McNally's Secret (34 page)

“Yes,” father said, “I think that would be prudent.”

“She refused,” Gillsworth said. “I then suggested both of us take a trip, perhaps go abroad for a long tour. Again she refused. She will not allow the ravings of a lunatic to alter her life. And she is quite insistent that the matter not be referred to the police. She accepts the entire situation with a sangfroid that amazes me. I cannot take it so lightly. I finally won her permission to seek your counsel with the understanding that you will make no unauthorized disclosure of this nasty business to the police or anyone else.”

“You may depend on it,” my father said gravely.

“Good,” the poet said. “Would you care to see the second letter?”

“By all means.”

Gillsworth rose and took a white envelope from his outside jacket pocket. He strode across the room and handed it to my father.

“Just a moment, please,” I said. “Mr. Gillsworth, I presume only you and your wife have touched the letter since it was received.”

“That’s correct.”

“Father,” I said, “I suggest you handle it carefully, perhaps by the corners. The time may come when we might wish to have it dusted for fingerprints.”

He nodded and lifted the flap of the opened envelope with the tip of a steel letter opener taken from his desk. He used the same implement to tease out the letter and unfold it on his desktop. He adjusted the green glass shade of his brass student lamp and began to read. I moved behind his shoulder and peered but, without my reading glasses, saw nothing but a blur.

Father finished his perusal and looked up at the man standing before his desk. “You did not exaggerate, Mr. Gillsworth,” he said, his voice tight.

“Would you read it aloud, sir?” I asked him. “I’m afraid I left my glasses upstairs.”

He read it in unemotional tones that did nothing to lessen the shock of those words. I shall not repeat the letter lest I offend your sensibilities. Suffice to say it was as odious as Gillsworth had said: a naked threat of vicious murder. The letter was triple-distilled hatred.

Father concluded his reading. The client and I returned to our chairs. The three of us, shaken by hearing those despicable words spoken aloud, sat in silence. The pater looked at me, and I knew what he was thinking. But he’d never say it, never dent my ego in the presence of a third person. That’s why I loved him, the old badger. So I said it for him.

“Mr. Gillsworth,” I said as earnestly as I could, “I must tell you in all honesty that although I appreciate your confidence in me, I am beyond my depth on this. It requires an investigation by the local police, post office inspectors, and possibly the FBI. Sending a threat of physical harm through the mail is a federal offense. The letter should be analyzed by experts: the typewriter used, the paper, psychological profile of the writer, and so forth. It’s possible that similar letters have been received by other Palm Beach residents, and yours may provide a vital lead to the person responsible. I urge you to take this to the proper authorities as soon as you can.”

My father looked at me approvingly. “I fully concur with Archy’s opinion,” he said to Gillsworth. “This is a matter for the police.”

“No,” the poet said stonily. “Impossible. Lydia has expressly forbidden it, and I cannot flout her wishes.”

Now my father’s glance at me was despairing. I knew he was close to rejecting Gillsworth’s appeal for help, even if it meant losing a client.

“Mr. Gillsworth,” I said, leaning toward him, “would you be willing to do this: Allow me to meet and talk with your wife. Let me try to convince her how seriously my father and I take this threat. Perhaps I can persuade her that it really would be best to ask the authorities for help.”

He stared at me an excessively long time. “Very well,” he said finally. “I don’t think it will do a damned bit of good, but it’s worth a try.”

“Archy can be very persuasive,” my father said dryly. “May we keep the letter, Mr. Gillsworth?”

The poet nodded and rose to leave. Handshakes all around. My father carefully slid the opened letter into a clean manila file folder and handed it to me. Then he walked Roderick Gillsworth out to his car. I carried the folder up to my cave and flipped on the desk lamp.

I put on my glasses and read the letter. It was just
awful
stuff. But that wasn’t what stunned me. I saw it was on good quality paper, had been written with a word processor, and had an even right-hand margin.

How does that grab you?

I
WENT TO SLEEP
that evening convinced that the Peaches letter and the Gillsworth letter had been written on the same machine, if not by the same miscreant. But what the snatching of a cranky cat had to do with a murderous threat against a poet’s wife, the deponent kneweth not.

