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"What is it that you want me to tell my son?"
"That I would like to speak with him there must be something in which his interest can innocently be
caught. By which he may be distracted a little from his grief and worry. He has perhaps a hobby that
fascinates him? Chess, photography . . .?"
"Pottery," said Clarissa in a very low voice. Almost completely recovered from her weeping now, she
was looking at the visitor with such a guarded, watchful, poker-playing stare that he really had to smile.
"Clar-iss-a! Was your grandmother such a terrible enemy of yours? Would she have delivered you and
your own beautiful grandchild into the devil's hands? No, no, no, you must know better than that."
"Then who are you? Really?"
He emphasized the first words of his smiling answer with little hand-pats, delivered on alternate syllables.
"I am Dr. Emile Corday, of London, an old friend of the family, and no one, no one, can prove anything
to the contrary. Now, will you choose to help me? Or to help the creatures who have torn off your
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grandson's finger?"
SIX
"Andrew? Dr. Corday is very interested in pottery. He was wondering if you might have time to show
him a little of your collection before dinner."
Clarissa and the visitor had come upon Andrew standing in the hallway, gazing at a phone on a small
table as if he knew or hoped that it was about to ring. Introductions had been brief.
"He's really interested. Go along, dear, it'll do you good to think of something else."
"All right, Mother." With a last pensive glance toward the phone, Andrew turned away from it. A minute
later, Clarissa having effaced herself, he was guiding the visitor toward the rooms where, as he said, most
of the things were currently being kept.
This proved to be in an obviously older wing of the house, a one-story extension running north from
what was now the main building. The original style of construction of this old wing had been partially
obliterated by extensive remodelling carried on (as near as the visitor could guess) some decades back,
and survived mainly in pseudo-Gothic archways separating rooms, gray stone walls still showing here and
there, and some tall, narrow windows well suited to the needs of defending bowmen.
"Most of the collection is in this room, Doctor."
And now they were standing in the midst of it. The large chamber held not only pottery of almost every
conceivable age and provenance, but a jumble of other old things as well. There were two suits of what
looked to the visitor like authentic medieval armor. On side walls were some large, second-rate old
Flemish tapestries. But he looked most intently at the wall opposite the door, where there hung a portrait
of Mina herself.
"That is intriguing, isn't it, Doctor? My wife's grandmother, on the Harker side of the family. But of
course you probably know . . . it was done by Gustav Klimt. Nineteen-oh-one, I think."
The old man could not now recall the date with any certainty either, though he well recalled the sunlit
sitting room in Exeter where Mina had posed for this painting, and his own quick exit from that room into
the noonday sun, with perilously aching eyes, on a day when Mina's husband and the artist had come
home sooner than expected. And sure enough, there was gray stodgy Jonathan, still intruding in the only
way that he could manage now, just down the wall from Mina in an inferior portrait done sometime in the
'twenties.
"You see, Doctor, we Southerlands are one of those American families who were involved around the
turn of the century in what some people think of as the looting of poor old Europe by vulgar young
America. That was when some of us here had a lot of money, and a lot of the old European families
didn't. It was possible to buy up . . . but I keep forgetting, you probably know all that better than I do."
"Thatwas not looting, dear sir. Not at all."
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"This incense burner is Chinese porcelain, of course. Wan Li reign. But it came here through Europe."
Southerland went on, evidently seeking whatever distraction he might be able to find here, for there was a
dry eagerness in his voice. "Of course we've added in more recent decades, recent years . . . this
terra-cotta sarcophagus here was sent over during the war. There was a lot of space available in ships
westbound from England in those days, I understand. I myself no longer work at collecting as I once did .
. . and this little black bowl is Santa Clara Pueblo . . . Kate was starting to get interested in the Indian
things . . ." Eagerness gone, slumping against a table, Andrew paused, as if suddenly exhausted.
"How easy it is," the visitor observed, "particularly in the world of business, for an innocent man to
acquire terrible enemies."
"Enemies?" Southerland did not seem greatly surprised at the suggestion; still he thought about it for a
while, as if it had never occurred to him before. "Yes, we all make them, don't we, and without even
trying. The police have asked me several times: who are your enemies? Any servants with a grudge? Hell,
we haven't had any really regular help in the house in years. Servants come and go. They don't even
remember who we are half the time, much less hate us."
"I know how difficult it can be to confide in the police."
"What I just can't understand is this happening to a boy like John. Not like some of these other kids,
pot-smoking, getting girls in trouble. A little driving trouble once, last fall, was all I ever had with John."
Southerland's countenance convulsed, as if he were trying with all the muscles of his face to squeeze
something out of himself. "And Kate," he added brokenly, and put his face down in his hands.
"I am a father too, you know." The visitor's voice was soft, though without perceptible emotion. "Or I
was."
"I didn't know," said Andrew, as if it couldn't matter. He looked up, starting to recover from his spasm.
"Not many do. But you are quite right, my family affairs are neither here nor there. Tell me, have you any
dealings with what I believe is locally called the Mafia?"
"What? Never." Southerland's reddened eyes, now shocked anew, probed at the visitor. "Who said a
thing like that about me?"
"No one, to my knowledge. But if you cannot guess who the guilty parties may be, then I must try to do
so."
"You?" Southerland blinked at him stupidly, but aggressively. "What have you to do with this?" When the
visitor stood silent, his host went on, now in a conciliatory tone: "Forgive me, I don't mean to insult any
old friend of Mother's. But I've gone through all these same questions with the police. I don't know why
my children are being attacked. If I knew, don't you suppose . . . I just don't know."
The visitor found himself beginning to be convinced of this. But he said nothing, only turned to watch the
gothic doorway leading to the hall, where two seconds later there appeared the figure of a man.
The newcomer was about thirty, sparely muscular, tough-faced, fair-haired, dressed with classless
American informality in boots, jeans, and a plaid jacket over a plaid shirt of different pattern. He favored
the old man with a quick but judgemental glance that to the latter once more suggested the police. But
when he spoke it was to their host: "Andy? Judy said you were back here. I just wanted to tell
you God, what can anybody say?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]