The Convivial Codfish (25 page)

“Bexhill? You mean the town where all those people on the train got poisoned by some crazy Russian?”

“It wasn’t a Russian, it was this man right here. What was your motive, Durward? Or were you just doing it as a joke?”

At last Durward spoke up for himself. “Look at that thing on the bed,” he shrieked. “Calls himself a Scrooge. Bah, humbug! He couldn’t be rotten if he tried. Can’t hate, can’t kill, doesn’t even know enough to die. Damn you, Jem Kelling, why didn’t you let me murder you? Disgusting little woman-chaser. And they elected you Exalted Chowderhead, so you could look down on me. Poor old Quent. Wouldn’t let me be Marley’s Ghost. Wouldn’t listen to my tree toads. Mocked me because you thought I couldn’t see. I’ve been laughing at you all for a long time now. And don’t think this is my last laugh. I’ll get you yet. I’ll kill you all! Bah, humbug, you old fool. Bah, humbug.”

Even with the shot of tranquilizer the intern had to give him, Durward was still screaming, “Bah, humbug!” when the police dragged him away in a straitjacket.

“I
TOLD YOU SO,
didn’t I?”

Jeremy Kelling was cock of the walk, back in his own flat with his leg on a hassock and his hand on a glass. Egbert had summoned a sizable welcoming party: Max, of course, and Sarah looking lovely in a red Christmas frock, and Brooks with his hair slicked down, and Theonia unutterably gorgeous in a dinner gown she’d fashioned from two crepe-de-Chine chemises and a pair of green satin lounging pajamas dating from the Ann Harding era, which had formed part of Sarah’s aunt Caroline’s wedding trousseau.

Cousin Dolph and his wife Mary had stopped in but couldn’t stay. They were giving a dinner at the Senior Citizens’ Recycling Center for some of Mary’s former colleagues. Dolph was going to be Santa Claus. He’d auditioned his ho-ho-ho amid tumultuous applause and let Jem wear his whiskers for a while before they’d left.

Gerald Whet was there with Tom Tolbathy, both of them looking far fitter than they had a day or two ago. Marcia was to be released from the Bexhill Hospital the next morning. Hester was already at home, being pampered by her adoring daughters-in-law and the grandchild who’d so luckily escaped being poisoned on the train. Hester had sent Jem a vast hamper of imported goodies, but no caviar.

The recall had been quashed, of course, as soon as Quent Durward’s dastardly deed had been made public, but Tom said Hester was going to wait a long time before she dragged out her great-aunt’s epergne again.

“Quent’s confessing all over the place,” Whet told the party. “I made a detour over to the Charles Street Jail on my way here, and was told they’re thinking of transferring him to Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. He’s gone completely around the bend, it appears, and keeps insisting he only wanted to show the Comrades how Scrooge really ought to be played. He’s claiming it was all our own fault for electing you instead of him as Exalted Chowderhead, Jem, and that he had to eliminate you for the good of the club. He actually did mean for you to die, they say.”

“I’d begun to suspect he might,” Jem replied soberly despite the five martinis he’d had so far.

There had, as expected, been colchicine both in the bottle of gin and the cheese spread Durward had brought to the hospital. There’d also been something extremely nasty on the points of the tacks he’d inserted between the links of the Great Chain before he’d gift-wrapped it to take back to Jem Kelling.

His plan had been, no doubt, simply to deliver his packages and get out of the hospital, counting on the storm to keep visitors away from Jem. Knowing his Comrade, he’d been confident the Exalted Chowderhead would immediately rip open the gifts, put on the chain, and take a swig from the bottle.

Sooner or later, a nurse would come along and find she’d lost a patient. Nobody would know where Jem had got the lethal presents. If anybody had seen Durward in his Scrooge getup, they’d have thought he was just some entertainer trying to cheer up the patients. There were enough of such things going on at holiday time. As a last resort, Durward could have tried framing somebody else, just as he’d attempted to finger Ashbroom or, alternatively, Whet for the previous murders.

