Docketful of Poesy (30 page)

“Then why wasn’t he mugged? His wallet was still
there, his car keys—his car —”

He threw down the pen. “Because there wasn’t time!
Because you walked outside and interrupted the attack!” His face
was flushed with an anger that I knew had nothing to do with what
we were discussing.

“Fine, Brian,” I snapped, rising. “Apparently you’ve
got it all worked out. I suppose you think
Peter
knocked
Miles out and poisoned Mona as well.”

His face tightened.

I walked toward the door. He said curtly, “I’ll talk
to Edam of course. We’re going to be speaking to everyone,
naturally. It’s a murder inquiry.” He managed to add, as though the
words choked him, “Thank you for this information.”

*****

After that encounter it was clear to me that there
was no point talking to Brian about my suspicions regarding George
Robinson. Which left me…totally at a loss. I couldn’t stand by and
let Peter be persuaded into killing someone, but equally I couldn’t
contemplate giving information to the police that might result in
his arrest. Because if anyone deserved to meet up with Nemesis, it
was Gordon Roget. And in this case I believed Nemesis was a
red-haired Scottish woman with a very long memory.

Debating my limited options, I returned to the inn,
and ran into Roberta and Tracy in the lobby.

Roberta hailed me immediately. “Do you know anything
about this? We’ve been asked by the police not to arrange any
flights home —”

“Mona was murdered,” I said, and Roberta swayed as
though I’d punched her. Apparently I was the only one who went
around seeing sinister figures behind every suspicious death.

Tracy just stared at me with those arctic blue eyes.
“Why aren’t the cops questioning us if that’s the case?”

“I think they’d only just received the autopsy
report,” I told her. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they were on their
way over now.”

“Wow,” she said, flipping her long blond hair behind
her shoulder. “This has certainly been one interesting gig.” She
sauntered off to the taproom.

“Oh my God,” Roberta moaned. “How does this work? We
cannot stay here for weeks while the police investigate a murder.
We’ve got to get these people out of here. Miles and I have spent
the entire morning trying to explain to SAG and the IATSE and every
other union and the equipment rental companies and the hotel and
the airlines what’s going on. We’re going to be ruined. Personally
and professionally —”

“Where’s Norton?” I interrupted.

She broke off what she was saying, giving me a
strange look. “Upstairs packing. I saw him a little while ago. He’s
insisting that he’s leaving, that the police can’t force us to
stay.”

“Where’s Miles?”

She gestured to the bar. “In there. We may as well
join him. I could use a drink after the morning I’ve had. And you
look like you could too.”

I let myself be led into the bar, and ordered a round
for everyone while I tried to think what to do. Now that Mona’s
death had been ruled homicide, I knew the police would be arriving
on the scene momentarily. I also knew Brian was too conscientious
to ignore everything I’d told him, no matter how angry he was with
me, and Norton did not look to me like he could withstand serious
police questioning for long; so perhaps all I had to do was keep
Norton away from Miles for the next few hours.

The barmaid delivered the drinks to our table, and
Miles lifted his glass and said, “When the going gets tough, the
tough get going.” He had clearly been delivering toasts for a
while. So there went Plan B—which was to tell Miles I thought
Norton might want to kill him. Even with Miles sober, I wasn’t sure
it was such a great idea. I could tell Todd perhaps, and ask for
his help. I could even tell Roberta, but I had no way of knowing
how any of them might react if, or when I revealed that I believed
Norton was a murderer.

“John Huston you are not,” Roberta told Miles.

“You can do better? Be my guest,” Miles told her with
a sweep of his hand.

Roberta took her glass and considered. “This is an
Irish toast taught to me by my old granny,” she said finally. “‘May
we all be alive at this time next year.’”

There was a silence.

“At the rate things are going,” Todd said, “I’d be
happy with next week.”

We all laughed—with varying degrees of shakiness—and
Norton said clearly and coldly from the doorway, “Well, if you want
to blame someone, blame Friedman.”

