The Mark of Merlin

CHAPTER FOUR

My female Scotch forebears probably regarded my day’s work with as much satisfaction as I did. I literally peeled accumulated scum off cabinets, walls, floors, pots, pans, cans, bottles, glasses. I cursed unknown predecessors for slovenly habits even as I ignored the plain fact that probably the house had been untenanted for several years. I knew that Regan Laird had not been back from Europe for very long but even he must have been aware the kitchen was incredibly dirty.

Mother Bailey, Turtle’s mother, had always scrubbed, caroling a lusty revival hymn in time with her strokes. It had been part of her philosophy that singing hymns was prayerful and being prayerful made work go faster, combining two virtues at one and the same time, rewarding doubly. I had spent two years with her in West Roxbury just after Mother’s death, until I was school age. I know those few years were my happiest although I missed Dad sorely. However, I had uncles and aunts and cousins and grandparents galore. Ma Bailey’s favorite for floor scrubbing was “Rock of Ages” which could set the crockery rattling as her volume increased in direct proportion to the amount of mud and dirt on the floor. She had a fine resonant contralto and her one criticism of her religion was that the Catholics had few decent “tunes” for scrubbing. As a matter of fact, she confided in me shortly after I came to her that she had felt it on her conscience to be singing Protestant hymns and had taken the matter up with her parish priest. Looking back, I can see the humor of the situation and wonder how the priest had managed to control his mirth at such a question. Ma Bailey did receive the dispensation although she was scrupulous about choosing “nondenominational” anthems and avoiding any which mentioned the Trinity or the Virgin Mary. I might have turned Catholic in that household had I not heard how Turtle got his voice. Or rather, got the one he now used.

Despite all latrine gossip to the contrary, Master Sergeant Edward Bailey’s voice was not the product of years of parade ground drilling nor was his undammable flow of blasphemy the result of frustration with “stupid squads.” Born in Boston just before the turn of the century, of poor but honest folk, young Edward Bailey had been a handsome lad, a devout Catholic and, as soon as he was old enough, an altar boy. The parish priest had noticed the lovely quality of young Ed’s voice in the repetition of the responses. It became apparent by the time he was ten that he was possessed of a naturally sweet, true soprano. He was quickly exploited and became known throughout the Boston metropolitan area, singing at high masses, weddings, funerals, association meetings, and such, billed as Boston’s McCormack, a true Irishman. A brilliant career was projected for him, including entrance to a fine Catholic high school and college.

One evening, on his way home from a music lesson, a bunch of roughs, out on the prowl for any Irishman they could “put in his place” (for those were the days of the terrible Irish pogroms in Boston) attacked him, beating him so severely about the face and throat that his voice box was smashed and his face so brutally mutilated he bore no resemblance to the old tintype his mother cherished of her Eddie.

For months after the incident he could barely talk. But his early vocal training gave him one advantage, he could force air from his diaphragm for a semblance of speech. Gradually he was able to use his vocal cords again but the glorious voice was gone. The Church, without noticeable regret, canceled the scholarships. At sixteen, a battered-faced, embittered boy had lied about his age and enlisted in time to fight in the first World War. He had wanted to die but fate had assigned him to my father’s first command. A comradeship was established at that Plattsburg training camp which had lasted my father’s lifetime and seemed to spill over to include me.

Child though I was when I heard that story, I knew who had hurt my Turtle Bailey the most and the Catholics lost me. Turtle was even then my special haven. As a matter of fact, I was responsible for the nickname. Somewhere, somewhen, a biblical phrase had been repeated in my hearing, the one about “And lo, the voice of the turtle was heard in the land.” I’m told that I asked Sergeant Bailey if he had a turtle’s voice and once the notion stuck in my mind, I never got rid of it.

Ma Bailey always claimed that one of the fringe benefits of floor scrubbing was solving problems. It only solved one of mine today, cleaning the floor. But I did cast the problems up and down, around and sideways, which could be considered the first step towards solving them. If you happened to be of an optimistic nature.

My first problem was staying on in this house. Then finding out what was going on between the major and the sergeant. Did it have to do with my father? And why? Did it have something to with the burglar? The footlocker?

The floor was drying. The walls and the cabinets were sparklingly clean and everything within them. The rest of the house was too cold to assault with mop and pail except for the bathroom. So I launched a major offensive against it, whipping it into a sanitary state in next to no time. I came back to the nice clean kitchen and slumped down in a chair, to revive myself with coffee and mull over dinner. In Ma Bailey’s lexicon, cleanliness was next to godliness but food was what a man wanted next to him. At least, that was the version I learned at six.

