The Plain Old Man

by Charlotte MacLeod

  There was an open lawn, or what looked like one, beside them. Thinking, no doubt, to swerve around and get in front of this maniac, the taxi man took the van up over the sidewalk, ripping the side of Sarah’s car with his bumper as he passed.

  Little did he know Emma Kelling’s neighbor was a bird-lover, and that the field had been let go entirely to those multiflora roses that provide such wonderful food and cover for wild creatures, and such tenacious vines and thorns to trap the unwary. The van stalled. The men jumped out, got snared by the roses, and were hopping around saying horrible things when the police cars at last arrived.

  Sarah paused only long enough to shout, “They’re unarmed and I’m late,” then stamped on the gas pedal. Her car couldn’t be too badly damaged, it was able to break every speed record the town fathers of Pleasaunce had ever hatched. She made it backstage just as the villagers were waking up. Aunt Emma was beside herself.

  “Sarah! I was wondering if I’d have to fall in love with Frederick myself. Whatever kept you?”

  “Gillian was—restless. I had to wait till things quieted down.”

  “What a bore that girl turned out to be. Of all times to throw an attack of the vapors. Was she all right when you left?”

  “In excellent spirits and resting comfortably. Everything’s under control now.” It had better be. “Frederick and I go on right after the country dance, right?”

  “Right. Here, let me straighten out your curls. You’re all skewgee. Now, don’t worry about a thing, Sarah. Just keep calm and collected. You do know your lines?”

  “I don’t have any spoken ones, do I? Only the song about the plain old man. And for the ensemble, I keep singing those bits and pieces about how my poor heart is blighted.”

  “Yes, yes, that’s right. Now, be sure you sing loud and clear. It’s still your number, don’t forget. You mustn’t allow the others to drown you out. And don’t forget to be crying as you go on. Where on earth did Frederick get to?”

  “I’m right behind you, Emma,” said the plain old man. “Stop dithering, for God’s sake. Everything’s going like clockwork. Isn’t it, Sarah?”

  “Absolutely,” Sarah answered loud and clear. “Not a fly left in the ointment. How does it feel to be engaged, after dodging women all these years?”

  Rather to her surprise, Frederick grinned like a catfish. “Not bad. Got your tonsils greased for the main event?”

  “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “No you’re not. One of your cheeks is pinker than the other. You’d better give yourself a new paint job.”

  Sarah ran back to the makeup table and made some fast repairs. The act reminded her of the car. She hadn’t even had time to assess the damage, and she shuddered to think what it might be. After having ached for Max all week, it was strange to find herself hoping he’d stay away long enough for her to get to the body shop.

  Not that he wouldn’t have done the same as she under similar circumstances, but he’d probably have managed to be more adroit about it.

  “I do confess an anxious care my troubled spirit vexes.” She’d be singing that soon, and meaning every word of it. Damn Gillian Bruges, or whatever her real name might turn out to be. Why couldn’t she have been a nice young woman who liked to sing minor roles with amateur operetta companies, instead of a professional crook who preferred to steal their paintings? Well, on with the show. Sarah gave her apron a final twitch, took a dainty handkerchief from its pocket—trust Aunt Emma to think of everything—and prepared to enter sobbing.

  Chapter 20

  SARAH AND FREDERICK GOT through their number with a creditable degree of panache, all things considered. They received their due meed of applause, but this was Emma Kelling’s night, no doubt about that.

  Lady Sangazure couldn’t do anything wrong. When her voice at last broke down irrevocably, it happened during the number where her potion-induced adoration is spurned by the conscience-stricken Sorcerer and was admired by the audience as a magnificent piece of acting. When she finally gave her hand to Sir Marmaduke, she was applauded to the rafters. By the time she rode her high-wheeled bicycle onstage for her final curtain call, there couldn’t have been an unstrained vocal chord left in the house. This was no swan song. It was a paean of triumph or, in Cousin Frederick’s more picturesque phraseology, the neigh of ultimate victory from a great old war horse.

