The Silver Ghost (26 page)

“So you did go snooping.”

“So rather than risk a bilious attack by consuming a heavy meal directly on top of a morning’s strenuous exercise,” Lionel had his mind ticking over nicely now, “I determined to satisfy a long-felt curiosity about certain architectural features of this intriguing old house. Since the estate had been thrown open to the revelers, of whom I was surely one, you can hardly be implying that I was guilty of an impropriety.”

“Not at all,” said Melisande with little conviction. “Did you have a good look around, Lionel?”

“I had a most interesting little session, thank you.”

“And what did you find out?” said Sarah. “Spare us the architecture, whom did you meet?”

“I didn’t meet anybody.”

“Nobody at all? But servers were coming and going all the time, and Tick just said he was in and out.”

“Yes, well, I confined my investigations to the upper regions. Not to be in anybody’s way, you understand. I did hear voices and footsteps. And I heard you go thundering down the stairs, Tick. You said you shouldn’t try to carry so much at one time, honey. You’ll give yourself a hernia.’“

“I probably did,” said Tick. “Why didn’t you holler?”

“I was going to, but you went out. I heard the front door shut.”

The door had been propped open, Sarah remembered, so that the wenches and potboys could pass through without hindrance. She let it pass. “Which of the bedrooms did you go into, Lionel?”

“I—er—was trying to determine the relative proportions.”

“So you went into them all, and you still say you met nobody. Not at any time.”

“Sarah, why do you keep harping on that? Why should I have met anybody? They were all out inside the pavilion.”

“I wasn’t.” Mrs. Gaheris flipped open the lid of her workbox to select a different thread. “I came in to get my pills, as I told the others last evening. Too bad I missed you, Lionel. We could have explored together. I love houses.”

“When did you come upstairs, Mrs. Gaheris?”

“Why, I can’t say exactly. Early on, while some people were still clustered around the buffet. And I stayed in my room for—oh, three or four minutes, I suppose.”

“You weren’t there while I was there.” Lionel forgot to be circumspect in his need to be right. “I spent a good ten minutes in your room. Checking the proportions.” And other things, no doubt. “I didn’t see you upstairs the whole time I was there. But I did see you going back to the pavilion. I didn’t mention that before, Sarah, because I didn’t think it counted.”

“It counts,” Sarah croaked, “Go ahead, Lionel. Where was she?”

“I was coming down the back stairway that leads into the corridor from the parking area to the front door. Mrs., Gaheris dashed in from the drive and went out to the pavilion ahead of me.”

“She didn’t see you because you ducked out of sight, I suppose.”

“I didn’t intercept her because she was obviously in a hurry,” Lionel corrected. “She was making awfully good time for a woman her age, I must say.”

Mrs. Gaheris failed to appreciate the compliment. “Lionel, don’t be a fool. It’s obvious to me and to everyone else that you’re trying to cover yourself by making me the scapegoat. That must have been you I saw going into the copse. You no doubt caught sight of me watching you from my bedroom window and made up this taradiddle to save your own skin. Abigail, I hate to make a scene in your house, but I do think this has gone far enough. I must ask you to excuse me.”

Nobody moved except Sergeant Myre. “I don’t think you ought to leave just now, Mrs. Gaheris.”

“You can’t hold me! I have diplomatic immunity.”

“I don’t think so, Mrs. Gaheris,” said Max. “That only applies when a diplomat’s in a foreign country. Anyway, you weren’t the diplomat. Your husband was, and he’s dead, or so we’ve been given to understand.”

“That was an unnecessarily cruel remark, Mr. Bittersohn. If I was mistaken about diplomatic immunity, it’s simply that I was accustomed to it for so long that I took it for granted.”

“You take a lot of things for granted, Mrs. Gaheris, one being that we’d fail to make the connection between you and Versey Ufford.”

“What connection? I met him here in this house as a friend of the Billingsgates.”

“Whom you hadn’t seen for thirty years or so?”

“That is correct.”

“Then how do you explain all those overseas phone calls Ufford made to you last month at the Albergo Verdi in Busto Arsizio?”

“I don’t explain them because they never happened.”

