Hildegarde Withers Makes the Scene

by Stuart Palmer

  She had a curiously detached sensation of standing aside in a dream to watch herself dreaming. There had been no Captain Westering, and therefore no Captain Westering had been murdered. There was no Aletha Westering, golden as morning, with a sister Alura as dusky as twilight. There was no runaway girl named Lenore and no UCLA drop-out named Aloysius. Maybe there wasn’t even a Hildegarde Withers. It was all a florid nightmare of psychedelic colors created in her heated mind by an indiscreet pepperoni pizza eaten at midnight.

  But running concurrently through her mind with the sensation of unreality was a very real conviction based soundly on long experience with grade-school delinquents and various homicidal personalities. It was the conviction that the golden Aletha, whatever her real name and wherever she came from and whatever she had done or would do, was the most superbly gifted liar on earth. As pedagogue and sleuth, Miss Withers had smelled too many liars to be deceived. She smelled one now.

  “Did you see your husband while you were here?” Captain Kelso asked.

  “Yes. Certainly. That’s why I came.”

  “In this stateroom?”

  “Here and on deck. He went up with me when I left.”

  “Was your sister with you all the time?”

  “No. She waited for me in the lounge on deck. She wasn’t there when Captain Westering and I came up, and so we waited together on deck for a few minutes until she appeared. If you are trying to discover if I had opportunity to put poison in the decanter, Captain, I did. I could have done it easily without detection several times.”

  “Well, I can’t see that you’ve incriminated yourself by admitting it. So could fifteen or twenty others. What did you talk with your husband about? Anything special?”

  “Numerous difficulties have developed in connection with our projected voyage. We discussed them.”

  “What kinds of difficulties?”

  “Mostly financial. Captain Westering and I and Alura were to bear most of the expense, but we were dependent in part on the contributions of our amateur crew. Most of them have very little to contribute, and some of them nothing at all except their work and good faith. Besides financial problems, there has been difficulty in securing experienced personnel to command the others. Two or three, plus Captain Westering, would have been sufficient, but no one has been eager to commit himself to our cause. To be candid, we discussed the advisability of calling the voyage off.”

  “What about the contributions? Would you have been able to refund them?”

  “I’m afraid not. Not, at any rate, in full.”

  “Was this ever discussed with anyone else? Did any of the amateur crew suspect it, I mean? People committed to a cause can kick up pretty nasty if they smell fraud.”

  “It was not a question of fraud. Anyhow, no one suspected. As a matter of fact, Captain Westering and I were unalterably opposed to any change of plans. We discussed the possibility to appease Alura.”

  “Exactly what was the nature of this proposed voyage?”

  “Ostensibly, we were making a philosophical-religious pilgrimage to India and Japan. Actually, it was to be a peace mission to Hanoi. It was essential, of course, to keep the true nature and destination of the voyage a secret. Now, however, the voyage will be abandoned and there is no further purpose in secrecy.”

  “Holy God!” Captain Kelso stared at Aletha Westering with an expression of open-mouthed idiocy, exploring his naked head with the fingers of one hand in a massaging motion, as if he were searching for soft spots. “Do you mean to tell me in all seriousness that you were going to try to sail this tub halfway around the world and into hostile waters with a crew of wild-eyed amateurs who don’t know fore from aft or port from lee?”

  “Miracles are performed by innocents, Captain.”

  “Maybe. But ignorance and innocence aren’t necessarily the same thing. By all that’s sacred, I swear there hasn’t been anything so absolutely crazy, planned or performed, since … since …”

  Captain Kelso, unable to think of anything so crazy, lapsed into sputtering silence, leaving Miss Withers to complete his sentence silently. Since the Children’s Crusade, she thought. And that had ended as this would have ended, over seven centuries later, in the destruction of the innocents. She stared at Aletha Westering with something like awe. Aletha sat unperturbed and impervious, her head lifted and canted, perhaps turned toward the remote voice of God, her hands folded in her lap.

