Murder on a Mystery Tour

by Marian Babson

  As Midge went back and forth between the kitchen and dining-room setting the tables, she was aware of a burst of hilarity from the lounge. Evelina T. Carterslee, an excellent raconteuse when she chose to be, was regaling her fans with some of her favourite stories.

  From the bar, Cedric’s voice could be heard telling a story of his own about one of the earlier tours: ‘Never had so many drinks bought for me in my life. Then I discovered why. Someone had told them I was Charles Paris incognito.’

  Everyone seemed to be having a good time. ‘The character I’d like to have met,’ Stanley Marric said, ‘was Arthur Crook. I could really identify with a rough-diamond kind of lawyer like him.’

  That wasn’t a bad idea, Midge mused. Perhaps they could do a ‘Dinner With the Detectives’. The actors could bone up on a particular sleuth, get his or her cases down pat, so that they could answer questions and keep in character all evening … Yes, it was definitely something to bear in mind for future weekends—She broke off, remembering that there might not be any future weekends. And this one wasn’t over yet.

  ‘I should think you’d prefer Perry Mason,’ Cedric said. ‘All those courtroom pyrotechnics—’

  ‘Naw,’ Stan said. ‘He was too—too American. I’d rather meet these English characters. They’ve got a lot more class.’

  Someone cleared a throat, a bit too ostentatiously. Evidently Bramwell was still in their midst. Oh well, it was up to him when he chose to rescue his mother. He must be enjoying the respite as much as any of them. More, since he wasn’t being chivvied into dancing attendance on Lauren.

  ‘Dinner is going to be late, is it?’ A bit later Roberta popped her head round the corner.

  ‘The later the better, I’d say, wouldn’t you?’ There would then be less of the evening to struggle through. ‘No one’s in any hurry, are they?’

  ‘No,’ Roberta admitted. ‘Although some of them have started drifting upstairs to change. I wondered if I ought to make an announcement or something—’

  ‘Has Bramwell gone up yet?’

  ‘No, but he can’t delay it much longer. There aren’t many left in the bar now. I think Reggie’s planning to close it down soon.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’ Midge glanced at her watch. ‘Oh dear, it’s later than I thought.’

  ‘It’s later than Bramwell realizes, too,’ Roberta said. ‘Amaryllis is going to be in such a screaming temper when he lets her out, he’ll be lucky if she doesn’t scalp him.’

  ‘He’d better stop putting it off,’ Midge said. ‘No one else is going to do it. And if she misses a meal, she’ll be even more furious.’

  ‘I’ll see if I can’t get him moving,’ Roberta sighed. ‘Maybe I ought to follow him up and bring along a good stiff drink. That might soothe her a bit.’ She went back to the bar.

  A familiar yowl sounded at Midge’s feet and Ackroyd hurled himself against her ankles. ‘What are you doing here?” she asked, startled. ‘I left you in the kitchen. You know you’re—’

  ‘I’m sorry, Midge.’ Dix came into the dining-room. ‘I’m afraid I let him out. I heard him crying and I just opened the kitchen door an inch or so to speak to him and he pushed through and got away from me.’

  ‘We never allow him in the dining-room.’ Midge frowned at Ackroyd, since Dix was a guest. ‘He knows that.’

  ‘It’s my fault entirely—’

  Ackroyd, aware of Midge’s displeasure, retreated from her hastily and went to sniff at Dix’s shoes. He put out a paw and toyed with one of Dix’s shoelaces.

  ‘Look at that!’ Dix said. ‘Just like The Third Man. This is a brilliant cat, Midge.’ He stooped and gathered Ackroyd into his arms.

  ‘He watches the Late Film,’ Midge said drily.

  ‘All right.’ Dix bowed his head. ‘Perhaps I got carried away. It happens to us cat-lovers, you know. I fully understand why they worshipped them in Ancient Egypt. In fact, I have always felt an affinity for the Egyptians for that very reason. Any people smart enough to venerate the feline species—’

  ‘That’s it,’ Reggie said briskly, coming into the room. ‘I’ve closed the bar until after dinner.’

  ‘A very wise move,’ Dix said. ‘Otherwise some people would never move.’

  ‘They’re moving now—’ Reggie looked around. ‘Need any help in here?’

