The Bilbao Looking Glass (22 page)

“To make the room a bit more cheerful,” she remarked. “How do you take your tea, Mr. Bittersohn?”

“Mr. Bittersohn, all of a sudden. How come no Uncle Jake? You mad at me?”

“No, but I’m not sure how you feel about me.”

“Neither am I. Lemon and two sugars, if you’ve got it.”

Jake Bittersohn took a sandwich, chewed appraisingly, then leaned back stirring the tea Sarah gave him. “So where are we? Max?”

“Please let him alone till he’s had his tea,” Sarah begged. “You know, I’m wondering about that woman friend of Pete Lomax who works for the caterer.”

“What’s to wonder?”

“For one thing, I wonder whether it was her idea or his to call the papers. I’m inclined to think it was Pete’s, because if any woman who’s trailing around with a man like him isn’t a tramp she must be an idiot. In my personal opinion, Pete Lomax is no good.”

“And how much is your opinion worth? I’m just asking.” Jake helped himself to another sandwich as a gesture of goodwill.

“Enough to get by on, I think. I do run a boarding house, and I’ve had a fairly wide experience of human nature. I’ve also seen far too much of Pete lately while he’s been up here working with his uncle. He’s sneaky, he’s lazy, he’s nasty-minded, and I doubt whether he’d stick at a spot of violence. He almost slaughtered one of my cousin’s boys the other day, as Max can tell you.”

Max nodded with his mouth full.

“Ever since I heard about the robbery at Miffy Tergoyne’s,” Sarah went on, “I’ve been thinking there must have been two people involved, one inside who knew what to take, and one outside to collect the stuff and pack it into their getaway car.”

“So?”

“So Pete must know that house pretty well. He and his uncle were doing odd jobs for Miffy during the off-months when there weren’t any of the other summer people around. Miffy always thought she got the work done cheaper then.”

“Which she didn’t.”

“Of course not. Mr. Lomax would simply quote her a high price and then let her beat him down to what he’d normally charge.”

“Now you know why a Jew could never make a living off a Yankee,” Jake Bittersohn remarked to his nephew. “So all right, everybody’s happy, nobody takes a beating, what’s that to do with the robbery?”

“Nothing except that Pete, being there with his uncle, would no doubt have seen Miffy and Alice B. going around with the book.”

“What book?”

“Miffy had this inventory album with photographs and descriptions of her more valuable pieces. I’ve never seen it myself, but my Aunt Appie has. She stayed with Miffy for several days once when Alice B. was having her appendix out, and she said Miffy went through the entire house every single morning, checking things off in the book to make sure they were all present and accounted for. I’ve also heard her friends joking about it, though never in front of Miffy.”

“Then in fact anybody who got hold of this inventory book could have pulled off the robbery that the police are insisting had to be done by an art expert.”

“Anybody who knew the book existed and had wits enough to use it, certainly.”

“Then how come the police are so anxious to pin the robbery on Max?”

“I don’t think they are. I think they’re being pressured by the yacht club crowd. All they have to go on is that Miffy insisted she’d slept with the book under her pillow and that it couldn’t have been taken away without waking her, which is absurd. She’d drunk herself into a stupor as usual and wouldn’t have cracked an eyelid if somebody’d stolen the bed from under her.”

“Could you swear in court that she had in fact been dead drunk the night of the robbery?”

“No, of course I couldn’t. Nobody could have, I don’t suppose, except Alice B., and she’s dead.”

“Any chance this Alice B. and your guy Pete robbed the house together, and that he killed her after she’d handed the valuables out to him?”

“Good heavens, I never thought of that.”

Sarah thought of it now, then shook her head. “It would be easy enough, at any rate. But why should Alice B. steal from Miffy? She got everything she wanted from Miffy as it was, and she stood to inherit the whole estate when Miffy died.”

“How do you know?”

“Everybody knew. At least we all assumed—”

“Don’t give me assumed. Who’s Miss Tergoyne’s lawyer?”

“Mr. Pertwee here in town, as far as I know. At least he acted for her in a couple of lawsuits. She was always after somebody about something.”

“Pertwee, eh? I know him. Good man. Where’s your phone?”

“In the front hall.”

“Excuse me.”

