The Bilbao Looking Glass (25 page)

Max didn’t appear surprised. “I’d already put out a few inquiries on Rovedock,” he told her. “Any guy who spends that much time cruising and doesn’t try to show you any colored slides of where he’s been is the sort of guy I automatically start wondering about. You sure know some peculiar people,
kätzele.”

“So Bradley was trying to tell me a little while ago.”

She snuggled against him. “Oh well, now that I’ve been the downfall of Bradley Rovedock, I don’t have to worry about being dropped by the yacht club crowd, or what’s left of it. I would feel dreadfully about Bradley, I suppose, if he hadn’t tried to pin everything on you. And if he hadn’t called me docile.”

“You, docile?” Max snorted. “I could tell him a few things.”

He started to refresh his memory, but she shoved his hand away.

“Chief Wilson’s here. Do you want me arrested for indecent exposure?”

“See what I mean?”

Reluctantly, Max abandoned his research and went to open the door. Wilson looked happy, as well he might.

“Understand you folks have a present for me.”

“We certainly do,” Sarah told him. “And Sergeant Jofferty’s been absolutely magnificent. He saved my life, for one thing, so please don’t be stuffy with him about withholding evidence on the Bilbao looking glass. Max and I talked him into it in the first place.”

“Just a second, I’d better start writing this down.”

The chief took out his notebook. Jofferty frogmarched his prisoner back into the living room.

“You care to make a statement, Mr. Rovedock?”

“Only that I intend to bring suit for false arrest as soon as this preposterous farce is played out.”

Under heavy escort, Rovedock walked calmly out to the waiting police cruiser.

“Wow, he’s a cool one,” Jofferty commented. “Sarah, where’s your aunt gone to? She said she had something to say.”

“Just a second, I’ll go get her.”

Sarah went out to the kitchen and found Appie up to her knees in flour.

“I’m so sorry, dear. There didn’t seem to be enough bread to make toast for so many people, so I thought I’d whip up a nice batch of biscuits. Only somehow the flour canister—”

“Never mind that now, Chief Wilson wants to talk to you. Here, let me dust you down a bit so you won’t track flour all over the house. Would you mind wiping your shoes on this mat?”

“Of course, dear.”

Appie scrubbed with vigor. “There we are, all de-floured. Except that my hair must be—”

“Don’t worry about it. Abigail Adams powdered hers, so why shouldn’t you?”

“Fancy that. I never knew dear Abigail powdered her hair. I thought she simply went gray from having to put up with John.”

Sarah didn’t argue the matter, having in fact no recollection of whether dear Abigail had or hadn’t, but simply ushered her aunt into the living room.

Appie’s first words were, “But where is Bradley? Chief Wilson, I wish to lodge a complaint against that man over there.”

She pointed to Jofferty. “I myself caught him being physically abusive to our dear friend Bradley Rovedock.”

“I’ll make a note of it, ma’am,” said Wilson. “Now I understand you have something to tell us about Miss Tergoyne murdering her companion, namely Alice Beaxitt. She confessed to you, did she?”

“I don’t know that you’d call it a confession, exactly. Not a formal confession, at any rate. To tell you the unvarnished truth, Miffy wasn’t quite herself at the time.”

Wilson scratched his chin with his pen. “Suppose you just tell me as accurately as possible what Miss Tergoyne said.”

“Let me see. Miffy began by rambling on about how Alice B. talked too much. That was what alerted me to the possibility that something was wrong, you know, because as a rule Miffy was always encouraging Alice B. to talk more. Alice B. did have such an amusing way of expressing herself, though I did think sometimes a little more charity—however.”

“Why did Miffy, by whom I gather you mean Miss Tergoyne, think her friend was talking too much?”

“Because she said it meant they couldn’t trust her.”

“Whom did she mean by they?”

Appie hesitated. “Bradley’s name did come up, but I’m sure Miffy didn’t mean—”

“Mrs. Kelling, it’s not our place to decide what Miss Tergoyne meant. I only want to know what she said. If you could recall her exact words—”

“Oh dear, my poor old brain isn’t—would it be cricket for me to refresh my memory by listening to the tape first?”

“The tape? Holy cats, you don’t mean you recorded this conversation?”

