Troubles in the Brasses (17 page)

“Ace is crazy, all right, but he’s foxy, too. I gave up trying to figure him out long ago. Somehow or other, Ace always seems to land on his own feet. Wearing somebody else’s shoes, like as not. Say, I didn’t like to mention it in front of the kids, but what about that guy who got poisoned on stage in the middle of the concert?”

“Actually he didn’t,” Madoc replied. “You heard it was ricin, I assume. Ace said they’d mentioned it on the news.”

“Yes, that’s right, ricin. Comes from castor oil beans, doesn’t it?”

“So I understand. We had a case some time back. Ricin is slow-acting as a good many of those vegetable poisons are. That means Wilhelm Ochs, the chap who died, must have ingested it quite a while before the concert, probably mixed in with something he ate. He was a real glutton, from what the other musicians tell me. I never got to meet him, myself.”

Madoc saw no harm in giving Rick a brief rundown on the various orchestra members. They’d be written up in the papers anyway, no doubt. Loyalty to his parents, not to mention his calling, demanded of course that he keep certain information to himself, such as Delicia Fawn’s auditions and the fact that Madame Bellini was once Mrs. Wilhelm Ochs. Was the concertmaster actually intending to marry Bellini and had she ever been divorced from Ochs? Houdon was such a meticulous-appearing chap, it was hard to picture a man like that doing anything not wholly
en règle.
He ought to have talked to the pair before this, Madoc thought. But he’d been too busy in the kitchen.

The road wasn’t great, but they had it all to themselves. They made the distance in a little over half an hour. The ride up in Rick’s wagon had been a lot more pleasant than his peak-skimming trip down; still, Madoc was relieved to spy the oil lamps in the front windows of the Miners’ Rest. This must have been how they welcomed weary prospectors coming in from their claims with their pokes of dust, or sacks of ore, or whatever it was they’d mined for around here. It occurred to him that he hadn’t got around to asking, and that right now he didn’t give a rap.

Ed and Steve must have spread the word about his having gone off with Ace Bulligan. He got a full-dress reception from the entire company, including Lucy Shadd in a Black Watch tartan bathrobe, with a dark blue scarf wound twice around her neck.

“By the way,” Madoc had to murmur when it came time for introductions, starting of course with Lady Rhys. “Is Rick your first name or your last?”

“Both; it’s Richard Rick. Don’t ask me what my parents were thinking of at the time. How do you do, ma’am? This is a real honor for me.”

“The honor is ours, I assure you.” Lady Rhys hadn’t put on her black gown and diamonds, but she could be just as impressive without them. “We are delighted to see you. Tell me, Mr. Rick, have you been able to let people know where we are?”

“Oh yes, we got the word out. To the next relay station, anyway. They’ll pass the word along, never you fear. There won’t be a plane in here tonight. Trying to land in the dark would be too dangerous, so you all might as well go on to bed. I guess you didn’t get much sleep last night, eh? Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of company come morning.”

Most of the group were concerned as to whether their families had been notified, but Lucy Shadd wanted more. “What time in the morning? What sort of plane? Or will it be a bus? Who’s supposed to provide breakfast? Are they bringing milk and eggs?”

“We don’t know anything about anything yet,” Madoc had to keep replying. “Ranger Rick has explained to you that his radio is on a relay. The only person we got to talk to was the ranger at the next station along the line. He promised to pass on our messages so they could be telephoned to the right people.”

“For God’s sake, Madoc, how stupid can you be? Couldn’t you have waited for the answers?”

“And leave us wondering whether our son had crashed in the mountains, risking his neck with that crazy old man?” Lady Rhys did not lose her temper, but it was a near-miss. “Lucy, you forget yourself. You know as well as I that it’s going to take time for arrangements to be made.”

“But we have to find out what they are.”

“We’ll find out when the time comes. There’s not a blessed thing we can do about them anyway. I suggest you nip on back to bed and save your fretting until you’ve something to fret about. Mr. Rick, Sir Emlyn and I are immensely grateful for your efforts on behalf of us all, and particularly for your kindness to our son. Would you care to come into the hotel? Our hospitality is limited, but we’d be happy to offer you a cup of tea. Or perhaps a drink?”

