Escapade (28 page)

Doyle said, “Lady Purleigh?”

She turned to him. “Sir Arthur?” 

“Perhaps we should cancel the boxing match?”

“Eh?” said Lord Bob.

“I shall explain, Robert.” Lady Purleigh turned to Doyle. “I see no reason to cancel it, Sir Arthur. If you have a moment, we can discuss the arrangements.” She looked around the table. Good night to you all. We shall see you at breakfast.”

“Boxing match?” said Lord Bob.

Beside me, Mrs. Corneille stood. She leaned toward me and whispered. “Twelve-thirty.”

People were moving. From across the table, Sir David called out, “Beaumont.”

I turned.

He smiled. “In the morning, then.”

“See you,” I said.

The Morning Post

Maplewhite, Devon

August 19 (early morning)

Dear Evangeline,

A few more boulders have landed.

First off, the Earl of Axminster, who was merely wounded at tea time, was dead at dinner.

I shouldn’t make light of it, I know; Lord and Lady Purleigh were apparently keeping the death secret as a kindness to their guests. I do feel badly for both of them. They’re such wonderful people, admirable in every way. Why is that tragedy always slashes out at those who will most intensely feel it, and ignores those who would be insensible to its presence if it toppled onto them from the roof of a barn? Or is this, as Mrs Applewhite would have said, one of those foolish questions which contain their own answers?

From what the Allardyce was able to pry out of Lady Purleigh, after the seance, the Earl committed suicide, but Lady Purleigh cannot imagine why. Perhaps the schedule of events here at Maplewhite was simply too much for him.

Dinner was dreadful. Neither the Allardyce nor I knew, at the time, of the Earl’s death; but I suspect that all the others did. No one said much of anything, except for the Allardyce, who flirted shamelessly with Mr Houdini, and for Mr Houdini, who regaled us with several seemingly endless stories the hero of which was invariably himself.

Things rather livened up afterward, however, in the drawing room. Sir David stuck Mr Houdini in the stomach, and then very badly wanted to strike Mr Beaumont, almost anywhere on his person, I expect; but Sir Arthur intervened. Sir David and Mr Beaumont will battle it out tomorrow morning. Fisticuffs at dawn. Sir Arthur will act as referee.

As to the seance, it was moderately interesting as well, until Lord Purleigh appeared and made a terrible scene. The poor man was clearly deranged with shock, and not a little inebriated.

It was at the seance that I learned of the Earl’s death. Roly-poly Madame Sosostris, masquerading as her Red Indian Spirit Guide, revealed the truth. No doubt she bribed it loose from one of the servants.

You’ll notice that I’ve become rather blase about all this. I am becoming a woman of the world, Evy. Death, deceit, ghosts, goblins, boulders, maskings and unmaskings: they bounce off my back like water off a burnished duck.

Madame Sosostris did say something curious this evening, during the seance, and it has given me an idea. I am going to investigate.

The time is nearly one o’clock; the house is hushed, no one is moving.

It’s unmannerly of me, I know, to go prowling about Maplewhite in the dark, on my own. But already, and especially after today’s spectacular display of horsemanship, my reputation is so crippled that no additional eccentricity could possibly maim it further. Moreover, I’ll be bringing along this letter, enveloped and addressed and stamped. Should someone be lurking in the hallways, I shall simply explain that I was swept from bed by an urgent need to plump this into the post box.

It isn’t much of a plan, I realize; but then I’m not much of a planner. I am exceedingly weary of being acted upon. And tonight I will act.

So, Evy: the game is afoot!

All my love,

Jane

FRAUD ALWAYS BROUGHT out the best in the Great Man. Back in my room, he was in dandy form. For nearly an hour he sat on my bed and laughed and snickered. Now and then he waved his arms. He explained all the tricks that Madame Sosostris had performed during the seance, and then he explained them all again.

“She is an absolute amateur, Phil,” he said. He was still wearing his dinner jacket but he had taken off his shoes. His legs were crossed like a yogi’s and he was tilted cheerfully toward me. “A twelve-year-old child could produce more spectacular effects.” 

“Right,” I said from my chair by the desk. I hauled out my watch. Quarter to twelve. “Harry,” I said. “Look, I’m sorry, but I’m exhausted.”

“That bell!” he said, and laughed. “And those chains!” He waved his arms. “Clanging chains! Phil, over thirty years ago, when I gave my own performance as a medium, I refused to use the clanging chains. Imagine, Phil. They were passe even then. 

