Bill didn’t look ashamed, he looked mildly amused for the first time since he’d learned about Rufus. Max waited until the smile began to fade before he remarked, “This is quite a spread you’ve got here. I never did get to see much of the grounds yesterday. What are all those big pink things over in the distance?”
“Crab apple trees in full bloom. There aren’t too many garden flowers this time of year, so we rely a good deal on flowering trees and shrubs to keep our bees busy. We plant them far away from the house because we don’t want the bees bothering people. That’s a point we really have to consider, because if one happened to swat at a bee and got stung, the whole swarm might attack.”
“Thanks for telling me,” said Max, glancing around to make sure the screens over the cab were securely in place. “What’s that building over there?”
The low brick structure was so well camouflaged by spreading evergreens that someone with less acute vision might not have noticed it at all. Bill obliged by steering the electric cart toward it, but said there wasn’t anything to see, really.
“That’s what we call the honey shed, where we take the honey from the hives to be extracted and bottled. We also use it to store a lot of the paraphernalia. There’s so much stuff one needs: bee veils, smokers, frames for the combs, crates of empty jars and bottles—Abigail could tell you better than I. The mead is brewed and aged in the cellars back at the house, and also shipped from there, so we try to keep all the extraneous clutter out here in the shed.”
“Is the door locked?”
“I hope so. There’s nothing inside of value except to ourselves, but we have that problem about the insurance, so we just make a rule to keep everything locked and then we don’t forget.”
“Would you mind showing me inside?”
“Not at all, though I’m afraid you won’t find it very interesting.” Bill stopped the cart so he could reach into his pocket. “Oh dear, I was afraid I’d left my keys at the house, and I have. It’s been such a bewildering morning.” He fished some more. “I don’t have my wallet, either, or my pocket Testament. I suppose they’re all on the dresser in our bedroom. Old age sneaking up on me, Max. I spend half my time lately wondering where I’ve put things. We can turn right here and go straight back to the house, if you can spare an extra few minutes.”
“My time is your time.”
As they made the turn, Max kept his eyes on the shed, but it’s camouflage was so good that before they’d gone fifty yards down the other path, it was completely invisible. Bill didn’t show any interest, but concentrated on steering the cart toward a small side door of the big house that looked as if it ought to admit them to the dungeon.
Instead, they climbed a few stairs, passed through a short hallway, and came upon a small sitting room where Abigail and Drusilla were sitting in front of an open fire, each with a piece of needlework in her lap. Except for their tweed skirts and knitted cardigans, they might have been a pair of mediaeval ladies whiling away the time until their absent lords wended their respective ways home from the geste.
“Well, you two have made yourselves cozy,” Bill remarked, stepping nimbly between a hassock and a sewing basket to give his wife a peck on the cheek. “I expect a spot of cozy is what you both need just now. No, Drusilla, don’t move. Max and I are merely passing through. Or rather, I’m passing. Why don’t you stay here and enjoy the fire, Max, while I run upstairs? I shan’t be two minutes.”
“My pleasure.” Max took the other end of the sofa on which Drusilla Gaheris was sitting and stretched his legs toward the fender. “It’s nippy out there. Quite a change from yesterday.”
“What have you been doing?” Abigail asked him.
“Riding around in your electric cart, mostly.”
Max didn’t feel like bringing up the unpleasant subject of the tranquilizer gun just now. He’d let Bill tell them later on. “Those carts are fun, aren’t they? I wouldn’t mind getting one for Sarah, but I suspect they’re not much good on rough ground. Our land is mostly up and down.”
“Do you have a big place, Mr. Bittersohn?” asked Mrs. Gaheris.
“Thirty acres, now that we’ve sold off the far corner. Not much compared to this.”
