“My lord, Miss West.” Lady Clarissa curtseyed to us as we were shown into the gallery. She looked a bit more the thing today, less wan and weary. The gallery, situated at the back of the house and well ventilated, was relatively cool, though half the paintings I’d seen here previously had been taken down.
The missing artwork imparted a sort of silence to the room, a sense of lost purpose. A few landscapes yet remained, though those did not look to be Reardon’s work. An underfootman was trimming ivy on the balcony and sweeping the clippings into a dustbin.
“My lady.” I bowed, because as Arthur had said, the occasion called for dignity. “We come bearing upsetting news.”
Clarissa sighed gustily. “Reardon refuses to come home? I suppose he might as well stay in London. The exhibition looms at hand, and we’d soon be going up to Town anyway. Enola has claimed all along that Reardon is simply having a fit of the artistic vapors.”
“What makes you think he went to London?” Hyperia asked. From her, the question was mere polite curiosity. From me, it would have been the start of an interrogation.
Clarissa walked off toward the furniture grouped at the far end of the room. “Where else would he go but the Valloise town house? Mama and Papa are to meet us there next week, and I have had nearly all the paintings shipped. I just wish Reardon hadn’t indulged in these pointless dramatics about a simple change of plans.”
Was she too calm? When I’d last parted from Clarissa, she’d been beside herself with worry, and willing to let all and sundry know of her concerns. Now, she posited that Reardon had merely nipped up to Town—a journey he’d normally have made on horseback or in his own conveyance—and her attitude approached blasé.
“I have reason to believe that your brother has met with ill fortune on the way to London,” I said. “Might we sit?”
Clarissa looked from me to Hyperia and back again. “Ill fortune?”
Hyperia settled onto the sofa, Clarissa took a wing chair, and I took the place beside Hyperia. A footman wheeled a tea trolley in at the far end of the room, but Lady Clarissa gestured for him to wait.
I did not particularly want an audience for this discussion, but somebody might be needed to fetch smelling salts, so I forged ahead.
“I followed Lord Reardon along the coach road as far as The King’s Man in Surrey. He spent the night there, then went walking yesterday rather than travel on to Town.” If Town had ever been his destination.
“He broke his journey in Surrey? That doesn’t make sense.”
For once, Clarissa and I were in agreement. “The King’s Man lies near a sizable waterway, and I gather walking the riverbank is a local pastime. The trail rises along a headland at one point near the inn, and the drop to the river is precipitous.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“It appears that his lordship slipped from the heights into the river. The fall could well have been fatal.”
I had delivered news of a man’s death to enough war widows to know that some took the whole business calmly, almost resignedly, some went to pieces, and others appeared to bear up while saving for another, more private hour, a complete loss of composure.
Clarissa merely stared at me as if I’d switched into some arcane French dialect. “Slipped? Reardon was part mountain goat.”
Did mountain goats have weak lungs? “He might have underestimated the impact of the heat on his stamina and balance.”
Clarissa rose. “Reardon racketed about the countryside in all sorts of weather. Up to Scotland, over to Wales, because the scenery God saw fit to give us in our little corner of Sussex wasn’t dramatic enough. He knew how to deal with heat. He knew how to protect himself from the cold. He detested Mama’s medical preoccupations and was determined not to emulate them.”
Still no mention of weak lungs. Interesting. “My lady, Reardon left generous payment at the inn and asked that Touchstone be conveyed to you here at Valmond House.”
“What would I want with that smelly old…?” Clarissa sank back into her chair. “You think Reardon did himself a mortal injury.” She stared hard at me, blinked twice, then shook her head. “No. That is not possible. That makes no sense at all. I have moved heaven and earth to get this exhibition organized, spent money on it, and Reardon would not… I need to think.”
Never in all the times I’d had to inform a lady of her bereavement had her response been, I need to think.
“I have Reardon’s knapsack,” I said, going to the door and retrieving the article from the corridor. “I’ll need it back, in the event there’s an inquest, but I wanted you to have a look at the contents. A sister might see what everybody else will miss.”
Clarissa left off staring distractedly at nothing. “Give it here.”
She systematically emptied the bag, putting a flat wooden panel on the floor—the drawing surface of the portable easel perhaps—some clean linen, a wrinkled and none-too-fresh shirt, soiled neckcloth and stockings… dirty laundry, the sketchbook I’d examined in the inn, and a balled-up handkerchief.
