“Are you all right, Greg?” Timothy asked uncertainly. Noah and I exchanged glances. It was the question we had not quite dared to ask.
“Oh, yeah, sure, Tim,” Greg answered mechanically. He was still a million miles away.
“Greg—” Impulsively I put my hand over his. “I’m so sorry about Lois.”
“It was her. It couldn’t have been, but it was.” He turned to me, shaking his head. “I can’t understand it. What was she doing way out there? She told me she was coming into town. Why should she lie to me?”
“Perhaps she didn’t.” The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that I was right. “Perhaps she did come into town, to meet someone. He may have strangled her here and then taken her body to the shelter—”
Something cold and wet and red as blood splashed over our hands. I shrieked and jumped.
“’Scusi, madame,’ scusi—” Rudi mopped feverishly at my hand with a napkin. “The tomato juice spill. Ver’ sorry. An accident. ’Scusi.”
“It’s all right.” I removed my hand from his frantic ministrations. He shifted his attention to Greg and dabbed at his hand.
“You’re right.” For the first time, Greg was looking at me as though he saw me. “That must have been what happened. Lois wouldn’t have lied to me.”
Another couple came in and took the table Greg and Dexter had vacated. Rudi muttered something in his own language—it could have been a curse or an expression of relief—and deserted us to rush over and bring menus to the new people. Almost immediately, he seemed to be in dispute with them. It would appear that they did not wish to order the Steak Diane either.
“What’s the matter with Rudi?” Noah wondered. “He seems to be building up quite a head of steam tonight.”
“He’s temperamental.” Dexter spoke with the voice of experience. “He’s having a fit because he can’t play his big scene—like some ham actor who’s just had his best lines cut.” Momentarily, disconcertingly, Dexter’s face became faintly Latin, his eyes flashed, his upper lip curled back; he was Rudi about to throw a scene—or a knife.
“He is in a bad mood—” Gino spoke behind us. “It was necessary for me to have words with him this morning. He is not working out well. I apologize for my cousin. He will improve—or he will leave, I assure you.”
“We’re all on edge these days,” Noah said soothingly.
“With reason,” Gino sighed. “With good reason.” He bent over Greg. “My friend, I am so sorry. There is nothing one can say … can do …” He patted Greg’s shoulder ineffectually.
“I am sending over brandies—on the house,” he informed Noah.
“That’s very kind—” But Gino was gone, following his cousin into the kitchen. We heard raised voices.
“She came to meet someone …” Greg had been oblivious of everything, following the painful trail of his own thoughts. “Someone in this town—” His gaze ranged searchingly across the tables. “I’ll find out who. And when I do—” His hands clenched convulsively.
“Take it easy, fella,” Noah said. “That’s for the police to investigate. Chief Rogers—”
Greg said something totally out of character about Chief Rogers and didn’t even apologize. He seemed to have forgotten there were children at the table and that he was supposed to set a good example. Some parents would have removed their children from Camp Mohigonquin immediately if they could have heard him.
“Steady on—” I said automatically, glancing at the children. Tessa was being a proper little lady and giving no indication that she had heard the last remarks at all. Timothy was struggling to keep a straight face. Dexter was unconcerned; he had heard far worse on visits to his parents.
Rudi brought our orders, dealing them off the tray as though he were riffling out cards from the bottom of the deck. His face was thunderous. He didn’t really care whether we got the right orders or not.
Tessa and Timothy quietly swapped plates. Greg stared at his indifferently until Noah reached over and exchanged it with mine. Even then, he continued to stared at it blankly.
“Come on,” Noah said. “You’ve got to eat something. Keep up your strength.”
“Yeah, sure.” Greg picked up a fork and began pushing the food around his plate mechanically.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Noah said, “but if you’re not going to eat all those scallops, could I have them for my kitty-bag? Pitti-Sing is eating for four now.”
“And we’ll have Dexter’s leftovers for Errol,” Tessa said stoutly, before the belated realization struck her that Dexter was highly unlikely to leave anything on his plate.
