Family Vault

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “I have no way of knowing.”

  “Then isn’t that in itself a sufficient reason for opening the box? You’ve got to do it sooner or later anyway. Do you have the necessary documents at hand?”

  “We do,” Redfern admitted.

  “So what are we waiting for? Are you coming with us, or going to write us a letter?”

  “My schedule is—” Redfern tried to look portentous, caught Bittersohn’s eye, and was abruptly deflated. “I’d better come with you.”

  He took a felt hat and a beautiful black cashmere topcoat from a bent-wood rack and came out with them. “Miss Tremblay, I shall be out of the office for approximately forty-five minutes.”

  “But, Mr. Redfern! Yes, Mr. Redfern.”

  She was gazing after them in total stupefaction when they went out.

  The bank wasn’t far from the lawyer’s office, and Mr. Redfern lost not a moment in stating their business. Almost immediately the branch manager himself came out to meet them.

  “This is remarkably good of you, Mrs. Kelling. I didn’t expect such a prompt answer.”

  “To what?” Sarah asked him.

  He looked surprised. “Didn’t you get my letter? I wrote immediately on learning of Mrs. Caroline Kelling’s death. The situation has been precarious for some time now, and—perhaps we’d better go into my office and sit down.”

  “What situation?”

  Sarah was glad to take the chair he offered her. “You’ll have to forgive me for not having the faintest idea what you’re talking about. There’s a stack of mail at the house I haven’t got around to opening yet, and I presume your letter must be among the rest. We came because I need to see what’s in my mother-in-law’s safe-deposit box. Among other things, we have to find the deeds to the two properties.”

  “Yes, of course, we shall certainly need those. Then you don’t have them, Redfern? I naturally assumed she’d return them to you after she took out the second mortgages.”

  “Second mortgages?” barked the lawyer. “But the properties were owned free and clear, always had been. Verplanck, what are you talking about?”

  The banker tilted back in his swivel chair. “In nineteen fifty-two, if my memory serves me correctly, Mrs. Kelling, as executrix of her husband’s estate, took out mortgages on both the Beacon Hill house and the Ireson’s Landing property. I’m surprised she never apprised you of that fact, Redfern. In any event, the interest was faithfully paid on both, but none of the principal. That in itself was surprising, but as the properties continued to increase in value, we weren’t worried. Some five years ago, Mrs. Kelling came in again and demanded that we issue second mortgages on the two properties. I may say that I took it upon myself to remonstrate.”

  “How?” said Sarah.

  “Why, I said—oh, you’re referring to the problem in communication. She had her son with her. He was able to reach her by some method of hand signaling.”

  “Alexander brought her? Then he knew all this?”

  “Certainly. He’d have to, wouldn’t he? He was no longer a minor, and the properties were legally his, as I understand it, even though his mother was still acting as executrix.”

  “But that’s impossible! Just a few nights ago we were talking about selling off part of the Ireson’s Landing property, and he never breathed a word about mortgages.”

  Mr. Verplanck and Mr. Redfern exchanged glances. Neither of them said, “Husbands don’t always tell their wives everything,” but it was plain they thought so. The banker went on in something of a rush.

  “Be that as it may, we did, in fact, remortgage the properties since the dramatic rise in value appeared to warrant the extra risk, although I frankly was none too happy about the transaction and am considerably less so now.”

  “Has anything been paid on the second mortgages?” asked the lawyer.

  “Not one cent. The interest is now also in considerable arrears. We’ve been writing both to Mrs. Kelling and to Mr. Alexander Kelling, but have had no response. My letter to the-er-current Mrs. Kelling deals, I regret to say, with the imminent necessity of foreclosure unless a settlement can be reached.”

  “How much must I pay?” stammered Sarah.

  Mr. Verplanck named a sum that staggered her.

  “Can I do it, Mr. Redfern?”

  The lawyer shook his head. “Offhand, I don’t see how.”

  “Then I suppose we’ll have to sell some of the jewelry. That must be what Alexander had in mind. He—oh, I just can’t believe this! Please, can’t we open that box now?”

