A Dismal Thing To Do (6 page)

“Not money, damn it. Good heavens, man, you don’t think trusted members of the—of our company could be bribed? This was worse. Far worse.”

“Could you elucidate?”

“Er, hm. Needless to say, the personnel in the truck were instructed not to stop for any reason other than safe driving requirements. They were given lunches to carry, including a thermos of coffee. The food and drink were prepared in a maximum security area, or what we thought was one. Well, damn it, in an officers’ mess, if you want the unvarnished truth. I mean, damn it, is nothing sacred any more?”

Mr. X struggled manfully with his natural outrage, then redonned his mask of inscrutability. “Nevertheless, in some manner totally incomprehensible to me at this juncture, either the food or the drink was tampered with. After having had their snack en route as directed, both the driver and his—er—assistant became so violently ill that they found it absolutely imperative to halt the vehicle and open both doors of the cab.”

“Oh dear,” said the deputy commissioner.

“Precisely. As they were leaning out to—er—eject the tainted matter, they were pulled from the cab by masked assailants, thrown into the back of a closed van that had apparently been trailing their vehicle waiting for this—er —occurrence to occur, and kept in confinement for several hours. The object of this maneuver was clearly to keep them from sounding the alarm until the truck could be driven to whatever destination the hijackers had in mind.”

“Point C?” suggested Madoc.

“No doubt. The van was eventually found driverless on a side road not far from where the hijacking had occurred. The two kidnapped personnel were locked inside, still suffering from severe stomach cramps but otherwise unharmed.”

“Would these personnel be available for questioning?” asked Madoc.

“They’ve already been questioned
ad nauseam.”

The deputy commissioner coughed again. “With all respect, Mr. X, wouldn’t it have been
past nauseam
in this case?”

“Hah! Got you there. It would not. They both started puking again after the interrogation.”

“Poor devils. I stand corrected. Have your people been able to determine what substance was used to induce this gastric upset?”

“I am not at liberty to state.”

“Could you at least tell us,” Madoc asked shyly, “whether it was a substance that the average person could come by without a lot of fuss? Something like ipecac, for instance?”

Mr. X’s eyelids flickered. “I believe the substance might be said to fall within that category, loosely speaking.”

Ipecac, then. That must have been pretty ferocious coffee, Madoc thought, but perhaps the men had assumed that was how it was drunk at the officers’ mess.

“As to the preparation of this lunch they carried,” he went on, “wouldn’t it be rather an unusual circumstance for kitchen personnel at an officers’ mess to be asked to prepare a picnic for a couple of truck drivers?”

“Naturally, said kitchen personnel would not have been informed as to whom the lunch was for. They were merely instructed to get it ready. An orderly then collected the hamper and carried it to Point A, where he turned it over to the—er—top-ranking man in charge. That man in turn instructed a lesser-ranking person to put it into the cab. This was done just as the drivers were about to set off for Point B, which means the hamper was under guard the whole time.”

Undoubtedly. And nobody would have known a thing about the hamper except the sergeant, the private, the orderly, the cook, his minions, and all their respective buddies at Point A, not to mention whoever was expecting them at Point B.

“This hamper and thermoses,” said Madoc, “were they distinctive in any way, or were they what might be designated as standard issue?”

“They would fit more appositely into the latter category.”

“Ah, then others of their ilk might be procurable at short notice.”

“They might,” Mr. X conceded after due deliberation.

“Then,” said the deputy commissioner. “I expect you haven’t ruled out the possibility of a substitution somewhere along the line.”

Madoc hoped they also hadn’t ruled out the possibility that the drivers had taken along their own ipecac. He decided not to bring that up just now. Mr. X was already having a hard enough time keeping his qualifying remarks under control.

Perhaps Mr. X was tired of the struggle. “All this talk isn’t getting us anywhere, damn it. Let’s see that deposition of Mrs. Rhys’s.”

“By all means,” said the deputy commissioner. “Rhys, would you—?”

Rhys would, and did. They spent a while passing Xeroxed pages back and forth. Mr. X did a fair amount of grunting. Then he nodded briskly and stood up. “Right. Let’s go see whether Mrs. Rhys can give us a description of those men.”

