Dangerous to Know

The phone was screaming in my ear.

I roused myself from my half-dozing state and my memories instantly retreated. Reaching out, I lifted the receiver and mumbled, “Hello?”

“It’s me,” Jack said. “I’m coming over. With the newspapers.”

“Oh God, don’t tell me,” I groaned. “Lousy headlines, I’ve no doubt. And obituaries.”

“You got it, kid.”

“You’re going to be besieged by the press,” I muttered. “Perhaps you are better off coming here. Maybe you should bring Luciana with you, Jack.”

“She ain’t here, Viv. She’s skipped it, gone back to Manhattan.”

“I see,” I said and sat bolt upright. “Well, that’s not surprising.” Sliding my legs out of bed, I continued, “I’ll put coffee on. See you in about half an hour.”

“Make that twenty minutes,” he answered brusquely and hung up.

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_605bcb0c-9871-5c07-879f-c7844067ef7f)

It was quite obvious that Jack was in one of his peculiar moods. His face proclaimed it to me before he had walked even halfway across the kitchen.

“Good morning,” I said, carrying the coffeepot over to the table and putting it down. When I received merely a curious, gruntlike mumble from him, I added sharply, “So, we’re maungy this morning, are we?”

The use of this word caught his attention at once, and he glanced at me rapidly. “Maungy. What does that mean?”

“You’ve heard it before so don’t pretend you haven’t. It was a favorite of Gran’s. She often used to call you maungy when you were a snot-nosed little boy in short pants.”

Ignoring my acerbity, he said evenly, “I don’t remember,” and flopped into the nearest chair. “And I don’t know its meaning.”

“Then I’ll tell you,” I answered, leaning over the table, peering into his face. “It means peevish, bad tempered, or sulky, and it’s a Yorkshire word from the West Riding where my great-grandfather came from.” I paused, said in a lighter voice, “Surely you haven’t forgotten Gran’s marvelous stories about her father? She never failed to make us laugh.”

“George Spence. That was his name,” Jack said, and then grimaced. “I need a life-saving transfusion. Strong coffee. Immediately, sugar.” He reached for the pot, poured cups of coffee for both of us, and took a gulp of his.

“Jack, don’t start the day by calling me sugar. Please. And so that’s it, is it? You have a hangover.”

“A beaut. Hung one on. Last night. When I got back to the farm.”

His occasional bouts of drinking were nothing new and had worried me off and on, but I had stopped trying to reform him, nor did I chastise him anymore, since it was a futile waste of time. And so I refrained from commenting now. I simply sat down opposite him, eyeing the newspapers as I did. “How bad are they?”

“Not as bad as we expected. Quite laudatory, in fact. Not much muckraking. You’re mentioned. As one of his five wives. Front page stories. Obituaries inside.”

I pulled the newspapers toward me. Jack had brought the New York Post, the New York Times, and the Daily News, and as I spread them out in front of me I saw that they were more or less saying the same thing in their different ways. A great and good man had been found dead, circumstances suspicious. All three papers decried his death, sang his praises, mourned his passing. They carried photographs of Sebastian and they were all fairly recent ones, taken in the last couple of years. He looked wonderful—distinguished, handsome and loaded with glamour, dangerously so. But that had ceased to matter.

Skipping the Post and the News for the moment, I concentrated on the Times. The front page story by the reporter who had spoken to me on the phone yesterday was well written, careful in its details, cautious in its tone, and scrupulous in its accuracy. Furthermore, I was quoted verbatim and without one word I’d said being altered or paraphrased. So much for that. And certainly there was nothing sensationalized here.

I turned to the obituary section of the New York Times. A whole page was devoted to Sebastian Lyon Locke, scion of a great American dynasty, billionaire tycoon, head of Locke Industries, chairman of the Locke Foundation, and the world’s greatest philanthropist. There was a simplified version of his life story; every one of his good deeds was listed along with the charities he supported in America, and there was a fund of information about the charity work he did abroad, especially in Third World countries. It had obviously been written some years earlier, as most obituaries of famous people were, with the introduction and the last paragraph left open, to be added after the death of the particular individual had occurred.

Glancing at the end of the story, I was surprised to see only four names. I was mentioned as his former ward and his ex-wife—as if the others had not existed—along with Jack and Luciana, his children, and Cyrus Lyon Locke, his father, whom I’d completely forgotten about until now.

“Oh my God! Cyrus!” I cried, lowering the paper, looking over the top of it at Jack. “Have you been in touch with your grandfather?”

“That old coot! He’s more dead than alive. Rotting in Bar Harbor. In that mausoleum of a place. It ought—”

“But have you talked to him?” I cut in. “Does he know about Sebastian’s death?”

“I spoke to Madeleine. Yesterday. Told her everything. The old coot was sleeping.”

“Did you tell her to bring him here for the funeral?”

“Certainly not. He’s too old.”

“How old is he?” I asked, frowning. Cyrus’s age escaped me for the moment, but he had to be in his eighties.

“He was born in 1904. So he must be ninety. And he’s too old to travel.”

“I don’t know about that…look, he should come, Jack. After all, Sebastian was his only son.”

“His last surviving son,” Jack corrected me.

“So what did Madeleine say?”

“Not much. As usual. Gave me her condolences. Talked about Cyrus being frail. But not senile. I can’t stand her. She’s the voice of doom. Even when she’s wishing you well.”

“I know, impending disaster does seem to echo in her voice. And I’m sure what she said about Cyrus is true, that he’s not senile. Cyrus Locke has always been a remarkable man. Quite remarkable. A genius, really.”

The phone rang, interrupting our conversation. I went to answer it.

Picking up the receiver, I said, “Hello?” and then glanced over at Jack. Covering the mouthpiece with my hand, I murmured, “Talk of the devil. It’s for you, Jack.”

“Who is it?”

“The voice of doom with an Irish accent.”

“Hello, Madeleine,” Jack said into the phone a split-second later. “We were just talking about you. And Cyrus. Vivienne wants to invite you to the funeral, Madeleine.”

I glared at him, silently mouthing, “It’s not my funeral.”

Ignoring me, he listened to Madeleine for a few minutes, said good-bye, and hung up. He lolled against the door jamb with a thoughtful expression on his face. “I left this number at the farm. With Carrie. Mrs. Crane’s niece. She came in to help. Until her aunt gets back. Tonight.”

“Thanks a lot,” I said, and sighed, threw him a reproving glance. “Tell me, Jack, why is it you have the need to put the burdens of this family on me most of the time? This is not my funeral. It’s your responsibility. Yours and Luciana’s.”

“Forget Luce. All she wants to do is run. Back to London. To that twerp of a British husband of hers.”

“Isn’t he coming for the funeral?”

“Who?”

“The husband. Gerald Kamper.”