Escapade

Chapter Fifteen

The Great Man wasn’t in his room when I returned to our suite. I looked at my watch. Three-thirty, and tea was at four. I undressed and took a quick shower. I put on clean underwear and a clean shirt.

My suit had been harvesting fruits of the forest all day-twigs and leaves, a thorn or two. I brushed them off and then I climbed back into it. The. 32 Colt was still in my jacket pocket and it was going to stay there until I left Maplewhite.

I left the room. I was opposite the door to the suite that held Mrs. Allardyce and Miss Turner when Cecily Fitzwilliam sailed around the corner up ahead. She was walking toward me and she was wearing some clothes this afternoon, a long-sleeved red dress.

I stopped.

“Mr. Beaumont!” she smiled. “What a wonderful coincidence.

I was just coming to see you.” She stopped and curled up her shoulders in a soft quick shrug, then put her hands together below her stomach, left hand cupping right. “How are you?” She looked sweetly up at me as if she expected a kiss on her pert little mouth.

I tried to remember the jaded young thing who had drawled at me in the drawing room last night.

“Bringing back the key to your handcuffs?” I asked her.

She frowned, puzzled. “But what… You have the key. I put it"-she glanced quickly around, lowered her voice-“I put it on your bed.”

I shook my head.

She nearly stamped her foot. “But I did,” she said. “I found it under the bed, after you left, and I put it exactly in the center of the mattress. Where you’d be certain to find it.”

“I didn’t.”

“But that’s impossible. You did look?”

“I looked. How’d you manage to get back to your room without anyone seeing you?”

“The front stairs.” With a nod of her head she indicated the end of the corridor, behind me. “Mr. Beaumont, I swear to you, I put the key on the bed. I’d never have left you…” She shrugged, smiled. “Well… you know… stranded like that.”

“Okay,” I said. “You put the key on the bed.”

Her smile vanished, buried beneath a pout. “I did.”

“Okay,” I said. She hadn’t asked me how I’d gotten out of the cuffs. Probably she was too busy thinking about whatever it was that had brought her here.

She glanced around again, leaned slightly toward me. She fluttered her eyelashes a few more times and she smiled again. A coy smile. “You didn’t tell anyone about last night, did you?” This was why she’d come-to learn if I’d been spilling any beans lately.

“I told Mr. Houdini,” I said.

She leaned back and her face went suddenly stiff and red. “How could you?” she said.

“I needed to get the cuffs off.”

Her brow puckered up, her lower lip dropped. “But I left you the key.” A wail was quavering just behind her voice.

“I never found it,” I said. “Look. Don’t worry. I told him you wanted to talk. I told him you brought the handcuffs because you thought he might want to see them.”

“But you told him I was there!”

“He won’t repeat it.”

Some kind of understanding flashed across her face. “Is that why he was avoiding me? Just now? Every time I came near him, he was blinking like a madman. And then he went racing away.” Her eyes opened wide in horror. “He thinks I’m a nymphomaniac!”

I smiled. “He doesn’t think-”

“I’m not a nymphomaniac!”

At that moment, the door opened to my left. Miss Turner stood there, looking out at us with her mouth turned down in disapproval. Her hair was wrung back behind her head again and she was wearing another shapeless dress. Brown, this time.

For a second or two she stood there and those wide blue eyes silently stared. And then she flinched and her long body jerked abruptly forward, as though she had been whacked in the back. The voice of Mrs. Allardyce shrilled out-“Get along with you, Jane, don’t dawdle so.” And then both of them were out in the hallway and Mrs. Allardyce was coming around Miss Turner like a hungry crab scuttling around a pearl. She clutched her purse against her stomach as though it were a shield. A broad eager smile was pasted to her round shiny face. “Why, Cecily. How very lovely you look.” The smile slipped only a bit when she nodded to me. “And good day to you again, Mr. Beaumont.”

I nodded. Politely.

