“Maybe it’s a kitchen revolution. We’ve paid little attention to the kitchen help.”
“A Vietnamese was in the front of the house when Wahler and I came back from our walk. He was coming down the stairs as we were going up.”
“Somebody has to make the beds, I guess.” With the fingers of his right hand, Cocky turned the heater down. They were now being blasted with equatorial air.
“I keep thinking of blackmail.” Flynn slowed as they approached the fence. “The situation is rife for blackmail. All these important men runnin’ around dressed anyway at all, or no way at all, drinkin’, gamblin’, shootin’, and swearin’, havin’ these meetings they think aren’t being overheard…” A few meters from the gate he stopped the car. “But for the life of me, I don’t see how blackmail ends up with three men murdered.”
“By different methods.”
“By different methods, yes.”
The gate was closed, of course. The tire tracks travelled under it and continued into the woods beyond.
Flynn blew his car horn.
No guard appeared.
No light shone from the windows of the guard’s hut. No smoke came from the chimney.
“Are we captivated?” asked Flynn.
He blew the car horn again. No guard appeared from any direction.
“No one’s here,” Cocky said.
“You might as well stay here.” Flynn got out of the car.
He walked forward in the headlights of the car. His shadow was enormous against the fence, on the snow beyond.
Behind him, the car door closed.
There were three stout chains locking the gate, one at head height, one at waist height, one at knee height.
“I could pick the locks,” Cocky said from behind Flynn, “if we could reach them.”
Flynn reached for one of the chains with his gloved hand, to try pulling the padlock nearer, tight against the other side of the fence.
Something chopped the back of his neck.
He found himself sitting in the snow, his right leg under his left knee.
Cocky’s right hand was gripping Flynn’s elbow.
“Electrified,” Cocky said. “The fence is electrified.”
“Shockin’,” agreed Flynn. He shook his head.
Cocky kept his hand on Flynn’s arm until he regained his feet. Then Cocky stood back and studied the gate.
“Ramming it with the car…” Cocky said.
“…would make an awful mess. And get us nowhere. I think such is called an accident. You’d need a tank…”
Cocky considered the whole fence. “Can’t go through it or over it.”
“We’re prisoners,” admitted Flynn. “Should have guessed it when the phones didn’t work.”
Cocky was shivering again.
“Let’s get back in the car,” Flynn said. “As long as we’re now prisoners of The Rod and Gun Club, there’s something else I want to check out.”
As they approached the clubhouse, Flynn turned the car lights off. There was enough light in the snow for him to see their way.
Beyond the clubhouse, he turned onto the forest road he had travelled that morning with Taylor.
Just after he turned on the headlights again, the car hit a snow drift. Flynn swung the wheel and the car straightened itself.
“Do you think we dare chance it?” Flynn asked. “I’m headed for the Rumble de Dump.”
“Sure. Why not? Might as well freeze to death in a snow drift as be shot, strangled or bludgeoned.”
“A positive point of view.”
“They say people freezing to death hear celestial music.”
“Oh? Do you get to pick your own tune?”
“What music would you choose?”
“Something by Tchaikovsky, I expect. Warms the blood.”
“You’re a practical man, Frank.”
The car skidded going up a hill. Flynn raised his foot from the accelerator and it straightened out.
“Evidence being destroyed almost as soon as it is created by our murderer or murderers…” began Flynn.
“Surely not murderess.”
“… I find myself excusing my usual comfortable method of detection.”
“Which is?”
“Seeking the controlling intelligence. The one mind controlling the current situation, capable of doing these murders, destroying the evidence, etcetera, regardless of apparent motive, apparent opportunity.”
He pumped the brake going downhill.
“Which is?”
“Rutledge.”
The rear end of the car swerved into a drainage ditch. Its own momentum bounced it out again.
“Frank.”
“Yes, Cocky.”
“It isn’t that I don’t want to hear your theories.”
“Oh?”
“All very interesting.”
“Thank you.”
“Enlightening.”
“Good of you to say so.”
“And, I’m sure with a very few more logical steps, will lead us to the right conclusion.”
“Your faith in me is edify in’.”
“But, at the moment, I’d rather have you concentrate on your driving.”
“I thought you were driving.”
“No, Frank. You’re driving.”
“I see.”
“I’m not all that fond of Tchaikovsky myself.”
“Prokofiev?”
“I’d rather hear the children singing carols a month from now.”
“Are you sure? Think of what you’re sayin’, man.”
“I’m sure.”
“Sleigh bells ring; are you listening? All that again?”
“Furthermore,” Cocky concluded, “in my humble opinion, Wahler controls Rutledge.”
The trip to the Rumble de Dump took more than twice the time it had taken that morning.
Flynn turned the station wagon around in front of the cabin before getting out. He left the engine running.
“You might as well stay here,” he said to Cocky through the open door. “You’ve only got street shoes.”
Cocky stayed in the car.
Flynn walked through the clearing in front of the cabin, into the woods where he and Rutledge had rushed that morning at the sound of shouts and shots. Steadying himself with the odd birch sapling, he slipped and slithered down the steep hillside.
