The Silver Ghost (4 page)

All he said was, “Did you get hold of Bill?”

“I met Abigail. She’s sending him along. Max, answer me.”

“All right, they’re feet,” he admitted. “Rufus’s feet.”

“What’s he doing up there?”

“Hanging. You can’t see it because you’re not tall enough, but there’s a rope tied around that branch over your head, running up the trunk.”

“And he’s on the other end of it,” Sarah finished.

Max shrugged. “Where else?”

“Then shouldn’t we cut him down?”

“Not on your life. There’s nothing we can do for him, I’ve already climbed up to see. And messed things around in the process, no doubt, though I tried to be careful. My guess is that he was dead, or at least unconscious, before he was hauled up.”

“Max, how awful!” Sarah moaned. “Why do you say that?”

“Because the foliage around him isn’t disturbed. A person being hanged doesn’t usually die right away. That’s why hanging as a form of execution used to be such a popular form of public entertainment back in the so-called good old days. Sometimes the poor bastard would put up a lively struggle for several minutes.”

“Yes, I’ve read about such things.” She wished she hadn’t. “The hangman would have to tug at their feet to quiet them down. Those are heavy boots, aren’t they?”

“That’s right, and Rufus was no ninety-seven-pound weakling, either. He’d have kicked and squirmed and clutched at the branches trying to save himself. His hands show no stains or abrasions, his clothes aren’t torn or dirty, and those boots look to have been freshly cleaned and oiled.”

“But why kill him first if you’re going to hang him anyway?”

“Mainly because dragging him that high into the tree would have been a hell of a job if he struggled. The ground would have been littered with debris off the tree and there’d be breakage all the way up,” Max explained.

“Yes, of course. I should have thought. Then the object of the hanging was simply to get the body up where it wouldn’t be seen. Don’t you think that shows some degree of premeditation? How did you happen to look in the tree, anyway?”

Max shrugged. “It’s an old dodge. The theory is that people searching for something seldom think to look over their heads.”

“So naturally you did. Boost me, will you, dear? I’d like to see how that rope is tied.”

“My pleasure.”

Max took Sarah by the waist and swung her up to his shoulder. She slid an arm around his neck to steady herself and examined the lethal strand.

The rope appeared to be quite new and couldn’t have been better chosen for its purpose. Its dead brown color blended so well with the tree bark that only an observer as keen as Max would have noticed it from the ground. It was thin but strong-looking and made Sarah think of Cousin Lionel.

“Max, I’ll bet this is a mountain climber’s rope. Cousin Lionel has one he takes on those survival hikes. And the knot’s a clove hitch.”

“Meaning what?”

“That’s a kind of sailor’s knot used to tie up a boat. The harder the boat pulls at the mooring, the more secure the knot becomes,” Sarah informed him.

“From which we deduce that whoever hanged the guard climbs mountains and ties boats,” he replied.

“In short, Cousin Lionel. Darling, I can’t say I find that particularly amusing. Put me down now, I think I hear Bill coming.”

“Sorehead.”

Max gave her a quick kiss just below the hennin and set her down in time to be looking professional when his current employer came hurrying up from the house.

“What’s the matter, Max? Abigail says you’ve lost Rufus.”

“I’m afraid we’ve found him, Bill. You’re not going to like this.”

“Good Lord, you don’t mean he’s badly hurt?”

“I wish I did,” Max answered.

Nehemiah Billingsgate stared, then shook his head. “I don’t believe you. Where is he?”

“Up there.”

“In the tree? Max, this is absurd. I see nothing but leaves.”

“Try for boot soles.”

Either because Nehemiah Billingsgate was a religious man or because the garb was loose and comfortable for an elderly, somewhat overweight man who’d known he was going to be on his feet most of the day, he’d got himself up as the friar of orders gray. When he spotted the hanging boots, Bill’s face turned grayer than his habit.

“Dear merciful God,” he whispered, “whatever possessed Rufe to do a thing like this?”

“I think we’re going to find he didn’t,” said Max. “I climbed up and took a look. There’s a noose around his neck, but I don’t believe he put it there.”

“How could that be? What would be the sense?”

“Of killing him? I don’t know yet. As for hanging him up the tree I assume it was to conceal the fact that he was dead and give the killer a chance to get away. Rufe was part of the show. That means your guests have been strolling up here to take a look at him off and on ever since the revel started, right?”

