The Gladstone Bag (13 page)

“I have no idea. Neither does she. We’re hoping it’s simply that she’s exhausted from traveling and feeling the change in climate. Anyway, she’s going to take it easy today and the chances are she’ll be fine by tomorrow. But that’s not what I’m here to tell you,” Emma went on before Wont could start his hectoring again. “I’m sorry to say that something dreadful has happened. I should explain first that it’s not any of our staff, not even anybody they know. Apparently the man himself didn’t know who he was.”

She had them now. Emma explained the whole business: Ted’s finding a stranger in a torn wet suit who claimed not to remember anything about himself or how he’d got to Pocapuk, the man’s escaping from the storeroom, his being found dead in the water at the foot of the cliff with her Gladstone bag floating above him and her false jewels scattered around him.

“Might be able to use it.” Joris Groot was fingering his camera. “Is he still there?”

“No.” Emma supposed she couldn’t blame an illustrator for focusing on the graphic possibilities, but she was repelled nevertheless. Wont at least was having the grace to keep his mouth shut, though she did notice the nod he gave Groot. One for the book.

Lisbet Quainley’s reaction was at least appropriate. “Oh, Mrs. Kelling, I am so sorry. Thank goodness he didn’t hurt you! But how did he know you had the jewelry? You don’t suppose one of the staff—but they wouldn’t, would they? I mean, Mrs. Sabine wouldn’t have anybody around who—” She realized she was on shaky ground. “And besides, there’s no telephone. Is there?”

Emma wasn’t about to open up any schism between the cottagers and the staff. “What I think, Miss Quainley, is that this man must have fallen for a ridiculous yarn my cabdriver was spreading around the dock after he’d let me off at the ferry. You see, when he picked up my bag to put it in the cab, the clasp let go. He noticed the glitter inside and started talking about Pocapuk’s treasure. It dawned on me that he must think I was carrying real stones, so I told him they were only costume jewelry and I was Mrs. Sabine’s new housekeeper. But he quite obviously didn’t believe me.”

“Who would?” murmured Count Radunov. “Dear lady, your housekeeping abilities are no doubt without parallel, but never, never could you fool anyone into thinking you were somebody else’s servant.”

“I could if I’d had time to develop the part,” Emma insisted. “You should have seen me as Hannah in
Ruddigore.”

“To my dying day, I shall regret having missed that performance. But this, what you tell us, is most remarkable. It is, if I may say so, hard to credit that this unfortunate man obtained a wet suit at a moment’s notice and swam behind the ferryboat all the way to Pocapuk. That he rode the ferry with us and jumped overboard only when we were coming into the dock is possible, one may suppose, but why did none of us see him do it?”

“If he waited till we were all down in the gangway waiting to come ashore and jumped off the stern, he could have done it, I’ll bet,” said Black John Sendick, “but what’s to say he didn’t come in another boat? He could have driven along the coast until he was near Pocapuk, then got some pal of his to bring him as close as he could come in the boat without being spotted and swum the rest of the way. That’s what I’d do if I were writing the story.”

“If you wrote the story, you’d have no trouble providing the pal,” grunted Joris Groot. “What if this guy didn’t know anybody with a boat?”

“He could have hired somebody, couldn’t he? And they didn’t come back last night to pick him up the way they were supposed to, which is how he drowned.”

“I don’t see where that follows.”

“Maybe I’ll have to work on the plot a little,” Black John conceded. “Anyway, he must have got here somehow, or he wouldn’t be dead now. Dead on Pocapuk, I mean. So what’s going to happen next, Mrs. Kelling?”

“Vincent has made arrangements for his brother, who’s the harbor master, to come and pick up the body in his boat. I’m not sure when the boat will get here. In the meantime, Vincent and his helpers were planning to float the body around to the dock, since bringing it up over the cliff would be too difficult. So I’d suggest we all stay away from there.”

“You mean we can’t even go see him?” protested the young writer.

“John, you ghoul!” cried Lisbet Quainley.

“I was just thinking that if he was on the ferry, maybe some of us could identify him.”

Sendick was either blushing or getting badly sunburned, Emma thought, despite the low overcast. She couldn’t tell whether he was really being ghoulish or merely helpful. A combination of the two, most likely; the corpse of a mysterious stranger must be a powerful temptation to a budding crime writer.

“I don’t know what the protocol will be,” she told him. “You’d have to ask Vincent. As for myself, I just hope whoever’s to deal with this horrible affair will come along soon. Mysteries are all very well in books, but I loathe them in real life.”

