Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 26, No. 6, May 27, 1981

Marti Roch by William Bankier

They waited supper a full hour and when Felicity did not appear, Sonia left the room with a grim expression on her face. Darius kept on carving the wooden head of a new hand puppet. It was going to be a pretty girl, one he could control.

Sonia’s voice rang down the hall. “Her comb and brush are gone. Her eye makeup is gone.”

Darius set the puppet aside and went to stand in the doorway of his younger daughter’s room. He kept out of this room most of the time because the disarray depressed him.

“She’s run off. I think some of her clothes are gone too.”

“How can you tell?” Darius straightened a school book on the desk beside him. A heap of magazines cascaded to the floor. “Maybe she’s staying with one of her friends.”

“Without telling us? She always phones when she’s doing that.”

They discussed ringing Pamela and asking if Felicity had gone there. Darius was against causing the older sister any worry. “They never spend time together,” he argued.

“Felicity never ran away before either.” Sonia was incapable of sitting still and waiting for a situation to sort itself out. She had to take action, and telephoning her daughter would be only the first move.

During the phone call, Darius went back to his carving. In times of stress, he protected himself by concentrating on his work. The breakdown that forced him to leave the advertising agency had been a blessing in disguise. From being an anxious art director he went to a far happier life as impresario of a children’s puppet theater.

There was luck in it, of course. The arts council put up the money to refurbish and reopen the Lyric Theater in Hammersmith. The Lyric, anxious to maximize audiences, established a children’s theater in an annex and began looking for productions. Darius Fenn was able to audition with a clutch of engaging hand puppets. He did all the voices while Sonia helped with the manipulation. The directors were impressed and the Fenns now performed three days a week. When money ran short, Sonia did part-time secretarial work. Sometimes Darius felt he was being treated to heaven on earth.

“Pam hasn’t heard from her in weeks.” Sonia turned her back on the phone. She picked up her glass and her fingernails clicked angrily against the crystal. “She offered to come over if there’s anything she can do.”

Typical of Pam. She was making sensible progress in the ad business, writing copy, making none of the silly mistakes that had turned her father’s career upside down. Not for her the midday drinking, the too-close personal relationships with clients that went sour and jeopardized accounts.

Darius emptied his own glass. “Can I pour you another gin?”

“I’m calling the police.” She went for the phone. There it was — a hassle with no point to it beyond the fact of doing something.

“The police won’t be able to do anything.”

“This is what they get paid for.” She dialed 999, the emergency number.

“Kids go missing in London by the hundreds. Weeks have to go by before the police will take any notice.”

Sonia behaved with quiet self-righteousness while they waited for the police to show up. Her way was being proved right. Darius set the puppet and the knife aside and concentrated on drinking. He would appear right in the end — and that would make things worse.

There were two young officers in tight uniforms, their belts squeaking as they sat down. Offered coffee, they said “Ta” and one of them placed his walkie-talkie inside his helmet on the settee. They were like casual friends on a social call.

Patiently they told Sonia Fenn exactly what her husband had tried to make her understand.

These days, teenaged girls sometimes liked to take off for a while. Most of them tired of the exposure in a week or so and drifted home to the free food, the warm bed, and the laundry service. So the police did nothing until ten days had elapsed unless there was any reason to suspect foul play.

They went away and the Fenns lapsed into one of their arguments about nothing. They were both frightened and the emotion had to go somewhere. The idea of little Felicity out there with bad companions, becoming involved in...

“We can’t just do nothing,” Sonia said later in the dark bedroom as they were becoming sleepy in each other’s arms. The shouting was all done.

“I’ll look for her tomorrow,” Darius said.

“In all London? Where will you look?”

“I know where her friends hang out. I’ll have a talk with them.”

“They’ll tell you nothing.”

