The Bilbao Looking Glass

by Charlotte MacLeod

  But so could any number of other people. Sarah shut her eyes and tried to re-stage the scene in her mind. There’d been Fren and Don and—no, Lassie had been standing over here by the window with Sarah herself. But then she’d made that fuss about her drink and gone to get another. She’d have had to pass near Miffy then, because Miffy hadn’t strayed far from the source of supply ever since they’d got back from the funeral.

  It might even have been Lassie who’d brought Miffy that fresh drink. Sarah remembered she’d taken two from the bar. Sarah had assumed she’d meant them both for herself, to make up for the tomato juice. It would have been natural enough for Lassie to offer one to Miffy, though, and most unlike Miffy to turn it down. Fren claimed Miffy’s glass had been full, and that meant she’d only just got a fresh one. No drink would have stayed untasted in Miffy’s hand for long.

  But Sarah hadn’t actually seen Lassie give the extra drink to Miffy or anyone else. She was still at her mental exercises, trying to recall who’d been standing behind Miffy, when the police arrived. Chief Wilson was among them, but to her regret, Sergeant Jofferty wasn’t. At least Wilson and his men appeared competent and not too impressed by Biff Beaxitt’s insistence that he’d caught Isaac Bittersohn’s boy red-handed bumping off his hostess.

  One of the men went off to phone for more help while the chief asked people sensible questions and got mostly irrelevant answers, except from Tigger who still wouldn’t do anything but glower. Nobody could swear to seeing Max put the alleged poison in Miffy’s drink. Nobody had been conscious of seeing much of anything except Miffy exposing her wrinkled brown hide and hurling a frayed-out elastic girdle into the fire, then drinking from the glass Max had been holding for her, choking, and dying. Nobody could say where Miffy had got the drink in the first place, especially the harried bartender.

  “I kept mixin’ an’ they kept grabbin’,” was his testimony. “I never seen nothin’ like it; not even at the Policemen’s Ball.”

  He’d been preparing batch after batch of martinis, since nobody seemed to want anything else. People would hold out their empty glasses for refills, or else he’d pour the mixture into clean glasses and set them on a tray. Either the waitress would pass the tray around or else guests would come over and pick up the drinks, often two and three at a time, and give the extras to their friends.

  “You took two, Lassie,” said Sarah.

  “Yes, and so did a lot of other people,” snapped Biff Beaxitt. “Lassie gave her extra one to me, and I drank it. You needn’t think you’re going to get him off that way, Sarah.”

  Biff had not taken that drink from Lassie. Sarah wasn’t sure how she knew he was lying, but he was. Nevertheless, every single member of the club would back him up. Even Aunt Appie and Bradley Rovedock were giving her sorrowful “How could you let down the side?” looks. She’d queered herself with the old crowd now for fair, and she hadn’t helped Max by doing it.

  “Then does anybody else know where Miss Tergoyne got that last drink?” Chief Wilson asked.

  Nobody could or would say. The bartender was pretty sure Miffy’d got at least a couple for herself from the bar. Bradley Rovedock volunteered that he’d fetched one for Miffy early on but he was sure she’d had several after that. Aunt Appie sniffled that she’d tried without success to persuade Miffy to drink a nice, nourishing glass of tomato juice. After that, they all clammed up.

  A little while later, some homicide people who must have been from the state police showed up, along with the medical examiner. He refused to give any definite opinion as to the cause of death until he’d done an autopsy, but muttered to the Police that they’d better do a damned careful job of gathering the evidence.

  “He thinks it’s murder, too,” everyone whispered to everyone else. When a fingerprint expert impounded the glass and asked them to line up and have their fingerprints taken, they were sure.

  Don Larrington snorted, “Damn bureaucratic balderdash,” but he and the rest cooperated readily enough; except for Tigger who had to be threatened with arrest for assaulting an officer before she’d allow her fingers to be inked. Vare looked perturbed at that, as well she might.

  Max had been released from his improvised restraints and allowed to put his belt back on. He was sitting quietly in one of Miffy’s armchairs, not missing any of the goings-on. Sarah made a move toward him, but one of the policemen edged in front of her. Max himself gave her a warning look and shook his head. After that she stayed put and tried not to panic.

