Unholy Alliance (22 page)

“There was a short period last Sunday when
Bragg left his group after church and disappeared. I was counting
on Harkness having been nearby to meet up with him. But all the
signs now indicate he was already in Burford. Damn! If we could
have been given just a few more days – ”

“Could you
purr-sway
Doc Withers into
delayin’ the inquest?”

“Probably. But I’m certain our French guests
will have reached the end of their tolerance by then, and decide to
go back to Quebec. We can hardly hold them here indefinitely – that
is, unless we accuse one of them of the crime.”

“Tremblay, fer instance?”

“He has not been struck off my list, but
until we come up with a better motive than his unhappiness with our
‘economical’ negotiations, as you so quaintly called them, I am
loathe to even question him vigorously as a suspect.”

“The French gents’ll close ranks, ya
mean?”

“Something like that.”

Cobb picked up his helmet, shook the last of
the melted snow off it (he had dropped it in a drift after an
inelegant descent from Macaulay’s cutter) and set it on the table.
“Well, where does all this leave us, then? Our prize fish has
wriggled off the hook, we lost our bait, an’ the hook itself is
lookin’ a trifle bent.”

“We’ve still got the laudanum, Cobb. The
disappearance of that bottle from the bathroom shelf after
nine-thirty or so and the timely appearance of laudanum in a bottle
of Amontillado three hours later can’t be mere coincidence, can it?
And Macaulay says it was a fist-sized bottle with a long neck. The
windows in Elmgrove have long been frozen shut. One of the servants
could easily have disposed of it, but if our killer is not Bragg,
and is to be found among our guests, then that bottle is still in
this house.”

“So we oughta roust everybody outta the fancy
wing an’ go rummagin’ through it inch by inch?”

“If we have no luck by Sunday afternoon, I
intend to scour the place. Meantime, I’ll ask Macaulay to keep the
guests indoors or, if they go walking, to accompany them. I’ll also
ask Prissy Finch to keep a sharp eye out when she’s tidying up
their rooms. But for now, caution and discretion are still the
watchwords in that quarter.”

“Whatever you say, Major. But what about them
missin’ pages ripped outta the
lead-ger
? I been wonderin’
all along why Bragg would have cause to cart them off if he was the
killer.”

“I haven’t given that a lot of thought, but
it’s a valid question all right. Remember, we did speculate that
Chilton seemed overzealous and was keeping a critical eye on his
underlings. Those pages could have contained damaging reports on
their perceived peccadilloes.”

“But why put yer list of their
peck-a-dillies
in yer big fat accounts book?”

“It’s the one absolutely safe place for them.
The upstairs servants move freely through all the rooms up here,
including Chilton’s own quarters. Macaulay told me yesterday that
Chilton was working late to bring the estate’s accounts up to date
because they’d been neglected since Alfred’s death. Macaulay
normally checked the book every month or so, and in this case he
would have waited until Chilton had it ready for him. No-one, then,
would have occasion or reason to consult it. Also, I noticed in
your notes that you unlocked the drawer in his office desk with the
key you found on his person and – ”

“An’ there was nothin’ in it.”

“Because he kept only the
ledger
in
there, eh – locked away.”

Cobb’s face lit up. “Say, you don’t suppose
all
the servants are in on this, do you? Harkness gives
Bragg a bottle of Amontillado – somewhere, somehow – an’ Bragg gets
Prissy to snitch the
loud-an’-numb
, he spikes it, gives
himself an alibi with poor Hetty, an’ then Prissy or Tillie sidles
up to Chilton’s office when the house settles down, say about
eleven o’clock, an’ bats her lashes a bit an’ says ever so sugary,
‘We chipped in to buy ya little present’ an’ so on. The other
servants know what’s up, but turn a blind eye an’ help with each
other’s alibi.”

Marc smiled, genuinely amused despite the
desperateness of their situation. “A reasonable enough theory, old
friend, but I was downstairs, as you were, and we were present to
judge for ourselves the strength and truth of the emotions we
witnessed there. Still, Prissy herself remains a possibility. Her
evasiveness and her tears may well have much to do with guilt and
regret.”

“Then we need to get to her soon.”

“Yes. We’ve got an hour before I’m to meet
with Robert and LaFontaine.”

“An’ we ain’t talked to Mrs. Blodgett yet,
have we?”