“Yes. A number of people have commented on how amusing he looked.” Bill almost didn’t manage the “amusing.”

“So during the banquet would be the least risky time to kill him because everybody was in the pavilion then together. But there was still the off chance that somebody would come along, so the killer had to work fast. Leaving the body by the sentry box would attract attention too soon, but dragging it away to hide would take too much time. Hitching his body to a rope and hauling him up into the tree wouldn’t take more than a few seconds.”

“Assuming one had the rope ready in advance.” Bill wasn’t so thunderstruck as to overlook the obvious.

“Yes,” Max agreed. “I’m afraid that’s a foregone conclusion.”

Bill shook his head, with the fake tonsure that everyone had been finding as amusing as they had Rufus and his
Totschläger.
“Whoever would have thought to look for him there? We might have left him hanging until—the crows found him, I suppose. Max, this is appalling! Will you help me get the poor fellow down?”

“We mustn’t, Bill. The police will have to see him as he is.”

“The police?” Nehemiah Billingsgate bowed his head and swallowed hard. “Oh yes. Stupid of me. And we were all having such a marvelous time. Except Rufe. You don’t think he suffered, Max?”

“There’s no sign that he did. I’d say he never knew what hit him.”

“Poor old Rufe! Well, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Rufe always said he wanted to die before he got old and useless. Then you want me to telephone the police?”

“First, if you don’t mind, we ought to check out the cars,” said Sarah. “Can you open the gate, Bill?”

“No problem. I have my keys right here. I’ve gone a bit paranoid about security since the New Phantom disappeared. Which I expect is why Rufe got killed. If only I hadn’t been so mean-spirited about setting a guard!”

“Bill, you did what anybody with a grain of sense would have done,” said Max. “Rufus had keys, too, I suppose?”

“No, as a matter of fact, he didn’t. His are back at the house, locked up in the library safe. There was no reason for Rufe to be carrying them, you see. He wasn’t required to go inside the gate, merely to let visitors know the car shed was out of bounds. He thought if anybody got too insistent, he could merely explain that he had no keys with him, then nobody could accuse him of being uncivil. Furthermore, my wife forgot to put any pockets in his costume, so he’d have had no place to keep them anyway,” Bill added with a rueful smile. “Dear God, if Rufe was killed for the keys he didn’t have—well, let’s use mine.”

Bill’s keys were part of his costume, a great ring of them hanging from a cord around his waist. “Abigail insists that if I’d ever gone into holy orders, I’d have wound up as a sacristan, so we decided I might as well play the role,” he explained as he fitted a black iron key about six inches long into the massive padlock. “I expect most of our guests thought these were plastic, if they noticed them at all. Sarah?” He opened the gate and motioned her through.

“I’ve been noticing how beautifully the gravel’s raked,” Sarah remarked as they walked across to the car shed.

The unsteadiness was back in Billingsgate’s voice. “Rufe spent hours out here yesterday helping Bob tidy the place up for the revel. We do have a special tractor with a wide rake on it for the gravel, but with our cars going in and out so often, the drive’s generally a good deal less orderly than you see it today. We’ll go in this little side door, if you don’t mind. Ah, I believe this is the key.”

“I’ll go first this time.” Max stepped inside and took a careful look around. The car shed was the size of a skating rink, with concrete walls and floor and a steel-girdered ceiling. There was nothing in it but Rolls Royces. “Quite a place you’ve got here, Bill.”

Sarah’s reaction was more personal. “What marvelous old cars!”

“We think so,” Bill confessed. “Some mean more to us than others, of course, because of the family connections. The New Phantom belonged to my brother Ralph, who died thirty-five years ago. That’s why I was so particularly upset to lose—dear God in heaven, the Silver Ghost!”

“W
HERE?” DEMANDED SARAH. BILL
was so pale, she thought he must have seen an apparition.

“I don’t know where,” he babbled. “It’s gone. It was parked right here between the Barker Saloon Cabriolet and the Drop Head foursome Coupe. It’s not the famous Silver Ghost AX201 of 1907, needless to say, but one of the subsequent models and the gem of our collection. Except for the dear old Roi des Belges, I have to admit. Great-grandfather bought her in 1906. But the Roi’s a bit cranky to drive if you’re not used to her. The Ghost’s a dream. Max, I—I don’t know what to say.”

