| |
––––––––
7:10 p.m. Saturday, August 29th, 1992
BAILEY conveyed the silver soup tureen that Mrs. Trimble had just filled over to the trolley with great care. Lunch had been a light meal, and they’d managed without Talia’s help, but for dinner Padget had pressed Bailey into service to help him wait at table. Even if this job was just a cover for their amateur investigation, Bailey wanted to do it right—and listen carefully to as much of everybody’s conversation as he could while doing it, which would be tricky. And be prepared for anything Sam might do.
While he was making sure a sufficient supply of clean soup bowls and plates had been loaded on the trolley, Talia looked up from where she was staring into a bowl of stew as she sat at the kitchen table to glare at Mrs. Trimble. The cook wasn’t about to see anybody going hungry, even a maid who sulked and refused to do any work. But that didn’t mean she’d suffer such a look from the woman.
Mrs. Trimble put her hands on her hips and returned the stare. “And just what is your problem?”
Talia frowned. “I don’t like it. I don’t think you should be serving the same meal.”
“I’m the cook, and just what business of yours is it, missy? I’ll make what I want, and as Mr. Brandt never did get to eat his meal that night, I figure now is the time. He’ll appreciate it, I’m sure.”
The maid boggled at her. “You’re talking about his ghost, aren’t you? Even if his spirit were around here somewhere, he wouldn’t be eating dinner with everyone else.”
“I daresay he’s got other things on his mind, like getting revenge, but he’ll appreciate the thought, I’m sure.”
Mrs. Trimble’s decision to recreate the meal she had started to serve three weeks ago, the dinner interrupted by Keener’s sudden demise, had certainly gotten on Talia’s nerves. Padget, on the other hand, seemed to find it amusing. When they had been setting the table earlier, the butler had mentioned that he was seating the guests according to the arrangement of that fateful night.
Of course the whole business suited Sam’s plan quite well. Bailey thought the eerie similarity could work to make others besides Talia nervous. People might be prompted to do or say something telling.
He wheeled the trolley into the dining room and saw Padget already filling people’s glasses from the bottle of chilled wine he was carrying wrapped with a napkin. At the head of the table sat the lawyer Mr. Dobson. When they had been setting out the places earlier, Bailey had wondered if Padget intended for Brandt’s chair to remain empty, either in tribute or to await Keener’s ghost, should he make an appearance. Apparently not.
The butler finished with the wine and came and started ladling out the consommé, then handed the plates with their shallow bowls of soup to Bailey for him to deliver to the table. Of course, once the places for everyone else had been set where they’d been sitting three weeks ago, it left only one place for the lawyer to sit. Though Dobson couldn’t be superstitious, as he didn’t look in the least anxious. Unlike the rest of them.
Well, Barbara Keener was composed, while her daughter looked so lost in her own head, Bailey had to wonder if she’d realized the parallel to the dinner that had claimed her father’s life. But Elaine Keener and her son were clearly nervous, and both Quill and Oak were very much on edge. But whatever the state of their nerves, none of them were talking, so it didn’t seem likely anyone would be blurting out any dark secrets which would expose a murderer.
And then there was Turner. He seemed at ease, but his manner was so tightly controlled, his senses so attuned to the people around him, it revealed the tension he must’ve been feeling.
Bailey set the last serving of soup in front of the lawyer. Then, at the butler’s nod, he returned to the trolley and took it back through to the kitchen to be loaded up with the next course. As he went, he had to wonder what Mrs. Trimble would make of somebody else sitting at the head of the table.
He found the cook busy at the stove, and spoke softly as he approached her. “I see Mr. Dobson sits at the same place Mr. Keener must’ve always sat. It won’t make his ghost uncomfortable, will it?” Since Mrs. Trimble seemed to be the resident expert, or at least the one who made no bones about believing in ghosts, she ought to like being asked.
Talia looked over and frowned at him. “What’s it to you? Someone had to sit there, didn’t they? It’s not like Brandt can.” Her eyes were still red, but her attitude seemed more surly than sad. Whatever she was feeling, it was definitely affecting her appetite—it looked like she still hadn’t touched her stew.
Bailey shook his head. “If he, or his ghost, is in there, that’s nine diners and only eight places.”
Mrs. Trimble turned from the stove shuddering as she stared at them. “Nine in the dining room, including Mr. Brandt, and the four of us in here makes thirteen. That’s a bad omen.”
Padget had chosen that moment to return to the kitchen, and he waited until he’d closed the door behind him before he said anything. “Don’t be superstitious.” He walked over to the kitchen table. “The people in there aren’t.” He reached for a roll from a basket of freshly baked bread Mrs. Trimble had just set out. “They’re all as calm as they were that night three weeks ago.”
Bailey chuckled. “If you call that calm in there, I wonder what they were like after they’d witnessed Mr. Keener’s death right in front of them.”
The butler paused and swallowed the bit of roll he’d been chewing. “It didn’t seem to shake them—only that Mr. Hope really reacted at all. And he was quite cool even as he tried to save Mr. Keener.”
Mrs. Trimble glared at Padget as he returned to chomping on the roll. “It’s a good thing I’m not superstitious, or I’d be worrying about how thirteen is such an unlucky number, and how that might mean something bad is going to happen.” The cook’s eyes grew large as she apparently did think about it.
Talia narrowed her eyes at the woman and gave a contemptuous snort. “I’m so glad to hear you say you’re not superstitious. It’s a real comfort.”
