Sherlock sighed.
“Sit down,” said Emma. She hauled an occasional chair out for Sherlock. “We’ll get this business straightened up.”
“There’s nothing…” Sherlock began and gave up. He sat down, took out his notebook and wrote: Interview with Benson sisters, Elm Pavilion. Two clearly insane, he thought. Not sure which two.
“Now,” said Emma, “why would they send you out here to investigate this case? Detective Brisbois is clearly more qualified.”
Sherlock mentally crossed out the word two and considered that all three were clearly insane. He turned a page, made a note of the time, date, place, and circumstances of the interview subjects. “So you’re the Benson sisters.”
“All three of us,” said Kate.
“Miss, Mrs., Ms.? Sherlock asked.
“Miss,” said Emma, irritated.
“Can you imagine all three of us marrying men called Benson?” Kate tittered.
“Or a man named anything,” Emma murmured.
“Now, Emma,” said Kate. “Not every man can be like Daddy.”
“Daddy was a spy,” said Louise.
“For whom?” Sherlock muttered.
The sisters looked at one another.
“It was for us, wasn’t it?” said Kate. She looked wistfully at her 1940s magazine featuring Cary Grant. “Daddy was so handsome. He looked just like Cary Grant.”
“I thought he looked like Ronald Coleman,” said Louise.
“If you look at any of his photographs,” said Emma, “you’d find he actually resembled R.B. Bennett.”
“We may disagree about whom Daddy resembled,” said Louise, “but we agree Chief Longbow did not look like an Algonquin.”
“His facial structure was not correct,” said Kate.
“And his clothing was not correct.”
“Not his clothing, per se,” said Emma. “It was the artifacts that he claimed to be particular to his situation — amulets, feathers, and so forth.”
Sherlock looked up from his notebook. “So you’ve met the man?”
“We had him for brunch,” said Kate.
“He was quite handsome,” Louise added.
“He was a fraud,” Emma sniffed. “Those feathers in his hat probably came from a Barred Rock chicken.”
“There are farms on the road up off the lake,” said Kate. “You might want to check with them.”
“Or perhaps Detective Brisbois could,” added Louise. “Detective Brisbois is highly intelligent.”
Sherlock glowered. “Detective Brisbois is not available.”
Kate snuck another look at Cary Grant. “What about Detective Creighton? He’s very handsome. Rather like Ray Milland.”
“I think he looks like Gregory Peck,” Louise countered.
“More like Ray Milland,” said Emma.
“But you’re handsome too,” said Louise. “Much like a young Sean Connery.”
Sherlock’s pen twitched. “Ladies, as much as I appreciate the comparison, I’m here seeking information about the man who called himself Chief Longbow.”
“We know he was not a chief,” said Emma. “He was not an Algonquin. And I doubt very much if his name was Longbow.”
“Didn’t Daddy know a Chief Longbow?” Louise broke in.
Emma uttered a dismissive grunt. “That was Chief Burton-Doyle in Gloucester. He lived down the street from us when we were children.”
“Do you think he knew who your father was spying for?” Sherlock asked sarcastically.
“Oh, Chief Burton-Doyle wouldn’t have known Daddy was a spy. He thought he was an economist,” Kate giggled. “That’s rather ironic, I suppose. Daddy couldn’t balance a chequebook to save his life.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes. Emma responded with a stern look and said, “I suppose you think we’re a little loopy, young man.”
“He’s not as good at hiding that as Detectives Brisbois and Creighton,” said Kate.
“Some of us may be a little muddled at times,” said Emma with a surreptitious nod toward Louise. “And some of us may be inclined to fancy. But we know our indigenous North Americans.”
“And we know a chicken feather when we see one,” added Louise. “So there.”
Sherlock forced himself to maintain a professional manner. “Did you see or hear anything that might make you suspect anyone who might have killed Chief Longbow?”
The sisters looked at one another and shook their heads.