“What a rotten time for Alding to get sick. She’d have everything solved in no time flat.” That was Lisbet Quainley again; Emma realized she was jeering. Miss Quainley didn’t believe in Alding Fath’s psychic powers any more than Emma herself did.

Then which of these people did take Mrs. Fath seriously? Everard Wont, presumably, since he was evidently basing his entire summer’s work on the premise that Mrs. Fath could and would lead him to Pocapuk’s buried treasure. Unless he was planning to fudge or fake his denouement; Emma couldn’t believe he’d have gone to all this fuss without first sliding an ace up his sleeve. But if he’d trusted the Comrades of the Convivial Codfish not to pull his leg, he must be gullible enough to believe anything. Or had he simply been lazy enough? Annoying man! Why couldn’t he be pigeonholed?

Black John Sendick either believed or wanted to; Emma was fairly sure of that. Beddoes Kelling had told her long ago that the best salesmen made the most gullible customers; therefore, it ought to follow that writers of sensational fiction would be the readiest to embrace the fabulous.

Joris Groot? Maybe yes, maybe no. Emma wished she knew whether he was doing his illustrations on speculation or whether he’d been clever enough to wrest an advance payment and a firm contract out of Wont. A person could believe whatever his employer wanted him to, she supposed, so long as he knew his money was safe.

A
ND WHAT ABOUT COUNT
Radunov? Did that dapper gentleman believe in anything at all, other than the irresistibility of his Old World charm? At least the count was showing a streak of common sense now.

“If I may suggest, it would be well for us to return to shelter before those clouds grow any blacker. Already I think I feel a drop.”

He felt a good many drops; they were all well sprinkled before they reached the main house. Nobody was wet enough to bother changing, though, and none of these allegedly dedicated creative artists seemed inclined to go back to his cottage and get on with his work. Groot and Sendick built up a fresh blaze on the ashes of last night’s fire. They all stood around drying themselves while Emma hunted out cards and chips. She found plenty of other games: Scrabble, Monopoly, Chinese Checkers, all the devices by which vacationers in bad weather drive off the ennui of having nothing to do but enjoy themselves. However, they opted for poker.

There was plenty of room for the six of them around Adelaide Sabine’s round gaming table, but Emma excused herself. “Go ahead without me; I want to see whether anybody’s taken Mrs. Fath her breakfast.”

She could have mentioned that other matter of the body, but that would not have been courteous. A hostess tried not to subject her guests to domestic unpleasantnesses even while admitting the possibility that one, two, or all of them might be at the root of her problems.

The rain was coming down in dogged earnest by now; the wind was beginning to pick up. “When the wind’s before the rain, soon you may set sail again. When the rain’s before the wind, topsails lower and halyards mind.” Emma remembered that bit of weather wisdom from her long-ago yachting days, and it worked every time. They were in for an all-day soak, if nothing worse, and quite possibly a gale to go with it.

Whoever he’d been, whatever he’d done, they couldn’t in common humanity leave that wretched man’s body out on the open dock in such a storm. Perhaps it was absurd to accord dead bodies a deference they might not have received while their occupants were still using them, but there it was and Emma would have to make Vincent understand.

Vincent, of course, was several jumps ahead of her. She found him in the kitchen, changed into dry clothes and boots, standing beside the big black iron wood stove, drinking another mug of coffee. The stove was alight; Emma could see yellow flames licking behind the open slits in the front damper. He lowered his mug and gave her a nod. “Want something, Mrs. Kelling?”

“I was wondering whether anybody’d taken some food out to Mrs. Fath and also what you’ve done with the stranger.” She couldn’t bring herself to say the body, it sounded too callous. “To leave him out there on the dock, in the rain—” She didn’t quite know how to finish.

Vincent did. “Wouldn’t be fittin’. Wouldn’t be safe, neither, if the waves out there got much higher. We brought ’im up on the ’lectric cart an’ put ’im in the old stable. Laid ’im on a couple o’ planks over a pair o’ sawhorses an’ covered ’im with a horse blanket left over from when we had the pony. It’s clean,” he added somewhat defensively. “Wasn’t no place else but the storeroom, an’ you wouldn’t o’ wanted ’im in there with the food, would you?”

Emma shuddered. “Hardly. Do you think there’s any real chance of his being picked up today? It’s getting awfully rough out there, don’t you think?”