I awoke the next morning full of p. and v., eager to devote a day to detecting and sorry I lacked a meerschaum pipe and deerstalker cap. Unfortunately I also awoke an hour late, and by the time I traipsed downstairs my father had left for the office in his Lexus and mother and Ursi had taken the Ford to go provisioning. Jamie Olson was seated in the kitchen, slurping from a mug of black coffee.

We exchanged matutinal greetings, and Jamie—our houseman and Ursi’s husband—asked if I wanted a “solid” breakfast. Jamie is a septuagenarian with a teenager’s appetite. His idea of a “solid” breakfast is four eggs over with home fries, pork sausages, a deck of rye toast, and a quart of black coffee—with maybe a dram of aquavit added for flavor. I settled for a glass of OJ, buttered bagel, and a cup of his coffee—strong enough to numb one’s tonsils.

“Jamie,” I said, sitting across the table from him, “do you know Leon Medallion, the Willigans’ butler?”

“Uh-huh,” he said.

Our Swedish-born houseman was so laconic he made Gary Cooper sound like a chatterbox. But Jamie had an encyclopedic knowledge of local scandals—past, present, and those likely to occur. Most of his information came from the corps of Palm Beach servants, who enjoyed trading tidbits of gossip about their employers. It was partial recompense for tedious hours spent shining the master’s polo boots or polishing milady’s gems.

“You ever hear anything freaky about Leon?” I asked. “Like he might be inclined to pinch a few pennies from Mrs. Willigan’s purse or perhaps take a kickback from their butcher?”

“Nope.”

“How about the cook and the maid? Also straight?”

Jamie nodded.

“I know Harry Willigan strays from the hearth,” I said. “Everyone knows that. What about his missus? Does she ever kick over the traces?”

The houseman slowly packed and lighted his pipe, an old discolored briar, the stem wound with adhesive tape. “Mebbe,” he said. “I heard some hints.”

“Well, if you learn anything definite, pass it along to me, please. Their cat’s been swiped.”

“I know.”

“Have you heard anything about the Gillsworths, the poet and his wife?”

“She’s got the money,” Jamie said.

“That I know.”

“And she’s tight. He’s on an allowance.”

“What about their personal lives? Either or both seeking recreation elsewhere?”

“Haven’t heard.”

“Ask around, will you?” I urged. “Just in a casual way.”

“Uh-huh,” Jamie said. “The Miata could use a good wash. Get the salt off. You going to be around this morning?”

“No,” I said, “I have to hit the road. But I should be back late this afternoon. I’d appreciate it if you could get to it then.”

“Sure,” he said and accepted with a nod the tenner I slipped him. I wasn’t supposed to do that, and my father would be outraged if he knew. But Jamie and I understood the pourboire was for the information he provided, not a domestic chore. The Olsons were amply paid for managing the McNally household.

I drove southward to the Willigans’ hacienda. That ominous message sent to Lydia Gillsworth had given new urgency to my search for Peaches’ abductors. It didn’t seem incredible to me that the two cases might be connected; I had learned to accept the bizarreness of life.

Leon Medallion opened the door to my ring, and if it wasn’t so early in the morning I would have sworn the fellow was smashed. His pale blue eyes were bleary and his greeting was slurred, as if he had breakfasted on a beaker of the old nasty.

He must have seen my astonishment because he said, “I ain’t hammered, Mr. McNally. I got my allergies back again. I been sneezing up a storm and now I’m stuffed with antihistamines.”

“So it wasn’t the cat after all?”

“I guess not,” he said mournfully. “But this place has enough molds and pollens to keep my peepers leaking for the rest of my life. You find Peaches?”

“Not yet, Leon. That’s why I stopped by—to talk to you and the rest of the staff. Is Mrs. Willigan home?”

“Nah, she took off about a half-hour ago.”

“And Miss Trumble?”

“In the pool doing her laps. The woman’s a bloomin’ fish. You want to talk to all us peons together?”

“Might as well,” I said. “No use repeating the same questions three times.”

We assembled in the big kitchen: Leon; Ruby Jackson, the cook-housekeeper; the maid, Julie Blessington; and me. Ruby was a tiny, oldish woman who looked too frail to hammer a scaloppine of veal. Julie was younger, larger, and exceedingly plain. Trust Laverne not to employ a skivvy who might light her husband’s fuse.

