Chapter Eight
The guests remained where they were in the lobby, flagrantly flouting Pluck’s order to retire to their rooms.
“Well, let’s not mince words. Shall we mutiny against this so-called inspector?” suggested Monsieur Lapin-Défunt.
“I’m with you,” said Stoupes. Several others offered their agreement.
“We can beat him to a pulp, then lock him in his room,” Lapin-Défunt mused. “‘Case closed’, as he would say.”
“But he’s got that big fellow with him,” Mister Drig wavered. “He’s clearly gone daft, and I wouldn’t want to mess with him.”
“What about you, coronel?” asked Frau Hühnerbeinstein of the elderly gentleman who was leaning, eyes closed, against the wall, irradiating a piquant lack of interest in getting involved. “You’re his friend. What do you say?”
The coronel sighed. “I am not his friend.”
“He says you’re his friend,” someone pointed out.
“He says a lot of things,” Drig admitted.
“But we all saw you, in the ballroom!” Frau Hühnerbeinstein insisted. “Forgive me for contradicting you, coronel, but you most surely are his friend.”
“No,” the coronel maintained. “He has used me to flesh out the fantasy world he persists in conjuring in his head—a world he has peopled with us all, though without our consent—but the fact remains that it is not true.”
“Well.” Frau Hühnerbeinstein clearly did not believe the esteemed old soldier. “Every friendship suffers certain rifts, from time to time. But a true friendship is forever, I always say.”
“Say what you like, madame.” The coronel’s eyes remained closed.
“I don’t see him as malicious,” Genevra Bergamaschi, the artist, reflected. “Clearly deranged, but not malicious.”
“But none the less dangerous for it,” reasoned Stoupes.
“Why don’t we give him the ol’ silent treatment?” Mister Drig threw in as his tuppence’s worth. “You know: pretend he’s not there. It was just the wind we heard, and the like?”
“I say we blind the swine, with a pen!” proposed his better half. “I say we puncture him with holes! I say we let him bleed to death, for havin’ ruined our holiday!”
Frau Hühnerbeinstein considered this. “That way, he’d stay conscious long enough to observe his outflowing of blood and ponder all his sins.”
“It’s not his fault the clerk’s been killed,” said Genevra. “Unless he did it.”
“A possibility that has not been lost on me, I can tell you,” added Monsieur Lapin-Défunt.
“Either way, he doesn’t deserve a violent death any more than Snede did,” said Genevra. “He needs confinement, in a hospital, a madhouse, of course, so he can get treated, and the rest of society can have peace.”
“Everyone, please, please,” begged Enid Trojczakowski. “May I remind you that Mister Pluck is an authorised inspector, leading a criminal investigation? True, he has his idiosyncrasies—even annoyances. But surely we must respect his authority?”
“I’m not so sure we should trust that newspaper, and that badge,” said Stoupes.
“I felt the badge. It seemed real,” said Genevra. “And the newspaper looked authentic.”
“I’m sure I’ve seen his face in the papers before, now that I think of it,” remembered Mister Drig. “Though in what capacity, exactly, I couldn’t say.”
“It mighta been in the capacity of a raving impersonator, for all that!” argued Missus Drig.
“If you’re really so distrustful of the poor fellow, why not telegraph the authorities?” asked Enid.
“I’ve just tried again, moments ago, madame,” said Mifkin, who’d just come back in. “The wires are still down. And the snow continues.”
“I see him as a poor, sweet, innocent boy,” said Enid, with some vigour.
“Humph!” humphed Lapin-Défunt.
“He poses no harm—not really. Let’s indulge him, give him room to conduct his investigation, and see what he comes up with.”
“We might as well,” sighed Missus Drig. “I don’t see what other choice we legitimately have.”
“That’s right!” said Enid. “And who knows? Maybe he’ll surprise us.”
“We’ll give him rope,” nodded Mifkin. “All the rope he asks for. And at the end of it—well, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s hanged himself.”
Poor Larry the bellhop came in and walked straight up to Enid. “Miss Trojczakowski? The inspector needs to speak to you, in private, about important case-related business. Please follow me.”
