A flurry of activity greeted her inside Miss Helen’s bedroom. The woman was tossing clothes in the air, Bertha trailing behind to pick them up, barely missing getting hit by a brocade shoe.
“Where is it?” said Miss Helen. “I know it was here, and now it’s gone. I must find it!”
“Where is what?” asked Lillian, not moving from the doorway.
Miss Helen straightened, her mouth set in a tense line. “I sent for you because I’m hoping you know.”
Lillian inhaled. “Know what?”
“The file of letters from Sir Robert Witt. The ones where he laid out his system of classification for his London art library. I must take it with me to Eagle Rock, and I can’t find it.”
“You asked me to place it in the bowling alley, in the bookshelves reserved for correspondence.”
“I did?” Miss Helen stared just above Lillian’s head, as if the truth could be found in the crevices of the crown moldings.
“You did. May I go now and eat my rations?”
“Oh, now, don’t be so dramatic.”
That Miss Helen could say something so blithely, as if Lillian weren’t about to be hauled off to jail, infuriated her. Lillian gestured around at the riot of fabrics and books that covered the gray carpet. “I am not the one being dramatic. Bertha will now have to clean all of this up, when the file wasn’t even here in the first place.”
“Right. She will.” Miss Helen glanced over at Bertha. “She doesn’t mind, though.”
A fleeting, hateful look passed over Bertha’s face, but Miss Helen had already turned away. Nothing pierced her bubble of insularity. She motioned to Miss Lillian. “Come with me so I don’t waste another minute.”
In the basement, they headed to the work space. It seemed so long ago that they’d bowled together. A lifetime ago.
Lillian easily located the overstuffed file on the bottom shelf. “Here. It’s filed under C for Correspondence.”
Miss Helen looked at it as if she wasn’t sure why she wanted it in the first place, and sighed. “It’s awfully large. Maybe I’ll leave it here anyway.”
It was all Lillian could do not to give the woman a good shove.
“Is that all?” Lillian asked.
“Oh, don’t be like that.” Helen paused. “I have something to tell you. I mean, it’s not why I brought you down here, but while we’re alone . . .”
Lillian waited.
“The family has spoken with Mr. DeWitt, and we’ve decided that if you tell us the location of the cameo, we will set you free. It does us no good to have the Frick name dragged through the mud, which it would certainly be, if you get taken to the police station and charged.”
Always thinking of themselves. “I don’t know where it is. I didn’t take it.”
“I know you say that, but be reasonable. You will be free; we’ll all be better off if you tell us.”
“I don’t know.”
Miss Helen considered Lillian. “I still can’t believe you took off your clothes and posed for men.”
“It was how I kept myself and my mother fed and housed.”
“Still. I can’t imagine doing such a thing. When you told me before the dinner party to pretend that everyone was undressed, was that what you would do?”
“Sometimes. Once you’re used to being in the altogether, it feels quite natural. Think of all of the nudes painted by the greatest artists. Titian, Botticelli. Someone had to pose for them.”
Miss Helen cocked her head. “Funny. I had all but forgotten that there were actual people involved.”
“You approach it from a different vantage point, as an artwork to be catalogued, the value noted.”
“I can’t believe how many of you are out there, around the city.” She spoke with awe, not repulsion. “You’re everywhere.”
“They aren’t me. They’re idealized, exaggerated versions of what a man thinks a woman should be. In any event, I think it’s swell that they’re out in the world, no admission fee necessary. If the common man can look upon a statue and be moved, I find nothing offensive about that.”
“I suppose you have a point.”
“Look, more than anyone, I would like to figure out who stole the cameo. And who left the draft on the sink. Maybe, if we work together, we can figure it out.”
Miss Helen hugged the file to her chest. “But you were the only person I told about Martha’s cameo and diamond.”