Chapter 7

After a breakfast that Ross sent up to my room, I felt somewhat better. My head was reasonably clear, though I had discovered new bruises, and my shoulder was sore. The quieter anger, with which I’d fallen asleep, had not abated, but this morning I knew I must move with care. I mustn’t flail out blindly against whatever threatened me.

Ross came into my room as I finished dressing, and we sat outside, where morning shadows darkened the arches of the loggia. He kissed me with tender affection, and I felt again the aura of protection he could place around me. I had only to relax and do exactly as he wished and nothing dreadful could happen to me. For a moment I didn’t want to remember his mother’s words. I didn’t want to remember that portrait of Ysobel, or her voice singing as he made love to her daughter. I wanted to forget hands in the dark, that whisper, and the obscenity of a coconut on my dressing table.

I remembered everything.

While I was asleep, Gretchen had slipped a note under my door, reminding me that she still hoped to take me into town for a late lunch and some shopping on Worth Avenue. The note was typed on her personal stationery with her name and “Poinciana” engraved at the top of heavy cream paper. She hadn’t signed it, but had drawn at the bottom of the sheet a smiling face with upcurved mouth, round eyes, and three hairs, coming out of the top of the head.

I showed it to Ross and he chuckled. “Typical. Gretchen’s handwriting is illegible, so she always types. And when it’s family or friends, her signature is one of those faces. Smiling, or sad, or with a zigzag for anger. I’m really pleased. This means she’s making friends with you. You can be a good influence on her, I know.”

Which probably meant that I was to influence her in a direction he might want her to go. Anyway, I wasn’t convinced that the invitation was a friendly gesture. Gretchen’s motives were likely to be devious, from what little I’d seen of her.

Ross assured me that a further search had been made of the grounds this morning, but no trace of last night’s intruder had been found.

I asked the same question that I’d asked before. “What if it was someone inside the house?”

Again there was quick dismissal of the notion. “Nonsense! There’s no one in the house who would want to hurt you. In any case, the security men are on the alert now. I’ve put one hell of a scare into them. It won’t happen again.”

I considered bringing up the matter of the coconut, but that was minor compared with everything else that Ross must be told this morning, and it could wait. I plunged into an account of my visit to Coral Cottage, and he sat listening, his expression forbiddingly dark, and once, when he would have interrupted, I hurried on, my inner anger sustaining me.

“Ross, I can’t live here as a semi-prisoner. I hate this atmosphere of secrets around me, and of motives I don’t understand. Can’t we bring everything into the open? I’d like to know more about your mother.”

I could see that my plea was useless. Even as I spoke, his mouth had tightened in displeasure. “I do not choose to discuss the problem of my mother. It’s not something you can deal with intelligently when you have so little to go on.”

“Jarrett told me about the attack she made on you a few years ago. But isn’t it possible that she’s better now, so she could be brought back to her own rooms? You can have her constantly watched.”

He was already dismissing the suggestion. “I prefer not to be murdered in my own bed.”

I wanted to ask the question I had been silent about when I talked to Jarrett. I wanted to ask why Ross’s mother had made such an attack, but I held back words that might further anger him and asked another question.

“Why do you need to keep guns about?”

“Don’t be naïve,” he told me with biting scorn. “Anyone in my position faces constant danger from the crazies out there.”

I supposed I must accept that. But I couldn’t leave the subject of Allegra without another try.

“I’d like to visit your mother now and then,” I went on. “I’m sure there are times when she could talk to me about the days when she lived in Poinciana and I would enjoy listening.”

Ross left his chair and walked across the tiles to stand for a moment at the rail. When he turned about he was smiling. He had made his decision not to be angry. This time.

“Life with you isn’t going to be dull, Sharon. You are full of surprises.”

“I’m not that figurine you said I was in Kyoto,” I reminded him.

“I’m beginning to see that. And I rather like it—providing you don’t carry these notions too far.”

I hurried to a subject less personal, though I suspected that it might upset him a lot more.

“After you left yesterday, I went on with my work in the netsuke collection. It’s coming along well, but there are two items that I haven’t been able to locate. The vouchers for them are there, and so are Gretchen’s photographs. One is the carving of a carp done in ebony, and the other a dragon carved in cherry wood. I’ve gone over every netsuke several times, and I can’t find either of them.”

Ross was on his feet before I finished. “Come downstairs with me, and we’ll have a look together. Perhaps you just haven’t recognized them.”

