Troubles in the Brasses (9 page)

“I was just curious,” Madoc replied.

Actually, he’d been thinking back to that scene in the other bedroom. Even now, it wasn’t quite full daylight. When he’d responded to the two women’s cries, the room had been barely light enough to see one’s way around. Lucy Shadd and Frieda Loye were both on the thin side, neither of them young. Both wore their graying hair in the neat, short cut that was favored by the majority of professional women. Lucy was a few inches taller than the diminutive Frieda, but that difference wouldn’t show up in bed. In a poor light it mightn’t have been difficult to mix them up. Was it possible that the strangler had left his task unfinished not because Frieda screamed, but because he’d caught on just in time that he was trying to kill the wrong woman?

Madoc knew he had a fat chance of getting either of this pair to admit anything that might conceivably involve them in so totally unfunny a caper. They must realize they’d already set themselves up as prime suspects.

“All right, you two comedians,” he told them. “I suggest you apologize to Miss Fawn and Mr. MacVittie. Then you either go back to your room and stay there or else come downstairs where I can keep an eye on you.”

“What’s downstairs?” said Jasper. “Any chance of something to eat?”

“There should be hot water to wash in, at any rate.” The fires must not have gone out; otherwise the upstairs would be colder than it was. “And I expect we can scare up some sort of breakfast. Can any of you four cook?”

They all not only insisted they couldn’t, they seemed proud of their inability. Madoc sighed and went downstairs.

He could have asked to borrow Rintoul’s or Jasper’s razor, he supposed. On the other hand, anything belonging to either of that pair would no doubt have either produced rude noises or else squirted cheap perfume up his nose. Give him a rogue instead of a fool any day in the week.

There was no bread in the kitchen, but there was flour. There were powdered eggs and powdered milk. There was baking powder, there was salt, there was cooking oil. There were cans of Spam and jugs of syrup. Madoc tried to think what Janet would do in a case like this, and did it.

The batter bore a reasonable resemblance to Janet’s. At least it was worth a try; he suddenly realized that he was totally ravenous. He sliced himself a frying pan full of Spam. He greased a griddle and poured out two neat, round blobs for flapjacks. They bubbled up nicely; he turned them over. They were browned just the way he liked them. He was about to fill himself a plate when Steve MacVittie entered the kitchen, limping slightly.

“God, Madoc, that smells like the breath of angels. Any chance of a bite for a man who’d done a hard night’s work?”

“Sure thing, Mac.” What else could Madoc say? “Here, take these. I’ll fix myself some more.”

He sliced up the rest of the Spam and greased the griddle anew. He fried four pancakes this time because Steve was making awfully quick work of those first two. Apparently he’d guessed right on the recipe. Janet would be proud of him, if he ever got to tell her. He used some of his hot water to make a big pot of tea, and set out sugar and dried milk.

There were restaurant-size cans of peaches, the old sourdough’s staple, on the kitchen shelves. Madoc thought some of those might be a welcome addition to the feast he was still hoping to get some of. Before he could take down a can, much less get it open, Ed Naxton was on deck looking hopeful. Smiling on the outside and growling on the inside, Madoc gave Ed the second breakfast he’d fixed for himself, mixed another bowlful of batter, and opened two more cans of Spam.

It was as well he’d done so. Perhaps it would have been better if he’d never started this breadline in the first place. Rintoul and Jasper appeared, unabashed and wearing false noses with mustaches attached. The mustaches were reddish and droopy, much like the one Madoc himself had shaved off when it began to get in the way of his relationship with Janet. He wished to God Janet were here. She could cook and he could eat. He cut more Spam and kept on frying.

Helene Dufresne and Corliss Blair came down with Joe Ragovsky and the still silent David Gabriel, then Carlos Pitney, who offered to open the peaches if Madoc would show him how to work the can opener. Madoc said sorry, he didn’t have time. Helene did know how, or so she claimed, but she didn’t dare make the attempt and risk cutting her finger. Uncut fingers were, she explained, vital to a cellist’s ability to perform; it was not herself but the orchestra she was thinking of. Madoc took a short break from flapjack flipping and opened the peaches.

He was just thinking he might snatch a bite for himself when Ainsworth Kight swam into view, reeking of charm and throat spray and clamoring for honey to put in his tea. There was no honey. Helene suggested pancake syrup, which seemed to work just as well. Naturally, however, Ainsworth then demanded pancakes to go with his syrup. Madoc opened all the Spam he could find and mixed a great deal more batter.