  “I think we’d better,” said Mr. Verplanck.

  He led them down a remarkably beautiful marble staircase, pressed a buzzer that got them admitted to the vault room, and gave Sarah’s key to the young woman at the desk.

  “Miss Mummerset, would you mind getting this box for us?”

  “Sure thing, Mr. Verplanck.”

  She checked her file for the box number, took another bunch of keys from her desk, unlocked the steel gates that barred access to the tiers of boxes, and went like a homing pigeon to the right place.

  “I had a hunch some of the family would be along after the funeral,” she remarked. “I hadn’t realized till we got to talking about the accident at coffee break yesterday that Mrs. Kelling was a customer of ours. Miss Purlow was telling us how she used to come in wearing a mink coat and the most gorgeous hats you ever saw, to get out her jewels for the opera or whatever. Miss Purlow said everybody would just stop whatever they were doing and stare, as if she’d been a movie star.”

  She giggled. “I guess I shouldn’t have said that. Anyway, I’m so sorry about the accident. I just wish I could have met Mrs. Kelling myself. She’s never been to the box since I’ve worked here. Gosh, it’s heavy. Careful, Mr. Verplanck, don’t drop the diamonds and rubies.”

  “Thank you, Miss Mummerset,” said the bank manager repressively. “Now what’s the protocol, Redfern? Do you open it, or does your client?”

  “Mrs. Kelling gets the honor, I should think.” The lawyer looked doubtfully at the tiny booth Miss Mummerset was trying to usher them into. “I don’t know how we’re all supposed to fit in that cubbyhole. Might as well do it right here on the desk, if the young lady doesn’t object.”

  “I’m dying to see them. Isn’t this exciting!”

  “Miss Mummerset leads rather a lonely life down here,” the manager said apologetically. “Over to you, Mrs. Kelling.”

  Miss Mummerset was right, it was exciting. Sarah held her breath as she raised the painted metal lid and peered inside. The box was full. On top lay a sheaf of yellow, dog-eared foolscap, written over in faded clerkly copper-plate. Yes, the deeds were here. She lifted them out.

  The rest of the box was packed solid with smallish orange-red bricks. She would have known their shape and texture anywhere.

  24

  “HOW DID I GET HERE?”

  “Now, Mrs. Kelling, you lie still and don’t excite yourself.”

  A kind-looking woman of fifty-odd was bending over Sarah, fiddling with a blanket that had been wrapped around her. “I’m going to see if Mr. Verplanck has any whiskey in his office.”

  “Strong tea or coffee with lots of sugar would be just as good.”

  That was Max Bittersohn’s voice. Sarah stretched out a hand to him.

  “I’ve made a fool of myself again, haven’t I?”

  “You fainted, if that’s what you mean.” He took the hand in his comforting grasp. “Probably the most sensible thing you could have done.”

  “I’m sure Mr. Redfern doesn’t think so. Where is he?”

  “In a huddle with Mr. Verplanck.”

  “The owl and the panther are sharing the pie. I suppose they think Alexander took the jewelry.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Do you?” she prodded.

  “I’m trying not to think at all, till we get some more facts,” was his not very satisfactory answer.

  The lady came in with a couple of Sty
rofoam cups on a tray. “I brought you some, too, Mr. Kelling.”

  “Thanks.” Bittersohn took the cup without correcting her mistake. “Have you been working here long?”

  “Oh, yes. I’m one of the old-timers.”

  “Then maybe you can tell us who used to work downstairs in the vault, say between ten and twenty years ago?”

  “Oh, that would be Alethia Browne. She was here for ages and ages. I remember her as a middle-aged woman when I first came here straight out of Boston Clerical.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to know where she retired to?”

  “She never retired anywhere. She didn’t get the chance.”

  “Why not?”

  The woman glanced uneasily at Sarah. “I don’t want to upset Mrs. Kelling any more than she is already.”

  “I don’t think you could,” said Sarah. “Please tell us what happened to Alethia Browne.”

  “The Boston Strangler got her.”

  “Are you sure it was the Strangler?” asked Bittersohn.

