The Withdrawing Room Read online

  “You say his heirs were here. Did he leave a lot of money?”

  “I think he must have, from what my friends told me. I can find out exactly how much and how it was left if you want, because George Protheroe is an executor. It was George’s wife Anora who sicked Mr. Quiffen on me in the first place. She told me to soak him plenty since he could well afford it, and she added that he’d make sure I earned it, which was the truth, goodness knows. I called her last night because I didn’t know how else to get in touch with his people. They were all here this morning, including the nephew and a cousin ready to cart off whatever they could get their hands on. Luckily, Anora had warned me to lock his door and keep it locked till George arrived.”

  “Did she?”

  “Yes, and if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, you might as well forget it. The Protheroes don’t need to steal from anybody. Furthermore, when I saw what a delegation I was collecting, I decided I’d better have a representative of my own present, so I called my Cousin Dolph. They went charging through that door in one seething mass, so I can’t see how one of them could have pocketed anything of Mr. Quiffen’s without getting jumped by the rest. Shall we go in to lunch?”

  “In the kitchen?”

  “No, the dining room.” Sarah recalled that the last meal she’d cooked for Mr. Bittersohn had been breakfast, and that he liked his eggs the consistency of old leather. That was one small part of her adventures she’d never mentioned, even to Aunt Emma.

  “We’re very high-toned these days,” she went on with a self-conscious attempt at airiness. “I’m sorry we can’t give you the full treatment, with Mariposa buttering your buns for you and Charles being grand in his butler suit, but perhaps you can come to dinner one night soon. Please help yourself to the salad, as the footman happens to be off today. I hope you like chicken.”

  “My mother should hear you ask that. She’s one of the old chicken soup crowd.”

  “That’s true, it’s supposed to be a cure for all ills, isn’t it? I’d better make some, and keep my remaining boarders healthy.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  Sarah was surprised to realize how little she had to tell. “Well, there’s Jennifer, LaValliere. She’s the young granddaughter of a woman who lives here on the Hill, and she’s going to Katherine Gibbs. At least I presume she is, because she brings home a textbook now and then. And a Mr. Porter-Smith, who does something or other in an accounting firm that one of my third cousins has an interest in.”

  “What’s the name of the firm?”

  “Come to think of it, I don’t know. Kelling and somebody or other, I suppose.”

  “How old is this Porter-Smith?”

  “Getting on for thirty, I should say.”

  “Oh?” said Bittersohn in what struck Sarah as a rather deliberately noncommittal way. “Good-looking guy?”

  She shrugged. “So-so. He’s rather alarmingly well dressed but pleasant enough in a chatty sort of way. Anyway, I knew Percy wouldn’t send anybody who’s fiscally irresponsible and that’s my chief concern right now. Then I have Professor Ormsby, who teaches aerodynamics at MIT and a charming lady named Mrs. Theonia Sorpende, whom I think I mentioned before. She and Professor Ormsby are both on the middle-aged side and he appears to be quite struck with her. Mrs. Sorpende’s what my Uncle Jem calls a fine figure of a woman.”

  “Where did you collect her?”

  “She found out about me from some friend of Aunt Caroline’s sister Marguerite, so she called and asked if she could come and see the room. And she was such a delightful change from most of the others I’d been seeing, and she liked the house and didn’t mind the stairs, so I took her on.”

  “Without checking her references?”

  “Well, actually, no. I just grabbed her before she could change her mind. Mrs. Sorpende’s a widow with no children.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She told me so. Otherwise she doesn’t talk much about herself.”

  “Doesn’t she?” For some reason Bittersohn didn’t look altogether happy. Perhaps the chicken wasn’t up to his mother’s standard.

  Chapter 7

  SARAH’S GUEST ATE FOR a moment in silence. Then he asked, “How did your boarders react to Quiffen’s death?”

