Christmas is Murder (8 page)

Miriam Greenbaum and Henry Lawdry … What connection existed between them? Lawdry’s murder was premeditated—a certain amount of preparation must have gone into spiking the tart, whereas Miriam’s was an opportunity killing. No one could have foreseen that she would be at the top of the cellar steps at a moment when there were no witnesses.

What if the connection was single guests, alone like himself? The thought accelerated his heartbeat.

What about the charred remnants from the fireplace? If someone had wanted Miriam’s death to look like an accident, why burn the manuscript? There seemed no rhyme or reason to any of it.

After turning off the bedside lamp, Rex thrashed about until he found the perfect spot beneath the goosedown quilt, and willed himself to suspend thought of the murders. He hoped there would be porridge at breakfast, preferably Scots Quaker Oats with dollops of cream and brown sugar … With a contented sigh of anticipation, he began to relax, teetering on the brink of oblivion. It was no use.

The persistent and growing pressure on his bladder told him he would have to take care of business before there could be any chance of sleep. Huffing with resignation, he cast off the quilt and felt with his feet for his slippers as he reached out for the lamp switch.

An antique chamber pot sat invitingly on the chest of drawers. On further inspection, he found it contained
pot pourri
. Tempting as it was, he decided he would have to use the bathroom across the hall. Donning his blue and white striped flannel dressing gown, he slipped into the corridor illuminated by low-wattage wall sconces, and stiffened. A figure stood a few paces down the hall brandishing a fire poker.

“What in streuth’s name are you doing with
that
?”

Anthony moved toward him swinging the poker as though participating in a fencing match. “It could be quite deadly, couldn’t it? Solid iron,” he said, hefting its weight.

“Stop right there.” Much to his relief, Anthony did as requested.

“Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Aye, well you did look a wee bit menacing.”

“I was just giving you a demonstration. For all I know, someone could jump out from a secret door in the wood panelling. Or from behind one of these hanging tapestries.”

“There aren’t any secret doors. I explored this whole place when I was a lad. Anyway, what are you doing out of your room at this hour?”

“I had to go to the men’s room and decided to take some form of protection with me. I’d hate to be victim number three.”

Rex tightened the belt on his cartoonish bathrobe, feeling a bit silly next to Anthony in his black-edged burgundy dressing gown. “You have your own bathroom, so why come out at all?”

“Patrick has indigestion. He’s pretty much holed up in ours. It’s all the curry and rich sauce he ate, not to mention the cocoa afterwards. I told him he’ll end up clogging his arteries, but at his age they don’t listen. What’s your excuse for roaming the halls?”

“I have an irritable bladder.”

“Could be the beginning of prostate trouble. You should get it checked.”

“Aye, I might do that.”

The men stood facing each other awkwardly, Rex reluctant to turn his back on the poker-wielding Anthony. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll walk you back to your room and then borrow your poker, if I may,” he suggested.

“Fair enough.”

Rex escorted his nocturnal companion to the end of the corridor and returned armed. Having gained the men’s bathroom, located across from Lawdry’s room, he looked around the small space. No trace remained of anyone else’s presence, unless Anthony was as fastidious as himself, which was quite possible, judging from his room. It was equally possible that Anthony had been on his way to, or coming back from, somewhere farther afield.

In any case, Rex thought, relieving himself; if someone
had
been murdered by a fire poker during the night, he would know whom to go to. It was too late to wake everyone now.

Rex awoke to a
cold light pressing into the room around the edges of the drapes. Rubbing his eyes, he turned the clock to face himself. Almost nine. He must have slept through his alarm. Fifteen minutes later, showered and dressed, he stepped into the corridor. Helen was entering her room down the hall. “Morning,” he called.

Turning around, she smiled, neat and fresh in blue slacks and a white cowl-neck sweater that showed off her bust line to advantage. “Going down to breakfast?” she asked.

“Aye,” he said, ambling toward her, hands in pockets. “I slept late after all the excitement last night.”

“I just had mine, otherwise I would join you.”

“I didna want to kiss Wanda last night, you know,” Rex confided in a hushed voice.

“I could tell. I have a few letters to write—if I ever get the opportunity to post them before next year—and then I’ll be down.”

Letters. He wondered if she was going to finish the one to Clive. “I made an interesting find yesterday evening while I was poking around in the attic,” he said. “Skis. Old wooden ones, mind. And two pairs of lace-up boots. Fancy a trip down to the village?”

Helen looked intrigued. “I’m not that good a skier. I mean, I can stay up … Oh, but that would be amazing. Would we make it?”

“The sun’s up, and from what I could see from my window, the snow looks compacted enough. One set of boots might fit you.”

“Rex, you’re a godsend. I would just love to get out for a while.” She bit her lip guiltily. “Wanda’s still in bed. She sometimes sleeps until ten …”

“Och, we’ll be gone by then.”

