Death Devil's Bridge (17 page)

“Can it be done? I wonder,” Kate mused.

It could, and it was. The task required several strong men and much grunting and heaving, but in a half-hour the new cooker was gone and the old coal range was restored to its former place, and was already under attack by Harriet and the blacking brush. Mrs. Pratt was bustling around with energy and purpose, and dinner looked as if it might indeed be forthcoming.

“At what time may we expect the first course, do you think?” Kate asked anxiously.

Mrs. Pratt's confidence restored, she glanced at the clock. “Ten, mayhap,” she said imperiously. “Considerin' ‘ow much there is t'do. The Filet in Puff Pastry, an' all, I mean.”

“Then perhaps you can substitute something simpler for the filet,” Kate said. “Today has been disastrous for everyone. If dinner is delayed until ten, our guests will either be asleep or in their cups, or both.” She stood up, stretching wearily. “I must confer with Mudd about something I want him to do. Then I shall be in my room if I'm wanted.”

Mrs. Pratt shifted uncomfortably. “I wonder,” she said, “if I cud 'ave a word wi' yer ladyship about—”

Kate sighed. “There is something else to be decided about dinner?”

“No, mum. It ‘as to do wi' this mornin', an' the balloon. I was there, do y'see, wi' Bess, watchin' the balloon go up.” Her voice grew dark. “I was there, an' I saw Squire Thomton—”

Cook showed signs of rambling, and Kate was very tired. She shook her head decidedly. “Since this does not concern dinner, Mrs. Pratt, let us delay it until later. I have had a long drive today, and I am very tired.”

Mrs. Pratt mumbled something in a dissatisfied tone, but Kate was determined. After some searching, she found Mudd in the pantry, inspecting the crystal for the dinner that night.

“Ah, Mudd,” she said. “I wonder if you would be so good as to help me with a bit of sleuthing.”

Mudd looked up quickly. “Sleuthing, mum?”

Kate smiled. She had counted on Mudd once before, to help her in apprehending the villain who had poisoned her two aunts. His assistance had proved invaluable. Now, she needed to use him again—this time, though, in the pursuit of a fictional criminal. Beryl Bardwell's latest fantastical plot demanded that the villain be identified through fingerprints he had left on a crystal goblet, and Kate wanted to see what practical problems would be encountered in performing this procedure.

Fingerprints were a very new tool in the scientific investigation of crime, and as yet almost entirely untested. Mark Twain, of course, had used the idea in an 1883 book called
Life
on the Mississippi,
where a bloody thumbprint held the key to the identity of a killer, and again in 1894, in
Pudd'nhead Wilson.
In the same year, Francis Galton had published a book called
Fingerprints,
a copy of which Charles had in his library. It laid out Galton's system for identifying the four basic types of fingerprints and proposed that the police adopt the practice of fingerprinting everyone they questioned. The conservative police did not seem anxious to do this, but that made the process even more useful to Beryl, whose female detective would use it to steal a march on the police.

Kate spent a few minutes showing Mudd what she needed him to do—a very simple thing, really—and then started upstairs, hoping to have some time to herself before she had to face what promised to be a trying evening. As she went up the stairs, however, she was distracted by a loud cheering in the Park, where the dance was coming to its scheduled close in the pavilion. She went to the hallway window and saw a team of Belgian draft horses lumbering heavily up the gravel lane, dragging the Serpollet Steamer behind them, to the delight of the onlookers who had deserted their dancing to cheer the horses. At the tiller of the disabled motorcar, wearing a look of injured dignity, sat Arthur Dickson.

The third motor car had been found.

“How's old Toad going on?”
“Oh, from had to worse,” said the Rat gravely. “Another smash-up early last week.”
“How many has he had?” inquired the Badger gloomily.
“Smashes, or machines?” asked the Rat. “Oh, well, after all, it's the same thing, with Toad.”

—KENNETH GRAHAME
The Wind in the Willows

 

 

 

 

P
atsy and Miss Penelope Marsden arrived for dinner in the Marsden coach, Patsy demure and lovely in turquoise silk, stout Great-aunt Marsden in fussy olive-green with rows of ruffles around the neck and shoulders.

