Dreaming of the Bones

please.” Ralph crossed quickly to the door, and Kincaid and Gemma turned awkwardly in their chairs, trying to see behind them. ”I do wish you wouldn’t run up the stairs,” said Ralph, in a tone of affectionate exasperation.
    ”Don’t fuss, darling. You know it makes me feel old,” she answered, laughing.
    Kincaid stood quickly as the woman came into the room on Ralph’s arm. She was in her seventies, thought Kincaid, dressed all in gray, and matched her voice more perfectly than anyone he had ever met.
    ”Margery, this is Superintendent Kincaid, and Sergeant James, from Scotland Yard.” Ralph nodded at them. ”Dame Margery Lester.”
    She looked the picture of the famous novelist, Kincaid thought, this woman whom his mother so admired. And if she still possessed a great talent, she had once been blessed with great beauty as well. Margery Lester was still beautiful, patrician, blue-blooded even to the faint blue cast to her porcelain skin. It surprised him that his mother, with her Labour leanings, should be so enamored of a woman who embodied generations of wealth and breeding, but perhaps he was underestimating his mother. Perhaps, he thought as he met Margery Lester’s bright and intelligent eyes, he was underestimating them both.
    ”Dame Margery,” he said, and took her hand. When she’d greeted Gemma, he insisted she take his chair. ”My mother’s a great admirer of yours,” he added as he moved to stand beside Gemma. ”I’m beginning to wonder if I might have missed out on something.”
    ”They’re not ‘women’s’ books,” said Margery, smoothing the skirt of her pale gray suit over her knees. ”I quite despise this tendency to put flowery covers on them, but the marketing people will have their way. I can only hope husbands pick them up when their wives aren’t looking and discover there’s a good story inside.” She smiled as if anything might be forgiven a person who read.
    ”Would anyone like something to drink?” asked Ralph, slipping gracefully into the role of host. ”The sun must be over the yardarm somewhere, and it is Saturday, after all. I can do G and Ts quite adequately, except for the limes, I’m afraid.”
    ”Never touch the stuff,” said Margery briskly. ”Doctor’s orders. I wouldn’t say no to a small sherry, though.”
    Ralph glanced inquiringly at Kincaid, who found himself suddenly of a mind to become a little better acquainted with Margery Lester. ”I wouldn’t mind following Dame Margery’s example,” he said, and sensed Gemma’s startled glance before she murmured an acceptance.
    While Ralph busied himself with retrieving a bottle and a set of fragile-looking rose-colored crystal from a cabinet, Kincaid leaned over and, raising his eyebrow, whispered in Gemma’s ear, ”We’re not exactly on duty, after all.”
    ”What brings you here, Mr. Kincaid, if you don’t mind my nosiness?” asked Dame Margery, and he wondered if her hearing was as acute as her wit.
    Ralph looked up from pouring the sherry. ”They’d some questions about Victoria McClellan.”
    ”Oh, that was too dreadful.” Margery shook her head. ”I met her several times, you know, at Faculty functions, and thought her absolutely charming. One just doesn’t expect things like that to happen to someone one knows.” She glanced at Ralph as he handed her a sherry. ”It makes our little project seem quite frivolous, doesn’t it?”
    ”It wouldn’t have seemed frivolous to Henry,” said Ralph as he offered a glass to Gemma, then Kincaid.
    ”What project is that, Dame Margery?” asked Gemma. ”I’ve been helping Ralph put Henry Whitecliff’s notes into some sort of publishable form. Poor Henry died last summer before he could finish his manuscript.” Margery’ lifted her glass to Ralph, who had poured his own sherry. ”Cheers,” she said, and took a small sip.
    ”That name rings a bell,” said Kincaid, frowning. ”Why does everyone refer to him as ‘poor’ Henry?”
    ”It’s unconscious, I suppose,” said Margery with a sigh. ”But it does seem as though poor Henry—see, I’ve done it again.” She smiled and deliberately corrected herself. ”It seems as though Henry Whitecliff had to bear more than his share of tragedy, and he was such a lovely, kind man that he seemed even less deserving of it than most.”
    Ralph returned to his position at the edge of his desk. ”Henry’s only daughter disappeared just before her sixteenth birthday. I remember