I brought the chickens in from the back porch, the poor things. I must tell the major, war or not, he was not to patronize again whoever sold him those birds. They’d obviously been running around since the last war. The only decent thing to be done with them was stew. As I recalled it, Turtle was partial to my dumplings. At the moment I had no desire to satisfy my guardian’s preferences. Then, too, there was nothing like a full stomach to tempt a man to lose his discretion.

My years of boardinghouse living had had several hazards. One was that if the proprietress was widowed or single, she made a play for my father. This usually began with intense concern for the well-being of his daughter, with much discussion about my lack of feminine skills such as housekeeping, cooking, and sewing. I don’t know whether I learned to cook in my self-defense or Father’s but I also don’t remember not knowing how to cook. Once each new aspirant discovered me versed in fundamentals, she would undertake to instruct me in fine points so I had acquired culinary arts above the ordinary. In fact, I earned all my spending money now cooking, with two regular dinner jobs a week and two lunchtime positions.

Even my skill was challenged by these fowl. Fortunately the larder was not bare of herbs, in fact, the inventory was extraordinary. The inequalities included five half-used boxes of paprika, nine thyme, three rosemary, but no marjoram. Lots of oregano but no basil. Still I had enough of the right things. It looked to me as if the summer renters had always brought their own spices and then left them behind in the hectic windup of seasonal withdrawal.

I made a cake, reveling in the unusual amount of honest-to-gosh butter. As I slid the cake pans into the oven, I realized there was no heat gauge. The oversupply of wood I had petulantly rammed in had burned off and the oven innards did not seem overhot on my skin. If Grandma could do it, I could!

The cake rose and rose, unevenly to be sure, but it was a home-baked product and they could like it or lump it. I heard stamping on the back porch and when I peered out of the crystal-clear window, the major glanced at me questioningly. When I smiled, he pointed to the woodbox. I shook my head. He loaded up and I heard him crashing back in again, slamming the door to his study. Then the kitchen door opened.

“Have you hey, what happened to the kitchen?” he asked, coming all the way in and looking around with a pleased smile.

“Where’s your white glove?”

His grin broadened. “No need. I appreciate this, I really do. I’ve been trying to get a woman out here but no luck.”

He opened a cabinet and peered in. He whistled, his fingers absently stroking the now greaseless wood.

I held the coffeepot aloft suggestively. Just then he spotted the cake cooling on the table. There was a curious look on his face as he reached mechanically for a cup.

“Maybe I’m glad you’re not James Carlysle,” he said, looking down at me as I poured his coffee. A shadow of an odd expression flitted across his face.

“Oh, I’ve been promoted to human status?” I asked.

He lifted his mug in a toast. The lid of the Dutch kettle rattled, drawing his eyes from mine to the stove. He took a deep sniff.

“That mouth-watering aroma cannot possibly come from those desiccated carcasses in the hall?” he inquired.

I shrugged nonchalantly. “Naturally. Even retreads from the last war cannot daunt Chef Murdock.”

He winced. “I know what you mean. And, at that, the farmer assured me it was a favor from one vet to another.”

“Favors like that you don’t need! Particularly in wartime.”

He tilted the lid, breathing deeply.

“Ambrosial! You put my efforts to shame.”

“You’ve merely lacked the touch of a woman about the house.”

He straightened quickly, his face cold.

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” he said in a flat voice and turning on his heel went directly back to his study.

I stared after him, curiously sensitive to his rebuff. He hadn’t mentioned a wife and he wore no ring. If he were married, it wouldn’t have bothered him that I was unchaperoned. Surely he’d want his wife with him right now or maybe he wouldn’t with his face like that. No, I couldn’t buy that theory. You don’t marry a guy just for his good looks. Can that, too, Carla. You know damned well some girls have married guys for the set of their shoulders in a military tunic.

I iced the cake unenthusiastically, the edge of my pleasure blunted by the incident. I regarded the respectable product of my labors with a jaundiced eye and put it on the sideboard. I tasted the stew and salted it again. After I had peeled carrots and potatoes and added them, I set the table for dinner.

The kitchen clock said six although it felt earlier. Because, I supposed, the day had begun late. I peeked out into the hall and noticed my other bag. The side pocket of the B-29 canvas bulged with the box of Dad’s personal effects. That reminded me that the key to the footlocker was at hand and the footlocker above my head in the back room.