“I assure you there was no impropriety attached. My motive was wholly disinterested and humanitarian. To be quite frank, as I see we must be, poor Miffy had fallen into the habit of imbibing more freely than was good for her. Mind you, I have no objection whatsoever to a congenial drink among friends, but when I saw the amounts of gin Miffy was literally pouring into herself—you see, I’d gone to stay with her after dear Alice B. was so tragically—anyway, I’d come to realize something must be done.”

Mrs. Kelling smoothed her skirt, sending up a puff of flour. “You are perhaps not aware that I have considerable experience in medical matters. My husband was an invalid for many years. Naturally, he read copiously—I do mean copiously, don’t I, Sarah?—about illnesses and new treatments and all that, and discussed them with me at great length. Not that he suffered from poor Miffy’s sad affliction, you understand. My husband was an abstemious man. Just a glass or two of Guinness with his lunch because Guinness is good for you, you know, and a little port after dinner to help him sleep. And a dash of brandy in his eggnog. But I’m digressing, am I not?”

“Well—”

“I know, cut the cackle and get to the hosses, as dear old Sam used to say. Anyway, I remember his telling me about some people who were cured of alcoholism because somebody took moving pictures of them while they were in their cups and showed them the films when they got sober again so they could see how silly they looked. I couldn’t take pictures of Miffy, of course, but I did have my tape recorder with me, so I thought perhaps that would do.”

“Mind telling us how you happened to have this tape recorder in your possession at the time, Mrs. Kelling?”

“If you promise you won’t laugh.”

“We wouldn’t dream of it,” Wilson assured her.

“Here goes, then, and mind you, not a snicker! You see, I live in Cambridge. Our house used to be in a lovely, quiet residential area, but you know what happens in cities. More and more traffic over the years, until one gets so used to the noise one doesn’t even hear it until it isn’t there any more, if you follow. It’s got so that when I come out here to Ireson’s, the quiet gets on my nerves and I simply cannot sleep. Naturally that’s not something one can complain about to one’s hostess, so what I did was to make myself a tape recording of our familiar Cambridge street noises and bring it along. I use the little earplug, so that I shan’t bother anyone else, and play my squeaks and honks and backfires until they lull me off to sleep. Works every time.”

She beamed at him and added, “I am so sorry about the biscuits.”

Wisely, Chief Wilson didn’t attempt to make sense of that remark. “But you told me in our previous interview that you’d spent a wakeful night here.”

“Well, the tape runs for only half an hour, you see, and one does feel it wouldn’t be quite the thing to keep on rewinding it all night long.”

“I see. You don’t have the tape with you now, by any chance?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. Right here in my handbag somewhere. Ah yes, here we are.”

She fished around in that mammoth receptacle and pulled out one of the smallish, inexpensive tape recorders. “To tell you the truth, I was a bit dubious about leaving it at Miffy’s while Pussy was there. One understands natural curiosity, since one has a goodly share of it one’s self, but I should not have liked Pussy to be playing my tape. Since you’re in a position of authority, however, voilà!”

Wilson took the small black box, looking a trifle bemused. “So all I have to do is push the button and out comes her confession.”

“If you choose to call it one. She rambles, you know. But the part where she talks about hitting Alice B. with the axe—I really should have hated to have Pussy—but I did think someone—so kind of you to take the responsibility off my shoulders. Oh dear, I never did make the tea, did I?”

“Never mind the tea,” said Wilson. “Cripes, Bittersohn, I wish your uncle were here. Would a judge let us introduce something like this as evidence? Surreptitious taping—”

“It was hardly surreptitious,” Appie interrupted somewhat angrily. “Surely you don’t think I’d—what is that silly word?—bug Miffy’s bedroom? I explained to her quite clearly what I was doing, and why.”

Chief Wilson put his finger on the “play” button. A wild shrilling of sirens emerged.

“Oh, that’s the traffic noises. You’ll have to turn the tape over. I only had the one with me, you see, so I used the other side. Be sure to flip the rewind switch first so that you can hear me, too. I’m at the very beginning.”

Wilson fumbled for a second or two, then Appie Kelling’s voice came on, sounding pompous and tinny.

“Now, Miffy, let me explain that I’ve turned on my tape recorder because I want you to hear what sort of nonsense you’re talking. I am doing this for therapeutic purposes, with the intention of helping you to reduce your excessive consumption of alcoholic beverages.”

“God, you bleat like a sheep.”