“No one here would kill the chief,” said Kate.
“Did you hear of anyone making threats to him?”
“Everyone knows Mr. Rudley was prepared to take legal action,” said Emma. “Tiffany said he wasn’t happy when the chief dug up his lawn.”
“And he was afraid the chief would end up setting fire to the place,” Louise said.
“But Mr. Rudley would never kill anyone,” said Kate.
“He’s put up with many people more trying than the chief,” said Emma. “He has never even struck anyone.”
“And Tim was getting tired of carrying things down to him, I suppose,” said Kate, “but he wouldn’t kill anyone either.”
“He carries things down to us all the time,” said Louise. “And he hasn’t killed us.”
“I can’t think of anyone who would kill anyone,” said Kate.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to look further afield for a suspect,” said Emma.
Sherlock folded his notebook, nodded and made his exit.
“He doesn’t have very good manners,” said Kate as the door closed behind him.
“I’m glad,” Louise added, “we didn’t offer him tea and cakes.”
Chapter Nineteen
The pathologist turned from his dictation. “What did you say your name was?”
“John Sherlock.”
The pathologist frowned. “I don’t recall hearing about you around these parts before.”
“I’m not from around here.”
“Are you working with Brisbois?”
“No.”
The pathologist hesitated. “Is there something wrong with Brisbois?”
Sherlock stiffened. “I don’t know, and at this point, I don’t especially care.”
Dr. Jim shot him a hard glance. “Just surprised is all. Normally, anything to do with the Pleasant, it’s Brisbois and Creighton involved.”
“If it will let us get on with things, I understand they’re on vacation.”
“OK,” Jim conceded. “Detective” — he suppressed a grin — “Sherlock. Do you ever get anyone calling you Holmes?”
“Just about everyone.” Sherlock waved a hand impatiently. “Can we get on with this?”
Jim picked up the folder on his desk. “Down to business.” He flipped open the folder, cranked his chair back, put his feet up on the desk and flipped through the pages. “Yes, yes, have that,” he muttered. “Noted, noted. Pending, pending.” He paused. “Now what the hell is this?”
Sherlock shifted impatiently.
“Oh, yes.” Jim brought his chair forward. “He had some green stuff stuck in his teeth.”
“Maybe it was his breakfast. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Depends on what he ate for breakfast,” Jim replied. “It’s been sent for analysis. Just in case it was poisonous.”
“You think someone poisoned him?”
“He could have eaten something by accident. Maybe a poisonous plant. It’s not high on my list of priorities. Just being thorough.”
“He claimed to be a tribal chief. Wouldn’t he be more knowledgeable about plants?”
“Maybe, maybe not. Depends on whether or not he was taught.” Jim shrugged. “He could have eaten something he shouldn’t have, got sick, wandered into the boathouse, fell into the water and drowned.
> “Drowned?”
“You did notice he was wet.”
Sherlock flushed. “I didn’t touch him. The coroner said he was damp. I assumed he got wet from the life preservers.”
Jim suppressed a smile. “Probably the other way around. Mr. Rudley would string up anyone with the audacity to put away life preservers wet.”
Sherlock pretended to be busy with his notes.
“Who’s your partner on the case?” Dr. Jim asked.
“My usual partner is finishing up on another case,” said Sherlock. “I’m alone for now.”
“Sounds lonely. Brisbois always has Creighton.”
“I assure you, I’m as good alone as Brisbois is with Creighton.”
Jim smiled and threw the folder across the desk. “Well, here’s the nitty-gritty. Time of death, somewhere between 1:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. Preliminary findings? He drowned. He has a lump on his head. Pretty minor. Probably got it when he fell in. He has green stuff between his teeth. Could be just his supper. We’ll see. You’ll have the usual tox screens as soon as they’re complete.”
“So he was murdered?”
“I think it’s a pretty good bet. I don’t think he got himself into that box by himself. And” — Jim sat back, smiled — “your man isn’t indigenous, by the way.”
