The Resurrection Man (15 page)

“A
RHUBARB LEAF?” YELPED
Max. “What the hell for?”

Sarah laughed. “For obvious reasons, I should think. If the man entered through the greenhouse vent, and I honestly couldn’t see how else he got in, then he’d never have made it in a baggy sweat suit. I didn’t measure the opening, but it can’t be more than a foot and a half square. Anne described him as a skinny little fellow. I assumed he’d peeled down to get through the hole and, while he was inside stealing the painting, some animal came along and swiped his clothes.”

“What animal?”

“A dog, maybe. More likely a raccoon, if there was any food in the pockets. They’ll eat anything and they’re very skillful thieves. Isn’t that right, Brooks?”

“On the button, Sarah. That’s why raccoons have been so successful in adapting themselves to city and suburban environments. They’re clever, strong, and they don’t wear those black burglar masks for nothing. If there was any food in the pocket, a dog would simply have ripped up the clothes to get at it. A raccoon would have carried them well away from the house, then rifled the pockets. They have hands, you know, not just paws. They grow as big as dogs and they’re nasty fighters. If I were buck naked in a stranger’s garden and some raccoon had got hold of my clothes, I don’t think I’d care to risk a tug of war to get them back.”

“Okay,” said Max, “I’ll grant you the raccoon, but what happened to the painting?”

“Maybe the man had it hidden away in the garden and took it with him when he went off in Anne’s clothes. More likely he’d handed it out to an accomplice, who’d driven off with it not realizing that the thief himself had been robbed.”

“But Sarah dear,” said Theonia, “why couldn’t the two of them have gone off together? What would have been the sense in leaving the man in the red suit—or rather the man not in the red suit, assuming he did in fact have one to take off—to find his own way back to wherever he’d come from?”

“Perhaps because he wanted to be seen?”

“Not as an exhibitionist, surely, or why would he have bothered with the rhubarb leaf?”

“No, I think it would have been the red suit that Anne, or at least somebody, was intended to notice. That would have been such an odd thing to have on at this time of year. Charles mentioned yesterday how out-of-place the man in Arbalest’s alley looked in his red jogging suit on such a hot day. And that one was jumping around, apparently doing all he could to attract Charles’s attention short of grabbing his arm and shouting in his ear. Katya gave you to understand he puts on the same performance whenever he sees her or Mr. Arbalest watching out the kitchen window. But what really convinced me the red suit means something was when Anora told us about poor old George getting out of his chair to watch a Tamil in a red jogging suit run across their lawn the afternoon before he was killed.”

“You take that as proof positive?” said Brooks.

“Absolutely. Maybe you don’t realize what an earth-shattering event it was for George Protheroe to stir his stumps just because somebody ran through his yard, but I do. That sort of thing just isn’t done in Chestnut Hill, at least not in broad daylight right under the residents’ noses unless one has a pretty sound reason, like chasing a runaway child or at least a family pet. And in that case, the runner would have stopped to ask George if he’d seen a stray Sealyham or whatever. You know that. Naturally he’d want the neighbors to know he wasn’t galloping through their pachysandra just for the fun of it. Anyway, that’s my theory. Does anybody have a better one?”

Nobody had, they gave Sarah the benefit of the doubt and decided to take their coffee out in the garden. After Anne Kelling’s magnificently landscaped acres, Brooks’s staid little beds of marigold and alyssum didn’t do much for Sarah.

“I was hoping we might get out to Ireson’s Landing for the weekend,” she remarked wistfully, “but with Anora in such a pickle and so much else happening, I don’t suppose—oh, hello, Charles. What’s the matter? Is Davy awake?”

“It’s Mr. Goudge, moddom. He’s cometh.”

“Like the iceman. I wish they still had them, I’d have liked a ride in his wagon. All right, Charles, show him out here and bring the brandy. Max, you don’t think Mr. Arbalest’s sent him to bodyguard us?”

Max didn’t think so at all. He thought Mr. Goudge wanted a firsthand report on the visit to the atelier, and he couldn’t have been more right.

“Good evening,” said Goudge. “Kind of you to see me. Mr. Brooks and Mr. Twister, was it?”

“No,” said Max, “but what difference does it make? That’s quite a setup you’ve moved into, Goudge. Would it be tactless to inquire where Nie gets hold of whatever he’s on, and who’s using the windows as a means of egress and ingress?”

