FIRE AND FOG (26 page)

"I really do not."

"Would you care to take your best guess?"

"Holmes never guesses," I said with mock scorn; then I planted
my elbow on the table and chin in hand. "What I believe is that
Alice put her aunt's body in the basement. When I was looking for
Alice herself I searched the basement, which is really more like a
big crawlspace. I didn't find anything, but I did smell something
rotten. In thinking over these things recently, I wondered why I
hadn't seen any sort of storage space beneath the house."

"You mean like a wine cellar, something of that sort?"

"I had more in mind a root cellar, but to each his own. I
entered the basement from an outside door, but if there is a
separate storage room, there should be an entry to it from the
inside."

"Shall we look?"

"By all means."

"After you, Holmes," said Michael with a flourish.

I rather spoiled the Sherlockian effect by limping; my ankle had
begun to hurt like blazes. I limped across the kitchen, through the
butler's pantry into the storage pantry beyond. I had not spent
much time-really, not
any
time- in this pantry, because when
Alice was alive we could not cook, and when cooking was permitted
again, I had bought my own food day by day. Over my shoulder, I
asked Michael to bring the lamp.

As I had suspected, there was a trapdoor cut into the floor of
the storage pantry. This trapdoor had been skillfully installed,
fitting its space so tightly as to be almost invisible unless one
were looking for it. I took the lamp while Michael lifted the door
back on its hinges. A faintly rotten odor spread from the hole like
a miasma. We looked at each other. "I will go down," Michael
said.

"Not without me!" With lamp in hand I followed him, far more
easily than I could have done had I been wearing skirts.

The room at the base of the steps was a kind of root cellar,
claustrophobically small, and undoubtedly the source of the rotten
odor I had smelled in the basement a couple of weeks earlier,
though it was fainter now. I said, "I don't understand. How is this
possible?"

Michael knelt to one side of a heap of human bones that lay at
the bottom of the narrow flight of steps. Indeed, I had just
stepped over them. He bent down, poking and sniffing like a
bloodhound. "Lye," he said. "Alice Lasley was a clever woman. She
used lye to dissolve her aunt's flesh. Otherwise the stench of the
decaying body would have been so overwhelming that neither she nor
you nor anyone else could have lived in the house for months. Not
many people know that lye is corrosive enough to eat away human
flesh."

"She was a librarian, she would have looked it up, you may be
certain." I crouched beside Michael, curiosity having overcome my
initial repugnance. "I think we may assume, from the distribution
of the bones in a huddled shape, that Alice simply pushed her aunt
down the steps and left her as she lay. Ugh!" I shuddered. "I can
almost see her standing at the top of those steps and raining lye
down upon the poor woman's body."

"Yes, undoubtedly that is what happened. Look, Fremont: there is
still a bit of hair attached to the skull. Not enough to be used
for identification, but because arsenic concentrates in the hair
and fingernails it will be proof of poisoning." Michael stood. "Let
us go back up and decide how to proceed."

"Just a moment, please. I am looking for-yes, I believe this is
it. Michael, will you carry it upstairs?"

I had found a pasteboard box containing a lot of papers, which
Michael placed on the kitchen table and began immediately to sort
through. "In the study there are some bankbooks we should add to
this material," I said, and went to get them. As I'd hoped, the
intruders-thinking they were already done with this room-had not
included it in their recent raid.

"Here they are," I said upon my return. I sat down rather
heavily. My ankle was throbbing; I did not need to look to know it
was swollen. I would have liked to put my foot up, but chose not
to. By way of distracting myself from the pain, I untied the black
scarf from around my neck, where it had been hanging like a cowl
all this time. I also undid the knot I'd made of my hair and shook
it out, and I stretched, as one does in the morning.

Michael glanced over at me. "If I may say so, Fremont, you look
rather fetching in Meiling's clothes."

I grinned. "Thank you. I wish I could dress this way all the
time."

"Think of the scandal!" said Michael with a wink.

"It would be delicious!" Our moment of levity passed.

