The Palace Guard (7 page)

“What do you think?”

“I think the note was a plant. I think Brown kept a bottle in his locker and somebody loaded it. After he passed out they took away the liquor bottle and substituted one half full of paint remover with the label nice and prominent and his fingerprints artistically arranged on the glass. Very efficient job. Also a very painful way to go, one might think. It must have taken him a while to die, unless the paint remover was gingered up with a pinch of strychnine or something.”

“Are they going to do an autopsy?”

“Have to, I suppose. How did your visit with Mrs. Tawne go?”

Sarah could readily understand why he’d want to change the subject. “It was interesting, in a way,” she told him. “C. Edwald Palmerston dropped in unexpectedly. Mrs. Tawne seemed ever so glad to see him. And I met an admirer of yours.”

“Do tell. Which one?”

“Countess Ouspenska, no less.”

“Ouspenska?” He took another spoonful of soup. “What does she look like?”

“In a word, hell. Slavic and suffering. I’d say, though, that she must have been absolutely stunning when she was a good deal younger and in better repair.”

“Oh, I know who you mean now. Good old Lydia. She used to be Nick Fieringer’s girl.”

“She was C. Edwald Palmerston’s girl, too.”

“Small world. Does Mrs. Tawne know that?”

“I couldn’t say. The countess greeted him like an old acquaintance against whom she held a grudge, but she didn’t unburden her soul, as it were, until she and I had gone to her studio. And then she talked mostly about you.”

“What’s to unburden about me? My God, Mrs. Kelling, you don’t imagine Lydia and I were ever—”

“No, I don’t. That was the burden of her plaint. That you hadn’t, I mean. She”—Sarah blushed—“appeared to be under some misapprehension as to—”

Luckily Charles poked his head into the kitchen just then. “Oh, Mr. Bittersohn. I heard movement overhead and thought that might be you fixing yourself a snack since you weren’t in to dinner. I was about to offer my assistance but I see you are capably provided for. May I fetch you a glass of sherry, perhaps? Or a cold beer? Mariposa and I keep a six-pack or two on hand for our personal use.”

“No, thanks, Charlie. I’m sort of off liquor tonight. Just tell me if you happen to know a former actress named Lydia Ouspenska.”

Charles carefully shut the basement door, cocked an ear to make sure Mariposa wasn’t on her way upstairs, then murmured, “I have met Countess Ouspenska, sir.”

“She’s madly in love with Mr. Bittersohn,” Sarah couldn’t resist putting in.

“I have always found her to be a person of unexceptionable taste and discrimination, madam. She comes from a noble Russian family.”

“She’s a Polish sign painter’s daughter from Chelsea,” said Bittersohn. “The way I heard it, the Countess Ouspenska act came from a play she was in, back during World War II when all the real actresses were doing their bit for the lads at the front. Lydia never got far in the theater. Her real forte was seeing what the boys in the back room would have. How’s she doing these days, Mrs. Kelling?”

“Not too well. All her former sources of income have walked out on her. Charles, how could you be such a cad?”

“Madam, I must beg leave to protest. My connection with Countess Ouspenska has been confined to a short run at the Charles Street Playhouse, where we both had walk-ons, and since then to an occasional exchange of pleasantries over a libation or two at Irving’s.”

“I didn’t know you hung out in Coolidge Corner, Charlie,” said Bittersohn.

“Officially, sir, I do not. However, all Mariposa’s relatives live over the other way in Jamaica Plain and environs, and there are times when we theatricals require our freedom of expression. If I can render no further service here, may I return to my quarters?”

“You have our gracious permission to retire. On your way downstairs, you might try to recall whether Lydia’s ever said anything to you about Madam Wilkins’s palazzo.”

“I shall endeavor to do so.
Hasta la vista, señor, señora.”

“Mariposa’s teaching him Spanish though I don’t know why she bothers. It looks to me as if they conduct most of their conversations in sign language.” Sarah laughed and blushed. “I must have spent a little too long with Countess Ouspenska. Getting back to her finances, Mr. Bittersohn, did you know she supports herself these days by manufacturing antique icons?”

“Are they any good?”

“As good as they can be, I should say. She showed me one that was almost finished and I’ll bet even you would be hard put to tell the difference between the copy and the original.”

“Where did she get the icon she copies from?”

