by Emily Queen
“She aims too high. A man of his station would never go for a common maid,” Vera said. Her eyes widened when she realized how insulting her comment was, and she shook her head emphatically. “Not, mind you that he could do any better than our Anna. I only meant, from his perspective, she wouldn’t be a fitting choice for anything but a minor dalliance.”
The possibility of which Vera had warned Rose since they’d arrived.
“Walter is the type of man who worries more about how his actions are perceived than how they are intended. He’d consider his status and whatnot to be of more import than Anna’s tender heart. He’d sooner go for one of those diamond-encrusted heiresses that would never look twice at him.”
Wincing, Vera drained her glass and ignored the pang of remorse when she realized she was one of those diamond-encrusted heiresses, regardless of whether or not she’d ever acted like one.
Rosemary’s heart thudded in her chest as a new thought occurred to her. “You’re right, Vera. I hadn’t considered until just now—”
“That I might be right about something?” Vera asked sharply. “Thank you for the vote of confidence.”
“What? Oh, no, Vera, that’s not what I meant. The interaction between Charlotte and Benjamin Marlowe has been bothering me. It seemed strange that a man whose fiancée looks like Geneviève does would want to flirt with a girl like Charlotte.”
Rising, Rose went to the bar cart and poured gin into the bottom of a tumbler. Taking a sip for fortitude, she added, “You must admit, she’s rather too plain for Benjamin’s seeming tastes, though saying so right out makes me feel uncharitable. However, it’s just as you said—he would never go for a common maid.”
“It does seem strange, though what his behavior towards Charlotte implies I couldn’t guess,” Vera replied.
Rose rested her chin in her hand and stared off into the distance. “It implies they have some sort of connection of which we’re unaware. Or, she was telling the truth when she said he was simply lodging a complaint.” She shook her head emphatically. “No, that can’t be right. Charlotte was lying about something, of that I’m positive. I thought it might have to do with Cecily’s murder, but perhaps not.”
“It’s a line to tug.” Vera dismissed the subject and moved on to the one that had her most curious. “For now, I want to tug on the Max line. What happened between the two of you? He couldn’t take his eyes off you, you know.” Vera’s words brought a blush to Rosemary’s cheeks.
She brushed aside Vera’s comment. “We talked mostly about the investigation. I filled him in on what’s happened so far, but he was tired from traveling, and we decided to discuss it again in the morning. Did you know he came here on a freighter or possibly a series of them?”
Vera took in that piece of news without so much as a flicker of surprise. “If he thought you were in danger, I’ve no doubt the man would sprout wings and fly.”
“Don’t be silly.” Rose fluttered a hand at Vera and rose to put her tumbler back on the cart.
“Don’t be naive,” Vera countered, and then gave in. “It has been one more long day in the midst of many. Let’s get some sleep, shall we, and maybe we’ll be more clear-headed in the morning.”
Chapter 16
“Rose! Rosemary!” The urgency in Vera’s voice roused Rosemary from her dreams, and she woke with a start.
“What?” she snapped, glaring at Vera. She’d finally slept without being plagued by nightmares, though the rude awakening had obliterated whatever lovely dream it was she’d been having. Rather than deal with the implications of her nightmares dissipating on Max’s arrival, she tried to focus on what Vera was saying.
“I heard a noise, some sort of disturbance. Get up. Let’s go find out what’s happening.” Her eyes were brighter than they ought to have been, considering the early hour. It couldn’t have been later than five o’clock in the morning, and neither of them had fallen asleep more than a few hours before.
Rosemary propped herself up on her elbows and yawned. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” she said.
“It’s not nothing! Can’t you hear the commotion?”
“No, and I never shall if you won’t stop talking.”
“Something is wrong. Now, get up, or I shall have to go and investigate alone.” Vera was not above using logic or coercion to get what she wanted.
“Leave off,” Rose exclaimed when Vera yanked at the bedclothes. “I’m getting up.”
The pair dressed hastily and sneaked out of the room, taking care not to disturb the soft sounds of Anna’s snores. She must have come in late, though if the sounds emanating from the hallway failed to stir her, Rosemary thought nothing would.
