The Palace Guard

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “Smear it on your face, then wipe it off with tissues. With any luck the makeup will come, too.”

  “Show me.”

  Sarah plastered her own cheeks with the white grease, then in exasperation did his, too. They scrubbed and smeared until both were more or less back to their normal hues.

  “Now we must change. Will you go first, or shall I?”

  “Why don’t we just turn our backs and be ladies and gentlemen?”

  “All right, it is getting awfully late.” And Cousin Mabel was quite some distance away. Sarah flipped the dirty Venetian blinds shut, retreated behind the desk to give some semblance of privacy, and unwrapped her sari. Then came the problem of getting out of that blouse, and there she stuck, literally. She managed to get the bottom up just far enough to immobilize her shoulder joints. Her arms were useless. She squirmed, she struggled. Nothing would budge. At last she gasped, “You’ll have to help me.”

  “My God, how did you ever get into this thing in the first place?” Bittersohn tugged with all his might. The blouse came off, and there was Sarah.

  That did it, of course. She’d known this was going to happen sooner or later. She hadn’t expected it to happen in a grimy office on the Windy Corner with Bittersohn in his undershirt and herself in nothing but a pair of panty hose and both their faces greasy with cheap cold cream. And Mr. Porter-Smith, like as not, already on his way to the library in his wine-colored tuxedo with the burgundy satin lapels expecting her to be there to pour his sherry. It shouldn’t be happening like this. It shouldn’t be happening at all with dear, darling Alexander only five months dead. Yet she’d wanted it to happen. She wanted it to go on happening until everything had happened that could happen, but she mustn’t let it. She pulled away and began putting on her clothes.

  “I’m sorry,” said Bittersohn huskily. “That was unpardonable of me.”

  “I know,” she answered with her head turned away. “That’s why I kept slapping your face and telling you to stop. Oh, Max, I—” She had her blouse and skirt on now. Maybe it would be all right to go back into his arms, just for a moment. “Could you—bear with me a little while? Give me a chance to get my feet under me?”

  “Then what?” he murmured into the back of her neck.

  “Then we’ll have to see what develops, won’t we?” She could hear her voice shaking. So was her body. “You may decide you’d rather not be bothered.”

  “Sarah, for God’s sake! Do you know what it’s like for me, lying alone down there in the basement and knowing you’re upstairs in that double bed by yourself? It’s getting so I have to chain myself to the bedposts.”

  “Well, it’s no picnic for me either, if you want to know. Furthermore, you don’t have any bedposts, so don’t be melodramatic. Come on, get dressed and let’s go home before Charles evicts us both for lack of couth.”

  “Jesus, you’re a hard woman.” Yet Bittersohn was smiling as they left the office.

  They walked back across the Common. It was silly to take a cab for so short a distance, and pleasant for a weary young woman to hang on the arm of a gallant gentleman who kept assisting her over the curbstones and potholes even when there weren’t any. They went in the back way because it would have been silly to risk Mrs. Sorpende’s seeing them together and perhaps remembering something they didn’t want her to know. The little dark entry where the trash cans were kept happened to be a safe though unromantic nook for a landlady to get kissed in by a boarder without being caught. It would have been silly to pass up the chance.

  What with avoiding all that silliness, it was perilously close to dinnertime when Sarah rushed into the kitchen panting, “Mariposa, I’m so sorry. Is everything all right?”

  “Comin’ along just fine, honey. Where you been all this time?”

  “I told you, at the lawyer’s office.”

  “Yeah, that’s what you told me. El señor Max, he been at the lawyer’s office, too?”

  “Of course not! We simply happened to run into one another.”

  “Must have been some collision!”

  “I’ve got to change.”

  Sarah might have known Mariposa would see them coming in the back way together and draw the obvious conclusion as to why it took her so long to get upstairs. When she’d got to her room and caught a glimpse of her smudged face and disordered garments in the mirror, she decided she wouldn’t have believed the story about the lawyer, either. Well, Mariposa was a fine one to talk.