“She owns about a dozen different ones. I couldn’t tell whether they were all genuine, of course, but they looked awfully good to me. She said, she’d never part with them because they’re what keep her from starving in the gutter. But what struck me most was that if she’s such a clever forger—”

“Yes, one might wonder, mightn’t one? You’re thinking about that Romney, I expect, and maybe a few dozen other things. That wouldn’t explain Brown and Witherspoon, though, would it? I can’t see Lydia ever bumping off a man.”

“She’d kill them with kindness, I suppose.”

“Why, Mrs. Kelling! For a nice little girl from Beacon Hill you’re getting awfully free in your talk all of a sudden.”

“It must be the dissolute company I’m keeping. Would you like me to visit Countess Ouspenska again and pump her about the Madam’s?”

“No, I want you to stay away from her and also from the palazzo. I’m putting another of my secret agents on the case tomorrow.”

“How impressive. Who is he?”

“He prefers to be called Bill Jones. Bill knows every hot painting that’s been peddled in and out of Boston for the past thirty years.”

“Does he steal them himself, or what?”

“No, he just likes to keep track. One might call it a hobby. Bill’s a highly successful commercial artist, as a matter of fact. You’d probably enjoy meeting him.”

“Then why don’t you bring him to dinner?”

“Maybe I will. What’s up now, Charlie? I thought you’d retired to your quarters.”

The butler, who had manifested himself in the doorway, stiffened to attention. “Mr. Brooks Kelling has arrived. He wished to be announced.”

“Did Mrs. Tawne come with him?” Sarah asked with a sinking feeling.

“No, madam. He is in the library with Mrs. Sorpende.”

“Why, the little dickens! Give him another few minutes’ billing and cooing time while Mr. Bittersohn finishes his supper, then show him up to the studio. Was that what you wanted me to say, Mr. Bittersohn?”

“Precisely that.” He gobbled the last few bites of food. “Shall we dance?”

As they went up the back stairs it occurred to Sarah to wonder if her other boarders were aware how much time Mr. Bittersohn had been spending in that upstairs sitting room lately, and how the
soi-disant
Countess Ouspenska had got the notion she and he were carrying on what might delicately be described as a close relationship.

Jennifer LaValliere and Eugene Porter-Smith went about together a good deal. Had one of them happened to drop a remark down at one of the coffee houses they frequented that somehow got passed on to her? Or was Sarah getting herself gossiped about more than she realized by appearing in public so often these days with Mr. Bittersohn?

But how could anybody who knew Sarah Kelling also know Lydia Ouspenska? Mr. Palmerston did, for one, but he was barely on speaking terms with Sarah and whatever liaison he’d had with the countess had obviously been over long ago. Dolores Tawne would have had to jump to some awfully swift conclusions since she’d met the pair for the first time Sunday night in what could hardly be called a compromising situation.

Nick Fieringer did. And Nick had been sitting here with them both last night making suggestive remarks about beautiful ladies, and there was no denying the fact that it was a cozy, intimate sort of place and that Sarah’s own bedroom happened to be on the other side of a connecting door and perhaps that door hadn’t been quite shut. And Nick was supposed to be an old boyfriend of Lydia’s. But Nick was old in years, too, and he’d said he had to audition a tuba player at the crack of dawn. Surely he wouldn’t have gone dashing over to Ipswich Street last night to inform the countess that Max Bittersohn, with whom she was evidently acquainted mainly by wishful thinking, might or might not be having a little something on with the widow Kelling whom Lydia had met only that same afternoon.

Of course Nick might have seen Lydia sometime today. And today Brown the guard had died from drinking paint remover, as surely no sane man would do of his own free will. And Lydia Ouspenska was an artist. And paint remover was the sort of thing an artist might think of. And she was also a superb copyist. And what had Brooks found out to bring him tearing over here again tonight?

Maybe it wasn’t anything so very urgent at that. Brooks was in no hurry to leave Mrs. Sorpende. Sarah and the magnificent Max had plenty of time to settle themselves in the two bergères and sit until the silence became awkward.

At last Bittersohn remarked, “I like this room.”

“It’s rather small.”

“Maybe that’s why it’s so pleasant.”

He did have a sensitive, curving mouth for a man whose other features had at first looked so rugged in contrast to her late husband’s. She tried to picture Alexander’s face and found to her secret horror that she could remember him best as a pair of long legs in impeccable gray flannel, taking a little girl to feed the ducks in the Public Gardens. Yet she’d loved Alexander with all her heart. Well, of course not entirely all. She’d loved her parents, she supposed, and she loved Aunt Emma and dear old Anora Protheroe and Uncle Jem and maybe his faithful henchman Egbert a little and she was getting extremely fond of Cousin Mary and even, after all these years, of Cousin Dolph. There had to be many different kinds of loving, and hearts couldn’t very well be amenable to quantitative analysis. And what on earth was keeping Brooks?

