‘I’ll take the wardrobe.’ She pulled on the oversized gloves. But her rummaging was soon done. ‘I thought Hilary had been travelling light but Blunt has barely any extra clothes. So much for the holiday.’ She checked the few items of clothing for hidden pockets. Finding none, she went to check the soles of the stout pair of boots at the bottom of the wardrobe. As she turned them over, a penny coin fell out of each one.
‘What on earth?’ She picked up the coins and showed them to Clifford. ‘Placing a coin in one’s shoes when not wearing them may supposedly bring good luck, but he should have tried pound notes. His luck definitely ran out today.’ She gasped. ‘I say, Clifford, didn’t the rhyme on my wedding photograph say something about pennies in shoes?’
‘Actually, it was sixpence.’ He frowned. ‘And Mr Eden had altered it for some reason. I suggest in this instance, however, that it is most likely a coincidence, and Mr Blunt was, like many, a superstitious gentleman.’
Eleanor placed the coins back in the shoes. ‘Maybe, Clifford, but it seems a—’
She froze at the sound of a man’s voice outside the door. Another man answered. And then silence, until the ding of the lift allowed them to breathe again.
‘My lady, we must move fast. Thomas will be back all too quickly.’
She moved on to peering behind the wardrobe, cricking her neck. ‘Ow! That doesn’t say much for housekeeping, they haven’t dusted behind here in weeks.’
Clifford paused in running his hand along the back of each of the four drawers. ‘There is nothing of interest here either. I shall check the writing desk and under the mattress. Perhaps you might move on to the bathroom?’
She nodded. The bathroom door in her room had stained glass in the top panel, but in Blunt’s it was frosted. She admired it, thinking she might like to have the same at Henley Hall. She shook her head. Ellie, this is no time to be thinking of interior design, honestly!
She slipped into the small, but fully equipped bathroom. Unsurprised by the limited number of toiletries on the narrow sink surround, she knelt to look under the three-quarter size bath, noting the lack of clawfoot details to the base. The much less ornate rounded ends, however, offered no hiding place. A pair of socks hung over the taps, a telltale rivulet of beige water pooled below suggesting they had been washed recently. From the doorway, Clifford grimaced.
‘I am at a loss to understand why a gentleman would choose to wash his socks in the bath.’
Eleanor laughed quietly. ‘There’s nothing odd in Blunt washing his socks in the bath. I imagine the Grand is hellishly expensive for the likes of him and Longley. We know they just played the part of well-heeled gents, so any way they could economise, I suppose they did.’ It was her turn to frown. ‘Which, thinking about it, probably explains why I never saw them in the dining room.’
About to follow him back into the bedroom, a slight mark on the roll-top rim of the bath caught her eye.
‘Hmm.’ She traced the three faint wavy lines with her finger and then her face lit up. ‘Bullseye!’
Twenty-Nine
Looks like part of a footprint, Ellie. But why would anyone need to stand on the edge of the bath unless they were hiding something? She glanced around. There was nothing within reach except the high-up cistern tank of the toilet, the lid of which she now noticed was not lined up. In a trice, she slid off her dancing shoes and stepped up nimbly on the bath, her feet carefully placed either side of the wavy lines. A cough from the door made her lunge forward in panic, leaving her at full stretch with one foot braced against the wall behind her.
‘Clifford! You nearly gave me a heart attack,’ she hissed.
‘I was merely conscious of the time.’ He held up his pocket watch. ‘I must insist again that we hurry, despite your confidence in my on-the-spot creativity in thinking up plausible explanations to tell Thomas, I am not sure I could explain what a famous Hollywood star was doing dismantling the toilet in a dead man’s room while standing on the bath.’ He looked her up and down. ‘I know you are a fierce advocate for women’s rights, my lady, and I have no doubt a woman may be as good a plumber as a man. However, perhaps now is not the time to throw down the gauntlet?’
She ignored his sardonic remark. ‘Footprint on the bath,’ she panted, pointing to the three wavy lines. ‘Bear with me.’ She stretched to push the top of the ceramic cistern to one side. ‘It’s caught on something.’ A harder shove however released it with a heart-stopping scraping sound.
