Free Aunt Dimity's Christmas by Nancy Atherton Page B

home,” I said, gazing out at the falling snow, “yet he chooses to live among the poor. He befriends outcasts. When faced with violence, he turns the other cheek. He gives up his own meals—sacrifices himself—so that others may eat.” I smoothed the canvas carryall with my palms. “If Kit’s crazy, then Christ was crazy, too.”
    â€œAh, I see.” Julian stroked his goatee meditatively. “You think Kit might be a religious fanatic.”
    â€œI think Kit’s a good man!” I exclaimed heatedly. “And the world’s in a pretty sorry state if we’ve started classifying goodness as a form of mental illness.”
    Julian gave me a sharp glance, then faced forward. “Christ didn’t stand in the rain watching invisible airplanes,” he said. “And Christ was never confined to an asylum.”
    I let the words flow over me, unheeded. I couldn’t explain all of Kit’s behavior. I didn’t know for sure why he’d gone to the airfields, or the Heathermoor Asylum.
    But I intended to find out.
    I returned home to find my sons on the living-room floor, surrounded by empty cardboard boxes—their favorite toys—while my father-in-law, immaculate as ever, watched over them from the comfort of a nearby armchair. After greeting Will and Rob, and covertly scanning them for signs of damage, I sat on the floor with them and filled Willis, Sr., in on my very eventful day. I expected my eminently sensible father-in-law to fall in line with popular opinion on the subject of Kit Smith’s sanity, but, as usual, he surprised me.
    â€œThe evidence is flimsy at best,” he pronounced. “Mr. Smith’s actions, in my opinion, remain open to interpretation. We cannot know for certain what he meant when he told Mrs. Somerville that he was ‘keeping watch for the airmen.’ Perhaps he was speaking metaphorically. Perhaps he was being facetious, in an attempt to discourage her from intruding further into his private affairs.”
    â€œHe stood in the rain for eight hours,” I pointed out.
    â€œThat is … unusual,” Willis, Sr., conceded.
    â€œAnd what about the Heathermoor Asylum?” I asked. “It’s pretty hard to ignore the ID card’s implications.”
    â€œYou might telephone the institution and inquire after Mr. Smith,” said Willis, Sr.
    I pulled Rob out of a cardboard box and into my lap. “They wouldn’t release patient information to me,” I said. “I don’t have the necessary authority. Besides, I don’t want to run the risk of alerting them to Kit’s whereabouts. Ifhe’s absent without leave, they might try to round him up again.”
    â€œQuite so.” Willis, Sr., tented his hands over his silk-lined waistcoat and tapped the tips of his index fingers together. “Perhaps we could ask Miss Kingsley to look into the matter.”
    I gaped at my father-in-law, awestruck. “William, you’re a genius. I’ll get right on it.”
    Miss Kingsley was the concierge at the Flamborough Hotel in London, and a longtime friend of the Willis family. She was discreet, efficient, and blessed with an uncanny ability to ferret out information on the most obscure individuals. If anyone could bore through a wall of institutional confidentiality, it would be the redoubtable Miss Kingsley.
    â€œWould it be too great an imposition to request that you postpone your telephone call to Miss Kingsley until after we have dined?” said Willis, Sr. “I have fed my grandsons, but I have not yet had the opportunity to feed myself.”
    A wave of guilt dampened my jubilation. I’d been so preoccupied with Kit Smith that I hadn’t bothered to ask how my father-in-law’s day had gone, much less given a moment’s thought to our evening meal.
    â€œDinner’ll be on the table in twenty minutes,” I promised, and when Willis, Sr., began to