The Balloon Man (24 page)

Such a foray into farmyard matters must surely require iron nerve and careful treatment, which it was not going to get from
Max Bittersohn. Not this morning.

He had waked up at dawn and found himself snuggled into bed with a beautiful women who happened by a felicitous coincidence
to be his wife. It seemed a pity not to take advantage of the coincidence, and he was pleased to find that Sarah was of the
same opinion. The next time he woke she looked so tired and so beautiful, he decided to
surprise her by getting breakfast. He felt wonderful. He felt capable of anything. Except breaking eggs.

They were in the refrigerator, neatly arrayed in their individual cardboard coops. Max brooded over the eggs for a while,
put them back in the refrigerator, made coffee, found the muffins, ate one, and was about to make it two when Sarah appeared
in a ravishing garment of blue-and-white gingham with approximately twenty yards of ruffles around the edges.

“Goodness, Max, how can you make such a mess just standing in the middle of the floor?”

“It isn't easy, but I'm a man of many talents, in case you haven't noticed.”

“What are you grinning about?” Sarah asked suspiciously.

“If you don't know, you weren't paying attention last night.”

The mating call of the ruffled grouse echoed along the hall. It was answered by the seductive response of the female grouse.
Brooks and Tweeters had met on the stairs, When the birders came in Sarah was breaking eggs and Max was busy with the coffeemaker,
since he'd drunk the first batch.

“Ah,” Brooks said, “You're alone.”

“We were,” Max said.

Brooks tactfully pretended not to notice Sarah's pink cheeks. “Well, once this business is settled well all leave you in peace.”

Sarah turned, the egg whisk in her hand. “Oh, Brooks, dear, Max didn't mean—”

“Yes, he did.” Brooks and Max exchanged man-to-man smiles.

“Mean what?” Tweeters asked.

“Never mind, Tweeters.” Sarah patted him on the head.

“I believe”—Brooks took up his narrative—“that we are one step nearer to a solution. I didn't receive the news until yesterday
afternoon, and what with all the excitement I decided it could wait until this morning.”

“What could wait?” Max poured coffee all around.

“Well, you see, I had a hunch,” Brooks said in a pleased voice. “After we realized Max had been snatched, as we say in the
PI business, I got to thinking about Theonia's warning. They were after him this time, she said. That sounded like something
personal. So I went back through the files, endeavoring to ascertain whether any of the individuals he had put away might
hold a grudge.”

“I should think all of them would.”

“No, no, you'd be surprised what nice chaps the majority of art thieves are. Quite the gentlemen, some of them. The real professionals
dislike violence. I concentrated on the ones who had committed violent crimes or who had expressed antagonism toward Max.
One name stood out like the proverbial sore thumb. The man who deliberately and cold-bloodedly broke Sarah's arm, whom Max
beat to a pulp immediately thereafter, and who was intimately connected with the Kelling jewels.”

“Good heavens,” Sarah exclaimed. “Aunt Caroline's little lover? But he's in jail, Brooks.”

“Where Max's evidence put him,” Brooks pointed out. “However, Harry Lackridge is not in prison. He'd been a model prisoner,
it seems, and he had developed a serious heart condition. The doctor gave him less than a year to live. Taking those factors
into consideration, the parole board let him out three months ago. Sarah, do you remember what he looked like?”

“Physically, he was a watered-down version of Alexander. Alexander was the handsomest man I ever saw. Harry wasn't; but he
had Alexander's height, and thin build, and aquiline features, and of course he'd gone to the same schools, so their accents
were similar. I suppose,” Sarah said slowly, “he'd have been a fine-looking man if he'd been a better man. Character does
have an effect on a person's looks, you know. Harry always looked as if he were sneering. There was no kindness in him, and
it showed. I suppose some women find that arrogant manner attractive, though I can't imagine why. Aunt Caroline certainly
did. She bilked Alexander and me of everything we owned in order to please her little lover.”

“Who proceeded to bilk her of everything she gave him.” Max still looked a little dazed. “Damn! Why didn't I think of Lackridge?”

“You wouldn't have recognized him,” Brooks said. “His hair had turned snow white in prison, and there wasn't much left of
his face.”

“You mean Lackridge was”is”the corpse?” Sarah gasped.