Well, I might as well clean up that detail. If the inventory of my father’s effects was going to reduce me to tears, at least there were sympathetic shoulders at hand. And I might just find out what it was the major thought I’d find in that locker.

By the time I had wrestled the bomber bag up the stairs, the chill of the house had taken away the heat of my desire to circumvent the major. I really didn’t want to look through that locker. For that matter, I hadn’t even looked very carefully past the first layer of the box. The sight of Dad’s West Point ring, tied to the end of the liberty scarf he’d bought me in England, had been too much for me. I had shoved the V-mail letters and the photo case that formed the first layer over the scarf and closed the box. I hadn’t been able to open it up again.

Irresolute, I stared at the door to the back room. The stamp albums must be in the footlocker; the box was too small for them. And the stamps were valuable. I wasn’t the philatelist my father had been but I’d learned enough about stamps so that I wouldn’t be cheated much if I were forced to sell the collection. Stamps didn’t depreciate and if diamonds were a girl’s best friends, stamps were a man’s or a refugee’s. He’d mentioned picking up some surcharged Polish stamps and three French Colonial oddities in Paris the one time he’d had leave there. I’d better ask the major if the stamps oughtn’t to be evaluated. Wartime or not, there were certain formalities for a hero’s heir.

Come to think of it, Dad had mentioned that this De-Lord had been with him on that Parisian foray. Dad’s opinion of DeLord had been favorable and Dad was an infallible judge of men. Why were the major and Turtle contemptuous of the lieutenant? Of course, if the man were so ill advised as to consort with Warren, I could understand their dislike. But, if Dad had liked DeLord, why was De-Lord cozying up to Warren? Oh, it made no sense. Irritated by my indecision, I kicked the bomber bag against the wall. It could stay there. It was too cold to go through Dad’s things. Even basically impersonal things such as stamps. I turned on my heel and went to my own room.

I knocked. I banged. I pounded. Well, Turtle always could sleep up a storm when he put his mind to it. I opened the door, closing it quickly because the room was warmer by noticeable degrees than the hall.

Turtle was snortingly asleep, a quilt half covering his husky frame. He was lying on his back, his head to one side, one hand across his chest, the other tucked under the pillow. Never a lovely sight, with his broken thick nose, the heavy undershot jaw, the pitted scarred face with its shadow of new beard growth, he made Lon Chancy look like Robert Taylor by comparison. With the familiarity of our friendship, I marched up to the bed and shook him by the shoulder. The next thing I knew, a Luger was pressed to my temple and a beefy hand was tight on my throat.

“For Pete’s sweet suffering sake,” I managed to say in a normal voice although I was never more startled in my life. Had I struggled or screamed, I think I might have been killed.

“Chrissake, Carla,” Turtle exploded in an angry roar of relief, “never do that to a combat fighter. I’d’ve blown your brains out. Chrisssst!” and he snapped the safety on and flopped back onto the bed, as shaken as I by the incident.

I sat down limply on the foot of the bed, rubbing my throat.

“I knocked,” I explained plaintively. “Then I banged and I pounded, Turtle.”

He nodded understandingly. “I’m too used to sleeping through barrages, Bit.” He rubbed the back of his neck and jerked his head around sharply so that something cracked hollowly. This made him feel better but it made me nervous. “Best thing to do is call me by name.”

“Sergeant? Or,” and I grinned maliciously, “Turtle?”

His glower dissolved into an affectionate grin.

“Sarge,” he suggested with a gravelly growl. He raised himself up, deftly knocking a single cigarette from the pack to his lips. “Jeez but it’s good to see you, Little Bit. You’re as thin as a stick but you look great to this old horse.”

“It’s wonderful to see you, too,” I agreed, “but I don’t exack-a-tally like you hobnobbing with the brass before coming to see me.”

Turtle scowled, his glance sliding from mine before he looked back. “I did. I called your boardinghouse and you’d gone out somewhere.”

“When?” I exclaimed, annoyed I hadn’t been told of his call and sick I hadn’t seen him earlier.

“Day before yesterday. I’d just got in.”

“Day before

Oh, yes. Mrs. Everett did say I’d had a couple of phone calls. I was at the dean’s,” and I grimaced at the memory of that “take-it-easy-now” interview. “You called twice.”

“Naw,” he contradicted, surprised. “Just once. Like I said. The lady didn’t know when you’d be back. And I got involved.”

I grinned at him and he waved off the suggestion in my smile that he’d gone off on a bat.