The pile on the floor was pathetic, but how many soldiers had left behind even less when they departed life on some fly-infested battlefield?
I went to the window, intent on giving Clarissa what little privacy the situation afforded. The view below gave on to the same overgrazed park, the same half-crumbling terrace I’d seen previously, but the whole seemed so much sadder given recent events. Behind me, I heard Hyperia murmuring to the footman, then the sound of cutlery and porcelain tinkling.
Reardon could have taken Valmond House in hand. Could have stepped into the shoes his father had never filled very well. Eunice Huber had been willing to marry him and seemed to value his esteem, and even Clarissa, in her way, had doted on him.
The footman, a more venerable specimen than Blaylock, wheeled the tea cart across the room, then paused and gestured vaguely to the detritus on the carpet. “Shall I… tidy up?”
“No need for that,” I said, lest our man totter off with what Arthur considered evidence. “That will be all, thank you.”
He sent a worried look in Lady Clarissa’s direction, then decamped with his empty tea cart.
Hyperia poured us each a glass of some pink, lemony-smelling libation garnished with mint leaves, while I knelt on the floor and repacked the knapsack.
“You were supposed to find him,” Clarissa said in low, flat tones. “I relied on you to find him.”
“I failed.” The words should have been followed by abject apologies, but something about the wrinkled shirt and balled-up socks caught my attention.
Clarissa was clutching the sketchbook to her chest, knuckles white. “I asked you to find him, Julian. You dithered about here…” She bowed her head. “This doesn’t make sense.”
No, it did not. Lord Reardon had been many things, but most of all, he’d been an artist.
No pencil case lay among the orts and leavings of his life. No set of pastels, no erasers, no pen case or ink bottle. None of the accoutrements of his art. True, he could have fallen to his death with pockets full of art supplies, but Eunice Huber had said the knapsack had been bulging when she’d seen it.
The knapsack he’d left at The King’s Man had been far from bulging, and the articles that would have been most dear to him were nowhere in evidence.
“Lady Clarissa,” Hyperia said, holding out a glass. “Drink something, please. Have some shortbread. You need your strength.”
Clarissa ignored the proffered glass. “I cannot abide lemonade that’s too tart, but Cook refuses to sweeten the punch. Not even with honey, though Reardon puts honey on everything and thus we always manage to have some on hand. Julian, why are you staring at me?”
Puzzle pieces were shifting about in my mind, trying to form a coherent image. The aging staff, half-empty wardrobes, the kitchen hoarding sugar and honey, the overgrazed park…
On instinct, I rose and examined one of the landscapes hanging by the nearest fireplace. No signature, but the style was unmistakably a Reynolds. A Constable look-alike hung across from it. As I surveyed the remaining paintings, they all shouted a very close resemblance to some dead master’s work. A circuit of the room confirmed that not a one of them was signed.
“Clarissa Valmond,” I said, marching back to the ladies’ end of the room, “what in the hell have you done with your brother?”
Clarissa tried to maintain the role of bewildered, outraged sister. “What I have done?” she retorted. “I’ve supported Lord Reardon’s every ambition, worked tirelessly for his success, and introduced him to every fashionable family I know. What have you done to find him?”
Hyperia sipped her drink, made a face, and set the glass down.
“I have trailed him all around hell’s nether acres, tooled halfway to London and back, and spent the night condoling his grieving, reeking dog, though the viscount is still extant, isn’t he? Did you think up that bit about an old boot on the riverbank, or was that a flourish he added?” The chamber maid had seen something in Lord Reardon’s hand, something dark.
A man’s tall boot was dark.
Clarissa dragged the knapsack closer to her feet and yanked the drawstring closed. “What are you going on about?”
“I’m going on about an earl who is never home so his creditors can’t find him here. Is Valloise truly taking the waters, or did he and the countess repair to the Continent and lay a false trail? I’m going on about valuable paintings quietly sent off for sale because Reardon had the talent to create replicas with nobody the wiser. I’m talking about your horses—some of whom probably trotted off the Ark—and your jewels, which I’m guessing have also been pawned.”
“My lord,” Hyperia murmured, “we take your point.”
