Sonnet of the Sphinx Page 2

  “Here?” He seemed to consider the idea for the first time. “But the item, whatever it is, appears to have been in John’s possession, and for all we know, John may have lived in London. Or Tuscany.”

  The man was most aggravating when he was right.

  But Peter wasn’t finished dashing her dreams. “Has it occurred to you that perhaps this is too much of a coincidence? A letter hinting of a work by Percy Bysshe Shelley just happens to turn up in an antique shop where you, a scholar of Romantic literature, just happen to work?”

  Grace was to appear as guest speaker at the annual Romantic literature conference held at Amberent Hall in Carlisle. Nearly two years earlier, she and Peter had been involved in the search for a lost work by Lord Byron. She had written a book on their adventures, which had sold to an obscure press back in the States. Though the book was not yet published, word rippled quickly across the academic pond Grace paddled in, and she was basking in her fifteen minutes of fame.

  As much as she disliked the notion, Peter had a point. “You think someone is…salting the mine?”

  “I should be very skeptical of any unknown works by long-dead literary giants that mysteriously turn up on your doorstep,” he said dryly.

  The bells on the gallery door jangled, and Grace guiltily snatched at the letter. She was not quick enough. Unhurriedly, Peter slid it beneath the leather blotter on the countertop.

  Footsteps heralded the approach of the customer or tourist who had found Craddock House on its shady country lane.

  The man who rounded the giant carved confessional dominating the center of the gallery floor was a stranger to Grace. He was big, with wide, powerful shoulders straining the seams of his cheap brown suit. His hair had the wiry texture and color of a rusty Brillo pad. His bushy eyebrows and long red mustachios looked false, as if they were part of some outlandish disguise.

  “So,” he said to Peter.

  Grace turned to Peter and was startled. He stood straight and motionless, a stone effigy with blue eyes burning. As she stared, his nostrils flared almost imperceptibly. But when he spoke, his voice was surprisingly easy.

  “Hello, Harry.”

  “Toll ghoul go.”

  That was certainly cryptic. Was he speaking in code or some obscure dialect? She would have suspected a gag of some kind, except Peter’s reaction was definitely unamused.

  His eyes flicked to Grace and he made a gesture with his head. Aha.Tell girl go. Her cue. It seemed unbelievable that Peter would know someone like this, let alone take orders from him.

  Doubtfully, she edged past the man crowding the narrow aisle.

  He smelled…alien. Of cigarettes and body odor. She risked a curious glance. His gaze held hers, then looked her up and down with black insolence. The hair at the nape of her neck prickled.

  Reaching the front door, she opened it and shut it again hard, using the music of the bells to cover her stealthy return through the maze of Edwardian dining chairs, assorted cabinets, and overmantel mirrors. She eased open the door to the confessional and slipped inside its cedar-scented darkness.

  The irony of her hiding place did not escape Grace. Her insatiable curiosity regarding Peter’s past might not be a sin, but it was certainly a character flaw. Nonetheless, she pressed her ear against the wall.

  The voices of the men were muffled, but she could just make out their words.

  “Many year, eh?” That was Harry. He spoke with a deliberation that seemed threatening all by itself.

  “Not enough.” And that was most definitely Peter. If she hadn’t had that glimpse of his face, she would have believed his flippant tone.

  The man laughed harshly. “You think I no find you? Think I no…rozozes?”

  Rozozes? Three syllables, sounds like…resources?

  “I didn’t give it much thought,” Peter returned.

  Another one of those laughs that had nothing to do with mirth. “We say in Turkey, ‘Insolent man are never without wound.’ ”

  “It’s a bloody country, true enough.”

  Silence. It was about the size of a phone booth in the confessional, maybe seven feet tall and thirty-nine inches deep. The door had a pale green stained-glass window. Grace couldn’t see out, and she trusted no one could see in. When she leaned against the outside wall, the wood creaked, and she sucked in a breath. She had a sudden vision of herself pushing the entire structure over, and had to bite back a nervous laugh. But the men outside were oblivious to her presence, as hostilities mounted.

