluctantly, to go straight in.

The young Mr. Lomax was not very young at all. He was probably about the age the old Mr. Lomax was when the twins turned up at his office wanting money for John-the-dig's funeral. He shook my hand, a curious gleam in his eye, a half-smile on his lips, and I understood that to him we were conspirators. For years he had been the only person to know the other identity of his client Miss March; he had inherited the secret from his father along with the cherry desk, the filing cabinets and the pictures on the wall. Now, after all the years of secrecy, there came another person who knew what he knew.

'Glad to meet you, Miss Lea. What can I do to help?'

'I've come from Angelfield. From the site. The police are there. They've found a body.' 'Oh. Oh, goodness!' 'Will the police want to speak to Miss Winter, do you suppose?' At my mention of the name, his eyes flickered discreetly to the door, checking that we could not be overheard. 'They would want to speak to the owner of the property as a matter of routine.' 'I thought so.' I hurried on. 'The thing is, not only is she ill- I suppose you know that?'

He nodded.

'-but also, her sister is dying.'

He nodded, gravely, and did not interrupt.

'It would be better, given her fragility and the state of her sister's health, if she did not receive the news about the discovery too abruptly. She should not hear it from a stranger. And she should not be alone when the information reaches her.'

'What do you suggest?'

'I can go back to Yorkshire today. If I can get to the station in the next hour, I can be there this evening. The police will have to come through you to contact her, won't they?'

'Yes. But I can delay things by a few hours. Enough time for you to get there. I can also drive you to the station, if you like.'

At that moment the telephone rang. We exchanged an anxious look as he picked it up.

'Bones? I see… She is the owner of the property, yes… An elderly person and in poor health… A sister, gravely ill… Some likelihood of an imminent bereavement… It might be better… Given the circumstances… I happen to know of someone who is going there in person this very evening… Eminently trustworthy… Quite… Indeed… By all means.'

He made a note on a pad and pushed it across the desk to me. A name and a telephone number.

'He would like you to telephone him when you get there to let him know how things stand with the lady. If she is able to, he will talk to her then; if not, it can wait. The remains, it seems, are not recent. Now, what time is your train? We should be going.'

Seeing that I was deep in thought, the not-so-very-young Mr. Lomax drove in silence. Nevertheless a quiet excitement seemed to be eating away at him, and eventually, turning in to the road where the station was, he could contain himself no longer. 'The thirteenth tale… ' he said. 'I don't suppose…?'

'I wish I knew,' I told him. 'I'm sorry.'

He pulled a disappointed face.

As the station loomed into sight, I asked a question of my own. 'Do you happen to know Aurelius Love?' 'The caterer! Yes, I know him. The man's a culinary genius!' 'How long have you known him?' He answered without thinking-'Actually, I was at school with him'-and in the middle of the sentence a curious quiver entered his voice, as though he had just realized the implications of my inquiry. My next question did not surprise him.

'When did you learn that Miss March was Miss Winter? Was it when you took over your father's business?' He swallowed. 'No.' Blinked. 'It was before. I was still at school. She came to the house one day. To see my father. It was more private than the office. They had some business to sort out and, without going into confidential details, it became clear during the course of their conversation that Miss March and Miss Winter were the same person. I was not eavesdropping, you understand. That is to say, not deliberately. I was already under the dining room table when they came in-there was a tablecloth that draped and made it into a sort of tent, you see-and I didn't want to embarrass my father by emerging suddenly, so I just stayed quiet.'

What was it Miss Winter had told me? There can be no secrets in a house where there are children.

We had come to a stop in front of the station, and the young Mr. Lomax turned his stricken eyes toward me. 'I told Aurelius. The day he told me he had been found on the night of the fire. I told him that Miss Adeline Angelfield and Miss Vida Winter were one and the same person. I'm sorry.'

'Don't worry about it. It doesn't matter now, anyway. I only wondered.'

'Does she know I told Aurelius who she was?'

I thought about the letter Miss Winter had sent me right at the beginning, and about Aurelius in his brown suit, seeking the story of his origins. 'If she guessed, it was decades ago. If she knows, I think you can presume she doesn't care.'

The shadow cleared from his brow.

'Thanks for the lift.'

And I ran for the train.

HESTER'S DIARY II

From the station I made a phone call to the bookshop. My father could not hide his disappointment when I told him I would not be coming home. 'Your mother will be sorry,' he said.

'Will she?'

'Of course she will.'