“Sugar and honey are both dear,” I went on, “and art supplies are expensive. Lord Reardon salvaged those from his luggage and nothing else. They meant more to him than the clothes on his back. Mrs. Felders has been your cook since Methuselah dandled Noah on his knee, and she toils on because you cannot afford to pension her.”
There was more—the land tiring, the side porch subsiding. I’d seen that clearly enough when I’d not had memories of finer days to cloud my perspective. I nonetheless desisted, because Clarissa’s expression had turned from ire to patience.
“Are you quite finished, my lord?”
“I will not be finished until I uncover whatever scheme you concocted to put your brother’s name on everybody’s lips.”
“What an interesting idea,” Hyperia said. “However did you come up with it?”
Whereas I wanted to shake Clarissa to within an inch of her smelling salts, Hyperia’s question inspired a wan smile.
“Am I incapable of interesting ideas?” Clarissa asked.
Oh, for pity’s perishing sake. “You are incapable of honest answers, Clarissa, so I will remind you that I am acting on behalf of the Lord Lieutenant in the absence of an available magistrate. Your prevarication amounts to interfering with a lawful investigation.”
I had no time for bullies in the usual course, but I was plagued by the sense that Clarissa’s scheme, whatever its particulars, had gone awry, and time was yet of the essence.
Clarissa sighed, she presented me with her pretty profile, she nudged the knapsack with the toe of a worn slipper.
“When Gainsborough died,” she said, “his work tripled in value virtually overnight. Sir Joshua’s works also appreciated enormously when he went to his reward. Reardon once commented that we ought to be investing in Sir Thomas Lawrence’s art because Sir Thomas is getting on a bit. I thought the remark ghoulish at the time.”
“But then,” Hyperia said, “you began to see the possibilities.”
Clarissa rose and went to the sideboard. She opened a drawer and extracted a honeypot and a sugar bowl, then used the spoon to drop two lumps into her lemonade. She passed the bowl to Hyperia, who did likewise. The honeypot she left on the sideboard.
Stashed in the drawer for Reardon’s sweet tooth, no doubt. Our hostess was resourceful. If I focused on that, rather than on my frustrations, the conversation would be more productive.
“What I saw,” Clarissa said, putting the sugar and honey back in their hiding place, “was the physician’s bills mounting. Mama is truly ill this time. Dr. Heller made that plain to me, and even Papa seems to grasp the truth. She’s seeing specialists who prescribe bleeding her, or who forbid her to be bled. They recommend the juice of oranges heated with cloves and cinnamon, or they lecture her to avoid spices of any sort. Regardless of the prescriptions, they all want to be paid, immediately and exorbitantly, while Mama continues to fade. I sometimes think the worry is killing her, or perhaps the shame.”
“I’m sorry.” And what moved me to genuine sympathy was the weary dispassion with which Clarissa reported her mother’s poor health. “Sorry that the countess is ill, and sorry that she cannot have the comfort of your presence.”
“As am I. Mama prefers home, but Papa cannot be in residence, for reasons stated. He cannot be jailed for debt, but he can be dunned without mercy.”
Hyperia passed me her drink, of which I took a cautious sip. Clarissa observed this familiarity without comment, but then, I had not been offered the sugar or the honey, had I?
“Reardon’s art is needed to save the family from ruin?” Hyperia asked.
Clarissa picked up the knapsack and tossed it at my feet. “Reardon’s art was supposed to at least staunch the bleeding. I was to have married the late Lord Harry, but Harry wasn’t having that. Off to war he did go.”
With a ducal connection by marriage, the Valmonds could have lived longer on credit, but not indefinitely. They might also, though, have been privy to more lucrative investment schemes, better prospects for Reardon, and a cooperative approach to estate management.
Clarissa’s ambitions had been rational, however desperate. “Harry failed you?” I asked.
“Harry employed me,” she retorted. “Paid me well to swan about on his arm as a means of foiling the matchmakers. That meant, of course, that everybody assumed I was spoken for. Harry made it plain I could be his hired escort or his nothing in particular. Those were my options. I took his money, though he knew his devoted company cost me other prospects.”
And worse than that ungentlemanly behavior, which was bad enough, Harry had warned me off Clarissa lest I get wise to his scheme. He’d never come out and said she was taking money in exchange for sexual favors, but he’d certainly implied as much.
What a rotten, selfish thing for a brother of mine to do. No wonder he’d slunk off to Spain. “Harry behaved badly. I apologize on his behalf.”
