Christmas is Murder (12 page)

Rosie glanced round at the guests in surprise from where she was setting out the plates.

“Is that the mystery where everyone dies one by one?” Helen inquired.

“No, you’re thinking of
And Then There Were None
,” Anthony said. “In
Murder on the Orient Express,
everyone is involved in the murder of one passenger.”

Helen rose from the sofa. “Well, I had better get Wanda. Has anyone seen her?”

“Not today,” Charley replied.

Everyone else looked blank.

“You should join in the charades, Rex,” Yvette said, on her way to the tea table. “You look so serious sitting there by yourself.”

He smiled distantly, wondering who among them might be involved in a real-life charade—acting out their role as an innocent bystander and succeeding in duping everyone around them. It would take a person of nerve, of
sang-froid.
He had complimented Charley for possessing just such a quality. Who else fit the bill?

“Mind if I take a look at your sketches?” he asked Patrick, indicating the pad on the sofa. Perhaps the drawings would reveal something his naked eye could not.

“Help yourself.”

While the others crowded around the Victorian table, Rex flipped through the pad, which showed numerous studies in charcoal of Anthony’s face from various angles. Patrick had managed to capture his slightly sardonic expression. He had done some caricature portraits of the other residents as well. Henry Lawdry looked a bit lecherous, Rosie sly, and Mrs. Smithings demented. Rex chuckled to himself.

“These are excellent,” he told Patrick. “I particularly like this one of Clifford.” The furtive figure in cap and tweeds—attire befitting a fly-fisherman after salmon in Scotland, though in its current state more suited to a scarecrow—was captioned “Faithful Family Retainer.”

Turning the page, Rex came to the picture of the robin, the breast delicately colored in red. Another watercolor showed a portion of the room with Anthony in his armchair, Helen and Wanda on the sofa, and behind them, the round table and Christmas tree with its bells and burgundy bows. His eye focused on the table. He compared it to the actual table. “Rosie,” he asked as the girl was leaving the room. “There’s no coffeepot today.”

“I thought the American lady was the only one who took coffee in the afternoon,” she replied. “Will you be requiring some?”

“No, I never touch the stuff. I just wondered, that’s all.”

Rosie threw him a puzzled look as she stepped out the French doors into the hall.

“Coffee is probably not the best thing for someone with your condition,” Anthony approved, returning to the fireplace with his tea. “I only drink it in small doses myself, and then only the Arabica beans which have half the caffeine of the other main variety.”

Charley and Yvette sat down on the sofa with their tea and cake. “Anthony, you are a mine of useless information,” the husband pointed out.

At that moment, Helen stumbled into the room.

“What’s wrong, luv? You look pale as a ghost.”

“W-Wanda.” Helen delivered the word through frozen lips.

Rex leaped up from his armchair. “What do you mean?”

“She’s … Oh, please, no! She’s dead!”

Charley jumped up too, sloshing tea on the carpet. “Where is she?”

“In her room. She never got up this morning. I think she took an overdose. She’s not breathing. I thought she was sleeping, but there’s no pulse!” Helen burst into tears.

Rex was unsure whether to stay and console her or follow Charley up the stairs. He thrust the bottle of sherry into Anthony’s hands. “Here, give Helen some of this,” he directed, and ran after Charley.

He reached Wanda’s door just as Charley was approaching the bed.

“She’s getting stiff,” Charley said. “She’s been dead at least six hours.”

That would put her death at around the time he and Helen left for the village, Rex calculated. She had said Wanda was sleeping late.

Charley straightened up from examining the body. “I’ll get a thermometer and record time and temperature for the police.”

“Overdose?”

“I don’t think so. There are no pill containers by the bedside and no suicide note, which you’d expect if someone tried to kill themselves. Wanda would have written one of those, I’m sure. She’d want everyone to know why she did it. And see this? The pillow beside her is scrunched up. I think someone used it to suffocate her.”

Rex took in Wanda’s perfectly manicured nails, the glossy ringlets spread on the pillow. “There’s no sign of a struggle. Her nightdress isn’t even askew. She must have been asleep or else not been surprised to see the person in the room.” It would have had to be someone strong, he reasoned. Though petite, Wanda was in good shape.

“My guess is she was smothered by that pillow, just like Desdemona. Except there’s no Othello or any equivalent of a jealous husband that I’m aware of.”

