The Palace Guard (3 page)

“I should hope that sort of thing wouldn’t happen often!”

Vieuxchamp’s reappearance kept Sarah from disgracing herself by a fit of the giggles. “I’ve been checking around,” he explained. “As far as I can tell offhand, nothing’s been taken. We’d have to do it with the inventory list to be sure.”

“Who keeps the list?” asked Lieutenant Davies.

“Mr. Fitzroy. He’ll be here tomorrow morning.”

“Who’s in charge when he’s not around?”

“I guess you might say we all are. Each guard is responsible for his own station.”

“Mr. Fitzroy is an unusual man,” Brooks interjected. “He believes in the dignity of the individual.”

“Besides,” said Vieuxchamp, “we’re all too scared of him to foul up. Aren’t we, Milky?”

“We all have the greatest respect for Mr. Fitzroy,” said Melanson primly.

“God help Brown when Fitzy finds out he almost let somebody get away with the communion plate,” Vieuxchamp went on. “Brownie’s lucky he got that crack on the head. It just might be considered an extenuating circumstance, that and poor old Joe’s getting killed.”

“Then you go along with Brown’s theory that Witherspoon was murdered to keep him from being able to identify the alleged thieves?” said Bittersohn.

“Well, yeah, I guess so. It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

Bittersohn didn’t point out that it made sense only if one accepted Brown’s clumsy pretense of robbery. If, as Brooks Kelling claimed, Vieuxchamp had occasional glimmerings of intelligence, why was he so willing to swallow the story?

“T
HEN YOU DON’T BELIEVE
Witherspoon could have either jumped or fallen?”

Bittersohn’s question appeared to give Vieuxchamp some trouble. “Why would he jump?”

“The guard down in the courtyard maintains Witherspoon was upset over some change he either saw or fancied in the big Titian he was so fond of.”

“Oh, that? Hell, a man wouldn’t kill himself over a painting. I suppose he could have fallen, now that you mention it. See, there’s that big clock over the main exit. You can’t see it from the third floor unless you lean over the balustrade. Sometimes we do, to see if it’s time for our coffee break or something. Joe might have been doing that and taken a dizzy spell and lost his balance.”

“I didn’t know Witherspoon had dizzy spells,” Melanson said interestedly.

“Oh, sure, had ’em all the time. Hardening of the arteries, I suppose. Joe was no kid, you know.”

“Speaking of getting along in years, Mrs. Kelling, we’d better go see if we can find Nick Fieringer. He’ll be wondering why we never showed up in the Tintoretto Room after the concert.” Bittersohn got behind Brooks Kelling and went through a pantomime that Sarah at last managed to interpret as “Ask him to supper.”

She couldn’t imagine why, but she obeyed. “Cousin Brooks, it’s been such ages since we’ve seen each other that I hate to say good-bye. Can’t you drop over to the house after you go off duty? It’s always an informal buffet on Sunday nights because I never know who’s going to be around.”

“Why, that’s kind of you, Sarah, and I’d like to come. As it happens, however, I’m bespoken. I’ve already invited Dolores Tawne to eat with me. At that little café over on Huntington Avenue near the Art Museum,” he added thriftily.

“Then why don’t you bring her along? I’m sure we’d enjoy meeting her.”

Sarah wasn’t at all sure but she thought she must have said the right thing, because Mr. Bittersohn was looking pleased. Cousin Brooks, on the other hand, demurred. He was afraid Dolores might interpret an invitation to meet the family as a sign of serious intent. Sarah argued that one fourth cousin twice removed and an assortment of paying guests could hardly be interpreted as serious intent. Brooks, seeing both the force of her argument and a chance to save a few dollars, for he was, after all, a Kelling, finally agreed.

“I hope I did what you wanted,” Sarah remarked to Bittersohn as they left the group and started downstairs to the second floor, where it was possible Nick Fieringer might still be waiting.

“You did fine,” he said somewhat abstractedly, staring at the head of a petulant-looking Heracles.

“What are you thinking?” she prodded.

“I’m thinking that, as Diamond Jim Brady said to the Floradora Girl, there’s deception behind that bust. How did you know the Romney’s a fake?”

“Because my Aunt Emma out in Longmeadow owns the original. She’s an ancestress of ours and I’m supposed to resemble her, though I can’t see it myself.”

“Did Madam Wilkins know your family owned the original?”