Clifford held the small round shaving mirror from the side of the basin up to her.
‘What can you see, my lady?’
She positioned the mirror to reflect into the cistern. ‘A half-filled bottle. Maybe Blunt was just trying to avoid paying the hotel prices for alcohol? After all, he went so far as to wash his socks in the bath.’
‘Surely discreetly placing it in his luggage, or the wardrobe would have sufficed? Although as your precarious, and somewhat inelegant, position highlights, my lady, he would have struggled to place it there himself, seeing as he was a good few inches shorter than you.’
‘Then who…?’ She glanced down at him. ‘Someone else must have put it there.’
‘Indeed. Might you be able to reach the bottle or would you like to exchange places?’
‘Just catch me if I teeter off the edge of the bath,’ she said, throwing him the mirror. Standing on tiptoe, she put her hand over the rim of the cistern and felt about in the cold water. ‘One small, brown bottle coming down. Although if it is a clue, it’ll be hard to hand it over to Grimsdale with any reasonable explanation as to how we came by it. “You see, Grimsdale, I just happened to be in the deceased man’s room and felt the need to fish about in his cistern.”’ She shook her head and sighed. ‘And as I haven’t been straight with Hugh, I mean Seldon, we can’t tell him either. Honestly, is there anyone on this holiday I haven’t had to deceive? Even the ladies don’t know we are embroiled in another case.’
‘It will all come together in the end, my lady.’
‘Yes, but I doubt Hugh will be speaking to me when it does if he finds out.’
‘I am confident the opportunity to have spent an evening dancing with you will soften the blow slightly.’
‘Slightly is not much of a consolation, Clifford.’
He coughed. ‘Time really is against us, my lady.’
She dragged the cistern lid back into position and jumped off the bath. He hastily turned around as she tugged down on the skirt of her dress. He dried the outside of the bottle, which was half full, and slid it inside his jacket. Turning the towel’s damp sides together, he folded it roughly back onto the silver painted iron rail but then hesitated, his hand hovering.
‘You’re itching to hang it neatly, aren’t you?’ she couldn’t resist whispering.
‘Actually, my lady, I was checking I had returned it to exactly the distressingly untidy position it was in before I touched it.’
‘Of course.’ She pointed through to the long narrow French windows of the bedroom. ‘We’d best check the balcony.’
‘We have three minutes at most.’
The warmth of the day had been replaced by a bitter night wind that snatched the French door from her hand and wrapped the curtain around her like an icy shroud. Disentangling herself, she pulled her scarf tighter against her shoulders and rubbed her hands together, grateful for the modicum of protection Clifford’s butler gloves offered.
The light snapped off in the bedroom as Clifford joined her. ‘Better not to advertise our presence out here on the balcony.’ He scanned the marbled tiles at their feet by the light thrown from the Grand’s decorative exterior lights.
Eleanor stepped to the railing and looked over. ‘Ah, this room is at the rear of the hotel.’
‘Hence Mr Blunt having landed on the rear terrace.’
‘Hmm.’ She measured the height of the railing against her body. ‘I don’t mean to keep highlighting that Blunt was at the very end of the queue when legs were being han
ded out—’ She caught Clifford’s pointed look but ignored it. ‘But even with my slightly longer than average legs, and wearing heels, the railing comes up past my hips.’
He nodded. ‘Way past the tipping point of such a gentleman as Mr Blunt, even if he were drunk and had accidentally slipped and fallen forward. An astute observation.’
‘My jiu-jitsu and baritsu training. It paid to know the “tipping point”, as you put it, of an attacker when cycling abroad alone.’
‘And when defending yourself in a rectory against a knife-wielding attacker recently.’
She tutted. ‘It’s not like you to be so sensationalist, Clifford. It was only a letter opener, even if a somewhat sharp one.’