“Quite tactless and fairly useless,” Goudge replied readily. “Nie never goes out, he receives no mail or packages. I can only assume he gets his jollies from sniffing that hell brew he uses to clean the paintings. As for the windows, you no doubt refer to the inside latches which your eagle eye would of course have discerned in a trice.”

“Two trices,” said Max. “One trice for Brooks and one for me. He triced first.”

“How nice for him. The object of the latches, as Mr. Arbalest may perhaps have explained, is to keep the inmates from being fried should any of those combustible fluids in the atelier decide to combust. As one of the inmates, I find my employer’s precaution wholly commendable. As to the egress and ingress, what you would not have been able to notice, though I do think you might have surmised, is that I have all the latches electronically bugged. Should a latch be opened, the occurrence will register on a board in my bedroom by means of a buzz and a flashing light. Being a light sleeper and a fast dresser, I will then leap from my bed and be downstairs in time to find out who’s up to what, and possibly even why.”

“Do you catch many?”

“Business has been disappointingly slow. So far the only one I’ve caught was Queppin. He got stuck in the window and I had to help him get unplugged. He explained his purpose, I got the car and drove him to his appointment. He invited me to accompany him inside and be introduced to one of the lady’s business associates. I demurred on the grounds that it would not be safe to leave the Rolls unattended in that neighborhood, this being the response I deemed least likely either to wound his sensibilities or to arouse his derision.”

“Tactful of you.”

“I am always tactful. I suggested that I go back and pick him up in an hour’s time, he agreed that an hour would suffice. I parked in a convenient spot where I could maintain surveillance, met him as arranged, and drove him back to the house. Since then I have taken him on similar errands at less inconvenient hours, with the stipulation that he refrain from singing in the car.” Goudge offered his small apology for a smile. “Queppin’s quite a lavish tipper.”

“Couldn’t somebody else have sneaked out of the house while you were off on some such errand?” Brooks asked.

“Oh yes, but I’d know the latch had been opened because the light on my board would have remained on. I’d then take a surreptitious nose count to ascertain who was missing and be on hand to assist at the reentry. The inmates all know I’m a chronic insomniac, or think they do; they wouldn’t make anything of my happening to be up and about at odd hours.”

“Even when you were peeking into their bedrooms?”

“They wouldn’t know I was peeking. One of my small domestic tasks is to keep all the door hinges well oiled.”

“A thoroughly admirable Crichton,” murmured Theonia.

“Thank you, Mrs. Kelling. I modestly admit to being all that and then some. Would it be impertinent of me to ask your husband whether my name came up during the conversation with Mr. Arbalest?”

“I don’t suppose so. Would it be impertinent, Brooks dear?”

“Not at all. The answer is yes, but not in any adversely critical sense. Bartolo mentioned, for instance, that you agreed with him as to the tightness of your house security system.”

“Which must have surprised you.”

“Yes, but we hadn’t been shown up to your bedroom. Bartolo also said something about having you take Katya to have her eyes tested.”

“Did he, indeed? Whatever for, I wonder?”

“While we were chatting with her in the kitchen, it developed that she, like our man Charles, claims to have seen a man in a red jogging suit doing exercises in the alley. By an interesting coincidence, your late client George Protheroe, who as you no doubt recall was found murdered yesterday morning, told his wife the afternoon before that he’d seen a man in a red jogging suit cutting through their yard. He thought the man might have been a Tamil.”

Goudge raised his eyebrows a trifle. “What a strange thing for Mr. Protheroe to have thought. Why a Tamil?”

“Why not?” Sarah broke in. She was rather annoyed by Goudge’s air of gentle derision. “George had traveled extensively in the Orient, he’d known lots of Tamils and could even speak the language. His wife was inclined to think he knew what he was talking about. Furthermore, my Cousin Percy Kelling’s wife, the one who was robbed of that American Primitive painting you’d just taken back to her, had what may have been a related experience this morning. Would you like to hear about it?”

“If you’d like to tell me.”

Goudge’s voice was courteous and colorless as usual, but a flicker of perturbation had crossed his face. As Sarah told, the perturbation grew to anger.

“Damn! Oh, I do apologize, Mrs. Bittersohn, that was quite unpardonable of me. But all this talk about little brown men in red jogging suits does tend to get under one’s skin.”

“We couldn’t agree with you more,” said Brooks. “Would you care to tell us why you tried so hard last night to convince us that the man was only a clothes rack, why Katya claims that Bartolo doesn’t like him, and why Bartolo lied to us this afternoon when we’d told him what Katya had said about seeing him in the alley?”