“Do you think that man is really insane, Max?” Sarah asked.

“His vanity must be pathological, anyway. You pointed that out, Jem, when you told me how Durward refused to admit he was legally blind. That was true for several years, by the way. They’ve turned up his records at the Eye and Ear Infirmary. It’s only within the past couple of years, with the new microsurgery and improved contact lenses, that his vision has been drastically improved.”

“Too bad he couldn’t have put it to better purpose,” said Gerald Whet. “And to think Quent went right on pretending he could hardly see his hand before his face. That’s a bit crazy, surely?”

“I don’t know,” said Max. “It gave him a certain power he’d never had before, I suppose, being able to see when you all thought he couldn’t. He could get away with things that seemed impossible for him, like his impersonation of the wine steward on the train. And muscling in on Ed Ashbroom’s lady friend. And that chase he led me all over Beacon Hill on Sunday morning. I don’t know whether he was pretending to be you, Gerry, or Ed Ashbroom, though he did try to steer me on to Ashbroom later.”

“How was that?”

“He told me a stupid lie about Ashbroom’s having driven him to Boston, when he must have known the servants, notably Egbert’s lady friend Guinevere, could swear their boss was back in Bexhill making himself obnoxious at the time. Incidentally, Egbert, that call to Guinevere helped save Jem’s life. So did the one you made about Obed Ogham, Gerry. Once I knew those two were out of the running, I realized it had to be Durward. That’s when I panicked.”

“Damn lucky for me you did,” Jem grunted. “He had me fooled completely. And that’s not easy, I can tell you.”

“I know,” said Max. “You wouldn’t have let him shove you into a Salvation Army kettle, as I did.”

“A Salvation Army kettle?” Cousin Theonia raised her delicately penciled eyebrows. “What a remarkably inconsiderate thing to do. Unless of course he is totally deranged and cannot be held accountable,” she added, for Theonia believed in giving everyone the benefit of the doubt.

“I think he’s going to have a hell of a time copping a plea,” said Max. “Some interesting information’s come up about a rival importing firm he’s bought into. Whatever his other motivations, it appears Durward’s primary one was to put the Tolbathys out of business.”

“But why?” said Tom Tolbathy. “Good God, the market would have been big enough for both of us. We’re not aggressively competitive.”

“From a conversation I had with him shortly before he made his call on Jem, I’d say Durward’s been carrying a grudge all his life because his great-grandfather sold out too soon, and because the Tolbathys started doing a hell of a lot better once the Durwards weren’t in the business to keep fouling things up. He saw your success as one more humiliation for himself.”

“But Tom and Wouter never humiliated him,” Gerald Whet protested. “None of us did. When you’ve been schoolboys together, you feel privileged to tease each other a bit, but it’s all in fun. Couldn’t Quent realize that?”

“I’ve always thought an inability to laugh at yourself must be the greatest curse a human being can bear,” Brooks observed.

“And how right you are, darling,” cooed Theonia, settling the lace at her throat with a graceful hand. “But you know, Max, I am still puzzled as to how Mr. Durward managed all those dreadful deceptions. What intrigues me most is how he managed to steal that enormous chain right off our dear Jeremy’s neck. It must have been a truly ingenious piece of legerdemain.”

“Leger de magnet, you might say,” Max told her. “I caught on to that trick when I was looking at Wouter Tolbathy’s electric trains. He worked them on a system of micromagnetic solenoids, so that they could be connected and disconnected by remote control. Wouter was remarkably clever at that sort of thing, and I’m afraid that’s what killed him.”

“But how?” asked Tom Tolbathy. “Oh my God! You mean—”

“That’s right. They had it apart down at the station. Apparently when you were Exalted Chowderhead last term, Tom, Wouter managed to get hold of the Great Chain. That wouldn’t have been hard, I don’t suppose.”

“Oh no,” said Tom. “I’d never have locked anything away from Wouter.”

