The Palace Guard (17 page)

“And she never gets to see her babies.” Mrs. Sorpende was quite properly ignoring such ribaldry. “How sad.”

“Here’s one baby a mother must have had a hard time loving,” Sarah remarked. “Who’s this particularly repulsive man? One of our relatives? I’m sure I’ve met him somewhere.”

Cousin Brooks picked up the tiny print and held it farsightedly at arm’s length. “Yes, you have. That’s Brown, the chapel guard. I particularly wanted Porter-Smith to see this one because I took it with only one overhead sixty-watt bulb for light, down in the locker room.”

“Where he drank the paint remover?”

“That’s right. Before he drank it, of course. Drat! Sarah, give me those snapshots for a second.” Brooks riffled through the stack, pulled one out, and laid it beside the picture of Brown. “Take a gander at this, Bittersohn.”

“Well, I’ll be damned! Got a glass, Kelling?”

“Certainly.” Cousin Brooks whipped a small magnifying glass out of his vest pocket. Together the two men scanned the faces feature by feature.

Sarah craned her neck to see. “Why, that’s the one you took of the so-called Dr. Ruy Lopez. Except for his being so much thinner and having that silly beard, you might take him for Brown. What a strange coincidence.”

“Coincidence my eyeball,” said Bittersohn gallantly. “Kelling, may I keep these?”

“Delighted, my boy. Can I be of further service?”

“Damn right you can. Find out all you can about Brown’s background. Check into Fitzroy’s alibis. And be careful how you go about it. I don’t want anybody spiking your private jug with paint remover.”

“Don’t keep one. Don’t need it. Meet me for lunch at the Burnt Bagel on Longwood Avenue at one o’clock. I’ll give you a progress report then. Provided, of course, that I’ve made any progress. Theonia, don’t forget our date.”

“How could I? I am looking forward to the lecture on ‘The Life of the Angleworm’ with eager anticipation.”

Brooks buzzed off full of beans. The fair Theonia departed for the tea shop. Bittersohn disappeared who knew where and Sarah helped Mariposa with the breakfast dishes. About half-past two, while Sarah was polishing silver and Mariposa had gone shopping for a new uniform because she was tired of alternating between orange and magenta, Bittersohn came in with a pot of white hyacinths in his hand and a pleased expression on his face.

“For you, madam.”

“To feed my soul? How lovely.” She gave him the kiss he seemed to think he deserved. “What did you learn about Brown?”

“He had a record. Two years for robbery with assault. It should have been more but his family had influence.”

“One wouldn’t have thought he came from that sort of family.”

“What a snobby little WASP you are. There’s influence and influence. Theirs is the other kind.”

“You mean they’re Godfathers or something? What’s their name? Not Brown, surely?”

“No, it’s Lupezziz.”

“Wasn’t that the name of the judge who was indicted for taking bribes some time back?”

“Yes, he’s one of the clan. The case was dropped for lack of evidence. It generally is. They’re an enterprising family and they stick together, by and large. I guess that’s why they made Brown change his name. He blotted the escutcheon by letting himself get busted, though no doubt they kept him on as an odd-job man. I wish I knew whether he was on family business at the Madam’s, and why Nick just happened to choose Brown’s nephew to play the visiting expert.”

“How can you find out?”

“Who knows? Maybe I’ll go get myself seduced by Lydia Ouspenska.”

“Bring her back to dinner if you’re not too tired afterward.”

“Funny, aren’t you?”

He rumpled the hair Sarah had taken extra pains with that morning and left, walking in his usual fashion, as if he were battling winds of gale force. Sarah combed her hair, finished the silver, did the advance preparation for dinner, then decided it wouldn’t hurt her to get out for a breath of air. Thinking she might cross over and walk along the Esplanade for a while, she strolled down to Charles Street.

From force of habit, she looked in at Mr. Hayre’s window. The Staffordshire pugs were gone. The new center of interest was an icon, very lovely and very old. Or was it? Sarah pressed her dainty nose against the glass and examined the charming piece until she’d satisfied herself. No doubt about it, here was Lydia Ouspenska’s latest artistry. On impulse she opened the door.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Hayre.”

“Why, Mrs. Kelling. Long time no see.”

“No, I’ve been too solvent to sell and too poor to buy. I couldn’t resist inquiring about that icon in the window, though.”

“Now, there,” cried Mr. Hayre, “is a find. Did you notice the perfect state of preservation?”