“Yeah, sure.” Greg looked around vaguely, as though ready to tip everything into a kitty-bag there and then. “I’m not very hungry, I guess. Sorry, Dexter.”
“Aw, that’s okay.” The lineaments of Dexter’s face shifted subtly to mirror the devastation underlying Greg’s expression.
“You’re going to be an awfully good actor someday, Dexter,” I said. “You’re going to outdo everyone in your family.”
“Me?” he squeaked, gratified and incredulous.
“You,” I predicted firmly. “You’re going to be the finest Herbert of them all.”
“Well, gee—” His ears turned red, he shrank back against his chair. He was accustomed to complaints and disapproval; he had never learned to deal with compliments. He would. “Well, thanks …” He swallowed and smily shyly. “Thanks a lot.”
“I’ll kill him!” Greg exploded suddenly. “Whoever killed Lois—I’ll find him and, with my bare hands, I’ll kill him!” He shoved his plate away and lifted his head, glaring wildly around the room.
Hank Singleton intercepted Greg’s gaze, winced, and raised his hand to signal for his bill.
“Greg—” I tried to calm him. “You’re frightening people. You’ll empty the restaurant—”
“I don’t care!” He glared with renewed fury. People at the adjoining tables began to edge their chairs away.
Now Viv had joined Hank in trying to catch their waiter’s eye. It could be the beginning of a mass exodus if we couldn’t get Greg under control.
Unfortunately for them, the customers were too conventional to leave without paying their bills—and they could not pay them unless they got them.
Rudi was paying no attention to his tables. He had withdrawn to lounge against the wall by the swing doors leading into the kitchen. He was in a monumental sulk brooding over his unrequired trolley. At some point, he must have lit the spirit lamp; now he kept playing with it, turning the flame up, lowering it, then turning up to full force again. He was totally preoccupied; a child with a toy. A dangerous toy … a dangerous child—no, man, which made him even more dangerous. The leaping flame cast shadows, masking and unmasking the brooding face. The reflection of the flame glinted in his eyes, turning him into a stranger—a mad stranger.
“What’s the matter, Rosemary?” Noah asked softly. I was aware that the others took one look at my face and then turned to see what had caused my expression.
They sat rooted for a moment watching the spectacle: Rudi, completely off guard and unaware of anything except the bright beckoning flame. Rudi, playing with fire.
Rudi—the pyromaniac! I remembered the look on Lois’s face the last time we dined at Gino’s. She had watched the Steak Diane ceremony and there had been sudden comprehension—and fear—in her face. But she was young, modern and liberal. She would not report anyone on mere suspicion. Possibly she was not sure of her diagnosis. She would want to give him the benefit of the doubt. So she had agreed to meet him—perhaps to discover if he had an alibi for the times when the fires were started; perhaps to urge him to seek psychiatric treatment. Whatever the reason, that meeting had sealed her fate.
“It’s him!” Greg lurched to his feet. “I’m going to kill the Christ-forsaken son-of-a-bitch!” he howled, starting forward, before we could catch him.
Then everything seemed to happen at once.
Rudi looked
up and saw Greg rushing at him. With a wordless howl of his own, he tipped over the spirit lamp and spilled brandy and butter into the flames. He kicked the blazing trolley in the direction of our table before diving through the swing door into the kitchen.
The blazing trolley hurtled towards our table. With a violent oath, Noah leaped to his feet and kicked out at it as it rolled close. It rocked, tottered—spilling some of the flaming oils on to the floor, then reversed and headed off in another direction.
Screaming, the diners leaped up and scattered.
I sat frozen, with an unimpeded view of the kitchen door, and knew that worse was still to come.
There were shouts and screams from beyond the swing door, oaths and crashings of crockery. There was a violent hissing and muffled explosion. Then a blazing stream of vegetable oils cascaded under the door and out into the dining-room.
“No! No!” I screamed as people helpfully tilted the water carafes from their tables on to the flaming mess. The oil-based flames leaped and rode on top of the water into the heart of the dining-room, catching at the hanging tablecloths, setting them alight.
“I’ll kill him!” Greg shouted, charging through the flames towards the kitchen door.
