Shadow of Reality (11 page)

Stark took the microphone again. “Millie, I’m sure you want to thank the members of the Circle team who rescued you.”

Millie’s words of thanks were drowned in the cheers from the team members contemplating their bonus points.

“And now,” Stark continued, “our detective friends here are just itching to ask you some questions, Millie. You give them the best answers you can, my girl.”

“Yes, Guv’nor, course I will.” Millie curtsied as Stark took his seat, then she pointed to a raised hand on the front row.

Elizabeth, sitting in the middle of the room couldn’t hear the question, but Millie’s answer was clear. “No, sir. I didn’t see ’im what attacked me.”

“Him?” The audience responded as one person, registering the use of the masculine pronoun.

“That is to say, I didn’t see no one—’im or ’er,” Millie amended.

“Do you have any idea why someone would want to do away with you?”

“Did you poison the soup?”

“Do you know who the murderer is?”

The questions tumbled out on top of each other, but Millie’s answers were all negative. Evan’s politely raised hand received no attention, so this time he jumped to his feet. “Have you remembered anything more about that argument you heard between Gloria and Nigel?”

“Well, yes, sir, you might say as wot I ’ave. Miss Gloria was accusing Mr. Nigel of stealing from ’er. She said she ’ad suspected it for a long time because as ’ow she never ’ad enough ready money, but now she ’ad proof.”

Nigel, sitting in the second row, jumped to his feet. “That’s a lie! As likely as not you were stealing from her, and you’re trying to put the blame on me!” He started forward, shaking his fist at Millie. “You said at first that you didn’t hear what was said, and now you come up with this cock-a-lolly story! Well, it won’t work! You can’t put the blame on me!”

He started forward again, and Stark restrained him. “Maybe you would like to tell us what was said then?” he asked Nigel.

“I certainly would! Gloria was unhappy because I signed her to a run-of-the-play contract for her new show, and she wanted out to go on a honeymoon. It was as simple as that. Everyone knows Gloria was loaded. She was a very rich woman precisely because I did such a good job managing her business affairs. It’s a sure thing she wouldn’t have had two nickels to rub together if I hadn’t—that dame didn’t have any more business sense than an orangutan.”

“All right, Mr. Know-it-all,” Millie challenged, “if Miss Gloria ’ad so much money, ’ow is it that she couldn’t pay me wages?”

Nigel couldn’t seem to think of an answer for this, so Millie, quick to see when she had the upper hand, went on. “Three months behind, she woz. But she said she ’ad expectations, and if I’d just be patient, I’d soon get a nice raise. Well, I said I’d been patient, but a girl ’as to live. But she said as ’ow she’d make it worth my while. So I stayed on.”

A questioner from the back called out, “Did she give any indication what these expectations were?”

Millie shook her head, then shrugged. “She said as ’ow she‘‘ad an insurance policy buried in the family vault.”

“And what did you make of that?”

“I didn’t make nothin’. Just what she said—she must ’ave some inooity or somethin’ in the bank.”

“Is ‘buried in the family vault’ an English expression for ‘in the bank’?” a player called out.

“No, Guv’nor, I took it to mean more like safe as ’ouses, as you might say.”

“Well, ‘safe as houses’ isn’t something I might say, but I take your meaning. Thank you, Millie.” The questioner sat down and Stark relaxed his grip on the now-quiet Nigel. The agent returned to his seat, straightening his cravat with an air of defiance.

Elizabeth glanced over her notes as the questioning went on. Most of the information she wanted had been covered, but one area seemed to have been overlooked by everyone. She hesitated before raising her hand— if it was important, she would be giving the clue to all the teams, but there was really no other way to follow up on her idea because Stark’s rules forbade collaring a suspect and questioning them privately. She raised her hand, then waved it when she was overlooked. “Yes, Mum?” Millie pointed to her.

“Your sister told you she could write a better story than Linden Leigh. Do you know if she ever actually wrote one?”

“Oh, yes, Mum, she did.  And it were ever so good, too.”

“Do you mean you read it?” Elizabeth tried to find her notes on Millie’s first interview. She thought she remembered Millie saying she never read anything.

“Well, no, Mum. Not exactly read it.” Millie shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. “But I saw it, I did.”

Elizabeth was curious that Millie suddenly seemed so embarrassed. “You saw the manuscript? But you didn’t read it? Is that correct? Will you please explain that to us?”

