Free And Now the News by Theodore Sturgeon Page B

soup.
    â€œLook,” said Cotrell, tilting the open top of the satchel toward her. It was full of colorful, oversized British banknotes.
    â€œIs that—”
    Yem Foong nodded. “It’s all there. All the money, that is. The other things, the little things—they’re not here at all.”
    Stanley was in the room and had reached the table before they saw him. He gathered up Brunhilde’s soup-dish and then saw the satchel. He uttered a faint shriek, dropped the dish on the floor, and bolted.
    â€œStanley!” cried Foong.
    Brunhilde leaned back and smiled at Cotrell. “That,” she said, “is a very guilty animal.”
    â€œStanley?” Yem Foong’s eyes widened. “Miss Moot—that is impossible!”
    â€œIt is? Mr. Yem, I have seen a good deal. I think I can spot a guilty reaction when I see one. Really, Jeff, are you just going to sit there and let that—that killer get away?”
    â€œStanley is Yem Foong’s servant,” said Cotrell coldly. “I’m sure he can handle the situation.”
    â€œThank you, Mr. Cotrell. I am embarrassed for my house and its servants.” He clapped his hands. An old woman poked her seamed mahogany face in at the door.
    â€œSephronia,” said Foong quietly, “send Stanley to me directly.”
    The face disappeared, and almost immediately Stanley shuffled in. His feline gait was gone, and his eyes were filled with raw panic. The slanted eyebrows now looked ridiculous.
    â€œStanley,” said Foong, without anger, “why you behave so, mon?” In speaking to the boy, his voice took on the singsong cadences of the native dialect.
    Stanley looked at the satchel. “It de money-bag, mahstah! It leave heah by de dead han’ o’ Mahstah Ching his own se’f!”
    â€œWhat’s all that?” Brunhilde demanded.
    Cotrell smiled. “He is afraid of the satchel because he thinks it was left here—or brought back—by Ching’s ghost.” He turned to the boy and said, “You fool youse’f, mon. It was my very han’ dat fin’ de bag dere an’—” he wiggled his fingers—“it not dead yet. Noone harass de garlic you put ’pon de door an’ window-dem, as you can plainly see.”
    The boy raised startled eyes to the tops of the doors and windows. There were sprigs of garlic over all of them. Relief flooded his strange face.
    â€œAh, bahss, I love you for dat! I do indeed, for it were a cru-ell an’ wicked start I had to see de money-bag itse’f, dere. I know full well no duppie can cross de garlic. I am a eejut, sah, a strikin’ eejut.”
    â€œGo about you work, mon,” smiled Foong.
    Stanley picked up the dishes and went out, praising every inhabitant of heaven under his breath.
    â€œYou speak that calypso like the natives,” chuckled Brunhilde.
    Cotrell chuckled with her, but grimly. “I
was
born here, you know,” he said.
    Eyes down, Brunhilde meticulously positioned and repositioned the silver before her. “You know, Jeff,” she said. “I think you’re letting that savage pull the wool over your eyes. Think a minute. Didn’t you say he magpies pretty things? Didn’t you tell me he was a little strange, with his collecting rocks and gaping at the sunset? And doesn’t a servant come and go as he chooses—isn’t he in a position to know where everyone in the house may be at a particular time—say, at dusk?
    â€œWouldn’t he know where anything of value might be hidden? You have no real clues here. Only by determining what kind of person might have committed the crime can you choose between suspects. I would say that the boy fills the bill. He had motive, opportunity, strength, and the peculiar tastes that would make him do such a thing.”
    Cotrell and Yem exchanged a glance. Stanley re-entered with the next course.
    â€œAh!” said