The Convivial Codfish (22 page)

“The fact that somebody swiped the chain off him at the meeting doesn’t constitute a mitigating circumstance?”

“Why should it?” Ashbroom asked in some surprise. “Good of you to have stopped in, Bittersohn. Give my regards to Sarah. Please don’t feel obliged to attend the funeral.”

“Thank you for this dispensation,” Max replied humbly. “What about Miss Moriston?”

“What?”

“Miss Moriston. Your friend on Joy Street. She asked me to let you know she’s terribly worried about you. Shall I tell her you’re worried about her, too?”

“I was not aware of your acquaintance with Miss Moriston,” said Ashbroom. “I must say it comes as a surprise to me. No doubt Sarah will be surprised, too, should I have occasion to mention it to her.”

“Nice try, Ashbroom. You know, I’m having a real problem here. Are you a first-class bastard or only a third-class bastard?”

“I shall see to it that you have every opportunity to clarify that point through due process of law if I find out you’ve been making any injudicious remarks concerning myself and Miss Moriston. Can you find your way out, or shall I call my chauffeur to assist you?”

“Please don’t put yourself to the trouble. I’ll go quietly.”

“Good. No hard feelings, you understand. As a rule, I’m the most amiable of men, but one does have to protect one’s interests. You won’t forget to remind Jem about the Great Chain?”

“I never forget anything, Mr. Ashbroom.”

He wouldn’t forget this visit in a hurry, at any rate. Even if it had been one of the curmudgeonly leg-pulls the Comrades appeared to go in for, this was an inhuman sort of way to be joking, at a time like this. More likely, Ashbroom had deliberately gone on the defensive to keep Max from steering the conversation his own way. Miss Moriston had been only a useful diversion. What the hell, if he’d been waltzing her around to the Ritz in front of his buddies, he couldn’t be much concerned about keeping his affair a secret. What Ashbroom had done was throw Max off the track, not so violently as when he’d got pushed into the Salvation Army kettle but just as effectively as he’d been led down the hill to Gerald Whet’s.

But why? Had that really been Ashbroom in Boston, when he’d allegedly been here in Bexhill on his bed of pain? It wasn’t impossible, especially if the chauffeur and that superior lady who was probably the housekeeper and possibly something else were cooperative. A man who’d just taken sole charge of the family woolsack would have plenty to cooperate with, no doubt.

There was no sense in Max’s hanging around here trying to find out. It wasn’t inconceivable that Ashbroom would call the police and have him pinched for loitering with intent. That wouldn’t go down well with the Comrades. Even if Ashbroom actually did intend to sue Tom Tolbathy, his clubmates would be apt as not to back him against an outsider. The old tribal instinct was still mighty strong. Look at the way Jem and Obed Ogham stayed with the group even though they loathed each other’s guts. What Max needed here was an undercover agent. He wondered if Angie was still at the catering shop.

She was, he found out a couple of minutes later, and delighted to see him again even though she was frantically busy putting buttons on gingerbread boys.

“I just want to use your phone a second,” he explained, “if you don’t mind.”

“Be my guest.”

She waved him to a wall phone. Max tried Jem’s home number and caught Egbert in the midst of mixing a batch of martinis.

“I was just going to take them down to the hospital, Mr. Max.”

“Let Jem wait a while and work up a thirst. This is more important. I’ve been talking to a lady friend of yours.”

“Which one? I’m sorry, Mr. Max, that sort of slipped out. Not that I’m any Don Juan, you understand; but being around Mr. Jem all these years, it sort of rubs off.”

“I can see why it might. Anyway, this woman works for the Ashbrooms out here in Bexhill. She answered the door when I rang, but told me it wasn’t usually her job to do so. She’s about fifty-five, I’d say, not bad-looking but a casual dresser, has a lively tongue, and doesn’t care much for her boss.”

“That sounds like Guinevere.”

“She looked more like Tugboat Annie.”

“Oh yes, that would be Guinevere.” Egbert described the woman, down to the hairs in her nostrils. “Is she the one?”

“To a hair. What does she do around there?”

“Guinevere’s the gardener. One of them, anyway. She must have been around to tend the plants in the greenhouse.”

“Damn, I wish I’d known that when I was talking to her. Look, Egbert, there are a few things I’d have liked to ask her, but I got thrown out before I had a chance. Could you get hold of her?”