“Right, Harry. But—”

“And did you like her Spirit Guide?” He lowered his head and lowered his voice—“Running Bear, him come to aid of those who seek.
Ugh
. Ha!” He curled up his body and slapped at his thigh.

I smiled. “Harry, listen . . .”

“I cannot wait,” he said, “to tell Sir Arthur what I think.” 

“Maybe Sir Arthur won’t be as thrilled as you are.”

He looked at me and he frowned. “No. Perhaps not.” He raised his head. “But the truth must prevail, Phil.”

“Uh-huh. Meantime, Harry, I need some rest. I’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

“What?” He sat up. “Oh yes, yes, of course! Your famous boxing match with Sir David! Phil, I must tell you, you were very impressive, standing up to that man for my sake.”

“Doing my job, Harry. Guarding the body.”

“But it was unnecessary, you know. I was suffering not at all.” 

“You, maybe. I was getting a pain in the neck.”

He grinned happily. “The man is a pig, is he not, Phil? Tomorrow, when you fight your great battle, you must teach him to mind his manners.” Sitting there on the bed he mimed a prizefighter, fists jabbing at the air. “Pow, pow,” he said. Take that, Sir David! Ha ha!”

Suddenly he raised a finger in the air. “Phil,” he said, “I have it!”

“Have what?”

Excited, he clasped his hands over his knees and he leaned forward. “Tomorrow morning, when you go to the scene of the combat, I will come along as your—how do they call it? Yes, your second. How would that be, Phil?
Houdini
will be your second!”

He said this as if it were the biggest favor he could possibly do for me. Maybe it was. The Great Man was never second to anyone, in anything.

“That’d be great, Harry,” I told him.

Smoothly, in what looked like a single movement, his legs untied themselves and his hands slapped against the mattress and he bounded off the bed. “But now you must conserve your strength, eh? You must sleep, Phil. Would you like to borrow some ear wax?”    ,

I smiled. He meant the beeswax he used as plugs. “No thanks.

“You are sure? Perhaps a blindfold?”

“No thanks, Harry.”

He bent over and scooped up both his shoes in his right hand, fingers hooked beneath the tongues. He padded lightly across the room and clapped me on the shoulder. “Very well. But you must rest, Phil. It is an important business, this fight. Everyone will be there.”

“My audience,” I said.

“Exactly, yes!” He squeezed my shoulder and then dropped his arm, beaming at me like a proud father.

“Everyone but Lord Bob, probably, I said.

“Lord Purleigh,” he corrected, sadness in his voice. “Poor Lord Purleigh. The death of his father has affected him deeply.”

“Yeah.”

“Tomorrow, no doubt, he will feel terrible about his behavior tonight.”

“He’ll feel terrible anyway. He put away a quart of brandy this afternoon. And more, maybe, later on.”

“Alcohol,” he said, and shook his head. “It destroys muscle tissue, you know. Eats it away, like sulfuric acid.”

“I’ve heard that, yeah.”

“Well,” he smiled, and clapped me on the shoulder again. “To bed then, eh? Pleasant dreams, Phil.”

“You too, Harry.”

“Ugh,” he said. “Ha ha.” Cackling, shaking his head, he padded from the room.

I waited on the bed. In ten minutes, I heard him finish in the bathroom. In another fifteen, I heard his snoring start in the bedroom. At twelve-thirty, I got up and left.

“COME IN,” SAID Mrs. Corneille. I stepped in and she shut the door.

I was still wearing my rented dinner jacket. She was wearing her red robe, its dark silk looking sleek and bright below the bright sleek spill of black hair. Between the scarlet neck of the robe and the marble neck of Mrs. Corneille, on both sides, ran a slender frill of black lace nightgown. She wasn’t wearing a corset beneath the nightgown, or much of anything else.

“Please,” she said, “do sit down.” She indicated a small love seat along the wall, braced by two end tables. “May I pour you a brandy?”

“Sure,” I said. “Thanks.”

I sat.

This room, which was a bedroom in the suite I shared, and in the suite shared by Mrs. Allardyce and Miss Turner, was a kind of parlor here. Off to the left was the door that led to her bedroom.

