“Obviously,” she replied, “the most minimal thing you could do would be to forget the whole business. I had such an interesting chat with your father, Mr. Dubrec. Is he resting now?”
“Oh no, papa never rests. Or claims he doesn’t. He’ll be back in a while, he wants to be able to make a full report on the funeral to his old friend George when they meet in the sweet by-and-by. It’s very good of Mrs. Protheroe to put him up.”
“I’m sure she considers it a privilege and wishes he could stay longer,” Sarah replied. “He’s leaving tomorrow, your father tells me. I understand you’re sending a limousine to pick him up.”
Dubrec shrugged. “That’s the least I can do. I don’t have a car of my own, I haven’t driven since my sister—but you don’t want to hear about that. So when are you planning to start redesigning the atelier, Mr.—I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch your name the other day.”
“Just call me Max, everybody else does. What’s up, Sarah? Are you trying to tell me it’s time for us to leave?”
“I’m just wondering how much longer Anora’s going to hold together. Perhaps if you were to go and round up Theonia and Brooks, some of the others would take the hint and start moving. Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Dubrec, I didn’t mean you. Naturally you’ll want more time with your father if he’s going home tomorrow. It’s just that Anora’s been through such a terrible time these past few days, as you can well imagine. She’s pretty well at the end of her rope, though she’d be the last person to admit it. A quiet visit with old friends like you and your father and Mr. Nie, instead of all these people talking at once, would be far more of a comfort to her. Once the party breaks up, I’ll stay on just long enough to help Charles and Mariposa pick up the pieces, then we’ll clear out and you three can have Anora to yourselves. Is Mr. Nie going to drive you back to Boston?”
Jacques Dubrec shook his head. “I have no idea whether Marcus even owns a car. I never in the world expected to see him here. Marcus doesn’t talk, you know.”
“Actually I didn’t know,” Sarah replied. “My parents were friends of the Protheroes’. I’ve known them all my life and they never once mentioned that George had a godchild. Anora seems fond of Marcus, as she calls him, and he of her.”
“Well, I’m glad to know Marcus has got somebody,” said Dubrec. “He’s not a bad guy, does his work well enough and never bothers anybody else. We have one kook in the atelier who thinks he has to be the life of the party, he never shuts up from morning till night.”
“Doesn’t that get awfully wearing?”
“Sometimes. Mostly I just tune him out. Coming from a big family, you learn to do that, specially when you have kids of your own.”
“You must miss your children.”
“Sometimes I do. But you know how it is, they grow up and have lives of their own, they don’t need me any more. We talk on the phone fairly often, and write back and forth. The grandkids draw me pictures.” His smile was a bit rueful. “But Bartolo has a nice setup here and I really don’t mind helping out. He’s had such a ghastly time of—oops, forget I said that, will you? I must have had one too many.”
“There’s hot coffee in the urn over there, if you’d like some.”
“I guess I’d better. Nice talking to you, Mrs.—”
“Sarah, please. Perhaps we’ll meet again before too long.”
“That would be great. Well, then—”
20
FEW PEOPLE WOULD HAVE had the insensate gall to interrupt a social gathering the way Leila Lackridge did. She’d left the drawing room only a minute or so ago, Sarah vaguely recalled having seen her go. Now Leila was back, standing in the exact center of the big double doorway, not having to shout. Her ordinary speaking voice was penetrating enough to carry into every corner.
“Anora, I hate to put a damper on the proceedings, but I do think you ought to know that that old Frenchman who’s been lushing it up for the past two hours is lying on the hall floor with his head bashed in. Brains all over the place. Phyllis, go fetch a mop.”
“Leila, you crazy drunken bitch, shut up!” Dolph Kelling had never been one to mince his words, it was clear that he’d as soon be mincing Leila. “Max, what do we do now?”
“Stay where you are. That means everybody, including Phyllis. Nobody’s to leave this room. Leila, sit down. Charles, get Mrs. Lackridge a drink. I’ll go take a look.”
Max stepped out into the hall. They heard him say “God!” Then he was calling out to the policeman on guard at the front door. “Come in here, we need you.”
