The Gladstone Bag (11 page)

Sandy showed no disposition to leave. Emma didn’t mind. “What sort of day are we going to have?” she asked the child.

“Mixed, I guess. The weather’s okay, but Dad’s blowing up a storm.”

“Oh dear. What about?”

“You know the guy Ted found down at the point? He’s gone.”

“Sandy, no! I thought your father had him locked in the storeroom.”

“He did, that’s what Dad’s so mad about. He thinks one of us let him out.”

“Which one?” Emma hadn’t meant to snap.

“Not me. And it couldn’t have been Bernice because we sleep in the same room and she always stubs her toe on the bedpost and says ‘ouch’ when she gets up, so I’d have known. Anyway, she’s scared of the dark.”

“Then he suspects your brother or Ted?”

“Well, to begin with, Dad was none too pleased last night when Neil and Ted brought the guy into the house without asking him first. He likes to know what’s going on. And Neil’s mad because he thinks Dad was unfair. My mother says Neil’s going through a phase, but I think it’s just general cussedness. Parents never understand their children. You want more tea, Mrs. Kelling? There’s still some in the pot. I could pour it for you.”

“Just a touch, then. I don’t like my cup too full.”

Her cup was already running over, Emma thought gloomily. Why couldn’t that beastly man stay put? At least he hadn’t come roaming—or had he? She distinctly remembered leaving the Gladstone bag on the bench last night. It certainly wasn’t there now. Emma set down her cup and began hunting around the room, to Sandy’s expressed surprise.

“What’s the matter, Mrs. Kelling? Did you lose something? Can I help?”

“Yes, you can. I’m missing that little black bag with the fairies’ jewelry. Remember, you saw it yesterday when you helped me unpack. Take a quick look around the house. If you can’t find it, go tell your father. I suspect that man may have taken it.”

“Gosh! You mean he came in here while you were asleep?”

“He or somebody else, unless I walked in my sleep, which I’ve never done before. Sandy, I am very upset about this. Please hurry. I’m going to get dressed now.”

The girl scurried away. Emma washed in a hurry, did her face, and put on a khaki cotton skirt, a beige-and-green striped shirt, and putty-colored espadrilles. With suitable underpinnings, of course. Time was when she’d have gone stockingless on a hot summer day, but never, never, braless. Emma could not imagine why any nubile female would ever have put herself to that particular discomfort just to make a political point. Didn’t they know the brassiere as now worn was a modern invention designed to free women from the long, constraining, tight-laced corsets their bare-bosomed, unenfranchised grandmas and great-grandmothers had been forced to depend on for support where it was most needed?

No, they didn’t. Nobody knew anything any more, they left it all to the computers. Emma squirted herself with Norell to show one’s heart was loyal to the cause of femininity, put on her wig, and was ready for action by the time Vincent arrived at her bedroom door. He looked ready to bite somebody’s head off, and she didn’t blame him a bit.

“Sandy says you want to see me,” he all but growled.

“Yes. She told me we’ve lost our amnesiac. Did she tell you he apparently didn’t leave empty-handed?”

“Took your satchel with some jewelry in it, she says. Nothin’ valuable, I hope?”

“No,” Emma reassured him, “quite the contrary. Just some old costume jewelry I’d brought along to repair. But it’s annoying to be robbed, just the same. Curiously enough, the stuff had already been stolen yesterday on the boat, then dumped in a washroom. Count Radunov rescued it for me. I’m beginning to wish he hadn’t.”

Should she tell Vincent about what she’d found in the bag last night, or should she not? Not, she decided; not yet, anyway. She’d known too many excellent amateur actors to take this Down East Admirable Crichton at face value. Besides, while Emma wasn’t quite ready to come straight out and admit to herself that she didn’t want somebody else running the show, the fact remained that she was used to being in charge. So was Vincent, obviously; he’d probably been running things pretty much his own way out here for years, especially since George Sabine died. Naturally Emma Kelling would not engage in anything so vulgar as a power struggle; it would never have occurred to her that she needed to. She’d told him about the bag, that was reason enough to expect some action.

“I’ve checked my handbag,” she went on, “and nothing else appears to be missing. However, I do not relish the realization that somebody was prowling around my bedroom while I was asleep. If there’s any sort of police force around here, I suggest we notify them.”