Clarissa shrugged. “He behaved generously and kept his mouth shut about the money. It helped, but bad harvests, falling rents, the usual litany of woes among the landed class, and the problem is now beyond what I can manage.”
That she’d even tried to salvage her family’s finances spoke of determination, courage, ingenuity, and loyalty.
Virtues all, and yet, she’d played the part of the self-absorbed flirt so convincingly. I well knew the toll donning a role took. I’d been a drover, a shepherd, a French deserter, an English deserter, a Spanish monarchist, and more, all the while knowing an unconvincing performance could see me killed.
“My lady, you must be exhausted.”
“I am so tired,” Clarissa said, “I cannot think straight. I cannot think at all, and now this…”
“Reardon has forgotten his lines?” Or Reardon, like Harry, had used Clarissa for what benefit she could do him and then scarpered.
“We had a plan.” She stirred her lemonade and took another sip. “I admit that much. I could not tell the world Reardon was dead—bad luck, that—and Huber would get ideas. Reardon was to go missing immediately before his exhibition. Talk would spread, half worried, half mean. The betting would start, the talk would pick up momentum, and a nine days’ wonder could turn the exhibition and subsequent auction into something truly lucrative.”
“And what of Lord Reardon?” Hyperia asked. “Is he supposedly delirious with a summer fever and relying on the care of a beautiful widowed stranger? Did he smack his head on the way down that cliffside and lose all recall of his former life? What will the story of his miraculous resurrection be?”
“He was to be kidnapped and ransomed in time to appear a few days after the auction, much the worse for his ordeal.”
I, and the whole world, had underestimated Clarissa badly. “Kidnapped by whom?”
“That part’s a bit vague.” Clarissa had the grace to look sheepish. “We’d hint at jealous rivals or disaffected former soldiers desperate for coin and resentful of a peer’s heir who did not serve. I would imply that the villains had warned us to exercise utmost discretion. Only our closest friends would hear any details at all.”
“As stunts go,” Hyperia said, “this one was certainly ambitious.”
“Would have been ambitious,” I said. “But it’s all gone to blazes, hasn’t it, Clarissa?”
Clarissa glowered at the knapsack resting at my feet. “Dear Reardon has apparently deserted the cast. This business of leaping off a hillside, sending me his wretched dog… That wasn’t remotely what we’d discussed. If Reardon hasn’t done himself a serious injury, I might see fit to deal him a few blows myself.”
A fine speech, full of frustration and bravado, but Clarissa was clearly terrified for her brother, and well she should be.
The storms that had drenched me in Surrey had yet to grace my corner of Sussex, and thus breakfast was served in the shade of the back terrace. Arthur had already been out for a hack, while I had dropped off to sleep only as the birds had begun their matutinal hymnody.
Hyperia and I had explained the latest developments to His Grace and Lady Ophelia over supper the previous evening, also served on the terrace at Godmama’s insistence. Too late, I’d realized her tactic.
“You were informing the staff last night,” I said, passing her the teapot. We occupied a square table in the cool shade, Arthur and Hyperia making up our foursome. “Apprising any maid or footman with sense enough to linger by an open window of Reardon’s odd behavior.”
“Nonsense. I was ensuring I did not expire of heat exhaustion before the fruit and cheese arrived. I vow Scotland begins to appeal quite strongly.”
Then you should go… I kept that riposte to myself for selfish reasons. If Lady Ophelia decamped, Hyperia would have to leave with her, and Hyperia had been invaluable at winkling the truth from Clarissa.
Hyperia had also handled my most recent memory lapse with sense and kindness, and she brooked no nonsense from Arthur.
Lady Ophelia had also contributed much to last night’s discussion, pointing out that Reardon had doubtless been resented in artistic circles for hosting his own exhibition rather than participating in the Royal Academy’s annual do. Clarissa’s rumor about jealous rivals would be credible, particularly if Ophelia gave it a nudge in that direction.
“You do look to be on the point of expiring from the heat,” I said, “if one ignores how becoming that shade of rose silk is on you.”
“Flattery is always appreciated, provided it’s skillful.” Ophelia handed the pot on to Arthur, and I realized that dining al fresco served another purpose: We could not be as formal, and in particular Arthur could not be as frosty, when the table was barely six feet square, and pigeons paced along the balustrade, exuding birdy self-importance.
