by Evelyn James
“I said nothing, Annie was swifter off the mark than myself,” Tommy nudged Annie to tell her part of the story.
Annie, who had just started in on her fried kidneys, gave a small sigh and put down her knife and fork.
“It occurred to me that firstly we could not allow another person to fall victim to a poisoner, and secondly that the tin of sweets might have accidentally been delivered to the wrong person,” Annie began. “Since I could not see a connection between Mrs Hunt and Miss Smythe, nor why anyone would want them both dead, it struck me as a possibility that someone had thought to make a second attempt to poison Mrs Hunt, only, with Mrs Hunt moving rooms, the tin had been sent to the wrong one.
“I thought of it this way. Mrs Hunt had made no indication of being poisoned, other than her veiled comments in the charabanc. Now, supposing the poisoner thought that their first batch of sweets had failed? Perhaps they did not pick up the significance of Mrs Hunt’s comments? So they decided to try again, with a second batch of marzipan, a delicacy they knew Mrs Hunt favoured.”
“A good theory,” Clara concurred, motioning with her knife her approval. “So what did you say to Miss Smythe?”
“I raised the possibility that the gift was accidental and not intended for her. Seeing as none of the rest of the party had received a tin and she knew no one on the charabanc before our departure, nor anyone at the hotel, this seemed a logical assessment. I proposed that the sweets were destined for someone else, someone who cared for them. After all, most people are clever enough to know that marzipan is the sort of thing people either like or dislike. You don’t offer it as a gift without knowing your recipient has a taste for it. Miss Smythe thought that a very reasonable consideration,” Annie smiled, rather pleased with herself. “I then suggested that it would be advisable for the tin to be returned to the hotel management, who might then give it to the correct recipient. Presuming that it was one of the hotel staff who placed the gift in Miss Smythe’s room. This proposal she took very well and agreed to. Of course, I was thinking that at some point you would have a quiet word with the management about those same sweets.”
“A thought I completely agree with,” Clara smiled, amused at how well Annie had taken to the detective business. Since Clara had hurt her foot Annie had been serving as her agent and doing a fine job of it, not that she would ever consider a career in investigation. She was much happier in her kitchen making her inimitable cakes and pies. “I don’t know about you, but I rather feel our killer grew a little desperate after their first attempt failed.”
“The chamber pot was an impulsive act,” Tommy agreed without hesitation. “In fact, it was rather clumsy. They could easily have hit the driver instead, and there was no certainty the blow would kill Mrs Hunt.”
“They made their last move at the lake,” Clara gave up on her breakfast and laid down her knife and fork. “Still, the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ elude me. I shall have a chat with the management first thing and see how accommodating they will be of my curiosity.”
“You are not coming to Derwentwater then?” Tommy asked in surprise.
“The old foot needs a good rest,” Clara answered apologetically. “For once I plan on being sensible. A novelty, isn’t it?”
“Jolly good!” Annie said with stern approval. She could be rather like a head teacher or hospital matron watching over her ninny-headed charges. Occasionally Clara desperately wanted to stick her tongue out at her, but that would be rather childish.
“I insist you tell me all about the place when you return, however,” Clara reclaimed the conversation. “And you must buy me some pencils and a sketching book. I shall supply you with some money…”
“Absolutely not, I can treat you to some pencils!” Tommy told her stoutly.
Clara wondered if he realised how expensive artists’ pencils could be, but wasn’t going to argue with his generosity. They had finished their breakfasts and the charabanc would be leaving shortly. They rose to go their separate ways, Annie telling Clara, with that look of honest intensity in her eyes, that she could rely on them to keep their ears and eyes open. Clara had to smile at her dedication.
The rest of the diners had left, they were the last to go and leave the hotel staff to clean up the place before lunch. They wandered past the table where the emaciated girl had sat. Her toast remained on her plate, the edges slightly nibbled as if got at by a mouse. Annie shook her head sadly.
“The poor thing will waste away like that,” she sighed.
Clara had not realised Annie had noticed the girl as she had.
