The Withdrawing Room (7 page)

“Then how on earth does she live?”

“Makes a game of survival. Collects newspapers out of trash cans and reads up on who’s doling out free meals to senior citizens. Then she peddles the papers to a junkman for carfare to get to the grub. She told me she has some very nice clothes she wears when she goes out in company; I’d just happened to catch her when she wasn’t dressed up. And she insisted on paying her own dime for the subway. I was tempted to ask her out to dinner and a show, but I thought I’d better not try to get fresh on such short acquaintance. Miss Smith looks as if she might be a stickler for the proprieties.”

“Don’t you believe it,” said Sarah. “She’d have taken you on like a shot. She told me she’d got beyond any nonsense about false pride. So have I, that’s why I was so brazen about hurling you into the breach. There simply wasn’t anybody else, and I didn’t dare let her go off alone. I think she’s perfectly sane, too, so when she told me her story I couldn’t take the risk of not believing her.”

Sarah drank a little of her scotch. “I’m sorry. I thought I’d be able to talk about this easily enough, but it’s—I’m just so sick and tired of horrors!”

“That’s okay, Mrs. Kelling. Take your time. Maybe I can guess. Putting the newspapers and the subway together, would I be correct in assuming that Miss Smith’s story had something to do with this Mr. Quiffen who boarded with you and fell under the train yesterday?”

“Have you ever been wrong? Miss Smith’s story is that she and Mr. Quiffen were standing next to each other at the front of the platform. They were more or less exchanging glares because he didn’t like being near someone who—well, you saw her last night—and she didn’t take kindly to being regarded as a walking pestilence. Would you?”

“Was he that sort?”

“Oh yes, very much so. I got him foisted on me by some old friends who thought they were doing me a big favor, but I realized he was a mistake from the beginning. If he couldn’t find an excuse to be nasty, he’d go looking for one. If I’d had him on my back for another week or so, I daresay I might have been tempted to do what—what Miss Smith claims she saw somebody else do.”

“Shove him under the train?”

“So she says. She insists she distinctly saw two hands wearing brown leather gloves reach out from the crowd and deliberately push him onto the track at the moment the train came out of the tunnel.”

“Is that all she saw, just the hands?”

“That and an impression of dark coat sleeves. Of course the train wouldn’t have been able to stop the instant it hit him, and she was right next to it with everyone milling and shoving. She was afraid she’d be pushed under the wheels herself. You know what it’s like in the rush hours. I expect whoever did it just stepped back and got lost in the crowd.”

“Or turned to the guy behind him and yelled, ‘Quit shoving,’ so that in case anybody else happened to be looking he could claim it wasn’t his fault. It’s unlikely anyone would have paid any attention. People are concentrating on the train, or maybe guarding their handbags and wallets for fear of getting their pockets picked, or trying to keep their bundles and briefcases from getting knocked out of their hands. It’s not a bad way to get rid of somebody if you have the nerve. You’d simply give him the push, let the crowd close in around you, step back and get on the first train going in the opposite direction, and be away before anybody realized what was happening. Did Miss Smith report what she saw?”

“She tried hard enough. I gather she must have made quite a scene. She claims she told the starter, the conductor the police, and even some reporters, but none of them would pay attention to her. That’s why she eventually came to me. She happened to pick up a newspaper that had one of those ‘Tulip Street Curse Strikes Again’ stories with my name and photograph. She took it for divine guidance or something and beetled straight on over here, shopping bags and all. It was a dreadfully reckless thing to do, and naturally I was terrified for her after what happened that other time.”

“You know that wasn’t your fault.”

“I know it wasn’t, but I can’t help feeling it was. Anyway, Miss Smith was totally oblivious of the fact that she’s a noticeable sort of person with her shopping bags and all those ragged clothes peeking out from under one another. And Mr. Quiffen’s heirs, or what I presume are his heirs, had been here earlier like wolves on the fold, and my boarders were due in for dinner. I had to get her out of here and I couldn’t think what else to do, so I called you. After this episode I daresay you’ll be having your “telephone number changed.”

Bittersohn smiled again. “Don’t bet on it. Let me ask you an embarrassing question. Did you want to keep your boarders from seeing Miss Smith because she looked so crummy or because you were afraid one of them might recognize her as having been the witness who made the fuss? I take it you’re ready to believe Miss Smith’s story yourself.”

