Escapade

by Walter Satterthwait

  “I expect,” he said, “that our technicians are quite capable of making that determination on their own.” He turned back to the rest of them. “Proceed, gentlemen. Touch nothing until I arrive.” In a jumble, the others began shambling and shuffling toward the Earl’s room. Honniwell reached for the knob to Carson’s door, then stopped and looked at me as if he were a little bit surprised to find out I was still in the same universe that he was.

  “You may go, Beaumont,” he told me.

  “Thanks,” I said, and went.

  I WENT BACK to the drawing room. It was empty. Even better, no one had bothered to clean up after the tea party. There was still food lying untouched on the tables. I had just finished wolfing down my second smoked salmon sandwich, and I was reaching for the third, when two servants came into the room. They were carrying large metal trays. One of them was Briggs.

  “Mr. Briggs,” I said. “Could I talk to you for a minute?”

  Briggs glanced at the other servant, looked back at me, and said, “Certainly, sir.” He set his tray down on one of the tables and came over to where I was standing.

  I said, “You’ve heard about the Earl?” It was probably impossible to keep it a secret from the servants.

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “A great tragedy, sir.”

  “I was just wondering, Mr. Briggs. Do you know anything about any visitors the Earl might’ve had in the past few days?”

  For the first time, Briggs’s pale, pinched face showed some expression. His glance darted over to the other servant, who was very busy being busy, and then it darted back to me. His small eyes narrowed with that slow appraising slyness that mothers and employers hate but Pinkertons love. “I’m sorry, sir,” he told me. “I couldn’t say.” He glanced at the other servant again, in case I hadn’t gotten the message.

  “Okay, Mr. Briggs,” I said. “Thanks. See you around.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  SUPERINTENDENT HONNIWELL WAS already in the Great Hall when I got back there. He stood facing the table, where Doyle, Lord Bob, and the Great Man were all sitting. The Winchester rifle was gone. Honniwell ignored me as I sat down next to the Great Man. His hands were clasped behind him and he was summing up.

  “It was Carson, of course,” Honniwell said to Lord Bob. “There’s no question in my mind. The Earl ordered him to obtain the pistol.”

  “Absurd,” said Lord Bob. He was slouched down in his chair, slump-shouldered and sleepy-eyed. On the table before him, the decanter of brandy was nearly empty.

  “With all due respect, Lord Purleigh,” said Honniwell, “I beg to differ. The man was literally quaking with guilt.”

  “Guilt?” said Lord Bob. He raised his balloon glass, drank some more brandy. “Been quaking with it, then, for seven bloody years. Bloody palsy, Superintendent.”

  Honniwell wasn’t the kind of cop who let facts interfere with a summing up. “Be that as it may, sir, the man is guilty. If I had him alone for a few hours, I’ll wager I’d shake the truth out of him.” Lord Bob looked at him for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was sober and dangerously level. “Lay a finger on Carson, Superintendent, and you’ll not believe the trouble in which you find yourself.”

  “But Lord Purleigh,” said Honniwell, “you mistake my meaning.”

  “Forgive me,” said Doyle, diplomatically. “Superintendent?”

  Honniwell turned to Doyle and this time he raised both of his handsome eyebrows. “Sir Arthur?”

  Doyle said, “I take it, Superintendent, that you don’t believe Carson to be responsible for the Earl’s death.”

  “Not responsible, Sir Arthur, no. But he did assist in the death, indirectly, by making the pistol available.”

  “Perhaps so,” said Doyle. His hands on the table, fingers interlocked, he leaned forward. He winced faintly. “But you’ve no doubt that the death itself was self-inflicted.”

  “None at all. Powder burns at the wound. Nothing else is possible, not with the door locked and bolted as it was.”

  The Great Man sat up and Doyle shot him a subtle warning glance. Subtlety wasn’t the Great Man’s strong point, so I kicked him in the ankle. He spun his head and glared at me, then he pursed his lips and looked away and sat back. He crossed his arms over his chest, silent and sulky.

  “Precisely,” said Doyle to Honniwell. “And so, even if you could verify your belief that Carson provided the pistol, which I very much doubt, you’re still left with a suicide.”

