The Bilbao Looking Glass (17 page)

Sarah was too furious to say more than, “Don, you seem to be the least insane of the three. Would you please reach into Max’s pocket and get his keys for me?”

“What do you want them for?”

“I have no other means of transportation. Is that sufficient reason?”

“I suppose so.” Don fished out the keys and was about to hand them over when Fren stopped him.

“Wait a minute. How do we know she’s not going to rush off and destroy the evidence?”

“What evidence?” Appie Kelling had by now managed to wriggle her way through the press to her niece’s side. “I don’t understand this at all. I must say it does seem—with dear Alice B. just buried—and now poor Miffy—she—it’s hardly—and after all, Mr. Bittersohn is formally engaged to Sarah. Really, Fren, such roughhousing might possibly be acceptable at the bachelor party, but—”

“Roughhousing, hell! Appie, this man is a killer. First he sneaks in here at night and steals all the paintings and bashes Alice B. with the axe, and now he poisons Miffy’s drink. It was a fresh one. She hadn’t even touched it!”

One couldn’t tell whether Fren thought Miffy’s death or the waste of a virgin martini was the worse crime of the two.

“But he’s engaged to Sarah,” Appie moaned.

“Then Sarah had better get herself disengaged pretty damn fast. This son of a bitch—”

“This man’s name is Max Bittersohn,” Sarah interrupted, “and I’ll thank you to use it, as I myself shall be doing in the very near future.”

Fren sneered. “Naturally you’ve got to say that now. You’ll be singing a different tune in a day or so.”

“Shut up, Fren,” said his brother. “Appie, look at the facts. Mr. Bittersohn,” he leaned heavily on the name, “first entered this house, to the best of our knowledge, something like eight hours before Alice B. was killed by a burglar she caught stealing Miffy’s painting. Mr. Bittersohn,” again the implied sneer, “is a self-confessed dealer in stolen paintings.”

“Correction, Don.” That was Bradley Rovedock, back from making his telephone call to the police station. “As I understand it, Bittersohn runs a detective agency that specializes in the recovery of stolen art objects.”

“It’s the same thing, isn’t it?”

“Not quite. I suggest we leave the investigating to the police. They said they’d be right along.”

“But damn it, Brad, he handled Miffy’s drink. He was holding it while she took her stockings off. We all saw him.”

“We did not,” Vare contradicted. “We may or may not have all observed Mr. Bittersohn accepting the glass from Miffy’s hand, but I should venture to assume that we then focused our eyes on the somewhat unusual spectacle of an elderly woman removing her nether garments in the presence of a large mixed group of guests.”

“What’s she talking about?” Fren asked Don.

“She means nobody was watching Bittersohn hold the drink because we were more interested in seeing Miffy do her strip tease,” Pussy Beaxitt interpreted. “Vare’s right, too. I know I was.”

“To think that when dear Miffy said this was the last time she’d ever wear—” Aunt Appie started to cry again.

“But that’s exactly what she meant,” Sarah exclaimed. “Don’t you realize how totally out of character it was for her to burn that girdle? You saw what a rag it was. I’ll bet it was fifty years old, and she’d hung on to it all this time. Why should she decide to get rid of it right after Alice B. died?”

“Because she was drunk,” said Pussy. “Good try, Sarah. You want us to believe Miffy had planned to do a Sarah Bernhardt out of grief over losing Alice B. Forget it. Biff and I rode with her to the funeral and back. She did nothing but bitch the whole way about how she was going to have to hire someone to cook and housekeep because Appie was hopeless and she couldn’t stand her flapping around anyway. If that’s suicidal mania, I’m Jessica Dragonette.”

“Why Jessica Dragonette?” Lassie Larrington wanted to know.

“I don’t know, it’s just a name that sticks in my mind. My father was crazy about her. We used to listen to her on the radio every Sunday night. It was an Atwater-Kent. I shouldn’t be surprised if my mother still has it.”

“Why would she keep the radio if this Dragonette woman was your father’s mistress?”

“Lassie, for God’s sake! She was a soprano on the Bayer Aspirin hour. Father liked to hear her sing. I don’t suppose he ever laid eyes on her, much less anything else. Forget I ever mentioned Jessica Dragonette, will you? What I meant was that Miffy did not commit suicide. So if this Bittersohn didn’t put the poison in her drink, who did?”

“What makes you so sure Miffy was in fact poisoned?” asked Vare quite sensibly.

