‘As Treasurer of Van Dine Industries—a short burly man had begun to play the game—‘I am happy to say that we have had an excellent financial year, despite the Great Depression.’
‘How lovely for you.’ Miss Holloway gave him a look of blue-eyed approbation. ‘One lump or two?’
‘Four, if you don’t mind, ma’am. They’re really awfully small.’
‘Quite so.’ Miss Holloway plied the sugar tongs, smiling understandingly. ‘You were saying, Mr … ?’
‘Oh, yeah, sorry. I’m Stan, Stanley Marric. Er, as I was saying, I’m Treasurer of Van Dine Industries and I’m very concerned about the future of the Company. I’d hate to think that it might fall into the hands of someone who could jeopardize the market position we have gained.’ ‘Such a dear girl,’ Miss Holloway murmured. ‘I’m sure she would never do anything to upset your present excellent position … not knowingly.’
‘Accidentally would be just as bad,’ Stanley Marric said. ‘It’s the final result that counts—not the intention.’ He stirred his tea vigorously, with the air of one who had scored an important point.
Miss Holloway smiled vaguely, allowed her gaze to rove beyond him—and blinked.
‘It’s all right,’ one of the apparitions said gaily. ‘We have that effect on everyone. You’re not seeing things. There are two of us. We’re twins.’
‘The Chandler twins,’ the other one announced triumphantly. I’m Brigid and she’s Lauren.’ She giggled. ‘Or am I Lauren and she’s Brigid?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ the first one said. ‘We always say: Call us anything, but call us!’
Miss Holloway took a deep breath. ‘Two lumps or four?’ she inquired sweetly.
‘She’s got your number already!’ they accused each other merrily.
‘Those girls have been the life of the party,’ a tall, gaunt man confided to Colonel Heather. ‘I’m Dixon Carr, by the way.’ He was wearing a blood-red name tag with DIXON in black Gothic lettering. ‘My friends call me Dix.’
Colonel Heather nodded and managed to slide away without divulging his own name, rank and serial number. For a moment, it appeared that Dix might be about to follow his new-found friend, but a new arrival in the doorway distracted everyone.
Evelina T. Carterslee stood there, carefully surveying the lounge before venturing inside. A murmur of recognition rose from several groups. She moved forward smiling and, first things first, made straight for the tea-trolley.
Miss Holloway had the tea poured to her liking and ready for her as she reached the trolley. ‘A goodly turnout,’ Miss Holloway murmured, handing Evelina her cup. There were always some who remained in their rooms, unpacking or resting, until the Welcoming Cocktail Party. A few extreme cases could be counted on to skip tea, deeming it more important to roam the corridors and establish the lie of the land before the action started.
‘Indeed,’ Evelina murmured back. ‘Where is dear Victoria?’ She took a proprietory interest in everything about The Crimson Shroud Bookshop, since it had been named after her first novel.
‘I believe she went back to London for the night. She’ll be down tomorrow for the rest of the weekend.’
‘I see.’ Evelina did not look pleased. ‘Then I must assume that I am on duty now and it will be up to me to act as hostess for the tour.’
‘That’s right,’ Grace said heartlessly. ‘Start circulating. You’re part of the entertainment.’
Several spectators remarked among themselves on the cold look Evelina turned on Grace before walking over to the nearest group and forcing a smile.
‘Is anything wrong?’ one of them asked eagerly.
‘Not to my knowledge,’ Evelina said. Are you one of the Van Dine shareholders or one of the executives?’
There were flustered glances exchanged. Evelina waited patiently, sipping her tea.
‘I’m the Personnel Manager of Van Dine Industries,’ a short heavily-built woman said, unsmiling. ‘My name is Bertha Stout—and I’d rather not have any cracks about it.’
‘A very responsible position,’ Evelina said smoothly. ‘I’m delighted to have the opportunity to meet you. As one of the major shareholders in Van Dine Industries, I’ve welcomed the opportunity to meet so many of the marvellous people who have done so much to keep the company on an even keel during these difficult times.’