  “Enough. You know why I come.”

  “The usual? Fresh air, sunshine, Beatrix Potter?”

  Harry’s voice altered, grew tight. “You laugh? We siz who laugh when I am drag you like dog back in prison.”

  Nothing funny about that threat. She could hear the crackling of paper. Was it a warrant? She wished she dared open the door.

  “Know what thiz are? The documents of extradition.”

  Grace gasped. Even after two years, she knew little of Peter’s past. Only that he had spent fourteen months in a Turkish prison after a jewel heist had gone wrong. The full details of that job—Peter’s last, he assured her—were still unknown to Grace. Perhaps unknown to anyone besides Peter. And possibly Harry.

  “We had deal.”

  Peter said, as though deliberately baiting the man, “You know what they say about honor among thieves.”

  She winced and shook her head.

  “Give me, or God be witness, I have you before week is out!”

  What on earth could this man want? He sounded like the goblin in that Harold Munro poem.

  Give them me. Give them me. Your green glass beads, I love them so. Give them me.

  Her poetical musings were ended by a harsh scuffling from outside the confessional, followed by grating, as though furniture had been pushed violently across the floor. What was going on out there? Grace’s hand went to the door, but she hesitated.

  And then she heard the distinct silver shiver of metal. She knew that sound but couldn’t quite place it. It reminded her of skewers scraping against each other, or a knife rasping against a whetting stone.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t do that, mate.” Peter’s voice was even.

  2

  Grace couldn’t help it—she cracked open the confessional door and peered around the corner. Her eyes widened as she took in the naked blade of the sword cane Peter held, rapier tip poised at Harry’s quivering Adam’s apple.

  Harry drew back with a hissing sound. For a moment the men stared at each other, blue eyes to black—the only thing in common murderous hatred.

  Then Harry turned. In the nick of time, Grace ducked back into the confessional as he lumbered past.

  She heard the bells ring in discord and flinched as the gallery door slammed shut.

  The silence that followed seemed to reverberate. She bit her lip, trying to decide on her next move.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Peter drawled.

  Grace opened the door and stepped out of the confessional with an appearance of nonchalance. Once this kind of behavior would have seemed unorthodox, not to mention shameful to her. One could say it had been an interesting two years.

  “How did you know I didn’t leave?” She dusted off her hands.

  In one swift, businesslike move, he slid the cobra-headed blade into its disguising scabbard and dropped the cane back into the umbrella stand beside the counter. Simply another day at the office.

  “You didn’t go upstairs. You didn’t cross the lawn. I watched for you.”

  Afraid to ask, Grace asked anyway. “Who is he?”

  “His name is Hayri Kayaci. He was a gendarme at the prison in Istanbul where I was held.” His straight pale hair fell across his eyes; he raked it back absently.

  “What does he want? Why is he here?” Despite Peter’s calm tone, she picked up a certain edge. “You served your time.”

  His eyes did that evasive slant that she had come to recognize.

  “Actually�
��”

  “Actually what?”

  “That’s rather a gray area.”

  “A gray area?” Prison gray, apparently. “Are you saying you…escaped?” Now that she thought about it, he had never specifically told her he had paid his debt to society.

  “It depends on how one views it.”

  “How do you view it?”

  He grinned. It was a wicked grin, a little rueful, a little mocking.

  “Swell,” said Grace. “So what was this deal you made with Harry that you chose not to honor?”

  “It wasn’t really a choice. Nor was it a deal that Harry had the authority to make, you see?”

  Only too well.

  “Can he really have you extradited?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You’re not sure?” Grace had spent much time and effort working out the intricacies of her own visa problems with the British Immigration and Nationality Directorate, so Peter’s offhand attitude seemed provokingly blasé.

  “I don’t believe the United Kingdom has an extradition treaty with Turkey. There are certain…irregularities…within the Turkish penal system.”

