Troubles in the Brasses (25 page)

“Yes, Frieda mentioned that earlier on. Did you also realize the mutes had been switched, Frieda?”

“Oh yes, it was obvious enough to me. I knew Samson’s mutes, you see, and I knew Cedric’s. Brass players are funny about their mutes; they’ll use almost anything that gives them me sound they want. Samson had come across some oddly shaped pudding molds in one of those shops that sell fancy cooking utensils. I forget just when, but he’d had them awhile. He worked them over till he got them to fit nicely into his trombone. I couldn’t see why they were any better than the mutes he’d been using, but Cedric went crazy over them.”

She sniffed again. “Cedric liked anything gadgety, of course. So Samson bought another pudding mold and fixed one for him, only the design wasn’t quite the same because the store had run out and he had to buy it somewhere else. The big thing about the pudding molds was that they had lids, you see. You could put stuff into them. Samson would experiment with wadded-up paper towels, newspaper, all sorts of things. Once he played an entire concert with two pairs of my black panty hose stuffed into his mute.”

“God that was funny!” For a moment Jason Jasper forgot he was in trouble. “Sam pulled them out when we were going offstage after the performance, and we all laughed ourselves sick, even Pettipas.”

“I can imagine.” Madoc was growing extremely tired of brass players’ humor. “But getting back to the money. What happened after Rintoul bagged the mute?”

“Well, we had to stick around awhile answering questions and all that. Frieda was pretty upset about Sam, naturally, and the maestro was in a big flap about having his rehearsal turned into a drug bust. So when the cops finally said we could leave, the maestro said go ahead, and we went. We decided we’d better go back to Frieda’s apartment with her.”

“Whom do you mean by we?”

“Cedric, Bill, Lucy, and myself. So anyway, while Lucy was making Frieda a cup of tea and getting her calmed down, I said, ‘Hey, Cedric, let’s see what Sam had in the mute this time.’ I didn’t know anything about the money, see. I just thought it might be something for a laugh. God knows we all needed one by that time.”

“But Cedric pretended he didn’t know what you were talking about,” said Frieda.

“Oh, sure. You know old Ceddie, he always had to kid around about everything. But anyway, Bill said he wanted to see, too, and I told Cedric I knew damned well he had Sam’s mute because I’d watched him make the swap. Frieda said she knew it, too. She’d noticed right away that the mute in one of Sam’s cases wasn’t his.”

“Did she mention anything about Flogger’s habit of keeping money inside his spare mute?” Madoc asked.

“Yes, but I think that was after Bill and I had hounded Cedric into opening it. Then, when all those thousand-dollar bills came flying out, she said something like, ‘I thought so. That’s where his big winning streak came from. And look where it got him.’ By that time, you see, we all knew Sam had shot himself.”

“S
O THAT WAS WHEN
you decided to form the tontine?” Madoc was feeling the urge to hurry this along; he was getting nervous about the time.

Jasper was not to be hurried. “Sam had that mute jammed tight as a tick. We counted the money and it came to two hundred and fifty-six thousand dollars American, which was more than any of us had ever seen before in one lump. Bill and I thought it should go to Frieda, but she wasn’t having any part of it. She was all for turning it over to the police, but Lucy said we couldn’t do that unless we wanted to land Cedric in jail for having swiped it out of Sam’s case.”

“A point to consider,” said Madoc. “So then what?”

“We had a few drinks and thrashed it over. We didn’t feel like just throwing all that money in the fireplace, but we realized we’d better not go trying to spend it around Wagstaffe. Finally Bill, of all people, came up with an idea. While they were in South America, he and Sam had run into this chap who had an island to sell. It’s a little one, down in the Antilles. I’d have to show you on the map. But anyway, Sam had been stringing the chap along, making believe he was interested. So we all got to thinking, why not? It was one way to use up the money without getting in trouble with the Canadian government.”

Madoc wasn’t so sure about that, but he held his tongue. Jasper went on.

“We got to gassing about how we’d build ourselves a colony of holiday camps we could either stay in ourselves or else rent and divide the income. So then Cedric drew up this agreement and everybody signed.”

“I didn’t want to,” cried Frieda, “but they made me.”

“Frieda, we were looking out for your own interests,” Jason protested. “You were in no condition that day to think for yourself.”

