Palm for Mrs. Pollifax Read online

  “Evil,” she mused. “That’s an old-fashioned word.”

  “Positively Biblical,” he agreed, “but you have to remember that stolen plutonium is not quite the same as stolen money, Mrs. Pollifax. The uses to which illicit plutonium can be put are very limited but one of its uses is hideous to contemplate.”

  “Hideous,” she said, nodding.

  He leaned over his slides again. “I think you’d better see what was inside that crate. It’s quite unlikely you’ll discover any of these items sitting about on someone’s desk as a paperweight but one never knows. Here we are—exhibit number one.”

  Mrs. Pollifax studied the innocent-looking object projected on the wall. “That’s plutonium?”

  “Yes, shaped into a metal button weighing about two kilograms. Not very prepossessing, is it?” He switched to another slide. “Each button was then individually packed into a plastic bag—there’s your plastic bag—and then,” he added, changing slides, “the bag was placed in a can filled with inert gas, which in turn was placed inside this odd-looking contraption they call a birdcage, probably because—”

  “Because it looks like a birdcage,” finished Mrs. Pollifax.

  “Yes. Five pounds of plutonium were in the crate stolen from England. If you come across any of these items, don’t touch. If you have to touch, use surgeon’s gloves.” He shook his head. “If you find anything. If it’s there. If more should be sent. If, if, it.” He sighed and returned to the projector. “Now I want to show you a diagram of the Hotel-Clinic Montbrison before we conclude this. You recall it’s room 113 that’s been reserved for you.”

  “Any special reason?”

  “Oh, yes. From the balcony of room 113 you’ll have a marvelous view of Lake Geneva. You will also be able to see from your balcony, on your left, a narrow, very primitive dirt road, incredibly steep, that winds and circles up the next mountain. From any other floor it’s screened by the trees.” He flicked on a new slide, a larger diagram that showed the terrain surrounding the Clinic. Standing up he pointed to a small X. “There’s your road, off on this mountain here. Every night at ten o’clock—it’s quite dark by then—there’ll be a car parked at a point on the road that you can see from your room. You’ll signal from your balcony with a flashlight. That will be your contact with the outside world.”

  She frowned. “Won’t anyone else see me signaling?”

  He shook his head. “Room 113 is quite high. Actually it’s on the third floor because the Clinic’s built into the mountainside. The massage and treatment rooms are on the ground level, the reception and dining rooms are on the next level, and the patients’ rooms begin above that. As soon as you’ve signaled each evening the car will turn on its lights—you’ll be able to see that—and proceed down the hill. You’ll flash your light twice if all’s well but if you’ve something urgent to report you’ll blink your light four times.”

  “And what will happen then?” she asked with interest.

  “Then you can expect an incoming phone call within the half hour. Since it will come through the Clinic’s switchboard we’ll work out some kind of simple code for you, based on your health.” He unplugged the projector and carried it back to its case. “Other than this,” he said, “your job will be to mingle with the guests, do as much judicious exploring of the building as possible, watch, eavesdrop, listen, and don’t admire any sunrises at the edge of a one-hundred-foot drop.”

  “I won’t,” she promised.

  “We’ve booked you for a flight to Geneva on Thursday—the day after tomorrow. The letter confirming your arrival at the Clinic will be received by them today, and tomorrow I’ll cable them the hour of your arrival and ask that you be met at the airport by a limousine, as befits the mother-in-law of a noted Baltimore lawyer,” he added with a grin.

  “And what am I recovering from?” asked Mrs. Pollifax.

  “If you’ve nothing more exotic in mind, how about a stubborn case of good old Hong Kong flu?”

  “All right,” she agreed, “but what equally concerns me if I’m leaving so soon is what I tell people when I announce I shall be away. People like my son in Chicago, my daughter in Arizona. The Garden Club. My neighbor Miss Hartshorne, the Art Association—”

  “Go on,” said Carstairs, looking fascinated.

  “—the Hospital Auxiliary, the Save-Our-Environment Committee and”—she paused to frown at the expression on his face—“my karate instructor.”

  “I waited for the last with bated breath,” Carstairs said. “It still carries impact.”

  “My karate strikes do, too,” she told him modestly. “But what is my New Brunswick—” She searched for the proper word. “Cover.”