“The identification has been confirmed,” Brooks said precisely. “Once we had a name it didn't take long to get a fingerprint
comparison. I haven't been able to trace his movements between the time he was released and the day he signed up as a member
of the tent crew, but we're working on it.”

“Macbeth,” Max muttered. “It makes sense, doesn't it? ‘Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers!’ Caroline Kelling was the one
who committed the murders, not Harry. That's why he got off with a relatively light sentence. I suppose he blamed her for
instigating the whole ugly business.”

“That's the way a mind like his would work,” said Theonia, sweeping into the kitchen in a flutter of silk and lace. “Many
people think in those terms, I'm afraid, always trying to shift the responsibility onto someone else. Sit down, Sarah, I'll
wait on myself.”

Brooks wouldn't allow that, of course. He seated his lady and brought her juice and coffee.

Max had been thinking. “That still leaves a lot of questions unanswered, Brooks. If Lackridge was trying to get the rubies
back, who brought them here, and who killed Lackridge?”

The discussion had to be postponed. Davy came in, towing Jesse and demanding watercress sandwiches so they could go feed the
gulls. He graciously agreed to eat his cereal and drink his juice first. Before long the whole group
was assembled, except for Charles, who had gone back to Tulip Street. Sarah was cooking eggs as fast as she could. When the
eggs ran out, there was one of Theonia's almond coffee cakes to be devoured and a few more pots of coffee to be drunk. Before
they finished, Mrs. Blufert arrived. She had brought her grandchildren, who were great pals of Davy's, and the three were
soon happily having alligator races on the upper deck.

Mrs. Blufert cast an appraising eye around the kitchen and reached for an apron. “Now you all just get on out of here,” she
ordered. “No, Mrs. Sarah, don't you dare touch a single dish, just go and set a while in the sun and rest. I don't want any
help from anybody. Leave me to get on with things.”

There was no arguing with Mrs. Blufert when she was in that mood. They retreated to the seaward deck, from which Sarah could
keep an eye on Davy, and Max said, “We need to settle our plans for the day. Jem, I can't thank you and Egbert enough for
keeping the home fires burning and the martinis mixed, but you must be yearning for Beacon Hill.”

“We have no intention of deserting the ship, Mr. Max,” Egbert said stoutly.

“I think we're almost out of the woods now, Egbert, if you'll excuse me for mixing my metaphors.” Max had been thinking. “It
must have been Alister who killed Lackridge. Didn't Calpurnia say he had a habit of hitting people on the head, more or less
at random? He was loony enough to
go in for smoke bombs and stupid enough to think hiding the body under the tent would get the police off the track.”

“You were hit on the head, too.” Sarah shivered. She was remembering the maniacal look on Alister's face and the club he had
brandished.

“That could have been Alister,” Max agreed. He rubbed his head. “Damn, I wish I could remember more. He must have done something
to get me to stop the car and get out. Ran out in the road waving his arms and yelling for help, maybe. After he knocked me
out he could have dumped me in the backseat and driven to the shore, kept me tied up and unconscious till after dark, then
transferred me to a boat. Do the Zickerys own a boat?”

“Easy enough to rent or steal one,” Brooks said thoughtfully. “There are a lot of boats and a lot of docks in this neck of
the woods. Could he have done all that by himself, Max?”

“No. He had to have had help with some of it. Calpurnia might have lent a hand with moving the corpse. Once the
deed
was done she might have gone along with Alister to keep him from walloping her. She wouldn't admit it because that would
make her an accessory after the fact. I can't see any sane person conniving in premeditated first-degree murder, though, which
is what it would have been if they'd dumped me into the ocean with my hands and feet tied. Somebody did untie me. Maybe that
was Calpurnia. Then there's that balloonist or handyman, or whatever he is; is he still there?”

“Why don't I just wander over to the Zickery place and look for him?” Jesse suggested hopefully.

Max grinned at him. “Aching to punch someone, are you? You probably couldn't find him, Jesse, he seems to be good at being
inconspicuous. There's somebody else who knows some of the answers, and this time I'm going to get them out of him one way
or another. Maybe with Egbert's rubber hose.”

“Louie,” Jem said. “Good thinking, Max. I'll be happy to lend a hand with the rubber hose. That's probably the only satisfaction
I can get out of him for wrecking my car.”

