«And laying the groundwork for ghostly happenings once he was gone?»
«Yes, as a matter of fact, although that hadn't occurred to me. What did occur to me is that Uncle Willis visited his hidden jewels at some point and relocated them to an even safer place.»
«The passageway. He sneaked out of his prison, grabbed the jewels from wherever he'd first hidden them, and hid them again in the passageway, where nobody would ever find them,» Maggie said, ready to face possible bats, spiders, and anything else. «Let's go look.»
«I have, alas,» Alex said, closing the doorway to the passage. «There is, indeed, a hand-hewn niche cut into the wall. A rather large niche. But it's empty. The pattern of dust and, sadly, bat droppings tell me that until quite recently, there was something in that crude but carefully cutout niche. Something of a size approximately that of my hat box.»
«And it's gone.»
«Vanished.»
«So somebody has it.»
«A brilliant deduction.»
«Well, hell.»
«Yes, that, too.»
Chapter fifteen
«If I please could have your kind attention, ladies and gentlemen?»
Saint Just leaned on the sword cane and waited until everyone in the main saloon was looking at him, and for Maggie to be done with glaring at him, before he spoke again.
«Thank you so much,» he said, inclining his head slightly. «I am aware that we are all weary, cold, and quite naturally apprehensive, but I do believe I have news.»
»You have news?» Maggie said out of the corner of her mouth. «What am I, chopped liver? Why didn't you tell me you were going to say something when we got back down here? What are you going to say?»
«Go wake Bernice, if you please, Maggie.»
«No.»
«Maggie… don't be contrary.»
«I'll be more than contrary. What are you up to? I hate when you do this.»
«My dear,» Saint Just said as the occupants of the room variously pushed themselves out of their chairs or lounged more deeply into them, «I have absolutely no idea. But I will count most heavily on your assistance.»
«You're going to wing it? Oh, Alex, I don't know…»
«What's going on?» Evan Pottinger asked, standing none too steadily, a glass in his hand. «Are the police here? Did you find another body? I don't want to be a spoilsport, but I'm not touching another body that can't touch me back.»
«No, no, no, Evan,» Saint Just said, motioning for Maggie to go rouse Bernice as he himself stepped more fully into the room. «But thank you so much for providing me with my jumping-off point, as it were. For we have found something I believe will be of interest. If everyone would care to adjourn upstairs?»
Tabby, still wrapped in blankets beside Dennis Lloyd, said, «Oh, Alex, do we have to? I was just getting warm. And you're letting a draft in here with those doors open. I feel like I'm in a refrigerator.»
«You want to feel cold,» Evan said, pouring himself more wine, «try touching a dead body. That's cold.»
«Do you have to keep talking about Joanne that way?» Nikki Campion asked, then buried her head against Byrd Stockwell's shoulder.
And that's all it took, unfortunately, before everyone in the room began speaking at once.
«Try a cold, wet, banging body, Evan, if you want nightmares. We had to spin Sam around twice before we could get a good hold on him. Sam the Pinata. Cripes!» Arnaud Peppin declared in his high-pitched voice, which had increasingly become a whine as the hours passed.
«And how about me?» Troy asked, once more brandishing the sword cane he'd claimed as his own. «Huh? Huh? How about me? Is anybody ever going to pay attention to me?»
»No ,» at least four voices chimed at once, and the arguing began again.
«And once more, the inmates have taken over the asy-lum. It's easier when I write all the lines and then feed them to you one by one, isn't it?» Maggie asked, coming to stand beside him once more. «You want me to whistle them to order? I can do that, you know. You put your little fingers in each corner of your mouth and—»
«Anybody got a tissue? I've run out of tissues. And who do I kill for waking me up again, you or Alex?»
«Oh, Bernie, go sit down, honey,» Maggie told her worse-for-wear friend. «I'll find you some tissues. Oh, and I woke you, but you want to kill Alex. I'll hold him for you.»
«More coffee, anyone? There's plenty,» Marylou chirped, circulating with a silver pot as Sir Rudy trailed behind her with containers of cream and sugar, and a besotted expression on his face.
Saint Just was momentarily nonplussed, although he'd never admit that to anyone, most especially Maggie. He'd come back to the main saloon without the glimmer of an idea as to what to do after announcing the existence of the secret passageway, and that clashed badly with his need to have this unpleasant adventure over and done so they could all get back to Manhattan… and the rat.
Wendell hadn't called. Mary Louise hadn't called. He was faced with two dead bodies and a room full of decidedly uncooperative murder suspects who didn't seem the least bit interested in hanging, breathless (Lord knew, none of them ever seemed breathless), on his every word.
The idea of taking everyone upstairs had popped into his head, thanks to Evan's inquiry, however, and Saint Just was liking the notion more and more.
If only he could find a way to stifle everyone long enough to listen to him.
«I say, Saint Just, they're an unwieldy group, aren't they?»
«Yes, Sterling, they are. The term 'herding cats' keeps running through my mind. Ah! Excuse me, Sterling,» Saint
Just said, extracting his cell phone from his pocket. «Perhaps this will be good news from some quarter.»
He stepped into the candlelit hallway and closed the doors behind him before opening the phone. «Blakely, here. Speak to me.»
«Where's Maggie?» Steve Wendell demanded, his anxiety obvious even though the man was more than three thousand miles away. «You did what I said and didn't snoop around, right? You waited for me to get back to you? You're waiting for the local cops?»
«Is there any question in your mind, Left –tenant?»
«Damn straight there is. Look, I ran those names myself, all of them. And nothing, not that any of them are Boy Scouts. Peppin, the one you said is the director or something? He got picked up once for indecent exposure, and Evan Pottinger has a couple of DUIs—driving drunk. Troy Barlow was caught with a lid of marijuana a couple of years back; using, not selling. Par for the course out in La-La Land. I think they throw parties if their mug shots make it to the tabloids. But that's it. Except for one of your stiffs.»
«I beg your pardon?» Saint Just asked, opening one of the doors just slightly, to hear that mayhem still pretty much reigned in the main saloon. «One of the victims?»
«Right. Undercuffler. He's got a short sheet. Some juvey stuff that's sealed, so I can't get it—something he did when he was underage, if you don't know what that means. That could mean anything, from shoplifting to hacking up his parents with a butcher knife.»
» 'Juvey' being cop talk for 'juvenile,' I suppose. I'm certain I would have worked it out, but thank you,» Saint Just said, pacing. «Yet there's more, isn't there?»
«Yeah, there's more. He has a B and E—breaking and entering. Nothing big. He rolled over on his partner and did eight months in the local lockup in Los Angeles, then probation. But he's been quiet for about six years, far as we know.»
«Meaning?»
«Meaning either he cleaned up his act or he got better at it.»