  At last the guests were told they could leave. Most were out before the police chief had finished telling them they could go, but the Larrington brothers were still truculent.

  “What’s going to happen to Bittersohn? You’re not letting him go?” asked Don.

  “Mr. Bittersohn is going to assist us in our investigation,” Wilson assured him.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Fren demanded.

  “It’s what they have to say before they make the formal arrest.” Don, at any rate, seemed satisfied. “Come on, Fren. We told them at the boatyard we’d be there by one o’clock and it’s past two already. They’ll be charging you an extra day’s dockage.”

  “Oh Jesus!”

  Fren followed his brother without further argument. Miffy’s body was taken away on a stretcher covered with a blanket. The caterers had collected their belongings and left with the rest. Now only Chief Wilson and some of the other police personnel were left, along with Sarah, Max, Appie Kelling, Bradley Rovedock, and strangely enough, Vare and Tigger.

  Appie was trying to get a grip on herself and be helpful. “Sarah dear, don’t you think you ought to go home and lie down for a while? Shall I come with you?”

  “No, you mustn’t leave here, Aunt Appie. Miffy would have wanted you to stay and look after the house.”

  Sarah neither knew nor cared what Miffy would have wanted. All she knew was what she herself wanted, and it most emphatically wasn’t Aunt Appie’s help.

  “Maybe Vare will stay with the boys for a while,” she suggested. “Then Lionel can come up here and keep you company.”

  Vare shook her head. “I have cast off the shackles of motherhood.”

  “Right on!”

  Those were the first words Sarah had ever heard Tigger say. Tigger jerked her head toward the doorway and Vare followed her out.

  “Damn shame their own mothers didn’t cast off the shackles before those two bimbos were hatched,” observed one of Wilson’s men. “Max, what’s the scoop here, anyway?”

  “That’s a hell of a question to ask the chief suspect,” Bittersohn replied. “All I can say is, I wish I could tell you.”

  “Who doesn’t?” grunted Wilson. “From what I can gather, almost anybody in the crowd could have poisoned Miss Tergoyne’s drink if anybody did, which we don’t know yet. I suppose maybe we should have had everyone searched, but what good would it have done? None of them would have been dumb enough to pour out a slug and then hang on to the poison, would they? What I’d do myself, I’d have the stuff ready in a little vial or an eyedropper, something I could palm. Maybe even a plastic bag or a kid’s balloon. Just put your hand over the glass, drop in the poison, and throw the container into the fire. If anybody happened to smell something burning, they’d think it was the elastic out of that girdle she burned. Perfect setup.”

  “With the possible exception that the alleged poisoner wouldn’t have known in advance Miss Tergoyne was going to burn her girdle,” Bradley Rovedock observed drily. “She didn’t, as a rule.”

  Wilson didn’t think that was very important. “They’d know she was going to have a drink, though?”

  “Oh yes,” said Bradley. “One could be sure Miss Tergoyne was going to have a drink. And no doubt one could have slipped something into her glass easily enough. I could have poisoned her myself, I suppose, if it came to that. So could almost any of the others. The only person I can definitely rule out is Sarah here. That is, Mrs. Alexander Kelling.”

 
; “How so?”

  “Mrs. Kelling was standing apart from the group, chatting with Mrs. Donald Larrington, if my memory serves me. We’d been sailing together yesterday, though I don’t suppose that’s relevant. Anyway, Mrs. Larrington came over to the bar after a while and got a drink—or drinks, according to testimony—then came and stood near Miss Tergoyne with the rest of us. Mrs. Kelling stayed where she was. Moreover, she was drinking tomato juice whereas Miss Tergoyne had a martini, as you know. There could be no question of her switching glasses or anything of that sort even if she’d been near enough to do so, which she wasn’t.”

  “Mrs. Kelling never came over to the bar at all?”

  “No, she had only that one glass of tomato juice, which I personally handed to her shortly after we’d got back from the funeral. I noticed because I happened to be standing where I could look directly over at her and was wondering whether I shouldn’t go over and get her a refill.”

  “You were acting as host?”