“Yes indeed. It looks as if it had been painted only yesterday,” Sarah replied sweetly.

“Doesn’t it, though?” The dealer plucked the icon out from among the other pieces and turned it reverently in his pudgy fingers. “It ought to be in a museum, really.”

“I’m surprised it isn’t. I suppose you’re asking a frightful price.”

“Well now, to an old friend like you—”

“Hi, Jack.” A slim, dark form glided in from the street. “Hi, Mrs. Kelling.”

Sarah and Hayre both started. White teeth flashed in Bill Jones’s swarthy, delicate face.

“How they going, Bill?” said Hayre with a tinge of uneasiness. “I didn’t know you were acquainted with Mrs. Kelling.”

“Su-ure. She’s got a little thing going with Max Bittersohn.”

“Mr. Bittersohn is one of my boarders,” Sarah explained primly. “Do you know him, Mr. Hayre?”

“I’ve met him.” The antique dealer laid the icon behind the cash register and became ever so busy rearranging his stock.

Sarah took the hint. “Well, since I’m not in the market I mustn’t take up your time. Good-bye, Mr. Hayre, Mr. Jones.”

But when she reached the door, Bill Jones was at her side. “Can I buy you a drink?” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

Sarah had no particular reason to refuse and possibly one to accept. “Why, thank you,” she replied. “I’d love one. Though I haven’t too much time,” she added to be on the safe side. “Could we just go into the lounge here?”

“Su-ure.”

A few minutes later they were seated in the darkest booth in the farthest corner of the most obscure cocktail lounge on Charles Street. Bill had got remarkably quick service. Sarah took a taste of her daiquiri and smiled.

“This is a pleasant surprise. How nice of you to ask me, and why do you suppose Mr. Hayre was in such a rush to get rid of me?”

Bill shrugged his shoulders up to his eyebrows, waved his diminutive hands, and leaned over the table. “Jack’s a funny guy,” he confided.

“He’s a businessman at any rate. I sold him some things a few months ago when I was rather frantic for ready cash, and I’d swear he made a thousand per cent profit on every piece.”

“Su-ure,” breathed the artist. He began drawing pictures in the air with the tip of one exquisite but dirty finger. “It’s hard to imagine you being hard up.”

“Why do you think I run a boarding house?”

“Why does anybody do anything?”

“Because we can’t think of a less disagreeable alternative, I suppose.”

“Ah”—Bill leaned even farther over the table, his immense black eyes gleaming through the gloom—“but why can’t we?”

“I suppose it depends on our circumstances, early conditioning, personality, one thing and another.”

“Yeah-h!”

“It is rather odd, I suppose, that I decided to stick it out in Boston and do this boarding house thing. I could have let the bank have the property, taken whatever cash I could raise, and gone off to Pago Pago or Saskatchewan.”

“Or Greece!”

Sarah laughed at his enthusiasm. “Or India.”

“I don’t think you’d like India. I was there once.” He drew some more pictures; “It’s not your sort of place.”

“What is my sort of place?”

“Oh-h, maybe Paris. I mean, you’re”—he did some remarkably effective graphics with both hands. “In a nice way, of course.”

“Why, thank you, Bill. May I call you Bill?” Maybe it was the drink, but she was finding this great fun.

“Su-ure,” he murmured, “Sarah.”

They smiled at each other furtively, as seemed fitting.

“Maxie’s a lucky guy,” Bill whispered.

“Bill, I’ve told you—” Sarah stopped. What was the sense in lying to a thoroughly honest man? She changed the subject. “You know Countess Ouspenska, don’t you?”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

“Max was going to see her this afternoon.”

“Hey-y-y.” Bill laid a hand over Sarah’s. They were about the same size, and Sarah always had trouble finding gloves small enough to fit her. “You’re not worried about Maxie and old Lydia?”

“Of course not.” Sarah wondered whether she ought to snatch her hand away, but decided Bill’s was too small to count. “Unless she takes a notion to seduce him at gunpoint. I do think that’s awfully dangerous, don’t you? Besides, isn’t it against the law now?”

“Seducing Max?”

“No, carrying a handgun.”

“What handgun?”

“Her own, I assume. I hope she has a permit for it.”

Bill squirmed. “What makes you think Lydia has a gun?”

“I saw it.”

“When?”