“Some interests. You just wanted my name on the deed so I wouldn’t be able to squawk to the police about your stealing the money.”

Frieda was trembling again, working up to another outburst. Lady Rhys slipped an arm around the thin little body and began patting Frieda’s shoulder as if she were a child with a tummy ache.

“Please go on, Jason. We are all intrigued about the island. How did you go about negotiating the purchase?”

“We sent Lucy. Bill had the chap’s business card and all that but he couldn’t go back again because the orchestra’s fall season was about to begin. Anyway, it stood to reason the authorities would be on him like a bunch of hawks if he so much as stepped foot outside the country, after what happened to Sam. But Lucy doesn’t have all that much to do when the orchestra’s not touring and she’s a good organizer. So she took the money and sewed it into her girdle or something—she never would tell us how she managed to get it through customs—and found the chap with the island and beat him down to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He’d wanted quite a lot more, but I expect all that cold cash on the barrelhead was fairly persuasive. The upshot was, she came back with the deed and we had ourselves an island.”

“And have you ever gone there yourself?”

“No, I haven’t,” Jasper confessed. “To tell the truth, I haven’t wanted to. I’ve been sorry ever since that I let myself get sucked into it.”

“Sure you have,” snarled Lucy. “You didn’t hesitate to let me risk my neck carrying all that money down there to pay for it, or to put my name on the papers as agent for the tontine. Jason, I don’t know what you’re trying to pull here, but you needn’t think I’m going to let you get away with it. By the way, Madoc, did you know Dave Gabriel happens to be Jason’s nephew?”

“Would that make Gabriel eligible for the tontine?”

“It could put him in a position to benefit if he helped his uncle kill off other participants.”

“But since this appears to be very much a nonprofit venture, where’s the benefit going to come from?”

“From three million dollars, that’s where,” shouted Frieda. “That’s what they’re after me about. They’ve been trying to force me to sign, but I won’t.”

“Sign what? Are you saying that someone else has offered to buy the island from the tontine?”

“Yes, one of those big resort developers. They offered a million at first, but Cedric’s been bidding them up. He was furious with me because I refused to consent to the sale and they can’t put it through without my signature. That’s why he’s been plaguing me, trying to wear me down. But I’m not going to profit from that drug money Samson killed himself over. They can kill me, too, I don’t care. I’m so sick of it all I’d as soon die right now.”

“Oh, blow it out your ear, Frieda,” said Lucy wearily. “I don’t think you’re fooling anybody.”

This had gone quite far enough. “I don’t think she is, either,” said Madoc. “Lucy, will you please take off your scarf?”

Lucy grabbed at the scarf and pulled it tighter. “Of course I won’t! Why should I?”

“To show them what a liar you are.”

Frieda tore free of Lady Rhys and leaped on her roommate. The chair Lucy was sitting in toppled over backward, the two middle-aged women with it, scratching, pounding, screaming. Frieda clawing at the scarf, Lucy defending it literally tooth and nail. But Frieda had got the jump. She was on top, she had the scarf.

“Look, Madoc!”

Madoc looked, everybody looked. Lucy’s bare throat was not lovely. Neither was it marred by any contusion that would indicate a serious attempt had been made to strangle her.

“See, Madoc!” cried Frieda. “I caught on as soon as you told her to take off the scarf. All she did was put that violin string around her own neck yesterday morning, pull it tight enough to make a red mark, and start yelling so we’d come and see. That’s why I never saw her masked murderer. There wasn’t any. Am I right, Madoc?”

“Oh, yes.” The scarf was making a convenient substitute for the handcuffs Janet hadn’t thought to pack. Madoc borrowed another from Madame Bellini to tie up the feet as well. He’d known from the start of the battle that Lucy was going to be a kicker.

“You’re quite right, Frieda. I wondered at the time whether she might have done just that. You ought to have hidden that string under the mattress or somewhere, Lucy, instead of just dropping it on the floor. Also, it was a bit unconvincing to have that red line go all the way around your neck.”

“Why is that, dear?” Lady Rhys gave Frieda’s skirt a final dusting and handed her another tissue to wipe the blood off her scratched cheek. “How else would one go about strangling oneself?”