He joined her at the railing and looked down to the terrace. ‘We have deduced that Mr Blunt would have found this to be a comfortable height to lean his elbows, rather than his hips on. Therefore, as there are no objects for him to have been standing on, it seems there are only two possible answers to how he fell. Either he climbed up and jumped—’
‘Or he was pushed.’ Her face clouded as she peered over the edge and stared at the spot below where Bert Blunt must have landed on the terrace. ‘But if he was pushed, the murderer would surely have needed to entice him out here first? It’s hardly warm enough for Blunt to have been sitting out. Which suggests he must have known his attacker.’
‘Or his attacker forced him out onto the balcony at gunpoint.’
‘Or knifepoint! Hilary’s killer used a knife.’ She shivered.
‘The footprint on the bath!’ Clifford gestured back inside. ‘If it doesn’t match the foot size of the boots still in the wardrobe—’
A moment later they stood looking at Blunt’s diminutive footwear.
‘You clever bean!’ Eleanor whispered. ‘That footprint on the bath definitely wasn’t Blunt’s. His foot is much smaller. It means that the murderer likely plied Blunt with whatever is in that bottle. Then he dragged him out here, pushed him over the balcony and hid the bottle so he wasn’t caught with it.’
Clifford closed the French doors behind them. ‘Something doesn’t quite add up.’
‘Perhaps the killer intended to return for the bottle later when everything had calmed down and the police had gon—?’
Eleanor froze halfway across the bedroom at the sight of the door handle turning.
‘Thomas!’ she mouthed, but Clifford shook his head and cupped his ear. Then he pulled his case of picklocks from his inside pocket and mimed breaking in. Eleanor’s hand flew to her mouth as she spun round, looking for a hiding place.
Too late. The door swung open to reveal a familiar face, which creased into an instant sneer as a finger pointed at Eleanor. ‘You! I should have guessed.’
Thirty
Eleanor felt Longley’s glare bore into her as he closed the door behind him soundlessly. He started towards her, but stopped short as Clifford stepped back in from the balcony, where he had quickly hidden. ‘I see your faithful hound’s here with you. Of course he is. You’re quite the inseparable pair, ain’t you?’
Eleanor nodded to herself. Now he wasn’t in public, Longley had dropped his previous plummy voice for, what she assumed, was his real accent. East London she guessed.
‘We’re only inseparable since we learned Brighton was so dashedly dangerous. Shocking that they don’t include it in the tourist brochures, I say. Especially as we both know there have been two murders here in this hotel alone in the last five days.’
Longley’s eyes darkened. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Eleanor folded her arms. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Nah, sweetheart, that’s my question to you. I’ve got the perfect excuse for being here, seeing as it was my cousin’s room before he died. You two, however, you’d better come clean as to why you’re here. And it had better be good,’ he ended, cracking the knuckles on each hand.
‘Not so fast.’ Clifford put himself between Longley and Eleanor. ‘Despite your protestations, picking the lock on Mr Blunt’s door, especially after the suspicious circumstances in which he passed away, does considerably diminish the legitimacy of your presence, kin or not. Which, by the way, still lacks a significant degree of veracity.’
Longley leaned past him to address Eleanor. ‘Is your friend always this long-winded?’
‘Only when he’s stalling to buy me some time, which as you found out during your kidnap attempt, he is very adept at doing.’
A quiet rap at the door caused all eyes to swivel towards the sound.
‘However,’ Clifford whispered, looking pointedly at Longley. ‘Our time has just run out.’ He held up a hand as Longley went to reply. ‘Quiet! Then we can talk.’ He gestured for Longley to step behind the door. Nodding to Eleanor, he waited until she had positioned herself.
‘Here goes,’ he muttered before opening the door a crack. ‘Ah, there you are.’ He smiled at the flustered desk clerk. Lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, he asked, ‘Care for an exclusive peep at how the lady works, Thomas?’ He eased the door open a little more. The desk clerk’s jaw slackened as he watched Eleanor unroll her body and let out a halting wail before crumpling in a heap on the floor.
‘Goodness, she’ll exhaust herself!’
‘It is the price she chooses to pay for her art. She is so close to cresting the emotional wave needed for her character. Five more minutes? Thank you.’
As the clerk retreated muttering to himself, Clifford closed the door and Eleanor sprang up, flicking out her ruffled red curls.
Longley shook his head. ‘You two are a pair of queer birds, and no mistake.’