  “Ah yes. Well, at short notice the easiest is the best, I think. I suggest you visit an old friend named Adelaide Carstairs living in Baltimore. If any calls come through for Adelaide they’ll be diverted to my office.” He grinned. “I’ll leave it up to you to embroider on Adelaide, I’m sure you can come up with something dramatic.”

  He glanced at his watch. “Good Lord, one o’clock! Have I covered everything? Damned nuisance not having Bishop with me, I’ll have to spend the next hour making arrangements for your departure.”

  “On Thursday,” she reminded him.

  “Right, at 6 P.M. but I want you at Kennedy International by four o’clock. You’ll be paged over the loudspeaker system and given another briefing, as well as your tickets and the code that we’ll establish for you. I’d rather not have you paged under your own name. Can you suggest one?”

  “Jones, Johnson, Smith,” she said quickly.

  “We’ll make it Johnson. Mrs. Virgil Johnson.” Rising he held out his hand to her. “Well, Mrs. Pollifax,” he said with a rueful smile, “here we go again.”

  “Yes,” she said, rising and shaking his hand.

  “Bon voyage. Finish your bacon, tomato, and lettuce and leave the key at the desk downstairs.” At the door he stopped with one hand on the knob. “And damn it, don’t disappoint me by getting your head bashed in.”

  She was really quite touched by the emotion in his voice. She returned to her sandwich wondering whether Adelaide Carstairs should be an elderly aunt who had broken her hip—rather dull, that; a niece who had eloped with a scoundrel, or a friend who had just been swindled and desperately needed comfort and advice.

  She would have been swindled, decided Mrs. Pollifax, by a tall man with a scar over his left eyebrow. He might have a slight limp, too—that always aroused maternal feelings—but he would definitely be very distinguished and have impeccable credentials.

  In the end Mrs. Pollifax sadly dispensed with her distinguished swindler and turned Adelaide Carstairs into a plain old school friend, recently widowed.

  I’m sure you remember my speaking of her, Mrs. Pollifax wrote her daughter in Arizona that evening. Of course Jane would not remember her, but since children paid very little attention to their parents’ friends Jane would probably reply that of course she recalled Adelaide Carstairs. I’ll just go down for a week or two and cheer her up, she added, giving the Baltimore address in case of emergency, but after sealing the letter Mrs. Pollifax sat and stared at her desk blotter without seeing it for a few minutes. She was thinking of her grandchildren and the vocabulary that had been devised for the world into which they’d been born, words that were as familiar as cat and dog to them: megaton and isotope, military-industrial complex, nuclear capability, ABM, MIRV, arms race, defoliants, and at the end of that list DNA, the genetic material that one reckless person could distort forever with a small bomb containing eleven pounds of plutonium.

  Madness, she thought with a shudder.

  The next morning, feeling more cheerful, she walked downtown to do a little shopping, but with no intention of buying either a dowdy hat or a cane; she had in mind a dinner dress. For a long time Mrs. Pollifax had nursed a secret longing to buy something more contemporary than offered by the third floor matrons’ department. She headed for the Psychedelic
Den and spent a very interesting hour chatting with a young clerk in mini-dress and boots who labored under the impression that Mrs. Pollifax was going to a masquerade party. “Which, in a way, is quite true,” she thought.

  What she brought home was a long purple robe and an assortment of prayer beads. The robe made her look rather like a fortune-teller or the high priestess of a religious cult but it was a satisfying change. It was also drip-dry, she reminded herself virtuously.

  Next it was important to explain her departure to Miss Hartshorne, and this required tact. “She’s feeling lonely,” Mrs. Pollifax told her neighbor over a cup of tea. “Period of adjustment, you know.” By this time Adelaide had taken on shape and substance and she was finding it difficult to remember that Adelaide did not exist. “She and her husband were very close,” she added.

  Miss Hartshorne’s mouth tightened. “I think I’ve been your friend long enough to say what I think of this, Emily, and I don’t think much of it at all. You leave New Brunswick only when a sick daughter-in-law or a friend sends out an S.O.S. and I must say these calls for help have been increasing lately. You let people take advantage of you.”

