Something in the Water Read online

  Peter was well acquainted with Wordsworth. More to the point, he also knew his Longfellow. It would be cruel to explain that he and Helen read Withington’s little pieces mainly for the fun of seeing which of them could pick out the larger number of unattributed and misapplied quotations.

  “I’ve never danced with a daffodil, if that’s what you mean. Then I take it you’re a long-time resident of Pickwance, Mr. Withington?”

  “Not precisely a resident. More a perennial summer complaint, to employ the pungent local terminology. I can’t take the Maine winters nowadays, but I do stretch out my stays until the foliage season has gone by. Elva Bright is very good about making me comfortable, she’s even sacrificed her back parlor so that I don’t have to climb stairs. And I amuse myself absorbing the local gossip. I probably know more about Pickwance by now than most of its present inhabitants do. Not to be off-putting, Professor Shandy, but did you know that this building was once the regional pesthouse?”

  Chapter 2

  PETER SUPPRESSED A YAWN. “You mean this is where they ducked the scolds and mured up the unruly schoolboys?”

  Withington awarded this feeble sally a dry chuckle. “Not precisely. It’s where they isolated their infected neighbors, back in the so-called good old days. Sailors would pick up exotic bugs in foreign ports, you know, and come home to infect their wives and sweethearts. Then there’d be outbreaks of mumps, measles, and so forth. Smallpox was the most dreaded, but tuberculosis was the chief killer. At one time, the pesthouse became a sanitarium, until vaccination put it out of business. The air around here was supposed to be particularly beneficial to sufferers from lung disease; patients would come all the way from Boston and New York, hoping for miracles. And finding them too, sometimes, or so it’s been claimed.”

  Withington eased his gammy leg and winced. “Now that some of the old diseases that we thought had been conquered are regaining their footholds, thanks largely to the fact that children no longer get trained to wash their hands before they eat and after they’ve performed their natural functions—thus speaketh the schoolmaster—Elva might even find herself being asked to take in patients again. Not that she’d consider it however, after what she went through with her late husband.”

  Peter supposed he ought to make some politely interrogative noise. He settled for cocking one eyebrow, which was enough. His fellow boarder didn’t need to be coaxed.

  “That was a sad affair. Jean-Luc was a Frenchman, a genuine hero of the Resistance who’d been caught and tortured by the Nazis but, it’s said, never cracked. Somehow or other, his friends got him away and smuggled him aboard an American troopship that was bringing back a cargo of wounded and disabled servicemen. I’m not clear as to how he wound up at Pickwance; whether he was hoping to find relatives—as you know, there are many people of French descent in Maine—or whether he was just looking for a place to crawl into and lick his wounds.”

  The elderly man eased his leg again, using both hands to move it. “Well, to make a long story short, here he was. By that time, the Brights had been running the old pesthouse as an inn for quite a while. Elva is the third generation of innkeepers. She was about the age then that Thurzella is now, and doing much the same kind of work, helping out with the serving and flipping a dust cloth over the places that showed. She was quite a pretty girl, and Jean-Luc Mercier de L’Avestant-Portallier, if I’ve got it all in, was rather handsome in a gaunt and haggard sort of way. He was thirty-five and she was just out of high school, so it need hardly be said that they fell in love, notwithstanding the fact that Jean-Luc’s experiences in the torture chamber had left him fit for nothing much except the begetting of children, which he proceeded to do in fairly short order.”

  “Too bad,” said Peter, not knowing what else to say but not wishing to be churlish.

  “Oh no, it wasn’t bad at all. Jean-Luc had money of his own, either an inheritance or a pension of some sort. Presumably he had no entanglements back in France or else the Brights were careful not to inquire. Anyway, he and Elva were married before the situation got too far out of hand and lived as happily as most couples. Perhaps better than some, I wouldn’t know. Jean-Luc had a nose for finance, he subscribed to the Wall Street Journal and played the market.”

  “Successfully?”

