Aunt Dimity's Death (5 page)

The entire interior, from the floor to the top of the dome, was covered with paintings—the Gemini twins, Orion with his belt and sword, and the regal queen, Cassiopeia, to name only a few. The paintings were inset with tiny faceted crystals that sparkled like miniature constellations, and the centerpiece was an old brass telescope that had been polished to within an inch of its life. Bill held the lamp high, clearly enjoying my wide-eyed amazement.

“Oh, my,” I gasped at last, “this is
incredible.
Did you build it yourself?”

“The only thing I did was install a telephone. The rest”—he let his gaze wander across the glittering dome—”was Great-great-uncle Arthur’s idea.”

“Great-great-uncle Arthur?”

“Yes, well, every family has one eventually, and we had Arthur.” Bill handed me the lantern, rummaged in a cupboard, and came up with a chamois cloth. As he spoke, he ran it across the smooth surface of the telescope. “He’d be considered eccentric in England, but here he was thought to be just plain nuts. He gave the family fits spending all that hard-earned cash on stargazing, but I, for one, am grateful to the old loon. Granted, it’s not much good as an observatory now. Too many buildings, too much light from the city. But when he built it, the mansion was the tallest building around and the lights were fewer and farther between. Like this.” He nodded at the oil lamp. “A softer light for a softer time.

“This is my bolt-hole,” he continued. “I discovered it when I was a boy, and I’ve come here ever since, whenever I’ve needed to be by myself. Just me and the stars. And now, you.”

There it was again, the warmth in his voice, and again it made me uneasy. “Thanks for showing it to me,” I said, then tried to fill the uncomfortable silence by adding, “It’s more than I deserve, really, after getting you in trouble with your father.”

“After what?”

“What he said last night, about giving me a meal when I showed up. You did try, and I should have told him so.”

“Oh, that.” He folded the chamois cloth and returned it to the cupboard. “Don’t worry about it.”

“No, I mean it—I’m sorry I didn’t say anything.”

“It’s okay.”

“But it’s not okay. I should have—”

“I understand, but there’s no need—”

“Bill!” Did he think he had a monopoly on good manners? Here he was, showing me all of these lovely things, and he wouldn’t even let me do something as commonplace as apologize for rude behavior. “If I want to say I’m sorry, I’ll say I’m sorry, okay? I don’t see why you won’t—”

“Accepted,” he said.

“What?”

“I accept your apology.”

“Well … all right, then,” I muttered, the wind leaking slowly from my sails.

“Good.” He rubbed his hands together. “Now that we’ve settled that, let’s go back to your rooms. There’s one more thing I’d like to show you.” He took the lantern from me, extinguished it, and opened the door.

*
**

I had hoped to see more of the mansion on the way back, so I was disappointed when we returned to the guest suite via the same route. Bill must have sensed it, because as we approached my door he said, “I’ll give you a tour later, if you like. It’s a wonderful place. You’ve seen some of the older parts, but we have an entire wing that would put IBM to shame. One of the reasons we’ve been so successful is that we’re willing to take the best of both worlds: the gentility of the old and the efficiency of the new. Ah, good, they’ve arrived.”

This last remark came as he opened the parlor door and I saw right away what had prompted it. During our absence, a vase had been placed on the coffee table, a slender crystal vase filled with deep blue irises. I gave a gasp of pleasure when I saw them.

“You like them?” Bill asked. “I hoped you might. I saw you looking at the ones downstairs and I thought—”

“They’re my favorites. But how do you manage to find irises at this time of year? Isn’t it a little early?”

“Where there’s a Willis—” he began, but my groan cut him off. “The hothouse,” he continued. “It’s in the back. I’ll be sure to include it in the tour.” He jutted his chin in the direction of the one door in the suite I had yet to open. “Been in there yet?” When I shook my head, he frowned. “But that’s the whole reason I put you in here! Come on.” He opened the door, turned on a light, and stood aside as I entered a library as small and
perfect as Great-great-uncle Arthur’s observatory, though executed in a rather more sedate style.