  “They made the right noises when they heard the news, all except Professor Ormsby, who seldom says much of anything, but nobody acted particularly shattered. To be quite frank with you, I think we were all a little bit relieved to be rid of him, in spite of the shocking way he went. And right now, much as I’m upset about what Miss Smith told me, I’m wondering how soon I can decently rent his room again, because I’m so desperately hard-up for the money. What do you think, Mr. Bittersohn?”

  He shrugged. “How soon could you find another tenant?”

  “Oh, I have one already. He’s quite an old man, like Mr. Quiffen, but much pleasanter. Oddly enough I got him through Aunt Marguerite, too. He was bitterly disappointed when he found I didn’t have a place for him because the drawing room is exactly what he wanted. It has its own bath and it’s on the first floor. He’s not supposed to climb stairs, you see, and he wants to be back on the Hill. I believe he and his sister used to live around here somewhere before they moved to Newport. Then they decided they wanted to come back here, but she was invited to visit an old friend in Italy for the winter so they broke up their other place and put everything in storage. He’s tried a hotel and the regular sort of rooming house and hates them both. I told him I’d let him know when a vacancy came up because I already had a hunch Mr. Quiffen and I were going to part company before long. But of course I never dreamed it would happen like this.”

  “What’s this other man’s name?”

  “Hartler. William Hartler. You may possibly know him, since he’s more or less in your field.”

  “Is he? don’t think I’ve ever heard of him.”

  “Well, actually he’s not a professional like you. He’s simply trying to track down some things for the Friends of the Iolani Palace.”

  “The Hawaiian royal treasures? They’ve got some very good people working on that project. This chicken is excellent, by the way. Ever see the Iolani Palace yourself?”

  “No, I’ve never been to Honolulu. Or anywhere else, for that matter. My father always took the ‘Why should we travel? We’re already here’ line, and Alexander and I never could afford to travel even if we’d been able to leave Aunt Caroline. You’ve been there, I suppose?”

  “Once, on business. I was tracking a guy who’d stolen a nice Degas from some people in Brookline. Also a Puvis de Chavannes, though why they wanted that one back is beyond me.” Bittersohn was a one-man detective agency specializing in the recovery of stolen art objects and jewelry, either for the desolated owners or for insurance companies that suspected the desolated owners might have arranged their own burglaries in order to collect on the policies.

  “How did the palace come into it?”

  “Oh, that was a stroke of luck. When the guy found out I was on his tail, he panicked and tried to get rid of the paintings by peddling them to the curator, making believe King Kalakaua had presented them to a great-aunt of his. Unluckily for him, the curator’s an acquaintance of mine and knew what I was there for. Also, the Degas happened to be a late one, painted in 1899. Kalakaua died in 1891 and his sister Liliuokalani, who succeeded him, reigned for only three years, until the revolution of 1893.”

  “What a lot you have to know!”

  “Knowing is what I get paid for. Want to come to the art museum with me sometime? I could bore you stiff with my profound erudition.”

  “I’m sure you wouldn’t,” said Sarah, and, for some reason, blushed. “But imagine anyone’s getting a Degas and a Puvis de Chavannes for a present. Did King Kalakaua actually do things like that?”

  “Oh yes, he was no piker. I wish you could see that palace. It has a hundred and four rooms.”

  “So Mr. Hartler was telling me. He’s promised to
show me photographs, though I hope not of all the hundred and four. He seems tremendously caught up with this project. That’s the main reason he wanted to come back to Boston, where he thought the pickings would be better. You know, I expect, that Queen Liliuokalani married into a Boston family. Mr. Hartler claims to be connected with the Dominises through his mother, though he didn’t explain how. Anyway, when she was still a princess, Liliuokalani and Queen Kapiolani, who was Kalakaua’s wife, visited Boston. That was in 1887, when they were on their way to Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. Everybody wanted to entertain them and they gave the most marvelous presents in return. When I told Mr. Hartler they’d actually been to tea in the very room he could have had if Mr. Quiffen hadn’t already taken it, I thought he was going to break down and cry.”