  The stagehands finally had to ring down the curtain while the audience was still on its feet shouting, because Emma literally had not the strength to go out there again. She was collapsed into a chair backstage, swamped by a crush of Kellings and others who’d begun swarming to kiss her cheeks and wring her hands and tell her over and over again how totally, absolutely, devastatingly marvelous she’d been. Cousin Mabel had come prepared to air an alternate viewpoint but for once in her life couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

  In the midst of all the hoopla, a tall man with ruggedly handsome features, a wonderful head of dark, wavy hair, and a beautiful new necktie from Finland fought his way to the corner into which Sarah had been squashed by the mob.

  “So,” he growled into her false ringlets, “I let you out of my sight for a few days, and you run away to join the circus.”

  “Max!”

  That was all Sarah got to say for quite a while. When she at last regained the free use of her lips, she had to ask about the Picasso, which was now in the complicated process of being repossessed by its rightful owner, about how he’d got here, which had been accomplished by bumming a ride with some cronies of Uncle Jem Kelling’s, and about the state of his health, which he claimed to have been seriously impaired by being separated from the partner of his joys and sorrows.

  “Oh,” said Sarah. “Speaking of sorrows, I’m afraid I have another one for you. I banged up the car this evening.”

  “Were you hurt?” He anxiously began testing for damage, to Cousin Mabel’s patent disapproval and Sarah’s not very convincing protests of public embarrassment.

  “Stop that, silly. I’m fine. It was just that they were getting away and I had to stop them somehow.”

  “They who?”

  “The men in the van with Ernestina. I think we’d better get out of here.”

  “You and me both, kätzele.”

  They couldn’t get near Emma, but they did manage to find Heatherstone and tell him they were going back to the house. Sarah collected her clothes but didn’t bother to change. It would have been impossible anyway with all those people milling around. Probably the whole cast would wind up wearing their costumes home and there’d have to be a grand roundup after the tumult and the shouting died. And then perhaps they’d never be used again anyway, at least not by the Pirates of Pleasaunce. No matter, Emma had had her triumph. Sarah squeezed Max’s arm and they went out to see what was left of the car.

  It wasn’t as bad as Sarah had feared, but it was bad enough. There was a deep scratch running all the way from the front righthand fender to the middle of the rear door. The front door would probably have to be replaced entirely.

  “But it still runs fine,” Sarah insisted.

  “That’s nice,” Max said somewhat grimly. “How the hell did it happen?”

  “I had to let him hit me. You see, I was trying to run him off the road and he didn’t seem to be getting the point, so there wasn’t much I could do but cut right across in front of him. I tried to calculate the angle so it wouldn’t do too much damage, but it’s not easy in a situation like that.”

  “Jesus! You could have been killed.”

  “Oh no, I was quite sure I wouldn’t get hurt. The van was rather a flimsy-looking old thing, and we weren’t going fast. That was the point, you see, to get him before he speeded up. And I knew they hadn’t any guns in the car, because Gillian asked them.”

  Max made some kind of noise. Sarah kept talking, fast. “Anyway, I got them both, or at least the police must have. Smack in the midst of Mr. Perkins’s roses. I couldn’t wait to watch them getting untangled be
cause I was due onstage in about five minutes by then. Maybe we’d better just stop at the police station and explain that I wasn’t hit-and-running or anything.”

  “Maybe we’d better,” Max managed to croak. “Want me to drive?”

  “What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me?”

  “Funny, aren’t you? Dammit, Sarah, why didn’t you call the police?”

  “I’d called them, but they didn’t show up in time. Somebody had to do something or we’d lose Ernestina. So I thought, what would Max do? and did it. So it’s all your fault, actually.”

  “The hell it is. Who’s Ernestina?”

  “Aunt Emma’s big Romney. You know, the one they have a faked copy of at Madam Wilkins’s. You see, that’s how I got to be Constance.”

  “Sarah, do me a favor?”

  “I know, start at the beginning and go on to the end, then stop. Yes, darling. Here’s how it happened.”

  She told him. She hadn’t quite finished telling him when they got to the police station, but that was perhaps as well, since she had to begin all over again and tell her story to Chief Ruddigore, the officer on the desk, and anybody else who could spare the time to listen. Her audience was not large, much of the force was still down around the auditorium trying to straighten out the traffic, but she got rapt attention from all those present except the two surly young men in the lockup.

