Free The Convivial Codfish by Charlotte MacLeod Page A

method wasn’t Max’s main concern right now. The point was, if you ruled out the one waitress at the Scrooge Day luncheon, as Jem was so sure you had to, then only some member of that insane chowder society could possibly have made off with the ponderous bauble. Being no doubt one of the Tolbathys’ usual crowd, he’d have been invited to the party here and he’d have known about Hester’s ritual with the caviar.
    It would have been simple enough for him to trick the caterers into thinking he had a right to take over the serving, simple to do his little act, which consisted mainly of opening two bottles of champagne and one tin of caviar with a few fancy gestures thrown in for effect. And it would have been simplest of all to fake his escape by just taking off the chain, stashing it somewhere out of sight, and blending back in with the other guests.
    But how would he have unblended in the first place? These false beards and walrus mustaches the men were sporting hadn’t really fooled anybody, at least not for long. To begin with, they were too obviously fake. In the second place, the self-appointed sommelier hadn’t been wearing any.
    He’d sported natty sideburns, though, and a full head of grayish blond hair that might well have been a wig. His light blue eyes—Max noticed such things—had been somewhat prominent. So had his teeth. His height and build had been average, his face more round than long, his age perhaps fifty-five, which would have been remarkably young for a Comrade of the Convivial Codfish.
    On the other hand, it wouldn’t have been too difficult in this flattering light for a Comrade to knock ten or fifteen years off his age with a wig to hide his bald spot and plumpers in his cheeks to smooth out the wrinkles. If he had false teeth, he could have put in a different plate. His grandmother’s, for instance. A real old Yankee never threw anything away that might possibly come in handy sometime, and nothing changed a person’s expression more than an ill-fitting set of dentures. If he wore glasses as a rule, he could have left them off, assuming he saw well enough without them to dish up the caviar and pour out a few glasses of champagne. He’d managed that all right, Max remembered. He’s also worn clean white cotton gloves, either to dress up his act or because hands were often recognizable and fingerprints always identifiable.
    As to his clothes, one elderly dinner suit looked so much like another that he’d have had no need to change. He wouldn’t have needed to disguise his voice because in fact he hadn’t uttered a word, except to the caterers, who wouldn’t have known him anyway. All he’d need to do after he’d put on his brief performance would have been to step into one of the toilets, taken off his wig, his sideburns, his gloves, and presumably his teeth, and resume whatever guise he’d come in as a guest. He could have stuffed the Great Chain under his shirt, strolled back to collect his champagne and caviar, sauntered on through to the parlor car and thence to the tender, dropped his false hair, the gloves, and maybe even the teeth into the stove, stashed the Great Chain somewhere or other, and gone on to kill Wouter.
    It was a lovely plan, really. In the confusion after the jolting stop, he could have rejoined the party and pretended to be as shaken up as the rest. They were all in such a state by then that nobody would have noticed. As to the Great Chain’s turning up later on, that wouldn’t matter so long as he hadn’t left any fingerprints on it. Whoever found it would be intended to think some Comrade had planned a joke on Jem Kelling and abandoned the chain when he realized Jem was not among those present and that circumstances didn’t lend themselves to slapstick humor.
    All right, so the missing wine steward was most likely the killer, most likely a Comrade, and most likely still at the party, if such it could still be called. But which one of them was he? Max