Aunt Dimity Takes A Holiday Part 16

Bill and I were awakened the next morning by a tap at the bedroom door. While Bill searched for his pajamas, I pulled the covers up to my chin and gazed blearily toward the balcony. The wispy gray light filtering through the gla.s.s told me that dawn had barely broken.

Bill finally managed to locate his pajama bottoms in a tangled heap under the bed, pulled them on, and went to answer the door. The red-haired maid stood in the corridor beside a wheeled serving cart.

"I beg your pardon, sir," she said, courteously averting her gaze from my husband's rather fetching torso, "but to expedite the morning's business, Lord Elstyn has ordered breakfast to be served upstairs today. He requires your presence, sir, and that of Mrs. Willis, in the study in one hour."

"My wife's name is Ms. Shepherd," Bill told her, "but I take your meaning. We'll be there."

The maid motioned toward the cart. "Shall I . . . ?"

"I'll take it." Bill pulled the cart into the room, thanked the maid, and closed the door. He folded his arms across his bare chest and studied the covered dishes in silence.

"I'm all for room service," I grumbled, reaching for my robe, "but couldn't it come at a more reasonable hour?"

"I detect Gina's hand in this," said Bill, nodding at the cart. "It would serve her purpose to have everyone off balance today."

"It's Elstyn business." I yawned hugely. "What does she want with me?"

"I don't know." Bill pushed the cart between the two armchairs near the hearth and beckoned for me to join him. "But I intend to be well fed and wide-awake when I find out."

As we descended the main staircase, Bill's expression became as severe as his black three-piece suit, as if he were girding himself to do battle. While he'd dressed for business, I'd dressed for warmth, pairing a cream-colored cashmere sweater with a tailored tweed blazer and skirt. I carried my shoulder bag as well. It held the saboteur's wire, which I planned to show the earl when the morning's meeting was over.

The study lay beyond the billiards room, in a part of the house I hadn't yet explored. Its floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the north end of the courtyard, where the workshops stood and where a young and rascally Peter had once hurled a s...o...b..ll at Oliver-and missed.

The study was a room of modest proportions and masculine decor. It reminded me of an old-fashioned gentlemen's club, with its oak-paneled walls, shiny oxblood leather chairs, hunting prints, longcase clock, and gold velvet drapes. A fire danced in the oak-manteled hearth at the far end of the room, and the faint scent of cigar smoke seemed to linger in the air.

The chairs had been arranged in a half circle facing a ma.s.sive mahogany desk that stood before the windows. When Bill and I arrived, all but four of the chairs were occupied. Peter sat at the center of the half circle, with Derek and Emma to his right and Claudia and Oliver to his left. Gina, however, stood behind the desk, examining a file folder, and Simon stood before the hearth, with his back to her.

Only Nell and Lord Elstyn were missing. I suspected the earl of orchestrating a dramatic entrance for himself but seriously doubted that Nell would leave her bed to attend the meeting.

Every face turned toward us when we entered the room, including that of the red-haired maid, who was moving from person to person, offering cups of tea. She didn't have many takers. Simon accepted a cup, for politeness' sake, evidently, because he immediately placed it on the mantelshelf, untasted. When the others declined refreshment, the maid curtsied and left the room.

Gina favored Bill with a brief, dismissive glance as he took a seat beside Derek, then returned her attention to the file folder. I paused at Emma's side to ask after Nell.

"Nell is Nell," Emma replied with a wry smile. "She wouldn't let us sit with her through the night because her accident had taken so much out of us."

"We looked in on her, of course," Derek added, "and every time we did she was asleep, so we're fairly confident that we made the right decision when we allowed her to leave the hospital."

"There's no question about it." I rea.s.sured them both, then crossed to stand with Simon before the hearth.

"Tea?" he offered, nodding at the cup on the mantelshelf. "I've no stomach for it this morning."

"No, thanks," I said, and edged closer to him. "Have you spoken with Giddings about Chambers?"

"Haven't had the chance," he answered, sotto voce. "No one seems to know where Giddings is." He peered at me curiously. "I'm rather surprised to see you here. Pleased, but surprised."

"Not half as surprised as-" I fell silent as the study door flew open.

Lord Elstyn strode into the room. He seemed to have recovered his energy. Looking neither left nor right, he went directly to his desk and seated himself behind it. Gina, file folder in hand, promptly sat in the armchair next to Oliver's-mirroring Bill's position at Derek's side-but Simon and I remained standing, though we turned to face the earl. No one made a sound.