  “Maybe we’d better find out where this Hartler was when Quiffen got the push,” said Bittersohn, only half joking.

  Sarah laid down her fork. “You certainly know how to brighten one’s day, don’t you? It can’t possibly have been Mr. Hartler. He wouldn’t have been able to climb down the stairs, for one thing, and he’s much too old.”

  “How old?”

  “Older than Mr. Quiffen, anyway, from the look of him, and a good deal frailer. He walks with a cane. Mr. Quiffen was stout and strutting and had this Horatius-at-the-bridge way of planting his feet. It must have taken a fairly hefty push to knock him flat. Still, I suppose one shouldn’t take anything for granted.”

  “Well, don’t worry till you know you have something to worry about. I know somebody who’s been involved in the palace restoration. He’s out of town just now, but I’ll have a talk with him as soon as we can connect, and see what he knows about Hartler. In the meantime, you might as well go ahead with whatever plans you want to make. No doubt Hartler will be panting on your doorstep pretty soon anyway. He reads the papers, too, I expect. You don’t happen to own any of those royal treasures yourself, by chance?”

  “Which Mr. Hartler wants to steal as soon as he moves in? I wish I did. I’d sell them like a shot. We did have a gorgeous peacock feather fan with the Hawaiian coat of arms on a silver plaque in the center, but when the Iolani Palace people started canvassing Boston families for donations, Alexander thought we ought to give it to them, so we did. I don’t suppose the fan was worth much compared to most of the other things. King Kalakaua is supposed to have spent a hundred thousand dollars on furnishings alone, and of course that was an enormous sum in those days. Then there was all that royal family jewelry that had been handed down from one generation to another, and a staggering amount of other stuff.”

  “I know, and much of it auctioned off for peanuts after the revolution,” said Bittersohn.

  “Yes, and all us Yankee horse traders right in there bidding our heads off,” Sarah added. “I shouldn’t be surprised if some of the Kelling jewels came from there, but we’ll never know now. At least I have Granny Kay’s bluebird, thanks to you.”

  She touched the exquisite enameled brooch with the ruby eye and the one magnificent baroque pearl dangling from its beak that was all Bittersohn had managed to salvage for her out of the once-fabulous collection.

  “And I do have a photograph of the fan. Alexander took it before we sent the fan off, because he thought we should keep some sort of record in the family. I can show you that if you like. Or are you like my Uncle Jem? He says he only likes pictures of fans if they have fan dancers behind them. Mr. Bittersohn, what am I going to do about Miss Mary Smith?”

  “The best thing you can do for that woman is to stay as far away from her as possible and concentrate on running your boardinghouse. Officially, you know nothing about Mr. Quiffen’s death except what everybody else knows. He was just somebody who rented a room from you and met with an unfortunate accident. You take it for granted you’re entitled to rent the room again as soon as his things have been removed. How far in advance did he pay his rent?”

  “Only through the end of this week.”

  “Then there’s your answer, right? Tell this Mr. Hartler he can move in Monday, or whatever day is convenient for you. The longer the room stands empty, the more likely he is to have found another place and the Hartler time you may have filling it. By the way, you still haven’t told me who’s living in the basement. You’ve got those two rooms down there as I recall, plus the little one with the furnace and laundry business. Does the maid have one and the butler the other, or what?”

  “At the moment, it’s a case of ‘or what,’” Sarah told him. “Mariposa and Charles share the old kitchen, which is the larger and looks out on the little back yard where they plan to make a garden next spring if we’re all still here. I hope to rent the front room that used to be Edith’s bedroom as soon as I can get it fixed up, but I’m in a quandary as to who’d take it. I don’t much want students because as you must have gathered, this whole enterprise is based on snob appeal. I took a chance on Jennifer LaValliere because she has family nearby and if they heard of any goings-on they’d ship her back to her parents in a hurry and she knows it. But if I got the sort who smoked pot and played disco records and whatnot, they’d blow the scene, as Charles might say in an unguarded moment. I’ve got to have somebody who’s willing to go along with the stately home act, yet not mind having to use the cellar stairs and share a bath with a couple who are just good friends.”

