The Gladstone Bag (14 page)

Groot was the first to fade. He quietly laid down the hand Emma had just dealt him, walked over to the fire and hurled on a fresh log so hard that sparks flew out on the hearthrug, then settled down on the sofa with his sketchbook. Contrite, Emma folded, too, and went to sit beside him. Almost immediately Count Radunov was there, as well.

“Ah, dear lady,” he murmured, “what a pity the days of the great transatlantic luxury liners are no more.”

The implication was that he and Emma would have made a fine pair of international card sharps. She laughed at him and asked Groot if she might see some of his sketches.

That perked him up. He willingly turned over page after page, starting with a pair of hunting boots among the autumn leaves and working his way past feet in rubber boots splashing through puddles, feet in overshoes wading through slush, women’s feet in evening pumps and men’s in dress shoes at a New Year’s party, or so Emma judged from the meticulously drawn noisemaker an elegant high-heeled sandal with rhinestone straps was about to squash. Off in one corner was one incongruous left foot in a black sneaker with white stripes on the side and a small hole in the toe, resting on what was probably a bar rail.

“I suppose you meant this as a bit of social commentary,” Emma remarked. Groot shrugged and flipped to a pair of plastic ski boots dangling from somebody’s mittened hand.

This was the only drawing so far that indicated Groot did in fact realize the human form didn’t begin at the knees and go down from there. Like all the rest, it was accurately drawn, carefully shaded, and showed not a glimmer of originality. Emma wondered what sort of illustrations he was planning to do for Wont’s book. She also wondered how much longer Radunov was going to keep on reciting Kipling’s poem about “boots—boots—boots—boots” in her ear sotto voce.

He did stop, but only to ask in ever so innocent a tone whether Groot was a shoe fetishist. Groot replied quite calmly that, no, he didn’t have any hang-ups about shoes, he just liked to draw them. He was all set to move from winter to spring. Emma was deeply grateful when the last round was played out at the card table and Black John came dashing over.

“Say, Mrs. Kelling, did you ask about the guy who was drowned?”

Emma couldn’t understand why he was so eager, but she answered readily enough. “Yes, Vincent says it’s all right to go out to the shed and look at him if you have the stomach for it. He wishes somebody could come up with an identification, but I don’t suppose there’s any hope of that. Does anybody else want to come?”

“Ugh, no thanks. I’ll stay here” was Lisbet Quainley’s reaction, and an entirely proper one, in Emma’s opinion. Emma didn’t want to see him either, but she did have a hankering to observe the viewers’ reactions.

Everard Wont and Joris Groot said they might as well go for want of anything better to do. Radunov shrugged, cast a rueful glance at his elderly custom-made brogues, which had already suffered a bit of a banging on the path to Shag Rock, and joined the party. Bubbles was in the kitchen putting a club sandwich together as they passed through.

“Thinthe nobody’th going anywhere in thith thtorm, I thought you might like to eat your lunch with the otherth, Mithith Kelling. I’ll make you thome freth coffee.”

“That’s a splendid idea, Bubbles,” Emma replied. “Tea for me, please, and perhaps a little sherry for everyone first. We’ll be back in just a few minutes; we’re only going to the stable.”

“Ah, yeth.”

Bubbles heaved a dutiful sigh and went on assembling the sandwich. Emma sorted out raincoats for size and handed them to the men, wishing they weren’t all the same somber black. Adelaide must have bought out a volunteer fire department sometime or other, she thought. Old-fashioned yellow oilskins would be more appropriate for Pocapuk, but of course they did smell a bit. She found a hooded black raincape for herself, at least it was appropriate for a call on a dead man. Count Radunov helped her into the cape, adjusted the hood for her, and bowed her out the door.

It was still teeming. Those sou’wester hats the men had put on were demonstrating their usefulness, sending solid streams of water down the backs of the antique rubber raincoats. They were all glistening like wet seals by the time they got to the stable.

Even with that horse-blanket-covered bundle on the improvised trestle, the interior was a cheerful refuge from the outside. Vincent, his clothes protected by a greasy overall suit, was kneeling under a two-hundred-watt bulb that hung on a cord from a cobwebbed beam. Bits and pieces of the electric go-cart were spread around him on a tarpaulin. He stood up for Emma quick as a cat, she noticed a bit ruefully, with no creaking or popping of the joints.

“Come to view the remains?” He led them over to the trestle, drew the blanket away from the face, and folded it deftly over the chest.