Guests lined the hallway, all peeking out of their rooms to see what the fuss was all about. Someone had opened the stairwell door, and bodies clogged the entrance. The wail of a distraught woman echoed from below, and Rosemary’s ears pricked.
She looked sideways at Vera. “That sounds like Gloria.”
Someone tapped on Rosemary’s shoulder and she turned with a start. Max was standing there, Frederick and Desmond behind him.
“Clear the way,” Max said, taking charge of the situation. His tone, one of supreme authority, brooked no refusal, and the crowd parted to allow the five of them to descend the staircase. At the bottom, they found Gloria huddled beneath a blanket that had been pulled haphazardly from the supply closet, leaving a pile of linens strewn on the floor. Walter knelt beside her while Richard Wright hung back watching the scene play out with an enigmatic expression on his face.
“What happened?” Max asked gently, bending down to examine the woman.
Gloria began to cry with great, wracking sobs that shook her entire body.
“Someone attacked me!” she finally wailed. “I was in here looking for fresh shaving soap for Mr. Wright, and someone came up behind me and struck me on the back of the head.” She touched her fingers to the spot, which brought a fresh stream of tears. “I must have been out for a few moments, and then Mr. Wright woke me up.”
“I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I would take the air,” he explained somewhat defensively. “Gave me a start, I tell you, seeing her sprawled on the floor.” As an afterthought, he added, “I never asked for shaving soap.”
Max glanced at the door where they’d seen the man just a few hours prior, and then pointedly back at Rosemary. It didn’t look good for him.
“Let’s get you up.” Max took one of Gloria’s arms, Freddie the other, and gently lifted her from the floor. As they did, the blanket she’d been clutching fell, and Rosemary bent to retrieve it from the floor. As she did, she noticed an item lying there that made her suck in a breath. Surreptitiously, she palmed the brass lighter and slipped it into her pocket.
At Max’s suggestion, Rose and Vera led a shaky Gloria to the lounge and settled her in a comfortable chair.
“Did you see who attacked you?” Max asked gently.
“It was probably her!” came a voice from the stairwell doorway. Rosemary whirled around to find Geneviève Chevalier and Benjamin Marlowe standing there. She had her finger pointed straight at Vera, and her eyes were spitting fire. “She came at me just last night,” Geneviève continued. “Pulled my hair and struck me across the face. She’s unstable.”
Geneviève loosed a flurry of French, and Benjamin had to calm her down with a few whispered words. He didn’t take his eyes off the sobbing Gloria, though.
“Are you insane?” Vera demanded, incredulous. “There’s quite a difference between a catfight and sneaking up on someone from behind. If I wanted to attack Gloria, I would have done it in front of witnesses!”
Wishing Vera had thought before she spoke, Rosemary looked to Max in a panic.
“Everyone calm down,” he said, but his words fell on deaf ears.
Geneviève straightened up to her full, considerable height, and glared down at Vera. “You probably killed Miss DeVant too!”
That sent Vera into more of a frenzy, and sh
e struggled visibly with the effort of not giving Geneviève another swat with the flat of her hand. “You’re the one pointing fingers, maybe it was you! You or your deplorable fiancé, come to think of it!”
“Enough!” Rosemary yelled, her voice higher and more piercing than Max’s, which forced everyone to stop bickering. “Why on earth would Vera have killed Miss DeVant, or for that matter, why would she have attacked Gloria? She has no motive, and she’s been asleep in our suite all night. We don’t even know if Gloria was the intended victim. Didn’t you say you were covering a shift for someone else?” She turned to Gloria, who nodded but didn’t speak.
“Furthermore, the attack took place in the supply closet, which isn’t a place the receptionist usually visits. It’s possible someone lured Gloria in there, of course.” She looked directly at Mr. Wright.
“Me?” he exclaimed. “What reason would I have for wanting to hurt this poor girl?”
