Something in the Water

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “Do you ever regret your decision?” Helen asked.

  “Never. I’d been wanting more time to devote to my weaving and I’m glad I made the move when I did, so I suppose I ought to feel grateful to Fred for spurring me on to do it. If he’d been more like his elder brother, I don’t suppose I’d have had the heart to leave. Where is Evander today, Iolanthe?”

  “Working at the mine. He’ll be sorry he missed seeing you. It’s funny, I can’t picture Fred being the bad boy and Evander the star pupil.”

  “I can see why you might wonder. I can assure you, however, that Fred was an imp and Evander was pure joy.”

  Helen Shandy was surprised. This didn’t fit in with what Peter had told her about the man who drilled holes in trees with rocks. “He didn’t bring a hamster to school?”

  “If he had, he’d have taught it first to stand at attention and salute the flag,” Miss Rondel answered. “Evander was far and away the most intelligent child I ever had the privilege of teaching. He genuinely loved to learn. I had to keep thinking up special projects to keep him interested. Which turned out, I’m sad to say, to be the worst mistake I ever made.”

  “But why?”

  “Well, you know how children are. The others noticed that I was, as they saw it, playing favorites. They didn’t dare say anything to me, of course, but they taunted Evander outside the classroom, calling him sissy and teacher’s pet. The boys were less vocal because they knew Evander Wye could lick the lot of them if it came to a fight, but the girls were simply dreadful. Mainly, I suspect, because he was too far ahead of them mentally to be attracted physically. Words can be cruel weapons, however, and Evander was too sensitive not to be terribly hurt. He became increasingly antisocial and more—I believe these days they call it macho. The upshot was that he dropped out of school, went to work in the mine, and spends his evenings at the pool hall. A terrible waste of a brilliant mind. But please don’t mention this to Fred. He loves his brother and it hurts him to see Evander making so little use of his abilities.”

  A jingle of silver against glassware and a mild curse or two heralded the approach of the tea cart, an impressive vehicle of carved mahogany that some collector of Victoriana would have given an eyetooth for. Peter and Fred lifted it over the threshold without visible scathe and Iolanthe poised herself to do the honors.

  Along with a mammoth cut-glass pitcher full of iced tea, there were fat strawberries with their stems on and a bowl of brown sugar to dip them in, hot buttermilk biscuits, pats of sweet butter with little daisies imprinted on them, and two kinds of jam in glass cups set into a pierced silver holder with a handle in the middle for easy passing. There were tiny sponge cakes with dabs of lemon curd inside, there was a wondrously elegant chocolate layer cake covered with mocha icing and walnut halves. Nobody was likely to go away hungry.

  Fred unfolded a nest of small side tables and set them around at strategic points. Iolanthe dealt out the lavishly gilded and painted bone-china plates, the embroidered linen napkins, the polished silver dessert forks, the long-handled spoons and the crystal goblets for the iced tea, with a sprig of mint and a slice of lemon perching at the lip of each glass. Fred came around with the huge pitcher and poured the tea because he didn’t want Iolanthe straining herself. Peter, as he helped himself from the wagon to strawberries, a biscuit, and a sponge cake, couldn’t help thinking what a pity it was that the late Dr. Samuel Johnson couldn’t have been of the company. This was definitely a tea to invite a man to.

  As the tea cart circulated, conversation became desultory and mostly confined to pleasant nothing-muches like “What a beautiful day!” “These strawberries are the best I’ve tasted this year.” “How on earth do you get your biscuits so light, Iolanthe?” and “I know I’m making an awful pig of myself, but would you mind passing me another sponge cake?” When it came to cutting the chocolate mocha walnut cake, not even Miss Rondel could refuse a wee sliver.

  A tree sparrow and a catbird came to check out the menu and were treated to half a biscuit that somebody hadn’t been able to find room for. There were desultory offers of further refreshment but no takers. There was a general breathing of contented sighs, there was loosening of belts among those who had belts to loosen. There was talk of strolling around the yard to shake down the carbohydrates but nobody cared to set the example. This was a magic time, it would be a crying shame to break the spell. Nobody was much pleased to see a long, shiny, aggressively opulent-looking black sedan slow down at the end of the driveway and turn up toward the house. Fred Wye was downright miffed.