  “Well enough. After a few years he was in a position to buy out the parents in cold cash, much to the chagrin of Elva’s brother, who’d never raised a hand to help out but had confidently expected to inherit the inn after the old folks were gone. They did go, as a matter of fact, first to Florida to live it up on Jean-Luc’s money, and thence in the fullness of time to the Pearly Gates, where I’m sure they had no trouble gaining admittance.”

  “Ungh. What about Jean-Luc?”

  “He managed to sire a second daughter and pile up a comfortable nest egg for his wife and the girls before his infirmities caught up with him. He also left Elva the inn free and clear, which assured her a livelihood. I shouldn’t suppose a small place like this would require much in the way of management and upkeep.”

  Like hell it wouldn’t, but Peter saw no point in trying to say so when Withington still had a good head of steam up.

  “I suppose it hasn’t been a bad life for Elva, all things considered. Both the girls have married respectably and reared, as far as I can tell, reasonably civilized children. Michele, the elder, is the one who lives down the road. Her husband manages a sawmill and she does hand-weaving, which I’m told she sells quite profitably through various craft shops, including her own. I expect Michele will take over the inn eventually, though one never knows. Therese, the younger, won’t want it. She’s a psychologist married to a prominent lawyer in Portland. They come up quite often. You may get to meet them if you stay through the weekend.”

  Withington speeded up his delivery, perhaps to keep Peter from saying no, he wouldn’t. “Maybe Thurzella will take over, or possibly some of the other grandchildren. Whoever steps in will inevitably keep the Bright name, of course, as Elva has done. It goes with the job.”

  Peter was finding the Bright family saga less than enthralling. “I wonder what’s keeping her?” he fretted. “I thought she was just going down the road.”

  “Please don’t feel you have to stick around on my account.”

  The inflection in Withington’s voice made it clear that Professor Shandy would be the rottenest of rotters to leave an infirm latter-day counterpart of the Ancient Mariner in the lurch with a cooling cadaver. Unfortunately, the old bore was right. Peter was greatly relieved when the front door opened and Mrs. Bright hurried into the dining room.

  “Sorry I took so long. Thurzella was in kind of a taking, she’s always been the sensitive one. I had to call up Sara Ann and tell her to send Michele and Bob home. Needless to say, that started a lot of backing and forthing about what happened and all that, you know how it is. It was real nice of you two to stay, you might as well go along and turn in now if you want to. Here’s your smelling bottle, Claridge. Thurzella forgot to give it back. I’ll wash your handkerchief tomorrow.”

  She dropped her flashlight into the drawer under the cash register and reached for the telephone. “I’m going to give those gormless critters at the Narrows another ring and find out what’s keeping the wagon. It’s not as though Pickwance wasn’t forking out good money every year for the service, such as it is. Would either of you care for a cup of cocoa, or maybe some ginger tea? It’s a bit late for coffee.”

  “None for me, thanks,” said Peter before Withington could get started on another oration. “But I’ll go put the kettle on if you want something.”

  “No, Michele made me sit down and drink a cup of tea to steady my nerves, which it won’t. I’ll be tossing and turning all night, I expect. Oh, here they come now. All my ranting and raving for nothing, isn’t that always the way? I’m sorry you two had to get dragged in like this, but I surely do appreciate your help.”

  “We didn’t do anything,” Peter demurred.

 
“Except to make ourselves better acquainted,” Mr. Withington added with more grace. “Let’s hope our next conversation occurs under less macabre circumstances, Professor Shandy.”

  Peter suppressed a mean hope that it wouldn’t happen at all and guessed he might as well get out from underfoot. This was easier said than done. By now a stalwart young woman and a runty older man, both wearing clean white lab coats over dungarees and T-shirts, were blocking the dining-room door with a stretcher on wheels, an oxygen tank, and sundry other appurtenances for which there could be no earthly use. By now the late Jasper Flodge’s fleshly integument was obviously beyond any hope of revival and his immortal self on the way to a better place. Or not, as the case might be.