I doubted that was the case, and when Ross himself had gone over the shelves piece by piece, he could only come to the same conclusion. Two netsuke were missing. After that, phones began to ring around the house. Jarret was summoned and Myra Ritter came with him, steno book in hand. Gretchen and Vasily were found and brought in. Mrs. Broderick was instructed about questioning the staff.

“If necessary,” Ross told us as we assembled in the room, “I’ll call in the police. But I hope it won’t come to that. If the missing netsuke are returned to this room at once, I will ask no more questions. These are not toys. Such pieces are irreplaceable. I’ve collected them over the years at great trouble and expense. We’ll wait a few days and institute a search. That’s all for now.”

Vasily put a proprietary arm about Gretchen, with a sardonic look for Ross. Myra ducked out of the room in Jarrett’s wake, and Mrs. Broderick bustled off to confront the household staff.

Gretchen nodded to me. “If you’re ready, we can go into town now.” For once she was wearing a dress instead of jeans, and I wondered at her insistence upon this trip.

“Would you like me to stay home?” I asked Ross.

“Of course not. Run along, you two.”

Gretchen came with me when I went, upstairs to change, as though she was afraid I might have second thoughts about this luncheon date.

“Do you really think anyone in the house would dare to touch your father’s netsuke collection?” I asked her when we reached my room.

“Who knows? The staff has been with us for years. And there aren’t many of the rest of us to choose from, are there? Besides, what would any of us want with the netsuke?”

That seemed true enough. Gretchen was wealthy in her own name, and the money a few such objects would bring could hardly be an incentive. Not even if it ran to thousands of dollars.

She went out on the loggia to wait for me, and I put on a white dress flowered in pale blue, and changed to open-toed shoes. When I sat before the dressing table mirror, I discovered a lone ant wandering over my comb, and I brushed it away in disgust, considering whether I should tell Gretchen about what I’d found here last night. Better not. Better to play everything by ear for the moment until I knew my true direction. Anger could wait, and perhaps be strengthened by the very delay. The intent against me—which others were discounting—was too serious and alarming for me to dismiss. Nor could I be sure that Gretchen wasn’t behind what had happened.

When I rejoined her, we went down to the front door, where a car was waiting for us. She got in behind the wheel and I sat beside her, still puzzled by her manner, which seemed to alternate between antagonism and an effort to be friendly that I didn’t really trust. Right now some secret purpose seemed to be pushing her, and the very fact made me watchful and alert.

In her red Jag we drove along South Ocean Boulevard past impressive houses. She pointed out the Addison Mizner touch of red-tiled Spanish roofs visible amidst tropical growth. We cut across the island on Royal Palm Way, where handsome, big-boled palms marched down a wide strip of grass that divided the street. No Palm Beach street that ran east and west could be very long, because of the water boundary each way. Our destination, Gretchen said, was Worth Avenue, and we turned off to reach it.

Among the magical shopping streets of the world, Worth stood near the top, though it was only a few blocks long. Rimming its sidewalks were the most famous of shops, where elegance and wealth were almost commonplace. Here were offered jewels and perfume, clothes by the great designers, to say nothing of fabulous art works. On this island where the Gulf Stream flowed nearest the shore, thus moderating temperatures the year round, there existed what some had called the American Riviera. The rich and famous played and rested in Palm Beach, and celebrities abounded. Worth had been called the “Mink Mile.”

At the end of the First World War, Addison Mizner had appeared to put the mark of his own architectural whimsy upon the island that Flagler had developed, giving Palm Beach its Spanish-Moorish-Mediterranean character. He had lived in Spain and South America and California. He had borrowed, and he had also created out of his own imagination. It was he who designed Worth Avenue, with its Spanish façades, and charming arcades. As an architect, he had sometimes been more imaginative than practical, and odd “mistakes” sometimes turned up in his houses.

His own apartment, Gretchen pointed out, had been up there under the red-tiled tower that dominated the street.

We drove past Bentleys and Rolls-Royces, Cadillacs and Mercedes-Benz cars that were a common sight at the curbs of this famous street, and found a place to park. Palm trees grew along the way, and there were plants everywhere, in tubs, or thriving lushly in courtyards. Bougainvillea climbed the walls and spilled over balconies, and the scarlet of hibiscus could be glimpsed everywhere.

In some ways the street reminded me of the French Quarter of New Orleans, and as we walked along I was treated to glimpses of fountains, tiled walks, archways, and arcades.

Gretchen drew me past an inner fountain to stop before a Gucci window. She seemed to move in a leisurely way, yet I had the feeling that she was merely marking time as we approached some event that lay ahead. It wasn’t likely that she had invited me out for the pleasure of my company. Something was going to happen—eventually—and when it did, I suspected that I would not like it.

