Rudley could only stare in disbelief.
The chief put a hand on Rudley’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Mr. Rudley, I won’t turf you out. Not for a while, at least. Landlord-tenant law being what it is.” He paused, then added, “I haven’t got my camp set up yet. I was wondering if I could get a cup of coffee from you.”
Rudley gaped at him.
The man clapped him on the shoulder. “Much appreciated, of course. And maybe a couple of pieces of toast.”
Rudley’s ears turned red. He turned and poled back to the inn, cursing.
Margaret was at the desk, sorting the mail. Norman and Geraldine Phipps-Walker lingered nearby.
“You will not believe this, Margaret,” he said once he could get a civil word out. “This man — Chief Longbow, he calls himself — has made claims on the Pleasant. He says he won’t make us vacate, at least not right away, then has the audacity to ask for toast and coffee.”
“Oh, I think we could do better than that, Rudley. Gregoire has some nice scones.”
“Margaret, the man is implying we’re on land not transferred by treaty.”
She put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, Rudley, you don’t suppose we’re occupying sacred ground.”
Rudley crossed his eyes. “Believe me, Margaret, there’s nothing sacred about this place.”
Norman grinned. “As you are probably aware, Rudley, the entire continent was his at one point. He probably thinks coffee and toast isn’t too much in recompense.”
“He’s hinting he plans to turf us out at some point,” Rudley barked.
Norman’s expression sobered. “Do you think he’ll allow us to fish the lake?”
Rudley crossed his eyes. “I don’t know, Norman. We didn’t get that far into the negotiations.”
“You should sort that out,” said Norman.
“Your regular guests will want to know,” Geraldine chimed in. She paused and looked wistful. “You know, Rudley, before Europeans came, the sky was dark with passenger pigeons. That must have been beautiful.”
“Unless you happened to be under them,” Rudley grumbled.
“Keep us updated,” Norman urged.
He and Geraldine went on into the dining room.
“What a damn mess,” said Rudley.
“Sit down and put your leg up,” Margaret urged. “We’ll call Alan and have him look into the legalities. In the meantime, let’s give Mr. Longbow a decent breakfast.”
“Chief Longbow,” Rudley said, deflated. He screamed as his leg slid off the hassock.
“Are you in pain?” Lloyd asked.
Rudley glared at him. “No, I’m practising for Music Hall.” He let his crutches fall to the floor. They clattered against the desk and dropped. “Of course I’m in pain. Help me get my leg back up.”
Lloyd took Rudley’s leg and plopped it back onto the hassock, causing Rudley to scream again.
“Practising for Music Hall?” Lloyd asked hopefully.
“Go!” Rudley bellowed. “Now!”
When Lloyd left, he picked up one of the crutches and used it to snare the pack of cigarettes from the shelf under his desk. He took out one and lit up. Why did every summer have to start with some disaster? He and Margaret had been operating the inn for almost thirty years and it was the same damn thing every year: People coming here for the purpose of being murdered, flocking to his beautiful lakeside property to drown themselves in the lake, hang themselves from ski lifts, poison themselves with their own pills, not to mention the non-lethal accidents with powerboats, water skis, and toboggans. Not only was all that a nuisance, but it also involved having the police, the paramedics, and an assortment of nosy people around.
He took a deep drag from his cigarette. Now he had Chief Longbow showing up to make a land claim. He laughed mirthlessly. And Margaret was suggesting Alan, their half-assed lawyer, as a solution. He knew Alan. He was a gentle, well-meaning man who did a decent job with real estate, could write up a will and do the usual small-town things. Alan could spend the next twenty years trying to sort out the chief’s claims, consult every law book in his office, and still not arrive at a solution. In fact, it could be worse. He could imagine Alan appearing one day, smiling with pride to say: “Rudley, I think I’ve found the problem. Your very distant ancestor Harmonious Rudley, a member of the King’s Army and United Empire Loyalist, was granted this land. He didn’t care for it so he granted it to an army buddy, the first Chief Longbow, and moved with his family to Galt, Ontario.” Alan would close his law book with finality and say, “That explains the whole misunderstanding.” Rudley clenched his teeth so hard he almost bit the cigarette filter in two. Why him? What did he do to deserve this?