‘But effective,’ she said. ‘As would be telling the hotel manager that you have broken in here.’
He offered his elbow. ‘Let’s go together, shall we? I’d love to hear you explain what you and Mr Stuffed Shirt were doing in my cousin’s room.’
She glanced at him appraisingly. For someone whose cousin had died a few hours earlier he was remarkably composed. ‘Here’s an idea. I suggest we don’t waste the few precious minutes we have before the desk clerk returns arguing, but that we help each other instead.’
Longley shrugged indifferently, but his eyes showed otherwise.
She continued. ‘You could begin by admitting you and your cousin tried to kidnap us, because we both recognise you. Then you could move on to confessing that you lied about knowing Hilary.’
He eyed them both. ‘Okay, you got me. I bundled you into the car.’
‘Good start. However, I can only assume that amongst your nefarious activities, kidnapping hasn’t been high on the list too often, you’re really not very good at it, you know.’
‘Thanks for nothing! It wasn’t my idea. It was Bert’s.’
‘Perhaps. Although the poor chap isn’t around to be able to confirm or refute that, is he? Because someone killed him, just like they killed Hilary.’
He rubbed a hand along the back of his neck. ‘Don’t bother wasting your precious minutes talking about your old man. I already told you, far as I’m concerned, he was just some bloke staying at the hotel.’
Eleanor pulled out her uncle’s pocket watch and waved it at him. ‘Time is ticking and it would pay you to know that I was born with very little patience.’
Clifford nodded. ‘In essence, none.’
‘So,’ Eleanor continued, ‘tell me why you killed Hilary.’
‘You’re like a stuck phonograph record! I tell you I didn’t. Why would I kill a man I didn’t even know?’
‘Hmm, do you know, I can’t decide which you should work on first, your dismal kidnapping skills or your even more atrocious lying technique.’
Longley snorted. ‘Seeing as we’re sharing, how about I let you know that if I had killed your husband, I wouldn’t be standing here answering your stupid questions. Isn’t that plainer than the nose on your face!’
She tutted. ‘Now you’re insulting my nose. Plain indeed! So ungallant and uncalled for.’
Peering hard at her, his brows met in a hard line. ‘Stone me, how have you got this far? I mean, Hilary always said you were sharper than a box of daggers, but not from where I’m standing. I’ve met blunt bricks with more going on, if you know what I mean.’
She winked at him. ‘So a man you don’t know told you I was sharp, did he?’
‘Damn it!’ He scratched his head and then rolled his eyes. ‘Okay, okay, sure I knew your husband. But it weren’t like we were mates or nothing, not after what he did. And before you ask me again, even though I would have loved to have killed him, I never. Never got the chance. Me and Bert went to search his room around eleven twenty-five I think it was, but he was already dead. Some lucky bugger beat me to it.’ At Clifford’s warning look, Longley raised his hands. ‘Okay, back off.’ He lowered them and shrugged. ‘Anyway, I needed him alive.’
She tried to remember what de Meyer had told her about Hilary’s partners. ‘So you were in some sort of business with Hilary?’
He shook his head. ‘Not in business with him. In one business deal with him, which was one too many, as it turned out. Me and Bert are… were in the removals game. Then we hit the big one.’ His tone became wistful. ‘The one so big, it should have set us up for life. So big, we needed help.’
‘And you asked Hilary?’
He nodded. ‘We knew he could pull off his end of things, alright. He’d been in business for himself for long enough.’ His lips twisted into an angry snarl. ‘But your darling husband double-crossed us and scarpered with the proceeds.’
Eleanor was trying to think fast. ‘Look, we’ve got a minute left at most. Two more questions and then it’s your turn. When did all this happen and how did you guess Hilary would be here?’
‘The job was set a few weeks after you got hitched to Hilary.’ Longley gave her a glance, which held far too much pity for her liking. ‘That’s right, you were picking out a pretty dress and shoes and shopping for your honeymoon and Hilary was planning a job and planning to steal from his partners. Funny how life goes, huh?’
Mystery by the Sea: An utterly addictive English cozy mystery (A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery Book 5) Page 16
