The Balloon Man (11 page)

“That's my girl. Want to go back now? It's getting cold out here.”

“And our valiant allies will be arriving soon.” Sarah was herself again. “Thanks, darling,”

“What for?”

“For letting me get it out of my system. I hadn't realized how badly those memories rankled. But if it hadn't been for Aunt
Caroline, I'd never have met you, or Mariposa and Charles and Theonia.”

“Quite the little optimist, aren't you?”

“Just call me Candide.” She gave him a watery smile.

“Among other things. There's something I have to tell you, süssele.”

Theonia was resplendent in a black velvet gown she'd found in Filene's Basement, shortened to tea length, and trimmed with
yards of jet-beaded lace looted from an otherwise moth-eaten robe de chambre she and Sarah had discovered during one of their
forays into Emma Kelling's attic, Keilings never threw anything away, and Emma's attic was one of her sources for costuming
her light opera group, but she had good-naturedly agreed that the garment in question was too far gone to serve even the duchess
of Plaza Toro. With a black lace mantilla draped over her raven hair, Theonia was the spitting image of a Venetian noblewoman,
and her husband, Brooks, could have stood in for the duke.

Like the great Savoyards who had played the part, Brooks was a trim, sprightly man only five and a half feet tall, with the
bright eyes of a chipmunk and the inquiring mind of an investigative reporter. A man of many talents, he was particularly
authoritative on the subject of the
crested grebe. His birding interests had thus far been of limited use in his new profession of right-hand man to a pursuer
of art thieves, but his other talents had made him invaluable to Max.

In deference to Theonia and because she too understood the effect of clothes on female spirits, Sarah had found time to change
into a caftan Max had brought back on one of his foraging trips from a souk in Cairo or Damascus, or it might have been Beirut.
She'd got accustomed to the comfort and elegance of caftans while she was pregnant with Davy, and although her wardrobe might
have seemed rather outre for a Boston-born and -bred lady, in fact it was nothing of the sort. Some of Sarah's Boston-born
ancestresses had probably been wearing caftans and djellabas and perhaps even saris in the privacy of their boudoirs ever
since the days of the clipper ships. The long, loose robes would have been just the ticket to wrap a lady's feet in while
she was relishing the latest of Ralph Waldo Emerson's delightful essays or teaching herself Hebrew so that, when the time
came for her to do so, she could meet and talk with her Maker in his native tongue.

After wrapping the rainbow folds around her own feet, Sarah curled up on the sofa and waited for Max to begin the meeting.
They were there, her valiant allies and dear friends. Brooks sat next to his wife, holding her hand as was his constant habit.
Uncle Jem had his feet up and a jug of his special martinis at his elbow and Egbert hovering beside him. Jesse was looking
a little frazzled. No wonder, Sarah
thought. She'd read somewhere about a professional football player who had followed his three-year-old son around to see which
of them would collapse first. The three-year-old had won by half a day. Jesse's sacrifice had not been in vain. Davy had succumbed
shortly after dinner and was now tucked in his bed with his alligator.

The only missing members of the firm were Charles C. Charles, Sarah's erstwhile butler, and his whatever-they-were-calling-it-these-days
Mariposa, who were in Miami making tactful inquiries into the present ownership of a sixteenth-century Madonna and Child that
had once graced a church in Mexico City. Sarah wasn't about to suggest that they be recalled. The agency that provided all
of them with income had to continue its normal routine. She missed them, though. She even missed her cousin Dolph, who was
in Denmark or possibly Sweden with his wife, Mary, the former bag lady.

“Do you suppose Dolph would know something about the parure?” she asked. “I wouldn't want him and Mary to cut their trip short,
but we could telephone them.”

“I've been piously thanking God the old goat isn't here,” her uncle Jem said. “What could he do except bellow and snort and
paw the ground?”

Brooks shook his head disapprovingly. “You're confusing your zoological references, Jem.”

“No, I'm not. Bull in a china shop, that's Dolph. Anyhow, he doesn't know any more than I do about the Kelling family treasures,
such as they are. The long past history of
the rubies isn's as relevant as what happened to them after they were sold. Right, Max?”

“I'm working on that,” Max informed them. “Pepe hasn't called back, has he? I told him to try the office and the house if
he couldn't reach me here.”