“Do you have business in the village?”

“Aye—a pint at the local pub.”

Helen let out a little shriek of excitement. “You wicked man! Well, let me get those letters finished so I can bring them with me to post. Forty-five minutes, downstairs?”

“Meet me in the scullery. We’ll put on our skis there and go the back way through the forest.”

Rex continued down the landing toward the narrow arched window to check the weather from the east. As he passed the honeymoon suite, he heard muffled voices behind the door, Yvette sounding hysterical, and then Charley saying, “I thought we were going to wait until we had the money …”

“It was an accident.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Nothing. Nobody need suspect anything.”

“It’ll come out eventually, and anyway you can’t keep your mouth shut, Yvette.”

“Sod you!”

“Well, it’s true. I can’t be cooped up forever … I’ll go insane.”

“We can sell the cameo …”

Rex leaned in toward the door, assuring himself that under different circumstances he would never presume to eavesdrop on a personal conversation—just as he would never normally read someone’s private mail. Never.

Charley muttered something.

“That’s murder, Charley!”

More murmuring, then Charley asked, “What d’you call what you did to Henry? …”

“… I see how you look at that slut, chatting her up …”

The voices grew closer and Rex decided it was time to make himself scarce. He would check the weather from downstairs. When he reached the foyer, he pulled his notebook from his pocket and scribbled down the ominous-sounding snippets of conversation he’d overheard. In the dining room, Anthony and Patrick sat at table reading crumpled newspapers.

“Three-day-old papers,” Anthony complained over a bowl of muesli. “Though I don’t know why I even bother reading the news anymore. How did that bungling American idiot ever get elected to a second term? They must put brainwashing chemicals into their Big Macs.”

Patrick nursed a cup of black tea, a piece of dry toast half-eaten on his plate.

“Morning, Patrick. You seem a bit green around the gills.” Rex gestured toward their newspapers. “Can you save me the crosswords if no one’s done them yet?”

Mrs. Bellows bustled around the heating trays on the sideboard. “There’s bacon and scrambled eggs, fried mushrooms and kippers,” she told him. Patrick made a queasy sound at the mention of kippers. “I’ll send Rosie in with more crumpets.”

“That would be grand.”

“Do you have any special requests?” the cook asked on her way out the French doors.

“Well, I do like porridge in the morning.”

“I can make some.”

“Don’t trouble yourself today.”

“I don’t think Mrs. Bellows likes us very much this morning,” Anthony remarked. “I never eat the fried stuff and Patrick is still feeling poorly from last night. Helen ate like a bird. You’d be doing us a favour if you polished off the kippers, Rex. They reek something horrible.”

Rex helped himself to everything on offer and sat at the far end of the table so as not to offend the other two with his reeking fish.

Rosie rushed into the room. “Tea or coffee, Mr. Graves?” she asked Rex.

“Tea, thank you.”

Anthony and Patrick rose from the table.

“Any special plans for the day?” he asked them.

Patrick shrugged. “More of the same. Watch TV, read, see what the weather does.”

“Wait for another murder,” Anthony added facetiously. “Are all guests present and accounted for this morning?”

“I can vouch for Helen and the Perkins.”

“Speak of the devil,” Anthony said as Charley and Yvette shambled into the room. “Well, enjoy your breakfast, all.”

The honeymooners settled across from Rex. Yvette fidgeted with a strand of wool unraveling from her cardigan while her husband hummed and looked about him. “Where’s Rosie?”

Yvette tensed up in her chair.

“She was here a minute ago. There’s tea in the pot if you’d like some.”

“Ta.” Charley grabbed the pot and filled Yvette’s cup.

Rex attempted to interpret the argument between the pair, but it was hard to focus with them right in front of him. “Did you sleep well?” he asked Yvette.

“Not very,” she admitted, on the brink of tears. “It’s my nerves. I feel all on edge.”

“Aye, this is trying for all of us.”

Charley rested a hand on her arm. “Can I get you some eggs and bacon, luv?”

Yvette nodded and blew her nose.

Rosie entered with a basket of hot crumpets and fresh tea. “Will anybody be wanting coffee?”

“No, we’re all set, Rosie,” Charley said from the sideboard, studiously avoiding her gaze.

Probably nothing was going on between Rosie and Charley, Rex surmised. At least, nothing beyond the mild flirtation that typically occurred between two attractive people of the opposite sex. Yet young people tended to get so jealous.

“What’s on your schedule today?” Charley asked Rex, bringing two filled plates back to the table.

“Well, between us three, I might try to get down to the village.”

“On the tennis rackets?” Charley chortled into his tea. “I saw you from the window yesterday. Maybe I could borrow them later?”

“What for?” Yvette asked.

