Not turning around, talking toward the wall, D’Esopo said, “I thought you might get further with your investigation if you cut the bullshit, had a higher degree of acceptance of The Rod and Gun Club, its members….”
“At the moment, you’re sounding rather lame, Eddy. They want to control the world. You. Me. They want everything their way. It’s rather childish, don’t you think? And, surely you’ll agree, any society which serves boiled fish, broccoli and tapioca pudding as dinner ought not have control of the world.”
D’Esopo turned, faced Flynn. “Frank, you don’t seriously have me on your list of suspects. I called you up here.”
“The list is getting shorter, Eddy. By the hour.”
The gong sounded throughout the house and Flynn’s head.
“Drinks,” D’Esopo said. “That’s the bell for drinks. I want a drink. What do I say to these guys?”
The door to the corridor opened.
His old police satchel under his right arm, Cocky entered.
“Ah, Detective Lieutenant Walter Concannon,” Flynn said. “Retired.”
“Hello, Cocky,” D’Esopo muttered. “Frank, are you coming downstairs with me?”
“Not now.” Flynn sat up in his chair. “The retired Detective Lieutenant and I are in the middle of an interesting chess game.”
Flynn studied the board. “At least on the chessboard, Commissioner, we still have some freedom of movement.”
“S
orry I took so long.” After the Commissioner left Flynn’s room, Cocky sat at his side of the chessboard, satchel at his feet. “Fascinating reading.”
He moved his Queen to Rook Four.
“Good thing you didn’t get caught.”
“Yeah. Once I realized everyone must be back in the house, I snuck upstairs and got my satchel to transport the files. I came through the kitchen. The only one who saw me, besides the kitchen help, was Hewitt, getting kerosene for his cabin. Dinner, you may be relieved to know, is roast turkey.”
“It’s pretty hard to ruin a turkey, isn’t it?”
“I’m sure they’re trying.”
Flynn moved his Bishop to Knight Three. “Either our boss, the esteemed police commissioner, does not know that Rutledge is dead, or he is willing to permit this particular employee to think he is indeed obtuse. I listed the murder weapons used so far as gun, rope, club and knife, and the methods of murder as shooting, strangling, clubbing and stabbing, mixing up the orders a little bit, I admit. And would you believe the Commissioner failed to ask me who has been stabbed with a knife?”
“Dumb like a fox.” Cocky moved Pawn to Queen Knight Three.
“Obtuse as an ocelot.” Flynn moved his Knight to Bishop One.
“Are ocelots obtuse?”
“Never met one, that I remember. I have met foxes, however. Upon meeting, I can’t say I was ever favorably impressed by their intellectual capacities. Very few have been up to even lying convincingly about having read Proust. It’s always been my impression, in fact, that those who pursue foxes have so little reason to flatter themselves that they assign an unwarranted degree of prowess to those they hunt. Just as I’m
sure the ordinary house cat, among his own society, lauds the intelligence of the mouse unduly.”
Cocky’s Bishop took Flynn’s.
Flynn’s Rook took Cocky’s Bishop.
Cocky said: “Dwight Huttenbach’s granduncle, you’ll be interested to know, entertained fourteen-year-old girls at tea every Sunday at his Fifth Avenue mansion. Speaking of cats and mice, that is.”
“How did he entertain them?”
“Had them dress in tutus.”
“How very entertaining for them.”
Cocky moved his Knight to Bishop Four. “Dunn Roberts’s great-grandfather bragged of having sired twenty-six illegitimate children.”
“Some chaps haven’t much to brag about, have they?” Flynn moved his Queen to Rook Three. “How many did he mention in his will?”
“Four.” Cocky’s Bishop went to Knight Two.
“They had good mothers.” Flynn placed his Knight on Knight Three.
“And Lauderdale’s mother originally was a member of the Washington Opera Company.” Cocky moved his Queen to Rook Three. “A soprano. That doesn’t surprise you, does it?”
“Sure, aren’t we all satires of our parents?” Flynn moved his Bishop to Bishop Two.
“The most significant thing I’ve discovered so far is that Arlington was institutionalized, quietly, for a while. At a private psychiatric sanitarium, conveniently out of the country. British Columbia.”
“That is significant. When?”
“Six years ago.” Cocky moved his Knight from Bishop Four to King Five. “He had electric shock therapy.”