“That’s rather a staggering question, don’t you think? And a somewhat cheeky one, if I may say so.”

Brooks Kelling refused to be insulted. “Cheek for cheek Goudge. On the contrary, I’d say the question’s about as pertinent as it can get. This is twice you’ve come to us fishing for information. It’s not that we don’t enjoy playing games with you, but we’re not going to get far if you insist on trying to keep all the aces up your sleeve. Now would you care to answer my question, or would you prefer to cash in your chips and go home?”

“You do believe in laying it on the line, don’t you? Naturally I’d rather stay in the game, Mr. Kelling, but the embarrassing fact is that I simply cannot answer your question, at least not the way you want me to. All right, I lied about the acrobat in the alley. I did so because Mr. Arbalest had let me know quite emphatically, though not in so many words, that the subject was not one he cared to have discussed. Being a loyal employee, by and large, I conceived it my duty to cover for him. I don’t suppose he cautioned Katya. She wouldn’t have grasped what he was talking about and it wouldn’t have accomplished anything if she did. Katya seldom gets to see anyone but himself, except when she’s helping me serve the meals, and she does know enough not to chatter in the dining room.”

“What if somebody’s sick in bed? Wouldn’t she have to wait on them?”

“Perish the thought. That’s the butler’s job.”

“Doesn’t she ever go out of the house?”

“Never. She’d only get lost unless someone went with her, and so far nobody’s offered. Katya’s really quite dim, you know.”

“Then who does the grocery shopping?”

“Mr. Arbalest himself, with his faithful dogsbody tagging along to push the cart and carry the bundles. Occasionally I’m given the privilege of performing some small commission on my own. Only this afternoon I negotiated the purchase of a pint of cream without supervision. And, as you know, Madame Ouspenska was recently allowed the even rarer privilege of buying a teaspoonful of truffles. That required some rather fancy footwork on my part, I may add. Once I’d seen her safely to the house, Mr. Arbalest himself opened the door for her as previously arranged and engaged her in conversation, giving me time enough to whip around to the back door, let myself in, meet her in the front hall with my little silver tray at the ready, and carry the truffles back to the kitchen with due reverence and circumspection.”

“The inmates, as you call them, aren’t allowed in the kitchen?”

“Let’s say they’re not encouraged. If they want anything, they have but to ask and it shall be given unto them, usually by your humble servant, sometimes by Mr. Arbalest himself. If he and I are going to be out in the evening, I prepare a tray of drinks and snacks and make sure the candy dishes are filled so that our birds won’t have to go prowling for extra goodies. If any of them did go to the kitchen, they wouldn’t find her there. Once dinner is cleared away, Katya retires to her own room and watches television. As to whatever she told you this afternoon, it was probably the truth or a reasonable approximation. Katya hasn’t wits enough to think up a lie.”

“Bartolo seems to think she has, though he called it a fairy tale.”

“He would. That’s Mr. Arbalest’s metier, after all, fixing things up to look pretty. Lies are ugly, fairy tales are cute. In fact, of course, they tend to be fairly bloodcurdling, only we kiddies aren’t supposed to notice the grue. So anyway, there you have it.”

“Have what?” said Max. “Tell us about the man in the red suit. I assume you’ve seen him yourself.”

“Oh yes, but I haven’t much to tell. I can’t see anything remarkable about him. He might be a Tamil, or a Frenchman, or a Prooshian for all I know; he’s quite dark, short, and probably slight, though it’s hard to tell. That red jogging suit that you’ve mentioned so often is on the voluminous side. Unlike your wife’s cousin, I’ve never had the chance to see him in his rhubarb leaf; assuming he is in fact the same chap, which seems, with all respect to Mrs. Percy Kelling, most unlikely.”

“Does he always wear the suit?”

“I have no way of knowing. He’s worn it on the occasions when I’ve seen him, or else I may have seen him at other times in other garb and not recognized him. If you were about to ask me why I suppose he wears such a heavy garment in August, I would venture to suggest (a) that he may be fresh from the jungles of Malaysia and feel the cold here even though we find it hot, (b) that he has nothing else to wear, (c) that he likes his red suit, or (d) that he wants to look noticeable when he’s doing his exercises so that he won’t get clobbered by a sanitation truck bombing through the alley to pick up the garbage. Further than that, I’m afraid I can’t go. My powers of imagination are very limited.”