At eleven o’clock in the morning, opening time, Darius walked over to The Crooked Billet. The kids did their drinking here. On a fine day, the patch of grass on the other side of the road would be littered with them by half-past twelve. He nursed a pint near the front window, his mind skating dangerously close to the reality of the situation. If he let the barriers down, he could start feeling the way Sonia was feeling, and that would be terrifying. Felicity had a bit of money saved. What if she and a friend had slipped over to the continent? What if they decided to head for Asia? Darius had just read a book about a psychopathic killer in Nepal named Sobhraj. His daughter, literally, might never be seen again.

Darius went to the lavatory. When he came back to the window he saw the boy he was looking for. He was sitting alone on a stump at the edge of the grass, not drinking, smoking. Darius carried two pints across the road. “Hello, Jeremy. You looked thirsty”

“Thanks, mate.” A year ago, visiting Felicity at home, Jeremy had surprised Darius as he left the house by calling him “mate.” There was an easy rapport between the older man and the younger one. Jeremy seemed to be serving his late teens like somebody under sentence in a rough prison. He appeared to be disintegrating physically and the boredom of his life was agonizing. “Cheers.” The pint was lifted by a skinny arm to vanish into an overgrowth of bushy black moustache, beard, and hair. It came back half empty.

“Have you seen Felicity today?”

“This isn’t today, it’s still last night. I haven’t seen anybody.”

“We’re worried about her. She’s disappeared.”

“Have you called her friends?”

“We only know a few first names. I have no phone numbers, and I don’t even know where they live.”

This confession seemed to satisfy the young man; proper anonymity was being preserved. “She probably got hung up at a party. She’ll be home when the driver sobers up.”

“She took a lot of her stuff. We think she’s gone.”

This disclosure changed the game. The black forest turned to Darius; there was a face inside it and two pale, sensitive eyes. “She’s a restless girl. We all noticed it lately. Felix wants to get going.”

His daughter’s nickname amused Darius but Sonia hated it. “What I need to know is where she’s gone. There won’t be any trouble. All I want to do is talk to her.” He was making it sound as if she could have her freedom, but fifteen years old was too young to be released on her own. Legally, she was still Fenn’s responsibility.

“We’ve been telling her to wait. It was as if the youth had read Darius’s mind. “She wanted to move in with a bunch who are squatting in a building by the river. They told her fifteen is too young.” Jeremy drank off his beer. “Piccadilly Circus is where a lot of the runaways go. You might try there.” He stood up with the empty glass. “Want one of these?”

“Another time. I’m going to Piccadilly.”

“Good luck, mate.”

Darius telephoned Sonia and told her what he was doing. She was keeping busy, washing the girl’s clothes, straightening up her room. The submerged panic in her voice made Darius angry. If he caught his insensitive daughter now he would tear a strip off her. But what good would that do? It would only drive her further away. Somehow he had to reach her, make her an ally, show her how cruel it is to disappear leaving no word with the people who love you.

Wandering through Piccadilly Circus underground station, Darius saw enough to add to his depression. It would be a mistake to come here with Sonia. The scene would confirm her worst fears. There seemed to be scores of young drifters sitting on the marble floor or propped against barriers. Some of the girls suggested what Felicity might look like given a few weeks without parental care.

The worst sight was a squad of police coming out of a washroom with a youth on a stretcher, obviously one who had overdosed. Darius caught a glimpse of yet another hairy face, this one with its eyes closed — permanently, by the look of it.

And yet the main body of children were in a happy mood. Darius had to be honest; from what he could see, they were enjoying life. Of course, that’s what it is to be young. No, wait a minute. He forced himself to remember his own childhood in a shabby house where the father had no work and a depressed mother tried to cope with too many children and too little money in a time when social security was unheard of.

In those years and the ones following, Darius Fenn went about in a mood which, if not grim, was deadly serious. His aim was to get up every day to struggle and succeed. He never stopped being frightened of failure. But these kids didn’t seem to know what fear is. They were all beautifully relaxed and appeared to be anticipating some great fun that was just around the corner.