“Hewitt?” he called.
Except for the crinkling of the landing snow, the woods were silent.
With more snow, the woods looked different.
Flynn was certain he had found the place where Ashley had been killed. His body had lain face down under that tree. Hewitt had settled down under that other tree. That is where the tree branch used as a club had been.
Except Ashley’s body wasn’t there.
Neither was Hewitt.
In the fresh snow there was no evidence either had ever been there.
There was no evidence anything unusual had ever happened there.
Overhead, a tree branch cracked cold.
The snow was wetting Flynn’s face.
“So.” Flynn knew talking to the trees was exactly as good as had been his talking to the men assembled under these trees a few hours before. “Hewitt is in on this, too.”
28
“Who’s missing?”
Cocky and Flynn stood in the doorway of the great hall of The Rod and Gun Club.
The fire was roaring. Naked, except for a book on his lap, Wendell Oland nodded asleep in his usual chair by the fire. Around the poker table in boisterous play were the once-and-future Governor Edward Buckingham in a tattered old bathrobe, Senator Dunn Roberts in a sweat jacket, smoking a cigar, Boston Police Commissioner Eddy D’Esopo, in black shoes, also smoking a cigar, Ernest Clifford, his pile of chips looking huge against his dark blue sweat shirt, and banker Philip Arlington, despite his glasses, peering myopically at the cards on the table. In his white jacket, Taylor was filling the beer glasses on the table from a
pitcher. Dressed in full shirt and necktie, Paul Wahler sat under a reading light away from the poker table, absorbed in a large book entitled Contemporary Estate Planning.
Clifford, Buckingham, Roberts and Taylor each glanced at Cocky and Flynn in the doorway. None offered any sort of greeting.
“Rutledge,” Flynn answered. “Rutledge is missing.”
“But I thought you said Rutledge’s car is a Rolls Royce—not a Cadillac.”
“Wahler drove me to Timberbreak in the Rolls. I assumed it was Rutledge’s. Let’s go see.”
Upstairs they went to the end of the corridor. Flynn knocked on the door of Suite 23.
No answer.
Flynn knocked again, louder.
Still no answer.
He tried the door handle. The door was unlocked.
Flynn pushed the door open with his fingertips.
A hunting knife, inserted at an upward angle from the base of Rutledge’s rib cage, pinned him to the big blossoms of his chair.
His eyes were closed. His hands were folded neatly in his lap.
The front of his woolen hunting shirt, his hands, his lap were thick with blood.
“Why do they need to keep us?” Flynn asked testily. “It seems the process of elimination is working perfectly well all by itself.”
He touched the blood in Rutledge’s lap with the tips of his fingers. “Not too warm.”
The reading lamp on the table beside Rutledge was lit.
Putting his glove back on, using only his index finger and thumb, Flynn picked up the telephone receiver by its mouthpiece and held it near his ear. The line was dead.
Also on the table was a note pad. Leaning over it, not touching it, Flynn read:
Arlington—
in capitol—too much
Buckingham/frame
2)Brigadoon 100
“Can you make out if that’s an o or an a in capitol?” Flynn asked, moving aside.
After looking, Cocky said, “I can’t be sure.”
“I make it out ano.”
Looking around the room generally, Flynn said, “He was attacked from the front.”
“By someone he knew.”
“Of course.”
“The handle of that knife should give us some nice fingerprints.”
“If you notice, Cocky, we’re both carrying gloves.”
“So, probably, was the murderer.”
“Someone entering this room, wearing or carrying gloves, when it’s snowing out, would not have caused either alarm or suspicion on Rutledge’s part.”
“I suppose if the murderer thought there might be fingerprints, he would have taken the knife with him.”
“He’s done nothing wrong so far—unless you consider the antisocial aspects of the murders themselves.” Flynn snapped on the light in the bedroom of the suite. Everything was orderly. It looked as if the room had just been cleaned. Turning back to Cocky, he said, “And, you notice, another method of murder: stabbing.”
“Frank, you said you saw a member of the kitchen staff coming down the stairs when you were going up.”
“Yes.” The gong sounded. Flynn looked at his watch. “Our playful polar bears now repair to the sauna, I guess.”
“Should we stop them? Do the who, where, when and why immediately?”
“No.” Flynn turned off the light in the bedroom. “Let’s take this opportunity, while we know where everyone supposedly is, to put you and your curiosity to work in that vault.”
Flynn took a long look at Rutledge.
Even stabbed to death in his chair, Rutledge did not look surprised.
Cocky went first through the door to the corridor.
Flynn took the key from the inside of the lock, closed the door, and locked it.
“As corpses seem so hard to keep track of around here,” Flynn said, “let’s try to keep this one to ourselves.”
29
“Millions!”
“It’s not millions.”
Flynn didn’t dare peer through the small round window of the sauna. He could not do so without being seen by the men inside.
He stood in the gymnasium out of sight of the windows, trying to ascertain who was in the sauna by identifying the voices.
“Bless my pointy Irish ears,” he said to himself.
