The Withdrawing Room

by Charlotte MacLeod

  Even if Mrs. Sorpende had turned out to be Mrs. Bodkin’s poor relation or favorite manicurist or the lady who took up her hems, she’d probably still have got invited. Aunt Marguerite would have managed somehow to check out her appearance and conversation, found her more than presentable, and at least put her on what Sarah and Alexander used privately to call the desperate list: reasonably well-mannered nobodies who could be called upon to fill in the gaps when too many somebodies fought shy of being salonized. If Mrs. Sorpende had been involved in a scandal, that would make her even more desirable because then she could be pointed out and whispered about behind her back. Aunt Marguerite had aped a famous Washington hostess by embroidering herself a sofa pillow with the message, “If you can’t think of anything nice to say about anybody, come and sit next to me,” and she practiced what she preached.

  So unless Mrs. Sorpende was an adept with the oiuja board, she must have learned from somebody other than Vangie Bodkin that Sarah Kelling was renting rooms. Then why hadn’t she given that person’s name as a reference, instead of telling a lie that could so easily get found out? There was no second Mrs. O. Thackford Bodkin; the widower was still a widower and living, so far as Miss Hartler knew, in semi-seclusion.

  But exactly how secluded was Mr. Bodkin? If he was acquainted with Aunt Marguerite, and now in the position of being an available extra man, she must be pestering him with invitations right and left. Surely he must have to respond sometimes, if only to decline, unless he’d gone senile or something. Miss Hartler had no information on that point. She’d merely described him as a quiet sort of man and gone on exclaiming over the perfidy of Mrs. Sorpende’s having taken Vangie Bodkin’s name in vain while Sarah tried to make believe she herself must have got the name wrong.

  G. Thackford Bodkin was not the sort of name one got wrong. Mrs. Sorpende must have heard it somewhere, somehow, and who was to say that even if she didn’t know the wife, she hadn’t been acquainted with the husband? Her own marriage had not been happy, Sarah deduced that from her one little confidence over the lingerie. If Vangie Bodkin was an intimate of Joanna Hartler, she couldn’t have been any Cleopatra, either. Perhaps the two disappointed spouses had become clandestine lovers, and perhaps Mr. Bodkin had mentioned Sarah Kelling’s lodging house venture to Mrs. Sorpende after he’d got the news from Marguerite.

  Maybe that was why she’d come up here to Boston. After a decent interval, Mr. Bodkin would follow, pretend to strike up an acquaintance with an attractive stranger, and marry her.

  But if the two years that had already passed since Vangie’s death wasn’t a decent enough interval, then what was? Mrs. Sorpende was no chicken and Mr. Bodkin probably well into his seventies. More likely, she’d decided she’d better get on a streetcar that was moving.

  Everybody knew Sarah Kelling was broke, but everyone also knew Sarah had rich relatives, that some of them were bachelors, and that one of those bachelors was about to become a great deal richer than he was already. And Mrs. Sorpende had already met him and been a smash from the start, but Dolph was a fusty old prig and if he found out she’d been carrying on with one of Marguerite’s neighbors on the sly, he’d back off in a hurry. And if Mrs. Sorpende did have a scandal in her past, either Mr. Bodkin or any other person or circumstance, who’d have been likeliest to know and most eager to use it against her if he got the chance?

  She must have sized up Mr. Quiffen right away as a troublemaker of the first water. She might also have known he was having Dolph shadowed. Who knew what her sources of information might be? If Mrs. Sorpende did want to find out anything about anyone, the odds were there’d be some man ready and willing to tell her. And if she saw her way clear to snaring the heir to Great-uncle Frederick’s fame and fortune, and if nasty old Barnwell Quiffen posed a present threat to either Dolph’s or her own prospects, might not a big, hefty woman without a decent shred of underwear to her name take drastic steps to remove that threat?

  Suppose Mrs. Sorpende had got rid of Mr. Quiffen with a minimum of fuss and bother? Suppose that by a hellish coincidence she’d found his room taken over almost at once by a man from Newport; a man whose sister had been the bosom buddy of the woman she’d falsely named as a reference; a garrulous indiscreet old man who of course knew Vangie Bodkin was dead and might know a good many other things she wouldn’t care to have him blurt out at some inconvenient time. Mightn’t she be tempted to try her luck again?

