Canapés for the Kitties (20 page)

“Raising the time-honoured question: since when have you lisped?” Freddie also turned to glare at Dorian.

“Gad! He'll be running school parties around next!”

“No, no, not for quite a long time yet, not until we really ... get ... going.” Jennifer faltered to a stop as she realized she was making things worse.

“I promise you –” She tried again. “It won't interfere with your work. You can just give them a talk at the library and later their teachers will take them on a walk around town. They'll enjoy seeing where all the real authors live.”

“Maybe they'll enjoy seeing all the FOR SALE signs,” Freddie snarled.

“Oh, no! You can't do that! Please!” Jennifer was stricken. “Hilda Saint has already taken out a second mortgage to enlarge and refurbish her guest house. And I've doubled my inventory in preparation.” She was close to tears.

“I may kill him,” Macho said thoughtfully.

“You'll have to get in line,” Freddie snapped.

Lorinda found herself too deep in gloom to say anything. It was all very well for Freddie to talk glibly of selling, but who could bear to go through all that upheaval again? Apart from which, who was going to buy? The housing market was currently deader than the victims in their books. That was why they had been able to buy the desirable residences in Brimful Coffers at favourable prices. The market might recover in time, but right now there was unlikely to be anyone interested in buying.

“I don't know what you're all fussing about,” Karla said. “I think it's a great idea. You English don't understand about publicity and public relations. It's not enough just to write the books anymore – you have to get out there and sell them!”

“I'm willing to get out there,” Freddie said. “I'm just not willing to allow packs of strangers in here.”

Karla looked exasperated as the others nodded agreement. “You've got to make some concessions,” she said. “Personally, I'll be delighted to go along with any arrangements Jennifer and Dorian care to make. And so will Jack.”

“Jack?” Jennifer looked somewhat less than enchanted at this assurance. “Er ... does he write under his own name?”

“Not yet,” Karla said. “He's concentrating on his photography right now.”

He was concentrating on his drinking, actually. Jack and Plantagenet were behind the makeshift bar and seemed to have struck up an unholy alliance. Sniggering like schoolboys, they were lifting up the less popular bottles, scrutinizing the labels carefully and pouring dollops into an array of glasses lined up before them. They appeared to be trying to invent a new cocktail. The contents of some of the glasses had already acquired a lethal colour. Lorinda made a mental note to stick to the champagne.

“Attention! Attention!” Dorian suddenly tapped the swizzle stick he affected against a bottle, calling them to order. “Attention, everyone!”

The hubbub of conversation died down and faces turned toward him expectantly.

“Here it comes,” Freddie muttered.

“Some of you –” He frowned in their direction. “Some of you may think you already know what I'm going to say. But I think I may yet have a surprise in store for you.”

“Make a change from his books.” Macho was muttering, too.

“Shhh!” Karla hissed and moved away, virtuously distancing herself from her unruly companions. She turned her enraptured gaze on Dorian, ostentatiously giving him her full attention.

“Crawler!” Freddie muttered.

“Shhh!” Gemma moved away to join Karla. Jennifer looked as though she would like to, but the authors were part of her stock-in-trade and she was caught in the proverbial cleft stick.

The bottles continued clinking at the bar, an occasional snicker also sounded. Jack and Plantagenet were having a wonderful time, perhaps a better time than anyone else at the party. Karla flicked a disapproving glance in their direction. Jack would undoubtedly hear more about this when she got him home.

“Yes, well ... for those of you who are interested –” Dorian dismissed them. “And this is of great import to the
real
authors amongst us –”

Jack raised his head and glared at Dorian; he considered that working with Karla made him an author, too. Gordie Crane flushed a deep red and set his tray down on the nearest table with a thud. Plantagenet Sutton seemed no less offended; presumably he felt that his two or three Christmas-stocking fillers – scarcely more than booklets copiously illustrated with whimsical drawings by his newspaper's top cartoonist – about wine put him in the “real” author category.

“We have an exciting year ahead of us ...” Dorian, happier now that he had managed to offend a few guests, went on to announce what they had already heard.