Out again on the street, she stopped for purchases in a shop with shining mirrors and a gleaming marble floor, where the saleswoman knew her and greeted her by name.

I bought nothing. How could I need for anything with all that Ross had given me from the stores of London and Tokyo and Kyoto? Yet all the while as I followed Gretchen, I felt as though I floated in a sea of unreality. This was a world of such expensive artifice that it had little to do with the realities of living.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t respond to luxury with my senses, or that I couldn’t enjoy this sort of artificial beauty. I had lived very close to this world for a good part of my life. I had seen such shopwindows in New York, London, Paris, Rome, but I had never really belonged to this fantasy world, and I couldn’t belong to it now.

As we left the last shop, Gretchen said, “You look a bit dazed. What are you thinking about?”

“I’m not quite sure. I love to look in the windows, to go into the shops, watch the people. But I feel as though I were attending a not very real play.”

“I know what you mean!” There was a sudden passion in Gretchen’s words that startled me. “I grew up with all this, and sometimes I hate it. Sometimes I hate everything about the Logan money, and all my father’s power. Sometimes I hate everything about Poinciana except Gran. And Gran is being sent away because he is afraid of her. She was always the real one. Even though she could make unreal things happen, she kept in touch with life. My father has never had that touch. That’s why he employs men like Jarrett Nichols, who are real. That’s why I married Vasily Karl—because he’s real.”

That surprised me still more. We were walking back to her car, and I could think of no response to make.

When we got in and she drove away from the curb, Gretchen gave me a smiling look that challenged whatever I was thinking. “A fortune hunter can be very real, you know. Oh, don’t feel embarrassed. I know exactly why he married me, and I know why I married him. We understand each other, and we have something very good going between us. But I’ve made you uncomfortable, haven’t I? Because you aren’t used to talking about things as they really are. Are you, Mrs. Ross Logan?”

“I don’t think you know very much about me,” I said. “Are you judging me?”

“Of course. Why shouldn’t I? Don’t we all judge everyone else? It just surprised me a little that you would even recognize that all of this is make-believe. Of course, we compromise and satisfy our egos. Jarrett Nichols too—though he’s closer to the real world than the rest of us.”

“I wish I could be as sure as you are,” I said. “I don’t know where the boundaries are any more. Perhaps you’ve escaped to some extent through your camera.”

She said nothing to that, and we drove a block or two in silence before Gretchen parked the car again and glanced at her watch. “I’ve made a reservation at the Brazilian Court, so come along.”

We walked through a large open court where tables were shaded by bright umbrellas, and went up a few steps to an enclosed pavilion. Here again Gretchen was recognized and we were seated by a window. I noted a third place setting, and Gretchen cocked an eyebrow at me.

“I’ve invited someone to join us. Someone you really ought to know. But we needn’t wait. We can decide about lunch right away.”

So this was the event we had been moving toward. I studied the menu, while my uneasiness grew. When I looked up and saw Brett Inness coming toward us across the room, I knew my fears were justified.

“She doesn’t know you’re to be here either,” Gretchen whispered, grinning.

I was furious with her for her presumption, but there was nothing to do but face it out now.

Her mother wore a sleeveless blue linen frock, elegantly simple, with a strand of white coral beads at her throat. Gretchen commented first on her dress.

“I do like that. It’s your own design, isn’t it?” And then to me, “My mother is a marvelous dress designer. She has her own shop here in town. Sharon, I’d like you to meet Brett Inness. And Brett, this is Ross’s new wife, Sharon. I thought you two ought to know each other.”

Long experience in dealing with the unexpected around Ysobel came to my aid, and I managed to be polite and a little remote. Brett was clearly as annoyed with her daughter as I, but she acknowledged the introduction and sat down opposite me.

“Outrageous,” she said to Gretchen, and then looked at me. “I suppose we’ll have to make the best of it.”

“I’m sorry that I didn’t know who you were when I saw you on the grounds the other day,” I said.

“I thought it just as well if you didn’t. I’m trying not to annoy Ross, since I want to be able to visit Allegra on occasion.”

“He can’t forbid you the grounds,” Gretchen said. “If he tries, there will be a bang-up fight between us. So he’ll pretend not to know.”

My attention was on Brett at that moment, and my first impression of a woman of will and authority was growing. She still wore her hair in the brown knob on top of her head, and perhaps it was right for her angular style. Florida sun had not spared her skin, and I noted the lines, the weathering. Now I could see her odd, violet eyes more closely, and I was aware of their chill regard. She showed no warmth, even toward her daughter, and in spite of Gretchen’s outrageous behavior, my sympathy for her grew. I knew about mothers.