Now they were talking. Sarah couldn’t catch the words, she had troubles of her own to cope with. Jacques Dubrec had stared blankly at Leila during her shocking announcement, now he’d come alive. As he lunged toward the door, Sarah grabbed his arm. He tried to pull away.
“Let me alone, damn you!”
“No, you mustn’t go out there. Dolph, help me.”
Hearing his wife’s screams, Max darted back. “Steady, Dubrec, there’s nothing you can do.”
“But my father! I’ve got to go to him.”
“Believe me, it’s better that you don’t. I’m sorry as hell, Dubrec, but we’ll have to wait for the police. Brooks, call Homicide. Jesse, go let the cop at the back door know what’s happened. Tell him to stop anybody who tries to leave by the back way. Then alert the guy down front who’s directing traffic.”
“Gotcha.”
Jesse was off like a bandersnatch. Dubrec was still fighting, Max and Dolph wrestled him back into his chair.
“Dr. Harnett, can you take over here?”
“In a minute. Here, Anora, swallow this pill. Water, Charles.”
Oh God, thought Sarah, this is all Anora needed, George’s oldest friend murdered in her house. “Max,” she said, “I’d better go to the kitchen and break the news very carefully. Cook’s heart’s none too sound either.”
“Don’t go yet, Sarah, we have to take a nose count.” Max raised his voice. “Please, everybody, we need your cooperation. We’ve all been in and out of this room for various reasons, the policeman who’s been on duty at the door says nobody’s actually left the house for quite a while. So who’s still with the party, but not in here right now?”
Marcus Nie giggled, a horrible high-pitched neigh. “Jacques’s father.”
Max didn’t rise to the bait. “Thanks, Nie, that’s a start. Dubrec, you and your father went out together, can you tell us where he was when you left him?”
“He had to go to the bathroom. I took him to that one down the hall a ways and waited till he came out, just to make sure he was all right. Papa’s—was a very old man, you know. But anyway, papa came out and told me he wanted to be alone for a while with George. What he meant was, he wanted to go and sit in the den. Papa said that was where he and George always went when they had business to discuss, just the two of them. I could understand. We were always close, papa and I.”
“Did you go with him to the den?”
“No, I don’t even know where it is. This is a funny laid-out house, I still haven’t caught on to the floor plan. But papa knew, and he didn’t want me to go with him. He said I should come back here and talk to the pretty ladies. Papa’s been urging me to get married again, the way he did, but I just—oh well. I think papa knew he was going to cry and didn’t want anybody to see him. He’s a proud man, my—”
Jacques Dubrec himself was crying by now, not caring who saw him. He slumped over in his chair and wiped his face on one of Anora’s lace-edged cocktail napkins. Dr. Harnett had Anora under control, she was beginning to react to the sedative; he came over and took hold of Dubrec’s other wrist, feeling for a pulse. Dubrec didn’t seem to notice.
Leila Lackridge was still raising a ruckus. She hadn’t done what she’d gone out for, she still had to go, the old man’s body was blocking the way to the powder room, and who did Max Bittersohn think he was? Sarah suggested the facility off the back hall, the one Cook and Phyllis used. Mary Kelling offered to pl
ay policewoman. Leila said something disgustingly rude about Irish cops and went with Mary.
One helpful soul in a navy-blue blazer suggested that his Cousin Bud was missing. Another, wearing not only the same kind of jacket but also the same old-school tie, retorted that Bud had been missing on all cylinders ever since the day he was born and a far, far better thing it would be for mankind were Bud to stay missing ad infinitum. Brooks Kelling was delegated to search; he came back to report that Bud was stretched out on the chaise in the sun room, sleeping the sleep of the soused.
One or two other suggestions were put forth with equally frustrating results. “Okay,” said Max, wishing to God those laggards from Homicide would get here and take the load off, “who else?”
Sarah had been waiting for a chance to drop her bomb. “Bartolo Arbalest. He was wandering around the house looking at things. He must still be here somewhere, surely he wouldn’t have gone off and left Lydia. Mr. Goudge, haven’t you seen him?”
Goudge had been leaning up against the grand piano for some time now, with his arms folded across his chest. He raised his head slightly and replied succinctly, “No.”
“But why not?”
That was a stupid question, Sarah realized. It deserved a silly answer, and got one. “Because he tol’ me to go peddle my papersh.”
