WHAT THE BUTLER SAW ......
THE DAYS OF WINE AND ROSÉ
SUSPECT #1
Jeeves led Zelda through a series of dark hallways she didn't remember ever seeing before in her previous visits to the MR building. They twisted and turned on themselves so often, she expected she and Jeeves to meet themselves at the next corner! But Jeeves sure-footedly blazed the trail to ravenne's room. As they reached the final corner, Zelda abruptly bumped into a shadowy figure limping around the corner.
"Yvanleterrible! What are you doing here tonight? Did you get a note from Alex too?" exclaimed the astonished Zelda.
"Oh Hi Zelda. Yeah, Alex called me this afternoon before the power went out, to come in and repair a broken drain pipe. He said some clumsy oaf of an intruder had shimmied up the side of the building on it, but they were so fat they pulled it right off the bricks."
"Charmant ! Je vois que la galanterie est bel et bien morte, de nos jours."
"Fat! Fat! He said that? Fat-headed is more like it!" spluttered the highly incensed Zelda.
"Well, I don't know about that," replied yvan, "but he did tell me to send the bill to you. I wondered at the time if you had been elected to Treasurer of MR, but now I understand. You broke it."
"Stop staring at my hips, you cad, I'm still only a size 2 I'll have you know!
.... Wait a minute, I didn't break in, errr, climb in until tonight. How could Alex know this afternoon to call you in?"
But yvan had already started limping off, muttering "He knows I can't go out and fix the blasted pipe until this farking storm moves on. I've got so much metal in my leg I've become the human lightning rod. No way I'm going out now on a ladder."
Zelda's mind raced in circles like a rabid hamster in a turbo-charged exercise wheel! Just what was going on here tonight? Was yvan lying about the phone call? Did Alex booby-trap the pipe, knowing it would be the only way inside the building once the power went out?
Jeeves coughed discreetly and said "If you would just walk this way mum."
They soon reached a door with a hand-written index card stapled to the wood reading "ravenne" "go away"
Quick-witted Zelda noted a smear of bacon grease on the lower left corner of the card.
"Mais que vois-je ? Une trace de doigt ? Et on dirait que ça sent le bacon... encore un indice ?"
Before she could investigate more closely, Jeeves had rapped smartly on the door, causing the card to fall off and be wafted down the hall by a cold, gusty draft. A shrill voice shouted "Can't you read? Go away! Leave me alone! I'm busy!"
Zelda responded "Ravenne! It's me -- Zelda! Please open the door -- there's been a murder!"
A long silent interval ensued, pregnant with the sense of someone thinking furiously on the other side of the dingy door, and maybe peering through the keyhole.
Abruptly, the door was flung open and Zelda was engulfed in a fervent but tipsy embrace. "Zelda, my friend, what are you doing here? Tonight of all nights? In this miserable weather? Come in, come in and have a glass of vino. You look like you've just seen a ghost!"
"That's all Jeeves, thank you. You may return to your duties. I'll take care of Missy Zelda now."
"Very good madam" replied Jeeves as he melted soundlessly back into the shadows.
Ravenne poured a glass of red wine for Zelda (who was craning her neck, trying to read the label on the bottle, but ravenne had spilled wine all over it) and said "So fill me in. A murder you say? Are you sure? Who? Where? Did you do it?"
Zelda choked on her wine and spluttered "Of course I didn't do it. I just got here. Alex had sent a note ordering all mods to attend an emergency meeting here tonight. So I hopped on a plane and had to climb up the drain pipe to get into the building tonight. That's where I found the body. Oh ravenne, pshrynk's been murdered. In the hall below the stairs."
"Oh Zelda, you're so confused. It must be jet lag. Pshrynk was murdered last year. Remember? All that string lying around the rooms, and that rude private dick? Wait, isn't that a naughty oxymoron -- private dick? No matter, you must have just had a flashback tonight. Maybe you were struck by lightning while climbing up the drain pipe -- your hair is really frizzy tonight you know."
