“Just a nice, simple Sunday supper,” he said.
Helena laughed and agreed with him.
“How are things at my alma mater?” Frost asked.
“No change, Mr. Frost. The students are smarter than ever and keep you jumping.”
“Glad to hear it. It must be fun teaching bright ones. Looking back on it, I often wonder how the teachers in my day stood it, teaching all the ‘gentlemen third groupers.’”
“There’re still some of them. But mostly they’ve been replaced by, what would you call them, ‘lady A’ students.”
“Except you’re not supposed to call them ladies, I thought.”
“I trust your discretion, Mr. Frost. I assume you won’t turn me in to the Sexist Language League.”
“Is there such a thing?” Reuben asked in surprise.
“No, no. There might as well be, though.”
“Hmn.” Reuben drank deeply from his wine and then turned to the mango sorbet that had been served to him for dessert.
When dessert was finished, Robyn declared the meal at an end.
“We must get started,” she said. “The Crawleys are waiting. We’ll have coffee in the living room.”
“I look forward to this, Ms. Newcomb,” Frost said. “There are dramatic events in this evening’s text.”
The guests moved into the living room, and as they did so, Robyn took Reuben’s arm and asked if she could see him privately for a moment. Reuben, puzzled, followed her across the hall to the library.
Robyn closed the door and turned to Frost, her face now more drawn than it had seemed at dinner.
“Reuben, this is dreadfully embarrassing, but I thought you would understand.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Do you have any money with you? I haven’t a cent and Tobias says he doesn’t either. I need to borrow enough to pay the waiter.”
“How much do you need?”
“Let’s see. He got here at four and I can let him go at eight-thirty. I’m sure that’s seventy-five, carfare included. Plus a ten-dollar tip. Do you have eighty-five dollars?”
Frost checked his wallet and had enough to make the requested loan.
“Oh, Reuben, I can’t thank you enough. It’s so awkward, never having cash. Tobias … never mind. Let’s just say I’m immensely grateful and I’ll pay you back tomorrow if I can.”
“Think nothing of it, Robyn.”
“And you won’t say anything to the others?”
“Of course not.”
“You’re a lifesaver.”
Thus praised, he walked across to the living room while Robyn went off to settle up with Pace Padgett. The wife of a multimillionaire with no cash. Odd, Reuben thought.
5
The Reading Club
When Reuben entered the living room, the evening’s students had already begun to assemble in a semicircle around Helena Newcomb.
Professor Newcomb sat on an upholstered bench in front of the immense marble fireplace along one wall of the room. She had declined a more comfortable seat, both so she could dominate the group from a slightly higher perch and (she had to admit to herself) so that she would remain fully alert. Tobias Vandermeer was at her left, sitting in his custom-built chair, his omnipresent needlepoint on a side table at his right.
Sherman Deybold was at Tobias’ left in another armchair, separated by another side table. Michael Costas was next to him, sitting on one of three Breuer chairs—the comfortable kind, with arms—facing Ms. Newcomb. The middle chair was empty, and Wayne Givens occupied the third.
The semicircle was completed by a large sofa that faced Tobias, Cynthia Frost sitting on the end nearest Givens and Barbara Givens on the other.
Reuben was about to put himself between Costas and Wayne Givens when Robyn came in and directed him to sit on the sofa between Cynthia and Barbara.
“It means you’ll have to sit beside your wife, Reuben,” she said, “but that’s less bourgeois than having all the men huddled together.” As she spoke she no longer seemed as distraught as she had only moments before in the library.
“You sure? Wouldn’t you be more comfortable on the sofa?”
“Heavens, no, this is fine,” she insisted, and the seating was completed.
Pace Padgett appeared with a silver coffee service and began passing out demitasse cups to the guests.
“I suggest you have the waiter bring you drinks now,” Robyn said. “He’ll be leaving shortly. After he goes, it will be self-service. You all know where the bar is.”
