The Recycled Citizen Read Free Page A

consort to so queenly a spouse, but nobody laughed at Brooks. Something about him put one in mind of those unassuming chaps John Buchan used to write about: the ones who could speak fluently any obscure foreign dialect that happened to serve the immediate purpose, could contrive an impenetrable disguise with a handful of dust and a trick of the mind, could construct any required device from whatever bits and pieces might lie at hand, could endure any hardship or face any peril with a hymn on their lips and a Sunday School text in their hearts, could effect the downfall of the Schwarzestein at the precise moment when it appeared to be inevitably in der Siegeskrohe, then go back to scratching the backs of their pedigreed pigs and taking twenty-mile strolls across the moors with Carlyle’s “Essay on Burns” for company.
    Brooks was a photographer of ospreys’ nests and a former entertainer at children’s birthday parties. He could build almost anything but was inclined to be fussy about his materials. He spoke only Andover-Harvard and had no trouble making himself perfectly understood in it anywhere, under any circumstances. He altered his appearance by wearing a straw boater with a feather of the crested grebe tucked into the hatband during the summer, and a greenish-gray felt hat with a feather of the ruddy turnstone in the winter. The only perils he’d ever quailed at were bossy widows who wanted to marry him, but Theonia had relieved him of those. The Schwarzestein wouldn’t have got to first base with Brooks Kelling and had never been known to try.
    Jeremy Kelling was about Brooks’s height and roughly twice his girth. There was a cousinly resemblance between them, but Sarah could never have pictured Uncle Jem photographing an osprey’s nest or thwarting the Schwarzestein or anybody else by agility or guile. He might, she supposed, succeed in paralyzing a foe with a jug of his special-formula martinis. More likely he’d yell for his man Egbert to handle the matter. Lately, to Sarah’s annoyance, he’d taken to yelling for Max.
    In Sarah’s personal opinion Max Bittersohn was far and away the most distinguished member of the group. She could well believe his ancestors had been priests in the temple of Solomon while the Kellings were still painting themselves blue and being nasty to the Picts. Max was just about six feet tall and looked less than the forty years he’d soon have attained. His dark brown hair had a marvelous wave to it; his gray-blue eyes saw a great deal more than most people realized they did.
    Lately the expression on Max’s handsome though by no means pretty face had been often anxious. That was due to impending fatherhood; normally Max was a cheerful man, though never boisterous like Jem. By profession Max was a private detective specializing in the recovery of precious art objects. Recently he’d developed a sideline: fishing members of the enormous Kelling tribe out of hot water.
    Sarah herself had been Max’s first Kelling catch, and the only one he’d never felt any urge to throw back. She was small and slight like Brooks, had a modified version of the square Kelling jaw, but had mercifully escaped the Kelling nose. Her hair was brown, much lighter than Max’s, and was showing a tendency to curl now that she’d had it cut short. Her skin was delicate and inclined to be pale except when she blushed. She was still under thirty and as happy as an expectant mother could be, considering how many relatives’ good advice she had to endure.
    The luxurious car Max drove was his only step in the direction of ostentation, and not much of one at that since he used it often on business, needed plenty of trunk space to bring back the rescued Rembrandts and dealt mostly with rich clients who expected him to look successful. Dolph plunked himself down in the front passenger seat without waiting to be asked. Sarah shrugged, slid under the steering wheel and put her feet up on the hump in the