“You’re saying another of your Rolls Royces has been stolen, Bill,” Max Bittersohn pointed out reasonably enough. “When did you last see your Silver Ghost?”

“Half-past twelve or thereabouts. Rufe had just finished his lunch and I was getting him settled in his sentry box because people would be starting to arrive. I’d brought his costume with me and we’d come in here so he could change.”

Bill led them into a small room at the back where several chauffeurs’ uniforms of different vintages hung, along with some motoring dusters and veils, a brown tweed jacket with leather patches at the elbows, and a pair of wrinkled chino pants washed almost white. Bill nodded at these last with a twisted smile.

“Rufe’s Old Retainer suit. That’s what Melly calls it. She and Rufe always had great fun teasing each other. He’d known her since she was knee-high to a hubcap, of course.”

“He was with you a long time, then.” Sarah could sense what Bill must be feeling. She’d had losses, too.

“All his life,” sighed Bill, “and his father before him. Rufe was terribly feudal in his ideas. He wouldn’t have dreamed of leaving the castle, as he always called it, and we’d certainly never have wanted him to. We’ll hold the funeral service right here in our own private chapel, and lay him to rest in the family plot. Rufe would like that, dear soul. Anyway, it may help to make the rest of us feel less miserable at losing him. Sarah, Max, I do beg your pardon. When I mentioned my wretched little problem, I had no intention of dragging you into something like this.”

“Don’t apologize, Bill,” Sarah told him. “At least we know now why Rufus was killed. Once we get a line on how the Silver Ghost was taken, I expect we’ll be able to wind things up quickly.”

“But the Ghost can’t have been stolen, don’t you see? The only way it could have been taken out was through the gate and down the drive. But the gate was locked and the drive was undisturbed. You said so yourself. It makes no sense.”

“It will,” said Max. “Rufe’s death didn’t make sense a couple of minutes ago.”

“That’s true. I’m sorry. I’m overwrought, I suppose.” The older man made a brave effort to pull himself together. “You say Rufe was killed to keep him from stopping the theft of the Ghost, and hung in the tree to gain time for the thief to get away. That much I’m willing to grant. I myself would never have thought of looking in the tree. I’d have wasted time searching the grounds, the castle, his own rooms.”

“Where are they? In the castle?” Max asked him.

“No, in the gatekeeper’s lodge. Silly name, but that’s what it’s always been called. You may have noticed a small house to your right as you entered the main drive from the road. We do have gates down there, though we almost never shut them. I think my great-grandfather’s fancy was to keep a rosy-cheeked old lady in the lodge who’d pop out and bob a curtsey as the gentry drove up, but I’m sure it never happened. Anyway, Rufe was born in the lodge. Lately he’s been sharing the place with our cook and her husband, who’s the Bob I mentioned. Bob gardens for us and some other people around town.”

“Where is he now?” Sarah asked.

“Off to one of his other customers, Eric Hohnser, who lives about a mile up the road.”

“On Sunday?”

“Yes, Hohnser made rather a thing of Bob’s working today because he’d missed one day last week when it rained. Bob didn’t mind. He was afraid that if he stuck around for the revel, we’d put him into velvet pantaloons like Rufe. Which we would have, I expect. What fools we mortals be. I’m babbling.”

Bill took a few deep breaths. “Anyway, if the Ghost was driven away, then the drive must have been raked by hand afterward. But if the thief was in such a desperate rush that he couldn’t even spend a minute or two to knock Rufe out and drag him in here instead of—you do see what I’m getting at?”

“We see it, Bill but we can’t get around the fact that Rufus is dead and the car’s gone. Perhaps he wasn’t killed to save time but because he recognized the thief.”

“Then you’re suggesting one of our guests did it. But that’s unthinkable. They’re all our friends.”

“Or friends of friends,” Max suggested. “Or business acquaintances, or neighbors you didn’t want to slight even if you don’t know them all that well?”

“All right, Max, you’ve made your point. I realize this is no time to piddle around with the amenities. I suppose this is when we call the police.”

There was a telephone in the car shed. Most unhappily, Nehemiah Billingsgate used it.

“They said they’d be right along. Wretch that I am, I wish we could have waited until the guests leave.”