  ‘Thanks, but everything’s under control—’

  A sudden piercing scream sounded above them.

  ‘That’s Roberta! What on earth—’ Midge led the dash for the staircase.

  ‘Oh, what is it now?’ Alice Dain asked fearfully, as they bumped into her at the head of the stairs. ‘I thought the game was over.’

  The screams were coming from the Barbour suite.

  ‘I knew she’d have hysterics as soon as he let her out.’ Evelina appeared in the doorway of her own suite, lipstick still in hand. ‘Pity he couldn’t have left her in there for the rest of the night.’

  ‘We shouldn’t have let him come up alone,’ Stan said guiltily, as they crowded into the Barbour suite. ‘We knew she was going to raise hell.’

  ‘Roberta came up with him—’ Midge was still in the lead as they reached the bathroom door. ‘And that’s her screaming.’

  Bramwell was slumped against the washbasin, staring incredulously at the sight in the bathtub. Roberta was backed against the far wall, screaming mechanically, pointlessly. It was too late for screams to bring any help.

  Amaryllis Barbour lay fully dressed in the tub, her eyes staring up sightlessly through the clear water. A faintly blue tinge to her pallor, a slight parboiling of her skin, told them that she had lain submerged for a very long time.

  21

  ‘Jeez! Did you ever think you’d see anything like that? Just like the Brides in the Bath case.’

  ‘Not quite—she was fully dressed.’

  ‘Well, hell! It woulda been easier to drown her than to try to undress her.’

  ‘And did you see the way her ankles were sticking up out of the other end of the tub? That was the way they did it, all right. Pushed her in, then gave her ankles a quick jerk and pulled her under the water. She’d have gone out like a light.’

  ‘What do you mean they? They who?’

  ‘Maybe … the Chandler they? They—she’s crazy enough for anything.’

  ‘I don’t know …’ Dix shook his head thoughtfully. ‘Doesn’t that strike you as perhaps too obvious an answer? Perhaps … what someone wanted us to think?’

  ‘Huh? You mean—?’

  ‘That’s right. He means it’s all too pat. The Chandler dame, in one personality or the other, locked Amaryllis in—and admits it. So we’re supposed to think that the other one—or whichever one she thought she was at the moment—went ahead and finished the job. Talk about the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing—’

  They could still eat, Midge thought incredulously, watching them wade into the Swedish meatballs, the mounds of mashed potatoes, the green beans and cauliflower flowerets.

  Of course, it was easier for them. Most of them had caught no more than a glimpse of Amaryllis in the bath before Reggie had herded them out of the Barbour suite and locked the door. To them, it was almost an extension of the game they had been playing.

  They had not had to help lift the dripping body from the bath, swathe it in towels, carry it down through the narrow service passages and, finally, set it down beside Brigid’s body in the outside store cupboard.

  Midge felt that she might never eat again.

  ‘I suppose it was too late for the Kiss of Life?’ asked someone at another table who had missed all the excitement.

  ‘Far too late.’ Bertha wielded the gravy boat with a lavish hand, pouring the rich brown fluid over everything on her plate. ‘Anyway, I’m of the generation that never did catch up with such newfangled notions. The last time I took a First Aid Course, we were taught the old roll-’em-over-on-their-stomach technique. Then we straddled them and began the old one-two routine.�
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  ‘Artificial respiration,’ Haila supplied. ‘I should think that would still be more sensible for drowning cases. It would pump the water out at the same time it was pushing the air in.’

  ‘No, thank you—’ Cedric shuddered as Bertha offered him the gravy boat. ‘I have enough.’ He had scarcely touched his food.

  ‘All right?’ Reggie asked in passing.

  ‘I think so.’ Midge gave him a wan smile. They were the only two serving. Lettie was upstairs with a shocked and stunned Bramwell. The Barbour suite had been locked until the police could examine it and Bramwell had transferred, at her suggestion, to the spare bedroom in Evelina’s suite. It would save opening up and heating another room; besides which, Bramwell was in no condition to be left alone. Unlike the remaining Chandler, he had not the capacity to absorb the missing personality into his own.

  ‘I’ve said it before—’ At Dix’s table, the argument was still raging. ‘And I’ll say it again: cui bono?’