There was pandemonium in the restaurant as people jumped up and collided rushing for the exits, the flames licking at their trouser legs and skirts.
“No!” I heard myself sobbing. “No! No!” I reached out for my children and, as in a nightmare, found Dexter clinging trustingly to me.
“This way!” Noah shouted. He had Tessa in his arms, Timothy holding to his coat-tail. He kicked out the window beside us and jumped through, hurling Tessa to the precarious safety of the little park. He disengaged Timothy and shoved him after Tessa, then stepped back into the blazing smoke-filled room for me.
“This way!” I felt my hand gripped tighter, I was propelled forward and tugged over the window-sill, Dexter still attached to me. We whirled through space and collapsed under the maples and pines with the children.
One-two … pause … one-two … The air was rent by the fire whistle signalling the most dreaded code of all: the center of town … . “One-two … Sirens whooped and shrieked as the engines turned out to fight for Gino’s Place.
“This way!” Noah kept shouting. “This way!” I realized that he had stayed behind. He had taken up a post by the window and was pushing other patrons of the restaurant to safety.
“My God!” Hank and Viv Singleton stumbled across the street. The town square had become a gathering place for the refugees. “My God—what happened?”
“The firebug—” I watched Noah anxiously. “It was Rudi—the waiter.”
“The one who always wanted to do Steak Dianes,” Dexter said. “Nobody would let him tonight, so he got mad—”
“And decided to barbecue the customers instead?” Viv stared in horror as a shower of sparks shot upwards from the roof. There was a sharp cracking sound as the front plate-glass window buckled and shattered.
“Noah!” I screamed.
“Greg!” Dexter shouted.
“We’re okay—” Noah was beside us, Gino half-carried on his shoulders. “I think we’ve got everybody out—as many as we could.”
“Greg—” Dexter said, staring at the blazing pyre of Gino’s Place. “What’s happened to Greg?”
“Let’s hope he got out the back door,” Noah said. “Nobody could get through into the kitchen—it was an inferno in there.”
“It’s not much better out here,” Hank said.
“No—” Mesmerized, we watched tongues of flame traverse the sloping roof of the kitchen annexe and entrench themselves in the eaves of the Gift Shop next door. Another shower of sparks flew into the sky and travelled outwards.
“Come on.” Hank caught Viv’s arm as the fire engines rolled up. “Let get to the shop and see what we can save. This town is going to go up like a tinder-box!”
Other people obviously thought the same. For every one who stayed watching the fire, two more slipped away to their cars. We tried to stare around and behind the flames, hoping to see Greg emerging in safety. But there was no safety anywhere.
One … two … three … four … The fire whistle blasted off again. One … two … three … four …
“Good God!—that’s us!” Noah’s fingers bit into my arm. “That’s our side of the Lake!” He released me and raced for his car. “Pitti-Sing! She’s out there all alone—with her kittens!”
“Errol!” Panting, Tessa and Timothy kept pace with him. “Errol’s all alone, too!”
Nominally, Pixie Toller was cat-sitting Pitti-Sing and her kittens, but I did not feel sure enough of that to remind Noah. If Pixie was in the middle of some complicated ritual dance on the lake shore, I knew only too well that the whole forest could be ablaze before she noticed anything amiss. Even then, she might still consider it simply the darkness before the dawn—or, in her case, the firestorm before the cloudburst.
“Greg—” Dexter hung back as I tried to pull him into the car. “What about Greg?”
“We can’t do anything about him right now!” Noah was developing a fine technique for hurling people about. Dexter went tumbling into the back seat.
“The firemen will take care of Greg,” Noah promised unconvincingly.
Chapter 17
As we hurtled through the night the noise of whistles and sirens died away. The woods were uniformly dark and private with no pinpricks of light to disturb them; even the fireflies seemed to have gone to ground. We might have been in another, more peaceful, world; but danger was still all around us, seen or unseen.
“I’ll drop you at your house,” Noah said, “and go on and collect Pitti-Sing and the kittens. Then I’ll come back for you. Be ready.” In the intermittent light of the street lamps I saw his jaw tighten. “If the fire in the woods and the town fire link up—” He broke off and concentrated on the sharp turn leading up to the lake.
