A Tangled Web (66 page)

Jana frowned. “Did something happen?”

“I'm just looking for information. And it would be helpful if I could talk to Alan.”

“Well.” She went to the desk and stood beside it indecisively, then shrugged. “I guess Alan can take care of himself.” She wrote on a pad of paper and handed the sheet to Stephanie. “He's usually home by four.”

“Thank you.”

Jana followed her to the door. “Say hello to Max for me when you see him. I don't care whether he wants to stay in hiding or not. He did a good thing for me and I'll always be grateful.”

“Thank you,” Stephanie said again. “I'm glad to hear it.”

In the taxi she gazed unseeing at the streaming window, thinking of Max, whom Robert had loved and Jana admired, who tried to control everything and everyone around him, who lived by his own rules whether he was doing good or breaking the law. They even did this routine, it was like a movie. I couldn't love him, she thought, but I could have tried to get to know him better, to understand him. I wish I had.

Sabrina had set the small table in the sitting room, and
Stephanie warmed herself at the fire before sitting down. The lashing wind and rain made the room hushed in dry snugness, and Stephanie sighed as Sabrina poured a white wine. “So lovely. Maybe we could make time stop for a while.”

“Yes, we keep thinking that.”

Sabrina filled their bowls from the soup tureen, and it occurred to Stephanie that her sister was acting as hostess, pouring wine, serving soup in her own home.
Has she already decided to come back here? What is it she wants?

“Tell me about Jana,” Sabrina said, and as she listened to Stephanie's brief report she thought how well Stephanie looked, how confident in relating her conversation.
Does she think she can do whatever she wants, with Penny and Cliff, with Garth, with Léon? With me? She can't believe I'll just walk away from them; she knows now what they are to me.
“So Alan is next,” she said when Stephanie finished. “Do you want to talk to him?”

“Oh, no, it's your turn. Unless you'd rather not. Have you ever met him?”

“I've met his mother, but I never liked her. Xanthia Lethridge. As I recall, no one ever talked to her because she couldn't keep anything to herself; it would be all over London the next—” Her eyes met Stephanie's. “Maybe it runs in the family. I'll call him; if he's in town I'll see him tomorrow.”

Alan Lethridge lived in a town house filled with his parents' discarded furniture. “Awful stuff, isn't it?” he said to Sabrina, leading her into the drawing room. He was tall and thin, with a handsome, eager face and long hair; he wore blue jeans and an oversize sweater. “No wonder they got rid of it. But I'm too lazy to shop and I wouldn't know what to buy anyway. I'm waiting for a princess to rescue me and turn the place into a palace. Won't you sit down, Mrs. Andersen? What can I do for you? I remember I met your sister somewhere a long time ago, but I don't know where.”

Sabrina sat on the edge of a hassock and waited until he
sat nearby. “I'm trying to find Max Stuyvesant and I thought you might be able to help me.”

“Max?
Max Stuyvesant?
What are you talking about?” There was a clamorous silence; Sabrina could almost hear options running through his mind. “Is this some kind of a joke? Max is dead.”

“He was presumed dead. But didn't you find out that he was alive?”

“Me? I didn't find out anything. How could I? I didn't know him; I never saw him. I mean, I did once in a while, I mean, people do, you know, at parties or the races, but we never talked; the fact is, I'd barely know him if I saw him.”

“But I think you heard he was alive and told someone.”

“I didn't.” He looked at the ceiling, seeking help. “I mean, I didn't hear he was alive, so naturally I couldn't tell anyone anything.”

“I think you did tell someone. And it's important that you tell me who it was.”

“Nobody! Look, I'm sorry, Mrs. Andersen, but obviously I can't help you, so if you don't have anything else . . . I mean, I'm sorry to be rude, but . . .” He stood and looked down at her.

Sabrina stood beside him. He was indeed being rude, and the only reason for that was fear. “This isn't a game, Alan. It's very important; in fact, someone could be in danger—” Panic flared in his eyes, his mouth tightened stubbornly and he strode to the door. A mistake, Sabrina thought, at least a mistake until she and Stephanie decided how much to tell him. She followed him to the door, her voice casual now. “If you remember something, please call me. I'm staying at Lady Longworth's house and I'll be there for a few more days.”