“The question is,” Arthur said, spreading jam on his toast, “do we continue to pursue Reardon’s disappearance or let him have his sulk on his own terms?”
Hyperia took the jampot out of range of Arthur’s knife. “Lady Clarissa wants and needs to have her brother found. Her mother is failing, the Valmond family finances are failing, and Reardon is her only ally. He’s also a peer’s heir, and the notion that somebody could be blackmailing him or truly holding him for ransom bears consideration.”
“I was not through with the jam, Miss West.”
Hyperia put some preserves on her plate. “You have lost the knack of sharing, Your Grace, and there are three other people at the table.” She handed the little pot back, and Arthur set it in the middle of the table.
Lady Ophelia looked vastly amused, while I waited for Arthur to retreat from the affray with some excuse about the press of business calling him to his study.
He munched his toast instead, and Lady Ophelia and Hyperia exchanged a smile. Clarissa was apparently not the only female with plots afoot.
“I agree with Hyperia,” I said. “Whatever Reardon is up to, he’s a man with few allies and fewer resources. He has, as far as I know, some clothing, some coin, and some art supplies. How far will that get him in rural England?”
“It will get him farther in France,” Ophelia observed. “Suppose we should set a watch at the ports?”
Arthur had a vast army of homing pigeons stationed around the country and even a few on the Continent. He kept an equally large loft at Caldicott Hall to deploy as needed. He could get word to the ports before noon, if necessary.
“I am not inclined to spend much more effort on the business,” Arthur said. “The viscount is an adult. We have no real indications of foul play, and if his father has creditors, then his lordship must as well. A hue and cry would serve only to set the wrong sorts of people on his trail.”
The old duke had had one maxim for business that eclipsed all other concerns: The trades must be paid.
“You’d shield Lord Reardon from creditors?” Lady Ophelia asked. “Is that now part of a Lord Lieutenant’s duties?”
“I’d shield him from blacklegs and tipstaffs until his creditors apply to the authorities through proper channels. Let him sell his paintings. He’s very talented, and Clarissa is right that if the artist has mysteriously disappeared, his work will attract more interest.”
“The artist,” Hyperia said repressively, “might have been made to disappear by the very people you seek to protect him from by ignoring his situation entirely.”
“The dog bothers me,” I said, tucking into my eggs. “If Reardon was merely lying low for a couple weeks, why send the dog back to Valmond House?”
“Because Reardon is off to the Continent,” Ophelia replied, “abandoning his family when they most need him, eluding creditors, and pursuing his art, or pursuing opera dancers in Paris, which might amount to the same thing in the mind of a young male aristocrat.”
“Or,” I countered, “Reardon feared for the dog’s wellbeing.”
Arthur retrieved the jampot and resumed troweling preserves onto a piece of buttered toast. “You assume that creditors, rivals, or potential kidnappers picked up the viscount’s trail?”
“If I wanted to squeeze money out of the Earl of Valloise,” Hyperia said, “and I knew that peers cannot be jailed for debt, I’d take his only son and spirit Lord Reardon off until after the sale.”
“Because…” Lady Ophelia murmured, “then the family would have at least some coin, a sum more or less public by virtue of the nature of an auction. My dear, I’m impressed. You think like a criminal.”
“Where’s the ransom note?” Arthur retorted. “Where’s the lock of his hair, or a sketch of his proving that he was seized from the clifftop in Surrey, though Julian reports no signs of an altercation?”
Our debate was cut short by the arrival of Squire Huber, escorted by a sniffing Cheadle.
“Your Grace, my lord, my lady, Miss West. Squire Huber has come to call, and he insists his business is urgent. Apologies for the intrusion.”
The heat truly did not agree with Huber. His cheeks were scarlet, sweat sheened his forehead, and his thinning hair, when he snatched off his hat, was matted to his pink scalp.
“Good morning, all,” he said, offering a terse nod to the ladies. “I have urgent business with His Grace, and that business is best discussed in private.” His chin jutted in bulldog fashion, while Cheadle, joined by two muscular footmen, tarried by the terrace doors.
“Oh dear,” Ophelia said. “Whatever this private business is, I’m sure it’s better discussed on a full stomach, but we haven’t room for a fifth at the table. I’ll excuse myself, shall I?”
