The Bilbao Looking Glass (18 page)

“How so?”

“Mrs. Kelling was standing apart from the group, chatting with Mrs. Donald Larrington, if my memory serves me. We’d been sailing together yesterday, though I don’t suppose that’s relevant. Anyway, Mrs. Larrington came over to the bar after a while and got a drink—or drinks, according to testimony—then came and stood near Miss Tergoyne with the rest of us. Mrs. Kelling stayed where she was. Moreover, she was drinking tomato juice whereas Miss Tergoyne had a martini, as you know. There could be no question of her switching glasses or anything of that sort even if she’d been near enough to do so, which she wasn’t.”

“Mrs. Kelling never came over to the bar at all?”

“No, she had only that one glass of tomato juice, which I personally handed to her shortly after we’d got back from the funeral. I noticed because I happened to be standing where I could look directly over at her and was wondering whether I shouldn’t go over and get her a refill.”

“You were acting as host?”

“I suppose you might say so, more or less. One does what one can at a time like that, you know. Appie—Mrs. Samuel Kelling—and I were trying to help hold the fort. With her companion gone, Miss Tergoyne was quite alone in the world, except for her friends.”

“You and Mrs. Samuel Kelling were Miss Tergoyne’s closest friends, would you say?”

“Not at all. We were simply the two available for the job. Mrs. Kelling is the soul of kindness and I’m,” Bradley shrugged, “an unattached bachelor with nothing more pressing to do. In point of fact, neither of us saw much of Miss Tergoyne as a rule. Mrs. Kelling lives in Cambridge and doesn’t get out to Ireson’s as often as we’d like. I do maintain a house here, as you know, but I’m off cruising much of the time. Still, we’d both known Miss Tergoyne more or less forever and when she asked us for help, we couldn’t turn her down. By the way, Appie, I’m quite willing to stay here with you, unless Sarah would like me to—”

He was being much kinder than Sarah deserved, but she didn’t even bother to answer him. She turned to Chief Wilson.

“What’s going to happen to Max?”

Before Wilson could reply, Bradley laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Sarah, you mustn’t worry. It’s just an unfortunate coincidence that Mr. Bittersohn happens to have a certain type of expertise and that nothing ever happened until—that is, that he—oh God, how can one put it? He was in the wrong place at the wrong times, that’s all.”

A
ND IT WAS SARAH
Kelling’s fault, for having taken up with the wrong sort of man. That was what Bradley was trying so hard not to say. Poor, innocent little Sarah didn’t know any better. Did he expect her to be grateful? Nevertheless, he was right and she’d better say so.

“That’s true, Chief Wilson. Max didn’t know any of these people. He’s here mainly because I needed transportation. The other day, before Alice B. died, we’d just got to Ireson’s when Miffy called up and said Appie was on her way out by train and we were to come for drinks that same afternoon. I asked Max to drive us over because I have no car of my own just now.”

“Sold the old Studebaker, I hear?”

“That’s right. Ira Rivkin found someone who promised to give it a good home. What I’m getting at is that neither of us expected to be at Miffy’s that day. This tale of Fren Larrington’s about Max casing the joint and planning a robbery is nonsense. Pussy Beaxitt jammed him into a corner and started pumping him the minute he set foot inside this door. Max never got to see anything here except Pussy’s big mouth.”

“Can you confirm that, Mr. Rovedock?”

Bradley smiled a little. “I can’t say I’d have expressed it quite that way myself, but I shouldn’t be surprised. As it happened, I got here rather late myself and didn’t have a chance to speak to either Sarah or her friend before they left. I do recall that Pussy—Mrs. William Beaxitt, that is—was talking to Bittersohn when I came in. Then Alice Beaxitt greeted him by name and said she’d known him as a boy or something of the sort.”

Bradley, how could you? Sarah gritted her teeth.

“Alice B. didn’t say she knew him, Bradley. She said she knew who he was. Alice B. always recognized people. She was that sort of person. What matters is that Max had never been inside Miffy’s house before, and whoever robbed the place must have known it pretty well. Better than I did, anyway. That list of stolen articles contained any number of things I’d never been aware Miffy owned.”

“When did you see that list, Mrs. Kelling?”

Sarah blinked. Maybe Sergeant Jofferty shouldn’t have been showing it.

“One of your men was asking Max’s professional opinion about some of the items,” she replied cautiously.