  “Now who the hell is that coming? Somebody about the mine, I suppose. I suppose I ought to straighten up some of this mess.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” said Iolanthe. “You go see who it is.”

  “Why don’t you let Peter and me—”

  That was as far as Helen Shandy got. The car put on a burst of speed and pulled up at the steps in a shower of gravel. The driver erupted like a blazing fury.

  “Oh, my God!” Iolanthe groaned. “It’s Father.”

  Fred advanced to the head of the stairs and stood there, legs wide, arms folded, like Horatius guarding the bridge. He uttered no word, he wouldn’t have been heard if he’d tried.

  Iolanthe’s father was a big man, tall and broad, with a voice to match. He was in full spate, making little sense but an astounding volume of noise, brandishing a piece of paper in front of his son-in-law’s nose. Fred was not backing off an inch. As soon as he could get a word in edgewise, he roared right back.

  “Are you going to shut your mouth and get off my property or do I call the police and have you arrested?”

  “You dare! You actually dare to talk to me like that? To ME? What is the meaning of this preposterous piece of effrontery? Answer me that, if you dare!”

  “Oh, I dare all right. If that’s the letter Matt Barrett sent you at my instruction, I expect he got it all down plain enough. Iolanthe is suing you for misappropriation of funds bequeathed to her by her great-aunt, which is what you must have bought that boat you’re driving with some of, unless you’ve swindled somebody else in the meantime. We’re both charging you with cruel and abusive treatment toward your daughter, deprivation of our connubial rights, and every other damned thing Matt can think of for the way you colluded with that other damned crook, Jasper Flodge, to embezzle our joint funds and break up our marriage. And damned near succeeded, damn you!”

  “I was performing my duty as a careful father and a devoted pastor, attempting to snatch my daughter away from a licentious sinner that she might avoid the flames of hell.”

  “You’re the one who put her through hell, you vicious old bastard. You brainwashed her from the day she was born, you damned near drove her into a nervous breakdown, you stole her money and didn’t give a damn if she starved to death for lack of it. That’s how careful and devoted a father you’ve been, you rotten old whited sepulchre! Did I get it right, Iolanthe?”

  “You certainly did, Fred. I’m ashamed to call this disgusting hypocrite my father.”

  “Judge not, daughter, lest ye also be judged.”

  “You’re the one who’s going to be judged, Father, and juried too. You’ve put Fred and me through three years of hell and now you’re going to get a taste of what it feels like to have the ground pulled out from under you. Fred’s right, isn’t he? You have been dipping into Aunt Prunella’s money.”

  “As executor, I am entitled to a yearly stipend.”

  “The hell you are,” said Fred. “You’re not entitled to one red cent, and haven’t been since Iolanthe’s twenty-first birthday. That’s when your executorship ran out, but you never did get around to mentioning that little detail to her, did you?”

  “I was only doing my duty as I saw it. She would not have understood. Woman’s intellect is too frail to apprehend the intricacies of finance.”

  This was too much for Miss Rondel to swallow. “On the contrary, Mr. Bliven. Woman’s intellect is quite as capable as m
an’s, not only of grasping the intricacies of finance but also of unraveling the machinations of a swindler. If I have the opportunity of testifying against you at the trial, I shall be more than willing to do so. I do not hold with petty revenge as a rule, but a scoundrel who passes himself off as a man of God while trafficking with the Devil must reap what he has sown.”

  “This to me, Miss Rondel? To me, a man of the cloth?”

  “To you, a hypocrite and a villain. Why, when your daughter’s husband was away on a camping trip, did you conspire with Jasper Flodge to break up their marriage? The conspiracy, I assume, was prompted by the fact that you had been growing steadily more uneasy about the tenuous hold you had thus far been able to maintain over Iolanthe’s inheritance. Fred Wye is a good businessman, it was only a matter of time before he would inquire into the terms of the legacy and find out that you had for some time been defrauding your daughter of the money due her. Once he knew the facts, you would not only lose all control of her fortune, you’d be lucky if you escaped being sent to jail.”