Sherlock frowned.
“Bone structure’s all wrong. He’s Caucasian. We’ve taken fingerprints, of course. That may help identify him along with photographs.” Dr. Jim shrugged. “Of course, people tend to look different when they’re dead. Oh, yes” — he grabbed the folder back — “we took some scrapings from under his nails. There was some stuff there. Sort of stood out. His hands and nails were pretty dirty otherwise. We’ve sent that for DNA analysis.”
“Of course,” Sherlock grumbled, casting his eyes over the report. The old ladies, he thought, might not be so crazy after all.
Sherlock was exiting the building when the secretary called after him to say Dr. Jim wanted him back. The pathologist had evidently forgotten something, though Sherlock, seething, wondered if he wasn’t being deliberately obtuse.
“Sorry,” said Dr. Jim. “One little thing…actually two little things.” He flipped through his report. “There was a bandage clip stuck in the knee of our victim’s jeans.”
Sherlock took out his copy of the report and made a note in the margin. “What exactly is that?”
Dr. Jim explained. “It’s a little gizmo with teeth that secures the end of an elastic bandage to itself once you wrap it around.”
Sherlock narrowed his eyes.
“And,” said Jim, “your forensics guys got a blood stain that was on the dock. Type AB-positive. Pretty rare. There’s some trace stuff as well. A bit of fabric. We’re working on that. I’ll let you know the minute we get anything more.”
“All right.” Sherlock folded his report and headed for the door.
“You’re welcome,” Dr. Jim called after him.
Sherlock turned and frowned.
“Detective Brisbois would have said ‘Thanks, Doc.’”
“I don’t care what Brisbois would have said.”
“You know, we kind of like Brisbois around here.”
“Headquarters hadn’t informed me he’d been enshrined.”
Dr. Jim shrugged. “Well, he can be a little unorthodox. We like him because he’s regular folks, kind of human, willing to banter a bit.”
“That’s not the way I operate.”
Dr. Jim peered at him over his glasses. “You’ve spent most of your time working in the city, I guess.” When Sherlock didn’t answer, he continued, “I’m just saying that because, in these parts, what you get done depends on how you strike people. They get suspicious out here if you’re not being neighbourly.”
Sherlock sniffed. “I don’t think it’s good practice to get chummy with people under investigation.”
“If you say so.” Jim returned to the file in front of him.
“If I have any questions, I’ll call you later.”
“To be sure,” Jim muttered.
He sat listening to the snap of Sherlock’s leather-soled shoes against the tiled corridor. Amazing, he thought, how someone could confuse folksy with country bumpkin. He himself had always been an informal guy. So had his grandfather, who’d been a provincial court judge. And his father, who was an English professor.
He turned to a large bottle on his desk, labelled Jim, regarded the pickled appendix within and considered that he didn’t like Sherlock. He was rude and foolish. It didn’t pay to be curt with people and it made the workplace less pleasant. He preferred Brisbois because he was an earnest plodder who respected other people’s schedules and other people’s opinions. However, he supposed Sherlock was correct about one thing: It probably wasn’t wise to get chummy with people one was investigating — although he always found it useful in his own line of work.
He pushed his preserved appendix to one side, placed his elbows on the desk, and folded his hands under his chin. The murder of the chief made no sense at all, he thought. Why would someone murder an old man in a boathouse? How would anyone know he was in there? There was, apparently, no evidence of a struggle outside the boathouse. The bump on his head suggested he had fallen against something hard rather than being hit by a blunt object. So he’d bumped his head, fell into the water and drowned. Or he’d eaten something that made him sick, got dizzy and fell in. But how did he get into the life-preserver box?
Rudley stood at the inn’s doorway, which was opened a crack. He leaned on his crutches, craning to see without being seen.
Margaret, who was standing behind the desk, gestured to him. “Rudley, come away from the door.”
“Now he’s looking through the flower beds at the side of the house.”