‘I’m Haila Bond,’ a small wiry terrier of a female announced. ‘I’m a major shareholder, too.’
‘No, you’re not.’ Someone contradicted her. You said you were going to be a Sales Executive.’
‘Well, I’ve changed my mind,’ Haila said firmly. ‘There are too many Sales Executives already.’
Evelina took another sip of tea, waiting until they sorted out their stories.
‘I don’t care,’ the sole man in the group declared. ‘I’m Asey Wentworth and I’m Group Sales Director.’
‘Then you can take a great deal of credit for the excellent results last year.’ Evelina beamed approval at him.
‘That’s right. And I always say—’ He gave Haila Bond a dirty look. ‘I always say there can never be too many Sales Executives.’
‘Quite right.’ Someone else had edged into the group. ‘I’m a Sales Executive—and proud of it. I’ve taken the Top Salesman Award three years running. That’s why my wife and I have been given this free trip to England—as an extra prize. I’m Norman Dain and this is my wife, Alice.’
‘I’m so pleased and thrilled to meet you,’ Alice gushed. ‘I hope you’ll let me have your autograph before this weekend is over. Oh dear—’ A frown from her husband got through to her. ‘Have I said something wrong? Shouldn’t I admit I know your name? Are … are you one of the Van Dines?’
‘It’s quite all right, my dear,’ Evelina purred. ‘I am Evelina T. Carterslee and I have invested some of my royalties in Van Dine Industries. That’s why I’m here, but I am myself.’
‘Oh, thank goodness,’ Alice said. ‘I have a feeling this weekend is going to get awfully confused. The Chandler twins have shouted at me already because I forgot they were supposed to be Private Secretaries to old Ellery Van Dine and had been left a share of the business in a codicil to his Will.’
‘Alice—’ her husband warned.
‘I don’t care. I told them I didn’t think we were starting properly until the cocktail party. Now, tell me, are we?’
‘Well …’ Evelina temporized. ‘I think everyone must work themselves into their roles at their own pace. Whatever is easier for you.’
‘That’s it,’ Bertha Stout approved. ‘The game’s always afoot, eh?’
‘Well …’ Evelina said again, stealing a quick glance at her watch. ‘Almost always.’
There was a scream of brakes from the carriageway outside.
‘Something’s happening!’ the Chandler twins shrieked in unison and led the dash to the lobby.
An open sports car had drawn up outside the front entrance. Two young men leaped out and began removing luggage from the boot. One, sedately dressed in business suit with waistcoat, had a matched set of leather cases; the other, in plus-fours and tweed jacket, had two unmatched, rather cheap-looking cases.
They left their cases piled beside the car and advanced up the stone steps.
‘They’re coming! They’re coming!’ the Chandler twins squealed.
‘Who are they? … Who are they?’ The others crowded into the lobby, leaving a respectable space for events to play themselves out. ‘Are they part of it?’ They fell back still further as the door opened.
As they entered, the young man in the business suit threw his arms about the other’s shoulder and they laughed exaggeratedly at a joke that had obviously just been made.
‘Good afternoon.’ Reggie moved forward to greet them, raising his voice so that those at the back could hear. ‘You must be Mr Edwin Lupin,’ he said to the man in the business suit. ‘We’ve been expecting you, sir. But I’m afraid … ?’ He looked askance at the man accompanying him.
‘ALGIE!’ The Honourable Petronella appeared at the head of the staircase and raced down it to throw herself into the other man’s arms.
‘Oh, Algie, darling! You’ve found me! I knew you wouldn’t leave me to moulder in this rotten place! Darling, darling, Algie! We’re together once more—and no one will ever be able to part us again!’
7
‘Did you see the way she looked at him? She’s besotted, all right. And him! That terrible little thin moustache—he even looks like a cad. If he ever gets his hands on her money, she won’t keep it for ten minutes. They’ll run Van Dine Industries right down into the ground.’
‘But what was Edwin doing bringing that man along? Surely he must have known …’
‘Of course he did. He’s deliberately trying to ruin Petronella’s chances. Keep your eye on him. He may look as though butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, but I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.’