“They know,” said Vincent. “I got to thinkin’ early this mornin’ about you an’ me having our chance for another go at ’im today before the boys come, an’ decided to have a look at ’im. So I went to the storeroom to see if he showed any signs o’ gettin’ his memory back, an’ he was gone, slick as a weasel. Cot hadn’t even been slept in, far’s I could tell. So I got on the phone to my brother Lowell—he’s the harbor master—an’ told ’im to notify the shore police an’ start searchin’ the harbor himself. I aim to comb the island, me an’ the boys. I can’t see how he could o’ got off, but then I still don’t know how he got on. Don’t know how he got out o’ that storeroom, neither, but I sure aim to find out.”

Vincent had a jaw like a lobster trap, Emma thought irreverently, but much more solid. “Are you quite sure he didn’t manage it by himself?” she asked.

“Door wasn’t forced, lock wasn’t broken, vents aren’t big enough to squeeze a cat through, ’less it was a kitten. Stands to reason somebody let ’im out. Unless he had a key in his pocket when I put ’im in there. Which he didn’t, because I frisked ’im pretty good with my own hands.”

“But would it have been feasible for someone to let him out? How would they have got hold of the key? Didn’t you keep it with you?”

Vincent wasn’t precisely abashed, but he did look a trifle uncomfortable. “No, I didn’t. See, the room where I sleep is down at the far end of the hall. I use that one because it’s got an outside door to it so’s I can get down to the boat or whatever without wakin’ the rest. That means I’m quite a ways from the storeroom. Normally, like in the wintertime when there’s nobody guardin’ the place, I’d lock the deadbolt an’ take the key with me when I left. But havin’ a live human bein’ inside was different. I couldn’t help thinkin’ what if there was a fire, or what if he done somethin’ foolish an’ needed to be got out in a hurry an’ I didn’t hear?”

“I see. Yes, of course.”

“So, figurin’ I could trust my own staff,” he went on with some bitterness, “I hung the key back inside the key box where we usually keep it an’ went to bed.”

“The key box is in the kitchen?” Emma prompted.

“Next to the pantry door, where we can get at it easy. We never used to bother much about lockin’ up in Mr. Sabine’s day, but now with all these crazy writers an’ what-not around, I’m scared not to. I never thought I’d have to worry about my own flesh and blood.”

“Aren’t you being a bit hasty in your judgment? Why couldn’t it have been one of the cottagers who let him out?”

“They’d have to be pretty cagey to figure out how, seein’ as they just got here yesterday afternoon. None of ’em so much as set foot in the kitchen last evenin’, accordin’ to Bubbles, so how’d they even know the man was here? I don’t know what to say, Mrs. Kelling. Nothin’ like this ever happened before, not since I been comin’ to the island.”

“Well, Vincent, it’s not the end of the world.”

Emma was less inclined by now to suppose the caretaker was other than sincere. He wasn’t used to having his authority flouted, and he didn’t know how to handle it. She could empathize with that. “I assume you have an inventory of the house’s contents. If you like, I could start checking around after breakfast while you get on with your outside search. If our man’s escaped with nothing more valuable than my old Gladstone bag, I’d say we’re well rid of him. Since you say the cottagers don’t know he was ever here, we don’t have to tell them anything. If anybody starts asking questions, we’ll know who to blame for letting him out. Now I’d better get down to breakfast. You’ve had yours, I expect?”

“Yes, Mrs. Kelling. I’ll bring the inventory list up here an’ leave it on the desk so’s you can get goin’ soon as you’re ready. If you need me or the boys for anything, just give a whang on that big ship’s bell outside the kitchen door. Any of the comp’ny want to know what we’re up to, we’ll tell ’em we’re doin’ an ecological survey.”

They shared a much-needed laugh at that and went downstairs together. Emma had wanted to be first in the dining room, and she was. Bubbles was still fussing around a row of chafing dishes on the long buffet beside the table. He was delighted to see her.

“You thit right down, Mithith Kelling. I’ll therve you a nithe plate ath thoon ath I get thethe disheth thet up.”

“Please don’t bother about me, Bubbles. I just wanted to make sure I’m here to greet the guests as they arrive. Thank you for the tea, by the way. You might send one of the girls up for the tray as soon as she can be spared.”

