“Did Lucy St. George say anything to the men in the boat?” asks an officer whose mouth is hidden by a bushy white mustache.
Jane tries to remember. “Yes,” she says. “I think Lucy said, ‘I’m not doing it again, it’s a waste of my talents, and yours too, J.R.’ Or something like that. I was pretty far away and the water was noisy.”
“Not doing what again?” asks the mustached officer. “And who’s J.R.?”
“He’s the man who drove the boat away,” Jane says.
“Hmm,” says the officer. Jane can hear worlds of communication in that “hmm.” In these officers’ long careers, she’s the most useless witness they’ve ever questioned.
They ask her questions about her own history and her reasons for being in the house. They seem bored by her answers. She tries to sound casual when she tells them about never actually having seen Ivy’s gun. She aims for a blasé tone when she tells them about Ravi not having been in his bedroom too. They perk up a little at that, which deflates her. Ravi could be the accomplice, couldn’t he? Couldn’t his tantrums be an act? If they are, he deserves to be caught. Right?
No. Jane can’t believe Ravi is involved. Then again, she once thought the same about Lucy. “Do the police give medals to dogs?” she asks.
“Thank you for your time,” they respond grimly, then sweep Jane back into the gold sitting room.
“How was it?” asks Ivy, who’s still sitting there.
“I have no idea,” Jane says.
Toenails scrape and ring on tile as Jasper comes barreling into the room. His ear is bandaged and attached loosely to his neck with tape. When he sees Jane, he throws himself at her. Jane drops down to the floor, takes him into her lap, pets him, and, naturally, begins to leak tears again. He pants hotly into her face.
“I’ve never seen that dog behave toward anyone the way he behaves toward you,” says Ivy, searching through her many pockets, finally unearthing a tissue. She brings it to Jane, crouches down, and, while Jane’s still hugging the dog, touches the tissue, gently, to Jane’s face.
For a moment, Jane feels that everything is right.
“Ivy Yellan,” says an officer who appears in the billiard room doorway, in a tone of acute boredom. “And you,” he says, jutting his chin at Jane.
“What?” Jane says. “Me? You just talked to me.”
“Yes,” he says. “I haven’t forgotten your scintillating testimony. Do us a favor and go find Ravi Thrash, will you? He’s next.”
“I’m right here,” Ravi says, appearing in the ballroom doorway.
“Good,” the officer says to Ravi. “Kindly stay.”
The officer and Ivy disappear into the billiard room, leaving Jane and Ravi, who studies Jane’s face. She sniffles hard, wiping her eyes on her pajama sleeve.
“What are you crying about?” asks Ravi.
“The dog,” Jane says, which is true, if an understatement.
“Yeah,” he says grimly.
“You look tired,” she says.
“The FBI should be handling this case,” Ravi says. “If our artwork is still in New York State, it’s a miracle. Vanny is literally trying to give me an ulcer, calling in the state police instead of the FBI. How was it, talking to them?”
Jane pauses, then speaks in a particular tone. “I answered all their questions honestly.”
He rubs his neck, sighing. The white streaks in his hair suddenly make him seem old, tired. “Is there a reason you shouldn’t have?”
“I went looking for you first,” Jane says. “This morning. I went to your room first, before going outside. It was just before dawn and you weren’t there. I told them.”
Ravi’s eyes linger on Jane. “And now you’re telling me you told them,” he says, “so I’ll know not to tell them I was safely tucked up in bed the whole time?”
“Yeah,” says Jane. “I guess so.”
The corner of Ravi’s mouth turns up. “You’re a puzzle.”
“Ravi, if that’s a segue to flirting, I’m literally going to lose it.”
This elicits a sad smile, then a weary shake of the head. “I spent the night with my dad in the library,” he says, “listening to the Beatles.”
“The Beatles!” Jane exclaims. “I forgot to tell the police about the Beatles.” Placing Jasper on his four feet, she stands, turns, and barges through the billiard room door. Four surprised faces swivel up to look at her.