Marc, who had started to get up, sat back
down. “No, and we should do so before we beard Prissy. There is no
chance that Mrs. Blodgett is part of a conspiracy that would in any
way harm Macaulay. She’s been here for two decades, and she and
Garnet appear to be very close. And cooks always know what’s going
on in their domain. We need to ask her if she’s noticed anything
out of the ordinary down there. She’ll also know if Bragg was
absent for any length of time over the past two or three weeks.
She’ll be our honest broker.”

Cobb got up. “Then let’s head down there. We
got less than an hour to come up with somethin’ you can take inta
yer
conflab
at six.”

Marc nodded, and followed Cobb down the hall.
Once again Macaulay popped out of the billiard-room, looking
knackered. “Any news?”

“We’ll have something by six,” Marc lied.
“Right now, we’re hoping to interview Mrs. Blodgett.”

“Then you’re in luck. Finch just told me
she’s up, taking tea, and being her wonderful bossy self.”

Marc excused himself, and he and Cobb
sprinted for the rotunda.

***

Mrs. Blodgett was seated comfortably in her
rocking-chair, balancing a cup of tea and smiling up at her
nursemaid, Tillie Janes. Hetty could be heard working somewhere in
the back shed, and humming to herself.

“Come right in, gentlemen,” Mrs. Blodgett
said. “Tillie’s just made the tea. You’ll have a cup?”

“That’s kind of you,” Marc said, “but
Constable Cobb and I would like to talk to you in private for a few
minutes before my meeting starts at six o’clock.”

“About the sad business upstairs, I take it?”
she sighed. “Tillie’s been bringin’ me up to date since I decided
to rejoin the livin’.”

Tillie looked anxious at this turn of events,
but whether it was out of general concern for Mrs. Blodgett’s
fragile health or something less noble, Marc could not tell.

“I’ll just go an’ tidy up yer room, then,”
Tillie said. “No need fer you to leave yer chair, is there?”

“Thanks, Til. You’ve been real good to an old
lady.”

Tillie smiled, patted her mistress on the
wrist, and went back into the cook’s quarters.

“You sure you won’t have a cup of tea? Or a
mince tart?”

Cobb salivated, but resisted manfully.

“No, thank you,” Marc said. He drew a chair
up beside the cook, who looked steadily at him as he said, “First
of all, what we would like to learn from you has nothing to do with
what you heard or saw last night, because we know you were in bed
suffering from your arthritis.”

“That I was, sir. I collapsed before the
supper was cleared away, an’ the girls had to carry me into my bed.
Tillie stayed with me, bless her.”

“We do think you might be able to help us in
another way, however,” Marc said.

“If you won’t find it too fatiguin’,” Cobb
said gallantly.

Mrs. Blodgett chortled at this, and managed
to slop a good deal of her tea onto her saucer. “My goodness. Look
at me! I ain’t felt this spry in months! I went to bed in terrible
pain, but Tillie an’ me prayed real hard an’ the Good Lord blessed
me with the longest an’ deepest sleep I’ve had since I was a babe.
I’m just disappointed I’ve got no supper to cook fer Mr. Macaulay
an’ his guests.”

Marc felt his stomach knot.

“You all right?” Mrs. Blodgett said.

“Did Tillie prepare a glass of camomile tea
for you last night?” Marc said in a voice that alarmed the cook and
surprised Cobb.

“Yes, sir, she did. But why’re you lookin’
like that? It wasn’t poisoned.”

“About a quarter to ten?”

“I wouldn’t know that fer sure, but it was
only a few minutes after I was put to bed. I was moanin’ an’
carryin’ on somethin’ awful.”

To Cobb’s astonishment, Marc marched across
the room to the door of Mrs. Blodgett’s quarters and shouted,
“Tillie! Please come out here!”

Then he walked slowly back to Cobb and Mrs.
Blodgett, who stared open-mouthed at him.

“You lost yer marbles?” Cobb said.

Tillie came hesitantly into the room, her
face a mask of fear.

“Tell us, Tillie,” Marc said sharply, “what
you put in Mrs. Blodgett’s tea last night before she fell into a
deep,
painless
sleep?”

Tillie began to tremble all over, but she did
not cry. She was made of sterner stuff than her younger sister. She
ignored her interrogator and said to Mrs. Blodgett, “I couldn’t
stand to see you sufferin’ so, ma’am. I know I shoulda got Mr.
Macaulay’s permission first, but he was busy with his important
guests an’ I just couldn’t bear watchin’ you in such pain fer
another night. I’m so sorry, so sorry – ”

“Control yerself, girl!” Mrs. Blodgett cried,
not unkindly. “The world ain’t comin’ to an end. Just tell us what
you done.”