Jacob Bittersohn set down his empty cup and left the room, Sarah mended the fire and took out the tea tray. Max dozed. After a while the lawyer came back, looking pleased with himself.

“Margaret Tergoyne did not and apparently never intended to leave her companion a nickel. The existing and presumably valid will executed about fifteen years ago divides Miss Tergoyne’s estate equally among Pauline Larrington Beaxitt, Laura Beaxitt Larrington, and Appolonia Kelling Kelling. Know them?”

“Pussy, Lassie, and Aunt Appie? I can’t believe it.”

“Believe it.”

Sarah shook her head. “I’m—dumbfounded. Of course Miffy knew Alice B. had money of her own, and perhaps she considered that since she’d supported Alice all those years—but still—is there any way Alice B. could have found out?”

“How big is Pertwee’s office?”

“Not big at all, I shouldn’t think. I’ve never been inside, but I know it’s in his house and his wife does most of the secretarial work. Mrs. Lomax used to go in and help out once or twice a week until her arthritis got so bad she had to quit. I don’t know whether they’ve got anyone else to replace her.”

“Mrs. Lomax, eh? Would that be your caretaker’s wife?”

“Yes.”

“How does she get along with the nephew?”

“I have no idea. I can’t imagine her telling tales outside the office, if that’s what you mean. She’s not that kind of woman.”

“How well do you know Mrs. Lomax?”

Sarah pondered that one for a moment, then had to confess, “Not well at all, really. The Lomaxes tend to be somewhat feudal about not trying to be on social terms with their employers. I’ve stopped there with messages a few times and she rides up here with her husband in the truck once in a while when he isn’t intending to stay long. We pass the time of day, I ask about her arthritis, she makes some polite comment about the lilac bushes or whatever, and that’s the extent of our conversation. Mrs. Lomax has always impressed me as being an intelligent, well-bred, self-respecting woman. More than that, I can’t honestly say.”

The lawyer nodded. He had the most beautiful head of thick, wavy, iron-gray hair Sarah had ever seen on an older man. Max’s would be like that in thirty years. Right now Max was sound asleep in the easy chair, with his head wobbling around and his mouth slightly open. She must indeed be far gone to find him so totally adorable in such an absurd posture.

“Tell me about Alice Beaxitt,” the elder Bittersohn commanded while Sarah was tucking a sofa pillow behind Max’s neck.

That was easier. Sarah told him all she could think of, including the dirty trick Alice B. had played on Max at the party.

He pushed out his lower lip and thought about it for a while. Then he said, “Interesting. If this Tergoyne woman was such a dumb soak and the companion so clever at minding everybody’s business, it doesn’t add up. How could Miss Tergoyne keep her will a secret for so long, and why should Miss Beaxitt stick around doing the work if she wasn’t going to get anything out of it?”

“But Alice B. got a great deal out of it,” Sarah reminded him. “I’ve told you Miffy paid the bills. Obviously Alice B. never spent a cent of her own money, otherwise how could she have left so large an estate of her own? That is, assuming the money’s really there and the will isn’t just another of Alice B.’s little funnies.”

“The money’s there, according to Pertwee. Okay, so Alice B. is riding the gravy train, she’s got a hefty pile of her own stashed away. Would that reconcile her to being left completely out of Miss Tergoyne’s will?”

“Maybe not,” Sarah admitted. “Alice B. was a vain woman. She was always bidding to be the center of attention in one way or another, and I know she liked having people regard her as Miffy’s heiress. She was younger than Miffy by several years and took much better care of herself, so she’d naturally have expected to be the survivor. I think it would have rankled dreadfully if she’d known that some day the truth would come out and she’d face the humiliation of having people know Miffy’d regarded her as something between a paid companion and a charity case. She wouldn’t flounce off in a huff because after all, she did have a good thing going at Miffy’s, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she’d known for years and nursed the grudge until she could think of a way to outwit Miffy and get what she thought was coming to her. Look at how long Alice B. must have remembered that bit of information about Max, and never used it until the moment came when she could make a big effect with it. That’s how she was.”

Sarah was getting excited about this idea. “As you know, we’ve had a series of robberies around the summer colony. Suppose Pete Lomax has been doing them and Alice B. found out. She did have an unbelievable sort of underground network. She could blackmail Pete into helping her, not that he’d need much coaxing if he thought he was going to get a share of the profits. Or what if she simply sized Pete up as the sort who’d steal if he got the chance?”