Padget frowned at all of them, then leaned over his bowl to lift a spoonful of stew the shortened distance to his mouth. Apparently the man wasn’t going to sit down to eat. Bailey had yet to witness the man take a leisurely time over a meal.
Mrs. Trimble sniffed before turning back to the stove to check on the steaks, while Talia returned to gazing into her bowl and idly stirring the stew. Bailey would have to see if he could get them talking to one another again. But he didn’t want to be too obvious, so he should probably wait a while. And hope he could think of a clever approach. So he sat down and shoveled in some stew while he could, and a few of Mrs. Trimble’s incomparable rolls, before he had to get back to work.
He’d downed most of his meal by the time Padget jerked his head toward the dining room. Bailey knew that was the butler’s signal to return and clear away the dishes from the soup course. Lumbering to his feet, he took the trolley and rolled it through to the dining room.
While gathering the empty bowls and plates, he studied how the diners were holding up. Whatever détente Quill and Oak might have reached over that bottle of Scotch had disintegrated, and the two now glared at each other with as much or more enmity as before. But most of them were trying to ignore most of the rest.
Barbara Keener was sharing occasional glances with her daughter, while Elaine Keener ignored her son and kept trying to catch Turner’s eye. Stanley’s somewhat satisfied smile had disappeared, and now he stared distractedly into space. Turner seemed to act normal while somehow managing to avoid making eye contact with anybody but Bailey. There was a teasing twinkle in his eye when he did.
Everyone but Turner studiously avoided meeting the lawyer’s eyes, which they had a difficult time doing as Dobson himself keenly observed them all. And unlike Bailey, he wasn’t attempting to hide his scrutiny. Only Turner was unaffected by the solicitor’s study, but then the two men had spent a lot of time together today. And familiarity bred indifference, at least in this case.
Dobson had to be aware of the lingering doubts about Keener’s death, and given the contents of the will, the man had to be suspicious. It would be nice to know if the lawyer had hidden reasons to suspect some of these people more than the others, but Bailey was under no illusion the man would reveal any such information.
When he returned to the kitchen, Mrs. Trimble had plated the steaks and was taking baked potatoes from the oven where they’d been kept warm. Asparagus with hollandaise sauce completed the entrées, and then Bailey was transferring dishes from trolley to sink as Padget took Mrs. Trimble’s platters to the emptying trolley.
The butler grabbed a new bottle of wine and led the way into the dining room with Bailey rolling the trolley in his wake. Together they moved quickly to set the plates before the waiting diners. Padget was just about to open the wine, and Bailey had begun to pull the trolley toward the door, when the overhead lights started flickering. Then the chandelier began to sway back and forth vigorously, though not even the slightest breeze disturbed the air.
Everyone glanced around at everyone else, and the already anxious atmosphere became even more tense as the unasked question on several faces went unanswered. Bailey caught Padget’s eye and raised an eyebrow. The butler’s only reaction was a shrug before turning back to open the new bottle of wine. But he moved quickly to fill everyone’s glasses.
Apparently it was to be business as usual, on his part at least, so Bailey followed suit, taking the trolley and backing through the door to the kitchen. At that point it became obvious to everyone. The lights behind him in the kitchen were steady and strong—the bulbs overhead in the dining room seemed as if they flickered even more wildly than before. It definitely didn’t seem natural.
With all of the guests staring at him, or rather at what they saw beyond him, Bailey paused where he was and shook his head. “I’m guessing that the dining room lights are just on a different circuit.” They went out completely for a few seconds before snapping back on again. “And maybe it’s going bad.”
Everybody started to relax again, partly at least. The lawyer squinted at Bailey. “Wouldn’t it be your job? To find out and fix it, if that’s the case?”
Bailey pushed the trolley through to the kitchen and let the door swing shut behind him as he turned back to face Dobson. “I’m not an electrician, and as you’re the one who advertised the job, you ought to know that’s not what I was hired to do. But.” Then he shrugged and smiled. “I could always take a look and see. And it might be something I can do something about.”
Just as he finished speaking, the lights went out again, this time plunging them into a deep darkness and not for only a brief moment. A minute or more had passed with the sounds of people breathing and chairs creaking augmented by the slow squeaking of the chandelier chain swinging back and forth, when suddenly light was restored. Everybody’s sighing in relief came at once, like a great gust of wind.
Then Oak started his nervous snorting chuckle and raised his glass as he looked around above their heads. “To Brandt, whose ghost has clearly decided to furnish us with some cheap entertainment. All at our expense, of course.”
He tipped the glass back to take a long swallow of the wine, and he was just setting it back down on the table when he jerked up out of his chair, spilling his drink across the tablecloth. Letting loose an agonized moan of pain he collapsed back into his seat and promptly slumped out of the chair and onto the ground at Stephanie’s feet.
While everyone else was frozen in that moment, Bailey raced around the table to kneel next to Oak’s unconscious and trembling form. The man was violently convulsing. All too much like what Bailey had read about Brandt Keener’s death.
Padget happened to be the one who put voice to that very thought. “This is exactly the same as three weeks ago.” And then Elaine screamed.
Oak had stopped moving, and Bailey felt for the man’s pulse, but there wasn’t one. He leaned down and sniffed. Cyanide. He knew the odor of potassium cyanide and recognized the highly lethal poison. Oak had definitely not suffered a heart attack, and it would be useless to try to resuscitate him. The only question Bailey had was whether it had been suicide or murder.