For the first time since they’d been grounded, the atmosphere among the company had become downright bonhomous. Nobody was in any hurry to leave the warmth of the stove and the geniality of his fellows. They did get cramped for space around the table; in fact the entire kitchen got pretty congested as people kept coming and dragging in more chairs. Madoc had barely space enough to mix batter, open cans, replenish the teapot, cook the food, and add more wood to the stove.

As for getting anything to eat for himself, he’d more or less given up on that notion. He fried on and on, gaining what satisfaction he could from the odors of flapjack and Spam and the sounds of munching jaws. Madame Bellini alone kept him busy for quite a while, nor was Monsieur Houdon backward in coming forward with his plate, even though he did express a wistful preference for
jambon à moutarde de Dijon
over Spam. Both he and Madame Bellini looked quite understandably rested and refreshed. They’d entered the room a decorous ten minutes apart, each expressing a courteous hope that the other had slept well. Both had replied in the affirmative. Madoc was not surprised.

Lady Rhys came down in her gorgeous housecoat to get a pitcher of hot water for Sir Emlyn to shave with. She cast a reproving look at her son’s dark-shadowed cheeks as her pitcher was being passed from hand to hand over the heads of the assembled multitudes so that Madoc could fill it from the boiler on the stove. She took the water and went back upstairs.

A little while later, she arrived with Sir Emlyn, both of them scrubbed and shiny and properly garbed for a morning in the country in well-worn tweeds. Helene Dufresne offered to set a small table in the lobby for them, but they said not to bother, they’d just join the party in the kitchen.

It became apparent, however, that the party wasn’t going to join them. People began remembering they still needed to wash and dress. Pitchers were brought, water was taken, the tumult and the shouting died, and in the firebox sank the fire. Madoc shoved in another stick or two, scraped the last of the batter from the bowl, and made himself one extra-large pancake.

“Good heavens, Madoc,” his mother expostulated, “you’re not planning to sit at the table in front of your father with whiskers all over your face?”

“Yes, Mother, I am,” he told her. “I’m just the hired man around here, don’t forget. I’ll borrow your razor after a while if you don’t mind, Tad. Mine’s somewhere in the bowels of the plane.”

Lady Rhys sniffed at the deliberate indelicacy of
bowels,
but went on eating her pancakes and peaches. Sir Emlyn smiled shyly at this interesting young chap he so inexplicably had sired, and helped himself to another slice of Spam.

“Haven’t had any of this since 1944,” he remarked. “Tastes about the same, don’t you think, Sillie?”

For some reason Madoc doubted he’d ever understand, Lady Rhys wiped her lips on one of the paper napkins Madoc had unearthed from the supply closet, and gave her husband a fond and emphatic kiss right in front of Frieda Loye, who was at last putting in an apologetic appearance with her empty enamel pitcher. The flautist stepped back in considerable embarrassment.

“Oh, I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean to interrupt a family breakfast.”

“You haven’t.” Madoc got up and pulled out a chair for her. “We’re just the tag-end of the throng. Can we interest you in some peaches and Spam? I’m afraid the pancake batter’s all used up, but I can easily throw together another batch.”

“Please don’t bother on my account. I couldn’t eat a thing, honestly.”

“Then you must at least have a cup of tea,” said Lady Rhys.

Frieda Loye replied faintly that tea would be lovely, but Lucy was awake and wanted to wash.

“She’ll have dozed off again by now, I expect,” Lady Rhys insisted. “That’s how those pills always work with me. Sit down here and drink this tea.”

Frieda could hardly do anything then except obey. She made a decent pretense of drinking the mugful Lady Rhys had poured out for her, and managed half a slice of peach at her ladyship’s earnest hest that she needed something to keep her strength up. However, this was clearly a struggle. As soon as she could manage without being positively rude, she made her escape with her pitcherful of hot water. All three Rhyses looked after her with real concern.

“There’s something more wrong with that woman than getting tickled with a violin string,” Sir Emlyn observed as he chased the last bite of Spam around his otherwise empty plate.

“I’m wondering whether she may be afraid the strangler picked the wrong bed,” said Madoc.