“No wonder he’s merciful to other beasts. Or so Rutledge testified, just before he was unmercifully skewered.” Flynn’s Queen went to King Seven.
“Frank, it indicates his personality has suffered a period of instability.”
“Or someone thought so.”
“He has had cosmetic surgery on his face,” said Cocky shifting his Queen Rook to King One.
“Self-esteem. Extra need for self-esteem. Ambition.” Flynn’s Queen took the Bishop Pawn. “At the moment, he seems an impossibly tight, precise man. At poker, he almost gets the ink from the playing cards on the tip of his nose.”
“And he’s a top dog in the federal government.” Cocky’s Knight took Flynn’s King Bishop Pawn.
“And his friends in The Rod and Gun Club, no matter how petulantly they complain in the sauna, in fact can leash him in any time they want.” Flynn’s King Rook moved to King. “But are you sure the story of his having been institutionalized is true? As you pointed out earlier, the membership is apt to place credence on the world of possibly vengeful housemaids.”
“In the file there is what appears to be a detailed bill from the sanitarium marked ‘Paid in full.’ ”
“That smacks of evidence.” The gong sounded for dinner. Flynn even felt the sound through his stockinged feet on the floor. “They must have finished ruining the turkey. Have you discovered anything interesting regarding the relationship between Clifford and Buckingham?”
Cocky moved his Knight from Bishop Seven to King Five. “Buckingham is the brother of Clifford’s natural mother.”
“Who is now Lauderdale’s widow.” Flynn took Cocky’s Bishop with his Queen. “Nothing else?”
“Nothing yet. Uncle Buck seems to run the family finances. If not run them, at least be principal financial advisor. I’ll read more after I win this game.”
“I wonder if any member of the club has succeeded in becoming his own grandpaw.”
Cocky’s Knight moved to Queen Seven. “Frank? Do you think anything could be going on between Clifford and Taylor?”
“You mean, anything sexual?”
“That’s what I mean.”
“Do you worry that they’re both young and good looking?”
“Clifford’s never married.”
“A wise choice for a young journalist, I should think. Or, at
least, I’ve often heard old journalists say so.” Flynn shifted his Queen Rook to Queen One. “And
not marrying
is not a charge one can ever level against young Taylor. He has demonstrated his liking for women by marrying not once but nine times.”
“His liking for weddings, at least.”
“I suppose if you’re oversexed, as he says he is and, to some extent, has demonstrated, ultimately anything would seem more attractive than those infernal exercise machines.”
“I’m just trying to think along the lines of more than one person doing these murders, some extraordinary relationship everyone has been overlooking…”
A knock on Flynn’s door caused Flynn to say, “Maybe this is the help you need to win this game.”
“Maybe it’s some one, or all of them, come to murder us.”
“Cocky, you shouldn’t be that afraid of losing…Come in.”
Dunn Roberts opened the door. He stood in the doorway looking from Flynn to the chessboard, to Cocky and back to the chessboard. “The dinner gong has sounded.” With a finger he stirred the ice in his drink. “You missed having drinks with us.”
“The last drink we had in your company,” Flynn drawled, “was a little too strong for our tastes.”
“Sorry about that.”
Cocky said, “We have to eat, Frank.”
“You go ahead down, Cocky.” Pretending to reach across the board to Cocky’s King Row, Flynn dropped the key to Rutledge’s room in Cocky’s lap. “Check, mate.”
The right side of Cocky’s face broke into a marvelous grin. “Really, Frank. You don’t mind making any pun, do you?”
“Y
es?” Flynn asked.
“Yes, what?” Senator Dunn Roberts said.
Leaving, Cocky had left the door to the corridor open.
“I suspect you want to say something to me.”
“Wanted to make sure you guys come down to dinner. Can’t have starving guests.”
“Corpses is corpses.” Flynn slid his shoes out from under his bed and started to put them on.
“I do have something to say.” Roberts stirred his drink with his finger and then sucked his finger. “Apologies.”
“Oh?” Flynn mocked surprise.
“We haven’t made your job any easier, I guess. Putting knockout drops in your tea…”
“Senator, I have a job in Boston. Solving a hit-and-run killing. Testifying in court on another matter day after tomorrow. I never contracted for a job here at The Rod and Gun Club: I wouldn’t expect payment or favors from you boyos if I were cut and bleeding on the sidewalk. Granted, there is a job for police who have proper jurisdiction. And I am not a part of the conspiracy to make sure that job does not get done.”