He led her upstairs to Pluck’s room. The door was open: hotel staff were rushing in and out, catering to the good inspector’s demands, carrying furniture, bearing trays of delicacies, and so on. Pluck paced back and forth in his sitting room, oblivious to the activity, necessitating everybody else to dodge and weave so as not to knock him down. When he saw Enid, Pluck hurried over, drew her to a corner and whispered: “Miss Trojczakowski, you are fortunate enough to find yourself in a position to assist with my inquiries enormously.”
“However I may be of service, just name it, Mister Pluck.”
“It’s something of a delicate matter. . .”
“Oh?”
“Yes, of course; otherwise, I wouldn’t have said that it was, would I?!”
“I understand, I quite understand, Mister Pluck. You may rely on me for discretion.”
“I may?”
“Indubitably.”
He squinted up into her face, doubtfully. “If you betray me. . .”
“You can count on me. . .Curtis.”
He looked her up and down, his gaze resting on certain areas of her anatomy. This made her uncomfortable. He began to salivate, openly. With a finger, she raised his chin so that his glance might more strictly conform to social norms by meeting her eyes, and asked: “What do you need for your investigation, Inspector?”
Thus recalled to himself, he cleared his throat and looked away, at, well, nothing. “I simply have need of something from your wardrobe, mademoiselle.”
“My. . .wardrobe?”
“I think you’ve guessed it by now, mademoiselle.”
Enid thought. Then it hit her:
“Oh. . .I understand.”
“You do?”
“Of course. And there’s nothing wrong with it.”
“There’s not?”
“No, no! I’ve read all about this sort of thing.”
“Really?”
“Really. Now, do you require my used undergarments to sniff, or clean ones to wear yourself?”
He was taken aback—straight into the wall, with a thump, and a wince. “You have insulted me, mademoiselle!”
“So it’s not that?”
“Indeed, it is not! I merely require one of your robes, black, preferably, so as to assume the role of judge and impress on my interviewees the gravity of their situation! No sniffing of undergarments need come into it!”
“Oh! Why didn’t you say so, you silly man? I do have a black robe, as it so happens, quite frilly and quite fetching. I think you’ll look just divine in it, Curtis.”
“You are very kind. I thank you. Now. . .”
“Yes?”
“There is one other thing. . .”
“My undergarments?”
“No! No, might we. . .” He led her into the toilet, and shut the door. At once, he began weeping.
“Why Curtis! Whatever’s the matter?”
“I don’t think I can do it!” he sobbed. “It’s too much for me! I’m not that good! I came last in my class in detective school! I kept sneaking out to watch the cricket, and never studied!”
“Oh, my dear! There, there. It’s okay. It’s all right.” She rubbed his head, which was now on her shoulder.
“I get confused so easily! Sometimes. . .sometimes, I’m just guessing! I don’t know what I’m saying, but I say it anyway! And I don’t know who’s getting put in prison, who’s getting hanged, who’s getting thrown in front of the firing squad because of the things I say!”
“Oh, you poor dear!”
“And, it’s a little off the subject, but while I’m confessing things I might as well get this off my chest too, I’m erotically attracted to obese women!”
It was a bit cramped and awkward there in the loo; they were rather wedged between the sink and the bidet. Enid was sort of half-sitting, half-standing, with Pluck’s chin on her shoulder, her bottom pressed painfully against the tap, her head jammed where the overhead toilet tank stuck out from the wall.
“It’s all going to be all right, Curtis. You can trust me. I believe in you.”
“You do?”
“Yes. I can tell, about these things. You have great goodness in you.”
“I do?”
“Yes. And great honesty. And great strength. I know you’ll find the man who did this.”
“Or woman—it could just as likely have been a woman!” He was getting that old fire back again.
“Of course! That’s the spirit, Curtis, that’s the spirit!”
He beamed. “I can do this!”
“I know you can!”
“I will do this!”
“Of course you will!”
Pluck released her, stood straight, fists clenched, scanning—in this case, the stained plaster in a corner of the ceiling, but, if he’d been where his spirit yearned to be—limitless vistas of fields of golden grain.
“I shall annihilate my enemies,” he vowed in whisper, “and make myself worthy of wearing the mantle of righteousness which has been thrust upon me!”
“That’s the spirit!” she cheered.
“Now please go and get that mantle of righteousness so that I might begin.”
“At once.”