  Ernestina was there, still wadded into her comforters and making the policemen terribly nervous. Strictly speaking, they ought to have kept her in protective custody until the trial that would surely be held. Because of her great value and fragility, though, they were going to send her home in the wagon when they went over to collect Gillian Bruges. Gillian was really Sergeant Formsby’s collar, they explained, and the department liked to observe proper etiquette in such matters. Formsby would be along to collect his prisoner as soon as they could sort him out from the crowd leaving the show.

  “There’s no chance she’ll get away, according to what you say, Mrs. Bittersohn?”

  “None whatever, I’m quite sure. Her whole operation appears to be based on being Miss Innocence personified. In a way, I suppose it was a stroke of luck that you didn’t get there in time to stop the van at the bottom of the drive. She might have heard the commotion and made a run for it.”

  “Nice of you to look at it that way, Mrs. Bittersohn. We meant to be there on time, though. What happened was, Officer Rupert in the lead cruiser got a bee under his glasses. It stung him on the right eyelid, causing him to lose temporary control of his vehicle and cream his left fender on the Beddoes A. Kelling Memorial Horse Trough, thus losing valuable minutes getting to the scene of the crime while he and his partner pried the fender off the wheel so they could back out.”

  “It’s always the thing you least expect, isn’t it?” Sarah answered. “I’d never have dreamed of a bee.”

  The chief said that was how it went, and complimented Sarah on her fast thinking and expert driving, though it was a darn shame about that nice car and he knew how Max must be feeling.

  Max said bravely that cars could be fixed and he was just damned glad his wife didn’t need to go in for repairs, too. Then Sarah said they’d better get back to the house before Aunt Emma walked into the library and found Officer Murgatroyd squinting through the door with his gun trained on Gillian Bruges, because Aunt Emma had already had enough excitement for one night; and they went.

  It was as well they did. Dolph’s Marmon was already parked in the drive, but no passengers were aboard. Sarah raised her eyebrows, gave Max a pleased nod, and rang the doorbell. Aunt Appie was the one who answered.

  “Surprise! Didn’t expect to find little old chickabiddy me playing doorman, did you? Max, how supermellagorgeous to see you. I knew Mabel must have got her facts a wee bit twisted when she was telling me all those things about you and Sarah during the intermission. Mabel does have a hearing problem, you know, though she won’t admit it.”

  “Hearing problem, hell!”

  Dolph Kelling loomed behind, looking like the chairman of a society for the prevention of something or other, which in fact he might still have been, although his work with the Senior Citizens’ Recycling Centers had given him a viable excuse to resign from most of his late Uncle Frederick’s nuttier foundations.

  “H’are you, Max. Good to see you back. Mabel hasn’t got a hearing problem, what she’s got is a listening problem. If it isn’t something vicious, she just tunes it out. Where’s Emma, Sarah?”

  “Still receiving the plaudits of her multitudes when I left. She sent the Heatherstones on ahead, then?”

  “Damned if I know. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of ’em. We sneaked out during the curtain calls. Knew there’d be a mess in the parking lot once they all came charging out, and I’d never get the old Marmon through it. She doesn’t take kindly to all that stopping and starting stuff. Beginning to feel her age, you know. Mary’s been suggesting we might retire her to the Auto Museum and start thinking about a new car. One of those beach wagons or whatever they call ’em nowadays. We could haul stuff around, you know, take people for rides and all that. Damn good company, some of our workers.”

  “I’m sure they lead very interesting lives,” said Appie. “One never knows what may turn up in a trash bin, does one?”

  Sarah knew better than to answer that one. “Then who let you in when you got here?”

  “Some young woman with a peach of a black eye,” Dolph told her.

  “You don’t happen to know when Mrs. Heather-stone will be back, Sarah?” Aunt Appie broke in. “I thought of asking her for a piece of beefsteak to put on that poor girl’s eye. It’s the enzymes in the beef, you know. They draw out the swelling. Or is it the discoloration? Or both?”

  “Or neither,” Dolph snorted. “Old wives’ tale.”

  “Well, dear, I’m an old wife, or was till poor darling Sam went to his well-earned reward.”