“I doubt it. They were never on visiting terms, especially after the debacle at the opening. If anything was said then, I’m sure she insisted hers was the original and ours the copy, but it can’t be unless Romney painted two identical pictures of the same subject. I’m quite sure he didn’t. That’s the sort of thing Aunt Emma would know about. I could take you out to see Aunt Emma’s by way of comparison if you like.”

Bittersohn’s lips twitched, and Sarah knew why. If Cousin Brooks was nervous about finding himself romantically compromised on the strength of a short subway ride and a supper of cold roast beef and tapioca pudding in well-assorted company, what would Aunt Emma think of Sarah’s driving all the way to Longmeadow à deux with a remarkably attractive man of suitable years and substantial income?

“I’d like very much to see the original sometime,” he replied, “but I don’t need that to convince me. So far just about everything I’ve seen in this place is a fake. Either Madam Wilkins was the prize patsy of all time or there’s a large rat i’ the arras.”

“The arras being bogus also, I presume? Is that why you asked me to invite Cousin Brooks? Surely you don’t think he’s involved in some art forgery racket? Did you really suspect him that time about Uncle Thaddeus’s Corots?”

“The answers are no, no, and no, in that order. Your cousin’s a little bit of a screwball in some ways if you don’t mind my saying so—”

“Why should I? Show me a Kelling who isn’t.”

“But, as I was about to remark, he’s nobody’s fool, he’s fun to be with, and as far as I know he’s so honest it’s ridiculous. I simply want to talk to him. I’ll owe you a meal to make up for him and his lady friend.”

“You will not. Owe it, I mean. Of course if somebody happens to give you a free pass to the Ritz.” Sarah showed a dimple that was an agreeable surprise in her squarish, clear-skinned but pale face, and Bittersohn laughed.

“So!” a bass voice unctuous as beef drippings exploded. “This is where I find you, Bittersohn. Canoodling among the cupids with a beautiful lady instead of in the Tintoretto Room telling my talented young protégée she should maybe learn her scales before she thinks Carnegie Hall.”

“Hi, Nick. Mrs. Kelling and I were on our way to find you.”

“I believe you,” said the fat impresario archly. “Maybe you can tell me how come the cops in the courtyard? So my young genius takes her cadenzas like a case of whooping cough, is she under arrest for disturbing the peace?”

“Nick, the kid was fine. She needs a little more practice. Tell me, how well do you know the guards in this place?”

“I know everybody.” That was a simple statement of fact. Nicholas Fieringer did, almost.

“What sort of man was Joe Witherspoon?”

“Was? Why was? Something has happened to Joe?”

“He landed on his head in the courtyard just about the time your young genius must have been making her curtsey to Mrs. Forbot.”

“Old Joe?”

The impresario was one of those large, squashy, bald men whose emotions are close to the surface. His mouth puckered like a baby’s. Sarah would not have been surprised if he’d burst into loud wails. After a moment, though, he went on calmly enough. “I can think of nothing more unlikely. How could this happen?”

“The corridor guard on the third floor claims somebody tried to rob the chapel. Brown, his name is. You know him, too, I expect. Anyway, Mrs. Kelling here found him stuffed under a choir stall with a bunch of silver cups and stuff in a heap by the altar. His story is that two or three guys slugged him during an attempted robbery and pitched Witherspoon over the balustrade to protect their identities.”

“Brown is a fraud and a fake! In the concert hall we had eighty-seven people. Always I count first thing before they start tiptoeing out. In other rooms must have been maybe a hundred more. The chapel is on the third floor. The Grand Staircase is the only way to go up and down unless you lower a rope in broad daylight from a window in front of everybody walking dogs and using pooper-scoopers on the sidewalk,
quod erat absurdem.
Down the Grand Staircase to lug a sackful of silver in front of so many people who could believe? Who could believe a liar like Brown if he swore on a genuine Gutenberg Bible which,
entre nous,
you will not find here. Brown sneaks a nap in the chapel during the concert, is all. He piles the silver for an alibi in case somebody catches him asleep. When you tell him about Joe he puts it for frosting on the cake like the louse he is.”

“You know, Nick,” said Bittersohn, “that’s one explanation that never occurred to me.”

“Because you do not know that slob like I do, Max. Anything, anything he would do to get out of an hour’s honest work. I”—Nick turned fiercely to Sarah—“am fat but not a slob. And I work. My God, how I work. So Joe Witherspoon dies and Brown is snoring like a pig in the chapel.”

“Vieuxchamp says Witherspoon had dizzy spells. Can you corroborate that?”

“Corroborate no. Believe yes. Joe was an old man, he took no care of himself. Up and down, up and down that murderous staircase he had to climb four, five times a day. Too far out he leans, a little vertigo, maybe, and over he goes.”

