“We’ve got to dust off the obit and bring it up to date,” one of the reporters said to the photographer beside him.
“Yeah,” the photographer answered, squatting to find the shot he wanted. As with policemen, his trade made him think of violent death as part of business, something to be dealt with rather than exclaimed over. “Who d’you suppose would want to do in old Tricky Dick?”
“Somebody who bought a car from him,” the reporter said with a cynical chuckle. He saw Bushell’s uniform and asked him, “Who would want to kill Honest Dick, anyhow?” He poised pencil over pad to take down the RAM chief’s reply.
“I wouldn’t try to guess - that’s your job,” Bushell said. The reporter snorted. Bushell went on, “I’m sure the New Liverpool constabulary will investigate the case most thoroughly - murder by firearm is as vicious a crime as the statue book knows.”
“We’ve already five of ‘em here this year, and it’s only June,” the reporter said. “What do you think of that?”
“I’m against it,” Bushell answered solemnly. “I’m also against cannabis-smuggling and the white slave trade, and for motherhood, the King-Emperor, and the right of trial by jury. Go ahead and quote me on any of those.”
The reporter snorted, then scraped a lucifer against the sole of his shoe and used it to light a cigarillo. When he had the nasty little cheroot going, he said, “Awright, Chief, I oughta know better than to expect a straight answer from you. Next time I will.”
“Fat chance,” Bushell said. The reporter laughed out loud.
Headlamps glowing, a steam lorry chuffed around from behind the mansion and rolled slowly out toward Sunset Highway. The driver stared back at the murder scene and paused to talk for a moment with the lantern-carrying New Liverpool constable at the end of the driveway before vanishing into the night. Governor Burnett came up to Bushell. He was not used to sudden and violent death, and averted his eyes from Honest Dick’s body as he asked in a shaken voice, “Colonel, what does this, this tragedy do to the showing of The Two Georges?”
“I don’t know how interested people will be in the painting now, but you may carry on for all of me,” Bushell answered. “Since the victim here was murdered from a distance, none of your guests is a suspect. I do suggest, though, that you keep everyone downstairs until the New Liverpool constables finish taking statements. They’ll want to know what made Honest Dick go outside just then, what he said, things of that sort.”
Samuel Stanley said, “I wish the fellow out there hadn’t let that lorry leave, not that the driver would have told us anything we won’t hear from half a dozen other people.”
“Maybe more than half a dozen.” Bushell pointed back toward the mansion. Governor Burnett’s guests crowded the entryway, jostling one another to get a better view of a spectacle vastly different from the one they had been invited here to see. Moreover, servants’ staring faces - like those of the laborers at the airship port, a mixture of light and dark - filled every ground-floor window. The mansion staff and the chauffeurs who had brought some of the richer guests and those more enamored of display were also getting an eyeful.
Burnett, on the other hand, still seemed unable to look at the corpse. “Someone will have to telephone his daughters,” he said.
“You’ll have their numbers?” Bushell asked.
The governor nodded. “My secretary will have them in his files.” He turned back to the mansion, shouted, “Wilberforce!” After some delay, a tall, thin, dignified black man made his way out through the crush. Burnett explained what he wanted.
“I shall locate those numbers directly, excellency,” Wilberforce said. He glanced down at Honest Dick’s body for a moment, then delicately looked away. “You’ll not want me to place the telephone calls, though?”
“No, no.” Burnett sighed. “It’s my responsibility, and I shall attend to it. I just wish to God I didn’t have to.” There, for once, Bushel! believed him perfectly sincere. The governor clapped a melodramatic hand to his forehead. “What else can go wrong now?”
As if to answer him, a loud, insistent bell began to ring, somewhere deep inside the mansion. People looked around and stared at one another, trying to figure out where the noise was coming from and what it meant. A woman shrieked, then cried out, “Mother Mary, that’s the alarm!” It was Kathleen Flannery’s voice.
Bushell threw himself into the crowd at the entranceway, Samuel Stanley beside him. “Move!” they shouted. “Make way, there!” Some of the guests would have moved if they could, but everyone was too tightly packed to make that easy for anybody. Bushell knifed through the crush like a Rugby three-quarterback. He realized he’s stuck an elbow in the ample belly of the lieutenant governor of Upper California only when that worthy grunted and folded up like a concertina. At last he got past the knot of people gathered in the front door to the mansion. He sprinted down the hall toward the stairway. Though he ran with everything he had in him, Samuel Stanley passed him ten yards before the foot of the stairs. His adjutant might have carried a few extra years, but he also had longer legs.
Both RAMs bounded up the stairway two and three steps at a time. Halfway up, Bushell wondered what sort of weapon he’d use to stop the thieves. He yanked his ceremonial sword out of its scabbard. He was no fencer, but the thing had a point. It might frighten someone, if nothing more. The idea of actually having to use such a silly toy certainly frightened him.
As he ran in dress uniform down the first-floor hall toward the Cardigan Room, he thought of how much he looked like the British marines in the patriotic mural on the wall. The marines, though, had had the sense to carry rifles.
Stanley stopped dead in the doorway to the Cardigan Room. Stumbling to a stop behind him, Bushell almost ran him through. “Let me by,” he panted. Silently, his adjutant stood aside. The wall on which The Two Georges had hung was bare. Bushell took in that single catastrophe first. Everything else followed, a piece at a time.
One of the RAMs guards sprawled on the floor, unconscious or dead. Unconscious - he was breathing. The other guard seemed to be holding himself up by main force of will. He staggered toward Bushell, croaking in a thick, slurred voice, “Sh-sir, regret to report that - ” He clutched his stomach, doubled over, and was noisily sick on the fine Persian carpet.
The stink of the vomit mixed with another odor, strong, heavy, sweetish. Bushell had smelled it before, but couldn’t place it. Stanley did. “Chloroform!” he exclaimed.
“You’re right,” Bushell said. “I had a dentist use it to pull a wisdom tooth, years ago. That explains what happened to these poor devils, but not how.” He turned to the conscious guard, who was wiping at his mouth with a pocket handkerchief. “How did they get close enough to chloroform you?” How did you let them get that close?underlay the question.
“We heard the shots outside, sir, and then everyone raising the most hellish commotion.” The guard still spoke slowly, often pausing between words, partly from the direct effect of the anesthetic, partly because his memory was still blurred. Gathering himself, he went on, “Hiram and I, we stuck to our post here, of course. Then these three RAMs came running into the room.” He grimaced ruefully. “Or men in RAM uniforms, I should say. We found out about that.”