“The big library is downstairs,” Bill said. “This is Father’s private stash.”

I scanned the shelves, speechless. The collection was everything a collection should be. My old boss, Stan Finderman, would have approved wholeheartedly, and so did I. It wasn’t full of showpieces. It was full of love and careful thought. The books were all related to polar exploration—Franklin’s
A Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea
, Ross’s
A Voyage of Discovery
, and many others—some worth a small fortune, all priceless to the person who read and cherished them.

“And now for the grand finale,” Bill said. He put a finger to his lips and tiptoed stealthily to a wall space between two of the bookcases. Pushing his sleeves up with a flourish, like some mad magician, he applied pressure to two places on the wall and, presto-chango, it swung open to reveal a staircase leading down.

“A mansion wouldn’t be a mansion without a few secret passages, now, would it?” he said with a grin. “This one leads down to the changing room in Father’s office. For all intents and purposes, you have your own private connection to all the comforts therein. You can lock the changing room door from the inside and use it anytime you like. But please—don’t forget to unlock it when you’re done.”

“Wait a minute,” I said as he closed the door in the wall. An appalling thought had just occurred to me. “If this is your father’s collection, and if that staircase leads down to his office, then … Oh, Bill, this isn’t his suite, is it? He didn’t clear out to make room for me, did he?”

“Not at all. Father would have been happy to make way for you, but as it happens, he didn’t. This used to be his suite—he used to live above the shop, so to speak—but he’s on the ground floor now. We simply haven’t gotten around to moving the books yet.” Bill’s gaze swept over the shelves. “It’s ironic. All these stories about conquering the wilderness, and he’s not allowed to climb the stairs in his own home.”

“Not allowed?”

He glanced at me, then looked back to the books. “His heart,” he said shortly. “Started acting up last spring. Hasn’t been anything serious so far, but … I can’t help worrying. My mother died when I was twelve, and aside from some desiccated aunts, it’s been just the two of us ever since.” He reached out to touch one of the books. “It’s strange, isn’t it? No one ever tells you that one day you’ll worry about your parents the way they always worried about you.”

I averted my eyes as my heart twisted inside of me. The fact was that I had never worried about my mother. She’d never been sick a day in her life. The only time she had ever been in a hospital had been to give birth to me. But Bill’s words reminded me that I should have shown more concern for her, that I had failed her in that as I had failed her in so many other ways.

“But enough doom and gloom.” Bill turned his back on the books. “As I said, there’s no need to worry, not really. There’s no reason Father shouldn’t live to be a hundred, as long as he takes care of himself.”

“You make sure he does,” I said. “Because once he’s gone …” I fell silent, hoping Bill hadn’t noticed the tremor in my voice.

“Lori,” he said. He touched my arm and I pulled away from him. I didn’t need or want his sympathy, and I was annoyed with myself for provoking it.

“Breakfast is at nine,” he said, after a pause. “The small dining room, downstairs, left, left, third door on the right. And Father would like to see you at ten. In his office.” He walked to the door of the library, then turned. “And by the way—you’re not my client. You’re his.”

It took a moment for his words to register, a moment more for me to realize that I had let him go without getting any of the answers I’d been looking for. What’s more, as I returned to the small library for a closer look at Willis, Sr.’s books, I realized there was something else I wanted to know.

Why was Bill being so nice to me?

The small dining room made me wonder what the big dining room was like. The table at which Bill and I sat—Willis, Sr., having opted for breakfast in his rooms—was long enough to seat twelve, and anything above a sedate murmur caused muted echoes to reverberate from the domed ceiling. The food was set out in silver chafing dishes along a sideboard, except for a small mountain of strawberries that loomed over a stoneware pitcher filled with cream. Two servants, casually attired in khaki twills and crewneck sweaters, poured our orange juice, then sat down with us and engaged Bill in a heated debate over some obscure point of contract law.

“Law students,” Bill explained when they had cleared the table. “Live-in staff.”

