The Resurrection Man

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “Are you guys working on the case?” he asked avidly.

  “Homicide is always handled by the police,” Max evaded. “We just happened to become slightly involved because Sarah phoned Mrs. Protheroe and learned that her husband was dead. The Protheroes were old friends of the family, I expect your father would know them, too.”

  “Oh, were they the people who lived in that big mudflat-colored house with all the junk in it? Don’t tell me the guy who got lanced was that fat old drunk who was always trying to tell stories nobody wanted to hear?”

  This was the Jesse whom Sarah had known and loathed, she leaped straight down his throat. “George Protheroe was not a fat old drunk. When he was a young man in the Orient, he caught some terrible disease. He almost died, and it left him with serious problems, including a kind of chronic sleeping sickness. Mrs. Protheroe was devoted to her husband and many people, myself included, loved him very much. Kindly bear that in mind tomorrow at the funeral.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jesse mumbled.

  “All right, Jesse. But if you’re going to be a detective, you’d better learn to get the facts before you start running off at the mouth.”

  “A detective? Me?”

  “Well, possibly. Depending. Max, I seem to have put my foot in it here. Can you help me out?”

  Max didn’t mind Sarah’s having jumped the gun. He knew what a strain she’d been under all summer long, and what she must be feeling now. “Sure, Sarah, no problem. It’s just that I’ve been watching you a little, Jesse, and wondering whether you might sometime be interested in helping us out at the agency. Since you’re at loose ends till school starts, this might be a time to get in a spot of apprenticing.”

  “Me? Well, sure. But what would I have to do?”

  “Sweep out the office, answer the phone, wander around the art museums and antique shops, go out on a few assignments with whichever of us can use you. Generally get the feel for what we do.”

  “Do I carry a gun?”

  “Not if you’re going to work for us. Lethal weapons only invite trouble. Our protection comes from using our heads all the time and our feet when necessary.”

  “I’m a brown belt in judo.”

  “Bully for you.” Max shifted in his chair and winced as his mending ribs gave him a stab of pain. “I wish I’d been. Does anyone mind if we go and sit where it’s softer? Anyway, Jesse, you might start by keeping your eyes open tomorrow at the funeral.”

  “What am I supposed to look for?”

  “That’s where the detective instinct comes in. You just have to develop a nose for smelling rats.”

  Jesse was quite taken with the idea. “So that’s what this honker of mine was designed for. I’ve often wondered.”

  Jesse’s quip against himself gave them all a chuckle, Sarah began to feel that Max might have been more perspicacious than anyone else about the boy’s potentialities. That wasn’t to say she didn’t intend to keep a sharp eye on him for whatever length of time he might remain in the house. Today had gone better than she’d anticipated. Nevertheless, she went to bed warning herself to beware of getting too cozy too soon with any child of Lionel’s.

  During the night an east wind came up, as east winds often do in Boston. The weather that had been hot and fair all week was damp and chilly in the morning. Sarah and Theonia both came to the breakfast table in their robes, asking each other what they ought to wear to the funeral. Not that it mattered particularly. Few people bothered about mourning these days, least of all the Old Guard. Theonia did decide on black because it suited her and because the outfit she had in mind included a matching jacket that could be left on or taken off, depending on the weather. Since it looked like rain, she was going to carry her lovely black-and-white umbrella with the goose-head handle that Brooks had carved for her, and hoped to goodness she wouldn’t forget and leave it somewhere.

  Sarah said then she’d wear her gray silk suit and carry her summer raincoat, just in case. Max and Brooks couldn’t help being appropriately dressed since neither of them went in for bright-colored shirts or flashy ties. Jesse got the full treatment and emerged, if not a thing of beauty, at least a credit to Charles’s valeting. Charles himself was splendid in his butler outfit, Mariposa had remembered to put on the black uniform and take off the orange ribbons. The two of them looked snappy enough to be raising the curtain at the Wilbur on a British drawing-room comedy.

  Seven in one car would have been a squeeze. It was decided that Charles and Mariposa would go in the bug and the rest in the big car, which they’d need for the sad procession to the cemetery after the service. They all walked over to the garage together; Sarah stayed next to Jesse, feeling a slight urge to make up for the heavy-handed way she’d been forced to deal with him in the past.