“God, Ev, he looks like you!” was Sendick’s first reaction.

“He does not!” was Wont’s immediate and quite understandable response.

“Ev’s right,” said Joris Groot.

The illustrator went on to point out a few anatomical discrepancies, not particularly to Wont’s advantage. Emma didn’t see that they added up to much and didn’t really care. Her chief concern just now was to find out how the man had died. She wished she knew how a drowned person was supposed to look. Of course he could have hit his head as he fell; there was certainly no dearth of rocks to land on out there. She did so wish the storm hadn’t kept the harbor master away, but he’d have been crazy to risk the trip for a dead man.

The wind was really howling now, even the short walk from the house had been a struggle. As they stood looking down at the blanched face in its tangle of wet beard, a limb snapped off a nearby pine tree and struck the stable roof with a thump loud enough to startle even Vincent.

“Damn that kid!” he surprised them all by exclaiming. “I better go see what’s happenin’.”

Without stopping to put on a raincoat, he charged out into the storm. Not knowing what else to do, the rest stood around exchanging shrugs and blank looks, telling each other they’d never set eyes on the dead man before and wondering which kid was in trouble.

They didn’t have to wonder long. Vincent came back, herding before him a wet, shivering boy wearing nothing but bathing trunks and rubber thong sandals. Neil had a white towel that he was carrying bundled up like a sack. He looked pleased with himself even if his father wasn’t.

“Anyway, Pop, I got ’em,” he was yelling against the wind.

“Huh.” The father shoved him into the stable, not roughly. “Here, for God’s sake put somethin’ around you before you freeze to death.”

He wrapped his son in another of those black slickers, one he’d most likely brought along for himself, and hustled Neil along to the kitchen. Without his burly presence, the stable wasn’t cozy any more. Emma set out after him and the others followed her.

On a counter just inside the kitchen door, Neil was spreading out his white towel. On the towel lay the Fairy Queen’s tiara and several more pieces of Emma’s stolen stage jewelry.

“I knew they’d be buried or washed away if I didn’t get ’em before low tide,” Neil was bragging, “so I did. It wasn’t too bad down under the cliff, Pop. I was in the lee of the wind, you know. But, boy, she’s sure picking up outside. I hope to heck Ches and Wal got in all right before that wind really hit.”

Appalled by the risk Neil had taken over her worthless junk, Emma started to say, “I’m deeply grateful for the trouble you’ve taken, Neil.” Before she could get to the “but,” though, she was interrupted by a shriek. Lisbet Quainley stood in the doorway from the butler’s pantry, pointing at a huddle of black-coated figures, at the white draped counter, and the wet, glistening paste diamonds.

“That’s it! Just as Alding said. Black and white, and the dead man in the water and the shining stones coming up. Right on the button. Only …” Lisbet started to laugh, so hard she had to pull out a chair and sit down. “Only she wasn’t talking about Pocapuk’s treasure. Tough luck, Ev.”

“I can’t imagine what you find so hilarious, Liz,” was Wont’s cold reply. “I thought we had a definite lead; now we’ve got to start over and Alding’s out of commission. I don’t see why in hell she had to go and get food poisoning just at the crucial time.” He glared at Bubbles, blaming the cook.

Bubbles wasn’t taking that. “It’th not food poithoning! She’th got a bug.”

“How do you know? You’re not a doctor.”

“No, but I’m a regithtered nurthe.”

“That’s right,” said Vincent. He was rubbing Neil down with a kitchen towel and quietly enjoying Wont’s frustration. “Bubbles specializes in male geriatrics. He comes here every summer for a change.”

“I get deprethed,” Bubbles explained to Emma. “I work at a hothpithe and all my patientth die. But thomebody hath to look after them.”

“You must be a brave and kind man,” said Emma. “And how is Mrs. Fath? Have you been out there since breakfast?”

“I took her thome thoup about half-patht eleven. She took a few thipth and fell athleep. That’th good, you know. She needth retht more than anything elthe. I expect she’ll be okay in a few dayth.”

“I can’t wait that long,” yelped Wont. “Can’t you give her some pills or something?”

“I’ll do whatever ith nethetharry,” Bubbles replied with quiet dignity. “Mithith Kelling, when do you want uth to therve lunch?”

“In about twenty minutes, if that’s convenient,” Emma told him. “I expect we’d all like to wash up first, and have some sherry to take the chill off.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Black John Sendick.

