Free Gray Ghost Murders (9781101606070) by Keith McCafferty Page B

that you would have quite a bit of interaction with the members. We are on vacation here and we—and I speak for all of us—are determined that the problem that has arisen does not detract from our time together. Frankly, none of us with the exception of Kenneth are young. We don’t worry the small stuff anymore, or even the big stuff unless it involves a matter of health. I would rather not resolve this issue if your presence proved disruptive.”
    â€œSo this evening was an audition. To see if I met your standards?”
    â€œYes. But to tell you the truth, as soon as I saw the stem of that pipe sticking from your pocket and the bamboo rod I knew you would be the best possible fit.”
    â€œKenneth,” Stranahan said, as if the word were new to the tongue. “I’m not sure he’s told me the truth about anything since I’ve met him.”
    â€œKenneth is exactly who he told you he was. When he booked you to fish, that’s what he wanted to do, fish. Then when he found out who you were from your friend, Mr. Meslik, we came up with a plan to lure you down here. It was the club’s money Kenneth paid you. I thought if we brought you here under false pretense, you deserved to be compensated regardless of the outcome.”
    â€œSo those really are his flies in the box?”
    â€œIndeed so. Sean, when I say Kenneth is in the upper tier of our country’s fly tiers I mean the top twenty, the top three if you limit the discussion to the Catskill school of tying. If you agree to take our money you will meet a couple of his peers who are much better known. You may recognize the names.”
    Sean swallowed the last of his whiskey.
    â€œLet me refill that.” Willoughby came back with the two tin cups. He leaned forward in his chair, his owl-like eyes narrowed as he fixed Sean with a look of scrutiny. No downward glance, no bashful expression now.
    â€œWhat do you know about collecting fishing flies? Let me put that another way. What would be the most sought-after flies for a collector?”
    Sean searched the dusty drawers of his mind for a name. “Dame Juliana Something-or-other. The English nun. Wasn’t she the first person to write about fly fishing? Back in the fifteenth or sixteenth century? I remember a rumor about her tying flies with the fur of her cats. I think one of her flies would bring an awful lot of money.”
    Willoughby was nodding his head. “One of Juliana Berner’s flies would indeed bring a pretty penny today. Unfortunately, the good Dame’s existence may be as much a rumor as her method of tying. She is given credit for writing
A Treatise of Fishing with an Angle
in the second edition of
The Boke of St. Albans
, in 1496. But there are no records of her in Sopwell Abbey, where she was supposedly a prioress, so it may well be that Dame Juliana only exists because we want her to. She is fly fishing’s Eve, as the historian Paul Shullery said. She gives our sport a tidy source of origin.”
    â€œIf not her, then what about some of the fancy salmon flies, or a trout fly tied by someone like Rube Cross.”
    â€œYou bring up two distinct categories of collecting. First, collecting with regard to beauty and intricacy of construction, such as salmon flies. A Green Highlander or Jock Scott from a classicist such as Polly Sorenson is a work of art incorporating exotic feathers and requiring several hours to tie. The second category are flies tied by famous fishermen, such as Lee Wulff or Art Flick. Who would you say is the most famous trout fisherman our country has produced?”
    â€œThat’s easy. Theodore Gordon.”
    â€œYou know your history. Gordon, who was tubercular and somewhat of a hermit, took English fly patterns and reinvented them to match the hatching insects in New York’s Catskill rivers. Wrongly or rightly, he is considered the father of American dry fly fishing. He was quite secretive about