Rosemary raised an eyebrow. “As for your motive, I couldn’t say, but you had the opportunity. It was, after all, your call that prompted Gloria to go to the supply closet, and you keep odd hours. I’ve seen you from the balcony in my room, roaming about quite early in the mornings.”
Mr. Wright glared hard at Rosemary. “I did not call down for shaving soap in the middle of the night. You’re just trying to shift the blame from your friend onto anyone else. We only have your word she was in your room, and let me you ask this, was there another employee on shift at the time? That’s where you ought to be focusing your suspicions.”
“Was there anyone else on shift?” Rosemary looked at Gloria.
“No, not until half six when Charlotte and Benny were scheduled to arrive. Of course, it doesn’t mean a thing. Most everyone who works here lives on the premises. We have staff quarters on the north side of the beach,” she explained. “I just can’t believe any of the people I work with would do something like this.”
It was a naive statement, considering her boss had been murdered only a few days before, but Rosemary knew people tended towards denial when it came to such matters.
Before anything more could be said on the subject, the local police arrived, led by Inspector Boothe. He strode into the lounge and made a beeline for Gloria. “What seems to be the trouble here?”
“Inspector Boothe, it’s a pleasure. I’m Detective Inspector Maximilian Whittington of the London CID.” Max introduced himself, shaking the inspector’s hand. “I contacted you regarding the death of Miss DeVant. It’s good you’ve come, as these crimes are likely connected.”
“Yes, yes, that’s exactly why I am here. I would have sent a constable, but when I heard someone was assaulted at the Aphrodite, I thought it best to attend to the matter personally. Come along, now,” Inspector Boothe said, pulling Max with him.
To say the way Boothe treated Max irked Rosemary was a gross understatement. Once the two men were out of earshot, she said to her friends, “Of course, Max is an asset. He’s a man. I’m just a little woman, who couldn’t possibly be of any assistance. Well, mark my words: he’ll be sorry he underestimated me.”
“Boothe really gets under your skin, doesn’t he, Rose?” Desmond asked, his tone playful but his eyes serious.
“Of course, he does,” Vera answered for her. “It’s typical for a man to think a woman can’t have looks and a brain. You two are no better, making silly wagers over who will find the killer,” she spat, conveniently forgetting she’d been more than keen to take the bet.
Frederick clutched his heart. “You wound me! If we didn’t find the two of you formidable adversaries, we wouldn’t have bothered with betting in the first place.”
Someone, probably Walter in his capacity as assistant manager, had sent for Margaret to cover the front desk. When the girl arrived, her eyes were wide as saucers. “Poor thing probably thinks she’ll be next,” Vera commented.
The guests who had been milling about the stairway had gone back to their rooms to discuss Gloria’s attack, spreading the word so that by the time they began filtering down for breakfast, it was all anyone could talk about.
“It isn’t safe here,” someone murmured.
“Safe as anyplace else,” another guest replied.
“I’d have to disagree with you there.”
“Well I, for one, am checking out.” This came from a middle-aged American man whose wife appeared to have spent some time sobbing over the dramatic events of the morning. Her eyes were red, and her face swollen and blotchy. “Come along, dear,” he said, approaching the reception desk.
While Margaret puttered around doing the man’s bidding, Richard Wright sauntered out from the office after, presumably, being questioned by the inspector and Max. “Mr. Robinson, are you leaving?” he asked.
“Right so, right so. Can’t say it seems a safe place, what with murderers and the like roaming about. We’ll find lodging at one of the other hotels on the island. Might not be as nice as this, but we won’t worry about being killed in our sleep.”
Richard Wright bade the couple safe travels, but when he turned around, Rosemary caught the smug smile that flitted across his lips. It seemed Mr. Wright’s prediction of the hotel losing business was coming true, and his self-satisfied demeanor did nothing to convince Rosemary he wasn’t the one who had attacked Gloria.
“Where is that Benny?” the receptionist asked, exasperated, as a dust-coated bus deposited a small group of new guests into the lobby. Some eyed the officers who stood flanking the stairwell door with concern.