"I suppose this may sound cold-blooded, but I'm glad we found
Alice's aunt."

"Let us hope no one will question the fact that the bones are
Gertrude Lasley's. Assuming that tests show the presence of arsenic
in the hair, Alice would be indicted-if she were alive. I confess I
haven't a clue how to find Alice's body."

"Nor have I, and I have nearly broken my brain on the subject.
Is there a journal, or a diary, in that box?"

"Yes." Michael passed a cloth-bound notebook over to me; it was
not Alice's but Gertrude Lasley's. I had wanted to find something
like this for so long, yet for now I was too tired to read it.

"Watson," I said, "would you think it awful of me if I asked you
to take that box back to your room at the Presidio? That is, if you
are going to be in San Francisco for a while longer. Your note
sounded a bit as if you might be leaving-Oh, how could I have been
so stupid! I haven't thanked you for giving me Max. Thank you, very
much indeed."

He looked up and smiled. "Max?"

I smiled too. "Yes, Max. He and I have become friends of a sort,
and while I know it isn't proper for me to accept such a valuable
gift-"

"Say no more. Of course you must accept it. You and the Maxwell
are well known around town, you are quite the pair, as I heard
often while I was trying to locate you." He looked away; in the dim
lamplight it was hard to tell, but I believed that his face flushed
slightly. "Besides, in the circumstances, a substantial gift is not
necessarily inappropriate. It is not as if I cannot afford it, and
you deserve the best, Fremont."

"I'm grateful, but a little confused. What circumstances are you
talking about?"

"Why, your marriage, of course."

"Marriage?" My eyes opened wide.
"Marriage?"

"Yes. Your, ah, fiance-Dr. Tyler, is it?-told me. The night you
fainted. That was a horrible time; I don't like to think about it
even now." Michael busied himself once more in the papers.

I grabbed his hand. "Stop that! Look at me. Just exactly what
did Anson Tyler tell you?"

"You must understand, I put the man under some pressure or else
he would not have said anything. If you are trying to keep it a
secret at present, I'll stay mum."

I gritted my teeth. "It's not a secret, it's not-oh, just get on
with it, tell me what he said."

"All right. When Dr. Tyler was examining you in your unconscious
state, I thought his manner too familiar, and I made objection. He
told me in no uncertain terms not to interfere, which of course I
did not take kindly and said so. But then he took me aside and
explained how well the two of you had come to know one another, how
well you worked together-Fremont, spare me relating all the
details." Michael ran his hand over his head, as he does when he
feels frustrated. "Suffice it to say, when he told me he had asked
you to marry him, I got the picture, and of course I agreed to bow
out."

I dropped Michael's hand, leapt up, and planted both fists on my
hips. I would have liked to stride back and forth if I could have
done so without limping. "Let me be sure I have this straight.
Anson told you that he had asked me to marry him, and so you just .
. . just more or less handed me over with your blessing? As if the
two of you had made some sort of deal concerning me, is that
it?"

"How could I interfere? The man seems suitable. He's a doctor,
so he earns a decent livelihood; then there is the fact that he is
closer to your own age. I admit I've had some bad moments since,
particularly when I realized that you and I are not likely to be
able to have many more nights like this, playing at Watson and
Holmes, though tonight we are hardly
playing.
..." Michael's
voice petered out.

My brain was boiling so fiercely that for a while it did not
connect with my mouth. When it did, my voice came out soft but
lethal. I leaned down into Michael's face and said: "You . . . are
. . . not . . . my . . . father!"

"Fremont, I assure you, my feelings for you are not in the least
fatherly."

Some part of me registered that statement as significant, but my
anger carried me on. "I am not a piece of chattel to be handed from
one
man
to another."

Michael drew his head back. "I never thought you were."

"Oh, yes, you did. Anson told you he had asked me to marry him,
and that was that, as far as you were concerned. What he did not
tell you was that
I
refused him."

Michael's eyebrows rose; his face brightened. "You refused?"

