Death as a Last Resort (22 page)

“Come on then, I'm starved. Let's go!”

Their table for two, which was set in an alcove beside a large uncurtained window, also overlooked the cove. Maggie ordered poached salmon and Nat a large, rare steak. While they waited for the meal to arrive, she sipped on a glass of white wine while Nat, as usual, had a beer. The food was worth the wait, as both the salmon and steak were excellent. After their plates had been taken away, Maggie sat back in her chair and contemplated the dessert menu.

“Crème brûlé sounds delightful.”

“Hello!” Stella Edgeworthy stood looking incredulously down at them. “I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw you two. What on earth are you doing here?”

“You told Maggie how picturesque the area was,” Nat answered as he neatly folded his table napkin, “so we decided to steal a weekend away. But what a surprise to see you here, too. Are you on your own?”

“No. Robert is over there.” She pointed to a table on the other side of the room. “And Arnold Schaefer is here, too,” she added. “We've got adjoining cabins.” She indicated the cabins to the right of the lodge.

“Surprised we didn't see you on the ferry,” Maggie said, waving at an obviously displeased Robert Edgeworthy. “But I noticed that most of the passengers stay in their cars, anyway.”

“We only got here about half an hour ago,” Stella explained. She looked over to where her husband was beckoning to her. “Must go. Arnold has arrived.”

Maggie turned and gave another wave to Schaefer as Stella departed.

“And now they know we're here,” Nat said, grinning. He beckoned to the waiter.

“Two coffees and a crème brûlé for the lady.”

The moon had risen by the time they finished eating, and where earlier there had been a path of gold across the water, the cove now shimmered in ghostly silver. The temperature had dropped, and Maggie shivered as she stood in front of the bedroom window and gazed across at a small island that was showing pinpricks of light. “That could almost be the island where I was imprisoned.”

Nat slid his arms around her. “It seems a long time ago,” he said. “Your very first case with the agency.” He turned her around to face the bed and Oscar, who was thumping his tail on his blanket. “Why don't you get ready for bed and I'll take our friend Oscar here for his walk.”

Maggie reached up to give Nat a kiss. “You're a very nice man, Mr. Southby.”

• • •

“I WONDER IF THEY'RE all here now?” Maggie leaned across the breakfast table to pour Nat some more coffee from the carafe the waiter had left for them. “Stella's bound to have warned them of our arrival.”

Nat grinned. “And they are now speculating on
why
we're here. I think our first task is to find out where each of them is staying.”

“Well, we know that the Edgeworthys and Arnold Schaefer are in the big cabins by the water, so it shouldn't take much work to find the others.” She poured coffee for herself. “I guess it will mean another long walk for Oscar.” She looked at her watch. “Let's give them a bit of time to be up and about. Of course,” she added, “we could just ask at the desk.”

As it happened, they didn't have to do either, because Stella appeared again as they were about to get up from the table.

“You certainly surprised a lot of people by turning up here last night,” she greeted them.

“Are there more of your crowd here besides Mr. Schaefer?” Nat asked as he signed the chit.

“I thought there was only going to be him and us, but everyone else that was here at New Year's has come, too.” She gave a shudder. “I think it's kinda of ghoulish. I certainly wasn't that keen on coming back . . .” She stopped, realizing that perhaps she was saying too much.

“Are you all staying in the cabins?” Maggie asked.

“The Smiths are next to Arnold, and the Bakhashes are in the next one with the Grossos.” She paused to look abstractedly out of the window. “Their wives are sisters, you know.”

“So we understand,” Nat answered. “Liam Mahaffy was here at New Year's, too, wasn't he?”

“Yes. He's driving up later this afternoon.” She turned toward the dining room door. “Better be off. Just came over to the dining room get some coffee for breakfast.” She waved the carafe she was holding and was gone.

“You may not agree with me, Nat,” Maggie said later as they were getting ready for their walk with Oscar, “but she's either a good actress or she really doesn't know what's going on with that crowd.” She bent to clip on Oscar's leash, then picked up the small area map she'd discovered in their room. “Let's go and explore this little lake. It's called Hotel Lake, for some reason.”