Wilson grunted. “Oh yeah. Walt Jofferty’s quite a pal of yours, isn’t he?”

“I’d be proud to think so. Nobody could have been kinder when—” she wasn’t going to talk about that any more. “What I’m getting at, Chief Wilson, is that it’s absolutely ridiculous to accuse Max just because he happens to know a Fantin-Latour from a Norman Rockwell. Aside from the fact that he’s not the sort to go around burgling houses and slaughtering elderly women, he had no time to get organized.”

“How long would it take to organize a poisoned cocktail?”

“Quite a while, I should think. Miffy didn’t get sick or anything, she just gulped it down and fell like a rock. Most people don’t have instantly lethal poisons loose in their pockets, do they? You’d have to find out what to use, get hold of it somehow, then have it ready in some easily manageable form. You said so yourself, remember? And you’d have to be awfully careful how you went about it, or you’d wind up killing yourself, too.”

“Okay, that’s a point. What else?”

“Well, Max and I almost didn’t come to the funeral at all. That is, I more or less meant to come but I’d thought of calling Bradley or someone to pick me up. If I had, I’d have been too late. Lassie Larrington had told me yesterday it started at eleven. As it happened, though, Aunt Appie called while we were having breakfast and said it was set for ten.”

“Do you remember what time you called your niece, Mrs. Kelling?”

Appie said she thought it might be around a quarter to nine, or maybe nine o’clock. Or possibly a little later.

“It was half-past, Aunt Appie, because Max and I barely had time to make ourselves presentable and get to the church.”

“And you were just having breakfast?”

“Yes. We’d been—well, I’d had Mr. Lomax at the house with his nephew talking about what I wanted them to do today, and then Max came up from the carriage house and we decided to get married so that’s why we were late with breakfast.”

“I see.” Chief Wilson looked amused, then suddenly wary. “How come you decided to get married all of a sudden?”

“Well, it wasn’t all of a sudden,” Sarah admitted. “That is to say, Max has been asking me off and on for the past two months and I knew I was going to say yes but somehow it was never the right time. This morning it was. We were going to slip away right after the funeral and get the license, but poor Aunt Appie was so upset and her son couldn’t come on account of the children and you’ve seen for yourselves how helpful her daughter-in-law was being, so we stuck around. And look where it got us,” she finished bitterly.

The police chief wasn’t interested in Sarah’s feelings. “You say you had to hurry and get ready for the funeral after your aunt called. What exactly did you do?”

“Went upstairs and changed from pants and jersey into the clothes I’m wearing now.”

“Did Bittersohn go with you?”

“No, he did not.”

Without realizing what she was doing, Sarah gave an excellent imitation of her Great-aunt Emma squashing a cheeky upstart. Then she turned pale. Couldn’t she have had sense enough to say yes?

“Why don’t you let me answer for myself?” Max was demanding angrily. “I went back to the carriage house, where I’m staying, and put on this jacket and tie. Then I brought the car around to pick up Sarah. I was alone and can’t produce any witness to testify I didn’t stuff my pockets full of strychnine or whatever the hell it was before I got back to her.”

“He does have plenty of witnesses as to what he did once we got here though,” cried Sarah. “None of that bunch had the gall to claim they’d actually seen him putting anything in Miffy’s drink, did they? And you can believe they would have if they could. He was constantly surrounded by a crowd giving him the third degree. Bradley Rovedock can testify to that.”

“Third degree may be pitching it a bit strong,” Bradley demurred. “Naturally in a close-knit group like ours, any outsider,” he caught himself but not quite soon enough, “that is to say, any newcomer becomes a center of interest. People were trying to make him feel welcome.”

“I suppose Biff Beaxitt and the Larringtons were trying to make Max feel welcome when they knocked him down and tied his hands and feet? Why don’t you arrest them, Chief Wilson? Biff in particular would make a far likelier candidate than Max.”

“Why, Mrs. Kelling?”

“Because in case you’ve forgotten, the woman whose funeral we’d just been at was also named Beaxitt. She was Biff’s aunt.”

“Cousin, dear,” Appie corrected. “Her father and Biffs were brothers. There was quite an age span between them. You wouldn’t think it because Biff is so large and dear Alice B. was so petite. Oh, to think we’ll never—”

“Yes, Aunt Appie. Anyway, I think both Alice B.’s and Miffy’s wills ought to be investigated before anybody jumps to any more conclusions.”

