Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 140, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 853 & 854, September/October 2012
- Автор: Макдермид Вэл, Манфредо Лу
- Год: 2012
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 140, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 853 & 854, September/October 2012». Краткое содержание книги:
Then last week she ran into someone who told her Mario was urgently asking for her. She shuddered to think that her half-hour with Killy might have cost her this chance to see Nicky again.
“I just don’t know, Mario. How can this possibly work? Me sneaking in? People know who their servants are, I won’t fool them.”
“Antoné, you nervous, you no do it. But you wanna do, we got Assunta Valdinoci with us. Remember, the dressmaker? Carlo sister? She makes you the maid suit, the apron. You gonna look just right. They got lots extra servants, no? Big party like that?”
“But why would Nicky be there?”
“Sacco says maybe he delivers the booze.”
“We could watch for him on the road then, couldn’t we? Where it meets the driveway?” She ran her fingers through her chin-length tangles, damp from humidity and dirty from travel.
“You want to take a chance, I wait with you. Wait together, eh?” He picked up speed on the dirt and gravel of the country lane. “But if already he’s inside, Antoné? Maybe ’nother servant? From the road, you no gonna see him.”
“I’m supposed to walk in... just walk in?”
“Sacco, he used to be a baker. Him and his wife, Rosina, they make for you the dolci. We find you nice tray, like the rich people using. You carry inside, you gonna look fine. You English, perfetto. You know how the servants they act, how they talk. Maybe that’s why Nicky says this. Send Antonella. Only she can do such a thing, eh?” He patted her knee. “You see Nicky there, you bring to us. We want to see again our Nicolino. ’Nother reason we do this, see Nicky. Then we have a party too. Not so fancy like the rich people.” He smiled. “But could be a wedding, eh, bella?”
Ella couldn’t shake the feeling, though, that there was something Mario wasn’t mentioning.
Whatever it was, it still nagged at her in the morning, as she climbed into the ill-fitting maid’s outfit Assunta Valdinoci made for her. Assunta seemed very upset, and everyone tiptoed around her. No one offered to tell Ella why. They’d been marvelously kind to her last night. Sensing her frayed nerves? They’d kept Assunta away from her, and just as well. She had enough on her mind. She couldn’t seem to pull air from the wet heat as she walked the long driveway to the Westfields’ pillared porch. She carried a metal tray, as big as an occasional table, with a huge domed top to keep the gnats off Rosina’s pastries. A voice in her head kept screaming Turn around, go back. She visualized Mario’s car, beside the road in the shade of a giant willow.
She made it up the steps, past pillars worthy of a temple. She wasn’t sure which way to turn on the wraparound porch. The two front doors, at least fifteen feet tall, were open. She knew she shouldn’t go in this way, but she heard someone coming toward her, an imperious voice saying, “Fetch more ice.” And so Ella slipped into an entryway as grand as a cathedral, with windows rising three stories. Her heart hammered in her ears as she skirted a few men in summer suits. She was thankful their eyes slid off her when they saw the uniform. She entered a room whose floor was polished to a brilliance that nearly left her snow-blind. A vast mirror reflected more men, standing near marble tables or sitting on striped silk chairs. It angled to frame a ceiling quadratura of gold rays through clouds in a turquoise sky. At the far end, three sets of French doors opened onto a broad circle of screened veranda.
She heard the tinkle of cutlery and teacups outside, and threaded through more men in seersucker and light worsted. One of them was saying, “Hell’s bells, we could probably write the platform for the next ten conventions right here and now. One, our soldiers are heroes. Two, we can’t afford to become isolationist. Three, we support... what’s the phrase... ‘honest labor and progressive industry’? And put in something about lowering taxes in case voters realize they have to pay for roads if they want them. The platform’s a waste of time. What we need to do is to stop these strikes and race riots.”
It wasn’t like any party chat she’d ever heard at the Kingstons’. Ella wasn’t sure why that troubled her.
She stepped out onto the ballroom-sized veranda. Another twenty or thirty men sat or stood in clusters in the deep shade. Odd that there were no women here. It looked more like a meeting than a party.
Jasmine and sweet pea flanked wide stairs down to the lawn, adding a floral overlay to the tempting scent of food on silver carts. Ella saw eggs and sausages and grits and gravy in chafing dishes, platters of biscuits and rolls, rows of chilled goblets with a rainbow of juices, samovars of tea and coffee. The dazzle of sunlight made silhouettes of the men filling their plates.
“My money’s on Harding,” someone a few feet from her said. “They’ll choose him for his ability — no, let’s be fair and call it a gift — of doing absolutely nothing. But you know why we might lose to him?”
“Negligent press and dishonest opposition?”
Laughter. “When is that not true?”
Another said, “Don’t take this wrong, Franklin. But we emptied the damn treasury over there in Europe, and what do we have to show for it?”
“We did win, old fellow.”
Ella tensed. It was her former neighbor, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt.
She turned her face away, didn’t see who was replying. “—said it would help our industries. Instead it’s nothing but strikes since Armistice.”
“—race riots,” another said. “Charleston, Scranton, Philly, Macon, Baltimore. Washington last week, Chicago next. If they take a torch to New York—”
Ella struggled to keep hold of her heavy tray. Would Roosevelt spot her, recognize her? She and the children had occasionally encountered him strolling. He’d always given them nickels for ice cream.
A high-pitched voice with drawn-out vowels reached her: “—make sure they know we’ll keep the country safe.” Another voice she’d heard on R Street. Attorney General Palmer.
How could this be? It was as if she’d walked into a dark fairy tale. She didn’t dare look around. Would she see John Kingston here too? As she hurried on, face still averted, she heard Palmer add, “But you ought to mend your fences with Hearst, Al. Keep the papers behind us when we go after the Reds.”
Ella felt sick. Mario said this was a fancy party. He didn’t tell her — presumably didn’t know — that top Democrats would be here.
Why would Nicky come to an affair like this? Surely not to deliver whiskey. This was a dry state. Of course, people drank anyway, as they would when Prohibition went national in January. But these particular men wouldn’t break state law so conspicuously, would they?
These particular men... powerful, rich, leaders of the country’s ruling party. She took a few deep breaths. This would be a tempting target for a bomber.
She pushed the thought away. Nicky would never do such a thing, he’d never plot to kill. He was a pacifist, that’s why he’d gone to Mexico.
At some distance from the breakfast-laden tables, Ella spotted a rolling cart that was bare. She set the tray down on it and turned to walk out onto the lawn. She’d make a circuit of the house, peer through windows looking for Nicky. Then she’d go back to Mario’s car. Explain about her neighbors being here. Maybe she and Mario could keep watch, spot Nicky arriving or leaving?
Then she heard Palmer say, “Ah, Killy, there you are.”