“Oh yes they did. I’m sure you told Ufford to destroy the phone bills, but he was a penny pincher. I expect he intended to take them off his income tax as business expenses. Signora DiCristoforo asked me to let you know she found that cassette tape you were so worried about. It had fallen down behind the headboard. Her cousin Pietro’s going to play it so we can find out if it turns up in Ufford’s card file.”

“I think you must be insane.”

“The tape was in one of those padded envelopes with your name and Ufford’s return address on the customs slip.”

There was dead silence. Then Nehemiah Billingsgate said quietly, “I think you’d better explain, Drusilla.”

She sat there quite a while, fiddling with the clasp of her workbox. At last she spoke. “Very well, Bill, if I must. This is painful for me. You see, my husband was not always faithful. Years ago, in a stupid attempt to get even with him, I had a brief fling with Versey Ufford, whom we’d met on a visit to Rome. I soon wearied of the affair, but Versey didn’t. He kept in touch, and when my husband died, he tried to win me back. He began a barrage of letters, phone calls, and small gifts. I have to confess that I didn’t discourage him at first. I was lonely, and a woman my age can’t help feeling a bit grateful, I suppose, that any man cares enough to bother. But Versey really was the most dreadful bore. He’d got worse as he got older, and I soon realized I’d made a mistake letting him back into my life.”

“Then why did you come here instead of to the Dorks’?” Melisande demanded. “You must have known he’d be infesting the place.”

“I came here because I wanted to be with my old friend Abigail. It wasn’t as if Versey actually lived in the house. I decided the nuisance of having him in the picture would be outweighed by the advantages of being in a social circle where I could really feel I belonged. Anyway, Versey was an unattached man and there are times when any escort is better than no escort, to put it as crudely as possible.”

Mrs. Gaheris tried the effect of a wistful smile, but nobody smiled back. “Does that explain why Lionel saw you coming in from the drive?” said Sarah.

“Well, yes, as a matter of fact, it does. Versey’d insisted I meet him outside for a private interview. He was resenting the fact that I’d refused to acknowledge him to the Billingsgates as an old friend. I went because I didn’t want him to make a scene in the pavilion, as I knew he was quite capable of doing.”

“Was this before or after you went up to your room?”

“After. I did go to get my stomach pills. I knew I’d want them by the time I got through with Versey. Then I fiddled around the room postponing what I knew would be a distasteful experience, which it was. That was how I happened to be around to see your cousin going into the copse.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Gaheris,” said Sarah. “You didn’t meet Professor Ufford outside. He glued himself to me the moment I entered the pavilion and stuck like a burr all during the banquet. Lionel didn’t go anywhere except where he said he did. No Morris dancer went into the copse. That was a flat lie, to distract attention from your having been out of the pavilion while Rufus was killed. We have all the Morris dancers and all the costumes accounted for. I doubt whether the Billingsgates will care to go on sponsoring a guest who tried to frame their son-in-law for the murders she committed, and I’m sure Aunt Bodie’s going to take umbrage in a big way when she finds out her old school chum hit her over the head with Bill’s
Totschläger.
Grab that workbox, Max!”

Unfortunately Tick Purbody couldn’t resist getting in on the action, and Tick was a little too far away. While he and Max were getting untangled, Drusilla Gaheris had time to open her workbox. It was Sarah who hurled the sofa cushions to deflect her aim and Melisande who wrenched the gun out of her hand. But Lionel Kelling was the real hero of the hour.

“I don’t see what everyone’s so wrought up about. Naturally I confiscated the bullets when I discovered the gun yesterday. You’re old enough to know, Mrs. Gaheris, that one should never leave a loaded weapon lying around.”

At least Sergeant Myre got to make the arrest.

O
F COURSE THE DOG
work remained to be done. Not until Friday at teatime was there another gathering at the Billingsgates’. Abigail and Bill, looking careworn but relieved, were helping each other butter the crumpets. Sarah had met the flight from Busto Arsizio and brought Max out from Logan Airport. Acting Chief Reginald Myre represented the Fernwood Police. Lionel Kelling had been invited partly because Sarah felt a trifle ashamed of the way she’d bullied him on Monday and partly because her bullying had paid off so handsomely. Boadicea Kelling had driven from Wenham in her 1946 Daimler wearing her Queen Mary toque, which didn’t look much worse than it had before.

