High Rhymes and Misdemeanors Read online

The lowering sky was fading from pewter to lavender as they drove across the little stone bridge into the village of Innisdale. Lights glowed with friendly warmth in windows, the slate roofs glistened black from the recent rain.

  “What happy fortune were it here to live,” Grace quoted Wordsworth softly as Peter parked his Land Rover beneath the trees on the street in front of the Hungry Tiger restaurant.

  Peter chuckled. He had an attractive laugh. “You wouldn’t last six months, Esmeralda. Off season, the pace here is slow and steady. Very few fax machines and even fewer cell phones.”

  “There are worse things.”

  “True.”

  He came round, opening her car door. No wonder he was so popular with the local ladies, she thought. Those old-world gestures did weird things to a woman’s defenses. It was hard not to respond. Why, at the mere mention of dining out, Grace had jumped back into her floral print skirt and Aran-knit sweater. She had to remind herself that this was not a date.

  They went inside the restaurant. It was unexpectedly crowded, and smelled of curry and incense. Sitar music played discreetly in the background.

  “Welcome, Peter my friend!” a Liverpudlian accent greeted them. Grace turned around, and there was a bearded man in a coral-pink turban beaming at them. She had to stop herself from exclaiming aloud.

  Peter made the introductions, apparently blind to the sinister implications of Ahmed’s headgear.

  Ahmed winked at Grace. Perhaps he thought she was scoping him out.

  “How do you do?” she mumbled, trying not to stare at the pink turban.

  “This one is different, eh, Peter?” Ahmed said.

  “A proper little limb.”

  Proper little limb? Like he’d strolled out of the pages of Charles Dickens. Was the man being droll or was he really some kind of anachronism?

  They were led through sparkling bead curtains to a dark room where wall murals of tigers and palm trees were just visible in the flickering candlelight.

  “Do you think that’s him?” she hissed after they were seated.

  “Him who?”

  “The man in the turban.”

  Peter laughed. “You’re joking. Ahmed?”

  “Well, how many people in this village wear turbans?”

  Peter opened his menu. “Ahmed doesn’t need to turn to crime; he’s making a killing right here in the restaurant.”

  Glancing over the menu prices, Grace had to agree.

  Ahmed materialized with two bottles of Cobra beer and some kind of fried potato appetizers. He poured the beer into glasses with a flourish. Grace sipped hers cautiously. It wasn’t bad, though all these foreign beers had the same skunky taste to her.

  “What do you recommend?” she asked Ahmed, once again keeping her gaze focused on his face.

  “Chicken Malabar!” Ahmed pronounced sunnily. “Is not to be missed. Just like you get at the famous Malabar Junction restaurant in London.”

  How far a jump was it from stealing recipes to murder, Grace speculated.

  They ordered, Grace going for the Chicken Malabar and Peter settling on Prawn Malai Curry. Peter requested another Cobra and Grace decided to keep him company.

  She began to cheer up. After all, she was having dinner with a good-looking man who was neither married nor gay. Granted, he was a thief and a liar, but he looked wonderful across the table from her. He wore a soft white shirt beneath a navy and white Kasuri vest, which he had explained, was made from an antique kimono. The dark blue made his hair gleam like old gold and brought out mysterious depths in his eyes. She was not falling for him. She admired him like she would any work of art.

  Taking another swig of warm beer, Grace began earnestly, “Hebrew scholars speculate that the Ashtoreth of the Bible is a compilation of the Greek name Astarte and the Hebrew word boshet which means ‘shame.’ That would be in keeping with Hebrew contempt for the goddess cult.”

  Peter said, “Yes, I’ve seen her image on ancient seals and tomb reliefs. Sacred lotus in one hand and entwined serpents in the other.”

  “Her name comes up a lot in witchcraft rituals.”

  “Cor! The Wicked Witch of the West is after us?”

  “You weren’t laughing last night.”

  “I’m not laughing now. I simply don’t follow a connection between some dusty goddess and Danny Delon getting forty whacks with an ax in my stockroom.”

  “You have quite a turn of phrase,” Grace said. That quelling tone worked with the young ladies of St. Anne’s, but seemed to have no effect on Peter. “The only clue we have is the word Astarte.”

  “I think there are one or two other indicators that what we’re looking for has cash value on the material plane.” His long lashes threw shadows over his cheekbones.

  “What about the man in the turban?” Grace’s eyes strayed to Ahmed speaking cheerfully with two other dinner guests.

  “Men in turbans have been known to value cash.”

  “You’re an antique dealer; so it seems reasonable to assume that whatever this item is it’s something you could fence.” Briefly she considered the idea that Peter had received property stolen from an ancient tomb and now the priests of that tomb were trying to retrieve their property. Too much Wilkie Collins, she decided, reaching for the potato balls.