Roberts sipped his drink. “You’re not investigating?”
“I am being held prisoner at The Rod and Gun Club. Can’t make a phone call.” Shoes tied, Flynn was sitting back in his chair. He looked at the telephone near the bed. What happened to Mrs. Matson? She wasn’t really that hysterical. Why hasn’t Grover called? “We can’t get through your gate, or around your electrified fence. Don’t you know that prisoners do not make the most enthusiastic workers?”
Roberts’ face flushed. He looked into his drink.
“All this is a terrible mess,” he agreed quietly. “I’ve known Lauderdale all my life. Huttenbach’s father called me the hour Dwight was born. Ashley and I won a tennis tournament together, at Exeter, when we were teenagers.”
“And Rutledge?”
Roberts paused. “Rutledge really hasn’t been any worse than the rest of us all through this. He’s just more of a desk man, if you know what I mean. The decisions he was implementing were made by all of us and…”
“…certain unknown people whose advice you all had by telephone.”
“Yes.”
“What did you do with Ashley’s body?”
“Oh.” Roberts looked into his glass again. Was he watching the ice melt? “Ashley had a car accident this afternoon. About fifty kilometers from here. Over the state border. Slippery road…”
“Was his car a Cadillac?”
“Yes.”
“Who drove the Mercedes?”
Roberts shrugged. “One of us.”
“So you put Ashley in his own car, and one of you drove him to the scene of his skidding accident, followed by another of you driving the Mercedes. After the accident was phonied up, the Mercedes picked up the driver of the then-smashed Cadillac and drove him back here.”
“Yes.”
“Then you all sat in the sauna together, discussed business, ran through the snow into a freezing lake, had drinks together and now dinner. Is that it?”
“Yes. I guess so.”
“And will you sing at dinner tonight? Bang your beer mugs and chant
Rumble de dump
nonsense?”
Roberts shifted his feet. “Not tonight.”
“Tell funny stories?”
“Okay. Think us a bunch of bastards. Traditions have been in motion here a long time—”
“And again you’ve guaranteed that the public, which is deeply affected by the decisions made here, still don’t know that The Rod and Gun Club exists, that a certain judge knows a certain governor whose nephew is a certain journalist who knows a certain newspaper tycoon who knows a potential presidential candidate, all of whom are indebted to each other
for one thing or another, all of whom are seeing to it that a certain economic advisor to the federal government ends up his stay in Washington a privately wealthy man.”
Watching Flynn, Roberts’ eyes had narrowed. “I see you have been doing some investigating.”
“When one sees a large, gray animal with four feet, floppy ears, a tail at one end and a trunk at the other, one is apt to call it an elephant.”
Roberts waved his glass. “Come down to dinner. We all need to talk to you.”
“To listen to me?”
Roberts smiled. “We might even listen.”
“H
aving a twinge in my arm,” Wendell Oland complained to Flynn. Naked at the table, the old man was exercising his left arm as well as space allowed. “Must have stressed it swimming, or something.”
“Perhaps a little lineament?” suggested Flynn.
“Perhaps.”
When Dunn Roberts led Flynn into the dining room, those who were left were seated in their usual places. Oland was to Flynn’s left; Wahler to his right. To the left of Oland was Roberts’s place. To his left, Rutledge’s place was set, but empty. Lauderdale’s place between Wahler and D’Esopo was empty, as was Ashley’s place between D’Esopo and Buckingham. When Flynn sat down, Cocky nodded affirmatively directly across the table at him: He had checked—Rutledge’s corpse was still locked in Suite 23. Arlington and then Clifford were at Cocky’s right.
Flynn said to the table: “Senator Roberts says there is something you want to talk to me about.”
“One or two things,” said Clifford. “One or two.”
“Isn’t it pretty obvious?” asked Arlington.
“Only one thing is obvious to me,” said Flynn. “What’s obvious is that you gentlemen have given me no choice but to let you people continue killing each other off.”
“All these people being shot,” said Oland. “Who’d think Rutledge…” His voice trailed off as he paid attention to his arm.
Taylor and a Vietnamese waiter were bringing around the soup cauldron.
Everyone waited uselessly for Oland to finish.
“Where is Rutledge?” Buckingham asked.
“Must be working in his room,” Wahler said. “Has to review some figures. He’s talking to Tokyo later tonight.”