Thomas Monahan sat in his beat-up ’28 Ford taking in the Countess’s front steps and waiting for four o’clock. He tapped her calling card idly on the steering wheel and wondered what kind of blue-blooded dame prowled the waterfront at night dressed in a sailor suit. Her front steps were wide red tile with pots of pink and white flowers leading up to the door. White grillwork guarded her narrow strip of lawn from the sidewalk.
     He studied the card for about the fiftieth time. Lady Margaret Thompson, Countess of Chesterleigh. A Hyde Street address below the name and a phone number in the bottom-right hand corner. Just plain black letters on a white card. Used to be white. The night shift guy had told him the brown stain was the victim’s blood. This crazy dame had witnessed the killing and said she could draw a picture of the killer, no less.
     The Grace Cathedral bell tolled softly in the distance. Monahan glanced at his watch. Four straight up. Time to meet her ladyship. He reached through the window and opened the door--the handle on the inside didn’t work--and climbed out of the car. He lifted his fedora long enough to smooth his hair and then strode up the steps. He thumbed the doorbell and waited. He whistled “Wild Wood Stranger” under his breath, realized he was doing it, and stopped. His dad had always whistled when he was nervous. Now the son couldn’t quite shake the habit. Finally the door opened and a pleasant, plump, round-faced woman stood in the entryway.
     “Good afternoon,” she said. “Are you from the police?” She had a pretty English accent.
     “Yes, Ma’am. I’m Inspector Thomas Monahan. Are you the Countess Chester-leg?”
     Her eyes crinkled with amusement. “Oh my, no. I am Mary Bennett, her ladyship’s housekeeper. Countess Chester-lee will be very glad to see you. We’ve had a new development. Please wait here a moment.”
     “What new development? Is she okay?”
     “She will wish to discuss it with you herself. One moment, please.”
     After she left, Monahan remembered his hat and pulled it off, smoothing his hair again. The small entryway was dominated by a nearly floor-to-ceiling painting of the Victoire del Fe Church on the Rue de Poisson in Paris. Monahan recognized it because he’d spent some time in Paris after the war and had an apartment a couple of blocks away on the Rue de Pais. The church was portrayed bathed in golden afternoon sunlight punctuated by ominous shadows. Monahan also knew about the only way you could get that exact view of the church was from the front door of the cathouse across the street.  He could vouch for that personally.
     Mary Bennett finally came back. “Nice picture,” said Monahan, indicating the painting with a jerk of his thumb.
     “Oh, thank you,” said Mary. “Lady Chesterleigh did that years ago after the war. Please come this way.”
     “She painted it herself?” he asked as he followed her obediently. 
     She turned and smiled at him. “Yes, indeed. Madame is a rather famous artist. She studied for many years in Paris.”
     Monahan followed the housekeeper through the kind of swanky joint you only saw in the movies. Every room had paintings, furniture and vases that looked like they belonged in an art museum. He thought how much Muriel, the late Mrs. Monahan, would have liked all this stuff. She used to apologize for dragging him to art museums. He hadn’t minded so much. He liked how much she enjoyed it, and she would certainly have enjoyed the tour he was getting now.
     The housekeeper led him to a wide room with a big polished wooden table lit by a solid wall of windows. She invited him to sit at the table and went out a door in the glass wall. A garden, surrounded by white stone, crowded around a small courtyard out there in the sunshine. A woman in a gray robe stood at a wrought-iron table arranging flowers in a Chinese vase. Mary Bennett spoke to
her and she turned, smiled and waved at him. She said something to the housekeeper, who nodded and came back inside.
     “Her ladyship says she’s almost finished and she will join you in a moment. Meanwhile I’m to give you the drawings and ask if you would like tea or coffee.”
     “Thanks, Ma’am, coffee would be fine.” He tossed his hat on the table, and took a seat. He accepted a sheaf of heavy white paper from her, and then she bustled off.
     The pencil sketches reminded him a little of the church painting in the entryway--soft light and dark, heavy shadows. The face was clear enough, a young man with wild hair, medium build. He looked scared. There was a full face with the scared look, then a profile, then a back view of him running away. There were a couple of pages of close-up sketches of just the face. Might be good
enough to convict. Now all he had to do was find the guy, get evidence that it was really him in the pictures, that he really pulled the trigger, and convince a jury of the whole thing.
     Monahan put the pictures down and watched the countess still arranging big white puffy flowers in the vase. She moved with the grace of a dancer and her long fingers looked strong and sure. The gray robe was a kimono, like the kind you saw geisha girls wearing down in Japantown, except theirs were so bright they made the girls look like flowers. This robe was the color of the sky in winter. It had big sleeves that almost touched the ground. Her ladyship’s hair was heavy and dark and hung in a braid down her back. Most women these days cut their hair short. Young women did, anyway. Monahan wondered how old the countess was. It was hard to tell from this distance. He guessed she was about twenty-five, maybe.
     Finally she stepped back and examined her work, slowly walking around the table and adjusting a flower here and there. Then she turned and swept through the door.