  ‘I don’t think she’s wealthy in her own right,’ Asey said. ‘All the money comes from Bramwell’s books. The only benefit anyone would get from her death is peace and quiet.’

  ‘Precisely,’ Dix said. ‘And who needs that most?’

  ‘Oh, now, wait a minute,’ Stan protested. ‘You can’t mean that. Poor old Bram’s all broken up about it.’

  ‘Is he? I wonder how long he’ll remain that way. He’s got Lettie to comfort him, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah, but how about Roberta?’ Stan was going down fighting. ‘She’d have a lot more peaceful life without that old bat flitting around. I happen to know she haunted Death On Wheels, always complaining that they hadn’t ordered enough of Bram’s books, pulling them off the shelves and trying to sneak them into the window, hiding other authors’ books and generally making a damned nuisance of herself. Besides, it would have been easier for another woman to walk into the bathroom with Amaryllis there. She could have suggested Amaryllis have a nice soothing bath before she came downstairs again. Amaryllis wouldn’t think anything of her staying there talking to her while the bath filled, maybe sitting on the edge of the tub—’

  ‘She would have been a pushover,’ Asey agreed. ‘Literally. On the other hand, Dix mentioned Lettie just now. With his mother gone, she’d have a clear field with Bramwell—and she’s kind of sweet on him. And then, it’s always possible that it was the Chandler woman. We all know she’s crazy.’

  They covertly observed Lauren, who was sitting between Ned and Algie at a nearby table. At the moment, their demeanour was more that of jailers than of suitors. It was clear that they did not quite trust Lauren themselves. Nor did anyone else; the table was otherwise deserted.

  ‘I think this is awful,’ Alice Dain complained as Reggie set her dessert before her. ‘When are the police going to get here? The proper police. There must be some way we can call them.’

  ‘We don’t have a radio transmitter, madam,’ Reggie said coldly.

  ‘Well, there must be something we can do. Why don’t we go out and trample a message in the snow? We can stamp out: HELP. And then any helicopters flying overhead would see it and know we were in trouble.’

  ‘They’d probably drop a bale of hay,’ her husband said gloomily.

  ‘Not if we stamped out the word POLICE, too. Then they’d know we needed them.’

  ‘An excellent idea, madam.’ Reggie forbore to ask when she had last seen a helicopter overhead. ‘We’ll attend to it first thing in the morning.’

  Midge met Reggie’s eyes over their heads. With any luck, he’d be in the town by the time the guests were stirring in the morning. Perhaps she could set some of them to trampling messages in the snow. It would keep them occupied.

  Meanwhile, there was the long evening to be got through. The guests adjourned to the drawing-room for coffee and liqueurs. Lingering over the port had lost its charm for the gentlemen after the first evening, perhaps because they craved something stronger, or perhaps because they were afraid of missing something. They arranged themselves around the room in small companionable groups.

  ‘Sit beside me, Norman.’ Alice clutched her husband’s arm suddenly as he was about to take another seat and pulled him down beside her on the sofa, cutting out Haila, who had been about to sit there. Something in her tone made Midge look at the groupings more closely.

  Were they so companionable, after all? Or were they just clinging to the people they knew best with the object of mutual protection?

  The actors had volunteered to give an impromptu entertainment to while away the evening. An offer gratefully accepted. A Musical Evening was also in keeping with the Thirties theme and, perhaps not so curiously, the guests seemed determined to cling to that theme. Perhaps because they felt it distanced them from the actual murders. Some of them still seemed inclined to consider them part of the game. There was time enough for reality to burst in upon them in the morning.

  ‘How’s Bramwell?’ Midge asked as Lettie came down to do her turn, a slightly bawdy Music Hall song.

  ‘Still in a state of shock,’ Lettie said. ‘It’s too bad he had to be the one to find her. He keeps brooding that, if he’d only gone up earlier—’

  ‘Are you sure he didn’t?’ Haila had overheard. ‘Some people think maybe he did.’

  ‘What?’ For a moment, Lettie did not seem to understand, then she paled with rage. ‘That’s a rotten thing to insinuate! His own mother—’

  ‘That’s why.’ Haila shrugged. ‘You can’t deny that life is going to be a lot easier for him without her around. Maybe—’ Pointedly, she did not look at Lettie. ‘Maybe a lot easier for other people, too. He can do what he wants now.’