  She did a fast clean-up and threw on an indestructible dinner dress of black crepe that had seen her mother through many a season before Sarah fell heir to it. If she was subconsciously trying to remind herself that she was still a widow mourning her beloved husband she couldn’t be succeeding any too well. She’d no sooner got down to the library than Mrs. Gates commented, “Mrs. Kelling, you look positively radiant tonight. May one hope that your meeting was successful?”

  “We’ve made some progress, at any rate,” said Sarah, trying not to look at Mr. Bittersohn and sensing that he was trying not to look at her. “Mrs. Sorpende, thank you so much for taking my place. You do it so much better than I. Charles, have I time for a quick sherry before dinner?”

  “You have five minutes, madam.” Charles was clearly miffed at not having been able to play to a full house during the past hour.

  Sarah took the drink anyway. She felt the need. “How was your trip to the Madam’s, Mrs. Sorpende?”

  “Highly educational.” Mrs. Sorpende appeared radiant, too. Surely she hadn’t fallen for C. Edwald? How could she even tolerate the man, unless she was taking into consideration his wealth, social position, and availability? Mrs. Palmerston had died ages ago of sheer exasperation, or so Anora Protheroe claimed. “To be sure,” Mrs. Sorpende went on, “there were many points on which I should require a great deal of instruction. Do you think it would be in order for me to ask your cousin Mr. Brooks Kelling to elucidate?”

  “I think it would be quite in order. I’m sure Brooks knows lots more than Mr. Palmerston.” Sarah caught Charles’s eye and nodded. “Shall we go in?”

  She didn’t dare let Mr. Bittersohn sit beside her tonight, so she used Mrs. Gates and Mr. Porter-Smith for buffers. He in retaliation turned his attention to Miss LaValliere. Mrs. Sorpende got into a conversation about Madam Wilkins with Mrs. Gates, who could well remember the eccentric millionairess. Professor Ormsby, as usual, concentrated on eating everything within sight. That left Sarah to Eugene Porter-Smith and she was content that it should be so. One didn’t have to converse with Mr. Porter-Smith, one had only to nod at regular intervals and let one’s mind wander whither it listed. Sarah didn’t dare let hers wander to what had happened in Bittersohn’s office, so she concentrated on the sedan chair.

  Why would Witherspoon’s killer have had to hide in it? If he was one of the other guards, he could have strolled over pretending to look at the clock as Dolores Tawne suggested, commit a minor offense in the fountain as Nick Fieringer claimed they did, or simply to stretch his legs and chat a moment. Sarah didn’t believe for a moment that every single one of the guards, except probably the timid Melanson, was all that punctilious about never leaving his station when there was a lull in the flow of visitors.

  If the killer was somebody Witherspoon didn’t know, he or she could have posed as a casual visitor, perhaps call the guard over to ask a question or start to do a spot of damage so that Witherspoon would rush out from the Titian Room to stop him. But if it was somebody who knew Joe Witherspoon and wasn’t supposed to be in the palazzo at that time, such as Mr. Fitzroy, the superintendent, who was supposed to be taking the day off—she realized she’d forgotten to nod at the right time and Mr. Porter-Smith was looking put out.

  “Do go on,” she begged. “You have such a graphic way of explaining things.” Actually she hadn’t the least notion what he’d been talking about but Mr. Porter-Smith was quite ready to take her urging at face value and let her get back to her ponderings.

  Who else
might have turned up when he shouldn’t have? Dolores Tawne? No, she appeared to have carte blanche to come and go as she pleased. Dolores’s brother Jimmy? He was said to have been sick, but was he? Might he have pretended to stay away in order to give himself an alibi? Then how would he have got up that all too open Grand Staircase without being seen?

  Unless he’d stayed inside the museum all the previous night. But he couldn’t have stayed the following night, too, because the museum was searched. Had he gone back inside the chair and trusted to luck he’d be overlooked in the confusion that was sure to follow Witherspoon’s death? Disguised himself as an Indian? Sarah thought she’d better not think too much about disguises.

  That act of Brown’s with the chapel silver might well have been prearranged to draw attention away from the Grand Salon so that somebody who was in fact hidden in the sedan chair so conveniently near the stairway would have a chance to get away while Brown was pretending to revive and drawing attention to the imaginary assault.