The coffee rounds completed, Padgett began serving drinks. The women stayed with the red wine that had been served at dinner, except Barbara Givens, who asked for Perrier and an ashtray. The men requested Cognac, except Tobias, who demanded separate glasses of Scotch and Drambuie, and a third glass with only ice in it. Once served, he mixed the Scotch and Drambuie together in the glass with ice and contentedly began stirring the mixture with his long but pudgy index finger.
Sherman Deybold watched the concocting going on next to him with fascination. “What’s that called, Tobias?”
“Rusty nail. Good for the digestion,” Tobias replied, taking a large and contented sip of his creation. “Want one?”
“No, no, brandy’s all I can handle.”
Helena Newcomb was going to speak when Tobias again drew the group’s attention by picking up his needlepoint.
“What are you working on?” Barbara Givens asked.
“Oh, ha, ha, just one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Hieronymus Bosch. This one’s Pride,” he said, holding up the frame for all to see. The panel, showing a vain woman looking in a mirror, was nearly completed, including, in the title at the bottom, the first three letters of “Pride” and part of the “d.”
“It’s very beautiful,” Mrs. Givens said, then fell silent as Helena Newcomb cleared her throat and began.
“As you know, tonight we are having a look at parts thirteen through sixteen of Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. These parts, which comprise a fifth of the total, came out in monthly numbers from January through April 1848. Shall we start at the beginning, with the O’Dowds and Major Dobbin in Madras?”
“Oh, that’s too boring,” Robyn said. “Mrs. O’Dowd with her pretensions and her sister, Glorvina, a husband-hunter who isn’t very exciting.”
“Okay. Then let me ask what you thought was the most interesting thing you read?”
“When Rawdon caught Becky with Lord Steyne and threw the diamond pin at him,” Tobias said.
“Very good,” Professor Newcomb commented. “A major Thackeray scholar, George Saintsbury, called that one of the greatest scenes in English prose.”
“Poor old Rawdon,” Tobias observed. “Beaten into the ground by his wife, being called ‘Mrs. Crawley’s husband’ everywhere he went. I’d almost given up on him. It seemed like he was going to fade away. Then he gets mad and gives that old cat just what he deserved.”
“Are we sure of that, Mr. Vandermeer?” Ms. Newcomb asked. “Becky says in that scene, after she’s found out, ‘I am innocent.’ Was she? Or was she the ‘odious little adventuress’ the country ladies called her? ‘Unworthy to sit down with Christian people,’ as her sister-in-law said?”
“The country ladies were right,” Tobias said.
“I disagree,” Deybold countered. “Look at her situation. She was desperately poor, worried about her future and always short of ‘ready-money,’ as Thackeray calls it. Her in-laws were terrible, her husband ineffectual. When foolish—and rich—old Lord Steyne came along, who can blame her for flirting with him?”
“If Becky was innocent, she’s the most worldly innocent I’ve ever come across,” Cynthia said. “In the old days in the ballet there were dancers like Becky—or her mother. They took old fools like Lord Steyne for plenty. But, believe me, they weren’t innocent flirtations.”
“I guess I’d go along with Sherman, but from a different perspective,” Dr. Givens added. “If Becky were on the couch today, I think alm
ost any psychiatrist would say she was suffering from deep-seated neurotic anxiety—anxiety over money, anxiety over being respected in society. Her response was not untypical—pretty consistent lying, aggressiveness, hostility—remember that confrontation with Lady Bareacres?—more love for her dog than her son, and, yes, probably sleeping with Lord Steyne.”
As Dr. Givens was talking, Reuben had been sipping at his Cognac. What was he doing, drinking such stuff? he thought to himself. He knew it disagreed with him; much better to have a Scotch. He looked around for the waiter, who had disappeared. Perhaps his time was up, Reuben concluded, and the “self-help” period had begun. He stood up, as unobtrusively as possible so as not to disturb Givens’ monologue, and headed toward the bar. As he did so, Tobias beckoned to him from across the way, wigwagging his half-empty rusty nail. “Scotch,” he mouthed silently.
