The Silver Ghost (18 page)

Bill eased the cart forward. The buzzing grew louder, more insistent. Max didn’t like it a bit. When he caught sight of the bees, he turned sick.

They were blocking the path at the bottom of the dip, a great pulsing clot of brown workers, tumbling over each other to get at what lay beneath them. The shape of the mass was horribly suggestive, but all the men in the cart could see for the covering bees was one well-polished black loafer shoe with a chic little gold-beaded tassel at the toe.

“Great God in heaven,” whispered Nehemiah Billingsgate. “How did this happen?”

“Who is it?” Max demanded. “Do you know?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Swerving recklessly around the dreadful obstacle in their path, Bill opened the motor as wide as possible and sped toward the honey shed. “We’ve got to have smokers and bee veils; otherwise they’ll be after us, too. Thank God we went back for the key.”

He ran the cart up to the shed, unlocked the front door, and hustled Max inside. “Here, put these on quickly.”

“These” were a tan coverall with velcro fastenings at neck, sleeves, and ankles, a wide-brimmed hat with a netting that hung to the shoulders, and heavy gauntlet gloves. A ludicrous outfit, but Max was glad to wear it. Bill donned its mate, got four smokers working, handed two to Max, and took the others himself. “Just squeeze the bellows gently and point the nozzle at the bees. Smoke stupefies them. Come on.

“Is there any chance he may still be alive?” Max asked as the cart bucketed them back down the path.

“I don’t dare hope so, but we must do what we can. Max, I cannot understand what went wrong. Abigail’s been keeping bees for thirty-seven years and we’ve never had any trouble before. Our bees are quite amiable as bees go, and I should have thought they’d be heading back to the hives now that it’s turned so dark and cold. Dear Lord, what a thing to happen today, on top of everything else. Have your smokers ready. “Normally we’d just use one, but this—”

Bill stopped the cart, threw open the screened door, and ran toward the hideous buzzing, Max at his heels.

It seemed to take an incredibly long time. The two men were enveloped in smoke, choking, gasping, clawing with their clumsy gloves at the stupefied bees, desperate to get at their victim in case there might yet be a spark to fan.

There wasn’t. Vercingetorix Ufford was dead as a doornail.

“‘LORD, INTO THY HANDS
we commend the soul of this Thy servant.’ Poor Versey, I thought it must be he. Those fancy tassels on the shoes, you know. Max, we must get out of here before those bees wake up.”

“What will they do?”

“Die, poor things, if they’ve lost their stingers. But there must be a good many that weren’t able to get at him. Can you take his head?”

Max knew he ought to insist the body be left where it lay until the death could be investigated. He also knew he wasn’t going to hang around here once the smoke cleared away. He bent over the body, trying not to look at the swollen mass that had been a face. “Okay, Bill. Shall we slide him on the cart?”

“Yes, on the back.” A boxlike arrangement had been fitted to the vehicle as a means of carrying equipment to and from the bee fields. They laid the body across the top as best they could, and Max steadied while Bill drove. That meant having to keep the screen open, and Max was extremely relieved when they reached the shed without hearing that buzz again.

“We’d better make sure we don’t carry any bees inside with us, or we’ll be in trouble again,” Bill fussed. “Here, Max, let me brush you off. Then you’d better fetch another smoker just in case. Good Lord, poor Versey’s clothes are full of them. I’m afraid we’ll have to strip him and leave the things outside. Ghastly!”

It was all that and then some. Ufford had been wearing a high-necked black cashmere pullover and matching slacks. The garments were of beautiful quality and ought to have been soft to the touch, but felt stiff and clung unpleasantly to their gauntlets.

“Sticky,” said Max. “Had he been robbing the honeycombs?”

“I can’t imagine why he should. There wouldn’t be enough to bother with at this time of year. Anyway, Abigail gave him honey a few weeks ago, and he knew he could always have more for the asking. Ugh, I hope I never see anything like this again.”

The bees had got through the sweater and up Ufford’s pant legs. They were even inside his fine black lisle socks. A few were still active in there where the smoke hadn’t got at them.

“One might think they’d leave him alone now that he’s dead,” Billingsgate half sobbed.