  “Grace, I’m quite happy to—”

  “I’ve tried for years to persuade you to do some traveling with me but no, you simply won’t travel at all. What you lead, Emily, is an unhealthily dull life.”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Pollifax meekly.

  “You know that ever since my retirement I’ve taken one Cook’s tour a year—religiously—and if I may say so, Emily, it’s what keeps me young. You never go anywhere interesting, you never meet new people, now do you?”

  “Well,” began Mrs. Pollifax, taking a deep breath, but Miss Hartshorne was not waiting for a reply.

  “It’s no vacation at all, cheering up an old friend, and don’t think I haven’t noticed how tired you are when you return from these little trips. Your essential problem, Emily, is that you have no sense of adventure.”

  “None at all,” said Mrs. Pollifax, beaming at her friend, “but won’t you have another cup of tea, anyway, Grace?”

  Two

  “Your attention, please … your attention, please …”

  Mrs. Pollifax glanced up from her thoughts, which had been occupied by the people hurrying past her intent on carrying babies, cameras, back-packs, luggage, attaché cases, odd packages, and nameless hopes. She had been thinking that her own plans were small and tentative: she hoped to find several pounds of plutonium.

  “… will Mrs. Virgil Johnson go to the Information Desk … Mrs. Virgil Johnson …”

  Obligingly Mrs. Pollifax picked up her suitcase and carried it across the aisle to the Information Desk. Almost at once a man detached himself from the crowd and hurried toward her carrying a suitcase in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other. She peered at him in astonishment. “Bishop?”

  He leaned over and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “In the flesh, isn’t it amazing?” He thrust the flowers into her hand. “Beware the Greeks bearing gifts. How are you? I’m delighted to see you.”

  “And I you,” she said, beaming at him. “It never occurred to me they’d send—that is—”

  “Ssh, Mrs. Johnson,” he said conspiratorially, and picked up her suitcase. “Follow me.” He led her around the corner to a door marked PRIVATE. PERSONNEL ONLY. Opening the door he ushered her in and locked the door behind them. “We’re being loaned this office for ten minutes. Displaced Personnel is—are?—having a coffee break.”

  “Are, surely?” she suggested, frowning.

  He shook his head. “Is, I think. Oh, grammar be damned, they’re gone anyway.” He placed his suitcase on the desk. “You realize you’re giving me a disastrous time of it by taking on this job, don’t you? Carstairs can’t make up his mind whether he’s sending you up a blind alley or into a lion’s den. Today it’s a lion’s den and he’s in a dither.”

  “Oh, but he appeared quite calm about it all when I saw him,” she told him. “Really, everything sounds very simple.”

  “It does?” Bishop looked startled.

  “Yes, and it will be such a pleasant change for me, staying in one place.”

  “I see.” He sounded amused. “Well, then, let’s get on with it, shall we?” He opened his suitcase. “My bag of tricks,” he explained. “I have here for you one flashlight of unparalleled quality.” He handed it to her. “Plus a supply of spare batteries in case the quality is not unparalleled—we can’t risk a communications breakdown.”

  “Flashlight and batteries,” repeated Mrs. Pollifax, opening her own suitcase and tucking both inside.

  “One code in a sealed envelope that also contains rather a lot of money in Swiss francs. The code you will kindly memorize en route and then very thoroughly destroy. One pack of matches with which to destroy said code—”

  “You think of everything,” she told him admiringly.

  “Of course,” he said blithely. “And—oh, you are going to have a fun time!—one Geiger counter.”

  “Geiger counter!” She was startled. “Carstairs didn’t mention a Geiger counter.”

  “Actually a scintillator counter,” he amended, pulling out a handsome leather box. “He left it for me to mention because when he saw you we were still working out how to conceal it. You simply can’t go poking about for radioactive stuff without some help, can you? Take a look at this.” He opened the box.

  “Jewels!” she gasped. “Are they real?” She was staring at a flannel-lined tray in which nested an emerald pendant, an enormous diamond pin and two necklaces glittering with rubies.

  “I’m sorry to tell you they’re absolutely fake,” he said. “But damn expensive fakes, and aren’t they gorgeous? They’re just in case no one recognizes this as a jewelry case—”

  “I didn’t,” admitted Mrs. Pollifax.