  “That’s correct,” said Honniwell. “And that is what my report will read.” He turned back to Lord Bob. “As I was about to say, Lord Purleigh. I am merely attempting here to do what’s best for all concerned.”

  Lord Bob scowled and waved his hand slowly, as if shooing away sluggish flies. He reached out, snared the brandy decanter, poured what was left into his glass.

  Honniwell said to Doyle, “As I told you earlier, it’s an utter waste of time, sending this Inspector Marsh from London. The autopsy and the examination of the pistol will establish that, of course.” He turned to Lord Bob. “As to the rifle, Lord Purleigh, I shall inform you when that examination is completed.”

  Lord Bob nodded. “Can’t wait.”

  I said, “You know about Chin Soo, Superintendent?”

  He gave me the faint smile he reserved for Pinkertons. Or maybe he reserved it for Americans. Or maybe it wasn’t reserved at all, and he gave it out to anybody he thought it was okay to smile faintly at. “Yes,” he said. “Mr. Houdini and Sir Arthur have explained that situation. I think it extremely unlikely that this person could make his way into Maplewhite. I agree with Lord Purleigh that the rifle that was fired this afternoon was most likely fired by a poacher. The man is long gone by now.”

  He glanced at Lord Bob to see how he took that. Lord Bob didn’t take it at all. He was staring at the empty brandy decanter as though it were the philosophers’ stone.

  “How do you explain the Winchester?” I asked him. “It’s been fired recently.”

  “One of the servants, perhaps.”

  “Uh-huh. But you’ll leave some police on the premises?” Another faint smile. “I shall be posting two of my men outside. I’ll see to it that they’re relieved in the morning.”

  “Only two?” I said.

  He let himself get faintly amused again. “I’m quite sure that two trained British police officers will be more than sufficient. And, in deference to Lord Purleigh and his guests, I wish to keep our presence to a minimum.” He glanced hopefully at Lord Bob.

  “Long as they stay outside,” said Lord Bob, talking to the empty decanter. “Don’t want ’em in here. Tracking muck about.”

  The Great Man said, “And you will not be informing the press?

  “Not as to your difficulties, Mr. Houdini. I will of course defer to Lord Purleigh’s request. But, Lord Purleigh, I’m afraid the news of the Earl’s death will soon reach the newspapers.”

  “Swine’s a swine for a’ that,” Lord Purleigh told the brandy decanter.

  Honniwell nodded crisply. “Yes. Well, then. I must be getting back to Amberly. I came here only to make certain that Lord Purleigh wasn’t unduly troubled by the arrival of my men.”

  He looked at Lord Bob, who ignored him again.

  Doyle stood up. “Perhaps you’d permit me to accompany you, Superintendent.” More diplomacy.

  “Certainly, Sir Arthur. Lord Purleigh.” Still peering at the brandy decanter, Lord Bob scowled and waved a limp hand. “Mr. Houdini.” The Great Man nodded. “Mr. Beaumont.” I nodded.

  He had decided, I guess, that there was no point in asking me any questions.

  Doyle escorted him from the hall.

  The Great Man turned to Lord Bob. “Excuse me, Lord Purleigh. I shall be going to my room for a short while.”

  “Bloody nincompoop,” Lord Bob told the brandy decanter.

  The Great Man stood.

  “Harry?” I said.

  He looked down at me, his face cold. Without saying
a word, he pursed his lips and looked away. Then he strode off.

  Lord Bob was still studying the decanter.

  I got up and went after the Great Man.

  Doyle was coming back from the main entrance, and he intercepted me. “Mr. Beaumont?”

  Chapter Twenty

  “YES?” I SAID.

  “Well,” he said, and his wide pink forehead was creased with thought. “What did you think of our Superintendent?”

  “Not a whole lot,” I told him.

  “No. I gathered as much. But I’d like to assure you that he’s not truly representative of our police officials.”

  “Good.”

  “I’ve heard, for example, excellent reports of Inspector Marsh.”

  “Marsh is still coming tomorrow?”