Margaret moved to Rudley’s side, eased him away from the door and closed it. “Rudley, he’ll look through the flower beds whether you watch him or not. I’ll make you a nice cup of tea.”
“I don’t want a nice cup of tea.”
Margaret reached under the desk, removed a bottle of whisky and a glass and poured in two fingers. “Bottoms up.”
Rudley drained the glass. “If you’re trying to get me inebriated, Margaret, with the hope I’ll mellow out, it won’t work.”
“It’s good for your nerves.” She took the glass from him and set it aside. “Now, isn’t that better?”
“I think Sherlock should do us the courtesy of explaining what he’s doing. Brisbois would.”
“Yes, Detective Brisbois always keeps us informed. I think he sees us as partners in these projects.”
“I wouldn’t go that far, Margaret. He keeps us informed only because he needs our help. This boob,” he said, referring to Sherlock, “treats us as if we were interlopers. If he damages the flower beds, I’ll sue him.”
Margaret took the whisky bottle, poured an ounce and took a sip. “Rudley, I don’t know how you stand this stuff.” She patted her lips with a tissue. “I don’t think he’s harming the flower beds. I think he’s being quite careful. He’s probably looking for a clue.”
“That makes sense, since he doesn’t have one,” Rudley growled. “And what’s Lloyd doing with him?”
“I don’t know, Rudley.” Margaret sighed with exasperation. “Detective Sherlock probably just asked him to show him around.”
Rudley picked up the glass and finished off the whisky. “Why is it, whenever someone is murdered around here, everyone acts as if we had something to do with it?”
“The police are inclined to be suspicious. I imagine they’re trained that way.”
“We’ve never killed anyone.”
“They can’t assume we wouldn’t one day.”
Lloyd came up the front steps and into the lobby.
“What’s Sherlock doing in the flower beds?” Rudley asked, trying
to appear nonchalant.
“He wanted to know if we had any flowers with poison in them.”
“And what did you tell him?” Rudley demanded.
“Said no and then I said Detective Brisbois knew all the plants and never needed anybody to tell him.”
Rudley smiled a lopsided smile. “And what did his nibs say about that?”
“He said he was sure Detective Brisbois knew more about peonies than investigating,” Lloyd said. “Then he told me to leave.”
“He could be right about that,” Rudley murmured. “Did he say when he’d be finished mucking around?”
“Didn’t say.”
Sherlock appeared in the doorway at that moment. He walked straight to the desk and stood flipping through his notepad. Finally, he looked up. “Did you give the deceased anything from your garden?”
Margaret glanced at Rudley. “We told him he could take anything he needed,” she replied to Sherlock, adding, “I did take him down a basket of greens.”
“What kind of greens?”
“Mainly leaf lettuce with a little sugar and vinegar. I enjoy it that way, and he said he did too.”
“And that was it?”
“We gave him various samples of cooked things, but only the lettuce from the garden.”
“How generous of you.”
Rudley glowered. “I won’t have you being rude to my wife.”
“I’m not being rude; I’m being efficient,” said Sherlock. “What sort of poisonous plants do you have in your gardens?”
“We gave up on poisonous plants after several of our guests dropped dead,” Rudley fumed.
“There aren’t any poisonous plants,” Margaret said. “We’re very careful because Albert — our dog — likes to get into the garden.”
Sherlock was about to cap his fountain pen and return it to his pocket when Tiffany came up the back stairs with Albert. Before anyone could intervene, Albert ran up to Sherlock, planted his paws on his chest, and gave him an emphatic push that sent him stumbling back, his fall broken only by the desk. Margaret put a hand to her mouth in horror as Albert leapt on him again and Sherlock’s grip on the desk gave way. The detective landed on the floor on his back, his pen falling from his hand and bouncing across the floor. Albert snatched it in his jaws, bit down on it and squirted Sherlock with ink.
A Most Unpleasant Picture Page 15