“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Sexton.”
“Likewise, Mr. Kaid.” See? I can be a gentleman. Rumors to the contrary are sour grapes and envy.
Jennifer didn’t give me a chance to start eating. “What are you doing here?”
“The General sent for me.” Everybody was interested in me. Nice to be the center of attention sometimes. I have to set the Dead Man on fire just to get him to listen.
‘”Why?”
“Ask him. If he wants you to know, he’ll tell you.”
Her mouth pruned up. Her eyes shot sparks. They were interesting eyes, hungry eyes, but eyes that had been brushed by a darkness. I couldn’t tell if they were green or not. The light wasn’t good enough. An odd one. Maybe unique. A one in a million beauty and not the least attractive.
“What sort of work do you do, Mr. Sexton?” old Kaid asked.
“You could call me a diplomat.”
“A diplomat?” Surprised.
“Sure. I straighten things out. I get people to change their minds. Kind of like the Corps, only on a small scale. Personal service.”
Peters shot me a warning look.
I said, “I enjoy good conversation as much as the next guy. But I’m hungry. And you folks got a jump on me. How about you let me catch up?”
They all looked at me oddly. Cook more so than the others. She was wondering if maybe she’d missed the mark with her earlier guess.
I stoked the fires some, then asked, “Where’s everybody else, Sarge?”
Peters frowned. “We’re all here. Except Tyler and Wayne. They have the night off.”
Kaid said, “Snake.”
“Oh. Right. Snake Bradon. But he never comes in the house. Hell. He may not be around anymore. I haven’t seen him lately. Anybody seen Snake?”
Heads shook.
Cook said, “He come for supplies day before yesterday.”
I didn’t want to ask too many questions too soon so I let Snake Bradon slide. I’d get Black Pete alone sometime and get a rundown on everybody. I said, “That doesn’t add up. I heard there were eighteen in the house besides me.”
Everybody looked puzzled except Cook. Chain said, “Ain’t been that many people around here in years. You got us guys, Cook, Tyler, Wayne, and Snake trying to keep this barn from falling apart.”
I ate some. I don’t know what it was. As good as lunch but less identifiable. Cook was fond of stuff she could do in a pot.
After a while the silence got to me. I had a feeling it wasn’t just for my benefit. These people wouldn’t talk much more without me there. “What about the blonde girl? Who’s she?”
That got them looking perplexed. Peters asked, “What blonde?”
I looked at him for about ten seconds. Maybe he wasn’t yanking my leg. “About twenty, gorgeous. As tall as Jennifer, even slimmer, hair almost white that hangs to her waist. Blue eyes, I think. Timid as a mouse. Dressed in white. I caught her watching me several times today.” A recollection. “Dellwood. I saw her when you were there. You told me she was Jennifer.”
Dellwood made a face. “Yes sir. But I didn’t see her. I assumed it was Miss Jennifer.”
“I didn’t wear white today,” Jennifer said. “What kind of dress was it?”
I tried my best, which isn’t bad. The Dead Man’s big accomplishment is that he’s taught me to observe and recollect.
Jennifer said, “I don’t have anything like that,” trying to sound bored and failing. They all exchanged glances. I took it none of them knew who I was talking about.
I asked, “Who’s taking care of the General? If you’re all here?”
“He’s sleeping, sir,” Dellwood said. “Cook and I will wake him for supper after we’re finished.”
“Nobody with him?”
“He doesn’t want to be coddled, sir.”
“You sure as hell ask a lot of question,” Chain said.
“A habit I’ve got. I’m working on it. There any beer around the place? I could use some dessert.”
Dellwood explained. “The General doesn’t approve of drink, sir. He doesn’t permit it on the property.”
No wonder they were such a cheerful bunch. I looked at Peters hard. “You didn’t mention that.” If he’d done his homework, he would have known I liked my beer. He smiled and winked. The son of a bitch.