“Because she was roaring around in great form, until she gulped down that drink and keeled over. How else could she have died that suddenly?”

“She might have had a massive coronary attack.”

“Vare, knock it off,” snarled Biff Beaxitt. “You’re supposed to have brains, aren’t you? Of course Miffy was poisoned. We’ve caught the bastard who did it and if Sarah chooses to take umbrage at my use of the word ‘bastard,’ that’s just too damned bad. What I’m wondering right now is who gets Miffy’s money.”

“You can hardly be intimating that she’s left it to Sarah.”

“One never knows. If Appie’d been working on her—”

Biff stopped. Even he must have realized he was talking nonsense. Appie Kelling would be the last person in the world to try such a thing, and the first to louse it up if she ever did. Nevertheless, his question had set everybody thinking. With Alice B. gone and none of the Tergoyne family left alive, at least none that anybody knew about, any member of the group Miffy had dominated for so long might stand a fighting chance of getting something out of her estate.

Or if she’d left it all to Alice B. as they’d expected her to, would Alice’s heirs automatically become Miffy’s residuary legatees? Was that why Tigger’s eyes were glittering so from under all that hair, and why Biff Beaxitt had been so quick to dub Max Bittersohn the scapegoat?

Biff himself had been right there in the crowd beside Max while Miffy did her striptease act. So had Pussy. In fact, she’d been about as close to Max as a woman could get unless they’d happened to be participating in a group orgy. Either of the Beaxitts could have poisoned the drink easily enough while the rest were watching Miffy.

But so could any number of other people. Sarah shut her eyes and tried to re-stage the scene in her mind. There’d been Fren and Don and—no, Lassie had been standing over here by the window with Sarah herself. But then she’d made that fuss about her drink and gone to get another. She’d have had to pass near Miffy then, because Miffy hadn’t strayed far from the source of supply ever since they’d got back from the funeral.

It might even have been Lassie who’d brought Miffy that fresh drink. Sarah remembered she’d taken two from the bar. Sarah had assumed she’d meant them both for herself, to make up for the tomato juice. It would have been natural enough for Lassie to offer one to Miffy, though, and most unlike Miffy to turn it down. Fren claimed Miffy’s glass had been full, and that meant she’d only just got a fresh one. No drink would have stayed untasted in Miffy’s hand for long.

But Sarah hadn’t actually seen Lassie give the extra drink to Miffy or anyone else. She was still at her mental exercises, trying to recall who’d been standing behind Miffy, when the police arrived. Chief Wilson was among them, but to her regret, Sergeant Jofferty wasn’t. At least Wilson and his men appeared competent and not too impressed by Biff Beaxitt’s insistence that he’d caught Isaac Bittersohn’s boy red-handed bumping off his hostess.

One of the men went off to phone for more help while the chief asked people sensible questions and got mostly irrelevant answers, except from Tigger who still wouldn’t do anything but glower. Nobody could swear to seeing Max put the alleged poison in Miffy’s drink. Nobody had been conscious of seeing much of anything except Miffy exposing her wrinkled brown hide and hurling a frayed-out elastic girdle into the fire, then drinking from the glass Max had been holding for her, choking, and dying. Nobody could say where Miffy had got the drink in the first place, especially the harried bartender.

“I kept mixin’ an’ they kept grabbin’,” was his testimony. “I never seen nothin’ like it; not even at the Policemen’s Ball.”

He’d been preparing batch after batch of martinis, since nobody seemed to want anything else. People would hold out their empty glasses for refills, or else he’d pour the mixture into clean glasses and set them on a tray. Either the waitress would pass the tray around or else guests would come over and pick up the drinks, often two and three at a time, and give the extras to their friends.

“You took two, Lassie,” said Sarah.

“Yes, and so did a lot of other people,” snapped Biff Beaxitt. “Lassie gave her extra one to me, and I drank it. You needn’t think you’re going to get him off that way, Sarah.”

Biff had not taken that drink from Lassie. Sarah wasn’t sure how she knew he was lying, but he was. Nevertheless, every single member of the club would back him up. Even Aunt Appie and Bradley Rovedock were giving her sorrowful “How could you let down the side?” looks. She’d queered herself with the old crowd now for fair, and she hadn’t helped Max by doing it.

“Then does anybody else know where Miss Tergoyne got that last drink?” Chief Wilson asked.