“So, you know your Shakespeare, Charley?”

“Amateur dramatics.”

“Really.”

“Why d’you say it like that?”

“Look, we’re up against the clock so I’m just going to dispense with etiquette and ask you outright about an exchange I heard between you and Yvette in your room this morning. Something about murder, and Henry, and getting found out, and I don’t know what else without referring to my notes.”

“Oh, that.” Charley scratched his lightly stubbled chin. “Well, it’s like this. Yvette stopped taking the pill without telling me. When I found out, I went ballistic. I wanted her to have an abortion—I mean, we don’t have the dough for our own place, and living at her mum’s with a baby, well, it would be the
end
. Anyway, Yvette said that was murder and she’s right. I’ve had time to think about it and I’ve done a complete three-sixty—I want us to have the little blighter.”

He opened his arms wide. “I just don’t know how we’re going to be able to afford a deposit on a flat. I got into a bit of trouble gambling and owe some money. Anyhow, Yvette got all upset about my first reaction and accused me of fancying Rosie and I told her she was one to talk after flirting with old Henry and, well … ,” Charley tapered off. “Does that answer your question?”

“Aye, you always seem to have an answer for everything.” Or maybe Charley was a good improviser.

“We Cockneys are known for thinking on our feet,” Charley said brightly. “We walk the walk and talk the talk. So, are we going to put Wanda into cold storage with Henry?”

“I think we’d better leave her here with the window open as the doctor instructed for the first body.”

“Blimey. First a poisoning, then a clobbering, and now a smothering. I think I’ll keep Yvette locked in our suite.”

“Not a bad idea. It’s been one murder a day since the first.” Rex opened the bedside drawer and rummaged among the various items. The master key was missing.

“Here, check this out,” Charley said, turning a page of the small photo album Rex had inventoried the night before. “It’s a diary, and you are mentioned, mate—in very flattering terms, I might add.”

“I thought it was just photos.”

“Well, I never,” Charley continued, immersed in the diary. “Talk about immature.”

Rex reached for it, hoping to find something useful as he leafed through the pages written in a spiked longhand. The bulk of Wanda’s recent entries was dedicated to her thoughts and feelings regarding her divorce, her New Year resolutions, and hyperbolic descriptions of the glorious snow, which turned to invective as the pages progressed: “
Sod this snow!
;
When’s this bloody snow going to end?”

He read the entry for yesterday, December 23: “
… Rosie left her key in my door this morning when she came in to clean. I took it and later went into Henry’s room but couldn’t find the antique cameo he promised me. No wonder—Anthony told me tonight he’d advised Y. to put it in the safe. How did the little minx get hold of it? I bet she stole it …”

The next entry, for the same day but in different ink, must have been written late last night: “
Patrick curled my hair. New look for the New Year!! We argued about who had murdered Miriam. He thinks it’s Clifford, though Rex doesn’t appear to agree—he seems quite friendly with the old man. He had better hurry up and find the killer …”

Amen to that, Rex thought, and read on:

“
Helen seems cosy with Rex, though she refuses to discuss it. I got a kiss off him under the mistletoe. I think he’s rather hunky. He has gorgeous green eyes that give off sparks when he is amused. I wonder what he’s like in bed?!! …”

Rex felt his face go scarlet. “…
The other day, I saw Mrs. S. go into the safe behind the painting in the library. I was surprised to find it was an old-fashioned key lock safe—I suppose a combination safe is too high-tech for the old dragon. No cameo in there, but I came across something else of interest. I wonder if Rosie knows yet and if she told Charley. I think there is something going on between them. I caught them flirting yesterday in the library when Y. was playing Tiddlywinks with Henry. She’s been looking very guilty since then …”

Overactive imagination or boredom, or both? Rex pocketed the diary. “You’re in here too,” he told Charley. “Featured with Rosie.”

“Oh, that,” Charley replied in an off-hand manner.

“Did you find anything else of interest lying around?”

“Nothing in the bathroom that she could have taken if she’d wanted to kill herself. I found this note from Helen by the door.”

Rex read the folded sheet of hotel stationery.

Wanda,

Am skiing down to the village with Rex. Didn’t want

to wake you. See you later.

Helen

As the men left the room, Helen came rushing up the stairs and bowled into Rex’s arms. “I shouldn’t have left her!” she wailed. “I was just so thrilled at the prospect of going down to the village.”