“Aren’t you taking tea, dear?” Mrs. Allardyce asked Cecily, and put her hand on Cecily’s forearm. Cecily seemed to shrink away, but Mrs. Allardyce didn’t notice, or didn’t care. She said, “I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to meeting Sir Arthur. I adore his work, just adore it. I saw Mr. Gillette in that wonderful Sherlock Holmes play at the Lyceum and he was simply brilliant! He’s so terribly handsome, isn’t he? So terribly distinguished. " She edged her bulk closer to Cecily. “And tell me, dear. Has Sir Arthur brought along that medium of his?”

“Yes,” said Cecily. “Everyone is in the drawing room.” Her aristocratic drawl had returned, but it lay over the strain in her voice like a first coat of paint, thin and transparent. “Mr. Beaumont asked me to show him around Maplewhite.” She was too young, maybe, to know that you never volunteer a lie. Or maybe too upset to remember.

Once again, Mrs. Allardyce didn’t seem to notice. “How fortunate for him,” she said, “to have you as a guide.” She patted Cecily’s forearm. “Well, dear, we’ll leave you to your tour. I’m sure we’ll see you later. Au revoir! And you too, Mr. Beaumont. Come along, Jane.”

“Mr. Beaumont?” Miss Turner had stepped closer to me.

I turned. Behind her, Mrs. Allardyce wobbled to a surprised halt.

Miss Turner’s uncanny blue eyes looked into mine and they were unwavering. She held herself straight, her back rigid. “I don’t recall much of what happened,” she said. She pressed her lips briefly together. “My fainting spell, this afternoon. But Mrs. Corneille told me that if you hadn’t been so quick to help, I should have injured myself. I wanted to thank you.

“No need to,” I said.

“There is,” she said, “and I do. And I apologize, once again, for causing you trouble.”

“No trouble. I’m glad you’re all right. Mrs. Corneille said your horse saw a snake?”

“Yes. It startled him. In any event, I thank you for your efforts.” She nodded once, as if pleased with herself for pulling something off, and then she nodded to Cecily. “Miss Fitzwilliam.”

“Come along, dear, come along,” said Mrs. Allardyce, and she swung her thick arm like a gaff into the crook of Miss Turner s elbow. She smiled again at Cecily, quickly, almost fiercely, and then she led Miss Turner off, toward the stairs.

As they disappeared around the corner, Cecily said, What a perfectly horrid little woman.”

I smiled. “Miss Turner?”

“No, silly. That awful Allardyce person. She’s a cousin of my mother’s. And what a positively sick-making idea that is.” Suddenly she turned to me. “She couldn’t have heard what I said, could she?”

“Mrs. Allardyce?”

“Miss Turner. What I said about…” She raised her eyebrows, took a deep breath, let it out in a weary sigh, “ You know…”

“About being a nymphomaniac?”

“ I am not — " She heard herself squeal, glanced around, leaned toward me. “I am not a nymphomaniac,” she said between clenched teeth, and then she thumped me on the chest.

“I know,” I said. “And no, I don’t think she heard. And no, Mr. Houdini doesn’t think you’re a nymphomaniac either. No one thinks you’re a nymphomaniac. Except maybe you.”

She eyed me suspiciously. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. Look, Cecily. I’ve got to go. Don’t worry about Mr. Houdini. He won’t say anything.”

She canted her head thoughtfully to the side. “Do you think she’s prettier than I am?”

“Mrs. Allardyce?”

She made that almost-foot-stomping motion again. “No. Miss Turner.”

“She behaves better,” I said.

She tried to thump me again and I caught her wrist and held it. “See what I mean?” I said.

Her eyes were narrowed and she was staring at my hand. “Let me go, ” she said, her voice low and threatening. The rules of the game had been changed, and she didn’t like it.

“No more hitting,” I said.

She tossed her head back and she aimed her glance down along her cheekbones. “Or what?”

“Or we’ll talk to Daddy.”

“He won’t believe a word you say.”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

She glared at me for a moment, and then her shoulders slumped and she scowled. I let go of her wrist. Wincing furiously, her mouth twisted open, she rubbed at the wrist as though she had been shackled for a lifetime to an overhead beam.

“I don’t know why I care what you think,” she said darkly, glowering up at me. She raised her head. “I’m sure I don’t care. After all, you’re only a servant, really, aren’t you?”

