Walking Into Murder (2 page)

“Your manners are atrocious, Angelina,” she said lazily, her tone unconvincing. Angelina paid no attention. Her small mouth was set in a discontented line that foretold still more loathsome remarks.

Fed up with being ignored, Laura decided to make her presence obvious. She was tired, wet, hungry, dirty and bewildered. The least these people could do was to offer her a bathroom or a hot drink – anything but this perverse silence, as if she didn’t exist.

“I would like to use a bathroom,” she stated, not bothering to think of a polite euphemism. “I have been walking for hours and want to wash my hands at least.”

The two women looked at her for the first time. “Of course,” the white-haired one replied. “I fear we have been inconsiderate. Please take our visitor to the green room, Antonia, and see that she has everything she needs.”

The youth’s eyes widened in alarm. He opened his mouth to speak but closed it again and made a helpless gesture with one hand. Angelina giggled.

Laura turned away from the tableau with relief. She followed Antonia up a wide staircase and past an impressive number of doors. All were closed.

“I think you will find everything you need here,” her escort said as she opened one of the doors. “There is a connecting bathroom to your left.”

“Thank you,” Laura replied, her mood vastly improved by the chance to clean up. She went straight into the bathroom and eyed it appreciatively. The fittings, though old, gleamed with cleaning; so did the tiles that covered both floor and walls. Thick white towels were neatly folded on an elegant drying rack, and when she picked one up it was warm to the touch. This must be one of the many grand old houses that had resorted to taking in tourists to help pay the bills, she mused. Why else the perfectly polished fixtures, the heated towels?

Reveling in the unexpected luxury, Laura treated her wind-whipped face to a soothing cream, removed every trace of cow manure from her hands and combed her rebelliously curly red hair into some semblance of order. She even found a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste in her pack. Now she could face the impeccable grande dame and the gorgeous Antonia without feeling quite so much like a bedraggled refugee.

Her confidence restored, Laura emerged into the bedroom. She couldn’t make out any details in the dim light cast by a single lamp near the door, but she could see that the room was indeed green, as the white-haired woman had stated. A pale green rug covered the floor, the wallpaper had green stripes, a darker green canopy soared over the huge bed and a matching silk coverlet lay on its surface. Laura looked at the bed longingly. It would feel so good to get off her feet for a moment.

Tempted, she took a few steps toward it but stopped abruptly. How odd. Someone was already in the bed, under the coverlet. All that showed was part of the face and an arm. It drooped down one side of the bed, looking oddly lifeless, and the eyes were...

Laura froze, and then she screamed.

CHAPTER TWO

The scream reverberated in the room but Laura heard no answering calls. The doors, she thought helplessly. No one would hear anything through all those closed doors. They wouldn’t hear from downstairs anyway.

Fascinated despite her horror, she glanced again at the woman in the big bed. Her skin had a waxy pallor that made the creamy sheets look bright by comparison, and her slanted green eyes were wide open, staring sightlessly.

Laura shivered. The hand holder had yelled for Cat to come back and this woman had a cat-like look, with her oval green eyes, round cheeks and peaked eyebrows. But if Cat was his missing wife, she seemed to be here, not on the horse.

Footsteps sounded in the hall. Laura ran to the door, aware that her legs were shaking badly. She opened it with a jerk and saw the Englishman. He was no longer carrying the gun. “I say,” he began. “Sorry about all that in the woods. Acted hastily, I fear. Antonia tells me…”

“Please could you come in here?” Laura interrupted through stiff lips.

The Englishman looked surprised but followed her readily into the green room. Laura pointed at the bed.

He stared at the figure under the coverlet, bewildered. “But who is that?” he asked, as if Laura perhaps would know. “And what is she doing there?” He took a step closer. “Good heavens! I think she’s dead! However did she get here dead?” He ran out of the room and Laura heard his footsteps pound down the hall.

She turned to follow him and saw Angelina. The child had come through the door and was inching her way toward the bed. “I think we’ll go out now,” Laura said firmly. Even a rude child shouldn’t come face to face with a dead woman.

“I want to see her,” Angelina insisted, evading Laura’s outstretched arm. She ran over to the bed and peered at the dead woman. A series of expressions passed across her plump face: surprise, consternation, puzzled reflection and finally anger.

“But that’s wrong!” She stamped her foot down hard on the floor. “It’s supposed to be Lottie. I wanted Lottie to be the dead one! Nigel said she would be.”

