Christmas is Murder (5 page)

“Aye, but from what I hear Mrs. Smithings won’t have it in the house. No doubt she sees it as a health hazard.”

“I should think the almond tarts are more of a hazard,” Anthony quipped, presiding at the head of the table.

“Mrs. Smithings should have turned this place into a boarding school,” Ms. Greenbaum remarked. “There are more rules and regulations at Swanmere Manor than in a sorority house.”

Rex chuckled. “Aye, she’s already made me feel like an ill-favoured schoolboy on occasion.”

“What sort of dog is it?” Helen asked.

“A Jack Russell terrier, I believe. He’s a bonny wee thing.”

Miriam Greenbaum grabbed a bread roll. “Well, the old harridan can’t very well turn him out into the snow. And the cellar’s no better. It must be icy cold down there.”

The guests heatedly debated what to do about the dog while Rosie filled the water glasses.

“So what’s on the menu tonight, Rosie,” Anthony inquired. “I brought up red and white wine from the cellar.”

“Oh, you should have sent Clifford down for it,” Rosie said.

“The cellar steps are steep and badly lit. It’s too dangerous for an old fellow like Clifford.” Anthony looked around for him, but he had already left the room.

Sandy Bellows, beaming in a starched white apron, brought in a silver tureen wafting wreaths of steam, and set it down on the table. The soup’s surface was swirled with cream and sprinkled with fresh parsley. The guests immediately launched into a volley of speculations as to what sort of soup it might be.

“Smells deliciously like curry,” Patrick said.

The cook began ladling it into bowls. “It’s Mulligatawny, which means ‘pepper water’ in Indian. Just the ticket for a cold winter’s night.”

“This claret is corked,” Anthony announced testily. “I’ll have to run down to the cellar and get another bottle.”

“Anthony is our self-appointed sommelier,” Patrick explained to Rex as his partner left the room. “Mrs. Smithings is teetotal and knows nothing about wine. When Anthony discovered yesterday that the late Colonel kept a respectable cellar, he suggested we drink some of it before it goes bad. Mrs. Smithings is only charging twelve pounds a bottle.”

“Thank goodness for Anthony,” Miriam Greenbaum chimed in. “I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m ready for some booze. The sherry didn’t even begin to tickle the spot.”

Wanda and Helen concurred wholeheartedly. Mrs. Bellows removed the tureen from the table and entreated the guests to enjoy their soup.

“I’ll go with Anthony and rescue that poor dog,” Miriam declared, getting up from her chair.

“Oh, yes, do,” Helen said. “Shall I come with you?”

“No, I’ll manage. Go ahead and start without us.”

Recalling the cyanide in the tart, Rex tentatively dipped his spoon in his soup and eyed Patrick, Wanda, and Helen to see if they were hesitant to taste theirs. They all attacked the Mulligatawny with gusto, but before Helen could put her spoon to her lips, her cell phone rang.

“Blast,” she said, extracting it from her cardigan pocket and checking the display. “Oh, it’s Pauline. Excuse me while I take this call,” she told her dinner companions as she rose from the table. “Pauline? How are you, dear?” Her voice trailed off as she left the room.

“That’s one of her special cases at the school where she counsels,” Wanda explained. “Pauline is from a broken home and has serious substance-abuse problems. But she’s a promising student and Helen has taken her under her wing.”

“Helen seems like a very nice person,” Patrick commented, mopping up the soup with his bread.

“Yes, she is. And she has really helped me through my divorce. She’s a wonderful listener. I can’t imagine this is much of a holiday for her.”

Rex risked some of the soup himself. “Aye, ’tis spicy, right enough.” Feeling his lips start a slow burn, he reached for his water glass.

“Fantastic for clearing the sinuses,” Patrick said, taking a hanky from his pocket and blowing his nose. “I must get the recipe from old Bellows. Well, hello, you lovebirds. Deigning to join us at last?”

The honeymooners sheepishly took their places across from Rex. “Where are the others?” Charley asked.

“Anthony went to fetch some wine, Miriam left to rescue Rex’s dog, and Helen had to take an important call,” Patrick summarized.