     “Good afternoon, Inspector,” she said, smiling and holding out her hand for a shake. He jumped to his feet, took her hand and wondered briefly if he should bow or kiss her ring or something. He decided to just give her hand a shake like she was anybody. He also upwardly revised his estimate of her age. Thirty-five if she was a day, maybe forty. But beautiful--the biggest brown eyes he had ever seen.
     “I’m so pleased you could come,” she went on. “Please sit. Did Mary offer you anything to eat or drink?” Mary Bennett’s speech had a pretty lilt, but her ladyship’s accent, polished and elegant, made the Irish in him twitch uncomfortably.
     “Yes, Ma’am,” he said. “She told me there was a new development but didn’t say what.”
     She pulled a white envelope out of her sash. “This arrived about forty-five minutes ago. According to Mary, it was delivered by a little boy who handed it to her and ran away.”
     Monahan opened it carefully. The paper was crisp and white like the kind formal invitations were printed on. Neatly lettered words were carefully centered on the page.
     “Stay out of this or die.”
     Without comment Monahan refolded it, put it back in the envelope and slipped it into his breast pocket.
     “Somebody’s hoping to scare you out of testifying,” he said. “I’ll have it analyzed and see if we can come up with anything.”
     “Of course I have no intention of staying out of this,” she said. “I mean to see it through to the end. Mr. Rosenberg was a kind and gentle man, and he didn’t deserve to die like this. I haven’t seen a man die since the war. I had hoped not to repeat the experience.” Her eyes became luminous, almost polished. He hoped--hard--that she wasn’t going to cry. She ducked her head and, pulling a chair away from the table, slid into it.
     At that moment a tall girl of about seventeen or eighteen in a black uniform rattled in with a big tray loaded with a teapot, coffeepot, cups, sandwiches and cookies. Relieved that there didn’t look to be a female display of tears, Monahan hastily retook his chair and pulled out his notebook. He groped around in his pockets for a pencil and then remembered distinctly leaving it on his desk at the station.
     “May I bother you for a pencil?” he said at the exact moment the countess asked, “Would you like coffee or tea?” and they both laughed a little.
     “Gertrude, will you bring Inspector Monahan a pencil?” 
     “Yes, Ma’am.” The girl pulled out a drawer in the sideboard and took out a flat box. She set the box on the table in front of him. She also set a pad of heavy white paper beside the countess. Monahan wondered about it, but didn’t say anything. Meanwhile, the countess daintily held back one draping sleeve and poured coffee for him and tea for herself.
     “Will there be anything else, Your Ladyship?” said the girl in a soft, shy voice.
     “That will be all, Gertrude,” said the Countess as she handed Monahan his coffee. “Oh, wait! I nearly forgot. Ask Mary to send in Mr. Johnson, please.”
     “Yes, Ma’am.” Gertrude dropped a little curtsey and hustled out quietly.
     The countess opened the flat box and offered it to Monahan as if it were cigarettes. He had never seen pencils like these. They didn’t have erasers. He took one and wrote the time and date on the first blank page of his tablet.
     “Well?” the countess said, lifting her teacup. “What would you like to ask me?”
     He expected her to stick her pinky out like he’d seen in the movies. She didn’t, just curled her fingers around the cup handle like everyone else, except her fingers were very long and graceful.
     “What were you doing there?” he asked. It seemed like a good place to start.
     “I beg your pardon?”
     “What were you doing on the waterfront in the middle of the night dressed like a sailor?”
     “I was on an artist’s journey,” she said. Monahan didn’t feel like writing that down.
     “Uh, where were you going?”
     “Oh, hello, Mr. Johnson. I need those flowers delivered.”
     Monahan turned to see who she was speaking to and with a burst of adrenaline jumped to his feet. An enormous black man filled the doorway--the entire doorway. His clothes were ragged and too small for his frame. His face, especially his forehead, was badly scarred. One of his eyes was milky white and the other one regarded Monahan with cold malevolence.
     Mr. Johnson made a low, inarticulate noise and walked toward the garden with a rolling limp. One leg didn’t bend at the knee. He returned, holding the enormous bouquet in one hand. The countess extracted another small envelope from her sash.
     “Please take the flowers to Mrs. Rosenberg and take this along as well,” she said, handing the black the envelope. “Ask Mary for the address, it’s in my book.” The envelope disappeared in Johnson’s giant fist. Monahan heard another basso rumble. This time there were words in it.
     “Yes, Ma’am,” Johnson said and limped out the door.
     Monahan let out his breath. “What was that--your butler?”
     “He came to the door begging for food over a year ago. I happened to walk through the kitchen where Mary was feeding him and hired him on the spot to pose for me. He’s quite unusual looking, isn’t he?”
     “That’s one way to put it.”
     “He refuses to pose nude. I imagine it’s because of the scars.”
     Monahan gave her the eye. “It’s more likely because it would get him killed.”
