I just have a wild imagination.
Obviously, no one is going to harm me.
“Rollo, you’re going to have to make a run for it,” Lionel said. “Miss Greensbody will return at some point. Or—” He was silent.
“Or what?” Bess asked, and then she followed Lionel’s gaze to Cora.
She seemed to grasp what he was implicating for her face paled, and even though she was holding onto Rollo’s hand, her other hand quivered.
Cora wanted to see the quivering as a good sign. She wanted to see it a sign of consciousness. Maybe Lionel might stand by his best friend, but Cora had hoped Bess would be her friend. They’d laughed together.
Bess had seemed like Cora’s first normal friend. Veronica would always be her very dearest friend, but Veronica was famous and had added responsibilities. Veronica would return to Hollywood at some point, and then perhaps the only time Cora would hear about her would be when she read about her in the gossip columns.
Bess had seemed to have more potential for friendship, and not only because she lived in the apartment opposite Cora’s. They were a similar age, and Cora had thought they were of similar disposition. Cora had been relieved Bess had not had the same enormous ambition Veronica had, and she’d found it amusing when Bess had stated her intentions to marry well. It had been the sort of dream a normal girl would have, one who could say things unselfconsciously, assured of the fact no one would print her conversation in a gossip column titled Gold Diggers of 1938.
But perhaps Cora had been wrong all along.
Perhaps she’d romanticized being normal.
Perhaps she’d ascribed a pureness to being a secretary or shopkeeper that simply wasn’t true. Perhaps she’d thought an absence of ambition indicated an absence of greed. Hollywood had seemed filled with pettiness, but perhaps it was truly no different than anywhere else. Perhaps the women were simply prettier and the men more handsome.
“What do you want to do with Cora?” Lionel asked. “Because you should decide soon. We don’t know if her boyfriend is hanging around. A nasty guy if I ever saw one.”
Cora wanted to protest at Lionel’s description of Randolph, though in this case, she thought better of further exasperating him. Cora decided she would worry more if Lionel heaped Randolph with praise, for his sense of morals seemed distinctly skewed.
“You don’t want to send me to prison,” Rollo asked.
“Of course we don’t,” Bess said soothingly. “Everything bad you did was for me. And you’re right, it wasn’t like you killed one of us. He was a foreigner. Don’t they always get into wars anyway? He was probably going to die soon even if you hadn’t killed him.”
Rollo smiled. “I could never have done something like that to you or Lionel.”
“I know.” Bess squeezed his hand. She inched closer to him and gazed at him shyly, as if she were a woman on a first date, anxious for a kiss from the man she adored.
Cora felt slightly nauseous.
Actually, Cora felt decidedly nauseous.
“You have to call the police,” she said. “Rollo killed someone. You can’t mean to run off with a murderer. What sort of life would that be for you?”
“Which is why Bess won’t do that,” Lionel said sternly.
“No?” Bess frowned. “But we could go to Australia. Or Europe. To the continent. Maybe even Germany.”
“Germany?” Cora sputtered.
“Everyone’s so scared of Germany,” Bess said. “I think we could disappear there too.”
“You don’t speak German,” Cora said.
“We can learn.”
“No one is going to Germany,” Lionel said sternly. “The prospect is ridiculous.”
“He’s not good at languages,” Rollo said with a smirk, and Bess gave a delighted laugh. “I’m not either, Lionel. Don’t worry.”
“We had a nice life here,” Lionel said, “and we can continue to have a nice life. We just have to take care of her.” Lionel jerked his thumb in Cora’s direction, and ice seemed to invade her spine, and she shivered. “And then we have to take care of Miss Greensbody.”
“Oh.” Bess stopped smiling and she stared at Cora. “She won’t tell. We’ll have her promise. It will be fine.”
“Yes,” Rollo said quickly. “Cora is nice. She won’t tell.”
Lionel sighed. “You’re so innocent.”