“You have a dog?” Yvette asked Rex.

Before Rex could answer, Anthony burst into the dining room. “Oh, God! Oh, God! Miriam had a bad fall. I think she broke her neck!” he cried.

The table jostled with a rattle of china as the guests rose in haste. Rex bade Charley go with him and everyone else stay. Helen stepped into the dining room just as Rex and Charley were leaving. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“It’s the American woman …” Charley blurted, rushing past her.

Rex heard Helen’s gasp but did not stop. Anthony followed the two men into the deserted kitchen. On the pine table, Rex noticed the soup tureen and the pair of candlesticks that Clifford had been polishing in the scullery that afternoon.

“Careful,” Anthony said when Rex approached the cellar. “There’s ice melting on the steps. Looks like she might have slipped on it.”

Rex sidestepped the ice and gingerly made his way to the bottom with one hand on the wall, Charley behind him carrying a lit candlestick. Miriam Greenbaum’s body lay face first at the bottom of the stone steps, her neck twisted to the side, the thick-rimmed glasses askew beside her.

Charley placed the candlestick on the flagstone floor and felt for a pulse. “She’s a gonner,” he murmured. “Just like poor old Lawdry. And look here. She couldn’t have got this contusion on the back of her neck from falling headlong.”

Rex studied the red welt. “We’ll have to leave the body here exactly as we found it.” He looked around the musty cellar, bare except for broken garden furniture, a stack of chopped wood, and racks of wine. Finding a rock that had crumbled from the chalkstone wall, he outlined the deceased’s body as a precaution. He wanted it left unmoved until the authorities arrived.

Anthony was waiting, ashen-faced, at the door to the cellar.

“Where were you when she fell?” Rex asked him as he reached the top of the steps.

“I was looking through the wine down there, checking the labels for another bottle of claret. My back was turned.”

“It’s dark in the cellar. How could you see what you were doing?”

“I had the candlestick with me. The one Charley’s holding. Suddenly I heard a startled scream and turned around just in time to see Miriam land at the bottom of the steps. When I got to her, her eyes were—just staring.”

“Did you touch her?”

“I turned her chin toward me so I could see her face. I wish I’d been nicer to her. She wasn’t such a bad sort, really.”

Rex looked around as he closed the cellar door. “Where’s the dog?”

“Never saw him.”

“Was anyone in the kitchen?”

“No, but I passed Mrs. Bellows in the corridor.”

Rex turned to Charley. “Put that candlestick on the table and don’t let anyone touch it, or the other one for that matter. And keep an eye on the staff when they reappear. Where
is
everybody?”

He crossed the kitchen to the scullery where he found the puppy curled up on a blanket on the floor, fast asleep. The rest of the room crouched in darkness. Flicking on the light switch, he found Clifford cowering by the umbrellas, a terrified look in his beady eyes.

“Ar, ’twas me,” the old man mumbled, backing into the raincoats. “Don’ tell her. She’ll turn me out o’ the lodge.”

“What are you hiding?” Rex asked, grabbing the man’s shoulder and spinning him around.

The old man clutched an empty decanter of sherry. “Don’ tell her! An’ I won’ tell ’bout yer dog!”

The scent of sherry on Clifford’s breath made Rex take a step back. “How long have you been in here?”

“Eh took the wood down the cellar. Then eh seed the sherry an’ thought ’ow even she couldn’t grudge me some at Christmastime and me ’ands so painful from the cold.”

“Who was in the kitchen?”

“Don’ rightly remember.” Clifford’s eyes took on a glassy sheen.

Rex held him steady. “Try.”

“Her was there, an’ Rosie an’ Cook, thas right, cos they was all complainin’ about me trackin’ ice in on me boots. Only Cook was around when eh come back. She was at the stove wi’ her back turned so eh wus able to sneak the dog an’ the sherry past her.”

“Did you hear anything afterwards?”

“I ’eard voices.”

“A man’s voice, woman’s voice … ?”

“An American voice.”

“How did she sound?”

“Cross.”

“What else?”

