I felt as though I’d struck gold. The dear ladies of Finch might not know much about Arthur Hargreaves beyond his connection with the uppity folk in Tillcote, but Grant and Charles evidently did.
“Are you serious, Lori?” said Grant. “Have you really met Arthur Hargreaves?”
“By which we mean to say: Did you, in actual fact, have an up-close, face-to-face encounter with him?” Charles amplified.
I looked past Grant and observed that Bill and the twins had finished roughhousing on the village green and begun strolling up the lane toward St. George’s. Bill stopped at the low stone wall surrounding the churchyard, saw that I was engaged in gossip-gathering, and signaled that he would take Rob and Will to the tearoom. I gave him a thumbs-up in return. Our sons were big fans of Sally Cook’s lemon poppy-seed cake.
“Well?” Charles said impatiently, reclaiming my attention.
“I did, in actual fact, have an up-close, face-to-face encounter with Arthur Hargreaves,” I said with mock solemnity, amused by the awestruck glances the pair exchanged.
“When?” Grant asked eagerly. “Where?”
“How?” Charles added.
“Bess and I met Arthur yesterday,” I explained. “We were walking near Hillfont Abbey when a wheel on Bess’s pram came off. Arthur was kind enough to fix it for us.”
“Arthur?” Charles goggled at me. “You’re on a first-name basis with Arthur Hargreaves?”
“I guess so,” I said. “He certainly didn’t introduce himself as the Hermit of Hillfont Abbey.”
“Hermits don’t usually introduce themselves,” Charles said brusquely. “Anonymity is a hallmark of hermithood.”
“What were you doing near Hillfont Abbey?” Grant asked, waving his partner to silence.
“I told you,” I said. “I was taking Bess for a walk.”
“And Arthur Hargreaves just happened to come along and fix Bess’s broken pram,” said Grant, as if he had to hear the story twice over before he could bring himself to believe it.
“That’s right,” I said. “He heard Bess crying and offered to help us. He’s a very nice man.”
“A very nice man,” Grant repeated incredulously.
“He was our knight in shining armor,” I stated emphatically. “As a matter of fact, he called himself the Summer King.”
“Why?” Charles demanded, gazing avidly at me.
“It’s a family tradition, apparently,” I said. “The title’s been passed down from father to son for as long as there have been Hargreaveses at Hillfont Abbey.” I smiled as I recalled Arthur’s lighthearted description of a Summer King’s duties. “Arthur didn’t seem to think it was a big deal. He gave me the impression that it’s a kind of game his family plays to celebrate summer.”
“Did you meet his family as well?” Grant asked faintly.
“Only his grandson Marcus,” I replied, “the teenaged astrophysicist.”
Grant gaped at me, then sat abruptly on the late Joseph Cringle’s table tomb, as if his legs had given way.
“Are you all right?” I asked, eyeing him with concern.
“He’s bowled over,” said Charles.
“Completely bowled over,” Grant confirmed, putting a hand to his forehead.
Charles rested Bess’s carry cot on the tomb, but the secure grip he maintained on the handle met with my approval.
“I must confess that I’m bowled over as well,” Charles said. “We know of Arthur Hargreaves, of course, but we’ve never had the privilege of meeting him or his grandson. We didn’t even know he had a grandson, let alone a teenaged astrophysicist grandson. You’ve joined an extremely exclusive club, Lori.”
I took a step closer to the tomb and the three of us automatically tilted our heads forward and lowered our voices, as one did when sharing confidential information in Finch.
“I’ve told you mine,” I said. “Now you tell me yours. Come on, boys, spill it. What do you know about Arthur Hargreaves?”
“We know that the villagers don’t think much of him,” said Charles. “It has something to do with an ancient feud between Finch and Tillcote. Peggy Taxman had a fit when we mentioned his name. We’ve avoided the subject ever since.”
“You don’t have to avoid it with me,” I said. “I’m all ears.”
“We don’t know anything,” Grant said, but when I looked daggers at him, he hastened to add, “We’ve heard a few tidbits, though.”
“Rumor has it,” said Charles, “that he’s madly wealthy and—some say—ever so slightly mad.”
“According to a reliable source,” said Grant, “he has a history of making anonymous bids at high-end art auctions.”
“Bids that are invariably successful,” Charles put in.
“Who is this reliable source?” I asked.
