“Florence Urquhart,” Charles replied readily. “Flo’s an old chum of ours. She was working the phones at a well-known art auction house when the bids came in. Flo would lose her job—and her pension—if she revealed the bidder’s identity, but she couldn’t keep herself from dropping a few leaden hints over wine and cheese at a gallery opening last winter.”
“If Arthur Hargreaves is indeed the man behind the anonymous bids,” Grant said, “he has exquisite taste and fantastically deep pockets. I’d give a big toe or two to own the da Vinci sketch he purchased a month ago.” He winked broadly at me as he added, “Allegedly.”
“How did Arthur become madly wealthy?” I asked.
“Inheritance, followed by clever investments, or so we’ve heard,” said Grant. “I’ve never heard it said that he works for a living.”
“Nor have I,” said Charles.
“But you have heard it said that he’s mad,” I reminded them.
“Ever so slightly mad,” Charles corrected me. “He has an absolute mania about privacy. He doesn’t give interviews. He doesn’t make public appearances. He doesn’t leave the abbey, if he can help it. He’s the very definition of a recluse. Hence, his soubriquet: the Hermit of Hillfont Abbey.”
“Yet he’s tremendously influential,” Grant chimed in.
“We’ve always pictured him as a spider sitting at the center of a web,” said Charles. “He has only to twang a silk thread to make things happen.”
I remembered Bill’s telephone call to the pram manufacturer and his subsequent comments about the clout Arthur appeared to wield in the corporate world.
“Would he have a direct line to the CEO of a big company?” I asked.
“My guess is that Arthur Hargreaves has many direct lines to many CEOs of many big companies,” said Grant.
I’d been keeping an eye on Bess, but she’d shown no signs of feeling neglected. She’d followed our conversation with rapt attention, inserting an occasional stream of baby babble that had been adoringly mimicked by Charles, despite his keen interest in the subject under discussion. He would, I thought, have made a wonderful father.
“You can imagine our surprise,” Grant continued, “when you told us that Arthur Hargreaves fixed Bess’s pram. It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing a high-powered mystery mogul would do.”
“Maybe not,” I said, “but the Arthur Hargreaves Bess and I met is nothing like the man you’ve described. He wasn’t standoffish or intimidating, and there was nothing spider-like about him. The man we met was warm, funny, and down-to-earth.”
“Perhaps he has a soft spot for children,” Charles suggested. He turned to Bess and said in his talking-to-infants voice, “Who wouldn’t have a soft spot for you, my little angel?”
“We must, of course, defer to your better judgment, Lori,” said Grant. “Unlike you, Charles and I are not on a first-name basis with Mr. Hargreaves.”
“Bess is on a first-name basis with him, too,” I said proudly. “She may not be able to say Arthur’s name yet, but if she could, I’m sure he would allow it.”
“Who could refuse you anything?” Charles asked Bess. “You’re irresistible.”
A pair of dimples appeared in Bess’s plump cheeks and three hearts melted simultaneously.
“Do not tell me it’s gas,” Charles commanded, with a stern look in my direction. “I know a smile when I see one.”
“It’s not gas,” I said obediently, but as a familiar aroma rose from the carry cot, I was forced to add, “It is, however, time for a diaper change.”
The speed with which Charles passed the carry cot to me gave me second thoughts about his fitness for fatherhood.
“Forgive us,” he said as he backed away from the scene of the crime. “We’ve kept you talking too long.”
Grant seemed to be making a valiant attempt not to grimace as he retreated alongside his partner.
“You will give Mr. Hargreaves our number, won’t you?” he said from a safe distance. “You’ll tell him we’re right here in Finch? Charles and I would be honored to clean, restore, and/or appraise any work of art in his collection.”
“If I see him, I’ll tell him,” I promised. “If you see Bill, will you tell him that Bess and I are in St. George’s?”
“Will do,” Charles called. “Until we meet again, little angel.”
He kissed his fingers to Bess and followed Grant out of the churchyard.
It would have been disrespectful to use Joseph Cringle’s tomb as a changing table, but I knew the vicar wouldn’t object to me using a church pew. There wouldn’t be another service until Evensong, and as he’d said himself, the mess in a child’s nappy was nothing compared to the mess left behind in St. George’s after the beast blessing.
I chose the pew my family and I had recently vacated, swapped Bess’s dirty diaper for a clean one, and gathered her up for a cuddle. The humble old church’s serene atmosphere seemed to seep into us and we remained blessedly undisturbed until a footstep sounded in the south porch.
Seven