McNally's Dare

by Lawrence Sanders

  “Si. I go now. They are in the drawing room.”

  When Maria returned she beckoned me onward and I followed her into the drawing room where I had commiserated with Nifty after the abrupt termination of his Tennis Everyone! benefit. Mrs. MacNiff was seated on a lovely couch (Duncan Phyfe) with a tabby on her lap and two other cats, a gray and a black, reclining on Mr. Phyfe’s masterpiece. The three felines eyed the intruder with suspicion. I am not a cat person and suspected they could tell. Also, my lunch was beginning to talk back.

  Nifty was in a wing chair (Queen Anne), reading The Wall Street Journal. Both were dressed casually, she in skirt, blouse and sensible oxfords, he in flannels and a rugby shirt. Nifty made a motion to rise but I stopped him with a wave of my hand. “Don’t get up, sir. I won’t keep you. I just wanted to report what I’ve learned regarding...” I hesitated and was saved by Mrs. MacNiff.

  “Lance Talbot,” she said. “I know all about it, Archy. Why don’t you have a seat.” She patted the space next to her on the Duncan Phyfe, annoying the cats. “Shoo, Iago. You, too, Othello.” When I started at hearing the names she laughed, saying, “And this, of course, is Desdemona.”

  I couldn’t think of a more compatible trio. “Is she married to Othello?” I asked, gingerly taking the place Othello and Iago had vacated. They had retreated to the far corner of the couch, relinquishing their position, but not their domain.

  “Actually, he prefers Iago, who we discovered was a female after we had named her. Or, I should say, Othello discovered she was a female.”

  Looking at the two snuggling in a corner of the sofa I hoped the MacNiffs had checked for themselves and not relied solely on Othello’s scrutiny. One never knows, do one?

  “Can we offer you a drink, Archy?” Mr. MacNiff asked.

  “No, thank you, sir. I had two slices of pizza with anchovies and a can of beer for lunch and a drink would be like trying to put out a fire with gasoline.”

  Mrs. MacNiff laughed heartily at my little jest. She is a small woman with dark blue eyes and a smiling face covered with nothing more than a dusting of powder and framed by a halo of white hair that showed no trace of blue.

  “I swear that jacket once belonged to Malcolm,” Mrs. MacNiff stated.

  “I beg your pardon, ma’am?”

  “She means the Lilly Pulitzer you donned for the interview,” her husband explained.

  I was certainly getting a lot of mileage out of that romp. “I said it belonged to my father but he swears he never owned one” I told them.

  “Knowing Prescott, I’m sure he didn’t,” Nifty said.

  “And how is your mother?” Mrs. MacNiff asked.

  “Fine, except for a little forgetfulness now and then.”

  “Tell me about it,” she said. “I walk into rooms and wonder what I’m doing there.”

  “Well, dear, we know why Archy is here and I would like to hear what he has to report,” Nifty gently chided his wife.

  “Oh, I forgot all about that,” she responded, giving me a sly wink.

  I waited until I was certain both parties had their say before beginning my report. “Well, sir, I fear I have some disquieting news.”

  Hearing this Iago arched his back—excuse me, her back—and meowed. Nifty began to fold his newspaper as if it would be some time before he could return to it. “Let’s have it, Archy,” he said.

  “You asked me to learn what I could about the newly arrived Lance Talbot and poke my nose into the unfortunate demise of Jeff Rodgers.”

  “We spoke to Mr. Rodgers,” Mrs. MacNiff announced. “The funeral is tomorrow. I don’t know if we should attend...”

  “Helen!” Nifty cut her off. “Please let Archy have his say.”

  “Sorry, dear.”

  “I’m afraid there’s a connection between the two, sir,” I related.

  “Connection?” Nifty questioned, as if he had suffered a gross injustice.

  “It seems, sir, that Jeff Rodgers and Lance Talbot were boyhood friends. In fact, they attended the Palm Beach Day School together, at Mrs. Talbot’s expense. Mrs. Talbot being Lance’s mother, not his grandmother.”

  “He must be the other boy in the picture,” Mrs. MacNiff exclaimed. “Don’t look at me like that, Malcolm. You asked me to dig up a picture of young Lance to give Archy, and I found one.” The tabby flew off her lap a moment before Mrs. MacNiff got to her feet and went straight for the desk-on-frame. I will say the MacNiffs’ treasures were for use and not for show.

