“I went looking for you first,” Jane says. “This morning. I went to your room first, before going outside. It was just before dawn and you weren’t there. I told them.”
Ravi’s eyes linger on Jane. “And now you’re telling me you told them,” he says, “so I’ll know not to tell them I was safely tucked up in bed the whole time?”
“Yeah,” says Jane. “I guess so.”
The corner of Ravi’s mouth turns up. “You’re a puzzle.”
“Ravi, if that’s a segue to flirting, I’m literally going to lose it.”
This elicits a sad smile, then a weary shake of the head. “I spent the night with my dad in the library,” he says, “listening to the Beatles.”
“The Beatles!” Jane exclaims. “I forgot to tell the police about the Beatles.” Placing Jasper on his four feet, she stands, turns, and barges through the billiard room door. Four surprised faces swivel up to look at her.
“I forgot to tell you that as I was crossing the atrium on my way to the servants’ quarters,” Jane announces, “I heard someone playing the Beatles.”
The faces stare at Jane in bewilderment. She leaves the room and shuts the door before things deteriorate any further.
“I’m pretty sure I’m their least favorite witness ever,” she tells Ravi.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “Patrick will brood, Kiran will be silent and depressed, Colin will be condescending, and Phoebe will say something snobbish and defensive.”
“Thanks,” Jane says. “That makes me feel better.”
His half grin again. “Keep me company while I’m waiting?”
Jane has sympathy for Ravi, who’s had a rotten morning. But she’s still dressed in her Doctor Who pajamas, she’s run through the ramble, fallen over, rolled around, had a gun pointed at her, been bled on by a dog, bawled her eyes out, and been interrogated by the police. She needs a shower, and a deep, dark nap with Jasper snoring into her ankles. “I need to get cleaned up,” Jane says.
“Yeah, okay,” he says. “Send me Kiran if you see her, will you? I’m worried about her.”
“Why?”
Ravi throws himself into an armchair and closes his eyes. “Nothing to do with any of this. Let’s just call it twin stuff.”
*
One moment, Jane is passing through the ballroom with Jasper at her heels, weary and spent, dodging gala staff whose voices are too sharp and bright. The next moment, she’s ravenous. This is why Jane does, indeed, cross paths with Kiran, who’s with Colin in the breakfast room, a little nook off the banquet hall, poking at a poached egg with a spoon.
“I just wish I was more surprised,” Jane hears Colin say. “Who’s your guess for her accomplice? Someone in the house? A servant?”
“I don’t have a clue,” says Kiran.
“She could have an entanglement with the guy who mans your boats,” says Colin. “One of those secret relationships across class.”
“Patrick?” says Kiran, sounding thoroughly confused, and rubbing her temples as if they hurt. “Where are you getting this from?”
“They look pretty cozy together. I can’t see him turning her down,” says Colin.
There’s a smugness to his tone, subtle, indefinable; he’s pleased with his own speculations.
Something inside Jane mutinies. “Colin,” she says. “Why do you keep pushing her into conversations she doesn’t want to have?”
“What?” Colin says, looking up at Jane. His hair is damp. He’s showered and bright as a daisy. “Pushing who?”
“Kiran!” Jane exclaims. “You keep badgering her.”
Colin sits back, offended. “I love Kiran,” he says. “What do you know about anything? You’re a child, and a stranger here.”
“She doesn’t want to talk about it,” says Jane. “She wants to be alone.”
“She’s depressed!” Colin says. “I’m getting her interested in something!”
“You bully her!”
“You have a lot of nerve,” Colin says, then turns to Kiran. “Sweetheart, do I bully you?”
Kiran is holding her spoon so tightly that her fingertips are white. “Colin,” she says to her plate, “I think it’s time we broke up. In fact, I’m sure of it. I’m sorry, but it’s over.”
Two spots of red grow in Colin’s cheeks. After a moment, he pushes his chair back quietly, and stands. “Very well,” he says stiffly. “By the way,” he adds, flashing hot eyes into Jane’s, “you’re wrong. She doesn’t prefer to be alone. She’s quite fond of a certain one of her servants. I used to think she could be happy with me, but now I’m not sure she’s capable of happiness.”
“Don’t talk about me as if I’m not here,” Kiran says, “you patronizing prick.”
Colin opens his mouth to speak, then claps it closed tight. He turns to go. As he’s walking away, he spins back suddenly and addresses Jane.
“Incidentally,” he says, “I hate to tell you, but there was an accident with your umbrellas. They fell into the street in Soho and got run over by a truck. I’m awfully sorry. I don’t suppose they were insured?”
Her Pantheon dome umbrella. Her eggshell umbrella. Her brass-handled, brown-and-copper-rose umbrella. Jane is choking over her own astonishment.
“How horrible,” Kiran says.
Jane looks into Kiran’s face and finds that all of Kiran’s warmth and feeling for her is real and surging.
Then she looks into Colin’s face, which contains the most perfect balance of sorrow, solicitude, and regret. Also something else. The tiniest gleam of something childish. Triumph.
An instinct pricks her.
Turning without a word, Jane passes through the banquet hall into the kitchen, stopping only to hold the door for Jasper. Mr. Vanders and Patrick are huddled together at a table, muttering to each other.
“Who did the mail run yesterday?” Jane asks them.
They barely glance at her. “Cook,” says Mr. Vanders.
“And where’s Cook right now?” Jane asks.
“Down at the dock,” says Mr. Vanders.
“I need to ask him a question.”
Mr. Vanders eyes Jane then, with curiosity. He reaches into a drawer behind him, pulls out a walkie-talkie, presses a button, and says, “Son.”
A moment later, a raspy voice answers. “Dad?”
Mr. Vanders hands the walkie-talkie to Jane. She’s never used one before. She presses the button and says, “Hello?”
“Yeah?”
“Cook?”
“Yeah?”
“Did Colin Mack give you a long, narrow package yesterday for the mail run?”
“Yeah,” says Cook. “Umbrellas.”
“How were they packaged?”
“With about a mile of bubble wrap around them,” he says, “and nailed into a crate. I helped him pack them.”
“Who was it addressed to?”
“Buckley St. George, at his Soho offices. I private-messengered it in Southampton with the guy the family always uses.”
“The family? Which family?”
“The Thrash family!” he says. “What family do you think? Octavian transports art from time to time. We always use this guy.”
“Is he clumsy?” asks Jane. “Does he drop things? Is he a bike messenger who’s always in peril?”
“Of course not! He’s a professional art courier! He drives a specialized truck!”
Jane hands the walkie-talkie back to Mr. Vanders and marches off, Jasper at her heels. “Hello?” says Cook’s voice behind her, somewhat irate. “Who is this? Dad? Is that Magnolia’s niece?”
Jane pushes back through the swinging door, amazed at her own certainty.
This time, when she barges into the billiard room, the surprised faces contain a touch of annoyance. Ivy has gone; the police are talking to Ravi. He brightens a notch at the sight of Jane. Ravi expects entertainment.