"I refused, and you needn't look so relieved, Michael Archer.
You are not off the hook, not by a long chalk. I thought we were
such great friends, I thought-God help me-that sometimes you even
regarded me as an equal, and yet you could treat me this way. I am
appalled."

"I do regard you as an equal, Fremont. In fact, sometimes it
seems to me that you are my better half. That is, if I had a half.
If you know what I mean."

I had never before heard Michael sound confused or seen him
flustered. It gave me some satisfaction. I stood to my full height
again. "You and Anson discussed me, you decided things between the
two of you about my very life- not while my back was turned, or
while I was in another room-that would have been bad enough-but
while I was lying unconscious! Man to man, right, Michael? Man to
man!

"We did it in a gentlemanly fashion, if that's what you're
trying to say."

"Your gentlemanly fashions make me sick," I spat. "Did it never
once occur to you that it was
my
life, that you should have
talked to
me?
Don't bother to answer that. I already know
the answer. Now I am going home, if you can call a tent
home."
I half stalked, half limped to the door. "And don't
expect me to give Max back to you, even if I did obtain him under
false circumstances. I love that auto, and I'm keeping him!"

"Fremont, wait." Michael rushed up and put his hand on my arm. I
shook it off, glaring at him. He said, "You are right. Everything
you said is right. I apologize."

"I expect someday I may forgive you, but for now I have had
quite enough of men. All men, including you. Will you take that box
to the Presidio?"

"I will. Surely we must continue to work together on this? I
gather from what you said earlier that we cannot report what we've
found tonight until it can be done in such a way that you will not
be implicated."

"You gather correctly," I said stiffly. "And I believe I will
take Gertrude Lasley's diary, if you would be good enough to hand
it to me."

He did, asking, "Did you drive here tonight?"

I nodded, desperate to escape.

"Would you like an escort, or do you prefer to be on your own,
Fremont?"

"I most definitely prefer to be on my own," I said, thinking,
For the rest of my life!

I slept for a few hours, though not very well. I could not get
comfortable, what with various new aches and pains from Michael's
throwing me to the ground, in addition to an exacerbated ankle
injury. My mind would not be still, either. Awake or asleep, my
thoughts and dreams kept going around and around and getting
nowhere. The unyielding surface of the canvas cot was not a bit of
help. I wondered crossly how soldiers could be expected to win wars
when they had to sleep on these things.

Eventually I got up, not much later than my usual rising hour.
Oh, fine,
I thought as I looked into the mirror: I had a
great purple bruise around my neck where Michael had almost
strangled me. I inspected my abdomen and found another bruise there
(from his knee), and more on my elbows. I could not very well go
into the communal shower with other women looking like this. What a
bother! I should have to wear a blouse with a high collar, and I do
not particularly like high collars-although they are fashionable,
they are also uncomfortable, as is so often the case. Fashion is
really quite perverse.

My ankle was as swollen as it had been two days previously.
Bartlett had warned me not to overdo; obviously I had overdone. It
hurt a good deal. I bound it up, muttering, "Since you are attached
to me, ankle, you had best get used to a little discomfort and stop
puffing yourself up at the slightest provocation."

The anger I'd felt at Michael had grown during the night and
generalized to my whole situation. That anger drove me like an
engine. Only action would bring relief. I went
stomp, limp,
stomp, limp, stomp, limp
through the encampment, got into the
Maxwell, and chugged over to Mickey's Kitchen. One cannot live on
anger alone, I needed food to fuel me. I parked, and joined a
straggly line over which Mickey himself presided.

"Fremont Jones, you're a sight for sore eyes," he said, pouring
a mug of coffee without my having to ask.

"I'll have a plate of hashed potatoes too, if you please," I
said, "and a rasher of bacon."

"That's the way! I like to see a gal with an appetite." He
dished up and said in a lower tone as he handed me a plate, "I got
some good news for ya. Coupla furnished rooms available in a big
house on Fillmore that they've just divided up into apartments. Be
ready day after tomorra!"

I went around and stood next to Mickey as he continued to serve.
"I wish I thought I could afford the rent. How much will it
be?"