The Withdrawing Room (24 page)

“Well, there’s my husband Phil and my son Mike and my daughter-in-law Rita and anybody that lives on the street, I shouldn’t wonder, the nosy lot that they are. And there’s my grandson Kevin that wants to be a news photographer and took some fine pictures of them unbeknownst, and here they are.”

Mrs. Feeley had a sense of the dramatic. From the cavernous drawstring bag that matched her tam-o’-shanter, she whipped out a sheaf of photographs. They clearly showed the Hartlers in various poses: William writing at a desk in a room where a crucifix hung over the bed; Joanna walking up a wooden staircase wearing slacks, a long tweed coat, a trailing scarf, a crocheted beret that looked like a boudoir pillow, carrying the sort of smallish old-fashioned satchel that used to be known as a Boston bag; both Hartlers walking arm in arm under a street light with a sign on it that read, “Buses for Columbia Station.”

“See, Mary.” She showed them to Miss Smith. “That’s them, plain as plain.”

“But that’s the man in the subway,” cried Miss Smith. “The one who pushed Mr. Quiffen under the train. I remember now. I’d watched him coming down the stairs and noticed he was wearing elevator shoes. They looked so out of place on a man his age.”

“Are you sure?” snapped Bittersohn.

“Quite sure. At least I know he was there when it happened.”

“And when was this now?” said Mrs. Feeley.

“About a quarter to five on the afternoon of January 14, at Haymarket Station. The paper said he jumped or fell, but he was pushed and I’d be willing to swear this was the man who pushed him.”

“Mary, love, far be it from me to give you the lie, but you see, dearie, that couldn’t of been him. I’m not saying he wouldn’t have done it. A man in his condition, who’s to say what they might do if they took the notion. I’m not saying he couldn’t have done it because didn’t he turn up in the Public Garden with his head bashed in, poor soul, when I’d have said he’d barely wits enough about him to find his own way to the bathroom if your friends will excuse me for speaking so plain, much less all the way to Haymarket Station. But I’m saying he didn’t do it because we never let him out of the house by himself. Those were the sister’s orders and that’s what we did. Either Phil or myself was right there to keep an eye on him every minute, Phil being retired now as you maybe didn’t know. You can ask Mrs. O’Rourke on the first floor if you don’t believe me, because that one never misses a move we make.”

While she was talking, Bittersohn had taken the photographs and silently handed them to Sarah. “Wait a minute,” Sarah interrupted after she’d puzzled over them for a moment. “That’s not Mr. Hartler. I mean, it’s like him but it’s more like—if he and Miss Hartler had changed clothes—”

“And that’s what you did, isn’t it, Miss Hartler?” said Bittersohn. “All the time your brother was supposedly staying here, you were masquerading in his place.”

“Don’t be insane! How could I?”

“Quite easily, I should think. For one thing, none of us knew Mr. Hartler except Mrs. Kelling, and she didn’t know him very well. You and he must have been just about the same height when he wasn’t wearing his elevator shoes.”

“That they were,” Mrs. Feeley interposed. “No taller than an elf he was in his dressing gown, but always in them uplift shoes when she took him out walking. Wouldn’t pass the door without ‘em. I made bold to ask herself once why she didn’t wear high heels on her shoes the way her brother did and says to me, “Wumps would never stand for that, she says. ‘He has to be taller because he’s the man of the family. She always called him Wumps, don’t ask me why, and a stranger name for a grown man I never did hear. And their voices were about the same pitch only he talked fast and loud and she always spoke soft and sort of pitiful like she’s doing now when she isn’t screeching her head off, not that you can blame her and I’d do the same in her place which I hope I never will be. And she could have put something in her cheeks and her clothes to make her look fatter the way the actresses do on TV, though they weren’t so like in the face that you couldn’t tell them apart when you got them together.”

“That’s why she had to bash his face in after she killed him,” said Bittersohn. “As for killing Quiffen, she could simply have borrowed her brother’s overcoat and shoes one day. He had more than one pair of those elevator shoes, didn’t he, Mrs. Feeley?”

“Eight or ten of them, and all custom-made. He must have been a dressy man in his day. And she took the overcoat to be cleaned, I remember that, because she said she’d taken him in for ice cream and he’d slopped chocolate sauce all down the front which I didn’t see myself because she had it folded over her arm when she went out.”

“This is totally absurd,” Miss Hartler insisted, her face whiter and more pinched than ever. “I adored Wumps! And I never even knew this—this Quiffen.”