“Madoc, that’s really penetrating of you. More tea, anyone?” Lady Rhys peered into the depleted pot, shook her head sadly, and set it down on the plate that had been pressed into service as a trivet. “I must say I’ve been wondering the same thing. Lucy Shadd seems such an unlikely victim. Not that I haven’t felt like strangling her myself once or twice, and you may make of that what you please.”

“But how could we replace her on such short notice?” Sir Emlyn pointed out. “And who’d do the work if she weren’t around?”

“I know, dear. Lucy’s frightfully efficient, one has to admit. And that’s what’s so scary, don’t you think? It’s a shocking thing for me to say, I know, but I’d be easier in my mind if it had been Frieda. She’s a born victim, you see, whereas Lucy’s just the opposite. And that must mean a totally undiscriminating murderer, wouldn’t you say? A psychopath, I believe they’re called? They used to be just loonies when I was a girl, but I understand nowadays that’s not considered quite nice. Some crazed desert rat, perhaps, who just happened to wander by in a bad mood.”

“We’re not in the desert, Sillie,” her husband pointed out.

“A frustrated prospector, then. It’s got to be someone, Emmy.”

“Someone other than ourselves, you mean. I understand your feelings, Sillie, but we mustn’t jump to conclusions. What do the others say, Madoc?”

“I’m not sure they all know, Tad. Helene Dufresne and Corliss Blair do. They caught me breaking into their room when I was checking around to see who was where, and I had to explain my way out. Those two jokers from the brass section know, also. I caught them with Steve MacVittie, the pilot, in Delicia Fawn’s room.”

“Good heffens, was she running an orgy?”

“Not quite.” Madoc described the unedifying but hardly orgiastic circumstances in which he’d found the four of them. “Anyway, nobody said anything about the incident at breakfast. I don’t know whether they were waiting for me to speak first, which I didn’t have time to do; whether they were trying to pretend it hadn’t happened; or whether the word simply hadn’t gotten around.”

“Orchestras are hotbeds of gossip usually,” Lady Rhys observed. “Helene and Corliss have struck me as being decent sorts, though; they may have kept their mouths shut on principle. And I doubt whether Delicia Fawn has ever had a thought that didn’t directly concern herself.”

“Good point, Mother,” said Madoc. “Steve MacVittie would no doubt have been embarrassed to bring the subject up, considering how he’d learned the news. As for Rintoul and Jasper, they had every reason to stay off it. Right now, they’ve set themselves up quite neatly as prime suspects.”

“That’s a bit of all right as far as I’m concerned,” said Lady Rhys. “The less said, the less panic, don’t you think? Now I expect I’d better take something up to poor Lucy. The rest of those peaches ought to slip down easily. Too bad there’s no pretty sauce dish to put them in. These thick little bowls make me think of Aunt Oldrys bathing her canary. Ah well, what can’t be cured must be endured with equanimity. And tea, of course. Is there a speck of hot water left, Madoc?”

“Just about.”

“Then you’d better heat some more for the washing up, hadn’t you? Thanks, dear.”

Lady Rhys blew a kiss in the general direction of her son’s right ear and went off with Lucy’s breakfast, such as it was, on a tray. Madoc and his father exchanged shrugs, picked up a bucket apiece, and went over to the pump.

“W
HY DON’T WE SIMPLY
bung all the dishes into the copper and let the water boil up around them?”

Sir Emlyn appeared to be quite taken with himself in the role of scullery boy. “And shouldn’t soap come into it somewhere? It seems to me there used to be a little wire cage one swished through the washing-up water. One put the leftover bits of soap in it, if one had any. One didn’t always, in wartime. I believe there was also ground-up soap in a box one shook some out of.”

“Nowadays one usually has a plastic bottle that squirts,” said Madoc. “I’ll tend to the dishes. Why don’t you rinse out the tins so they won’t draw varmints? Use one of the buckets, and dump the water out on the ground. If we let it go down the sink, it will probably freeze there and bust the pipes, and we’re fairly well into the depredations already.”

“I’ll squash them flat.” Sir Emlyn was really warming up to his new job. “That will thwart the varmints good and proper. By the way, son, not to be indelicate but what are we going to do about what my old nanny used to call the vahses?”

“We let everybody cope with his or her own,” said Madoc firmly. “I hadn’t given it much thought, Tad; what would you suggest? Have people holler ‘gardy loo’ and chuck it out the upstairs window in the Edinburgh tradition? Or dig a decent-sized hole to empty them into and throw earth on top?”