Darius left Piccadilly and wandered down the road to Leicester Square. The layabouts here were his own generation or older. They competed with the pigeons for possession of the grassy enclosure and its complement of fouled benches. They swung their walnut faces between their knees and passed back and forth bottles of cheap wine or cider, sucking like infants. At times, they rallied what life force they had left and staged a feeble argument. Darius found reassurance in the sight of men too weak to hurt each other.

His old office was not far from here. Pamela’s current one was half a mile away in Covent Garden. He was thinking of going there to see her when she walked by, spotting him as he saw her, freezing and matching his vaudeville comedian’s pose of astonishment.

“I was coming up to see you.”

“You wouldn’t have found me. I’m off to a studio to have my picture taken for the house magazine. It was going to be a surprise. They’ve made me a Group Head.”

Darius was delighted but not surprised. “Come on, I’ll buy you a drink to celebrate.”

“I’ll accept a coffee. I want to look sober in the photograph.”

Over coffee and danish, he admired her neat, pretty appearance. She radiated confidence and capability. “Any word from Felicity? Mum sounded scared over the phone.”

“I’m down here trying to run into her. One of her mates at the Billet said she might have gone to Piccadilly Circus.”

“Dad, you’ve got some hope. That place is an anthill.”

“I know.”

Pamela kept her smile in place but he could tell this digression from the safe routine was upsetting her. “You never worried this much about me,” she complained. It was hard to separate the joke from her true feelings.

“It’s the old parable about the prodigal son. The shepherd always cares more about the lost sheep than about the ones who cause no trouble.”

Maybe I should move back home and get some of this fatherly affection by staying out late.”

“Feel free, kid. Your room is the way you left it.”

When Darius arrived home, wondering how to present his failure in encouraging words, he found Sonia in a mood of low-key excitement. “I’ve found something,” she said.

She led him into Felicity’s room. He would not have recognized the place; it now looked as tidy as the rest of the house. “This was in the pocket of a pair of her jeans.” She handed Darius a scrap of paper. It was blank newsprint, probably torn from the border of a tabloid page. He saw his daughter’s printing but the fragment had partially disintegrated in her pocket. All that remained was the name MARTI ROCH. “I can’t read the rest of it,” he said.

“It’s a name. At least it’s something to go on.”

He could feel the silence building. Sonia would turn on him soon, blame him for being negative. He forced himself to say, “You’ve done a terrific job. Not just finding this, but fixing up her room. She’ll love it when she comes back.”

Sonia responded to the praise. She was looking more responsible now, less panicky. “Should we tell the police about this?”

“I think the same rule applies. They don’t want to know about Felicity until she’s been gone ten days or so.”

“Then will you call Joey Singleton?” Her problem-solving mind had been busy digging and had dredged up Joey. If the working police won’t help, find yourself a former policeman.

“That’s a good idea. Joey might know what to do.”

Darius telephoned to make sure Joey was on duty at the billiard academy. Then he took a bus to Wimbledon that evening and climbed the long stairway to the big, dim room with its convoy of green tables, each one illuminated by a shaded light. The place smelled of pool chalk and cheese sandwiches. The sharp click of balls penetrated the rumble of male conversation.

Joey was behind the counter presiding over incipient anarchy, keeping the lid on by using his sense of humor and the threat of his six-foot-four-inch presence. The scar over his left eyebrow was a constant reminder that he was no stranger to physical conflict. When he left the counter and went to empty ashtrays, his limp seemed to emphasize a determination to keep going despite injury. Years ago, he overtook and subdued a terrified felon with a bullet in that leg.

There was no time for conversation during business hours. All twenty tables were going and Joey had to make sandwiches, answer the phone, keep track of table times, draw beers from the lager tap — it was not an easy job. Darius helped but it was not till the doors were closed and Joey had finished adding up his cash that they were able to sit down in the back kitchen over coffee.

“So you’ve got an escaped daughter and Sonia is climbing the walls.”

