Walking Into Murder

by JOAN DAHR LAMBERT

  “No one deserved to die that way,” Laura objected.

  Adrian didn’t answer. “Of course, it’s Antonia, too,” he remarked instead. “You can see that, I’m sure.”

  Laura sighed. This business of putting people into paintings was becoming tedious. “I guess there is a resemblance,” she replied doubtfully. The woman didn’t look much like Antonia to her, except that they were both blond and had classic profiles.

  Adrian shrugged. “There is no doubt about it, actually,” he asserted, dismissing her response. He shook his head ruefully. “I thought at first she was so perfect, but of course she was just her trying to wangle herself into my life so she could get her hands on my money. She was wrong, very wrong, not the right person for me at all.”

  She had been right. Adrian was the other man Maude hadn’t wanted to talk about. Laura could understand her loyalty. Adrian might have strange views about his paintings, but he was basically a decent man.

  Adrian returned to the first painting. “How do you know she wouldn’t be wrong for you, too?” Laura asked mischievously. The moment the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. Adrian didn’t have a sense of humor about his paintings. Or her.

  Adrian was shocked. “Laura,” he said reprovingly. “I am surprised at you! Surely, you know that is impossible.”

  Laura sighed again. She certainly didn’t know that, but she could see it was useless to argue the point. “It was only a joke,” she said instead.

  “This is not a joking matter,” Adrian rebuked her sternly. “I have told you that once already. Please do not forget it again.”

  Laura’s temper snapped. “Oh, for goodness sake, Adrian, stop talking to me as if I were the Victorian woman in that picture. I am not! I am Laura, who is quite a different person. I do appreciate your collection, and I am grateful to you for showing it to me, but now I really must get back to the manor.”

  Adrian stared at her. A strange expression came over his face, as if he had finally understood something, but he didn’t speak.

  “I must leave now,” Laura repeated, edging away from him.

  The expression disappeared. “Of course,” Adrian replied courteously. “I can’t think what got into me, to rattle on like that. I got carried away.”

  That was an understatement, Laura thought, but she was glad that he seemed to be himself again.

  “Never mind,” she reassured him. “These last days have upset everyone. There has been so much going on, and so much that is unsettled.”

  “I imagine it will all be settled soon,” he replied calmly. “Things have a way of working themselves out.”

  Unsure what he meant by that, Laura headed for the door. The two paintings she had noticed on her first visit were beside it, and she glanced up at them. Even a quick scrutiny told her that they were the same as the paintings in Lord Torrington’s study as well as the two in the loft. Were they the reason Thomas had gone to such lengths to see the gallery?

  The painting next to them caught her eye. Unless her memory was faulty, it was the same as the trio of paintings in the photograph she had found on the moor. One was here, where were the other two?

  A painting on the other side of the door came into focus. It was a portrait in the same style as the one she had seen Stewart copying last night. Surely, it must be by the same painter. The woman wore the same type of clothes, almost the same bonnet. The whole look of the painting was remarkably similar. If one of an artist’s paintings could be copied, others could too, and there was an empty space beside this one that could have held the original she had seen in Stewart’s cottage…

  Laura’s heart seemed almost to stop as a terrible suspicion entered her mind. Was that how Adrian was financing his acquisitions now? Had he gone through his wife’s money, and in his obsession, had turned to peddling fakes? After all, no one knew about the originals hanging anonymously in his small gallery, and to sell Stewart’s copies as originals would be easy. Was it Adrian who had provided the funds for the new and more sophisticated equipment Thomas had found, so Antonia and Stewart could make near perfect forgeries? Was Adrian the man behind the criminal operation?

  A glimpse of Adrian’s face told her that he knew what she was thinking. “I am so sorry,” he said, but his voice held no hint of remorse. “It would have been better if you had not understood.”

  Fear thudded into Laura. She backed away, afraid to take her eyes off him.

  Adrian gave a deep sigh. “You are not what I thought you were,” he added sadly. “I suppose no one is, are they?”

  “No,” Laura answered as she turned and sprinted for the door. Adrian took three fast steps and caught up with her.

