Split Code: Dolly and the Nanny Bird

by Dorothy Dunnett

  ‘It compensates,’ I said, ‘for the times we keep our mouths shut. What was all that about different boards and different games? And now you’re bugging balls and breaking and entering. Why the big change in policy? What else have you done?’

  ‘Well, I searched the house while you were doing the ironing,’ said Johnson irritatingly. ‘And if the woolly ball had been in Rosamund’s room. I might have made a killing in blackmail. Tell me all about the Carl Schurz Park snatch.’ I sat down on my bed. ‘Wait a bit. Blackmail? Rosamund isn’t having it off with anybody. Too busy with charity luncheons.’

  ‘I know Rosamund isn’t having it off’ said Johnson patiently. ‘Although I can’t say I follow your reasoning. But Simon is. That is, on the nights he tells her he’s out on business, he tells the gallery people he’s at home. There’s a woolly ball that could have told us he wasn’t.’

  ‘Here’s a woolly nanny who can tell you he isn’t, either,’ I said. ‘Maybe he’s just feeling henpecked. Maybe someone’s painting his portrait. You didn’t find a small, valuable article called the Lesnovo ikon when you were hunting through your client’s house, did you?’

  There was a pause. ‘Well, go on,’ said Johnson. ‘The paralysed silence means you’ve got my attention.’

  ‘I wondered,’ I said. ‘Because I’ve just fished up a smashed ikon from Bunty Cole’s loo, and when I brought it over here, Rosamund burned it.’

  ‘All right,’ said Johnson. ‘You win.’ And sitting down, said politely, ‘Please tell me all that happened in the Carl Schurz Park, followed by all that happened in Bunty Cole’s loo.’ So I did, not missing out Comer or Beverley Eisenkopp, or Sukey and Grover, or Grandfather, or the gorilla-clad Hugo Panadek.

  ‘Panadek? What nationality’s that?’ Johnson asked.

  ‘Yugoslav,’ I said. ‘Claims to be an ex-Count from a long line of vampires. I have two questions to ask you. The Department set me up, you set me up, everyone set me up in this job because they hope I’m going to be approached by Mike Widdess’s killers. If I’m the target, who’s gunning for Benedict?’

  ‘Coincidence,’ Johnson said. ‘He’s got a rich grandmother in England. What’s the other question?’

  ‘I’ve asked it before. What are you doing on my board, if you’re playing a different game?’

  ‘I do apologize,’ Johnson said, ‘for intruding. But it’s rather difficult not to, when you’re playing with the same pieces. Can’t I have access to all your splendid inside information about the family Booker-Readman and their neighbours? All you have to do is talk into the ball and I’ll retrieve it.’

  ‘Why not move in?’ I said. I could hear the edge in my voice. ‘Rosamund asked you.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Johnson. ‘But it wouldn’t do, would it, for me or anyone else to take a close interest in the Booker-Readmans, or you, or the baby? Our strong point is our seeming ignorance. We don’t know Mike was murdered. We don’t know someone’s discovered your hobby. We’re simple British, weak in the bogglecogs. What was that stuff in the hall, incidentally?’

  I wondered at what stage in my ironing he had been pussyfooting up and down the stairs. I said, picking out the most controversial article. ‘It was Grover’s dummy.’

  ‘I allow Grover the benefit of the doubt. And this?’ Johnson said, holding up three torn bits of paper.

  I didn’t recognize them. ‘I emptied my pocket,’ I said. ‘Join them together and I’ll try to remember, if it matters.’

  ‘It matters,’ he said. He was practically on the floor, lying sprawled in the nursing chair I’d been using. He leaned over and arranged the papers in sequence.

  The words at the top said:

  MISSY’S GOLDEN AMERICAN WONDERLAND

  The text down below invited him to bring the kids to spend the most wonderful day of their lives in Missy’s Magical Garden, all-day tickets eight dollars inclusive: sample the Skyride, the Aqua Spectacle, the Great Wheel, the Safari Park, the Antique Car Ride.

  Between the two was a map of the Wonderland, upon which had been inked in an arrow beside a thing called The Great Shoot-Out. The arrow was blurred. ‘Well,’ said Johnson.

  I said, ‘It’s wet, but I don’t remember fishing it out of the loo. I’ve never seen it before.’