“But why would he be on the balcony? He belonged in the Titian Room.”

“My friend, how should I know? During the concert would maybe be not many people on the third floor. Maybe Joe goes to stretch his legs and watch the pretty peacocks, maybe to take a leak in the waterfall because in this crazy palazzo is only one bathroom and that in the basement. You think the guards go all the way up and down every time?”

Bittersohn glanced at Sarah and changed the subject. “Did you ever hear Witherspoon talk about the big Titian?”

“As much as he ever talked about anything. Lucrece was his sweetheart. Who could blame him? It is like Shelley, forever will he love and she be fat. So he could only look, big deal. At his age to look was probably all he could manage anyway and for this he got paid. Joe was a lucky man.”

“Quite a philosopher, aren’t you, Nick? See that guard over by the pillar in the courtyard?”

“Sonny they call him. So?”

“He claims Witherspoon had been complaining lately that Lucrece had changed.”

“Maxie, how could a painting change? Joe needed new glasses is all. Or maybe glaucoma or cataract, maybe just old age getting soft in the head. Maybe he was lucky he fell.”

“Do you think Witherspoon could have become depressed enough to jump?”

“Who knows? What should it matter jumped or fell? Dead is dead. You like to make mysteries, my friend, here is no mystery. Only a tired old man getting at last a chance to rest his feet.”

“I
SUPPOSE YOU’VE GOT
to rush home and cook,” said Bittersohn as he helped Sarah into the elegant car he’d left parked along the Fenway.

“Nope.” Sarah smiled in rapture and leaned her head back against the rich beige leather upholstery. “I’m off the hook tonight. Mrs. Sorpende’s doing supper.”

“How come?”

“She offered and I jumped at it. One does get tired of slaving over a hot stove.”

“After three months?”

“Closer to eight years. I cooked for the family practically all the time I was married to Alexander.”

“You still think about him all the time, don’t you?” Bittersohn seemed to be having a little trouble fitting the key into the ignition.

“No, not really. One can’t, you know. There’s always too much happening. Somebody else getting killed, for instance.”

“Look, I’m sorry as hell about today.”

“But why should you be?” said Sarah. “You couldn’t know this was going to happen. Anyway, according to the statistics, half the violent deaths in Massachusetts occur right here in Boston, and I’m a Bostonian born and bred, so what can I expect? Anyway, this one has nothing whatever to do with me, thank goodness. Unless you think Brooks—”

He started the car a bit less smoothly than usual. “I told you my reasons for wanting to see your cousin this evening. I’ve never lied to you yet, have I? Maybe it would have been smarter of me to meet him somewhere else, though, instead of dragging you into it.”

“Why shouldn’t you drag me into it? Can’t I be treated like a human being for once?”

“What do you mean? Haven’t I been—?”

“Oh, it’s not you. It’s been everybody, all my life. To my parents I was a child they weren’t really very interested in, something to be housed and fed and educated according to their ideas, not mine. To Aunt Caroline I was a necessary nuisance. Alexander loved me but he wouldn’t have married me if he hadn’t felt it his duty, and he acted toward me”—she smiled wryly—“well, when a man’s bought you your first ice cream cone and your first swanboat ride I suppose he couldn’t help having a sort of daddy knows best attitude, could he? To my relatives I’m just another Kelling, to my boarders I’m the landlady, to you I’ve sometimes wondered if I was an object of pity. This afternoon you treated me like—I suppose I could say a friend, someone you knew well enough to ask a favor of without wondering whether I’m mature enough to handle it. So please don’t spoil things by apologizing.”

He shrugged. “What can I say? I don’t know where you got that object of pity stuff. Nothing could ever have been farther from my mind. Now shall we make polite remarks about the scenery or would you rather stop for a drink somewhere?”

“I’d love a drink. Why don’t we park the car and stroll down to the Hampshire House? If it’s not too expensive,” Sarah added from force of habit.

“Oh, I guess we can swing a scotch or two. Heard from the newlyweds lately?”

They chatted about Sarah’s pontifical cousin Adolphus Kelling and his unlikely but so far blissful marriage to a retired department store saleslady who had been running a one-woman recycling program out of the trash barrels on Boston Common. They left the car in the vast concrete cavern under that same Common and walked down Beacon Street to the rather luxurious restaurant where Bittersohn had bought Sarah lunch on a day she would never forget. She wondered if he remembered, but wouldn’t have dreamed of asking after her unexpected burst of self-revelation.