The Recycled Citizen

by Charlotte MacLeod

  The muscular young men were as eager to be of service to Emma Kelling as young men everywhere always were. The piano was moved, the strings and the woodwinds comfortably settled.

  “We didn’t bring the brasses or the tympani; we didn’t want to drown out the auctioneer. It’ll be just nice, soft hearts and flowers music, to mellow them up. There, don’t you think that will do?”

  “Need you ask?” Sarah gave her favorite aunt another kiss and hoped to goodness Mary had remembered to get the piano tuned.

  Emma sat down to give the musicians an A. Right on pitch. Everything was going to be just fine.

  “For God’s sake, didn’t you bring anything else to put on?” Max murmured. Sarah gasped. Everything was ready but herself.

  She fled upstairs, remembering to close off rooms as she went. By the time she got back, clean and combed and wearing a rose-colored velveteen float dress with a string of pea-sized pearls Max had rushed out and bought in Zurich six minutes after she’d phoned him with the news of her pregnancy, the prospective buyers were flocking in and the champagne was beginning to flow.

  As she came back down the front stairway, Sarah was amused to see Osmond Loveday standing just inside the door. He’d shown up in black tie, sure enough, and was greeting all comers as if he owned the place. Well, why not? Those he recognized would no doubt be pleased that he remembered their names, and the rest would think he was the butler. Dolph and Mary must be relieved that Loveday had taken on a chore neither of them wanted.

  They’d agreed to start the bidding at eight o’clock sharp whether anybody was there or not, but they needn’t have worried. By the time Jeremy Kelling ascended the auction block and picked up his gavel, almost every chair in the ballroom was occupied. At Jem’s opening knock, clearly audible in the front hall, Osmond Loveday abandoned his post.

  “Where are you going?” Sarah asked him.

  “To say a brief word of welcome and explain the purpose of the auction.”

  “Don’t you dare.” This was no time to mince words. “Dolph will be livid if you interrupt the bidding. You’d better stay by the door; people are still coming and someone will have to let them in. Unless you’d rather go serve champagne and let one of the actors do the receiving,” Sarah added, knowing he’d rather die.

  Luckily, Apollonia Kelling and her entourage arrived just then, all of them in a tizzy. “I was sure I could flap my way straight here like a good old gray-haired homing pigeon”—Appie was panting—“but somehow or other I got a teensy weensy bit confused.”

  “We’ve been up and down every back road from here to West Roxbury,” snapped one of her companions, a woman about Appie’s age, dressed from cap to socks in strange garments all knitted from the same batch of mulberry-colored wool. Her face was mulberry-colored too. Sarah recognized her as Mrs. Plinth. Clever Mrs. Plinth, Appie always called her. Nobody knew why, but it was clear that any friend of Mrs. Apollonia Kelling could be as clever as Appie wanted her to be, as far as Osmond Loveday was concerned.

  He bore the new arrivals off to shed their outer wrappings and refresh themselves at the champagne table before they sat down and opened their pocketbooks. Or didn’t, as was more apt to be the case. Sarah had no great hopes of Appie’s crowd, but they weren’t going to matter. When she peeked into the ballroom, she could see that the auction was taking off in grand style.

  Jeremy Kelling was everyone’s dream of an auctioneer: fast-talking, funny, rattling off information that Max was feeding him about the merchandise interspersed with nuggets of family history, mostly invented and often slightly wicked, to get the crowd bidding madly on even the least exciting of Dolph’s alleged family heirlooms. She’d have loved to stay and watch the fun, but since Osmond Loveday was showing every sign of being enraptured by the clever Mrs. Plinth, she thought she’d better get back to the door.

  “God, the world lost a magnificent snake-oil salesman when Jem opted to spend his life chasing chorus girls,” Dolph remarked when he wandered out into the foyer a little while later. “What are you doing here?”

  “Nothing at the moment,” Sarah answered quite truthfully. “How’s Mary bearing up?”

  “Having the time of her life. She looks wonderful, don’t you think?”

  Mary was wearing the blue dress she’d had on the day Dolph asked her for their first date. At the time it had been the only decent thing she owned. How like her to put it back on for her debut as lady of the manor, Sarah thought.