  Johnson leaned forward again. This time he reversed the three pieces of paper and fitted them together once more. Facing me was the blank side of the notice, with some words typewritten across it. They said, Shoot it out. Wear an M.M.A. badge. Don’t tell the cops or you’ll never see the kid again living.

  ‘The kidnap note,’ Johnson said. ‘Now you tell me how it got into your pocket. And if you think what I think an M.M.A. badge is.’

  I said, ‘It could be Metropolitan Museum of Art. The tin badge they give you instead of a ticket. Anyone can get them . . . I think I want to see that Benedict’s all right,’ and got up.

  ‘He’s all right,’ said Johnson patiently. ‘Keep your maternal instincts out of it for a moment and think. Where did the kidnap note come from?’

  ‘Have three guesses,’ I said. ‘The kidnapper or an accomplice slipped it into my pocket before he did the snatch. The kidnapper or an accomplice slipped it into Bunty’s pocket before, during or after he did the snatch. Or one of the many denizens of the Eisenkopp household, not excluding Sukey, put it into my pocket to encourage me to go to Missy’s Golden American Wonderland and get done over without telling the cops. Excuse the Bogart-nouveau vocabulary.’

  ‘I dig it,’ said Johnson. ‘You’ve thought, of course, that Rosamund could have put it on the hall table among the rest of the Eisenkopps’ night soil. If you really can’t remember having seen it before, I suppose we might as well turn it over to the police force and let them get themselves stomped at the Shoot-Out.’ He collected the three pieces and, rising, knelt beside the tape recorder and clicked it open. There was a step on the stairs.

  I shot to my feet.

  Johnson said, with interest, ‘Would that be Simon?’

  It wasn’t. I knew his tread on the staircase by now: he always ran upstairs, to keep his thigh muscles firm. I made a series of signals which Johnson totally ignored. Turning his head, he trained a gaze of genial expectation on the door. It burst open, and Comer Eisenkopp skidded into the room. ‘Good evening,’ said Johnson courteously.

  Comer stood, his nostrils opening and shutting. He was still in the same cashmere cardigan and striped shirt and tie he’d worn when he offered me a cheque for saving Sukey from Grover, or perhaps the colours were different. His black hair was still thickly oiled but a lock had escaped over his broad, beaky face and for all he didn’t stand very high, you were reminded of all that swimming, and squash, and the hard muscle under that tubby waistline. He had run up the stairs but he wasn’t wheezing.

  Nevertheless he took a deep breath before he said, ‘Would you believe it, I’ve got the wrong room? Is Mr Booker-Readman downstairs?’

  ‘They’re both out,’ I said. ‘This is my room, Mr Eisenkopp. And this is Mr Johnson, who is painting the baby’s portrait.’

  ‘Jeeze,’ said Comer Eisenkopp. He spreadeagled a broad, powerful hand and clenched Johnson’s in it. ‘I guess you both take me for some kind of idiot. I promised Simon a name and address, and clean forgot all about it till this moment. A friend of Beverley’s who wanted a blue dish.’

  ‘Majolica?’ Johnson said.

  Comer’s black eyes narrowed in the way I had cause to remember. ‘No. Name of Betty Lederer,’ Comer said. ‘You wouldn’t know her. So you’re painting Benedict?’

  ‘Well, sketching him at this stage,’ Johnson said apologetically. ‘I asked Mrs Booker-Readman if I could come by now and then. Confidentially, Benedict does better with Joanna than he does in the hands of his mother. Would you care to have a look?’

  I never interfere when genius is at work. I stayed dumb and watched while Johnson picked up a portfolio and drew therefrom a series of red crayon sketches of Benedict.

  He must have done
them, for God’s sake, while I was ironing. They were so like him that my eyes filled and I went to hunt for a Kleenex, leaving a pristine dent on my virgin bed that I hoped Comer noticed. I heard his voice alter behind me as he said, ‘Listen. These are fan-tastic.’ He looked up as I came back. ‘Where’s the baby? You could put them side by side and hardly know which from what.’

  I said, ‘I’ll bring him in. We put him next door while we talked about the next sitting.’ I got up again, to show willing. Then I saw where our visitor’s eyes were.

  ‘You use a tape while you’re painting?’ Comer said. He walked across and bent down and put his thumb on the starter button of Johnson’s tape recorder. I lunged to stop him. Johnson’s elbow hit my ribs and I halted, gasping. There was a whirring noise and the cassette began to unreel implacably.