Brooks was back in the room, having passed the word to Lieutenant Levitan via one of his minions. “Good Lord,” he exclaimed, “that man’s drunk as a skunk.”
“Hell, no, I’m drunker. Lotsh drunker. I can lick any shkunk inna place. Bring ’em on.
Carnaby Goudge flailed at the air, perhaps aiming for some imaginary Mephitis mephitis. What he connected with was a small table loaded with bric-a-brac; he, the table, and the bibelots crashed to the floor together. Lydia Ouspenska rushed at him, screaming imprecations in assorted languages.
“Lout! Dummkopf! Xprzsylmbk! Sacrebleu, how do we know is Barto maybe murdered by madman in puddle of blood, and here is Carnaby drunk like cage of singes with fleas all over, goofing off on job. Get up, get up, sale cochon, and go find Barto.”
She flipped Goudge over, grabbed his shoulders, and began bouncing him up and down on Anora’s precious antique Oriental carpet. He only smiled up at her and tried to pull her down on top of him.
“Come to me, my melancholy bay-hay-bee. Kiss me, Hardy!”
“Hardy who?” demanded one of the other blue blazers, who was fairly well sloshed himself. “What is this fellow, a pouf?”
“No,” replied another who appeared to be only mildly elevated, “he must be referring to Tess Hardy. You remember Tess, the boys at Sigma Nu house used to call her Hotcha Hardy. She married one of the d’Urbervilles, as I recall. You’d better quit shaking that chap, Mrs. Ouspenska, or he’ll barf all over the Bokhara. What the hell did Anora invite a Yale man for, anyway? You see, this is what comes of being too democratic, if you’ll pardon me for using that word in mixed company.”
“I thought he’d gone to Dartmouth.”
“Quelle difference? Here, you,” he beckoned in a lordly manner to Charles. “Get this canaille out of here. Park him somewhere till he comes to. This is a respectable gathering, ma foi, and this is hardly the way to show due respect to a fallen compère. Smashing up the widow’s antiques and all that. Lowers the tone. Tout à fait not comme il faut, in my personal opinion.”
“And you couldn’t be more right, old chap. I mean after all, dash it, men may come and men may go, but Chippendale’s a dashed worthwhile investment at any time.” The speaker bent with due reverence to pick up the fallen table. His companion watched with detached amusement.
“Chinese export, I believe. Must be something George brought back from one of his earlier buying trips. Well, chacun à son goût. Great Scott, I do believe I must be a trifle spifflicated myself. I never talk French when I’m sober. Margaret, don’t you think it’s time we thought of going home?”
“We shan’t be let, Godfrey,” replied a weather-beaten matron whom Sarah recognized as the winner of innumerable ladies’ amateur golf matches. It was odd to see her not peering out from behind some trophy or other. “One gathers that there’s been another incident; it appears the police will want to ask us questions to which I, for one, shall have difficulty offering satisfactory answers. Awfully inconvenient, I’d meant to get in a little practice on my chip shots this afternoon. But there it is, one must play the ball from wherever it lies. Unless one gets a drop, of course. Since we have to stay, I believe I’m going to have a cup of coffee. Would you care to join me?”
“Splendid suggestion, Margaret. I might even venture on one of those pastry affairs, I’m beginning to feel a trifle peckish.”
“Then by all means do. Now who’s this coming? I thought Anora wasn’t admitting any outsiders.”
“Perhaps it’s the police. They don’t all wear uniforms, you know.”
“Why no, Godfrey, I didn’t realize. How interesting. But then how do we know it isn’t the murderer? Oh dear, I do wish I had my five iron with me. Or perhaps a wedge?”
“I’d say the wedge, Margaret. Well, let’s have our coffee. I don’t suppose the person will mind, whoever he is.”
Lieutenant Levitan wasn’t begrudging anybody a cup of coffee, he took one himself and appeared to find it good. This modest indulgence, however, did not distract him from the business at hand. He set his empty cup back on the tray, refused a refill, and addressed Anora with due deference but no false humility.