“I have to, don’t I? As to the boarders, I couldn’t have cared less about how she looked. I could always have introduced her as one of my rich relatives. I was only concerned that one of them might recognize her as the person who’d tried to be a witness.”

“Anyone in particular?”

“No, but you see, I don’t know them. They all came with recommendations of one sort or another, and we had preliminary interviews and all that, but what does that prove? I haven’t seen enough of them yet to form any valid opinions about what they might or might not be capable of, and Mr. Quiffen had got everybody’s back up at one time or another. We haven’t actually been pelting each other with mashed potatoes at the table, but that’s mainly because Charles and I and Mrs. Sorpende, who’s a darling woman, have been ganging up on him whenever he threatened to become totally unbearable. What sort of relationship he might have had with any of them outside the house, of course, I have no idea and couldn’t very well ask.”

“You say his heirs were here. Did he leave a lot of money?”

“I think he must have, from what my friends told me. I can find out exactly how much and how it was left if you want, because George Protheroe is an executor. It was George’s wife Anora who sicked Mr. Quiffen on me in the first place. She told me to soak him plenty since he could well afford it, and she added that he’d make sure I earned it, which was the truth, goodness knows. I called her last night because I didn’t know how else to get in touch with his people. They were all here this morning, including the nephew and a cousin ready to cart off whatever they could get their hands on. Luckily, Anora had warned me to lock his door and keep it locked till George arrived.”

“Did she?”

“Yes, and if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, you might as well forget it. The Protheroes don’t need to steal from anybody. Furthermore, when I saw what a delegation I was collecting, I decided I’d better have a representative of my own present, so I called my Cousin Dolph. They went charging through that door in one seething mass, so I can’t see how one of them could have pocketed anything of Mr. Quiffen’s without getting jumped by the rest. Shall we go in to lunch?”

“In the kitchen?”

“No, the dining room.” Sarah recalled that the last meal she’d cooked for Mr. Bittersohn had been breakfast, and that he liked his eggs the consistency of old leather. That was one small part of her adventures she’d never mentioned, even to Aunt Emma.

“We’re very high-toned these days,” she went on with a self-conscious attempt at airiness. “I’m sorry we can’t give you the full treatment, with Mariposa buttering your buns for you and Charles being grand in his butler suit, but perhaps you can come to dinner one night soon. Please help yourself to the salad, as the footman happens to be off today. I hope you like chicken.”

“My mother should hear you ask that. She’s one of the old chicken soup crowd.”

“That’s true, it’s supposed to be a cure for all ills, isn’t it? I’d better make some, and keep my remaining boarders healthy.”

“Tell me about them.”

Sarah was surprised to realize how little she had to tell. “Well, there’s Jennifer, LaValliere. She’s the young granddaughter of a woman who lives here on the Hill, and she’s going to Katherine Gibbs. At least I presume she is, because she brings home a textbook now and then. And a Mr. Porter-Smith, who does something or other in an accounting firm that one of my third cousins has an interest in.”

“What’s the name of the firm?”

“Come to think of it, I don’t know. Kelling and somebody or other, I suppose.”

“How old is this Porter-Smith?”

“Getting on for thirty, I should say.”

“Oh?” said Bittersohn in what struck Sarah as a rather deliberately noncommittal way. “Good-looking guy?”

She shrugged. “So-so. He’s rather alarmingly well dressed but pleasant enough in a chatty sort of way. Anyway, I knew Percy wouldn’t send anybody who’s fiscally irresponsible and that’s my chief concern right now. Then I have Professor Ormsby, who teaches aerodynamics at MIT and a charming lady named Mrs. Theonia Sorpende, whom I think I mentioned before. She and Professor Ormsby are both on the middle-aged side and he appears to be quite struck with her. Mrs. Sorpende’s what my Uncle Jem calls a fine figure of a woman.”

“Where did you collect her?”

“She found out about me from some friend of Aunt Caroline’s sister Marguerite, so she called and asked if she could come and see the room. And she was such a delightful change from most of the others I’d been seeing, and she liked the house and didn’t mind the stairs, so I took her on.”

“Without checking her references?”

“Well, actually, no. I just grabbed her before she could change her mind. Mrs. Sorpende’s a widow with no children.”

“How do you know?”

