by Rae Davies
She glanced around, smiling. Everyone in the room looked back. Seeing she had the floor, she turned to me and went on, “You appear to have lost weight. Are times hard?”
Unsure how I was expected to answer, I stuttered. “I... uh...”
She nudged me with her elbow. “Part of the act.” Then tucked her card back into the envelope and shoved it down the neck of her dress.
“She’s a regular too,” she confided, nodding her head toward Brent. “Bet it’s killing her that she pulled the religious righteous card tonight.” She giggled.
I was pretty sure the giggle wasn’t part of an act.
I glanced down at my card. If I was to play my role, I needed to get moving, but then again, if Mrs. Peabody had been to one of these before, she might prove to be a shortcut in solving the case.
“Do they always take characters from Agatha Christie?” I asked.
“Always.” She flipped her mink’s tail. “Lady York is not known for her originality.”
“How about the crimes? Are they from the books too?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. If they were, Harold would do better at picking out the villain. To be honest, I think sometimes they make it up as they go... see what direction people are leaning and then switch it to someone else.”
“So even the killer doesn’t know who he is?”
“Nope. But the victim does.” She grinned. “Better pick up those glasses.”
I looked down, but my note card was tucked away. She couldn’t have seen it. Which meant her card must have told her what I was supposed to do.
“Hurry now,” she added. “My feet are killing me.” She motioned to her square-heeled pumps. “I’m ready to stretch out and watch the monkeys scurry about.”
So she...
I did as she asked and picked up the glasses around us. I’d retrieved the rest of the party’s as well and was walking into the kitchen when I heard a clunk. I turned around to see that Mrs. Peabody had fallen face first onto the floor in front of the bar.
Chapter 4
I finished my task, leaving the tray of glasses next to the kitchen sink as the card had instructed and then hurried back into the living room.
By the time I’d gotten there, Dr. Armstrong was kneeling on the floor next to Mrs. Peabody, who had somehow in her dead state managed to flip herself over and arrange her mink stole out around her in an inspired and artful manner.
Betty would have been proud.
The rest of the guests, and both hosts, stood around the pair taking notes and jabbering out information. I pulled the notebook that had been included with my costume out of my apron pocket and rushed forward.
“Did she have a heart attack, Doctor?” Ms. Brent knelt next to the “dead” Mrs. Peabody and placed a paper cross over the other woman’s heart. “A woman of her years and... girth... these things do happen.”
Mrs. Peabody opened one eye and gifted Ms. Brent with a scowl.
Dr. Armstrong was undeterred by the obvious signs of life in his patient. “No, not a heart attack. I’d say this woman has been poisoned.”
Lady York, Sir Arthur, and Mr. Blore all gasped and took a step back.
“You mean murdered?” Lady York asked. Her shock at the revelation was obvious. A tad too obvious in my opinion, but since Mrs. Peabody or the woman who played Mrs. Peabody was still very much alive, I put the lack of true shock down to poor acting rather than previous nefarious acts.
“But who would want to kill her?” Vera Claythorne asked, a bit robotically, and shoved at her glasses which had once again slid down her nose.
“She was wealthy,” Peter read from his card, not quite as woodenly as Miss Claythorne, but far from believably. “Who was talking with her last?”
Emily Brent lifted an accusing finger and pointed it my direction. “She was speaking with her, and I heard the dearly departed say that Maid Ann had lost weight.” Her gaze, resting on me, narrowed. “Did you know her before this?”
All eyes turned to me. I shrank backward before remembering that none of this was real.
Lady York slipped closer and pressed a new card in my hand.
“I did. I worked for her, but I didn’t kill her,” I read.
Lady York pressed a hand to her mouth. “Oh, my. You are the maid she was talking about. The one she fired for stealing the silver!”
I hadn’t heard any such claim by Mrs. Peabody, but that didn’t matter. “I never,” I objected, just as my card instructed.
“What other motive could anyone here have? None of us knew her,” Mr. Blore declared. “I say we lock the servant up.”