  “She’s marvelous, Dolph,” she said, and meant it. “Let’s make our next fund-raiser a waltz evening so you can show her off properly.”

  “Don’t know how Mary would like that,” he grunted. “Loveday would, though. Damn fool, coming here in black tie like the headwaiter at a goddamn nightclub. Where’s he got to now? I thought he was tending door.”

  “Aunt Appie came in with a gaggle of her friends, and he’s gone to get them settled. How many people do we have by now, Dolph?”

  “Upward of three hundred and fifty, Porter-Smith says. I hope to God we don’t get many more.”

  “Some are sure to leave early.” Sarah hoped she knew what she was talking about. “How’s the champagne holding out?”

  “Fine. Nobody’s drinking much so far. Jem’s got ’em all mesmerized. Who’d have thought the old coot had it in him? Oh damn, here comes another gang.”

  “Only three. No, there’s another one coming behind them. I wonder if these could be Eugene’s fiancée and her family. That girl looks awfully bridal, somehow.” It might have been because she was wearing a shiny new diamond, with her left hand slightly extended and the fingers arranged in a gentle droop that showed off the ring to its fullest advantage.

  The older woman came forward a step and introduced her party. “Good evening. We’re Diane and Henry Wilton-Rugge, and this is our daughter Jennifer.”

  How nice Jennifer had her own hyphen, Sarah thought.

  “And this is our friend—”

  “Ted Ashe,” Dolph finished for her. “Great Scott, Ted, you needn’t have got yourself all togged out like a hog going to war. All I wanted you to do was help Harry Burr park the cars.”

  The Wilton-Rugges stared blankly at Dolph. The fourth member of their group only smiled.

  “They say everyone has a double. This Ted Ashe must be mine. Actually I’m Hetherton Montague, Mr.—ah, Kelling, I believe?”

  “Hetherton Montague, my eyeball! Now look here, Ted, a joke’s a joke, but if you’ve been bamboozling Mary and me for the past two months, I want to know why.”

  Sarah thought she’d better intervene. “Mrs. Wilton-Rugge, why don’t we go along in? Eugene’s clerking, but I know he’s impatient to see you and your husband. And Jennifer, too, needless to say.”

  “Yes, let’s go.” Mrs. Wilton-Rugge fell into step with Sarah. Her husband and daughter followed, though somewhat reluctantly.

  “What an odd mistake for Mr. Kelling to have made,” said Mr. Wilton-Rugge.

  “It wasn’t a mistake,” Sarah told him. “I recognized Mr. Ashe too. He’s not quite the master of disguise he seems to think he is. Since he’s a friend of yours, though, I expect you realize what he’s up to.”

  “Hetherton’s not what you’d call a friend.” The man knew when to backtrack, obviously. “Hardly more than an acquaintance. Someone brought him to a cocktail party a couple of weeks ago, and since then I’ve bumped into him a few times. He happened to mention that he was coming to your auction tonight. I said we were, too, so he said why not let him take us to dinner somewhere and then all come together. What did you mean about what he’s up to?”

  Sarah shrugged. “I assumed you must know what he does for a living.”

  Before he could press the issue, she hailed one of the young actresses. “Magda, do give the Wilton-Rugges some champagne and take them into the auction room. I believe Eugene Porter-Smith is saving them seats down front. Excuse me, I’d better go back and see what’s happening.”

  What was happen
ing was about what Sarah had expected. Dolph was fast coming up to the boil, and. Adolphus Kelling in a rage was not a quiet man. Once he let go, he’d have no trouble outshouting Emma’s chamber music group, the chatter around the champagne table and even Jeremy Kelling on the auction block. They’d have all three hundred and fifty people racing out to see the fight.

  Ashe-Winchell-Montague, to give him his fair share of hyphens, wasn’t fighting, exactly. He was merely sneering and making remarks about phony philanthropists who only care to involve themselves with those of the downtrodden who allow themselves to stay trodden down. Sarah’s first thought was to run back and get Max. When she reached the ballroom, though, she saw him up on the auction block, giving Jem a break to rest his tonsils. Max had one of the beaded footstools by one leg, was working the bidders up to a hundred and twenty dollars and appeared confident of getting more. She’d be crazy to interrupt him now.

