Even the Butler Was Poor (14 page)

"This is in Westchester County. That's in New York State. In a town named New Milman," she said. "There's an inn there called Victorian Village Lodge."

We spent a weekend there six years ago
, said Ben to himself. "Sounds a jolly quaint little spot. The phone number is what?"

The young woman gave him the telephone number and the number of H.J.'s room. "You might mention to her, if you get hold of her," concluded the secretary, "that we considered this important enough to bother her with."

"I shall, my dear. Thank you ever so much. Tally ho." Ben hung up, grinning. He picked the phone up again and punched out the inn number.

"Thank you for calling Victorian Village Lodge, a bit of nineteenth century tranquility amidst the hustle and bustle of modem living. My name is Angie, how may I help you?"

"This is Dr. Mackinson." he told her in his E.G. Marshall voice. "I have a message here that one of my patients—a Miss Helen J. Mavity—has been trying to reach me."

After a few seconds the woman replied, "I'm sorry, there's no one here by that name."

Ben said, "The room number I was given is 616."

"Oh, yes, she's registered as H.J. Spanner."

"Her married name I believe. Would you, please, connect me with her room?"

"She's not in just now, doctor."

"Are you certain, young woman?"

"Yes, I saw her go out about an hour ago, and her key is still in the slot."

"Hmm," said Ben in a thoughtful, medical way. "Perhaps it would be best if you didn't mention I called, young woman. Yes, I don't want to upset Mrs. Spanner unduly in her present condition. I'll make it a point to telephone her again later in the day."

"Whatever you think best, doctor."

"Do you have any notion when she'll return to the inn?"

"I don't, sorry."

"Thank you anyway, you've been most helpful." After he put the phone down, he clapped his hands together. "Off we go to Victorian Village."

A
t a few minutes after two, H.J. had gone strolling. She'd left the inn, which looked like the mansion of some 1890s robber baron with questionable taste, to take a walk across Victorian Village. It covered five rolling acres and consisted of an eclectic main street some two blocks long with a collection of transplanted and refurbished last century buildings. Beyond that stretched fields and woodlands, a few antique barns, and a small white New England church sitting on the pinnacle of a low, gentle hill.

H.J., wearing a tan windbreaker, a checkered shirt, and jeans, had her purse held close to her side. Within it, in a separate envelope now, were the negatives of Rick Dell's photos. She'd attached strips of package tape to the envelope while she was back in her room.

The village hadn't changed much since she and Ben had been there five or so years before. It didn't look any older; everything seemed frozen in the nineteenth century yet well cared for. Among the restored buildings were a small-town drug store with apothecary jars cluttering its window and a swinging-door saloon with a sign depicting a huge foaming glass of beer sitting on the wooden sidewalk in front of it. There was also a dark-wood general store with long-gone products lining its shelves and, as H.J. had anticipated, a narrow, two-stow museum trimmed with gingerbread and painted a lively lemon yellow.

She had picked the inn as her base of operations because Victorian Village was not an especially crowded place at this time of year and it was out of the way. Earlier in the day, soon after she'd made a cautious stop at her house in Brimstone to pack a quick suitcase and then take off in her own car, she'd sent a message to Les Beaujack. She'd had it transmitted from the fax machine in a twenty four-hour market in Westport. It said—

I have pictures. You'll have to deal with me now. Will contact you as to terms.

(Signed) Buggsy.

That had amused her at the time, using the dummy's name on the note. Now, though, as she walked toward the small museum, she felt it had been a dumb touch. Juvenile and far from slick.

"This isn't turning out to be much fun," she admitted to herself as she took another look back over her shoulder.

She was absolutely certain that nobody, ski-masked or otherwise, had followed her here from the house. But they'd been there again while she was staying with Ben, violated it and torn things apart once more. It was unsettling.

To say the least. Yes, having your home bulldozed by goons can certainly spoil your day.

She didn't especially want to dwell on the sort of people Kathkart and Beaujack had working for them. People who'd tortured poor Rick to make him talk.

"Think about money instead," she urged herself as she pushed open the wooden doors of the museum.

She was the only visitor apparently. The outward room had two reconstructions of nineteenth century interiors, each behind a faded purple plush rope. On the left was a Victorian parlor jammed with claw-footed furniture, flowers, and small statuary under bell glasses and a not very convincing grandfatherly wax dummy slumped in a bentwood rocker and pretending to be reading a tattered copy of
Harper's Weekly
. On the right was a small country kitchen where, with a stuffed Cocker Spaniel eagerly watching, a plump wax housewife was kneading a loaf of bread.

Same loaf she was working on when Ben and I dropped in.

In the next room, exactly as she'd remembered it, was the display of old carriages—five in all. Still standing at the back was a hearse, five of its six black plumes still extant. Inside the glass-walled vehicle an ornate silver-trimmed black coffin rested on a cradle of planking.

After taking another look behind her, H.J. approached the hearse. She edged along, brushing against the surrey next to it, to the backside of the vehicle and opened the rear door. From her purse she took the envelope of negatives. Reaching into the hearse, and using her other hand to pry one of the lengths of sticky tape loose from her wrist, she slid the envelope beneath the old coffin. She pressed it to the bottom of the black box, smoothed out the strips of tape and withdrew her hand.

A fairly safe hiding place for now.

Carefully shutting the door, she moved away from the old hearse.

Out in the other room now, a thin blonde woman and a girl of about six were looking at the nineteenth-century kitchen.

"What did they do to that poor doggie?" the perplexed little girl wanted to know.

"Nothing, Vicki, honey."

"Yes, they did, mommy. Did they kill him and stuff him full of cotton?"