Sir Arthur stepped forward. “Everyone needs to calm down. Maid Ann has been with us for over a year, and I have no reason to distrust her in any way. I suggest that while Captain Egg assists the doctor in removing the body and double checking the cause of death, the rest of us go into the dining room.”
“To eat?” Ms. Brent asked.
“Or drink, and I know which I’m doing!” Mr. Blore reached past her and grabbed the martini shaker.
“Wait!” Peter called out.
Everyone froze.
“If she was poisoned...”
More gasps and everyone pivoted. Their gazes locked onto the metal shaker. Mr. Blore set it down and took a step back.
There was another thump. We turned again. This time to find that the not-so-spinster botanist, Vera Claythorne, was on the floor too.
“Oh, no!”
I wasn’t sure who had said the last. It might even have been me.
Then, just as suddenly, the lights went out.
The room was dark, can’t see your malamute’s snow-white face dark.
I stood in place afraid to move. Afraid if I did, I’d trip and knock over something expensive that someone would expect me to pay for later.
Others didn’t seem to have the same reservations. I could hear people moving around and felt as someone walked past me toward the kitchen.
A chill shot up my back. I knew this was all staged, but it suddenly felt real. Too real.
I slid my feet forward, hoping to run into the loveseat, which I knew lay somewhere ahead and to my right.
Sir Arthur’s voice broke through my irrational panic. “Everyone stay where they are! It’s the storm. It’s knocked out the generator.”
Okay... since there was, last I checked, no storm outside, I guessed this generator bit wasn’t real either.
“Miss Claythorne, is she all right? Who was closest to her?” Sir Arthur again.
Butler Mandrake replied, “She’s fine. I have her. The shock was just too much for her.”
A couple of minutes more and matches flared. Then Lady York stood in front of us holding a silver candelabra. It was too dark to see much past our hostess and the candelabra, which looked heavy and ornate. I squinted, but couldn’t tell if it was an antique or a nice replica. Not that it mattered. Silver didn’t sell all that well in my shop.
“Everyone, follow me,” she instructed. “I’m sure we will all feel safer in the dining room.”
We did as we were instructed, falling into a line and walking like eight little ducks behind her. At least I assumed we all followed, it was still too dark to see much that was happening around me.
The dead Mrs. Peabody tapped me on the shoulder. I revised my duck count to nine.
“What did you think of my performance?” she whispered. “I fell forward as they said, but butt up is not my best side.”
Completely sympathetic with that, I replied. “Great. I really thought you were dead.” I hadn’t, but she seemed pleased with my answer.
“Can you believe they used the lights out trick? How cheap is that?” she asked.
Pretty cheap. But I kept the thought to myself.
In the dining room, Lady York set her candelabra on the table. The glow of the candles did a much better job of illuminating the smaller room than it had the living area.
I did a quick head count. Only Dr. Armstrong see
med to be missing. Which made sense since he, along with Peter - who obviously wasn’t as dedicated to his role - had been given the task of checking for cause of death... even though the body was no longer lying in the living room waiting to be checked.
“If everyone will take a seat, Maid Ann and Mandrake will serve dinner.”
I realized then that more food had been placed on the buffet and plates were already set in front of each seat. Mrs. Peabody winked at me and then took a place at a smaller table set off to the side.
No one commented on the dead body, or maybe she was now a ghost, joining us.
And despite her recent demise and accusations of poisoning, everyone seemed happy enough to eat. I would have been happy enough to eat too, except apparently I was expected to serve the salad and fill water glasses.
“Maid Ann,” Lady York called. “That will be all.”
I glanced around, wondering where I was supposed to disappear to.
Mrs. Peabody pulled out the empty chair beside her and patted the seat. I didn’t wait to see if her offer was acceptable to our hosts. I scurried over and stuck a fork in the steak that Mandrake had been nice enough to leave on the plate for me before anyone could tell me to do something else, like mop the floors.