  Miss Withers, heretofore, had been restraining herself with a herculean effort. Several times in the course of the exchange between Captain Kelso and Aletha Westering, she had opened her mouth to butt in, but each time, not having tested the extent of Captain Kelso’s tolerance of amateur assistance, she had submitted to second thoughts and quietly closed it again. It was a traumatic experience. Sustained indefinitely, it would surely have resulted in some kind of neurosis. Still, she had bided her time in dread of Kelso’s irascibility, not wishing to be banned from the scene as well as the action, until her time was opportune. Now, with the detective reduced through unintelligible sputtering into inept silence, she decided that it was. Risking the chance of being bounced, she butted in.

  “Mrs. Westering,” she said, “do you know a girl named Lenore Gregory?”

  The golden head of Aletha and the naked head of Kelso turned slowly toward her in unison. The little eyes of the latter, though still slightly wild, expressed no belligerence at her presumption, far from it, and in fact seemed to offer dumb thanks for the chance to take a break and recoup. In the golden slanted eyes of the former there was a momentary flicker of surprise, as though the rather conspicuous figure of the spinster had until then gone completely unnoticed, and presented, now that it had introduced itself, an appearance as striking, albeit inversely, as Aletha’s own.

  “Of course,” Aletha said. “She is one of our most dedicated pilgrims. A lovely child.”

  “So she is. She is also, I understand, a comparatively heavy investor in this venture. Is that so?”

  “It is. Comparatively. She is blessed with a greater share of the world’s goods than most of our poor pilgrims.”

  “She has a wealthy father, if that’s what you mean. He is, incidentally, most anxious to get in contact with her. If you’re curious, that’s why I’m here.”

  “I wondered.” Miss Withers, watching intently, wondered if the serenity of the golden eyes was disturbed for an instant by a glitter of icy appraisal. “There is always a gap between the generations. What father understands his child?”

  “Most of them, I think, keep trying.”

  “It’s distressing that you found her in such unfortunate circumstances.”

  “Her circumstances may be more unfortunate than you know. She was with your husband when he died. Tell me, what was the personal relationship between Captain Westering and Lenore Gregory?”

  “He was greatly attracted to her. There was an affinity. He admired her spirit and her intellect.”

  “She has other admirable qualities. Are you sure his admiration was limited to her spirit and her intellect?”

  “Captain Westering was a vital and questing man, as I’ve tried to indicate. He lived in his own world, by his own code. One doesn’t expect such a man to observe conventions.”

  “What I’m getting at is this. Do you know of anyone aboard this vessel who hated Lenore Gregory because of her position as the captain’s favorite, whatever that position entailed exactly?”

  “No. Not I, certainly, if that’s what you’re suggesting. Why do you ask?” Again Miss Withers wondered if there was a flash of appraisal in the golden eyes. “It was not the girl who died. It was Captain Westering.”

  Captain Kelso shifted his considerable bulk with an ominous grunt, which Miss Withers interpreted as a warning that she was flirting with an indiscretion. It gave her, indeed, a solid sense of satisfaction. It meant, after all, that he was taking seriously her contention that the murderer had made the egregious error of killing the wrong person, and that he didn�
��t for reasons of tactical advantage, want that knowledge, or possibility, prematurely revealed. It was time, she wisely decided, to withdraw.

  “That’s true, isn’t it?” she said meekly.

  She subsided with an ineffectual flutter of hands, a monstrously deceptive gesture of ineptitude, and Captain Kelso resumed command. This time his attention was directed to the woman standing by, the twilight sister at the shoulder of morning.

  “You are Mrs. Westering’s sister Alura,” he said. “I don’t remember that your last name was mentioned.”

  “It’s O’Higgins.”

  Her voice, in contrast to her sister’s, was a throaty alto, filled with shadows. Miss Withers, who would have given odds, was delighted. The casting continued perfect.