“Really, Sarah,” Bradley Rovedock sounded shocked. “Biff would never—”

“That’s the sort of thing I used to think, Bradley. Under enough pressure, I think Biff Beaxitt might do almost anything. I’m positive Fren Larrington would, after the way he brained that poor goat yesterday.”

“Sarah, the goat was injured. Its throat was badly torn.”

“He could have made some effort to find out how badly, couldn’t he? We could have cut it loose from that wire and brought it across to the vet.”

“And sunk
Perdita
in the process, perhaps? Sarah dear, that was a wild animal, not a domestic pet. Fren did the humane thing. I must say I myself rather admired him for being able to act so quickly and decisively.”

“Would you two mind telling me what you’re talking about?” Wilson asked, reasonably enough.

They explained more or less in chorus. Sarah’s version differed a good deal from Bradley’s. It was easy enough to decide which of them the police were more inclined to credit.

“Too damn many goats on Little Nibble anyhow,” appeared to be the consensus. As to Fren’s executing the beast without a trial, hell, what was a man to do?

Chief Wilson prowled around a little longer, asked a few more questions, then shut his notebook. “Looks as if we’ve done about all we can do here for the time being. Now Max, just for the record, I guess we’d better go take a look around your place. You’re staying with Mrs. Kelling, you said.”

“In the carriage house,” Appie felt called upon to remind the chief. “It’s quite suitable. Normally I’d have been staying with Sarah at the main house. In fact I did stay there the first night. But the next morning we found out—this dreadful thing—and Miffy asked me to—but my son Lionel and the four boys were coming to camp out at Sarah’s, so I thought—but then there was that business about the boathouse which I’m not quite clear—but it’s all perfectly suitable,” she finished gamely.

“Of course, Mrs. Kelling. This is just police routine, you understand. Have to make sure we’ve touched all the bases, in case somebody starts asking questions later.”

“To be sure. It wouldn’t be cricket not to touch all the bases, would it?”

Not knowing whether or not that was meant for a joke, Wilson gave Appie an uncertain smile. “You say you were with your niece the night Miss Beaxitt was murdered. You slept well, I hope?”

“The bed was most comfortable,” Appie replied primly.

“Yes, but how did you sleep?”

“As well as anyone might reasonably expect to in a strange place. Not that Ireson’s is strange, because I’d stayed there so often—but it had been quite a while, you know, because Samuel had been so—and when one is used to nursing an invalid, the least little sound—one does tend to hop up and run, you know.”

“Then you passed a restless night.”

“Not restless. I rested beautifully, I assure you. It’s just that I haven’t yet broken the habit—and once one is awake—not every time, of course, but—”

“So you got up. How many times, would you say?”

“Three, I believe.”

“And what did you do?”

“My dear sir, what does one do when one gets up in the night? At least when one gets to be my age? I visited the convenience, naturally.”

“You didn’t happen to meet your niece on any of these—ah-visits?”

“No, although I did peek in to make sure I hadn’t disturbed her.”

“All three times?”

“It wasn’t that I meant to invade your privacy, Sarah dear. It was only because I was so used to checking on poor, dear Sam. And it was comforting to see somebody when I looked. So many times since he died, I’ve—from force of habit—and there would be the empty bed. One couldn’t help—and you did look so sweet, dear, cuddled up like a little field mouse in its nest of thistledown. It is thistledown they use, isn’t it? One always likes to picture them that way. So cozy.”

Chief Wilson appeared to have no information on the sleeping habits of field mice. “Then what you’re saying is that to the best of your knowledge, your niece slept in her own bed all night long?”

“I believe I can state it quite positively,” said Appie. “She hardly stirred. I’m sure I didn’t hear the bed-springs creak more than six or seven times. Worn out, poor lamb. Though actually we’d spent a quiet enough evening and I’d fixed a nice tuna casserole so she didn’t have to—we did have a pleasant time, didn’t we, Bradley?”

“I did at any rate,” Bradley assured her.

“You were with the Kelling ladies, Mr. Rovedock?”

“Yes, until about half-past nine. Appie—that is, Mrs. Samuel Kelling—had stayed on here after Sarah and Mr. Bittersohn left. When the party broke up, I offered Mrs. Kelling a ride home, and she kindly invited me to take potluck with her and Sarah.”