“Thanks, Lady Rhys, but we just got up from the supper table. I expect likely I ought to get back home and find out what’s happening on the radio. I wish I’d had an extra battery to bring so you could get the one up here going, but it just so happens I had to lend out my spare and haven’t had a chance to replace it yet. I’ll most likely be up in the morning if something important comes along. Anything else you can think of before I go that you’d like to have transmitted?”

Lucy Shadd thought of several things. However, it turned out Madoc and Rick had thought of them, too. Frustrated, she picked up the skirt of her long robe so she wouldn’t trip over it and went back into the hotel.

Most of the others, especially the Rhyses, stayed to see Rick off. By the time no glow from his headlights was visible, they were all yawning. As soon as they got inside, just about everybody headed for the stairs.

Jacques-Marie Houdon was a barely discreet four steps behind Norma Bellini, Madoc noted with no great feeling of disappointment. That projected conversation would have to wait till morning. Too bad. He was damnably tired himself. In fact, his father was making a gentle suggestion that Madoc get to bed before he undermined the family’s dignity by falling on his face.

That was as good an excuse as any. Going through the lobby, Madoc noticed that Cedric Rintoul was seated over in a corner by the window with David Gabriel, another orchestra member Madoc hadn’t yet got around to chatting with. Gabriel had the lamp at his shoulder and his hands busy with some finicky task. Making another reed for his oboe, no doubt. Madoc still hadn’t checked on those wire cutters, but they probably didn’t matter.

Rintoul had one of the hotel’s thick tumblers balanced on his knee. Whiskey or brandy, Madoc supposed, to make him sleep. He or Gabriel, as the last ones, would no doubt bring that lamp along to light their way upstairs. The stove was dampered down for the night. Joe Ragovsky had probably seen to that. They wouldn’t have to be thinking about such tasks this time tomorrow. Madoc went into the bedroom where Ed Naxton was already peeling off clothes and getting into pajamas, and followed Ed’s sterling example.

Nobody screamed, nobody thumped around the hallway. Madoc slept straight through till the watch he’d adjusted by the Ricks’ kitchen clock said six o’clock. He got up, splashed his face and brushed his teeth with cold water from the pitcher he’d brought up last night, got into his last clean shirt in anticipation of the rescuers who, God willing, would be arriving before long, and went downstairs.

It was cold again, colder than yesterday morning. They’d be getting away from here none too soon. He fed the lobby stove and opened the damper to make the fire burn hotter, went out to the kitchen, and fell over Cedric Rintoul.

Passed out, the bloody soak. Couldn’t he have picked a less awkward place to sleep it off instead of lying down in front of the stove like a damned great Saint Bernard? Madoc gave the gross body a none too gentle nudge with his toe.

“Rintoul, wake up.”

He kept his voice down because he didn’t want to wake anybody else. Evidently he didn’t speak loudly enough to do any good. Rintoul didn’t stir. Madoc leaned over to give the trombone player a shake, and found out why. It was a waste of time trying to wake somebody who had an icepick rammed into the back of his neck.

“Oh my God, another one!”

That wasn’t much of an epitaph, and Madoc was slightly relieved there’d been nobody around to hear him say it. Now what to do?

First, he must make doubly sure Rintoul was indeed beyond the veil. There could be no doubt about that; one touch told him the body was cold as an iceberg and stiff as a boot. Death must have been virtually instantaneous, he thought; one quick stab straight into the base of the brain. Bold, resolute, but not bloody. Hardly a trickle showing, as far as Madoc could see in the none too good light. There’d have been more, no doubt, had the icepick been withdrawn.

Somebody had known enough not to do that, and also had been clever enough not to leave any fingerprints on the handle, most likely. Still, Madoc wasn’t going to touch the icepick itself, just in case. He’d have to find a camera; surely there must be at least one shutterbug in the party. Rintoul must not be moved until photographs had been taken of the body in its present position.

That meant not being able to get at the stove, which in turn meant no hot water and no tea, until Madoc remembered his mother’s trick with the fancy stove in the lobby. He hooked the kettle toward him with a long toasting fork, regretted the fact that whatever water had been in it last night was now simmered away, and filled it fresh at the pump. He was lifting the curlicues off the lobby stove when his father came downstairs in the scruffy brown Jaeger robe Madoc had known since his knee-perching days.