  “You live in Sausalito?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your sister has been staying with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “For how long?”

  “Since she arrived in San Francisco with her husband.”

  “You are married?”

  “No. I’ve never been.”

  “You heard what your sister said about your movements earlier today. Do you have anything to alter or add?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  “She said you waited for her in the lounge on deck. When she came up later with the captain, you weren’t there. Where did you go?”

  “I went to see if a friend of mine was on board. I couldn’t find her, but I wasn’t surprised. She doesn’t stay here on the yacht.”

  “What is your friend’s name?”

  “Leslie Fitzgerald. She’s an artist with a studio in San Francisco. I own a restaurant in Sausalito, and she did a couple of murals for me. That’s how I became acquainted with her.”

  “Were you going on this so-called peace mission?”

  “No. To please Aletha, I agreed to give it limited support. Reluctantly. In my opinion, it was a wild and hazardous venture.”

  “That’s putting it mildly. Do you share your sister’s opinion of Captain Westering?”

  “Captain Westering was an unusual man. I don’t care to elaborate on that.”

  “All right.” Captain Kelso slapped a huge palm against a thigh with a sharp smack. Jerking around, he lumbered away three paces and, turning again, back two. “That’s all. That’s enough. The night’s getting away, and I’ve still got the fascinating prospect of going through this shipload of maniacs. Mrs. Westering, you and your sister are free to go back to Sausalito. I advise you to stay there until we contact you. Captain Westering’s body will be released to you as soon as possible.”

  He moved to the door, opened it, and stuck his head into the passage. He growled briefly at the detective there and drew his head back into the room.

  “The policeman who brought you here will drive you home,” he said. “Good night.”

  Aletha Westering nodded but did not speak. Alura O’Higgins neither nodded nor spoke. The former stood up, shook out her clinging white robe, and walked regally past Captain Kelso, followed by the latter. Captain Kelso closed the door and leaned against it and closed his eyes. His lips moved. Miss Withers could not tell if he was cursing or praying.

  “That woman,” said Miss Withers, “not only tells lies, she lives lies. She deludes herself and believes her delusions.”

  “Sure.” Captain Kelso opened his fermented little eyes and released a malevolent look at Miss Withers. “She’s a phony. The world’s full of them. This tub is crawling with them.”

  “You’re mistaken. I didn’t say she’s a phony. I said she’s deluded. She believes at any given time whatever she wishes to believe. Such women are dangerous.”

  “If you ask me, all women are dangerous. I’m beginning to believe that even you are dangerous. You show up like a spook at the scene of a murder, and the next thing I know, I’m letting you act like a detective.”

  His little eyes were still malevolent, but actually, if the truth were known, he was beginning already to develop a certain affection for the angular old busybody. Once, a thousand years ago, he had been a small boy with red ringlets, and in that medieval period he had had a mother whom he sometimes remembered. Mr. Kelso, husband and father, having fallen off Pier 36 and drowned while drunk, she had become a seamstress in order to survive. Hardship and worry had made her short of temper and shorter of forbearance. He could still feel for his sins the excruciating rap of her thimble on his skull. Miss Withers, for some obscure reason, conjured up visions of this faded, benevolent tartar.

  “Consider her behavior relative to Captain Westering,” Miss Withers said, deliberately ignoring the digression. “Here is a man who, according to her, exercises a fatal charm over the ladies, and yet she goes off to live in Sausalito with her sister, leaving him to his own devices with a passel of attractive young women, all of them apparently romantic and susceptible, under conditions that literally impose extraordinary intimacy. I wonder why.”

  “You heard her.” Captain Kelso’s voice had the effect of a belch, as though something had soured on his stomach. “What sensible wife would get upset over a little hocus-pocus in the hay? It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t purified by love.”

  10.