“Florence Urquhart,” Charles replied readily. “Flo’s an old chum of ours. She was working the phones at a well-known art auction house when the bids came in. Flo would lose her job—and her pension—if she revealed the bidder’s identity, but she couldn’t keep herself from dropping a few leaden hints over wine and cheese at a gallery opening last winter.”
“If Arthur Hargreaves is indeed the man behind the anonymous bids,” Grant said, “he has exquisite taste and fantastically deep pockets. I’d give a big toe or two to own the da Vinci sketch he purchased a month ago.” He winked broadly at me as he added, “Allegedly.”
“How did Arthur become madly wealthy?” I asked.
“Inheritance, followed by clever investments, or so we’ve heard,” said Grant. “I’ve never heard it said that he works for a living.”
“Nor have I,” said Charles.
“But you have heard it said that he’s mad,” I reminded them.
“Ever so slightly mad,” Charles corrected me. “He has an absolute mania about privacy. He doesn’t give interviews. He doesn’t make public appearances. He doesn’t leave the abbey, if he can help it. He’s the very definition of a recluse. Hence, his soubriquet: the Hermit of Hillfont Abbey.”
“Yet he’s tremendously influential,” Grant chimed in.
“We’ve always pictured him as a spider sitting at the center of a web,” said Charles. “He has only to twang a silk thread to make things happen.”
I remembered Bill’s telephone call to the pram manufacturer and his subsequent comments about the clout Arthur appeared to wield in the corporate world.
“Would he have a direct line to the CEO of a big company?” I asked.
“My guess is that Arthur Hargreaves has many direct lines to many CEOs of many big companies,” said Grant.
I’d been keeping an eye on Bess, but she’d shown no signs of feeling neglected. She’d followed our conversation with rapt attention, inserting an occasional stream of baby babble that had been adoringly mimicked by Charles, despite his keen interest in the subject under discussion. He would, I thought, have made a wonderful father.
“You can imagine our surprise,” Grant continued, “when you told us that Arthur Hargreaves fixed Bess’s pram. It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing a high-powered mystery mogul would do.”
“Maybe not,” I said, “but the Arthur Hargreaves Bess and I met is nothing like the man you’ve described. He wasn’t standoffish or intimidating, and there was nothing spider-like about him. The man we met was warm, funny, and down-to-earth.”
“Perhaps he has a soft spot for children,” Charles suggested. He turned to Bess and said in his talking-to-infants voice, “Who wouldn’t have a soft spot for you, my little angel?”
“We must, of course, defer to your better judgment, Lori,” said Grant. “Unlike you, Charles and I are not on a first-name basis with Mr. Hargreaves.”
“Bess is on a first-name basis with him, too,” I said proudly. “She may not be able to say Arthur’s name yet, but if she could, I’m sure he would allow it.”
“Who could refuse you anything?” Charles asked Bess. “You’re irresistible.”
A pair of dimples appeared in Bess’s plump cheeks and three hearts melted simultaneously.
“Do not tell me it’s gas,” Charles commanded, with a stern look in my direction. “I know a smile when I see one.”
“It’s not gas,” I said obediently, but as a familiar aroma rose from the carry cot, I was forced to add, “It is, however, time for a diaper change.”
The speed with which Charles passed the carry cot to me gave me second thoughts about his fitness for fatherhood.
“Forgive us,” he said as he backed away from the scene of the crime. “We’ve kept you talking too long.”
Grant seemed to be making a valiant attempt not to grimace as he retreated alongside his partner.
“You will give Mr. Hargreaves our number, won’t you?” he said from a safe distance. “You’ll tell him we’re right here in Finch? Charles and I would be honored to clean, restore, and/or appraise any work of art in his collection.”
“If I see him, I’ll tell him,” I promised. “If you see Bill, will you tell him that Bess and I are in St. George’s?”
“Will do,” Charles called. “Until we meet again, little angel.”
He kissed his fingers to Bess and followed Grant out of the churchyard.
It would have been disrespectful to use Joseph Cringle’s tomb as a changing table, but I knew the vicar wouldn’t object to me using a church pew. There wouldn’t be another service until Evensong, and as he’d said himself, the mess in a child’s nappy was nothing compared to the mess left behind in St. George’s after the beast blessing.
I chose the pew my family and I had recently vacated, swapped Bess’s dirty diaper for a clean one, and gathered her up for a cuddle. The humble old church’s serene atmosphere seemed to seep into us and we remained blessedly undisturbed until a footstep sounded in the south porch.