“Ah, son, good morning. I was hoping to fetch myself some shaving water before things start to pop around here.”

“Sorry, Tad, but they’ve already started. We have a problem in the kitchen.”

“Not the water pump?”

“No, Rintoul. He’s dead.”

“Madoc, no! God help me, if I’ve driven the man to suicide—”

“Tad, he’s got an icepick jabbed into the back of his neck.”

Sir Emlyn stood perfectly still while Madoc got the kettle on the stove, then raised his right hand in the decisive upward flick he used when he was about to give the downbeat. “I’ll have a look.”

He walked ahead of Madoc into the kitchen and stood over the huddle on the floor. “Poor, poor fellow. No, I agree with you, Rintoul would not have found this an amusing joke to play on himself. What now, son?”

“You didn’t happen to bring a camera with you?”

“No. There are always too many people around taking pictures. Your mother and I got sick of cameras long ago. Carlos Pitney has one, I know. Photography is quite a hobby of his. Shall I wake him up and ask if we may borrow it?”

“I’ll go if you like.”

“I’d rather go myself, son. Carlos and I are old friends, and murder before breakfast is not a pleasant thing to be wakened for.”

“I’ll have your shaving water ready for you.” It was the best that Madoc could do.

“Thank you, Madoc. I suppose you know the press will be here before anyone else. Will you have to tell them?”

Madoc sighed. He also had had experience with the zealous folk of the media. News of the downed plane would have reached them last night; they were probably on their way already.

“Here’s the drill, Tad. It’s any citizen’s duty to report a murder to whatever law enforcement officer is most readily available. That’s myself, in this case, so consider it reported. As soon as Rick shows up, I’ll find out from him who has jurisdiction over the area and ask him to get a message through as quickly as possible. It’s the local man’s job to release the information about Rintoul’s death, not mine. In the meantime, I’ll have to proceed with the investigation, which I’ll do as expeditiously and as discreetly as I can.”

“That’s better than I’d have dared to hope. This is going to be terrible publicity, you know. First Ochs, then Shadd, now Rintoul. People will be coming not to hear our music but to see who’s going to get murdered next. It is a hateful thing to think of.”

“Let’s not worry about Shadd, anyway. I expect Lucy herself would rather we kept that incident quiet as long as we can. As soon as we’ve got our photographs and checked for whatever evidence there may be, we’d better move Rintoul’s body out to the woodshed and lock the door. It may not be possible to keep his death a secret from the rest of the party until after the media people have come and gone, but we can try.”

“Somebody already knows, Madoc.”

“Oh yes, no doubt about that. It’s quite possible two or three others know, too. Anyone who happened to come down to the kitchen last night for a late snack or a drink or whatever could hardly have failed to discover the body.”

“And not said anything because they saw no point in disturbing our rest when there was nothing to be done, you think?”

“And not said anything for fear of getting hit with a murder charge themselves, more likely. I should say from the look of him that Rintoul’s been there for quite a while. He’s still dressed as he was last night. He may have been killed not long after I myself saw him last.”

“That would have been around the time your mother and I went to bed?”

“Pretty close. You were among the last to go. Rintoul and Gabriel were the only two left in the lobby when I went. The pair of them were sitting over there in the corner by the window, as you may recall: There was a lamp on the sill.”

“Yes, your mother put it there to light her wandering boy back home. We were worried about you, Madoc.”

“That’s all right, Tad. I was worried about me, too. Anyway, Gabriel was working at something or other under the light. One of his eternal reeds, I suppose. Rintoul was nursing a drink. Not his first, I’d say offhand. They seemed content enough at the time, but the stove had been banked for the night and it wouldn’t have been long before they began to find the room uncomfortably chilly.”

“Couldn’t they have opened the damper and put on more wood?”

“Yes, but I doubt if they did. I expect Gabriel’s going to tell us he finished what he was doing and went upstairs leaving Rintoul by himself, which may quite possibly be the truth. Rintoul may have said something about fixing himself another drink. Anyway, the odds are that’s what he went to the kitchen for. Somebody grabbed the chance and stuck the icepick into his neck.”

“Dreadful!” Sir Emlyn shook his head. “But simple enough. The icepick would be the one that was in that rack next to the sink, I suppose. I saw it yesterday when I was washing dishes.”