When we’d ordered, Gretchen looked from one to the other of us, serious now, and no longer impish.

“I didn’t do this just to upset you both. There isn’t any reason why you should be friends. Or even acquaintances.”

Her mother broke in. “Oh, I don’t know—we may have a lot in common. Though perhaps Mrs.—ah—Logan hasn’t worn that name long enough yet to be aware of this.”

Anger would not serve me now, or resentment. I retreated into my glass case, where no words could reach me, and smiled politely, distantly, saying nothing. Neither of them could possibly touch me. That was the thought I must hold on to.

Gretchen continued. “I brought you both here to talk about Allegra. To help me plan a battle—a war, if necessary. You’re already on her side, Brett, though I think it’s only because you like to oppose Ross. And I can tell that the Allegra legend has gotten through to Sharon, so perhaps she’ll help us too. Then we can work on this together.”

My self-imposed retreat wasn’t working too well, I discovered. In spite of myself, I was becoming involved, and wondering about Gretchen. Ostensibly, she was fighting a battle for her grandmother, but I suspected that whether she knew it or not, this was only part of a larger war with her father. And there my sympathies were engaged, even more than for Allegra. Gretchen’s life still lay ahead of her.

“How can you stop your father if he’s made up his mind?” I asked.

“That’s what we have to figure out. My father isn’t an easy man to stop. But the way each of you feels should help. You’re a softy, Sharon. You’d like to help Gran because you’re tenderhearted. Oh, don’t look at me like that. You hide behind that front you wear, but the softness still shows. That’s the reason Dad married you. One of the reasons. He likes people close to him that he can hurt. Don’t I know!”

“Stop it, Gretchen,” her mother said, her voice low. “You used to have a few manners.”

Oddly enough, Gretchen subsided. “Well, what can we use for a lever with my father?” she asked, faintly sullen. “It’s not only Gran, you know. He’s after Vasily, too.”

Someone was also after me, but this wasn’t the time to point that out.

The waitress brought our orders and we said little until she went away. I had nothing practical to offer, and I felt increasingly uncomfortable in the presence of these two. Brett watched me obliquely, and Gretchen was obviously hoping to make me squirm. I wasn’t sure how fond she was of her mother, but I was still the interloper on territory that Gretchen had no wish to share. If Ross liked to hurt people, perhaps his daughter shared something of that trait as well.

When the waitress had gone, she put her question again. “Any suggestions to offer?”

I looked out the open windows at bright umbrellas in the courtyard and at people dining cheerfully at small tables. I tasted my shrimp-stuffed avocado, but I had no appetite.

Brett said, “There is always l’affaire Pamela Nichols. A touch of blackmail can be useful at times. Ross has gotten away with too much for too many years.”

I found it hard to swallow my food. “What about Pamela Nichols?”

“Shut up,” Gretchen told her mother, as if for the first time she regretted her plan. “You don’t have a thing to go on.”

“But Allegra does,” Brett said sweetly. She was enjoying her pompano almandine with an appetite neither Gretchen nor I had. “She knows something. She’s hinted as much to me. Don’t underestimate your grandmother when she’s lucid, Gretchen. Why else do you think Ross wants to put her away, except that she has something on him when it comes to Pam?”

My attention was caught. I remembered Gretchen’s burst of temper that day in the belvedere when she’d snatched the picture of Jarrett’s wife and son from me and torn it up. And I remembered Ross’s evasion when I’d mentioned the incident to him.

Gretchen glowered at her mother for a moment, and I knew this was a topic she was unwilling to face.

“Pay no attention,” she told me. “I can tell you the real reason why my father wants to send Gran away. And it’s not this nonsense Brett is trying to foist on you.”

I was silent, waiting. Brett waited too, but with a gleam in those violet eyes.

“Of course, Dad is the main stockholder in Meridian Oil, but Gran holds the next-largest block of stock. Not that she does anything about it these days. Jarrett makes a big thing of consulting with her, and she votes her proxies as he and Dad think best. But if my father could have her declared incompetent, then everything of hers would pass into his hands, and he’d feel a lot surer of total control.”

“That’s only part of it,” Brett said.

“If this is true, why hasn’t he taken the step of sending her away before?” I asked. “She seems to have lapses of memory at times that would give him cause.”