Reuben obediently prepared two Scotches, one for himself and the other for his host. Returning, he handed a glass across the coffee table to Tobias, who put it down carefully beside his needlepoint at his right, which he had temporarily abandoned, seemingly intrigued with Wayne’s discourse. “My reserve supply,” he whispered audibly to Helena Newcomb. She was trying hard to concentrate on what Dr. Givens was saying so that she could draw the others into evaluating his analysis, if and when he finished it.
“In my view Becky was clearly psychopathic,” Givens concluded. “And Thackeray seems to have thought so, too. That scene with the charades at the party, where she frightened everyone when she acted out Clytemnestra, waving a knife. Or when she said back at the beginning that she wanted to see the headmistress floating dead in the water. This is psychotic stuff!”
“Any comments?” Helena asked, as Givens finished.
To the surprise of everyone, Barbara Givens spoke up. Helena had seen the telltale sign that Barbara was getting ready to speak—she had got red in the face and fidgeted with her cigarette—and gently asked her what she thought.
“Wayne, on your analysis you could justify anybody’s conduct. Anxiety, indeed. We all have anxiety. But we don’t lie and cheat and sleep around just because of it. Becky Sharp was a willful woman who knew exactly what she was doing.”
“My dear, of course everyone has anxieties,” Givens said, exasperated. “But in some people they get out of control and cause antisocial behavior.”
Frost wondered mischievously if Givens had perhaps not used the anxiety defense when confronted at home with his own misdeeds.
Then Michael spoke. The silent ones are coming out, Reuben mused. Costas, at earlier sessions, had talked even less than Barbara, though Reuben had never been sure whether this was because he was not very smart—wasn’t he too handsome to have any brains?—or because he felt he had to defer to Sherman Deybold.
“You say Becky did what she did for money. Sure, that’s part of it. But she wanted to have a good time. She liked showing off at Lord Steyne’s, being the center of attention. She liked having him admire her. She liked to dress up. She was a party girl and did what she had to do to enjoy herself.”
Tobias reacted to the young man’s defense of hedonism by struggling to his feet and excusing himself noisily, muttering that he would be right back. Once again he made a heavy clumping sound as he went upstairs, despite his bunny slippers.
While he was gone, Helena Newcomb steered the group into a dialogue on Becky’s assertion, made in an earlier installment, that she could have been a simple country gentleman’s wife and a “good woman” if she had “five thousand a year.” While the talk went on, Pace Padgett, who had not left the premises after all, cleared away the debris on the table next to Sherman Deybold—Sherman’s brandy snifter and the glasses that Tobias had used to mix his rusty nail. He replaced them with a bourbon and water for Sherman and a fresh Scotch for Tobias.
Padgett had put the new drinks down when Tobias returned, almost losing his footing as he bumped into the waiter. Regaining his balance by grasping the back of his armchair, he disrupted the conversation by facing a surprised Sherman Deybold and thundering out, like a huge, growling bear, “What do you want this time?”
Everyone in the room was startled and puzzled by the irascible question, most of all the pale-faced Deybold, to whom the reeling Tobias seemed to be speaking.
“Sit down, dear,” Robyn admonished, firmly but gently. Tobias gave her a disgusted look but did as he was told, breathing heavily as he resettled himself. He drank deeply from the Scotch Reuben had brought him and then took up his needlepoint. His outburst was soon forgotten as Helena Newcomb got the interrupted discussion back on track and Tobias became totally absorbed in adding new stitches to “Pride.”
Padgett, who had discreetly moved away from Tobias after their brief collision, now came up and whispered to Robyn. She nodded and gave the young man a dismissive smile, followed by a small wave as he left the room. Frost glanced at his watch. Precisely eight-thirty. No overtime.
While the dissection of Becky Sharp continued, Frost deliberated on the extraordinary kaleidoscope Thackeray had created in Vanity Fair, and on the timelessness of his characters. Why, any one of them could step into the Vandermeers’ living room now and, with small modifications of speech and dress, be right at home. Or maybe some of them were already present. Surely there was some of Becky in Robyn. Or did she more closely resemble the freethinking and independent Miss Crawley? And didn’t Tobias have a bit of Lord Steyne—rich, overbearing and lost in “Red Seas of wine”? Or was he “Mrs. Vandermeer’s husband,” eclipsed, like Rawdon Crawley, by his wife’s prominence? And Wayne Givens, lecturing so pompously, who was he? At this point, Reuben gave up. Thackeray’s kaleidoscope had been twisted, and the pattern had changed. Yet Frost was certain that the same colored shards of human faults and weaknesses that were present in the old design were still there in the new configuration now before his eyes.