“He hadn't called by the time we left,” Brooks answered. “There must be something we can do from this end. You've no idea
how the jewels got into the library?”

“Somebody put them there,” Max said. “It wasn't one of us. Nobody was unwrapping parcels the day of the wedding, there wasn't
time. I would swear the necklace wasn't on the table when I entered the library. It was there when I got ready to leave.”

“You didn't see the person who left it?” Brooks asked Egbert.

Jem's henchman shook his head regretfully. “No well-bred individual would deliver a last-minute wedding present in such a
surreptitious manner. I would certainly have noticed an action so out of the ordinary and drawn it to Mr. Max's attention.”

“There's one obvious suspect,” Jesse said. “The old geezer that laid Uncle Max flat”

“That doesn't make sense,” Sarah objected. “If he was dressed like a waiter, he could have been in the library without being
noticed, but why would he hang around after he'd done the job?”

“Especially in a trash bag,” Max said sourly. “Forget it, Jesse. He sure as hell wasn't hiding under the desk when I
locked up the room. I couldn't have missed the smell of Gorgonzola”

“Maybe he changed his mind,” Jesse insisted. “And came back later. You said one of the windows had been jimmied.”

“Not jimmied, unlocked. It was a neat job,” Max admitted. “But any trained locksmith could have done it. I could have myself.”

“Of course you could, darling,” Sarah said soothingly. Max was still smarting over his defeat. A change of subject was called
for.

“That seems to be another dead end,” she said. “What about the body under the tent?”

“Joe Macbeth.”

“An alias?” Brooks asked.

“Why should it be? There must be other people named Macbeth besides Shakespeare's character. According to his boss Joe was
a harmless guy whose only irritating characteristic was a tendency to quote Scripture rather too frequently. He didn't drink,
smoke, or swear, at least not on the job”

“What was the cause of death?” Theonia asked quietly.

“A sensible question, for once. To put it in nontechnical terms, the back of his head was bashed in. That proves it wasn't
an accident. The basket of the balloon couldn't have hit him fore and aft. Anyhow, held been dead for hours before he was
put under the tent.”

“The smoke bomb,” Sarah exclaimed.

Max smiled at her. “I think you've got it, darling. A
bunch of outraged orangutans could have been cruising around without being seen in that black fog. The tent crew was actually
on its way here when the bomb was set off If the murderer hoped to blame Macbeth's demise on the balloon, he'd have to stow
the body away before the tent was removed”

“He'd have to be awfully stupid to think he could get away with that,” Sarah objected.

“Unlike the inventions of ingenious writers of mystery fiction, most murderers are stupid, schatzele.”

“It would behoove us, I believe,” Brooks said in his precise Andover-Harvard accents, “to find out more about Mr. Macbeth.
Presumably he took his departure with the rest of the crew, after the tent had been erected. Did he return later, in a less
distinctive ensemble? And if so, why? If you like, I will begin investigations along that line first thing in the morning.”

“The police may be doing the same thing,” Max said. “Or they may not. Go ahead, Brooks, but check with Jofferty so you wont
be duplicating your efforts.”

“Certainly.” Brooks made a neat notation in his little black book.

“How about me?” Jesse asked, stifling a yawn.

“Go home and go to bed,” his employer said. “Modern youth is a degenerate breed. Look at you, completely wiped out by a three-year-old.”

“You'd better have some coffee first,” Sarah said. “Or
maybe you should stay here tonight, Jesse. I don't want you falling asleep behind the wheel.”

“I haven't got any pajamas or a change of clothes,” Jesse objected.

“Let's not start that again,” Max said.

“He'll be all right,” Brooks assured Sarah. “You underestimate the energy level of his age group. If you don't need Jesse,
Max, he can do some of the legwork for me.”

Max nodded. “You'll be in the office most of the day?…Good. I'll probably drop by around noon. Egbert will expire of embarrassment
if Jem has to wear the same outfit any longer, so I'll drive them to Pinckney Street tomorrow morning. They can pick up what
they need or think they need, and then I'll bring them back here, if they want to come.”

Jem had dropped off into one of his little naps, but he heard that. “Damned right we're coming back,” he said indignantly.
“You think we'd leave you unprotected? Now then, what were we talking about?”

