Canapés for the Kitties (32 page)

“Who's there?” Lorinda called.

Silence. Deadly silence? They could not be sure. The cats might be reacting to something that had already happened. A trap already set and waiting to be sprung, while the murderer was somewhere else ... establishing an alibi.

The lamps in the living room responded instantly when Lorinda flicked the wall switch. The room was empty ... it appeared safe.

“In here ...” She led the way. The cats brought up the rear, twitching and uneasy. They all looked around carefully.

Freddie peered behind every piece of furniture and even, with an apologetic grimace, under them. Lorinda looked behind the drapes, then drew them closed. If the menace were lurking outside, it was better not to give him a clear view.

Or her
, she thought suddenly, unnervingly.
Lily could be as dangerous as any man.
Once there, the thought would not go away.

“Would you like a drink?” Lorinda tried to pretend it was the usual social gathering.

“Only from an unopened bottle,” Macho growled, bringing her back to reality.

“Shouldn't we search the house before we relax?” Freddie asked.

They looked at each other. Beyond the pools of comforting light thrown out by the lamps, the rest of the house loomed large and dark.

“Oh, well, perhaps not.” Freddie threw herself down on the sofa. “Personally, I'm quite happy to spend the rest of the night right here. Who needs a bed?”

“Quite right.” Macho wandered over to the fireplace and picked up the poker, weighing it thoughtfully.

“The only unopened bottle is Scotch,” Lorinda said. “Is that all right?” She began to break the seal.

“
Grrrrrr...
” All the hairs rose on Roscoe's back.

“
Sssss... haaaaah!
” Had-I spat, her suddenly bushy tail lashing.

But-Known's eyes seemed to grow to an enormous size as she stared at the doorway.

The cats were all watching the doorway and the shadows in the hall beyond it.

Lorinda took a tighter grip on the neck of the bottle. Freddie slid off the sofa, clutching a pillow defensively in front of her.

“You'd better come in,” Macho said loudly. “We know you're out there!”

After a long hesitation, a female figure glided into view. She was wearing a long grey chiffon dress that seemed to float around her.

“Don't move,” she whispered huskily. She was levelling an evil-looking black gun at them. She had red hair.

“Wraith!” Freddie gasped. “Wraith O'Reilly.”

“Marigold ...” Lorinda said faintly.

“I think not.” Macho had taken a colder, more dispassionate look at the figure, had seen past the wig and noted the bulge of the ever-present hammer at the waist beneath the flowing chiffon, the hammer that had already smashed a fish tank – and a skull.

“Gordie,” Macho said. “Gug ... g ... g ... Gordie. Dorian tried to tell us.”

“Very clever. No – don't move!” Incongruously, even though he had been recognized, Gordie kept to the husky pseudo-female whisper. “Put down that poker.”

“Make up your mind,” Macho said. “Do you want me not to move? Or do you want me to put down the poker?”

“Put it down! Slowly! ... The bottle, too.” The gun moved to aim at Lorinda.

He was mad, of course. And he hated them. All of them. Even if they obeyed his every instruction, what chance did they have of surviving?

Slowly, Lorinda set the bottle down on the table. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Macho replacing the poker.

“Sit down!” The gun moved to indicate the sofa. “All of you. Together. Where –” He broke off, on guard as they moved towards the sofa.

Where I can keep an eye on you ... Where you'll make a better target ...
The unspoken endings to his sentence hung in the air.

Lorinda and Freddie sat on the sofa. Macho tried to perch on the arm.

“Down!” He didn't get away with it. The gun gestured imperiously. “On the cushions with the women.”

But, having got them where he wanted them, Gordie didn't seem to know what he wanted to do with them.

“There are too many of you,” he complained fretfully, brushing back a red lock. “What are you all doing here? Why aren't you in your own houses?”

“We were invited here,” Freddie responded. “Which is more than you can say.”

“That's right! You never invited me anywhere! Any of you!” It had been the wrong thing to say. It fuelled his grievance. “I was nothing but good old Gordie. I could repair your typewriters, mend your fuses, fix your plumbing – but I wasn't good enough to mix with socially.”