“She told me so. Otherwise she doesn’t talk much about herself.”

“Doesn’t she?” For some reason Bittersohn didn’t look altogether happy. Perhaps the chicken wasn’t up to his mother’s standard.

S
ARAH’S GUEST ATE FOR
a moment in silence. Then he asked, “How did your boarders react to Quiffen’s death?”

“They made the right noises when they heard the news, all except Professor Ormsby, who seldom says much of anything, but nobody acted particularly shattered. To be quite frank with you, I think we were all a little bit relieved to be rid of him, in spite of the shocking way he went. And right now, much as I’m upset about what Miss Smith told me, I’m wondering how soon I can decently rent his room again, because I’m so desperately hard-up for the money. What do you think, Mr. Bittersohn?”

He shrugged. “How soon could you find another tenant?”

“Oh, I have one already. He’s quite an old man, like Mr. Quiffen, but much pleasanter. Oddly enough I got him through Aunt Marguerite, too. He was bitterly disappointed when he found I didn’t have a place for him because the drawing room is exactly what he wanted. It has its own bath and it’s on the first floor. He’s not supposed to climb stairs, you see, and he wants to be back on the Hill. I believe he and his sister used to live around here somewhere before they moved to Newport. Then they decided they wanted to come back here, but she was invited to visit an old friend in Italy for the winter so they broke up their other place and put everything in storage. He’s tried a hotel and the regular sort of rooming house and hates them both. I told him I’d let him know when a vacancy came up because I already had a hunch Mr. Quiffen and I were going to part company before long. But of course I never dreamed it would happen like this.”

“What’s this other man’s name?”

“Hartler. William Hartler. You may possibly know him, since he’s more or less in your field.”

“Is he? don’t think I’ve ever heard of him.”

“Well, actually he’s not a professional like you. He’s simply trying to track down some things for the Friends of the Iolani Palace.”

“The Hawaiian royal treasures? They’ve got some very good people working on that project. This chicken is excellent, by the way. Ever see the Iolani Palace yourself?”

“No, I’ve never been to Honolulu. Or anywhere else, for that matter. My father always took the ‘Why should we travel? We’re already here’ line, and Alexander and I never could afford to travel even if we’d been able to leave Aunt Caroline. You’ve been there, I suppose?”

“Once, on business. I was tracking a guy who’d stolen a nice Degas from some people in Brookline. Also a Puvis de Chavannes, though why they wanted that one back is beyond me.” Bittersohn was a one-man detective agency specializing in the recovery of stolen art objects and jewelry, either for the desolated owners or for insurance companies that suspected the desolated owners might have arranged their own burglaries in order to collect on the policies.

“How did the palace come into it?”

“Oh, that was a stroke of luck. When the guy found out I was on his tail, he panicked and tried to get rid of the paintings by peddling them to the curator, making believe King Kalakaua had presented them to a great-aunt of his. Unluckily for him, the curator’s an acquaintance of mine and knew what I was there for. Also, the Degas happened to be a late one, painted in 1899. Kalakaua died in 1891 and his sister Liliuokalani, who succeeded him, reigned for only three years, until the revolution of 1893.”

“What a lot you have to know!”

“Knowing is what I get paid for. Want to come to the art museum with me sometime? I could bore you stiff with my profound erudition.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” said Sarah, and, for some reason, blushed. “But imagine anyone’s getting a Degas and a Puvis de Chavannes for a present. Did King Kalakaua actually do things like that?”

“Oh yes, he was no piker. I wish you could see that palace. It has a hundred and four rooms.”

“So Mr. Hartler was telling me. He’s promised to show me photographs, though I hope not of all the hundred and four. He seems tremendously caught up with this project. That’s the main reason he wanted to come back to Boston, where he thought the pickings would be better. You know, I expect, that Queen Liliuokalani married into a Boston family. Mr. Hartler claims to be connected with the Dominises through his mother, though he didn’t explain how. Anyway, when she was still a princess, Liliuokalani and Queen Kapiolani, who was Kalakaua’s wife, visited Boston. That was in 1887, when they were on their way to Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. Everybody wanted to entertain them and they gave the most marvelous presents in return. When I told Mr. Hartler they’d actually been to tea in the very room he could have had if Mr. Quiffen hadn’t already taken it, I thought he was going to break down and cry.”