Miles stiffened, his face reddening. We all turned.
Norton was framed in the doorway, holding the old hunting rifle
that hung over the fireplace in the anteroom off the lobby.

Roberta squeaked out something, Tracy said something
very unladylike, and Todd called, “Not funny, mate.”

“Not meant to be, mate,” Norton said shortly, and
despite the crisp delivery, he was weaving as he stepped into the
room.

Guests at the other tables were jumping out of their
chairs, some knocking them over in their haste, moving over to the
side of the room or under tables. Todd’s hand fastened on my arm,
pressing me to get down.

“What’s your problem, Norton?” Miles demanded. “I’m
in the same boat you are. I’m losing my shirt on this deal.”

“Is that gun loaded?” Todd asked the stricken
barmaid.

“I don’t know,” she quavered.

I couldn’t believe it was, but what a way to find
out.

“And it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy! After
everything you’ve done. It’s your fault Mona’s dead —” But Norton’s
words were cut short as several of the men who had maneuvered to
the side of the room managed to get behind him. They rushed him
together, and knocked him down on the floor. He kicked and wriggled
furiously, convulsively squeezing the trigger, but nothing
happened, and the rifle was wrested from his hand.

Tracy was swearing quietly to my left under the table
where Todd had shoved me down when the men jumped Norton. I glanced
back at her quickly; her eyes met mine, then her expression
changed.

I looked back in time to see Norton being roughly
hauled to his feet. Brian and two uniformed police officers
appeared in the doorway.

“What’s going on here?” Brian demanded in his best
official tone. A number of the bar patrons began talking at once
while Norton yelled and wrestled with his captors.

“Typical,” Todd observed. “Never one when you need
’em.”

I barely heard him as I pushed a chair out of my way,
crawling out from under the table. I felt strangely shaky, but it
wasn’t due to Norton so much as what I thought I’d seen in Tracy’s
hand before she quickly turned away. I was almost positive she had
been holding a gun.

I got to my feet and said to her, “Do you have a
gun?”

She jerked around. “Who? Me?” She held up a small
silver cell phone—laughing. “I was trying to call for help!”

*****

It was some time before I got back to my room. After
Norton had been arrested, and we had all given our statements to
the police, the remaining members of the Kismet Production Company
had spent the next couple of hours getting sloshed and reliving our
greatest moments in the bar downstairs.

I could feel Tracy’s eyes on me, but each time I
looked at her, she was smiling at Miles or talking to someone
else.

“When are you flying out?” I asked her.

“Tomorrow. Tuesday.” She shrugged. “Maybe the next
day. I haven’t quite decided.”

That started another discussion as to whether
everyone would have to come back for Norton’s trial—assuming he was
brought to trial. I had spent a good forty-five minutes telling why
I believed he had accidentally poisoned Mona. Inevitably, everyone
began remembering instances of sinister behavior on Norton’s part,
little things he’d said, odd expressions, generally suspicious
behavior.

“The police found a bottle of something that they’re
speculating contained cyanide in the trash bin behind the inn,”
Roberta said. “They’re going to dust for fingerprints. It’s hard to
believe he could be that careless.”

“Forget about love. It’s hate makes you do the
wacky,” Tracy said. She smiled at Miles, who smiled twitchily back.
He had been very quiet during my explanation of what I believed to
be Norton’s motives.

Finally, I escaped to my room to debate my next move.
I considered going to Craddock House and talking to Peter again,
but the conversation I envisioned was not one I wanted to have in
front of Catriona. Of course, she might be off watching the Monkton
Estate. Peter had said they were switching off, but if it were his
turn to watch for Roget, all the more reason for me to steer clear
of Craddock House.

According to Angela Hornsby, her fiancé was arriving
Monday or Tuesday, which I felt certain meant Peter and Catriona
would make whatever move they intended tonight or tomorrow night. I
sat down at the little table with all my books and notes, and tried
to weigh the pros and cons of doing nothing. Even if I had believed
that was the best alternative, it simply wasn’t in my nature.

I was glad I had been careful not to drink much, as I
believed I had a long night ahead of me. I phoned the library.