I’d half risen to hold her chair when Arthur spoke. “No need to excuse yourself, my lady. Whatever Squire Huber has to say can be discussed here and now.”
Some battle of wills ensued, with Huber silently fuming and Arthur refusing to yield an inch.
“Very well.” Huber sent a fulminating glance at the footmen, who ignored him in eyes-front, parade-rest fashion. “So be it. His Grace, as Lord Lieutenant, has failed to see sufficient numbers of justices of the peace appointed. Witness the present circumstances, when all serving on the magistrate’s bench are off carousing at the quarter sessions. Lord Reardon has been kidnapped by person or persons unknown, and His Grace has done nothing—not one thing—to bring the criminals to justice or see his lordship safely returned to his family. I shall formalize my complaint in writing not later than tomorrow.”
He gave Arthur a look of scathing contempt. “I can see myself out.”
“No,” I said, “you cannot.” I rose, rather than give Huber the satisfaction of snorting and pawing while we sat before him as a captive audience. “As you well know, I was deputed by His Grace to make quiet inquiries regarding Lord Reardon’s situation. Your posturing is so clearly self-motivated that it rises to the level of interfering with a lawful investigation. As we attempt to sort out next steps, to balance discretion for a family already beset by difficulties with the vagaries of a young man’s artistic temperament and the demands of justice, you bumble in here with no purpose other than to make a grab for the duties you prosecuted with unseemly zeal in years past.”
“Julian.” Arthur spoke quietly. “You need not insult the man. His concern is for his daughter.”
“My daughter is above reproach in every particular,” Huber thundered. “My concern is for a neighborhood that once enjoyed some order and dignity, some respect for the law. With your hand guiding the choice of magistrates, sir, the poachers run rampant, drunkenness characterizes every market day, and hanging felonies are committed with impunity. Valloise is not about to stir you to action, but I am here, by God, and you will face consequences for your inefficacy.”
What in the hell was Huber going on about? He well knew that I—better suited to the job of nosing about—had acted without ceasing and with some results. Perhaps the facts had been garbled in translation between one servants’ hall and the other, or perhaps I’d got it right the first time: Huber wanted the magistrate’s post back and would stop at nothing to get it.
But as to that, the justices of the peace were not Bow Street Runners, haring off to poke their noses wherever they pleased to. Huber, of all people, knew that.
“You expect His Grace to find Lord Reardon by tomorrow?” Hyperia asked. “The man only went missing four days ago. If finding him is so simple, why haven’t you done it yourself?”
Huber stared at Hyperia as if a potted palm had spoken. “These matters are no concerns of yours, Miss West.”
Hyperia rose, and her chair scraping back against the flagstones should have warned Huber to flee hotfoot over the balustrade.
“You malign my friends,” she said, balling up her napkin and tossing it onto the table. “You discount Lord Julian’s tireless and productive efforts, while you barely deigned to yield him the few pertinent facts you had to offer. Perhaps the proper authorities ought to be made aware of how little the former magistrate has done to assist in this matter? Perhaps Miss Eunice should be told that her papa is more concerned with finagling his old job back than finding Lord Reardon?”
Huber tried the same silent battle of wills—he was determined, let it be said—but again went down to defeat.
“By the first of the week, then,” he said. “I want that man found, or there will be consequences. His Grace has appointed a lot of drunken bumblers to the bench, and this is the result. And, Waltham, you’d best explain to your brother that you might well have been the last person to see Lord Reardon alive.”
He stalked out, and with a nod from Cheadle, the footmen followed him.
“How unpleasant,” Lady Ophelia said. “The tea’s gone cold, I fear. Why is it, even in the heat, I want hot tea to start my day?”
“Because,” Arthur said quietly, “we are English, and human, and prone to a certain inflexibility in our expectations. If you will excuse me.”
He rose, bowed to the ladies, and walked off across the terrace and down the steps—the opposite direction of his study.
“Go after him, Jules,” Hyperia said. “I’ve never seen His Grace more upset. Huber deserves to be whipped at the cart’s tail, and, I guarantee you, the squire has little notion how perilous Eunice’s situation is.”
I had never seen Arthur looking more composed, but an instant’s reflection told me Hyperia had the right of it. I grabbed a piece of buttered toast slathered in jam from his plate and went after my brother.