Tom and Hester Tolbathy were there because everyone wanted it made clear that nobody was holding Wouter’s doomful legacy against them. Mr. and Mrs. Purbody, however, had sent regrets. Tick was busy interviewing prospective assistant meaders in his new capacity as president of Apian Way Enterprises. Melisande was at a professional recording studio taping another hour of “Melly’s Mellow Melodies.”

Boadicea Kelling took an analytical sip from her teacup and nodded approval. “Just right, Abigail. I must say in retrospect that Drusilla always did have a duplicitous streak. She borrowed my best silk stockings once without asking and sneaked them back full of runs, thinking I wouldn’t notice. And she was always smuggling in chocolates. She’d eat them in bed after lights out so she wouldn’t have to share. I could hear the little papers rattling when she fished around for the caramels. Her cubicle was next to mine, you know. I never snitched on her before, but now that she’s tried to murder me, I feel myself under no obligation to keep silent.”

“My loyalty went down the drain when I found out she’d used our hospitality to kill poor Rufe, swipe our cars, and try to put Bill out of business,” Abigail agreed. “I still can’t grasp how she managed it all, much less why. Were you able to dig up any information in Italy, Max?”

“Plenty. For one thing, the late Gawain Gaheris was never a diplomat, though he often pretended to be.”

“Whatever for? Was he a spy?”

“Now and then. Also a smuggler, a forger, and a few other things. He and Drusilla worked as a team. Their real forte appears to have been dirty tricks to order.”

“Such as what?”

Max shrugged. “Spreading false rumors and planting evidence to back them up, staging entrapments, arranging quiet disposals.”

“Do you mean murders?” Abigail asked bluntly.

“Sure. Nothing cheap or vulgar, you understand, they were always very careful and very clever. It did get to be noticed eventually that wherever the Gaherises went, accidents, suicides, shattered reputations, and depleted bank accounts tended to follow; but they never left a clue anybody could put a finger on. What’s incredible is that they managed to keep it up for forty years or so, maybe even longer. They worked in Europe, North Africa, and places like Hong Kong; but they shied clear of the United States pretty much. She came back for a few brief visits, but he never did, as far as anybody knows. The inference is that he’d made the U.S. too hot for himself.”

“Was he ever traced back here?” Sarah asked.

“Not successfully. He posed as an Englishman who’d been sent here as an orphaned child, which accounted for his New York accent. He had the right papers, but a man of his talents naturally would. By the time anybody thought of checking him out, there didn’t appear to be anybody left alive who could vouch for his identity.”

“How old a man was he?” Bill asked.

“Seventy-two when he died, according to his passport—for whatever that’s worth—but he was showing no sign of being ready to quit. It wasn’t a heart attack that killed him, as his wife claimed, but a fall from an open cable car halfway up an Alp. The man from Interpol who’d been riding with him explained that Gaheris had stood up to get a better view of the scenery and lost his balance.”

Lionel snorted. “Surely nobody believed that yarn?”

“I got the impression people had been lining up in rows to believe it,” Max told him. “Anyway, the widow obviously decided to carry on the business. Just before Gaheris died, they’d been approached by what sounds to me like a neo-Nazi to lay the foundation for a propaganda network in this country. Gaheris would probably have turned him down, but for Drusilla alone this must have seemed like the ideal setup. She probably did want to come back to the States, as she claimed. She was clean with the authorities, she had a handy accomplice in Ufford, and she had the ideal cover: relatives who hadn’t seen her in years and an old school friend living practically next door to her client.”

“Lord save us!” Bill exclaimed. “Who was the client?”

“Hohnser the rose man. He met with the Gaherises at Busto Arsizio as representative for a neo-Fascist underground group so top-secret he refused even to tell them its name. He did write them a businesslike follow-up letter about this neighbor of his who owns a group of radio stations currently being used to disseminate dangerously subversive propaganda about racial equality, universal brotherhood, and other radical left-wing garbage.”

“Did he actually say that in the letter?” Abigail demanded.

“That and a good deal more. He outlined in detail how he wanted them to infiltrate the stations with a dirty tricks campaign. Once they’d got the owner demoralized enough to quit, they were to buy him out with money obtained by capturing—Hohnser’s word—and selling the neighbor’s own collection of antique Rolls Royces. The stations would then be used to broadcast both overt and subliminal messages of what Hohnser described as ‘the right sort.’”