The Secret History - Donna Tartt [246]
“Look,” said Francis. “Let’s just go. If we leave now we can be in Montreal by dark. Nobody will ever find us.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“We’ll stay in Montreal a couple of days. Sell the car. Then take the bus to, I don’t know, Saskatchewan or something. We’ll go to the weirdest place we can find.”
“Francis, I wish you would calm down for a minute. I think we can handle this.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Well, first, I think, we’ve got to find Henry.”
“Henry?” He looked at me in amazement. “What makes you think he’ll be any help? He’s so whacked-out, he doesn’t know which way—”
“Doesn’t he have a key to Julian’s office?”
He was quiet a moment. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I think he does. Or he used to.”
“There you go,” I said. “We’ll find Henry and drive him over here. He can make some excuse to get Julian out of the office. Then one of us can slip up the back stairs with the key.”
It was a good plan. The only problem was, running Henry down wasn’t so easy as we’d hoped. He wasn’t at his apartment, and when we went by the Albemarle, his car wasn’t there.
We drove back to campus to check the library, then back to the Albemarle. This time Francis and I got out of the car and walked around the grounds.
The Albemarle had been built in the nineteenth century, as a retreat for rich convalescents. It was shady and luxurious, with tall shutters and a big, cool porch—everyone from Rudyard Kipling to FDR had stayed there—but it wasn’t much bigger than a big private house.
“You tried the desk clerk?” I asked Francis.
“Don’t even think about it. They’re registered under a phony name, and I’m sure Henry gave the innkeeper some story, because when I tried to talk to her the other night she clammed up in a second.”
“Is there any way we can get in past the lobby?”
“I have no idea. My mother and Chris stayed here once. It isn’t that big a place. There’s only one set of stairs that I know of, and you have to walk past the desk to get to them.”
“What about downstairs?”
“The thing is, I think they’re on an upper floor. Camilla said something about carrying bags upstairs. There might be fire stairs, but I wouldn’t know how to go about finding them.”
We stepped up onto the porch. Through the screen door we could see a dark, cool lobby and, behind the desk, a man of about sixty, his half-moon glasses pulled low on his nose, reading a copy of the Bennington Banner.
“Is that the guy you talked to?” I whispered.
“No. His wife.”
“Has he seen you before?”
“No.”
I pushed open the door and stuck my head in for a moment, then went inside. The innkeeper glanced from his paper and gave us a supercilious up-and-down look. He was one of those prissy retirees one sees frequently in New England, the sort who subscribe to antique magazines and carry those canvas tote bags they give as gift premiums on public TV.
I gave him my best smile. Behind the desk, I noticed, was a pegboard with room keys. They were arranged in tiers according to floor. There were three keys—2-B, -C, and -E—missing on the second floor, and only one—3-A—on the third.
He was looking at us frostily. “How may I help you?” he said.
“Excuse me,” I said, “but do you know if our parents have arrived yet from California?”
He was surprised. He opened a ledger. “What’s the name?”
“Rayburn. Mr. and Mrs. Cloke Rayburn.”
“I don’t see a reservation.”
“I’m not sure they made one.”
He looked at me over the tops of his glasses. “Generally, we require a reservation, with deposit, at least forty-eight hours in advance,” he said.
“They didn’t think they’d need one this time of year.”
“Well, there’s no guarantee that there’ll be room for them when they arrive,” he said curtly.
I would have liked to have pointed out that his inn was more than half-empty, and that I didn’t see the guests exactly fighting to get in, but I smiled again and said, “I guess they’ll have to take their chances, then. Their plane got into Albany at noon. They should be here any minute.”
“Well, then.”
“Do you mind if we wait?”
Obviously, he did. But he couldn’t say so. He nodded, his mouth