  Mrs. Sorpende had gone straight up to her room after he’d left the house on the night he died, but Sarah knew how easy it would have been for her to sneak down the back stairs again. By then, the rest would have gone their various ways, Sarah would be on the second floor, Mariposa and Charles in the kitchen or the basement. Mrs. Sorpende’s coat was in the front hall closet, she’d simply have to put it on and go out. If anybody did happen to see her, she could have pretended she needed something at the drugstore or wanted a breath of air or had decided to drop in on a sick friend. Sarah had known better than to give her boarders door keys, but Mrs. Sorpende had only to snap the latch back so that she could return without having to ring the bell, provided she made it before Charles put on the night lock sometime around midnight.

  Mr. Hartler might very well have told her where he was going about those chairs. Mrs. Sorpende had that pleasant, gracious way of chatting at least a few minutes with everyone in the company. It would have been natural enough for her to observe, “I hope you’re not going far on such a cold night,” or something of the sort. He’d almost certainly have replied, “Oh no, just over to Fairfield Street,” or wherever it happened to be.

  She’d then have known just how and where to arrange a supposedly accidental meeting, and suggest a cozy stroll through the Garden on their way back. It really was lovely with the lights in the trees and the golden dome of the State House in the background. He’d have accepted, either to oblige a lady or because he was happy the chairs were authentic or down in the dumps because they weren’t. Bashing him over the head would have been an extremely unladylike thing for her to do, but it was the most plausible way for him to die there and she could have managed easily enough, being so much larger, younger, and stronger. With his bad heart, he might have died from the shock of the blow alone.

  And she could have rushed back to the house, up the rear staircase, and been ready to put on Aunt Caroline’s elegant negligee and do her act of kindness when Sarah collapsed after hearing the news. How did she happen to be awake when everyone else on the upper floors slept through the disturbance?

  Mr. Bittersohn had been awake, too. He’d also been out for the evening, and he’d never said where. Maybe he himself wouldn’t mind getting his whack at those seven chairs, if they were worth as much as Mr. Hartler had seemed to think. But Mr. Bittersohn would never do a thing like that!

  Anyway, what about the rest of them? How did Sarah know Professor Ormsby was really giving a paper at MIT? Or that Mr. Porter-Smith and Miss LaValliere had been together at that coffee house the whole evening? Or that some totally unknown person hadn’t come along and committed a haphazard murder for no reason other than to get at the money that was missing from Mr. Hartler’s wallet? Why should she get so wrought up just because Mrs. Sorpende had happened to drop a little white lie about her social connections?

  That was no little white lie. It might have started out as one but it wouldn’t be for long. If Sarah was any judge of character, Joanna Hartler was cast in the same mold as Cousin Mabel. Cousin Mabel would never have drawn a peaceful breath, notwithstanding the death of a beloved brother or of the whole vast Kelling tribe, until she’d got in touch with Aunt Marguerite and everybody else who’d ever known Vangie Bodkin and found out precisely what connection she’d had with Theonia Sorpende and if she’d had none, why hadn’t she? Mrs. Sorpende might have been wicked or foolish or just plain unlucky, but she was going to be the target for a great many wagging tongues in any case. And those tongues could wag Sarah right out of business if she didn’t find a way to
shut them up very, very soon.

  Exhausted as she was, Sarah appeared at the breakfast table before anybody else. She poured coffee. She agreed with Mr. Porter-Smith’s observation that the barometric high moving rapidly eastward from the Great Lakes meeting the barometric low moving rapidly northward from Cape Hatteras might well result in precipitation which could take the form of rain, sleet, snow, or a mixture of all three at the same time, Boston’s weather being what it is.

  She listened to Miss LaValliere’s plaints and Professor Ormsby’s grunts. She thanked Mr. Bittersohn politely when he told her she looked like hell. She waited until Mrs. Sorpende had finished a late and leisurely breakfast as usual. Then she put on a coat she hadn’t worn for years, tied a scarf down over her head and face as far as it would go, and lurked.

  Sure enough, it wasn’t long before Mrs. Sorpende came out the front door in her black coat, plum-colored turban and matching scarf, and that large black handbag that looked like leather but on close inspection was not. Sarah let her get a good start, then followed.