“I think we've covered most of it,” Sarah said, smiling affectionately at him. “Would anyone like coffee? Or a cup of tea?”

She looked at Theonia. The queenly matron adjusted her mantilla. “Max told you?”

“Shouldn't I have? Damn it, we're conversing in questions again,” Max exclaimed.

“He didn't tell me,” Jem remarked. “What's all this, then?”

“I'll get the coffee,” Sarah said, and fled to the kitchen. She'd started the machine and put the kettle on, in case someone
preferred tea, when Brooks joined her.

“Can I help?”

“You can put the cups and saucers on that tray, and get the cream out of the fridge, if you will, please. And do we want the
teapot?”

Brooks nodded gravely. “She'll try again if you want her to. I'm sorry if this has upset you, Sarah. Perhaps Max shouldn't
have told you.”

Sarah's hands were steady as she removed the teapot from the shelf and began spooning tea into it. “Of course he should have.
I'm a big girl now, Brooks.”

When the tea had steeped and the coffee had been poured into the Royal Prussian pot that had been in the family since Sarah's
grandmother's time, she and Brooks carried the trays in. Max had told the others about Theonia's warning, and they were discussing
it with varying degrees of skepticism.

“It's a pity your sources aren't more definite,” Jem said. “Is that all you got?”

Theonia inclined her queenly head. “That's how it works, when it does work, which isn't often,” she said calmly. “When I was
doing my readings at that grubby little café, I got to be quite good at the standard gimmick. It's a combination of simple
psychology and observation. The way people dress is indicative of the kinds of lives they lead and the social class to which
they belong. There are other
obvious clues such as a wedding ring, or even the indentation left by a ring, supposing the client is canny enough to remove
it beforehand. You start talking more or less at random, throwing out tentative suggestions, and you watch the clients reactions.
If you're good enough at muscle reading, a slight twitch of the lips or widening of the eyes can tell you whether you're on
the right track. Its like that game children play, when they direct a searcher by telling him he's warmer or colder.”

Jem said admiringly, “So that's how it's done. You mean when that psychic told me I'd had a hundred mistresses—”

“She was lying in her teeth,” Max muttered.

“She was telling you what you wanted to hear,” Theonia corrected. “I'll wager she started with ten and worked her way up till
you stopped shaking your head.”

“I didn't…Well,” Jem admitted sheepishly, “maybe I did. I got kind of emotionally involved, you see. No, thanks, Sarah, I
don't want any damned coffee, don't you know caffeine is unhealthy?”

“Unlike gin,” said Max.

“My flashes, as I call them, are completely different,” Theonia went on. “You remember the night I smashed one of your best
teacups, Sarah dear. On that occasion it was Max who asked me to read the tea leaves; I knew he wasn't really serious, and
I certainly didn't anticipate what happened. I didn't expect it this time, either. After the wedding I decided I'd had enough
champagne and went to the caterer's tent for a cup of tea. I just happened to glance into
my cup, and—well, there it was. Not since that other evening have I had such a strong sense of impending evil.”

She took the cup Sarah handed her and let out a musical, genteel peal of laughter. “Oh, dear, Sarah, not your Haviland! Are
you sure you want to risk it?”

“You can smash the entire set if you think it will do any good,” Sarah said. “The last time you sensed danger directed against
our circle. This time there was more, wasn't there? Its Max who's in danger.”

“I'm afraid so.” Theonia finished her tea more quickly than she would have done under normal circumstances and stared down
at the dregs.

Under normal circumstances Max would have scoffed, at least to himself. But there was no getting around the fact that Theonia
had seen danger coming from the past, specifically from the long-dead Caroline Kelling. She had written the note before he
had told anyone, even Sarah, about the necklace. He hadn't bothered to ask Theonia whether she had happened to see it in the
library. Self-deception wasn't one of Theonias failings, and anyhow, he'd have seen her if she had dropped in to view the
wedding gifts. Theonia stood out in any crowd.

Somehow he wasn't surprised when Theonia handed the empty teacup to Sarah. “Do you want to smash it, or shall I?”

Everything seemed unlikely this morning, Sarah thought. Could it be that the tumult and,the shouting had really died; that
on dune and headland had sunk the fire; and that all the pomps of yesterday were now one with Nineveh and Tyre?