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swiveling his head from left to right, up the road and down, a peevish look on his face. “I was beginning to wonder where you were,” he said. “Punctuality is the politeness of princes, you know. I expect you heard my mother say that. It was a favorite dictum of hers.”
    In her opinion, Ambrose appeared far from well. His face, usually rather full and flabby, had a pasty, sunken look. “I haven’t been sleeping,” he said as they drove through Moreton-in-Marsh. “I’ve had some rather unpleasant dreams.”
    “It’s all those highbrow books you read. You’ve been overtaxing your brain.” Susan didn’t exactly know what it was Ambrose did for a living. Some sort of freelance editing, Frank thought. The kind of thing you could do from home. It wouldn’t bring in much, but Ambrose didn’t need much, Auntie Bee being in possession of Uncle Charlie’s royalties. “And you’ve suffered a terrible loss. It’s only a few months since your mother died. But you’ll soon feel better down here. Good fresh country air, peace and quiet—it’s a far cry from London.”
    They would go into Oxford tomorrow, she said, do some shopping, visit Blackwell’s, perhaps do a tour of the colleges, and then have lunch at the Randolph. She had asked some of her neighbors in for drinks at six; then they would have a quiet supper and watch a video. Ambrose nodded, not showing much interest. Susan told herself to be thankful for small mercies. At least there was no Auntie Bee. On that old witch’s last visit with Ambrose, the year before she died, she had told Susan’s friend from Stow that her skirt was too short for someone with middle-aged knees, and at ten-thirty informed the people who had come to dinner that it was time they went home.
    When he had said hello to Frank she showed Ambrose up to his room. It was the one he always had, but he seemed unable to remember the way to it from one year to the next. She had made a few alterations. For one thing, it had been redecorated, and for another, she had changed the books in the shelf by the bed. A great reader herself, she thought it rather dreary always to have the same selection of reading matter in the guest bedroom.
    Ambrose came down to tea, looking grim. “Are you a fan of Mr. Kingston Marle, Susan?”
    “He’s my favorite author,” she said, surprised.
    “I see. Then there’s no more to be said, is there?” Ambrose proceeded to say more. “I rather dislike having a whole shelfful of his works by my bed. I’ve put them out on the landing.” As an afterthought, he added, “I hope you don’t mind.”
    After that, Susan decided against telling her husband’s cousin the prime purpose of their planned visit to Oxford the next day. She poured him a cup of tea and handed him a slice of Madeira cake. Manfully, Frank said he would take Ambrose to see the horses and then they might stroll down to the Cross Keys for a nourishing glass of something.
    “Not whiskey, I hope,” said Ambrose.
    “Lemonade, if you like,” said Frank in an out-of-character sarcastic voice.
    When they had gone Susan went upstairs and retrieved the seven novels of Kingston Marle’s that Ambrose had stacked on the floor outside his bedroom door. She was particularly fond of
Evil Incarnate
and noticed that its dust jacket had a tear in the front on the bottom right-hand side. That tear had certainly not been there when she put the books on the shelf two days before. It looked too as if the jacket of
Wickedness in High Places
had been removed, screwed up in an angry fist, and later replaced. Why on earth would Ambrose do such a thing?
    She returned the books to her own bedroom. Of course, Ambrose was a strange creature.You could expect nothing else with that monstrous old woman for a mother, his sequestered life, and, whatever Frank might say about his being a freelance editor, the probability that he subsisted on a small private income and had never actually worked for his living. He had never