He came curvetting in at last, sleek and lithe as an elderly chipmunk. “Good evening, children.”

“Hi, Kelling,” said Bittersohn. “Found any more bodies?”

“Not yet, but point me in the right direction and I’ll be glad to go hunting. I came for my instructions.”

“Nice of you. I don’t suppose there’s any chance of finding the bottle Brown really drank out of?”

“Naturally I conducted a thorough search of the premises and it’s nowhere to be found. That in itself is a telling point, don’t you think? I daresay it was tossed out somewhere in the Fens. Another broken whiskey bottle over there would hardly be noticed. I’ve written to the
Christian Science Monitor
about littering more than once.”

“And scholarly epistles they were, no doubt. Why else do you think Brown was murdered?”

“I knew the man, if one could dignify him by that name. Brown was a slug. Slugs don’t go around committing painful and melodramatic suicides but they can easily be tricked into swallowing poisoned bait.”

“Any idea who laid the bait?”

“If I had, I’d be with Lieutenant Davies instead of you. Ratting, I believe it’s called.”

“On one of your colleagues at the museum?”

“I think a guard would be a viable hypothesis. The murderer must have known, to begin with, that Brown kept a fifth in his locker. He’d have to be able to gain access to the locker room without making himself conspicuous. That in itself mightn’t be difficult since our only bathroom is next to the locker room and he could always pretend to be visiting the facilities. However”—Cousin Brooks paused impressively—“he’d also have to know which bottle belonged to Brown.

“Good point. He’d also have to know when it was safe to sneak back and switch the whiskey for the paint remover, and plant the note in Brown’s pocket. Any idea where the paint remover came from, by the way?”

“Yes, it was mine. I repair some of the frames, as Dolores may have mentioned, and do other small jobs of that sort. I prefer the liquid paint remover to the viscous kind because the work is often delicate and I find it easier to control. The bottle was simply taken off my workbench, which is also in the basement, of course.”

“Is that supposed to mean somebody’s trying to frame the framer?”

“Oh, I hardly think so. That would be a bit too obvious, wouldn’t it? I should be happy to know, though, that somebody isn’t trying to kill me. That’s why I felt I’d be well advised to have this little chat with you, sir. The police are showing an inclination to write Brown’s death off as suicide. I don’t want to be written off along with Brown.”

“Have you any special reason to think you might be?”

“Only that ignorance is always dangerous. Since I don’t know why Witherspoon and Brown were killed, I have no idea whether or not my having been in the palazzo on both occasions may constitute a threat to the murderer.”

“Cousin Brooks,” cried Sarah, “you must give up that job this instant.”

“What for?”

“Because I’d feel perfectly awful if anything happened to you.”

“Out of respect for your sensibilities, then, I shall try to keep from being bumped off. Or is it rubbed out? As to the job, I don’t think it’s quite the done thing to walk out at a time like this. I’m sure Bittersohn understands my feeling. Speaking of walking, do you think it would be in order for me to ask Mrs. Sorpende out for a little stroll some evening soon? I thought she might care to observe the nighthawks.”

“All right, Brooks, be a hero if you must. As to the nighthawks, Mrs. Sorpende loves to walk and I’m sure she’d be enraptured.”

“And as to the museum,” said Bittersohn, “just hang in there till we see what develops. I’m sending somebody over to have a look tomorrow. Keep me posted, and don’t leave anything eatable or drinkable in your locker.”

T
HE NEXT NIGHT MR.
Bittersohn brought a guest back to dinner. The guest was not dressed for the occasion. In fact he was hardly dressed at all. In addition to the filthy poplin raincoat he shed on arriving, he wore a nondescript sports shirt, shrunken chino pants, and a pair of run-down loafers. Tie, socks, and undershirt were blatantly absent. His face, on the other hand, was modestly veiled in a three days’ growth of blue-black whiskers. He was short, thin, and swarthy. His manners were polished as a duke’s, and he talked volubly throughout the meal in a confidential murmur, leaning far over the table and waving a fork or a bit of bread in an exquisite little hand. Sarah’s boarders, especially Jennifer LaValliere, found him entrancing.