The Convivial Codfish (23 page)

“My dear, let’s not fall into the sin of judging, especially since our new friend Max has set us so beautiful an example of Christian well-doing. I was sick, and ye visited me. Matthew 25:36.”

Max let that one pass. “I promised Jem I’d bring back a full report. He’s frustrated, naturally, at not being able to check on his friends in person. So if you want to perform a real
mitzvah,
why don’t you tell me everything that happened last night, from where you saw it. Can I assume Dork’s information was substantially correct?”

“Precisely what did Dork tell you?” said Billingsgate with about the usual amount of genuine Yankee trustfulness.

“The gist of it was that he, you, Ogham, Durward, and Ashbroom were standing off in a corner by yourselves talking about delphiniums for some while after the caviar had been served and until the crash took place. Except that Dork went and got drinks for himself and his wife, I think.”

“That’s not quite how it was. We all did a certain amount of shifting about, as I recall, though we gravitated back to our own little group. Dork did go up to the bar, I remember. He doesn’t care for champagne, strange as it may seem. And Obed went and got drinks at least once. I recall his coming back with a glass in each hand, being, as he whimsically put it, a two-fisted drinker.”

“And stuffed himself with caviar while he was near the source, I’ll wager,” said Abigail. “That’s why he refused any when it was passed.”

“Did you see him eating caviar?” Max asked her.

“Not I. I like to see people enjoying their food, as I told you, but it’s no treat to watch Obed Ogham poke other people’s bounty into that fat face of his as if he were stoking a boiler. And you needn’t take at me about Christian charity, Bill, because you had plenty to say yourself that night we had the Comrades out here for the Renaissance Revel.”

“My dear, I don’t profess to be a saint. And I must say Obed would try the patience of Job himself when he starts being the life of the party. I see I shall have to go back to the chapel and sort out my feelings about Obed.”

“Have another scone first,” said his wife.

“Thank you, Abby,” said the good man, making no effort to stir from his easy chair, pricks of conscience notwithstanding. “A good wife is above rubies. Thank goodness I’ve never had cause to rue my own wife’s bees. That’s a little family pun, Max. You’ll forgive me, I hope. Now getting back to last night. As I said, or did I? At any rate, it’s my impression that each of the others left the group at one time or another. I myself stayed put. I’d found a cozy niche by the door where I could balance myself easily and enjoy the gentle movement of the train. I had a glass of Tom’s excellent champagne, which I prefer to sip slowly, being no great winebibber as Abby can tell you. I had no special hankering for any more caviar.”

“You had eaten some, then?”

“Of course, or I shouldn’t have been sick. I took one or two when the tray was first passed.”

“That was before Ogham joined you?”

“It must have been, I should think, otherwise I mightn’t have got any at all. Good heavens, Abby, one might almost say Obed was being used as an instrument to protect his Comrades from the poison that might otherwise have slain us as it did Edith Ashbroom. That is a solemn thought.”

“It sure bears thinking about,” said Max.

If Ogham was being an instrument, why had he blown his horn among so small an audience? Of course he wouldn’t have been interested in protecting Tom Tolbathy if he wanted control of Hester’s money, but one might have thought he’d try to shield Hester herself from being poisoned. Unless she’d already made a will in his favor, and he knew it.

Abigail Billingsgate must have been thinking along the same lines as Max. “I must say it strains my credulity to picture Obed Ogham as an errand boy for any ministering angel. Max, you’re not eating a thing. Pass your cup, and let me fix you another scone. I can imagine what your uncle Jem would say to the notion of Obed’s doing a gratuitous act of kindness, even under supernatural circumstances. All right, Bill, you can use me as a horrid example in your next sermon on malice toward none. Here, have some more honey.”

“Speaking of malice toward none,” said Max, “you might try to convince your friend Durward he wasn’t being deliberately slighted by the waitress. I understand he’s none too happy about not being given enough caviar, even if it was poisoned.”

“That sounds like Quent,” Billingsgate admitted, taking more honey as bidden. “Anybody but him would simply have gone and got some, or at least asked for it. Quent has this trying little habit of suffering in silence and not letting one know until it’s too late to mend matters. We must make a special effort to have him out here during the holidays, Abby.”

