The Plain Old Man

by Charlotte MacLeod

  So Gillian did the next best thing, claiming she’d been coerced into it by her two assailants, exhibiting her battered countenance as prima facie evidence and citing horrendous threats of further maulings if she’d refused to cooperate.

  At that, the skinny one with the nose made a statement. The only words in it deemed inoffensive enough to record were that Gillian was a liar. He was prepared to embellish this theme with an apparently inexhaustible string of expurgations, but the taxi driver contrived by a lot of yelling to make him shut up.

  “The gist of the matter is,” the taxi driver told Chief Ruddigore pleasantly, “my co-worker and I appear to have been made the victims of a plot. We’ll be glad to make a full statement as soon as we’ve been allowed our constitutional right to confer with our attorney. Won’t we, Sid?”

  Sid growled something that might pass for an assent and fell silent, which was a good thing because Aunt Appie was already talking seriously of finding some soap to wash that boy’s mouth out with.

  “I don’t believe you’ll have to hold up the proceedings while you wait for their statement,” Sarah told Chief Ruddigore. “Officer Murgatroyd has been taking notes for quite some time. Would you put on your shoes and come in, please, Officer Murgatroyd?”

  Officer Murgatroyd already had his shoes on and his notebook well filled. He began reading, to as attentive an audience as Emma Kelling had ever assembled. When he got to the part about Charlie Daventer, Emma stopped him.

  “That’s enough. I can’t stand to hear any more. Chief Ruddigore, get that woman out of my house this instant, and never let me set eyes on her again.”

  There were no more steams and vapors. Gillian Bruges caught the look in Emma Kelling’s eye and decided she’d be safer in jail.

  Sergeant Formsby made the formal arrest, as was his due, but gave Officer Murgatroyd the honor of escorting Miss Bruges out to the patrol wagon. He was followed by officers Ruthven and Roderick, still manacled to her confederates, and by officers Rupert and Richard, the former to unlock and relock the cage, the latter to do the driving. Formsby himself stayed behind for a few minutes with Chief Ruddigore to assist in the unwrapping of Ernestina and get Max to check her over and make sure she was in pristine condition before leaving her in the possession of her lawful owner.

  “Put her down cellar or somewhere,” Emma told Max and Dolph after the policemen had finally cleared out. “I’ll never be able to look at her again without seeing Charlie Daventer’s blood on her hands.”

  “Emma, that’s hardly a sensible attitude to take,” Jack Tippleton protested.

  “Sensible? A fine one you are to talk about what’s sensible. Bringing that creature into the cast, into my home—”

  “Mrs. Kelling, he didn’t,” Jenicot protested. “Gillian just showed up with a letter of introduction from somebody or other.”

  “Which she probably wrote herself,” Parker interjected.

  “Anyway, Daddy only—”

  “Proceeded to make a fool of himself after she got here,” Jenicot’s mother finished for her. “Emma, if you were planning to serve drinks, I believe I’d like a Manhattan.”

  “A Manhattan?” Tippleton stared at his wife in astonishment. “But, Martha, you never drink Manhattans.”

  “How would you know what I drink? You never stay home long enough to find out.”

  Emma Kelling was too experienced a hostess to let somebody else’s family row develop in her drawing room. “I think Manhattans are a splendid idea. A toast to Broadway and the Pirates of Pleasaunce. We’ll all have a Manhattan, Heatherstone, then people may have what they like, provided they fix it themselves.”

  She tossed aside the mohair throw Gillian Bruges had been using as a prop for her act, and eased herself down on the brocade cushions. “One feels as if this sofa ought to be exorcised or something before we use it again, but frankly, I’m too tired to bother. Come here, Max, and sit with me. It’s good to have you back, but I must say I don’t know what I’d have done without Sarah all to myself this past week. She and Frederick, of course; but then dear old Fred’s everybody’s prop and mainstay.”