“Not a bad meal, Cook. Whatever it was. You need a hand clearing away?”
The others looked at me like I was crazy. She said, “You ask for trouble, you get it. Grab a load and follow me.”
I did. And by the time I got back for a second load, the rats had scattered.
I was going to have to ask Peters about the disparity between Cook’s head count and everyone else’s.
8
After supper I wandered up to my quarters. As I approached the door, digging for the key Dellwood had left in the primitive lock, I noticed the door was a quarter inch ajar. So.
I wasn’t surprised. Not after Jennifer’s bold peek into my duffel bag and the trick at the old workers’ barracks.
I paused. Go ahead like the cavalry? Or exercise a little caution? Caution didn’t go with the image I wanted to project. But it did contribute to an extended life. And nobody was looking.
I dropped to my knees by the doorframe, examined the lock. There were a few fine scratches on the old brass plate surrounding the keyhole. As I said, a primitive piece of hardware, pickable by anyone with patience. I leaned forward to see what I could glim through the keyhole.
Nothing. It was dark in there. I’d left a lamp burning. Trap?
If so, a dumb one. Especially not getting the door all the way shut. These old boys weren’t pros but I didn’t see them making that basic a mistake. And if not a trap, but just a search, I doubted they’d snuff the lamp. That was a dead giveaway.
The word disinformation trotted through my mind. From the spy game. Provide not just false information but more information than necessary, most of it untrustworthy, so that all information received came under the shadow of doubt.
I backed off, leaned against a wall, nodded to myself. Yeah. That felt like a good intuition. I was going to be allowed to find out all kinds of things, most of which were untrue, useless, or misleading. Hard to put a puzzle together when you’ve got three times too many pieces.
Which still left me faced with a decision what to do right now. It was still possible there was some clumsy idiot hiding in the dark waiting to whack me. So why not play the game right back? The hall was a good twelve feet wide, oversize like everything else in that house, and cluttered up with the usual hardware. Not twenty feet from me was a suit of armor. I got it and lugged it over in front of the door, pushed it up close, backed off, snuffed the nearest hall lamps so whoever was inside wouldn’t see anything but a silhouette. Then I got behind the tin suit, gave the door a nudge, walked the armor ahead a couple of feet, stopped like I was startled.
Nothing happened. I backed out and got one of the hall lamps and took it inside.
Nobody there but me and my decoy. I checked the closets and bedroom and dressing room. Nobody there and nothing obviously disturbed. If the place had been tossed, it had been done by an expert so good he’d noticed and replaced the little giveaways I’d rigged.
So what did we have here? Somebody had gone to the trouble of picking the lock just to snuff a lamp?
I closed the door, patted the armor’s shoulder. “Somebody’s playing games, old buddy. I think I’ll let you stick around.”
I lugged it over and shoved it into a cloak closet just big enough to contain it, lighted my lamps, took the hall lamp back, lighted the lamps there, went inside, locked up, sat down at the writing table to let my dinner digest.
Didn’t work too well. I need a beer or two to get the most out of those occasions. I had to do something about the shortage. In fact, it might be a good idea to vanish for a while and consult some experts.
There was ink and paper and what not in the drawer under the table. I got it out and
started making notes. I put down the names of everyone I’d met and hadn’t, and a mystery woman to the side. Peters, Dellwood, the General, Cook, Jennifer. Hawkes, Chain, and Kaid. Tyler and Wayne, who had the night off, and somebody named Snake Bradon, who was antisocial and wouldn’t come in the house. Somebody named Candy who, theoretically, didn’t count because he’d been fired long ago. And Harcourt, who used to sneak his girlfriends in, but who had left six months ago.
Eighteen people here, according to Cook. By my count, eleven, plus the mystery blonde. We had us what the Marines call a manpower shortfall. Someone tapped on the door. “Yeah?”
“Peters, Mike.” I let him in. “What’s up?”