Lord Elstyn rested his folded hands on the desk and tapped the tips of his thumbs together. He appeared to be pondering his opening remarks, which, to judge by his stern expression, would deal with weighty matters-such as the disinheritance of his only child.

"I apologize for rousing you at such an inhospitable hour," he began, "but a situation has arisen that may affect all of us."

Gina's eyes narrowed slightly, as if the earl had inexplicably departed from an agreed-upon script. Bill, too, looked faintly puzzled, but the others simply waited for the earl to go on.

"In speaking with my granddaughter this morning," he continued, "I learned certain facts of a most alarming nature."

Lord Elstyn's penetrating gaze fell on my shoulder bag, then shifted to my face. I quaked when he held his hand out to me, and heard vague mutterings from the others as I approached the desk, opened my bag, and handed the coiled wire to him. Though fl.u.s.tered, I kept my mouth shut. I didn't know what Nell had told him about the wire's discovery, but I wasn't going to give Kit away.

The earl, however, didn't ask for an explanation. As I returned to my spot near the hearth, he placed the coiled wire before him on the desk and folded his hands again.

"The situation of which I speak may subject our family to a certain amount of public scrutiny," he said. "I wish to make it clear that I, and I alone, will speak for the family. I expect the rest of you to refer all queries to me."

Lord Elstyn cleared his throat and I sensed that he was about to come to the heart of the matter. I set my shoulder bag on the floor, surveyed the faces turned toward his, and saw nothing in them but rapt attention.

"Four months ago," he said, "Simon received the first of a series of anonymous, threatening messages, three of which he subsequently brought to me. . . ."

As the earl described the notes and the nature of the threats, Gina's increasingly angry frown told me that neither Simon nor Lord Elstyn had let her in on their secret.

"Due to a minor indisposition, I was unable to give the matter my full attention." The earl skipped over his heart attack as lightly as I would have skipped over a head cold. "While I was recovering, certain possibilities presented themselves to me. After some thought, I decided to enlist the help of a professional to investigate those possibilities."

He reached over to press a b.u.t.ton on his desk. A moment later Jim Huang entered the study, carrying his laptop computer and the ma.n.u.script box. The young archivist had pulled a navy-blue V-neck sweater over his rumpled white shirt and combed his jet-black hair, but his almond eyes were as anxious as they'd been the first time I'd encountered him in the library.

He paused just inside the doorway, as if uncertain of his welcome, before moving swiftly to place the box and the computer on the desk. He opened both, fiddled with the laptop's keyboard, then stood back, as if awaiting further instructions.

"Mr. James Huang"-Lord Elstyn raised a hand to indicate the new arrival-"is the son of an American business a.s.sociate. He also works for Interpol."

My jaw dropped. I simply couldn't, by any contortion of the imagination, picture the slender, timid, bespectacled young book-lover packing an automatic and rounding up drug lords for the International Criminal Police Organization. Without thinking, I blurted, "You're an Interpol agent?"

My open incredulity made Jim blush.

"I'm not a field agent," he explained hastily. "I'm in doc.u.ment a.n.a.lysis."

Lord Elstyn silenced me with an oppressive glance. "Mr. Huang is an expert in doc.u.ment a.n.a.lysis," he emphasized. "He also has access to a wide range of useful information networks. With his help, I have been able to identify the person responsible for Simon's anonymous messages." He sat back in his chair. "Mr. Huang?"

Jim nervously pushed his oversized gla.s.ses up his nose, but his voice was surprisingly steady when he said, "There's a ninety-nine percent probability that the anonymous threats were sent by one of Lord Elstyn's former employees."

No one said a word, but an ax would have bounced off the tension in the room. Simon gripped my shoulder and I found myself mouthing the name of the earl's ex-valet: Chambers . . .

"My research indicates," Jim went on, "that the threats came from Miss Charlotte Elizabeth Winfield, who was employed as-"

"Winnie?" Derek jumped to his feet. "Nonsense! Utter nonsense! How dare you suggest that my nanny could be responsible for-"

"It's more than a suggestion, sir." Jim must have been very sure of himself because he faced Derek's wrath without flinching. "If you'll return to your seat, I'll explain."