  “Reward? Huh, if he’d got what was—”

  Sarah cut off the no doubt inflammatory remark Dolph was trying to make. “Never mind that now. I want to know what happened when Gillian opened the door.”

  “Gillian? Is that her name? How pretty. So old-world and quaint. Or should one say winsome?”

  “Shut up, Appie,” snarled Dolph. “What do you mean what happened, Sarah? She opened the door and we came in. What the hell was supposed to happen—beating of drums and fanfare of trumpets?”

  “The burglar alarm didn’t go off?”

  “Of course it didn’t go off. Why the hell should it?”

  Because Gillian wasn’t supposed to know how to shut it off in the first place, and must therefore have forgotten to reset it after she’d let the two men out with Ernestina, that was why. Sarah gave her cousin a pat on the shoulder.

  “Thank you, Dolph. You’ve just struck yet another blow for the cause of justice and of right.”

  “Have I? Hot damn, I must go tell Mary.”

  “No, wait. We’re going to hold a little ceremony as soon as Aunt Emma and a few more people get here. It will be formally announced then. Come on, Aunt Appie, let’s go out to the kitchen and get things started for Mrs. Heatherstone. Dolph, you’d better come with us so you can tell us what we’re doing wrong. Max will go and help Mary take care of Gillian. Max is awfully good at first aid, you know.”

  Max was also awfully good at handling an art thief who might by now have realized she’d made a serious blunder by opening that door.

  Chapter 21

  BUT GILLIAN WAS EITHER unaware of her faux pas or didn’t think anybody had caught it. Sarah, shepherding Dolph and Appie past the drawing-room door at quick march, heard Gillian acknowledging Mary’s introduction of Max in a dying-away voice, apologizing for not being able to rise from the sofa and for being such a dreadful sight. She certainly must be by now. That was one part of the operation the taxi driver had carried through without a hitch, at any rate.

  Appie in a kitchen was always a disaster. Sarah apologized
mentally to Mrs. Heatherstone as she watched her aunt pulling the refrigerator apart in a luckily fruitless effort to find a piece of steak to put on that poor girl’s eye.

  Fortunately, Appie wasn’t given much time to wreak her depredations. Emma breezed in triumphant, laden with bouquets that had been showered on her, followed by Mrs. Heatherstone, Frederick, the Tippletons again en famille, and Parker Pence, who appeared to have adopted a whither-thou-goest attitude toward Jenicot. Heatherstone was putting away the Buick and the Marmon, having naturally assumed Dolph and whomever he’d brought along with him would be staying the night even though the household had received no official notice to that effect. Mary hadn’t called because she didn’t think it was her place to, Appie hadn’t because she’d started to look for Emma’s number and got sidetracked by finding some of her son Lionel’s baby pictures, and Dolph hadn’t because why the hell should he? Emma knew he wasn’t going to punish either himself or the Marmon by driving all the way back tonight.

  So the rooms were ready, the Heatherstones only too eager to take over their appointed duties, and Sarah free to herd Dolph and Appie back to the drawing room, just in time for the thrilling denouement. Chief Ruddigore, who’d once seen Emma in The Pirates of Penzance and knew what she would expect of him, led the procession. Next came Officer Ruthven, handcuffed to the taxi driver. Third came officer Roderick, handcuffed to the skinny fellow with the knife-like nose. Fourth and fifth respectively came officers Rupert and Richard, ever so carefully bearing a large, flattish object wrapped in heavy matting. Bringing up the rear in style came Sergeant Formsby in his best suit with a red carnation in his buttonhole, dangling an empty pair of handcuffs and looking remarkably pleased with himself, as well he might.

  Gillian could hardly pretend to be other than shaken, nor did she try. She cringed, she sobbed, she tried fainting, but there was no way she could get out of admitting she’d shut off the burglar alarm she wasn’t supposed to know how to work. Not with Adolphus Kelling declaiming that the damn thing hadn’t emitted so much as a goddamn tinkle when she’d opened the door to him and his ladies, and Mary backing him up. Nobody, after taking one quick glance at Mary Smith Kelling, would ever dream of doubting her word about anything.