The Convivial Codfish (10 page)

“Arsenic? That’s absurd. And why the caviar?”

“Because I didn’t eat any and I’m not sick, for one thing. Neither did the caterers, and they’re okay, too. What about yourself? You said before I left that you weren’t feeling well.”

“I’m not,” Tolbathy admitted. “Not really ill, but queasy.”

“Did you eat the caviar?”

“A bite of Hester’s, that’s all. My God, is Hester poisoned too?”

“She was still on her feet when I saw her last.” Max didn’t want to tell Tom where those feet were probably heading.

“What’s this?” the police chief interrupted. “Where did that caviar come from?”

“There can’t be anything wrong with it,” Tolbathy insisted. “It was the best Beluga, packed to my personal specifications, imported by my own firm, from a source we’ve been doing business with ever since my grandfather was alive. The tin was opened in front of me and all my guests. There’s no way it could have been tampered with.”

“After it left the cannery, you mean.”

“Why, yes, I suppose I do. But surely,” Tolbathy shook his head, “that’s unthinkable.”

“Is it? Do you read the newspapers, Mr. Tolbathy? Watch the news on television?”

“Yes, of course, but—”

“It’s happened right here in our own country, hasn’t it? Crazy people putting cyanide in medicine capsules before they’re sold, poisoning jars of pickles on grocery store shelves. What makes you think all the nuts in the world are in America? Would there be any of this caviar left?”

“I doubt it,” Tolbathy replied. “There never is. My guests know I give them the best.”

“Uh-huh. What about the can it came out of?”

“I expect you’ll find that among the trash in the caboose,” Max told him. “I doubt if it will help you any, though. One of the caterers says she washed it.”

“Washed it? What for?”

“It’s one of their rules, she claims. So the garbage won’t draw rats. It makes sense to me, Chief. My wife does it, too. You know how women are about rats.”

The chief said he did know how women were about rats. “Where’s your wife now? Is she sick, too?”

“She wasn’t invited to the party. Actually, I wasn’t either. I only filled in for her uncle, who was kept away. That’s what I really wanted to talk to you about.”

Max told his story. The police chief wasn’t convinced.

“Seems to me you’re trying to make something out of nothing, if you don’t mind me saying so, Mr. Bittersohn. I don’t mean nothing, exactly, but the way I see it, we’ve got two entirely separate and unrelated circumstances here. From the way you describe this club your uncle and Mr. Tolbathy belong to, it’s just a bunch of guys who get together now and then for a little harmless fun. Right, Mr. Tolbathy?”

“Essentially that’s pretty much the idea,” Tom agreed.

“Well, naturally a bunch of men like that, they play a few practical jokes on each other now and then. But what you’re trying to tell me is that it’s all one big plot. First your uncle falls and breaks his hip because somebody’s put wax on a flight of stairs he never uses and then calls up to tell him his false whiskers are ready. I can see one of his buddies making a fake phone call to kid him about the whiskers, but the rest of it sounds pretty farfetched to me.”

The chief appeared pleased with his own line of reasoning. “As I see it, the janitor just took a notion to spruce up the hallway a little. Or maybe the landlord got after him to do it. So he threw some wax on the stairs to give them a little shine, make them look nice, you know. He didn’t bother doing too great a job because he knew nobody was going to use the stairs anyway. You said yourself everybody takes the elevator except those two maids on the third floor, and they have to go down the back way, so they don’t count.”

“But Jeremy Kelling’s manservant questioned the janitor, and he claims he never touched the stairs.”

“What would you expect him to say? He’s not going to get himself in trouble for causing an accident. Would you?”

“I wouldn’t lie out of it if I had.”

“Well, individuals who empty trash cans for a living aren’t likely to be so high-minded. Would you say so, Mr. Tolbathy?”

Mr. Tolbathy wouldn’t go so far as to say so because he had little acquaintance among individuals who emptied trash cans for a living. He was willing to admit the hypothesis because he could see perfectly well, as who couldn’t, that the chief was helpfully working his way around to suggesting Wouter Tolbathy’s death might after all have been an accident, too.

Max could understand why. Tolbathy had a trainful of guests being carted off in ambulances because he’d allegedly served them poisoned caviar imported by his own firm. He was in trouble enough without a murder in the engine cab to top it off. Police chiefs in affluent suburbs didn’t keep their jobs by being tactless over the problems of prominent citizens.