Bubbles assured her in a fine cascade of misplaced sibilants that he could eathily thpare either Thandy or Bernithe any time she wanted them and went back to the kitchen murmuring of hot toatht and muffinth. Emma was beginning to think an inventory of the chafing dishes might be interesting when Black John Sendick bounced into the room, wearing almost invisible jogging shorts and a baggy sweatshirt with a picture of Tycho Brahe on it.

“Hi, Mrs. Kelling, been swimming yet? I have, for about thirteen and a half seconds. I tell you, Maine water is cold! What smells so good?”

Emma smiled. He reminded her of her grandson Wally except that, mercifully, he wasn’t yodeling. “I was just about to find out. Shall we?”

They’d got nicely settled with their plates when Joris Groot joined them. Groot announced that he’d slept like a log and expressed his considered opinion that there was nothing like sea air to give a person an appetite. He then helped himself to a good deal of everything and proceeded to eat it all.

Lisbet Quainley showed up with Everard Wont in tow while Emma was finishing her second cup of coffee and wondering whether she’d be more usefully employed starting the inventory than staying there to see whether anybody was going to mention the man in the kitchen. That was how Mrs. Fath had referred to him last night.

Or had she? There’d been, Emma reminded herself, four men in the kitchen at the time, five if one counted Neil. She might have meant any one of them, or have simply been talking for effect, knowing there was bound to be somebody she could pinpoint as her intended target should anything happen that might lend any weight to her vague prediction.

Anyway, nobody was saying anything about a man; they were all too busy telling her how well they’d slept. Even Everard Wont was admitting to an undisturbed night, not that Emma believed him. Lisbet Quainley had been clutching his arm in a proprietary sort of way, looking rather wan about the eyes, when they came in. It was more likely they’d bedded down together, though what either could have seen in the other was a mystery to her. At least Wont had shaved and showered and put on a clean red jersey with his blue jeans. Was that for Lisbet? More probably he’d decided he’d better start trying to mend fences with Mrs. Sabine’s representative. So far, at least, he hadn’t made a single attempt this morning to throw his weight around.

Emma was surprised Alding Fath hadn’t yet manifested herself. She’d thought the psychic would be an early riser and an enthusiastic breakfaster, considering her alleged country upbringing. It was nine o’clock by now, according to Emma’s wristwatch, and still no Mrs. Fath.

There was, however, Count Radunov, fresh as a daisy and twice as ornamental in pale gray slacks, blue shirt, red ascot, and a madras plaid cotton blazer in navy, red, and gray. Emma had guessed he’d show up about now. She’d been right on one of them, at any rate. The count did not tell her he’d slept well, he said it was obvious Mrs. Kelling had slept well. He made flattering allusions to morning dew and the blush of the rosa rugosa, but he said nothing about a missing stranger.

Emma decided she had in fact been wasting her time here, and furthermore that she shouldn’t have eaten that last muffin. She pushed back her chair. “Don’t forget to ask for your luncheon baskets; you know we shan’t be serving again until dinnertime. I do hope Mrs. Fath remembers breakfast is over at half-past nine. Perhaps I’d better nip out to her cottage and make sure she’s aware of the time.”

Nobody volunteered to go in her place. Count Radunov had made a well-pondered selection from the chafing dishes and was giving his chosen viands the serious consideration they deserved. Wont and his fellow treasure-seekers were deep in a discussion of the raft they either were or weren’t going to build. Emma left them to it, took a faded straw sun hat that must have been Adelaide’s from a rack by the door, and went out into the sunlight.

Except for that short walk up from the dock yesterday, this was the first chance she’d had to stretch her legs on the island soil. It was good to feel the springy pine mold under her canvas shoes, to sniff the piny scent she kicked up at each step. Emma remembered the path to the cottages well enough; nothing much had changed since that long-ago time when she and Bed had walked here. Island trees never grew big, they got too much buffeting from the sea winds. Acid rain hadn’t done much harm yet to the island granite as far as Emma could tell, but then she felt no great affinity with rocks. They were too sedentary for a woman of her temperament.

Now, which cottage was Alding Fath’s? Ah yes, the one down by the cove, the same one Emma and Bed had slept in that time. The inner door was open; Emma could see clearly enough into the one good-size room. Mrs. Fath was lying in the single bed, her head on the pillow, the rest of her hidden by a pale blue blanket. She was awake, but showed no inclination to rise even when Emma went up on the porch and tapped on the wooden frame around the screen door.

“Mrs. Fath, are you all right?”