“I’m getting claustrophobic, that’s all. Don’t know that I could make it all the way to Swanmere though,” he told Rex. “It looks like hard work trampling about on those things.”

“Aye, it is. My leg muscles are giving me gip today.”

Yvette peppered her eggs. “Do you think the shops will be open?”

“On Christmas Eve? I doubt it. But the pub will be, I’m sure.”

“Oh, he’s going to the rub-a-dub-dub,” Charley told Yvette with a nudge. “Can’t keep a Scotsman from his whisky.”

“Something like that,” Rex said noncommittally, not wishing to divulge his more serious objective of meeting with the constable.

“I’ve got a Scots joke for you,” Charley pursued.

“Aye, well I’ve probably heard it or some variation, but go ahead.”

“Well, this Scotsman leaves the bar one night, and you can tell by the way he walks all zigzag-like that he’s bloody elephant’s.”

“Trunk—drunk,” Yvette interpreted. “Rhyming slang.”

“So then he stumbles off the side of the road and falls asleep in the ditch. Not half an hour later, two gorgeous birds happen by. One says with a wink to the other, ‘See yon sleeping Scotsman so strong an’ handsome? I wonder if it’s true there’s nuffink beneath their kilts … I say we take a butcher’s—’

“Well, her friend’s all for it, she’s just as curious, so they creep up on the sleeping Scotsman and lift up his kilt inch by inch, slowly so as not to wake him, and beneath his skirt what do they see? No more and no less than his birthday suit, and a right bonny one at that. They marvel for a moment, all agog, and one says, ‘Let’s leave him a present before we go.’ So they tie a blue silk ribbon on his crown jewels. Now the Scotsman wakes up some time later to answer the call of nature and, staggering behind a tree, lifts his kilt and gawks at what confronts him, he can’t believe his eyes—he’s got a standing election—”

“ ‘Election’?” Rex questioned. “Och, aye, I get it now.”

“And he says to himself, ‘Oh, lad, I don’t know where you’ve been, but I see you won first prize!’” Charley beamed all over his face.

“Ha, ha!” Yvette said, rolling her eyes.

Rex grinned. “I’ve heard the song a great many times, but the Cockney slang lends a whole new dimension. I thought when you mentioned a butcher that they planned to cut the thing off.”

“Nah. A butcher’s, as in butcher’s hook. A look.”

“Well, thanks for the entertainment, Charley. That’ll do me for breakfast.” Rex pushed back his plate and rose from the table. “See you both later.”

“Don’t be gone all day,” Yvette said. “We have some activities planned for this afternoon.”

“Aye? What sort of activities?”

“Charades and carol singing. We were practicing the other day. Helen has a beautiful voice.”

“I’m a passable bass-baritone meself: ‘God rest you, merry gentlemen, Let nothing you dismay!’” Rex roared, hand pressed to his chest. “But count me out of the charades.”

“Spoilsport!”

“I’ll keep score.”

“Oh, all right. But do be there. It’ll be fun.”

Rex left the young couple to breakfast, thinking Yvette had perked up considerably for someone who’d accused her husband of murder only that morning. And Charley seemed his jovial self, though perhaps that Scots joke was overcompensating just a wee bit … Rex mulled over the words he’d overheard outside their suite:

“It was an accident, Charley
…
Nobody need suspect anything.”

“It’ll come out eventually
…
What d’you call what you did to Henry?”

None of it made much sense. Neither of them had been in the drawing room when Lawdry died, and Miriam’s death could never be construed as an accident. Yet, tempted as Rex was to get to the bottom of it, he’d made plans with Helen. He would tackle Charley and Yvette individually when he got back from the village.

He crossed the kitchen, where Rosie was loading the dishwasher, and entered the scullery. Through the window, he saw Clifford muffled up in cap and scarf, chopping wood on a block. The puppy bounded about him, his mostly white body camouflaged by the snow, yelping with joy as Rex stepped over the threshold and plunged into the cold. At least the sun reflecting off the white powder lent an illusion of warmth—it would be pleasant enough with a coat on, he thought. The old man rested his axe against the wall and bid him good day.

Rex fed the dog the buttered crumpet he’d saved from the breakfast table and blew into his hands. “Clifford, I wonder if you could do me a favour. I saw skiing equipment in one of the attic rooms. Could you bring it down for me? Two pairs of everything.”

“What would she say ’bout that?” the old man asked, jerking his head back at the house.

“Mrs. Smithings? I don’t know, I haven’t seen her. The stuff doesn’t look like it’s been used in decades. Is there any way you can bring it around the side of the house? I don’t want everyone knowing I’m taking off for a couple of hours.”

Clifford nodded, a crafty glint in his eyes. “There be a twitten the other side o’ the hedge eh can bring ’em.”

“Grand,” Rex said. “What’s a ‘twitten’?”

“It be a path.”