  Brown’s being murdered afterward would make sense in that context. If you’d played a part in somebody’s murder plot, that somebody might decide you weren’t safe to be left alive, especially if you were lazy, untrustworthy, and inclined to nip on the job. Unlikely as he sounded from the little she’d heard of him, Sarah thought Jimmy Agnew couldn’t be counted out, if only because his station was so convenient to Witherspoon’s and because he was used to doing what he was told to do by his sister, the ubiquitous handy woman.

  And who else? Nick Fieringer? Sarah caught her breath. Theoretically Nick should have been down on the second floor in the Tintoretto Room during the concert, waiting there alone until the performers had finished their playing and taken their bows and gone back there for the modest reception that would follow. But had he? Nobody was apt to have been checking on him, and even during the aftermath of the concert he could have absented himself and not been greatly missed.

  She’d noticed on the one or two other occasions when she’d been to performances Fieringer arranged that he had a trick of self-effacement he could turn on and off. It was part of his “good old Nick, always ready to take a backseat and let his performers have all the credit” routine. He could have nipped down that one flight of stairs even while she and Max were talking to Brooks over under the Romney, where their view of the stairs would have been obscured by those sedan chairs scattered about the balcony. Then he’d simply have mingled with the guests, pretending he’d been in the Tintoretto Room all the time.

  If anybody had happened to see him coming from the third floor, he could have used that obscene excuse of having gone up to the source of the fountain to relieve himself. Since the top basin was on the far side of the courtyard from the staircase, almost directly opposite where Joe Witherspoon had gone over the balustrade, he could even have claimed he’d seen the guard throw himself over, only he hadn’t had to perjure himself because he’d got away with it. Assuming of course that she wasn’t maligning an innocent man.

  The performers themselves were assuredly innocent. They’d been on public view all the time. But what about those tacky friends of Bernie the pianist? According to Lydia Ouspenska they were all petty thieves to begin with. Bengo painted genuine old masterpieces, Lupe was an operator; there was no telling what the rest might be up to. Sarah could believe almost anything of that lot but why should they have hidden in the sedan chair? It was unlikely Witherspoon would have known any of them, and they all looked much alike anyway.

  Except Lydia Ouspenska. The countess would stand out anywhere. Since she knew Dolores Tawne and had been Palmerston’s mistress it was more than likely she’d visited the palazzo on various occasions, and Witherspoon had been there since the beginning of time. He’d surely have recognized Lydia if she’d let him see her, and that sedan chair was precisely the sort of exotic hiding place that would appeal to her sense of drama.

  Sarah didn’t want it to be Lydia. Enough of this. She gave Mr. Porter-Smith a final nod, turned him over to Miss LaValliere, and started talking to Mrs. Gates about Seiji Ozawa.

  Chapter 14

  THIS HAPPENED TO BE one of those evenings when everybody was going somewhere. Mrs. Gates had a spare ticket to Symphony and asked Mrs. Sorpende to go with her. Professor Ormsby had a faculty meeting. Miss LaValliere’s grandmother on Mount Vernon Street was giving a reception and had commanded Jennifer to show up with a few presentable young men, so Mr. Porter-Smith was obliging with his august self and a couple of his underlings from the accounting office. Mariposa and Charles had plans of their own, no doubt.

  That left Sarah alone with Max Bittersohn. She was wondering if it would be madness to invite him up to her private sitting room and he was no doubt wondering whether she’d be mad enough to ask him, when the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” Sarah said, rather glad of an excuse to break the tension.

  “No, I will. I don’t want you answering doors after dark.” The dominant male strode to the hallway. A moment later Sarah heard him say, “Advance and give the password.”

  “Wilkins, I expect,” came Brooks Kelling’s voice. “Are you receiving tonight?”

  “Sure. My esteemed landlady and I were just wondering where we could find a third for pinochle. What’s up?”

  “First, I thought you’d be interested to know that Palmerston called a meeting of the guards this morning, myself included, and informed us he’s arranged with an outside expert to make an appraisal of the paintings in the museum.”