“Oh, come, Joanna,” drawled Iris Pendragon. “You were absolutely certain you had old Barney hooked thirty or forty years ago, but he wiggled off the line. Beastly little man, anyway. I never could understand why you ever wanted him in the first place except for his money, and it’s not as though you didn’t have plenty of your own.”

That was what got to Miss Hartler. “I did not! Wumps got every penny, and he doled it out to me in dribs and drabs as if he’d been Daddy Warbucks and I were Little Orphan Annie. And he was getting crazier and crazier, and squandering thousands upon thousands on stuff for the Iolani Palace that they wouldn’t even accept, and there wasn’t going to be anything left for me.”

“All you had to do was go to court and have him declared mentally incompetent,” Dolph protested. “You could have got yourself appointed conservator. That’s what I did with Uncle Fred.”

“Yes, Dolph, and then you had to play nursemaid to the old halfwit for the rest of his life, didn’t you? Just because you’re stupid, you needn’t think everyone else is. I told Wumps once that I’d murder him if I ever got the chance, and I got it and I took it and don’t expect me to pretend I’m sorry. My one regret is that I didn’t kill Wumps forty years ago. And furthermore, you might have the courtesty to admit I did give him a lovely funeral.”

I
T WAS NOT AN
easy pinch. Miss Hartler had no intention of going quietly now that she’d had a taste of power, and Sergeant McNaughton had gentlemanly scruples.

Miss Mary Smith had none. She applied a superbly efficient arm lock and snapped at Sarah, “Get a blanket and a rope.” By the time the police wagon arrived, the prisoner was well under control.

Once Aunt Marguerite managed to get it through her head that Sergeant McNaughton hadn’t charged to the rescue in the nick of time but had simply been lurking in the back hall ready to close in when Max Bittersohn gave him the signal, and that the sergeant was a married man with five children and no inclination to attend parties in Newport, she yawned.

“Well, Sarah, if you’ve nothing in the house but this ghastly sherry, I think we’ll pop on back to the hotel. Sweet of you to have us, of course, and I must admit this has been a more interesting afternoon than I’d expected. So Joanna actually killed old Wumps at last? Pity it wasn’t the other way around. One can always use an extra man even if he is a little bit gaga. Iris, do you happen to recall what I did with my gloves?”

Mrs. Feeley rode off with Sergeant McNaughton to give her statement and present the evidence her grandson Kevin had so fortunately supplied. The few remaining gapers on the sidelines took Jeremy Kelling’s broad hint that the entertainment was well and truly over. By the time Sarah’s boarders began trickling back to the house, the used dishes were piled in the sink, the ashtrays emptied, and the windows thrown open. Cold as it was, everybody felt a need for some fresh air.

“Miss Smith, you’ll stay to dinner, won’t you?” Sarah coaxed.

“Er, h’mph.” Dolph cleared his throat noisily. “I’ve been hoping I might prevail on Miss Smith to join me for dinner at the Ritz. This recycling scheme of hers wants a lot of discussing. A lot of discussing.”

“My God,” gasped Uncle Jem. “To think I should live to see the day!”

“What the hell, I’m human, ain’t I?” snarled his nephew. “I’ll admit that living with Aunt Matilda all those years was enough to put any man off women forever, but, dammit, I—well, hell, I’m human, ain’t I?”

“Maybe you are at that,” Jeremy Kelling replied, gazing with a wild surmise upon this new facet of a man he’d thought he knew and loathed. “Godspeed, my boy. The speedier the better, I’d say. You know what happened to those frogs of yours the minute you turned your back.”

“I’m so sorry, Miss Smith, but they always go on like that,” Sarah explained, trying to conquer her hysterics. “Dolph is an idiot in some ways and he’s usually a good deal slower off the mark than this, but he’s honest, loyal, dependable, and filthy rich.”

“And I’m sixty-seven years old and lonesome as hell if anybody wants to know,” her cousin added without acrimony, “and that was the most beautiful arm lock I’ve ever seen. How about it, Miss Smith? Feel like recycling an old frog hunter into a Prince Charming? Hey, that’s not bad. Come on, you’re a sport, take a chance. Mind if I call you Mary?”

“Why, no,” said Miss Smith after brief consideration. “I don’t think I’d mind a bit.”

“Bless you, my children. Come on, Egbert, let’s go home and mix ourselves a large pitcher of martinis,” crooned Jeremy Kelling. “Be sure to let me know the next time you’re throwing an after-the-funeral binge, Sarah. I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

“You certainly do know how to cheer a girl up.”

