Fiends

    ‘Duke, now see here, had I been poisoned already I would hardly need your services. I would be pushing up daisies like my dear husband, Oscar.’

    ‘What happened to Oscar?’ I asked.

    ‘Why, he died, of course. That’s what happens when one is poisoned.’

    ‘Ah-ha,’ I said.

    ‘Ah-ha, indeed. It was dreadful. He barely had a chance to swallow. One moment he was complaining that the hollandaise had curdled, and the next moment he was in it.’

    ‘Eggs Benedict?’ I asked.

    ‘Precisely.’

    ‘When did this happen?’

    ‘April fifteenth,’ Mabel said. ‘That’s over a month ago, and I haven’t eaten properly since then. Whoever murdered Oscar, you see, intends to do the same to me.’

    Muffin tried to climb my leg. Smiling at Mabel, who couldn’t see what was going on, I bent over and patted the little cutie on the head and gave its ear a twist. It bit my wrist, then scampered away and hopped onto Mabel’s lap looking pleased with itself.

    ‘What did the police find?’ I asked.

    ‘The police? Ha! I told them and told them that Oscar had been poisoned, but would they listen? No. As far as they were concerned, poor Oscar simply dropped dead from a bum heart.’

    ‘Did Oscar have a bum heart?’

    ‘He most certainly did by the time they saw it.’

    ‘Was an autopsy performed?’

    ‘Of course,’ she said.

    ‘No traces of poison were found?’

    ‘No, but I’ve discussed the matter with my physician and he assures me that there are several varieties of poison which might go undetected.’

    ‘He’s right,’ I told her.

    ‘Of course. He’s a doctor.’

    ‘Do you have any idea who might have…’

    ‘You wouldn’t have another one of those delicious sandwiches, would you?’ she interrupted.

    ‘Not on me,’ I said.

    ‘Then let’s discuss the rest of the details over lunch. I’m famished.’

    I was all for it. Not only was I starving, but this called for a celebration. I was two thousand one hundred dollars richer than I’d been ten minutes ago, and the case would be a cinch. All I had to do was go through the motions.

    Because Mabel Wingate was in no danger of being poisoned. Her late husband, Oscar, had been dropped by a faulty ticker, not Eggs Benedict. It was good enough for the cops; it was good enough for me.

    Shrinks probably have a name for Mabel’s condition - the way her mind turned things around to help her cope with the sudden shock of her Oscar’s death. I have a name for it, too - bananas. Mabel was bananas and rich.

    I stood to make out like a bandit.

    ‘Not a peep about this to the chauffeur,’ she warned as we left the building.

    ‘Yamamotos’s,’ Mabel told him.

    He started driving. ‘I’m not big on Japanese food,’ I said.

    ‘None the less, I am.’

    So Yamamoto’s it was. Mabel left Muffin in the limousine with Herbert the chauffeur, and we went in. ‘I just adore sushi,’ she said as we sat at a corner table.

    ‘Sushi? She the waitress?’

    ‘You have a lot to learn, Duke.’

    She ordered the same meal for both of us. When the waitress left, she started right in on the case. ‘One of my relatives,’ she said, ‘is obviously the villain. With Oscar out of the way, you see, the entire family fortune fell into my hands. Once I’m out of the way, they’ll inherit oodles.’

    ‘Who, exactly, will get the oodles?’ I asked.

    ‘According to the terms of our will, the wealth would be divided equally among our three children. We also provided handsome amounts for each of our servants.’

    ‘So you figure one of the kids poisoned Oscar?’

    ‘Or one of their spouses,’ Mabel said. ‘Or one of the servants. Or a combination.’

    ‘In other words, you suspect everyone.’

    She nodded.

    ‘So they all have a motive. But who had the opportunity? Who was present at the time of Oscar’s death?’

    ‘They all were. Wingate Manor is a rather large estate. All of our children live there with their spouses. The servants were also in the house that morning: Herbert the chauffeur, George the butler, Wanda the maid, Kirk the stable boy and, of course, Elsie the cook.’ I counted on my fingers. ‘That makes eleven suspects,’ I said. ‘Any grandchildren?’

    ‘Not one.’

    ‘Well, it makes a big bunch. Maybe we can narrow it down a little.’

    Before we could start narrowing it down, the food arrived. I stared at it. I wished I was back at Lou’s Deli. ‘What is this stuff?’ I asked.

    ‘Sushi, my dear.’

    ‘It looks like dead fish.’

    Mabel tittered.

    I put my nose close to the plate, and sniffed. The last time I’d smelled something like it, I was a kid in a rowboat trying to grab bait out of a minnow bucket. It was a hot day, and most of the minnows were belly up. ‘I’m not going to eat this,’ I said.

    ‘Oh, but you must. Until you catch the killer, you’ll need to act as my food taster.’

    ‘What are you getting at?’ I asked.

    ‘Eat,’ Mabel said.

    For three hundred dollars a day, I’ll eat anything. So I forked a critter, held my breath so I couldn’t smell it, and put it into my mouth. It tasted the way I was afraid it might taste.

    Mabel watched me chew. She hadn’t touched her food yet. I swallowed, and tried to wash the taste out of my mouth with water.

    Mabel kept watching.

    I got the picture. She was waiting to see if I’d keel over.

    ‘Oscar didn’t die in a restaurant,’ I said.

    ‘No,’ said Mabel. ‘But one can’t be too careful.’

    ‘Nobody’s going to sneak into the kitchen of a restaurant to poison you,’ I said.

    ‘One never knows.’ She pointed her fork at something on my plate that looked like an octopus tentacle.

    I ate one, and gagged.

    ‘Now that.’

    That looked harmless. It looked like a cake of crisp rice - sort of. But it tasted like something that had been left overnight in the cloudy old water from a goldfish bowl.

    Mabel watched me eagerly. I didn’t keel over, but I wanted to.

    ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Now we trade plates.’

    We traded, and she dug in. It made me feel sick, watching her stuff such junk into her mouth. I flagged down the waitress and ordered a double Scotch on the rocks.

    The Scotch helped. I drank, and tried not to look at Mabel.

    This job, I decided, was not turning out to be such a picnic.

***