“Eh be deaf an’ the wind be rattlin’ the panes and that, so eh didn’t hear much else, ’cept fer a thud.” Clifford considered a moment, screwing up his eyes with the effort of concentration. “A dull sound like a rollin’ pin hittin’ pastry. Be ye gwene to tell her?”

“Tell Mrs. Smithings about the sherry? No, but keep an eye on the dog.”

When Rex re-entered the kitchen, the other members of the staff were assembled around the table with Charley. Upon questioning them as to whether anybody had touched the candlesticks since Clifford polished them and receiving three answers in the negative, Rex sighed heavily, and said, “So we have another death in the house.”

Rosie gazed at him wide-eyed. “I was in the drawing room collecting the cups and saucers and when I got back here, the American guest had fallen down the cellar steps!”

“And, Mrs. Bellows, where were you when all this was going on?”

“Powdering my nose down the hall.”

“And I was upstairs,” Dahlia Smithings exclaimed. “Those steps are dangerous. I warned Mr. Smart, but he fancies himself as a wine connoisseur and will go rummaging in the cellar. At least he is fit and agile. The Greenbaum woman should have had more sense. I heard she was going after a dog! Now we have another mishap on our hands.”

“I think it was more than a mishap,” Rex said, fishing Ms. Greenbaum’s goopy BlackBerry out of the soup tureen. “Why on earth would she have dropped this in the Mulligatawny? No, two deaths in two days are too much of a coincidence for me.”

Two deaths in a
row. What on earth was going on, Rex wondered, and why the devil did they have to coincide with his trip? Deploring his luck, he made a detour into the drawing room to see if he could find a contact in New York to whom he might convey news of Ms. Greenbaum’s death. He remembered seeing an address label for the literary agency on the title page of the manuscript she was working on. However, the box file on the sofa turned out to be empty, except for a blue pen and a key for room number eight.

Slipping upstairs, he found neither the manuscript nor a hard-copy address book in her room. Any data stored on her BlackBerry would have been destroyed when it fell in the soup. The biography of President Bush had to be somewhere. Had Miriam Greenbaum even come upstairs before dinner? Rex had been discussing swans with the other guests … No, he was sure she had not left the drawing room before Rosie summoned them into dinner. So where was the manuscript?

By the time he returned to the dining room, the soup plates had been cleared, and a stunned silence prevailed. The manuscript was not here either, and in any case, he didn’t recall Miriam bringing it in to dinner.

“What’s the verdict, Counsel?” Patrick asked. “Accident or foul play?”

“It appears Ms. Greenbaum received a blow to the neck, as you’ve no doubt all heard by now, and suspiciously enough, her e-mailing device was all but submerged in the soup tureen in the kitchen.”

“Whatever was it doing in there?” Yvette asked.

“Good question. Unless someone didn’t want it going off and giving away her location in the cellar.”

“But we all knew she was going down there,” Wanda pointed out.

“Aye, we at table knew.”

“Getting rid of the BlackBerry might have been a wasted precaution,” Helen said. “I lost my call and couldn’t get a signal anywhere in the house.”

“Did you by any chance go into the kitchen?”

“I wandered down that way but I didn’t actually go in.”

“Did you see anyone?”

“I can’t recall. I was desperately trying to get Pauline back. She would only phone in an emergency, otherwise she’d leave a text message. She has an abusive stepdad. Oh, I hope nothing happened to her.” Helen twisted her napkin compulsively. “I went to the foyer to use the hotel phone, but the line must be down with all the snow. Then I went to tell Mrs. Smithings, but she wasn’t in her office or in the drawing room.”

Rex drew a quick map in his head. The only way to the kitchen was along the hall past the drawing room and dining room, unless you went outside and around the house to the scullery door, which would be almost impossible with all the fresh snow. Still, he decided to check. “Hang on,” he said, rising from his chair. “I’ll be right back.”

He hurried across the foyer to the front door. Upon opening it, a blast of chill air hit his face. The snow beyond the steps lay undisturbed—no one had used that door. Down the driveway, as though through a snow globe, he could just make out the tiny red brick gatehouse with its built-out bay window and flint-walled garden.