  “I suppose you might say so, more or less. One does what one can at a time like that, you know. Appie—Mrs. Samuel Kelling—and I were trying to help hold the fort. With her companion gone, Miss Tergoyne was quite alone in the world, except for her friends.”

  “You and Mrs. Samuel Kelling were Miss Tergoyne’s closest friends, would you say?”

  “Not at all. We were simply the two available for the job. Mrs. Kelling is the soul of kindness and I’m,” Bradley shrugged, “an unattached bachelor with nothing more pressing to do. In point of fact, neither of us saw much of Miss Tergoyne as a rule. Mrs. Kelling lives in Cambridge and doesn’t get out to Ireson’s as often as we’d like. I do maintain a house here, as you know, but I’m off cruising much of the time. Still, we’d both known Miss Tergoyne more or less forever and when she asked us for help, we couldn’t turn her down. By the way, Appie, I’m quite willing to stay here with you, unless Sarah would like me to—”

  He was being much kinder than Sarah deserved, but she didn’t even bother to answer him. She turned to Chief Wilson.

  “What’s going to happen to Max?”

  Before Wilson could reply, Bradley laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  “Sarah, you mustn’t worry. It’s just an unfortunate coincidence that Mr. Bittersohn happens to have a certain type of expertise and that nothing ever happened until—that is, that he—oh God, how can one put it? He was in the wrong place at the wrong times, that’s all.”

  Chapter 16

  AND IT WAS SARAH Kelling’s fault, for having taken up with the wrong sort of man. That was what Bradley was trying so hard not to say. Poor, innocent little Sarah didn’t know any better. Did he expect her to be grateful? Nevertheless, he was right and she’d better say so.

  “That’s true, Chief Wilson. Max didn’t know any of these people. He’s here mainly because I needed transportation. The other day, before Alice B. died, we’d just got to Ireson’s when Miffy called up and said Appie was on her way out by train and we were to come for drinks that same afternoon. I asked Max to drive us over because I have no car of my own just now.”

  “Sold the old Studebaker, I hear?”

  “That’s right. Ira Rivkin found someone who promised to give it a good home. What I’m getting at is that neither of us expected to be at Miffy’s that day. This tale of Fren Larrington’s about Max casing the joint and planning a robbery is nonsense. Pussy Beaxitt jammed him into a corner and started pumping him the minute he set foot inside this door. Max never got to see anything here except Pussy’s big mouth.”

  “Can you confirm that, Mr. Rovedock?”

  Bradley smiled a little. “I can’t say I’d have expressed it quite that way myself, but I shouldn’t be surprised. As it happened, I got here rather late myself and didn’t have a chance to speak to either Sarah or her friend before they left. I do recall that Pussy—Mrs. William Beaxitt, that is—was talking to Bittersohn when I came in. Then Alice Beaxitt greeted him by name and said she’d known him as a boy or something of the sort.”

  Bradley, how could you? Sarah gritted her teeth.

  “Alice B. didn’t say she knew him, Bradley. She said she knew who he was. Alice B. always recognized people. She was that sort of person. What matters is that Max had never been inside Miffy’s house before, and whoever robbed the place must have known it pretty well. Better than I did, anyway. That list of stolen articles contained any number of things I’d never been aware Miffy owned.”

  “When did you see that list, Mrs. Kelling?”

  Sarah blinked. Maybe Sergeant Jofferty shouldn’t have been showing it.

  “One of your men was asking Max’s professional opinion about some of the items,” she replied cautiously.

  Wilson grunted. “Oh yeah. Walt Jofferty’s quite a pal of yours, isn’t he?”

  “I’d be proud to think so. Nobody could have been kinder when—” she wasn’t going to talk about that any more. “What I’m getting at, Chief Wilson, is that it’s absolutely ridiculous to accuse Max just because he happens to know a Fantin-Latour from a Norman Rockwell. Aside from the fact that he’s not the sort to go around burgling houses and slaughtering elderly women, he had no time to get organized.”

  “How long would it take to organize a poisoned cocktail?”

  “Quite a while, I should think. Miffy didn’t get sick or anything, she just gulped it down and fell like a rock. Most people don’t have instantly lethal poisons loose in their pockets, do they? You’d have to find out what to use, get hold of it somehow, then have it ready in some easily manageable form. You said so yourself, remember? And you’d have to be awfully careful how you went about it, or you’d wind up killing yourself, too.”