  “Ridiculous!”

  “Oh no, not at all. You are a vain and selfish man, Mr. Bliven, and a tyrant to boot. You couldn’t bear the thought of your daughter’s having all that money and yourself having to scrape by on a pittance since you were asked to vacate your pulpit and can’t get another because of your ranting and bullying. Being also a rather stupid man, you couldn’t see any way out of the pit you’d dug yourself into until you happened to fall in with Jasper Flodge. Everybody in the county was aware of Jasper’s talent for underhanded dealing, you probably considered him an answer to your prayers. So, to make a long story short, you came to an arrangement. In return for helping you pry Iolanthe loose from her husband so that you could bamboozle her out of her great-aunt’s legacy once and for all, Jasper was to keep whatever pickings he could get his hands on before Fred came back, and lay the blame on Iolanthe. Isn’t that how you worked it out?”

  “I see no reason to defend myself against so palpably false an accusation from a senile old busybody.”

  “Calling names isn’t going to get you anywhere, Mr. Bliven. I myself see no reason to believe that such a smoothly orchestrated operation as has been described to me could have been the result of anything but a great deal of careful planning between two wolves in sheep’s clothing.”

  “Miss Rondel, you go too far. I defy you to prove that.”

  “Oh fiddlesticks. Don’t try to humbug me. Your role was to poison Iolanthe’s mind against Fred by reading her several letters purporting to prove that he’d impregnated nine mythical teenaged girls and been blackguard enough to desert them all, and their nine mythical illegitimate infants into the bargain. You wrote those letters yourself, needless to say.”

  “I did no such thing. They came in the mail.”

  “All nine of them in a bunch on the same day? Don’t try to pretend that Jasper wrote them for you. Jasper could neither write nor read.”

  “He—”

  She’d taken the wind out of Bliven’s sails. Perhaps for the first time in his career, he could think of nothing to say. Miss Rondel pressed her advantage.

  “You then proceeded, as planned, to rant and rave and browbeat your daughter until you’d driven her into hysterics and rendered her so distraught that she was only too ready to capitulate when Jasper Flodge came along with his spurious assurances of protection and help in getting away from her wicked young husband and starting a new life. Once Jasper had secured Iolanthe’s signature on a forged power of attorney and gained possession of her bankbook and her door key, he dumped her in a Portland rooming house and came back here to steal her jewelry.”

  She paused for comment, none came. “I wonder, Mr. Bliven, if you’ve ever realized how well your accomplice made out on his share of the deal? Was it because you’d finally discovered what his profit had been, or was it because he’d started to blackmail you for more, that you somehow contrived to poison Jasper Flodge?”

  Chapter 23

  “I DID NOT POISON Jasper Flodge!”

  Bliven was sweating now, his starched white collar wilted, his hands and his voice beginning to shake. “I refuse to continue this unwarranted inquisition. Iolanthe, you are no longer a daughter of mine.”

  “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me. I only wish it were the truth.”

  Iolanthe turned her back on her father and began stacking sticky plates on the tea cart. Fred and the Shandys rushed to help her. Miss Rondel just stood there looking until, totally deflated, the unmasked rogue slouched down the veranda stairs and got back into the expensive car that he’d paid for with funds stolen from the legacy of which he had been so false a steward. Flushed and dejected, Iolanthe looked up at her guests.

  “I’m terribly sorry to have let you in for this.”

  “Don’t be,” said Peter. “We’re glad we were here to back you up. Something was bound to happen, you know, and the sooner the better. Now you won’t have to go through another confrontation scene.”

  “Until the trial.” Fred slid his arms around his wife. “Come on, honey, smile. I guess you won’t mind me telling Matt Barrett to swear out a warrant.”

  “Not a bit. You go right ahead, dear. I’d just as soon tell Matt myself, for that matter.”