  “Well, of course none of that was ever proved, but it was him all right. Same kind of crime as the rest of them, no sign of breaking and entering or anything. He just walked in and took one of her own nylons that she’d washed and hung on the bathroom rack to dry. Looped it around her neck and that was that. Mr. Verplanck had to go over to the morgue and make the formal identification because she didn’t have any folks of her own left around here, and boy, was he green around the gills when he got back! At least the Strangler didn’t do anything to her, if you know what I mean. Not like some of those other poor women.”

  “He didn’t, eh? I suppose she lived not too far from here?”

  “Yes, over on Myrtle Street. Alethia had a little apartment of her own, just one room and a bath and kitchenette, but she’d fixed it up real cute. We all felt terrible about Alethia. The customers just loved her. She knew them all by name, and she’d ask about their families and all.”

  “Then she must have known my mother-in-law,” cried Sarah, “and my husband, too. She’d have—”

  “Take it easy,” said Bittersohn. “Finish your coffee and let’s get out of here.”

  “But shouldn’t she rest awhile longer?” said the kind lady.

  “I want to get her to a doctor.”

  “Oh, yes, that’s much the best thing to do. Shall I call you a cab?”

  “We’ll manage, thanks. It’s not far. Would you mind telling Mr. Redfern and Mr. Verplanck that Mrs. Kelling will contact them later?”

  Sarah added her own thanks and got off the couch, grateful for Bittersohn’s steadying hand. She did feel both wobbly on her legs and fuzzy in the brain, but when they got outside she told him, “I’m not going to any doctor.”

  “I didn’t think you were. I just didn’t want you telling that woman your life story. Feel like stopping for a bite of lunch?”

  “No, really I couldn’t,” she said. “My insides are doing flip-flops. Mr. Bittersohn, what am I going to do?”

  “About getting the jewelry back?”

  “About everything. I’m sure it’s ridiculous even to think about the jewelry. That must have been all sold ages ago to pay the blackmailer.”

  “I think you’re going to find it’s been sold quite a few times, always by the same person.”

  “But how is that possible? Does he keep stealing the pieces back from the people he sells them to?”

  “It’s a little more subtle than that. What he does is to approach a prospect and show him, or more often her, an absolutely first-class antique necklace, ring, or whatever. He invites the prospect to have an appraisal made by any reputable jeweler. The pair of them go together and get a perfectly valid opinion that the stones couldn’t possibly be any more genuine. The seller insists on knocking the appraiser’s fee off the purchase price as a gesture of goodwill. The transaction is completed, always for cash on the barrelhead, and he fades gracefully into the sunset

  “Sooner or later, the mark finds out that what he bought wasn’t what he wound up with. He’s been stuck with a very good copy of the original, worth maybe a couple of hundred dollars. Maybe he, too, has a streak of larceny in his soul so, armed with that expert’s appraisal, he fakes a robbery and gets his money back by bilking his insurance company. That’s how I happen to be in on this business, too many people have been filing claims for the same pieces.

  “Your ruby parure, for example, was stolen in Rome, Brussels, Hong Kong, Rio de Janeiro, Dallas, and Milwaukee before a very clever lady in Amsterdam managed to pull a double sneak and hang on to what she paid for. I’m afraid your chances of getting those rubies back at this point are just about nil, unless you can persuade a Dutch court to accept that Sargent portrait as evidence of ownership and are prepared to refund the purchase price, which was pretty high. I can’t promise to salvage anything at all, but I’ll do what I can. Right now, you’d better go home and get some rest. I’ll come, too, if you don’t mind.”

  “You’re going to get that man to trace the wires, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, and also fix up the phone so you can take it to bed with you.”

  “Why bother? It looks as though I’ll be moving out of the house any day now.”

  “Don’t worry about that till it happens. Say, hadn’t we better stop for some groceries? I wiped out your larder this morning, the least I can do is buy you another pound of bacon.”

  “You needn’t do that, but you might help carry the bags. Alexander always used to—”

  Sarah choked up and couldn’t finish the sentence. Neither of them said much after that until they had left the supermarket on Cambridge Street and were trudging back up to Tulip. They were almost there when she mentioned what was on her mind.