  Dear old Fred was propping Martha Tippleton at the moment. She’d turned a cold shoulder to her husband’s peacemaking attempt and settled herself beside Fred on a love seat facing Emma. Jenicot crouched on a hassock at her mother’s feet, looking woebegone. Parker Pence hovered nearby like a lost sheep until Mary Kelling kindly took him in tow and steered him over to the generous spread Mrs. Heatherstone had got ready before she left for the show, knowing full well Mrs. Kelling wouldn’t be coming back alone. Dolph joined them and began questioning Parker on his plans for the future. Jack Tippleton went to the bar and mixed himself another drink, not a Manhattan.

  Sarah was snuggled at the other end of Emma’s sofa, with Max’s arm around her. Heatherstone fixed a plate of little sandwiches and brought them over to her.

  “Here you are, Sarah. I noticed you didn’t eat a bite before the show. You must be starved by now.” He caught Max looking at him in some surprise and said rather stiffly, “We’ve known her since she was a baby, sir.”

  “And she’s been lucky enough to know you,” Max replied. “Thanks for looking after her. By the way, Jem sends his best. I’m supposed to kiss Mrs. Heatherstone for him. Do I have your permission?”

  “I’m sure she’ll be pleased to get the message.” Heatherstone and Max exchanged man-to-man grins, then Heatherstone went on passing sandwiches.

  Emma Kelling was getting her poise back. “You know,” she remarked after she’d finished the first half of her Manhattan, “what puzzles me most are all those silly notes that kept popping up. If she intended to steal Ernestina all the time, why did that horrid woman go through the mockery of pretending she wanted to extort money from me?”

  “Stalling for time,” Sarah answered with her mouth full. “She knew she wouldn’t be able to get Ernestina out of the house until tonight, because this was the only time she could be sure the coast was clear. She reasoned that as long as you were expecting a ransom demand, you’d hang on to the hope of getting Ernestina back, and not call in the police.”

  “But there was a ransom demand, or sort of one,” Frederick protested. “And what about that silly business of locking you in the potting shed? Most of it was kid stuff, so how does it tie in with what went on here tonight? I don’t know what Max thinks of the way Gillian set this up, but it strikes me as a pretty damned slick operation.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more,” said Max. “That woman’s a pro, and so are the guys she worked with. Therefore we come to a certain conclusion, which I’m sure Lady Molly of the Yard has already drawn. Tell ‘em, Sarah.”

  “Yes, dear. It seems to me the obvious explanation would be that two different sets of people were working on this affair. Gillian’s team were professionals, as Max just said, but the others were the rankest of amateurs. I believe that while Gillian knew perfectly well what the others were up to, they hadn’t a clue about her and her gang. Another interesting difference is that while Gillian wouldn’t stop at anything—I’m sorry, Aunt Emma, but there it is—the others were, on the whole, almost timid about what they were doing.”

  “What do you mean, timid?” Parker Pence asked her.

  “Perhaps that’s not quite the word,” Sarah conceded. “I’d have said courteous if they hadn’t stuffed me into that old burlap sack and locked me in the potting shed. And even that didn’t amount to a row of pins because I was able to get right out again.”

  Sarah took another of the little sandwiches. “I’m sure it was the other group who took Ernestine out of her frame and hid her under the dining-room table. They did take good care of her, you know, in an amateurish sort of way. They didn’t risk taking her out of the house. When I found her, she’d been carefully covered with newspapers. I suspect these had come straight out of Aunt Emma’s own wastebasket because the amateurs hadn’t thought to bring any padding with them. The professionals did, as you
know. As for the notes, I think the amateurs got a bit carried away with their own cleverness.”

  “What do you mean?” Mary Kelling asked.

  “Well, the messages were pretty silly, to begin with. They were lettered in a somewhat crude attempt at calligraphy except for the first one. That was a newspaper clipping thumbtacked inside the frame from which Ernestina had been taken. Only one of the lot actually mentioned money, by the way, and the sum demanded was so absurdly small in proportion to Ernestine’s value that it made no sense. Another note came in a box of flowers. The one that was stolen from me in the potting shed had been hooked to the outside of the library screen with a couple of paper clips.”

  “Paper clips?” exclaimed Jack Tippleton.

  “Yes, it makes you think at once of Ridpath Wale, doesn’t it? He has sort of a thing about paper clips, I discovered, the way some people do about bits of string or elastic bands. I’m wondering now if that particular note hadn’t been a subtle attempt to implicate Ridpath, of which the conspirators quickly thought better, and if the attack on me was made for the purpose of getting the false evidence away.”