“I forgot to tell you that as I was crossing the atrium on my way to the servants’ quarters,” Jane announces, “I heard someone playing the Beatles.”
The faces stare at Jane in bewilderment. She leaves the room and shuts the door before things deteriorate any further.
“I’m pretty sure I’m their least favorite witness ever,” she tells Ravi.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “Patrick will brood, Kiran will be silent and depressed, Colin will be condescending, and Phoebe will say something snobbish and defensive.”
“Thanks,” Jane says. “That makes me feel better.”
His half grin again. “Keep me company while I’m waiting?”
Jane has sympathy for Ravi, who’s had a rotten morning. But she’s still dressed in her Doctor Who pajamas, she’s run through the ramble, fallen over, rolled around, had a gun pointed at her, been bled on by a dog, bawled her eyes out, and been interrogated by the police. She needs a shower, and a deep, dark nap with Jasper snoring into her ankles. “I need to get cleaned up,” Jane says.
“Yeah, okay,” he says. “Send me Kiran if you see her, will you? I’m worried about her.”
“Why?”
Ravi throws himself into an armchair and closes his eyes. “Nothing to do with any of this. Let’s just call it twin stuff.”
* * *
One moment, Jane is passing through the ballroom with Jasper at her heels, weary and spent, dodging gala staff whose voices are too sharp and bright. The next moment, she’s ravenous. This is why Jane does, indeed, cross paths with Kiran, who’s with Colin in the breakfast room, a little nook off the banquet hall, poking at a poached egg with a spoon.
“I just wish I was more surprised,” Jane hears Colin say. “Who’s your guess for her accomplice? Someone in the house? A servant?”
“I don’t have a clue,” says Kiran.
“She could have an entanglement with the guy who mans your boats,” says Colin. “One of those secret relationships across class.”
“Patrick?” says Kiran, sounding thoroughly confused, and rubbing her temples as if they hurt. “Where are you getting this from?”
“They look pretty cozy together. I can’t see him turning her down,” says Colin.
There’s a smugness to his tone, subtle, indefinable; he’s pleased with his own speculations.
Something inside Jane mutinies. “Colin,” she says. “Why do you keep pushing her into conversations she doesn’t want to have?”
“What?” Colin says, looking up at Jane. His hair is damp. He’s showered and bright as a daisy. “Pushing who?”
“Kiran!” Jane exclaims. “You keep badgering her.”
Colin sits back, offended. “I love Kiran,” he says. “What do you know about anything? You’re a child, and a stranger here.”
“She doesn’t want to talk about it,” says Jane. “She wants to be alone.”
“She’s depressed!” Colin says. “I’m getting her interested in something!”
“You bully her!”
“You have a lot of nerve,” Colin says, then turns to Kiran. “Sweetheart, do I bully you?”
Kiran is holding her spoon so tightly that her fingertips are white. “Colin,” she says to her plate, “I think it’s time we broke up. In fact, I’m sure of it. I’m sorry, but it’s over.”
Two spots of red grow in Colin’s cheeks. After a moment, he pushes his chair back qui
etly, and stands. “Very well,” he says stiffly. “By the way,” he adds, flashing hot eyes into Jane’s, “you’re wrong. She doesn’t prefer to be alone. She’s quite fond of a certain one of her servants. I used to think she could be happy with me, but now I’m not sure she’s capable of happiness.”
“Don’t talk about me as if I’m not here,” Kiran says, “you patronizing prick.”
Colin opens his mouth to speak, then claps it closed tight. He turns to go. As he’s walking away, he spins back suddenly and addresses Jane.
“Incidentally,” he says, “I hate to tell you, but there was an accident with your umbrellas. They fell into the street in Soho and got run over by a truck. I’m awfully sorry. I don’t suppose they were insured?”
Her Pantheon dome umbrella. Her eggshell umbrella. Her brass-handled, brown-and-copper-rose umbrella. Jane is choking over her own astonishment.
“How horrible,” Kiran says.