Darius explained the situation, ending with his unproductive tour of Piccadilly this afternoon. “I suppose I was wasting my time.”

“No, you did the right thing.”

“Is this going to be any help?” Darius produced the fragment of newsprint with Felicity’s printing on it.

Singleton studied it. His oval head was covered with coarse brown hair. Despite his jeans and sweatshirt and his scarred face, Singleton looked like the farmer he was, the product of generations of Somerset dairymen. “Marti Roch,” he said. “This is only part of what she wrote.”

“I know. Does the name help?”

“It might.” Singleton got up and limped to the telephone. “This is the best time for me to call. The people who hate me are off duty.”

Joey Singleton’s heroism under fire would have guaranteed him a successful career had it not been for a weakness in his character that cancelled everything his superiors liked about him. He was an honest man and, worse, one who could not keep his mouth shut. Fair enough that he refused a bribe from a well-established Soho call-girl operation. But when he saw brother officers taking the money, Singleton was incapable of looking the other way. He made an official complaint in writing. The authorities had a choice. They could either readjust the whole delicate balance of the system or they could get rid of Joey Singleton.

The former cop hero came back from the phone. “My friend is going to run Marti Roch through the computer. I can let you know tomorrow.”

Singleton made one more call. “Hello, Mum. How are you getting on? I’m just leaving. Your old friend Darius Fenn is here.” He looked at Darius. “She sends you her love. He sends his back to you. Got everything you need? I’ll be home soon.”

“How’s your Mum these days?” They were on their way down the stairs.

“Still cheerful. Her eyesight is almost gone, I’m afraid. I’ve got her a white cane. She’s too old to learn to use a dog. What the hell — she’s got her faithful Joey.”

On the bus ride home, Darius remembered his first meeting with Singleton. He and Sonia were driving home on a Friday afternoon. He was still in the ad business, had drunk too much at lunch, was escaping early. Singleton, off duty and out of uniform, drove alongside the car at a traffic light, smiled, and said, “Are you going to be all right?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Afraid so. How about a cup of coffee?”

Sonia accepted immediately and they followed Singleton’s car to a street in Fulham. They sat for an hour in a tiny living room with the old lady, who could not see very well even in those days. Singleton gave his guest three cups of black coffee and by the time he left, Darius was stone sober and able to drive.

“Why would he do that?” he asked Sonia on the way home.

“There’s only one explanation,” she said, “incredible though it may seem. He’s a decent person.”

The friendship developed. Singleton and his mother came frequently to tea. They stayed for long evenings of Monopoly with the old lady winning as often as not. She had to be told once only where the property was distributed. Then her deals were canny and aggressive. When she had her sight, she had been a successful European guide to coachloads of tourists.

Felicity was Mrs. Singleton’s favorite. The young girl always sat beside “Gran” and insisted on being the one to move her token along the board after the old lady rolled the dice. In those days there was never any problem about Felicity’s whereabouts. If she wasn’t home, she was over in Fulham, reading to Gran from one of the books she collected for her from the public library.

When he got home and saw the state Sonia was in, Darius exaggerated the possibilities of Joey’s computer check. The telephone directory was on the kitchen table, open to the letter R. She had spent the early part of the evening telephoning everybody named Roch, asking to speak to Marti. She had actually uncovered one whose first name was Martin, but he convinced her he was an assistant bank manager and forty years old.

“Joey’s friend will have the results for him tomorrow,” Darius concluded. “I’m to call him at ten.”

He did, with Sonia standing at his shoulder. Joey apologized as he reported the computer had come up empty. If there was such a person as Marti Roch in London, he had committed no crimes or felonies. So far.

“It could be a she,” Sonia contributed. “Marti could be a girl’s name.”

Darius relayed the thought and went on to describe Sonia’s telephone efforts. Singleton thought that was a good move. “Now she wants to run a personal ad in the Times,” Darius said.

