Candied Crime (5 page)

Absentmindedly she turned back into Fond Street an hour
later. As she approached the entrance of Barton´s Hotel, the
uniformed attendant bowed in recognition and opened the door wide.
“Good night, Ms Cadbury-Flake.” He tried to hide a cigarette behind
his back, and she knitted her brow to show she had noticed his
misdemeanour.

With an icily “Goodnight,
Doorman,” she scurried upstairs to avoid running into any of the
other attendants of the CPA convention. She wasn´t up to meeting
anyone right now.

She opened
the door to her room and uttered a sigh of relief. Her feet were
killing her so she kicked her brand-new shoes off. They were so red
and so beautiful she could write a sonnet about them, but perhaps
not right now. The rain had not been good for them, though. She
decided to leave them outside her door, certain that somehow they
would be polished in the dead of night. She straightened her tired
back and looked right into the eyes of the gentleman in the room
opposite hers. Confused and embarrassed, they both retired in
haste.

********************

Not much
later a
door stole open and someone
tiptoed across the corridor. Lord Mars-Wrigley, the retired Chief
Inspector from Knavesborough looked up and down the corridor before
he bent down and reached out for the seductive red shoes. Oh dear,
a price tag was still stuck to the bottom of one of them! The
pristine sight made his mouth water.

“
My goodness,
Lord Mars-Wrigley! Are you also here?” The tipsy woman asking one
of the silliest questions in the world lifted up her cheek and
waited for the obligatory peck before she continued her stream of
unconsciousness.

“Sssh, I am afraid we´ll wake up
someone, my dear. Let´s go down the bar, shall we?” He managed to
control himself and Selina Crazy´s torrent of words, and taking her
arm, he almost dragged her downstairs to an unobtrusive table in
the bar she must have left quite recently.

The following
morning

The faithful
little chambermaid, Miss Porridge,
knocked on the door, opened it quietly and put the
breakfast tray on the bedside table before she drew the heavy
curtains. Remembering her low class, she let out an imbecile scream
and a couple of sobs for good measure before she collected herself
and summoned the manager, Mr Humpfries.

“
I´m
sure she´s been poisoninged, Mr ´umpfries. She
looks like the woman who ate that tainted ´erring last week,” she
informed him, as pleased as punch. “Puke all over the
place.”

“
Will you
shut up, you twerp. Besides it was a kipper.” He glared at her and
raised his hand as if he wanted to strike her, but he changed his
mind at the last moment and patted her ruddy cheek instead. “Oh,
doctor Emlock, already here? But that… that´s excellent. The
patient is in here so if you will just follow me, please.” Mr
Humpfries let the doctor into the classy but malodorous room and
shot the door in the long faces of three curious attendants of the
annual CPA convention.

Miss
Penderghast and Mrs McVities looked at each other. “What on earth
is going on in Olivia´s room?” they wondered. Ms Crazy wanted to
chirp in but feared that if she opened her mouth, she would be
sick. What a disagreeable smell! Perhaps she should have turned
down that last sherry in the bar. She opened her purse and while
she was rummaging for something stimulating, she caught sight of
the footwear on the floor. “How odd! Who has left those old
clodhoppers outside Olivia´s room?”

********************

Despite Mr
Humphries´ efforts at discretion, the guests had already gleaned
that poor Ms
Cadbury-Flake had died in
her room early in the morning. “Poisoned,” they whispered eagerly,
in between mouthfuls of egg and bacon.

Chief
Inspector Derek Gruesome had arrived from New Scotland Yard to
question the distinguished guests. He was pleased to meet his old
friend and former colleague Lord Mars-Wrigley who had come to
London to hand some artifacts from his long and glorious career
over to the Crime Museum.

“Just the odd assortment of
murder weapons,” he murmured modestly. “Hatchets, butcher´s knives,
ropes, and several blunt instruments, of course. Bludgeons, pokers,
granite paperweights …”

“The bellboy must have forgotten
the shoes what with all the commotion.” Sir Gruesome had had enough
of murder weapons for one morning. He nudged the pretty, red shoes
with the toe of his own brown Hush Puppies. “I am sure the old gal
would have hated the sight of a pair of unpolished shoes.” He
squinted short-sightedly and bent down to take a closer look,
wondering how they could still be so wet.