The men could use the downstairs washrooms; Lisbet Quainley might do as she pleased. Emma went upstairs to her own room for a moment’s respite. The room had been tidied to a fare-thee-well, and Sandy was treating Bernice to a clandestine peek at Emma’s wardrobe.

“Oops! Caught in the act.” Sandy was blushing even redder than Bernice. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Kelling. It’s just that your things are all so beautiful. And they smell so nice.”

“Yes, well, I think you’d better run along downstairs now. Bubbles needs you to help serve luncheon. You’ve done a lovely job on my room,” Emma added out of compassion, not that the little minxes deserved any. “Oh, and you might bring up the rest of the jewelry that I left in the kitchen. Neil went out and fished it up, which was very brave and extremely foolish of him. Please remind him for me that children are far more precious than diamonds, even real ones. Now scoot.”

They scooted. Emma repaired her face, straightened her wig, and changed into a pair of soft-soled, brown leather house shoes. After a moment’s thought, she also changed her blouse and skirt for a favorite lounging-about dress of a snuggly mouse gray material, and added a string of what looked to her like brown, beige, and gray tiddly winks interspersed with chunks of glass that had perhaps been cut from the necks of discarded beer bottles.

Loopy beige-and-gray earrings went with the necklace. They hung almost to her shoulders and made her feel like an illustration out of the
National Geographic.
Count Radunov would probably get a chuckle out of them.

Not that she cared whether he did or not; she was merely getting herself comfortable for what promised to be a long and quite possibly dreary afternoon. She did hope Everard Wont wouldn’t go into a full-scale sulk because Alding Fath was not in shape for fresh prognostications. That business about black and white and the stones and the dead man was a trifle eerie, Emma had to admit. How could Mrs. Fath have predicted all that?

Of course the Gladstone bag was black, and there’d have had to be something white around it, even if it was only a white pebble on the shore or a white man with a black beard. She’d have known about the bagful of false diamonds if she’d been planning to give them to the man herself. She’d have known about the death if she’d intended to trail him to the cliff with his booty and shove him over herself. Maybe Alding Fath had good reason to be feeling poorly.

Maybe Emma Kelling had better quit telling herself horror stories and go pour the sherry so that Everard Wont wouldn’t hog it all for himself.

T
HE IMPROMPTU PICNIC AROUND
the fireplace was pleasant enough. Emma put some Rachmaninoff and Moussorgsky recordings on the phonograph as a slightly left-handed gesture to Count Radunov, then switched to Broadway show tunes. Adelaide proved to own a surprisingly large collection, some of them dating back half a century or so. More house gifts, Emma supposed.

A good many of the shows had opened in Boston before going on to Broadway. She’d never lost the thrill of going in on the train, getting off at Back Bay, and checking into the Copley Plaza for a night on the town. The manager himself had always come out to greet them; Emma doubted whether there was a single waiter left at the Copley who’d recognize Mrs. Beddoes Kelling nowadays.

What a dismal Desdemona she was turning herself into! Emma shut off the record player and sat down at the piano. Like it or lump it, this lot were going to hear Little Buttercup sing her swan song.

Her voice was a far squeak from what it used to be; but here she had no great hall to fill. The piano, as Adelaide had promised, was in tune. The rain drumming on the house and the wind howling around the eaves made a wild orchestral accompaniment. Mad Margaret’s first solo from
Ruddigore
would be just the thing on a day like this. “Cheerily carols the lark over the cot. Merrily whistles the clerk, scratching a blot.” Emma didn’t think she sounded too bad, all things considered. “And why? Who am I? … Mad Margaret! Poor Peg!” She’d be Buttercup next and to heck with the high notes.

Radunov came over to sing with her. He knew the lyrics to every one of the patter songs and most of what Emma still thought of as the Darrell Fancourt parts. The rest of the cottagers had gone back to playing cards; Emma couldn’t have cared less. For upward of an hour her cure for the mulligrubs worked like a charm. But then her throat got sore, her fingers began to stumble on the keys. Radunov was down to a croak. Time for old swans to crawl back up on the bank.

The card players had switched from poker to bridge, a game Emma had always loathed. She and Radunov sat down to the cribbage board for a while, but they were both feeling the effects of their sing-along, the sherry, the fire’s warmth, and the monotonous pounding of the rain. When the count asked halfheartedly, “Would you like to play another round?” Emma shook her head.