  It wasn’t the tape of Benedict crying. It was quite a different sound: a kind of regular impact of flesh against flesh, allied to the sort of noise you hear in a beer vat. Johnson had swopped the cry-tape for a Japanese womb-recording.

  ‘Brings it home, doesn’t it?’ said Johnson. ‘I can hardly bear to eat and drink after listening to it. You might as well keep it, Joanna. I’ll need it for the next sitting anyway. You have children, Mr Eisenkopp?’

  ‘Two,’ said Comer automatically. ‘And their Gramps there, which just about makes three. I guess we need the noise of a Bourbon distillery working overtime to put him to sleep. New York treating you well?’

  ‘Not too badly for off-season,’ Johnson said. ‘I’m usually around for the America’s Cup, but I try to steer clear of the city.’

  His pullover was handknitted and his spectacles a social disaster, but I could see Comer’s eyes dwelling on his watch, and on the Gucci loafers. He said, ‘I never met a painter before who could tell one end of a boat from the other. You into racing here, Johnson?’

  ‘I keep my hand in,’ Johnson said. ‘But I don’t bring the Dolly over every time. I can generally find someone at the Club who’ll take me on.’ He got up and began to pack the drawings away.

  Comer said, ‘You know Howard Bigelow?’

  Howard Bigelow was Commodore of the Senior American Yacht Club.

  ‘I haven’t seen him since August,’ said Johnson. ‘And then not really to speak to: it was a drinks party on Britannia and I was going on to Balmoral. Perhaps you sail yourself?’

  ‘I was wondering,’ said Comer Eisenkopp, ‘whether you’d like a tiller in your hand for a day or two this Easter. I’ve a little boat, yeah, up at Cape Cod and we move up there for a week at that time. Nothing serious, you’d know: it’s too soon in the season. But some loafing and a party or two and a mite of fishing. The Booker- Readmans may spend a weekend with us: if Rosamund’s there, you could pack your brushes.’

  ‘Now, that’s very kind of you,’ Johnson said. He looked surprised, and I noticed it with some misgiving, for if anyone wasn’t surprised, it was Johnson.

  He smiled at me and then at Comer. ‘I really don’t know yet what my movements will be. But certainly, I shall remember. A little sailing, a little fishing: delightful.’ He grinned again, moving gently towards the door. And a little painting, I thought. Of Sukey and Grover, if Comer can get away with it.

  Comer said, ‘That’s settled then. I’ll ring you nearer the time. Make it a weekend if you’re busy, but we’ll hope to have you much longer. It’s been a privilege,’ said Comer Eisenkopp, and shook Johnson’s hand.

  He was still thinking about Johnson as I walked him down the stairs.

  ‘I guess that’s a genuine English gentleman. The real kind,’ he said. ‘I sure wonder what he asks for his pictures.’

  ‘About fifteen thousand dollars, they tell me; but he just paints when he feels like it. He’s in Who’s Who,’ I said helpfully. If Balmoral and the Britannia had been brought into play, I might as well lob in the rest. I added, ‘Do you want to leave a note about Mrs Lederer?’

  ‘A note?’ said Comer.

  ‘A note for Mr Booker-Readman,’ I prompted. I was enjoying myself. ‘About the blue dish for . . .’

  ‘Oh. Ah,’ said Comer Eisenkopp. ‘You just reminded me there. I’d gotten so taken up with meeting this painter guy that I nearly forgot. Yeah. If I might just use his desk, I’ll write a line for him.’

  He did, downstairs, and departed, rather slowly. He was still wearing his carpet slippers. When I got back upstairs, I found Johnson had gone also, and Benedict was back, asleep in his own corner. I locked my door and went to bed.

  Next morning I showed Rosamund the Wonderland note and she phoned the police. I also told her I let Johnson come in to sketch Benedict, and about Comer’s visit.

  Simon, it was clear, hadn’t come home. I followed Rosamund into the study, where she opened Comer Eisenkopp’s envelope and read his note. I said, ‘Mrs Booker-Readman . . . When the police come, do I tell them about the broken ikon?’

  She didn’t wear much makeup as a rule, but she had put blue eyeshadow and white high-lighter all round her lids that morning. She had these handsome eyes, heavy lidded and large, and her hair had just enough weight to curl under on either side of her jaw line. She was smoking English cigarettes, hard, through her holder. She said, ‘If they mention it, of course you must tell them. If they don’t mention it, I think you must consult your own conscience. But I warn you, it might mean real trouble for Bunty.’