Derek gave his father a mutinous glare, but Emma, Peter, and Bill managed to coax him back into his chair, where he sat with folded arms and a face like thunder.

Simon and I exchanged bewildered glances. His hand moved from my shoulder to his trouser pocket and I knew we were thinking the same thought: How had Derek's former nanny gotten ahold of the earl's straight razor?

"If you would lay the groundwork, sir . . ." Jim Huang nodded to the earl and stepped back.

"If I could spare you, my boy . . ." Lord Elstyn's eyes teemed with conflicting emotions as he gazed at Derek-regret, frustration, and hope overlaid with great reluctance. Then he lowered his gaze to the coiled wire and his expression hardened. "But I cannot. I can no longer protect you from the truth."

"What truth?" Derek demanded impatiently. "What are you talking about?"

"Miss Winfield showed signs of mental instability while you were under her care," Lord Elstyn replied bluntly. "She invented grandiose tales about her past and shared them with the other servants. Giddings informed me of the situation, but I was . . . preoccupied . . . at the time . . . by other, pressing concerns."

He was in London, I told myself, watching his wife die inch by inch.

"Apart from that," Lord Elstyn added in a firmer tone of voice, "you had become deeply attached to Miss Winfield. Since the fabrications seemed relatively harmless, I could not bring myself to sever a tie that brought you so much happiness."

Derek opened his mouth to speak, but Emma shook her head, so he contented himself with a derisive snort. The earl chose to overlook his son's show of disrespect.

"Eventually," Lord Elstyn continued, "a report came to my ears that I could not ignore. Miss Winfield had taken up with my valet, a man called Chambers." The earl shrugged. "Such things happen, even in the best-regulated households, but when I learned"-he leaned forward and spoke directly to Derek-"when I learned that the pair of them had left you, Simon, and Oliver alone near the lake while they disported themselves in the shrubbery, I was compelled to take action." He looked pleadingly at his son. "You were seven years old, Derek. Oliver was a mere toddler. Anything might have happened."

"The fishing trips," Simon breathed.

"The day after you left for school," Lord Elstyn said, "I dismissed them both, Chambers as well as Miss Winfield. I didn't know at the time that Miss Winfield was pregnant."

Derek became very still. "Winnie . . . pregnant?"

Jim Huang stepped forward, as if to support the earl's claim. "Five months after Miss Winfield's departure, the first of three groups of letters arrived at Hailesham Park. They were addressed to you, Mr. Harris, under your, er, original name: Anthony Elstyn."

"What letters?" Derek asked. "I never received any letters from Winnie."

"Lord Elstyn intercepted them," Jim said.

"They were full of lies," the earl put in. "She accused me of fathering her child and pleaded with you to intercede on her behalf-you, a schoolboy."

"Chambers had deserted her." Jim clasped his hands behind his back and delivered his report with an air of clinical detachment that stood in stark contrast to the raw emotions flowing between father and son. "His abandonment triggered the first spate of letters. Some were sent directly to your prep school. . . ."

Other letters had been sent to Hailesham Park, but the earl had intercepted all of them. After reading the first half-dozen, he instructed Giddings to place Winnie's letters in storage, unopened, whenever they arrived.

Jim placed his hand on the ma.n.u.script box. "Giddings stored the doc.u.ments in the butler's safe, along with the family silver."

"I intended to give them to you one day, when you were old enough to understand what had happened," Lord Elstyn said, still speaking to his son. "But by the time you were old enough-"

"I'd left." Derek ran a hand through his unkempt salt-and-pepper curls. He stared at the floor for a moment, then looked at Jim Huang. "You mentioned other letters. What became of them?"

"Giddings continued to follow his instructions," Jim answered. "He filed the letters without consulting Lord Elstyn. It wasn't until the recent threats arrived that Lord Elstyn asked to see the storage boxes."

"Giddings brought ten boxes to me, filled with hundreds of unopened letters," said the earl. "I was appalled by the number that had acc.u.mulated over the years. There were far too many for me to deal with."

Jim consulted his computer screen. "Miss Winfield sent a total of seven hundred and twenty-three letters to you, Mr. Harris. The first thirty-five were sent shortly after Chambers's desertion. . . ."

Jim Huang had read every letter. At the same time, he'd reconstructed nearly forty years of Winnie's life by following the postal codes on her envelopes. Once he'd determined her location, he'd utilized his computer skills to search the records of various social-service agencies for more detailed information. The paper trail he'd followed was strewn with heartache.

