After he cleaned his plate, he went to the stove and helped himself to another biscuit and gravy. “I’m about to pop, but I’m not quitting.”
As much as anything, he probably didn’t cotton to going back to being Percival. I watched him devour that biscuit and gravy and thought about the mother who had raised him, how hard it must have been making do with little or nothing. Seeing her boy railroaded to jail surely broke her heart, and that was probably what killed her.
When he finished, we got up and were putting our dishes in the dishwasher when, lo and behold, here came one of the maids so upset she was wringing her hands!
19
“What is it? What is it?” I cried.
“Oh, Miss Esmeralda, it’s the safe—the safe’s been stolen!”
“Are you sure? Where do they keep it?”
“In the library.”
“Show me.”
Percival and I followed her into the library, where Minnie and the other staff members were huddled around a bookcase that had been pulled out from the wall. “It was in back of this,” she said. “Oh, Miss Esmeralda, to think they walked right in here and walked right out with the Winchuster safe! What if they come back? What if we all get arrested?”
Like I say, she was wringing her hands and tearful, which don’t make for cool-headed thinking. Poor Percival, he was scared too. Actually, they were all historical, with the exception of Minnie. Cooks are used to emergencies. Of course, this was not no boiled-over pot.
All I could see was this big square hole where the safe had been. “Which one of you discovered this?” I asked.
“I did,” said the same maid who had told us the news. “I was dusting.”
“When did this happen?”
“We don’t know. Maybe last night—maybe before, when the house was shut up. Oh, Miss Esmeralda, what should we do?” I do believe her knees were knocking. “To think a man walked right in this house and walked right out with Mr. Winchuster’s safe!”
She made it sound easy to lift a thousand-pound safe and carry it away. “Have you called the police?”
“No.”
“Does Mrs. Winchester know about this?”
“No, we haven’t told her.”
“In that case, I will.”
“Oh, would you?” They all seemed relieved.
“I suggest you all go back to work and I’ll handle this.”
After everyone had scattered, I looked at Percival. He was pale—about to become unglued. “What do you think?”
“Oh, Miss E., if the police come, it’ll be in all the papers.”
“I don’t know that we can get around not calling them, Percival. That’s up to Mrs. Winchester.”
I examined the floor to see if there were recent scrapes or any evidence to tell us when the safe was took. “Percival, I don’t see any reason to think this was done last night or any time recently, do you? They probably came in here when the lodge was closed.”
“But what if it was last night? That could mean that whoever is following us came in and did this.”
“I hope not. But we can’t take any chances. I say we ought to leave right now and let somebody else call the cops after we’re gone. This is not one of Mrs. Winchester’s publicity stunts. They shouldn’t blame you if it gets in the papers.”
“Miss E., we’ll have a tough time persuading Mrs. Winchuster to leave if she thinks there’s any chance of making headlines.”
“Well, tell me, Percival, when do we have to be in Vancouver to board that boat?”
“In three days.”
“That’s all I need to know. Get the Rolls gassed up in case this works.”
Going up to the third floor, I breathed a little prayer that I would say the right thing in the right way to convince her that we needed to get on the road.
I found Mrs. Winchester watching TV and had to interrupt her program. “Mrs. Winchester, someone has stolen the safe out of the library.”
“Oh? When did that happen?”
“No one knows. The maid found it was gone when she was cleaning in there this morning.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing in that safe. They tell me Philip only uses it to store his important papers while he’s here.” She reached for the remote to get back to her show.
“But it still means that someone broke in and made off with it,” I said. “We don’t know who did that. What if it was done by the people who are following us? Whoever stole it may come back and do more devilment once they find it’s empty.”
“I see. I’ll call the police—and the newspaper. Oh yes, the newspaper!” That got her excited.
“If you call the police, there’ll be cops, detectives, reporters all over the place.”
“Oh, I don’t mind the press.” She picked up the phone.
“But Mrs. Winchester, the ship leaves in three days! If you call the cops they will no doubt hold us here until they finish their investigation, catch the thieves or whatever, and we’ll miss the boat.”
She put down the phone. “Well, we don’t want to miss the boat.”
“What would you think of our leaving right now? Then we won’t have to report this—we can leave reporting it to somebody else and not get involved…”
Disappointed, she hesitated. “Well, I guess we could leave now… Must we?”
“Yes, we gotta go or miss the boat.”
“I hate missing the excitement.”
“It’s your choice.”
“Well, I guess I should call my secretary and tell her to take care of notifying the police after we’re gone.”
“You better let someone here do that, because if your secretary notifies them, they’re bound to know you were here. Let somebody here call them and tell the staff not to mention that we were here. Otherwise the authorities might hold us until their investigation is over.”
“Okay,” she said and moved into high gear. “I’ll tell Minnie to warn the staff not to let on we were here.”
So it was settled. Mrs. Winchester asked the maid to pack her things, and I called Percival to tell him to bring the car around.