Jane looks into Kiran’s face and finds that all of Kiran’s warmth and feeling for her is real and surging.
Then she looks into Colin’s face, which contains the most perfect balance of sorrow, solicitude, and regret. Also something else. The tiniest gleam of something childish. Triumph.
An instinct pricks her.
Turning without a word, Jane passes through the banquet hall into the kitchen, stopping only to hold the door for Jasper. Mr. Vanders and Patrick are huddled together at a table, muttering to each other.
“Who did the mail run yesterday?” Jane asks them.
They barely glance at her. “Cook,” says Mr. Vanders.
“And where’s Cook right now?” Jane asks.
“Down at the dock,” says Mr. Vanders.
“I need to ask him a question.”
Mr. Vanders eyes Jane then, with curiosity. He reaches into a drawer behind him, pulls out a walkie-talkie, presses a button, and says, “Son.”
A moment later, a raspy voice answers. “Dad?”
Mr. Vanders hands the walkie-talkie to Jane. She’s never used one before. She presses the button and says, “Hello?”
“Yeah?”
“Cook?”
“Yeah?”
“Did Colin Mack give you a long, narrow package yesterday for the mail run?”
“Yeah,” says Cook. “Umbrellas.”
“How were they packaged?”
“With about a mile of bubble wrap around them,” he says, “and nailed into a crate. I helped him pack them.”
“Who was it addressed to?”
“Buckley St. George, at his Soho offices. I private-messengered it in Southampton with the guy the family always uses.”
“The family? Which family?”
“The Thrash family!” he says. “What family do you think? Octavian transports art from time to time. We always use this guy.”
“Is he clumsy?” asks Jane. “Does he drop things? Is he a bike messenger who’s always in peril?”
“Of course not! He’s a professional art courier! He drives a specialized truck!”
Jane hands the walkie-talkie back to Mr. Vanders and marches off, Jasper at her heels. “Hello?” says Cook’s voice behind her, somewhat irate. “Who is this? Dad? Is that Magnolia’s niece?”
Jane pushes back through the swinging door, amazed at her own certainty.
This time, when she barges into the billiard room, the surprised faces contain a touch of annoyance. Ivy has gone; the police are talking to Ravi. He brightens a notch at the sight of Jane. Ravi expects entertainment.
“Colin Mack is the accomplice,” Jane says, “or at any rate, he’s a jerk who stole from me. The proof is that you’ll find three umbrellas in the offices of Buckley St. George, who, frankly, I don’t trust either. Maybe St. George is behind the whole thing. Maybe he positioned his daughter and his nephew here so they could steal the art, and Colin, being an arrogant ass, couldn’t resist stealing my art too. Please note,” Jane adds with desperation, determined to tell the whole truth, “that all of this is conjecture, based on a look in Colin’s eyes and possibly also my inability to accept the slaughter of my umbrellas. But I think I’m right,” she finishes.
One of the police officers clears her throat. “We are investigating the theft of two pieces of art, worth, on the underside, over a hundred million dollars,” she says. “You’re talking to us about umbrellas.”
“Colin just told me that the umbrellas were destroyed,” says Jane. “That means that if those umbrellas are in Buckley St. George’s offices, then Colin lied to me so he could steal them. Are you looking for a thief or not?”
* * *
The police are at the house most of the day, despite the fact that it’s gala day. Jane plays some distracted chess with Kiran in the winter garden, and waits.
In late afternoon, the news comes through that the umbrellas have been found. Two are smack in the middle of Buckley St. George’s desk and Buckley himself is discovered walking through Soho with the third, the speckled eggshell, in the rain. According to the police, Buckley is charmed by Jane’s umbrellas. The pale blue with brown speckles matches his bow tie. He’s intended to purchase that one from Jane personally. He’s astonished to learn that Colin’s made up a story about them having been destroyed; he insists Colin never told him. “Damn stupid boy!” he says, and then, when he hears the part about Lucy and the Vermeer, he stops talking.
