Escapade

by Walter Satterthwait

  “And a host of servants, do not forget.”

  I smiled. “Everybody wants to blame everything on the servants.”

  “But Phil, these are all cultured, wealthy people.”

  “Wealthy people kill each other all the time, Harry. It’s what they do when they’re not counting their money.”

  “You are a cynic, Phil.”

  “Or maybe Sir Arthur’s right. He’s beginning to think it was some goblin who did it.”

  The Great Man nodded sadly. “Yes. I sometimes worry about Sir Arthur.”

  He lay back down on the rug, raised his knees, and put his hands back behind his head. “We have established the important thing,” he said, lifting his shoulders, touching his right elbow against his left knee. “That it was not Chin Soo who fired the rifle. Which means, therefore, that both of us can relax now.”

  “Not exactly,” I said.

  He looked over at me but didn’t stop his sit-ups.

  “We’ve established,” I said, “that it probably wasn’t Chin Soo who fired the rifle. Even if it wasn’t, that doesn’t mean that he’s not hanging around somewhere.”

  “But there are police guards here now, Phil.” Down went his shoulders.

  “Chin Soo has gotten past the police before.”

  “In Philadelphia. These are British police.” Down again. “Could you get past a pair of British cops, Harry?”

  “Of course. But Chin Soo is not Houdini.” Down.

  “Uh-huh. Well, listen. I’m going to go snoop around for a while. Do me a favor and put a chair up against the door?”

  “It is completely unnecessary, Phil. And why do you plan to snoop around?” Up went his shoulders.

  “I want to make sure you’re right about the rifle.”

  “It is only logical, Phil.” Up again.

  “Right. You’ll put the chair up against the door?”

  He sighed theatrically. This isn’t an easy thing to do while you’re in the middle of a sit-up.

  I said, “Humor me, Harry.”

  “Oh, very well. If you insist.” With another sigh, he swung himself up again.

  I stood.

  He said, “Oh. Phil?” Down went the shoulders.

  “Yeah?”

  He smiled. “It was very obvious, what you were doing when you mentioned Bess. You merely wanted me to open the door.” Down.

  I smiled back. “It worked, though, Harry. There’s more than one way to get through a locked door.”

  “It worked,” he said, coming back up off the floor, “only because it is impossible for Houdini to hold a grudge.”

  As usual, he had the last word.

  I went looking for Briggs.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Briggs wasn’t in the drawing room and neither was anyone else.

  I went wandering through the corridors and after a while I found another servant who told me he had seen Briggs near the conservatory. I trudged off in that direction.

  The outer door to the conservatory was open. It led onto a flagstone terrace, where a group of the guests were gathered around a circular white table beneath a tall oak tree. Sir Arthur was there, and he saw me and waved for me to join them. The others were Mrs. Corneille, Dr. Auerbach, Madame Sosostris in her wheelchair and her amazing hair, Mr. Dempsey, and Sir David. They all had drinks in front of them, so maybe a servant would be coming soon, and maybe it would be Briggs.

  It had been a long day but the air was still warm and the sky was still bright. To the west, across the enormous lawn, the sun was finally sliding down through the expanse of blue. It hadn’t reached the treetops yet, but its light was yellow now as it slanted from beneath the flat bottom of a small white cloud.

  “Mr. Beaumont,” Doyle said. “Please. Have a seat.”

  There was an empty white-enameled chair to Mrs. Corneille’s right. I took it and I smiled at her. “Hello,” I said, and breathed in the scent of her perfume. She was wearing the white dress but not the straw bonnet. Sunlight shimmered along the black gloss of her hair.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Beaumont,” she said, smiling back at me. “It is Mr. Beaumont, isn’t it? You haven’t some other, cryptic, Pinkerton sort of name?”

  “Just Beaumont.”

  She said, “But you haven’t been entirely honest with us, it seems.”

  “Didn’t have any choice,” I told her.

  “I sensed somet’ing,” said Madame Sosostris, narrowing the dark shrewd eyes in her round white face. “Did I not, Charles? I said, t’ere is some dark deep currents in t’at man.”

