“Robyn has half a dozen volunteers to take her if the son doesn’t want her,” Mother said. “She’ll be fine.”
She looked around and shook her head.
“Such a lonely man,” Mother said.
“At least he had a cat for company,” I said.
“He was always complaining that she was an incompetent mouser,” Mother said.
“But did he get rid of her because of that?”
Mother held her hands up as if conceding my point.
“I can think of one thing that his missing file could be about,” she said. “It was just after Mrs. Thornefield died that our former rector broke his legs, poor dear. And with him laid up, and not the most practical soul at the best of times, he put Riddick in charge of disposing of Mrs. Thornefield’s belongings. And since Riddick had no idea whatsoever what any of it was worth, he was just going to call in a junk dealer to give him a bid on the lot. Imagine how much we would have lost if he had and the junk dealer he’d called had been a sharp or dishonest operator!”
“And Mr. Vess found out about it and sounded the alarm?” I asked.
“He most certainly did not,” she said. “He was as clueless as Riddick. But I’d been to see Mrs. Thornefield often enough, and I knew she had some very nice things, so I put a stop to the junk dealer plan.”
She was back to her Joan of Arc pose.
“So we’re having a rummage sale instead?”
“A very elegant auction and estate sale,” Mother said. “Poor Riddick took it hard. He was so mortified at the mistake he’d been about to make that he handed in his resignation. Dr. Womble talked him out of it, of course—made him promise that he’d at least see the new rector in. Maybe the missing file is about that whole unfortunate episode. But of course even Barliman could see that it wasn’t Riddick’s fault. He blamed Dr. Womble for not supervising him properly.”
“Do you think that’s what led to the rector’s retirement?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “The bishop had been ignoring Barliman’s complaints about dear Dr. Womble for years. It was the broken legs that made him realize the poor man just wasn’t up to it any more. And now that Robyn’s here, perhaps Barliman archived the missing file and just didn’t yet remove the hanging folder. “
“It wasn’t in any of the file drawers,” I said. “Maybe he just moved the contents to the file he’s keeping on Riddick.”
“He’s keeping a file on Riddick, too?” Mother exclaimed.
“He keeps files on everyone,” I said. “He’s even got one on you.”
Mother insisted on going back up to the office to see her file. She seemed to find its contents alternately amusing and exasperating. I was feeling a little down because my one potentially exciting and significant find seemed to be dwindling to just another of Vess’s petty, misguided crusades. Riddick’s file did contain a lot of notes about how he’d almost mishandled the Thornefield estate, although from reading the file you’d have gotten the idea that it was Mr. Vess, not Mother, who’d saved the day. So Mother might have explained away the one interesting thing I’d found.
When Mother had finished laughing over her own file and the general petty nature of Vess’s files, we left the house, and I locked up and taped the key back under the mat. And then I scuffed the snow around enough to disguise the fact that the mat had been moved.
“Doesn’t make much of an effort for the holiday, does he?” Mother said.
She was right. No wreaths, no candles, no tree—not even any Christmas cards lying about. Maybe that was what had made the place seem so curiously forlorn.
“How does he get away with it, I wonder,” I said. “Doesn’t Caerphilly have some kind of ordinance requiring every household to make at least a minimum holiday decorating effort?”
“I wish it did,” Mother said. I had been joking. She was probably serious.
“Speaking of making an effort for the holiday,” I said. “I’m heading back to town. I have things to do.”
“I’m going to get the groceries for my Christmas dinner,” Mother said. “Your brother was going to help me carry everything—I don’t suppose you could—”
“I’ll help you hunt him down, no problem,” I said, hoping to head off a request that I take her shopping. “Just don’t ask him for any fresh ducks.”
“What are you doing now, dear?” she asked.
If that was an attempt to enlist me in the shopping, I was prepared.
“I’m going to drop by and talk to the chief,” I said. “And figure out some way to get him to look for that missing file without getting both of us thrown in jail for trespassing and interfering with an investigation.”