  The conversation drifted to other things until Ahmed brought their dinners. Then Peter returned to their earlier discussion as though he had been turning Grace’s suggestion over in his mind.

  “There’s certainly a lucrative market for stolen antiquities,” Peter agreed. “But I’m not a fence.”

  “And there are all kinds of sculptures, plaques, glyphs and votive stelae of Astarte. Some of it dates back to the second millennium,” Grace put in eagerly.

  “Your reasoning makes sense as far as it goes,” Peter said. “The part I’m having trouble with is your favorite ‘clue.’ That’s an artistic touch that doesn’t fit.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because most crooks don’t have much sense of humor, let alone a sense of whimsy. Did Mutt and Jeff strike you as the kind of blokes to scrawl messages in blood?”

  “No,” Grace admitted.

  “What about the other two? The two who grabbed you. They seem like the type to leave cryptic clues?”

  She shook her head. “It was meant to frighten you,” she observed.

  “It succeeded.” He didn’t look too frightened though, shoveling in prawns and green chilies with a healthy appetite.

  They finished their meal and Ahmed brought Kesar Pistar Kulfi, frozen cones filled with a creamy green substance that tasted like nothing Grace recognized. Peter paid the bill and Grace said, “I’m awfully sorry about this. As soon as I can replace my traveler’s checks—”

  He said gravely (though his eyes seemed to be laughing at her): “It’s my pleasure. After all, you wouldn’t be in this predicament if not for me.”

  “You’ve got that right!” But she couldn’t help smiling.

  “It smells like rain,” Peter remarked as they walked out into the damp night. Trees lining the road rustled in the night breeze. Stars glittered above the rooftops and the smell of wood smoke lingered in the air.

  Across the street, Grace could see the library. A giant motorcycle was parked at the curb, polished chrome gleaming in the lamplight. A solitary lamp burned inside the library. Did the librarian drive a hog, Grace wondered vaguely.

  Peter moved past Grace to get the door of the Land Rover, which was parked a few feet away on the cobbled street. There was a crunch of footsteps on loose leaves, and someone grabbed Grace from behind. A brutal hand clamped across her mouth, stifling her scream. She sensed, rather than saw Peter turning back to her.

  But Grace had had days to reenact her abduction, to consider all the things she should have done to save herself, and being more than a little tightly strung—and with the benefit of two Cobras coursing through her system—this time she reacted. She jammed her elbow back with all her might into the gut of he
r attacker. His breath came out in a hot, “Ooouff!” At the same time she clamped her teeth into the palm over her mouth.

  “You bitch!” howled her attacker.

  But Grace was free. Sprinting a couple of yards down the street, she put a car at the curb between herself and her assailant.

  From where she stood she could see Peter still on the near side of the Land Rover. He stood motionless, not reacting to her plight. An instant later she understood why. A man stood in the shadow of the tree. Light from the windows of the Hungry Tiger gleamed off the barrel of the gun he held aimed at Peter.

  “Hold it!” he snarled in a voice she remembered only too well. “Take another step and I blast him. And then you.”

  “Do I know you?” Peter inquired.

  The man laughed. If you could call it a laugh. “Do you?”

  “It’s the Queen Mother,” Grace said. Even she had to admit it sounded insane.

  “We want the goods Delon left with you.”

  “I don’t have ‘the goods.’ I don’t know what ‘the goods’ are.” Even now, Peter couldn’t help sounding a little sarcastic. Grace really wished he wouldn’t.

  “A likely story.” QM gestured to his partner who was walking up and down the length of the parked car as though trying to decide from which direction to rush Grace. “Grab her, you git!”

  The man started for the hood of the car and Grace darted around to the trunk. The man turned back to his co-thug and shrugged helplessly.

  “Listen, mate,” Peter said, “You should have waited to chop Delon. He never had time to tell me what he was peddling.”

  “That’s your hard luck. If you want to keep breathing, you’ll find it. Fast. And for insurance, we’ll hang on to your girlfriend here.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Peter. “Get under the car!”

  For a minute Grace failed to understand he was talking to her. She saw his leg come up like a mule’s kick and the gun went flying out of the thug’s hand and skittering across the pavement.

  Absorbing at last what was happening—although she didn’t see the point of crawling under the car—Grace hit the pavement, scuttling under the chassis as the other man lunged for her again.

  Instantly she saw her advantage. Her attacker had to lie down to grab her and she could scoot around—painfully but efficiently enough—to kick at his head and arms. And kick, she did.

  And scream she did.

  “Help!” she screamed. “Fire! Help!”

  It seemed hours but it could have only been moments before the door to the Hungry Tiger flew open. Ahmed stood framed in the doorway, surrounded by some of the Hungry Tiger patrons.