“When I called yesterday morning, you’d just left for the major’s. So I came on down. Lined up my targets.”

“Why did you have to see the major?” I asked as casually as I could.

Turtle looked me squarely in the face, his jaw set, his eyes bleak.

“Comp’ny business,” he growled in a flat no-nonsense voice.

“One of my father’s companies?” I asked.

Turtle didn’t so much as blink.

“I’ve known you since you were an hour old, James Carlysle Murdock. This is company business and that’s all you’ll get from me. Flat out!”

There is nothing stubborner than a Boston Irishman when he gets set. I’d seen Turtle like this a couple of times before. Once with an inspecting general and it wasn’t Turtle who gave in. I acknowledged his obstinacy by standing up abruptly.

“Made you chicken ‘n’ dumplings. And the sun’s over the yardarm.”

Turtle’s face broke into a slow, grateful smile. He cuffed me affectionately on the shoulder. “Good girl.”

He rose and said, through a massive yawn, “Sprung a bottle loose from my sister’s bastard of a bartending husband. God, what a stingy - he is.”

“She must like him. She married him.”

“Ha! Don’t remember Rene very well do you? She had to!” Turtle’s mirthless laugh was accompanied by the multiple cracking of his knuckles.

“Oh, you know I hate that sound, Turtle. Speaking of marriage, is the major?”

Turtle looked at me sharply.

“Or is that company business too?” I added sweetly.

Turtle shook his head. “He was married.” The sergeant paused thoughtfully. “But it broke up sometime before Pearl. He’s been in a while but he’s no Pointer.”

His bachelor status was more of a relief to me than it should have been, considering our brief association. His not being an Academy man was a surprise. I could usually spot the ninety-day wonders. The way Turtle looked at me then decided me against further pumping. It was natural for me to want to know the scuttlebutt about my guardian but if Turtle was reticent about the major, there was no surer indication of the old sergeant’s respect for him.

“Major well liked?”

Turtle nodded solemnly and I left it at that. As Turtle rummaged in his bag for the bottle, I closed the door quietly. I got the locker key from my B-29 and turned resolutely to the back room. If they won’t tell me, I’ll find out myself.

An old chest of drawers had been pushed next to the three footlockers. So, with some pushing and shoving, I got the top locker onto the chest. The major was probably in his study so he wouldn’t hear me rumbling things.

The key fit into the lock all right enough but it took me a little time to get the key to turn the tumblers. Salt air probably, plus the freezing temperatures of the room.

Gritting my teeth, I threw the lid up, exposing the compartmented tray on top. I sighed deeply; there certainly wasn’t much to cry about in this assortment of badly mimeographed orders of the day, manuals, language dictionaries, torn map fragments, handkerchiefs and unmatchedsocks, thready shoulder patches. I could even regard Dad’s Sam Browne belt sanguinely. I poked around unenthusiastically until I realized I was evading the issue.

I lifted the tray out and below it were things that had meaning for me. Stolidly I lifted out the top stamp album. It was, naturally, the very one I’d given him for Christmas three years ago. I found myself stroking the red leather, tracing the gold tooling with an idiot finger as my throat began to tighten. I shook my head, resolved not to cry again, and leafed carefully through the pages. These were his commemoratives and consequently incomplete. I put it carefully aside, my fingers trembling as I reached for the two blue albums, recalling how often they had appeared on the evenings which Dad and I had spent companionably together. He’d spread them out on a table or the bed, losing himself in his hobby for hours of patient study and arrangement, cursing because he missed the one vital stamp that would double the worth of the unit. Beneath the two blue books was the shabby brown one which had been his first. I lifted it a few inches and then dropped it hurriedly. For it covered the triangular shape of a folded flag and that was too much.

Hastily I put the other three albums back in place and started to unpack the other end of the locker. A canvas-wrapped rectangle disclosed a handsome, blue leather, gold-tooled volume bearing the inscription “Briefmarken.” This must have been the German album he had picked up in Paris which had excited him so much. I opened it and two pieces of foolscap fell out. In Dad’s handwriting at the top of the first sheet was the initial “D.” D for Dad? Dog Company?

Below was a list headed “French China,” broken into several categories. The first was headed “handstamped,” carmine and purple, 1903, 1900, 1902-4. The second included stamps from 1 centime to 75, with the 75 underscored heavily for Tchongking, Mong-tseu, Yunnan Sen (Yunnanfu) also Packhoi.