“She made me feel quite the porker eating such a hearty breakfast,” she replied lightly.
Annie gave her a very sad look.
“Never complain about a hearty appetite Clara, that girl will be in her grave long before you if she does not learn to eat,” Annie, who believed most of the ills of the world fell down to a lack of good food and the stomach to eat it, clearly felt the girl a hopeless case. “There was a girl at school just like that. Looked like a breath of wind would carry her off.”
“And did it?” Tommy asked with his usual silliness.
Annie scowled at him.
“No, but pneumonia did one winter. I despair of these magazines promoting stick thin girls. It is dangerous for the health. I shall never understand it,” Annie shook her head. “I am just glad both of you know how to eat.”
Clara discreetly pinched the skin at her waistline, plucking up a fatty piece between thumb and forefinger. Somehow she rather regretted knowing how to eat.
Chapter Thirteen
Once the charabanc and most of the touring party had departed Clara decided to begin her investigations in earnest. Mrs Hunt had asked for Clara’s help and, even deceased, she was going to get it.
Clara made her way to the front desk, intent on pigeon-holing the hotel manager and persuading him that he needed to assist her. Precisely how she was going to do that had yet to fully form in her mind, but she was sure she would come up with something once she was speaking with him.
The receptionist was a bright young thing of about twenty, who had yet to be informed that thick black kohl painted around the eyes was more becoming on film stars than ordinary girls. She blinked fast at Clara, possibly due to her heavy mascara threatening to stick her eyelashes together if she did not.
“Might I help?”
“Is Mr Stover about?”
“Is there anything amiss?” the girl put on a well-practiced look of professional concern. Clara wondered if a hotel guest being found deceased in a lake would count as something amiss.
“Nothing concerning the hotel,” Clara reassured her with a smile. “I am most satisfied with my room.”
“That is wonderful to hear,” the girl beamed overly brightly and had clearly been told to smile a lot at guests. “We aim to please. Perhaps, when you conclude your stay, you will write something in the guest book we keep?”
Clara assured her she would then impatiently repeated her request to see the manager. The girl had clearly forgotten this in her enthusiasm to remind Clara about the guest book. She now stood and said she would find Mr Stover. Clara found she was most relieved when the girl was gone. Some people were just too jolly by far.
Mr Stover appeared rather like a rainy cloud on a sunny day. Unlike the smiles of his receptionist, he could only offer a worried frown and looked beside himself.
“Is anything the matter?” he asked anxiously.
“Not with the hotel,” Clara promised, wishing the girl might have informed him of this so he did not look like someone expecting bad news. “Actually, I had wanted to talk to you about the late Mrs Hunt. Specifically, what you might be intending to do with her belongings?”
“Oh,” Mr Stover instantly looked relieved. Such mundanities as dealing with a late guest’s belongings he could manage without fear. “These sort of occurrences do happen from time to time and it is hotel policy to return all belongings of the deceased to the nearest family memb
er.”
“Then you know who this family member is?”
Mr Stover hesitated, because, in actuality, he didn’t.
“I imagine Mrs Hunt might have supplied the charabanc company with her next of kin, for emergencies.”
“But she didn’t,” Clara couldn’t be sure that was true, but she needed to persuade Mr Stover of the fact. “Now, Mr Stover, just before Mrs Hunt passed she beseeched me to help her with a problem she was having. I am a private detective, for my sins, and it concerns me greatly that Mrs Hunt has passed so suddenly and without anyone close to her knowing about it.”
Clara was being deliberately vague because the receptionist was near enough to hear all, but her tone implied an awful lot to Mr Stover and his own natural tendencies towards pessimism supplied the rest. He decided it was time to speak with Clara alone.
“Might you come into my office to discuss this in more detail?” Mr Stover motioned to the room behind him.
Clara was only too eager to be able to air her concerns in private and followed him to his office.
“I took from your tone that this matter is more complicated than it at first appears?” Mr Stover asked once the door was closed and prying ears could no longer overhear them.