  “I fear I shall have to keep you here for a time,” he told her, grasping her arm firmly. His eyes were cold now, cold and dangerous.

  Wrenching herself out of his grasp, Laura ran - straight into a pair of waiting arms.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Thomas disentangled himself gently from Laura and sauntered into the gallery. “Good morning, Banbury,” he said. His voice was debonair and unconcerned, and infinitely reassuring to Laura. “I am glad to find you at home. Hope you don’t mind if I join you?”

  He looked around the gallery with interest. “This is indeed a fine collection,” he added admiringly. “I have seldom seen its equal. “This painting is particularly fine,” he added, pointing to the one they had seen in the trio of photographs. “I believe I saw one very like it recently in a barn, of all places.”

  Laura felt dizzy with relief. She sat down in the nearest chair, then got up again and walked unsteadily back to Thomas. His eyes were fastened on Adrian and he didn’t look at her, but she felt him touch her arm lightly.

  “Perhaps you would like to make us all a cup of coffee? There are various matters we need to discuss.”

  “Yes, I can do that,” Laura replied, but she didn’t move. Thomas was trying to get her out of the room and therefore out of danger, but she wasn’t going to disappear meekly and leave him to handle Adrian alone. In this latest incarnation as master criminal, the man was terrifying.

  A large frying pan, she thought irrationally. She could grab one from the kitchen, come back, and hit Adrian over the head with it.

  She looked at Adrian and changed her mind. He had slumped into a chair, and he looked numb, without strength, as if both body and mind had ceased to function. Pity flooded her. He must realize that he had lost.

  “I wonder if you showed your collection to a friend of mine?” Thomas asked the unresponsive Adrian. “She was a great lover of art, though she often worked as a cook.”

  Adrian’s head jerked up. “I didn’t kill her. I have never killed anyone,” he said, and there was a note of pride in his voice.

  “Ah!” Thomas replied, studying the other man. “Not even your wife?”

  Laura was startled, but Adrian only frowned irritably. “She was dying anyway,” he snapped. Laura’s moment of pity dissolved.

  Thomas changed the subject. “How many did you let them copy?” he asked, his tone businesslike now.

  “I have told them they cannot take any more,” Adrian answered with finality. “Antonia is not a good woman,” he added as if that explained his decision. Disapproval was thick in his voice.

  “No, she is not,” Thomas agreed. Laura noticed that he placed a finger very delicately against the corners of a few of the paintings. Did he suspect that some of these were fakes too?

  “Well, Banbury,” Thomas said finally, “shall we adjourn to the kitchen? I believe Laura will have finished the coffee by this time.”

  He shot Laura a reproachful glance. “Don’t you ever do as you’re told?” he muttered under his breath.

  “Seldom,” Laura replied, but she went ahead of him into the kitchen and rummaged in the cabinets for the coffee.

  “Coming, Banbury?” Thomas called back as he followed her, but Adrian didn’t move. His voice answered faintly from the gallery.

  “Did you send her
here?” he asked. “Was she a spy too?”

  “No,” Thomas called back, but his eyes were on Laura. “Laura came here of her own free will, presumably because she wanted to see you. Despite strict, and I had hoped persuasive instructions not to pay you a visit,” he added sotto voice to Laura.

  She turned, surprised. “Instructions?”

  Thomas shook his head wearily. “The note under the door. Surely you took the trouble to read it?”

  Laura was indignant. “But I didn’t get it! I thought I saw something white being pushed under the door, but when I went to get it this morning it had disappeared, so I thought I had dreamed it.”

  Thomas stared at her. The annoyance in his face shifted to astonishment and then to dawning horror.

  “I’ve had it all wrong,” he said incredulously. “Of course! He couldn’t really be the one, could he?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed Laura’s arm. “We have to get back to the manor now, pronto. Are you coming?”

  “But what about Adrian?” Laura was baffled by the abrupt change in his mood, and his question. “What do you mean, he can’t be the one?”

  “That he can’t be the one behind all this, as we’d thought,” Thomas answered impatiently. “Come on! I’ll explain as we go. If that is, you wish to come,” he added stiffly.

  “Of course I do!” Laura expostulated. “Do you think I want to be left behind with this… Well, I don’t know what he is, but I would just as soon get out of here.”

