“Damned peculiar,” snorted the president. “Why the red dress?”
“He’s been posing as a woman called Flo, purporting to be the lady friend of a local resident named Mike Woozle who’s doing a, er, stretch.”
“Eight years,” Chief Ottermole amplified. “Robbery with assault. But cripes, Professor, Mike may have his little quirks, but he’s not that kind of a guy.”
“I doubt whether Mike Woozle has ever met Bracebridge Buggins,” said Shandy. “Bear in mind, however, that Marietta Woozle here happens to be Mike’s sister-in-law. When Mike went to jail, he probably left his house and car keys with her and his brother. Precisely how she got to know Bracebridge will no doubt be revealed in her testimony once she gets down to ratting, but I expect we’ll find he sought her acquaintance because she, er, had what it took.”
“Watch it, buster,” snarled Mrs. Woozle. “There’s such a thing as defamation of character.”
“Good try, Mrs. Woozle. I meant that having Mike’s keys put you in a position to provide Bracebridge with housing and transportation. Pretending to be Mike’s woman friend gave him an excuse to move in and take over. You were even the right size to lend him some of your old clothes. That’s why the dress Bracebridge has on is red, President. If anybody recognized it, they’d think Mrs. Woozle was merely being charitable to her, er, potential sister-in-law. They were making plans a while ago for Bracebridge to leave town as Flo and come back as himself. I expected he’d then have identified Boatwright’s body as his twin’s and tried to convince us it was Bainbridge who’d murdered their parents and, quite possibly by then, their sister.”
“But how could Brace make us think Bain had killed Sephy if he was supposed to have been dead all this time?” cried Grace Porble. “That’s impossible, Peter.”
“Oh, no, he could have managed well enough. He’d only have had to choose some delayed-action method, like a booby trap Bainbridge would supposedly have set before he died. He might have got Miss Mink to give Persephone a jar of poisoned jelly, saying her mother had made it for her just before Mrs. Buggins died, or stuck a razor blade smeared with curare into the binding of her father’s pet poetry book.”
“Where would he get curare?”
“Who knows? I was only hypothesizing. There are plenty of less exotic tricks that might have worked.”
Grace’s brain didn’t seem to be working just now, and no wonder. “And you’re saying Brace killed my brother because he wanted the captain’s uniform?”
“By no means. I’m saying your brother’s clothes had to be changed because the captain’s uniform would have immediately given away the fact that he was Boatwright and not Bainbridge. Bracebridge wanted his twin unquestionably dead, you see, so that when it came time to settle the lawsuit he expected to win, there wouldn’t be any time wasted hunting for a missing heir.”
“But how did Brace get hold of Boat?”
“My guess is that they’d been in contact off and on over the years. You may remember Bracebridge showed up in a naval officer’s uniform shortly after the war. He may have borrowed it from your brother and gussied it up with some fake insignia, just for a joke. Boatwright would have gone along with that; he must have had rather a freakish sense of humor, too, judging from the pair of back scratchers he sent you for a wedding present.”
Grace was trying not to let anybody see she was crying. “I don’t see why Boat couldn’t have stopped by and said hello to me, if he was right here at First Fork.”
“More than likely, he thought he was on his way to see you. Bracebridge may have spun him a yarn that you were back living at First Fork, and he believed it. You said yourself you hadn’t written to your brother for a long time. “
“Why should I, when Boat never wrote back? And why would he think I was here?”
“Why shouldn’t he, if his own cousin told him so?” That was Helen, being reasonable. “You’ll believe anything if you’ve been out of touch for years and years. What if Bracebridge told him you’d had a fight with Phil and come home to the old folks? Or your house burned down and you needed a place to go in a hurry? Or First Fork had got to be fashionable and you’d moved out here to get away from the clods up around the college?”
“What clods?” demanded Thorkjeld Svenson.
“The ones Bracebridge got the curare from. I’m just showing how easy it would be. Do stop making faces, Thorkjeld. Can’t you see Grace is upset?”
“Been upset myself, damn it. Anyway, the lawsuit’s off. A murderer can’t profit from his crime. He is a murderer, I hope.”
“No question. Mrs. Woozle watched him stab Boatwright, and she’s going to produce the weapon with his fingerprints on it. Aren’t you, Mrs. Woozle?”
“You’d better believe it, lover. This bastard tried to pin that one on me, just as he stuck Min here for the other two.”
“We were but pawns of his evil machinations,” quavered Miss Mink.
“Yeah, sure,” said Ottermole. “We’ll get your statements down at the station. So Brace here was in touch with Boatwright all the time, eh?”
“I shouldn’t say all the time,” Shandy demurred. “They both led wandering lives, I’d assume they may have wandered in the same direction now and again. Bracebridge could have tracked his cousin down any time he cared to, merely by getting in touch with the shipping firm Boatwright sailed for. That’s what I did today, before I came out here with Swope. I was told Captain Buggins had put into Boston two weeks ago, that he’d delivered his manifest, whatever that may be, gone ashore, and not returned by sailing time, so they promoted the mates and left without him.”
Grace Porble gasped. “Didn’t anybody even call the police?”
“Oh, no. I gather this is the sort of thing that happens fairly often with that particular line. The owners are more concerned to avoid publicity than to get them back.”
“But what if they’re being shanghaied?” asked Cronkite Swope, whose imagination ran to the picaresque.
