Chapter 9: Sylvia's Questions
Sylvia Grant did not raise her voice that day, and Casa Loma confessed to her anyway.
She worked in Ferrante's office with the door open, which Harper at first thought strange, until she understood: an open door meant no one could later say they had been threatened behind a closed one. One by one, the staff came in and sat on the upright chair opposite the desk, and Sylvia took the evening apart like a seam.
Harper was allowed to stay because she had asked to, and because Sylvia had said, "She will hear things said about her, Mr. Ferrante. Better she hears them from the people than from rumour." She sat by the window with a list, ticking names, saying nothing. It was its own kind of test, and she knew it.
"First," Sylvia said to Ferrante, who had refused to sit, "the roster. Who was meant to work last night?"
"Seven front of house, six kitchen, two cloakroom," Ferrante said. "My roster. Marco printed it. It is on the board, it was on the board all week."
"And who actually worked?"
Ferrante's jaw moved. "Seven front of house. But not the same seven. Piotr telephoned at four — his child, a fever. Marco engaged a relief man from the agency we use at Christmas. Or so I was told this morning."
"By whom?"
"By Marco. He telephoned the agency. He says."
"You say 'he says' as a man repeats a thing he has not yet decided to believe," Sylvia observed.
"I say it as a man whose restaurant was used," Ferrante said, "and who does not know yet by whom. Do not make a villain of grammar, Sylvia."
She inclined her head, conceding the point with grace, and wrote.
The agency, telephoned at noon, had no record of a booking. No relief man, no invoice to come. Whoever filled that gap had not come through any agency Casa Loma had ever used.
"So," Sylvia said. "A gap appears in the roster in the afternoon. By evening, the gap is filled — by a jacket, a tray, and a man nobody can now name. Who hired the relief staff that night, Mr. Ferrante? Truly?"
"I believed Marco had," Ferrante said. "Marco believes the maître d' had. The maître d' believes Marco had. You see our difficulty."
"I see a circle," Sylvia said, "with a hole in the middle where the truth should be. We will walk the circle again after lunch. Send in the laundry, please."
The laundry arrived in the person of Mrs. Dabrowska, who had pressed Casa Loma's linen for eleven years and was offended, on its behalf, by any suggestion that her bundles were irregular. Sylvia soothed her, and then asked about uniforms.
"Jackets," Mrs. Dabrowska said. "White, black trousers, aprons. I count out, I count in. Last week I count out nine busboy jackets. This morning, I count in eight."
The room became very attentive.
"One short," Sylvia said.
"One short," Mrs. Dabrowska agreed. "And not torn, not stained and kept back — I would be told. Gone out in a bundle on Thursday, I think, with the table linen. A jacket in the wrong bundle. The book says out nine, in eight, and my book does not lie."
"Your book," Sylvia said warmly, "is the most reliable witness we have yet met. Who signed for Thursday's delivery?"
Mrs. Dabrowska turned pages with a wetted finger. "Here. Relief driver. Not my usual boy. He signed with a mark, not a name. I telephoned the company. They say their boy was sick Thursday, and the relief was sent by another firm, and that firm has no —"
"— record," Sylvia finished. "Yes. The week is full of helpful phantoms. Thank you, Mrs. Dabrowska. Your linen deserved a better evening."
When she had gone, Harper said, "You knew about the jacket before she came in. You were confirming, not discovering."
Sylvia looked at her with open approval, which was more alarming than her disapproval.
"Well observed. I confirm in front of witnesses, so that later no one can say a thing was invented in this office. Now I will test you, as I have tested everyone else. Could he have been a relief worker you simply had not met?"
"Yes," Harper said. "He could have been a relief worker I'd never met. That would explain the face. It wouldn't explain him looking at doors instead of tables, or a jacket from a bundle that went missing on Thursday, or why no agency has his name. But the face alone — yes. Strangers work relief. That's what relief means."
"You do not defend your first impression past what it can carry."
"No. And you don't need to test whether I'll say what this room wants to hear. I've got a mother and a job I'd like to keep, Miss Grant. That is exactly the sort of person who can be leaned on, and we both know it. So I'll tell you now: lean, and I'll break off, not bend. What I saw is what I said this morning. Nothing on top for Ferrante, nothing underneath for Mr. Barone."
Nico, by the door, said nothing, which Harper was learning was his way of applauding.
Sylvia folded her hands. "Then we are colleagues," she said, "whether either of us chose it. I dislike being leaned on myself. It ruins the posture."
After lunch they walked the circle again — kitchen staff, cloakroom girls, the porter, the maître d' — and the circle held, except in one place. The porter, a broad, slow man named Emil, kept the log for the service door: who came in by it, when the lock was last serviced, because Ferrante, after a break-in on the street two winters ago, had grown particular.
"The lock," Sylvia said. "Tell me about the lock."
"Changed," Emil said, "when? March. No — February. The old one froze. Marco had the locksmith. I have the paper."
"Fetch the paper, please, Emil."
He fetched a folder, proud of it, and laid out invoices, a service card, a guarantee. Sylvia read each sheet twice, her face giving nothing. Then she turned the service card over, read the back, and was still in a way that made Harper's shoulders rise.
"Emil," she said. "Who else has a copy of this paper?"
"No one, Miss Grant. It stays in the folder, in the office."
"And the key it describes — the service-door key. How many exist?"
"Three," Emil said promptly. "Mine, Mr. Ferrante's, and the spare in the office, on the board. Three. Always three."
Sylvia turned the folder round so they could all see the card, and the neat handwriting on its back, in a hand none of them recognised, that recorded not a service, nor a repair, nor a delivery.
It recorded a visit in April, unsigned, uninitialled by any member of Casa Loma's staff — a visit, the note said, to take an impression of a key.