“Why not? It might help.” Singleton suggested he would be available tomorrow, his day off, to go into London with Darius and look for the girl. Darius welcomed the idea and they made arrangements to meet.

The Fenns were due at the children’s theater for a performance, but Sonia would not leave until she had composed the ad for the Times and phoned it in. It listed their phone number and asked Felicity Fenn and/or Marti Roch to get in touch.

As usual, the theater was crowded with kids and parents. Darius and Sonia put on their black sleeves and took their places behind the six-foot façade close to a table loaded with hand puppets. With a character on either hand and arms extended above their heads, they paced about to recorded music, pivoted, made exits and entrances. Sometimes Sonia put up a row of “extras” on a frame and, with all four arms in action, they created the illusion of a crowded puppet world.

Darius lost himself in the performance. Much of the dialogue was adlib. He loved keeping four voices going. At one time Sonia had contributed a voice, but it wasn’t the same. The action flowed better when he did it all.

During a fight scene as the caped villain was snatching the baby girl and the mother was fighting to save her, Darius caught a glimpse of his wife’s face. She was grim, only half there, and the sight almost knocked him off stride.

That night Sonia ran the sewing machine, making costumes for the new pirate puppets. Darius went back to carving heads, using the knife for a while, then sanding the features smooth. “Shall I come with you tomorrow?” she asked.

Darius had visualized only himself and Joey. Not that it was going to be fun, but it would be less stressful than if Sonia were there. He began to say it might be dangerous, then realized this would be the wrong thing to tell her. “One of us should stay here,” he said. “What if she calls? Or if this Marti Roch comes through? The ad will be in the paper tomorrow.”

“What will I say to her?”

“Ask her to come home. Tell her she can have all the freedom she wants.”

“I mean Marti Roch. What would I say to her?” The sewing machine went quiet for some time. “I just thought of something. It could be somebody from her school.” Sonia was off to the telephone again.

The Fenns were on good terms with the headmaster at Felicity’s school. More than once they had entertained there with their puppet show. Even though it was summer vacation, he did not mind being bothered at home. He expressed concern about their daughter’s disappearance but gave Sonia reassurance — young girls like to stray short distances before coining home again. He could not recall a Marti Roch, but in the morning he would drive to the school and check the records.

“You’ve decided it’s a girl,” Darius said, putting away his puppet and his knife.

“I suppose I feel that’s safer,” his wife said.

Darius went to bed and had trouble getting to sleep. He kept imagining encounters with Felicity in the company of gangs of aggressive youths. Fighting had never been his style — his past was littered with the wreckage of situations from which he had walked away when he should have stayed and confronted somebody.

He knew he was dreaming when he found himself at a wedding. It was taking place in an ancient church with no roof. There was water running down the walls and the mossy look of a graveyard. The place was full of teenagers, filling the pews, lounging on the floor. Their foul language echoed from the walls, filling Darius with impotent fury.

Felicity came down the aisle. She was naked, smiling — she knew everybody. Darius wanted to cover her with his coat but he wasn’t wearing one. He wasn’t wearing anything. He sneaked outside and was met by a blast of cold air. The chill woke him up and he found himself shivering outside the sheet. He got up and closed the window.

Then he left the bedroom quietly, went to his workroom, and selected the five-inch knife he used for shaping heads. He carried it to the bedroom and slipped it into the inside pocket of the jacket he intended to wear tomorrow.

Sonia sounded half asleep. “You all right?”

“I just closed the window.”

He crept back to bed.

In the morning, as Darius was leaving to meet Joey Singleton, the headmaster telephoned. There was no Marti Roch at Felicity’s school. He had gone further and checked enrollments for every school in the borough. No Marti Roch.

Darius walked to the corner and bought a Times. The ad was in print. There was something about those few lines in the noble newspaper that dispelled worry. He brought it home and showed it to Sonia along with his courageous smile.