The voice was slurred but unmistakably Miffy’s. “Think I give a damn what you do? Needn’t get any ideas about moving in here, sponging on me the way Alice did. Gave her every damn thing she wanted. Clothes, cookbooks, goddamn work. Then she started yelling for her share of the business. Gave her the business, all right. Cost me an axe and a cleaning bill, but it was fun. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am. Brains all over the carpet. Didn’t know I could hit so hard. Life in the old gal yet. Eh, Appie?”

“While there’s life, there’s hope.” Appie’s voice sounded dazed. “Miffy, surely you can’t mean—”

Miffy didn’t sound as if she was paying any more attention to Appie then than she would have at any other time. “Make ol’ Brad pay for the axe. His idea to fake the robbery. Wanted to plant the stuff on Sarah’s Jew boy friend. Send him to the gas chamber. Where they all belong. Damn well better get my Bilbao looking glass back to me in one piece or I’ll nail him to the wall. He knows I can do it. Didn’t want to come in with me on the robberies at first. Too damn respectable. Huh! When was a Rovedock ever respectable? Send out a shipload of missionaries and rum. Good profit in opium. What the folks back home don’t know won’t hurt ’em. That’s Brad. Half missionary, half—”

“Bradley Rovedock? Now, Miffy, surely you must realize this is the gin talking. When I play back what you’ve just said—”

“Shove it, Appie. Go keep an eye on that niece of yours if you want something to do. Ol’ Brad’s out to get little Sarah. Can’t leave the young girls alone, never could. That’s how I nailed him. Alice found out. God knows how many. Welcome aboard, honeybunch. You can swim home later. Heave ho an’ over we go. Gets bored after a while. So do I. Why I wanted to start the robberies in the first place. So damn dull here in the off season.”

Wilson shut off the recorder. “I guess we don’t have to listen to any more of that right now. You acted very wisely and sensibly, Mrs. Kelling.”

“I did?”

Appie sounded astonished. “If only my husband could be alive to hear you say that! Sarah dear, about that flour on the kitchen floor—”

Sarah came out of her state of shock and leaned over to give her aunt a kiss. “Forget about the flour. Don’t you realize you’re a heroine?”

“Who, me? But I was only trying to do my smallest bestest. My one great regret is that I never got to play back that tape to Miffy. One could hardly do it that next morning before the funeral, and afterward it was too late.”

“Save your regrets. If Miffy’d ever heard that recording when she was sober, it would have been too late for you.”

“Surely you exaggerate, dear. Though after what she said about Alice B.—still, she’d hardly care to pay for having the carpet cleaned twice, would she?”

Appie watched anxiously as Chief Wilson sealed this invaluable piece of evidence in an envelope and stowed it with utmost care in his inside breast pocket.

“But aren’t you going to give me back my tape now? How shall I ever get to sleep tonight without my traffic noises?”

Sarah had an inspiration. “Aunt Appie, I wonder whether what you’d like better than anything else would be to go straight back to Cambridge and spend the night in your own home?”

“Oh, Sarah, could I? You don’t know how I’ve been yearning—though everyone has been so kind—and I did want to make myself useful.”

“You’ve already done more than anyone could possibly have hoped. I’m sure Chief Wilson agrees.”

“I certainly do, Mrs. Kelling. I’ll write you out a receipt for your tape right now. I’ll need some depositions from you later and you’ll probably have to testify at Rovedock’s trial, but there’s no reason why you have to hang around Ireson Town tonight. I’ll have one of my men drive you. Or maybe Bittersohn would like to, now that you’ve got him off the hook.”

“I can think of only one thing I’d enjoy more,” said Max. “Come on, Aunt Appie, let’s collect your luggage.”

“S
AY, CHIEF,” SAID JOFFERTY
, “if you don’t need me any more, I’d better get these clams home to the Mrs. She must be fit to be tied by now.”

“Phone her from here if you like, and explain what held you up,” Sarah suggested.

“Thanks, I will. Give her a chance to simmer down by the time I get there.”

Jofferty was heading for the telephone and Chief Wilson stowing away his notebook when Lionel charged into the main house waving a scrap of ragged metal.

“We’ve found a clue,” he panted. “Don’t glare at me like that, Sarah. My post is not deserted. Vare has come back to us. Without Tigger, I may add. She has decided alternative life-styles are not her cup of tea.”

“I had a feeling she would,” said Sarah, recalling the terms of Miffy’s will. “What did you find?”