“She didn’t see them, sir,” Madoc protested.

“Well, damn it, she must have seen something. Some— er—something or other. Got transport, Rhys?”

“No sir, I walked over.”

“No matter. Got a driver outside. Unless he’s been hijacked,” Mr. X added with a slightly worried smile.

He hadn’t. Unless Madoc was much mistaken, the driver had been taking a nap. However, he snapped briskly enough to attention and held the doors for the delegation. Madoc got in last and sat up front so he could tell the driver where to go, which wasn’t far. They could all have walked, for that matter, but he’d known better than to make any such suggestion, even though he could have done without this hulking great vehicle blocking up his driveway.

As to the visit itself, he was happy at any excuse to get back to Janet and confident of her ability to have the household under control, bedridden or not. This proved to be the case. Before he’d got the key turned in the lock, Muriel was at the door to welcome the delegation, whisking off her apron and hiding a dustcloth behind her back.

“I just thought I’d drop over and tidy around a bit,” she explained to Madoc. “That nurse doesn’t seem to want to lift a hand, just stays up there in the bedroom with Janet. She wouldn’t even let me inside. Took the tea tray right out of my hands, told me Mrs. Rhys was resting and couldn’t be disturbed. Janet’s not all that bad, is she, Madoc?”

Madoc could have said, “No, and neither is her housekeeping.” The place was spotless and inviting, with its new William Morris wallpapers, stripped woodwork and shining floors, against which their salvage from the barns and attics cut a pleasing figure. Mr. X would be thinking Detective Inspector Rhys must be on the take. He voiced none of these thoughts, but merely said gravely, “We’ll know better after the examination, Muriel.”

“Wouldn’t happen to be another cup of tea around?” barked Mr. X.

“Oh yes, Doctor. I’ll boil up the kettle right away. Shall I bring it to you myself, or will you send the nurse down? She might like a little change of air,” Muriel added cattily.

“We’ll send the nurse,” said the deputy commissioner. “You’ve got all your equipment, Doctor?”

“Er—oh yes. In my—in here.” Mr. X waggled the large attaché case which he had in his hand and possibly padlocked to his wrist. Madoc never did find out whether the case was part of his disguise or crammed with secret plans and vital documents, because Mr. X never opened it in his presence.

He was, however, relieved that his superior and Mr. X appeared not only content but even pleased to have Muriel regard them as visiting physicians, more relieved that Dr. X’s request for tea had sped Muriel kitchenward out of earshot, and most relieved of all that Nita Nurney was sticking to Janet like glue.

No doubt Nita had been alert to their arrival. When the delegation got to the head of the stairs, the bedroom door was ajar, and Nurse Nurney was standing on the threshold, all deference. Janet was propped up on a multitude of pillows, her bedjacket demurely tied at the throat, her hair neatly confined by a bonny blue ribbon, and her hands folded on the perfectly smooth counterpane in such a way that Mr. X could see her lovely antique diamond ring and realize Madoc was a man of status in his own right. Lady Rhys would have done the same for Sir Emlyn.

“Thank you, Nurse Nurney,” said the man of status. “I see your patient is ready to be examined by these two noted specialists. As you will not be needed during the examination, I suggest you go down and engage Mrs. Muriel in conversation. Perhaps on the subject of some light but nourishing snack she might have ready for us in half an hour or so, since she so obviously burns to be helpful.”

“Tell her to take whatever she likes from the fridge,” said Janet. “Just don’t let her cram it. Perhaps I’d better—” she caught Madoc’s eye and went back to being fragile.

“Jenny dear,” said Madoc when Nurse Nurney had bustled away in correct medical style and closed the door firmly behind her, “I believe you have met Deputy Commissioner Lawlord. And this is Mr. X, who would like to ask you some questions.”

“Of course,” said Janet. “I expect it’s about what happened yesterday, so you know why I’m in bed and I don’t have to apologize. What was it I left out of my statement?”

“For one thing,” said Mr. X, “you gave no description of any of the three men involved.”

“That’s because I never laid eyes on any of them. I thought I’d made that clear in my report. The truck flipped over before I could get a glimpse of the driver, and I couldn’t see into the cab after that because of the way it was lying. That was why I went hunting for the ladder.”