“They might be after something,” said Max. “See those shiny patches on his skin? It looks to me as if he might have been doused with a sweet liquid that’s soaked through the clothes and got on his body. Have you any idea what it would be?”

“Why, yes, I expect I do. Since we take away most of the honey that would be their natural winter food, we give them supplemental feeding of a sugar and water solution. That was how we helped to keep the bees out here in the back fields yesterday, as a matter of fact. We set a number of the collecting trays around and poured syrup into them. With netting over the tops, of course, so the bees could get at it without drowning themselves.”

“What happened to the trays?”

“I expect they must be where we left them. Rufus had been delegated to bring them in after dark, when the bees had gone back to the hives for the night.” Bill grimaced. “I don’t suppose anybody gave them a thought. I’m sure I didn’t. Look, Max, you must be right about the syrup. The bees are going at Versey’s clothes.”

As they’d taken the garments off, they’d thrown them aside, out of the smoke they were still using to repel any further assault on the naked, horridly disfigured body. Now some of the bees they’d chased off Ufford and themselves were recovering and beginning to crawl over the slacks and sweater, even the underwear. Bill stood up and watched them, sighing.

“In a way, Max, I’m relieved. At least it shows they weren’t just being vindictive. I suppose they went after the sweetness and Versey panicked. He began swatting at them, and they panicked, too. It does take considerable strength of mind to stand still when they start coming at you, I have to admit. Poor fellow.”

He sighed again. “I suppose Grimpen will have to know about this. He’ll want to pass it off as another accident, no doubt.”

“Is there a chance he might be right, Bill?”

“Anything’s possible, I suppose, but Versey’d been around here often enough over the years to know one doesn’t go strolling through the bee fields without taking reasonable precautions. He was rather leery of the bees, in fact. I can’t imagine what he was doing here at all, let alone how he got into the syrup. I suppose he might possibly have tripped and fallen on one of the trays, but they’re shallow things, only about two feet square. It would have taken a bit of doing to soak both his trousers and his jersey.”

“Speaking of trousers, where did he get these clothes? Did he change into his costume here?”

“No, I’m quite sure he didn’t. The Whets picked him up and brought him, I know, and it was my understanding they were going to take him back. They were all in costume when they came; I distinctly remember what an effective picture they made as they walked across the drawbridge to the pavilion.”

Max wondered for a second whether Bill was starring to pray again, but the older man came out of his silence. “Why should he have changed? Nobody else did. As to what he was doing out here today, I cannot imagine. He can’t have come about Rufe, I shouldn’t think. We haven’t told anybody. Unless Grimpen blabbed to the press.”

“Have you had any reporters out here? Any phone calls, people wanting to know what happened?”

“No, just friends calling to thank us for yesterday, the usual thing.”

“Then it hasn’t hit the media. Grimpen must be doing some fancy footwork to keep it quiet. I wonder why. Unless he’s afraid of looking like a fool in spite of his big talk. And you say Ufford didn’t have a car. Is there a bus or anything he could have come here in?”

“Not conveniently, no. I’m afraid it’s generally assumed in a place like this that everyone is able to provide his own transport. Versey could have taken a taxi, but it would have cost him a good deal. What he usually did if he needed to get somewhere was simply call and ask to be picked up. He was quite arrogant about cadging rides, if that’s not too unkind a word. And you know, Max, I don’t understand those clothes.”

“What do you mean by that, Bill?”

“The—the ambience of them, as it were. If he’d wanted to see me on business, he’d have worn a business suit. If he’d come for an informal visit, he might conceivably have shown up in tweed knickerbockers and a Norfolk jacket. The country gentleman look, you know. Versey didn’t mind being a trifle eccentric in his dress, but never inappropriately eccentric, if you follow me. As for this all-black getup, maybe I’m behind the times, but it strikes me as being out of place here. Too modern and sophisticated, I suppose is what I’m trying to say.”

“Do you think they were somebody else’s clothes?”

“Oh no, I don’t think that. They look like clothes Versey might wear someplace where that sort of thing was being worn. Good quality, well-fitting, and somewhat on the spiffy side. Abigail could probably be more coherent on the subject than I. Oh dear, I do dread having to tell her about Versey.”

“Was she fond of him?”