“Before she passed Mrs Hunt confessed to me she feared someone was out to harm her. At her last hotel she believed someone attempted to poison her. Here she was almost killed by a falling chamber pot, and then she found herself dead in a lake. She asked me to investigate and try to discover who meant her harm. Sadly, my efforts were too late to save her,” Clara explained briefly and with a hint of sadness in her tone. She regretted having failed Mrs Hunt, even if the woman had been deeply disagreeable. Clara couldn’t help thinking that was why she had not put much effort into the case before disaster struck, with the result that she now felt guilty.
“I thought the chamber pot was a fluke accident,” Mr Stover said quietly, he adjusted his tie nervously, a sick look coming across his face. It didn’t make a man feel good to imagine his hotel was the scene of an attempted murder. “I questioned all my staff and no one admitted to dropping the chamber pot.”
“And I don’t expect them to,” Clara said plainly. “I don’t think your staff are to blame.”
“Then… who?”
“That is the precise question I am trying to answer. The question Mrs Hunt employed me to answer.”
“You must tell this all to the police!” Mr Stover seemed to find this a reassuring idea and one that absolved him of all responsibility in the matter.
“I have attempted to discuss this with them, but they are not interested. Have you met Inspector Gateley?”
“Regrettably, yes,” Mr Stover sighed. “We had a spate of robberies at the hotel. Guests were naturally upset. Inspector Gateley arrived and turned my hotel upside down before informing me he could find no evidence of a thief on the premises. What a shame Inspector Wake had to retire, he really was superb.”
“As you have met Inspector Gateley, I suspect you can imagine the disbelief with which my suggestions were met,” Clara said, lowering herself into a chair as her foot ached considerably. “Inspector Gateley has decided that Mrs Hunt had an accident and nothing but the strongest of evidence will shake that idea from his mind.”
“Perhaps it was an accident?” Mr Stover said hopefully.
“Perhaps it was, but the woman asked me to investigate and so I shall. But I must ask for your help. I need to know more about Mrs Hunt and the people closest to her.”
“Next of kin,” Mr Stover nodded.
“But more than that. I would like to visit Mrs Hunt’s room and look for any clues among her belongings as to why someone would wish her harm.”
Mr Stover looked duly shocked.
“To let you into another guest’s room…”
“The guest is deceased and cannot complain, besides, you can call it a legitimate visit since you need to go to her room and look for details of any next of kin. I will merely be there to act as an impartial witness in the search, if anyone cares to ask.”
Mr Stover had that sick look on his face again. He was a man who lived on his nerves and did not handle unusual stresses well. Dead guests he could just about manage, because there was a policy for that, but dead guests who might have been murdered went beyond all his experience.
“I can’t let you into another guest’s room,” he protested weakly.
“You must. I shall not remove anything, merely look. But I really do owe this to Mrs Hunt. She feared for her life and I, like so many others, failed to take that seriously enough,” Clara was determined and she made that plain in her voice.
Mr Stover still faffed.
“It would be setting a dangerous precedent.”
“Who will know?”
Mr Stover paced about his small office. He was not good at making impulsive decisions.
“Mrs Hunt surely just collapsed?”
“Maybe, but if she did it was as a consequence of being struck by a chamber pot,” Clara fixed him with a stern gaze. “Your hotel’s chamber pot to be precise.”
“Oh dear,” Mr Stover said softly, well aware of the consequences now being laid out before him. “Oh dear.”
“If nothing else, Mrs Hunt deserves justice. People can’t just go around callously murdering each other, no matter how disagreeable their victim might be.”
“She was disagreeable,” Mr Stover sighed. “That no one can deny.”
“Disagreeable people do not deserve to be murdered,” Clara reminded him.
Mr Stover puffed out his cheeks and paced again. He didn’t like what he was being asked to do, but he also knew he could not avoid it. Mrs Hunt died while technically under his care, and he didn’t want to think about the field day the newspapers would have if they caught a whiff of the story. He could imagine the headlines – murder by chamber pot! No, no, he could not face such ignominy. This matter must be resolved swiftly and privately. Finally he turned to Clara.
