Free Naked Once More by Elizabeth Peters

Marjorie had not bothered to answer the door,” he explained. “It is impossible to teach her proper manners, but she is a devoted old family retainer, and one can hardly… But here I am, keeping you standing in the hall. Come in, come in. We’ve been so anxious to meet you.”
    The room into which he bowed her showed the signs of Kathleen’s renovations, and also the years of neglect that had followed. The furnishings were all in excellent taste, but sun had faded the blue damask hangings and the upholstery of couches and chairs was badly worn.
    There were five people present. The young woman perched stiffly on the edge of her chair had the same curly dark hair and gentle profile with which Jacqueline was familiar from Kathleen Darcy’s photographs. She had to be—yes, she was—Kathleen’s youngest half-sister, Sherri. The name didn’t suit her; she should have been called Jane or Mary, something as plain and demure as she appeared to be. She murmured wordlessly in response to the introduction, but did not look at Jacqueline. Her eyes remained fixed on the old woman who sat on the sofa next to the fireplace, with a knitted shawl across her lap and another around her shoulders.
    If Jacqueline had not known better, she would have supposed it was Kathleen’s grandmother, not her mother. She looked eighty-five instead of the sixty-odd she really was. Her hair was snow-white, her crumpled pink face was fixed in a rather silly smile, and her blue eyes remained slightly out of focus even when she greeted Jacqueline with a soft “How do you do?”
    Behind the sofa, in a stiff row like wooden soldiers, stood three men. The one on the left had a head of beautiful snowy-white hair and a luxuriant matching mustache. The hair of the man in the middle shaded from brown to gray, and his mustache was more restrained. The last of the three was smooth-shaven, with hair of dull, lifeless brown. They were obviously members of the same family; in fact, they might have been images of the same man at three different stages of life. They wore identical three-piece dark suits and white shirts. Granddad and grandson sported ties of discreet burgundy and gray. The tie of the man in the middle was bright blue—a touch of rampant individualism that stood out like a neon sign.
    St. John introduced them: Ronald Craig, Senior; Ronald Craig, Junior; and ditto the Third. The family lawyers.
    Jacqueline sat down and accepted a glass of overly sweet sherry. The assemblage was not so much formidable as annoying; she had hoped to concentrate her wiles on St. John and his doting mother, who had been described as a sweet, soft-spoken little lady. So far the lawyers had said nothing, but Jacqueline felt sure they would in time. Where was the other heir? There were two half-sisters, the offspring of Mrs. Darcy’s third, and surely last, marriage. Three husbands… She had more stamina than I have, Jacqueline thought cynically. She glanced at the seeming octogenarian, wrapped in woolly shawls like a giant cocoon, and her skin crawled with a chilly reminder. “Death hath closed Helen’s eyes.…” Okay, fair enough; it happens to everyone and is thus endurable, if only barely. But this ignominious interval between golden youth and dissolution, this descent into living decay… Not fair, not fair.
    She was about to inquire after the second sister when the door opened and not one but five people entered: a woman in her mid-twenties and a stocky man who was obviously her husband, and the father of the three children: a dark-haired, sub-nosed girl aged about eight or nine; a younger girl; and a male toddler who promptly pulled his hand from his mother’s grasp, trotted out into the middle of the floor, squatted, and fell into a pose of profound concentration. It had been a good many years since Jacqueline had had to deal with such a situation, but the signs were those no mother could forget: eyes screwed shut, muscles tensed, cheeks crimson. A rich and