Inn tonight if you want to have a drink with us," he said. "We,ll be celebrating that the cat that got my dog has been got!"
"The Inn? Where,s the Inn?"
"Son, you can,t miss it. Come on down to Nideck. Nideck,s got one main street. It,s right there."
"Oh, the bed-and-breakfast, yes, I saw it the first day I came up here," Reuben said. "It was for sale."
"Still is, and will be for a long time to come!" Galton laughed. "Nideck,s twelve miles inland. Why would anybody ever come to a bed-and-breakfast in Nideck? You join us tonight. We,d love to see you both there."
Reuben shut the door behind him and went into the library.
He opened the folder with the papers that Simon Oliver had sent him pertaining to the house. There was a handwritten list of contractors and service people that Marchent had made for him during that last hour before she,d been killed. Just maybe ...
He had the copy somewhere.
He found it.
He went down the list quickly. There it was, Thomas Marrok. "Friend of the family who appears from time to time. May ask to sleep in the woods out back. Old friend of Felix. Up to you. No special favors recommended. Your call."
He went upstairs and found Laura in her office.
He told her everything Galton had told him.
They got into the Porsche and drove down to Nideck.
There was a cozy dinner crowd in the main room of the Inn when they entered. It was rustic, with rough wood walls and an old man in the corner playing a guitar and singing some mournful Celtic song. The place had red-and-white-checkered tablecloths and candles.
The innkeeper was in his little office, with his feet up on the desk, reading a paperback novel and watching a rerun of Gunsmoke on his little TV.
Reuben asked him if he knew a man named Marrok, and if the man had had a room here in the last week.
"Oh yeah, he,s been around," said the man. "But he didn,t stay here, no."
"You don,t know where he comes from, do you?" asked Reuben.
"Well, he travels all over, to hear him tell it. I think he said last night that he,d been in Mumbai. I know one time he said he,d just come back from Cairo. I don,t know that he has a permanent home. He always got his mail at the old house, as far as I know. Wait a minute, I think he got a letter here today, as a matter of fact. Postman said he had no authority to be delivering his mail up there any longer. Left it here in case he comes back."
"Maybe I could give him the letter," said Reuben. "I,m from the Nideck house."
"Yes, I know that you are," said the man.
Reuben introduced himself and apologized for not having done so before.
"That,s all right," said the man. "Everybody knows who you are. We,re glad there,s a new family in the old house. Glad to see you."
The man went out into the Inn,s dining room and came back with the letter. "My wife opened it before she saw what it was. Then she saw it was for Tom Marrok. So I,m sorry about that. You can tell him we,re to blame for that."
"Thank you," said Reuben. He had never stolen a piece of federally protected mail before, and he felt his cheeks color.
"If he comes in, I,ll tell him you,re up at the house and you,ve got the letter."
"That would be fine," said Reuben.
Galton waved from the bar and lifted his beer stein as Reuben and Laura went out the door.
They drove back to the house.
"You can,t believe anything Marrok told you," said Laura, "not about ,the other, or his intentions. It was lies."
Reuben stared straight ahead. He had but one thought in his head and that was that Marrok had been in the house yesterday before they even arrived.
As soon as they were safe inside the great room again, he opened the letter. He was certain this had been the property of the dead creature, so what was the point of scrupling about it now?
The letter was in that strange spidery script that he,d seen only once before - in Felix,s diary upstairs.
There were three pages to the letter, and not a single word was discernible to him, of course. But there was what might be a signature.
"Come with me," he said and led Laura up the stairs to Felix,s small studio. He snapped on the overhead light.