“There's nothing to remember.” Sabrina thought he sounded like Cliff, mumbling, grouchy, guilty.

“He's lying and he's not very good at it,” she said to Stephanie, at home.

“Is he afraid?” Stephanie asked. “What would he be afraid of?”

“Maybe Jana. If she's the princess he's waiting for, he wouldn't want her to know he broke his promise, especially if there are serious consequences. We have to decide how much to tell him, in case we want to talk to him again.”

“Why can't we just tell him what happened to Max?”

“Because . . .” Sabrina got up to add a log to the fire. They were in the upstairs sitting room, where they spent most of their time, the drapes pulled shut, the fire casting a flickering copper glow on their faces, cashmere afghans lying lightly over their laps as Sabrina lay on the chaise and Stephanie curled up in a deep armchair. A tea service was on the table between them, and now and then they exchanged a smile because it was so good to be together in this warm, private place. “Because I don't think we should tell anyone.”

“But why not? How can we find out who sent that man if we don't tell people what happened?”

“I don't know. I just think it's best not to tell anyone, at least for now. It's just a feeling I have. We can talk about it some more if you want; I'm sorry I can't give you a reason.”

“No, it's all right. I trust you.” Stephanie leaned forward and lifted the quilted cozy off the teapot to refill their cups. “But if Alan won't tell you anything, what do we do now?”

“Talk to Lazlo and Carr. I don't know how close they were to Max, but we do know they worked for him and they quarreled over their forgery business. Maybe somebody talked to them about Max, or asked questions that seemed unusual, or . . . Oh.”

“What?”

“I just remembered. The oddest thing. One day last spring, when I was over here, Denton came into Ambassadors and asked me if I'd heard from Max.”

“
Heard from Max?
”

“Yes, I thought he'd gone crazy. But when I said Max was dead, he said he was
presumed
dead, that they'd never found a body. And he thought he might have called me.”

“That's sort of scary, isn't it? What did you tell him?”

“That Max was his friend, so if he were alive he would have called him, not Stephanie Andersen in America. And then he said . . . wait a minute, I'll try to remember . . . He said, ‘Well, if he does surface—' and then he apologized for putting it that way—‘if he does and if he happens to call you, would you let me know? I somehow can't believe he's really dead, you know. He always seemed indestructible to me.' And there was something else, Stephanie. I think he was afraid.”

“Of what?”

“I don't know. But I'm going to call him.”

She spoke briefly on the telephone, then hung up. “Hunting in Germany. Back on Friday.”

“Well, but he couldn't really know anything, could he? It was just some kind of weird thing. Does Denton do weird things?”

“He wasn't crazy when I was married to him, if that's what you mean. And he wouldn't be frightened without a reason. Well, I'll talk to him on Friday. Or maybe you'll do it; you might be better with him. But first we'll find Rory Carr or Ivan Lazlo. Maybe both of them.”

At her desk, Sabrina called Michel Bernard and Jolie Fantôme, who had written the newspaper articles exposing Westbridge Imports and Max Stuyvesant. “They're on assignment in Canada, Mrs. Andersen,” said their assistant. “Can I help?” And when Sabrina told him what she wanted, he said, “Carr and Lazlo are London, both of them, at Wormwood Scrubs Prison in Shepherds Bush. They're in the lifers unit, you know, so they get only one VO—sorry, visiting order—a month, and it's only for ninety minutes. So you'll have to find out if they've had a visitor for October. They may not have, since it's early in
the month. If you need me for anything else, please call. Good luck.”

“They're in London,” Sabrina said. “Wormwood Scrubs Prison. Not far: Shepherds Bush, on the west side. Shall we each take one?”

“Oh. Yes, why not?” They looked at each other and burst out laughing. “Remember Dmitri?” Stephanie asked.

“And Theo, poor Theo, our—”

“—chauffeur. And those swimming parties when one of us would dive in and nobody knew—”

“—which one of us came up at which end of the pool.”

