Now You See It... Part 38

Plum gestured toward the entry hall.

"m mat case, we'll be on our way to town," he said.

Ca.s.sandra smiled, but Max looked disconcerted.

"No, no, please," he said. "That's not me plan." There was a plan, then! "The plan is to announce a murder to our good, staunch representative of law and order-thafs you, Grover-then announce that he-you-will never ever- what's me phrase?-'pin the rap' on me, because he'll- you'll-never find the body."

Plum stared at him impa.s.sively.

"Let's get (his straight," he said. "You're admitting to me-of your own free will-that you murdered Harry Ken- dal?"

"Of my own free will," said Max.

"And is your wife correct?" The Sheriff gestured toward Ca.s.sandra. "Is the body still in the house?"

Max's eyes lit up.

"Grover, in this room," he said.

Why did you want me here, Max? Why? I wondered deso- lately.

Ca.s.sandra and Plum were looking at him in amazement.

"However," Max continued, "if you take me in, I will- naturally-deny me murder. And without a signed confes- sion, and without the corpus delecti, well..."

He gestured vaguely with his right hand.

"You just confessed in front of two witnesses," the Sheriff said.

"One of them my wife?" asked Max. "With me denying my confession? Sans corpse? The evidence not terribly in- crunmating?"

He waggled a chiding finger.

"Grover," he scolded, parent to child.

136 Richard Mathmon

The Sheriff was silent. Thinking. (I presume; can't prove it.)

"Take him in," Ca.s.sandra said. "You heard his confes- sion. That's enough."

Max ignored her, addressing the Sheriff.

"I claim," he said, "that the worthless remains of Harry Kendal are in this room and that no one-no one-will ever be able to find mem- Even though he may be no more dis- tant from us than a few scant yards."

His smile was wicked. "Possibly inches," he said.

Despite the dreadful aspects of it all/1 must confess that Max's challenge intrigued me- After all, wasn't he me prod- uct of my somewhat askew rearing?

I blinked (I think) as he made a sudden, broadly flourish- ing gesture with his right hand.

"I take it back!" he cried. "I didn't murder Harry Kendal!

I vanished him!"

He smiled again, "m the parlance of me trade, mat means I made him disappear, Grover." (I wished that he wouldn't keep calling Plum by his first name, and with such barely disguised disrespect.)

Max looked toward the fireplace.

"Perhaps I stuffed him up the chimney," he confided.

The Sheriffs head fumed slightly-and involuntarily- toward the fireplace.

"Sheriff-" warned Ca.s.sandra.

"Or perhaps I dissected him into several hundred pieces, which are now distributed about the room in boxes, vases, urns, what have you."

"Delacorte-" said Plum.

"Or I may have disguised him as one or born of the easy chairs," Max interrupted. "Or had him pancaked under a steamroller so mat he lies beneath that large rug over there."

NowYeuS-H... 137

"Give it up," Ca.s.sandra told him.

"Or-" Max cut her off grandiosely-"I disa.s.sembled his integral atoms so mat-even as I speak-he hovers in me air before our very eyes, an effluvium of cosmic dust."

He scowled theatrically.

"Or should I say cosmic garbage?" he amended.

"You're wasting my time, Delacorte," me Sheriff snarled.

Max made a face of boyish abashment (He can still do that? I thought, amazed.) "Sorry," he murmured.

Plum turned to Ca.s.sandra-

"You think he's telling me truth?" he asked,

"Gro-ver." Max sounded wounded. You're getting in deeper and deeper. Son, I thought.

Ca.s.sandra began to answer Plum, men hesitated, looking at Max as though she sought a confirmation in his face- Then she looked around the room as if searching for poten- tial evidence.

"What think?" Max asked her.-

She paid no attention to him, looking at the Sheriff.

"Yes, I do mink he's telling the truth," she said. "I think he's gone so crazy mat he's hidden Harry's body in mis room. ..to torment me and to make a fool of you.

"To prove he's still The Great Delacorte, even though me world at large knows he isn't anymore."