“Bill’s grandfather laid out an eighteen-hole golf course on this property, did you know that, Drusilla?” said Abigail. “But it was a dreadful nuisance to keep up, and Bill never cared much for the game anyway. After his father died, we got interested in beekeeping, or rather I did and Bill, bless his heart, went along with me. As the swarms multiplied, we kept plowing up hole after hole and planting more clover and so forth, until we’d eliminated the entire course. We’ve rather got our eyes on the tennis court now, but Melly and Tick like to play and so do the grandchildren. Anyway, there’s not enough space to do much with, so I expect we’ll leave it alone. Did you play much tennis while you were abroad? Drusilla used to be our school champion,” she explained to Max.
“That was a great many years ago.” Mrs. Gaheris snipped off her thread and reached into her workbox for a skein of a different color. “I can’t remember when I played last, to be honest with you. Diplomatic tennis isn’t much fun, you know. One has to be so careful not to outplay the wrong opponent. My husband and I did try mountain climbing in an unambitious sort of way when we first went to Switzerland; but as time went on we had to settle for short walks and long rides.”
“Up and down the Alps?” Abigail cried to cover the moment’s embarrassment they must all have felt at being reminded of Mrs. Gaheris’s recent widowhood. “I should call that quite ambitious, myself.”
“Not really. It’s rather fun once one gets used to driving with one’s heart in one’s mouth.”
“And ifs surely given you excellent training for driving in Massachusetts. We do that all the time here. We can also arrange some nonthreatening tennis if you like, Drusilla.”
“Don’t bother. I’ve decided to take up the recorder instead. They’re easy to carry about and nobody ever asks one to play.”
“Ah, but we shall, my dear. We adore recorder music. Now that you’re going to settle here, you ought to join Lorista’s consort.”
“Not I. I’ll never be good enough. Besides, I don’t know the first thing about Renaissance music.”
“Get Ufford to teach you,” Max suggested.
“But I don’t know Professor Ufford, either.” Mrs. Gaheris got her needle threaded to her satisfaction and took up her work again. “Not well enough to ask a favor, anyway.”
“Nonsense,” said Abigail. “Versey would love to have you as a pupil.”
“Perhaps, if I were forty years younger and as attractive as Mrs. Bittersohn. But even then I’m afraid we’d never have clicked. I was a brunette and Versey prefers blondes.” She took a neat stitch. “Or so Melisande claims, and I gather from what she said last night that Melly has reason to know. She did look absolutely gorgeous yesterday, Abby.”
Mrs. Gaheris took another stitch. “By the way, Mr. Bittersohn, what color is your wife’s hair? She had it all covered up and I never did get to see.”
“It’s brown.” For some reason, Max found the question annoying. He was relieved when Bill stuck his head in at the door.
“Can I tear you away, Max?”
“Wouldn’t you both like a cup of tea to warm you up before you go?” Abigail offered.
“Thanks,” said Max, “but I’d like to do as much as possible outdoors before it rains, if that’s what it’s getting ready to do.”
The day that had started out so fair was now overcast. He hoped Sarah wouldn’t get caught in a storm on the way back from Scituate. Driving the South Shore highways was lousy at the best of times.
The fields must be positively cob webbed with paths. Bill took yet a different route back to the shed Max wanted to see.
“This one doesn’t get used a great deal,” he remarked when they’d gone a fair distance into the fields. “It has a tricky dip that Abigail doesn’t like out near the honey shed. I do
n’t know why we’ve never got around to having it filled in. Always too many other things to be done first, I suppose. Max, is this motor making a lot more noise than when we started out? I hope it’s not going to act up on us.”
“That’s not the cart, Bill.” The electric motor was still purring along at about the decibel level of a well-stroked cat. “The noise is coming from up ahead somewhere. Would anyone be using a chain saw?”
“They’d better not be on our side of the road.”
Bill put on an angry burst of speed. Max hoped he’d simmer down before they got to that tricky dip in the path. The noise grew louder, a throbbing buzz more like half a dozen distant saws than one. But not quite. Abruptly, the driver stopped the cart to listen.
“That’s bees, Max. But why should they be swarming now? And why here? We’ll have to check this out. Stay in the cart and don’t open the screen, whatever you do.”