Her face twisted with fury and she gave the dead arm a vicious poke. Her hand shot back as if scalded. “It’s cold!” she shrieked, and began to wail.

Laura lifted her up and removed her bodily from the room. Angelina kicked and screamed and pounded at her chest with clenched fists. Laura had endured her share of tantrums when her two children were young and held on doggedly until they reached the drawing room. Then, thankfully, she put the child down and rubbed her shins. Was ever a child so ineptly named? Even at birth, it must have been obvious that Angelina had not a shred of angel in her.

Angelina’s screams stopped the instant her feet met the ground. Glaring at Laura, she marched to the middle of the room, as if taking center stage. The white-haired woman and Antonia, whom Laura supposed must be Angelina’s mother, and the youth Nigel watched her warily.

“There’s a dead woman in the green room, a truly dead one,” Angelina announced in a high, shrill voice. “I know because I touched her and she’s cold. And I know who killed her because I saw.” With a dramatic flourish, she turned and pointed a malicious finger at Laura. “She killed her. She did it.”

Laura raised her eyebrows in weary exasperation. “Oh, for goodness sake,” she exclaimed. “Can no one control the silly child?”

Three pairs of eyes turned to stare at her. Laura returned their gaze with dawning horror. She saw none of the half-amused, half-resigned irritation at the child’s monstrous accusation that she had expected in those eyes. Instead, she saw only suspicion.

Laura’s frayed nerves snapped. “This is ridiculous! I know absolutely nothing about that poor woman and I certainly did not kill her. I am an American tourist on a walking trip, and the only reason I am here is that I was virtually kidnapped by two men and brought here.”

Nigel abruptly left the room. The grande dame raised her eyebrows at the last revelation, but she didn’t speak. Laura rushed on, determined to make them understand. “There really is a dead woman in the green room,” she insisted. “The police should be called, and a doctor. After that, I would like to leave. I must also call the people who are supposed to be my hosts tonight so they will not send out a search party.”

The white-haired woman cleared her throat. “Angelina exaggerates. And of course you must leave if you wish. You must forgive us. We did not expect a guest this evening, and we have had an unusually difficult day. We are not normally so rude.” Her eyes shifted to Angelina. “Most of us are not,” she amended. “Nor do we tell tales.”

“But I’m not telling tales!” the child protested indignantly. “There really is a dead woman in the green room,”

Antonia rolled her eyes. “There is not,” she said with irritation. “You know that perfectly well, Angelina. It is only one of Nigel’s games, the mystery ones he’s practicing for. Though why he had to choose the green room without telling us, I cannot imagine,” she added with unexpected malice.

Laura stared at her. That must be what they all thought. No wonder they hadn’t reacted. Maybe they were right and the green-eyed woman was pretending to be dead. She hadn’t gone close enough to the bed to be sure. She didn’t think so, though. The arm had looked lifeless, and Angelina had touched it, felt its coldness.

Antonia’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Actually, we
were
expecting a guest tonight,” she told Laura with a notable lack of enthusiasm. “I am afraid I forgot to tell everyone,” she added, glancing nervously at the older woman. “I had forgotten myself. I was distracted…”

She turned back to Laura. “Could you give us your name?”

“Laura…”

“Laura Smith,” a voice from the door interrupted before Laura could finish. The hand holder, she thought resignedly. She might have known.

For the first time she saw him clearly. He wasn’t conventionally handsome as much as he was attractive. His lanky frame still had a faintly adolescent look, and a lock of hair fell boyishly over his brow. They made him look younger than he probably was, judging from the faint lines around his eyes and the gray in his brown hair. It was still damp and tousled, and she noticed traces of cow muck on his hands. That was a relief. He, at least, wasn’t as perfectly groomed as everyone else in the room.

Antonia frowned. “And you are…?”

“Tom Smith,” said the hand holder, smiling. “Laura’s husband.”

Laura scowled at him, exasperated by his insistence on the silly fabrication, and then she softened. He wasn’t aware yet that his real wife might be lying dead on the bed upstairs. That would come as a terrible shock.

“But I’m not -” she began.

“Now, darling, I know you thought I couldn’t come, but I’ve managed it anyway. Caught up with you finally, isn’t that wonderful?” He grinned at her, but again she saw the pleading look in his eyes.
Don’t desert me now,
he seemed to be saying.

She hesitated. Tom Smith – if that really was his name - might be her only source of help in this eccentric household. He did seem marginally saner than the rest of them. He had also warned her that a life might be at stake, and now there was a dead body.

She wouldn’t expose him just yet, Laura decided, not until she knew more about what was going on – and about him.