“I’m sorry to have to butt in on you again at a time like this, Mrs. Protheroe, but I need your help and—”
“Leave her alone!” Marcus Nie was on his feet and very nearly at the policeman’s throat. “She’s sick. She—”
“Hush, Marcus.” Anora was still in command. “It’s all right, I’ll—oh, I can’t think straight. My head’s all woozy. Sarah! Where’s Sarah?”
“Right here, Anora. Sit down, Marcus. George wouldn’t have wanted a fuss. Would he, Anora?”
“No, George hated fuss. You know that, Marcus. It’s all right, he’s just a policeman. Sorry, officer, I can’t think straight. I’ve taken a pill. Sarah, she’ll help you.”
“Yes, of course I will. Ask me anything you want, Lieutenant, I’ll do my best. I’m Max Bittersohn’s wife, remember? We met when—on your previous visit.”
“Oh sure, Mrs. Bittersohn. Okay, then. What I’d like to know is, how many of the people here knew Mr. Amadée Dubrec?”
Sarah looked around the room. None of George’s oldest friends were here, they were either in wheelchairs or nursing homes or gone before him into the great unknown; these were mostly their sons and daughters. “Actually,” she said, “I’m not sure whether anybody here had known Mr. Dubrec before today, except Anora. And his son, of course. Mr. Dubrec was, as his son may have told you, associated with George in the Protheroe family import business until—sometime in the thirties, it must have been.”
“Thirty-seven,” croaked Anora. “It broke George’s heart to sell.”
“I know, Anora. But George saw to it that his friend got a handsome settlement, Mr. Dubrec told me that himself. He moved to Arizona on account of his arthritis, or whatever it was. He always meant to come back, but never did. He kept in touch, though, didn’t he?”
“He’d write sometimes. I’d write back. George wasn’t up to it.” Anora was crying effortlessly, noiselessly, just letting the tears roll down her cheeks and splash on Marcus Nie’s hand, which was holding hers. “Amadée’s with George now. Lucky him.”
This couldn’t go on. “Lieutenant,” said Sarah, “I know we all want to cooperate with you as best we can, but can’t we do it in some way that won’t be so upsetting to Mrs. Protheroe? Perhaps if you were to go into another room and we could all come to you, one by one?”
“Like in the mystery stories? Sure, why not? Where do I go and who wants to be first?”
“I should think Leila Lackridge would. Mrs. Lackridge is the one who found the body,” Sarah explained.
Anyway, Leila always wanted to be first. “Go into the morning room, won’t you?”
Leila wasn’t having the morning room. “Why not the den?”
“Whichever.”
There was no earthly use in starting a squabble over so petty a point, Leila was just being Leila, as usual. Sarah saw her and the lieutenant out of the room and went to get herself another cup of coffee. Max came over and put an arm around her waist.
“Tired, Kätzele?”
“Exhausted. Do you suppose it’s all right to use the telephone? Miriam will be wondering why she hasn’t heard from us.”
“No, she won’t. I called while I was out in the hall, as soon as I’d realized we were probably going to get stuck here.”
“Oh, good. Did you speak to Davy?”
“Sure. He’s got a new duck.”
“Not a live duck?” Sarah asked in some alarm.
“Perish the thought. A toy one, for him to play with in the wading pool.”
“I hope Miriam’s not letting him get sunburned.”
Max tightened his hold. “She won’t, you know that. You just want something to worry about other than Anora.”
“How right you are. Max, bend down.”
“Like this?” He pulled her still closer and rubbed his lips against her ear. “Now what have you got that nobody’s supposed to hear?”
“Mr. Dubrec brought a letter that George wrote ages ago, to be delivered to Anora on his death. He was planning to give it to her after the crowd left.”
“Oh boy.”
“My feelings exactly. Have they searched Dubrec’s body, and his bedroom?”
“I don’t know about the body. Levitan sent a man upstairs. The guy found Arbalest prowling around the bedroom. I have a hunch Arbalest’s about to be booked on suspicion.”
“And I have a hunch that woman from his atelier in Houston who got killed in a car accident will turn out to have been Jacques Dubrec’s sister, Erminie.”
“You don’t say? So what do we do now?”
“Behave ourselves, I suppose. I still haven’t broken the news to Cook, I wonder whether anyone’s told her yet?”
The Resurrection Man Page 19