The Package Included Murder (12 page)

‘Is he?' The Hon. Con's eyes bulged enviously.

‘Yes,' – Roger Frossell dismissed his uncle's extremely generous gesture with a careless wave of the hand – ‘he wanted to give my mother a bit of a break and choosing Russia was his way of bribing me to go with her. I am not,' he added loftily, ‘in the habit of holidaying with my mother.'

‘Young prig!' The Hon. Con might have expressed herself at greater length if she hadn't leaned back and accidently rested her elbow on the handle which jutted out of the cistern. Roger Frossell experienced a moment of sheer joy as he anticipated the upheaval … but, no! Soviet loos aren't built to flush as easily as that. There was a great deal of clanking and gurgling, but that was all. The Hon. Con, still doggedly chewing over her problems, remained undisturbed on her throne. ‘Ungrateful, too,' she commented, just as though nothing had happened. Which, when you came to think about it, hadn't.

Roger Frossell realised that the Hon. Con was still regarding him with a jaundiced eye and, being quite a bright boy, hunted around for something with which to divert the old girl's attention. Another suspect, perhaps? ‘What do you think about Desmond Withenshaw, Miss Morrison-Burke?'

The Hon. Con squinted at her interrogator cautiously. To admit that she hadn't really thought about him at all looked like slacking. ‘Got my eye on him,' she growled. Curiosity overcame pride. ‘ Why?'

‘I just thought he was acting in a rather odd way, that's all.' Roger Frossell glanced speculatively at the Hon. Con and wondered just how much guff she would swallow.

‘Oh?'

Roger Frossell was very naughty. ‘Haven't you noticed the way he tries to keep his wife and Miss Clough-Cooper apart? It stands out a mile. I thought everybody would have spotted it.'

The Hon. Con's eyes were like saucers. ‘ Some people can't see further than the ends of their noses.'

‘Good thing you're not like that.'

‘Well, that's my job – keeping the old jeepers-peepers sharp!' The Hon. Con grinned. ‘Still, let's not bother our heads about Mr Withenshaw. It's you we've got to deal with at the moment. I still think you're hiding something.'

Roger Frossell stood up. ‘Look,' he said, ‘I've simply got to be shoving off now.' The Hon. Con's conversational style was catching. ‘Dashed sorry and all that, but my dear old mater will be rasing Cain if I'm absent without leave much longer.'

‘Tell me what you're hiding first!'

Roger Frossell grimaced. The Hon. Con's resemblance to a bulldog was not merely facial, it seemed. ‘ I am not hiding anything, Miss Morrison-Burke.'

‘Oh, yes, you are!'

‘Oh, no I'm not!'

‘You are!'

‘No!'

‘Yes!'

There is no knowing how long this intellectual debate might not have lasted if Roger Frossell hadn't picked on the only way he could think of to take the wind out of the Hon. Con's sails and shut her up. He suppressed another yawn and placed his finger on his lips.

The Hon. Con frowned. ‘What's up?'

Roger Frossell rolled his eyes.

The Hon. Con's frown deepened. ‘ You sickening for something, laddie?'

Roger Frossell cupped his hands round his mouth. ‘Walls,' he hissed, ‘have ears!'

‘Eh?' The Hon. Con caught on quite quickly. It was, perhaps, an occupational hazard for visitors to the Soviet Union which she should have thought of for herself. ‘In here?' she asked uncertainly.

Roger Frossell's face expressed acute horror. ‘Haven't you checked? Look, I think we'd better postpone our conversation until tomorrow, don't you? When we can talk
out in the open air!
' He didn't wait for an argument but shot out of the bathroom, leaving the Hon. Con to make her exit at a more sedate speed.

Miss Jones, sitting bolt upright on the only uneasy chair in the room, winced pathetically as Roger Frossell slammed the bedroom door behind him. She was, of course, fully dressed and had, as a matter of fact, been listening at the key-hole until just before the two-some broke up.

‘Think we may be on to something, Bones,' said the Hon. Con, beginning untantalisingly to undo the buttons of her shirt.

Miss Jones leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. ‘Really, dear?'

The Hon. Con peered through the folds of her shirt. ‘Where's Penny Clough-Cooper?'

‘Oh, she went back to her own room hours ago, dear.'

‘Damn it all, Bones,' – the Hon. Con dragged the shirt back on again – ‘you were supposed to be standing guard over her!'