“Perhaps there's a hotel on it.”

“I hope those clouds don't mean rain,” Maggie commented as they started up the steep driveway that led to the road above the resort. There was no hotel at the lake—only a small cabin—and from there they walked down the hill to Irving's Landing. They had barely made it back to the lake before the rain started in earnest and they had to hightail it back to the resort.

“Shame we didn't have time to hike up that hill overlooking the lake,” Nat commented with a grin as they changed from their wet clothes.

“You mean you're
glad
we didn't have time to explore it,” she answered as she began towelling her wet hair. “Hills aren't your thing.”

Lunch was ready when they descended to the dining room, and they were soon seated at their table and eating bowls of a wonderful seafood chowder.

“This is the life,” Maggie breathed as she took another heavenly spoonful. She looked up suddenly. “That sounds like a floatplane coming in.” She peered through the rain. “I wouldn't fancy flying in this weather.”

Nat laughed. “The weather has to be really bad to stop those pilots.”

They watched the plane circle the small cove before gently touching down and taxiing to the end of the dock. A few minutes later, a bundled-up, suitcase-laden figure emerged and began to stagger up the floating walkway that bobbed up and down in the swell. Once on stable land, the man made a beeline for the covered-in veranda.

“Another guest?” Maggie asked the waiter as he removed their plates.

“No, that's our Mr. Gunter,” he said, and then in response to her inquiring look, he added, “One of the owners.”

“We'll take our coffee in the lounge,” Nat said as they rose from their table.

“Very good, sir. There's a nice fire going in there. Good afternoon, Mr. Gunter,” he said, turning to the late arrival entering the dining room.

“Afternoon, Joe. Weather's sure turning nasty.” Gunter looked around the room. “Bring me some hot soup and coffee at Mr. Edgeworthy's table.”

Nat, holding the door open for Maggie, managed a quick glance to where Gunter was greeting Robert Edgeworthy.“What's the betting he's going to try to get Edgeworthy's Real Estate to take over from Maurice Dubois to sell the lots?” he whispered to Maggie.

“Could be.”

• • •

THE LOUNGE HELD AN assortment of cretonne-covered sofas and armchairs that had seen better days. An old piano stood against one wall, and a row of French doors, half covered by faded red velvet curtains, opened out onto the veranda. Maggie led the way to the sofa that was closest to the cheery fire.

“Thank you,” she said as the waiter placed coffee on a rattan coffee table. She waited until he had gone before turning and saluting Nat with her cup. “It's going to be very hard going back to cooking my own meals.” She sighed and stretched her legs towards the blaze.

“Did you see the note taped to the door as we came in?” Nat asked.

“Something about the lounge being closed this evening for a private party. What do you bet that it's the motley crew getting together?”

Nat shrugged. “No bets. There's only another dozen or so people here, apart from us.”

“And Stella did say that Mahaffy is driving up sometime this afternoon.”

Nat walked over to the French doors and peered out. “Do you think if I hid out there tonight, I'd hear what's going on?”

“No,” she answered. “The glass in French doors is too thick, and I don't think that gang would oblige you by leaving them open in this weather.” She picked up a magazine and idly leafed through the pages.

He settled behind a discarded newspaper. “Let's see what's going on in the world.” Then he looked at Maggie over the top of the paper. “Our room's right above,” he said, nodding upward. Then he grinned. “Maybe there's a convenient heat register where we would be able to hear.”

Maggie shook her head, laughing. “That only happens in the movies.”

Nat soon abandoned the newspaper to walk over to the French doors again. The wind had gathered a lot more strength and was now ricocheting off the granite bluff and hitting the north side of the lodge so that the old building seemed to shudder.

“Glad we're in the warm,” Maggie observed, placing her magazine back on the coffee table. “There's a pack of cards over there. Fancy getting beaten in a game of Gin?”

Nat beat her five to two.