Cora wanted to laugh. She wanted to say it was ridiculous that Lionel could term Rollo innocent. Rollo had killed Mr. Tehrani after all. And Bess had stolen a watch from a client at one of London’s great department stores, doing a crime that shocked everyone there.
Neither of them could be termed innocent.
But Cora restrained from laughing at the absurdity of Lionel’s and Bess’s sudden defense of Rollo.
I don’t belong here.
She’d sauntered into this building, dreaming of living a life in London filled with normalcy. She hadn’t wanted to give up that dream even when she discovered a body in her bed. She’d wanted to be independent, imagining it entailed swishing about in elegant off-the-rack clothes and smart hats. She’d wanted to live a life that didn’t entail memorizing lines and being yelled at by directors much older than she was who were stressed with the responsibility of their huge budgets and the necessity of creating hits in order to continue doing what they professed to love, but which to Cora, appeared just like a burden to them.
Cora wanted to tell them all the reasons Rollo belonged in jail.
She wanted to tell them about the sanctity of life.
She wanted to tell them they seemed dangerously devoid of any ethics.
But she didn’t.
She couldn’t convince them.
They were friends, and she wasn’t one of them, no matter how much fun they’d had at Club Paradiso before Cora had brought up Mr. Tehrani.
The only thing she could do now was to survive, because it was the only thing that might bring some justice.
She swept her gaze around the room, wishing Randolph had not fixed the lock on the window.
She contemplated screaming, but she was not convinced that would accomplish anything. This was a big city after all, and people generally gave other people their privacy. She wanted to do more with her life than create the possibility that some witness, perhaps, would mention to a police constable that he thought he’d heard a scream, and that he thought the missing girl in Apartment Six might have killed.
I have to escape.
She looked down at her tea, wishing she’d had the sense to serve cake with a sharper knife, one that she could threaten them with.
Lionel rose and sauntered casually to the door. He smirked as he leaned against it.
She rose as well, and Lionel raised his eyebrows slightly, as if to indicate he thought her mad to think leaving the table would do much good, when he was guarding the only exit.
She paced the room, hoping her blatant nervousness would calm them. She wished that the emotion did not come so easily to her. She wished that she had to use her acting experience to feign nervousness.
But she was nervous.
To her very core.
Her heart beat wildly against her ribs, and her stomach seemed intent on dropping to her toes. Every organ seemed clearly discernible, as if they knew the end was near, and as if they wanted to experience life to the fullest right now, even if experiencing life entailed making her as uncomfortable as possible.
“You’ve gone quite white,” Rollo mused, gazing at her.
“Have I?” Cora asked, trying to laugh.
She wanted to pretend everything was fine, that these were still her friends, and she was simply having a pleasant tea with them, just as she’d planned.
“You’re going to have to kill her, Rollo,” Lionel said.
“Me?” Rollo widened his eyes. “But she’s nice.”
“Exactly, Rollo,” Cora said quickly. “I’m nice. We’re friends, right?” Her voice wobbled uncontrollably as she said the last word
, and Rollo’s eyes narrowed at once, as if considering for the first time that they may not be.
He peered at her, assessing her, and she shivered.
She’d taken his calm for intelligence. She’d seen him as a more pleasant variation of his older cousin. He’d seemed to be more removed from partying and the other uncouth habits prevalent in students. Perhaps she’d simply been flattered because he’d recognized her, even though most people wouldn’t know that she was living in Britain, and even though most people might struggle to place her when she was no longer grasping a magnifying glass and wearing a floppy hat, just like she had in all of the Gal Detective film promotions.
She’d been wrong about him.
She’d been wrong about all of them.
I have to leave.
The dumbwaiter was the only way.
It had carried Mr. Tehrani’s body, perhaps it would also carry hers.
It was a bad idea.
The dumbwaiter wasn’t meant to carry people.