  She’d somehow expected Mrs. Sorpende to take the same route across the Common that she’d followed before, and that was exactly what happened. Again her quarry made a beeline for the public convenience.

  Now what? Did she make a fool of herself as she had the other day? No, luck was with her. Not far away stood a familiar shopping bag, and beside it the bundle of garments that could only be Miss Mary Smith, industriously sorting through one of those concrete trash containers that are supposed to look like tree stumps.

  Pretending to be cleaning out her handbag, Sarah sauntered up to the stump. “Miss Smith,” she murmured, “did you happen to notice a large woman in a black coat and purple turban go into the lavatory a moment ago?”

  She dropped a clean tissue, last week’s shopping list, and a dollar bill she could ill spare into the stump. Miss Smith deftly retrieved the right scrap.

  “Yes, she comes every day.”

  “Where does she go when she comes out?”

  “She never comes out.”

  “What?” Sarah forgot she was acting. It was a good thing nobody happened to be within earshot at the moment.

  “Keep your voice down,” said Miss Smith primly. “Just watch. In a minute or so you’ll see an old scavenger like me wearing red sneakers and carrying a Gilchrist’s bag. She’ll cross the street and head for Temple Place. Go hide in a doorway and wait.”

  So that was it. Why hadn’t she guessed the first time? She’d seen Mrs. Sorpende ring enough changes on that one black dress. The coat didn’t look shabby with its elegantly coordinated accessories. But unwind that velvet turban, take off the matching scarf and gloves, pull an old paper shopping bag, a pair of sneakers, and a ratty scarf out of that oversized pocketbook, take off your high-heeled boots and walk with a stoop to reduce your height, use the scarf to hide your face and the bag with a few newspapers on top to conceal your other belongings, and a well-dressed matron could become a shuffling bag-woman quickly enough. But why?

  Sarah followed Miss Smith’s advice and slipped across Tremont Street when the lights changed. Pretending to be enthralled by a display of rock-and-roll records, she waited with her back to the street. Sure enough, just as the proprietor inside was beginning to look hopeful, a pair of red sneakers and a bag from a store that had gone out of business were reflected in the glass. Sarah waited three seconds, then followed.

  Most of the facades along Tremont Street have been remodeled out of all resemblance to their original concepts, but some of the buildings behind those tatted-up fronts have changed hardly at all. Tucked in among the showy display windows are modest doorways leading to tiny lobbies with self-service elevators and bulletin boards oddly assorted names: optometrists, furriers, toupee makers, dental laboratories, embroiderers, jewelers, hairdressers; some of them so eminent they had no need for more pretentious quarters, some who could afford no better, some who just needed a place to work and liked the convenient location and the view over the Common. It was into one of these doorways that Mrs. Sorpende ducked.

  Sarah’s heart sank. She’d go up in the elevator, and that would be that. But she did not go up in the elevator. As Sarah recklessly opened the door, she glimpsed the red sneakers disappearing up a filigreed wrought-iron staircase that must antedate the elevator by many years.

  Having come this far, Sarah was not about to quit. She tagged after the sneakers, expecting them to stop at the second floor. But they didn’t. The staircase was sturdily built in late Victorian style, and the sneakers made no noise on its worn marble treads. However, the paper shopping bag, bumping and crackling against the railings, gave her sounds to follow without letting herself be seen. She was on the third landing when she heard a door immediately overhead being unlocked, opened, then locked again.

  Sarah turned and went back the way she’d come, feeling somewhat winded. If this was part of Mrs. Sorpende’s daily routine, no wonder she bounced up and down those stairs to the third-floor bedroom so nimbly.

  In the lobby, Sarah studied the bulletin board. There didn’t seem to be much on the fourth floor except a dental laboratory, a china-painting shop, and—aha!—a tearoom that gave readings. Sarah knew about tearooms. Cousin Mabel adored them. Some were cozy, and had been around the downtown area so long they were practically Boston landmarks. Others were not, and folded so quickly that one wondered why the proprietors, so glib at foretelling their patrons’ futures, hadn’t checked on their own before they laid out the rent money. This place was strange to Sarah, but she could guess what she might find there: shabby plastic-covered chairs and tables, a minuscule sandwich, a cup of bitter tea half full of leaves, and three dollars worth of chat, from some earnest soul who had shown remarkable psychic powers since earliest childhood. Maybe Mrs. Sorpende was an addict like Cousin Mabel, but why should she put on such an elaborately unbecoming disguise just to get her tea leaves read?