It was Marc who responded: “She slipped up to
the bathroom off the rotunda – after Mr. Tremblay had left it and
just before the other guests arrived to retire – and brought back
with her the bottle containing Mrs. Macaulay’s laudanum.”

“Jesus!” Cobb breathed, then: “Pardon my
French.”

“I followed the instructions, ma’am. I c’n
read! I only give you a teaspoonful in yer tea. An’ look at the
wonders it worked! I don’t care if Mr. Macaulay sacks me, I don’t –
”

“Nobody’s gonna get sacked,” Mrs. Blodgett
said, taking Tillie’s hands into her own swollen, arthritic ones.
“You’ve only used a wee bit of it, an’ Mr. Macaulay was gonna have
the doctor see me tomorrow to get some medicine fer me, so there’s
nothin’ to get upset about. You just leave everythin’ to me.”

“Where is the bottle now?” Marc said.

“In the drawer of Mrs. Blodgett’s commode,”
Tillie said warily, not completely convinced by her mistress’s
assurances that she was truly out of danger. “Do you want me to
fetch it?”

Marc sighed and looked bleakly at Cobb. Then
he said to Mrs. Blodgett, “I’ll leave the matter in your capable
hands, ma’am. In a way, you and Tillie have been helpful to our
investigation, though it would have been better if we had known
about this sooner than later.”

The two women looked much relieved.

Marc and Cobb took their leave. Neither said
a word until they were back in the library and seated before their
notes once again.

“Well, Major,” Cobb said finally, “now we got
no
loud-’an’-numb
, no Bragg, no Harkness, no wine – an’ no
prospects.”

“It couldn’t get any worse, could it? The
Amontillado did contain a massive dose of laudanum, but it looks
now as if it was smuggled in here, probably in a small vial –
easily hidden and easily disposed of. The wine could also have come
in via someone’s luggage or much earlier with Bragg or any of the
servants who attend church or market in town. We can’t be sure now
when
the crime was initiated, that is to say,
when
the doctored sherry was actually handed to Chilton with malice
aforethought. It could have been given to him an hour after he
arrived a week ago Thursday.”

“Well, there’s still Tremblay. He could’ve
brought both things with him.”

“Possibly. But we haven’t got any compelling
reason to grill him or ransack his room other than our desperation
at having no other available target.”

“I’d say we just lost our fishin’ line an’
the pole to boot.”

“And I’m due to meet with LaFontaine and
Robert in a few minutes. I’ve got nothing but bad news to
report.”

“We still got tomorrow an’ Sunday.”

“Thank God. But I see no reason for you to
stay here any longer. Why don’t you go home, say hello to Dora and
the children, and come back in the morning. Young Struthers can
drive you in now and pick you up after breakfast.”

Cobb frowned. “You can’t get rid of me that
easy, Major. I’ll just hang around here till yer meetin’s over.
I’ll fetch myself a few goodies from the dining-room an’ sit here
an’ read through all these notes again. Besides, you may need
somebody to cheer you up after all the bad news has been doled
out.”

“Thanks, Cobb,” Marc said, deeply moved by
the unqualified friendship of a man whom, despite his
rough-and-ready manners, Marc considered to be a true
gentleman.

***

It had been just over twenty-four hours since the
delegates had completed their negotiations, and surprised even
themselves that things had gone so well so quickly. But to Marc,
seated between Louis LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin at the rosewood
davenport in the parlour, it seemed like an age, an age in which
there had been a sea-change in the atmosphere and circumstance of
Elmwood. Robert looked weary but not dispirited, after a day in
which, against his nature, he had done his duty by helping Macaulay
and Hincks entertain Bergeron and Bérubé at whist, piquet and
billiards. LaFontaine looked as he had from the outset: serious to
the point of self-absorption but acutely aware, in the silence he
drew around himself, of everything going on about him. And Marc,
who had endured a fruitless, frustrating day found, to his surprise
and relief, that the moment he glanced at the two documents laid
before him, he was able to move smoothly back into the sphere of
political negotiation and, for a little while at least, forget
about murder in all its ugliness. Robert and Louis did their part
by refraining from quizzing him about the status of the
investigation.