“Well,” Millie twisted her hands together. “I don’t mean no disrespect to my sister, ’er bein’ dead and all, but I don’t care much for reading. I mean, when I gets a chance to sit down, a nice spot of the wireless is whot I enjoy. But Vicky did give me a copy to read—in ’er own ’and writin’—and I valued it, I really did. And I’m not a careless person. I been well trained to look after Miss Gloria’s jools and all, and I never ’ad no complaints against me, but, well, not to put too fine a point on it, I lost it…” She finished with her head down.

“You lost your sister’s original, handwritten, manuscript? She must have been terribly upset!” Elizabeth and Millie were uninterrupted in their dialogue, while all the players took notes.

“No, Mum. By then she were in ’ospital…” Millie took a moment to compose herself. “I wouldn’t want you to think I was arguin’ with the Almighty, but it do seem unfair, ’er bein’ the one with all the education and all, to die so young.”

“Your sister was well educated?”

“Yes, Mum, me ’alf sister, to be exact. She always did take to books. So our uncle ’elped ’er a bit, and she took night classes and all. Seemed a terrible drudge for a pretty young thing, but she loved it. Never got to put it to no use, though, so more’s the pity. It would be nice to think she ’ad a bit o’ fun before…”

“What were you hit over the head with?”

“Were you dragged or carried to where you were hidden?”

“What kind of knots were you tied with?”

The questions changed focus, and Millie replied that she didn’t know what she was hit with; she was probably carried because there “weren’t no ladders” in her stockings; and she didn’t know anything about knots, but they looked like a kind that might be used to tie up a boat with.

“Mr. Cass, were you ever in the Royal Navy?”

“Do you own a sailboat?”

The private eyes all turned toward Nigel’s seat, but he had fled from the room.

“Mr. Stark,” a questioner called from the balcony at the rear, “are we going to get a chance to view the stiff?”

Elizabeth gasped and grabbed Richard’s arm with both hands. “I just remembered the name of the song.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The thing that was bothering me—like a tune you can’t remember the name of—I know now. Let’s go to the room.”

“We’re having a team meeting now, and then lunch—” Richard hesitated.

“Make some excuse. Ask Bill Johnson to take charge. Say I’m sick.” She rushed from the room.

Richard caught up with her a minute later on the stairs. “What is it?”

“I don’t want to talk here.” She hurried on ahead of him to the room.

“Now, tell me.” Richard pushed the door shut behind him.

“Stiff. That man referred to Gloria as a stiff. She would be by now. And the man next door should be—but he isn’t.”

“How do you know?”

“
The Body Stiffens
. The whole thing turned on time of death, and it was established by when rigor mortis set in and went off and all that. I can’t remember the times exactly, but I know that body should have been stiff by last night if he died when they said. Something’s wrong.”

Chapter 8

Thursday, noon

Elizabeth looked at Richard wide-eyed, trying to absorb the importance of her own words. “You’d better go get the doctor.”

Richard snorted. “I can’t think why.  That puppy barely knew enough to declare the man dead.”

“Well, we need more information. You haven’t come to that part in the novel yet, have you?”

Richard shook his head. “We need something more solid than a novel, no matter how gripping it may be.”

“Well, there’s a lot of detective handbooks and criminology texts and things like that in the library.”

“There are?”

“I noticed them the other day. I figured they probably use them for these mystery weeks sometimes.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s likely.” Richard turned to the door. “Everyone will be at lunch now; this is probably a good time to have a look.”

A few minutes later, Elizabeth ran her finger down the row of old books. “These must have been purchased secondhand. They look pretty out of date.”

Richard smiled grimly. “Well, some things like the facts of death don’t really change.”

Elizabeth pulled out a book and sank into a chair, turning the pages in concentration. “Here it is…‘rigor mortis, temporary stiffening of muscles after death…’ They get awfully technical, but it looks like it generally begins to set in within two or three hours, in the jaw and fingers first…it lasts twelve to eighteen hours…and goes off twenty-four to thirty-six hours after the time of death.”

Richard took the book from her hands and scanned the page. “Then that would mean that if Dr. Pearsall was right about our friend dying at one o’clock yesterday…”

Elizabeth nodded. “That’s what I said. By the middle of the night he should have been stiff. But he wasn’t—he was soft when I touched him, and then I bumped the bed, and his arm fell limp. Richard…this scares me.” She put her hand to her throat.