  “Them wedding bells shall not ring out, eh?”

  “Not according to Mariposa. She appears perfectly happy as she is. Anyway, she’s not quite sure about her last two divorces. She’s been getting them through some mail-order operation in Uruguay and it does sound a bit chancy, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I don’t know that I’d say chancy.” Bittersohn was eyeing the last mushroom on his plate. “It’s a shame I have no snob appeal.”

  “Oh, but you have tons!” gasped Sarah. “Mr. Bittersohn, you—you wouldn’t possibly consider—oh, dear, I know you already have a place and I’m being—pretend you didn’t hear me. I’ll get the dessert. Do you care for cheese with your apple pie?”

  “Cheese costs money, doesn’t it? You know, if you happened to be considering me as a prospective tenant, you could deduct the cost of this meal as a business expense.”

  “How could I ever think of you as a business expense? But as a tenant—Mr. Bittersohn, are you serious?”

  “You need a tenant who’s trained to keep a straight face under any and all conditions, right? And I need a place to hang out when I’m in town, don’t I?”

  “But you already have one.”

  “Wrong. I’ve had one. They’re turning the building into condominiums and I either have to buy a scroungy apartment I have no desire whatever to own or get out by the first of the month. You wouldn’t want to see me sitting in the middle of Bowdoin Street with all my worldly goods, namely two suitcases and a genuine hand-carved teak-wood back-scratcher presented as a token of esteem by a grateful client, would you?”

  “Of course not, but—I can’t believe it!”

  “So call up the real estate agents. I’ll give you their number. They’d sell you my place this minute, if you don’t mind paying an arm and a leg for two crummy rooms overlooking several acres of pigeon droppings. I may be homeless by the time I get back there, for all I know. Mrs. Kelling, I don’t smoke, I don’t shine my shoes on the bedspread because my mother brought me up right, I don’t own any disco records and wouldn’t play them if I did. I pay my rent a month in advance because I never know when or for how long I’ll be called out of town, and whatever you charge couldn’t be any worse than I’m getting stuck for now. I’d need to install a private phone, which of course I’d pay for myself. I sometimes have slightly weird visitors at odd hours, but I could make them come and go by the alley door in order not to tarnish your image. I’d as soon be in the basement because I’d probably feel more at home with the hired help than the paying guests. Do we have a deal or don’t we?”

  Sarah hesitated, then laughed. “Go give those sharks your notice and
pack your back-scratcher. Your room will be ready for you by Monday morning.”

  Chapter 8

  IT TOOK A GOOD deal of doing, but by Monday morning, fresh white paint was dry on the walls of what had been part of Edith’s lair for so many grievance-filled years. The room looked twice as big and bright as it ever had before. Sarah and Mr. Lomax had brought in the best of what they could glean from the now-depleted house at Ireson’s Landing: a pine chest, a comfortable armchair and hassock, a couple of lamps, a sturdy table and ladderback chair that she hoped would be an adequate substitute for a desk. Mr. Bittersohn must have to do some kind of paperwork in that strange profession of his.

  She’d splurged on a new mattress and box spring, got Mr. Lomax to screw wooden legs into the frame, then sat down at the old Singer and run up some bright red print pillow covers to make the bed look more like a studio couch and brighten the faded blue denim spread. She’d made little curtains to match the pillows, and put pots of nephthytis and sansevieria on the high, narrow, sidewalk-level windowsills, knowing nothing less hardy would survive there. Charles gave the worn old brick floor a good scrubbing and waxing, and Mariposa laundered the least faded rag rugs Sarah could find at Ireson’s. By the time Sarah had everything in order, her two helpers were insisting this was the best-looking room in the house and they ought to charge more rent.