“And as for the two men who came to the house later,” said the deputy commissioner, “you say you happened to be in the woodshed when they entered the kitchen, and that the connecting door was shut tight.”

“I don’t recall having said tight,” Janet replied. “It was shut. There was no crack big enough for me to see through. Considering how anxious they sounded about my being properly murdered and my body safely disposed of, I had no special inclination to sneak over and take a peek. I just froze stiff and prayed they wouldn’t take a notion to open the door themselves, which they didn’t.”

“But you were able to hear them well enough,” said Mr. X. “Does that mean you’d be able to recognize their voices if you heard them again?”

“I should think likely.”

“Why are you so sure? Did they have foreign accents?”

“No, not at all. I’d say they both came from the Maritimes.”

“Were they speaking English or French?”

“English.”

“And you’d say English is the native tongue of both men?”

“Such was my impression, for what it’s worth. It’s hard to be sure nowadays, with so many kids growing up completely bilingual.”

“Kids? Were these young fellows?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to mislead you. No, they didn’t sound all that young. I’d guess they were full-grown men, maybe in their thirties or forties. They referred to the one who drove the truck and stole my car as a kid, and they were joking about teenage vandals in a sarcastic way while they were breaking dishes and lugging the furniture out to be burned. I don’t think real teenagers would have done that, and I don’t see them as having been really old, or they wouldn’t have been able to do so much heavy work in so short a time.”

“But you can’t remember anything unusual about them? They didn’t talk like educated men?”

“Well, I rather doubt they’d have been professors from the university. They talked just like ordinary people.”

“Yet you’re positive you could recognize their voices if you heard them again.”

“I expect I could. The voices mightn’t have been anything out of the ordinary, but the circumstances under which I heard them certainly were.”

Mr. X wanted to belabor the issue, but Madoc wasn’t standing for that. “Jenny, is your head still aching? Are you sure you’re up to any more talking?”

“I expect I could stand it if I had anything more to tell, but I’m afraid I’m pumped dry. Why don’t you take Mr. X and Commissioner Lawlord down and give them their lunch? If one of you happens to think of something worth waking me up for, I’m afraid that’s what you’ll have to do. This stuff I’ve been taking for the pain is making me terribly drowsy.”

She held out her hand, drooping limply from the wrist as she’d seen Lady Rhys do in moments of extreme fedupness. Mr. X came all over gallant.

“Wouldn’t think of disturbing you again,” he assured her, patting the hand lightly as he held it. “You get your rest, Mrs. Rhys. You’ve earned it. Most grateful for your help.”

“Indeed we are,” said the deputy commissioner. “Rhys, you’d better stay here till we send Officer Nurney back upstairs. Not that anything’s likely to happen, but still—”

“Exactly, sir,” said Madoc. “You’ll find your way.”

Left alone with Janet, Madoc was all for improving the moment, but she put her hand over his lips and pushed him gently away. “Madoc, I have to tell you something. One of those men came from Bigears.”

“From where?”

“Bigears. It’s kind of a widening in the road out back of Pitcherville. They tried calling it Little Pitcher, but since little pitchers have big ears—”

“Yes, darling. How do you know?”

“They’ve got a funny way of pronouncing some of their final letters out there, very emphatically with a little sigh at the end.”

She demonstrated on the “end.” It wasn’t quite like “endde,” but somewhat in that general direction. “Every one of them does it over there, and I’ve never heard it quite the same anywhere else. It’s just a tiny thing most people would never notice, but you can’t miss it once you do.”

“Darling, that’s marvelous. Too bad it didn’t happen to strike you while Mr. X was grilling you. You’d have made his day.”

“Oh, it struck me, all right.”

Madoc stared at his wife. Then he shook his head. “Jenny love, have you been being clever?”

“I hope so. He doesn’t realize what he’s doing, you know. They never do, and they get mad if you point it out to them. I expect his mother was a McLumber and his father was a Grouse, or vice versa. There are just those two families, and they keep marrying into each other. The ones that stay, anyway. Most of them get out as fast as they can. Here’s Nita coming. Go get your lunch. Oh, and make sure you explain that I’ve just been having a nervous attack from being reminded, and want to go and stay with my folks.”