“No, wait a minute—there’s probably a logical explanation. Of course, the doctor said he was guessing…maybe the man had just died.”

“No, Dr. Pearsall said he was cool. That would take some time, surely—I don’t know.…Do you think the doctor’s on the level? But even if he didn’t die until just before we found him, which was about three o’clock, he still should have been pretty rigid by the middle of the night.”

“Well, it was rather warm in the room, the book said that would make a difference.” But Richard didn’t sound very convinced.

Elizabeth, however, was happy to grasp at any logical straw. “Yes, that’s true. Let’s read some more and see what we can learn—maybe something more specific on body temperature.”

Richard began on the criminology texts, leaving the coroner’s handbook to Elizabeth. Richard made a few notes as he went, but Elizabeth read several pages without finding anything interesting. Then, “Oh, here it is. ‘The body loses one and a half degrees the first hour, one degree the second, and half a degree every hour after that to the temperature of its environment.’ Well, I don’t know that that’s too helpful.” She made a face and read on in silence.

The clock on the mantle chimed the half hour before either of them spoke, then Richard broke the silence, “There’s some interesting stuff here. Do you know anything about lividity?”

“What?”

“It has to do with the settling of the blood.” He looked on a bit farther, then read some of it aloud, “‘…settles to the lowest parts of the body…begins to show up four hours after death—fully established in six to eight  hours…’” He turned the page. “Mmmm, where blood settles skin will look bruised, but pressure points will be white…Once established, lividity can’t be changed by moving the body position or by massage or anything like that…”

“Richard,” Elizabeth’s voice was small and tight. “I think we’d better take another look at that body.”

“Oh, there you two are. We missed you at lunch.”

“Richard, I haven’t seen you all day.”

“Bill said you weren’t feeling well, Elizabeth.”

Blithe Spirit airily invaded the library, with Anita making a beeline for Richard. Elizabeth noted with satisfaction that although Anita’s fringed sleeveless dress was perhaps more 1920s than 1930s, it suited her perfectly, and Richard didn’t appear unappreciative.

“Well, guess what you missed?” Irene held the center of the stage.

“What?” Elizabeth took the bait, knowing Irene would tell her anyway and not at all unhappy to have something lighter to think about.

“Susie confessed.”

“Confessed? Susie? I don’t believe she had the gumption to commit a murder,” Elizabeth said.

“What did she say?” Richard asked.

“Well, we were just all eating lunch, and they served this wonderful raspberry pudding for dessert, when there was some kind of a row at the table where the actors were sitting. All of a sudden, Susie jumped up and ran to the center of the room.” Irene suited her actions to her narrative. “‘All right! I can’t take any more! I confess—I did it! I’d been jealous of her for years, and seeing her become Lady Leigh was just more than I could take, so I put poison in her water.’ Then she broke down sobbing, and Stark led her off.”

“Well, does anyone believe it?” For the first time, the lawyer took charge.

“I don’t know, she sounded sincere,” Cathy said.

“Yeah, but then she’s an actress,” Cathy’s brother argued with her.

“Her motive seems weak compared to some of the others.”

The discussion became general as questions and theories came from every side of the library.

“Maybe she lied about not being in love with Sir Linden.”

“But what motive could she have for confessing if she didn’t do it?”

“Where would she get poison?”

“What would work that fast?”

“Cyanide.”

“Aha! Spies carry cyanide. She was Brian Rielly’s girlfriend.”

“Did she commit the murder for Brian?”

“Or confess to protect her lover?”

“That newspaper article said there was a security leak. I’m sure that meant secrets Brian told Gloria when they were going together.”

“But it seems clear that Nigel abducted Millie—that doesn’t fit in at all.”

“But what does fit is that if Gloria was desperate for money because Nigel was embezzling, she might have sold state secrets.”

“If she was that kind of person, would Sir Linden marry her?”

“Maybe she was blackmailing him.”

“All right now, you’re speculating. We’ve got to stick to the facts.” Benton brought them back to the evidence.

But Elizabeth couldn’t concentrate on the game any longer. There was a job that needed doing upstairs. She caught Richard’s eye, and they slipped quietly out the door.

Elizabeth could now look at the body without hesitation, and she even managed a mild joke. “He hasn’t moved since we left him.”

“Aren’t you glad.” Richard’s smile showed his relief at her new level of comfort.

