The Gladstone Bag (7 page)

A shawl of wool challis splashed with improbably large peonies in those same off-reds and pinks would be her Bohemian touch for tonight. Those downstairs rooms were bound to be drafty once the sun had set. She really must quit puttering and betake herself downstairs if she was to catch a word with Vincent before the cottagers arrived.

The caretaker must have had the same idea; he was at her side as soon as she set foot in the living room. “Get you a drink, Mrs. Kelling?”

“Not yet, thank you,” she told him. “I’ll wait for the others. I did want a moment’s chat, if you can spare the time.”

“Sure thing. I’m just the bartender tonight.”

“Good. First, I’m wondering whether you’ve phoned Mrs. Sabine yet, to let her know we’ve all arrived. If not, I’d like to call her myself. You’ll have to show me how one goes about it.”

“No problem. See here?”

Vincent fished a bunch of keys out of his pocket, selected a small brass one, and inserted it in the lock of a lacquered Chinese box that Emma had assumed must be a cellaret. Inside was a perfectly ordinary telephone, if one considered polished brass and mother-of-pearl ordinary. It worked off a signal bounced from the mainland, Vincent explained.

“But how do you hear it ring?” Emma asked him. “I should think the box would deaden the sound.”

“Ayuh, that’s why we got an extension in the kitchen. If there’s a call for you, we come an’ tell you. Somebody’s always around in the kitchen. Far’s the cottagers are concerned, we generally don’t let on we’ve got one unless we have to. If they find out, we tell ’em it has to be kept shut up so’s the air won’t corrode the innards,” he explained. “Actually the only reason for the box is so’s they won’t talk ’er into the poorhouse. Just don’t give a hang, some of ’em. I did call, a little while ago. Mrs. Sabine was asleep, but Mrs. Pence said she’d pass the word when her mother woke up. She told me she’d phone your folks, too, so you needn’t bother unless you want to.”

“Then I shan’t,” Emma replied. “There’s no sense in running up the phone bill. That was rather late for Mrs. Sabine to be napping; I hope she hasn’t had another of her attacks. Did Mrs. Pence say?”

“She didn’t sound too happy.” Neither did Vincent.

“Oh dear.” Emma wished she could think of an optimistic remark to make, but there really wasn’t one. “Well, we shall just have to not bother her about whatever happens here. I’m sure you won’t mind my bothering you instead.”

“What I’m here for.”

“I assume you got the cottagers all settled in without any trouble? Had any of them been here before?”

“Nope, all new.”

“You know, that does puzzle me a bit. Mrs. Sabine told me she’d let Dr. Wont draw up her guest list for her, but I got the impression she didn’t actually know him very well.”

“Could be a friend of her son-in-law’s.”

Emma knew Parker Pence well. He was a member of her orchestra. His enthusiasms were his family, his investment business, his golf, his bridge, and his kettledrums. His friends were fellow members of the orchestra, the bridge club, and the country club. Wont might possibly be one of Parker’s clients, she supposed, but that would hardly put him in a position to dictate Parker’s mother-in-law’s philanthropic ventures.

However, she mustn’t stand here gossiping about Adelaide’s guests with Adelaide’s servant, not that there was anything servile about this salt-flavored colossus. “In any event,” she said, “it’s hardly my place to comment on her decision. What bothers me is that Mrs. Sabine appears not to have been told what Dr. Wont had in mind when he organized his team. Were you aware that he’s planning a treasure hunt?”

“No!” Vincent wasn’t liking this any more than she. “What do you mean, treasure hunt?”

“According to what they told me on the boat, Mrs. Fath is supposed to determine the site of Pocapuk’s pirate treasure by clairvoyance. She’s some kind of psychic, in case you haven’t yet had your fortune told.”

“Not yet.”

“Dr. Wont is going to write a book about it. Miss Quainley and Mr. Groot will do the illustrations. Mr. Sendick intends to write a book, too, but his will be fiction.”

“An’ Wont’s won’t. Huh! What’s Count Radunov s’posed to do?”

“He’s apparently not one of Wont’s group, just a friend of a friend of Mrs. Sabine’s son-in-law. He told me he’s planning to write a steamy best-seller and get rich. Not about Pocapuk’s treasure, though.”

Vincent emitted a snort that might possibly have been a laugh. “Be the first one to make anything out of it if he did. Wont fixin’ to dig the place up, is he?”