It might be broken after having struggled with Mr. Tehrani’s considerable weight. Mr. Tehrani had after all been a full grown male, complete with muscles and a woolen suit. Even though he had not approached the more massive size found in the steak and sofa adoring, he was considerably heavier than a tray topped with tea and other delicacies would be.
It’s the only way.
She inched closer to the dumbwaiter. At least it was still covered by the mirror. At least none of these men had guns, like their American counterparts may have done. She would have to take comfort in that. It was the only comfort she had.
“Cora won’t tell anyone,” Bess said, no doubt realizing what the two cousins were contemplating.
“She will,” Lionel said. “You know who her sweetheart is? Someone who works for the government.” He said the latter triumphantly, but Bess blinked.
“In an administrative office?”
“Something like Scotland Yard,” Lionel grumbled.
“He told you he worked for Scotland Yard?” Bess sounded incredulous.
“No,” Lionel admitted. “But it was obvious it was something like that. From his bearing. He was very fit.”
Bess rolled his eyes. “You think anyone who takes more time to train his muscles than you do must be working at something nefarious. Perhaps he simply isn’t lazy.”
“Yes, you could accomplish a lot if you weren’t hungover all the time,” Rollo said, and Bess giggled.
“Two minds acting as one,” Lionel grumbled. “Well, if you don’t kill her, you can go to prison. Perhaps that’s better anyway.”
He sounded mournful though, and Rollo sobered his expression.
“I don’t want to kill her,” Rollo said. “But I don’t want you to be sad. It’s not my turn though. I already killed before.”
“Lionel just doesn’t want to get in trouble if something bad happens,” Bess said. “He wants you to be in trouble.”
“Rollo is already in trouble,” Lionel said, and the others were silent, contemplating the veracity of his statement.
Cora shivered.
She looked at Bess, hoping Bess would say something, but she was silent. Her face had grown paler, and perhaps it had occurred to her that she had been overly effusive at Rollo’s actions. Perhaps she feared for her own life now as well.
Cora wasn’t going to wait to see what ways they might murder her.
She wasn’t going to let them laud the firmness of frying pans or the sharpness of carving knives. She wasn’t going to let Rollo talk about the dangerous chemical properties of regular household cleaning products, and she wasn’t going to let any of them think that shoving her out the window of her third floor flat might be the most efficient method.
The flat had always seemed tiny before, but now it seemed rife with danger.
She grabbed hold of the mirror and yanked it down.
She ignored the expressions of surprise on the other’s faces or the crash of the glass breaking against the floor.
They could use the shattered mirror pieces to stab her. That was another method of death she did not desire to contemplate.
She leaped into the dumbwaiter, ignoring the strange smells, the sudden dearth of light and the surprised screams of the others.
The dumbwaiter wobbled beneath her and then pitched down rapidly. She had the presence of mind to grab onto the pieces of rope, lest the dumbwaiter topple down completely, exhausted by its unexpected need to work.
The dumbwaiter did not pitch down sharply. Instead, it moved too slowly. Why wasn’t it moving? Was it broken?
Her heart leaped in her chest. There was light from above, and she heard the voices of the others. She scrambled with the ropes, trying to remember what Randolph had done when they’d discovered the dumbwaiter. Finally, she got it to move, and it catapulted downward.
She moved, down and down, and then it thudded.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Footsteps sounded on the other side of the wall, and Cora hesitated on whether she should search for an opening. Perhaps she hadn’t accomplished anything by attempting to escape. Had they followed her downstairs so quickly?
Perhaps.
She heard an odd scraping against the floor panels and then heavy panting.
Archibald.
She knocked on the wall, and barks soon met her.
“Archibald? Veronica?” she called.
“Cora? Where are you?” Veronica’s cool, American accent sounded through the wall, and relief moved through Cora before she remembered they didn’t have time. There were three of them, and they knew where she was.
“I’m in the dumbwaiter! And they’re all up there!” Cora babbled. “They’re going to kill me.”
