The Gladstone Bag (27 page)

“Tranquilizers?” Mrs. Fath had at last been jolted out of her lethargy. “I can’t take tranquilizers! They ruin the vibrations. For Pete’s sake, why couldn’t you just have slugged me over the head, too? You might as well kill me as put me out of business.”

“We shall do all we can to help you recover your vibrations,” Emma assured her. “In the meantime, Bubbles will be extra careful to make sure you ingest nothing at all, not so much as a sip of water, not even your toothpaste, which he has not personally approved. No food or drink will be left sitting around where anybody could get at it. Do you understand that, Mrs. Fath? You are to put nothing at all in your mouth that hasn’t come straight from Bubbles. Furthermore, he’s going to taste it first and stay right with you while you eat it.”

Lisbet Quainley emitted another of her hysterical giggles. “So if Alding goes spacey again, we’ll all know who to blame. Tough luck, Bubbles.”

Bubbles clearly couldn’t have agreed more, but what could he say? “Yeth, Mithith Kelling. I’ll do my betht.”

“I know you will.” That was not Emma but Alding Fath, sounding a good deal less woozy than she had since the night she arrived. “You’ve been an angel of mercy to me, Bubbles. I remember that, all right.”

“Don’t thay that, Mithith Fath! I—I failed you.”

“The hell you did,” roared Vincent. “Quit being so hard on yourself, Bubbles. How could you know a goddamn raging lunatic was trying to kill us all on account of a goddamn necklace nobody saw fit to tell me about?”

He glared at Emma. She glared right back. “How was I to know you weren’t the accomplice? I know it now, of course, because I realize you’d never have struck your own daughter. Though you did let your son risk his neck yesterday morning retrieving that worthless jewelry of mine. I couldn’t help wondering then whether you were hoping to recover the diamond necklace at any cost.”

“I wasn’t risking my neck,” Neil protested. “Pop didn’t send me, but he didn’t stop me. He knew I’d be okay.”

“Can’t raise a boy to be a sissy,” the father growled. “I didn’t know what Neil was divin’ for, but I’ll admit I was curious to know what was there. It didn’t stand to reason that feller would go through all the bother o’ comin’ here to Pocapuk and playin’ his amnesia stunt just to run off with a bunch o’ junk. You could o’ told me.”

“Yes, I could, and I’m sorry now that I didn’t,” Emma admitted. “But just answer me one question, Vincent. If the shoe had been on the other foot, would you have told me?”

“Well, no,” he admitted after a struggle, “I don’t s’pose I would. Okay, Mrs. Kelling, I guess you got me on that one. All I can say is, when I find which one o’ you birds slugged my daughter—”

He didn’t bother to finish. He didn’t have to. Ted Sharpless winced as though he’d been hit over the head himself. Black John Sendick started to say something, then didn’t. Lisbet Quainley giggled again and clutched Everard Wont, who pulled away angrily. Sandy and Bernice were gaping like spectators at a horror show; Neil leaned against his father as if Vincent were the hero who could make the monster go away. It was Joris Groot who broke the silence.

“This,” he said, “is one hell of a situation.”

“I quite agree,” said Emma. “I suppose the best course right now is for everyone to go back to bed and get what sleep we can. Now that our resident criminal understands it’s useless to go on smashing and bashing, I should think the rest of us are safe enough. Don’t you, Theonia?”

“I sincerely hope so. Good night, everybody.”

“With one exception.” Lisbet Quainley was still either not trying or not able to suppress those senseless giggles.

The party dispersed to seek what repose each might, with luck, attain. The two Mrs. Kellings went back upstairs. As she was adjusting herself on the chaise longue, it occurred to Emma that amid all that babble and chatter, all those hair-raising revelations, Everard Wont had said not one single word.

E
MMA HADN’T EXPECTED TO
sleep a wink, but aspirin and exhaustion did their work. She didn’t open an eye again until Bernice and Sandy showed up with morning tea. Bernice was carrying the tray; Sandy had evidently just come along to be sociable.

“It’s half-past eight, Mrs. Kelling. Pop said we’d better come and make sure you two were still alive. Hi, Mrs. Brooks. Ooh, what a wicked nightie!”

“Well, I see you’re bright and chirpy this morning.” That was Theonia, Emma was still conducting experiments with her eyelids. “Thank you, Bernice, just set the tray here on the table. Is your head quite recovered, Sandy?”