“I don’t see why I should do penance for Quent’s hurt feelings, Bill. You know perfectly well he’ll bring his tree toad tapes. If we weasel out of listening, his feelings will be hurt again, and we’ll be right back where we started.”

“My dear, it’s Christmas.”

“Bah, humbug! Don’t try that Bob Cratchitt routine on me. All right, my dear, since you insist on spreading sweetness and light, I’ll invite Mabel Kelling here along with Quent.”

“Abigail, you wouldn’t!”

“Why not? If you’re determined on martyrdom, we may as well go the whole hog. Why can’t we be charitable to Max and Sarah instead? You know, I don’t believe I’ve seen Sarah since her mother’s funeral. Such a quiet child, with those incredible hazel eyes and the most interested way of looking straight at you, as if she were wondering what kind of strange creature you might be. I remember thinking she’d grow up to be a beauty. Did she, Max? Mabels says not, but one can’t go by what Mabel says.”

“I’ll bring Sarah out and let you judge for yourselves. Now I’d better get going. She must be wondering what’s keeping me. Thank you for the marvelous tea.”

“Thank you for coming to see us on such a wretched day. I hope you won’t have any trouble getting back, in this snow. It’s really coming down now, isn’t it? Give Jem our very best. Tell him Bill will be in to see him as soon as he’s fit to travel, and I’ll go along to make sure Jem doesn’t get subjected to pious utterances.”

“Abby!”

“Fiddlesticks, Bill. You know perfectly well Jem would benefit far more from a bottle of mead and a jar of honey than an earnest inquiry after the state of his soul. Come along, Max. If you must go, I’ll show you out.”

“Please don’t. I can find my way. That fire’s too comfortable to leave. Oh, Bill, just one question before I go. You haven’t mentioned Edward Ashbroom. He was with you and Dork and the rest, he claims.”

“Ed?” Billingsgate splashed tea into his saucer. “Why, I—I believe he did stop and chat for a while. Yes, of course. He must have. If he says—”

Billingsgate’s voice trailed off into silence. Automatically the hand that wasn’t holding the cup reached out for the honey jar. Max decided it was in fact time to go, and went.

B
Y THE TIME MAX
had battled his way back to Boston and stowed his snow-caked car in its expensive niche at the parking garage, he was longing passionately for his own fireside. However, he decided he might as well complete the set before he signed off for the night. Quent Durward’s feelings would no doubt get another bump if he found out he hadn’t been grilled along with the rest of the boys.

Besides, Durward lived just beyond the hospital, over in one of the expensive apartments along the river. That meant a short but altogether too brisk walk with the wind whipping wet snow down the back of Max’s neck despite Aunt Emma’s woolly muffler. Max cheered himself with the thought that it would be worse going home with the snow in his face, and trudged on.

He’d had clients in this area, and managed to find Durward’s address without much trouble. Durward didn’t have one of the penthouses, but he did have a corner apartment on a high floor with, no doubt, a magnificent view. Max wondered whom Durward had got to decorate the place as a genuine E. Phillips Oppenheim setting for the sophisticated bachelor. There was even a houseman, maybe not Filipino but anyway Oriental, who seemed overjoyed at getting the chance to announce Jeremy Kelling’s nephew.

Durward himself was delighted to have an unexpected guest. He appeared, after a short wait, in silk pajamas, green morocco slippers, and a lounging robe the decorator must have picked out to go with the furnishings. True to his role, he was cradling a stemmed cocktail glass in his left palm as he extended the right for a handshake.

“Come in, come in. This is neighborly of you, I must say. What will you have? I’m drinking soda water, myself, and trying to pretend it’s champagne. A vain delusion, but I don’t dare risk anything stronger after my night in the hospital. How are you yourself feeling? I’m surprised to see you up and about in such weather.”

“Oh, I live just over the hill,” Max replied. “No thanks, I won’t have anything,” he told the hovering houseman. “What time did they let you come home, Durward?”

“None too soon for comfort, I can tell you. What a shame such a delightful evening had to end so wretchedly. And the worst is yet to come, I suppose. Three funerals just at the height of the holiday season, and possibly more. One never knows with these insidious poisons. The aftereffects can be devastating, I believe. And all Tom Tolbathy’s caviar being recalled from the shops. That’s going to hurt him where he’ll feel it most.”