We could be trapped. Mentally I finished the sentence for him. For the sake of the children, neither of us would voice the grim knowledge.
A low deep rumble sounded in the distance. We were all too jaundiced to pay any attention to it. We had heard it too frequently, trusted in it too often. It was just another snare and delusion. Reality was the pall of smoke overhanging the woods; the flames creeping through the town.
“Of course,” Noah said thoughtfully, “we ought to have suspected Rudi.” Carefully he enumerated the points: “The classic arsonist is foreign, unsettled, male … The trouble is, we’ve had so many home-grown insurance frauds perpetrated by businessmen on the verge of bankruptcy, we tend to overlook the obvious textbook cases these days.”
“If I could borrow your boat—the Harpers’ boat—” Dexter shook my shoulder, reclaiming my attention—“I could row across the lake and let Benjie know what’s happened. Then we could get Camp Mohigonquin to safety.”
“Never mind the heroics,” Noah said grimly. “You’re staying with us. A telephone call will do to alert the camp. The lines aren’t out yet.”
“Mummy,” Tessa said, “Mummy, we’ll get Errol out all right, won’t we?”
“Of course we will,” I said definitely. “And Pitti-Sing and her kittens, too.” That was all I was willing to guarantee but, with luck, the children wouldn’t notice that.
“Here we are.” Noah drew up in front of the house. “Get your things together and be waiting for me. I’ll be right back.”
As we got out, I looked over my shoulder. Behind us, a red glow lit the sky. Even as I stood there, the Fire Alarm blasted its urgent message once again, with the added blast that meant it was calling in reinforcement from the neighboring towns. Edgemarsh Lake needed all the help it could get.
“Hurry, Mummy—” Tessa tugged at my hand, dancing with impatience. “Let’s go and get Errol.”
“You telephone the Camp,” I directed Dexter as I unlocked the door. “Then I’ll ring Celia and tell her what’s happened. She knew we were eating at Gino�
�s, she’ll have started worrying when she heard the town code.”
“I’ll get our cases, Mummy.” Timothy dashed upstairs.
“Eeerr-rroll …” Tessa called. “Eeerr-rroll …” She raced for the kitchen.
“What can I do, Mrs. Blake?” Dexter asked, putting down the telephone. Now that he had alerted the camp, he seemed lost and momentarily bewildered. “Can’t I do something to help?”
“Help Tim with the cases—” I took possession of the phone. “You might look around upstairs and see if there’s anything that fits you. You’ll need something for overnight, at least. Look in Mr. Harper’s wardrobe—” None of Timothy’s things would fit him. “No—” I remembered that all the Harper family clothing was stored in the basement room. But there was Celia’s Boston shopping—she hadn’t retrieved it yet. “Look in the cupboard in the front bedroom—in the carrier bags from the Boston stores. There might be something in one of them you could wear, at a pinch.”
“And this is a pinch!” he agreed, darting for the stairs.
“Mummy—” Tessa returned, tearful. “Mummy, I can’t find Errol anywhere. He isn’t here. He’s got out—”
“He couldn’t have. Shh—just a minute, Tessa, then I’ll help you look. Hello—”
“Hello—” It was Luke, sounding sleepy and faintly puzzled. No, I couldn’t speak to Celia, or even Patrick—his parents weren’t there. “I thought they were with you, Aunt Rosemary. I’m sure they were going to have dinner with you.”
“Those plans were changed. They’re not here.” Where could they be? And what was to be done about Luke, alone in the house with the fire spreading towards him? Should we try to get over to collect him, or were Celia and Patrick on their way home even now? If they returned to find Luke gone and wasted valuable time searching for him, they might be trapped themselves.
In the sudden silence, as I tried desperately to decide what was to be done, there came the familiar hollow thud—the sound of a coffin lid falling. An omen? It couldn’t be—it was real. And somewhere nearby.
“Errol!” Tessa burst into sobs, putting her own interpretation on the sound. “Mummy, that man has shot Errol!”
Whiskers & Smoke Page 16