“And one of the embassy secretaries giving us a lecture and getting us mixed up and you'd say—”

“
I'm
Sabrina, Miss Derringer, that's Stephanie,' and she'd get so furious she'd just about choke on those eighteen strands of pearls she wore every day . . .”

They were laughing and they moved into each other's arms, holding each other tightly in the sheer joy of being together. “It's the same,” Stephanie whispered. “We haven't lost any of it.”

Yes, we have, Sabrina thought bleakly, but she did not say it because she did not want to shatter this time together. Right now they were caught up in the hunt, following it with the closeness and delight that had once been the most important things in their lives, and so this brief time itself became the most important thing in their lives, for as long as it lasted.

But too much has changed. And this is the last time. We'll never have it again.

*  *  *

The visiting room at Wormwood Scrubs Prison was narrow and low-ceilinged, with a long table for prisoners and their visitors. Impassive guards watched for the slightest movement that was out of the ordinary. The noise increased as visitors arrived; voices bounced off gray walls and the gray floor and ceiling. As she walked into the room Sabrina felt that the world had turned to gray, leaching
the color from her blue and green plaid suit, her blue hat and blue leather gloves. And when she took off her gloves her hands looked pasty beneath the unforgiving lights.

Through a far door, Rory Carr walked in, dressed in gray. His silver hair was slicked back, but that was all that was left of the impeccable art dealer Sabrina remembered. The skin of his neck hung in folds, his eyes were sunken and restless, the pouches beneath them puffed half-moons sliding down his cheeks. But his voice was almost the same: as unctuous as if he oiled it regularly. “Mrs. Andersen, I am very glad to see you. I've wanted for a long time to express to you my profound regret at the death of Lady Longworth. I sincerely hope you will believe me when I say that I had nothing but admiration and affection for her. I never knew she would be on the yacht when Ivan proposed his mad scheme. Of course I had no influence on his infantile and destructive behavior, but had I known, I could have tried to stop him. It haunts me that I might at least have tried.”

“No influence,” Sabrina murmured. The newspapers had reported that Rory Carr had been indicted as a principal—an accomplice, aider and abettor in the heinous crime—and found guilty of murder.

“None whatsoever.” Carr's voice deepened. “Lazlo is an animal; no one can deal with him. But foolishly I believed him and trusted him, and I am paying for my foolishness by being forced to greet you in these depressing surroundings.”

Sabrina sat in the hard straight chair and folded her hands on the table. The room was filling up and the clamor of dozens of voices crying, swearing, demanding, begging, forced everyone to speak even louder to be heard across the width of the table. She looked at Rory Carr's ruined face and told herself that he had been a partner with Lazlo in murdering fourteen people and in trying to murder her sister. She waited to feel hatred for him, but she felt nothing. Stephanie was alive and Carr's life was over.
So she could talk to him and make him feel she was not an enemy. “No one can deal with Ivan? I thought Max Stuyvesant dealt with him. And with you.”

“Well, Max . . . Ivan worked for Max for many, many years. At least fifteen. He did Max's bidding.”

“Except when he put a bomb under his stateroom.”

“Please.” Carr held up his hand. “I can't bear to think of it. Max was one of my favorite people, a good friend, a superb art aficionado, an absolute genius in smuggling. I admired him enormously.”

“Then it will please you to know that there is a rumor that he is alive.”

“
Alive?
” Carr's body seemed to surge across the table. A guard moved forward and he sat straight again, staring at a far wall. In a moment he smiled a gentle smile. “Dear Mrs. Andersen, that is not possible. Your credulity is charming—very American—but whatever you have heard cannot be true. I would be delighted if it were, but really, there is no way that Max could be alive. He was killed on his yacht last October. Everyone knows that.”

“There is speculation that in fact he wasn't killed; that he's been living in France.”

“Speculation? A vague word. What does it mean?” His condescending voice roughened at the edges. “Believe me, Mrs. Andersen, he is not alive!”

“You mean no one else has suggested to you that he might be living in Provence, running an export company in Marseilles, perhaps smuggling counterfeit money into Third World countries?”