No one’s earlier position on Becky changed as the speculation continued as to whether an adequate stipend would have changed her character. When the dialogue wound down and there was finally a lull, Sherman Deybold asked if anyone else had noticed how “wonderfully deft” Thackeray was in his allusions “to Prince Hal, Macbeth, Ulysses, The Rape of the Lock.”
“I was particularly struck by the passage in the description of Lady O’Dowd at the Government House ball in Madras,” Deybold said, referring to the portion of the night’s reading ruled out from discussion earlier. “You remember, it tells how she ‘danced down’ two aides-de-camp, a major and two civil servants, after which she retired, lassata nondum satiata recessit. That, of course, is a direct quote from the passage in Juvenal’s Satires that tells of the Empress Messalina’s return to the palace after spending the night in a brothel.”
Of course, Reuben thought, and where did you read that? The slight frown on Helena Newcomb’s face confirmed that she shared his view that Sherman had, once again, violated the reading club’s rules.
No one took the bait, which caused Tobias to interrupt, looking up from his needlepoint. “Aren’t we going to talk about Amelia Osborne tonight? Look what happened to her. Her son-of-a-bitch father-in-law using his money to get her little son away from her. He should’ve supported her, poor girl.”
Now drinking the Scotch the waiter had brought him, Tobias took a satisfied gulp, his needlepoint in his right hand, the Scotch glass in his left. Before the others could comment on Miss Amelia’s dilemma, Tobias suddenly dropped both the glass and the needlepoint, freeing his hands to grab at his collar. He made unearthly choking noises as he tried frantically to loosen it, then clutched at his chest as his massive body fell out of the chair and thudded to the floor, upending the table at his right and the coffee table in front of him as well.
Chaos followed. The glass that had been on the table beside Tobias and the ashtray holding Barbara Givens’ cigarette had crashed to the floor. The cigarette started to burn a hole in the rug, and Helena Newcomb sprang up to stamp it out, managing to break the fallen glass as well. Robyn Vandermeer
screamed in panic and tried to claw her way to her husband. She succeeded only in unbalancing Sherman Deybold, who had leaped up as soon as Tobias had been stricken; he fell back unsteadily into his chair.
Wayne Givens, on his feet, seemed frozen in place, unable to move, until Robyn screamed, “Wayne! You’re a doctor! Do something!”
Galvanized by her panicked command, Givens pushed toward the body. He pounded Tobias’ chest and took his pulse. Then he dropped the victim’s arm and rose slowly.
“It’s too late,” he announced. “He’s dead. Poisoned.”
“Poisoned?” Reuben asked incredulously. He was about to ask the doctor how on earth he could know that. Then he looked at the dead man’s face and saw the blue coloration around his gaping mouth. “We’d better clear this room,” Frost said. “Let’s everyone go into the library.”
Reuben’s command stopped the hysteria. The survivors went across to the library, Reuben with his arm around the sobbing widow. All were stunned to realize that they had been witnesses to a murder. And that the murderer might well be there among them.
6
Investigation
In the confusion, Reuben caught up with his wife and told her he was going to call the police. He also asked her to do her best to keep everyone in the library. This admonition given, he hurried upstairs to Tobias’ private study.
His first inclination was to call his old friend Luis Bautista, the young homicide detective with whom he had worked in the past. But he decided to go by the book and dialed the emergency 911 number, dutifully answering the terse, businesslike questioner to whom he was connected. He then tried Bautista, both at his office and at home, but could not reach him. Probably out with his permanent girlfriend, Francisca Ribiero, Frost thought. Discussing for the nth time whether he should stay in the Police Department now that he had obtained his night school law degree.
Murder Times Two Page 4