The police lead Colin away. He tries to look dignified and amused by this turn of events, but his face is bloodless, his eyes frightened. Jane watches him go with Kiran at her side. There is contempt in Kiran’s expression that could freeze a star.
But still there’s no sign of the missing Vermeer.
* * *
Later that day, the police ask Jane to come to New York to identify her umbrellas. Kiran comes too. The police don’t need her, but she wants Jane to have access to the Thrashes’ city apartment while she’s there, and Jane senses that she’d rather be anywhere than at the gala.
The light is falling as they board the boat. The gala is beginning; incoming boats sparkle on the water like stars.
Kiran unfurls a little, like a fern, as the police boat enters Long Island Sound and the Manhattan skyline appears. The city night fills her eyes, makes them clearer. Soon, the New York State Police barracks appear, on a strange, wooded patch of land in the East River called Ward’s Island.
Inside the noisy, yellow-lit building, an officer named Investigator Edwards places the umbrellas on a desk and asks Jane if she recognizes them. He has a voice like a man stranded in a desert and a face like John Wayne. It seems silly to Jane, this emergency nighttime journey to the city to identify umbrellas she could easily have identified by photo or even by description. But, with her umbrellas before her, Jane is relieved she came. He lets her pick them up, touch them, inspect them, even hand them to Kiran, who tells Jane that each one is beautiful. They’re in the same condition they were in when Jane saw them last.
“When can I have them back?”
“When we’re done with the investigation,” Investigator Edwards rasps, then adds, not without sympathy, “They’re evidence. That means we’ll take good care of them.” His eyes, Jane notices, gray and clear, are surrounded by fine laughter lines. Then she notices a slight brown discoloration in one of his gray irises and even though she knows it’s irrational, she trusts him with her umbrellas, implicitly.
“Your positive ID of the umbrellas will justify a search warrant of Buckley St. George’s office,” Investigator Edwards says as Jane hands the umbrellas back to him. “And his correspondence and his financials too. If he’s got other stolen property, we’ll find it.”
Kiran’s eyes slide to the investigator and lock on his face. Buckley St. George, Jane remembers, isn’t just Colin’s uncle and Lucy’s father. He’s Ravi’s boss. Ravi is going to lose his job. “You’re sure Buckley St. George
is involved?” Kiran asks.
“Not sure of anything,” says Investigator Edwards. “We don’t think Buckley St. George knew that Colin Mack intended to steal the umbrellas. But we did find those two perps and the boat, entering the East River from the Sound. They could’ve been on their way to Buckley St. George, intending to deliver the Vermeer.”
“You said you found the guys,” Kiran says, “but you didn’t say if you found the Vermeer.”
His face splits into a grin. “Yeah.”
“That’s funny?” says Kiran.
Reaching down, Investigator Edwards retrieves something from a drawer. “The chief petty officer did find a parcel on board,” he says, “just the right size for the picture. But when he opened it, there was a blank canvas inside, and this.” He lays a flat, transparent plastic bag on the desk before Kiran and Jane. It contains a paper napkin on which someone has written, with a felt pen in block letters, the words BITE ME, YOU DESPOT.
“Huh,” Kiran says. “That is funny.”
“Yeah,” says Investigator Edwards.
“You think Lucy or Colin wrote that?”
“It appears to be Lucy St. George’s handwriting.”
“And you think it’s a note to her father?”
“Possibly.”
“So, what? You think Lucy stole the Vermeer at her father’s instruction, kept the Vermeer for herself, then sent that napkin to her father as a message?”
“It’s a theory.”
“And where’s the Vermeer?”
“No idea. Lucy’s not saying. Neither is Colin, who, by the way, still insists he’s got nothing to do with any of it. Unfortunately for him, we found the prints of his boots in the ramble. Stepped in mud from the recent rain, we assume, while serving as Lucy’s lookout this morning.”
Kiran rolls her eyes dismissively at this mention of Colin. “What about the two guys in the boat?” she asks. “You couldn’t arrest them. It’s not illegal to carry a paper napkin wrapped up to look like a stolen Vermeer.”