I dredged up what I could remember of half-heard philately lectures from Dad. The 75-centimes was something special but I couldn’t remember what. I did remember that before the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 many of the foreign countries involved in that blatant exploitation had maintained their own postal offices, quite rightly distrusting the vagaries of the Chinese system. Had Dad actually run across a complete series? Oh, that would be a find. I leafed through the album carefully. There were even some of the 75-centimes stamps from each of the various French-China offices, a rather odd combination of deep violet and orange.

I looked back at the list. Just before the carmine and purple handstamp on the 1900 category and the 75-centimes in all the French-China divisions was a tiny checkmark. I glanced again into the album but the ones checked were there. Well, I’d have to dig out the Scott Stamp Catalogue and see what exactly he meant. Perhaps these were more valuable. Although even as it stood these particular stamps were valuable by themselves if I remembered correctly.

Beneath the Briefmarken volume were two more rectangular shapes, carefully wrapped in heavy paper, neatly tied with thin cord. I felt the edges, assuming these were more albums; evidently the covers were made of wood. Or these might be the little surprises Dad had bought and never had time to mail to me. Well, I couldn’t look at them right now. I pushed them to one side and there, half hidden by underwear and socks, were several boxes of forty-five shells and Dad’s service revolver, holster and all. Turtle was slipping up badly, sending live ammunition and a gun. I’d roast him for it.

I grabbed up the gun, replaced the albums and the tray, and closed and locked the trunk. I eased the top locker back into place, more because I was used to putting everything back the way I’d found it than because I wished to hide the fact I’d been inspecting it.

I was halfway across the dining room when I heard Turtle roaring in a voice that could have penetrated armor plate. “Proof? Christ, what d’ya need proof for? Who else could have done it?”

“Proof to stand up in a court-martial, damn it, Bailey,” I heard the major’s equally incensed voice reply. Outside the house, Merlin barked, a sharp punctuation to their dispute.

“You can’t be judge, jury, and executioner, Bailey,” the major continued urgently. “And don’t try it again.”

Merlin barked again and I heard someone let him in. Then he scratched at the corridor door in front of me, sensing my presence even if the men did not.

“Major, if you think I’m going to let that murdering

“

“Can it, Bailey,” Regan Laird warned curtly. Before I could move, he had jerked the door open. Merlin, delighted, wove around me, crooning, nosing my dangling hands. Regan Laird, his face stern, his eyes narrowing slightly, looked down at me accusingly. Wordlessly, he pushed the door wide for me to enter.

His face flushed with anger, Turtle was standing stolidly in the center of the room. Merlin circled me nervously, whining a demand for reassurance in the midst of the taut silence.

“Who’s a murdering so-and-so, Turtle? What kind of proof do you need? For whose court-martial?”

Turtle’s face closed down implacably.

“Where did you get that?” the major snapped, snagging the bolstered revolver out of my hand. The cryptic conversation I’d overheard had put it out of my mind.

“From Dad’s footlocker.”

Turtle looked as if something had caught him a solid blow in the solar plexus. As the major drew the gun from its holster, Turtle poised as if he wanted to grab it out of the major’s hands. Laird broke open the gun. The cylinder was empty. He flipped the gun to the ceiling, squinting up the barrel. He and Turtle looked at each other over the weapon. They were both angry and disturbed.

“That’s not my father’s gun,” I exclaimed, puzzled.

“No?” The major looked sharply at Turtle for confirmation. Reluctantly Turtle took the Colt, turning it in his hand to expose the handle.

“That isn’t Dad’s,” I repeated, firmly. I knew the gun well, I’d cleaned it often enough, and the major’s dubiety was irritating. “The right side of the handle was cracked. Here.” I pointed out where the flaw should have been.

“She’s right, all right, Major,” Turtle stared at the gun as if it were evil. He dumped it back into the major’s waiting hand as if he couldn’t get rid of it soon enough. “Besides, I turned the colonel’s Colt in to Ordnance before the corporal picked up his locker to take it back to Division.” He stopped, his eyes widened, then he snapped his mouth shut.

Very slowly the major reholstered the gun as if he, too, found contact with it distasteful.

“If it isn’t my father’s gun, whose is it and why do you both act as if it were poison or something?”

I glared at Turtle but he returned my stare, his eyes stubborn, his lips set in a thin line. I grabbed Laird’s arm as he made to turn away.

“You’ve got to answer me. I demand to know!” I cried.

Laird looked down at me, the left side of his face towards me, his expression both pitying and angry.

“The gun is poison if it’s the one that killed your father.”