“I think he’s already too crushed at losing his brother to care much about the business,” said Max.

“But it was his great-grandfather’s!” Durward sounded like an enraged chicken. “My own greatgrandfather’s, too, if it comes to that. They started out as Durward and Tolbathy, you know.”

“Actually, I didn’t.”

“Oh yes, we go all the way back to the early days of the China trade. Tea, spices, pepper, possibly a smidgin of opium but we don’t talk about that.” Durward, the man of the world. “Silks and chinaware and so forth, too, in the early days. Like the Kellings, you know.”

The you know’s must have been rhetorical. Clearly Durward didn’t care whether Bittersohn knew or not; he was going to tell him anyway. Perhaps with the Comrades he was content to hang around the fringes and listen, but now that he’d got an outsider’s ear to bend, he made the most of his opportunity. While his host chattered on about fortunes won and lost, Max took visual inventory of his surroundings and decided the Durwards couldn’t have been among the losers.

“Quite a place you’ve got here,” he observed when he saw a momentary opening between the junks and the sampans. “All these big windows must be great for growing plants. Are you a gardener like your friends?”

“Not I. They try to give me things, but nothing survives for long. I’ve got so I simply tell them I can’t be bothered. Anyway,
entre nous,
I can’t see well enough to distinguish one from another. I like things I can touch and handle.”

That was obvious. Durward could have started his own gift shop with the bibelots he had sitting around. Most of the figures showed monkeys and apes, some in grotesque positions, some dressed like humans, none of them the sort of thing Max himself would have cared to live with. A few were metal, but most were porcelain. It was perhaps a little surprising that a man who couldn’t see well enough to water a plant chose to surround himself with so many small, fragile objects.

Durward was showing symptoms of wanting to discuss the collection in detail. Max decided this was getting to be over and beyond the call of duty.

“I really must be going. Glad to see you on your feet, Durward. Would you mind if I use your bathroom before I leave?”

“By no means. Oko, show Mr. Bittersohn where to go.”

“I can find it. Just point me in the right direction,” Max said.

Oko only bowed, grinned, insisted on accompanying Max to the useful door and pointing out the guest towels.

Max washed his hands, on which annoying traces of the Billingsgate honey had lingered, and dried them on one of the guest towels because he didn’t want Oko to think he was a clod. While so doing, he took interested note of the accoutrements, which included a number of men’s expensive toiletries, an electric hairstyling comb, an electric toothbrush, and another electrical gadget that first puzzled Max, then caused him to lift his eyebrows as high as they would go. So this was how Durward amused himself. No wonder he kept monkeys around. At last Max tried on a pair of glasses that had been left sitting on the sink, to see what looking at the world through the bottoms of two tonic bottles felt like, then went to put on the coat Oko was holding for him.

“Good night, Durward. I’m glad I’ll be able to give Jem a good report of you.”

“Tell him I’m reasonably well, though somewhat frayed around the edges. Are you sure I can’t persuade you to stop on for a bite of supper? Oko does a creditable egg foo yong, and I could play some of my tree toad tapes.”

“Sounds great, but my wife is expecting me to take her out to dinner.”

“You’re not going far, I hope, on a night like this.”

“No, just next door. Speaking of driving, did you have any trouble getting home, or were you back before it began to snow?”

“Missed it by hours. A friend drove me back quite early this morning. One of our fellow sufferers, as a matter of fact. He’s a neighbor of the Tolbathys and lives just down the street from the Bexhill Hospital. We shared a room and they released the pair of us at the same time, so he called his house and had his chauffeur bring the car around.”

“He came with you?”

“Yes, I was very much surprised. I assumed he’d have the chauffeur drop him off first, but he said he had urgent business in town, though naturally I didn’t ask him what it was. Anyway, he was going to take care of it, then go home and rest. Remarkable stamina, I must say. By the time I got home, I couldn’t have licked a postage stamp.”

“Was this Ed Ashbroom?” Max asked.

“That’s right. You must have met him last night. Oh, and by a curious coincidence, we passed Gerry Whet on the street, though I don’t believe he saw us. That’s Marcia’s husband, you know. I didn’t actually notice him myself, but Ed remarked on it. We’d both thought he was still in Nairobi. Small world, as they say.”