“But what about this vanishing man who served the poisoned caviar wearing the silver chain that was stolen from around Mr. Kelling’s neck at the club luncheon?” he protested.

Instead of answering Max, the chief turned again to Tom Tolbathy. “Mr. Tolbathy, you’re a member of this organization. I expect you’ve seen the chain a great many times.”

“Oh, yes, and worn it, too. I was the last person to hold the office Jeremy Kelling now occupies.”

“Did you yourself recognize the chain this man was wearing tonight as the one that was allegedly stolen from Mr. Kelling?”

“No, I can’t honestly say I did. The Great Chain has a big silver codfish about four inches long attached to it, you see. As I recall, this fellow was wearing a corkscrew on his chain. That would have been enough to put me off, I expect. I’m not particularly observant about that sort of thing.”

The chief nodded. “You weren’t the only member of the organization at the party, were you?”

“Far from it. My brother was a member, though I suppose we can’t count him. But there were several others: Ogham, Dork, Durward, Billingsgate, Ashbroom, Wripp—I can have my wife show you the guest list, if you like.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary. What I’m getting at, Mr. Tolbathy, is that none of these other members appeared to recognize the chain, either. Is that correct?”

“If they did, they didn’t say anything about it to me.”

“Now, getting back to you, Mr. Bittersohn. You yourself are not a member of the club, right?”

“That’s right, but—”

“You’ve never been a guest at any of their meetings?”

“Guests are never invited,” Tolbathy answered for him. “A silly rule, no doubt, but that’s the way it’s always been.”

“And you don’t ever parade in public or anything? Like the Shriners, for instance?”

“Good God, no!”

“Then would you mind telling me, Mr. Bittersohn, how you were able to make such a positive identification when none of the club members could? Where have you seen this chain before?”

“In photographs that showed my wife’s uncle wearing it.”

“I see.”

Case dismissed. Chief Whatsis was not going to give a damn that Max Bittersohn was an internationally recognized expert on silver chains and similar accoutrements. Chief Whatsis was going to shove the problem of Wouter Tolbathy’s sudden, violent death under the rug and make damned sure it stayed there.

The hell he was.

“W
HERE WOULD YOU LIKE
to be dropped, Mr. Bittersohn?”

That was Marge asking. She and her helpers were taking the untasted food and the unwanted investigator away in the catering van. Tom Tolbathy, even as he himself was succumbing to an agony of stomach cramps, had made it plain there’d be nothing more for any of them to do on his estate. He’d apologized very nicely, all things considered.

Under the circumstances, Max could hardly have done anything but leave, though he was inwardly furious at Tom’s consenting to a cover-up. Besides, he didn’t know where to go.

“I don’t know,” he told Marge. “Do you know of any place where I could make a phone call, then wait for my wife to drive out here and pick me up?”

“Sure, come on back to the shop with us. You can call from there and have a bite of supper while you’re waiting. We’re all starved.”

“Are you sure I won’t be putting you out? Sarah will be coming from Boston, and it may take her a while.”

“That’s okay. We’ve got plenty to do at the shop. There’s all this food to cope with, for one thing. We can’t just waste it. Besides, since we got away from the Tolbathys’ so much earlier than we expected, we might as well put in the time getting a few things done ahead. We don’t often get the chance to catch up, this time of year. But what a shame about the Tolbathys’ party. They’re such lovely people.”

Max agreed the Tolbathys were lovely people and it was indeed a shame. A damn sight worse shame than they realized, but he wasn’t going to tell them so. He leaned back against the chilly plastic upholstery and marveled at the sort of mentality that would rather ignore a murder than make a fuss, while the three caterers chatted about how best to recycle the sumptuous buffet they’d carted around all evening and never got a chance to serve.

Tolbathy was going to pay their bill in full, he’d told them, since it wasn’t their fault they hadn’t been able to do their job. Marge, Pam, and Angela were searching their souls as to whether they ought to take his money, even though they needed it to pay their suppliers. “What do you think, Mr. Bittersohn?” Pam asked him finally.

“I think you’d be nuts to turn it down,” he replied. “Knock off twenty percent if your consciences are going to bother you, and call it a goodwill gesture.”