“I brought you a list of the missing stuff. Can’t guarantee it’s complete. Not the kind of stuff you see everyday and notice is gone right away.” He handed me a wad of papers. I sat down and looked it over.
“This is a lot of stuff.” And all small. Each item had a guessed value noted. Stuff like gold medals, old jewelry belonging to Stantnor women long dead, silver serviceware disdained by rough, tough ex-Marines, decorative weapons.
“If you want, I can go through the house room by room and get a better count. Trouble is, it’s hard to tell what’s gone because there isn’t anybody who knows what all belongs.”
“Don’t seem worth the trouble. Unless you could find out about something that could be traced.” Little on the list fit that description. The thief had shown restraint.
Even so, he’d gotten enough so the bottom line made my eyes bug. “Twenty-two thousand marks?”
“Based on my best guess at the intrinsic value of metal and gems. I assume there’d be a big knockdown at a fence.”
“There would be, partly offset by artistic value. A lot of this don’t look like the junk that gets melted down.”
“Maybe.”
“Are we committed to finding the thief?” I was, that being the commission I’d accepted from the General. I was fishing for Black Pete’s feelings.
“Yes. The old man may not have long. I don’t want him going off burdened by knowing somebody got away with betraying him.”
“Right. Then what I’ll do is subcontract a search for the fence. Sometimes it helps to come back at a thief from the other end. Work me up a description of four or five outstanding items and I’ll have somebody try to find them.”
“You’ll have to pay for that?”
“Yes. You going to squeeze the General’s coppers?”
He smiled. “I shouldn’t. But I’m not used to not having to watch every one. Anything you need?”
“I need to know more about the people here.” I looked at my list. “Counting three guys I haven’t met and not counting my ghost lady, I come up with eleven names. Cook tells me eighteen. Where’re the the other seven?”
“I told you she has some loose threads. She’s been here since they built the first place—literally—and she never quite knows what year it is. When we first came here from the Cantard there were eighteen people, counting her and Jennifer. More before the old man finished dismissing the old staff. Now eleven is right.”
“Where did the others go?”
“Sam and Tark just up and died on us. Wollack got on the wrong end of a bull when we were breeding cows and got himself gored and trampled. The others just drifted away. They got fed up, I guess, hung around less and less, then just didn’t come back.”
I leaned forward, got a fresh sheet of paper, divided five million by two and gave two and a half mil to Jennifer, then divided two and a half by sixteen and came up with a hundred fifty-six thousand marks and change.
Not bad. And I never knew anybody who would walk on a hundred fifty thousand, gold or silver.
I did some more math. Nine into two and a half million came out two hundred seventy-seven thousand and change. Damned near double your money.
Was there something else going on here?
I didn’t mention it. It was something to keep in mind, though.
“You onto something?” Peters asked.
“I doubt it.”
Time for some footwork. “Having a little trouble making sense of things. There any way we can find out where those four men are now? Also, I’m going to need to know more about the General’s bequeathal arrangements.”
He frowned. “Why?”
“It’s a large estate. You said he used his bequests as a hammer. Maybe he ran those guys off. Maybe one of them might be trying to get even, either by doing the stealing or slipping him poison.”
“You’ve got me there.” He looked it.
“Two things, then. A copy of the will. And find out if there was a clash between the General and any of those four.”
“You don’t really think they’d be sneaking back?”
I didn’t, no. I thought they were dead. With my confidence in human decency aroused, I was sure somebody was playing a game of last one left—and doing such a damned good job, nobody else was suspicious. But . . . If somebody was, then that somebody was innocent of trying to murder the old man. That somebody would want to keep the General healthy while the field was narrowed. That somebody might even bring in an outside specialist . . . presuming he had a genuine cause for concern.
“Anyone have a spare key or master key for my room?”
That caught him from the blind side. “Dellwood. Why?”
“Somebody picked the lock and got in between the time I left for supper and the time I came back here.”
“Why would . . . ?”