  “Good,” Thomas sounded relieved. “Let’s go. I’ve got a car.” He grabbed her hand, and they sprinted for the front door.

  Tires squealed on the driveway just as they reached it. Thomas pushed Laura behind him and opened the door a crack. He closed it again quickly.

  “Too late,” he whispered, and thrust Laura into a closet, leaving the door slightly ajar. She struggled to find footing among a welter of boots and space to breathe instead of being smothered by coats, then stood perfectly still, waiting. She heard Thomas run back the way they had come, heard the front door open. Peering out through the coats, she saw Antonia and Roger creeping down the hall. Both of them were holding guns.

  They went past her toward the gallery, and Laura opened the door a bit wider, straining to hear. There was no need. Antonia had found Adrian still sitting in the gallery and didn’t bother to lower her voice.

  “We have a deal, you bastard,” she said furiously, “and you are going to abide by it. How dare you tell Stewart he can’t do any more? I have a buyer who is prepared to pay very well, and he is not the patient type.”

  Adrian didn’t answer, seemed not even to hear her. That made Antonia even angrier. “What is the matter with you, Adrian?” she demanded. “I want answers, and I want them now.”

  Still, he made no response. “Cat got your tongue?” Antonia taunted.

  Unable to resist the urge to watch as well as listen, Laura crept noiselessly down the hall and hid behind the study door. She was rewarded with a full view of Antonia, hands on hips, furiously challenging the unresponsive Adrian. Incongruously, she was clad in a close-fitting silk dress that emphasized every curve in her slender but well-rounded body. Roger stood beside her, looking immensely pleased with his role as Antonia’s sidekick. There was no sign of Thomas.

  “He talked a good deal before whenever I came to see him before,” Antonia told Roger in a taunting voice Adrian was also intended to hear. “In fact, he told me the whole story of his life and all about his late unlamented wife, every time we got into be-”

  Roger’s unpleasant snicker cut off the word and finally aroused Adrian from his stupor. “Be quiet!” he thundered. “I would like you to leave now,” he added, with a dignity that to Laura sounded pathetic.

  Antonia paid no attention to the command. Her fit of temper had passed without a trace, and she was intent now on the paintings. Her eyes were practiced as she scrutinized them, assessing, judging.

  “We’ll take those three,” she said to Roger. “Be a dear, will you, and bring the replacements from the van?”

  Obediently, Roger lifted the three paintings from the wall and carried two of them out of the room. Alarmed, Laura pressed hard against the study wall and watched him trudge down the hall and out the front door.

  Adrian came to life. “What are you doing?” he asked frantically, rising from the chair to place a protective hand on the remaining painting. “That is mine and you cannot have it. I paid for all these paintings. They are mine.”

  Antonia laughed. “Don’t worry, darling,” she told him. “Roger has gone to get you another. It’s in the van.”

  “But that one’s a copy,” Adrian protested.

  Antonia shrugged her elegant shoulders. “Yes, darling, it is, but then, so are most of these.” She gestured toward the other paintings with a sweeping arc of one silk–clad arm. “I switched them, you see, while you were at the surgery. This particular client wants the real thing and it isn’t easy to fool him.”

  Adrian looked stunned. “But Mrs. Paulson… Mrs. Paulson wouldn’t let you in,” he stammered. “And you haven’t a key. Only I have a key.”

  Antonia gave a mocking laugh. “Darling, I don’t wait for people to give me keys! I just take them and get copies, and if I can’t…” She gave a deep and theatrical sigh. “Well, that’s one of the things Morris did well. He was helpful in certain ways, I admit. And no, I don’t suppose Mrs. Paulson would let me in. She never did seem to like me, even when we were… shall I call it close? But she always goes to her sister’s teashop at ten o’clock sharp, to help with the food and that sort of thing. Had you forgotten?”

  Adrian looked at her in horror, then at his paintings. “Do sit down again, darling,” Antonia urged him. “You look apoplectic.”

  Adrian moved slowly toward her, his face tight with fury, and she shrugged again. “I can’t see why you’re upset,” she said coldly, leveling the gun at his chest. “You never noticed the difference before, did you darling, so what difference should it make to you now?”