Pondering events, he closed the door. If everyone were to be believed, no one saw Miriam enter the kitchen. Clifford had gone back to the scullery. Anthony was in the cellar, Sandy Bellows in the powder room, and Mrs. Smithings upstairs. Rosie was clearing up in the drawing room and Helen was wandering about downstairs with her phone.

“What did you do next?” he asked Helen when he returned to the table.

“I tried to get a signal from the drawing room. I asked Rosie where Mrs. Smithings had gone, and she said upstairs as she was complaining of a headache and needed to lie down.”

“What was Rosie doing in the drawing room?”

“She was tidying up. She said she would be in shortly to serve the main course. I lingered awhile as there was a big blaze in the fireplace. It was nice and warm, unlike in here.” Helen rubbed her arms. “It’s a bit chilly, isn’t it?”

The others agreed.

“Was Rosie with you the whole time?”

“Yes.”

At that moment, Mrs. Smithings entered, looking even paler than usual.

“How is your headache, Mrs. Smithings?” Rex asked.

“Oh, that. Well, I had rather forgotten about it under the circumstances. Mrs. Bellows is ready to serve the Dover sole if anyone still has an appetite.”

“Aye, let’s not let good food go to waste.” Rex had not eaten much at tea and had missed lunch altogether.

Charley appeared with the candlesticks, holding each by the base. “I wasn’t sure how long you wanted me to babysit these,” he told Rex, “so I took the liberty of bringing them in.”

“Put them down on the sideboard where I can keep an eye on them, Charley.”

“And what do you propose doing with those candlesticks?” Mrs. Smithings demanded.

“I’ll dust them for prints after dinner. One of them may have been used for the murder of Miriam Greenbaum.”

“Why do you think that?” Wanda asked, her eyes round with ghoulish excitement.

“Because the candlesticks were standing next to the tureen on the kitchen table. It’s possible that the person who struck Miriam picked up the BlackBerry after Miriam dropped it, and then threw it into the soup when he or she was replacing the candlestick on the table. I’ll need talcum powder and clear tape.”

“I have some Yardley rose-scented talc in my room,” Yvette offered. “Will that do?”

“That will do grand, lass.”

A discussion about forensics ensued as Mrs. Smithings removed Ms. Greenbaum’s place setting and chair. The cook prepared the plates at the heating trays on the oak sideboard, and Rosie served the guests. No one but Charley appeared to notice the dog bolt through the door and burrow beneath the tablecloth at Rex’s feet, panting and drooling as it thumped its tail on the rug. Staying Yvette’s arm before she could put her fork to her lips, the medic surreptitiously offered the dog a piece of fish from his plate, and this went down a treat.

“I’m not sure how I feel about us using the poor wee animal as a dog taster,” Rex murmured, dropping some of his own fish on a saucer and placing it on the floor, “but it’s no a bad idea at that.”

His Dover sole having passed the test, Rex plunged his fork into the cream and mushroom sauce. Clifford, hiccupping, stumbled into the room and placed a log on the fire.

“That’s much better,” Helen approved.

Conversation turned to the snow and to when the phones might become operable again. Each guest made an effort to affect an air of normalcy. Everyone at the hotel was at present gathered in one room, and Rex looked at each person in turn, wondering who among them was guilty. Supervised by Mrs. Smithings, Rosie and the cook removed the heating trays, and they left.

He continued observing and analyzing through dessert, knowing he would have to launch a full investigation now that the cat was out of the bag. If the innocent had believed the old man died of ill health, their suspicions must now be aroused by Ms. Greenbaum’s demise.

He had to discover the identity of the culprit before someone else was murdered. Rex all but choked on his cheese and biscuits: a third murder?

“A wee bit more of that claret to wash down this delicious cheddar,” he said to Anthony. He had watched Smart uncork the bottle and was sure the wine wasn’t contaminated.

Helen smiled beside him, picking at her food. “I admire your appetite.”

“I hope it doesna make me appear insensitive, but eating helps me think. I always have a big breakfast before court.”

Wanda held out her glass for a refill. “I found I was putting on weight from my depression so now I take pills to curb my appetite.”

“You’re practically anorexic!” Yvette observed. “I don’t think you have to worry.”