“I shall let you into Mrs Hunt’s room, but nothing must be removed and I shall supervise at all times.”
“Naturally,” Clara assured him. “And if anyone asks our business we are merely looking for details of Mrs Hunt’s family to send a message to.”
“Yes. Quite,” Mr Stover did not look convinced, but he was not going to escape Clara’s grasp now she had him. He gave another sigh then collected the master key for Mrs Hunt’s room from a board next to his desk. “Shall we?”
He held open his office door for Clara, then escorted her to the bank of elevators in the hotel lobby. These were rather new and Mr Stover had yet to fully accustom himself to them. He drew back the iron gates and gave a superior nod to the liftman who operated these contraptions.
“Floor three.”
They clattered upwards. Mr Stover grimacing, though it was not clear if this was due to the movement of the elevator’s carriage or the task ahead of him. Clara said nothing, appreciating not having to use the stairs today. They arrived on the third floor and Mr Stover led the way to Mrs Hunt’s room, toying with the master key in his hand all the time. He said nothing to Clara.
No one was about in the hallway. Most of the guests were either downstairs in the communal lounge and garden room, enjoying the spring sunshine, or had made arrangements to go out. Mr Stover still insisted on glancing up and down the hall before he unlocked Mrs Hunt’s door.
The room appeared as Clara had expected it to. Neat, tidy, barely used. Mrs Hunt had hardly left an impression. She was one of those people who cannot make a hotel room their own, and so do not bother to try. She had not even emptied her suitcase, other than to remove a few items that were liable to crease badly and to hang them on the front of the wardrobe. Clara looked about the room, taking in everything and trying to sense if something were out-of-place. Nothing seemed wrong.
“We shan’t be long,” Mr Stover hinted, closing the room door with a last glance outside. “I only need the name of someone to contact.”
He seemed to have conveniently forgotten that they were actually looking for clues of a murder.
Clara went to the dressing table in the room where Mrs Hunt had sat her sponge bag. She had had her handbag with her when she perished and there was no knowing what might have been inside, since the police now had it, but perhaps Mrs Hunt had been good enough to leave behind something important here. Clara emptied the sponge bag. It was a floral thing, oval in shape with a long zip. Inside it had several pockets for holding items. Clara pulled out an assortment of feminine items; nail file, powder box, toothbrush and tooth powder, headache pills, a tortoiseshell comb and an unused flannel. At the very bottom she found a glass bottle, quite small but heavy and tinted in that strange brown colour popular with manufacturers of medicine jars. Clara held it to the light. She could make out a number of small round pills in the bottom, presumably enough for this trip. Next she read the label. During the war Clara had volunteered as a nurse at the local hospital, she had dispensed a lot of drugs in that time (usually the mundane, household sort) and had learned the names of a number of others. The name on Mrs Hunt’s bottle was not familiar as any medicine she knew of. She took note of the prescribing doctor’s name and wrote it down in her notebook.
“Something important?” Mr Stover asked.
“I can’t say,” Clara turned the bottle in the light again, trying to fathom out what the pills were and failing. “Perhaps a means to finding her next of kin.”
Her comment was meant to settle the hotel manager, and it was quite correct, Mrs Hunt’s doctor would be sure to know of her next of kin. Clara restored the contents of the sponge bag to their rightful places and turned her attention to Mrs Hunt’s suitcase on the floor. She clicked open the clasps, the case not being locked, and carefully unpacked Mrs Hunt’s clothes. There was nothing surprising in the contents, just the usual skirts, blouses, stockings and cardigans a woman of Mrs Hunt’s age might be expected to take along with her. Clara checked any pockets in them to be safe, she only found a handkerchief. Mr Stover was peering over her shoulder, until she came to a layer of underwear under a piece of tissue paper, then he darted away as if he had been stung by a bee. There was nothing sinister among these garments either, and Clara returned everything as she had found it.