  Ignoring the gun, Adrian came closer. “I could not care less if you kill me,” he informed her through gritted teeth. “I have one desire now and one only, and that is to place my hands around your throat and squeeze until all the life has drained from your worthless body.”

  Antonia took a step backward, but her voice held neither fear nor shock when she answered. “But darling, I wasn’t going to shoot you,” she taunted. “I was going to shoot her.” For a moment Laura thought she had been seen, and she shrank back. Then she saw Antonia gesture toward the painting of the woman with the big hat, the one Adrian confused with her.

  “I know that one’s your favorite,” Antonia went on remorselessly. “She wouldn’t look nearly so well with a bullet in her face, would she? Or shall it be her eye?”

  Laura’s fists clenched convulsively, as if, like Adrian’s, they wanted to wrap themselves around that pale throat. The woman was a devil. She had not known anyone could be so cruel.

  “Let’s see,” Antonia went on in the same tightly controlled voice. “The right eye or the left?”

  She had gone too far. Adrian sprang at her, unstoppable now. Several things happened then all at once, and Laura was never able to sort them out in their proper order. She felt the coldness of a gun against her back, heard a gun exploding, saw Thomas catapult into the room and Adrian crumple to the floor, fell heavily to the floor herself as Roger sprang at Adrian, or perhaps Thomas, and heard another sharp report from a gun.

  For a moment she thought she had been shot. There was a terrible pain in her chest. Then she realized that Roger had slammed her against the doorknob in his hurry to get at Thomas and Adrian.

  Dragging herself upright, Laura stared into the gallery. Adrian was still on the floor, with blood seeping from his head. The others were standing, Thomas on the far side of the room, Antonia and Roger facing him. Both of them were pointing their guns at his chest. Their backs were toward her.

  Lau
ra grabbed the only potential weapon in sight, a heavy plaster bust, and crept into the gallery. Maybe she could hit one of them on the head and even the odds a bit.

  Roger foiled her. “The nosy walker lady’s behind you,” he informed Antonia in a laconic bad-guy voice that was clearly meant to impress.

  Laura frowned. How did he know who she was through her disguise? Probably her hiking clothes, she realized. From behind, they would give her away.

  Antonia stiffened. “I thought she was still at the cottage. How did she get here?” Her voice sharpened. “Where’s Angelina?”

  “At the manor, I guess,” Roger answered. “I heard her there. Can’t keep that kid quiet for a minute. I saw this lady there, too, sneaking through the bushes like she always does. Must have escaped somehow.”

  Antonia flushed with fury. “Why didn’t you tell me, you fool!”

  Roger looked surprised at her anger. “You didn’t ask,” he pointed out, “and anyway I thought you already knew.”

  Antonia gave him a long look and sighed audibly. For once, Laura sympathized with her. Roger might be obedient, but he wasn’t very bright.

  Antonia recovered quickly. “Keep him covered,” she told Roger crisply, and turned to point her own gun at Laura.

  “Well, this is a surprise,” she said sarcastically. “You don’t give up, do you? You could have stayed safe and sound in the cottage where I so thoughtfully put you, but no, you had to get out so you could play detective again. I gather you had some help from the Baroness, or was it Nigel?”

  Laura didn’t answer, but Antonia seemed not to notice. “I thought I had him out of the way, too,” she went on with a disdainful glance at Thomas. “Heaven knows I did my best to convince him that Torrington Manor was not a healthy place to be.”

  She uttered another theatrical sigh. “And then, in spite of all my efforts, both of you had to come back so you could get yourselves killed. I suppose we will have to oblige you, but remember that it’s your fault, not mine.”

  The gleam of satisfaction in her eyes infuriated Laura, and she decided to ignore both the gun and Antonia. Still holding the bust, she went to Adrian and knelt beside him. He wasn’t dead, only unconscious, she discovered with relief. A deep gash on the back of his head told her that he’d been hit hard, no doubt by the butt of a gun. His pulse and breathing were ragged, though, and there was blood seeping out underneath him, which made her suspect he’d been shot, too. She dared not move him to find out.