After speaking at length—and as persuasively as I
knew how—to Roy Blade, I called downstairs for a pot of coffee.

Replacing the receiver, I picked up one of my books,
settled back against the stack of pillows on the bed, and began to
read the final chapter of L.E.L.’s life. And despite the night I
had planned, before I knew it I was engrossed in my study.

It seemed impossible to believe that a sensitive
romantic like Landon, sheltered and sophisticated, the darling of
the British reading public, could at the height of her fame and
popularity happily resign herself to life in the wilds of Africa.
Her letters home were full of little complaints and apologies, but
always there was a certain reserve, an impenetrable façade of charm
and wit and good humor that made light of what must have been
exhausting and at times terrifying.

Had she been truly happy in her marriage, it would no
doubt have been different, but it seemed likely from the accounts
of those around her, the journals and letters of the gentlemen
observers on the Gold Coast, that she was married to a cold and
distant man who viewed her attempts at housewifery and playing
Governor’s lady with increasingly critical dissatisfaction.

Though she had recently formed a friendship with
young Bodie Cruickshank, the governor of the fort of Anamaboe,
Landon was essentially on her own in the wilderness. Neglected by
her husband, with months between communications from home, her only
feminine companionship provided by Mrs. Bailey, the steward’s wife
who had accompanied her to the Cape, she must certainly have been
lonely and lost. Even if she loved MacLean, which seemed hard to
believe, it must have occurred to her more than once to return home
to England.

But according to her two biographers, there was no
turning back for Landon. Both took the view that her literary
popularity had been on the wane, that she had worn out her welcome
with London society, that her only choice was exile. The assumption
there—and I personally felt it was a faulty one—was that
popularity, both literary and personal—once lost could never be
regained.

Whether they were right or not, the brutal facts
remained. On the morning following a small dinner party for Bodie
Cruickshank, who was to sail that day for England—along with Mrs.
Bailey, whose position as maid had been a temporary one—Laetitia
Landon was found dying on the floor of her bedchamber, a bottle of
prussic acid in her hand.

Attempts made to revive her were in vain. She died
without regaining consciousness and was buried that same evening
following the most cursory of inquests. Enfield’s book offered the
opinion that Landon had committed suicide; Ashton proposed that she
had taken the poison by mistake—her doctor had apparently
prescribed a few drops of hydrocyanic acid for heart spasms. All
London—and her friends and family in particular—believed she had
been murdered by MacLean.

The truth could never be known; Landon remained as
enigmatic in death as she had been in life. Perhaps the greatest
tragedy was that her work became overshadowed with her colorful
life and mysterious death.

I closed Ashton’s
Letty Landon
. Choices and
consequences: That was life. Roberta and Miles had made choices;
Mona, Walter Christie, and, to some extent, Norton Edam suffered
the consequences. Gordon Roget, Todd, Tracy, Angela Hornsby, the
February brothers, Cordelia, Catriona, Brian…Peter—we had all made
choices and were facing the consequences. Landon’s life, my
life…and the lives of those we loved and who loved us. Decisions
and destiny. It seemed ironic that we had all been brought to this
time and place by an unseen hand running something called Kismet
Production Company.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“N
ot that I’m not flattered,”
Roy Blade said, staring through binoculars at the silent house
across the vast green sward, “but why me?”

“It was you or Cordelia,” I informed him, “and it’s a
school night for her.”

“Nice to see you’ve retained your priorities, Ms
Hollister.”

I leaned forward, pushing aside branches of the tree
we perched in. “Did you see something move? Over by the
terrace...”

Blade trained the binoculars on the end of the long
brick terrace. “Hmm. Yes.”

“Hmm, yes
what
?”

“It looks like someone is skulking behind that tall
urn.”

My heart sank. Peter and Catriona were apparently
going ahead with whatever their plan was…and whatever their plan
was, I was quite sure it was neither safe nor legal. “Can you see
who it is?”

He made a dismissive sound. “All cat burglars are
gray in the dark.”