We left about 10:00 and drove the rest of the night. From Twin Falls Percival said we would be crossing the Snake River Valley, but it was too dark to see anything. I tried to sleep but couldn’t because Mrs. Winchester was out like a light and snoring to beat the band. We were traveling a mountain road with woods on either side, and there was construction along the way, but we were making good time.
It was still dark when we stopped for breakfast in Pendleton, Oregon. I made a beeline to the ladies’ room, and Mrs. Winchester was right behind me. It was so early that we were the only customers, and Mrs. Winchester agreed that we should eat inside.
In less than an hour we were back on the road. With the coming of daylight, I could see we were traveling through hilly country with wheat farms and cattle.
Farther along, I saw a sign—Yakima Valley. That’s where they grow all them fruits and vegetables we pay two prices for. Well, it was all beautiful country, but I couldn’t enjoy looking, because the caffeine in that coffee had Mrs. Winchester wide awake and talking up a breeze.
“Esmeralda, how will we know if those people are following us?”
“We probably won’t know.”
“Aren’t you excited?” she asked.
“Excited? No. If them following us took the safe, they probably thought your jewelry was in it. Since I’m the one carrying the jewels, I’m the one they’ll hit over the head.”
“Oh, Esmeralda, don’t let them hit you over the head. Just hand the jewelry over to them.”
“Don’t let them? Mrs. Winchester, they won’t be asking my permission to hit me over the head!”
She didn’t have an answer for that, so we rode along for some time, not saying anything more about it.
When she did say something, it was on another subject. “I keep thinking about that song those people sang, ‘Dem Bones.’ How does it go?”
“It’s easy. You start at the bottom: The foot bone connected to the leg bone; the leg bone connected to the knee bone…” I had to sing it to remember the words, and not wanting to blast her eardrums, I kept down my volume. I got to the chorus, and she joined in. Her voice was not a lot better than mine. “Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk aroun’; Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk aroun’—”
We wound up laughing our heads off.
“Let’s do it again,” she said, so we started at the top and sang down from the neck bone to the foot bone, then really belted out the chorus. Percival kept looking in his rearview mirror to see what was going on. We were having the time of our lives.
Mrs. Winchester laughed. “Once we get to the Wedgewood in Vancouver, maybe they’ll ask us to sing in the Bacchus Lounge.”
“Only if we can pass the hat,” I said, and we laughed some more.
“We’re supposed to reach Vancouver late this afternoon. The Wedgewood is one of my favorite hotels,” she said. “They have good security, but I suppose criminals could find us.”
She actually sounded a little wishful, like she hoped they would find us. I tell you, Mrs. Winchester was loony, all right, and didn’t have an ounce of common sense, but I was beginning to understand her. I had come to believe that she was one woman who could care less about money. She was out for excitement, and you couldn’t much blame her for that, seeing as how she didn’t have much of a life.
As for me, I’d had all the excitement I needed for one lifetime. In my book, what she was calling excitement might very well turn out to be life-threatening danger, and it could happen tonight, tomorrow, or whenever we least expected it.
20
To Mrs. Winchester’s delight, we arrived at the Wedgewood in time for the cocktail hour. I was pooped, I tell you, and could have hit the hay right then. Percival probably felt the same way.
The doorman who greeted us was wearing a cutaway coat and a short stovepipe hat, which made him look like a character in one of them TV plays about England the way it used to be. So this was Canada. Here I was in a foreign country when, until this trip, I had never been outside of North and South Carolina. Never in my wildest dreams had I ever thought I would travel so far from Live Oaks.
Mrs. Winchester headed straight for the bar, but I took my time gawking at the lobby. It was so classy that I would not have been surprised to see Queen Elizabeth holding court in there. All the furniture was antiques straight out of some palace, chandeliers of cut glass, oil paintings, and big flowered carpets such as a queen might have. Whoever furnished that place sure didn’t spare the shekels.
Finally, I moseyed on in the lounge and found Mrs. Winchester guzzling her martini. I ordered a ginger ale to keep her company, and we talked a bit about how grand everything was. Then I saw hanging on the wall of this Bacchus Lounge a canvas of a young man wearing a crown of vine leaves and not much else and holding a bunch of grapes and a glass of wine. Mrs. Winchester said he was Bacchus, the god of wine and revelry. Given my druthers, I’d sooner see a naked woman’s picture hanging up there—the kind they had in them Wild West saloons—than a Greek god people worshiped.
While Mrs. Winchester was busy getting high, I sipped my ginger ale and looked around at all the dark wood in there. By no means was it fake, not pressed sawdust. No telling how many trees they chopped down to panel that watering hole. Would you believe, they covered the chairs and couches in there with red velvet! Drunks spill drinks, throw up, burn cigarette holes. I guess when you’ve got money to burn you don’t have to be practical. Naugahyde would have been my choice.
It smelled good in there. Maybe they sprayed sweet-smelling stuff or maybe it was fragrance from all those big bouquets of mixed flowers that were everywhere. Now, if I was rich that is one thing I would have—fresh flowers all over the house.
Between drinks, Mrs. Winchester let me in on her favorite toast. “One martini and I am able; two martinis at the most; three martinis I am under the table; and four martinis I’m kissing my host.”