  From the drawer she removed a small photo and proudly handed it to me. I found myself looking at two boys, aged nine or ten, in baseball uniforms, their gloved hands raised as if they were shagging flies.

  “The boy on your right is young Lance as I remember him,” Mrs. MacNiff told me.

  He could or could not be the Lance Talbot now in Palm Beach. This was the trouble I had anticipated from the start when asking to see a photo of young Lance. One changes in ten years. Especially the years from pre-pubescence to maturity. The other boy could be Jeff Rodgers or any other boyhood friend of Lance Talbot. But I now knew of someone who could tell me if the other boy was Jeff. In fact, it could be the person who had taken the photo. Jeff’s father.

  Watching me scrutinize the photo, Nifty said, “I’ve been looking at it since Helen pulled it out of her collection. All I can say is it doesn’t disprove Talbot’s claim of being Margaret’s grandson. I mean he’s a white, Anglo-Saxon male.”

  “Is that racist, Malcolm? Or sexist?” Mrs. MacNiff wondered.

  “No, dear, it’s a fact.”

  “My feelings exactly, sir,” I said. “Mind if I keep the photo, Mrs. MacNiff?”

  “Please do; Archy. I wish I could be of more help but you must remember that Malcolm and I were close to Margaret Talbot but seldom came in contact with Jessica and young Lance. Jessica was always a bit of a loner. Do you think the boy is an imposter? Poor Aunt Margaret was rather vague on the subject.”

  “My dear, she was on her deathbed,” Nifty reminded his wife. “Where did you learn that Lance and Jeff were once buddies?”

  “From a friend of Jeff’s,” I told him. Then, not wishing to prolong the inevitable, I dropped the other shoe. “I have reason to believe Jeff Rodgers was blackmailing Lance Talbot, sir.”

  Iago leaped from her corner onto my lap.

  ELEVEN

  I TOLD THE MACNIFFS as much as I could without compromising Denny’s position. One cannot serve two masters, especially when their interests converge. Judging by the speed with which this case was progressing, I would say Denny and Nifty were fast approaching a collision course, with Archy poised at the crossroads. In a very short time I would have to make them aware of each other, but not right now. I needed solid proof that Jeff was blackmailing Talbot and what secret he possessed that enabled him to do so. The reason for the blackmail was the crux of my case and Jeff Rodgers took the reason to his grave.

  “This is very disquieting,” Nifty said after listening to my spiel. “If this boy, Jeff, was killed because of what he had on Lance Talbot, we have to assume that Lance is the murderer.”

  “Assume nothing, is my credo, Mr. MacNiff, and remember, I said I could vouch for Talbot not being near the pool at the crucial time. You, Dennis Darling, Talbot and I played a set just prior to the time of the murder. After our game Lance Talbot didn’t stray far from the tennis courts. In fact I saw him talking on his cell phone about the time Jeff was chloroformed and pushed into the pool.”

  “Perhaps he hired a hit man,” Mrs. MacNiff suggested. “Or should I say a hit person?”

  “Helen, really!” her husband admonished.

  “If he did,” I reminded Mrs. MacNiff, “he, or she, was recruited from among your guests.”

  “Oh, dear,” she lamented, “I never thought of that.”

  Mention of the MacNiffs’ guests reminded me of Vivian Emerson and I asked Mrs. MacNiff if she knew her.

  “I can’t say I do, Archy. I’ll have to check my guest reg
istry. Is it important?”

  “I’m not sure, ma’am. I suspect she knows the von Brecht woman and as von Brecht is staying with Lance Talbot I think I should try to learn the connection between the two women. There’s no rush. At your convenience, is fine.”

  “Do you think Holga von Brecht and Lance Talbot are lovers, Archy? They say she’s eighty if she’s a day.”

  “Helen,” Nifty sighed. “Archy is not here to gossip, and that woman’s love life and age are not your business.”

  “Oh, Malcolm, don’t be such a party pooper” she accused. “She’s living with the boy who claims to be Aunt Margaret’s grandson, and if we want to know more about him, Holga von Brecht is the only person who can help us. She knew him in Switzerland and none of us did.”