  “I was wondering when he’d think of that. Who’s he getting, do you know?”

  “A Spaniard connected with the Prado, I believe. His name is Dr. Aguinaldo Ruy Lopez.”

  “Do tell. When’s he supposed to be coming?”

  “Tomorrow no less. Palmerston says he’s flying Ruy Lopez in from Barcelona at his own expense.”

  “I thought the Prado was in Madrid,” said Sarah.

  “It is. Please don’t inject trivia. As I was about to say, Palmerston told us that after the recent disturbing events, as he so genteelly alluded to them, he’d decided on the appraisal as a routine formality. He said it was a decision of the board of trustees, which is a lot of rot. They haven’t held a meeting in fifteen years.”

  “Was Mrs. Tawne at your meeting?”

  “Of course.”

  “What did she think of Palmerston’s idea?”

  “She was all for it. Afterward she tried to make us believe she was the one who’d suggested it in the first place.”

  “After the meeting?”

  “No, later. After he’d flaunted his conquest.”

  “Brooks, do quit curling your lip like that,” cried Sarah. “Surely you can’t think an intelligent woman like Mrs. Sorpende could have been taken in by that old gasbag? She was only being civil to him because she didn’t want to embarrass me. Since he made the offer in my house, she thought it her duty to be gracious and accept.”

  “Oh? Does she look upon me as a duty, too?”

  “Don’t be silly. She considers you a pleasure and a privilege. And for your information she’s gone to Symphony with Mrs. Gates tonight, so you needn’t flash those big green eyes. She’ll be desolate when she finds she’s missed you. She was asking me at dinner if I thought she could get you to explain some things about the Madam’s because Palmerston’s such an idiot she couldn’t understand what he was trying to say half the time.”

  “Was she indeed?”

  “Well, she’s too much of a lady to come straight out and say so, but that was the clear implication. Wasn’t it, M-Mr. Bittersohn?”

  “I never heard anything more clearly not said. Getting back to this Ruy Lopez, Kelling, have you any idea when he’s due to arrive?”

  “Nine o’clock in the morning. Time and a half for the extra hour since we don’t usually open to the public till ten. We were all pathetically grateful for this unexpected largesse.”

  “No doubt. How might one get a look at Ruy Lopez?”

  “One might lurk in the shrub
bery.”

  “One might get run in as a suspicious character. Any more bright ideas?”

  “Would you be content with a photograph?”

  “Sure, but what makes you think he’d pose for you?”

  “Naturally he wouldn’t know the pictures were being taken.”

  “I see. You’d have a miniature camera concealed in your tiepin.”

  “No, my belt buckle. I got the idea from a Dick Tracy cartoon and worked out the details myself. I use it mostly for photographing ospreys’ nests and so forth. It leaves both hands free to hang on with when I’m in a high tree or dangling on a rope over a precipice. After all, I’m not so young as I used to be.”

  Bittersohn grinned. “You’ll never get me to believe that. Are you sure he won’t spot the camera?”

  “You didn’t.” Brooks produced two tiny but embarrassingly good prints. One showed Bittersohn in his turban gazing at Mrs. Sorpende’s rear elevation with a disgusting leer on his temporarily swarthy face. The second was of Sarah clutching her disintegrating sari with one hand and rubbing a blistered foot with the other.

  “My God! Do you think Palmerston recognized us, too?”

  “I’m sure he didn’t. You have to remember, Bittersohn, that I’m a highly trained observer. Once you’ve learned to identify thirty or forty different warblers on the wing you’re unlikely to be put off by a dot of lipstick on the forehead of your own fourth cousin twice removed. Actually your disguises were very good, although I think Sarah would have been more comfortable in a looser bodice. As a matter of academic curiosity, Sarah, how did you ever get in and out of that garment?”

  “With great difficulty,” she replied demurely. “What else did you have to tell us, Brooks?”

  “Well, for another thing, the natives are restless. None of the guards believes Brown killed himself and they’re beginning to wonder about Witherspoon. There’s a lot of talk. Not to Dolores, of course.”