  “Then I gather you’ve ruled out any possibility that it was in fact Ridpath,” Jack persisted, “and that he’d left evidence against himself that had to be retrieved.”

  “Yes, I’ve ruled Ridpath out,” Sarah assured him, “considering that Gillian tried to do him in by unscrewing one of the stair treads down from the trapdoor at the dress rehearsal. He was lucky to get away with a banged-up ankle.”

  “How dreadful,” gasped Emma. “Why did she do that?”

  “I don’t know if it was just a piece of general nastiness to build up the extortion threat or if she had something personal against Ridpath.”

  “But she’d have wrecked the show and ruined her own plot to get the painting away. Where would I have found another Dr. Daly?”

  “Bear in mind that whatever else Gillian may be, she’s also a capable and experienced performer. I’m sure she must have sung with other Gilbert & Sullivan groups, and had some man all lined up who knew the part and could step in for Ridpath. If she’d found you a last-minute substitute, she’d have been your fair-haired girl for life, wouldn’t she?”

  “I suppose so,” Emma admitted. “And after what she’d done to poor Charlie!”

  “Were there any other notes, Sarah?” Mary Kelling asked quickly.

  “Oh yes, they came thick and fast. One was inked on the tapes of Aunt Emma’s bustle. Interestingly enough, Gillian also used the bustle as a post office, but hers was typed and skewered on with Uncle Bed’s pet paper knife, which she’d pinched out of the library.”

  “Sarah claimed it said, ‘Kick me.’“ Emma remarked in a rather stiff tone.

  “Well, the message was pretty nasty, and I wasn’t about to go broadcasting it all over the theater. Sebastian Frostedd was standing right there, and at the time he was one of my prime suspects. I may say that our amateur kidnappers did a neat job of setting him up for having been the one to put the sleeping tablets, or whatever they were, in the Slepe-o-tite the night they stole Ernestina.”

  “They what?” cried Martha Tippleton.

  “That was their neatest bit of work. They made sure Aunt Emma, the Heatherstones, and I all were slumbering peacefully while they were down here wrestling Ernestina out of her frame.”

  “That must have taken some doing,” Max observed, glancing up at that immense rectangle of gilded gesso.

  “I’m sure it did, but at least they weren’t faced with the problem of getting her out of the house. I doubt that they’d ever have dreamed of doing such a thing. I’m not sure whether they thought it didn’t actually count as stealing if they left her in the house, or whether they hid her under the table because it was such a perfect hiding place. In fact, I’m wondering if they decided to take Ernestina instead of the Renoir or something else that would have been easier to pinch just because she happened to be a perfect fit between the handles.”

  “What an interesting idea,” Aunt Appie observed brightly. “It would never have occurred to me to take measurements.”

  “Yes, well, I doubt whether it would have occurred to Gillian Bruges, either. I suspect she may have had quite a different target in mind when she first wormed her way in here, but happened to hear our amateur masterminds planning their perfect crime and decided to turn it to her own advantage. Those men were asking her tonight how she managed to get Ernestine under the table. She just smirked and told them she had her methods. Obviously her method was simply to sit back and let the other team do it for her. Frederick and I proved to our own satisfaction this afternoon that two people could work the trick easily enough, once they got the knack. Especially if they were a couple of husky youngsters who played tennis a lot and had crawled under the dining-room table when they were kids, the way I used to do. What did you want the five thousand dollars for, Jenicot?”

  Jenicot Tippleton was obviously not cut out for a life of crime. She’d begun to fall apart even before Sarah gave her the final nudge.

  “It was for Mummy,” she sobbed. “I wanted to buy her a f-facelift.”

  “A face-lift?” roared Frederick Kelling. “What the flaming blue blazes would a beautiful woman like Martha want with a face-lift?”

  “To make her look y-younger. Daddy was being so s-silly, chasing after all those g-girls, I was hoping-”

  “Oh, Jenny! “Martha Tippleton clearly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Emma, I’m sorry. She’s too old to spank and apparently too young to think. Jenicot Tippleton, if you think for one second anything on the face of this green earth would keep your father from chasing after every new skirt that flutters by, then you may as well think again. You’ve caused a great deal of heartache and bother, and I insist you apologize to Mrs. Kelling this instant.”