“Be worse before it gets better, like as not,” Vincent agreed.” They said somethin’ about that tropical storm blowin’ up the coast later on, but she must o’ picked up a dern sight faster’n they expected. Blow ’erself out before mornin’ if we’re lucky. I was figurin’ on Lowell bein’ here before noontime, but he’s likely got a harbor full of overturned boats to worry about right now. He’ll figure our feller can wait till mornin’. ’Tisn’t like there’s anything could be done for ’im.”

He took his last sip of coffee and set the cup on the shelf behind the stove. “Mrs. Fath, now, Bubbles has kind o’ taken her under ’is wing. He’s already been over there with a cup o’ tea an’ a piece o’ toast; now he’s fixin’ to bake ’er a custard. He’s down cellar now gettin’ the eggs an’ cream.”

“Down cellar? I didn’t know this place had one,” said Emma.

“It’s just a root cellar, really.” Vincent pronounced “root” to rhyme with “foot” and “cellar” to rhyme with “mullah.”

“Underneath the pantry. Food stays cool down there, saves us runnin’ two refrigerators. Want to see?”

“Not just now, thank you,” Emma replied. “Did Bubbles say how Mrs. Fath is feeling?”

“So-so, I guess. She drunk the tea an’ kep’ it down. Leastways it was still with ’er when Bubbles left.”

“That’s a healthy sign. Are the girls back from doing the cottages yet? I hope they didn’t get soaked.”

“Take more’n a little rain to melt them two. They better be back, if not I’ll go get ’em. I figured it was safe enough to send ’em over there while the professor an’ his crew was out diggin’ up Pocapuk’s treasure, but I don’t want ’em in the cottages if the guests are back.”

“Don’t worry,” said Emma. “They’re all in the living room playing poker at the moment. I expect they’ll stay there pretty much.”

“Good a place as any on a day like this. I better light a fire for you then. Should o’ thought of it sooner.”

“A couple of the men have already taken care of that, thank you. It won’t kill them to wait on themselves, Vincent. You have far more important things to think about just now. What are Neil and Ted doing?”

“Workin’ outside, where I ought to be. Can’t stop for a little rain. Lots to be done on a place the size o’ this.”

“Then I mustn’t keep you. There is just one thing more, Vincent. Mr. Sendick brought up the question of taking a look at the body on the chance some of the group might recognize him. It’s a question of whether the man might have been on the ferry with us,” she felt called upon to explain, however disingenuously.

Vincent shrugged. “Give ’em a little entertainment for a dull day, I s’pose, if that’s the way their minds run. I don’t see what harm it would do. The corpse ain’t goin’ to mind, that’s for sure. Send ’em along any time you want to get rid of ’em. I’ll be in the stable anyway, overhaulin’ the cart. Meant to do it last week, but I never got the time. Too many other things needed doin’ first. Tell ’em to come through the kitchen so’s they won’t track the whole house up goin’ back. There’s some slickers hangin’ in the back entry.”

“Thank you, I’ll remember.”

Emma went back to the living room and amused herself for a while watching the poker game. Count Radunov was doing rather badly; she laid a private bet with herself he’d improve fast enough when the stakes went higher. Joris Groot was a good, steady player. Black John was a wild man, taking outrageous risks and getting away with them as often as not. Lisbet Quainley was so timid Emma wondered whether she really understood the game. Everard Wont evidently fancied himself an expert but wasn’t doing much better than Radunov. He was, as Emma had suspected, an ungracious loser. After a while she pulled up a chair between Sendick and Radunov and allowed herself to be dealt in.

Emma was an old hand at poker; she and Bed had played with a group of old friends almost every Saturday night for years and years. When she picked up her hand and detected a few tiny nicks along the edges of her cards, she knew what they meant. Were these marks a holdover from the Sabine era or had today’s group started with a fresh deck? Out of curiosity she added a few infinitesimal nicks of her own to the hand she held and continued marking her cards round after round until somebody’s private code was effectively scrambled.

Half an hour later, Emma was holding more chips than the rest of them put together. Black John Sendick was stunned and subdued. Joris Groot’s steady game had gone to pieces. Radunov’s had improved, but not enough. Lisbet Quainley was playing no better but looking much happier; she seemed to feel Emma was striking a blow for women’s liberation. Everard Wont made it plain without coming straight out and saying so that he thought Emma was cheating. He insisted they play dealer’s choice and started inventing wild variations. Black John Sendick grew even more reckless, almost manic. Lisbet Quainley became hopelessly confused. Emma stuck to plain five card stud and kept scooping the pots.