“I’ll tell you why,” Brett said. “He’s afraid of her—that’s why. When she is thinking clearly, she can be dangerous to him. So he’s afraid to bring in anyone else she can talk to openly. He probably feels that it’s also risky to send her away. But at least in the company of other loonies, no one is likely to pay much attention to what she says. Now that you’re here, Sharon, he hasn’t been able to keep you apart. She might talk to you at any time and let a few tigers out of the bag.”

“What tigers are in the bag?” I asked.

Gretchen answered me curtly. “I only want to see my father persuaded. I don’t want to damage him.”

“Our goals aren’t exactly the same, are they?” Brett said. “But since you’ve called this little meeting and asked for suggestions, I’ve made one. Poor, foolish Pam might still be useful.”

There was more than a hint of venom in Brett’s cultivated tones, and I retreated again, saying nothing more, not wanting to hear, willing myself not to participate. I didn’t know what they were talking about, and I didn’t want to know. To know might, on top of everything else, be more than I could bear. Nevertheless, I listened carefully to every word.

Gretchen had cut her mother off sharply. “Pam has nothing to do with us now. We’ve got to decide what action to take in the present.” She buttered a roll, scowling.

“You’ve always been clumsy, darling,” her mother said sweetly. “Impetuous. You thought that bringing Sharon and me together would be entertaining. But somehow it’s you who usually winds up in deep water. Nothing ever turns out right for you, does it?”

“I don’t want anything to eat,” I said. “I’d rather not stay and listen to this.”

“You’ll stay.” Gretchen’s hand was on my arm, and I couldn’t rise without a struggle.

“You’d better not oppose her,” Brett said to me. “My daughter has a dreadful temper. Like her father. Being so unsure of themselves basically, they keep trying to prove something. And they fly into rages when they’re opposed.” Her angular face with its strong features seemed bright with a malice that equaled Gretchen’s.

I made no further attempt to rise. Once more, it seemed to me that Gretchen needed help, even more than Allegra did. My sympathy for her had its roots in the past, in my own girlhood, and it continued even in the face of her behavior toward me.

She released her hold on my arm and gave it a little pat, ignoring her mother’s words. “That’s better, Sharon. Everyone’s been giving in to me ever since I was three—just because I could make such awful scenes. People who are well brought up have a terrible handicap. They’ve been taught that the greatest sin of all is to be bad-mannered. So they’re at the mercy of people like me—who just don’t care. But to get back to our problem. I won’t stand by and see Gran railroaded. She’s not all that crazy, and maybe she’s the only person I’ve ever loved. Or who’s ever loved me.”

“You aren’t always lovable, darling,” Brett said. “What about Jarrett Nichols. Won’t he help you?”

“I’ve already talked to him. He’s not sufficiently against her being sent away. He even thinks it might help her. But I know what would happen. She’d be put away in some posh place where the horrors of rich families are kept hidden from the world. Gran doesn’t belong with the horrors, but she could become one of them if she’s put in that sort of big happy family!”

I told them about speaking to Ross. “I asked him to bring Allegra back to her own rooms in the house. I still think that could be done.”

“What did he say?” Gretchen seemed surprised.

“He doesn’t want her in the house. Because of what happened. I’ve been told about her attack on your father. He feels she’s not responsible.”

“She only did what a lot of people might like to do,” Brett said with quiet venom. “I still think we should consider Jarrett. Ross is a little afraid of him. You know that, Gretchen. So what happened to Pamela might still be useful now. After all, she was Jarrett’s wife.”

“What are you proposing to do?” Gretchen demanded.

“Oh, you would have to do it. Just drop a hint or two, raise some doubts in Ross’s mind. Hint at something you might want to talk to Jarrett about if your father doesn’t see things your way about Allegra. Nothing too heavy.”

“You really can be poisonous,” Gretchen said. “How could I possibly do that? He would wind up hating me.”

“Of course, that’s your biggest problem,” Brett said. “You brag about not caring, but you do. You’ve always wanted to be loved, and you never knew how to be lovable.”

I hated what Brett was doing. Hated her mockery and her willingness to hurt her daughter. I could forgive Gretchen’s attempts to be outrageous better than I could her mother’s deliberate cruelty. I had to say something—anything.

“Don’t put yourself down,” I told Brett, and was pleased to see her startled look. “You’ve raised a very talented and clever daughter. I can’t blame her for the way she feels about me—an outsider coming in without warning. I hope I can live that down in time. If there’s anything I can do to help your grandmother, Gretchen, I’d like to. But I don’t have any other ideas.”

Gretchen was watching me as though I puzzled her, for all that she’d been so quick to judge my character.