“Not if I can help it. I’ve already told him he mustn’t disturb anything until Mrs. Sabine has given her permission, assuming she does, and you’ve decided whether it’s safe for him to dig where Mrs. Fath tells him to. I find the whole business quite absurd, myself, but I doubt if there’ll be any real damage done. Knowing a bit about how Dr. Wont does his research, I’d guess that he’ll simply write up a long history of previous digs, drag out the preliminaries as long as he can, make a token attempt in some picturesque location, perhaps turn up a few pieces of eight or some nice little piratical trinket.”

“How can he do that?”

“Easily enough, I should think. Mrs. Fath’s spirit guides will no doubt have brought one or two along as insurance.” Emma was gratified to sense that Vincent was finding her more interesting than he’d expected her to be.

“Huh. Then what?”

“Oh, then the pirate ghosts will drive the diggers off. Dr. Wont’s already been out on the pier in his pirate costume, rehearsing some special effects. Or perhaps he was posing for Mr. Groot; I only caught a glimpse of him.”

“When was this, Mrs. Kelling?”

“About five o’clock, perhaps a little earlier.”

Vincent shook his head. “Couldn’t o’ been him, then. Must o’ been one o’ the ghosts.”

E
MMA STRAIGHTENED HER BACK
, thrust out her chin, and looked the caretaker square in the eyes. “Vincent, I am not a fanciful old woman. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking so.”

He might have flushed a little, it was hard to tell. “All I’m sayin’, Mrs. Kelling, is that if it was five o’clock you couldn’t o’ seen Dr. Wont on the pier. I was in his cabin then, an’ had been for the past half hour, tryin’ to fix a light switch that didn’t work. He was standin’ right behind me the whole time, tellin’ me what I was doin’ wrong. If he’d o’ gone someplace an’ let me alone, I’d o’ been finished a darn sight faster, but he didn’t. It couldn’t o’ been any of the others, neither. They was all in the deck chairs down by the cove drinkin’ Cokes an’ such out o’ their own ice chests; I could see ’em from where I was workin’. Except the fortune-teller; she was settin’ in the rockin’ chair on her porch doin’ some kind of fancy work. You wouldn’t o’ mistook her for him anyways, I shouldn’t think.”

“I obviously mistook someone. Whoever it was had a bushy black beard like Dr. Wont’s, was tall and spare like him, and dressed in—oh!”

“What’s the matter, Mrs. Kelling?”

“It’s occurred to me that what I took for a pirate costume may well have been one of those heavy rubber wet suits, scuba divers wear. It was black and close-fitting, with a red business over the head. I suppose I saw the outfit as black boots, knee-breeches, and a red bandanna because I had pirates on the brain. The taxi driver who took me to the ferry had talked about Pocapuk and the Spanish sailors he killed to guard the treasure. Then of course I was concerned about Dr. Wont’s projected treasure hunt.”

“Hasn’t been a summer yet that somebody didn’t see a pirate or two.” Vincent might have been joking, but he wasn’t scoffing. “Where’d the feller go? Did he come up the pier?”

“No,” said Emma, “I believe he must have stepped backward into the water. He was there and then he wasn’t.”

“Didn’t surprise you?”

“Not really. As I mentioned, I’d decided it was Dr. Wont getting in a spot of practice. Frankly, I was more annoyed than surprised at his barging ahead without asking your permission, which shows the folly of making snap judgments. It wouldn’t have been someone who works here, taking a break to do some diving?”

“Nope. They don’t take breaks without my say-so and they don’t none of ’em dive, not out here. You see a boat anywheres near?”

“Not a sign of one, but you know my windows only overlook the front side of the island. Do you think someone ought to check around for a trespasser? I can manage the drinks if you want to go yourself.”

“No need. I’ll send one of the boys.”

“Where are they all? So far, I’ve only met Sandy, who’s a perfect joy, by the way. How old is she?”

Vincent was struggling not to look too pleased. “Thirteen this past February. She’s my youngest.”

“Then you’re a fortunate father. Is Sandy living here on the island?”

“For the time bein’, her an’ her friend Bernice. My wife’s gone off on a dig, an’ the two oldest boys are busy most o’ the day haulin’ traps with their uncle. Neil, he’s fifteen an’ a half, he’s workin’ here, too. I didn’t want ’em stravagin’ around by theirselves all summer. Figured they’d be better off with something to do where I could keep an eye on ’em.”

“Very sensible of you. What is your wife digging?” Emma almost added “Pirate treasure?” but forbore.

“Indian ruins. She teaches archaeology up at the college. Pay ain’t much, but she enjoys it. We got a few minutes if you want to meet the rest of the staff. They’re havin’ supper in the kitchen.”

“By all means, if it won’t bother the cook.”