“So good of you to invite us, my dear Lady Kathryn,” Penelope Marsden wheezed, and seated herself with a thump on the sofa, taking up quite a bit of it. She glanced through her spectacles around the room. “And where is that lovely boy this evening? He will be here, won't he? He has absented himself from our evenings at Marsden Manor a good deal lately.”

“If you mean Mr. Rolls,” Kate said, as Patsy suppressed a smile, “he is with Sir Charles in the library. We are expecting a number of other gentlemen. We three are the only ladies.”

The elder Miss Marsden positively beamed, and Kate thought to herself that Lady Henrietta, if she had wanted to keep Patsy safe from the attentions of male admirers, would have done better to have locked her up than to leave her in the care of a shortsighted and spinsterish great-aunt. Kate wondered whether the lady, with her ample bosom, pudgy cheeks, and girlish giggle, had ever had any suitors of her own.

A few moments later, the gentlemen came in to pay their respects, Mudd appeared with the sherry decanter, and even though they were shy several guests, the festivities were begun. The motorcar drivers, however handsome they might be in their evening dress, were a surly, argumentative lot who downed their drink rather too rapidly for any hostess's comfort. Within five minutes Kate had no doubt that the evening would end in disaster, although at that moment, she would have predicted a social fiasco, perhaps augmented by a culinary catastrophe. Neither she nor Charles, nor anyone else of the party, for that matter, could have foreseen exactly what was to come about—although one or two might have guessed.

Frank Ponsonby, newly released from the Manningtree jail through the intercession of Lord Bradford and Constable Laken, wore the same sulky, thwarted look he must have worn during his fateful encounter with the geese. (The Benz had not fared quite as well as Ponsonby, and remained in Manningtree, awaiting repair.) Arthur Dickson, his cravat askew, drank off two sherries quickly and began on a third, obviously trying to erase from his mind the ignominy of being towed back to Bishop's Keep behind a team of horses, the Serpollet having run off the road at Weeley Heath and ruptured its low-hanging condenser on a stump. Arnold Bateman arrived already strongly fortified with liquor. He balanced himself on his toes before the fireplace, rising up and down like a bantam rooster preparing to crow.

“What I want to know,” he said, pronouncing each word with elaborate care, “is what has become...” He hiccuped. “What has become of our dear friend Harry Dunstable.” He made a sound that sounded to Kate like a chortle. “Serve him right if something happened to him, wouldn't you say?”

“Bateman,” said Ponsonby, “mind your tongue.”

“He drank enough last night to float the Navy,” Dickson remarked acidly, “and when our supper party broke off, he ordered another bottle of wine to take off to bed with him. Did anyone check his room at the inn? He's still there sleeping it off, I should think.”

“That's odd,” Bradford remarked thoughtfully. “I didn't notice that Dunstable drank more than the rest of us.”

“Well, he did,” Ponsonby growled. “Like the proverbial fish. You were at the other end of the table, Marsden. You probably didn't notice.”

Dickson cleared his throat nervously. “It's Albrecht I'm worried about.” He pulled his brows together. “The man should have returned by now. There have been no reports of trouble? He hasn't arrived at the landing site, or in that vicinity?”

Rolls shook his head. “If he had put in an appearance there by teatime, the men we left behind would have telegraphed.” He turned. “Your telegraph operator is reliable, I take it, Sir Charles?”

Great-aunt Marsden answered for him. “Oh, quite reliable, Mr. Rolls, I assure you. We have excellent telegraph service here, you know, quite excellent.” Kate smiled to herself, thinking of the punctilious Mr. Rushton, who would offer up his life if he missed so much as a syllable of a telegraph message.

Bateman, who was paying no attention to this exchange, gave a high-pitched giggle.
“You're
worried about Albrecht, Arthur? I don't believe that for a minute, old chap. You were the one who—” He gestured with his glass, spilling sherry on Ponsonby. “Oops,” he said, and giggled again. “So clumsy of me, Ponsonby, old fellow.”

“Damn it, Bateman,” Ponsonby said crossly, dabbing at his sleeve. “Sit down and be quiet. We've had enough of your oafishness.”

“You don't suppose they're going to go on like this all night, do you?” Patsy whispered to Kate.