“Perhaps you’ll be the one to find the way,” she admitted grudgingly. “This isn’t only the matter of keeping Gran at Poinciana, you know. It’s your freedom too that’s involved, and mine. Our happiness. If there is such a thing as happiness. Gran can help us as well as herself. Power against power.”

Before I could pursue this, she looked toward the glass doors, and her face brightened. When I glanced around, I saw Vasily Karl coming up the steps of the pavilion.

“Here comes more support,” Gretchen said. “I asked him to join us.”

He moved with a graceful, jaunty air, and I realized for the first time that he was a rather small man. His slenderness, the high sweep of blond hair, and his erect carriage gave an illusion of height that I recognized now as only an illusion.

He greeted Gretchen with a kiss on the cheek, bent over Brett’s hand, and gave me his most charming smile. “How fortunate to be meeting three such lovely ladies,” he said.

“No games,” Gretchen told him. “We’re into a serious discussion about my grandmother, Vasily. Will you sit down and have lunch?”

Someone pulled out the fourth chair for him, but he waved the menu aside. “When you’re ready for dessert I’ll join you. The library exhibit is going well, dear. I’ve been consulting about the hanging of your photos.”

I hadn’t realized that Gretchen’s proposed exhibit was this far along.

“Vasily used to have his own art gallery in London,” she explained. “That’s where I met him.”

I had wondered what Vasily Karl had done in the past, and I suspected that he’d held a few other jobs as well. Once more I found myself staring at the little scar that raised one eyebrow. It hypnotized me with that sense of having seen it before. Perhaps in London?

Despite his smiles and compliments, and the looks he cast upon each of us in turn, I sensed that all was not entirely well with Gretchen’s husband. He was not lazily at ease, as I’d seen him before.

“What’s wrong, Vasily?” Gretchen asked. “Something has upset you.”

He shrugged eloquently. “It’s nothing, darling. One of your father’s whims. He’s having me investigated. A full-scale detective job. It was to be expected, of course.”

Gretchen flushed angrily, her face mottling, the bruise about her eye becoming more vivid. “Brussels?”

“No, no, of course not. All that was cleared up long ago. There is nothing he can do. It just upsets me to know that I am so little trusted.”

I had a feeling that Vasily Karl was quite accustomed to being little trusted, but Gretchen said, “Don’t worry—I’ll talk to him.”

“That will help a lot,” Brett said.

“Never mind.” Vasily patted his wife’s arm. “Let’s not discuss unpleasant matters now. What will Sharon think of her new family?”

At times he watched me and I saw that he had a curious way of stroking the scarred eyebrow as though to erase the mark. My feeling of recognition became stronger. Yet I be couldn’t be sure. It was too dim a memory—if it was even that. Something to do with my mother?

“Of course it’s typical of Ross to take such action,” Brett said. “He will get rid of you if he can, Vasily, and he’ll stop at nothing. So I hope you have a spotless past.”

Gretchen spoke grimly. “My father has to be stopped. Sharon, you’re the only one who has his ear right now. Maybe he’ll listen to you. You’ve got to persuade him not to send Gran away, and to cut out this nonsense over Vasily.”

Brett was shaking her head. “Don’t put any heavier load on Sharon than she’s able to carry. She has her own problems. You’re the one, Gretchen. You or Jarrett. You’re the only ones he’s ever been afraid of.”

What did she know of my problems? I wondered. What could she know—and how?

Gretchen’s expressive mouth had twisted in anguish. “I don’t want any of this! I don’t want to struggle and fight and throw tantrums. I only want to be left in peace!”

“Then why did you move back into Poinciana?” Brett asked. “Never mind—don’t try to think up an answer. Peace would bore you as quickly as it bores Ross. You started out a fighter back in your playpen, and you’re still one. Thank God I’m on the outside now, and I prefer to stay there. I’ve told you what you can do to help, but I expect you’ll play everything by ear as you always do, Gretchen. Now let’s order dessert and end this impossible luncheon.”

Menus were brought and the other three ordered. I wanted nothing but coffee, and a chance to escape as quickly as possible.

Nevertheless, having all three of them here together was more of a temptation than I could resist. I wanted to watch their reactions, and I told them quietly about finding a rotting coconut on my dressing table last night.

There was a moment’s silence while they all stared at me.

Vasily spoke first. “How very shocking! And how extremely vindictive!”

“Disgusting,” Brett said, wrinkling her sharp nose. “Sharon, have you been getting up on the wrong side of the servants?”

“I’ve hardly spoken to any of them,” I told her.

I was watching Gretchen, who had picked up her napkin and was creasing it thoughtfully.