“Mrs. Rudley will be disappointed to find you smoking.”
He looked up to see Tiffany regarding him with reproach.
“I don’t give a damn,” he said.
“Feed Betty, feed Betty.”
Leonard waved away the parrot, who was staring greedily at his morning fruit cup. “This is mine,” he said. “I’m sure you have had or will have your own.”
“Dirty bird,” Betty squawked.
“Now, you know I’m not a dirty bird,” he said.
She cocked her head, gave him an appraising look. “Dirty bird.”
“Sweetie taught you that to say to Tweek and Freak,” he said, making sure the boys weren’t within earshot.
“Sweetie’s a bitch.”
Leonard shook his head. The boys were fighting back. They were adults. Why couldn’t they behave themselves? He sighed. Adults acting like children. Tibor was miffed that the cottage didn’t have a bigger motorboat. He and Frankes had found a set of hunting knives and were busy ruining the bark on a nice birch with target practice. Tibor was bothering him every day about the arrival of the art appraiser. How were they going to know he was legitimate? How could he be sure the appraiser wouldn’t try to cheat them? Tibor’s pestering gave Leonard a headache and drove him to use his dementia ploy to the point that even he wasn’t sure if he were still compos mentis.
“Got to go, got to go.”
“Yes,” said Leonard absently to the parrot, “you’ve got to go.”
“Got to go,” Betty muttered. “Sweetie’s got to go.”
Leonard froze. “Did the boys say that?” he whispered, realizing how foolish it was to expect an answer. He took a piece of melon from his bowl and held it out to her.
She took it happily, then said, “Dirty bird.”
Chapter Seven
By the sixth day, Leonard and his entourage had run out of good movies and fresh food — or at least what the children thought were good movies — and Tibor decided he and Frankes were going into the village. Leonard wasn’t keen on this. Tibor had shaved his head out of sheer boredom and looked like one of the minor villains from an early James Bond flick.
“Where are you going?” he asked as Tibor grabbed his jacket.
Tibor looked at him with exasperation. “We’re going into the village.”
“What for?”
“To get lettuce, Leonard,” Tibor growled. “I told you that.”
“I think our friend might come today.”
Tibor, his hand on the doorknob, turned back abruptly.
“Isn’t someone coming to see us?” Leonard asked innocently. “I thought someone was coming to see us.”
Tibor whispered something to Frankes. Frankes left. Tibor took off his jacket and sat down.
“Are you sure it’s today?”
Leonard frowned. “I think so.” He went over to the daybook. He spent a few minutes thumbing through the pages, then turned, triumphant. “Yes, today.”
Tibor wasn’t sure if Leonard had got the day right or not. For the past few days he had noticed changes in Leonard’s mental state. Sometimes he seemed quite befuddled; other times he seemed to grab memor
y out of thin air. This confounded Tibor but not Frankes.
“That’s the way my grandpa was,” he’d told Tibor. “You’d think he didn’t know anything. He couldn’t remember what he just ate, but then he’d remember some little thing you didn’t think he’d even heard.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, his girlfriend used to say it was because he had all this stuff in his head and it just spilled out, so it stood to reason that, every now and then, something made sense.”
This made Tibor feel more confident that Leonard could be amenable to direction, and, at some point, controlled completely. He wasn’t worried about Frankes. Frankes would tag after him and accept whatever crumbs came his way. Cerise was the problem, a conviction he was working to plant firmly in Leonard’s diminishing brain.
“Do you want a drink?” he asked Leonard.
“A martini might go quite well,” Leonard replied. “Dry with two pearl onions.”
“I don’t think we have any pearl onions.”
“A single olive then. Do you think it’s late enough in the day?”