Well, if you ask me, she could hold three, maybe even four martinis—it was the fifth and sixth that got her really looped.
It was some time before Mrs. Winchester had her fill, so she was not too steady on her feet as we went up to the penthouse to freshen up.
It amazed me how each of these fancy hotels was so different. The Wedgewood put me in mind of England or Greece—not America, like Opryland did. A fire was burning in the fireplace, making the living room nice and cozy. Big doors opened onto a terrace, so I walked out there and had a great view of the city. I took a good look-see before I came back inside.
There were four rooms in the suite. In the bedroom I checked out the safety deposit box and debated about putting the jewelry in it when we went to supper. There was a king-size bed in there and a studio couch in another room.
Mrs. Winchester was checking out the penthouse bar, and I had it on the tip of my tongue to tell her to lay off the booze until supper, but I thought better of it. Instead I just shook my head at her. She got my drift and muttered, “Okay.”
I went in one of the two bathrooms to take a bath and found that the tub had them jets that shoot water on you. Decided I’d try it, and, land sakes, was that ever nice! I could have stayed in there hours on end.
After I got dressed, I went in to see if Mrs. Winchester was ready to go downstairs. She was zonked out on her bed, snoring like a lumberjack. “Mrs. Winchester, it’s time to eat.”
Hardly rousing, she mumbled, “You go on,” and rolled over.
I waited around a little while, thinking she might wake up and change her mind, but she didn’t, so I went on down to the restaurant.
Percival was in there, sitting alone at a table. When he saw me come in by myself, he stood up and motioned for me to join him. The waiter led the way and seated me.
“Mrs. Winchuster not coming down?”
“I guess not. I left her sleeping.”
“Good. It’ll give us a chance to talk.”
I was hungry, and Percival looked like he was about to drop, so I encouraged him to order a four-course meal. I didn’t know if I could handle four courses, but to keep him company I ordered all four too. I chose an appetizer of crab, ginger, and cilantro spring roll, which had cucumber and a few other things. Percival said we should order tomato soup and goat cheese for the second course, and for the third, I picked the beef tenderloin.
While we waited, we started in on the crusty brown bread served right out of the oven with creamy butter.
Percival sipped his wine. “Miss E., what do you think?”
“About what?”
“About our being followed. Do you think we’ve outfoxed them?”
“It’s hard to say. I hope so. At least when we get on that boat they can’t follow us.”
He frowned. “I don’t know about that. If they found out early on that Mrs. Winchuster was going on a cruise, they might have booked passage too.”
The waiter served our appetizers, and I asked Percival what he thought they wanted.
“Money. It’s all about money. Maybe the jewels, maybe they want to take Mrs. Winchuster hostage for ransom.”
“Percival,” I said, “you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but do you think it’s possible that Mr. Winchester has hired somebody to kill his wife?”
He thought about that a long time before answering. “I don’t know. You hear a lot about that kind of thing these days. I’m reading a book now about unsolved homicides, and most of them are cases of spouse murders.”
“I sure hope that’s not the case here. I’m praying nothing happens. But Percival, I would feel better if you were going on the cruise with us.”
He smiled. “I’m too much of a coward to be of any help. No, I won’t be going with you. I have to stay here with Desi and Lucy and the Rolls.”
The waiter brought our soup. Percival looked too tired to eat.
“Do you ever get tired playing this role of chauffeur?�
�� I asked him.
“Tired? Dead is more like it.” He nibbled the cheese. “I have no more life than Mrs. Winchuster has. The only thing I have outside of driving the car and tending the dogs is reading my books.”
“Why do you keep on doing this, then?”
He was reluctant to answer. “The pay is good. I guess a lot of people would think the perks are great. As for myself, sharing Mrs. Winchuster’s luxurious lifestyle is not worth the price I pay. No matter how prestigious the job may seem, I’m still a servant at her beck and call.”
As the waiter filled Percival’s wine glass then removed our dishes, I looked across the table and tried to think of something that might help Percival. “After all these years—it’s nearly ten years, isn’t it?” He nodded. “Well, after all these years, it would seem to me that the reasons you had for changing your name and everything are no longer good reasons. You’ve established yourself as a good citizen. Couldn’t you leave, take back your rightful name, and live a better life?”
“Miss E., I’m ashamed to admit this, but I’m afraid to try. I used to think about doing something different, but I had put it out of my mind until you came along.” He smiled. “You intruded into my comfort zone and made me think about getting a life again.”
“Oh, come now. It wasn’t me. You had to stick with this job long enough to get tired of it. Now you can quit.”
“No, I can’t. You have to realize, Miss E., that since I was fourteen years old I’ve been isolated from society. In this job I’m still isolated. I’m not sure I can handle what it takes to live on the outside. I don’t have skills of any kind.”
I laughed. “You’re a good actor. You could go to Hollywood and play the same role you’re playing now.” The waiter was serving our main course.
“You could drive a cab, couldn’t you?”
“Cab drivers are tough. I don’t think I could hold my own with the public the way they do.”
Land Sakes Page 13