"Oh, no, dear, I imagine they simply . . ."

H.J. returned to the sunny afternoon outside.

I ought to feel a hell of a lot happier than I do
, she remarked to herself.
Within a few days, with any kind of luck, I'll have . . . Well, at least a million dollars. Tax free, since you don't report blackmail earnings on your IRS return
.

She walked slowly out of the two-block town and crossed a rustic wooden bridge over a narrow stream to sit on a wrought-iron bench beneath a weeping willow.

I really shouldn't have looked up Ben
, she decided.
He's like . . . like Jiminy Cricket to me. He can probably even do the voice. Always trying to be my conscience
.

Of course, if she hadn't gotten her former husband's help she wouldn't have found out what the hell Rick Dell had been trying to tell her while he was dying. Then she never would have found the film hidden in Buggsy's hollow leg, and she wouldn't be on the brink of wealth.

Or possibly on the brink of the grave.

H.J. crossed her legs, looking out across a wooded hillside.

She'd never done much in the way of landscape painting. Soon, however, with a million dollars or so to play with, she could paint anything she wanted. Or she could paint nothing at all.

No more ripped bodices to paint, no more heaving bosoms, no more dippy beach bum types leering. I'll never have to do a romance cover again
.

She leaned back on the bench, trying to look content. But contentment didn't arrive.

"Damn Ben," she said aloud, sitting up straight.

Well, it could be he was right in some ways. Blackmailing the Chumley gang probably wasn't that smart an idea. Maybe, as Ben kept suggesting, she simply ought to turn over all the pictures to the police. Or better yet, mail them in anonymously. Let them go after Kathkart and the rest.

And bid farewell to a million dollars.

The interest on that alone, once you worked a way to deposit it at enough different banks so that the government wouldn't get wise— the interest would be something around $100,000 a year.

Imagine that. More than she'd ever earned in any given year since she'd become a professional artist. Quite a lot more actually, despite the fact she'd hinted to Ben that she was doing nearly as well as he was these days.

I'd better talk to him
, she thought, standing up,
before I go any further with this
.

She'd discuss her feelings with him, not necessarily letting him talk her out of the scheme. But, well, to kick around the pros and cons of dropping the whole damn scheme before somebody came and killed her or arrested her. Striding rapidly, she headed back toward the inn.

T
he clock in the old church tower was striking 3:30 as Ben parked in the tree-lined lot at the back of Victorian Village Lodge. They were apparently baking apple pies in the nearby kitchen and a pleasant spicy aroma surrounded him as he got out of his car. He was carrying his attaché case, to give him an official aura should anyone question his prowlaround.

He checked around the parking lot, but didn't spot H.J.'s car. There was no one behind the small horseshoe desk in the quaint hotel lobby. Ben leaned an elbow on the deck, squinted toward the cubbyholes. The one labeled 616 was empty. So H.J. had returned to her room and was pretty likely, even though he hadn't seen her car outside anywhere, to be up there now.

He walked over to the narrow, dark-wood stairway and started climbing to the third floor. For some reason the 600 rooms were on the third floor of this four story inn. The same flowers-and-vines pattern carpeting was on the quirky flights of stairs as when he and H.J. had stayed here years ago.

"Faith, that was during happier times to be sure," he muttered in his Barry Fitzgerald voice.

H.J.'s room was around a turn in the narrow hallway, just beyond a stunted palm that squatted in a dented, threelegged brass pot. Ben stopped short of the door, when he noticed that it stood about two inches open.

"Not a good sign."

He shoved the door and, ducking low, went on into the room. There was no one inside. But someone had been there, someone besides H.J. The sheets and blankets had been pulled from the bed, the mattress had been removed and dumped on the hardwood floor. All the drawers, from the bureau and the bedside table, lay upended on the hook rug.

Taking a deep breath, Ben quietly shut the door behind him. The closet was empty, no sign of the suitcase he was fairly sure she must've brought here with her. He took a slow walk around the room, looked into the open bathroom. There was nothing in there of interest.

He studied all the floors again more closely, for signs of blood. He found none. Finally he sank into a chintz-covered chair next to the claw-footed phone stand. "Looks like they found her . . . and took her out of here with them."

After a moment, he picked up the phone and pushed the button that gave him an outside line. He phoned his own number to get a playback of his recent messages. It was possible H.J. had gotten away from here on her own and would try to contact him.

"Clutching at straws."

The messages commenced. "This is Chuck Ramsey with Reisberson Brothers Investments, Mr. Spanner. Get back to me about some great buys in—"

"Get off the tape, asshole."

The next voice said, rather plaintively, "This is Candy again, Ben. Are you really ticked off at me or what?"

"Dimwit," he commented.

"Ben, this is Joe. Give me a call. I know who the old gent was."

Then came, "Ben, it's me. Listen, I've been thinking about things and I'd like to talk to you. Call me at—" H.J.'s phone, probably the one he had in his hand now, was abruptly hung up.

"They either walked in on her then," he said. "Or she had second thoughts."

He sat frowning at the phone for nearly a minute. Then he reached into his breast pocket for his address book. He lowered his head, straightened up and punched out a number.

"Lenzer, Moon & Lombard."

"Okay, hon, put me through to Artie Moon," he demanded in his Barry Kathkart voice.

He could hear the young woman on the switchboard inhaling sharply. Very evenly she replied, "As I told you less than twenty minutes go, Mr. Kathkart, Mr. Moon is still away at an important luncheon with a prospective client and simply can't be disturbed for any reason."

"Well, make sure the old fart phones me as soon as he's free. Does he have the number?"