Thus began the séance. I sat in silence at the head of the table, my head bowed, as everyone else sat in their places and stared at me. After a couple of minutes of being silent and mysterious, I breathed in deeply, let out a soft moan, and flumped slightly sideways in my chair.
And God bless him, Rolly spoke up. “M’dear,” said he in his deep Scottish burr, “I ken ye’re havin’ some problems lately.”
I hadn’t meant him to say those words; they just kind of slipped out. Bother. But I carried on as if he hadn’t spilled any beans, which he hadn’t, really. “Yes, Rolly. Life has been quite difficult recently. I hope you’ll be able to see us through these trying times.”
“Och, my love, ye know I shall.”
“Thank you, Rolly. Is Mrs. Baskerville nearby this evening?”
On it went. Mrs. Baskerville spoke to Mrs. Bissel. Mrs. Bissel asked a more or less sensible question or two—she was ostensibly talking to a dead person, so how sensible could they be? She seemed satisfied with Mrs. Baskerville’s answers.
Then Rolly went and got away from me. I hated when he did that. In fact, it scared me when it happened, because I was supposed to be in charge of these sessions. I’d have to speak sternly with Rolly when I got home.
And if Mrs. Bissel chatting with the dead Mrs. Baskerville sounded silly, how silly did it sound that I should scold a nonexistent being I’d made up when I was ten? Only occasionally I entertained the uneasy thought that I’d created a monster, even if the monster was supposed to be my soul mate.
“But Daisy, m’love, what’s all this about your dear auntie?”
Fiddle-faddle! Nobody here except those in on the secret were supposed to know anything was wrong with Vi. Well, I devoutly hope nothing was wrong with Vi, but I’m sure you understand. However, I’d opened the box and let the evils out, so I went along with Rolly. Who was me, darn it! He shouldn’t be speaking out of turn.
“Yes, Rolly. Some villains have kidnapped my aunt, Viola.”
I opened my mouth to let Rolly speak some more, but closed it when I heard a gasp from down the table on my right and the whispered words. “Oh, no! Not kidnapped!”
So I plowed onward and braced myself, expecting Miss Betsy Powell, who wasn’t given to whispering, suddenly to burst out screaming. “We’re terribly worried. We fear she’s been kidnapped by a gang of vicious bootleggers and drug runners from back east.”
Another gasp. Again no scream. How odd.
Darned if Rolly didn’t commence speaking before I’d opened my mouth! This was downright creepy, and I didn’t approve at all.
“Aye. And some Eye-talians have joined up with some Eye-rebels. ‘Tis true.”
T’was? Why was Rolly saying these things? My heart sped up and I surreptitiously felt under the table with my knees, since my hands were being held by other people. My heavily sequined dress was too lumpy for me to feel if anyone had set up a radio or a microphone there. Anyhow, Sam would have told me if he’d done that.
Wouldn’t he?
Oh, Lord!
Another gasp came to me from the right side of the table, and suddenly a huge thud smacked the floor as a chair tipped over backwards. I knew it was a chair because Keiji turned on the lights and I saw Miss Betsy Powell, standing, bracing her hands on the table and swaying slightly. She stared at Albert Costello, who seemed to have fallen asleep.
Talk about odd.
Then several things happened at once.
My juju jolted me with an excruciating blast of heat. I said, “Ow!” but I don’t think anyone heard me.
Miss Betsy Powell screamed. Her scream wasn’t as powerful as usual, which I might have considered a blessing if I’d had time to think.
I didn’t because a hideous blare from a bugle ripped through the air.
An ear-splitting detonation from a firearm followed instantly on the bugle’s heels.
The sound of running feet echoed from above us, behind us, and outdoors.
Another blare came from the bugle.
A man screamed.
The roar of an engine reached us.
Harold Kincaid leaped to his feet and bellowed, “My car!”
Mr. Lou Prophet, sounding as if he were still on the roof close to its northern edge, hollered, “God damn that sumbitch!”
Sam raced through the side door to the breakfast room as Harold raced through the door from the breakfast room to the sunroom.
“Daisy!” Sam hollered. He shoved various people out of his way and grabbed me. Rather than explain anything, he just picked me up. Holding me in both arms, he headed for the sunroom himself. Uniformed policemen entered the breakfast room from the kitchen, the side door and Mrs. Cummings’ suite of rooms, the door to which opened right behind where Mrs. Bissel sat. I hadn’t known Sam had stationed anyone there.
