The Convivial Codfish (5 page)

“I never realized that,” said Max.

“Oh, my stars, yes. It’s Jem’s great talent. He can spot the vaguest acquaintance half a mile away. I don’t know how he does it, but he remembers every least little thing. You know, such as people’s having one ear higher than the other or walking with their toes turned in. All those minuscule details most of us never even notice. And he knows absolutely everybody, though half the time he isn’t speaking to them. You should see him snooting Obed Ogham.”

“Is that Ogham in the gray top hat and yellow gloves?”

“My dear man, didn’t I just this moment tell you I’m blind as a bat? Wait till Obed comes within range of my lorgnette and I’ll point him out to you.”

“Thanks. I ought to know, for the sake of family unity. Any snoot of Jem’s is a snoot of mine. Tonight, at any rate. That’s interesting about Jem’s ability to recognize people at a distance. Do many of his friends know he can do it?”

“Heavens, yes, we all do. That’s why Jem’s so indispensible at parties. One’s always sidling up to him and whispering, ‘Who’s that hideous woman in the purple dress?’ or whatever. He saves us no end of embarrassment since the woman’s apt to be one’s own sister-in-law. Or ex-sister-in-law, which could be even stickier.”

“I can see where it might be.”

And right there was an excellent reason why Jem might have had to be kept away from the Tolbathys’ party at any cost. Somebody, not necessarily in this particular contingent but among those who’d be on the train in the course of the evening, didn’t want to risk being recognized by the one person who’d be able to see through his or her disguise.

Max rather inclined toward a him. The women had altered the style of their clothing, though perhaps not very much in some instances, but there wasn’t a great deal they could do about their faces. The men, on the other hand, had a glorious excuse to mask their features behind unaccustomed hirsute adornments.

False beards and wigs were traditionally effective disguises. This crowd was surely as tradition-oriented as they came. From what Marcia Whet said about their general acuity of vision, most of them could probably be fooled by a wad or two of Fuzzleys’ best so long as the person behind it didn’t get too close or talk too much. Or at least the prankster would assume they could.

As to whether there was in fact such a plot in the works, Max would know soon enough. He did wish he weren’t so handicapped by being the lone stranger here. Some of the guests were married couples, of course, and he could have recognized the husbands through their wives if only he knew the wives. The age level being what it was, though, there must be a fair percentage of widows and widowers, along with those few who’d never married at all. He wasn’t too sanguine about his own chances of getting them sorted out in time to spot an odd one. Marcia Whet was not going to help him much. He’d have to forgo her amiable company and attach himself to somebody who could see past her lorgnette.

That should be feasible. Now that they knew who Max was, or thought they did, even the men were friendly enough. The one he’d recognized as Durward kept leaning across the aisle to chat, squinting amiably up at him through those bottle-bottom spectacles. The hitch there was that Durward had mistaken Max for a tenor named Ernest who used to sing madrigals with him, whereas Max was a baritone who sang things like “They’re hanging Danny Deever in the morning,” and then only when he was shaving or putting on his socks. Durward was clearly another lost cause.

Obed Ogham could be scratched at the post, naturally. He was making a great point of not noticing Jeremy Kelling’s nephew, though sneaking frequent glances to make sure Max realized he was being ignored. Max wondered how many of the others wished they could be ignored, too. Ogham was the sort of man who backs people into corners and shouts funny stories at them regardless of their protests that they’ve already heard the jokes and didn’t think they were any good the first time. Max felt a glow of family pride at Jeremy Kelling’s taste and discrimination in being on the outs with Ogham, as well as a sense of relief at being exempt from getting pounded at by that loud, arrogant voice.

The bus ride seemed to be taking one hell of a long time, although Max’s watch told him it wasn’t. He was relieved when at last they turned off the road, up a well-plowed private drive. For perhaps an eighth of a mile he saw only snow-covered trees, then an expanse of clear snow that must be lawn. Then everybody began exclaiming, “There it is! There’s the train.”

And there it was, dwarfed by the vast mansion on the hill behind it but ablaze with light, sitting self-importantly on its loop of track outside a miniature station festooned with Christmas greens. Beside the step, a lavishly uniformed conductor made great play with a nickel-plated stem-winder watch and yelled, “Boo-ard! All aboard. Step lively, please.”

