Read The Planet on the Table for Free Online Page B

in her wake. She led me through a group of Greys, who with carpetbeaters were busy pounding rugs saturated with yellow dust. As I coughed and brushed off my fine burgundy suit, I said, “My feeling is that you have taken me to view that antique canvas once or twice too often.”
    She looked at me sternly. “As you will see, on Solday it transcends even its usual beauty. You look like a bee drowning in pollen, Nathaniel.”
    “Whose fault is that?” I demanded, brushing my suit fastidiously.
    We came to the gate in the wail surrounding Van Seegeren’s town villa, and Freya banged on it loudly. The gate was opened by a scowling man. He was nearly a meter shorter than Freya, and had a balding head that bulged rather like the dome of the city. In a mincing voice he said. “Invitations?”
    “What’s this?” said Freya. “We have permanent invitations from Heidi”
    “I’m sorry,” the man said coolly. ‘Ms. Van Seegeren has decided her Solday parties have gotten overcrowded, and this time she sent out invitations and instructed me to let in only those who have them.”
    “Then there has been a mistake,” Freya declared. “Get Heidi on the intercom, and she will instruct you to let me in. I am Freya Grindavik, and this is Nathaniel Sebastian.”
    “I’m sorry,” the man said, quite unapologetically. “Every person turned away says the same thing, and Ms. Van Seegeren prefers not to be disturbed so frequently.”
    “She’ll be more disturbed to hear we’ve been held up.” Freya shifted toward the man. “Who are you, anyway?”
    “I am Sandor Musgrave, Ms. Van Seegeren’s private secretary.”
    “How come I’ve never met you?”
    “Ms. Van Seegeren hired me two months ago,” Musgrave said, and stepped back so he could look Freya in the eye without straining his neck. “That is immaterial, however—”
    “I’ve been Heidi’s friend for over forty years,” Freya said slowly, once again shifting forward to lean over the man. “And I would wager she values her friends more than her secretaries…“
    Musgrave stepped back indignantly. “I’m sorry!” be snapped. “I have my orders! Good day!”
    But alas for him, Freya was now standing well in the gateway, and she seemed uninclined to move; she merely cocked her head at him Musgrave comprehended his problem, and his mouth twitched uncertainly.
    The impasse was broken when Van Seegeren’s maid Lucinda arrived from the Street. “Oh, hello Freya, Nathaniel. What are you doing out here?”
    “This new Malvolio of yours is barring our entrance,” Freya said.
    “Oh, Musgrave,” said Lucinda. “Let these two in, or the boss will be mad.”
    Musgrave retreated with a deep scowl. “I’ve studied the ancients, Ms. Grindavik,” he said sullenly. “You need not insult me.”
    “Malvolio was a tragic character,” Freya assured him. “Read Charles Lamb’s essay concerning the matter.”
    “I certainly will,” Musgrave said stiffly, and hurried to the villa, giving us a last poisonous look.
    “Of course Lamb’s father,” Freya said absently, staring after the man, “was a house servant. Lucinda, who is that?”
    Lucinda rolled her eyes. “The boss hired him to restore some of her paintings, and get the records in order. I wish she hadn’t.”
    The bell in the gate sounded. “I’ve got it. Musgrave,” Lucinda shouted at the villa. She opened the gate, revealing the artist Harvey Washburn.
    “So you do,” said Harvey, blinking. He was high again; a bottle of the White Brother hung from his hand. “Freya! Nathaniel! Happy Solday to you—have a drink?”
    We refused the offer, and then followed Harvey around the side of the villa, exchanging a glance. I felt sorry for Harvey. Most of Mercury’s great collectors came to Harvey’s showings, but they dissected his every brushstroke for influences, and told him what he
should
be painting, and then among themselves they called his work amateurish and unoriginal, and never bought a single