Free The Collected Stories of Amanda Cross by Amanda Cross Page B

with accustomed patience or anxiety, for their people on the other side of the fence. By the time Kate had to leave to meet her class, she had made up her mind.
    “ IT IS, OF course, none of my business,” Kate said to Roxanna, as they had a drink before ordering their dinner. “That phrase is always a sign that someone thinks it is her business, or has determined to make it so. Do you mind?”
    “Hardly,” Roxanna said. “I used to wonder what it would be like to have dinner with Professor Fansler. Thank you for the privilege: my business is your business.”
    “Very graciously put. Perhaps you had better order another drink.”
    “Oh dear,” Roxanna said.
    “I intend nothing more sinister than blackmail,” Kate said reassuringly.
    “I know: on behalf of Arrie. Blackmail will not be necessary. From you, that is; I’ve already employed it on her behalf. Is that what you guessed?”
    “It would hardly be fair to get you to tell me what happened, and then claim to have guessed it all.”
    “Okay,” Roxanna said. “You tell me. And I’ll take that second drink. May I correct you as you go along?”
    “Please do,” Kate said. “My hope is that you will end up assuring me about poor Jasper’s safety.”
    Roxanna nodded.
    “Your father, the revered Professor Witherspoon, has been after what money he can get out of your mother. Doubtless he has another young lady in tow. I say ‘lady,’ because I don’t really think a
woman
would have anything to do with him. Did he try to retrieve from your mother something he had given her and now wanted to give to another? A ring, a brooch–it can’t have been too big, or Jasper wouldn’t have swallowed it, however imbedded in a piece of meat. Although the way he gulps, dancing around on his hind legs, anything is possible.”
    “Not a ring,” Roxanna said. “An emerald. He had had it taken out of the ring. He said he was going to get it reset. It’s the most valuable thing my mother had. It was in her family for years; they may have pawned it, but they never sold it.”
    “He pretended to her it needed to be reset?”
    “Nothing so civilized. She would have been suspicious immediately at any kindly offer, I’m afraid. He talked her out of taking it to the detoxification place, said it might be stolen. She didn’t believe him, but when he set his mind on something, she didn’t have a chance. I heard them arguing about it one night. So did Desmond, the guy you met; he was there with me. He held me back from interfering; he was right.”
    “He’s very handsome, even for an actor,” Kate said.
    “He’s especially handsome for a lawyer, which is what he is,” Roxanna responded. “We were trying to allay my father’s suspicions. He knew we’d overheard him. So when he emerged that evening, we pretended innocence, on Desmond’s advice, and I introduced him to Dad as an actor. His looks, as you observed, made that easy.”
    “I’ve lost count,” Kate said, “but I don’t think I’m doing too well. Shall we order dinner?”
    “The details need cleaning up, but you certainly seem to be onto the main story line. Go on.”
    “There isn’t much more. Somehow, later, needing to hide the stolen emerald, the Professor fed it to Jasper. Anyone who observed Jasper’s routine with Arrie would have thought of it, whether the motive was greed or detection. Was he going to kill the dog?”
    “Of course. Or pay someone else to. Fortunately, I guessed what he was up to. I had caught him examining the stone. I demanded it and he wouldn’t give it to me. Sometime later, he came in to promise me he wouldn’t take it out of the house. There was something about the exact way he said this that made me suspicious. I pretended to calm down and then went to look for the stone; it wasn’t where it was supposed to be. My father went into calm assurances that he didn’t have it, and hadn’t hid it, urging me to search him. He was so smug about it all; that, and the