by Sara Rosett
I supposed that her jobs, serving food, making beds, and waiting around to seat people at a restaurant, weren’t that exciting, but her avid curiosity put me off. “It wasn’t a fun experience,” I said and left it at that.
“Of course, you don’t want to talk about it,” she said, instantly contrite. “It must have been gruesome then. Sorry I asked, but we’ve never had anything like that happen here. Bath is so boring. You’ve no idea how I long to move to London.” She braced one elbow on the book and lowered her voice. “Mr. Bell, he told us that the scouting party had a famous director.”
“That was Cyrus, the man who died.”
“No! Really? I mean it’s ghastly that he’s died and all that, but imagine, I actually served him breakfast this morning.”
“How long was he at the hotel?” I asked.
She tilted her head. “Until about eight, I’d say. He asked for another cup of tea, which I brought to him, then we got quite busy. He left during the rush. A lot of locals stop in for coffee—a latte or mocha—since Mr. Bell put in the cappuccino machine.”
“Okay, thanks,” I said. “We’re trying to figure out what he did this morning.”
“Yes, I’d want to know, too, if my friend just up and died like that.”
“Did he happen to say where he was going?” Alex asked.
“The Sydney Gardens,” Mia replied instantly. “I asked him if he had any plans—chitchat you know. Mrs. Bell likes us to talk to the guests, friendly-like. He said he planned to stroll in the gardens, then go see the Crescent.”
“He didn’t mention the Baths?”
“No. If he had, I would have told him to go to the Baths first because they’re less busy in the morning.”
“Thanks, Mia.” I said. “I’m sure we’ll see you later.”
As Alex held the door for me, he said, “So, reconstructing the timeline of the victim?”
I shot him a sideways glance as we headed to the Royal Crescent, which was located roughly north of the Baths. “If we’re going to do this, we might as well gather all the information we can. At least we know what time Cyrus left the hotel.”
“With a stated intention of going to Sydney Gardens. Probably no way to verify that. Hard to check up on entry to a park.”
“True, but I do know that he couldn’t have gotten into the Baths until after nine thirty when they opened. I was the first person in today, so he must have come in after I did.” I paused to draw in a deep breath. “I hadn’t realized Bath was so hilly,” I said as we continued up the street’s gradual incline. I had read that Bath was a city of hills, but I hadn’t pictured them being quite so steep. We paused at a corner to get our bearings.
“Straight ahead up this street,” Alex said. “Then we’ll take a left toward the Circus and the Royal Crescent.”
“Did Viv bring you this way?” I asked.
“Yes. She said it was a famous road.”
I glanced at the sign and smiled despite all the worries swirling in my mind. “Come on. It’s Milsom Street,” I said, grabbing his hand.
Chapter 6
“I SENSE A JANE AUSTEN connection,” Alex said as we paced along the road.
“Yes, exactly. You don’t remember? You read Northanger Abbey.”
“I’m afraid my…um…interest in Austen doesn’t quite reach the same level as yours.”
I smiled. “Nice of you not to say obsession. That’s the term my mother uses—when she isn’t calling it a hobby. My mother is a bit erratic,” I added, studying the street as we walked.
“Well, whatever you call it—hobby, passion, interest, whatever—it has worked out pretty well. It helped you land this job.”
It was true. My interest in Austen had been a factor in getting hired with the production last spring.
“What’s so special about this street?” Alex asked.
“It was the go-to shopping area during Georgian and Regency times, sort of the Fifth Avenue or Rodeo Drive of Bath. Austen shopped here herself, and she used it in several of her books. In Persuasion, after Anne arrives in Bath, she first spots Captain Wentworth on Milsom Street.” I raised an eyebrow at him.
“Never read it.”
“Well, there’s another book for your reading list. Some critics say it’s Austen’s best book.”
“Not you.”
“How do you know that?”
“You told me. Northanger Abbey and Pride and Prejudice top your list, I believe you said.”
“That’s impressive. I can’t believe you remember that.” I stopped walking and turned to face him. “Do you have a favorite book? We seem to talk about my literary favorites a disproportional amount of time.”
“I wasn’t much of a reader…until recently. Although, I do enjoy a good thriller. I read one on the last job. Can’t remember the name of it now. It was good. Innocent bystander tangled up by accident in an international plot, race against time, future of the free world hangs in the balance. You know the drill.”
“Yes, I do. Sounds about as different from Jane Austen as can be.”
He glanced out of the corner of his eye at me, smiling. “Different is good.”
I smiled back and some of the worry I’d felt about seeing him again after being apart for so many months eased.
A building caught my eye, and I stopped dead. Lettering painted on the building read, Circulating Library and Reading Room. “Oh, I must have a picture of that.” The building obviously wasn’t used as a library or reading room—it was a shop now—but I snapped a few pictures of the building anyway.
“Austen read there, I take it.”
I looked through the viewfinder of my camera and snapped off several pictures. “The circulating library was important in her life. Her family took subscriptions wherever they lived, and she read widely.”
“I seem to remember lots of bits about books in Northanger Abbey.”
“You remember right. It’s a novel about books and reading.” We resumed our ascent of the street. “Reading novels was frowned on in her time. Too frivolous at best and even morally wrong at worst.”
“Morally wrong?”