I nodded. “That’s right.”

“And why on earth should I care what a servant thinks?”

“No reason at all.”

“Well, I don’t,” she said, and she wheeled about and stalked away. She whirled around the corner and I could hear her feet go stomping down the stairs.

I waited there in the hallway for a while, to give her time to find her drawl again.

On the walls, across the faded tapestries, plump naked people were still chasing each other in a refined way through the forest. Around the room, well-dressed people were gathered in clusters once again. No one seemed bothered by the idea that a sniper had shot at someone today. But maybe they were all rising above it. The English like to do that.

“Mr. Beaumont,” said Doyle, lumbering up from his seat at the coffee table to my right. “There you are. Please join us. Come and meet my friends.”

The table held platters of food, porcelain cups and saucers, a porcelain teapot, a silver coffeepot, a small silver cream pitcher, a small silver sugar bowl. There were six people sitting around all that. I knew four of them-Lady Purleigh, Cecily Fitzwilliam, Mrs. Allardyce, and Miss Turner. I didn’t know the woman in the wheelchair or the man sitting beside her.

“Mr. Phil Beaumont,” said Doyle, and held out his hand toward the woman, “this is my very good friend, the remarkable Madame Sosostris.”

Remarkable was right. The woman made Mrs. Allardyce look like a wood nymph. Probably she weighed as much as Doyle did, but she was half his height. Her body was draped in a gown of red and gold silk, like a medicine ball bundled in gift wrap. Her huge mane of white hair was swept back from her wide white forehead into a pompadour the size of an ornamental shrub. The hair fell in thick waves to her shoulders and cradled her white puffy face. Her bushy eyebrows and her long eyelashes were jet black, and so were the small sly eyes that glittered beneath them. And so was the starshaped beauty mark on her cheek, stuck there like a fly on a rice pudding.

She nodded to me the way a queen bee would nod to a drone. “So very charming to meet you,” she said. She spoke with an accent but I couldn’t tell what it was.

“And this,” said Doyle, “is Madame’s husband, a very kind and generous man. Mr. Dempsey.”

Mr. Dempsey was bony and angular and he probably weighed less, clothes and all, than one of his wife’s thighs. He was in his fifties, with sunken cheeks and sunken eyes and a thin bitter mouth. He wore a loose gray suit, a white shirt, a black bow tie, and a narrow black toupee that looked liked it had been oiled and then run over with a truck.

He unfolded himself out of the chair like a carpenter’s ruler and gave me a handful of knobby knuckles. “How do you do?” he said, and smiled painfully. His accent was American.

“Won’t you join us?” Lady Purleigh said, looking up at me from her chair. Beside her, Cecily Fitzwilliam raised her head and elaborately looked away.

“Thanks,” I said, “but I’ve got to talk to Mr. Houdini.”

Lady Purleigh smiled pleasantly. She looked good again today, slim and elegant in a long white silk dress that made her gray blond hair seem even lighter in color. “You’re entirely too conscientious, Mr. Beaumont. I admire your energy but this is the weekend, after all. I do hope you’ll set aside some time to enjoy it.”

I smiled back at her. “I will. Thanks.” I nodded to Madame Sosostris and to Mr. Dempsey, and then to Doyle.

He nodded and lumbered back to rejoin his table. I strolled across the room to the table where the Great Man was sitting alone. He was writing something in a notebook, probably another letter to his wife.

“All by yourself, Harry?”

“I refuse to sit with that woman. You saw her hair?”

“Kind of hard to miss it.”

“She could hide every manner of prop and gadget inside that monstrosity. Trumpets, bells, several pounds of ectoplasm.” Suddenly he grinned at me. “She’s a physical medium, you know. She produces apports.”

“Apports?”

“Physical manifestations,” he said. “From the spirit world. Although, strangely enough, upon examination they seem invariably quite mundane.” He rubbed his hands together. “Ah, Phil, I do look forward to this. Her control is a Red Indian, did you know that?”

“Her control?”

“Her Spirit Guide.” He grinned up at me and he rubbed his hands some more.