Most of them. Rhylla, who had been kept fully occupied with Clarice and had not yet plugged into the gossip circuit, straightened abruptly. She looked over to Freddie, as though for confirmation, and her mouth tightened, her jaw jutted forward.

“But what you may not have heard,” Dorian concluded, “is that our numbers are about to be swelled by yet another recruit to our happy colony. Unfortunately, she can't be here tonight so that I can introduce her personally, but she will be with us in the course of the week, direct from her triumphal tour of Australia and New Zealand. I know you will all be delighted to welcome Ondine van Zeet into our midst.”

A bottle crashed to the floor and shattered. Heads turned toward the bar, but Jack and Plantagenet were both standing motionless and expressionless. It was impossible to tell which of them had dropped the bottle.

The audience began an automatic round of applause as they realized Dorian had finished his speech.

“Who?” Unfortunately, Karla's voice could still be heard.

“Ondine van Zeet.” Dorian strolled over to join them. “Otherwise known as the Un-woman,” he added roguishly, anticipating her response.

“The Un-woman?” Karla walked right into it. “You mean – ?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” he assured her. “You must know of her and her Un-books.” He waited and was not disappointed.

“Un-books? You mean she isn't really an author, either?”

“Don't be unfair,” Freddie said to Dorian. “Ondine was just starting to be published in the States when I left. There wasn't the great storm of publicity she gets here – she's just another author over there. It's not surprising if Karla hasn't caught up with her yet.”

“Ah, yes,” Dorian said. “Ondine is very popular in Britain and the Commonwealth, but it sometimes takes the Americans a long time to catch up with writers who aren't home-grown. As we all know to our cost.”

“But all this
Un
stuff.” Karla frowned. “Even her name –”

“That's Ondine, actually. Although the Americans will probably change the spelling – they're good at that – so as not to confuse the readers. Keep it all of a piece, all
Uns
together.”

“You must have seen some of her titles.” Freddie took pity on Karla's bewilderment. “
Unspilt
Blood ...
Unloving Thoughts
...”

“
Undying Enmity
,” Macho supplied. “
Unwitting Accomplice ...
”

“
Unlit Candles
...” Even Lorinda was able to come up with the titles. “
Untruths
...”

“Clever of her,” Dorian said. “It's easier to keep up a series with titles featuring the same prefix, rather than the same word, as so many of them do. Gives her a lot more flexibility.”

“Terrible woman, terrible!” Plantagenet Sutton had come up behind them bearing a tray of his experimental cocktails.

“Not even a proper crime writer. Three-quarters of her books are sloppy heavy-breathing romance. I'm surprised at you, Dorian, and not a little disappointed. What were you thinking of to allow her into our society?”

“She'll add a certain amount of lustre,” Dorian said. “The locals and the Colonials, will be impressed – and so will the Americans when she gets better known over there.”

“I agree with Plantagenet.” Rhylla had joined them and it was turning into an indignation meeting. “We were all settled down quite well and now you're bringing in a disruptive personality like her to join us.”

“She's not that bad,” Dorian placated. “Anyway, you know she spends most of her time out of the country. Now that she's trying to break into the American market, she'll be here even less. She'll really just use the flat as a base of operations.”

“What flat?” Freddie asked suspiciously.

“She's taking the last vacant flat in Coffers Court.” Dorian smiled uneasily as Gordie walked by him with a tray of canapés and a bitter glare. “Opposite Professor Borley –
he'll
be glad to see her move in.”

“Hey, this is a party!” Jack interrupted. “We can worry about this dame later. Let's all have another drink now and relax and enjoy ourselves. Pass them round, Plan.”

“Yes, yes.” The venomous glare should have told Jack that Plantagenet did not like his name being shortened, but Jack was oblivious, intent on mischief.

“We have concocted cocktails in honour of your characters, dear friends,” Plantagenet announced, distributing glasses of strangely coloured liquids that might have been the result of some ancient alchemist's failed experiments.

“A cider-based creation for our beloved Miss Petunia and her siblings –” He extended a glass to Lorinda.