Still carrying me, Sam barged through the sunroom and out onto the patio.
Harold had been correct. We saw his bright yellow Kissel 45 Gold Bug career around the circular drive and head for the little bridge-thing over the ditch.
“You bastard!” came Lou Prophet’s ferocious yell from the roof.
“Stop! Thief!” roared Harold.
And then, as if by magic, a rope descended over the shoulders of the person at the wheel of Harold’s automobile and lifted him right smack out of the car’s front seat and deposited him with an audible thunk on the driveway. The car, unattended, swerved like a drunken man for a few feet, bounced off the curb of the bridge, and flew across the street to land with a ghastly crunch of metal head-first in the ditch. The ditch in which Harold’s car lost its life had a little bridge across it, too, leading onto Dr. Dearing’s property, but the poor automobile missed the bridge.
“Ow! He’s killed me!” came from the man floundering on the circular drive wrapped in Mr. Lou Prophet’s ketch rope. Or maybe it wasn’t his ketch rope. At that point, I was still unclear what precisely a ketch rope was.
I recognized the voice, however.
“How did your horrid nephew escape from everyone who was supposed to be guarding him?” I asked Sam. “He just smashed Harold’s new car!”
Plunking me down on the patio flagstones, Sam planted his fists on his hips. As lights went on all over the house and Harold raced over the bridge and across the street to get to his poor car, Sam said, “Got away from Doan. By God, he did smash up Kincaid’s new car, didn’t he?”
“My car!” howled Harold, bereft. I could tell.
“He sure did,” I said.
People swarmed out of Mrs. Bissel’s back door then. Officer Oversloot held up a weeping Miss Betsy Powell, who looked both half-asleep and perhaps drunk, while Officers Doan and somebody I didn’t know each held one of Albert Costello’s arms. Costello himself seemed to be either sleeping or dead. I personally didn’t care which, although I probably should have, since he might be able to tell us where Vi was.
Pudge rushed over to me, brandishing his bugle. “I got to help! Miss Daisy, I got to help!”
“He did indeed,” said Sam, who was on his way to where Frank Pagano lay, twisting and cursing in the rope Mr. Prophet had flung over him.
“Yes,” I said. “Thank you, Pudge.”
I glanced up at the roof and saw Mr. Prophet leaning over. “Did I get the sumbitch?” he called to me.
“You sure did!” I called back. “Good job!”
“Here,” said Mr. Prophet. “You hang on to this. Don’t let it go. I want to have a word with that stinkin’ owlhoot.” And darned if he didn’t toss his end of the rope down onto my head.
“Here. Let me help you.” Mr. Wilson, who stood beside his son and seemed kind of stunned, relieved me of the rope. This was most likely a good thing since he, being a man, was probably stronger than I.
I said, “Thank you,” smiled at both Pudge and his father, and followed Sam to see what Frank Pagano had to say for himself, if anything.
Before I got to Sam and Frank, Harold reached the fallen Frank and had commenced kicking him.
“You lousy son of a bitch!” shrieked Harold. “You crashed my car!”
Sam looked upon this display benignly for a moment or two before saying in his soft, deadly voice, “All right, Kincaid. You’d better stop kicking him now. He’s got to tell us where Vi is. Then you can kill him.”
Frank bellowed, “No!” Because he still had a rope affixed firmly around his upper torso and arms, he couldn’t even lift his hands to protect himself. Aw, gee. Whatta shame.
“Just one more,” growled Harold through gritted teeth. And he hauled his leg back and gave Frank a good one in the stomach.
By then, Frank was so overwhelmed by the disasters that had befallen him—because of the company he’d chosen to keep—he only howled a couple of times and subsided into sobs.
Except for Frank, silence reigned among the gathered throng. I think most of the guests at Mrs. Bissel’s house were police plants, but of the few who weren’t Harold stood fuming morosely; Pudge and his father stood in silent awe; Mrs. Bissel stood and stared; and Johnnie and Flossie stood in peaceful harmony with their arms around each other. They made such a sweet couple.
Officer Oversloot had deposited Miss Betsy Powell in a patio chair and stood over her, keeping an eye on her, although all she was doing at the time was weeping silently—and thank God for that. Mr. Costello, whom I saw cuffed to another patio chair, looked to be sleeping. Or dead. I still couldn’t tell.