  Score one for Helen MacNiff. I nodded in agreement, but very cautiously. Iago was now asleep on my lap and I thought it imprudent to disturb her. The sages tell us to let sleeping cats lie.

  “Holga and Lance are very close,” I offered, “be they lovers or just friends. We must remember that she will not tell us, or anyone, anything she doesn’t want known. That’s why I’m interested in talking to someone who might know Holga and be willing to share.”

  This was not the time or place to add that I believed there were ill feelings between Holga and Vivian Emerson, which might prompt Vivian to blab more than if they were on friendly terms.

  “And who is this person who told you the dead boy had information on Lance Talbot he was trying to sell?” Nifty asked.

  “I’m afraid, sir, I can’t divulge my source at this time. I promised him anonymity.” It was as good a line as any and one people read so often in their daily newspaper they never think to question it.

  “How exciting,” Mrs. MacNiff said, pleased that her husband had been rebuffed. “Is your informant anyone we know, Archy?”

  “Helen, we’re not here to play twenty questions, either,” Nifty snapped, rousing Iago, who looked up at me and meowed. “And you think Jeff had reason to believe that Lance Talbot is an imposter?”

  “Just a hunch, sir. Coupled with what you told me about Mrs. Talbot’s doubts, I couldn’t think of anything else Jeff might have on Lance. As Mrs. MacNiff just said, Lance has been away from these parts for ten years and Jeff Rodgers has never left here. What else could he know?”

  “It seems far-fetched,” Nifty claimed, “that the boy would know something Aunt Margaret didn’t.”

  “But she did know something,” Mrs. MacNiff cried. “The king is dead. The king must be Lance.”

  Nifty shook his head. “King? Why not prince? Or my grandson? It makes no sense.”

  “I don’t know why she used the word king, sir, but I now believe that Mrs. Talbot was on to something. At first I suspected her words were the rambling of a heavily sedated old lady. But now that we suspect this person calling himself Lance Talbot was being blackmailed by a childhood friend who was as close to him then as was his grandmother, I have to conclude that Mrs. Talbot was not hallucinating.”

  “Archy, I appreciate the fact that you can’t disclose your source, but are you certain he, or she, is reliable? Did Jeff Rodgers actually talk to this person and try to sell him information on Lance Talbot?”

  “The answer is yes to both questions, sir. And don’t forget, Jeff had been boasting to his friends that he was going to come into big money very soon. The connection between these facts cannot be ignored.”

  “Oh, I have no intention of ignoring anything, Archy. I owe it to Aunt Margaret to get at the truth, not only as the executor of her estate but as an old and dear friend. What I didn’t count on was the murder of a young man in my pool. As I said, it’s disquieting.”

  “Don’t worry, dear, Archy will sort it all out,” Mrs. MacNiff said with more conviction than I felt at the moment. Despite their little tiffs her words of consolation were a clear indication of the unwavering affection between the long-married couple. How like my parents, I thought. Would I, one day, be so blessed? Tempus fugit, Archy, tempus fugit.

  The question I was waiting for now came from Nifty. “How much of this do the police know, Archy?”

  “None of it,” I said. “And until I have solid proof of the connection between Jeff and Lance Talbot I have no obligation to report what I’ve learned to them. Finger-pointing based on hearsay and speculation is dangerous and libelous.”

  Nifty liked that. Until proven otherwise, Lance Talbot was one of us, and if he was being blackmailed for any reason other than his true identity—well, the less the police knew, the better. Nifty’s crowd firmly believed that to err is human and to forgive divine—as long as it was one of them being errant.

  I hated to put a damper on Nifty’s divinity but I thought I should prepare him for the worst. “Right now the police are interested in Jeff’s friends and associates but when they come up with nothing, which I think they will, they’ll have to look...”

  “In our backyard,” Mrs. MacNiff concluded.

  I was enjoying this delightful lady’s charm and wit but I fear her husband had had his fill of it. “Everyone at the benefit, Helen, wasn’t a friend of ours.”

  “Yes, dear. But the scene of the crime was our backyard.”

  He couldn’t argue with that, so he jumped on me. “What’s the next step, Archy?”

  “Well, sir, I was hoping you might give a party.”

  “A party? Are you mad, Archy?”

  “Actually, sir, a pool party.”