Nobody could or would say. The bartender was pretty sure Miffy’d got at least a couple for herself from the bar. Bradley Rovedock volunteered that he’d fetched one for Miffy early on but he was sure she’d had several after that. Aunt Appie sniffled that she’d tried without success to persuade Miffy to drink a nice, nourishing glass of tomato juice. After that, they all clammed up.

A little while later, some homicide people who must have been from the state police showed up, along with the medical examiner. He refused to give any definite opinion as to the cause of death until he’d done an autopsy, but muttered to the Police that they’d better do a damned careful job of gathering the evidence.

“He thinks it’s murder, too,” everyone whispered to everyone else. When a fingerprint expert impounded the glass and asked them to line up and have their fingerprints taken, they were sure.

Don Larrington snorted, “Damn bureaucratic balderdash,” but he and the rest cooperated readily enough; except for Tigger who had to be threatened with arrest for assaulting an officer before she’d allow her fingers to be inked. Vare looked perturbed at that, as well she might.

Max had been released from his improvised restraints and allowed to put his belt back on. He was sitting quietly in one of Miffy’s armchairs, not missing any of the goings-on. Sarah made a move toward him, but one of the policemen edged in front of her. Max himself gave her a warning look and shook his head. After that she stayed put and tried not to panic.

At last the guests were told they could leave. Most were out before the police chief had finished telling them they could go, but the Larrington brothers were still truculent.

“What’s going to happen to Bittersohn? You’re not letting him go?” asked Don.

“Mr. Bittersohn is going to assist us in our investigation,” Wilson assured him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Fren demanded.

“It’s what they have to say before they make the formal arrest.” Don, at any rate, seemed satisfied. “Come on, Fren. We told them at the boatyard we’d be there by one o’clock and it’s past two already. They’ll be charging you an extra day’s dockage.”

“Oh Jesus!”

Fren followed his brother without further argument. Miffy’s body was taken away on a stretcher covered with a blanket. The caterers had collected their belongings and left with the rest. Now only Chief Wilson and some of the other police personnel were left, along with Sarah, Max, Appie Kelling, Bradley Rovedock, and strangely enough, Vare and Tigger.

Appie was trying to get a grip on herself and be helpful. “Sarah dear, don’t you think you ought to go home and lie down for a while? Shall I come with you?”

“No, you mustn’t leave here, Aunt Appie. Miffy would have wanted you to stay and look after the house.”

Sarah neither knew nor cared what Miffy would have wanted. All she knew was what she herself wanted, and it most emphatically wasn’t Aunt Appie’s help.

“Maybe Vare will stay with the boys for a while,” she suggested. “Then Lionel can come up here and keep you company.”

Vare shook her head. “I have cast off the shackles of motherhood.”

“Right on!”

Those were the first words Sarah had ever heard Tigger say. Tigger jerked her head toward the doorway and Vare followed her out.

“Damn shame their own mothers didn’t cast off the shackles before those two bimbos were hatched,” observed one of Wilson’s men. “Max, what’s the scoop here, anyway?”

“That’s a hell of a question to ask the chief suspect,” Bittersohn replied. “All I can say is, I wish I could tell you.”

“Who doesn’t?” grunted Wilson. “From what I can gather, almost anybody in the crowd could have poisoned Miss Tergoyne’s drink if anybody did, which we don’t know yet. I suppose maybe we should have had everyone searched, but what good would it have done? None of them would have been dumb enough to pour out a slug and then hang on to the poison, would they? What I’d do myself, I’d have the stuff ready in a little vial or an eyedropper, something I could palm. Maybe even a plastic bag or a kid’s balloon. Just put your hand over the glass, drop in the poison, and throw the container into the fire. If anybody happened to smell something burning, they’d think it was the elastic out of that girdle she burned. Perfect setup.”

“With the possible exception that the alleged poisoner wouldn’t have known in advance Miss Tergoyne was going to burn her girdle,” Bradley Rovedock observed drily. “She didn’t, as a rule.”

Wilson didn’t think that was very important. “They’d know she was going to have a drink, though?”

“Oh yes,” said Bradley. “One could be sure Miss Tergoyne was going to have a drink. And no doubt one could have slipped something into her glass easily enough. I could have poisoned her myself, I suppose, if it came to that. So could almost any of the others. The only person I can definitely rule out is Sarah here. That is, Mrs. Alexander Kelling.”