  “What a pity your grandmother has to miss the funeral.” Sarah thought she wouldn’t mention that Apollonia Kelling liked nothing better than a good cry over a casket. “She and your grandfather were always so fond of George Protheroe.”

  “Gran loves everybody, grandpa couldn’t stand anybody,” was Jesse’s more accurate rejoinder. “And Lionel and Vare don’t do funerals unless there’s something in it for them.”

  “Aren’t you being a little bit rough on your parents?” Sarah knew perfectly well he wasn’t, but she couldn’t let him run on like this in front of people who weren’t family. “Nobody’s asking you to be a hypocrite, but there are times when it’s better to say too little than too much. This is going to be one of them. Many of the agency’s clients are people we know, or friends of people we know; we can’t let them think any of our staff might go around making rude remarks behind their backs. What it boils down to, Jesse, is that good manners are also good policy, no matter where you are. I don’t mean to sound preachy, I know we’ve dumped a lot on you within an awfully short time. By the end of the week, you may decide you’d rather go back to Ireson’s and dig some more clams.”

  “I doubt it, Sarah, I was getting awfully sick of clams. Do you expect trouble at the funeral?”

  “I hope not, for Anora Protheroe’s sake, but one never knows. Whenever something sensational happens, there are always ghouls trying to gate-crash. I just hope enough policemen have been put on to keep them out. And I further hope you won’t try any judo in that new suit unless it’s a real emergency. You look quite nice, by the way. What do you want to bet Cousin Dolph doesn’t recognize you?”

  Jesse started to offer an opinion about Cousin Dolph, caught Sarah’s eye, and grinned. “Okay, I get the message. So what am I supposed to say if anybody starts talking to me?”

  “Tell them who you are and that you’re staying with us in town for a while. If they ask about your family, say they’ve gone on a cruise. Don’t lie, just tell as much of the truth as you feel comfortable with, then either fade away gracefully or start them talking about themselves. You’re entitled to ask questions, too, you know. You could get in some useful practice at extracting information without letting your subject realize he’s being pumped. If it gets too boring or too tough, make some excuse to break off.”

  “Like I have to go to the bathroom?”

  “If that’s the best you can think of. You’ll cope, Jesse. Max wouldn’t be interested in working with you if he didn’t believe you were worth training.”

  16

  “TOO BAD IT’S SUCH a dreary day,” Brooks Kelling remarked, “though I suppose the weather’s appropriate to the occasion.”

  Brooks had offered to drive the big car, Sarah was quite willing to let him. She was feeling low in her mind, not so much about fubsy old George, so bizarrely done to death beside his own newel post, as about Anora, abruptly and brutally parted from the man she’d loved and nursed along for more than half a century. What was the poor woman going to do without someone to coddle?

  The best she could, no doubt, like everybody else. Sarah had spoken on the phone with Anora earlier this morning; they’d agreed that there was no sense in the Bittersohn-Kelling party
’s dropping by the house before the service, now that Charles and Mariposa would be coming in the other car. It wasn’t as if they were needed; everything was, or appeared to be, under control. Cousin Dolph Kelling and his wife, who also lived in Chestnut Hill, were going to ride in the undertaker’s limousine with Anora. Mary Kelling was both kind and capable, Dolph loved a good funeral, the couple could be relied on to do all the right things.

  Max was sitting in front with Brooks on account of his stiff leg. Sarah and Theonia had Jesse between them in the back seat, giving him a crash course in the kind of small talk appropriate to the occasion. As they came in sight of the handsome fieldstone church, however, polite conversation turned to murmurs of dismay. They’d expected the local gendarmerie to take security precautions against sensation-seekers, they’d have been greatly disturbed for Anora’s sake if the police hadn’t acted. They just hadn’t quite realized they were going to get stuck in the jam along with everybody else.