"Stop being so silly and have another glass of wine. This is a really great vintage ... I call it wine to die for."
"Hou là, elle est mauvaise celle-là ! (tihi !) Bon, au moins le vin est bon..."
Zelda erupted in a fury fueled by drinking two glasses of really fine wine on an empty stomach. "No, I don't have jet lag. No, I wasn't struck by lightning. You know what rain does to naturally curly hair! My mind is just fine, thank you very much. I know what I saw, and I can prove it. Just ask Jeeves to come back. He saw pshrynk too. He'll back me up!"
"And ... and ... he told me all about your violent argument earlier with pshrynk tonight, when you tried to club him with a wine bottle! You didn't see him, but he was in the hallway polishing the armor. He saw you ... and pshrynk ... and the bottle."
Zelda paused for breath, and to pour another glass of wine. One thing WAS true tonight ... this was a great vintage. Too good to waste.
Ravenne began chuckling, almost choking on her wine. "Zelda, there isn't any armor in that hallway. Never has been. Where would Alex get any armor? Alex in armor? Don't make me laugh!"
"But what about the argument? Are you denying that too? Didn't you threaten him?"
"There was no argument, Zelda. The thunder and rain were so loud in that empty hallway that we had to shout to hear each other. Pshrynk is deaf in one ear (he won't admit it) so he kept tipping his head to hear me since he couldn't read my lips in the dark. I was just showing him this fantastic new vintage I had discovered in the MR wine cellar."
"I keep shouting at him that he'd be sorry if he didn't try this wine, and we could get even with Colonel Alex for stealing our flashlight batteries. That's all."
"But,... but you kept raising the bottle!"
"Sure, I had to keep holding the bottle above his head, to show him the delicate blush of the wine - I used the lightning flashes to highlight it for him. I had to do it a couple of times to get the right color of lightning. Don't tell me that silly butter-fingers spilled the entire bottle of wine! That WOULD be criminal!"
Ravenne's slick explanations sounded so plausible, so ordinary, ... so real. Had Zelda really been struck by lightning -- and imagined the whole thing? She looked down at her lap and saw the forgotten paperback, now nestling in a puddle of wine on her skirt. That at least was real. Let's see ravenne deny this!
She picked up the book to show ravenne her evidence and noticed that soaking in the wine had literally glued all the pages together so that the book opened in the middle. Zelda peered down at the wine-smudged print, now wishing she hadn't had that third glass of wine. Her vision was really blurry. Wait, it was the page that was blurry, not her eyes. The wine had soaked thoroughly into the pages, completely obscuring the text except for the last line on page 202, and two scribbled lines below it in pshrynk's distinctive illegible scrawl. Holding the book up to ravenne's candle, Zelda puzzled out the only legible words in these three lines:
Did ___ ______ __ __?
___ ________ who ___ __.
He ___ ___ __ ____.
Was this a message from beyond the grave? From a dead man? Was pshrynk trying to identify his killer? Would it be in code? How could she clean the wine off the rest of the message without destroying it?
"Déjà que l'écriture d'un médecin vivant est indéchiffrable, alors un médecin mort... je suis pas sortie de l'auberge."
Zelda held the book closer to the candle, trying to dry out the page.
Just then, there was a discreet knock on the door.
"Enter" fluted the now tipsier ravenne.
Zelda looked up as Jeeves entered the room, then did a double take, spilling wine down her chin. This alcohol-laden dribble, combined with a strong gust of cold wind from the hallway, flared the candle flame, igniting the wine-soaked book into a small conflagration in Zelda's lap.
"Permit me, madam," said Jeeves, spraying the flames with the soda siphon he was carrying on the drinks tray. "I'm afraid that wine will leave a nasty stain in your skirt fabric."
Zelda stared wild-eyed at Jeeves, exclaiming
"Mtravellerh! What are you doing in Nate's, errr..., DaleDe's, .... errr Jeeves' suit?"
[Has Zelda imbibed too much of the good stuff?]
[Will Jeeves be successful in removing that pesky stain?]