Wanda preened a bit, and the women departed on a discussion about diets. The mood lifted as the guests were temporarily distracted from the specter of evil haunting the manor. Anthony, revived by food and drink, added his two-pence worth on health food.

When the guests finally left the dining room, seeming reluctant to split up one from the other, Rex remained at table. He gathered up the name cards and grouped those belonging to the persons present in the drawing room at the time of Lawdry’s death. These included all but Yvette and Charley Perkins, who had been upstairs in their suite. He then isolated the cards of those who’d remained at table when Ms. Greenbaum fell to the cellar floor. Only Patrick and Wanda had been with him. These two could not have been directly involved in Miriam’s death.

Rex wished Helen had not taken the phone call and left the room, so he could eliminate her as well.

___

Rex reviewed the timeline according to what he’d been told. When Clifford took the firewood to the cellar, the rest of the staff had been in the kitchen. By the time he returned, only the cook was there. Anthony passed her in the corridor on his way to the kitchen. Ms. Greenbaum arrived thereafter. Helen searched for Mrs. Smithings downstairs and spoke to Rosie in the drawing room. Clifford stayed in the scullery after depositing the wood in the cellar. Rex came to the same conclusion as before: One of them had to be lying.

When he joined the guests in the drawing room with the candlesticks, Rosie was serving coffee. Wanda, Charley, and Yvette sat by one of the tall windows, playing a subdued game of cards. Helen occupied the fourth chair at the card table.

“Want to join us in a game of crazy eights?” Charley asked him.

“I’ll pass, thank you though.”

Helen looked up from her knitting. Even at this distance, Rex noticed the fear in her eyes. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, she must be confronting the stark reality of Ms. Greenbaum’s death. As though reading his thoughts, she said, “It feels strange and empty without Miriam here.”

Charley shuffled the pack and began dealing between the three players.

“I can’t concentrate,” Yvette said, pushing away her five cards as Charley placed the undealt stock face down on the table.

“When are you going to test the candlesticks?” Wanda asked Rex.

“I want everyone here first. Mrs. Bellows is still finishing up in the kitchen.” He accepted a cup of coffee from Rosie and helped himself to two sugar lumps from the black lacquer tray.

Coffee was just what he needed. He was finding it hard to stay awake after taking the overnight Edinburgh to London rail service, traveling ninety minutes from Victoria Station to Eastbourne, and waiting over an hour for a train to Swanmere. Yet, much as he longed to crawl into his bed upstairs, he had two murders to mull over.

“Ring Around the Rosie,” Charley chanted, encircling the girl’s waist with his arm as she approached the card table.

“Watch out, I’ll drop the tray!” Laughing, she refilled his cup. “Would you like some more coffee?” she asked Yvette.

“No, thank you very much,” the newlywed replied with icy dignity, staring furiously at Charley.

“Not for me, thanks, Rosie.” Helen glanced over at Charley. “You’re in high spirits,” she said, knitting needles clicking.

It sounded like a reproach to Rex, though the delivery was neutral enough.

“What’s the point in wallowing in doom and gloom? Like that pair over there,” he added under his breath, just loud enough that Rex heard.

Rex glanced to the other side of the room where Anthony sprawled despondently in his usual armchair by the fire, which had petered out, leaving a mound of cooling ash in the grate.

Rex stepped toward him, careful not to spill his coffee. “You look a wee bit under the weather, Anthony.”

“I’m going to have nightmares tonight. I keep seeing her staring eyes. It’s as though she’s reproaching me.”

“I have something you can take to help you sleep,” Patrick said in soothing tones. “It’s all-natural and quite safe.”

“I’m glad you never saw her,” Anthony told his partner.

“Aye, but the best thing we can do now is find out who did it. Yvette, are you ready with that talcum powder?” Rex gave Rosie instructions as to the other items he needed, including the tray she was holding, which he asked her to clean top and bottom.

Lowering himself onto a tapestry footstool in front of the fire, he asked Anthony to describe the scene at tea the previous afternoon. He thought it might help get Anthony’s mind off Miriam and provide additional information while they waited to see what clues, if any, the candlesticks revealed.