Bill eased the cart forward. The buzzing grew louder, more insistent. Max didn’t like it a bit. When he caught sight of the bees, he turned sick.
They were blocking the path at the bottom of the dip, a great pulsing clot of brown workers, tumbling over each other to get at what lay beneath them. The shape of the mass was horribly suggestive, but all the men in the cart could see for the covering bees was one well-polished black loafer shoe with a chic little gold-beaded tassel at the toe.
“Great God in heaven,” whispered Nehemiah Billingsgate. “How did this happen?”
“Who is it?” Max demanded. “Do you know?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Swerving recklessly around the dreadful obstacle in their path, Bill opened the motor as wide as possible and sped toward the honey shed. “We’ve got to have smokers and bee veils; otherwise they’ll be after us, too. Thank God we went back for the key.”
He ran the cart up to the shed, unlocked the front door, and hustled Max inside. “Here, put these on quickly.”
“These” were a tan coverall with velcro fastenings at neck, sleeves, and ankles, a wide-brimmed hat with a netting that hung to the shoulders, and heavy gauntlet gloves. A ludicrous outfit, but Max was glad to wear it. Bill donned its mate, got four smokers working, handed two to Max, and took the others himself. “Just squeeze the bellows gently and point the nozzle at the bees. Smoke stupefies them. Come on.
“Is there any chance he may still be alive?” Max asked as the cart bucketed them back down the path.
“I don’t dare hope so, but we must do what we can. Max, I cannot understand what went wrong. Abigail’s been keeping bees for thirty-seven years and we’ve never had any trouble before. Our bees are quite amiable as bees go, and I should have thought they’d be heading back to the hives now that it’s turned so dark and cold. Dear Lord, what a thing to happen today, on top of everything else. Have your smokers ready. “Normally we’d just use one, but this—”
Bill stopped the cart, threw open the screened door, and ran toward the hideous buzzing, Max at his heels.
It seemed to take an incredibly long time. The two men were enveloped in smoke, choking, gasping, clawing with their clumsy gloves at the stupefied bees, desperate to get at their victim in case there might yet be a spark to fan.
There wasn’t. Vercingetorix Ufford was dead as a doornail.
16
“‘LORD, INTO THY HANDS we commend the soul of this Thy servant.’ Poor Versey, I thought it must be he. Those fancy tassels on the shoes, you know. Max, we must get out of here before those bees wake up.”
“What will they do?”
“Die, poor things, if they’ve lost their stingers. But there must be a good many that weren’t able to get at him. Can you take his head?”
Max knew he ought to insist the body be left where it lay until the death could be investigated. He also knew he wasn’t going to hang around here once the smoke cleared away. He bent over the body, trying not to look at the swollen mass that had been a face. “Okay, Bill. Shall we slide him on the cart?”
“Yes, on the back.” A boxlike arrangement had been fitted to the vehicle as a means of carrying equipment to and from the bee fields. They laid the body across the top as best they could, and Max steadied while Bill drove. That meant having to keep the screen open, and Max was extremely relieved when they reached the shed without hearing that buzz again.
“We’d better make sure we don’t carry any bees inside with us, or we’ll be in trouble again,” Bill fussed. “Here, Max, let me brush you off. Then you’d better fetch another smoker just in case. Good Lord, poor Versey’s clothes are full of them. I’m afraid we’ll have to strip him and leave the things outside. Ghastly!”
It was all that and then some. Ufford had been wearing a high-necked black cashmere pullover and matching slacks. The garments were of beautiful quality and ought to have been soft to the touch, but felt stiff and clung unpleasantly to their gauntlets.
“Sticky,” said Max. “Had he been robbing the honeycombs?”
“I can’t imagine why he should. There wouldn’t be enough to bother with at this time of year. Anyway, Abigail gave him honey a few weeks ago, and he knew he could always have more for the asking. Ugh, I hope I never see anything like this again.”
The bees had got through the sweater and up Ufford’s pant legs. They were even inside his fine black lisle socks. A few were still active in there where the smoke hadn’t got at them.
