AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m sorry we lost your fish,” Ravi says, sounding like a little boy.
“It’s not my fish,” Ivy says, gently. “It’s your fish.”
“But you’re the one who’s always loved it most,” he says, then reaches to put an arm around Ivy. They walk together toward the stairs and begin to climb.
Mrs. Vanders stares at them as they go, a wary expression on her face. Then she holds a hand out to Lucy without even glancing at her. Lucy passes the sculptureless pedestal back to Mrs. Vanders. Lucy’s eyes flicker upward once, to Colin, who’s still standing beside Jane, white-faced. Lucy pulls her phone from her pocket.
“Are you okay?” Jane asks Colin, because he doesn’t look well.
“It’s hard to see Ravi so upset,” Colin says.
“He sure knows how to make a scene,” Jane says, wondering if this is why Mrs. Vanders didn’t want to put ideas in Ravi’s head about the Vermeer.
But why is she being so cagey about calling the FBI?
“The truth is, I’m worried about Lucy too,” Colin says. “It’s a humiliation for something like this to happen right under her nose, especially on the tail of losing that Rubens.”
“Right,” Jane says.
“It’s as if the thief is making a public point of not taking Lucy seriously as a private investigator,” says Colin. “It’s very personal.”
“Who do you think did it?”
Colin breathes a laugh, then shrugs. “Someone foolish.”
“Isn’t it scary?” says Jane. “To think there’s a thief in the house?”
“Sure,” he says. “But don’t worry too much. We’ve got Lucy on the case.”
“Do you know who Lucy suspects?”
“She doesn’t share that stuff with me,” says Colin, with a sharp little resentment that makes Jane curious. She badly wants to get back to her rooms, where she can think through all these new developments in peace. But as she turns to go, Colin says, “Kiran mentioned you make umbrellas. Is that what you meant earlier when you said you were artistic?”
Jane is startled. “It’s nothing,” she says, trying to build a dam that will hold back Colin’s interest. “Just a hobby.”
“I appreciate that,” he says. “Still, it’s a pretty cool hobby.”
“Thanks,” Jane says, turning to go again, but finding that he moves with her. Jane doesn’t want Colin to go with her. She stops again.
“I’m sorry,” he says immediately. “I swear I’m not stalking you. I’m just interested in the umbrellas.”
“I don’t really want to talk about them,” Jane says, “and I definitely don’t want to show them to you.”
“Fair enough,” Colin says. “Forgive me—I can’t help myself, really. It’s my job to be nosy whenever I hear about some new, interesting kind of art.”
“I’m only a beginner!” Jane says. “They’re a mess! They’re not art!”
Colin is all outstretched, surrendering hands and a smiling, open face. “I know,” he says. “Again, I’m sorry. Forget I brought it up. Here, I’ll prove it to you by walking you to your rooms and whispering not a single word about umbrellas. Okay?”
“I suppose,” Jane says.
As they walk up the stairs, Jasper follows.
“The Brancusi is an odd choice for a thief,” Colin says. “It’s not small. It’d be hard to sneak it out.”
“What does the fish look like?” asks Jane. “Will I know it if I see it?”
“It looks like a long, flat, ovalish, white sliver of marble,” Colin says. “Very abstract, as fish go.”
“Is it—beautiful?”
“It’s not really my taste,” he says, “but it’s certainly valuable.”
“Is the fish worth anything without its pedestal?”
“Sure, it’s worth something,” says Colin. “But Brancusi’s pedestals are critically important to his sculptures. That fish is meant to balance on that particular pedestal. They go together. Really, it would be ridiculous to display them separately.”
“So, then, this is a pretty strange theft.”
“Yes,” says Colin. “It’s a kind of vandalism, really. Will you just look at this crazy kitsch?” he says, tapping the head of Captain Polepants with his foot as they go by. “Uncle Buckley loves this stuff.”
“Really?” says Jane, wanting to know more about the spoiled and famous Uncle Buckley. “I guess I’ve been imagining someone very . . . sophisticated.”
“Oh, he’s got eclectic tastes too. Actually—oh, never mind,” says Colin, raising another yielding hand. “I forgot I’m not allowed to say anything about umbrellas.”
He’s baiting Jane. It’s working too. Now Jane really wants to know what Colin was going to say about Uncle Buckley and umbrellas. “As long as it’s not about my umbrellas, I don’t mind.”
“Well,” he says, grinning, “I was only going to say that Uncle Buckley collects umbrellas. He practically has one for every outfit.”
“He does?”
“Oh, yes. Polka dots, stripes, floral prints. He’s always wishing more people did representational things too, like, making the canopy look like the head of a frog, or a Volkswagen Beetle, or whatever.”
“Really!”
“He’s the sort of person who could help you someday,” Colin says, “if you ever decided you were ready to show anyone your umbrellas. But now I’ve probably crossed the line again, right?”
“What do you mean, help me?” Jane asks, because she can’t stop herself. She makes representational umbrellas; her eggshell umbrella is representational. It’s one of her best, really, one of the few she might be willing to show someone.
“Well,” says Colin, “he finds buyers for art. I understand that you think your umbrellas aren’t art. But if you keep working at it, maybe someday they will be, and a partnership with someone like Uncle Buckley is the sort of thing that could make an artist’s life explode. Like, in a good way.”
Jane has stopped in her tracks once again. Aunt Magnolia? Is this why you wanted me to come here? So that someone would see my umbrellas, and make my life explode?
Colin is lingering beside Jane awkwardly, scratching his head, swinging himself around to look at the art on the walls while Jane stands there having her interior monologue.
“Are you okay?” he finally asks.
“If I show you my umbrellas,” Jane says, “will you remember that I’m only a beginner?”
“Of course I will,” Colin says, smiling broadly. “I’m not an asshole, you know.”
Jane has a feeling that whether or not Colin is an asshole, this is exactly the result he hoped for when he promised to walk her to her rooms and not whisper a word about umbrellas.
Nonetheless, Jane opens her door, takes a deep, jellyfish breath, and ushers him in.
* * *
In Jane’s morning room, Colin weaves among her umbrellas, making thoughtful noises, lifting them to the light, and testing the tension of each one. He opens them with rough, swift movements that make Jane nervous that he’ll hurt them.
“Hey!” she says. “Gentle! They’re handmade!”
Jasper comes and leans against Jane’s feet, watching Colin anxiously. Bending, twirling, studying each creation fiercely, Colin reminds Jane of Sherlock. “It couldn’t be more obvious,” Jane expects him to say as he lifts her ivory and black lace spiderweb specimen to the light, thrusting it upward like a saber. “The butler did it, in the library, with the spiderweb umbrella.”
What he actually says is, “You know, until this moment, I’ve never understood my uncle’s fascination with umbrellas. Some of these are really something.”
To Jane’s alarm, her eyes fill with tears. She immediately turns away from him and touches her sleeve to her face.
“Why a spiderweb?” he says.
