The Dirty Duck (13 page)

They all looked at him and looked away.

“If it's Shakespeare, Marlowe—either of them—I guarantee I can find it. On the computers I got at home, I could find
anything.”

Jury only wished that extended to missing boys.

J
ELL-O.

The steps had stopped at the door; the tray had clattered to the floor; the tray-bearer had listened to the groans from within. And then, in true Man-in-the-Iron-Mask fashion, he or she had walked away without so much as investigating the death-rattle. The footsteps had receded, leaving behind only silence and Jell-O.

James Carlton Farraday looked down at the tray and thought at least the gray cat would be happy. This time the small scarlet mold swam in a little lake of milk.

The cat, whose ears had pricked at the sound of the steps, thudded to the floor like a soft pillow, strolled to inspect the lunch. Its lunch, it must by now be thinking. It sniffed the hamburger, nosed the fries, and stepped in the dish of slaw to get to the Jell-O. It curled its tail around its legs and lapped and licked.

As James Carlton sat on the floor and picked up the hamburger, he wondered if a cat could die eating nothing but Jell-O, and then decided this cat had so much fat on it to use up it would live to a hundred if it never ate another bite.

James Carlton was feeling pretty hungry himself. He reasoned that Plan Number Four—Hunger Strike—probably wouldn't work much better than Plan One—for even if he didn't eat the rest, they'd still think he ate the Jell-O. Thus rationalizing Hunger Strike away, he took a look inside his hamburger. Just the way he liked it: ketchup, mustard and two slices of dill pickle.

First he lay down and munched at the hamburger and then he got up and took down the picture and made his entry on the back. The time, the
meal. He studied his list and decided it was time to put Plan Number Three into operation.

Having had its lunch and washed itself, the cat clawed its way back up to the bed, where it circled and circled, making its spot to sleep in. It regarded James Carlton lazily, as he started pushing the bureau over under the window. It made a great deal of noise, he thought; yet, no footsteps came down the hall outside in response to it. That was probably because They never came up to the turret except to bring the tray. After positioning the bureau, he pulled out the bottom drawer and the third one up and used those two as stairsteps. The bureau was heavy and he wasn't; otherwise, it would have tilted. The leg up the drawers gave allowed him to pull himself the rest of the way, and he was finally able to peer out the little window by standing on his toes atop the bureau.

What he saw was a curve of water and massed treetops. That must be the Avon over which the river-mist lay. He was not far, then, from Stratford. Viewing was especially difficult because there were narrow bars over the windows. He couldn't see the purpose of them this far above ground. Also, he thought it funny that someone had gone to the trouble of making gauzy curtains. He supposed that it was a Castle Keep he was in, and whoever owned it had decided to give it this homey touch: had got rid of the chains and manacles, cleared out the old bones of other prisoners, and then put in the bureau and pictures and curtains.

The walls were probably too slick for scaling and there was not a branch of a tree near enough for a prisoner to grab hold of and swing down to the ground and to safety. Even if the prisoner could get past the bars. James Carlton looked again at those curtains and then back at the bed, at the sheets and the blanket. If they were all tied together they just might reach down the outside wall.

The gray cat looked back at him, yawned, and then seeing activity that might be deserving of attention in this otherwise dull environment, slid to the floor, scrambled from drawer to drawer and did a perfect three-point landing on top of the bureau.

They both surveyed the mortar around one of the bars. It looked cracked. The sill must have been six inches wide at least. James Carlton tugged at the bar. Loose. A patch of mortar crumbled and rolled off the edge. Quickly, he drew out his pocket knife and went to work, stabbing and jabbing away. Its big paws tucked under its chest, the cat looked on. It seemed to like the operation and started to purr like a train engine. James Carlton's digging away at the bar seemed to make it immensely happy, and he decided the cat might be the reincarnation of some old prisoner who'd
died up here and now finally saw a way out. Did it think, he wondered, that it was going to climb down the sheets with him? Fat chance—

Footsteps.