I questioned the three of them for about twenty minutes and got precisely nowhere. Only Julie and Leon had been in the house the afternoon Peaches disappeared. They swore the back door of the screened patio had been securely closed. There were no holes in the screening through which the cat might have vamoosed.

None of the three had seen strangers hanging about recently. No one lurking in the shrubbery; nothing like that. And none could even hazard a guess as to who might have shanghaied Peaches. They all testified to Harry Willigan’s mad infatuation for his pet and hinted they’d all be happy to endure the permanent loss of that irascible feline. I could understand that.

I hadn’t expected to learn anything new and I didn’t. I thanked them for their cooperation and wandered out to the back lawn. Meg Trumble was still slicing back and forth in the pool, wearing the shiny black maillot that looked like a body painting. She saw me approach, paused to wave, then continued her disciplined swim. I moved a sling chair into the shade and waited.

She finished her workout in about five minutes. I loved the way she got out of the pool. No ladder for her. She simply placed her hands flat on the tiled coping and in one rhythmic surge heaved up and out, a bent leg raised for a foothold. It was a joy to see, and I never could have done it in a million years.

She came padding to me across the lawn, dripping and using her palms to scrape water from hair, face, arms. “Good morning, Archy,” she said, smiling. “Isn’t it a lovely day?”

“Scrumptious,” I said, staring at her admiringly. She really was an artfully constructed young lady. “Would you care to have dinner with me tonight?”

“What?” she said, startled.

“Dinner. Tonight. You. Me.”

“I don’t—” she said, confused. “I shouldn’t—I better—Perhaps if—”

I waited patiently.

“May I pay my own way?” she asked finally.

“Keep talking that way,” I said, “and you’ll be asked to resign from the female sex. No, you may not pay your own way. I’m inviting you to have dinner with me. Ergo, you will be my guest.”

“All right,” she said faintly. “What shall I wear?”

I was able to repress the reply that came immediately to mind. “Something informal,” I said instead. “A flannel muumuu in a Black Watch tartan might be nice.”

“Are you insane?” she said.

“Totally,” I assured her. “Pick you up around seven.”

I left hastily before she had second thoughts. I walked through the house, down that long corridor lined with antique weapons. They made me wonder if someone might, at that very moment, be taking a scimitar to Peaches. I do believe the plight of that offensive beast was beginning to concern me.

I exited and closed the front door behind me. Took two strides toward the Miata and stopped. Turned around and rang the bell again. Eventually the butler reappeared.

“Sorry to bother you, Leon,” I said, “but a question occurred to me that I neglected to ask before. Was Peaches ever taken to the vet?”

“Oh sure,” he said. “Once a year for her shots, but more often than that for a bath and to have her teeth and ears cleaned. And once when she got a tapeworm.”

“How was she taken? Do you have a carrier—one of those suitcase things with air holes and maybe wire mesh at one end?”

“Yeah, we got a carrier.”

“Could I take a look at it, please?”

“I’ll dig it out,” he said and departed, leaving me standing in the foyer.

I waited. And waited. And waited. It must have been at least ten minutes before he returned. He looked flummoxed.

“Can’t find the damned thing,” he reported. “It’s always been kept in the utility room, but it’s not there now. It’s probably around here somewhere.”

“Sure it is,” I said, knowing it wasn’t. “Give me a call when you find it, will you.”

I drove officeward, not pondering so much on the significance of the missing cat carrier as wondering what inspired me to ask about it in the first place. Frequently, during the course of an investigation, I get these utterly meshuga ideas. Most of them turn out to be Looney Tunes, but occasionally they lead to something important. I had a creepy feeling this particular brainstorm would prove a winner.

My office in the McNally Building had the spaciousness and ambience of a split-level coffin. I suspected my father had condemned me to that closet to prove to the other employees there was no nepotism in his establishment. But allowing me one miserable window would hardly be evidence of filial favoritism, would it? All I had was an air-conditioning vent.

So it was understandable that I rarely occupied my cubby, using it mainly as a message drop. On those rare occasions when I was forced to write a business letter, my father’s private secretary, Mrs. Trelawney, typed it for me and provided a stamp. She also informed me when my salary check was available, the dear lady.