The discussion was as spirited as the drinks at the Welcoming Cocktail Party. Those who had been present at the arrival of Edwin and Algie were discussing it and filling in the guests who had missed it.
They were all wearing their blood-red name tags with the black Gothic lettering now, Midge observed. That would make it easier to identify, if not keep track of them. Already, some were showing an alarming tendency to wander farther afield than other tours had done. Once the ‘secret passage’—the servants’ staircase—had been disclosed to them, as it must be, there would be no way of keeping track of their whereabouts.
Reggie was being kept busy behind the bar. He had pre-mixed shakers full of the most colourful cocktails and the Art Deco cocktail glasses stood waiting, filled with the bright blue of Blue Train, the clear red of Luigi and the green of Shamrock, giving an extra-festive air to the proceedings.
Midge deftly and inconspicuously refilled the little saucers with salted almonds and peanuts and the larger bowls with potato crisps. Not that it would have attracted any attention if she had done it after a fanfare of trumpets. The guests were becoming too deeply immersed in their role-playing to notice.
Some guests were drifting back to the bar for refills now. After dinner, the cash bar would be in operation and they were making the most of the complimentary cocktails. Making too much of them, perhaps. The snare and delusion of the cocktails was that they were so sweet that the strength of them might pass unnoticed until it was too late. Midge’s forehead furrowed as she saw that several were switching drinks to try another colour which had caught their fancy. Oh well, the recipe for the Prairie Oyster was looming large above them. On their heads be it.
‘Oh, look! Who are they?’ There was a stir as two strangers entered the bar. Several guests smiled tentatively at them. There was a rustle of expectancy, as at a curtain about to rise.
‘Good evening, everyone,’ Cedric said. ‘May I officially welcome you to Chortlesby Manor? I am Sir Cedric Strangeways—and this is my, er … sister, Lady Hermione Marsh—’
It wasn’t quite accurate, but the guests were lapping it up along with the cocktails. Cedric and Hermione had insisted on having titles, allowing art to make up for what nature had denied them. To Hermione’s initial chagrin, the first tour had got her title wrong, preferring the matey ‘Lady Hermione’ to the official ‘Lady Marsh’. Had she kept correcting them, they would have assumed that she was stuffy and stand-offish and it would have diminished their enjoyment. In deference to their trans-Atlantic sensibilities, Lady Hermione she remained. It had to be admitted that this also made the switch to first names after the solution much simpler.
Lady Hermione accepted a Blue Train from Reggie and began to circulate, smiling graciously at the guests. Only when the subject of the Honourable Petronella was raised, did her smile frost over.
‘She’ll be down later,’ Lady Hermione told Stanley Marric, Treasurer of Van Dine Industries. ‘She has … been delayed …’
‘She’s not with that man, is she?’ Stan asked suspiciously.
Lady Hermione lifted an eyebrow. ‘What man?’
‘That’s right,’ someone stage-whispered. ‘She wasn’t here at tea. Maybe she doesn’t know yet.’
‘I think Sir Cedric should throw him out. He’s nothing but a gate-crasher.’
‘Still, it’s better we get a good look at him so that we can make the right decision, isn’t it?’
‘With any luck, maybe somebody will murder him before the weekend is over!’ There was a gust of conspiratorial laughter at this suggestion.
‘They promised us Bramwell Barbour was going to be here—’ The Chandler twins were more interested in the missing celebrity than in the game. ‘Where is he? Did he cancel out? Maybe we can get our money back.’
‘No, no, my dear young ladies—’ Unfortunately, they had made their complaint to Cedric, the weakest link in the chain. He showed faint signs of panic. ‘He’s here. He’ll be down shortly, I’m sure. Unless, of course, he’s tied up with his new book. He’s working hard, you know. Very hard—’
‘They promised …’ One indistinguishable twin appeared on the verge of tears, the other was beginning to look belligerent. ‘We wouldn’t have come, otherwise.’
‘Oh, I’m sure he’ll put in an appearance—’
‘An appearance!’ That wasn’t good enough. ‘He’d better do more than that. They said he’d be with us all weekend.’