“Too damned much money. And I don’t see it’s doing us any damned good.” That was Buckingham’s slightly whiskey-grated voice.
“The arrangement was made.” Arlington’s voice was precise, pedantic.
“Yeah, but this was not why the arrangement was made.” Dunn Roberts’ was the reasonable voice of a committeeman.
“The arrangement was made—”
“To keep you whole, financially, while you’re jerking the strings of the federal government.” Buckingham.
“Okay. Everyone agrees having Arlington an economic guru in Washington is of benefit to the club and everyone in it.” Clifford’s voice was clear, young, virile.
“Should be.” And Oland’s was soft, old and somewhat petulant.
“And is it proving a benefit?” Wahler’s voice had both deference in it and the prosecutor’s edge.
“Of course.” Arlington.
“No. I really mean, are there benefits which can be simply evidenced on paper to support the belief that Arlington’s being in Washington—”
“‘Evidenced on paper!’ I hope not!” Buckingham.
“You may be sure, my being in Washington has been of enormous benefit to The Rod and Gun Club and its members.”
“There’s no reason why Arlington should suffer financially by government service. Especially when he has friends.” Oland.
“He had to separate himself from his banking income—“Clifford.
“Overtly, yes.” Roberts.
“His personal expenses rose. His personal income diminished.” Clifford.
“So he was given access to The Rod and Gun Club’s capital.” Oland.
“It wasn’t our point to permit him to greatly increase his personal wealth.” Buckingham.
“Why wasn’t it? It can be assumed that, during these years of his private life, he would be doing so, if he were in the private sector.” Oland.
“Not to the point of grabbing capital, making personal investments with it, taking the profits himself.” Buckingham.
“I’m not sure you’re right.” Oland.
“What good does it do the membership?” Roberts.
“A certain amount of tit for tat. The point is that the membership benefits in other ways. I have no doubt that it does.” Oland.
“The point, Oland, is that a hell of a lot of capital has been appropriated by our friend, Arlington.” Buckingham.
“And if we all get killed off…” Roberts.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Arlington.
“Tell me who approves of what you’re doing. Not Rutledge. Not Lauderdale. Huttenbach wanted a complete accounting, immediately.” Buckingham.
“It was Ashley who blew the whistle on you, Arlington.” Clifford.
“A personal accounting? How dare any of you—“Arlington.
“It seems we need something, Arlington.” Clifford.
“What I’d like to know is what is the consensus now about Ashley-Comfort? Now that Ashley’s dead.” Arlington.
“I guess there are no obstacles to our doing what we want now.” Roberts.
“Arlington, you’re changing the topic of discussion. You’ve put your hands on millions…”
As Buckingham continued the indictment in the sauna, Flynn drew quietly away.
Arlington, Buckingham, Clifford, Roberts, Wahler, Oland: They were all baking in the sauna, while Cocky was breaking into the vault.
“Good man.” Flynn stood in the door of the vault.
Under a single, dangling light bulb, file folders at his feet, Cocky stood inside the vault.
The vault was as large as a walk-in closet. Deep filing cabinets stood tight against each other from floor to ceiling. There
wasn’t really room for Flynn to enter.
“Everyone’s accounted for,” said Flynn. “They’re chirruping away in the sauna like so many broilers singing Home on the Range. Except our honored Commissioner of Police. If he’s in the sauna with the rest, he is maintaining a humble silence.”
From an opened drawer, Cocky took another folder and dropped it on the pile on the floor.
“By the was, it was an a. I refer to the cryptic note on Rutledge’s telephone pad. Arlington is too much into the capital of The Rod and Gun Club. The complaint is not that he is spending too much time in the capitol. In fact, if I interpret correctly the chirruping I just heard from the chick incubator, I’d say that the membership of The Rod and Gun Club essentially provided Arlington with the means to feather his own nest while in Washington, in return for federal favors generally done the membership. But Arlington seems to have taken a bit too much advantage of the offer, and certain members began to cry ‘Foul!,’ among them, Ashley, Huttenbach, Lauderdale, and Rutledge. Now Buckingham, in particular, has begun to peck away. And, sure, wasn’t it Rutledge who said Arlington was incapable of violence, that if Arlington ’ever saw a deer close up, he’d try to pet it?”
“For all his economics degrees, financial wisdom, position in the banking world, Arlington himself isn’t all that wealthy.”
“Beginning to discover things already, are you?”
“His father lost the family fortune and went deep into debt trying to build a railroad along the Amazon River.”
“The Amazon,” clucked Flynn, “has taken in much more gold than it has ever given up. So the present-day Arlington had every reason to discover how money works on paper.”
“But he’s never really had any of his own.”
“If I understand what I just heard, Arlington recently has appropriated barrels of the stuff. And, of course, being draped in the federal mantle, he knows they won’t publicly call him to account. Ach, well, I’m sure it’s all a game the boyos are playing to squeeze ever more favors out of the current federal economic guru. What else are you finding, Cocky?”
“The behind-the scenes story of American political, business and family life for the last century, is all.”
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