  The pair began nevertheless to put a blood-pressure cuff on his flaccid arm and an oxygen mask over his face, asking Mrs. Bright as they worked what had happened. She gave them the particulars as best she could, with frequent interpolations from Claridge Withington. Having taken turnabout with their one stethoscope, watched the blood-pressure gauge, and failed to get either a breath or a pulse, the two paramedics at last removed the cuff and the oxygen mask and pronounced old Jas a goner.

  “Nothing we can do but haul him along for Dr. Bee to take apart,” said the man, whose name was Albert something. “Let’s see now, wasn’t Jas connected someway or other to the Rondels?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” Mrs. Bright answered, “though he might have liked to let on he was. You knew Jasper better than I did, he always laid it on pretty thick when he got the chance. Naturally he wouldn’t try pulling any of his nonsense on me. Furthermore, there’s none of the Rondels left but Miss Fran, and you can hardly expect her to help with the funeral, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “He looks awfully blue in the face,” said the young woman, whose name was Cynthia something. “Don’t you think so, Al? You don’t suppose he strangled on his supper, Elva? You say he was eating awfully fast.”

  Claridge Withinton interrupted. “Elva was in the kitchen at the time. I was sitting where I could watch Mr. Flodge, however, and I can testify that he was gobbling at an astonishing rate of speed. So could Thurzella, if she were here, and so, perhaps, can Professor Shandy, although he had a book with him and may have been reading.”

  “So Jas could have choked, then. Didn’t you think to give him the Heimlich maneuver?”

  “Professor Shandy did, but I believe Mr. Flodge was already dead by then.”

  “What about that, Professor? Was he?”

  “He had no pulse and wasn’t breathing. I did look up from my book, as a matter of fact, while Flodge was still eating, and saw him fall. I neither saw nor heard any sign that he’d choked, though he did jerk his hand and knock his water glass off the table. It happened in an instant.”

  “There, see,” said Elva. “If Jasper had choked he’d at least have grabbed at his throat and made some kind of noise, wouldn’t he? According to Thurzella, he just keeled over all of a sudden smack into his plate and never moved again. We had to wash the gravy off his face.”

  “Must have been an aneurism, then, or one of those sudden, massive coronaries,” said Albert. “Been carrying a time bomb around in his chest, like as not, and never knew it. Well, there are worse ways to go than with a full belly and no fuss.”

  “You don’t suppose he could have been poisoned?” Cynthia was obviously determined to extract the last ounce of drama, perhaps in compensation for not getting to use her oxygen tank to any good effect. “My husband and I were watching a spy movie on the “Late Show” the other night and this guy who got caught by the other guys chomped down on a cyanide pill that he’d had hidden behind his wisdom tooth and flopped down dead as a mackerel, just the way you say Jasper did.”

  “Jasper had no back teeth, and not many front ones. He’d lost them all from being scared of the dentist, fool that he was.”

  Peter was jolted by the surge of emotion in the innkeeper’s voice. He wondered if Mrs. Bright was thinking about Jean-Luc in the torture chamber, and of what might have happened if her to-be lover and husband had had a lethal capsule parked behind his wisdom tooth then.

  “Anyway,” Mrs. Bright went on in a more temperate tone, “why should he poison himself, here or anyplace else?”

  “And furthermore,” added Withington, ready like Cynthia to keep the speculation going, “where would Jasper Flodge have got the cyanide capsule? They’re not the sort of things people keep sitting around in their medicine chests. Don’t you agree, Elva?”

  “I don’t go prowling through my neighbors’ medicine chests, so I wouldn’t know.” The innkeeper was definitely on a short fuse by now, and who could blame her? “Al, can’t you and Cynthia just put Jasper on that stretcher of yours and get him out of here? I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m all in but the toenails, and they’re rattling. Do you have everything you need for the night, Professor?”

  “Yes, thank you. Good night, everyone.”

  Peter stood not upon the order of going, but went, hoping that Withington would have the sense to do likewise before this beleaguered woman hit the ceiling. He was developing a partisan feeling toward Mrs. Bright. She reminded him a little of his grandmother Shandy, though he knew better than to tell her so. He was halfway up the stairs when a man with a beer belly hanging out over his belt, wearing a dirty blue lightweight nylon jacket and a feed-store cap that failed quite to cover his bald spot, entered the lobby.