“My bump hurts when I touch it, but Pop said it was okay to get up before I drove him nuts. You guys won’t be late to breakfast; everybody’s running late this morning. Bubbles gave Mrs. Fath a couple of soft-boiled eggs for breakfast. He candled them first to make sure nobody’d stuck a hypodermic needle through the shells and squirted in any unknown Asiatic poison or anything. Was that okay, Mrs. Kelling?”

“Quite satisfactory.” Emma had all her moving parts in working order by now, as far as she could tell. “How is Mrs. Fath feeling?”

“Okay, I guess. She ate in the kitchen with us so Bubbles could keep an eye on her. Pop sent Neil to her cottage for some clothes, and he brought back all the wrong stuff, naturally. Mrs. Fath’s going to give him a course in mind reading as soon as she gets her head back together. Take your time getting dressed, Bubbles didn’t even put the muffins in the oven till just a little while ago, and none of the cottagers have shown up yet except Black John. He’s wearing a green sweatshirt today; it’s got a picture of a moose in a hammock on it. I bet his girlfriend gave it to him. Does Black John have a girlfriend, Mrs. Kelling?”

“Dozens, I should think.” Emma was feeling a little brisker now that she’d managed to get half a cup of tea into her. “Refill my cup for me like a good girl, then you and Bernice skip along and help Bubbles with breakfast since you’re so full of pep. Mrs. Brooks and I will be down as soon as we’ve pulled ourselves together.”

That might take some doing, Emma thought a few minutes later as she faced the awful truth in the bathroom mirror. As a rule, she was not one to balk at a challenge, but this morning the old Kelling fizz had definitely gone flat. She had to give herself a stern lecture and swipe a glob of Theonia’s Queen Bee Replenishing Cream before she could even face the effort of lifting her second-best wig off the block. A good, long wallow in a hot bath with plenty of geranium salts was what she needed, but conscience forbade such indulgence.

Emma compromised on a quick shower and a snatch from
Ruddigore.
“For duty, duty must be done; the rule applies to every one, and painful though the duty be, to shirk the task were fiddle-de-dee. To shirk the taaask, to shirk the task were fiddle-de-fiddle-de diddle-de-dee!”

Not bad. She’d managed that long high note without a croak or a waver. Granted, the piece was written for Richard and Sir Despard, so the note wasn’t all that high, but why quibble over details? Somewhat reassured, she dried off on one of Adelaide’s sumptuous though faded bath sheets; put on some frisky lingerie Little Em, bless the child, had given her on her last birthday as a cock of the snook to Father Time; and started to work on her face.

There, she told herself, some minutes later, that ought to do it if anything could. Now to snaffle the rose print blouse before Theonia beat her to it and she had to be polite. No, Theonia was taking the blue with the red pinstripe and jazzing it up with the red scarf off her sailor hat. Trust Theonia.

The pink blouse and a few minutes’ extra work with a sable brush and a cake of blusher did all Emma could reasonably expect in the circumstances. “Lovely,” said Theonia. “You look like a rose without a thorn.”

“Apt application’s artful aid.” Emma rinsed out the brush and set it on the edge of the sink to dry. “I’ll bet I’m a better painter than Lisbet Quainley. Shall we go down? I suppose it’s useless to hope Sarah will call before noontime.”

“Oh, she might. Sarah’s unbelievably efficient, you know. I must say the combination of sea air and late-night alarms does stimulate one’s appetite. Let’s hope the muffins are done.”

The muffins were done, the chafing dishes were filled, and the clans were beginning to gather. Joris Groot was at the table with Sendick, stuffing his face as if this were to be his last meal on earth. Alding Fath was sitting where she’d sat their first night on the island.

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Kelling,” she reassured Emma. “I’m not eating, just visiting.”

“I know. Sandy told me about the soft-boiled eggs, which was a very sensible thing for Bubbles to do. It’s good to see you up and about, Mrs. Fath. I don’t believe you’ve met my cousin’s wife, Mrs. Brooks Kelling. People are calling her Mrs. Brooks to avoid confusion.”

“That’s good. Been too much confusion around here already, sounds like to me. How do you do, Mrs. Brooks? Say, have I met you before?”

Theonia held out her hand. Alding Fath took it and held it long enough to make Emma aware that something more than a courteous handshake was going on. Then Theonia said, “You’re going to be just fine,” and went to get herself some creamed haddock.

The haddock was excellent; Emma had some, too. She was at the muffins-and-marmalade stage when Lisbet Quainley showed up bundled into a great mass of sweatering loosely knit in hit-or-miss greenery-yallery splashes interspersed with dirty puce and angry dark red. Aside from its ugliness, the garment was an odd choice, Emma thought; the day was already warm enough for thin cottons.