“What if isn’t evidence,” the lawyer objected.

Max was awake now. “Let her talk, Jake. Go on, Sarah. What if Miss Beaxitt did maneuver Pete into helping her rob Miss Tergoyne? How come they took only works of art? Silver and jewelry would have been easier to fence.”

“Yes, but Alice B. wouldn’t have been doing it for the money. She didn’t need that. What she’d have wanted was to hurt Miffy without risking being caught. That meant she’d need somebody else to pin the crime on. You’d be the perfect somebody because you weren’t one of the crowd, yet you were somebody local who knew the lie of the land and had the right sort of expertise.”

“She didn’t know me,” Max objected.

“But she knew about you, didn’t she? I shouldn’t be surprised if Alice B. had made her plan while you were in the living room and she was out in the kitchen filling her clam puffs. She could have telephoned Pete easily enough from there to make himself available that night. I shouldn’t be surprised if they’d even worked up some kind of innocent-sounding code message she could leave with a third party.

“She wouldn’t have to make any other preparation except to make sure Miffy had a good stiff nightcap, because she was familiar with the inventory book and knew exactly which pieces an art expert would go for. I expect she deliberately dropped that remark about your old girl friend to send you off in a huff. Then she could claim you came back and robbed the house as an act of vengeance.”

“Sounds like a plot from Verdi.”

“I know, but Alice B. was like that, all theatrics and offstage noises.”

“So she axed herself to make the plot more convincing?” Jake grunted.

“Oh no, Pete would have thought of that for himself. He’d know he’d never be safe from that tongue of hers as long as Alice B. was alive, and he is a violent man. She’d have been easy to kill because an attack on herself would be the last thing she was expecting. Alice B. was always the attacker, not the victim, and then it was with words instead of weapons. By doing away with her, Pete would be not only freeing himself of a menace but getting to keep the loot.”

“And how was a man like him going to fence a lot of stolen paintings?” Max asked mildly.

“How do I know? If he was involved in previous robberies, he must have connections, mustn’t he? Or perhaps Alice B. had lined someone up. She might have cooked up a lie about Miffy’s wanting to dispose secretly of some valuables with her acting as the intermediary. She might have got a dealer to believe her, or at least pretend he did, if he thought he could make a good thing out of it.”

“It happens,” Max agreed.

“Alice B. would have been the one to think of planting the Millard Sheets on you, though Pete must have built that neat little hiding place inside the staircase. He’s fairly good with tools.”

“Okay,” said Uncle Jake, “but how did he manage to kill Miss Tergoyne in a roomful of her friends when he wasn’t even there?”

“Easily enough, I should think, if his lady friend was the waitress. Working around these old gardens as Pete does, I should think he could have found nicotine in somebody’s potting house or shed. It’s supposed to be banned now, I believe, but you know how people leave things poked into corners for years and years.

“As to why he’d want her dead, Miffy’s brains weren’t so entirely pickled in alcohol that she wouldn’t recall Pete’s being around the place and maybe taking too much interest in things that were none of his business, like the inventory book. Being Miffy, she’d tackle him straight-on and tell him he’d better get her paintings back fast or she’d blow the whistle on him. She’d be more concerned with retrieving what was hers than with any high-flown humbug about seeing justice done.”

“That’s not bad,” said Max. “She’d have given him a deadline. I suppose. He’d have to shut her up before it came around and he couldn’t produce. That’s why he’d run the risk of killing her publicly like that, instead of waiting till dark and backing a truck over her. I suppose the waitress could have managed to slip Miss Tergoyne the poisoned drink. She might have kept her hand on it while she was passing the tray to make sure nobody else got that particular glass. She’d be taking an awful chance, though, juggling a deadly poison around like that.”

“Maybe she didn’t know it was poison. Pete could have told her the nicotine was only some kind of practical joke like knockout drops or stuff that would make Miffy throw up in front of her company. That’s the sort of thing Pete would think was funny. Or if the waitress is the tender-hearted type, Pete could say it was medicine the doctor couldn’t get Miffy to take any other way. Anyway, I think it was pretty dim of Chief Wilson not to get hold of that waitress instead of you.”