  Grinning, Mr. Dempsey patted her hand. She wore big jeweled rings on every finger and he was careful not to hit any of them. They would have poked holes in his palm. “You sure did,” he said. He looked at me proudly. “Dark deep currents, that’s what she said, word for word.”

  “I was explaining,” said Doyle, “that it was most likely Chin Soo who fired that rifle this afternoon.”

  I shook my head. “I was just talking to Mr. Houdini. He made a good point. I’ve been assuming that the rifle shot this afternoon was fired at him. But, like he says, there’s no reason to assume that. It could’ve been meant for anyone.”

  Doyle frowned. “Yes,” he said. “Houdini mentioned that notion to me earlier.”

  Mrs. Corneille said to me, “It wasn’t Chin Soo who fired the rifle?”

  “It makes more sense,” I said, “that somebody else was firing it, and at somebody besides Houdini.”

  “And who,” said Sir David blandly, “do you conclude it was?”

  “The person doing the shooting?”

  He smiled. Blandly. “Whichever. The shoot-er or the shoot-ee.”

  “No idea. But the police will probably figure it out. There's an inspector coming down here tomorrow morning, from London. He’ll want to talk to all the people who weren’t out on the lawn this afternoon. Between twelve-thirty and one o clock. Like you, I guess, Dr. Auerbach.”

  Dr. Auerbach adjusted his pince-nez. “I? But I was nowhere near to Maplewhite at that time.”

  “And where were you, Doctor?” I said. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “Of course not,” he said. “Not at all. Between twelve-thirty and one, you say? Yes, I was in the village then. In the lovely little cemetery behind the church. I was making the rubbings from the tombstones. It is a hobby of mine. And this cemetery, it has some truly quite beautiful stones. Some of them date back even to the fourteenth century.”

  “Anyone see you?”

  He nodded. “Aha, yes, I understand, for the purposes of verification. As it happens, yes, I had a long and a quite fascinating discussion with the vicar of the church. An extremely charming man. He also has an interest in these stones.” He looked at me hopefully. “I have the rubbings, if you would like to examine them?”

  “That’s okay,” I told him.

  Just then a servant with a drinks tray came gliding through the conservatory door. It was Briggs. His face was expressionless again as he replaced Sir David’s empty glass with a full one. I asked him for a whiskey and water.

  When he glided away, I turned back to Dr. Auerbach. “Everyone went into the village together today, is that right?”

  “In Lord Purleigh’s motor car,” he nodded. “That is correct.”

  “And you all came back together? In the car?”

  “I did not, no,” he said. “I walked back. It was a beautiful day, yes? And it remains so even now,” he added, looking around happily.”

  “So you didn’t get here until when?”

  “Oh my.” He turned to Mrs. Corneille. “It was at approximately two-thirty that we spoke, was it not?”

  She nodded. “Shortly afterward, I believe. I’d just come from Jane’s room.”

  “Then at two-thirty, almost exactly,” said Dr. Auerbach. “I had returned a few minutes before I spoke with Mrs. Corneille. She requested that I look in on Miss Turner.”

  “Look in on her?”

  “To offer her a
brief medical examination. As you know, the young woman had fainted. I am a psychoanalyst, yes, but like most psychoanalysts I am a medical doctor also.”

  I nodded and turned back to Mrs. Corneille. “You came back in the car, Mrs. Corneille?”

  “Yes. With Alice and Mrs. Allardyce. We arrived back here at twelve or so.”

  “And the others?”

  “The others stayed in town. But really, Mr. Beaumont, you don’t honestly believe that one of us fired that shot?”

  I shrugged. “There was a Winchester rifle in the gun collection. Someone loaded it, took it from the Great Hall, fired it at someone out on the lawn, then brought it back to the hall and put it back up on the wall. Mr. Houdini is right. It probably wasn’t Chin Soo who did all that.”

  “If you’re correct,” said Doyle, “in your belief that it was the Winchester which fired the shot in question.”

  Briggs came floating back just then with my drink. He set it on the table in front of me. I thanked him. No one else wanted anything, and he tucked the tray under his arm and floated away.