  It didn’t matter. Sarah could raise her own voice in a pinch. She scurried back to the foyer. “Dolph, shut up. Mr. Winchell, why don’t you save your views for your readers if you have any?”

  They were both surprised enough to obey. The snappily dressed outsider with the strangely clean face was first to recover, his aplomb.

  “What is this? First he calls me Ashe, then you call me Winchell. Are you both nuts?”

  “No, but you are if you think you can fool anybody just by getting your face dirty,” Sarah retorted. “It’s awfully unconvincing when you forget to let your whiskers grow too. But then the unshaven look would hardly go well with your pink and purple tuxedo, would it?”

  “Pink and purple tuxedo?” Dolph had found his voice again. “Good God, what is he? Some kind of pervert?”

  “You might call him that. He writes smear stories on organized charities for Syndicated Slime and signs them Wilbraham Winchell. He uses a number of different names. Don’t ask me why he took the risk of coming here tonight calling himself Hetherton Montague. I suppose he either expected to get some more material for a trumped-up exposé of the SCRC or hoped to plant some.”

  “That’s actionable,” cried the man of many names.

  “Then sue me. Now, Mr. whoever you are, let me remind you that this is a private auction. I sent out the invitations myself, and I’m sure none went to either Hetherton Montague or Wilbraham Winchell. That means you must be here at Dolph’s original request as Ted Ashe. Therefore, we may as well call you that and I’m going to let him decide what to do with you. Only please take him outside, Dolph, before you start to bellow.”

  “Sarah.” Osmond Loveday had come up behind her. He sounded rather frantic. “Did I hear you say Ted Ashe is really some kind of reporter?”

  “You make it sound like a dirty word, Ozzie,” Ashe gibed.

  “Apparently you do too,” said Sarah. “That’s right, Mr. Loveday. As you may have heard me say, he writes for Syndicated Slime.”

  “And he’s planning to do a story about the SCRC?”

  “I can’t think why else he’s been haunting the place. Can you?”

  “This is terrible!” Loveday was actually wringing his hands.

  “Damn right it’s terrible,” barked Dolph. “Biting the hands that fed him. Outside, Ashe. We’ll settle this—I was going to say man-to-man, but I’m dashed if you qualify as one.”

  “I’ll come with you,” cried Loveday. “Wait till I get my coat.”

  “Who the hell needs you?”

  Dolph slammed out of the house, herding Ashe in front of him like an angry gander. Sarah debated calling for reinforcements, but she didn’t think they’d be necessary. Harry Burr was out there, and George and Walter the gardeners. She wasn’t about to go herself; Max would have a fit if she did. Besides, she had a more urgent errand.

  “Mr. Loveday, I’m going upstairs. Go find one of the actors to watch the door. You’d better see what’s happening in the drawing room. If anybody’s curious to know what the commotion was all about, tell them a reporter was trying to gate-crash and that you helped Mr. Kelling throw him out, which is perfectly true.”

  It wasn’t, but Osmond Loveday would surely not be averse to sharing the hero’s role. He nodded and bustled off. She went on upstairs to one of the bathrooms that had been declared out of bounds to visitors. There she dawdled, attending to her creature comforts, dabbing at her face and hair, sitting down on the padded stool and putting her feet up against the side of the tub to rest them a little.

  She hadn’t realized how tired she was. Perhaps she ought to stretch out on one of the guest room beds, just for a moment.

  Chapter

  20

  SARAH WAS DIMLY CONSCIOUS of voices downstairs, of cars in the drive. Then Max was bending over her, smoothing her hair. She smiled up at him through what was left of her sleep.

  “Hello, darling. How’s the auction going?”

  “It’s gone. Don’t you realize what time it is?”

  “Oh no! Don’t tell me I’ve slept through the whole thing. How maddening! Did we make lots of money?”

  “Would you believe twenty-seven thousand, nine hundred and forty-six dollars and thirty-two cents? The thirty-two cents was your aunt’s friend, Mrs. Plinth. And Appie bought all the seaweed mottoes.”

  “That I can believe. But how wonderful. By the time we sell the Inness landscape and those other things, they’ll have enough to do the whole renovation.”

  “Well, maybe. But we’d never have done it tonight without Jem. He was fantastic.”

  “You did your share, darling. I saw you up there waving that beaded footstool around. That was why I didn’t call you to help Dolph throw Ted Ashe out.”