  Sarah poked the “up” button, got into the elevator, and stepped off at the fourth floor. It was obvious to her at a glance that Mrs. Sorpende’s secret life was not involved with china painting, at any rate. Nobody was in that tiny shop except a youngish woman in a paint-streaked smock. She came eagerly forward. “Can I help you?”

  “I was—just interested,” Sarah stammered. “I’m an, artist of sorts myself, and one always wonders about chances to make a little extra money, doesn’t one?”

  “One sure does,” replied the proprietress with feeling. “I honestly don’t know what to tell you about the commercial possibilities. It would depend on how good you were and how much you know about marketing, I suppose. I do some restoration, myself. Most of my customers are antique dealers and hobbyists.”

  They got into talking shop, and Sarah was so delighted to find someone she could chat with about art that she spent more time than she’d meant to. She also blew some of her grocery money on china-painting supplies. She’d been wondering what she could possibly give as thank-you presents to Aunt Emma, Anora Protheroe, and some of the others who’d been particularly kind during her recent ordeal. Plates and cups of her own design would be both appropriate and affordable, and would give her a chance to learn a new skill that could perhaps be utilized to some profit.

  Well, at least she’d accomplished something, but not what she’d come for. Mrs. Sorpende wasn’t getting her dentures repaired, either. The laboratory doors were ajar and Sarah could see five or six earnest men bending over plaster casts of people’s jaws but no middle-aged, stoutish woman with black hair and red sneakers.

  So it had to be the tearoom, as she’d known all along it would be. The time she’d spent with her new chum in the china shop turned out to have been a fortunate delay, as they were just opening for business. A middle-aged woman wearing a voluminous gypsy costume and talking with a nasal down-Maine twang came forward, beads and bracelets clanking in merry greeting.

  “Well, our first customer of the day! You’ve got a lucky face, dear. I can tell that just by one look
at you.”

  Then she’d better take a second look, Sarah thought, sitting down in the rickety chair that was pulled out for her and depositing her fragile bundle of blank china on the chair closest by.

  The proprietress offered a mimeographed menu that offered a meager choice of sandwiches and Peach Delite Salad, which Sarah knew from her experiences with Cousin Mabel would most likely be a dab of cottage cheese and half a canned peach. People didn’t come to such places for the food. She ordered a cheese sandwich she didn’t want. The tea came as a matter of course. The hostess said briskly, “Now, since you’re the first, our readers happen to be all unoccupied at present. Take your pick.”

  The pick was not large. Two other women dressed like the hostess in floppy blouses, wide skirts, and a great deal of costume jewelry were sitting at the table in the corner nearest the kitchen. The one facing Sarah was tiny and wizened. The one with her face turned away was large and stately, with exquisite hands and a long black braid hanging down below her flowered kerchief. Sarah said with her heart in her mouth, “I’ll take the black-haired lady, please.”

  Whatever else she might be, Mrs. Sorpende was a trouper. She brought in the skimpy lunch with the aplomb of a high priestess, took the chair opposite Sarah, and waited in an attitude of serene contemplation until the sandwich was eaten and the tea drunk. Then she picked up the cup, spilled the dregs into the saucer, went through the usual routine of poking among the wet leaves, and said with a rueful smile, “I see you are about to part with one of your third-floor tenants.”

  “Surely you’ve picked the wrong leaf,” Sarah replied. “If you mean what I think you do, then please be assured that what my tenants do outside the house is no business of mine provided, as Mrs. Pat Campbell once remarked, they don’t do it in the street and scare the horses. One tenant in particular must have led an exceptionally blameless life. Otherwise she’d know that the police might take a dim view of any landlady who’d evict one of her boarders while they’re investigating the murder of another. Therefore I can’t do anything but apologize for any awkwardness the present situation may have created and continue to muddle through as best I can. Is there any sign the tenant will co-operate?”