“One might think they’d leave him alone now that he’s dead,” Billingsgate half sobbed.
“They might be after something,” said Max. “See those shiny patches on his skin? It looks to me as if he might have been doused with a sweet liquid that’s soaked through the clothes and got on his body. Have you any idea what it would be?”
“Why, yes, I expect I do. Since we take away most of the honey that would be their natural winter food, we give them supplemental feeding of a sugar and water solution. That was how we helped to keep the bees out here in the back fields yesterday, as a matter of fact. We set a number of the collecting trays around and poured syrup into them. With netting over the tops, of course, so the bees could get at it without drowning themselves.”
“What happened to the trays?”
“I expect they must be where we left them. Rufus had been delegated to bring them in after dark, when the bees had gone back to the hives for the night.” Bill grimaced. “I don’t suppose anybody gave them a thought. I’m sure I didn’t. Look, Max, you must be right about the syrup. The bees are going at Versey’s clothes.”
As they’d taken the garments off, they’d thrown them aside, out of the smoke they were still using to repel any further assault on the naked, horridly disfigured body. Now some of the bees they’d chased off Ufford and themselves were recovering and beginning to crawl over the slacks and sweater, even the underwear. Bill stood up and watched them, sighing.
“In a way, Max, I’m relieved. At least it shows they weren’t just being vindictive. I suppose they went after the sweetness and Versey panicked. He began swatting at them, and they panicked, too. It does take considerable strength of mind to stand still when they start coming at you, I have to admit. Poor fellow.”
He sighed again. “I suppose Grimpen will have to know about this. He’ll want to pass it off as another accident, no doubt.”
“Is there a chance he might be right, Bill?”
“Anything’s possible, I suppose, but Versey’d been around here often enough over the years to know one doesn’t go strolling through the bee fields without taking reasonable precautions. He was rather leery of the bees, in fact. I can’t imagine what he was doing here at all, let alone how he got into the syrup. I suppose he might possibly have tripped and fallen on one of the trays, but they’re shallow things, only about two feet square. It would have taken a bit of doing to soak both his trousers and his jersey.”
“Speaking of trousers, where did he get these clothes? Did he change into his costume here?”
“No, I’m quite sure he didn’t. The Whets pick
ed him up and brought him, I know, and it was my understanding they were going to take him back. They were all in costume when they came; I distinctly remember what an effective picture they made as they walked across the drawbridge to the pavilion.”
Max wondered for a second whether Bill was starring to pray again, but the older man came out of his silence. “Why should he have changed? Nobody else did. As to what he was doing out here today, I cannot imagine. He can’t have come about Rufe, I shouldn’t think. We haven’t told anybody. Unless Grimpen blabbed to the press.”
“Have you had any reporters out here? Any phone calls, people wanting to know what happened?”
“No, just friends calling to thank us for yesterday, the usual thing.”
“Then it hasn’t hit the media. Grimpen must be doing some fancy footwork to keep it quiet. I wonder why. Unless he’s afraid of looking like a fool in spite of his big talk. And you say Ufford didn’t have a car. Is there a bus or anything he could have come here in?”
“Not conveniently, no. I’m afraid it’s generally assumed in a place like this that everyone is able to provide his own transport. Versey could have taken a taxi, but it would have cost him a good deal. What he usually did if he needed to get somewhere was simply call and ask to be picked up. He was quite arrogant about cadging rides, if that’s not too unkind a word. And you know, Max, I don’t understand those clothes.”
“What do you mean by that, Bill?”
“The—the ambience of them, as it were. If he’d wanted to see me on business, he’d have worn a business suit. If he’d come for an informal visit, he might conceivably have shown up in tweed knickerbockers and a Norfolk jacket. The country gentleman look, you know. Versey didn’t mind being a trifle eccentric in his dress, but never inappropriately eccentric, if you follow me. As for this all-black getup, maybe I’m behind the times, but it strikes me as being out of place here. Too modern and sophisticated, I suppose is what I’m trying to say.”
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