The shrug of Miss Jones's shoulders was barely visible. ‘I couldn't stop her, dear. I offered to go and sit with her in her room, but she wouldn't have that, either. She said she'd lock her door and that she'd be perfectly all right.'

‘Like she was in Alma Ata, I suppose?' retorted the Hon. Con crossly. ‘You should have come and told me, Bones!'

‘You said you weren't to be disturbed, dear.'

The Hon. Con thought about this for a minute or two and then sat down and began unlacing her chukka boots. ‘I don't mind people being brave,' she pointed out, ‘ but I do object to 'em being foolhardy.'

Miss Jones contented herself with compressing her lips into an even thinner straight line.

‘I'd go and tell her so, too,' boasted the Hon. Con, ‘if I didn't think the poor lass would probably already be in the arms of Morpheus. Not much point in trying to get her to spend the night in here now.'

The Hon. Con had uttered this last remark in a sort of growling aside but it proved clear enough to bring the tears to Miss Jones's eyes. ‘Spend the night in here?' she repeated stupidly.

‘Hm,' said the Hon. Con, chucking her rolled up socks to land on the dressing-table, and missing. ‘Thought you wouldn't mind kipping in her room for a night or two, just while I sort things out.' She hurried to point out the undoubted advantage of this arrangement. ‘Means you'd be able to have a single room without paying the supplement.'

‘And you thought I wouldn't mind?' queried Miss Jones bitterly, forgetting all about the headache she was going to have. ‘ Well, why on earth should I mind, dear?' She jumped to her feet and plucked distractedly at her lamb's wool cardigan. ‘Even if the murderer struck again and killed me by mistake, at least Miss Clough-Cooper would be safe and sound, wouldn't she? And that appears to be all that matters!' Miss Jones snatched up her nightdress from the bed and the sudden gesture had the Hon. Con ducking instinctively.

‘Steady on, old trout!' implored the Hon. Con.

Miss Jones's trembling lip curled scornfully and she flounced off towards the bathroom. The Hon. Con realised what was about to happen and hunched

her shoulders up round her ears.
Miss Jones obliged and closed the bathroom door with a firmness

that shook the entire hotel to its foundations.

Luckily, a good night's sleep did wonders for everbody's temper and, when the new day dawned, the Hon. Con was relieved to open her eyes on the view of Miss Jones, happily slaving away at the packing.

The Hon. Con sank back to wallow in the luxury of another ten minutes in bed. ‘We seem to be living in suitcases these days,' she remarked chattily, well aware of how a few kind words can maintain the morale of the troops. ‘We no sooner arrive somewhere than we have to pack up and move on somewhere else.'

Miss Jones continued with her smoothing and folding. ‘I'm afraid that's the price we have to pay for sight-seeing, dear.'

‘True, true,' agreed the Hon. Con, fearful that Budleigh Salterton was about to raise its ugly head again. ‘Where's our next port of call?'

‘Somewhere called Sukhumi, dear.'

The Hon. Con had long since got over her surprise at the places Albatross Travel took them to. ‘And what's Sukhumi, when it's at home?'

It was one of Miss Jones's duties to read the guide-books. ‘ It's a seaside town, dear. The Black Sea, of course. The itinerary promises us a couple of days lazing on the beach in the sun.'

The Hon. Con began her early morning, loosening-up exercises. ‘Don't suppose there'll be much rest for
me
!' she grunted.

Miss Jones got to her feet. ‘I suppose we ought to be going down to breakfast, dear. We've got to be ready to leave in less than three-quarters of an hour and you know it isn't good for you to bolt your food.'

It was a longish flight from Bukhara to Sukhumi, right across the Caspian Sea and the whole of Transcaucasia. The Hon. Con had been fully determined not to waste the time but she had reckoned without her fellow travellers. To a man they slept the sleep of the just and the utterly exhausted. As the Aeroflot plane roared through the blue sky, the Hon. Con stared round at the somnolent forms. Even Miss Jones was snuggled down in the seat beside her. Oh, well, though the Hon. Con with noteworthy equanimity, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. She closed her eyes and let her mouth drop open.

The treadmill started again as soon as they landed. It was oppressively hot in Sukhumi and the Albatrossers filed wearily across the soggy tarmac into the waiting room which, once again, was specially unlocked for them. This time, though, there was no waiting around. They had barely flopped down before they were rousted out again and herded back into that shimmering furnace. Their guide, seemingly unaffected by the heat, was young, enthusiastic and energetic. She wasn't a bad looker, either, in spite of a rather pronounced Georgian nose, but even those well-known lechers – the Lewcock brothers – were too bushed to raise so much as a wolf whistle between them.