“We can’t be sure exactly what time it happened, hen.”

“And there I was sitting in the pub telling you how emotionally fragile she was!” Helen sobbed against his chest.

“We don’t think it was suicide,” he said, cupping the back of her head in his hand.

Charley paused at the top of the stairs. “I’ll go and tell the others, shall I?”

“Aye. Tell them to be on their guard. And let’s try to keep everyone in one room for now.” He turned his attention back to the woman in his arms. “Helen, listen to me. Did Wanda keep her door locked?”

Helen nodded. “I entered her room through mine when I found her and left through her door to the corridor. I should have gone in to check on her this morning, but I didn’t want to wake her. I just slipped the note under the door to let her know I was going to the village.”

“Shhh.” He stroked her hair, which gave off an effervescent scent of lacquer. “Did you know Wanda had a spare key to Henry’s room?”

Helen glanced up with a puzzled frown. “No, I didn’t.” She pulled away from him. “Do you think she could have taken it from Mrs. Smithings’ office?”

“No, she stole it from Rosie. Mrs. Smithings keeps the keys locked up. The strange thing is, I couldna find the key just now when I searched the room, and Rosie told me she didn’t have it either. It was there last night.”

“I don’t know anything about it.”

“Wanda used the key to go into Lawdry’s room and burn incense.”

Helen furrowed her brow. “How bizarre. Maybe she was trying to transfer the grief over her divorce onto something she was more familiar with, like death. Her parents passed away last year.”

“Did you see her after she left with Patrick last night?”

She shook her head. “I heard their voices next door, but then I fell asleep. I don’t know how long Patrick was in there doing her hair.”

“I’ll ask Mrs. Smithings about the key, see if it found its way back to her.”

Rex wondered how the proprietor was taking the news of a third death in her hotel.

Clifford sat at the
old pine table working on the Brussels sprouts when Rex left Helen and came downstairs.

“Goodness, man. How many of those do you have left to do?” Rex asked.

“We’ll be lucky if he’s finished by Christmas morning,” Mrs. Bellows remarked from the sink. “I’ll have to do the peas and carrots myself.”

“Clifford, I bought you a bottle of sherry. It’s in the drawing room. Helen had a drop because she had a bit of a turn, but the rest is for you.”

The old man’s beady eyes lit up.

“Is she all right now?” the cook asked. “What happened?”

Apparently, she hadn’t heard about Wanda. “She will be. By the way, it seems you’re famous at the Swanmere Arms.”

“ ‘Bull’s-Eye Bellows,’ they call me in the village. Our team took the East Sussex darts trophy again this year.”

“Well done. Anyway,” Rex said turning back to Clifford. “The sherry is my way of saying thank you for looking after the wee dog. How is he, by the way? I brought him a treat.”

“I keep him in the lodge now. He’s right at home. Won’t bother her there.”

“He’s getting fat off all the scraps from the kitchen,” Mrs. Bellows added. “It’s better than throwing stuff away.”

“I put a sign up in the village with the hotel number on it. If they ever get the phones working, someone may call to claim him.”

“Nar!” Clifford cried, staring accusingly at Rex. “Ee be mine now. ’Ee likes it ’ere. In the spring ’ee’ll be chasing rabbits and ’aving ’isself a rare ould time.”

Rex hesitated. “Well, I see no reason why you canna keep him. He was clearly abandoned. If Mrs. Smithings gives you trouble over it, I’ll talk to her.” Clifford looked appeased. “You could train him to go after the rats in the attic—terriers are hunting dogs. Have you got a name for him yet?”

“Rex.”

“A grand name! And I’m glad he found a home. I hope I’ll see him before I leave.”

“I’ll bring young Rex over later when She retires for the evenin’ so you can see how well ’ee’s doing.”

“Well, give him this in the meantime.” Rex deposited a sliver of moist cake on the table, and Clifford snatched it up and dropped it in his pocket with a speed Rex hadn’t known the old man possessed. “Is Mrs. Smithings aboot?” he asked the cook.

“She’s in the library looking over the accounts. There’s more room at that desk. She said she didn’t want to be disturbed for half an hour.”

Returning to the deserted drawing room, Rex sank into an armchair and filled his pipe with slow deliberation. His gaze drifted across the navy blue and cream tones of the carpet and up the blue walls to the cross-beamed ceiling. A third murder to unravel. With a sigh of discouragement, he stuck the pipe in his mouth and wrote up his notes:

Patrick last-known person to see Wanda alive.