“I often have, Mr. Max,” Egbert replied demurely.

“I meant by telephone. I know it’s less fun, but it’s a hell of a lot quicker.”

“Yes, I can manage that.”

“Good, then here’s what I want to know.”

Max recited his litany, threw in a special reminder about the colchicum or autumn crocus, left money on the counter to pay for his call, told Angie to her expressed regret that he wouldn’t bother her again, and left.

Obed Ogham was another important name on his agenda. After the going-over he’d got from Ashbroom, though, Max didn’t think he’d fare any better with Ogham. He’d have to rely on another deputy. At the moment, he could think of only one who might conceivably be willing to take on the job. Maybe it would be a mistake to trust Gerald Whet, but what else could he do? He turned the car around and went back past Ashbroom’s house to the hospital.

Security was less tight now. Max had little difficulty wangling his way past the entrance. He found Whet still at his wife’s bedside and Marcia now able to manage a smile and a word of greeting. They chatted a moment, then he told Whet, “Tom Tolbathy is tickled pink to have you stay. He suggests you borrow the Volvo to get back and forth in. Why don’t I drive you back there now to pick it up?”

“That’s an excellent idea,” said Whet. “Think you could get along without me for half an hour or so, Marcia?”

“Just barely.”

There was a flash of the flirt in Marcia’s reply. Whet smiled for perhaps the first time since he’d left Nairobi, and went out with Max.

Once they were outside, Max asked him, “How’d you like to do me a favor?”

“Gladly, if I can.”

“I want some information from Obed Ogham. There’s no sense in my trying to approach him, but I expect he’d talk to you readily enough.”

“What is it you want to know?”

Max explained. Whet nodded.

“I don’t see any harm in asking.”

“Good, then I’ll phone you at the Tolbathys’ later on. How soon do you think you might be able to get to Ogham?”

“That’s a little hard to say, but I shouldn’t think I ought to leave it too late. Everybody will be wanting to turn in early tonight. Myself included, if you want the truth. I’m still fighting my jet lag, and today’s been a strain.”

“I can well imagine,” said Max. “You won’t have any trouble getting to see him?”

“Oh no, I shouldn’t think so. Obed and I aren’t actually feuding, and my being at Tom’s gives me a legitimate excuse to drop in on him. I can say Hester sent me to see how he’s feeling. Then, since I wasn’t at the party, it will be natural enough for me to get him talking about what happened. Persuading Obed to talk is never a problem,” he added drily. “I’ll just stay with Marcia till they come to fix her up for the night, then drop in at Obed’s on my way to Tom’s. I can call you from Tom’s, if you like.”

“Yes, why don’t you?” said Max. He wrote down his and Sarah’s old number at the boarding house and their new one at the apartment. “I should be at one of these. If by any chance I’m not, leave a message with Sarah.”

B
Y NOW, MAX COULD
have driven that road to the Tolbathys’ with his eyes shut, and was beginning to think he’d rather. He dropped Whet at the house without going in himself and forged on to virgin territory. The Billingsgates kept their bees and brewed their mead out in real farming country, twelve miles west of Bexhill. He wished they didn’t. It was getting dark now, and the sky had a sullen look, as if it meant to start trouble and didn’t care who knew it.

By the time he’d got to the Billingsgates, in fact, a few big flakes were splatting against the windshield. Great. Sarah would be worrying if he got caught out here in a snowstorm. Actually, Max rather liked to think of her fretting about him, after all these years of batting around by himself. His mother had given that up when he was ten.

Mrs. Billingsgate—Abigail, as she insisted he call her—greeted Max at the door and acted well-nigh overjoyed to see him. He found this a welcome change, too, after the raking and harrowing he’d got from Edward Ashbroom. Abigail had been so sorry they hadn’t had more chance to chat last night. She was happy to see him up and about. She herself, notwithstanding the stomach pump, was feeling chipper as one of her bees.

“Bounced right back as soon as I got home and ate some honey,” she told him. “Honey’s marvelous stuff. Never see a bee with a bellyache, do you? I’ve been dosing Bill with it, too.”

“How’s Bill doing?” Max asked her.

“Quite well. He’s out in the chapel just now, wrestling in prayer. I don’t expect he’ll be long. He never wrestles very hard in this kind of weather. Why don’t I go and call him? We’ll have tea with scones and honey by the fire in the keep.”

“The keep?”

