Corpus Christmas

“But Dr. Shambley did fill a vacancy on the board of trustees which you had hoped for, didn’t he?” asked the lieutenant.

“I let it be known that my name could be considered,” Mrs. Beardsley admitted. “One is seldom chosen immediately. It is quite usual to be passed over the first time or two.”

“Will you ask to be considered now that the seat is vacant again?”

“Certainly,” said Mrs. Beardsley firmly. “Why not? Everyone knows my devotion to the Erich Breul House is unchanged.”

“Yes,” agreed the police officer. “We’ve heard that you’re often the first to arrive in the mornings and the last to leave at night.”

Her tone sounded more conciliatory and Mrs. Beardsley unbent slightly. “One can’t claim too much credit for that when it’s merely a matter of walking across the square.”

“And you do have a key,” mused Lieutenant Harald.

Mrs. Beardsley looked at her sharply. Such a drab-looking person today in that dark gray suit and no makeup. On Wednesday night she’d been rather striking in an odd way. Or was that only because one linked her with Oscar Nauman?

“Tell us again, please, what you did after the others left?” she was saying.

Mrs. Beardsley sighed and went through it all again: how all the guests had gone by eight-thirty, how she’d sent Dr. Peake on his way, how she’d overseen the caterers’ departure. She did not try to describe how she loved being alone in this house, how she could almost imagine herself a member of the Breul family, or how alive they often seemed to her. Never mind if Pascal were in the basement or Dr. Shambley in the attic. As long as one didn’t see or hear either man, one’s imagination was free to see and hear the Breuls.

“No,” she said again. “I didn’t go down to the basement because I thought Pascal was still out; and Dr. Shambley had made it quite clear more than once that he did not wish to be disturbed when he was working. I ascertained that all the candles were snuffed, then I unplugged the Christmas tree and went home without seeing either of them.”

Mrs. Beardsley braced herself for more questions on that point. Instead, the Harald woman sat back in her chair with a trousered knee propped against the edge of the gleaming table top and asked, “Why did Pascal Grant dislike Dr. Shambley? Some of the other docents have told us that he avoided the man whenever he could.”

“Dr. Shambley made him feel uncomfortable,” she hedged.

“How?”

Protective maternalism surged in Mrs. Beardsley’s breast. “Pascal Grant couldn’t hurt a fly,” she told them. “Surely you see what a sweet gentle boy he is.”

“That’s why we don’t understand what he had against Dr. Shambley,” said the younger detective, smiling at her across the table.

Mrs. Beardsley approved of the blonde’s tailored femininity, her coral lipstick and modest eye shadow, her Cuban-heeled boots and brown tweed jacket worn over beige-and-peach plaid slacks. So much easier to talk to, she decided. And really, weren’t policewomen rather like nurses? One could discuss anything with nurses.

“It was painful for Pascal to speak of it,” she said, bravely ignoring her own embarrassment, “but it seems there was a man at the sheltered workshop where Pascal trained when he was twelve or thirteen.” Her voice lowered. “A sexual deviant, if you please! And he took advantage of his position to force himself on some of the boys.”

“And Shambley-?” asked Detective Albee.

“Oh, no!” exclaimed Mrs. Beardsley. “When I realized how uneasy Pascal was, I cross-questioned him quite thoroughly, for I would have denounced Dr. Shambley had that been the case. No, no, I’m quite certain he did not approach the boy; but evidently, there was some physical resemblance between Dr. Shambley and the man who had once abused him. Something about their eyes, I believe. Poor Pascal. His reactions are emotional rather than reasoned. But you must surely see from this that his instinct is to retreat, not attack. He simply avoided the man whenever he could.”

The other two women were silent for a moment, then, absently tapping her pen against her knee, Lieutenant Harald said, “Getting back to your own movements, Mrs. Beardsley: you saw no one after the caterers left?”

“Not even,” added the other officer, “Mr. Thorvaldsen when you crossed the square?”

“I’m sorry, Detective Albee, but when it’s that cold, one doesn’t linger outside to pass the time of night with casual pedestrians whom one may or may not know. I simply didn’t notice.”

“So when you say that you went home shortly after nine and didn’t return,” said Lieutenant Harald, “there’s no one who can confirm your statement?”

Mrs. Beardsley inclined her head. “No one.”

Once more they asked her about seeing Thorvaldsen leave the house at midnight and then they thanked her for her cooperation.

One with a completely clear conscience did not register relief at having done one’s civic duty, Mrs. Beardsley reminded herself, and walked with quiet dignity from the library.

Sigrid glanced at Albee. “Well?”

“Oh yes,” said Elaine. “I could see her deciding that he was a bug that needed to be squashed and just doing it. But only if he was hurting her precious house. And he wasn’t.”

“That we’re aware of,” Sigrid told her. “We still don’t know where he found that glove case or what he took from it.”

“And we may never know,” sighed Jim Lowry, returning from the attic at the end of her comments. “The docents say there’re more than a dozen trunks and wardrobe boxes full of Mrs. Breul’s stuff up there and the inventory sheets don’t go into much detail. Just ‘apparel’ or ‘accessories.’ And the case might have held a jeweler’s box, but they don’t think there was anything valuable still in it because all her good stuff was sold when the house became a museum.”

Out in the long marble hall, there was a sudden babble and chatter of excited female voices and through the open doorway, they saw a bearded professor with a harried air as he shepherded his charges past the ticket table.

The art students from that Raleigh women’s college, no doubt.

“This might be a good time to break for lunch,” Sigrid said judiciously.

At the gallery off Fifth Avenue, Rick Evans mechanically set another painting on the easel, readjusted the two floodlights on either side, took a reading with his light meter, then focused his camera and clicked the shutter.

When he first came up from Louisiana in September, it had surprised Rick how strongly the art world depended upon slides. The first cuts in competitions were made by judges who looked at slides; grants were awarded, exhibitions decided, magazine articles written-all very often on the basis of photographic slides alone.

His grandfather spoke of this trend with contempt, but Hester Kohn merely shrugged her shoulders and asked Jacob to consider the cost of shipping fees, not to mention wear and tear on the artwork itself.

Rick set another large oil painting upon the easel. It looked a little topheavy in composition, all those purple slashes at the top and empty unprimed canvas at the bottom, and he checked the label on the back of the stretcher to make sure it was right side up. He no longer tried to understand each picture. All he cared about now was making a technically perfect slide.

In the begi