Rosie mentioned in diary flirting with Charley and in context of
there being something in the safe that might interest her.

Key missing from Wanda’s drawer.

People with access to room:

Patrick could have taken key when he was in Wanda’s room
styling her hair.

Rosie had Mrs. Smithings’ key.

Pencil poised on the next line, Rex hesitated. Helen said the adjoining door to Wanda’s room had been unlocked. This possibility was not one Rex wished to pursue, but he must explore every angle and not let his feelings for Helen blind him to the facts. He duly wrote:

Helen did not need key to enter Wanda’s room.

Now he had to consider how Wanda’s murder fitted in with the other two. Who had motive? Was it someone who wanted to discredit the hotel, hoping subsequently to purchase it at below market value? Or was it someone who wished to cause embarrassment to Mrs. Smithings? Perhaps the culprit harbored an old grievance against one of the guests and caused the multiple deaths as a cover-up. Or maybe it was a medical professional with a God complex who thought they could simply get away with murder.

If time would just stand still for a while, perhaps he could puzzle it all out clearly and calmly … Time standing still, no ticking clock. Losing all sense of time in this place. No newspapers delivered in days. A stack of old ones by the hearth, ready for tinder. A burning manuscript. Charred bits of words.
1 Qa …

Rex sprang from his chair and rummaged through the pile of newspapers by the fireplace, skimming the headlines.
Al Qaeda.
Of course. The terrorist organization was all over the news. The “l” wasn’t the number “one” but the letter “l”; “Qaeda” hadn’t made it into the hotel library’s old edition of the
Concise Oxford Dictionary
.

Where did that lead him in his investigations? Anthony’s comment at breakfast about President Bush could implicate him as the arsonist. But did he murder the literary agent? On impulse, Rex retrieved his cell phone from his pocket and speed-dialed his mother’s temporary number in Perth, surprised when the call held and his mother answered, “The McTaggart residence.”

“Mother!”

“Reginald, is that you, dear? You sound so far away. Are ye well?”

“Aye, and yerself? How is Jean doing?”

“Better, I think. She ate some broth and kept it down. But I don’t want ye running up those long distance cell phone minutes! Ye know how expensive those bills can be.”

“Don’t worry about that. I may not have long—my connection might be interrupted again.”

“How is Dahlia, poor lamb?”

Rex could think of various ways to describe Mrs. Smithings. A lamb was not one of them. He decided not to go into details. “Bearing up fine,” he told her.

“Have ye heard from Moira?”

Moira and his mother shared the same first name, which was why he referred to his girlfriend as Mrs. Wilcox, to avoid confusion. A member of the Charitable Ladies of Morningside like his mother, she had left Edinburgh’s wealthy south-west district to restore schools and water purification systems in Baghdad.

“Not even a Christmas card,” he said, closing the drawing room doors for privacy. “Mother, is Mrs. Smithings prone to violence?”

“No-oo! Why d’you say that? What’s going on down there? Why are ye—”

“Mother!” Rex shouted into the phone—but the call had been dropped. He tried dialing again without success; his mother wouldn’t call on her friend’s phone, worried as she would be about cost. In any case, his line of inquiry was a long shot. Mrs. Smithings had not been around at the time of the first two murders and lacked the strength to commit the third. He wandered to the round table, which Rosie had not yet cleared, and served himself a cup of lukewarm tea.

Of everyone, Rosie had had the most opportunity to poison Lawdry, but no one recalled her serving him. The guests had all helped themselves. Could she have pushed Miriam down the stairs? According to Helen, she had been collecting teacups in this room. In any case, what motive did the young girl have for murdering the guests, especially if she had a stake in the hotel’s success? Her sister had been hoping for something in Mrs. Smithings’ will. Quite possibly Rosie was hoping for the same.

He was going round in circles and getting nowhere.

By the time he managed to make a few local calls, Mrs. Smithings had vacated the library, and he knocked at the parlor-office door. Her voice bade him come in.

“Hello, Reginald,” she said from her desk. “No doubt you have come to talk about Wanda Martyr. Quite an extraordinary turn of events.”

“Ah, you heard.”

“Well, naturally. Walls have ears. Rosie told me. But we are going to keep it from Clifford and Mrs. Bellows if we can. We cannot afford to lose our cook. We’re short-handed as it is.”

