Part 13 (1/2)
”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 Suss.e.x 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 sc.r.a.ps 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 embarra.s.sment 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 G.o.d 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 ma.n.u.script. 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. Wilc.o.x, 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 p.r.o.ne 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.
”h.e.l.lo, 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.”