But inside the room Elizabeth held her nose. “Yuck!”

Richard nodded. “yes, indeed."  Richard coughed.  "I’ll open the windows.”

Elizabeth lifted the corpse’s arm by the coat sleeve and shook it—absolutely no sign of rigidity. “If this is a textbook case, this man was probably already dead for a full day to a day and a half before we found him.”

“Right. Died noon Monday at the latest. Well, let’s get to it—can’t check lividity with all these clothes on.” Richard tugged off the man’s jacket, then handed it to Elizabeth.

“Hmm, English tweed. Whatever he did, he must have been reasonably successful at it.”

Richard dropped the ecru linen shirt on the floor and rolled the body over to examine his back.  “Ooo!” Elizabeth held her hand over her mouth and rushed to the fresh air of the window. After a few gulps she turned back and saw that Richard, too, had moved to uncontaminated air and was still looking a little green. “Are you okay?” she asked with a weak smile.

“Yeah, let’s get back to it.”  Richard took a white handkerchief out of his breast pocket and handed it to Elizabeth.  “Hold this over your nose.”

She accepted and Richard moved forward with obvious reluctance. “Now if I understand this business right, a man who died in bed would have a purplish-looking back with white patches where the tips of his shoulder blades rested on the bed.”

The man’s back was colorless.

“How delicate are your sensibilities?” Richard reached around to loosen the man’s slacks, then began tugging at them.

Elizabeth answered from behind the folds of the protecting handkerchief.  “I’m okay. This is purely academic. Besides, I have a brother, you know.”

Richard pulled the man’s slacks off, and they both looked at the sight, speechless.

“Well, that tells the story.”

Elizabeth gulped. “I think this is where someone should say, ‘Not a pretty sight, is it?’”

On the man’s backside, from thighs to waist, even showing through the open-weave knit of his shorts, the skin was a deep purplish black, as if all the blood in his body had drained there—as indeed, it had. And oddly, there was a white leaf-shaped mark high on one thigh and a similar design on the opposite leg.

“Well, let’s finish this while we’re at it,” Elizabeth said. She leaned over and, working with one hand so she could still hold the hanky with the other,  pulled a sock off the white foot. “Richard, this man did not hike in over any back trail through the mud and rain—his socks are spotless.”

“The more we learn the less I like it. All of a sudden nothing fits.” Richard reached for the last piece of clothing. “Interesting underwear, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I have,” Elizabeth said.

Richard was so surprised he dropped the waistband around the man’s knees and gaped at Elizabeth. “What?”

“I told you I wasn’t squeamish about men’s underwear. I always used to buy them for my brother. That kind—exactly that kind. They were only available one place in the US, from a supplier that sells British army surplus.” Then she added with an air of exaggerated superiority, “I told you my catalog reading was useful.”

“What’s so useful about knowing where a corpse ordered his underwear?”

“Because I always ordered Ryan’s shorts for him, until three years ago when Brit-Wear quit carrying them. See the label on those? Unfaded. New. My dear Watson, this man is from England, possibly military.”

“Maybe.” Richard turned back to the body. “But what do you make of that?”

The man’s right hip bore the white imprint of a five-petaled flower, a shape as distinct as a brand on a horse. Elizabeth stared for a moment. “White means pressure point. Is there a design on the mattress? Or did he have something that shape in his hip pocket?”

Richard pulled up the sheet to examine the mattress, and Elizabeth reached for the trousers at the foot of the bed.

“These slacks don’t have back pockets.”

“There’s no design on the mattress, but look.” Richard pointed to a reddish brown stain on the sheet by the man’s mouth. “I wonder what that means?”

“We could probably find out from some of those books…but I’m not sure I want to.”

They looked at each other for a moment. “Well, can we do anything else here?”

Elizabeth shook her head, “I don’t think so; just cover him up.” She walked to the open window, gulping fresh air and gazing out on the rocky terrain. It hadn’t rained much for two days now; surely the crews would have that road open soon. Then the management could call the police. From what she and Richard had seen, it was clear that the body had been moved to this bedroom
after
the man was dead. And that could only mean one thing: there was a killer in the hotel.

Chapter 9

Thursday, evening

Back in her sitting room, Elizabeth sat limply in one of the wing-backed chairs by the fireplace. “But it’s so awful. How could anyone do that to another human being? I mean, it’s okay as a game…Gloria Glitz was just acting, and it gives us all an interesting intellectual puzzle to work on. But in real life—to take a human life—I’m surprised God doesn’t strike murderers down on the spot with thunderbolts.”