“Charles is going to get your vehicle out of the police lot and take it to a body shop he knows,” Brooks said. “It's still
driveable, but I'm afraid that the fines and the repairs will amount to a tidy sum.”

Jem looked as if he had been struck in the face. “Never mind the rubber hose, Max. Where can we borrow a rack?”

He cheered up, though, at the prospect of returning to the beloved apartment on Beacon Hill. He and Egbert went off to pack.
Brooks and Theonia followed them upstairs; they had brought clothes enough for only one night, and the office work was piling
up.

“Do you have to go, Max?” Sarah asked.

Jesse was looking tactfully out to sea, so Max gave his wife a quick kiss. “I have a feeling we're on the verge of ending
this thing, süssele. It would be good if we could clear it up before the kids come back from their honeymoon; you don't want
it hanging over them, do you? Don't
worry about me, I'll have Jem and Egbert with me, fully armed with penny whistles and rubber hoses. Jesse will stay here with
you till I get back, which won't be long. Stick close to the house, and don't fall for any phony telephone calls, okay?”

“You'd better tell Davy you're going,” Sarah said. “I hope he won't be upset.”

Davy took the news far better than she had expected. Max promised to be back by suppertime and assured his son he wouldn't
go out in the ocean anymore without Davy to look after him, and that did the job.

“He's a changed child,” Sarah said wonderingly. “He knew, Max. I swear he knew you were in real danger.”

“So did you.” He hadn't told her he had dreamed of her, heard her voice calling him. “‘There are more things in heaven and
earth…’ as Mortlake the tent man might have remarked.” Max put his arm around Sarah's shoulders. “There's nothing to worry
about this time, love. I'll have those two stalwarts Jem and Egbert with me.”

By the time everyone got packed and collected it was almost time for lunch, so they finished the rest of Miriam's salad and
the last of the bread and cheese and ham, and finally Max got his elderly passengers into Sarah's little compact. The police
had found no trace of his car. He'd better talk to Ira about a replacement, Max thought. If the Mercedes hadn't been found
by now, it was probably gone for good, driven over a cliff or sold to a dealer in stolen cars.

Jem was still brooding over the damage to his cherished
vehicle. He sang songs about bodies and hangings all the way to Boston.

As Max had expected, Louie was still incarcerated. The new Charles Street jail, as it was still called, wasn't as easy to
get out of as the old one had been, but Louie didn't want to get out anyhow, as he was the first to admit.

“Good of you to drop in,” he said, rising politely to meet them. “I trust that's all you have in mind. If you've any intention
of offering to make bail, forget it. I'm quite comfortable here. The food is rather boring, of course. If you can believe
it, they refused my request for Gorgonzola. I haven't tasted the ambrosial stuff since I was locked up. And unfortunately
I lack the facilities for entertaining visitors properly. You didn't happen to bring an electric teakettle and a supply of
Lapsang Souchong, did you?”

“Cut it out, Louie,” Max said. “Since we last spoke I've been kidnapped and cast out to sea, where I spent three days sitting
on a rock eating seaweed. I'm not in the mood for fun and games.”

“Oh, dear.” Louie remained standing, since Egbert and Jem were occupying the bunk. “I'm sorry to hear that. You don't think
I had a hand in it, do you? I have the perfect alibi, best one I've ever had.”

“No, but I think you know who did. Your brother Dewey.”

“Why on earth should you suspect Dewey?” Louie's close-set eyes shifted. “There isn't any such person. I made him up.”

“Like hell you did. One of the few things I remember from my lost weekend, or weekday, is seeing a face resembling yours bending
over me. There can't be more than two people in the world who look like that, and one of them was here in Charles Street Jail
at the time. What does Dewey do for a living? I know, I know, he's an actor and you're his stand-in and if you think I'm dumb
enough to believe that, you can think again. Does he pick locks, too, or has he other equally unacceptable skills?”

Louie sighed. “I suppose I had better come clean. Dewey's a basket weaver. He's quite good at it, too.” Seeing Max's expression,
he added hastily, “That's the plain truth, Mr. Max. How do you think Dewey broke out?”

“Of prison? Now we're getting somewhere. So Dewey's on the lam, eh? What was he in for?”

“Oh, Dewey isn't violent. He's a very gentle soul. They got him for bank robbery, but he never hurt anyone, and he always
wrote ‘I apologize for the inconvenience’ on the notes he handed the tellers.”