“How convenient,” I said. “Your own private supply of slave labor.”

“Absolutely. That’s why we have a waiting list as long as my arm.” Bill looked at his watch. “My father, the capitalist tyrant, should be waiting for us now. Shall we?” He led the way to the office. “The students were his idea,” he continued. “Room and board and a chance for hands-on experience in our clinics, not to mention the opportunity to learn from one of the finest legal minds in the country. I refer, of course, to my father’s. In exchange for which they do everything but cook. Some things are best left to a professional, don’t you agree? I’m sure they’d be much better off
somewhere else, but what can we do? They’re champing at the bit to be trodden underfoot.” He opened the office doors. “Aren’t they, Father?”

Willis, Sr., looked up from his desk. “Aren’t who what, my boy?”

“Miss Shepherd was commenting on your unorthodox solution to the servant problem.”

“Ah, the students. They have worked out marvelously well, Miss Shepherd. I don’t know where we would be without them, and they seem to find the experience worthwhile. Bill, did you hear? Young Walters was made a judge last week.”

“Sandy Walters? But he couldn’t even wash dishes!”

“I doubt that he will be required to,” Willis, Sr., observed dryly, then turned his attention to me. “Forgive our prattle, Miss Shepherd. How are you this morning?”

“She’s perfectly fine,” said Bill, and I sent a low-level glare in his direction. “I’ll leave you to it, then, Father. And I’ll see
you
later.” He nodded pleasantly at me as he left the room.

“My son appears to be in a lighthearted mood this morning.” Willis, Sr., stared thoughtfully at the door for a moment, then smiled at me. “But let us proceed, Miss Shepherd. I am sure you must be feeling very impatient by now. Please make yourself comfortable. This may take some time, I’m afraid.” I took a seat in the tall leather wing chair facing him.

“Twenty-five years ago,” Willis, Sr., began, “I was contacted by a colleague in England. A client of his, a mildly eccentric woman of comfortable means, wished to draw up her will. Further, she wished to have her will administered by an American law firm, since one of the legatees would be an American. She was quite concerned about finding the right people to handle the case and I am pleased to say that she found our firm satisfactory.”

I smiled at this and Willis, Sr., raised his eyebrows in polite inquiry. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said, “but it’s easy to see why Willis & Willis would appeal to an Englishwoman. I can’t imagine a less ‘American’ law firm.”

“You are quite right,” said Willis, Sr. “She admitted as much when I traveled to England to meet her. She wanted a firm which hadn’t ‘succumbed to the rat race,’ as she put it. We were anachronistic enough to suit her taste exactly.”

His gaze returned to the doors through which Bill had exited. “I suspect that my son influenced her in our favor as well. I brought him with me, you see. My father, who was then head of the firm, disapproved of such unprofessional behavior, but my wife had just passed away, and to be so far away from the boy for any extended period of time was out of the
question.” He looked once more at me. “In the end, it proved fortunate. Bill’s presence seemed to reassure my client that the firm wasn’t completely ossified.

“At any rate, she told me that she had a friend, an American friend who had a daughter, and that the will concerned certain tasks that her friend’s child was to undertake. The daughter, apparently, did not know of my client’s existence, and my client wished to maintain her anonymity until the time came for the will to be administered. ‘it’s my last appearance in the story,’ she told me, ‘and I would like it to be a surprise.’

“As you have undoubtedly guessed by now, your mother, the late Elizabeth Irene Shepherd, was the friend and you are the daughter. What I am permitted to reveal to you now is that my client was Miss Dimity Westwood, founder of the Westwood Trust, which supported, indeed still supports, a great number of charitable institutions in the United Kingdom.

“During her lifetime, Miss Westwood was widely respected, but something of a mystery—an invisible philanthropist, one might say, whose good works were better known than herself. She was also, if I may add a personal note, the most remarkable woman I have ever had the honor to know.” Willis, Sr., leaned back in his chair and folded his hands across his waistcoat.