  “The toe,” the clever Mrs. MacNiff cried. “The next step is to see if our Lance Talbot is or is not missing the little toe on his right foot.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “It will end all the guesswork and I can’t think of any other way of going about it short of asking him to remove his shoe and sock. That would be unseemly.”

  “I think,” Nifty countered, “giving a party around the scene of the crime, as Helen put it, would be unseemly.”

  “Nonsense,” she answered. “The police have removed all their yellow tape we were not supposed to cross and the grandchildren will be here this weekend and I refuse to tell them the pool is off-limits. We can’t avoid using it forever, Malcolm, and I think Archy has given us the perfect reason for doing so now.”

  “When we began probate with Aunt Margaret’s lawyer,” Nifty said thoughtfully, “Lance submitted his passport for the required identification. As I recall it passed muster, meaning it contained his picture.”

  “Was it a picture of his face or his foot, Malcolm?”

  “Oh, Helen, for God’s sake be serious.”

  “I am,” she said, and she did have a point.

  “If I may venture a guess, sir, Lance’s original passport was applied for when he was ten years old. If he and his mother traveled around Europe, I imagine the photo was updated as the boy grew. The last update could have been made when he came here, at which time a new photo was taken of the man claiming to be Lance Talbot.”

  “Very good, Archy,” Mrs. MacNiff complimented. Naturally, I concurred.

  Still looking for an out, Nifty argued, “Suppose he flatly refuses to come to our pool party?”

  “That, sir, will tell us a lot, too. If he knows about the amputated toe, he’ll avoid being seen barefoot. If he doesn’t know about it, he’ll fall into our trap. If he is the real Lance Talbot it makes no difference either way, so why not have a go at it?”

  “Why not, Malcolm?” my ally joined in.

  “Okay,” he relented. “You make the arrangements, Helen, and don’t forget to ask the von Brecht woman, too. I have some papers the boy must sign, so you might use that as an excuse for the visit, then tell him to bring his trunks as we’re having a few people in for lunch and a dip. If it doesn’t rain that day, he’ll be one of those people who swim in rubber shoes or fins.”

  “Your optimism is appreciated, Malcolm,” Mrs. MacNiff quipped.

  “May I suggest someone whom I would like to be invited?”

  “Of course, Archy,” Mrs. MacNiff quickly
replied. “A lady friend?”

  “Thank you, ma’am, I’ll think about that. It was Dennis Darling I had in mind.”

  “The investigative snoop?” Nifty said, pulling a face. “His magazine offered my charity trust a hefty check plus an invitation to our journalism students to submit their work with a promise to publish the best of the lot. All they asked in return was for Darling to be included in the Tennis Everyone! event. How could I refuse?”

  “Clearly you couldn’t, sir,” I agreed.

  “Why him?” Mrs. MacNiff asked me.

  Anticipating the question, I had concocted a reply that was not entirely untrue. “Everyone is aware that Darling is in Palm Beach to gather information for a so-called exposé on our town. I want to see how Lance Talbot acts in the presence of a seasoned reporter nosing around for salacious scandal. If Talbot has something to hide besides his right foot, it should be an engaging afternoon.”

  Seeing Nifty about to protest, I added, “I know Talbot met Darling briefly the day of the benefit, but that was on the tennis court and I doubt if Talbot knew who Darling was that afternoon.”

  If Jeff was using Dennis Darling as a threat, Talbot damn well knew who and what Dennis Darling was all about when he faced him across that net. I wanted Denny at the pool party for the reason I had given the MacNiffs. He was a cunning and experienced observer of scams and the people who made a living off them. I had to convince Nifty of this without outing Denny.

  Nifty stated his position. “I don’t want it to appear that we’re encouraging a snoop and tattling on our neighbors.”

  Mrs. MacNiff told it like it was, saying, “The word is out along the Boulevard to shun Mr. Dennis Darling.”

  I told her I knew this. “But we have a mission, and Darling can be of help to us even if he doesn’t know it.” Appealing to Mrs. MacNiff, I pleaded, “Let’s have him for the same reason you felt it was not inappropriate to use the pool so soon after the tragedy—to learn if the man calling himself Lance Talbot is who he claims to be.”

  My pep talk was met with silence, except for Iago who started to purr in triumph as my eyes began to itch.