  I shrugged. “Makes sense that it was the Winchester.”

  “Nonsense,” said Sir David, and took a sip from his glass. Ignoring me, he said to Doyle and Mrs. Corneille, “It was obviously a poacher who fired the shot. It’s the season. For miles around, every property in Devon is acrawl with purblind peers squinting down the barrels of rusty rifles.”

  “It’s the grouse season, you know,” said Doyle. “They’ll be peering down the barrels of shotguns.”

  “And Lord Purleigh,” said Mrs. Corneille to Sir David, “has forbidden blood sports on the grounds of Maplewhite.”

  I raised my drink and saw through the amber liquid that a scrap of paper had been stuck to the bottom of the glass. Library, fifteen minutes, someone had scrawled across the paper.

  The message was easy to read. As usual, there was no ice in the glass.

  Looking at Mrs. Corneille, Sir David shrugged comfortably. “Which means that the poaching would be infinitely superior here.” He turned to Doyle. “For every sort of fauna. As I’m sure the poachers are well aware.”

  As I set the drink down with my left hand, I used my right to slip the paper from the bottom of the glass. I palmed it, crumpled it into a small damp wad.

  “But the Winchester was fired,” said Doyle.

  “Perhaps,” said Sir David. “But we have no way of knowing when. Today? Yesterday? Last week sometime?”

  I scratched casually at my thigh and I dropped the wad to the flagstones.

  Doyle said, “Mr. Beaumont believes that it was fired today.”

  “Ah well,” said Sir David, and smiled blandly.

  “Mr. Beaumont.” Doyle raised his eyebrows in surprise and looked over at me.

  I said, “What about you, Sir David?”

  Sir David turned. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You mind if I ask you where you were this afternoon?”

  “I very much mind,” he said. “I can’t, for the life of me, see that it’s even remotely any of your business.”

  “David,” said Mrs. Corneille. “Please. There’s no need to be offensive.”

  “It’s not I who’s being offensive, Vanessa. It’s Our American Friend. I put it to you—why on earth should any of us let ourselves be interrogated by some threadbare enquiry agent? After we chat with this lout, shall we run off and bare our souls to the scullery maid?”

  “David,” said Mrs. Corneille.

  “Really, Sir David,” said Doyle. “I don’t think—”

  “This has all suddenly become very tedious,” Sir David said. He stood up without any hurry. “I believe I shall rest for a bit.”

  “Really, Sir David,” said Doyle. The pink of his face had grown a couple of shades more red, which made the gray of his big mustache seem a couple of shades more white.

  “Until dinner, then,” said Sir David, and ambled away.

  “My dear Beaumont,” said Doyle, leaning toward me urgently with his face still red, and getting redder. “I am most dreadfully sorry. That was absolutely unforgivable. I’ve half a mind to run after the wretch and give him a damned sound thrashing. By God,” he said, and he opened his eyes wide and bunched his big shoulders as he wrapped his big hands around the arms of his chair, “I believe I will!”

  Mrs. Corneille leaned over and put her hand atop Doyle’s. “No, Sir Arthur. Please.”

  “It’s okay,” I said to Doyle.

  Doyle kept his shoulders bunched, as though he were still planning to leap from the chair. “But he was unconscionably rude.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Everyone’s a little upset today. Don’t worry about it, Sir Arthur.”

  Madame Sosostris said, “Mr. Beaumont is correct, Sir Art’ur. T’e Et’eric Vibrations, t’ey are very violet today. Very much so. I sense t’em. You must not to let yourself fall prey to t’ese and become violet in your own self.”

  “Yes,” said Doyle. He sat back, plucked the handkerchief from his suit coat pocket, lightly patted it against his wide forehead. Mrs. Corneille sat back, too. I think that everyone sat back.

  “Yes,” Doyle repeated, to Madame Sosostris, “you’re right, of course. No violence.” And then, patting his forehead, he said to no one in particular, “What is this country coming to?”

  I pulled out my watch.

  “Mr. Beaumont,” said Doyle.

