Part 4 (1/2)

”On the round table. I let everyone help themselves. They all know tea is at four thirty, but not everyone's here on the dot, so I just leave them to it.”

”Just one more question, Rosie. Do you recall who was in the kitchen when you picked up the tray?”

”Cook and Mrs. Smithings. And when I got back, Clifford was there mucking in with the potatoes.”

After he left Rosie, Rex bounded up the stairs, reflecting that there never would have been any suspicion of cyanide poisoning, had Charlie not been around to attend to Lawdry. And he himself would not be in the process of questioning the staff and taking more than a casual interest in the guests. So much for his relaxing Christmas.

He fed the puppy the chicken sc.r.a.ps and decided to join his fellow guests in the drawing room for further observation. There might be more to them than met the eye, and it was just conceivable one of them had managed to slip the cyanide directly into Lawdry's tart. As he stepped out of his room, Mrs. Dahlia Smithings was coming up the stairs.

”Did you find out anything of interest?” she asked.

”Well,” Rex said, drawing closer to her. ”Charley found an empty container of sodium cyanide in the dustbin outside.”

”Ah, yes. Well, we use that for cleaning jewellery and such. We buy it by the pound from a pharmaceutical company in Brighton.”

Rex coughed politely. ”A fact you omitted to mention earlier on, Mrs. Smithings.”

”It slipped my mind. Things do at my age, you know.”

He showed her the container. ”Is this the jar?”

”I believe so.”

”Where did you keep it?”

”On a shelf in the scullery with the other cleaning products.”

”Clifford said the jewellery hasna been cleaned in awhile.”

”Clifford! I'm surprised you were able to make out his gibberish. He speaks that way on purpose, you know.”

”This does rather support Charley's theory of poisoning, deliberate or otherwise ...”

”Charley may be making it all up and have planted the container himself.”

”Aye, but the lad is a medic and he seems to have his head screwed on tight. I canna see him doing this just to create a bit o' drama.”

”Young men are p.r.o.ne to pulling pranks.”

Ah, yes-Rodney. Her son had certainly been one for pranks. Mrs. Smithings looked wistful, as though she were thinking of him at that moment.

”Rodney died a hero,” he said. ”You must be proud of him.”

Her lips tightened into a thin line. ”Since my son is not here, what can he possibly have to do with any of this?”

”I'm sorry,” Rex stammered, somewhat perplexed. Most mothers wanted to talk about their sons, living or dead. His own mother bored the ears off the ladies of the Morningside-genteelly p.r.o.nounced Moarningsaide-tea and scone set with accounts of his professional exploits. When she received visitors, she had him buy flowers-Nothing extravagant, mind-so she could boast that her doting son had given them to her.

He was on the point of asking Mrs. Smithings about Rosie's sister when his cell phone trilled in his pocket. The LCD listed a London number. He excused himself and hurried back to his room to take the call in private. ”Thaddeus,” he said. ”Any luck?”

The young law clerk at the other end informed him that he'd managed to get hold of Lawdry's solicitor and that the old man had not died intestate after all, having left everything to Claws, his cat. No human had stood to gain by his death, and Thaddeus could find no ties between the deceased and any of the hotel staff or guests, whose names and addresses Rex had supplied him from the guest book in the hall.

”I did find out that Anthony Smart was up on a charge of drunk and disorderly behaviour at a gay bar last year, but got off with a fine,” the clerk said. ”Is there anything else you'd like me to check out?”

Rex said he would be in touch-right now he was at a dead end. Henry Lawdry's alleged murder was without apparent motive.

___.

Rex noticed the puppy sniffing items around the walls of his room and getting ready to raise its hind leg against a giant potted fern. ”Argh, noo,” he said, scooping him up in his arms. ”Ye canna do that.”

He took the dog downstairs and through the scullery to the back door, leaving him in Clifford's care. ”Och, I'll be back later,” Rex said when it looked up at him in reproach through the racc.o.o.n markings around its eyes.

He ambled into the drawing room where most of the guests were biding time until dinner, and took up a position by one of the west-facing windows. The white-blanketed lawns disappeared into darkness.

”I love doing hair,” Patrick Vance was saying, ”and Anthony has so little. If you have the rollers, I have the time.”

Turning around, Rex saw that the young man was addressing Wanda Martyr. Helen nodded to her friend in encouragement.

”When do you want to do it?” Wanda asked Patrick.

”How about after dinner?”

”All right then. That way I'll look fab for Christmas Eve. After all, it's not like there's a whole lot to do around here.”

”I feel like I'm living in a Christmas card, the time we spend in this room,” Helen agreed. ”It's all very pretty, of course, but I'm beginning to get cabin fever.”

”Aye,” Rex said from the window. ”And I came down from Scotland thinking I might play a bit o' tennis and do some hiking.” He sought an armchair among the guests. Only the honeymooners were absent.

”Wanda and I managed to get some walking in before the snow started,” Helen told him. ”We took the bridle path between Eastbourne and Alfriston, and crossed the downs above the ancient Long Man. It's the size of a football field and cut out of the chalk. And there's a pretty Norman church in Jevington that's worth a visit too.”

As Rex observed once again, Helen was an attractive woman with a cheerful and sensible air about her. ”I came here as a boy,” he told her. ”It was summer-b.u.t.tercups and red campion everywhere. There was a place we used to call Bluebell Valley. I was fond of nature rambles and badger-watching back then. Aye, I would've liked to have done some walking meself.”

”This hotel needs more activities,” Patrick said. ”For a start, the old conservatory is never used. I'd put in a huge jacuzzi, paint a tropical fresco, and install lots of exotic plants.”

”We could convert the library into a pool room,” Anthony suggested.

Helen smiled. ”I doubt Mrs. Smithings would approve of your renovations.”

”Mrs. Mothb.a.l.l.s needs to move with the times. She should retire and have someone manage the place for her.”

Beyond the French doors, a ring-tone blared out the Star Spangled Banner. ”I made it to page 30 of the ma.n.u.script you sent up,” Miriam Greenbaum told her caller, ”and I have to say I just didn't get off on it. The writing was nowhere near ready for prime time ... Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Send the standard rejection.”

With the arrival of Ms. Greenbaum, Rex observed an atmosphere of constraint settle upon the guests. Wanda, in particular, made no effort to veil her hostility, staring pointedly at the intruder. She was a woman who wore her emotions on display. Helen, on the other hand, with a barely perceptible tightening of the jaw, confined herself to studying a women's magazine with probably more attention than it deserved. Patrick and Anthony, exchanging a glance of complicity as Miriam crossed to a vacant sofa, took up their books in unison.

She appeared not to notice the sudden cessation of chatter. Pus.h.i.+ng her gla.s.ses up her nose, she pulled a ma.n.u.script from a box file and became engrossed in its contents, from time to time scratching annotations in the margin with a blue pen.

”Does anyone know where the name Swanmere comes from?” Rex asked his neighbors, after a few minutes of awkward silence.

”Mere means 'pond', doesn't it?” Wanda said, stretching her elegantly slippered feet toward the fire. ”There's a big pond down by the village. It's frozen up now, but there are swans there.”

”I'd like to sketch it,” Patrick said wistfully. ”Swans are such graceful creatures.”