“Yes, the castle’s last refuge, you know. It’s the only room we can sit in without freezing to death on a day like this. Come along and let me get you settled. Unless you’d like to go along to the chapel and pray awhile first?”

“Thanks, but I’ll settle for the tea. I’m too tired to wrestle.”

“But you haven’t been sick like the rest of us, surely? I noticed you didn’t eat any caviar.”

“You did?”

“Yes, I’m very observant about what people eat. And drink. Perhaps you’d care to taste my homemade mead before you have your tea? Just a sip to warm you up.”

Before Max could refuse, she’d sat him down in a chair that would have made a reasonably impressive throne for an Anglo-Saxon king, and buzzed over to a cellaret that would have brought tears to the eyes of a Sotheby’s auctioneer. She returned with two minuscule glasses, both of them brimming.

“We really ought to have drinking horns, but when one’s just back from having one’s tummy vacuumed, one doesn’t want to rely too heavily on the honey. Skoal.”

“If you say so.” Max took the thimbleful she handed him, wondered briefly whether it was poisoned, then decided what the hell and took a sip. “Very nice,” he gasped. The honey it was made from had, he presumed, been gathered by Italian killer bees.

As he was waiting for his eyeballs to settle back into their sockets, Bill Billingsgate appeared. In his wake came an esne—Max was sure the Billingsgates would employ nobody so modern as a housemaid—with a massive tea tray.

“Ah, the guests are met, the feast is set.” Billingsgate came over to rub his hands by the fire. “Glad to see you looking so fit, er—”

“Jem Kelling’s nephew Max,” his wife reminded him.

“To be sure. Max. My mind was temporarily abstracted. I’ve been wrestling in prayer.”

“So Abigail was telling me.” Max wondered whether he was supposed to ask who’d won, but decided he’d better not. “You’re looking well for a sick man, Bill. When did you get home?”

“We were fortunate enough to be among the first lot they let go. Our daughter picked us up and had us home here by half-past nine or so.”

“You’ve been in the house ever since?”

“Yes, and grateful to be here, I can tell you. Melisande stayed with us until after lunch. Then she decided Abby and I were both going to live and went off to deliver a few cases of mead to a Renaissance banquet in Worcester.”

“Is she coming back tonight?”

“No, Melly has a home of her own,” Abigail put in. “And a family, too. They live in Shrewsbury. They’ll be here for the holidays, though. I do hope you threw in a few words of thanks for our speedy recovery, Bill.”

“You may be sure I did, Abby.”

“I understand it’s partly because you got stinted on the caviar, Bill,” said Max.

“We don’t either one of us care much for it anyway, if you want the truth.”

“That’s right,” said Abigail. “We go in for the simple things of life.” She picked up the enormous silver teapot. “Cream and sugar, Max?”

“Just plain, thanks.”

She raised her eyebrows but poured him a cup without the trimmings. Then she loaded her husband’s and her own with spoonfuls of honey and cream so thick she practically had to dig it out of the jug before she began swabbing butter and honey on the hot scones.

Max managed to collar one for himself with no butter and only a modest freight of honey. The honey was superb, he had to admit. The scones weren’t bad either, though not up to Sarah’s. With the fire in front of him, the mead inside him, and the snow beginning to fall in earnest outside the uncurtained windows, he was feeling like a character in one of the Christmas cards Sarah had been sticking up around the apartment every time she opened the mail. One of them had a picture of the late Golda Meir on it. His mother was not taking this marriage lying down.

Those fields now getting a fresh coat of white would no doubt be abloom with some damn thing or other during the honey-gathering season. “What sort of flowers do bees like?” he asked Abigail. “Do you grow colchicums, by any chance?”

“Autumn crocus?” She laughed. “Heavens, no. I’m one myself and I don’t care to be reminded. We grow mostly clover and the bees haven’t complained yet. Here, take some more honey. That’s not even enough to taste.”

Max thanked her for the honey and licked the edge of his scone so it wouldn’t drip all over his pants. Then he remarked to his host, “Your friend Dork says you were talking with him and Ogham and a couple of others when the train stopped, and that Ogham kept shooing the waitress away when she tried to pass you the caviar. Does that mean he doesn’t care for it either?”

“It probably meant he’d had all he wanted for the moment and didn’t want anybody else to get any in case he changed his mind later,” said Abigail, lathering herself another scone.