She attempted a conciliatory smile. “Your presence is certainly unexpected,” she equivocated.

“The name I was given was Dr. Morland,” Antonia said, frowning at the discrepancy. “Dr. Laura Morland.”

Laura’s head snapped up at the sound of her name. Was she really scheduled to spend the night in this crazy ménage? Probably she was, she realized with a sense of impending doom. The brochure described it as the highlight of the trip, a night in a genuine English manor house complete with turrets and titled occupants and butler – though that amenity had so far been invisible. The owners even gave tours two days a week, she remembered. Maybe wax figures were included. For all she knew, being escorted to the manor at gunpoint was part of the agenda.

“Morland is Laura’s maiden name,” Tom Smith replied glibly before she could speak. “She uses it professionally.” He smiled appealingly at Antonia. “I hope it’s all right that I’ve turned up, Lady Torrington. My wife and I haven’t had much time together recently.”

Laura lost patience. “It is long past time someone called the police and a doctor,” she said firmly, “or at least went to examine the woman in the green room to see if she really is dead.”

Alarm spread suddenly over Tom Smith’s features. He opened his mouth to speak again but Laura forestalled him. “I recall from my notes that the place I am scheduled to stay tonight is called Torrington Manor,” she told Antonia. “It would help if I knew your names,” she added, aware for the first time that none of the occupants of the house had introduced themselves.

“This is Torrington Manor,” Antonia conceded. “I am Lady -”

“Then you
are
supposed to be here,” Angelina interrupted. “I guess you can stay then.” Her tone was grudging.

“Thank you, Angelina,” Laura said coldly. “Now, about the police?”

Tom Smith could contain himself no longer. “What is all this about a dead body?” he demanded. His eyes were accusing now. “You didn’t tell me you found a body.”

“So far, I haven’t had the opportunity,” Laura retorted, annoyed by his tone but gratified that someone was finally taking the situation seriously. “I thought there was a dead woman in the green room, where I went to freshen up,” she explained. “It might be best if you looked at her first to see if she is someone you know,” she added with a warning look.

“She’s really dead!” Angelina informed him. “She’s cold, and her eyes are wide open. They’re green, like a cat’s,” she added with gory relish.

Tom Smith went very pale, and Laura was afraid he was going to faint. “But that’s… that’s impossible,” he stammered.

“Why don’t you come with me and look for yourself?” she offered, gesturing for him to precede her out the door. Instead, he grabbed her hand again and hung on tightly. This time she let him have it. His pallor was alarming.

To her dismay, the others followed as she led him upstairs. She had hoped to get him alone so she could soften the shock if the woman was his wife, but with this crowd on her heels that was impossible. Were all of them as ghoulish as Angelina?

Her dismay increased when she saw Nigel leaning nonchalantly in the doorway of the green room. He sported a Sherlock Holmes hat and a monocle, and held a pipe in one long-fingered hand. The resemblance was remarkable.

Laura was not amused. “Are you aware,” she asked through clenched teeth, “that there may be a dead woman on the bed?”

“Dead woman, you say,” answered Nigel thoughtfully, in a deep, cultivated voice that sounded to Laura exactly as Sherlock Holmes ought to sound. His eyebrows went up a fraction and stayed there. “Indeed! This calls for an investigation.” He held the monocle to one eye and approached the bed, a faintly ironic look on his mobile face.

Laura tried to see past him, but the lights had been dimmed even more and all she could make out was a lump on the bed.

Angelina darted in front of her and pushed Nigel out of the way, eager to be the first to view the body. She stiffened and turned to Laura, perplexed. “But it
is
Lottie this time. She must have got mixed up. Lottie always gets mixed up,” she added petulantly.

“Of course it’s Lottie,” Nigel said impatiently, forgetting his role. “I said it was going to be Lottie, didn’t I?”

“But it wasn’t Lottie before,” Angelina protested. “It was somebody else, and she didn’t look at all like Lottie.”

She turned again to Laura. “It’s not the same one, is it?” she demanded. “Tell Nigel it isn’t! Tell him!”

“Now, Angelina,” her mother reproved. “You know that can’t really be true. Besides, I think it’s time for us to leave. I’ve had enough of this game. It is horrible, macabre.”

Reluctantly, Laura approached the bed, and almost screamed again. She forced the sound back into her throat. Angelina was right. A different woman lay on the bed, a woman with limp blond hair and a long bony face. She bore no resemblance at all to the green-eyed beauty who had been lying there before.