The clump-thud-clump-thud of the approaching Mr. Lou Prophet made me turn to gaze at the sunroom door. Yup. Mr. Prophet limped out, looking deadly. He stumped over to Sam, Harold and me and he, too, gazed down at the pathetic specimen of humankind that was Frank Pagano.
“You did a wonderful job lassoing him,” I said to Mr. Prophet.
He spat on the drive and said, “Thanks. Bastard got away from Doan. Glad I caught him.”
“You certainly did. He crashed Harold’s car, which was too bad.”
Harold muttered incoherent oaths.
“Yeah?” Mr. Prophet peered at Harold and said, “Sorry about that.”
“I guess it’s all right,” said Harold grudgingly. “At least you caught the bad guy. And I have insurance. I expect Del will be happy.”
“He doesn’t like the Kissel?” I asked with interest.
“Says it’s too yellow,” said Harold.
“He’s right about that,” agreed Mr. Prophet. “It’s too yellow.”
Reaching for the rope holding Frank’s arms to his sides, Sam hauled him up to his feet. The lad bled profusely from scratches on his face, but I didn’t see any other injuries. He deserved to bleed, so I didn’t feel sorry for him.
“All, right, you imbecile, where’s Mrs. Gumm?”
“I-I don’t know!” wailed Frank. “If I’d known, I’d’ve told you already! Honest, Uncle Sam.”
“Don’t call me uncle!” snarled Sam. “I disavow any kinship with you.”
“You tell ‘em, Sam,” said Mr. Prophet.
Officers Doan and Oversloot marched over, took Frank from Sam’s grip and started marching him off. Not sure where they aimed to take him, but I figured his ultimate destination would be jail.
“That lady can tell you,” sobbed Frank, stumbling between his captors. “That lady over there.” He pointed a quivering finger at Miss Betsy Powell, who appeared to have fallen asleep. Or maybe she was dead, too. Again, I didn’t much care, except she might be able to tell us where Vi was.
Therefore, and because I was mad as fire, I turned on my lovely black heel and marched over to the patio chair in which she sagged. Grabbing her by a shoulder, I said, “Wake up, Miss Powell! You have to tell us where my aunt is!” She didn’t stir, so I gave her shoulder a violent shake. “Darn it, where’s my aunt?”
A gentle snore lifted to my ears.
“Well…curse you, Miss Betsy Powell!”
I felt a large hand descend on my shoulder and Sam said, “She’s out, too, is she?”
“Yes, blast it.” I turned into Sam’s arms and just stood there for a moment or two, wishing Miss Betsy Powell, Frank Pagano, Albert Costello and all the other people in their nefarious gang to the devil.
“Yow!”
Startled by the frightened cry from Frank Pagano, Sam and I turned to see why the dimwit had yelled. By that time, Officer Doan had handcuffed him, so he couldn’t cover his head as blows from…something; I couldn’t tell what…rained down on his head.
“What on earth?” I muttered.
“Good God, now what?” snarled Sam. Taking me by the hand, he marched over to the driveway where Frank and Officer Doan had been joined by somebody who seemed to have arrived via bicycle, to judge from the bicycle resting on the driveway.
“Lady!” yelped Officer Doan, who had received a blow meant for Frank. “Please, stop hitting him!”
“I won’t stop it!” shrieked my own beloved aunt, Viola Gumm. “This idiot’s criminal friends kidnapped me!”
“Vi!” I ran to my aunt, my sequined side panels flapping. “Vi! Oh, you’re alive!”
Dropping the handbag with which she’d been battering Frank Pagano’s head, Vi turned and threw her arms around me. “Daisy! I was so frightened! Those awful men carried me right smack out of Mrs. Pinkerton’s kitchen!”
“I know! I know! Oh, Vi, we were all so scared for you.”
By this time, both Vi and were sobbing vigorously in each other’s arms. My aunt. My aunt had come back!
“Um…I don’t want to interrupt or anything,” said Sam, who didn’t mean his words. “But we really need to know a few things before all the crooks who didn’t come here tonight can escape.”
Sniffling, Vi and I drew apart. Vi wiped her eyes with her fingers. “They won’t escape,” she said in a voice broken by the occasional sob. “But you’d better send an ambulance. I fed ‘em all wisteria seeds, hydrangea leaves and valerian, and they’re all asleep. If they don’t get medical help soon, they won’t ever need it again.”
“Oh, Vi!” I cried with joy. “You’re my hero!”