  “Well, I doubt, personally, that Scotland Yard will give any great credence to Superintendent Honniwell’s report. He and his people spent only about ten minutes in the Earl’s room.”

  “They took away the body?”

  “For the autopsy, yes.”

  “You think it was a suicide, Sir Arthur?”

  He considered the question for a moment. “Let me put it this way,” he said. “I should like to persuade myself that if it was not a suicide, then all other human agencies have been entirely ruled out.”

  “Human agencies,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Uh-huh.” I looked back at Lord Bob. He was still contemplating the empty decanter. I turned to Doyle. “You might talk to Lord Purleigh about moving the rest of the ammunition and locking it up somewhere.”

  “The ammunition? Oh yes. Yes, of course. If it is Chin Soo, why should we provide him any more it?”

  “Right.”

  “An excellent idea.” He glanced at Lord Bob. “Lord Purleigh is rather under the weather at the moment. But I’ll have a word with Higgens.”

  “Thanks. I’ll see you later.”

  “Harry?”

  Nothing.

  I knocked on the Great Man’s door again. “Harry?”

  Nothing.

  I tried the knob. The door was locked.

  I rapped again at the wooden panel. “Harry. Open the door.” Nothing.

  I said, “It’s about Bess, Harry.”

  I waited. After a long moment, I heard his voice on the other side of the door. “What about her?”

  “Open the door,” I said, “and I’ll tell you.”

  I waited.

  Finally I heard a click at the lock. I turned the knob and the door opened. The Great Man was walking away, his back to me. He was naked except for a pair of the black briefs he ordered by the gross from France. I looked down at the lock. No key. There hadn’t been one earlier.

  I said, “You used a pick to lock it. And unlock it.”

  But where had he put the pick afterward? His hands were empty.

  He turned to me and he moved his muscular shoulders in a small shrug. He wasn’t going to tell me anything he didn’t want me to know. He crossed his arms over his chest and he said flatly, “What is it about Bess?”

  Probably he’d just thrown it across the room, behind the bed. “The Earl’s death,” I said. “It’s going to make the newspapers. The London Times for sure, and maybe the French papers, too. Bess is going to read about it, in Paris. You know she’s worried about Chin Soo. She’s going to wonder, maybe, if there’s any connection.”

  He thought about that. “Perhaps,” he said. He lowered himself gracefully to the floor and lay down along the rug. He didn’t look at me as he locked his hands behind his head and began to do sit-ups. “I shall ask Lord Purleigh,” he said, touching his left knee with his right elbow, “if I can send a wire. To reassure her.” He sank back to the floor.

  I walked over to the desk, sat down in the chair.

  “Listen, Harry,” I said. “I’m sorry I kicked you.”

  He grazed his right knee with his left elbow.

  “Harry, I apologize. I just didn’t want you saying anything to Honniwell about getting out of that room.”

  “The man is a cretin,” he said to the ceiling.

  “Exactly,” I said. “And if you started explaining how someone could get out of there, he would’ve hung around all night.”

  “I was about to explain,” he said, on the upswing, “that no one had escaped from the room.”

  “Honniwell’s not a guy you want to confuse with too many theories, Harry. This guy Marsh, the one who’s coming tomorrow, Sir Arthur says he’s smart. He’s the one you should talk to.”

  “I intend to.” On the upswing again.

  “Good. That’s good, Harry. You should. He’ll probably be glad to hear whatever you have to say. Look, I didn’t mean to hurt you—”

  He straightened out his legs and sat up, his hands against the floor, and he looked at me. “Hurt me? Pain is nothing to Houdini. You should understand that by now. No, Phil, what disturbs me is the rudeness of it. Have I ever kicked you in the ankle?”

  It was an interesting conversation to be having with a semi-naked man. “No, Harry,” I said, “I’ve got to admit you haven’t.”

  “Surely you could have devised some other means of signaling me?”

  “Probably, yeah, but nothing sprang to mind. Maybe we could work out a code.”

  “And, to tell you the truth, I do not understand why you are so fascinated by the death of the Earl. As I have established, this was definitely a suicide. And it has nothing whatever to do with Chin Soo. Who is, if my memory serves me, your sole reason for being here.”