Everard Wont most likely wouldn’t show up for breakfast, Miss Quainley told the others. She didn’t come straight out and say he’d gone back to the cottage after that painful session in the dark of night and drunk himself into a coma, but the inference was not hard to draw. The young woman herself was desperately uneasy, Emma thought.

Alding Fath thought so, too. “What’s eating you, Lisbet? Looks to me as if you’re wearing that sweater for protection.”

“Don’t be silly, Alding! I just put it on because—I don’t know. Because it was the first thing I grabbed. I didn’t want to be late for breakfast. Anyway, why shouldn’t I be feeling a few shivers now and then? Maybe you don’t know it, but I got hit on the head, too. My scalp was cut open, for God’s sake! I was bleeding all over the place.”

If one had to endure the pain, one might as well enjoy the publicity, Emma supposed. “How is your head this morning, Miss Quainley?” she asked. “Much better, I hope. Do try the creamed haddock; it’s quite delicious and just the thing for a delicate stomach.”

“If you say so.”

Lisbet Quainley rolled up her unlovely sleeves to keep them out of the chafing dishes while she helped herself to a minuscule portion of fish and a slice of dry toast. Whatever Wont had been drinking, Emma deduced, he hadn’t been drinking alone. And where was Count Radunov? Surely that elegant gentleman of fortune hadn’t indulged in an unseemly early-morning booze-up.

Emma was pouring her second and final cup of coffee by the time Radunov appeared, dapper as usual but wan around the eyes. He filled a plate at the buffet without appearing to notice or care what he took and sat down to eat it with none of his usual efforts toward affable table talk. Theonia and Alding Fath were talking their highly specialized brand of shop in low tones at their end of the table, but nobody else was saying much of anything. The likelihood that they might be having breakfast with a thief and a murderer or manslaughterer, as the case might be, would naturally tend to put a strain on the rules of etiquette, Emma had to concede.

Vincent came in as she was about ready to abandon any pretense of being hostess and leave the table to whoever chose to preside. “Mrs. Kelling,” he said, “I’ve heard from the county sheriff’s office. They say they ought to have somebody out here around noontime.”

“Oh, good. I’m sure you’ll be as relieved as I.”

“Ayuh. Now what do you want done about the big bedroom? Bernice can’t handle that mess alone. I don’t want Sandy bendin’ an’ stretchin’ and startin’ her head up again.”

“I should think not,” Emma agreed. “Why don’t you let us borrow Neil long enough to lift the mattresses back on the beds? Mrs. Brooks and I can handle the rest. It will give us something to occupy ourselves while we’re waiting.”

“I’ll send ’im up whenever you’re ready.”

Emma laid down her napkin. “Now is as good a time as any. Theonia, come whenever you feel the urge.”

Mrs. Fath stood up, too. “I’d better go back to my cottage and get squared away, if Bubbles will let me. It’s been nice talking to you, Mrs. Brooks.”

“I look forward to continuing our chat, Mrs. Fath. Until later, then.”

“What do you think of her?” Emma asked as they went upstairs.

“I think she’s a dear.” Theonia’s tone left no room for doubt. “You can forget the spies gathering information, Emma. That woman wouldn’t know how to go about it. She may not be quite so infallible as she thinks she is, but she’s honest as far as she goes. Any ambiguities she may have uttered the other night weren’t meant to trick you. She was only trying to describe precisely the impressions she was getting, which is not always easy or even possible. People get misled because they color what the reader says with what’s in their own minds.”

“Now that I think of it, Theonia, that’s exactly what happened. All Mrs. Fath actually said was black and white and stones coming out of the sea. Then Mr. Groot picked up with his notion about Shag Rock and the white gulls.” Et cetera. “Wont and the rest jumped to the conclusion that she was describing the place where Pocapuk’s treasure was buried because that was what they were hoping to hear. Yesterday morning, when Neil came in wearing that old black raincoat and carrying the
Iolanthe
jewelry he’d fished up wrapped in a white towel, it became clear what she’d really meant. Rather amusing, when one thinks about it.”

“I suppose so.” Theonia didn’t sound much interested. “Well, let’s get to work. What a mess!”

“It’s all my fault for not having told about the safe sooner,” said Emma. “I deserve to get stuck with the cleaning up. But you don’t. Wouldn’t you rather go back and watch Count Radunov eat his breakfast?”