  “Hey, man!” Ahmed yelled.

  Footsteps echoed down the street and were joined by Grace’s attacker who jumped up and ran as well. Rolling over with some difficulty, she saw two dark-clad figures cross the road and climb into a black van parked down the street. The van roared into life, pulled a U-turn, and peeled away in the opposite direction without turning on its lights.

  A moment later, Peter crouched down beside the car. “All right?”

  “Yes.” She took the hand he offered and crawled cautiously out. He helped her to her feet. Grace found that she was shaking so hard she needed his support to stand.

  “What happened? What was that about?” Ahmed demanded, joining them.

  “They tried to nick her purse,” Peter said. His arm around Grace felt as solid as though encased in shining armor. She understood why the Honorable Allegra Clairmont-Brougham had clung to him with such tenacity.

  “Hey, Gracie, you okay?”

  She assured Ahmed and the rest of the crowd that she was fine. Peter also assured them that she was fine—and at last they climbed into the Land Rover and started back to Rogue’s Gallery.

  Grace’s teeth were chattering. That made her mad and the anger steadied her. “So much for that plan!” she said tartly. “I guess they don’t feel like hunting for the stuff themselves.”

  “I guess not.”

  He had little else to say until they reached the gallery. Then, bidding Grace wait for him, he went inside alone.

  Tensely, Grace watched the lights go on in the lower level. The moon drifted in and out of the clouds, casting deep shadows over the sleeping banks of flowers and glistening grass.

  Peter was back in a few minutes.

  “A-OK. No one’s been inside.”

  Grace got out and, limping a little, accompanied him into the building. Upstairs he took her coat.

  “My skirt’s ruined,” she said, gazing down at the oil marks on the print. Her cream-colored sweater hadn’t fared much better. Peter stared at her but she could tell he wasn’t seeing her.

  He said grimly, “We’ve got to head this off now.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “If the cops come back here with any kind of serious equipment, they’ll find traces of…” He caught sight of her face. “These days, with the equipment they’ve got: DNA fingerprinting, UV, infrared—it’s impossible to cover up every sign of…violence.”

  “What are you saying?” She was afraid she knew.

  “I’m saying that I must go back down to the police station and file a report. It will look suspicious if we don’t. We mustn’t give them an excuse for coming back here. I’ll say they tried to snatch your bag—that you didn’t recognize them. Understand?”

  “But why would the police come here?”

  “They’ll come. Trust me.”

  His features were sharp and so pale they might have been carved scrimshaw. Why? she wondered. What was he so afraid of? Grace reached for her coat. “Then I’ll go with you.”

  “No. I’ll tell them you’re a bit shocky, that you’ll come in tomorrow.”

  “I’m not staying here by myself!”

  “Steady on. You said yourself you’re no use at lying.”

  “I’m not staying here alone!”

  “They’re not going to try again.”

  “Says who? Is it written in the Official Criminal Bylaws?”

  “Don’t be daft.” He added, “Wait till the reaction hits. You’ll be only too glad to curl up in bed.”

  He had a point. Her muscles were in knots, and her body felt like a mass of bruises and scrapes.

  He walked toward the door. “I’ll only be gone an hour or so. You’re quite safe here. The place is like a fortress.”

  “Tell it to Danny Delon!”

  She could see he didn’t like that, but all he said was, “Chin up, Esmeralda. I’ll be back before you know I’m gone.”

  She was pointing out the obvious illogic of that statement as he closed the door.

  Off he drove into the night with Grace watching from the upper story until the embers of Peter’s taillights had vanished into the night. The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind… Grace let the drapes fall.

  In the kitchen she put the electric kettle on. As it boiled, she stared at the answering machine, its red light blinking like a warning signal. She thought about the first day she had arrived and the messages on Peter’s machine. That funny little good-for-nothing Mimi was still leaving him daily phone messages.

  She thought about Allegra snooping around in the dark of night. How dreadful to be reduced to such behavior. Grace tried to think whether she had ever cared enough for any man to contemplate such undignified and irrational behavior. Nope. Not even as a giddy teenager. Not that Grace had been a giddy teenager. Perhaps she had read a few too many romance novels, but that was normal.

  Through the years she had had one or two undemanding relationships. Like her relationship with Chaz. Theirs was exactly the kind of sensible friendship based on mutual interests and respect that Grace needed. Chaz was good company and they shared many of the same values and goals, but Chaz was not a man to inspire reckless acts or dangerous passion. Nor Grace the woman to perform them.

  Which was all to the good.