“I’ll be O.K. now,” he said. “Stay by the phone; I’ll keep in touch.” Then he went to meet Joey.

They drove to the West End on a balmy August day. Darius was carrying a couple of snapshots of Felicity. They were not very good. She hated being photographed and always ended up looking away or closing her eyes. He gave one to Singleton, who said, “Trouble is, the people who may know where she is — the kids — won’t want to talk to an adult flashing a photo. Too much like a police investigation.”

Darius waited while his friend parked the car and slipped a police permit onto the sun visor. “I don’t know what else to do,” he said.

“It’s O.K. I still know a few newsies I can talk to.” Singleton set off across Trafalgar Square in the direction of Charing Cross Road. “The thing is to start looking — we may get lucky.”

They did. On the pavement below the statue of Henry Irving, several artists perched on canvas stools were doing charcoal or pastel portraits for the tourists. Darius recognized a freelance artist who had done jobs for him when he was in the ad business. “Mark,” he teased, “where are the photoprints you promised me for ten o’clock?”

“Hello, Darius. Someday your prints will come,” the artist said, using one of their familiar routines. “How goes it?”

“Not so good. I’m looking for a missing daughter.”

“Teenager? That’s nasty. They know how to hurt us.”

While Darius talked about it, another artist arrived, opened his portfolio, and began propping samples of his work against the stone wall. The head-and-shoulders sketch of Felicity was there for some time before it registered.

“That’s her!” Darius said. “That’s my daughter!”

Singleton checked the snapshot. “The hair is different.”

“She’s had it cut. That’s what she’d do, obviously. And dyed red — it used to be blonde.” He said to the artist, “When did you do this one?”

“A couple of days ago. She came by when I wasn’t busy and we got talking. I drew her because I liked her spark.” He positioned himself on his camp stool. “A great kid.”

“She’s my daughter. I’m trying to find her.” The artist seemed unimpressed. “She’s only fifteen.”

“I’d have said she was in her twenties.”

Darius bought the sketch. As Singleton rolled it carefully, he asked the artist for any other information he could give them. It seemed she was collected on that day by a dark, husky fellow who sounded not exactly English. They appeared to be very friendly.

The former policeman was looking thoughtful as they walked towards Leicester Square.

Feeling encouraged, Darius asked, “Does it sound like somebody you know?”

“It sounds like a few people.”

“Have we found Marti Roch?”

“I can’t say.”

The day seemed to drag on forever. They made several tours of likely areas. Sometimes they worked together, other times they split up. Darius phoned home every couple of hours. Nobody had telephoned but Sonia was encouraged by their portrait discovery. It meant Felicity had not been spirited away or buried in the woods by some demented rapist murderer. She was roaming around the bright lights with new hair, enjoying herself. Sonia would have something to say to that girl.

It was almost five o’clock in the afternoon when the two men drifted back along Charing Cross Road. Sick of drinking coffee on the run, they were heading for a pub on Whitehall. The artist, Mark, was sketching an Indonesian girl.

“Nice work if you can get it,” Darius said.

“Any luck with your daughter?”

“I was going to ask if she’d come by here.”

“No sign. I was watching for her.”

“Thanks, Mark. Keep your eyes open.” Darius scribbled his telephone number on the back of Mark’s pad.

As they reached the top of Trafalgar Square, the bell in the tower of St. Martin-in-the-fields struck five. Then the carillon began to play one of Darius’s favorite hymns.

“Hang on, Joey,” Darius said. “I want to hear this.”

They sat on the low parapet outside the National Gallery surrounded by the rush of pedestrians and the din of homeward-bound traffic. In his choir days years ago, Darius had sung the splendid words written by John Bunyan.

The old church looked magnificent against the evening sky. Its broad steps and porch were crowded with young people, tourists mostly, flaked out and enjoying the fading sun. It was a precious moment and Darius wished he could be happier. He knew his difficulties were of little weight in the presence of this historic building that had stood through centuries of time. Those great pillars supporting the massive portico with its Latin legend suggested continuity and security.