My concerns, it turned out, were unwarranted. Lady York’s gaze washed over me as if I wasn’t there and a couple of minutes later, after finishing his meat distribution, Mandrake slid into the empty chair on my left.
“You’re lucky,” Mrs. Peabody explained to us. “You’re at the invisible table. Everyone else has some information they have to share during dinner, but we don’t. We can just sit back and listen.”
I wasn’t sure if I liked this or not, but I did like being given free range to eat. Which is what I did, cutting into my steak as Emily Brent held up her hands and exclaimed, “Wait! Grace! We must say grace.”
A childhood of training caused me to take a guilty pause, but Mrs. Peabody waved her knife at me, reminding me that this was part of the act and that we, for the moment, weren’t part of it. I placed the steak in my mouth and chewed, happily.
Coincidentally, Kiska found me then, plopping down beside me and wagging his tail expectantly.
I didn’t usually feed him from the table, but as Emily Brent droned on, talking about the sins of our fathers... and mothers... the excesses of wealth and the evils of alcohol... I could see he was losing patience. It was distract him with food or have him distract everyone else with a giant malamute wooing fit.
I cut my potato into tiny pieces and doled them out to him a nibble at a time with my left hand, while continuing to eat the steak with my right.
“How did you know Mrs. Peabody, Mr. Blore?” Captain Egg, aka Peter, asked.
Mr. Blore blinked like a stunned goldfish. “Who? Me? I didn’t know her, well, not before this evening.”
“Really? My mistake. I thought I saw you talking outside before you came in,” Peter added, playing with his monocle, which, for the record, was lying on the table and nowhere near his eye.
“Yes, yes, we did chat briefly outside. An attractive woman and all that. Who am I to let an opportunity pass me by? Especially with it being Valentine’s and all that.” He motioned with his knife toward the centerpiece, a rather gaudy creation of red silk roses and paper cupids blithely shooting each other in head and ass.
My dining companion, the dead Mrs. Peabody, snorted. Miss Brent pursed her lips and shook her head in a thoroughly disapproving manner.
“She did say she was from Boston, didn’t she?” Miss Claythorne asked. “Isn’t that where you said you are from too?”
Mr. Blore took a loud sip of his wine. “Big town, Boston.”
Sir Arthur cleared his throat. “Boston, eh? Lady York goes down there often herself. Sees a... what is it... dear?” He glanced at his wife.
She smiled, serene. “Chiropractor.”
There was silence at the table as everyone scribbled in their notebooks. Well, everyone except Peter. He took a bite of his steak and smiled.
I took a bite of mine too and frowned. It was obvious Mr. Blore and possibly Emily Brent were being set up as having motives. Blore for some connection from their shared city, and Emily Brent for some real or perceived religious wrong-doing. There was Lady York, too, with her chiropractor... And what about everything Mrs. Peabody had practically yelled out right before her demise?
I opened my mouth to ask if anyone else had thoughts on her comments, but was cut off by an elbow to the side. “Seen but not heard...” Mrs. Peabody’s ghost reminded me.
I sighed and made a note to see what “sins” of the fictional Mrs. Peabody I could uncover. I glanced at her “body,” wondering if she had any information, but she was busy chatting with Mandrake and not about anything to do with her murder.
Mandrake cut into his steak. “We met in college. We were both in Big Brothers and Sisters.”
Mrs. Peabody dipped her finger into a bowl of horseradish sauce that had been left on the table for all of us to share. She made a face and then replied, “Oh?”
“I did it for my resumé,” he confided. “But it’s important to Michelle.”
Vera Claythorne to me, I assumed.
I smiled and tried to look interested, while also giving subtle hints that I really wanted to instead be listening to the conversation going on at the main table.
Miss Claythorne, she of the Big Brothers and Sisters, stared down at her lap, where I detected a glow... a phone, I realized.
I glanced at Lady York, wondering how our hostess would react to this anachronism in her jazz-era dinner.
Miss Claythorne, however, flipped her phone over face down on her lap, hiding its glow with Lady York being none the wiser, at least for now.