‘Yes, yes.’ Cedric began backing away. ‘And I’m sure he will be. Work schedule permitting—’
‘Would anyone like another drink?’ Midge moved in to rescue Cedric before he met an untimely fate. The twins looked ready to murder him and, although he was due for the chop, it was not supposed to happen until after dinner. He had several plot lines to deliver first—if he remembered them.
Sir Cedric was going to be the first victim simply because he was so bad at delivering his lines. It had seemed the simplest solution for one who desperately wanted to be part of the action but was too self-conscious to throw himself into it utterly.
‘I don’t want another drink, I want Bramwell Barbour.’ The speaker’s name tag said that she was Lauren, but Midge did not necessarily believe that. She suspected that the twins thought it the height of wit to exchange their name tags, possibly several times in one evening.
‘Try whistling!’ Brigid said and screamed with hysterical laughter.
‘Who are you?’ Lauren ignored her twin and frowned at Midge. ‘Where do you come into this?’
‘I’m Reggie’s wife; I’m housekeeper and Reggie is butler to Sir Cedric Strangeways.’ Midge went into her cover story. ‘Sir Cedric offered us employment after Reggie had to leave his post at New Scotland Yard because of ill-health.’
‘Ill-health, eh?’ Bertha Stout had come up behind them and was shamelessly eavesdropping. ‘He looks all right to me. What’s the matter with him?’
‘He’s a lot better now,’ Midge said. ‘This country air has done him a world of good. We’re terribly grateful to Sir Cedric.’
‘She didn’t answer.’ Haila Bond closed in on the group, her eyes snapping. ‘Make her answer the question. What’s wrong with Reggie?’
‘Nothing serious, really.’ Midge shrugged. ‘Just a slight heart murmur. It doesn’t bother him at all.’
‘But it bothered Scotland Yard enough to dismiss him.’ They turned and studied Reggie speculatively, measuring his chances as prospective victim—or possibly, about-to-be-murderer.
‘He wasn’t dismissed,’ Midge said loyally. ‘He was invalided out. But the pension—the part-pension—was so small … Besides, he’s much too young a man to hang about doing nothing.’
Cedric had taken the opportunity to slip away while Midge was under fire. He strolled over to have a quiet word with Grace Holloway, watched by several pairs of intent eyes. He was doing quite well but, inevitably, he would begin
to twitch before the end of the evening. Fortunately, that could be put down to oncoming symptoms.
‘Lady Hermione—’ Edwin Lupin entered and made his way unerringly to his hostess. ‘How kind of you to have us all here. It’s very sporting of you.’
‘It’s the least I could do—’ Lady Hermione swept him with a remote, contemptuous look—‘for dear Petronella.’ She swept another look over him and ostentatiously turned away. Definitely, she would require a lorgnette if they were to use this script for other weekends.
‘Nuts?’ Lettie, wearing a fetchingly abbreviated maid’s costume with crisp white apron and cap, pushed her serving tray at Edwin. He ogled her briefly, then allowed his face to become a smooth mask.
‘No, thanks,’ he said and turned away.
‘He likes her,’ someone hazarded.
‘No, he doesn’t. He hates her. I’ll bet he knows her. They’ve met before.’
Speculation began to build. Lettie, unsmiling, bore down on the most vociferous group. They silenced at her approach. Meekly, they helped themselves to the hot cocktail sausages and sandwiches on her tray.
‘Mmm, this is good.’ Alice Dain bit into the tiny triangular sandwich. ‘What is it? I can’t quite place—’
‘Chopped toasted almonds,’ Lettie answered, poker-faced. ‘The bread is spread with mayonnaise.’
‘Very tasty,’ Norman Dain approved, disposing of his in one gulp.
‘There’s a lot of almonds around here tonight,’ Dixon Carr commented. ‘What’s the betting on cyanide and that famous bitter almonds smell?’
Lettie moved away, refusing to comprehend the joke convulsing the group.
‘Hey, we didn’t ask her any questions,’ someone realized.
Murder on a Mystery Tour Page 5