“Have you any ideas?” I asked her.

My question broke through her concentration and she shook her head vigorously, setting her short hair aswirl. “No, of course not. What a silly trick!”

I let the matter go, and Vasily, with his usual skill, turned the talk to safer subjects. The hanging of Gretchen’s best photographs interested him, and she listened to his words, his suggestions, in almost pitiful agreement. What a strange, prickly girl she was—wanting so much the very things she seemed to have little talent for winning. Puzzling too. I had a feeling that she knew something about that coconut. She was even capable of playing such a trick herself. It would be futile, however, to press her, and I found myself thinking of Brett’s odd references to Jarrett’s late wife, Pamela Nichols.

Direct questions, I was sure, would never provide the answers I wanted, but this was something I must pursue when I had the chance. Perhaps with Gretchen—who had torn up Pam’s picture so angrily.

When Gretchen and I returned to Poinciana, Vasily came with us, filled with good spirits that I suspected were artificial. His presence kept me from asking any more questions then, and I left them at the door.

When I reached my room, I went out on the loggia, where I could refresh myself with a view of the lake, and try to recover from what had been a disturbing experience. On a blanket, down near the edge of the water, Susan Broderick, my part-time maid, was seated cross-legged, her books around her. I ran down the outside steps and across the lawn.

“May I join you?” I asked as she looked up.

She shook her head despairingly. “If you sit down, I’ll have to stand up. In fact, I suppose I should stand up anyway. Mother is a great one for the proper behavior of her housemaids. We’re not supposed to fraternize.”

“You’re off duty,” I said, and dropped down on a corner of the blanket, my hand out to keep her from rising. “I’ll talk to her. I just want to relax for a few minutes. I’ve been doing Worth Avenue with Gretchen and having lunch with her husband and her mother, and I’m feeling a bit limp.”

Susan bent her head so that a wing of dark hair fell across her face, hiding her expression.

“I grew up with Gretchen,” she said after a moment. “There weren’t any restrictions on us as kids. Old Mrs. Logan was very proper on the surface, but she was human, and she was always interested in the problems of those who worked for her. She even set up a trust to put me through college, you know.”

I picked up one of the books from beside her. “Is archaeology the subject that really interests you most?”

“Yes, it does. Last summer I went on a dig out in Arizona. It’s what I’d really like to do. When I’m through with school, maybe I can get a job with an expedition. I’d like to go to any of the Middle East countries, where so much history is buried. Though there’s also a lot of it buried right here at home that’s never been dug up.”

“What does your mother think?”

Susan wrinkled her nose. “She hates me to get dirty. Dirt is the enemy. And that I should want to go out and dig in it offends her. What about you? What do you want to do?”

It was a strange question, but from this young woman perhaps a natural one. Unlike the others, she didn’t take it for granted that being Mrs. Ross Logan was the whole of my existence.

“Right now I’m trying to learn about my husband’s netsuke collection,” I told her. “It’s never been properly catalogued, and I’m trying to correct that.”

“I heard about the ones that are missing. We’ve all been questioned. Though I can’t imagine any of the staff touching anything at Poinciana. They’ve all been here a long time and they’re quite loyal. This has upset everyone a lot. Mother’s in a real tizzy. But it’s even more important that you were pushed down those stairs last night. I hope you weren’t badly hurt.”

“Just a few bruises. Susan, is there any talk about who might have done that to me?”

She looked away, out across the lake. “There’s always talk. Gossip. But it’s only speculation.”

“Would you be willing to tell me?”

“If I believed in it, I would. As it happens, I don’t.”

“Gretchen?”

There was no answer, and I couldn’t expect one. She had been Gretchen’s friend when they were small. I asked another question.

“Susan, did you know Pamela Nichols?”

“Of course.” She relaxed a little, as though this was a safer topic. “I wasn’t working here then, though I lived at Poinciana with my mother. In a way, we were friends. I can still cry when I think of her terrible death.”

“What happened exactly?”

“They say her brakes must have failed. She always drove too fast. There was a truck—and she couldn’t stop in time. She must have died at once.”

I could feel the sickness and hurt along the nerves of my own body. I hadn’t known Pam, but I knew Jarrett, who had lost his wife so terribly.

“What was she like?” I asked.

Susan began to stack her books. “My mother would say that it isn’t proper for me to talk about her.” Blue eyes looked up at me ingenuously. “But I will, anyhow. Pam was always happy and laughing. Except that she was a little afraid of her husband. It’s strange, really. She was the one with a good family and inherited money, while Mr. Nichols was someone Allegra Logan had pulled out of the slums. But he was the one who grew and became really important, while she could never keep up with him. I think he loved her, but she didn’t have much confidence in herself, and he was too busy to build her up in the way she needed.” Susan broke off, suddenly aghast. “I’m talking too much! I should never be telling you these things.”