“One would do it just the way Lucy did. However, a killer who meant business would be less apt to risk waking his victim prematurely by slipping the garrote under her head. In fact, he probably wouldn’t have strangled her at all, but simply jammed a pillow down over her face to muffle any outcries, and held it there until she smothered.”

“Then why did she do it?” demanded Helene Dufresne.

“I wondered the same thing,” Madoc replied. “I wasn’t sure whether Lucy was simply trying to gain attention, since her conduct on the plane and afterward had made it fairly obvious that she liked to be at the center of the action. There was also the possibility that Frieda had tried and failed to strangle her, perhaps impelled by one of those nightmares she’d been having. Lucy could have been playing the loyal friend, trying to cover up for her. The fact that Lucy was willing to stay in the same room with Frieda indicated to me that she herself wasn’t taking the incident any too seriously. I therefore saw no reason to take action, and in fact there was none I’d have been justified in taking without something more than a violin string to go on.”

“And so you let her kill Cedric,” snarled Jason Jasper.

“Madoc didn’t let her.” There could be no question now as to whose side Frieda was on. “You let her as much as anybody. How was Madoc supposed to know about the tontine? I know why Lucy pretended she’d been attacked. She did it so she could threaten to pin it on me if I didn’t quit holding up the sale. Once she’d got me sewed up, she figured she might as well get rid of Cedric before the deal went through, so there’d be that much more for her. And how good do you think your own chances of getting back to Wagstaffe alive would have been?”

“She’s crazy!” Lucy was still fighting. “All right, she did try to strangle me, if you want to know. Try to be a pal, and see where it gets you! My word’s as good as hers in front of a judge. You can’t make a case against me out of the fact that I’m a quick healer.”

“No,” said Madoc, “but I have every hope of making one out of what the police in Vancouver are going to find when they open the orchestra’s trunks. I’ve been rather intrigued by the fact that you shipped Helene Dufresne’s cello on the train while insisting that she ride in the plane. Taking a leaf out of Flogger’s book, were you?”

This time, Lucy didn’t answer back. She was finished, she must know it. She’d gone too far, tried too hard, moved too fast. Somewhere along the line, she’d made a whopping great howler of a mistake, and she’d just remembered what it was. Maybe that orchestra manager who’d so opportunely been put out of commission so that Lucy could run this show by herself would have something to contribute. Madoc didn’t have to worry about that. From now on it would be routine police work, and somebody else, thank God, would have to do it.

Through the front window he could see Ranger Rick’s green wagon driving up to the hotel. Behind him was another wagon, a brown one with a big gold star painted on the left front door. A woman in a high-crowned sheriff’s hat sat behind the wheel. The law had come to Lodestone Flat, and about time. Madoc deputized the much-maligned David Gabriel and the ever-resourceful Joe Ragovsky to keep an eye on the prisoner, and stepped out to greet the sheriff.

“Understand you’ve got a present for me here.”

Sheriff Lettie Bassock was a jolly soul, got up for her role in a buckskin jacket and high-heeled boots, with that broad-brimmed felt hat riding atop her frizzy gray hair. Instead of the Levis Madoc expected, she had on a wraparound buckskin skirt, fringed at the hem.

“Can’t stand pants on a woman,” she remarked as she slid out of her car. “Not on me, anyways, they always bind at the crotch. Hell of a fix to be in when you’re chasing a rustler on horseback. Any idea who killed your chap?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact we have a woman named Lucy Shadd all gift-wrapped and ready to deliver,” Madoc was glad to be able to tell her. “I don’t have any written statement for you yet, but I do have eighteen witnesses, including myself, all set to testify.”

“Well, I guess those ought to do me, for the time being. You’re lucky Rick happened to catch me when he did. I was just heading out to take a look at my granddaughter’s new baby. Okay, I know you folks have a plane to catch, so let’s haul ’em down to Rick’s and take a few of those statements. We’ll tape ’em on his machine, save me the bother of writing ’em down. I can’t spell worth a plugged nickel, anyways. Got your grips together?”

“I believe most of us are packed, and I expect the rest soon will be.”

“Then how about if I take you, the prisoner, the stiff, and maybe one or two more if they’re not too proud to ride with us? Rick can lug the lame, the halt, and the disinclined in his buggy there, while the leftovers clean the place up and make damned good and sure the fires are out. That set all right with you, Inspector?”