That was Tom Tolbathy, their host. His wife stood inside the parlor car, greeting each guest as they climbed up. Mrs. Tolbathy was doing a marvelous imitation of Margaret Dumont, Max thought, wearing silver lace over a straight-front corset, with white kid gloves up to her armpits and strings of pearls down to her knees. She didn’t seem to be having any difficulty figuring out who was who despite the mustaches, though she did look the merest trifle nonplussed when Max Bittersohn took off his top hat and made his bow.

“This is Jeremy Kelling’s nephew Max, Hester,” Marcia Whet explained for about the fifteenth time so far. “Poor Jem broke his hip last night, so he dragooned Max into being my escort.”

“How dreadful,” said Hester Tolbathy. “Not you, Max. I may call you that, mayn’t I? You were a darling to pitch in, and we’re delighted to have you aboard. Which branch of the Kellings do you perch on?”

Max started to explain that he was only a graft, but just then Tom Tolbathy boosted old Mr. Wripp up on the steps, so Hester had to turn and inquire about all the eldest Comrade’s ailments, from the cataracts in his eyes to the gout in his toes. That was clearly going to take a while, so Max let himself be swept on with Marcia Whet through the parlor car, with its ornate gilt and crimson damask decor, into what might once have been a coal tender. This was now converted into a sort of utility area, with a brass and mahogany coat rack along the wall and a potbellied stove in the middle throwing an almost insufferable amount of heat.

A pretty child of twelve or so in a long velvet dress with a lace collar was there to take coats. She turned out to be the Tolbathys’ granddaughter, showed her matching lace pantalettes to Marcia Whet, who must be an intimate family friend, lamented that she was going to be kicked off and sent to bed before the train started, and finally got around to hanging up Max’s black cashmere overcoat and stowing the pop-top hat Dolph’s wife, Mary, had resurrected originally for Jem to wear. Together, she and Max got Mrs. Whet out of her boa, pelisse, and pheasant; then Max escorted the elder lady back against the rising tide of petticoats and pseudopelage.

The Tolbathys knew how to put on an elegant affair, that was clear. The lights were dim enough to make all the ladies look handsome and all the men at least moderately distinguished. Max saw no fountain spouting champagne—that must have been one of the flights of hyperbole to which Uncle Jem was so prone—but he did observe a bar set up in the dining car, manned by a bartender wearing red arm garters, the inevitable walrus mustache with well-waxed ends, and a black toupee neatly parted down the middle. Beside the bar stood a square white table draped in white damask, bearing an elaborate silver epergne topped by a swan carved out of ice. It was the sort of thing that ought to have dishes of food on it, but there was not a bite of anything in sight, and that surprised Max a great deal.

Somebody else must have been thinking along the same line, for Max heard a man behind him mutter, “For God’s sake, aren’t they going to feed us?”

“Be patient, dear,” said the woman who was presumably his wife. “You know Hester always does thing in grand style. I expect the caterers are a little late getting organized.”

“Caterers? Why couldn’t they have used their own staff?”

“To serve a crowd like this on a moving train? Darling, Hester knows better even than to suggest it. Oh, goody, more champagne.”

Over at the table beside the bar, a wine steward, correct in black coat, white gloves, and a heavy silver chain of office with a silver corkscrew dangling from it, was deflty easing the cork out of a magnum. Max went over to get some for Marcia Whet and took a long, thoughtful look at the silver chain while he was waiting for the bubbly to be poured.

The sommelier paid no attention to Max or to anybody else but filled glasses in dignified silence until the bottle was empty. Then he opened another magnum from the ice-filled silver bucket that stood on the bar. Then he handed the duty of pouring over to the bartender and disappeared.

Almost immediately he was back, carrying a biggish silver tray. He busied himself about the epergne for a moment or two, then stood back so those clustered around the bar could see the effect he’d achieved. The upper arms were now laden with cut-glass dishes of chopped onion, sieved egg yolk, and curls of sweet butter; the lower ones with silver baskets of thin-sliced dark bread and crisp melba toast.

“Now he’s going to open the caviar,” Marcia Whet murmured to Max over the top of her champagne glass. “The Tolbathys always make a big thing of the caviar. Tom imports it, you know.”