“Hang on!” Veronica said.
Fiddling sounded, and Cora prepared for Veronica to tell her she couldn’t open the door, that it was locked, that most likely no one had seen the key for the past thirty years—
She prepared for the others to start throwing the mirror into the dumbwaiter, but perhaps the thought hadn’t occurred to them, or perhaps they recognized the benefits of a cleaner method of murder.
The door was wrenched open, and light streamed through and she saw Veronica’s startled face.
Archibald barked, and she scrambled from the dumbwaiter.
“What on earth are you doing there?” Veronica asked.
“There’s no time! But I found out who killed Mr. Tehrani—who really killed him, and now they want to murder me.” A horrible thought came to Cora. “And probably you, since I told you.”
“That’s not going to happen.” Veronica gritted her teeth.
A creaking sounded in the wall. The dumbwaiter. They were pulling it up. No doubt they’d realize it was empty soon enough.
“All of them? They all murdered Mr. Tehrani together?” Veronica asked.
“No, just Rollo.”
“That bastard. No one threatens my friend.” Veronica lifted her dress and removed her pearl-hilted pistol from her thigh.
Cora stared. “You still carry a pistol?”
“Can’t ever be too careful,” Veronica said.
“You know how to use one of those?”
Veronica smirked. “Are you telling me you didn’t see Mail Order Bride I and Mail Order Bride II?”
Cora smiled. “I forgot about those.”
“Gary Cooper used to take me for shooting practices during lunch breaks. Better for the waistline than dessert, and more thrilling than even chocolate.”
“We can still run,” Cora said.
Veronica nodded. “You get a constable. I passed one on my way here.”
“You’ll be fine.”
Veronica tossed her hair. “Naturally.”
Footsteps sounded upstairs. The others had probably heard them talking in the landing, and Cora scurried outside quickly. She wasn’t going to allow anyone to harm Veronica.
She rushed outside, conscious she must appear ridiculous to the tourists who strolled through Bloom
sbury, tired after a morning filled with contemplating art, and that she must just appear annoying to the gray-faced workers anxious to return to their offices after their lunchbreaks.
Never mind.
She swept her gaze around the park, not lingering her gaze on the blossoms starting to appear or hearing the manner in which the birds chirped pleasantly.
Where’s the constable?
She looked for the familiar blue helmet. She wasn’t certain whether she should scream, and attract the attention of Lionel, Rollo and Bess, but she wasn’t going to waste time. “Constable! Constable! Constable!”
She hollered, grateful for her years of voice lessons. She might be tiny, but her voice was strong and well-exercised after her impromptu performance at Club Paradiso. Before long a constable came running from the park.
On another occasion she may have smiled. She wasn’t the only person who enjoyed seeing the new flowers.
It was the same constable whom she’d met her first day here, and her heart sank as she saw the suspicion in his gaze. He recognized her too. Golly.
“We’ve caught a murderer!” she said. “Hurry!”
Police Constable Meeks sighed, and for a horrible moment she thought he might laugh and proceed on.
Thankfully he seemed to have some understanding of procedure and he went inside. “There better be an actual body this time.”
“No, no one died,” she said. “But the murderer is still here. I swear.”
He narrowed his gaze, but thankfully he removed his baton, and her shoulders relaxed.
It will be fine.
It must be.
The constable swung open the door. There before them, in all her glory was Veronica. She pointed her pistol at Lionel, Rollo and Bess. “Don’t move closer! I’ll shoot!”
“That’s the murderer?” the constable asked Cora. “Veronica James?”
“Of course not.” Cora pointed at Rollo. “He killed Mr. Tehrani. You must have heard about the body discovered near here. That’s the body I found in my bed.”
“And why wasn’t it there when I looked?”
“Obviously it was moved.”
“By the murderer, hmm...” The constable sneered. Cora supposed she needed inform him of everything now. The important thing was that he believe them.
The Body in Bloomsbury Page 16