  Not to mention gross human rights violations. Grace had done a bit of reading on Turkish prisons. They were horrific. She didn’t blame Peter for escaping, regardless of what crime had put him there.

  “Then he can’t harm you.”

  Peter didn’t answer.

  “Can he?” The shop door jangled once more. “Crikey. We should be selling popcorn and peanuts,” Grace exclaimed.

  Peter arched an eyebrow. “I am running a business, you know. It can’t all be lost manuscripts and menacing foreigners.”

  In fact, many of the shop’s customers these days were savvy, young American collectors. The antique biz was booming, and Rogue’s Gallery was the place to appeal to the American love of whimsy and tradition.

  However, it was a young Asian woman in a chauffeur’s uniform—complete with a billed cap and rather sexy-looking boots—who came around the corner of the confessional.

  Peter’s eyes laughed at Grace. “Can I help you, love?”

  The lady chauffeur did not exactly click her heels, but the overall effect was the same.

  “I am Kameko Musashi. I am here on behalf of Mr. Matsukado.” Her glance inclined toward Grace. “My mission is of a somewhat delicate nature.”

  “We do get rather a lot of that lately,” Peter murmured.

  The young woman’s gaze took in the crates and boxes of Mallow Farm. She was about Grace’s height but slim as whipcord. Her hair was cut boy’s fashion; however, she wore eyeliner and a discreet red lipstick. The red lipstick and glossy boots combined to give her sort of a dominatrix look—or at least what Grace fondly imagined was a dominatrix look.

  “It is our understanding that Mr. Okada, acting as Mr. Matsukado’s representative, arranged to sell you the contents of Marrow Farm for a certain sum. Mr. Okada made this arrangement without the permission of my employer, Mr. Matsukado.” She rattled it off in typewriter fashion, and with about as much emotion as keys hitting blank paper.

  She paused, but Peter said nothing.

  “Mr. Matsukado has a proposition for you.” She directed another of those pointed looks in Grace’s direction.

  Peter said, “Miss Hollister is my trusted associate.”

  All things being relative, Grace thought.

  “Mr. Matsukado would like to repurchase his belongings. He will restore to you the original investment. As further incentive, he will give to you the new contents of the house.”

  Instinctively, Grace looked to the ink blotter on the counter where Peter had hidden the Shiloh letter. If Mr. Matsukado was requesting the return of all his property, the letter would have to be returned to him. Her disappointment was intense. For one brief, exhilarating moment she had pictured herself and Peter back on the trail of another lost work by one of her beloved Romantic poets.

  “I’m in the antique trade,” Peter said. “I’m afraid ‘new contents’ aren’t of much interest to me.”

  “I have misspoken,” Kameko said primly. “There are many fine Japanese antiques belonging to Mr. Matsukado’s family. Many fine works of art. My employer does not wish to retain these. He wishes to exchange them for the original furnishings of Marrow Farm.” Her English was flawless until she hit the double Ls of “Mallow.” The mispronunciation was cute, although she was about as cute as a hungry mink.

  “Why?” Grace asked.

  Kameko ignored her. “If you will consider his offer, Mr. Matsukado would like you”—her almond eyes darted to Grace—“and Ms. Horrister to meet him at Marrow Farm.”

  “What, now?”

  Her nod was crisp. She stood—if possible—straighter.

  Peter considered her stiff figure, then offered a crooked grin. “I have the distinct impression things are going to turn nasty if I decline your charming invitation.”

  Kameko smiled a tight smile.

  Grace studied her with renewed interest. Kameko’s head, hands, and feet looked tiny, but beneath the fitted uniform was the shapely outline of muscled arms and thighs.

  Kameko made an after-you gesture, and after locking the shop and setting the security system, they filed out to where the Matsukado car, a long blue sedan, was parked along the shady lane.

  As they piled into the sumptuous leather interior, Grace reflected that if they had to be shanghaied, it was nice to do it in style.

  “I think you could have taken her,” she whispered as Kameko went around to the driver’s side.

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “Your faith in me is touching.”