  “You knew the jewels would all be gone, then?”

  “Yes,” Bittersohn admitted, “I was pretty sure there’d been a clean sweep of the collection when I saw those genuine India pearls your mother-in-law was wearing the night I met her.”

  “Why?”

  “They’re fakes.”

  “Oh, good heavens! Do you think she knew?”

  He shrugged. “Would she have cared?”

  “I don’t suppose so, if they went to bail out her little love. It’s absolutely incredible to me that Aunt Caroline was ready to kill Uncle Gilbert for his money, then give up every penny of it without a qualm to protect another man.”

  “Who must have been some prize specimen if he was willing to sit back and let her do it,” Bittersohn agreed. “I’d say your mother-in-law must have been the kind of woman who has to be the star in some real-life soap opera. You said she planned to cover herself with grease and glory by swimming the English Channel, but her parents squashed that fantasy. So she decided to become a society queen and married a man who had the cash but not the inclination. Then she found herself a red-hot romance, pulled her fake heroics to finance it, and wound up deaf, blind, and a heroine. Since there wasn’t much else left for her to do, she played the noble martyr to the hilt for the rest of her life. Whether she was genuinely devoted to that no-good bum, or infatuated with her own role as the beautiful woman who gave her all for the man she loved, is something I don’t suppose we’ll ever know.”

  “I don’t know why I keep thinking, ‘poor Aunt Caroline,’ ” said Sarah. “She really was a monster, yet I can’t help feeling a little bit sorry for her. She destroyed Alexander, but at least he had one real thing in his life, which is more than she did.”

  “She and a lot of other people.”

  There was something in Bittersohn’s voice that made Sarah shy away from any further remark. They finished the distance in silence. When they got to the house he helped her get the groceries inside, said, “I’ll be back around two with the electrician,” and left.

  Sarah put away the food and made herself a sandwich she didn’t particularly want. Their breakfast dishes were still sitting there, so she washed them. What was it going to be like when there was only one cup, one plate, one knife, o
ne fork, one spoon? She hurried out of the kitchen and went upstairs to finish transferring her belongings to Aunt Caroline’s suite. She might as well enjoy it while she could.

  Those hideous draperies in the boudoir would have to be taken down. What if somebody besides herself happened to notice what the embroidery stood for? The best plan would be to take them out to Ireson’s Landing and burn them in the big fireplace.

  It was a wonder Leila had never discovered Caroline’s secret diary, she’d been in the boudoir often enough. But did Leila read Braille? Perhaps she’d never bothered to learn, she was so adept at the hand signaling. Still, it would be easy enough for her to get hold of a chart and transliterate if she once caught on. If she did, she’d never be able to keep her mouth shut, and that would be total disaster for the whole Kelling clan.

  Sarah was down in the cellar struggling with the heavy old wooden step-ladder when Bittersohn came back with the electrician. She thought of asking them to take the ladder upstairs for her, then realized they’d no doubt need it for tracing the wires, which in fact they did.

  The process was a great deal more tedious than she’d thought it would be. She answered questions, showed where things were, watched till it got too boring, then left the men to their tapping and prying and went back to her own chores. There were dozens of notes to be written. The sooner she got at them, the less depressing they’d be. She sat down at the Samuel McIntyre escritoire in the drawing room where she’d be out of the men’s way, and had made a fairly impressive dent in the pile when Bittersohn came to tell her they’d finished.

  “We had quite a time. The wire had been led down inside the wall all the way from the attic and carried over the roofs to a skylight three houses up. Now we’ve got to find out where it goes from there, which calls for a spot of fraudulent entry.”

  “Can you manage that?”

  “Sure. We’ll put on our false whiskers and make believe we’re from the phone company or something. Incidentally, Frank put a long cord on your telephone so it will reach upstairs.”

  “That’s marvelous. I can’t thank you enough.”

  “Why thank me at all? It’s included in the service. Look, I don’t want to press the issue, but can’t you get somebody to come and stay with you, if only for tonight?”