Harper let the lie pass. Her eyes made a slow half-circuit of the scene before her. The toppled steles, the ice-fringed tombs, the castellated tower of the church itself, lopped and moldering at the fringes of the visible. Beyond the graveyard’s low stone wall, the snow obliterated her view of the surrounding moor.

“Her grandfather was in trade, as I understand,” she said in her gravelly rasp.

“Her grandfather?”

“You wanted to know about her.”

“Right, right. Her grandfather. So he was in trade, huh?”

“An antiques dealer. In Surrey, I believe. In a way, it’s quite a romantic story. When his son, Michael Endering, fell in love with an archdeacon’s daughter, her parents thought him not quite the thing. They forbade the match, and the girl—Ann—was sent off to school in Switzerland. Five years later, however, Michael applied for her hand again. And by then he had become a millionaire many times over.”

“What, in five years?” said Storm, chattering, bouncing.

“Yes, and the money did the trick, apparently. He got the girl, her ancestral manse—Belham Grange—a knighthood eventually, plus the blessing and acceptance of an all-forgiving aristocracy. So far as I know, the rumors concerning the Nazis were never even mentioned.”

That stopped Storm bopping about, at any rate. He stood flat-footed, panting. Dragged a neon-orange cuff across his dripping nose. “The Nazis? You mean, like, the Nazi Nazis? The evil German guys from World War II?”

“The very ones.” She turned her head, faced him—and she’d stood so rigid till then under her gray mantle that it really did give the impression of a statue coming to life. “They had plundered much of the art of Europe, you’ll remember, slaughtering many of its rightful owners along the way. Sometime after the war, the stolen masterpieces flooded the black market. England’s strict laws concerning ownership made the trade dangerous and difficult here …”

“So you’re saying Sophia’s father was a fence for Nazi loot.”

“I’m saying there were rumors to that effect—largely discounted then, and long forgotten now. He married Ann, set up his art gallery in New Bond Street, moved into Belham Grange, and had three children, Sophia being the youngest. His life after that was without any tinge of public scandal. That is, until nineteen years ago, when Ann hanged herself.”

Storm’s mouth opened. White balls of mist spilled from his lips, whipped away on the howling wind. “She hanged herself?”

“Fortunately, all the children were in London with their grandparents when it happened. Sophia was five at the time.”

“Jeez. Nazis and suicide,” Storm said.

“Precisely,” said Harper.

A long moment passed. The old woman examined her companion closely. “Young Richard,” she said. “If you are planning to approach Miss Endering—”

“No, no, I’m not,” he answered at once.

“But if you are, you should know—”