  But the name “Allegra” sparked a train of thought. It was not a commo
n name, although it was very pretty. Musical, she reflected vaguely. Grace knew of one historical Allegra, and that was the illegitimate daughter of George Gordon Noel Byron, one of her very favorite bad boy Romantic poets.

  Allegra had been the result of a brief union between Lord Byron and Claire Clairmont, another writer (though not a very good one) who also happened to be Shelley’s sister-in-law. Percy Bysshe Shelley was another of Grace’s favorite bad boy poets. Shelley and Byron had been great pals back in the nineteenth century. In fact, their whole literary circle had been almost incestuously intertwined, with everyone seeming to be related by blood or sex. Sort of like that Kevin Bacon game that the girls of St. Anne’s were always referring to.

  Yes, it was all coming to Grace now: a textbook recounting of a centuries-old scandal. Lord Byron had sent the luckless child, Allegra, to an Italian convent where she died of typhoid in 1822.

  A little light went on in her brain. Astarte. Surely there was something about Byron and Astarte?

  Methodically, Grace began to work down the bookshelves in Peter’s rooms. The man appeared to have a love of literature to rival her own. Or were these valuable first editions just more stage dressing?

  There were innumerable volumes on art and antiques. There were philosophy books and history books. There was nothing fiction—and nothing contemporary in nonfiction. I met a traveler from an antique land, mused Grace. Despite his clothes and speech and obvious ease with the world around him, something about Peter Fox was not quite of this day and age.

  At last Grace found poetry: Wordsworth and Coleridge, who had inspired her sojourn to the Lake District. Staunch Sir Walter Scott. There was also a first edition of Rupert Brooke she would have killed for. There were silk-bound covers of Keats and Shelley, and finally, Byron. Grace sat down Indian-fashion on the floor, skimming through the slender volume, for once resisting the magic spell of the words.

  This was all the obvious stuff: “When We Two Parted,” “So We’ll Go No More A-Roving,” “She Walks in Beauty.” For a moment Grace’s eyes lingered on those lovely lines, recalling that for Byron this had been a fairly routine compliment. Resolutely, she pushed on. There was no mention of Astarte in any of these. Not even in the footnotes.

  Perhaps it had not been Byron? Methodically, she scanned the index of the other Romantic poets. Keats was a good bet with his love of things classical. But there was no reference to Astarte in Keats. No reference in any of the other Romantics.

  Grace decided her first theory had been right: Byron. Maybe it was one of the longer works. Definitely not “Childe Harold.” Perhaps “Don Juan”? Or “Manfred”? There was an entire landing lined with books right outside the flat door. In one of those leather-bound volumes might lie the answer she needed.

  She sipped her tea and ruminated. Would Peter consider her efforts snooping? Did the normal rules of etiquette hold with a man who had been responsible for getting you abducted? Miss Manners not being available for comment, Grace knew she would have to go with common sense. Except that common sense reminded her that she didn’t know where Peter had concealed the body of Danny Delon. He certainly seemed panicked at the idea of another police search. Perhaps Mr. Delon had not left the building? There was a happy thought.

  On the other hand, Grace couldn’t sit up all night biting her fingernails and waiting for Peter to come home—if he came home. Take action, she always advised her girls. Sitting here in the dead of night she was liable to start imagining shadowy figures lurking behind hedges, villains in turbans watching her window light from below. She was liable to start believing every branch brushing against the glass panes was someone prying open a window. (Come to think of it, what was the UK equivalent of 911?) She was liable to start thinking every creak of this old house was someone sneaking up the stairs to get her…

  Impatient with herself, Grace unlocked the flat door, and poked her head out. The darkness pressed in on all sides. She felt along the wall until she found a light switch. Light blazed down on the landing and stairs.

  Not a mouse stirred. Yet she had the eerie sensation of being watched.

  Suspended from the vault ceiling, the mahogany ship’s figurehead hung just out of reach of the balcony. The wooden eyes met hers without emotion. But then, here was a maiden who had swum with sharks.

  Grace walked the length of the landing, staring up at the walls of leather-bound volumes. Hundreds of books. Thousands in fact. It could take days to search through all this.

  She decided to start with something easy. The stack behind the railing. Squatting, she scanned the titles; there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to their order. A tome on 1950s manners, several novels, a Bible, a history of the Greeks.

  Overbalancing, Grace’s hand brushed against the stack. The top book slid off and fell open. Curiously, she picked it up.

  It was hollow. A hiding-place book.

  She set the book aside and picked up the next one. A History of Flagellation Among Different Nations. “Yikes,” murmured Grace. But this, too, was a fake. Beautifully done, but a fake.

  Quickly Grace shuffled through the stack. All the books, despite size, width, age, and title were hollowed out.

  Grace stared up at the shelves towering above her, and wondered if her research might not take so long after all.

  Chapter Seven