The Albatrossers' confident expectation of a couple of days' peace and quiet in Sukhumi was soon shattered. Their Intourist guide wanted to get her free English lesson as much as anybody else. She was called Tatiana and gleefully outlined their programme over the minibus loudspeaker system. There wasn't going to be a dull moment. The Sukhumi Intourist Bureau wasn't completely heartless, though. The Albatrossers could have a whole hour for unpacking and settling in their hotel.

‘If,' observed the Hon. Con, staring bleary-eyed at the sparkling waters of the Black Sea, ‘somebody was writing a flipping book about this investigation of mine, they'd jolly well have to call it ‘‘Detection under Difficulties''.' She'd been thinking this out for some time and was disgruntled that she hadn't been able to come up with a snappier title.

Miss Jones came bustling out of the bathroom and generously spared a moment to wonder at the Hon. Con's imaginative powers. Somebody writing a book about her, indeed! Miss Jones brought the conversation back to earth with a bang. ‘I'm afraid that tap's still dripping, dear. Don't you think we'd better tell them about it when we go downstairs? And what on earth is that you've got stuck on your face-cloth?' She sank on her knees beside yet another suitcase.

‘I dunno,' muttered the Hon. Con without interest. She wondered whether it was worthwhile getting her tool kit out again and having another go at that blessed tap. ‘Oh, heck,' she grumbled, ‘I thought it was going to be nice and cool down here by the sea.'

Miss Jones seemed unaffected by the heat. ‘Somebody was saying it would be cool up at this lake we're going to see sometime. Mr Withenshaw, I think. He's usually the one who's read everything up, isn't he? It's up in the mountains, apparently.'

The Hon. Con rested her chin on folded hands. ‘What do you make of this Withenshaw chappie, Bones?'

‘In what way, dear?'

The Hon. Con hunched her shoulders. She knew better than to say ‘ as a murder suspect'. Miss Jones tended to panic if she was asked to put a noose, more or less, round somebody's neck. ‘Oh, just as a man, don't you know.'

It was fortunate that the Hon. Con was still gazing out of the window, because Miss Jones suddenly went a bright pink. All over. She hid her confusion as best she could by burrowing even deeper into the suitcase. ‘He seems quite nice, dear.'

If the Hon. Con hadn't been so cheesed off, she might have taken umbrage at such a wishy-washy, sitting-on-the-blooming-fence type of answer. As it was, she contended herself with a routine moan. ‘Must you always look on the bright side, Bones?'

Miss Jones sat back on her heels and let herself drift away into the romantic myths of her youth. Black tents, sand, waiting camels, a hot wind blowing off the desert, hairy chests and muscular arms. She sighed. ‘And passionately jealous!' she said aloud.

The Hon. Con turned away from the window. ‘Jealous? Withensaw?'

‘No-one,' throbbed Miss Jones, rocking herself hypnotically to and fro, ‘would ever be allowed to come between him and the woman of his desires.'

‘Oh, don't be so wet, Bones!' said the Hon. Con impatiently before returning to her contemplation of the great outdoors. ‘Tell you why I was asking. Young Roger Frossell reckons Withenshaw is trying to keep his wife and Penny Clough-Cooper apart for some reason.'

Miss Jones's dreams of Araby dispersed as the Clough-Cooper woman's name dropped into the conversation yet again. ‘Well, why shouldn't he?'

The Hon. Con didn't know. ‘I was just wondering if you'd noticed anything out of the ordinary. I've got to take account of the least little thing that might be suspicious.'

Miss Jones took the Hon. Con's other pair of brogues out of their plastic travelling bag (one had to let the leather breathe) and placed them tidily on the floor of the wardrobe. The door squeaked unbearably as she closed it.

‘Have to give that a drop of the old oil,' said the Hon. Con who was well equipped to deal with all emergencies.

Miss Jones came over to the window. ‘If,' she said with ill-concealed malice, ‘you had told me that Mrs Withenshaw was making every effort to keep her husband and Miss Clough-Cooper apart, I wouldn't have been surprised in the least little bit. That woman, Constance, is a man-eater, if I ever saw one!'