it revealed the unique eye and taste of its owners, though what in a lesser eye and taste would have been vulgarity here was lifted to a splendor that took the breath away. Had she known it, every piece of furniture and every drape had once adorned a Broadway stage in days when props had been custom-made by true artisans, and only the finest materials had been used. The colors were rich, sumptuous, and always uncannily right; there were chairs shaped like sphinxes, like lions or winged Assyrian bulls; walls turned out to be vast mirrors that reflected on and on into a near-infinity; one room was completely lined in roseate, beaten copper. Mouth agape, Delia trod across marble or mosaic floors, gazed at priceless Persian carpets, and wondered if she had gone through the looking glass into a different universe. No stranger to the trappings of wealth or to palatial houses, Delia still felt that Busquash Manor was an impossible fantasy.
Her nose was about level with Rha Tanais’s navel; she had to tilt her head far back to see his face, lit from within by what she sensed were warmly positive emotions. He gave her a delicate crystal glass of white wine; one sip told her it was superb.
“Darling, you are magnificent!” he cried. “How dare Ivy hide you? Come and meet Rufus.”
Who was already watching her, a stunned look on his handsome face. Organza frills upon frills in magenta, acid-yellow, orange and rose-pink. In shock, he stumbled to his feet.
“Delia darling, this is my other half, Rufus Ingham. Rufus, this is Ivy’s friend Delia Carstairs. Isn’t she magnificent?”
“Don’t ever change!” Rufus breathed, kissing her hand. “That dress is gorgeous!” He drew her toward a striped Regency sofa and sat down beside her. “I have to know, darling—where do you buy your clothes?”
“The garment district in New York City,” she said, glowing, “but once I get them home, I pull them apart and tart them up.”
“It’s the tarting up does it every time. What an eye you have—totally individual. No one else could ever get away with that dress, but you conquer it like Merman a song.” He smiled at her, his eyes caressing. “Dear, delicious Delia, do you know anyone here?”
“Ivy and Jess, but I seem to have arrived ahead of them.”
“Fabulous! Then you belong to me. D’you see the decrepit old gentleman posing under the painting of Mrs. Siddons?”
Rapidly falling hopelessly (but Platonically) in love with Rufus, Delia studied the elderly, debonair man indicated. “I feel I ought to know him, but his identity eludes me.”
“Roger Dartmont, soon to sing the role of King Cophetua.”
“The Roger Dartmont?” Her jaw dropped. “I didn’t realize he was so—um—up in years.”
“’Tis he, Delicious Delia. God broke the mold into a million pieces, then Lucifer came along and glued him together again, but in the manner Isis did Osiris—no phallus could be found.”
Delia giggled. “Difficult, if your name is Roger.” Her gaze went past Roger Dartmont. “Who’s the lady who looks like a horse eating an apple through a wire-netting fence?”
“Olga Tierney—a wife, darling. Her husband’s a producer of Broadway plays, including the abortion we’re working on at the moment. That’s him, the one in black tie who looks like a jockey. They used to live in Greenwich, now they have one of the islands off our own Busquash Point.” Rufus’s mobile black brows arched. “It’s a gorgeous place—or would be, if Olga weren’t one of the beige brigade.” His voice dropped. “Rumor hath it that Bob Tierney is overly fond of under-age girls.”
“An island,” said Delia thoughtfully, “would be excellent.”
Something in her tone made Rufus’s khaki-colored eyes swing to Delia’s face, expression alert. “Excellent?” he asked.
“Oh, privacy, sonic isolation, all sorts,” she said vaguely.
“Delicious Delia, what does a ravishingly dressed lady with an Oxford accent do for a living in an Ivy League town?”
“Well, she might discuss Shakespeare with Chubb undergrads, or run a swanky brothel, or operate an electron microscope, or”—a wide grin dawned as she paused dramatically—“she might be a sergeant of detectives with the Holloman police.”
“Fantastic!” he cried.
“I’m not undercover, Rufus dear, but I’m not advertising my profession either,” she said severely. “You may tell Rha, but I would prefer to meet everyone else as—oh, the proprietress of that swanky brothel or that expert on Shakespeare. Once people know I’m a cop, they become defensive and automatically censor their conversation. Would you have been so frank if you’d known?”
A slow smile appeared. “For my sins, probably yes. I have a lamentable tendency to voice what I’m thinking—isn’t that well expressed? I’m a parrot, I collect ways of saying things. But seriously, mum’s the word. However, your desirability mushrooms with every new snippet of information you feed me. I love unusual people!” His face changed. “Are you here on business?”
She looked shocked. “Oh, dear me, no! I wouldn’t be here at all if I didn’t know Ivy. My police cases are as decrepit as Roger, I’m afraid, though I admit that a detective never doffs her deerstalker hat either. So when I hear something interesting, I file it in my mind. We have lots of old cases we can’t close.”
“Age,” he said with great solemnity, “is the worst criminal of them all, yet perpetually escapes punishment. Ah! Enter the Kornblums! Ben and Betty. She’s the one in floor-length mink, he’s the one with the knuckle-duster diamond pinky ring. Betty is the sole reason to ban air-conditioning—it enables her to wear mink indoors in August. It wouldn’t be so bad if she weren’t addicted to two-toned mink—the spitting image of a Siamese cat.”
“Does she keep Siamese cats?” Delia asked.
“Two. Sun Yat Sen and Madame Chiang Kai Shek.”
“What does Ben do to earn diamond pinky rings?”
“Produce plays and movies. He’s another backer. They used to have a penthouse on Park Avenue,” Rufus said chattily, “but now they live in the Smith place—you know where I mean, tucked away inside a cleft of North Rock.”
Delia straightened. “The Smith place, eh? Hmm! Privacy galore. Has Mr. Kornblum any sordid secrets?”
“He fancies ponies way ahead of Siamese cats.”
“A gambler? An equestrian? A practitioner of bestiality?”
“Darling, you are delicious! The ponies he fancies are in the back row of the chorus.”
“I thought they were called hoofers.”
“No. Hoofers can dance well, they’re in the front row.”
“But Holloman isn’t rich in chorus girls.”
“That’s what Betty thought too. What she didn’t take into account was Holloman’s thousands of beautiful girls at various schools. Ben attends classes on everything from typing to dancing to amateur photography.”
The very large room was beginning to look