“Have you seen Lord Purleigh?” I asked him.

He shook his head impatiently. “Not since we spoke in the library.” “I talked to Sir Arthur about the London idea. The police. I think that’ll work.”

“Excuse me.” A woman’s voice to my left, and a light touch upon my arm. The scent of ancient flowers.

“I apologize for interrupting,” said Mrs. Corneille, smiling first at me and then down at the Great Man. “I was returning to my table and I thought I might ask all of you to join us there.”

The Great Man glanced toward her table, which held Sir David and Dr. Auerbach. He still ranked them as vermin, probably, because when he turned back to Mrs. Corneille his smile was small and polite. “Thank you,” he said, and nodded. “Perhaps in a short while.”

She looked at me. “Mr. Beaumont?”

“Sure,” I said. “Thanks.” I nodded goodbye to the Great Man and then I walked to the table beside Mrs. Corneille and her perfume. Dr. Auerbach shot to his feet, his tiny teeth and his pince-nez gleaming. He gave me a small crisp nod. Mr. Beaumont. A great pleasure to see you again.”

From his seat, Sir David nodded curtly and looked away.

Sir David, Lord Bob, Cecily. I was making a big impression on the uptown swells.

“Would you care for some food?” asked Mrs. Corneille as I sat down beside her. Opposite me, Dr. Auerbach neatly tugged up the knees of his trousers and he sat down and crossed his legs.

Like Doyle’s table, this one was piled with food. I realized that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. “Yes,” I admitted. “Thanks.

Mrs. Corneille leaned forward for the teapot. “Tea?”

“Please”

She ignored him and poured the tea. She looked over at me. “Sugar? Lemon? Milk?”

“Nothing, thanks,” I told her.

She set the teacup before me. “The sandwiches are quite good,” she said.

I took a plate, took a sandwich from the silver platter. Bit into it. Smoked salmon and creamed cheese. Quite good.

Sir David said to Mrs. Corneille, “Dr. Auerbach was explaining that he has a literary as well as a psychological side.” He turned to Dr. Auerbach comfortably, almost proudly, like an inventor waiting for his favorite windup toy to start performing.

“Oh no,” Dr. Auerbach said to Mrs. Corneille. “Literary, no. I have myself produced a very few original monographs only. Studies of some interesting cases I have encountered. But I have, as I told Sir David, translated Herr Doktor Freud’s ‘Wit and Its Relationship to the Unconscious.’ This I did for your University of Leeds.”

Smiling, Sir David idly stroked his mustache with his index finger. “Leeds, was it?”

Dr. Auerbach showed his little teeth to Mrs. Corneille. “But this was quite some work, I can tell you. Because of the nature of humor, it was necessary that I substitute English jokes of my own for Herr Doctor Freud’s German jokes.”

“Perhaps,” said Sir David, “you would favor us with some of these?”

“Whatever is wrong with Lord Purleigh?” said Mrs. Corneille, looking off toward the entrance to the drawing room.

I turned. Lord Bob had arrived. Standing a few feet from Doyle’s table, he was waving his bushy eyebrows up and down and running his hands back through his hair, his face twisted. Doyle stood frowning before him, his big fingers on Lord Bob’s elbow as though supporting the man. Across the table, Lady Purleigh had risen from her seat. She looked worried.

“Excuse me,” I said. Reluctantly, I set my food back on the table and I stood up.

Doyle and Lord Bob were walking now toward the Great Man’s table. Both their faces were grim. I reached the table at the same time they did. The Great Man had seen them coming and he was already standing.

“Beaumont, good,” said Doyle. “We can use you, I expect.”

“What happened?” I asked him.

Doyle turned to Lord Bob, who scowled at me and then looked at the Great Man. “Some sort of accident,” he said. “The Earl. My father. His valet heard a noise in his room. Pistol shot, he thinks-but that’s impossible. Bloody impossible. Thing is, we can't get in and the Earl won’t answer. Bloody door is locked. Some problem with the key.”

The Great Man raised himself to his full height. “Houdini will open it, Lord Purleigh. This I promise you.”