Rex perched on a straight-back chair. “They’ll find out soon enough. The police will be here asking questions. I was able to make a few calls on my mobile just now.”

“When do you suppose they will arrive?”

“Tomorrow morning. And the village constable expects train service to resume the day after.”

“I see. And whom will you put forward as your likely suspects?”

“At this point in time, everyone is a suspect and no one is a suspect.”

“Poppycock. I’m sure you have formed an idea.”

“Ideas are not facts. Actually, I wanted to ask you if you saw anyone go into Wanda Martyr’s room this morning?”

“I was here in the parlour from eight until eleven, catching up on paper work and practicing on the pianoforte.”

Rex noticed the instrument squashed in a corner. “Were all the rooms made up this morning?”

“I believe so.” Mrs. Smithings sounded weary.

“I can imagine how exhausting this must be for you …”

“Can you? I wonder …” She reviewed her claw-like hands. “The arthritis alone causes chronic fatigue, you know. My playing is not what it used to be, but it helps to keep the fingers exercised.”

“Aye, I noticed you had rheumatoid arthritis medication in your suite.”

“The anti-inflammatory pills work better on the smaller joints. My elbows and shoulders suffer most.”

“Clifford has the same complaint,” Rex remarked, nodding in a gesture of sympathy.

“And complains about it incessantly!”

Rex listened patiently to her ailments, though Mrs. Smithings was no older than his mother, a woman still spry for her age. They’d both had their sons late in life.

Rex picked up a small oval-framed photograph of Rodney taken at about the age Rex had seen him on his last visit to Swanmere. “I’m sorry about what happened to your son. I spoke briefly with my mother this evening before we were cut off. She sends her warmest regards.”

“Dear Moira.” Mrs. Smithings took the photograph and gazed at it through her reading spectacles. “It was too big a sacrifice, Reginald. He was all I had left.”

All those sons lost in Iraq and Afghanistan, all those grieving mothers. Rex considered how his own mother would cope if something happened to him. The thought made his heart contract most painfully.

Mrs. Smithings returned the photograph to its place on the table. With nothing else to add, Rex retreated to the drawing room where the fire flickered cheerfully in welcome counterpoint to the formal atmosphere of the parlor. He was itching to look in the library safe and see what Wanda had referred to in her diary, but decided to wait until he was sure he wouldn’t be seen. Settling into an armchair, he pulled out his notebook.

When Rosie entered the room to announce dinner an hour later, he was so absorbed by the lists and Venn diagrams covering the pages that he jumped in his seat.

“Where are the others?” she asked in surprise.

“Keeping to their rooms, I expect. I’ll round them up for you.”

“I’d be so grateful. My legs are killing me. I’ve been up and down those stairs like a yo-yo.”

“Rosie,” he said. “Did you make up room number five this morning—Ms. Martyr’s room?”

“I knocked, and when she didn’t answer, I went in. But she was asleep so I crept out again.”

“What time was this?”

“Must’ve been about eleven.”

“Are you sure?” Wanda would probably have been dead by then.

“Yes. I left her room until last since she sometimes slept late. She was out like a light.”

“Whose key did you use?”

“I didn’t need a key. The door from Ms. d’Arcy’s room was unlocked. I did her room first.” Rosie chewed her bottom lip.

“What is it, lass?”

“Well, about an hour before that, I was about to knock on Ms. d’Arcy’s door to deliver clean towels when I heard her say something like, ‘Oh, Wanda, I’m sorry to have to do this but you deserve it. You took Paul from me and I’m not going to let you stand in my way again.’ The door was slightly ajar and I heard her clearly. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but later, when I learned that her friend had died, I—I …”

“You interpreted the words in a different light.”

“Exactly.”

“What did Wanda say in reply?”

“Nothing. It was like Ms. d’Arcy was talking to herself, only she sounded a bit worked up. Anyway, I had my hand to the door, ready to knock, and decided not to as it sounded private.”

Rex nodded and turned toward the French doors. What was the significance of what Rosie had heard Helen say? The fact that Rosie mentioned the name Paul gave her story a ring of truth. Deep in thought, he mounted the stairs and knocked at the honeymoon suite, then Helen’s room, and finally at Patrick and Anthony’s. “Dinner is ready,” he told the guests. He escorted Helen downstairs. “Feeling better?” he asked.