"Miss Winfield never blamed you for failing to answer her letters," said Jim. "She a.s.sumed that your father had forbidden you to have any contact with her."

"Yet she kept writing," Derek murmured. He seemed dazed.

"She was not a well woman," Jim said. "She had a minor breakdown after Chambers left." He clicked a key on the computer. "She was treated for depression at a clinic in Manchester. It was while she was undergoing treatment that she began writing to you. . . ."

Motherhood seemed to have a stabilizing effect on Winnie. She wrote to Derek to tell him that she'd given birth to a healthy baby boy, whom she'd named Anthony. Thirteen years pa.s.sed before she wrote again.

"You were about to come of age, Mr. Harris," Jim explained. "Miss Winfield scanned the society columns, searching for news of the celebrations surrounding your twenty-first birthday."

"There was no celebration," Derek said shortly.

"There was no mention of you at all," Jim pointed out. "There were, however, many references to your cousin, Simon Elstyn."

Simon groaned softly and covered his eyes with his hand.

"She grew suspicious of your cousin," Jim continued. "She wrote twenty times to warn you against"-he tapped his keyboard and bent to read aloud from the screen-"'Simon's sly plot to s.n.a.t.c.h Hailesham away from you.'"

"She was always suspicious of Simon," the earl added wearily. "She expressed mistrust of him in her earliest letters, accused him of currying favor with me, though he was a mere child. That's why she came to mind when Simon brought the anonymous notes to me."

"She was never entirely rational about Simon," Jim agreed. "She believed Simon had betrayed her and Chambers to Giddings."

"I didn't," Simon protested. "I didn't know they were . . ." He looked helplessly from Derek to Oliver. "I thought Chambers played with us because he liked us."

"As I said, sir, Miss Winfield wasn't entirely rational." Jim consulted his computer. "When she was twenty-five, she was diagnosed as manic-depressive. She was on medication for many years thereafter and seemed to be functioning fairly well. . . ."

Having done her duty by warning Derek, Winnie refocused her attention on her own life. She found work waitressing at a sw.a.n.ky restaurant in London, played the organ at her church, and raised her son. At eighteen, young Anthony joined the army. He became an electronics specialist. Winnie was extremely proud of him.

While Jim droned on about Anthony's spotless service record, my attention drifted to the coil of wire on Lord Elstyn's desk. I couldn't help wondering if the young electronics specialist had taught his mother how to rig radio-controlled devices, such as a set of flashbulbs that could be conveniently hidden in trailing ivy. My dark musings were interrupted by a subtle change in Jim Huang's tone. His clipped, businesslike delivery slowed, and when I looked up, I saw a shadow of regret cross his face.

"Four years later, at the age of twenty-two," he said, "while on training maneuvers in the Lake District, Anthony Chambers died."

A collective sigh wafted through the study. Even Gina seemed moved by Winnie's loss.

Jim touched a finger to his gla.s.ses. "He was killed while demonstrating a new device for disarming land mines. The device failed. The mine exploded. His death is a matter of public record. . . ."

After the funeral Winnie had a major breakdown. She was hospitalized for a year. When she was released, she began writing again.

"From then on she wrote once, sometimes twice a week," said Jim. "There's a marked deterioration in her handwriting during this period, and the postal codes vary more often, as she moved from place to place. She began to draw heavily on memories of her days at Hailesham Park. One letter in particular is worth noting. . . ."

Winnie had seen a magazine article describing the restoration of a twelfth-century church in Shropshire. The article had caught her eye because the man in charge of the project had a familiar name.

When she'd seen the accompanying photograph, her troubled mind had begun to race. Why did the photograph identify Anthony Evelyn Armstrong Seton, Viscount Hailesham, as Derek Harris? Why was Lord Hailesham in Shropshire, restoring an old church, when he should have been at his father's side, managing the family estate? What had happened to her beloved boy?

Her interest in Derek became an obsession.

"She visited Finch, the village near your home," said Jim. "She listened to village gossip but learned nothing. No one there seemed aware of your true ident.i.ty. . . ."

Winnie then returned to Hailesham, ostensibly to view the gardens. While there, she called on old Mr. Harris, who told her about Derek's estrangement from his father. He also told her that Derek had a son of his own who would come of age in ten years' time.