“Well, just for kicks, I suppose, Wouter took apart the Codfish pendant, which was molded around a hollow center as such things often are, and built a miniature transmitter into it. He then separated two of the links in the chain and reconnected them by means of tiny electromagnets.”

“That meant the chain could be opened and closed by a handheld remote control device,” Brooks explained to Theonia.

“How clever. But why?”

“Sometimes it was hard to know why Wouter did anything,” Tom admitted. “Often, I think, it was just for the fun of the doing. But then he’d think of some way to put it to use.” The bereft brother smiled sadly. “Wouter could always think of something.”

“In this case, it appears to have been Durward who thought of something,” said Max. “Maybe Wouter was careless about trying out the coupling in front of him or something, assuming Durward wouldn’t see well enough to notice.”

“And not knowing Quent had a scheme of his own up his sleeve,” said Jem.

“Right. Anyway, Durward learned the Comrades now owned a trick chain and either egged Wouter on to make it disappear at your Scrooge Day luncheon or else got hold of the control gadget and worked the catch himself.

It would have been easy enough for him to be standing next to Jem when the chain fell off, scoop it up, and stuff it inside his pantleg or somewhere.”

“I expect Wouter helped Quent steal the chain from me at the luncheon,” said Jem. “He’d have thought Quent meant to make the chain reappear as soon as they figured out the most embarrassing way to do it.”

“You’re probably right,” Max agreed. “Only Durward had other plans. That’s why he decided he’d have to kill Wouter, though I still can’t figure out why he felt it necessary to wear the Great Chain to poison the garnishes for the caviar. Sarah claims it’s because he didn’t want to spend the money on something he’d never wear again.”

“He may not have wished to risk being identified by a shopkeeper if he bought or rented one,” Brooks suggested.

“I wonder if it could have been some kind of revenge on the rest of us for teasing him about his poor eyesight, which I’m afraid we did on occasion,” Tom Tolbathy said. “You know, flaunting the Great Chain in front of us and having nobody notice simply because he’d taken off the Codfish. That would have been one reason why he wouldn’t dare let Jem come to the party. Jem would surely have spotted it.”

“Damn right,” said Jeremy Kelling. “He’d never have worked his foul stunt if Old Eagle-Eye had been aboard. You noticed at the hospital, Max, that he was careful not to leave any part of himself visible. The one thing that misled me was his not wearing glasses with the mask. I still can’t believe he managed to find me without them.”

“That’s because you never happened to look through the ones he’s been wearing lately,” said Max. “I had the chance when I dropped in on him unexpectedly. He’d left a pair in the bathroom. I took a look and realized they were only thick windowpane. I don’t know why he kept on wearing them after he’d got his contacts. Either he felt naked without them, or else it amused him to let you go on thinking he was still visually handicapped when in fact he could see as well as the average person of his age.”

“Devious bastard,” snorted Jem. “Egbert, why the hell don’t you open that hamper of Hester’s and fix us something to eat? I’m hungry, damn it. Hey, this is the first time I’ve felt like eating since I broke my goddamn hip. I must be getting better. Whoop, whoop, halloo!”

“Halloo yourself, you damned old fool,” said Formerly Exalted Comrade Tolbathy, blowing his nose violently. “Jem, we’ve got to talk about Wouter’s funeral. You’ll deliver the eulogy, of course, wearing the Great Chain. And I thought Gerry might pull the dragon in behind the coffin. As you finish talking, maybe you could flip the switch and let it breathe a little fire and smoke. I think Wouter would have liked that, don’t you fellows?”

“Hell, yes,” said Jem. “Wouter would have done the same for us. Fill ’em up, Egbert. Let’s have one for old Wouter.”

The Exalted Chowderhead raised his glass on high. “Bah, humbug, one and all.”

And nobody could doubt that he meant it.

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copyright © 1984 by Charlotte MacLeod

cover design by Mauricio Diaz

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