“You’d all better get right back on that bus and go back to town,” Mr. Robinson said loudly. “There’s been a murder here already, and now, some poor girl was attacked this morning.”
If she were as prone to violence as Vera, Rosemary would have liked to slap the satisfied smile off Mr. Wright’s face.
Chapter 17
“Strange, isn’t it, that Benny hasn’t shown up for work this morning?” Frederick noted. “He’s an odd one, but he seems to care about his job. Looks suspicious if you ask me.”
“I thought you two were convinced Charlotte the maid is behind all this,” Vera retorted with a derisive huff. “She was also supposed to be here, and I don’t see her anywhere.”
Desmond cleared his throat loudly. “Actually, she came in through the back door while you two were busy watching Mr. Wright egg on the surly man who checked out. Perhaps if your attention hadn’t been focused on the wrong suspect, you would have seen her.”
Rosemary stared at him with wide eyes. His tone was harsher than any he’d used with her previously, and she suspected the reason had something to do with Max’s arrival in Cyprus.
“She appeared in quite some distress, actually,” Frederick said smugly. “But we never said we thought she was in it alone. Benny is missing, is he not?”
“You’re telling me you believe Charlotte and Benny are the masterminds behind Cecily’s death and Gloria’s assault?” Rosemary balked, but the lighter in her pocket might be proof that Frederick was right. “Charlotte can’t find a towel in a closet full of them, and Benny is practically a child.”
“A child in a very large man’s body. She’d need some muscle to pull this off. Benny could be the perfect tool.”
“Well, I don’t believe it. We found no record of violence in Benny’s file. He seemed to have genuine feelings for Cecily, and he has never even raised his voice in our presence. He’s a gentle soul,” Rosemary insisted.
“Where is he, then?” Desmond retorted.
Vera had watched the exchange between them, could feel the tension rising along with the temperature outside as the sun inched higher in the sky. “Why don’t we just go find out?” She spat out the challenge without much thought.
Rosemary stood, crossed her arms, and stared Desmond down. “Why don’t we, then?” he retorted.
She turned and marched out the front door of the hotel. Gloria had mentioned that the staff lodging was located on the north side of the beach, so she took a sharp turn and
headed in that direction.
“Wait, Rosie. What’s the plan?” Vera asked, speeding her steps to keep up with the pumping of Rosemary’s long legs.
Rosemary flapped her arms in frustration. “We find him, we ask him,” she said. “And then we lay this whole pile of nonsense to rest.”
“Do you think coming right out and asking him if he killed someone is the best way to go about this?” Vera asked with more excitement than trepidation in her voice despite the question.
Rosemary sidestepped a large rock that had so far been spared the wrath of the sea, had yet to be ground into grit and become part of the beach itself.
“It’s worked well enough for us in the past, hasn’t it? I highly doubt Benny is going to murder us right there in his own quarters. I don’t for one second believe he’s capable of that kind of brutality. Besides, we have two bodyguards in case, for some reason, I’m wrong. When they’ll learn to trust me, I’ll never know.” The last part was muttered under her breath, but Vera caught the gist of it.
“Rose, we have to be realistic,” Vera said. “Benny was scheduled to work this morning; he was supposed to arrive right around the time Gloria was attacked, but he never showed up. You can’t deny it looks bad for him. He could have come in, bopped her on the head, and then ran.”
“I don’t see it,” Rosemary replied. “I simply don’t. I still think Richard Wright is our man. If only he would leave long enough for us to get into his room. He still has the most to gain.”
She couldn’t stop thinking about those threatening letters Cecily had received before she died. They weren’t Benny’s style of speech, nor did she think he had the means to own a typewriter.
What Vera felt was that Rosemary, as much as she might enjoy berating her brother, had one trait in common with him. Both were stubborn to a fault.
Frederick had spent all week focused on little Charlotte as his prime suspect and refused to see the evidence against anyone else. Rosemary was just as quick to defend Benny.
The difference was, now that Freddie had been presented with another option, he’d jumped ship faster than a rat with his tail on fire, while Rose wouldn’t be swayed until she had absolute proof.