Sarah kissed both her uncle and Egbert with a lifetime’s affection. “Thanks a million times. I’d never have got through this afternoon without you. And Dolph, of course, and—may I call you Mary?”

She gave her cousin about-to-be a hug. “Dolph does need a wife desperately,” she murmured. “Heaven knows what you’ll be letting yourself in for—but you won’t chicken out, will you?”

“I never have yet, have I?” Miss Smith rearranged her good velour hat on her nicely waved hair and fastened her little mink collar. “Then I expect I’ll have the pleasure of seeing you again soon—Sarah.”

“Why don’t we make that very soon? Now that I have a vacancy, Dolph must bring you back here to stay.”

“Damn good idea,” said Dolph. “Keep an eye on her so she won’t go hopping off.”

“Oh, Dolph.” Sarah suddenly remembered something. “Speaking of keeping an eye on people, have you any idea why Barnwell Quiffen put a detective on your trail?”

“Detective, eh?” Dolph was tickled silly by this news. “Why the hell didn’t you let me know sooner? Have some fun with him, eh? Buy a false mustache. Leap in and out of—”

“Frog ponds?” Jeremy Kelling suggested innocently. “Hell of a lot of leaping you ever did, you great tub of lard. Sarah, where did you get this notion about detectives? Why would Quiffen do a thing like that?”

“Because he hated my guts,” said Dolph promptly. “Kicked him off the Committee for Common Cleanliness. Had to. Tried to make a stink about me misusing funds because I wouldn’t go along with that damn fool notion of Uncle Fred’s. No disrespect to the dead, of course, and I realize Uncle Fred was a great man, but damn it, he did get some funny ideas in his later years. Went into Woolworth’s and saw some parakeets wearing diapers, so he went ahead and ordered a hundred gross of ‘em.”

“Of parakeets?”

“No, damn it, of diapers. Going to make the pigeons wear ‘em.”

“What?” shrieked Sarah. “Dolph, are you seriously trying to tell us Uncle Frederick meant to put diapers on all the Boston Common pigeons?”

“Hell, no. He didn’t mean to do it himself, he meant
me
to. That’s where I drew the line. I mean, what the hell, I suppose I could go out with a few barrels of popcorn and trap the damn birds, but where would I go from there? Got to be changed, ain’t they? Anybody thinks I’m going to spend the rest of my life hanging around the Common powdering pigeons’ bottoms can damn well think again and so I told the judge when I went to have Uncle Fred declared mentally incompetent. And he agreed with me,” Dolph added triumphantly.

“But Quiffen kept yammering about that hundred gross of parakeet diapers till I told him to shut up and get out. Had it in for me ever since. Didn’t dare risk a face-to-face showdown so he sneaked in a detective. Wish I’d known. I’d have shown him I’m a tough man to meddle with. You remember that Mary. Mary Kelling. Sounds pretty good, eh? Where the hell have you been all my life, anyway?”

As Miss Smith was making a prettily flustered good-by to Mr. Bittersohn and Mr. Bittersohn was offering to drive over and help her clean out the room she wouldn’t be needing anymore, Mrs. Sorpende entered the house. The two former bag ladies exchanged startled glances, then warm smiles.

“How delightful to see we have mutual acquaintances! I don’t believe we’ve met, though I feel I know you. I’m Theonia Sorpende.”

“And I’m Mary Smith.”

“But she won’t be for long,” said Dolph cockily. “Come on, Mary. Damn it, this is an important occasion. A man doesn’t get engaged every day.”

“If you’re going to be engaged to me, you’ll have to clean up your language.” Mary Smith was getting off on the right foot.

As they left, Mrs. Sorpende’s gracious smile turned to a twinkle of polite amusement. “Ah, me, I seem to have been merely the plaything of an idle hour. How wonderful they’ve found each other! Miss Smith has great strength of character.”

“She’ll need every ounce of it when she marries Dolph,” Sarah replied. “Still, living with him can’t possibly be much worse than scrounging in trash barrels.”

“Oh, then you know?”

“Certainly I know. How do you think I found out about you? We all have to get by as best we can, don’t we? Now why don’t you nip up and get dressed for dinner? Wear your lovely dress with that gorgeous red poppy, will you? I need to look at something bright and cheerful for a change. Now I must fly. I’m head cook and assistant bottle washer around here, in case you hadn’t caught on, and dinner’s going to be late and I’m counting on you to keep Professor Ormsby from chewing the furniture.”

When she got out to the kitchen, she found Mariposa in her new purple and fuchsia uniform, washing up glasses and fuming. “Why didn’t you tell me everybody was coming back here this afternoon? I could have stayed.