Page 93 of The Dead Come to Stay
Arthur reached tentatively forward to pick up the ring: white gold set with twin stones, yellow and deep red.
“Topaz and jacinth,” Arthur said softly. “The stones of Excalibur.” He put it upon his left ring finger, a perfect fit.
“It’s everything,” he whispered.
Chen picked up a champagne glass and set it next to him.
“Congratulations, love.” She tipped her glass against his, a tiny chimera of tinkling crystal. Jo wasn’t sure she could do champagne on her emotion-knotted stomach, but reached for a glass to toast. That’s when she noticed the spine.
“There’s a book in there,” she said. Beneath the paper and to one side, a corner peeked. Leather, hard-bound, overstuffed and wrapped with string. She lifted it up and out. “A journal, I think?”
“Open it,” Arthur encouraged. Jo handed it over and his fingers worked at the knots, but once released from tension the pages surged. A folded sheet fell to the floor.
“I’ve got it,” Gwilym said, bending down.
Arthur let him, and instead opened the inside cover with Jo looking on. “Family history,” it said, and beneath, in Aiden’s careful print: “William, Gwen, Evelyn... and Violet.”
Jo lingered over the last word, her own sticking in her throat.Oh God.
“Jo?” Gwilym asked, lifting of a sheet of weathered paper. “It’s Ardemore’s insignia.”
Arthur took the letter and tucked it back inside the journal. Then he closed the cover, wrapped it once, and held it out to Jo.
The bound book hovered above the Persian rug, a bright apple on the stalk of Arthur’s outstretched arm.
“I think this belongs to you,” he said.
***
Gerald Standish held court at a corner table beneath an enormous painting of a fox hunt on the moors; it didn’t go with the modern decor, but itwasvaguely familiar. Standish sat near enough to the bar to be carrying on a conversation with two men seated there, but far enough to shout it. Shirtsleeves and a tweed vest, with exactly the sort of trousers golfers wore circa 1960, he had a flushed face, red nose, gray-white tufts of unrulyhair and appeared to be in his late sixties. He didn’t look like a respected physician. To MacAdams he was the perfect representation of a harmless old fool.
“May I join you?” MacAdams asked.
“Eh? Certainly! New member?” he asked. MacAdams unfolded his police identification, but this didn’t put a damper on his welcome. “A detective. Well, we’ve had a fair few of those, too, in our years—haven’t we, boys? Pint?”
Theboyswere all at least ten years older than MacAdams, who declined the drink.
“I actually want to ask you about art,” he said. “I understand you collect.”
“I do. This one, see?” He thumbed to the oil painting behind him, which like the posters in the concourse bore a little gold plaque. The artist’s name wasn’t present, but Gerald’s own. “I lent it, you know. Like it? It’s of the countryside just north of Abington.”
MacAdams took a seat. “You’ve been there?”
“Good course over that way. Do you golf, Detective?”
“I solve crime.”
“Ah, of course. I bet you’ve come to ask about ancient artifacts.” The surprise must have registered on MacAdams’s stiff features. Standish made a great show of cleaning his glasses. “I do have adoctoratein the subject,” he added.
That was unexpected.
“I thought you were an oil and gas magnate.”
“Oh-ho? Surprised an industry man managed a degree? I’ve a PhD from Cambridge, archaeology, I’ll have you know.”
Laughter like gunshots erupted from the bar.
“Watch out, Officer, he’ll have you to his museum!”