• • •

AS THE DAY PROGRESED, the storm worsened, and around four o'clock the power went off. The high winds had knocked down both power and telephone lines, one of the staff informed the guests with barely disguised glee, and he added the information that several fallen trees had also blocked the main road. “I guess you're all stranded here,” he said.

Luckily, the lodge used propane gas for most of the heating and cooking, so dinner went ahead as scheduled, and the candles placed on each table gave a romantic atmosphere to the dining room. There was even a certain cosy feeling about being cut off from the outside world, and after lingering for a while over their coffee, they picked up the candles from their table to light their way back to their room.

• • •

“THEY'VE BEEN DOWN THERE talking for a least a half-hour,” Nat fumed later as he bent to read his watch by one of the flickering candles. “We're missing anything useful they may be saying!”

The candles spluttered and wavered as he paced up and down the room. “There's got to be some way to find out what's going on.” He grabbed his raincoat from the closet and headed for the door. “I'm going down the back stairs and around to that veranda.” And he was gone.

Maggie waited fifteen minutes for him to return, and then she, too, reached for her raincoat. When Oscar followed her to the door, she grabbed his leash and clipped it to his collar.

“You're not going out in this storm?” the receptionist asked in surprise.

“My dog doesn't understand weather,” Maggie replied, indicating Oscar, who, with his usual doggy grin, was eagerly pulling her toward the main door.

“No, Oscar,” she said, “we'll take the back way.” She turned to the receptionist. “At least I can dash back to the shelter of the veranda if it gets too bad.”

“If I were you,” the girl answered, “I'd stay under the shelter and just let him run off and do his thing.”

“Good idea. Come on, Oscar, this way,” and she led him down the narrow corridor to the entrance on the waterfront side of the lodge. She eventually won the tug-of-war with the wind and managed to open the door onto the veranda. “Nat!” she called softly. But apart from the old wicker armchairs and rockers, the deck was completely empty. She bent and unclipped Oscar's leash. “Now don't wander off too far,” she admonished before she left the veranda to check around the far side of the lodge. When she heard Oscar barking back on the waterside of the veranda, she turned and ran back the way she had come. But just as she passed the last of the bank of French doors, it was opened outward with such force that she was sure all the occupants in the room heard her gasp in surprise.

“What the hell did ya open that blasted door for?” someone yelled from inside the room.

“I cannot breathe with all this smoke!” Maggie realized by the accent that it must have been one of the Egyptian sisters who had opened the door.

Maggie allowed her thumping heart to quieten before she risked taking her flashlight out of her pocket and going to the far end of the veranda, where she could lean out over the rail. “Oscar! Oscar!” she called, sweeping the small beam up and down. When there was no sign of him, she turned back. “Oh, no!” She froze in her tracks. The dog was standing in the doorway to the lounge. “Oscar, come here.” The whispered order was blown away by the wind. “Oscar!” she called louder.

The dog, totally unaware of Maggie, poked his nose between the billowing velvet curtains covering the doorway. Then, before Maggie could take a step closer to grab him, Oscar, his tail still wagging furiously, pushed all the way into the room.

“Get that bloody dog out of here!” Schaefer yelled.

“It belongs to that Spencer woman,” Rosie Smith shouted. “Git! Go on, you nasty thing, git!”

Maggie raced back to the corner of the building. “Oscar, Oscar!” she called out toward the water as loud as she could. “Oscar! Where are you?”

She heard him give a yelp before he came hurtling out onto the veranda. He was followed by Henry Smith, who peered right and left into the darkness before spotting Maggie.

“I'm so sorry,” she said, grabbing hold of Oscar's collar. “He got away from me.”

“Keep yer mutt on his bleeding leash,” he snarled before returning to the room and slamming the door shut.

“The same to you,” she muttered, bending to attach the leash. “Now see what you've done, Oscar? I won't be able to hear what they're saying.”

“What the hell's going on?” The beam from Nat's flashlight played over her as she straightened.

“And where the hell have you been?” she shot back.

“Snooping around the cabins while everyone's fully occupied in there.”