“Oh, God! I've set him off.” Freddie shook her head. “I'm sorry.”

“It's not your fault.” Macho patted her hand absently. “Dorian's, perhaps ... all those unrealistic promises ...”

“Dorian!” Gordie snarled, his voice roughened. “Dorian – the Great I-Am! I hope he rots in hell!”

“Well,” Macho said mildly. “You did your best to send him there. I think I can understand ... up to a point. What I don't understand is why ...”

“Why
us?
” Freddie cut in. “What did
we
ever do to you? All right, so we hadn't invited you anywhere. But it's early days yet. We haven't lived here all that long ourselves. We're still settling in. You might have given us a bit more time –

The gun swung to point at her forehead, silencing her.

“I can write better than any of you!” He waited but, with the gun pointed in their direction, no one was going to give him an argument.

“I could write Wraith O'Reilly!” He pointed the gun at Freddie, then moved it on to Macho. “I could write Macho Magee!” He aimed at Lorinda. “And I can write Miss Petunia!”

“You certainly can,” Lorinda agreed. “I couldn't be sure I hadn't done those chapters myself.”

“Yes, they were good, weren't they?” He preened. “Wait till you see the suicide note I've written for you. Only ... you won't see it. No one will now.” His eyes shifted, as though he were listening to an inner voice.

“I can't do it that way now. You're all together.” His voice took on a note of complaint. “You've ruined my plans.”

“That just about breaks my heart,” Freddie said.

“It will have to be a double murder and suicide.” Gordie looked at them assessingly and nodded. “That will do.”

Lorinda felt soft fur brush her ankles from beneath the sofa where the cats had wisely retreated. It added to the unreality of the situation. How could this man be standing in front of them with a gun, calmly planning to kill them? And how long had he been planning it? He might be complaining now that they hadn't invited him into their lives, but that could not be the only reason. It was four months ago that he had taken her typewriter to do a minor repair and kept it longer than she had expected. He must have written the Miss Petunia chapters then. And the suicide note, too? They could have taken him to their bosoms and it wouldn't have made any difference, this had been coldbloodedly plotted a long time before. But why? She remembered the argument for her death that had been voiced by his version of Miss Petunia.

“You cannot seriously imagine,” Lorinda said incredulously, “that if you kill us, you'll be asked to take over writing our series?”

“Why not? I'm a good writer. I've just never been given a chance. Now I'll be right here on the spot when your publishers come down to sift through your literary estates and find out if you've left anything fit for publication. I'll be able to talk to them ... show them examples of my work in your styles ... Oh, I have no doubt we'll come to a satisfactory arrangement, all right.” He smiled into the future.

“You won't be able to write all three series,” Freddie objected. “Our styles are all too different. And it would be a back-breaking schedule.”

“Oh, I expect I'll be able to take my choice,” he said casually. “And you needn't talk to me about back-breaking. Anyone working for Dorian knows all about that.”

Yes, the last straw must have been when Dorian insisted that Gordie ought to work all night to clean up the graffiti. If it hadn't had such nightmare consequences, Lorinda might almost have felt some sympathy.

“But why kill Ondine?” Macho asked. “She didn't have any series characters. Her gimmick was her
Un-titles.
”

“Rotten, arrogant bitch!” Gordie spat. “She insulted me ... treated me like dirt. She was
Un
bearable,
Un
civil,
Un
kind,
Un
charitable,
Un
forgivable ... and so” – he gave them a chilling smile – “she was
Un
done.”

Poor Ondine. Plunging down those attic stairs in a fury, bumping into Gordie, venting her wrath on him – and paying for it horribly. Lorinda shuddered.

“And Gemma had that odd, nearly fatal bout of food poisoning ...” Freddie was following her own trail of thought.

“She rejected my short stories.” Gordie snarled. “They were better than anything appearing in her miserable magazine, but she kept rejecting them. I didn't use enough poison,” he brooded. “I didn't want it to be obvious and I undermeasured. She survived. Still” – he brightened – “she has nothing to do with the magazine any more. She doesn't matter.”