  A whole cordon of patrol cars were flashing their blue lights in front of the church and the parking lot. Uniformed officers were guarding the entrances, one with a clipboard was stationed at the front door letting some people in, sending others away. Another officer with another clipboard was walking along the ever-lengthening line of idling cars, checking registrations and drivers’ licenses, allowing some to stay in the queue for the parking lot, waving the majority off.

  Plenty of fur must be flying about this cavalier treatment. Every chance acquaintance who’d so much as bought a white elephant from Anora at a church bazaar twenty years ago, and a good many who hadn’t even done that, would feel entitled to attend the obsequies and be furious at getting turned away. It was plain to see that these policemen’s lot was not a happy one today.

  Sarah and her party could only join the line in meek humility and inch their way along with the rest. It was as well they’d come early. Impeccable as their credentials were, they didn’t get parked and inside the church for upward of twenty minutes. Even here, the usher wouldn’t seat them until he’d consulted his clipboard. Max was listed as a Kelling but that didn’t matter, he was used to it by now. Jesse wasn’t on the list; Sarah got him in with a sad and noble tale of how her young relative, as eldest begat of Cousin Lionel Kelling, was representing his family because he was the only one of them not at sea, which was the truth in more ways than one. Touched by the youth’s manly bearing and Oxbridge haircut, the usher could not have been more obliging.

  “Would you people care to sit down front with the Adolphus Kellings?”

  Sarah considered the matter and decided to compromise. “Theonia, why don’t you and Brooks go ahead and keep Mary company? Aunt Bodie’s by herself, the rest of us may as well slide in with her.”

  Having to sit next to Boadicea Kelling throughout what would most likely be a long service ought to constitute a valid test of Jesse’s ability to show grace under fire. Max would be more comfortable back here, he could sit at the end of the pew and have a chance to stretch his leg out into the aisle without making himself conspicuous. Sarah’s own ulterior motive was to see who got past the watchdogs.

  Boadicea Kelling acknowledged the advent of her niece’s party with a mildly affable nod. Bodie was not given to exuberance at any time, nor did she think a church pew an appropriate place for socializing. Sarah made Jesse go first, slid in after him, and began mentally filling a clipboard of her own.

  She was rather surprised to see Leila Lackridge sitting across the aisle with Edgar Merton, she hadn’t laid eyes on either of them in ages. Not that she’d missed them or cared about them now, but they had been regular guests at Anora’s awful parties and frequent visitors at Tulip Street back when Sarah’s first husband and his mother were alive. Edgar was still in the Boston area as far as Sarah knew, but Anora had mentioned a while ago that Leila was living in New York. Leila had never been one to put herself out, it was surprisingly generous of her to have come back for George’s funeral.

  The time set for the service to begin was fast approaching. About half the pews were filled, a goodly turnout considering how selective Anora had been about letting people in. Sarah could place most of them. Max was also spotting a few.

  “See that yellow-faced guy with the stoop sitting in the fourth pew from the front on the opposite side from Dolph?” he muttered.

  “The man who looks like a bloodhound with a bad cold? That’s one I’ve never seen at Anora’s, who is he?”

  “Marcus Nie, the stripper and chipper from Arbalest’s atelier. The usher took him right down front, I’m wondering why. Is it possible Nie’s a relative?”

  “I have no idea. Anora’s people are all long gone, but George has a few scattered around. I’ll ask Aunt Bodie later.”

  Boadicea Kelling had never been any great chum of the Protheroes, but she’d know. Family connections were among the many sorts of information Bodie liked to have clearly pinned down. There was no earthly use trying to get anything out of her now, she’d only purse her lips and shake her head. There’d be time enough after the service. Sarah was trying to compose herself into a mood of proper reverence when Max nudged her again.

  A middle-aged man, tall, pale, and slightly built though a trifle bulgy around the middle, was trying to persuade a very old man to take his seat in a rear pew. The very old man was insisting in none too sotto a voice on sitting down front where he could get a clear view of the open casket.

  Max thought open caskets barbarous, he couldn’t imagine why anybody would want to look at a corpse. Sarah was more relaxed on the subject. She was used to seeing dead Kellings, they generally looked better laid out than they had in life. Even as a child she’d understood why the family of the deceased, having paid for the embalming, would naturally want to get some value out of it; why some of the relatives would take comfort from a last look at their cherished kinsman; and why others might feel an urge to make sure the dear departed was well and truly gone.