Richard nodded, but didn’t interrupt her monologue.

“After seeing that poor man, I can’t understand some people’s soul-searching over bringing a criminal to justice. I have the most unholy reaction of wanting to see whoever did that nailed to the wall. In one of the Wimsey mysteries Lord Peter spent the night one murderer was being executed grieving in his wife’s arms. I’m afraid I would have been celebrating.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” Richard’s voice conveyed deep thought behind his soft words. “Human life is human life—all are created by God; all are his children. The recognition of that fact is a tremendous thing. All life is sacred, created for a purpose, no matter how far that person may have strayed from the divine image.”

Elizabeth sat up straighter in her chair—if anything could bring her out of a depression it was a philosophical discussion about her favorite literary genre. “Yes! That’s what I taught my students in that whodunit class you disapproved of—that ultimately mysteries are one of the most moral forms of fiction because they bring order out of chaos and punish evil. The good ones do, anyway. I think the new vogue for letting the criminal win is one of the worst forms of obscenity…” Her voice trailed away as she remembered a recent conversation where her companion was praising just such books. She sat back in her chair.

A knock at the door made her sit up again. Richard opened it to Gavin, and Elizabeth gasped. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Gavin, I lost all track of time. Is it really dinner time already?”

“Almost. I came a bit early. What had you so engrossed?”

Elizabeth laughed. “My favorite subjects, mystery-writing and philosophy. Will you wait while I change, Gavin? Richard, aren’t you meeting Anita soon?”

Richard groaned. “Oh, I nearly forgot.”

Elizabeth heard Gavin say, “You two did get involved, what?” as she closed her door behind her. In a few minutes she reopened it, now clad in a rosy peach, clingy crepe skirt and a satin top with a deep, ruffled neckline and long sleeves. Her head was wrapped in a turban-style band of matching fabric, pinned in place with her grandmother’s pearl-and-diamond brooch.

Gavin stood at her entry. “I say, that was worth waiting for.”

Elizabeth held out her hand to him as she crossed the room. “If you men just realized how stunning you look in formal wear, the tradition of dressing for dinner would return tomorrow.”

“Complete with boiled shirts?” Her escort took her hand, bowed over it, and tucked it under his bent elbow.

“I’m never quite sure what that means when I read it in a book. I assume it means the shirts are very white and very stiff.”

“And very uncomfortable. Something only one to the manor born could wear with comfort,” Gavin said.

“Ah, the true test, like
The Princess and the Pea
.”

Talking nonsense with Gavin was such fun.  But at the Blithe Spirit table the conversation wasn’t considered nonsense by its participants:

“You’re crazy!” Evan hit the table, making his sister pull back, startled.

“No, I’m not! I’m sure he did it all alone. Susie didn’t know anything about the murder. But she loves him so much she’ll protect him, even if it means jail for her.”

“In the thirties it wasn’t jail, it was the electric chair—remember when we went to Madame Tussaud’s in London?”

Cathy shuddered but held her ground. “Well, that’s how much she loves him.”

“Brian may be a murderer for the sake of national security, but he’s not a total creep,” Evan’s voice rose. “He wouldn’t let a woman take the rap. They planned it together from the first.”

“You’re both crazy, kids,” Bill interrupted his children. “Nigel’s our man—why else would he try to get rid of Millie?”

“The fact that Nigel only tied Millie up shows he’s not a murderer. He just wanted to keep her out of the way so she couldn’t tell about the fight and have everyone learn he was an embezzler.”

“Well, I wish you’d get this settled,” Irene told them all. “I don’t care who you decide did it—I just need to know so I can put our skit together. We have to perform the thing Sunday morning, and some of the groups are practicing already. Private Lives got twenty bed sheets from housekeeping after tea today.”

“Interesting. They must be planning to do a ghost story.”

“How do you know?”

“Spies.” She held an imaginary magnifying glass to her eye.

“Speaking of spies,” Elizabeth turned to Gavin and spoke under her breath. “Richard and I did a spot of undercover work this afternoon. We’ve got a problem upstairs.”

“What?” He gave her his concerned attention.

“That man.” She pointed up toward the fourth floor. “The doctor was all wet, or covering something up. That man’s been dead for ages, since Tuesday morning at least.”