  Wisely, she did not wait around for Lettie’s reaction, but hurriedly returned to the drawing-room.

  ‘Is that what they’re all saying?’ Lettie demanded of Midge. ‘Do they all believe that Bram—’ She caught herself. ‘Of course, they’d rather believe that than that one of themselves did it.’

  ‘I’m sure they don’t all believe it,’ Midge said quickly. ‘One or two of them were discussing that possibility, but quite a few of them favoured other candidates—’ She broke off awkwardly.

  ‘Yes,’ Lettie said reflectively. ‘I suppose my name is being bandied about.’

  ‘Well… er …’ Lettie would not be fobbed off with a lie, however well-intentioned. ‘Among others.’

  ‘That tears it!’ Ned was playing Lettie’s introduction; she swept off to make her entrance.

  ‘Are we holding the line?’ In the lull of business, Reggie came out from behind the bar to stand beside Midge watching the entertainers at the far end of the drawing-room.

  ‘What line?’ Midge leaned against him briefly. ‘Reggie, what are we going to do? What if … if there’s another murder?’

  ‘Steady on.’ He looked out over the audience. ‘Cedric can take over the bar shortly. I’m not going to wait for daybreak, I’m going to start for town as soon as the party breaks up. Some of you can get out in the snow first thing in the morning before the guests are stirring and stamp out the suggested message. Be sure to spread out and leave lots of footprints all over the area—that ought to cover my tracks. It will be safer if no one suspects that real help may be on the way.’

  ‘Holding the line,’ Midge said bitterly. ‘Oh, Reggie, I wish you didn’t have to go. I … I’m afraid.’

  There was a burst of applause as Lettie finished her song and shouts of ‘Encore’. But Lettie shook her head. She crossed over to have a quiet word with Grace Holloway, then bore down on Midge and Reggie, the light of battle in her eye.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Midge asked uneasily.

  ‘I’m going to fight!’ Lettie declared. ‘I’ve had enough. It was all very well when it was part of the game, but the game is over. They’re playing with life and death now—Bramwell’s life. And mine. I’m not having it!’

  Miss Holloway took her place at the piano and ran a few trills before announcing: ‘The actors have ente
rtained us so splendidly during this weekend, I think it’s time we returned the compliment. I happen to know that Colonel Heather does a stirring rendition of Mandalay—perhaps we can persuade him to oblige …’ She led the applause as the Colonel rose and went over to stand by the piano.

  ‘Grace is going to keep watch,’ Lettie said. ‘She’ll signal me if anyone leaves the room.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Reggie asked.

  ‘It’s time for me to turn down the beds—’ Lettie smiled innocently, then her smile hardened. ‘I’m also going to turn over their rooms. There must be something to find that will give us a clue to this whole thing. There has to be.’

  ‘You can’t get through them all by yourself,’ Reggie said. ‘There are too many of them, but that’s not a bad idea. I’ll come along and help.’

  ‘So will—’ Midge began.

  ‘No, you stay here. We can’t all go missing. They’ll suspect something.’

  While Colonel Heather was looking eastward to the sea, Lettie and Reggie disappeared to begin searching the rooms. Midge perched on the arm of a chair just inside the doorway and tried to look absorbed in the entertainment and not as though she were keeping a lookout.

  An air of unreality settled over her. They were all such pleasant people as, in her experience, keen mystery fans usually turned out to be. They were intelligent, friendly, literate—and one of them was deadly. But which one? It was impossible to tell just from their appearance or demeanour.

  ‘I can do card tricks—’ Stanley Marric jumped up eagerly as the Colonel took his bow. ‘If I could just have the assistance of someone in the audience. Bertha—how about you?’

  ‘Oh, why not?’ She pushed herself out of her chair and lumbered over to stand beside him resignedly.

  ‘Great!’ A pack of cards had materialized, seemingly from nowhere. ‘Now, if you just take a card—any card—’

  Stanley Marric? He’d claimed to be a lawyer, but he seemed occasionally to lack the polish one usually associated with lawyers. Perhaps that was why he identified with Arthur Crook. Yet why should he want to kill Brigid Chandler and Amaryllis Barbour?