  “What? When was this?”

  “Somewhere around half past nine, I think. He came with Eugene’s fiancée and her parents, the Wilton-Rugges, all dressed up in a lovely suede jacket and calling himself Hetherton Montague.”

  “I’ll be damned. So what did you do?”

  “Nothing much, actually. Dolph recognized him right away as Ted Ashe and asked why he’d put on those clothes to park cars. Ashe insisted Dolph was mistaken and that he was this other man. I said no, Dolph wasn’t mistaken and he was Wilbraham Winchell. Things began to get sticky, so I shooed the Wilton-Rugges into the auction rooms and was going to get hold of you, but you were asking for a hundred and thirty dollars and it looked as if you were going to get it, so I decided that was no time to interrupt. Did you, by the way?”

  “Sarah!”

  “Oh, all right. I went back and told Dolph to quiet down, which he did for the moment. Ashe started going on about mistaken identity again, so I told him flat out that we knew who he was and what he was up to. I assumed you or Brooks would already have told Dolph, but either you hadn’t or else it didn’t sink in. Dolph’s isn’t the swiftest brain, you know.”

  “I did try to tell him,” said Max, “but he wasn’t listening. I don’t think Dolph’s any dummy, he’s just good at shutting out anything he doesn’t want to hear.”

  “If you’d known Great-aunt Matilda, you’d understand why,” Sarah agreed. “I’m not sure he was listening to me, either. He was mostly annoyed because Ashe had turned out to be someone else. Dolph likes things plain and simple, which goodness knows they never were when his aunt and uncle were alive. It was Mr. Loveday who was really shaken about Ashe’s being a reporter.”

  “Loveday was there?”

  “Yes. That is, he’d gone off to get Aunt Appie and her crowd settled, but he came back while I was straightening Ashe out. I thought he was going to faint when he found out Ashe was a reporter for Syndicated Slime. He was all set to help Dolph throw Ashe off the place”— Sarah giggled—“only Mr. Loveday wanted to get his overcoat first, and Dolph wouldn’t wait.”

  Max laughed too. “Hell of a job trying to be a hero these days. So Dolph did it alone?”

  “Dolph scooted Ashe outside, anyway. I knew George and Walter and Harry Burr were around, so I wasn’t worried. Anyway, Dolph’s bigger than Ashe. I sent Mr. Loveday to
quell any curiosity in the other rooms by explaining if he had to that a reporter had gate-crashed and that he and Dolph had thrown the man out. That was a diplomatic touch, don’t you think?”

  “Machiavellian. Did you wait to see what happened?”

  “No dear, I ran madly to the bathroom. Then I thought I’d rest a minute, and here I am. What’s happening downstairs?”

  “The kids are getting their glad rags off and finishing up the food. Mary’s picking up the pieces. Jem’s having a martini. Loveday’s making a pest of himself. You know.”

  “What about Aunt Emma?”

  “She and her troupe pulled out over an hour ago.”

  “And I never even said good-bye. What must she think of me?”

  “She thought you were most likely upstairs taking a nap, so she came and looked and you were. She said to kiss you for her and I kissed her for you, so it’s all taken care of.”

  “You’re so efficient, dear. I must get up.”

  “Mary says you’re welcome to stay the night if you want. Jem and Egbert are staying. I have to take Dolph’s station wagon and ferry that gang into town, but I could come back.”

  “You’re not going without me. What if Jem delegates you to kiss those actresses good night for him? Help us up.”

  “Are you sure you feel all right?”

  “I expect I feel better than you do. You must be exhausted. I wonder if there’s any of that soup left.”

  “Let’s go see. I could use some myself.”

  That was how Max and Sarah happened to be in the kitchen when George came looking for Dolph.

  “Oh God, Mr. Bittersohn, am I glad to see you! Is the boss around?”

  “What’s the matter?” Max pulled out a chair. “Here, sit down. Did you hurt yourself? You look like hell.”

  “I’m all right, but there’s a dead man in the toolhouse.”

  “Are you sure he’s dead?”

  “He’s cold, he ain’t breathing, and he’s got a pickax stuck in his chest. That dead enough for you?”

  “Plenty. Sarah, I think we’d better call the police. Do you know who the man was, George?”