“So,” she asked. “How long have you all been here?”
Her question caused our hosts to turn their heads her direction. At first I thought it was because the question was directed at them, but I quickly realized it was because Vera Claythorne, like Mrs. Peabody, had gone off script.
Sir Arthur opened his mouth to answer, but Lady York beat him to it. “My husband’s family has lived on this property for 400 hundred years.”
Since Sir Arthur did not look Native American in the slightest, I had to assume that Lady York was guiding the conversation back to the land of make believe.
“That is a very long time,” Miss Claythorne replied, her gaze remaining on Sir Arthur.
“Yes. It is.”
The lights clicked back on, catching Lady York in a disapproving stare, meant, I was sure, to knock the younger woman back into place. Or maybe, since she couldn’t have known her expression was going to be so apparent, just a natural reaction to the younger woman’s refusal to stay on script.
Either way, the return of the lights seemed the signal to kick off another stage of our evening.
Lady York smiled and made some comment about timing. Then she waved her hand in the air, signaling, as it turned out, for Mandrake and I to snap back into our subservient roles. “Mandrake! Ann! Clear the plates, please, and serve dessert.”
I glanced at Mandrake, hoping he’d show a rebellious streak and refuse to move, but he didn’t even hesitate. He jumped to his feet and immediately began removing plates.
I moved a little slower.
Mrs. Peabody watched me over the top of her wineglass. “Bossy, isn’t she? If this was a real murder mystery, my money’d be on her as the victim. She has went-to-the-dinner-party-even-though-I-was-sick written all over her.”
I smiled. “The Mirror Cracked.” One of my favorites.
“And who would kill her?” I asked. Morbid, perhaps, but I was in no hurry to step back into my role.
Mrs. Peabody tapped a finger against her lip, and then she laughed. “You, of course. She was an unwed teen mother who left you on a roadside, then once she married into all of this, ignored your pleas for help. How could you not want to kill her?”
I shook my head, impressed. “I think you�
�ve read a little Agatha Christie yourself.”
“How do you think I landed that?” She gestured toward Mr. Blore and took another sip, but this time I noticed a glow in her eyes. Despite her fussing, she loved him.
Feeling even warmer toward her than I had, I squeezed her hand. “I’m glad you’re not really dead.”
Her eyes rounded. “Hell! Me too!”
“Ann?” Lady York called from the head table.
I rolled my eyes at Mrs. Peabody and followed Mandrake into the kitchen.
Chapter 5
“A glass is missing,” he announced in a less-than-excited voice.
“Huh?” Still fussing over being forced to do labor on my romantic valentine weekend, I was a bit slow following.
He pointed at the sink.
“The martini glasses. You brought them in here earlier, didn’t you? There should be ten, but there are only nine.”
I blinked. “Uh...”
He widened his eyes, prompting me to do something. When I didn’t respond, he pointed to the pocket in my apron where I had tucked my cheat card.
I pulled it out, but there was no instruction past bringing the glasses into the kitchen.
I twisted my lips. “Should we tell the Cannons?” I asked, guessing that was what a good servant would do.
“Are you sure that’s what you want?” His tone was ominous.
I twisted my lips some more. If we reported the glass was missing, I would obviously be blamed.
“Mrs. Peabody... do you think... Dr. Armstrong was right? She was poisoned?” I was getting into it now.
“It makes sense. Egg and Armstrong thought to keep the mixer, but forgot about the glass.” He paused. “You know they’ll blame us. The staff is always blamed.”
I glanced at him. The butler did usually do it, and he seemed awfully eager to pull me into some kind of a partnership.
“That is true.” I glanced back toward the closed door that separated us from the dining room.
“You clean everything up, and I’ll serve dessert,” he suggested, turning away from the sink and towards a cake stand where a chocolate cake stood waiting.
There were many things wrong with this idea, not the least of which was that it involved me doing the worst of the work and most likely missing out on dessert.