Bill had to think that one over. “She found him exasperating at times. We all did, I’m afraid. But we’d known him so long, and to have him killed by her own bees—Max, has it struck you there’s a diabolical mind at work here?”

“I can’t say it has, Bill. I’d call it more a practical mind, and damned little human feeling. The impression I get is that whoever’s responsible for these killings doesn’t care about anything but getting the job done with a minimum of risk and whatever weapon comes handiest. If you call a swarm of bees a weapon. I don’t know how we’re ever going to prove Ufford didn’t mess himself up in the bee syrup and get stung to death by accident.”

“Mightn’t this be a case similar to Rufe’s? Couldn’t he have been shot with Wouter’s dart gun and had the syrup poured over him afterwards?”

“If he was already dead, how would he have annoyed the bees into stinging him? And would they have raised those God-awful welts if they did?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, Max,” Bill replied humbly.

“Well, the medical examiner can straighten us out on that one. The biggest question in my mind right now is how Grimpen’s men managed not to find him, if they searched the grounds as thoroughly as he claims they did. Unless they heard the bees buzzing and chickened out.”

“People do,” said Bill. “I might have, myself, if we’d come upon an infuriated swarm without any protection. But Grimpen could at least have gone up to the house and told us what was happening. We might even have saved Versey, if we’d got to him in time. How long do you think he’s been dead, Max?”

“In a situation like this, I don’t even want to guess. The autopsy will show, though you may have to throw some more weight to get Grimpen to order one.”

“I shall throw whatever is necessary, you may rest assured of that. Let’s get the poor chap covered up. There ought to be some clean sheets around here somewhere. I wonder where Melly keeps them.”

While Bill puttered around, opening drawers and muttering to himself, Max exercised the curiosity that had sent them back for the keys in the first place. During their earlier approach he’d caught sight of what looked like a concrete ramp behind the junipers, and he saw no opening here to which it might have led. The back of the room he was in appeared to be filled solid with crates of honey jars, but reason told him there must be more than this. He edged around behind the crates, and found another inside door.

Stuck to the door with sticky tape was a sign printed with a heavy marking pen on Apian Way Bee Farm stationary. It read,
THIS ROOM HAS BEEN STERILIZED. KEEP OUT UNTIL NEEDED
.

The door, Max noticed, was steel-faced and fitted tightly into its jam. A piece of heavy weather stripping had been fastened across the bottom. For extra protection against any germs that might be strolling by, he assumed. Casting prophylaxis to the winds, Max turned the white porcelain knob and pushed. It was as he’d hoped.

“Got a minute, Bill?” he called.

“Eh? What is it, Max?”

“I’ve found your cars.”

“In the honey room? Great Scott, the one place we never thought to look because it was so ridiculously obvious.”

He hurried in. “Yes, there they are, right beside the centrifuges. The Phantom and the Ghost. There’s some balm in Gilead, at any rate.”

There was more than Max had expected. From the open back seat of the ancient Silver Ghost poked up a not quite tidy gray head surmounted by an out-of-date velvet toque.

“Well, Bill. I’ve been wondering when you were going to show up.”

“Bodie! What on earth are you doing here?”

“Trying to get my feet untied,” was her matter-of-fact reply. “My hands gave me a good deal of trouble and the circulation doesn’t yet seem to be fully restored. Perhaps you or—who is that man? Do I know you, sir?”

“I’m Max Bittersohn. You were calling me Max yesterday.”

“Was I? How unlike me. What time does the rally start, Bill? I suppose the reason that silly fellow tied me up was that he wanted to drive instead of me. Stupid and discourteous, and I’ll thank you to tell him so.”

“Tell whom, Bodie? Who tied you up?”

“Bill, whatever are you talking about? You make no sense whatsoever. You know, I still feel a trifle woozy. It must have been the mead.”

“It’s more than that,” Max told her. “I think you’ve been drugged. Your eyeballs look funny.”

“So will yours when you’re as old as I am. Nonsense, young man, I never touch any of that muck. Not even aspirin. A brisk four-mile walk every day, a balanced diet, and a large glass of water before breakfast to promote regularity, that’s all anybody needs. Have you untied me? I can’t feel anything in my feet.”

“Rub her ankles, will you, Bill?” said Max. “We’d better get her back to the house as fast as we can and get a doctor to check her out.”