“Hey. That’s a petty one compared to why would somebody want to kill the General. If that somebody exists he might be real nervous about me. What did you all do when you split up after supper?” I was going to play logical puzzle. Eliminate me and Cook because I didn’t do it and she was with me. Take Dellwood off the hook because he didn’t need to pick locks. Peters because he knew about me already. Eliminate anybody who was with them the whole time . . .
“Dellwood would have gone to get the General up and ready for dinner. I assume Jennifer went with him. She usually does. She stays till Cook brings his food and helps him eat if he can’t manage himself. I was in my quarters writing up the list from notes.”
“Uhm.” I thought a minute. “I do have one problem with this, Sarge. And that’s a reason for being here. I need to ask questions. I need to find loose strings I can pull on. Kind of hard to do that when I don’t have a good excuse. Cook’s already told me I’m too nosy.”
“I suppose. I had hopes but I didn’t really think you could manage without giving yourself away.”
“How many people know about the missing trinkets? As opposed to how many know you think somebody’s trying to kill the General? Why not tell the truth? Say the old man hired me to find out who’s stealing from him. They might even find it amusing if they think he’s imagining it. And the would-be assassin should relax. The others might open up after I convince them somebody is stealing from the old man. Right?”
“I suppose.” He didn’t like it, though.
“Figure out a way to let it get out. So everybody knows but it seems like I don’t know they know. Maybe joke about the General having another fantasy.”
“All right. Anything else?”
“No. I’m going to turn in. I’m going to roll out early and make a run into the city to put somebody on the track of the stolen goodies.”
“Is that a hint?”
It was. “I didn’t think of it that way. But I guess it is.”
“I’ll see you in the morning, then.” He went out.
I locked the door behind him, returned to the writing table.
Seemed to me there might be three puzzles here: who was stealing from the General, who was trying to kill him, and who was eliminating his heirs. It seemed reasonable to suppose that each thing—if any were fact—would be going on independent of the others, since the thefts were petty compared to murder and killing the General wouldn’t be in the interest of whoever was trying to enlarge his share of the
estate.
I could be up to my neck in villains.
I did hit the sack right away. I doubt Peters believed I would, because he knew the hours I keep. But I did need sleep and I had plans for the wee hours of the morning.
9
At home I usually control my internal clock. Go to sleep when I want, wake up when I want, give or take ten minutes. I didn’t leave the clock behind. I woke right on time.
And was aware of a presence before I opened my eyes. I don’t know how. Some sound so soft I didn’t catch it consciously. Some subtle scent. Maybe just a sixth sense. Whatever, I knew somebody was there.
I was on my left side, facing the wall opposite the door, sunk so deep in eiderdown, I couldn’t move fast if you branded me. I tried sneaky, faking a slow rollover in my sleep.
I didn’t fool, anybody. All I saw was the tail end of the blonde sliding out the bedroom door. “Hey! Hang on. I want to talk to you.” She bolted.
I climbed up out of that bed, tangled myself in the covers, fell on my face, said colorful things. That’s Garrett. Light on his feet. A real gymnast. Has moves like a cat. When I hit the sitting room she was gone and there wasn’t a sign she’d been there. The door was locked.
I lighted a few lamps and surveyed the big room. I hadn’t heard the door. I hadn’t heard a key in the lock. I didn’t like that.
Damned spooky old house was the kind that might come equipped with secret passages and hidden panels and all that stuff, maybe with secret dungeons below the root cellar and bones buried behind false foundations. I was going to have a nice time here, I was, I was. All I needed to make it a real vacation were ghosts and monsters. I went to the window. The sky was clear. A nail paring of moon was headed west.
“Come on. You’re not trying. We need some rain and lightning. Or at least some fog on the moor and something howling in the night.”
Back for a circuit of the room. I didn’t find any secret entrances.
I’d deal with that later, when there was time to measure walls and whatnot. Right now I had to prowl, while at least some of the denizens of the place weren’t keeping track.