He looked at his watch. Had he really been working at the loose bar until dinnertime? But the cat knew what the steps meant, and bounded down the bureau, collapsing in a heap first, and then padding to the slot in the door.

Cold sweat beaded James Carlton's forehead. But why worry? No one had ever come in before.

The steps paused. The tray clattered down to the floor. The trapdoor opened while the cat crouched before it as if it were a mousehole. The tray was shoved through.

From his bureau perch, James Carlton looked down.

Jell-O.

 • • • 

Back on his bed once again, he licked the chicken grease from his fingers and the cat licked its paws. The window was beginning to purple over with the coming on of the night sky. He could even see two cold stars up there somewhere. He yawned. Might as well leave the bar until morning. But he was bored, and there was nothing around except one recessed bookshelf on which several ancient books rested, long unread in their coverlet of dust. Several of Dickens, dull brown and fox-paged, spotted as if they'd been left out in the rain; a couple of thin volumes of poetry; two cookbooks still wearing their torn jackets.

He unwedged
A Tale of Two Cities;
it was nearly as hard to tug out as the iron bar. James Carlton was a big reader, but he had decided at the outset that he hadn't time for reading, not with all the thinking he'd had to do. He wondered why his captors had been so stupid as to leave books lying around, when they'd gone to the trouble of taking away all the writing paper. If he'd wanted to send a message to someone, he could simply have torn off a page. A person could even code a written text, just by underlining words or letters, and he could do it even without a pencil. That's why he always carried a book of matches: in case someone discovered the pencil stub in his sock. There were lots of things a person could do with matches besides burning things up. If his captors hadn't knocked him unconscious, he might have been able to leave some trail with the matches, although he imagined they wouldn't have lasted all the way from Stratford to here.

He looked at the tray and the roll on his plate. It would be hard by morning, good to crumble, and if he got lost in the woods he could make a
trail for himself. For he had not the least doubt he would be in the woods by morning. He took the roll from the plate.

Hamburgers, chicken, fries—why were his captors not giving him bread and water to break down his resistance before they tortured him? That prospect made him slightly uncomfortable. But then he reasoned they probably wouldn't, and that the only reason he had been kidnapped was for the ransom money. J. C. Farraday was very rich.

The cat was snoozing away at the foot of the bed and he felt his own eyes getting heavy. Going to sleep might prove fatal. He looked down at Dickens. After all, if you didn't have enough time to read when you were kidnapped, when
would
you have time? The binding nearly cracked when he opened it and the pages crackled with age.

Yes, indeed, thought James Carlton. It was definitely the worst of times. And if it had been winter, it would certainly have been the winter of his discontent. Sydney Carton was a pretty good guy, he thought, stepping in there at the end. His stepfather was always saying how times had changed. It was true. Not many people today, he guessed, would go to the gallows for you. His real father would, of course. And his real mother, too. He looked up from the book and wondered where they were. His father was probably a big-time banker or maybe a ballplayer and looked like Jim Palmer. The Baltimore Orioles was James Carlton's favorite team. He knew who his mother looked like: Sissy Spacek. He knew not so much from that one little picture Penny had, but because Penny herself looked like Sissy Spacek. All those freckles and long hair and the eyes that tilted up just like Sissy. Indeed, although he had never told anyone but Penny, he believed his mother probably
was
Sissy Spacek. He had gone to all of her movies at least three times each. He had forgiven her a long time ago, though; he could understand it must be rough trying to make a go of it in Hollywood, and you could hardly be carting babies around at five o'clock in the morning when you had to get your makeup on. He felt no resentment toward Sissy. After they'd knocked him unconscious, at one point the face of Sissy Spacek had swum before his eyes. It had been very vivid, and very strange. She seemed to be running through bloody streets, bodies and gunfire.