“Sure,” said Tibor. It was ten o’clock in the morning, a little early, Tibor thought, but that wasn’t of concern. He wanted Leonard in a mellow mood. He made the drink, got himself a glass of ginger ale and sat down in the chair opposite him.
Leonard sampled the martini. “Nice,” he said.
“I don’t think you should trust her,” he said.
“Trust who?” Leonard asked.
“Cerise.” Tibor leaned toward his uncle. “I think she’s up to something.”
Leonard chuckled and patted his arm. “Of course she’s up to something. She’s a woman. You really should learn more about women, Tibor.”
Tibor’s eyes darkened. “It doesn’t have anything to do with her being a woman, Leonard. I wouldn’t trust her if she were a man.”
Leonard looked at him blankly. “Who?”
“Cerise” — Tibor slammed his glass down — “pay attention, Leonard.”
Leonard sat up straight, gave him a mock salute. “Aye, aye.”
“She’s up to something.”
“Almost five feet,” said Leonard.
“I think she sees this transaction as a chance at a big payday for her, Leonard. She’ll probably try to wheedle you out of your money.”
“Of course she will,” Leonard said amiably. He leaned toward Tibor, whispered conspiratorially. “She’s like her mother that way.”
“I’m just saying we should be alert,” Tibor persisted.
“I promise you,” he whispered again, regarding Tibor solemnly, “I’ll be alert.”
Tibor tried to smile beneficently. The chances of Leonard being alert were slipping away every day. He was glad they were out of St. Napoli. What if he started babbling at the club? Sooner or later, someone would put two and two together. He hoped Frankes was right. The old man had had some kind of heart attack. Maybe if he let nature take its course… But Leonard was talking again:
“I’d like another of those martinis, Tibor.”
“Sure.” Tibor rose and went to the bar. He mixed the drink and was adding the olive when Leonard said: “Don’t worry, Tibor, you’re treated generously in my will.”
Tibor set the drink in front of him.
“I’m leaving you my second-best bed.” Leonard laughed uproariously.
If Tibor had been more familiar with William Shakespeare and had a sense of humour, he might have laughed too. He didn’t, so he forced a smile.
“Guess I gotcha,” said Leonard, continuing to chuckle to himself.
Or maybe nature could be helped along, thought Tibor.
Rudley was thumping around in the cupboard behind the desk, trying to forget about Chief Longbow, who had made himself quite at home in his little encampment. He now had a Coleman stove and an outdoor shower and Margaret had invited him to use the facilities in the inn. Rudley had to agree this was a better arrangement than a porta-potty or a camp toilet, which he was sure would completely destroy the ambiance of the Pleasant. He loved Margaret, thought she was a great girl, but did she have to be so damn kind, so accommodating, to everyone? He had complained about this to his father once, only to have his father retort that the girl had committed the ultimate charitable act in marrying him. Given that his father was not a man given to capricious wit, Rudley had rather resented the remark. Margaret had married him because he was charming, levelheaded, sensible, and the best dancer west of London, England. He would have done a little two-step behind the desk if he hadn’t been carting around this damn cast. The thing had dried, although his foray down the lawn had added bits of dog hair, grass, spruce needles, and a few unfortunate spiders to the collage.
He was in the closet now searching for any papers that might challenge the chief’s claim to the inn. Alan was making very little progress. The lawyer had contacted a classmate, an Algonquin woman. She had made some inquiries, but, to date, said she was having no luck tracking the individual who called himself Chief Longbow. She guessed he was not an official chief, although there was a possibility one of his ancestors might have been. Alan asked her if there was any record of the ownership of the land on which the Pleasant sat ever having belonged to the Algonquins. She had just raised her brows, Alan reported with a chuckle.