Vincent didn’t seem to care whether the cook got bothered or not. He steered Emma through the dining room, where the table was already set with fiddleback silver and Wedgwood china in the clipper-ship pattern, through a swinging door to a serving pantry and on into a good-size kitchen.

At the business end, a stout, red-haired man wearing not only the conventional white cotton trousers and jacket but also the traditional chef’s cap with its muffin top slanted rakishly over the left ear was stirring something in a pot. Lobster bisque, said Emma’s nose. She’d guessed right on the menu.

At the other end, Sandy and her friend Bernice, a teenage redhead who must be Neil, a good-looking young man of twenty or so, and an older man with a bushy black beard much like Dr. Wont’s sat around a scrubbed pine table, eating fish chowder out of thick white bowls. As Emma entered, they all stood up, Sandy first.

“Ooh! Mrs. Kelling, you look like a fairy godmother! See, Bern, didn’t I say she was gorgeous?”

“That’ll do, Sandy.” Vincent wasn’t annoyed with his daughter; he was seething nonetheless, though he wasn’t showing it much. “Mind tellin’ me who you are, mister, an’ what you’re up to?”

The bearded man shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“He can’t remember his name, Dad,” Neil piped up. “He can’t remember anything.”

“That so? How’d he get here?”

“I found him, Vince.” That was the older fellow. “He was over on the rocks by Piney Point, wearin’ a scuba suit with a big rip in it. I asked him where he’d come from and he just looked at me. I could tell the guy was all in, his hands were wrinkled and his lips were blue. He could hardly stand up. I yelled for Neil. Between us we got the wet suit off, rolled him in a blanket, and got some hot coffee into him. When he was able to walk, we brought him up here and gave him some of my clothes to put on. Bubbles said maybe after he gets a hot meal in him, his memory might come back, so that’s where we’re at.”

“How come you called Neil instead of me?”

“Neil was within yelling distance and you were over at the cottages.”

That wasn’t going down with Vincent. “I’ll talk to you later, Ted. Mrs. Kelling, I’d like to have you meet Bubbles Ryan, if he can spare the time to shake hands.”

“Please don’t let me interfere with your work, Mr. Ryan,” said Emma.

“Pleathe call me Bubbleth, everyone elthe doth,” the fat man replied. Emma could see why. Tiny bubbles formed at the corners of his pink little mouth, quite inoffensively, as he lisped out the words. He looked, she thought, like an overgrown version of the little chef in the Campbell’s Soup ads she remembered from her childhood.

“Certainly, Bubbles, if you wish. What are you giving us tonight?”

“Lobthter bithque and thtuffed chicken with athparaguth. We alwayth keep thingth thimple the firtht night.”

“Very sensible,” said Emma. “I shall look forward to it. I mustn’t keep you now, we’ll talk tomorrow morning.”

Bubbles said that would be nithe. She left him to his stirring and spoke to Sandy’s friend.

“You must be Bernice.” Bernice still had her puppy fat and was likely to have a good deal more of it after a summer in Bubbles’s kitchen, Emma thought. Her cheeks were scarlet, her nose a pug, her eyes bright brown, her hair an even worse mess than Sandy’s. Her Smurf sweatshirt was green. How could Bernice’s mother have borne to let this little cuddlebug out of hugging distance? Perhaps she’d gone on the dig with Mrs. Vincent.

Neil had been sitting next to Bernice. He was going to be like his father. Emma could have sworn the boy grew another quarter inch even as he stood manfully to attention clutching the chowder spoon he’d been too flustered to put down. He and the older fellow, whom Vincent finally got around to introducing as Ted Sharpless, were both looking worried. Emma didn’t blame them. No matter what sort of shape they’d found their alleged amnesiac in, they’d been incredibly stupid to bring him into a house like this without either her or Neil’s father’s permission.

She wasn’t going to make an issue of it now. The kitchen clock said almost six, she must get back to the drawing room. She said something pleasant about hoping they’d all enjoy their summer together and went back the way she’d come, just in time to greet the cottagers.

Alding Fath, as the senior lady in their group, quite properly led the pack. She’d changed out of her sensible denim outfit into a sensible navy blue wash-and-wear shirtwaist sprigged all over with little red roosters and perked up with a string of red plastic beads. She had on navy blue nylon stockings and the sort of low-heeled navy blue sandals middle-aged ladies on sightseeing tours take along for dress-up; she carried a small red handbag. Her short gray hair was neatly dressed, her face discreetly touched up with a dusting of powder and a dab of lipstick. Absolutely nothing about her hinted of the arcane, much less of chicanery. Emma supposed it was all part of the stock-in-trade, still she felt mildly pleased to be with someone who looked much like some of the ladies in the Pleasaunce Garden Club.