It was actually rather tasty, once you sat down and tucked in, but it offered little in the way of eye appeal. A quaint name would have helped-dog’s breakfast, say, or Taffy-in-the-woodpile. As it was, guests would slip into the dining room, then reconsider and visit the bar first. Once in the bar, one tended to linger, counting on malt whisky to heighten the appetite for the evening meal.
Eventually, though, everyone got to table, and the main course turned out better than it looked or sounded. There wasn’t much of a market for second helpings, aside from Rufus Quilp, who’d probably have asked for seconds on death angel mushrooms. For everybody else, one portion was plenty. I kept an occasional eye on Gordon Wolpert, but as far as I could see he wasn’t any more picky an eater on this occasion than the rest of us.
There was good bread on the table, and some sort of custard for dessert. The coffee was weak.
We were in the library with fresh mugs of coffee when the colonel found us and announced he was going to make it an early night. “I shall return to Trevelyan,” he said, “and slip into a simpler world.”
I asked which door he’d be using to enter that world, Trevelyan’s one-volume History of England or the more specialized EnglandUnder the Stuarts.
“Neither, I’m afraid. I’m reading his three-volume history of England under Queen Anne. Halfway through the middle volume.”
“Ramillies and the Union with Scotland,” I said.
He looked startled. “Quite,” he said. “However do you happen to know that?”
“Just a lucky guess.”
“Hardly that. I gather you’re a student of English history.”
“Some college courses,” I said. “Years ago. And I never actually read the three volumes on Anne’s reign. I just remember the titles.”
“Marlborough and Prince Eugene,” he said. “The War of the Spanish Succession. The Battle of Blenheim.”
“A famous victory,” I said, echoing the Robert Southey poem.
“Famous once. Forgotten nowadays, I shouldn’t wonder. I don’t know what young people remember these days. Shouldn’t think they recall anything much earlier than the day before yesterday. It’s stirring stuff, Trevelyan’s history. You should read it sometime.”
“One of these days.”
“Well,” he said, setting his shoulders. “You’ll forgive me for breaking ranks, won’t you? I know we’re supposed to hold in squads of three, but I’m sure I’ll be all right in my quarters, and just as confident you two can see to each other’s safety. So, if you’ve no objection…”
I could hardly object. They’d all agreed readily enough to hang out in trios earlier, but that had gone by the boards as the day wore on, and by the time dinner was over it had ceased even to be honored in the breach. I’d overheard Millicent Savage whining about having to stay in Lucinda’s Room with her parents instead of being all by herself in Uncle Roger’s Room. So far Greg and Leona seemed to be holding out, but I had a feeling the child would have her own way in the end.
“Nobody’s taking it seriously,” I told Carolyn. “I don’t get it. There are three people dead and an unknown killer in our midst, and they’d rather grumble about dinner than make sure they’re still alive for breakfast. What’s wrong with these people?”
She thought about it. “I think they’re just good at adjusting,” she said.
“At adjusting?”
“I think so, Bern. They were all really spooked earlier, when we found the cook cooling off in the kitchen. There were bodies all over the place and nobody had a clue who was gonna be next.”
“There still are,” I said, “and they still don’t, but all of a sudden nobody gives a damn.”
“Right. They’ve adjusted. Rathburn and the cook are outside where nobody has to look at them, and Orris is way down at the bottom of the gully. You know what they say, Bern. Out of sight, out of mind.”
“The bodies are out of sight,” I said, “and the rest of us are out of our minds.”
“People adjust,” she said. “Take you and me. Last night the coffee was strong and full-bodied, and we enjoyed it. Tonight it’s weak, and we’re still enjoying it.”
“We didn’t adjust to it.”
“We most certainly did.”
“We put Scotch in it, Carolyn.”
“That’s how we adjusted,” she said, “and I’d have to say we made a good adjustment, Bern. It tastes a lot better this way. Somehow you don’t notice that it’s weak. You know, that might be a good way to stretch coffee, as a sort of economy move. Use less coffee and add whisky to taste.”
“For economy,” I said.
“Well, if there was a major coffee shortage, say, or if we went to war with Brazil.”
“Why would we do that?”
“Why does anybody do anything?” She frowned. “Where was I?”
“You were drinking fortified coffee.”
“Fortified,” she said. “That’s a good word for it. I suppose it’s a crime against nature to put single-malt whisky in coffee, but that coffee was a crime against nature to begin with and I figure they cancel each other out. At least we didn’t use the Drumnadrochit.”
“God forbid.”
“I hope we get out of this place soon, Bern, but not before I get one more crack at the Drumnadrochit. Anyway, the answer to ‘Where was I?’ is I was talking about people adjusting.”
“To murder.”
“Uh-huh. They’re not really concerned anymore, Bern, not the way they were. Some of them are taking the tack that there weren’t any murders in the first place.”
“Then where did all those bodies come from?”
“Jonathan Rathburn fell off the ladder, Orris fell off the bridge, and the cook-”
“Fell into a deep and dreamless sleep,” I said, “and lo, she doth be sleeping still. That’s ridiculous, for God’s sake.”
“I know.”
“The cook could conceivably have had a stroke or a heart attack,” I said, “although it strikes me as unlikely. But Orris and Rathburn were murdered, pure and simple. And if their deaths were accidental, how do you explain the sugar in the snowblower’s gas tank and the severed phone wires? Acts of God?”
“They say He works in mysterious ways. I heard someone say that phone wires get disconnected all the time in bad weather. And somebody else was saying that the snowblower probably had a perfectly ordinary mechanical breakdown, and that nobody really smelled burnt sugar after all.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I know, Bern.”
“I ought to siphon a cup of gasoline from the snowblower’s gas tank,” I said, “and make them all taste it.”
“We may want it tomorrow,” she said, “for dessert, if there’s no more custard. Look, not everybody thinks the deaths were accidental. The rest of them think the cycle’s complete.”
“The cycle?”
“Three deaths, Bern. Deaths are supposed to come in threes, remember? Now that the cook’s dead, everybody can relax.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know. But what’s the difference, Bern? It’s not as though we’re going to solve the puzzle. You said so yourself, that all the bits and pieces we picked up interrogating people this afternoon wouldn’t do us any good at all.”
“I didn’t say they wouldn’t do any good. I just said we weren’t getting anywhere.”
“Close enough. So we’ll hang out here, and the colonel can read English history. Hey, you never went to college. How come you knew all that about Queen Anne?”
“I don’t know anything about Queen Anne,” I said. “I had a set of the books in the store. I was beginning to think I ought to have a look inside the covers, and then somebody came along and bought them.”
“Hey, it happens. She was gay, you know.”
“Queen Anne?”
“Uh-huh. Had a thing with Sarah Churchill, whose husband was the Duke of Marlborough that the colonel was just talking about. Why are you looking at me like that, Bern? It’s herstory.”