“My impression was that they’re more apt to have been picked up by the police for smuggling narcotics. Since Captain Buggins was known to have relatives in the area, they gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed he’d simply forgotten to mention that he was taking extended shore leave.”
“Well, I must say,” Grace Porble began.
“Must you really, or can it wait a bit?” her husband interrupted. “Because I do think, dear, that we ought to go and tell Purve and Sephy about this before they hear it from somebody else. Sephy’s been through an awfully rough time, and this isn’t going to make things any easier for her.”
Grace sighed. “You’re right, Phil, though I don’t think Sephy ever had any illusions about Brace. She was against the lawsuit from the start, but her parents’ hearts were so set on it that she couldn’t bring herself to stand against them. They’d never had anything, and here was their last chance. And it was going to bring Brace home. They were so excited about that. He’d been away so long, they’d forgotten what he’s like. When he called them up and told them about this document he’d discovered—”
“What document?” Helen demanded.
“I don’t know. Sephy wouldn’t tell me. I’m not sure she knows herself.”
“It’s a deed of the property from Abelard Buggins to his son Ichabod,” Minerva Mink piped up. “I’ve seen the deed myself. I hope you don’t think I’d have been fool enough to get involved in this affair if Bracebridge hadn’t been able to prove to me for a positive fact that he was going to win his suit.”
“Where is this deed now?” Helen insisted.
“Someplace where you’ll never find it, Blondie,” snarled Bracebridge.
“Cut the crap, Humphrey Bogart,” Marietta Woozle growled back. “It’s in his inside coat pocket, in a fake leather passport case.”
Chief Ottermole advanced on the prisoner. “Okay, Buggins, I’ll take that paper.”
“Like hell you will.”
“You resisting a police officer in
the performance of his duty?”
Ottermole sounded quite pleased to be resisted. He was half a head taller than Bracebridge and a couple of decades younger. Buggins was down and the passport case out almost before Cronkite Swope could snap his shutter.
“Here, Professor,” said the victor. “You want to read it aloud?”
“He forgot his reading glasses,” said Swope eagerly. “Let me.
“Go ahead,” said Shandy.
“It’s that funny old-time writing and the ink’s pretty faded, but I guess I can make it out.” Swope cleared his throat.
“I, Abelard Bugginf, prefent the Parcel of Land meafuring one fquare Acre from ye Granite Markerf around Oozakf Pond to my Fon Ichabod on hif 18th Birthday, thif Land being Won by me in a wager with my Bro. Balaclava Bugginf, who attempted to Beft my Prize Workhorfe Famfon with a Black Nag of hif own breeding in a Pulling Conteft. Let thif be a Warning and an Admonifhment to my Fon never to make a Wager when in Drink Taken. Ye Balaclava Black came nigh to Winning ye Conteft, in which Cafe I w’d have had to Pay One Thoufand Dollarf into y’t Mad Fcheme my Bro. calif hif College.
By My Hand and Feal, Abelard Bugginf
P.F. Balaclava waf Drunker than I waf. Elfe he w’d not have Gambled away Land he c’d ill afford to lofe.”
“There,” said Miss Mink. “You see?”
Dr. Porble took the paper from Swope. “Undated, unfortunately. This does look awfully authentic, President. The paper’s old, the ink faded—and Balaclava had waited so long to found his college. The wager could have been a last-ditch attempt to raise some cash.”
“No it couldn’t,” said Helen Shandy. “Ichabod Buggins was born August fourth, 1809, which means he’d have turned eighteen in 1827. Balaclava Buggins had owned other horses, but never a black mare until he bought a filly he called Balaclava Betsy from a farmer named Purvis Mink, interestingly enough, on October second, 1862. He paid ten and a half dollars and didn’t have her bred until the following April twenty-second, giving a sack of seed potatoes as the stud fee. So the deed’s a fake. I’m sorry, Miss Mink.”
“I’m not,” said Thorkjeld Svenson. “Ottermole, is my librarian unjugged?”
“Huh? Yeah, sure, Dr. Svenson.”
“Then go, Porble. Back to work. You run the library, and let Helen handle the big stuff.”
“With pleasure,” said the librarian. “Ride back with Grace and me, Harry. It appears we have business to discuss. Unless you need the car, Ottermole?”
“I’ll be glad to take the prisoners in the press car,” Cronkite Swope offered eagerly. “It’ll be another scoop for the Fane and Pennon.”
“ ‘So retribution followed soon
Upon their wicked heels,
For preyful crook should gain no boon
From any pond he steals,’ ”
Peter Shandy murmured.
“Come on, President, I don’t think the press car’s up to your weight. I suggest we take Buggins with us, while Ottermole and Swope escort the ladies. You don’t mind driving the car, Helen?”
“Not at all.”
But Helen didn’t start right away. She sat gazing after the big black car Marietta Woozle had described with such ill-meant accuracy. “So that’s who it was. Poor Grace, she’s taking it badly, and no wonder. You know, Peter, Corydon Buggins would positively have gone to town on this one.”
“He already did,” said Shandy. “It’s right there in the archives, dear:
“ ‘Tho’ waterlogged in death, may he
Enjoy a dry Eternity
While still she dwells with mem’ry fond
Upon the corpse in Oozak’s Pond.’ ”
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copyright © 1987 by Charlotte MacLeod
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The Corpse in Oozak's Pond Page 20