  “Then we’ll tell him together. Anybody want another piece of this cake before I wheel it back to the kitchen?”

  Helen Shandy was first to speak. “I wish I could, but I’d need to be wheeled out myself if I took another bite. Besides, Mrs. Bright is expecting us back at the inn for dinner. How we’re ever going to eat it is more than I can figure out right now, but this is our last night and we’d hate to disappoint her.”

  “I do wish you were staying longer,” said Iolanthe.

  “Oh, we’ll be back. We’re going to show Catriona McBogle our great find on the way home, and that should set off some fireworks. You won’t mind, Miss Rondel?”

  “It’s not for me to say, Helen. The paintings are yours now. I’m glad somebody appreciates them and it’s high time they got looked at. I don’t know what else pictures are good for.”

  “Who painted them, Helen?” Fred asked.

  “Miss Rondel could tell you better than I, though I’m not sure she wants to right now, Fred. All I can tell you is that somebody in these parts is an artist of the first rank and Peter and I have been lucky enough to buy four absolutely magnificent paintings at a ridiculously low price.”

  “That so? Not to be nosy, but would you mind giving us an idea of what you paid for them?”

  “Fred!” gasped his wife. “That’s rude.”

  “I’m just curious. I’ve never known anybody who bought a painting. What do they go for, roughly speaking?”

  “Anywhere from a few dollars to several million, depending on how good they are and what people are willing to pay. There are lots of paintings in museums and private collections that I personally wouldn’t give a nickel for, but these are—I can’t begin to tell you. Peter was the one who spotted them and recognized how great they are, and he’s not even interested in art as a rule. We’d gladly have paid much more than we did, but the artist thought our offer was too high, if you can believe it. The upshot was that we got all four for just five thousand dollars.”

  “You call that cheap?”

  “In this case, dirt cheap. Once the artist gets tied in with a gallery, I’ll be very surprised if the prices aren’t at least doubled. When the New York dealers get wind of a new talent like this, goodness knows what might happen.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned. Want to give me a hand over the doorstep with this contraption, Pete? If you’re not too high-falutin’ now that you’re an art collector. Wait till they hear about this down at the poolroom.”

  “Cut it out, Fred. They’ll think I’m a sissy.”

  “Like hell they will. They’ll all be bustin’ their britches to grab one for themselves before the price goes up. Me included. You wouldn’t happen to have the pictures with y
ou?”

  “Yes, but they’re all wrapped up and buried under Helen’s Christmas shopping; it would take a day and a half to get them out and pack them back in again. You’ll have a chance to see them when you come to visit us. I know the Enderbles must be missing Iolanthe and I expect she’d be glad to see them and the critters, long as she doesn’t have to clean up after Algernon. By the way, Fred, not to change back to a less pleasant subject, there’s one thing that I thought your ex-father-in-law, as I presume he now is, was telling the truth about, and it puzzles me a good deal.”

  “It would sure puzzle me if that old buzzard ever told the truth about anything. What was it he said?”

  “It was in regard to those letters about your—er—alleged derelictions that Jasper Flodge was so careful to take away and destroy once they’d served their purpose. I don’t know whether Iolanthe was in any shape to study them herself during the interval after her father had left and before Jasper Flodge blew in but there was always the chance that she might. The notes would have had to be hand-written, of course. Jasper couldn’t write them because he didn’t know how. Bliven wouldn’t have dared; his daughter would have been sure to recognize her own father’s handwriting no matter how hard he tried to disguise it. People think they can do that but it almost never works, particularly if the writer’s a middle-aged man trying to pass himself off as nine different unwed teenaged mothers.”

  “What about Flodge’s wife?”

  “She might have written one or two of the letters, I suppose. She was living here in Pickwance with Jasper at the time, I believe, though she spent most of the week in Portland. I don’t doubt for one minute that she was the one who faked up the power of attorney that Jasper used to clean out your and Iolanthe’s bank account. I doubt if Mrs. Flodge could have written all the letters, though. She was such a flamboyant personality that she’d have had an awful struggle trying to tone down her handwriting.”