her presence was always an exercise in feeling ungainly and decidedly unattractive, and observing the woman's understated elegance, Barbara wondered how St. James' wife placidly endured the fact that her husband and Lady Helen worked side by side three days each week in his forensic laboratory on the top floor of the house.
Lady Helen reached for her handbag and pulled from it a small, black notebook. "After several hours with Debrett's and Burke's and Landed Gentry-not to mention a forty-minute stretch on the telephone with my father, who knows everything about everyone who's ever had a title-I've managed to come up with a rather remarkable portrait of our Geoffrey Rintoul. Let me see." She opened the notebook, and her eyes skimmed down the first page. "Born November 23, 1914. His father was Francis Rintoul, fourteenth Earl of Stinhurst, and his mother was Astrid Selvers, an American debutante in the fashion of the Vanderbilts who apparently had the audacity to die in 1925, leaving Francis with three small children to raise. He did so, with outstanding success, considering Geoffrey's accomplishments."
"He never remarried?"
"Never. It doesn't even appear that he engaged in discreet affairs, either. But sexual disinclination seems to run in the family, as you shall note momentarily."
"How does that fit?" Barbara asked. "Considering the affair between Geoffrey and his sister-in-law."
"A possible inconsistency," St. James acknowledged.
Lady Helen continued. "Geoffrey was educated at Harrow and Cambridge. Graduated from Cambridge in 1936 with a first in economics and assorted honours in speech and debate which went on and on forever. But he didn't come to anyone's particular attention until October of 1942, and really, he appeared to be the most astonishing man. He was fi ghting with Montgomery at the twelve-day battle at El Alamein in North Africa."
"His rank?"
"Captain. He was part of a tank crew. Apparently in one of the worst days of the fighting, his tank was hit, incapacitated, and ignited by a German shell. Geoffrey managed to get two wounded men out, dragging them more than a mile to safety. All in spite of the fact that he was wounded himself. He was awarded the Victoria Cross."
"Hardly the sort of man one expects to fi nd buried in an isolated grave," Barbara commented.
"And there's more," Lady Helen said. "At his own request, and in spite of the severity of his wounds that could well have put him out of action for the remainder of the war, he fi nished it up in the Allied front in the Balkans. Churchill was trying to preserve some British influence there in the face of potential Russian predominance, and evidently Geoffrey was a Churchill man through and through. When he came home, he moved into a job in Whitehall working for the Ministry of Defence."
"I'm surprised a man like that didn't stand for Parliament."
"He was asked. Repeatedly. But he wouldn't do it."
"And he never married?"
"No."
St. James made a movement in his chair, and Lady Helen held out a hand to stop him. She rose herself and poured him a second cup of coffee, without a word. She merely frowned when he used the sugar too heavily and took the sugar bowl from him entirely when he dipped a spoon into it for the fi fth time.
"Was he homosexual?" Barbara asked.
"If he was, then he was discretion itself. Which applies to any affairs he may have had. Not a whisper of scandal about him. Anywhere."
"Not even anything that attaches him to Lord Stinhurst's wife, Marguerite Rintoul?"
"Absolutely not."
"He's too good to be true," St. James remarked. "What do you have, Barbara?"
As she was about to pull her own notebook from the pocket of her coat, Cotter entered with the promised food: cake for St. James and Lady Helen and a platter of cold meats, cheeses, and bread for Barbara. With, she saw, a third piece of cake to end her improvised meal. She smiled her thanks and Cotter gave her a friendly wink, checked the coffeepot, and disappeared through the door. His footsteps sounded on the stairs in the hall.
"Eat first," Lady Helen advised. "With this chocolate cake in front of me, I'm afraid I shall be markedly distracted from anything you say. We can go on when you've fi nished your dinner."
With a grateful nod for the nicely veiled understanding so typical of Lady Helen, Barbara fell upon the food eagerly, devouring three pieces of meat and two large wedges of cheese like a prisoner of war. Finally, with the cake before her and another cup