  “Well, Harry,” I said, “I’m not so sure that Chin Soo and the Earl’s death are unconnected.”

  The Great Man frowned. “What are you saying?”

  “Someone takes a rifle from the gun collection, uses it to shoot at you, and then puts it back. And then someone takes a revolver from the same gun collection, probably within a few hours, and the Earl gets shot with it.”

  “But no one could have shot the Earl. Except himself. As I told you, Phil, I examined that door very carefully. No one had tampered with it. And if Chin Soo had done so—which is totally impossible—what reason would he have for killing the Earl?”

  “I don’t know. But how did that revolver get into the Earl’s room?”

  He shrugged. “Perhaps the Superintendent is right, and the Earl’s valet brought it to him.”

  “I don’t think so. I talked to the valet.”

  “It was another servant, then. One of them, perhaps, who was fond of the Earl. He brought the gun at the Earl’s request.”

  “He was fond of the Earl, so he helped him commit suicide?”

  “Perhaps the Earl told him he wanted the gun for some other reason. Lord Purleigh suggested as much.”

  “A lot of guns were being moved in and out of that hall today. He shook his head. “It is a coincidence, Phil. Nothing more.”

  “I don’t like coincidences.”

  “Phil, I do not like being kicked in the ankle. But there are some things, apparently, that we must learn to live with.”

  I smiled. “Harry, I said I was sorry.”

  He put up a hand. “Yes, yes. I accept your apology, of course.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Okay. Have you changed your mind about staying here?”

  He seemed surprised. “Why should I change my mind?”

  “Harry. That rifle, the Winchester, I’m pretty sure it was the rifle that shot at you. If it was, and if Chin Soo fired it, that means he came into the house, took the rifle, left the house, fired the rifle, came back into the house, and put the rifle back.”

  “Yes. So you said to Lord Purleigh. But Phil, I must tell you, in all honesty, that it would be impossible for Chin Soo to run in and out of the house in this manner. I tried to say as much to Lord Purleigh, earlier. Chin Soo is simply not skilled enough. He could manage the locks, yes, perhaps. But as for lurking within the house, and scooting back and forth to the outside—impossible.”

  “Uh-huh.”

/>   “Phil, I believe that it was not Chin Soo who fired that weapon.”

  “Why?”

  “Is it logical to believe that Chin Soo would go to all the trouble you describe, putting himself in jeopardy several times over, simply to obtain a rifle from the Great Hall? Why did he not merely bring along, to Maplewhite, a rifle of his own? He could have purchased one, or even stolen one.”

  “Good question,” I admitted. “I don’t know. But the fact is, that Winchester was the rifle that got fired today.”

  “Perhaps it was. But consider this, Phil.” He crossed his legs and leaned forward, like a small boy at a campfire. He was smiling the smile he smiled on stage whenever he was about to pull off some especially spectacular stunt. “Perhaps when the rifle was fired today, it was not, in fact, being fired at me.”

  “Harry, the slug missed you by a few inches.”

  “Yes,” he said, holding up a finger and smiling that smile, “but it also missed everyone else. By very much the same distance.” He put his hands on his knees. “You remember that we were all gathered together beneath that tree. You have been assuming all along that the famous slug was meant for me. But how do we know this is true?”

  I sat back in the chair. I thought about it. “We don’t.” I nodded. “That’s pretty good, Harry.”

  He shrugged with what he probably thought was modesty, but what looked more like satisfaction. “It is merely logical,” he said.

  I was thinking. “It makes more sense that way,” I told him. “Your way. Somebody who was already here at Maplewhite would be able to get into the Great Hall a lot easier than a stranger.”

  “Of course.”

  “But if you’re right, who were they shooting at? Who was

  there?” I thought back. “Miss Turner, Mrs. Corneille. Mrs. Allardyce. Lord Bob.”

  “Lord Purleigh,” he corrected me. “The more interesting question, I believe, is—who was not there?”

  “Right. Madame Whosis and her husband weren’t even here at Maplewhite yet. Neither was Sir Arthur. So who was? Cecily. Lady Purleigh. Dr. Auerbach. Sir David.”