  “—and they say to themselves, ‘let’s see if this is a geiger counter,’ and they open it to find—presto, jewelry.” He bent over the box. “See this tiny gold button on the hinge? Give it a good push and you’ll have released the lock and can pull out the tray.” He removed it and displayed a machine inside, a dial and two knobs set into a smooth metallic surface. He turned one of the knobs and they listened to a faint humming sound. “That’s normal,” he said. “Proves it’s working and all that, and you’re ready to pan for gold. The needle on the dial zooms, of course, when it sniffs out anything interesting. Check it out while I find your tickets, will you?”

  Mrs. Pollifax closed, opened and closed the interior of the case. “It works,” she said.

  “Good—now I’ll take it away from you.”

  “Take it away!”

  “It’ll be delivered to you on the plane when they hand out the duty-free cigarettes and perfume that people have ordered. There’s a rigorous search of every passenger boarding the plane and we’d rather not risk the wrong chap hauling you away for explanations.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m glad you do. And here are your tickets.” He tapped a list with one finger as he studied it. “Tickets, jewel case, flashlight, batteries—”

  “And violets,” she reminded him. “Very handsome of you, too. I adore violets.”

  He glanced in amusement at her hat, which looked like a bathing cap overgrown with violets and pansies. “So I see. Is that thing called a cloche?”

  “Bishop, you surprise me!”

  “It’s mutual. Oh yes—one more item here,” he said. “The waiter Marcel.” He brought a small photograph from his wallet and showed her a dark-haired, high cheek-boned, gloomy face. “About five feet five. Broad-shouldered. There’ll be a number of waiters and you’ll want to know which one is Marcel. But avoid him, let him be the one to find you.”

  “Right,” said Mrs. Pollifax efficiently, took a last glance and nodded.

  “And that’s about it,” he concluded sadly. “So I daresay you’d better leave before too long a line forms at the check-in counter.” He unlocked the door and opened it and then
he closed the door again and said sternly, “You will take care? Not go around making citizens’ arrests and that sort of tiling? Just try to find the you-know-what and be well-behaved?”

  “I shall feel I’ve behaved very well if I find the you-know-what,” she told him.

  He sighed. “Yes but I want to point out very strongly to you that any international crook who takes on this sort of game is tough and mercenary. Not your common ordinary garden type. Strictly jungle.”

  Mrs. Pollifax put down her suitcase and looked at him. “What’s wrong, Bishop?”

  “It’s that obvious?” He scowled. “Hang it all, Carstairs didn’t want you shaken up but I frankly think you ought to know.”

  “Know what?”

  “The autopsy report on Fraser came in this noon, just before I left. The chap was dead before he fell down the mountainside.”

  “Before he fell,” she repeated automatically.

  “Yes. The actual blow that killed him couldn’t possibly have come from any of the rocks he—uh—his body hit on the way down.”

  “I see,” she said quietly. “You mean he was very definitely murdered.”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded. “Thank you for mentioning it, Bishop, I’ll keep it in mind. You’ll let me go now?”

  “Reluctantly,” he said, opening the door. “Very, very reluctantly.”

  Three

  The code, when Mrs. Pollifax opened it in the plane’s lavatory, struck her as being really very funny. It read like Dick-and-Jane.

  All is quiet—I AM GETTING RESTED.

  I am worried—I HAVE A COUGH.

  I feel I may be in danger—I BELIEVE I AM RUNNING A TEMPERATURE.

  Below these simple sentences had been appended the following code names:

  Marcel—COUSIN MATTHEW

  Plutonium—UNCLE BILL

  Police—PETER

  Carstairs—ADELAIDE

  After several trips to the lavatory she burned the code in an ashtray and returned to watch a Western film on the ingeniously placed moving picture screen. She had never before crossed the Atlantic and watched a film at the same time, and she was not sure that she approved of it. She enjoyed it but that, she felt, was not quite the same as approving of it. She wondered, for instance, how Columbus or Magellan would react if they could see them all sitting in comfortable chairs watching a movie in the sky as they crossed the ocean insulated from wind, tides, storm and distance, and without any decent sense of awe. One ought, she felt, to suffer just a little. Not much but a little.