“Great idea,” said Angela and went on lamenting the turkey mousse.

The catering shop was a cozy Victorian dollhouse done up in pink and white like a birthday cake. “It used to be the depot,” Marge told Max, “till they took the local trains off. We can’t seem to get away from trains tonight, can we? Here, sit down, everybody. I’m going to pour us each a drink of that Jack Daniels we had for making the bourbon balls last week.”

“Good,” said Pam. “I can use it. Angie, why don’t you put the kettle on and I’ll fix us a snack.”

She started filling plates with some of the more expendable delicacies. Max took a swig of his bourbon and dialed the apartment.

“Sarah? What’s the matter? Good God, has it been on the news already? How did you happen to find out? Oh, Egbert phoned? Tickled pink Jem didn’t get to go, I’ll bet. Yes, it was apparently the caviar, and no, I doubt very much if it was the Russians. No, of course I’m not in the hospital. I’m in a catering shop surrounded by beautiful women trying to get me drunk.”

He drank some more of his whiskey. “Thanks, Marge, I owe you one. Look, sweetie pie, could you—no, not her. You, for God’s sake! Could you go get the car and come out here and pick me up, is what I was trying to say. How do I know where I am? Just a second.”

Max handed the phone over to Marge. “Would you mind telling my wife where to find me?”

Amused, Marge gave Sarah directions for tracking down her errant husband. Then Max took back the telephone, admonished his wife to get young Porter-Smith or somebody to walk her down to the garage because there were too damn many weirdos around and he’d already had enough calamities for one night. Then he hung up and ate his supper.

“My wife says they’ve been breaking into television programs with special reports,” he told the caterers between bites. “The Tolbathys are going to love that. Apparently some politician’s already blethering about Communist plots to poison rich Americans and demanding a worldwide recall of Russian caviar.”

“They can’t do that,” wailed Pam. “Not over the holidays. We already have six containers of caviar butter stashed away in the freezer.”

“But that’s not Russian caviar,” Angela reminded her. “For caviar butter we use red caviar, which is just a fancy name for salmon eggs.”

“I don’t care. It’s still caviar, and if we try to serve it everybody’s going to start yelling we’re a bunch of mass murderers. Marge, I hate to waste the money we spent getting it ready, but we simply can’t take the risk.”

“Don’t fret about the caviar butter, Pam,” Marge told her soberly despite the bourbon. “What I’m worried about is how this is going to affect our entire operation.”

“What do you mean?” Angela protested. “We didn’t serve that caviar at the Tolbathys’.”

“We were there when somebody else did, and we didn’t try to stop him. What do they call it? Guilt by association. You know what a flap people get into about poison in food. Not that I blame them. It’s such an insidious thing. You can’t see it; half the time you can’t taste it. You don’t even know you’ve swallowed it until you’re—God, I hope all those people get better fast.”

Max decided not to pass on what Sarah had told him, that most of them were on the critical list and one other than Wouter Tolbathy was dead. The casualty was most likely to have been the old man Wripp, succumbing to shock and the injuries he’d suffered in falling; but that fact wasn’t going to cut any ice with hostesses concerned about whether their own holiday revels were going to turn into nightmares like the Tolbathys’.

If he were in Marge’s shoes, he’d be worrying, too. Damned shame. These were decent women and excellent cooks. He even took some of Angela’s galantine of chicken, though he held stern personal views about the jellying of innocent poultry, and pretended he thought it was great because he didn’t want to damage the caterers’ morale any further than it was shaken already.

“As for business,” he mentioned, on the principle that misery might like company, “if you think you’ve got problems, what about Tom Tolbathy? He not only stands to have his holiday profits and maybe his firm wiped out, he’ll be lucky if his dear friends don’t begin suing him for a million bucks apiece.”

“Oh my gosh,” said Marge. “I never thought of that.”

“Maybe Tolbathy hasn’t yet, either. But you can bet your pots and kettles somebody has.”

As a matter of fact, Max hadn’t thought of it either, until just now. He was still thinking when Sarah arrived in the beautiful car he allowed her to drive because he loved her even more than he loved his elegant conveyance, which was saying a lot. Besides, Sarah drove more expertly than most women, therefore infinitely better than most men.