  “Perhaps you didn’t wish to compromise your position as a feminist.” She was teasing him; while Peter was not exactly a chauvinist, he held some archaic attitudes, in Grace’s view.

  “Let’s say I confess to a certain curiosity…” He fell silent as the chauffeur got in the car and started the engine.

  The car glided soundlessly down the shady lane. After a time they left the canopy of trees. A golden haze of summer heat drifted over the lush, green fields; in the distance were the hills, “rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun.” But Grace was oblivious to the pastoral charms of her adopted country. The afternoon was turning into a chapter out of Edgar Wallace. But even the weirdness of the situation, and the fear that Peter’s past was once again rearing its ugly head—a particularly ugly head this time around—could not eclipse her excitement at the possibility that somewhere in the flotsam and jetsam of Mallow Farm was a lost poem by Shelley.

  This was the dream of every literary scholar, to discover a hitherto unknown work. But even if the work were not completely unknown, if it were merely the draft of another poem, to be the one to reintroduce it to the world…

  Grace’s brain continued to spin sweet airy fantasy as though someone had left a cotton candy machine on overdrive.

  She wondered from what period in Shelley’s life the poem might be. The “Mad Shelley” days of his youth, the political activism of his years in Wales, when he had stuffed political treatises in bottles and thrown them into the sea, or the final days of his Tuscan retreat?

  Kameko drove the big car with quiet efficiency, her small hands graceful on the steering wheel. Watching her, Grace noticed half of her little finger was missing. The Asian woman seemed too precise ever to suffer something as ungraceful as an accident.

  At last they turned off the main road onto a weathered track that seemed to consist mostly of potholes and weeds. Grace had never visited Mallow Farm before, although she had ridden on its extensive grounds during fox-hunting season. The experience had not been one of unqualified delight.

  They rounded a bend, and the rambling brick house stood before them. Blue wisteria framed its weathered facade. The hedges were overgrown; the lawns had a faded, threadbare look. Beyond the chimneys of the house were the spires of tall trees, and farther on, the wild tangle of Innisdale Wood.

  The sedan made a lazy swoop of the cracke
d and broken circular courtyard and rolled to a stop.

  Grace found herself curious about their “host.” No one in Innisdale had met the Shogun so far.

  Her curiosity was soon satisfied. Mr. Matsukado met them at the door, as if he had been hovering there since his curvy minion departed.

  Contrary to her expectations, he was a young man about Grace’s age, slender and refined-looking. He had gentle eyes and one of those scraggly mustaches that is always a mistake.

  “Ah, the famous Mr. Fox.” He greeted them with apparent delight. “A great pleasure, old chap.” He bowed a brief bob and offered his hand.

  “An unexpected one, I assure you,” Peter returned.

  Was it Grace’s imagination or did the Shogun smirk?

  “And the so-lovely Ms. Hollister. It is an honor,” he said, performing another one of those combination bows and handshakes with Grace. “I read with great interest of your adventures regarding the”—he permitted himself a small chuckle—“gewgaws of Lord Byron.”

  As Grace’s book had not yet been released, she realized that Mr. Matsukado must have read one of the articles she had written for scholarly periodicals. Not typical light reading for the nonacademic. Did this mean that Mr. Matsukado was also a scholar of Romantic literature?

  If that were the case, she was more inclined to believe in the legitimacy of the Shiloh letter.

  As though theirs was an ordinary social call, Mr. Matsukado gave them a mini-tour of the farmhouse, which had been recently and comprehensively remodeled. Skylights and modern windows transformed the nooks and crannies of the original building. Clearly the transformation had been done with an eye toward comfort and practicality, but in Grace’s opinion, much of the original character had been lost. The house was furnished in contemporary fashion, but filled with traditional Japanese and Asian artworks.

  While Mr. Matsukado showed them around, he chatted inconsequentially about the important and influential people he knew. There seemed to be an awful lot of them, including a local magistrate and the regional representative of BADA, the British Antique Dealers’ Association.