Rudley was relieved to hear from his brother, Alex, who had an interest in the family genealogy, that there was no record of any United Empire Loyalist Rudley ever residing in the area of the Pleasant Inn. Alex suggested, with a chortle, that the Rudley clan might have been run out of New York State on a rail and were, in fact, not Loyalists or Late Loyalists but common criminals. Rudley knew Alex was joking, but he was relieved to know no ancestor of his had given his land grant to the Chief’s ancestors in a fit of benevolence. That, he thought, was the kind of thing Margaret would do.
He was ruminating about the downside of Margaret’s compassion when someone gave the bell at the desk a sharp rap. He would have fallen over if he hadn’t managed to catch hold of the cupboard door. He was cursing and hanging on for dear life when someone grabbed him from behind.
“We’re sorry, Mr. Rudley. We didn’t realize you were in a cast.”
He looked over his shoulder to see Miss Miller waving to him from the desk. Mr. Simpson helped him to his chair, propped his leg up on the hassock, then collected his crutches.
“We didn’t know you’d been injured,” Miss Miller said. “We’ve been in Australia.”
Rudley knew that. Mr. Simpson had taken a sabbatical at the University of Queensland. Miss Miller had amused herself by roaming the outback.
“Was it a motor accident?” Simpson asked.
Rudley shook his head. “I slipped on the lawn.” He wasn’t about to elaborate, knowing that Norman or Tim or Lloyd would fill them in at the earliest opportunity. He started to get up to sign them in, but Miss Miller waved him off.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Rudley, we can check ourselves in. Mrs. Rudley will have booked us into our usual room.”
“I’m sure she has.”
“Perhaps the broken leg will be your last bit of bad luck for the season.” Simpson gave him a hopeful smile.
“I could stand an uneventful summer,” said Rudley, “although I don’t see why I had to sacrifice my leg for it.”
“I noticed someone has pitched a tent on the lawn,” said Miss Miller. “Do you have children booked in?”
Rudley shook his head. “Nothing that dire, Miss Miller. Just a Chief Longbow claiming the lawn for his nation.”
Miss Miller and Mr. Simpson looked at one another.
“Jolly good then,” said Simpson. “Things are as usual.”
Miss Miller and Mr. Simpson went on up to their room. Rudley sat back, his expression lugubrious.
Miss Miller and Mr. Simpson had been coming to the inn for several years now. They had, i
n fact, been married right there on the lawn, not far from where the chief had pitched his tent. Miss Miller was bright and sarcastic and confident. Mr. Simpson was sweet and kind and putty in her hands. Miss Miller was not in the slightest deterred by the Pleasant’s reputation as murder central. In fact, she found the intrigue right up her alley and had been instrumental in solving several of the crimes. A blessing, he thought, since those two idiot detectives, Brisbois and Creighton, were so inept. Like the rest of the regulars, Miss Miller and Mr. Simpson felt entirely at home at the Pleasant. In fact, he thought, they all acted as if they were major shareholders. He was distracted from his ruminations by Tim’s coming out of the dining room and heading toward the veranda with a trolley laden with food.
“Where are you going with that?” he bellowed.
“It’s for the Benson sisters,” Tim replied.
“Oh,” said Rudley, deflated. “I thought you were trucking that down to the chief.”
“Don’t worry about the chief,” said Tim. “The sisters are having him for brunch.” He gave Rudley a cheeky look and whipped out the door, whistling.
Rudley watched Tim’s head bob as he descended the steps. He hated being stuck behind this damn desk, barely able to see over the top, with Margaret or Lloyd or Tiffany or any one of several guests coming by and chiding him the moment they saw him standing. Sitting made him feel small and inconsequential and totally out of control.
“Yoo hoo, where are you, Rudley?”
He craned his neck to see Aunt Pearl tottering into the lobby.
“I’m here,” he shouted.
“Oh.” She came to the desk and looked over. “I was just having a chat with Chief Longbow. He’s a charming man. So handsome.”
He studied her face, noting the extra bit of rouge and the liberal amount of her favourite lipstick, Scarlet Temptress. “I see you’re trying to get your clutches on him.”
A Most Unpleasant Picture Page 6