Luckily, at that point Eleanor Griffin turned up to rescue me. She breezed right past the Lady Orlando, slipped her arm through mine, and led me away in one smooth movement, before the Lady could object, chattering loudly non-stop so the Lady couldn’t even get an innuendo in. I didn’t dare look back. Hell hath no fury like a woman outscored.
Eleanor was currently dressed as Madonna, from her John-Paul Gautier period, complete with black corset and brass breast cones. I looked them over and winced just a little.
“Aren’t those cold?”
Eleanor laughed briefly. “I’m wearing them for Marcel, to cheer him up. He’s fully recovered now, thanks to some heavy duty fast-acting healing spells, but he’s still a bit down in the dumps, because I’ve had him electronically tagged. If he tries to leave the Hall again to sneak off gambling, the tag will bite his leg off. He’s around here somewhere, sulking, dressed as Sky Masterson from
“No,” I said, glad to be talking to someone I could be straight with. “I’ve talked to every member of your family, and if anyone knows anything, they’re doing a really good job of keeping it to themselves.”
“Couldn’t you try asking, well, underground people you know? I mean, criminals and informers, that sort of person?”
“The kind I know wouldn’t dare touch a Griffin,” I said. “No, the only people big and bad enough to try something like that are mostly right here in this room.”
“Have you talked with Paul?” said Eleanor, not looking at me.
“I spoke with Polly,” I said carefully. “I heard her sing. She’s got a really good voice.”
“I’ve never heard Polly sing,” said Eleanor. “I can’t go to the club. Paul mustn’t know…that I know about Polly.”
She led me back to William, who was standing alone now. The Sea Goat and Bruin Bear were presumably off getting into trouble somewhere else. William scowled ungraciously at Eleanor as we came to a halt before him. All the old sullenness was back in his face.
“Whatever she’s been telling you about me, don’t believe a word of it,” he snapped. “Hell, don’t believe anything she tells you. Dear Eleanor always has her own agenda.”
Eleanor smiled sweetly at him. “Name one person in our family who doesn’t, brother dear. Even sweet saintly Melissa had her own life, kept strictly separate from the rest of us.”
“A secret life?” I said. “You mean like Paul?”
“No-one knows,” said Eleanor. “She always was a very private little girl.”
“Best way, in this family,” growled William. “People find out your secrets in this place, they use them against you.”
They fell to squabbling then, rehearsing old hurts and grievances and wounds that had never been allowed to heal, and I just tuned them out. So Melissa had a secret life, so private that none of them had even thought to mention it before. Perhaps because no-one in this family liked to admit to not knowing something.
I looked round the ballroom. The party seemed to be going well enough, but I was interested in the other Griffins. Jeremiah was right at the centre of things, of course, holding court before a large group who gave every indication of hanging on his every word. Mariah paraded back and forth through her artificial rose garden, accepting and bestowing compliments, in her element at last. I couldn’t see Marcel or Gloria anywhere, but it was a really big garden. So if I wanted to learn any more about Melissa’s secret life, I was going to have to dig it out of Eleanor and William.
“Have you told him yet?” said William, in a very pointed way, and I started paying attention again.
“I was working up to it,” said Eleanor. “It’s not the sort of thing you can just spring on someone, is it?” She turned to me, forcing the anger out of her face through sheer force of will, and in a moment she was all smiles and charm again. “John, we need you to do something for us.”
“Set up the security field first,” William interrupted.
“No-one can hear us in all this babble,” said Eleanor. “And a privacy shield might be noticed.”
“This isn’t the sort of thing we can afford to have overheard,” said William. “Better for someone to be suspicious than for anyone to
“All right, all right!”
She glanced unobtrusively around her and produced a small charm of carved bone from a concealed pocket. She clutched it in her fist, muttered an activating spell, and the background noise faded quickly away to nothing. I could see lips moving all around me, but not a whisper got through the shield; or, presumably, out. Our privacy was ensured. Until somebody noticed. I looked curiously at William and Eleanor, and they looked back at me with a kind of stubborn desperation in their faces. And I suddenly knew that whatever they were going to ask me, it had nothing at all to do with Melissa.
“What would it take,” Eleanor said carefully, “for you to kill our father for us?”
I looked at them both in silence for a long moment. Whatever I’d expected them to say, that wasn’t it.
“You’re the only man who might stand a chance,” said William. “You can get close to him, where no-one else could.”
“We’ve heard about some of the things you did,” said Eleanor. “During the Lilith War.”
“Everyone says you did things no-one else could,” said William. “In the War.”
“You want me to murder Jeremiah?” I said. “Why exactly would you want me to do that?”
“To be free,” said William, and his gaze was so intense it seemed to bore right through me. “You have no idea what it’s like, having lived in his shadow for so long. My whole life controlled, and ruined, by him. You’ve seen the lengths I have to go to simply to feel free for a time.”
“With him gone, we could live our own lives, at last,” said Eleanor. “It’s not like he ever loved either of us.”
“This isn’t about money, or business, or power,” said William. “I’d give them all up to be free of him.”
“Do it for us, John,” said Eleanor. “Do it for me.”
“I’m a private eye,” I said. “Not an assassin.”
“You don’t understand,” William said urgently. “We’ve talked this over. We believe our father is behind Melissa’s disappearance. We think he arranged to have her taken against her will from the Hall. Nothing happens here without his knowing, without his permission. Only he could have bypassed the Hall’s extensive security and made sure all the servants were in areas of the Hall where they wouldn’t see anything. He wants my daughter dead, with someone else set up to take the blame. I believe my daughter is dead, John, and I want that murder avenged.”
“If he’s had Melissa killed,” said Eleanor, “my Paul could be next. I can’t let that happen. He’s all I’ve got that’s really mine. You have to help us, John. Our father is capable of anything to get what he wants.”
“Then why did he hire me?” I said.
“What better way publicly to display his grief and anger?” said William. “Our father’s always understood the need for good publicity.”
“And if he does need someone to fix the blame on,” said Eleanor, “what better choice than the infamous John Taylor?”
“The best way I can help you,” I said carefully, “is by finding Melissa and bringing her back, safe and well. I’ll go this far: whoever is behind her disappearance will get what’s coming to them. Whoever it turns out to be.”
I walked away from them, bursting through the privacy field and back into the raucous clamour of the party. I had some thinking to do. I couldn’t say it surprised me that Jeremiah’s children would turn out to be as ruthless as him, but I was still disappointed in them. I’d started to like William and Eleanor. Still, could Jeremiah have brought me in to be his very visible fall guy? Someone to blame when Melissa never turned up? It wouldn’t be the first time a client had been less than honest with me. And as though just the thought was enough to conjure him up, Jeremiah appeared abruptly out of the crowd before me.
“Not drinking?” he said cheerfully. “This is a party!”
“Someone here needs to keep a clear head,” I said.