  “Okay, that’s a point. What else?”

  “Well, Max and I almost didn’t come to the funeral at all. That is, I more or less meant to come but I’d thought of calling Bradley or someone to pick me up. If I had, I’d have been too late. Lassie Larrington had told me yesterday it started at eleven. As it happened, though, Aunt Appie called while we were having breakfast and said it was set for ten.”

  “Do you remember what time you called your niece, Mrs. Kelling?”

  Appie said she thought it might be around a quarter to nine, or maybe nine o’clock. Or possibly a little later.

  “It was half-past, Aunt Appie, because Max and I barely had time to make ourselves presentable and get to the church.”

  “And you were just having breakfast?”

  “Yes. We’d been—well, I’d had Mr. Lomax at the house with his nephew talking about what I wanted them to do today, and then Max came up from the carriage house and we decided to get married so that’s why we were late with breakfast.”

  “I see.” Chief Wilson looked amused, then suddenly wary. “How come you decided to get married all of a sudden?”

  “Well, it wasn’t all of a sudden,” Sarah admitted. “That is to say, Max has been asking me off and on for the past two months and I knew I was going to say yes but somehow it was never the right time. This morning it was. We were going to slip away right after the funeral and get the license, but poor Aunt Appie was so upset and her son couldn’t come on account of the children and you’ve seen for yourselves how helpful her daughter-in-law was being, so we stuck around. And look where it got us,” she finished bitterly.

  The police chief wasn’t interested in Sarah’s feelings. “You say you had to hurry and get ready for the funeral after your aunt called. What exactly did you do?”

  “Went upstairs and changed from pants and jersey into the clothes I’m wearing now.”

  “Did Bittersohn go with you?”

  “No, he did not.”

  Without realizing what she was doing, Sarah gave an excellent imitation of her Great-aunt Emma squashing a cheeky upstart. Then she turned pale. Couldn’t she have had sense enough to say yes?

  “Why don’t you let me answer for myself?” Max was demanding angrily. “I went back to the carriage house, where I’m staying, and put on
this jacket and tie. Then I brought the car around to pick up Sarah. I was alone and can’t produce any witness to testify I didn’t stuff my pockets full of strychnine or whatever the hell it was before I got back to her.”

  “He does have plenty of witnesses as to what he did once we got here though,” cried Sarah. “None of that bunch had the gall to claim they’d actually seen him putting anything in Miffy’s drink, did they? And you can believe they would have if they could. He was constantly surrounded by a crowd giving him the third degree. Bradley Rovedock can testify to that.”

  “Third degree may be pitching it a bit strong,” Bradley demurred. “Naturally in a close-knit group like ours, any outsider,” he caught himself but not quite soon enough, “that is to say, any newcomer becomes a center of interest. People were trying to make him feel welcome.”

  “I suppose Biff Beaxitt and the Larringtons were trying to make Max feel welcome when they knocked him down and tied his hands and feet? Why don’t you arrest them, Chief Wilson? Biff in particular would make a far likelier candidate than Max.”

  “Why, Mrs. Kelling?”

  “Because in case you’ve forgotten, the woman whose funeral we’d just been at was also named Beaxitt. She was Biff’s aunt.”

  “Cousin, dear,” Appie corrected. “Her father and Biffs were brothers. There was quite an age span between them. You wouldn’t think it because Biff is so large and dear Alice B. was so petite. Oh, to think we’ll never—”

  “Yes, Aunt Appie. Anyway, I think both Alice B.’s and Miffy’s wills ought to be investigated before anybody jumps to any more conclusions.”

  “Really, Sarah,” Bradley Rovedock sounded shocked. “Biff would never—”

  “That’s the sort of thing I used to think, Bradley. Under enough pressure, I think Biff Beaxitt might do almost anything. I’m positive Fren Larrington would, after the way he brained that poor goat yesterday.”

  “Sarah, the goat was injured. Its throat was badly torn.”

  “He could have made some effort to find out how badly, couldn’t he? We could have cut it loose from that wire and brought it across to the vet.”