  The old man was getting his way. The younger, either his son or his nephew, or so Sarah judged from the resemblance between them, was thrusting forward his goatee and following his elder and the usher with what grace he could muster. Sarah cocked an eyebrow in her husband’s direction.

  “Dubrec,” Max murmured. “The one who sticks things together. That’s probably his father. Tell Jesse.”

  Sarah was not about to start a whispered conversation, not with Aunt Bodie just a glare away. She took out her miniature gold pencil and memorandum book, scribbled, “Keep an eye on those two,” and flipped her head meaningfully toward the pair who were at last getting stowed to the elder’s satisfaction. Jesse started to say something but she shushed him. The organist, who’d been producing suitably muted and elevating music for the past fifteen minutes had stopped playing.

  The rector was taking his place in front of the altar. An old woman in the same gray flannel suit she had been wearing everywhere she’d gone for the last twenty-five years or so and a black velvet toque that could have been a hand-me-down from the late Queen Mary was being led down the aisle by a tall, stout but not fat man wearing a dark gray suit, a black arm band, and the Kelling nose.

  Dolph’s attire was much more à la mode than Anora’s; he’d bought the suit only a decade or so ago for Great-Uncle Frederick Kelling’s funeral, either out of respect for his late guardian or in celebration of the old loony’s demise, nobody had ever been sure which. Anyway, the suit was wearing well and so was Dolph, bless him. What an impressive undertaker he’d have made, Sarah thought, if only he hadn’t got stuck with inheriting Uncle Frederick’s millions.

  The chief mourner and her escort ought to have been the last ones in, but they weren’t. While Dolph and a couple of ushers were getting Anora settled and she was snapping at them to quit their fussing, somebody else slipped into the pew behind Sarah’s, the one nearest the door. Simultaneously, the rector stepped up to the lectern and took a firm grip on the sides.

  “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”

&
nbsp; As Sarah had anticipated, Anora had opted for the High Church service. Once begun, it went on and on. Jesse started to fidget; Sarah was about to give the boy a hint to settle down when she realized what was upsetting him. Under cover of the organ’s playing, one of the latecomers who’d sat down behind them was crying his or her heart out.

  If Jesse were to turn around now, Aunt Bodie would throw a fit as soon as she could properly do so. Under pretense of getting a handkerchief, Sarah fished the little mirror out of her handbag, slipped it between the pages of her hymnal, and handed the book to the new apprentice. Max was right, Jesse was quick on the uptake. Without so much as a sideways glance he palmed the mirror. Presumably he made effective use of it. Sarah didn’t catch him doing so and neither, God willing, did Aunt Bodie.

  The crying stopped, except for an occasional sigh or snuffle. Who could be feeling such heartbreak over poor old George? Showing emotion in public was not the done thing in the Protheroes’ circle. At her own first husband’s funeral, Sarah herself had been rebuked for breaking down; Leila Lackridge had been the rebuker. Leila was doing the done thing now, sitting poker-faced in the cushioned pew, sneaking an occasional finger-flicking peek at her wristwatch, no doubt trying to calculate how much longer she’d have to keep a stiff upper lip before she could reasonably expect to find herself within range of a dry martini.

  She must have been spending the summer soaking up the sun; her angular profile looked as if it had been snipped out of burnished copper plate by an ill-tempered tinsmith. Except for the tan, Leila hadn’t changed a bit that Sarah could see, she’d always been thin as a rake and ugly as sin. It had been in Leila’s house that Sarah had first met Max Bittersohn, Sarah wondered whether she knew they’d got married. Probably she did. Leila must have kept in touch with Anora, how else would she have got invited to the funeral?

  As if it mattered. Sarah was making a dutiful effort to keep her mind on the lovely service when Jesse nudged her foot ever so gently with his own and handed her back the hymnal. She took out the mirror, screened it with the handkerchief she’d kept in her hand for possible emergency use, caught the reflection from behind her, and almost gave Aunt Bodie cause for umbrage.