Darius had been observing the carved block letters for some time when they seemed to leap from the portico. Their message stunned him. “Joey, look up there.”

“The church? Bloody pigeons are all over the place.”

“No, the inscription.”

“It’s Latin. It means St. Martin in the fields, or words to that effect.”

“Keep looking at it.”

They stared up at the weathered letters, S. MARTINI PAROCHIANI. Then it hit Singleton too. “I see it. If you get rid of some of the letters, it becomes MARTI ROCH!”

“Am I crazy or could this be it?”

“But why did your daughter write it down?”

“When we find her we can ask her.”

The church was gloomy, cool, and quiet in contrast to the heat and the roar of traffic. “What are we looking for?” Darius whispered.

“We’ll know when we see it.”

There was nothing happening inside the church. They went back through the entrance doors and stood on the porch. The stones underfoot had been worn concave in places. A bulletin board was plastered with notices of activities, sacred and secular.

“How about this one?” Singleton pointed to a colorful sign advertising folk music in the Crypt. It was due to begin at seven.

“It’s the sort of thing she likes. Let’s check it out.”

The basement was even chillier and darker than the main body of the church. Darius found it disturbing. Perhaps it would be different later with a crowd of kids singing and playing guitars. He was not sure there were ancient corpses in the walls and under the floor, but the musty smell of the place had him holding his breath.

Singleton pointed to a couple of amplifiers at one end of the large room. “This is where it happens,” he said. His voice echoed under the low ceiling. Somebody moved in a doorway half submerged in shadow. Singleton held up a cautionary hand. In the silence, they heard scraping feet. Singleton limped forward without making a sound. Darius followed.

They came to an oak door, ajar. Singleton pushed it inward and sunlight poured through from a window in the far wall of a narrow room. The ex-policeman moved on in. “I thought it was you, Carlo,” he said. “The artist described you, but I wasn’t sure.”

“You make no sense, Joey.” It was an accented voice, Italian perhaps. “But you never did.”

Darius followed his friend into the room and saw a dark, heavy-set, handsome man in his thirties. He was standing at a massive pulpit in the corner of the otherwise empty room. Some of the paneling on the pulpit was broken. Kids had carved and scratched their intials on it.

Singleton unrolled the portrait and displayed it. “Recognize her?”

“Oh, that artist. Hey, you bought Felix’s picture. I was gonna go back and get it for her.”

“What’s happening, Carlo? What are you doing down here with nobody else around?”

“I’m meditating. What do you think? Get lost. I don’t have to talk to you.”

“You’ll talk.”

“You had your chance at me but you couldn’t make it stick. I got friends.”

“They’ll sort you out this time. Not me — the working cops. They’ll find out what you’re doing.”

Carlo began to look uneasy. He stepped down from the pulpit. “You’ve got no authority.”

“I’m making a citizen’s arrest. This man is Felicity’s father. Did you know she’s only fifteen? I’m going to bring you in for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”

“She came to me. You’ll never make it stick.”

“Maybe not. But while they talk to you they can shake you down. And search this little hideout too.”

Carlo broke for the door. He was fast. He went around Singleton and was upon Darius before he could think. As Darius grappled with him, the knife fell from his pocket. Singleton had Carlo by the collar now. Carlo kicked backward, dropped to one knee, snatched up the knife, and twisted around, bringing the blade up in a powerful thrust.

Joey Singleton coughed, his eyes widened, and he released his grip on Carlo, who backed away, saw that Darius was not going to try to stop him, and vanished through the doorway.

Darius arranged Joey on his back with his jacket folded under his head. There was a lot of blood.

“Tenacci,” the wounded man whispered. “His name is Carlo Tenacci. Tell them.”

“You’ll tell them yourself.”

Darius knew he had to get help, but he was afraid to leave his friend alone. Afraid? He had been terrified of the place from the first moment and now...