     The countess raised her eyebrows. “Indeed,” she said non-committally. “Henry says the scars cover his back and arms, and he thinks Mr. Johnson has been dragged, but the poor man will tell us nothing. If you ask him a direct question he pretends he doesn’t hear you.”
     “If that man’s never been in prison, I’ll eat my hat with butter and salt. Why did you let him into your house?”
     She smiled at him indulgently, like he wasn’t quite bright. “He’s perfectly sweet and kind. He does look frightful, but you can’t base everything on appearance.”
     There was a long silence while Monahan stared at her. He couldn’t make out this crazy dame and what she was about. Finally, he shrugged and picked up his pencil.
     “So where were you going on that journey of yours the other night?” 
     “What? Oh. An artist’s journey is not like an ordinary journey, with a definite destination. My quest is to see and to experience.”
     “So what did you see and experience last night?”
     “Death, this time. Usually the journey is not so . . . poignant.” She sipped her tea. Monahan realized if he didn’t drink his coffee it would get cold. He also helped himself to a sandwich to keep the coffee company. He had a feeling this was going to take a while.
     “You see, Inspector. I’ve always been wealthy,” she said. She set her cup down and propped her chin on her hand. “I’ve given a good deal of my money away, but money makes money. I lost quite a bit of money after the war, like everyone else, but I’ve never really been poor. Now, even in these lean times, my paintings sell for very large sums.” She fell silent for a while and took another sip from her teacup. Monahan munched his ham sandwich and wished for some horseradish. He kept quiet. He figured he was about to hear a poor little rich girl story and he didn’t want to interrupt.
     “Most rich people are held prisoner by their money, their fear of poor people and their fear of becoming poor.” She smiled, a sad little smile that made him forget his sandwich. “My art demands more of me than that. My art demands that I be out in life--experiencing it, tasting it and smelling it for myself.” She set her teacup down again and leaned toward him. “My art is everything to me.” Her eyes burned with dark fire. Monahan realized a man might fall into those eyes and never be heard from again.
     Monahan occasionally ran into beautiful rich dames in his line of work. He’d built up a certain immunity. Carefully he laid the remains of his sandwich down and picked up the eraserless pencil. “Well, Ma’am, thanks for the philosophy. Now what, exactly, were you doing out there on the waterfront in the middle of the night?”
     She leaned back and regarded him levelly. “I was going to get coffee at Curly’s, but the street was blocked. I was too tired to walk around, so I headed off for Chinatown to see if I could find a cab or a telephone so I could call Henry to come for me.”
     Monahan wrote that down. “Who is Henry?”
     “My lover.” His pencil lead broke. He got another pencil out of the box without looking up.
     “What’s his last name?”
     “Trask. Dr. Henry Trask.”
     “What kind of doctor?”
     “Medical--I do believe you’re blushing!”
     He took a sip of his coffee, which was now cold. “In America women don’t just have lovers--not and talk about it out loud.”
     She laughed, a lighthearted, unselfconscious laugh. “It’s not quite like that. I’ve known Henry for over twenty-five years. He’s the father of all my children. We would have been married most of those years if I had agreed to it.”
     “You have children? How many?” That surprised him, somehow.
     “Three,” she said, pouring him a fresh cup of coffee, again holding her ridiculous Japanese sleeve up out of the way. “My daughter, the youngest, is in public school in England. My next oldest, a son, is in University across the bay at Berkeley. The eldest son--well, he’s the present Earl of Chesterleigh and we don’t get on. Do you have children?”
     “Two sons. One is a cop down in Los Angeles and the other one is in South America.”
     “South America? What does he do down there?”
     “Knowing George, whatever he damn’ well pleases.”
     She laughed and he realized he’d said “damn” in front of her and muttered an apology. He looked down at his notepad which had only a few scribbled words on it.
     “Okay. So you were on your way home and this guy fell dead at your feet.”
     Her demeanor changed suddenly. It seemed like the sun went behind a cloud and a cold wind sprang up. “No. It took him some time to die. He could have been saved if the police had come when they were called.” She said it with surprising bitterness.
     “I heard you called in a complaint this morning. I did some digging. There is no record of any phone call.”
     “I saw the man dial the telephone! The police are complicit in a man’s death!”
     “I’m sorry, Ma’am. There was no phone call!”
     She flushed and suddenly pushed her teacup off the table, tea and all. It splattered across the polished floor and the delicate cup smashed against the wall. She covered her mouth with both hands and stared at the broken pieces. Monahan felt rocked back on his heels. If she had flapped her arms and flown away he would not have been more surprised.
     Mary appeared almost immediately at the doorway. “Do you need anything, Lady?” she said, then saw the broken cup on the floor and hastened to pick up the pieces.
     “Yes, Mary. Please have Gertrude bring me another teacup.” 
     “Yes, of course,” said Mary and hurried out with a handful of broken china.
     The countess struggled visibly to get hold of herself. Finally she dropped her hands to the table and leaned back. “He needn’t have died. I have seen so much needless death . . .”