  AFTERWARD, MISS WITHERS ALWAYS remembered the action of the rest of that night, or rather of the long hours of the morning creeping toward dawn, as a kind of mad drama written by a schizophrenic playwright at which she and Captain Kelso were, somehow, both spectators and players, and in which, otherwise, of a large cast, never more than one player at a time was on the stage. The effect was disturbing. It was of the insubstantial stuff of nightmares. Miss Withers had never smoked pot or taken LSD or any of the other so-called psychedelic drugs which were supposed to enlarge the mind and set it free, but she wondered, if she were to do so, if the effect would not be comparable. Maybe it was because her mind, in those thin and haunting hours when the force of life sinks low and death stands by, had slipped its discipline in a fantasy of mad antics and impressions. Maybe it was because, after a day of almost endless hours in which she had traveled far and done much, she was simply giddy from sheer exhaustion. Whatever the truth, it was a night she remembered as a weird dream in swirling vivid colors. A night in which, in spite of incontrovertible evidence of reality, she could hardly believe.

  The players entered one by one from the wings, actually from the two small staterooms into which they had long ago been herded. Entrance cues were fed to them by a heavy-eyed detective in the passage who kept himself awake by imagining the incredible luxury of being asleep. Of the cast of players waiting, two made no appearance. One was Lenore, because she had been thoroughly grilled by Captain Kelso at the start of the show, and the other was Aloysius Fister, because it was satisfactorily established that he, like Miss Withers, was really no more than a kibitzer who had been embroiled simply by accidentally making the scene.

  The action was started by the Prophet Onofre, possibly on the theory that it is best to face the worst first. Prodded from the rear by the detective, he loped into the captain’s cabin with his scanty white robe flapping around his thin shanks midway between knees and ankles. His baleful glare fixed instantly upon the face of Miss Withers, who clearly excited an extraordinary animosity, and his lips moved in muttered imprecations. His fury and outrage seemed to charge him with an electrical force that made his grizzled, greasy beard and the long hair of his head, ordinarily limp, stand out in all directions and quiver like the antennas of some monstrous myriopod.

  Kelso: What is your name?

  Onofre: I am the Prophet Onofre.

  Kelso: What is your real name?

  Onofre: My real name is the Prophet Onofre. I have no other.

  Kelso: Did you ever have another?

  Onofre: Before my rebirth to grace, I used another name.

  Kelso: What was it?

  Onofre: In those days of iniquity I was called Sylvester Snyder.

  Kelso: All right, Sylvester, where do you live?

  Onofre: I
live where I am, wherever that may be.

  Kelso: No permanent address. What do you do?

  Onofre: I bring light into darkness. I proselyte in the wilderness among the children of night.

  Kelso: No occupation. Why are you on this vessel?

  Onofre: I came in the beginning of a pilgrimage. I heard the call of distant lands, the voices of ancient prophets.

  Kelso: Come off it. What put you onto this screwball voyage?

  Onofre: There was a notice in the San Francisco Chronicle.

  Kelso: That’s more like it. I understand this was to be a cooperative venture. Everyone to share expenses and work, I mean. What have you contributed?

  Onofre: I would have led the pilgrims safely to distant ports over angry waters. I live in grace. I have been touched by the spirit.

  Kelso: What spirit?

  Onofre: The spirit of light. The spirit of love. The spirit that lives in the hearts of the flower children.

  Kelso: You’re the prophet of the flower children?

  Onofre: I have spoken.

  Kelso: Self-appointed?

  Onofre: I have been touched by the spirit. I have heard the voice.

  Kelso: All right, Sylvester. Let’s get back to contributions. Have you laid out any hard cash?

  Onofre: I am possessed of none of this world’s goods, except the poor rags that cover my nakedness. My wealth is of the spirit.

  Kelso: I see. A free-loader.

  Onofre: I am fed by those who love me. I am sheltered by those who follow after truth in my footsteps.

  Kelso (harshly, clearly sick of the game): Captain Westering died here in this cabin tonight. He died, as nearly as we can set the time, about nine o’clock or a little before. Where were you at that time?