  I looked over at him.

  “I wonder if you and I could have a few words.”

  “Sure,” I told him.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Doyle and I excused ourselves and walked in through the conservatory door. Doyle was looking for a place to talk. He found one, a small parlor to the right. We slipped in there and he glanced quickly around the room and shut the door. We sat down opposite each other on a pair of love seats. His face had gone back to its normal pink.

  “First off,” Doyle said, “I want to apologize again for the manner in which Sir David behaved. It was abominable.”

  “You don’t need to apologize, Sir Arthur. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “But the man is English. He’s a baronet, Mr. Beaumont. For a so-called gentleman, I must tell you, it was an unforgivable display.”

  “I’m not worried about it. You shouldn’t be, either.”

  He leaned toward me, wincing slightly. “Whenever I’ve traveled in America, wherever I’ve gone in that remarkable country, I’ve received nothing but the kindliest and most gracious treatment from everyone I met. Virtually everyone. I want you to know that I feel personally embarrassed that this has happened today.”

  “You shouldn’t. But thank you, Sir Arthur. You said there was something you wanted to say?”

  “Yes. Yes.” He sat back with another small wince. He stuck his hand into his coat pocket, burrowed around for a while, came out with his pipe and tobacco pouch. “D’you mind?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, look here,” he said, as he searched for his matches, “did you really mean what you said out there? You genuinely believe that some member of the house party fired that shot?” He fiddled with the pipe.

  “It makes sense to me.”

  “But I’m afraid that it doesn’t make sense to me, you see.” He

  got the pipe lit. The smell of burning potato sacks drifted across the room. He stuffed his matches back in one pocket, his tobacco pouch in another. “As I told Houdini earlier today, I simply can’t credit the idea that one of Lord Purleigh’s guests would do such a thing. Not even Sir David.” He puffed at the pipe, looked at me with narrowed eyes through the pale blue streamers of smoke. “I’ve begun to suspect that something very strange, and very sinister, is occurring here at Maplewhite.”

  “And what’s that, Sir Arthur?”

  He frowned. “I really can’t say as yet. But what I should like to do, with your permission, is attempt to learn something from Running Bear tonight.”

  “Excuse me?” From running bare?

&n
bsp; “Running Bear. The Spirit Guide summoned by Madame Sosostris. Her control. A Shoshone Indian chieftain who died during your French and Indian War.”

  “Running Bear,” I said. “Right.”

  “You’ve no objection to my discussing this with him?”

  “Not me,” I said. “Ask him whatever you want.”

  “Good. I thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it, Sir Arthur.” I stood up. “Well, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to run myself. I need to talk to Harry about something.”

  “AS I HEAR it, sir,” said Briggs, “you’re one of the Pinkertons. The American detectives, sir.”

  “You hear it right, Mr. Briggs,” I said.

  We were in the library, just the two of us, and the door was shut.

  Briggs glanced toward the closed door. In only a minute or so I had learned that he could put a pretty good assortment of expressions on his pale narrow face. This one, as he looked back toward the door, was furtive. The next one, when he turned back to me, was politely inquisitive. “As I hear it, sir, you Pinkerton gentlemen have access to, um, certain discretionary funds, shall we say, sir. Money which on occasion you are permitted to, um, dispense

  to those individuals who come forward to assist you in your enquiries.”

  “We sometimes pay for information,” I admitted.

  “And how much, if I may ask, might you be permitted to, ah, allocate, sir?”

  “That depends on the information.”

  “Yes, sir. Of course, sir. You were enquiring, as I recollect, about individuals who might recently have visited the late Earl?”

  “That’s right. You know of any, Mr. Briggs?”

  “Well, sir.” He made a dainty cough into his balled fist. “It would be imprudent of me, wouldn’t it, sir, to impart such information as I might possess without the two of us, you and I, first coming to some general category of understanding, as one might say.”

  I smiled. “I could see my way to a pound.”

  He frowned. “Oh, that is a pity, sir. Because, you see, I must tell you that the, um, emolument which I myself had in mind was of a rather larger order, sir.”

  “How much larger?”