Max Collins - Carnal Hours

“Did I make a joke?” I asked.

Barker laughed soundlessly. “He wasn’t shot at all.”

“He was killed with a blunt instrument,” Melchen said.

“According to who?”

“According,” Baker said pointedly, “to Dr. Quackenbush.”

“Didn’t Groucho Marx play him?”

“Someday, boy,” Melchen said, in his molasses-mouth manner, shaking a finger, “you’re going to pay for that smart-ass mouth.”

“Deliver the bill anytime, fat man.”

Barker held Melchen back with an arm.

I don’t know why I was needling them, except to see if my initial reading of them as a couple of thick-headed strong-arm types was right. It was-although Barker was clearly the brains. So to speak.

“Hey,” I said. “I’m out of line. We’re all here for the same reason: to help find Sir Harry’s killer. Right?”

“Right,” Barker said. But Melchen was still fuming.

“Let me ask you-you fellas have seen the body, haven’t you?”

They looked at each other dumbly. In both senses of the word.

“It was moved before we got here,” Barker said, vaguely defensive. “It’s at Bahamas General for a post-mortem, then it’s being flown to Maine later tonight.”

“Maine,” I said. “What, for the funeral?”

Barker nodded.

“Well, have a look at those head wounds yourself. I think the old boy was shot.”

Footsteps interrupted us, and I turned to see Colonel Lindop silhouetted in the doorway.

“Gentlemen,” he said stiffly, addressing the Miami dicks, “the Governor is here. He would like a word with you.”

They scurried out of there. I followed, taking my time; Lindop was standing just outside the billiards room as I exited. I looked at him and raised my eyebrows and he shook his head in quiet disgust.

Down the hall, near the front door, by the scorched stairway, the former King of England-sad-eyed, almost slight, dressed in white, like a dapper ice-cream man-was conferring with the Miami cops. A hush had fallen across a hallway crowded with police and various hangers-on; everyone stood around watching breathlessly, respectfully.

I supposed I should have felt impressed. But it wasn’t like he was Capone or anything.

What was most impressive, to me at least, was the way the Duke was treating these Miami roughnecks like old friends, shaking their hands, even placing a gentle hand on Melchen’s shoulder at one point.

Despite the now-hushed hallway, I couldn’t make out anything of their low-pitched conversation. The Duke looked toward the stairs, gestured, and he and the American cops went upstairs, to check out the crime scene. Next to me, Colonel Lindop-who had not been asked along-watched them go, his face etched with the hollow hurt of a spurned suitor.

“Mr. Heller?” a musical voice said.

Down near the kitchen, there she was: Marjorie Bristol. She wore the same light blue dress as before, or an identical one; perhaps it was a maid’s uniform. I went to her.

In the kitchen, white cops in khaki and businessman types milled, while a heavyset colored woman in a bandanna kept busy at a counter, preparing small sandwiches.

“It’s a tragedy, Mr. Heller,” Miss Bristol said. The whites of her lovely dark eyes were filigreed red. “Sir Harry, he was a fine man.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Bristol. Were you here when it happened?”

“No. I left around ten, after I set Sir Harry’s nightclothes out on his bed….” She cupped her mouth; just the thought of his bed was jarring. “Then I…tuck in the mosquito nettin’, and spray the room for bugs.”

“Do you live here? Are there servants’ quarters…?”

“I live alone in a cottage…” She pointed. “…’tween the country club and here. Close enough that when Mr. Christie cry out, this mornin’, I could hear. And I came runnin’…but there was no helpin’ Sir Harry.”

“You didn’t see anything last night…”

“No. The storm was high. So much noise from the sea. I didn’t hear or see a thing. Are you goin’ to stay and find out who did this?”

“Well…no. Why did you think I would?”

Her reddened eyes widened. “You’re a detective. You worked for Sir Harry.”

“I’d like to help, Miss Bristol, but the people in charge of the investigation wouldn’t want my help, even if I were to offer it.”

“Well, you should try!”

“No…I’m sorry.”

“You’re goin’ back to America, then?”

“Yes. As soon as they let me. But I won’t soon forget meeting you, Miss Bristol.”

She was pouting, a little; she wasn’t happy that I wasn’t going to stay and crack the murder case. I had disappointed her-which is something I do sooner or later with most every woman in my life, but usually not this early on.

“Why should you remember me ?” she asked.

I put a finger under her chin, raised it so she’d look at me. “Because I want to.”

The hallway, which had gotten noisy again, fell into another hush, which meant the Duke was returning from the murder room. Edward was coming down the stairs, with the detectives trailing him like schoolboys hanging on their master’s every precious word; at the bottom he paused, to shake hands with them again, and then turned to go. Several aides-de-camp fell in place behind him, replacing Barker and Melchen.

But just as he reached the door, de Marigny-making his second impressive entrance at Westbourne today-swept in, accompanied by a white, khakied cop.

The moment that followed is one I’ll remember to my dying day. Why? Because it was so goddamned odd….

The Duke froze, like a man confronted with a ghost, and de Marigny stopped in his tracks, too, and looked at the Duke curiously, the way you might pause to view a car wreck as you drove by.

Then the Duke’s expression turned hard and frankly contemptuous, and he moved swiftly on, and outside, his retinue following.

De Marigny, his wide lips hanging open, lending this man of obvious intelligence a remarkably stupid expression, gazed numbly toward where the Duke had exited. Then he sneered, and seemed both irritated and confused.

Was there something personal between these two?

The two Miami cops moved in on the casually dressed Count like he was Dillinger and they were the FBI; of course, nobody did any shooting.

But Melchen did place his hand on de Marigny’s arm and announce, “I’m Captain Melchen of the Miami Police Department-here at the Governor’s request. Would you mind answerin’ a few questions?”

“Certainly not,” de Marigny said suavely, withdrawing his arm from Melchen’s grasp.

They trooped him past me on their way to the billiards room, where they could subject him to dim lighting and dimmer questioning. Just before they went in, Barker motioned to me.

He seemed conciliatory. “You mind stepping inside with us?”

Melchen was already in the billiards room, showing de Marigny to the card table.

“I guess I don’t mind. What for?”

“I want you to see if what the Count says tallies with what you observed yesterday. Okay?”

“Okay.”

I positioned myself in the darkness, with a mounted moose head or some other damn thing with antlers looking over my shoulder.

At first they treated him almost politely. They played standard good cop/bad cop, with the pudgy Melchen, surprisingly, taking the ingratiating, friendly role. They questioned him about his movements last night, and his every answer-and despite his thick French accent, his English was impeccable-fit the facts as I knew them.

Barker came over to me. He whispered, “How’s all that tally?”

“Perfectly.”

“He’s a cunning son of a bitch.”

“Most gigolos are.”

Barker went back to the table and withdrew a magnifying glass from his pocket and set it down with a clunk. Great-now we were playing Sherlock Holmes.