  “You around, Elva?”

  Peter felt it would be churlish not to say something. “Mrs. Bright’s—er—rather busy just now.”

  This man didn’t look to him like somebody wanting a room and could hardly be a presently registered guest. According to Withington, Elva had just got rid of a party of six and wasn’t expecting anybody new until weekend after next. The rooms, he’d said, were merely a sideline to the more popular and lucrative dining room; Mrs. Bright didn’t much care whether she filled them or not. Making up beds and catering to the divers needs of fretful tourists was almost more bother than it was worth. Or so had adduced the garrulous star boarder, during the latter part of their recent conversation, before Cynthia and Albert had shown up and he was running out of things to talk about.

  The man in the feed cap was not accepting Peter’s answer. “That so? I heard she was lookin’ for me.”

  “Oh. Then you must be the sheriff. Or—er—”

  “Constable. Where’s she at?”

  “In the dining room.”

  Just why Peter found himself impelled to go back downstairs and usher the constable to the scene of whatever action might still be going on was something he would wonder about afterward. The explanation, however, was clear enough. Several years ago, he’d found his most obnoxious neighbor stretched out dead behind his parlor sofa as the result of a horrendous practical joke that he himself had instigated. Adjured by Balaclava’s even more horrendous President Thorkjeld Svenson to catch Jemima Ames’s murderer without attracting unwanted publicity to the college or face the consequences, he had managed, by carrying out the President’s order, to avoid being mangled and stomped on. Since then, he had somehow become Balaclava Junction’s unofficial, unpaid, but too frequently overworked sleuth-for-all-seasons.

  A sickening thought overtook him. Would Jasper Flodge’s dramatic demise turn out to have been caused by a nice, tidy exploding aneurysm? Or was it the result of a skulduggerous plot in which P. Shandy himself would somehow become embroiled, simply because he’d waited for the Indian pudding that had never, come to think of it, got served to him.

  As he steered the constable into the dining room, Peter began frantically running over the possible methods by which a presumably hale and hearty man in his middle years could suddenly be caused to expire into half a helping of excellent chicken pot pie. Vegetable poisons were out, he decided. Thanks to their snide way of lurking unnoticed in the digestive tract until all reasonable hope of recovery was past, these were usually reliable and hard to pin on the cu
lprit. Before administering the coup de grace, however, they generally put on a show of highly detectable and regrettably disgusting symptoms. Death, when it came, was the result of a slow paralysis rather than an abrupt thunk.

  A knitting needle inserted through an eardrum or up a nostril into the brain might give the desired effect if deftly applied and quickly removed, but who could have managed it? Not the crippled Withington, who’d been sitting several tables away. Hardly the lissome but sensitive Thurzella. Not Shandy himself. Not Mrs. Bright, because she hadn’t entered the dining room until after Flodge was dead.

  An air gun shot through an open window nearest to where Flodge was sitting? Easy enough for a crack marksman, no doubt, but the bullet would certainly have left a hole in the screen and another in Flodge. A death ray, then? Most unlikely, although one could never be sure nowadays. An ill-wishing? Maybe Miss Rondel was the neighborhood witch and Flodge had been a hated relative trying to get his hands on the old homestead, not to mention those high-powered lupine seeds that Shandy himself was planning to obtain; though of course not unless he could come by them legitimately and with Miss Rondel’s willing acquiescence. Here was indeed a puzzlement.

  To which, no doubt, the often mentioned but as yet unseen Dr. Bee would give a tidy, unpuzzling answer as soon as he’d got around to examining the corpse. Then Mrs. Bright would be freed of all care, somebody or other would be stuck with administering Jasper Flodge’s estate for better or for worse, and Peter Shandy would be wending his way back to Helen with a stash of lupine seeds in the glove compartment and a song in his heart. It was a consummation devoutly to be wished.