I had listened in some astonishment. “You’re a psychologist too!”

The long fall of hair swept across her face again. “Just because I like to dig up shards and bones, doesn’t mean I’m not interested in live people. Growing up at Poinciana was always like living in the first row of a play. Old Mrs. Logan liked to talk to me sometimes. She wanted me to stretch my mind, and she’d make me tell her about the people I saw and listened to. Tell her what I thought of them. She was a great one for figuring out human nature. So some of what I’ve just said about Pamela came from her. Mr. Nichols wanted all those things his wife had stood for naturally. I suppose she was the unreachable that he finally reached for.”

I was glad that this girl had been one of Allegra’s protégées. But the remarks Brett Inness had made at our lunch table still puzzled me. How could anything about Pamela be used against Ross?

Susan Broderick gathered up her books and rose to her feet. “I have to go in now. It’s time to get back to work.”

I helped her fold the blanket and watched her run across the lawn toward the house, dodging palm trees. For a while I sat on the wall beside the lake and stared at rippling water. Everything that had been said at lunch today came indirectly back to Ross—to his influence upon all our lives. A fierce anger began to rise in me against him. I was beginning to see what his mother had meant—about the lives he’d destroyed. I couldn’t know about the past, but I could see what was happening right now. All around him human beings were being used and manipulated. Allegra and Gretchen. Brett, who was still filled with bitterness. Me. Perhaps even Jarrett Nichols, though I wasn’t sure about him. Almost without my being aware of it, I had begun to trust in Jarrett’s strength and good judgment.

“Mrs. Logan! Mrs. Logan!” The voice had an excited ring. I turned to see the nurse, Coxie, coming from the direction of Coral Cottage, and I left the wall to hurry toward her.

“Please,” she said as we came together, “will you come inside the cottage with me? I want to show you something. I’ve phoned the house, but I couldn’t reach Mr. Logan.”

“Is anything wrong?” I asked.

“No, no! That is, not exactly. I just want to show you.”

At the door of the cottage she put a finger to her lips. “Mrs. Logan is asleep, and sometimes she sleeps very lightly, so we’ll try not to wake her.”

She led the way through the small living room and into the bedroom, where Allegra lay on her side, looking tiny and withered beneath the afghan tossed over her. Her eyes were closed and lashes that were still long, but very white, lay upon her cheeks. She looked rather like a child, lying there.

Coxie went to the dressing table and opened a drawer. “Look!” she whispered. “Just look in there.”

I looked and saw the two netsuke nestled together beside a box of face powder. The small ebony carp and the cherry-wood dragon! I picked up the carp and examined the intricacy of a carving in which every fish scale was represented in meticulous detail. I was playing for time, dismayed that these should be found in Allegra’s possession. When Ross knew, it would make everything that much worse for her, and I didn’t suppose he could be kept from knowing.

“How do you suppose they got here?” I asked.

“Why—she brought them, of course. She’s done that before, you know, with that mermaid she says belongs to her. But she’s never touched anything else until now.”

I found that my anger hadn’t died away. What if she hadn’t touched these either? With everyone alerted, warned, wouldn’t it be clever of the real thief to place them here, where Allegra would be blamed?

“Have you been out of the cottage today?” I asked.

“Yes, of course. I always take her for a walk in the early morning. She likes to go down to the lake and watch the boats go by.”

Like a child, I thought, and winced. “So anyone could have come into the cottage while you were out?”

“I suppose so, Mrs. Logan. The doors can’t be seen from the water. There’s never been any point in locking up down here in the cottage. But I don’t see—”

“It’s all right,” I assured her. “It’s not your fault. No one could watch her every minute.”

She bristled a little, a frown on her broad face. “I do the best I can. Mr. Logan doesn’t want anyone but me to take care of her.”

Because he paid her well not to talk, no matter what Allegra said to her?

“I understand.” I pulled some tissue from a box on the dressing table and wrapped each netsuke carefully. “I’ll take these back to the house and explain. I know everyone will be relieved to find them.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Logan.”

She looked relieved herself over not having to face Ross’s possible ire.

As I started back, I wondered what I could do under these circumstances to protect Allegra. And myself, if I hid the truth. Perhaps Jarrett Nichols could help us both. Perhaps this was the time when I could talk to him, whether he approved of me or not.