“I certainly hope not,” Kate said grimly. She was about to ring the bell for Mudd to inquire when dinner might be served when the door opened and Mudd himself stepped in.

“Ah, Mudd,” Kate said with relief. “So dinner is ready at last?”

“Not quite yet, m'lady,” Mudd said, “although Mrs. Pratt has sent word that the filet is makin' satisfactory progress. In the meantime—” He raised his voice and clicked his heels together. “Dr. Bassett and Mr. Dunstable.”

“Ah,” Charles said happily. “I was wondering what had kept the good doctor.”

“And it's about time Dunstable showed up, I should say,” Bradford growled.

Kate rose to greet the latest arrivals.
But she was so startled at the sight of Harry Dunstable that she could think of nothing to say except “Oh, my.” Around the room, she heard several gasps, and something like a squeal from Great-aunt Marsden.

Charles stepped forward. “Looks like you've met with a bit of an accident, Dunstable.”

Got up in the blue serge jacket of the Motor Car Club, Harry Dunstable may have looked like a Swiss admiral when Kate was first introduced to him. Now, though, he had the color of a badly stored Swiss cheese, his face a mottled yellow, his temple bruised, his right eye blackened, his jaw swollen. The yellow and purple in his face vied with the yellow and green in his embroidered waistcoat, which was draped with a gold watch chain.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Dunstable said thickly, speaking through nearly closed lips. “But the doctor says I have suffered no serious harm.”

Dr. Bassett nodded. “I happened to be at the livery stable putting up my horse when Mr. Dunstable was ... uncovered.” Kate saw the ghost of a twinkle in his sharp eye. She liked the acerbic, quick-witted Dr. Bassett, who stopped in frequently to discuss the scientific interests that he and Charles shared. “He accompanied me back to my surgery,” he added, “and I gave him a good looking-over. He is fit, except for the obvious damage.”

“Uncovered?” Rolls asked, his jaw dropping in astonishment. “For God's sake, Dunstable, what has happened to you?”

Dunstable looked sheepish. “I went out for my usual walk last evening after dinner. Two men waylaid on me in the alley and coshed me.” He put a hand to his temple.

“Coshed you!” Dickson exclaimed. “ 'Pon my word, Dunstable, that's appalling!”

“Pity,” Bateman added in a mocking tone.

“Jolly shame,” Ponsonby remarked carelessly.

Kate turned. All three men wore looks of concern, but it did not seem to her that there was any genuine compassion in their eyes. On the contrary, she thought she detected a fleeting amusement at the idea that the self-styled “great man” had met such an ignominious fate. But Kate knew very well that Englishmen were accomplished at masking their feelings, and when she looked again, she saw nothing out of the ordinary.

“But where have you
been
since last night, Harry?” Bradford demanded harshly. “You were supposed to ride with Albrecht in the Daimler. He had to go off without you.”

“Mr. Dunstable,” the doctor said, “was discovered under a tarpaulin on the dung heap behind the livery stable. His hands and feet were tightly bound, his mouth gagged. He had been there throughout the night and the day.”

“Trussed like a turkey.” Dunstable shook his head. “Couldn't move, couldn't shout, could barely breathe for the stench. Begging your pardon, ma‘am,” he added, bowing in Kate's direction. “I fear this is a topic that's hardly fit for ladies' ears.” He turned eagerly to Bradford. “Albrecht won the chase, I s'pose.”

Ponsonby coughed. Dickson glowered. Bateman narrowed his eyes.

Bradford cleared his throat. “Er, ah,” he said, “nobody won.” He coughed. “That is, nobody finished the chase. Reached the balloon, I mean to say.”

“That's not true, Bradford,” Patsy said brightly. “We did. Lady Kathryn and I, that is,” she added, turning to Dunstable with a rustle of silken skirts. “When it appeared that the balloon might sail out over the ocean and be lost, you see, we appropriated Mr. Rolls's Peugeot, and Lady Kathryn drove it to—”

“Lost!” Dunstable ejaculated. “But it was a borrowed balloon! The expense will be monstrous!”

“No, no, it wasn't really lost,” Kate said. “The grappling iron was left behind and—”

“It was
not
left behind!” Rolls exclaimed hotly. “It was stolen! By someone who wished us to be forced to crash-land the balloon.”