McNally's Puzzle by Lawrence Sanders

mushrooms grilled with seasoning, cooled, and then marinated in lots of swell stuff for an hour and served chilled.
    “Well, it’s wonderful,” I told them, and they beamed. “You enjoy working here, do you?”
    The beams faded and they looked at each other.
    “Ver’ happy,” Got said.
    “Ver’ ver’ happy,” Mei said.
    But the lilt was gone from their voices. The giggles had vanished. They were not, I decided, quite as scrutable as I had first thought.
    I was heading for the bar to refill my empty glass, since the contents had unaccountably evaporated. Ahead of me was a trig young man pouring himself a pony of Frangelico.
    “Wise choice,” I remarked.
    He turned to look at me. “I think so,” he said, with emphasis on the “I.”
    “Archy McNally,” I said, proffering a hand. “I represent McNally and Son, Mr. Gottschalk’s attorneys.”
    “Oh?” he said, and gave me a brief, rather limp handshake. “I’m Ricardo Chrisling. I manage Parrots Unlimited.”
    I had already guessed since he was everything Binky Watrous had described: handsome, sleek, possibly “gigoloish.” Binky had been accurate but he had not caught the lad’s finickiness: every shining hair in place, a shave I could never hope to equal, the three points of his jacket pocket handkerchief as precise and sharp as sword points. I wondered if the soles of his shoes were polished and the laces ironed.
    I must confess my description of Ricardo Chrisling might be tainted by envy. He was, after all, about ten years younger than I and closely resembled Rodolfo Alfonzo Rafaelo Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d’Antonguolla, a/k/a Rudolph Valentino. I mean he was a beautiful man, features crisp and evocative. He really should have been out in Hollywood filming The Return of the Sheik instead of futzing around with parrots.
    “Nice party,” I observed.
    “Isn’t it?” he said rather coldly. I didn’t think he was much interested in me. And why should he be? I wasn’t a female. “Meeting everyone?” he said casually.
    “Gradually,” I said. “I haven’t yet come upon the guests of honor.”
    “The twins?” he said. “You will. They’re not shy.”
    I didn’t know how to interpret that. “How does one tell them apart?” I asked.
    “One doesn’t,” he said, gave me a bloodless smile, and moved away.
    He left me with the feeling he considered me a harmless duffer of no importance. That suited me. I didn’t want anyone in that household to suspect I was a keen-eyed beagle tracking a miscreant threatening the life of the lord of the manor.
    There were other guests in addition to Mr. Gottschalk’s immediate entourage. There must have been twenty or thirty—friends, neighbors, business acquaintances—and I found them an odd but pleasant lot, all eating and drinking up a storm.
    I met Yvonne Chrisling’s masseuse, the Got Lees’ greengrocer, a morose Peruvian who was apparently a parrot wholesaler, and one shy chap, barely articulate, who appeared awed by his surroundings. He finally admitted he mowed Mr. Gottschalk’s lawn and this was the first time he had been inside the house. We had a drink together and got along famously because this seemingly inarticulate fellow could sing “Super-cali-fragil-istic-expi-ali-docious.” I can’t even pronounce it.
    I also introduced myself to the young clerks from Parrots Unlimited—Emma Gompertz and Tony Sutcliffe—the twosome Binky Watrous reported had a “thing” going and might possibly be cohabiting. They appeared to be an innocuous couple, agreeable and polite, but really not much aware of anyone but each other. Their behavior—hand holding and dreamy stares—was remarkably akin to Binky’s conduct with Bridget Houlihan.
    Romance was rife that night, positively rife .
    I finally spotted the twins, Judith and Julia Gottschalk. I then experienced a moment of panic, fearing I was suffering an attack of double vision.
    Nothing of the sort of course. They were simply