“Thank you.” Lorinda took the poisonous yellow substance, smelling of sour lemon, with a wan smile and looked around for the nearest potted plant.

“And a suitably ghostly concoction –” The next glass went to Freddie. How had he managed to get that sickly grey colour? “In homage to our dear Wraith.”

“Did you say ghastly?” Freddie accepted it absently, her gaze already straying toward a nearby poinsettia.

There was a hiss of breath indrawn in wicked anticipation and a telling glitter in Jack's eyes as Plantagenet lifted another glass from the tray and turned to Macho.

“A really macho drink for” – his tone took on an exquisite irony – “a really macho man.”

Recognizing mockery, suspecting worse in store, Macho kept both hands twisted around the glass he already held and stared with hostility at the murky green liquid being offered to him.

“Go on,” Jack urged, as Plantagenet held out the glass. “We made it just for you. We thought we might call it” – he sniggered – “the Tequila Torpedo.”

Macho stared at it in fascinated horror. Something lurked at the bottom of the glass, rolling lazily when Plantagenet jiggled the glass like an impatient nanny forcing medicine upon a reluctant charge. Macho's jaw tightened, he quivered as he fought to keep his self-control.

“You're gonna love it,” Jack insisted. “Come on, we want to see you guzzle it like good old Macho Magee does: two or three long gulps, then crunch, crunch, crunch on the little critter at the bottom. ‘Best part of the drink,' he always –”

Macho snatched the glass from Plantagenet's hand and hurled the viscous green liquid over both men. Something small and round shot from the glass and bounced across the floor to slither under a chair.

“Ooh!” Gasps of astonishment came from the onlookers, while the attacked were momentarily too shocked to speak.

“Damn it all, man!” Plantagenet slammed the tray with its remaining drinks down on a side table and began dabbing at the sticky green mess on his shirt with his handkerchief.

“For God's sake!” Jack used his tie to mop his chin. “It's only a Brussels sprout! Haven't you got a sense of humour?”

“No!” Macho shouted, turning and dashing for the door. “No, I haven't!” The door slammed behind him with a force that rattled the glasses.

“You know he doesn't like tequila,” Freddie said reproachfully into the silence.

Chapter Twenty

“How can Lord Soddemall bear to live surrounded by the very water in which his dear wife breathed her last?” Marigold shuddered as they crossed the drawbridge to Soddemall Castle. “Surely, he ought to have drained the moat, if only for a few weeks, to show some proper respect.”

“Since he was responsible for her death,” Miss Petunia said, “the question of the delicacy of his behaviour is beside the point.”

“Delicacy?” Lily hooted. “
Him?
He's moved the parlourmaid into the master bedroom –
and
they say she's four months preggers! Soddemall by name and Soddemall by nature!” She gave every syllable full value.

“It's pronounced ‘Small,' dear,” Marigold corrected. “All the guide books say so.”

“It will be pronounced ‘Felon' after we have given our proof of his guilt to the Nob Squad from Scotland Yard,” Miss Petunia said sternly. She raised the heavy iron door knocker and let it fall like the knell of doom.

“Don't know why we had to meet them here,” Lily grumbled.

“A confrontation,” Marigold said. “At the very place where poor Lady Soddemall was discovered afloat in the moat.”

“Hello, you're right on time.” They had not expected Lord Soddemall himself to answer the door. In the background lurked a young woman whose apron bulged forward suggestively.

“We're all down in the dungeon. Do come in and join us.” He turned and pressed a concealed button, a panel swung inward and they followed him through the secret door and down a narrow stairway. Sure enough, the Nob Squad were all there.

“I trust you have considered my letter.” Miss Petunia advanced upon Detective Inspector Lord Clandancing. “And the inescapable conclusion to be drawn from it?”

“Eh?” Lord Clandancing said abstractedly. He reluctantly withdrew his attention from the delicious curve of Lady Briony Fitzmelon's ear as she bent to the task of lightly dusting fingerprint powder over the surface of an exhibit case. How had he so carelessly allowed her to slip away into the uncaring arms of Viscount Unabridged, brilliant pathologist though he was?