Lord
Mars-Wrigley paled visibly.

“
But you must
have known the victim, of course.” Sir Gruesome studied his
colleague thoughtfully. “Ms Olivia Cadbury-Flake, headmistress of
your local girls´ school. Did you know she led a double life, by
the way? In her spare time, she worked as a car park attendant.
Actually she took part in their annual convention here last
night.”

Lord
Mars-Wrigley shook his head in disbelief. “So Ms Crazy and those
catty … eh Miss Penderghast and Mrs McVities... They are all car
park attendants? So they were here to participate in that Car Park
Attendants convention? But that…”

Again Sir
Gruesome had to interrupt the old man. “You haven´t seen or heard
anything out of the ordinary, old chap? No, I´m sure you slept
through it all after your exciting banquet at the museum.” He
guffawed heartily. “We really must have a wee drop of something in
the bar later, dear chap.”

Sir Gruesome raised his hand in
what was probably meant as some kind of parting shot and rushed off
to question hundreds of car park attendants, many of them agitated
women. He felt a twinge of unease. Had he just missed
something?

“
I
´m tremendously sorry to have to
tell you that you are arrested on suspicion of murder, m´lord.”
Visibly uncomfortable, Sir Gruesome cleared his throat while he
crossed the threshold of Lord Mars-Wrigley´s beautiful country
house. “It´s really too bad, old chum, but you know, Gung Ho and
all that. Did the blasted woman try to blackmail you? Was that
it?”

“
No, not
really. She caught me red-handed, of course. Or red-shod, to be
exact. She was gloating when she told me she would turn me in. Told
me how much she loved reporting delinquents. The self-righteous
little bitch. Said she loved doing good little deeds. A car park
attendant indeed! I just couldn´t bear it.” Lord
Mars-Wrigley lowered his snow-white hair in shame. “But
those shoes … I was so envious of the person who could put her feet
into those feminine and attractive shoes. I just had to put them
on.” Once he had started, the words just poured out of him. “But
first I ran into that wretched Selina Crazy-woman and had to cajole
her down to the bar. Hours later I stole upstairs again, more than
half-drunk, I am afraid, and when I finally managed to send the old
bird off to bed, it was very late. I was feeling a bit groggy by
then so I slipped into Ms Cadbury-Flake´s room with the shoes
instead of my own. So silly of me. Of course I woke her up. Scared
the scarecrow a bit, I dare say.” He laughed excitedly, beginning
to enjoy his own confession.

“
But I kept
my sagacious old head calm and told her we must be able to sort
things out somehow. I offered her a sip of one of my very best
specimen, a vintage hipflask which belonged to Jack the Hipper
himself. Strychnine, will you believe it? At first she protested a
bit, but I…” He made a suggestive movement with his hand, and
Gruesome remembered the bruises around Ms Cadbury-Flake´s
mouth.

“
And later I
even remembered to switch the shoes again.” The murderer sent Sir
Gruesome a proud smile before he sagged a little in his worn, old
armchair.

“
H
rmph, I suppose I could turn my
back for a sec if you´d prefer the honourable way out.” With an
exaggerated movement of his head, Sir Gruesome squinted
meaningfully towards the first floor window.

“Oh no, I suffer from the most
dreadful fear of heights, and unfortunately I just ran out of
poison. How did your folks get on to me, by the way? I am
absolutely certain I didn´t leave any fingerprints in her room.
“

“
Of course
you didn´t.” Gruesome hesitated. No need to tell the old buffer
that the technicians had had a field day. Saliva, hair, regular
pools of blood … you name it. But not a single fingerprint. “You
left a little toe, though – one of those you cut off to be able to
squeeze into her dainty little shoes.”

####

About the author
:

Dorte Hummelshøj Jakobsen was
born in Denmark in 1961. She works as a teacher of English, but in
her spare time she reads, writes and reviews crime fiction.

One of her
stories appeared in "Discount Noir", a collection of flash fiction
stories, in 2010 (editors Steve Weddle & Patricia
Abbott).

DJ´s Krimiblog