The furniture here was just as old as the furniture in mine, but it was light and feminine, with a lot of fluffs and flounces and floral patterns. There were old paintings on the walls misty landscapes and pictures of vases filled with flowers. There were more flowers, maybe just as old, embroidered into the carpets on the floor. And more of them, older still, embroidered into the scent of her perfume.

She poured brandy from a pale green bottle into two snifters that sat on a dark wood sideboard. She set down the bottle, lifted the snifters, and carried them over. She stepped lightly around the coffee table and she handed me a snifter and sat down on my left. She moved like someone who had practiced moving, years ago, until she got it exactly right and then never needed to think about it ever again.

She sat with her body leaning slightly toward the room and her knees together beneath the robe. To the late Earl, she said, and raised her glass.

I raised mine. “To the Earl.” I sipped at the brandy. “You knew he was dead,” I said. “Before the seance.”

“Alice told me.” She lowered the snifter to her lap and held it with both hands. “Are you really planning to fight with David tomorrow morning?”

“Looks like it.”

“You feel that this is absolutely necessary?”

“It is now.”

“I’ve heard that David’s a very good boxer.”

“He probably is.”

“And what does Mr. Houdini think about this?”

“He thinks it’ll be a swell performance.”

She raised an eyebrow. “He isn’t concerned for you?” 

“Everything Harry does, he does better than anyone in the world. He probably thinks that I wouldn’t have gotten into this unless I could pull it off.”

“And can you?”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

“You aren’t concerned for yourself?”

“Wouldn’t help any.”

She sipped at her brandy, eyed me over the snifter. “Is that bravery speaking, or stupidity?”

“Stupidity, probably.”

She smiled. “But just now, shouldn’t you be getting some rest?

I know I asked you here, but that was before this bout of yours was arranged. I shouldn’t be offended if you wish to leave.”

“Thanks,” I said, “but I’m not tired. What did you think about the seance?”

“We’re changing the subject, are we?”

“Yeah.”

“Well,” she said. She looked down, smoothed the robe along her thigh, looked up again. “I thought it was a charming piece of theater. I understand how they did most of it, I think. They re working together, of course. Madame Sosostris and her husband.”

I nodded, sipped at my brandy.

“The roses,” she said. “They were in her wheelchair, beneath that gown of hers. Mr. Dempsey released her hand and she simply reached down and retrieved them. And then tossed them onto the table.”

I nodded again.

“And the bell and the trumpet,” she said. “She keeps them beneath her gown as well.”

“The chains, too.” I had figured most of this out, too, even before the Great Man explained it all.

Her red lips tightened thoughtfully. ‘ That thing that touched me on the shoulder. Could that’ve been one of those extending tools that shopkeepers use? Do you know what I mean? To reach something on an upper shelf?”

“Probably.”

“When Running Bear—” She smiled suddenly, amused at herself. “When Madame Sosostris was talking about the Earl, she said that he’d imposed his sick desires upon an innocent young woman. Presumably she meant the kitchen maid, the woman that Briggs mentioned to you in the library.”

“Darleen.” 

“Yes.” She frowned. “Briggs is a bit of a cad. Telling tales on his employer. And on a former sweetheart.”

“Not a very nice guy,” I agreed.

“He must’ve given the same information to Madame Sosostris. And told her of the Earl’s death.”

“If it was Briggs, he didn’t give it to her.”

She smiled. “He sold it, you mean. I’m sure you’re right.” Her face went serious again. “But what did she mean, do you think— Madame Sosostris—when she said that the Earl hadn't ended his life? She said that his life had been taken.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “That was when Lord Purleigh showed up.”  

“Yes.” She sighed, softly shook her head. Lamplight shimmered along the black sheen of her hair. “Poor Robert. For years he’s been telling people he wanted his father dead. Now that it’s actually happened, I think he’s rather at a loss. I feel terribly for him. He’s such a sweet man.”

“What does Lady Purleigh think?”

“Regarding the Earl’s death?”

“Yeah. Was she surprised?”

“Surprised? Yes, of course. Wouldn’t anyone be?”

“Sometimes people see it coming.”

“But Alice didn’t. She was shocked. She told me she couldn’t imagine why he’d do such a thing.”

Just then, I think, she realized she was talking about friends of hers, and to a stranger. Smiling, she changed the subject. “But the two of them are quite good, aren’t they? Madame Sosostris and her husband. It was quite an accomplishment, I thought, producing all those apparitions without giving themselves away. And with people sitting on either side of them, holding their hands.”