  I looked perplexed. ‘You said it was a cheap reproduction?’ I ventured.

  ‘Do you think the Eisenkopps would know the difference?’ Rosamund said. ‘I expect they paid a fortune for it, and the girl let their bloody brat splinter it. She meant it to flush down the loo, and as far as you or I are concerned, that’s what happened.’

  ‘Unless the police ask,’ I repeated, acquiescing as a good nanny should. I thought of the Sea Monkeys and wondered if my passage through life was destined to be marked for ever with a trail of blocked loos and abused drains and musical chamber pots.

  If you look after kids, one might say, you can’t grumble.

  The police visited The Great Shoot-Out at Missy’s Golden American Wonderland and reported that the stall assistant had vanished on the morning of the attempted kidnapping of Benedict. The stallholder, a Greek by the name of Alexei, had not seen him since, and knew nothing of him except for an address in the Bronx which turned out to be a false one. The police department did, however, turn up a set of fingerprints in the stall that tallied with prints on the trash cart in the Carl Shurz Park, proving that the assistant and the kidnapper were one and the same person. The name he had gone by was Rudi Klapper.

  By common consent, neither Bunty nor I told the police anything about the broken ikon. Bunty, questioned by a good-looking detective, was almost sure that the card had been in her pocket when she emptied its contents into the loo.

  The day after the police investigation Charlotte phoned and said they were all going to take the kids down to Missy’s Golden American Wonderland to see what it was all about, and why didn’t I come for the hell of it.

  ‘All’ proved to mean herself and Bunty and Donovan with the Eisenkopp and Mallard offspring, together with Johnson, who had offered to drive them.

  ‘In a Porsche?’ I said. That is, I admire sports cars, but there would be five adults and six children on this outing.

  ‘No. Apparently,’ Charlie said, ‘he needs a Mercedes-Benz to carry his canvases. What about it? Tomorrow?’

  I was off tomorrow. I agreed. I couldn’t make out whose idea it had been, except that it probably started with Bunty and Charlotte, and spread from there to Donovan.

  If Johnson thought Benedict’s kidnapping had nothing to do with Mike Widdess, then his share in this trip was pure mischief. On the other hand . . .

  I thought about the other hand all morning.

  I switched the tape recorder on for the feed. Benedict took two spoonfuls of oat gruel and his formula, and went to sleep to the glug of Japanese intestines digesting their bamboo chop suey.

 
I wrote home to mother: a long, newsy letter that could have been broadcast coast-to-coast without wakening anything, never mind a suspicion. As I wrote it, I saw in my mind’s eye Comer Eisenkopp in his carpet slippers, staring at Johnson as he stood in my doorway.

  You could say he looked thunderstruck. So should we have been.

  We hadn’t asked him the obvious question. If the house was locked, and it was, how had Comer got inside that evening?

  SIX

  Missy’s Golden American Wonderland is one hour due west from Manhattan for adults. For carsick children it stretches to an hour and a half or even two hours away.

  Johnson’s hired Mercedes-Benz was the size of a bus and had everything: child-proof locks, automatic windows and compulsory seatbelts without which the dashboard apostrophized you in green but wouldn’t start up the engine. It arrived at the brown-stone with Denny Donovan sitting grinning by Johnson, which left me to get into the back, along with the four junior Mallards, the two junior Eisenkopps, Charlotte and Bunty.

  It was a foregone conclusion that Bunty would bring the baby on an all-day fun-fair excursion: if she didn’t it would rank as a day off. Sukey, in a carrycot with the hood and the apron both clipped, was asleep in a dark, satisfactory fug, and long might she remain so.

  Grover, full of Tootsie Rolls, grits and tinned apricot, was wearing a pattern-matched shirt and sweater from Sandpiper, while the four Ducklings, predictably, were full of Freakies and dressed by Marks and Sparks from their skins to their anoraks.

  I asked Donovan if he was a plant doctor and he said Sure, he thought everyone knew, and did I need any help.

  Charlotte asked Johnson what he had for breakfast and he said Hanky-Panky, the Nifty Goodie (A little Hanky-Panky will Brighten your Day).

  Donovan slapped him on the back and the Mercedes shot across three lanes and back again, causing the youngest Mallard to belch. There followed the first of our many stops by the wayside.