  “Oh I do! I do!”

  Jenicot literally flung herself at Emma Kelling’s feet. “And please don’t blame Parker. I b-bullied him into it. Besides, he’d do anything for Mummy. He’s crazy about her. It j-just”—she had to stop and blow her nose on a cocktail napkin—“seemed like such a good idea at the time.”

  Emma Kelling’s face remained stony. Sarah Bittersohn knew why.

  “Aunt Emma, it’s not fair to blame Jenicot and Parker for Charlie Daventer’s death. Gillian Bruges is a ruthless, vicious, scheming woman who deliberately wormed her way into the show for the express purpose of committing a robbery in this house. What they did with Ernestina gave her a ready-made plot, but if that hadn’t been the case, she’d have gone after something else. She murdered Charlie Daventer simply and solely because as soon as he laid eyes on her, he recognized her as having been at that place in Newport when the Rembrandts were stolen, and reminded her of that fact. Gillian knew that if she went ahead with her plan, Charlie would put two and two together, and she’d be caught. And she wasn’t about to give up a fortune for an old man with the gout.”

  “Yes, I see.”

  Emma Kelling reached out and stroked Jenicot’s bright hair. “It’s all right, Jenny. Everybody makes the stupid mistake of trying to arrange somebody else’s life at one time or another. It can’t be done and shouldn’t be tried. It took me a long time to find that out. You and Parker have been fortunate enough to learn your lesson early. I hope you’ll remember.”

  “How could we forget?” Jenicot blew her nose again. “I feel like such a fool.”

  “Me, too,” Parker mumbled. “If there’s anything in the world we can do to make up—”

  “There is.” Emma Kelling was riding high again. “You may as well know I’ve made up my mind to retire from the Pirates of Pleasaunce. I’m too old to sing, soon I shall be too old to direct. As of now, I’m taking you two on as my apprentices. I intend to teach you everything I know, and I expect the pair of you to carry on in my place when I’m gone.”

  “To you from failing hand she throws the torch,” Dolph amplified. “Be yours to hold it high.”

  “You tell
‘em, dear,” said Mary like a loyal wife.

  Parker and Jenicot looked alarmed and said they’d try. Frederick said they’d damned well better. Jack Tippleton, who’d been sulking in the background, continued to sulk.

  Max, who hated to leave any loose ends dangling, asked his wife, “How did the knockout drops get into the Slepe-o-tite?”

  “I expect Bonnie and Clyde here can answer that better than I.”

  “It wasn’t knockout drops,” Jenicot protested. “It was just four of Mummy’s sleeping pills, two for each jug because you’re not supposed to take more than two at a time and we didn’t want to poison anybody. We knew about the Slepe-o-tite because Parker and I have been coming here ever since we can remember, like Sarah, and we always liked to hang out with Mrs. Heatherstone in the kitchen. She’s nice.”

  “And my grandmother had given us this box of liqueur cherries to bring to Mrs. Heatherstone,” Parker added, “and we figured they’d eat them that night and they’d take away the flavor of the sleeping pills, so we held on to them till that day. And then we happened to run into Sebastian Frostedd and asked him to deliver the chocolates. We thought it would look less suspicious if they didn’t come straight from us.”

  “Don’t you mean because you knew perfectly well he’d pass them off as a present from himself?” Sarah asked him.

  Parker gave her a nervous grin. “Well, there was that possibility. So anyway, how we worked it was, Jenny gave me the pills and I brought them to the rehearsal in my pocket. They were gelatin capsules, actually. I took them apart and had the powder in a little envelope. Gillian had stuck me for a lift, but I pretended to remember at the last minute that I didn’t have my car and dumped her on Sebastian. Actually I’d let Guy Mannering drive it away. He and a friend of his had this live raccoon in a carrier they were going to let loose. I’d better not say where. So I watched my chance and sneaked into the cellarway. I knew I could keep an eye on the kitchen from there. The door’s got a peephole in it I guess maybe Mrs. Heatherstone doesn’t know about.”