For Bill Jones, the question was startlingly abrupt. Sarah’s pleasant feeling of relaxation vanished. Suppose she told Bill about having gone to Lupe’s with Max after they’d trailed Bernie and the countess from Hayre’s antique shop? Suppose Bill passed the word back to Hayre and Hayre told Nick Fieringer. Or somebody else. Suppose they change the subject.

“Let’s see, when was it? I first met the countess when we met at Dolores Tawne’s studio. Then she invited me to her own place. They’re neighbors at the Fenway Studios, as you may know. Then she dropped in at my house a couple of nights ago. Perhaps I noticed the gun in her handbag when she was fixing her lipstick or something. She carries a great satchel affair. Anyway, I didn’t say anything about the gun, of course, and I don’t recall that anyone else did, so perhaps it was when we were in the studio. No, thanks, I mustn’t have another. I should get home and see how Max made out. Oh dear, that was a slip, wasn’t it? I do like her enormously and I’m not the least bit jealous, truly, but she does tend to run on about the magnificent Max. Would you care to walk back with me and join us for sherry?”

“Thanks, but I have a little errand to do,” Bill muttered. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in dropping around at my pad later?”

“I don’t know what Max’s plans are.”

“Who said anything about Max?”

Sarah blushed and dimpled. “Oh, I couldn’t possibly, but it’s sweet of you to ask. Thank you for the drink.”

They parted at the door. Sarah turned up Mount Vernon Street. The last she saw of Bill Jones he was headed for Cambridge Street Station, hugging the sides of the buildings.

S
HE WAS LATE GETTING
home again, though not so disastrously as she’d been the day she got stuck in her blouse. She let herself in through the alley door and got busy with dinner while Mariposa was doing the drinks in the library. She was chopping and stirring like mad when Bittersohn rushed in, furious with worry.

“Mind telling me where the hell you’ve been?”

“Having a drink with a charming gentleman.”

“I thought something had happened to you.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

He fumed in silence for a moment, then remarked far too casually, “I suppose it was your Uncle Jem.”

“No, as a matter of fact it was Bill Jones.”

“What were you doing with Bill Jones?”

“I told you, having a drink.”

“Why?”

“He invited me.”

“So?”

“We met in Mr. Hayre’s antique shop.”

“Sarah, for Christ’s sake what were you doing there?”

“Admiring an authentic early Byzantine icon by Lydia Ouspenska. How did you make out with her, by the way? Or did you?”

“Cut it out, will you? I brought her back to dinner as you told me to. You’re some hostess, I must say.”

“I’m sure Mrs. Sorpende is coping.”

“What did Bill have to say?” Bittersohn demanded after a short pause for silent fuming.

Sarah smiled enigmatically. “A number of things.”

“Did he tell you the icon was a fake?”

“Of course not.”

“Did you tell him?”

“Why should I bother? I’m sure he knows. I did happen to mention that the countess carries a gun.”

“Nice going. Now he knows we followed her to Brookline.”

“Not from me he doesn’t. I pretended I’d seen it the night she came here.”

Bittersohn grunted. “What did he say when you told him?”

“He was surprised and upset, I think. I have a sneaky hunch he may be on his way to see her right now.”

“How can he be? She’s here.”

“He doesn’t know that.”

“Why didn’t you bring him back with you if you’re so fond of his company?”

“I invited him for sherry but he had to go to the countess’s. Why are you bothering me about this stuff when I’m running so late already? Did Her Highness dress for dinner?”

“Did she ever!”

“Then go tell her how nice she looks. I’ll be right in.”

Sarah was used to quick changes by now. About three minutes later she was sweeping into the library. “Countess Ouspenska, do forgive me for not being here to welcome you. We’re so glad you could come.”

“Me, too,” screamed Lydia, flashing a smile at Mr. Porter-Smith. She certainly had dressed. Her gown was of scarlet crepe circa 1935, cut low in the front and lower in the back. A huge purple silk anemone rode on her left hipbone. She had bracelets up to the elbows and earrings down to her collarbones. In her raddled way she was gorgeous.

When Charles announced dinner she swept grandly in on the arm of Porter-Smith, to whom she had taken an obvious fancy. That dapper young blade had blossomed out in a new Madras dinner jacket of a lightsome yellow and green plaid. Together he and the countess were resplendent to the point of dazzlement. Even Professor Ormsby’s eyes were seen to stray for a moment from Mrs. Sorpende’s impressive façade, but the countess was too skinny for his taste so they soon strayed back.