“I didn’t, actually. What else does he import?”

“Escargots, marrons glacés, that sort of thing. Tom’s Fancy Foreign Foods. Tom and his brother Wouter, I should say; though
entre nous,
Tom’s the driving force now that their father has gone. I do wish that man would get on with it. I adore caviar.”

However, the man with the silver chain took his time, scrutinizing the tin for any possible flaw, then inserting the tip of a handheld can opener and painstakingly screwing it around until the lid came off clean. He held the opened tin up for yet another inspection, then carefully scooped its contents out with a silver spoon into a gleaming crystal bowl. At last, like a Mayan priest offering up a virgin, he lifted the bowl in both hands, placed it in the hollowed-out back of the carved ice swan, picked up his tray now bearing only the used can opener and the emptied tin, and stepped through the vestibule from the dining car to the caboose, from which the serving was evidently being done.

A waitress who’d been hovering in the background now stepped up to the table and began spreading the sweet butter on the bread and toast, spooning out the expensive fish eggs, adding sprinkles of egg yolk and onion, laying them on a tray for another waitress to pass among the guests. Max didn’t care much for caviar, so he shook his head when the tray got to him. Marcia Whet was aghast.

“You horrid man, how could you?”

“Sorry, I just don’t happen to like it.”

“But you could have taken one anyway, and slipped it to me. Then I’d get more than my fair share without looking quite so piggish.”

As a rule, nobody eats much caviar because it is so rich. Either because the Tolbathys’ was such a special kind, though, or because there still wasn’t anything else being served, the bowl emptied quickly. People were going up to the table and manufacturing their own appetizers. Max rather expected the man with the chain to come back and refill the swan, but he didn’t. Instead, one of the waitresses took the empty dishes from the epergne and went off, Max hoped, to get some hors d’oeuvres that were more to his taste. He was feeling hungry.

He was also feeling the motion of the train as he had not done before. They’d speeded up, for some reason. Passengers who’d been balancing themselves easily against the gentle rocking of the cars were grabbing frantically at anything they could hang on to. Hester Tolbathy looked startled, Tom Tolbathy furious. He set down the drink he’d been sipping and started forward. Max forgot about food and moved to follow Tom.

That was when the train stopped, so abruptly that bottles and glasses went flying off the bar. The great silver epergne slid off its table, the swan splintered into icy fragments. Passengers crashed to the floor. Tom Tolbathy turned and hesitated, clearly torn between duty to his guests and concern for his train.

The train won. Tom hurried through the parlor car, through the coal tender where, mercifully, the potbellied stove had not fallen over and started a fire. He either didn’t notice or didn’t care that Max Bittersohn was right with him; but wrenched open a connecting door and stuck his head into the engine cab.

“Wouter, what the hell—”

Tom Tolbathy didn’t say any more. His brother was not at the controls. He was huddled, face down, into the tiny space on the floor of the cab.

“O
H MY GOD, WOUTER!
Hey, old fellow, what’s the matter?”

Tom Tolbathy was down on the floor beside his brother, pulling his body half-upright, slapping at his cheeks, trying to bully him back to consciousness. Max noted the lolling head, the half-open eyes and mouth, and put a hand on Tom’s shoulder to make him stop.

“I’m afraid he’s not going to wake up, Tom.”

“What do you mean? What’s the matter with him?”

“I think he’s dead. Let me down there a second, will you?”

Tom shifted. Max took his place beside the fallen engineer. After a little fumbling, he shook his head.

“I can’t find any sign of life. Did your brother have heart trouble, do you know?”

“Wouter? Never. Sound as a bell. At least he always said he was. Damn it all,” Tolbathy’s face screwed up as if he wanted to cry, “he can’t be dead.”

All Max could say was, “We’d better get a doctor. How far are we from the house?”

Tom shook his head, as if to get his brain started. “I’ll have to find out where we are. It’s so damned dark out here—”

He took a battery lantern from a hook behind the control panel and leaned out the cab window. Max bent over Wouter Tolbathy again. Considering that he held his doctorate in fine arts rather then medicine, he knew a surprising lot about dead bodies. Wouter’s was that, no doubt about it.