Miranda James - Classified as Murder

My host rose and came slowly around the desk to shake my hand. He was dressed as I had always seen him, in a suit of vintage cut. His face had a pinched look, as if he were in pain.

When he spoke, he sounded tired. “Good afternoon, Mr. Harris. And you too, Diesel.” He reached forward and caressed Diesel’s head. “Such a beautiful creature.”

“Thank you,” I said. Diesel thanked him with a warble.

I let my gaze roam around the large room. The proportions were generous, about thirty feet by forty, I estimated. The walls were covered by bookshelves that reached within a couple of feet of the high ceiling. The outside wall bore two deep bay windows, one on either side of the desk, with bookshelves inset below them. Every shelf was full of books, and there were cabinets around the room as well. The bookshelves on one wall were covered, their contents obscured behind glass. Perhaps these were the cases that held the rarest books in the collection, while the wooden cabinets probably held other treasures. I was itching to explore.

“We’ll join the others in a few minutes, Nigel,” Mr. Delacorte said. “Go ahead and serve their tea now.”

“Certainly, sir,” Truesdale said, with a slight bow. He withdrew quietly from the room.

“Please be seated.” Mr. Delacorte indicated a leather armchair near his desk as he resumed his seat.

Diesel stretched out on the floor beside my chair, and I waited for Mr. Delacorte to continue.

“In a few minutes you will be meeting my family,” he said. “I don’t suppose you’re acquainted with any of them.”

“No, but I did meet Mrs. Hubert Morris briefly. She was coming down the stairs when Diesel and I came in.”

With a sad expression, Mr. Delacorte asked, “And how was Eloise dressed?”

“In a hoop skirt,” I said.

Mr. Delacorte sighed. “My nephew’s wife has a somewhat tenuous acquaintance with reality much of the time. She’s a dear girl and does no harm to anyone, but when she is in one of her less-lucid periods, she often dresses like Scarlett O’Hara.”

“She did look very charming,” I said, trying to be diplomatic. “Although, I must admit, for a moment I thought I was seeing things.”

“Eloise tends to have that effect on people,” Mr. Delacorte said dryly. “Eloise’s husband, Hubert, is the son of my sister, Daphne, who is a widow. They will both be present for tea, as will the rest of the family. Afternoon tea on Saturdays is almost a ritual for us.” He allowed a brief smile.

“A pleasant one,” I said.

Mr. Delacorte went on. “In addition there are Stewart and Cynthia, the grandchildren of my two deceased younger brothers. They all live here in the family home.”

“I look forward to meeting them all,” I said.

“None of them is particularly charming,” Mr. Delacorte continued with ruthless candor. “Though I have done what I can to see that family obligations are fulfilled.” His face darkened for a moment. “To think that one of them is stealing from me—well, it’s infuriating, after everything I’ve done for them.”

“Any clues at all that point to one of them specifically?” I felt Diesel rubbing against my leg. Mr. Delacorte’s suddenly sharp tone had probably made him nervous. I scratched his back for a moment.

“Not yet, though I can certainly rule out Eloise.” Mr. Delacorte’s voice softened. “She can be quite intelligent when she’s lucid, but I think slyness of this sort is beyond her. The same goes for my sister, Daphne. She is too preoccupied with the state of her health to pay attention to anything else.”

“She’s an invalid, then?” I asked.

Mr. Delacorte snorted, and his face gained a splash of color. “To hear her tell it, she is. But from my perspective it’s nothing more than a hobby.”

That was an odd way of describing it, I thought, but I could see what he meant. When I was a branch manager in the Houston Public Library system, I had encountered two different people, one of each gender, who came to the library at least once a week to consult medical reference books. Both of them appeared convinced they had a whole host of ailments, although they looked fine to me—physically, at least.

“No, the thief has to be one of three people: Hubert, Stewart, or Cynthia. Both Stewart and Cynthia are bright and fully capable of such a thing.” Mr. Delacorte paused to grimace. “Hubert is not very bright, but where money is concerned, he’ll go to great lengths to get it without actually having to work for it.”

I wasn’t certain what further response was expected of me, so I nodded and waited. Diesel had settled down again by the side of my chair.

Mr. Delacorte stood and gestured with both arms out-flung. “Here is the collection, of course. On Monday I will give you a tour of it, so to speak, before we begin work. If I start showing it to you now, we will never make it to tea.”

“I’m certainly looking forward to seeing it all,” I said. “I’m sure you must have many fascinating items.”

“Yes, I do,” Mr. Delacorte replied. “This collection has afforded me great satisfaction over the years. Building it has been a labor of love. As physical artifacts, books are astonishing.” He shook his head. “I simply cannot understand this current fascination with books on the computer. They’re nothing but a string of words on a screen. I can’t imagine relaxing with some sort of computer to read. But then I suppose I am a dinosaur, in this as in so many things.”

“You’re not alone,” I said, rather moved by his eloquence. “For those who like electronic books, they’re fine. I’m delighted they’re reading. But I’d rather hold a physical book in my hands.”

Mr. Delacorte nodded. “Just so. I’m grateful you have agreed to assist me, Charlie.” He ambled around the desk. “Now let’s go have some tea.”

Diesel and I followed him to the door and down the hall to what I would have called the living room had it been in my house. That name was far too pedestrian for the beautiful chamber we entered. “Parlor” or “drawing room” seemed more suitable.

As large as the library, this room also had bay windows in both outside walls, and the furniture no doubt represented a fortune in antiques. There were so many beautiful objects in the room that I couldn’t take many of them in as I followed Mr. Delacorte toward the fireplace. Two large sofas were placed at right angles to the fireplace, facing each other. A heavily carved, elongated table—was it rosewood?—separated them. Chairs were placed behind the sofas, and a small settee completed the rectangle, oriented to the fireplace, about three feet from the two sofas.

The desultory chatter I heard when we first entered petered out by the time Mr. Delacorte stood in front of the fireplace and faced his family. I stopped with Diesel about three feet away and waited for my host to introduce us.

While I waited, I glanced around at the people in the room. The first person I examined was Eloise Morris. She sat between the sofas with her voluminous skirts spread about her. No chair was visible, so she had to have a stool of some sort beneath her.

The man on a sofa about three feet to her right had to be her husband, Hubert. Roughly my age, he wore an outmoded suit of fabric shiny from age and wear. His slickedback, shoulder-length dark hair flipped up at the ends in a fashion that reminded me of Marlo Thomas in her That Girl days. His face was nondescript, one easily overlooked in a crowd or even in a small group.

An elderly woman, obviously Hubert’s mother, Daphne, sat at one end of the other sofa and rubbed at her forehead with one hand while the other clutched at her throat. Her rusty black dress had seen better days, and her heavily lined face looked remarkably like that of her brother.