He went back to his book. Old Sydney was okay, but he'd rather read about Louis being stuffed into that Iron Mask. He closed his eyes and wondered what it would feel like. Would it itch? Over in the wastebasket was a brown paper bag, rolled back as a sort of liner. He pulled it from the wastebasket, studied it a moment, poked two holes above with his pencil and a big hole below and put it over his head and sat down. Of course, he
had to imagine that it was hideously weighted and riveted. His face started to itch, but he didn't scratch because if it had been the real thing, he couldn't have. It must have driven poor Louis crazy, like having your arm in a sling for months and months.

Finally, he went ahead and scratched. He put Dickens back and pulled down another book.
The Joy of Cooking.
It looked a hundred years old. James Carlton didn't know a thing about cooking, but for lack of something better to do he looked up chicken. He was amazed to find there were so many things you could do with chicken. He read the recipes through the holes in the paper bag. Chicken and dumplings, Southern Fried, barbecued, chicken with unpronounceable names. He must have had the Southern Fried tonight—

He dropped the book with a thud and stared ahead of him, thinking about that chicken . . . and then about that hamburger. Just the way he liked it . . .

He raced to the bureau and clambered up to look out at darkness. Not total darkness yet, the massed treetops, some of their leaves showing wet like patent leather with the light from the moon that shone like a bright dollar in the sky. He had been so gripped by fear and excitement, he hadn't realized he was still wearing the bag. He yanked it off and pressed his face against the bars. What he saw was the moon making a streak of silver across the black water—water, trees, bank, all running together in the barest outline of the picture he had seen earlier.

James Carlton had a photographic memory, a faculty which had proved fascinating to people like Harvey Schoenberg and his teachers, but less attractive to people who wished James Carlton would forget some of his more lurid visions. Such as Amelia Blue, who knew that forever fixed in the mind of her stepson were one or two little incidents that would be best forgotten.

Thus he didn't need the light of day to tell him that the river out there was five times as wide as the River Avon.

And he didn't need another taste of the chicken to know it was finger-lickin' good.

Or the hamburger with its spurt of mustard and dab of ketchup and two pickles.

He turned slowly around and stared down at the gray cat. James Carlton, who had gone to some trouble to smooth out that old West Virginia twang from his speech, and who had refrained from Penny's
Gawds
and
shits
and other things that marked one as low-down, now said: “My gawd, cat. This sure as shit ain't Stratford!”

The gray cat merely opened his eyes a slit, stretched himself, and went back to his dreams of mice and Jell-O.

He'd always known it.

“L
ondon? What do you
mean,
London?” asked Agatha Ardry, helping herself to another toast triangle from Melrose's toast rack. No, she hadn't wanted breakfast, she had said; she'd already eaten with the Randolph Biggets. So he assumed she simply intended to eat his. This was the third piece of toast she was now marmalading. She repeated her question: “Whatever are you going to London for?”

“To look at the Queen,” he said, filling in another word in his crossword puzzle.

“And leave me stranded here, I see.” Her own moral rectitude intact, she signaled to a waiter and asked for more toast.

“Marooned just like Crusoe, except he only had one Friday, whereas you have many Biggets.”

“Well, my dear Plant, for all of your faults, I had at
least
given you credit for being a gentleman. But now I see—” Her peroration upon the loss of Plant's one remaining virtue was interrupted by the waiter's replenishment of the toast rack. “Jury's up to something, isn't he? That's why you're going to London.”

Melrose looked up from the crossword. “ ‘Up to something'? Jury is, if you recall, Superintendent of police at New Scotland Yard. I would hardly call an inquiry into another grisly murder on the streets of this otherwise serene town being ‘up to something.' ”

“Another murder? Another murder?” The toast with its small mountain of quince preserve halted midway to her mouth.

“You don't know? Then you're the only person in Stratford who doesn't. Last night. An American girl from one of the tours. Throat cut ear to ear.” He took a perverse delight in delivering this news to her.

Agatha shuddered. “You
are
a ghoul, Plant—”

“I?
I
did not murder the young lady.”

“American? American, you say?” Her eyes bulged. “Wasn't that other creature an American, too?”