He was squatting beside his friend, paralyzed with indecision, when he heard Felicity’s voice.

“Carlo?”

“It’s me, love. Please don’t leave.”

She came into the room and stood over them. Her short red hair glistened in the sunlight. His first thought was that she looked terrific — not worn out and ratty like some of the kids on the street, but clean and bright. She looked successful, just like Pamela. He had successful children.

“Dad! Is that Joey Singleton?”

“Yes. Carlo stabbed him.”

“Why? He must be crazy!”

“Go for help. Tell the first policeman you see to radio for an ambulance. Run.”

She turned to the door.

“And, Felix...? Come back.”

She came back and sat with her father until the officers arrived with a stretcher. It was too late for Joey Singleton. He was dead on arrival at the hospital. Darius gave his statement and was allowed to take his daughter home. A search of the room off the Crypt revealed a stash of heroin under a loose panel in the base of the pulpit. The girl said she knew nothing of that and Darius believed her, but she was going to be required to testify at the hearing.

Darius drove Joey’s car to his house in Fulham. Felicity sat beside him, smoking. He had never seen her with a cigarette before; in a few days she had transformed herself into whoever she was. She insisted on coming inside.

“Somebody has to tell Gran,” she said. “I’m the best one.”

The old woman listened to the girl’s story about the romantic, glamorous older man who turned out to be a vicious killer. Felicity had really not known him. She understood he had supplies of pot but nothing more. She certainly never realized he carried a knife.

They persuaded Mrs. Singleton to come home with them, to move into Pamela’s empty room. She came like an obedient animal, holding Felicity’s arm, tapping with her white cane. Feeling like a voyeur, Darius watched the blind eyes for signs of accusation, but they showed him nothing.

After the funeral, Felicity announced she was home to stay. She seemed to blame herself for what had happened. When school reconvened, she went back and began working hard. Every afternoon she came home and read aloud to Gran from one of her library books. At night she sat with her and explained the television when it was necessary.

Darius met Pamela for lunch at a restaurant near her office and told her how things had worked out. She was sorry about Joey Singleton but seemed relieved to learn that Felicity was going straight. It was her final statement as they were parting that shook Darius.

“So you’ve given away my room,” she said in her mock-complaining voice. “I guess that’s that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean if I was ever going to come back home I can’t now. Never mind. It’s better not to leave doors open.”

A loose end was the scrap of paper Sonia had found in Felicity ’s pocket. Why had the girl copied down the Latin inscription from the church portico? Darius asked her one night when he was in front of the house snapping dead blooms from potted marigolds. She crouched beside him holding a plastic bag open to receive the pungent heads.

“I’m not sure why I did it,” she said. “I was waiting for Carlo in the square one afternoon, reading the paper. I did the crossword. Then I noticed the inscription on the church and I wrote it down. I liked the sound of the words. Maybe I was going to look them up.”

“Maybe you wanted to help me find you. You were providing a clue.”

“That’s very subtle. Do people do things like that?”

Carlo Tenacci’s body was discovered weeks later, buried in a shallow grave. He had been shot once in the back of the head. Apparently the underworld did not want an unreliable employee talking to the police.

“What a strange man,” Felicity said. She was helping her mother fit a costume to a new puppet. Darius was at his bench, carving. “I didn’t have Carlo figured out at all.”

“It’s behind us now,” Sonia said, sounding relaxed and happy.

But it was not behind Darius. He would have to live forever with his secret. Had he not been carrying the knife, Joey would be alive today. Carlo Tenacci would be alive too, in a police cell. It was wrong to carry a concealed weapon. He had always known this. Now he understood one of the reasons why. Unforeseen things could happen.

Bending to his work, Darius put the unpleasant thoughts out of his mind. Tomorrow he was to perform the first of a series of shows at local schools. This was his real life, hidden in the darkness behind the painted façade, surrounded by his puppets, the children laughing out front and everything under control.