“Plantagenet Sutton was pretty unbearable, too,” Macho said thoughtfully. “If that's part of the criteria. Or did he criticize one of your unpublished manuscripts? The way he criticized, that would do it.”

“I thought he was my friend.” Gordie's eyes misted. “He was the only one who ever asked me in for a drink and talked to me about writing. He was going to help me get started. He got the case of tequila for me, he thought the idea was really funny. Upsetting all you people, using your own characters against you, destabilizing you ... He wanted to see what effect it would have on your books.”

“Yes,” Macho said, “Plantagenet would think it was a howling great joke. I knew he was in it somewhere.

“Only ... he lost his sense of humour.” Gordie's eyes clouded. “He said I could have killed Jack, pushing him into that bonfire. He didn't understand ...”

“I suppose Jack had insulted you, too,” Freddie sighed. “What a sensitive little flower you are.”

“Sutton said I was going too far ... getting too dangerous,” Gordie complained. “He was going to tell Dorian, but not until he got back from the cruise. I followed him up to the Manor House that night – I knew he'd drink too much. And, if he didn't, he could always be persuaded to have another. He was glad to see me when he rolled out of Dorian's. He thought I'd help him home. He didn't notice that I kept him in the cold, talking. When he did, I offered him a flask. It only took a couple of swallows before he passed out. Then I lowered him to the ground and walked away. Nature did the rest. It's lucky it was such a cold night.” There was bemused silence at his idea of luck.

“It keeps coming back to Dorian,” Lorinda reflected. “He found you, brought you here, installed you as Jack of all Trades and resident caretaker at Coffers Court ...” Gordie, who could deal with anything mechanical or electrical –  even to the extent of rigging false messages on an answering machine and then wiping them.

“I thought I was going to be his protégé,” Gordie said. “But he only wanted a carpenter-mechanic who'd be on twenty-four-hour call.”

“Have you got that mess over the doorway cleaned up yet?” Macho had evidently decided to try to rattle Gordie. For a moment, he even sounded like Dorian.

“Yes. No. It's good enough.” Gordie looked at him with active hate. “Dorian isn't going to care any more.”

“I don't see why Dorian cared so much in the first place,” Lorinda said.

“That's right,” Freddie agreed. “Why was he so concerned? What was it to him?”

“You don't know?” Gordie was gratified at being able to tell them. “Dorian owns ... owned ... Coffers Court. He bought it as an investment at the same time he bought the Manor House. He also bought a controlling interest in the estate agent's. He had his fingers in every pie in Brimful Coffers.”

“Estate agent's! So that's why Dorian had the keys when he showed me the house,” Lorinda remembered. “I thought he was just being very thoughtful. But he had a personal interest and ...” She caught the smug expression crossing Gordie's face. “You have those duplicate keys now – that's how you got in here. How you got in everywhere.”

“Who'd bother about good old Gordie roaming around doing his odd jobs? Not that anyone ever saw me going in and out. I made certain of that.”

“In your usual efficient way,” Freddie jibed.

“That's enough!” He swung the gun from one to the other of them. “I know what you're doing. You're humouring me – playing for time. I've read this scene often enough in your books. But you could keep me talking all night and it wouldn't help you. No one's coming to save you. You know everything now and –”

“Just how do you propose to explain why three reasonably happy and successful people should wind up in this ridiculous murder-and-suicide situation you're trying to set up?” Macho still had traces of Dorian's cold disdain in his speech.

“Happens all the time,” Gordie said. “The Eternal Triangle ... a
crime passionnel –
”

Macho's guffaw cut him off. After a moment, Freddie joined in the scornful laughter.

“You'll never get away with that,” Macho said. “It wouldn't stand up for ten minutes. If that's the best you can do, no wonder you never sold a book.”

“No, please –” Lorinda saw what he was doing. He was trying to draw Gordie's fire, hoping it would give them a chance to escape. “Please, Lance –”