“Hard to believe now, isn’t it? But some people thought that the surge in education of the lower classes had been a mistake. Political tracks demanding rights and reform were trendy,” I said, remembering my brief detour into post-graduate work. “Novels were popular, too, but they were thought of as a useless waste of time that whipped up emotions and flights of fancy. Catherine gets a little too carried away with imagining Gothic happenings at Northanger Abbey.” I shook my head. “Enough history and literature. As much as I love sightseeing, I also want to keep my job, so we better get moving.”
“So what’s our strategy at the Royal Crescent Hotel?” Alex asked.
“You don’t think we should barge in there and demand to be told who is staying in room ten?” I asked ruefully.
“No, I suggest we hold off on the Elise approach.”
“Right. If we fail, we know she’ll do it, so we might as well try something else.”
Alex had been studying the shops and restaurants as we walked. “Something like that,” he said with a nod toward one particular shop with a signboard out front proclaiming it had supplied floral arrangements to Downton Abbey and other film productions.
I caught on right away. “It just might work.”
Thirty minutes later, we stood on the sidewalk beside the wrought iron fence that enclosed a row of exclusive terrace homes near the Royal Crescent. Alex held a medium-sized floral arrangement of mums and a clipboard. He had finger-combed his dark hair down over his forehead and had exchanged his brown leather jacket for a plain black windbreaker that we’d found in a shop off Milsom Street. His leather jacket was rolled into a ball and stuffed into my tote bag, which hung heavily, the straps cutting into my shoulder. It also held both our cameras. After a search that took us several streets away from Milsom Street, we’d found the clipboard in an office supply shop.
“Here,
hold these for a second.”
I took the vase and the clipboard. “Ruffle those pages a little. They should be wrinkled and curled.”
I tucked the vase into my elbow and worked the pages over. Alex pulled a plastic name tag out of his pocket and pinned it on the jacket. The name Bob was printed on the strip of plastic.
“Where did you get that?”
“I gave the checkout clerk at the office supply place five pounds for it.”
“Nice. You’d do any costumer proud,” I said, thinking of Melissa. I handed him the vase and clipboard. “You sure you don’t mind? I’ll do it if you don’t want to.”
Alex looked me over and grinned. “No, you look much too nice to be a delivery boy. And you don’t look at all like a Bob. You’re definitely the lady tourist.”
“Okay. Good luck,” I said, trying to ignore the surge of butterflies in my stomach. “I’ll meet you back here as soon as I can.” Is this how the actors felt when the director shouted action? They always looked so cool and calm. I drew in a deep breath and reminded myself I had the easy part. All I had to do was listen and maybe follow.
The Royal Crescent is a row of terraced houses built in a half circle high on a hill that overlooks a large park, and, beyond it, the city of Bath. The same elegant architecture that was so evident around the other streets in Bath was repeated here. Rusticated stones marked the ground floor, and Ionic columns marched along the ellipse of the façade, rising to the parapet above the third floor. Built of the honey-colored Bath stone that I had already seen so much of in the city, it stood, grand and imposing.
It was a little intimidating—all that refined elegance. To distract myself, I studied the expanse of greenery spread below the crescent and half-smiled when I picked out the ha-ha, the deep ditch that ran along a portion of the park, which kept animals and other undesirables out of the park directly in front of the Crescent. The word ha-ha came up in Austen’s works—and I’d had to look it up because I had no idea what it was—but I’d never seen one in real life. I resisted the urge to photograph it, and instead tried to picture Regency ladies decked out in bonnets and parasols strolling along the Crescent, their skirts swishing along the cobblestones, escorted by men in cutaway Regency coats, breeches, and tall boots. Austen had walked in the area, often describing it in her letters.
I reached the central point of the Crescent and spotted a man in a top hat and coat with gold buttons, stepping to the curb to open the door of a Rolls Royce. This must be the place. I braced my shoulders and mentally slipped into my confident location scout frame of mind.
My line of work involved cold calls, something that I wasn’t fond of, but I’d learned how to do. My first boss had said, “You may be shaking on the inside, but smile and be confident. Half the battle is in the first few seconds after the door opens.”
I glanced over my shoulder and saw Alex a few paces behind me. I sailed through the door, giving the doorman a friendly nod, and was halfway across the black and white marble checkerboard floor when my phone rang. I stopped and pulled it from my pocket. Alex’s name came up on the caller ID as we’d prearranged. I knew he wouldn’t stay on the line, but I pressed the phone to my ear and murmured hello, positioning myself to the side of the room so that I could see the reception desk as well as a hallway and a set of stairs.
Alex strode in briskly just as I had, giving the doorman a quick nod. He was nearly to the reception desk before the doorman caught up with him and informed him deliveries were dropped off at another door.
“Oh, it’s just this, mate,” Alex said in a passable British accent. “Won’t take a moment.”
I pretended to carry on my conversation with my non-existent telephone buddy as Alex turned his brown-eyed gaze on the desk clerk.
She succumbed in seconds. “It’s all right. Just this once, I’ll take it here,” she said extending her hand.
“Brill,” Alex said, and I shifted the phone to hide my smile. I wondered if he was laying it on too thick, using the British slang expression for “brilliant.”
Apparently not, because the desk clerk signed for the flowers and asked for the name of the guest.
Alex flipped back and forth through a few of the pages, which he had diligently covered in scribbles and columns of text. “She left off the name, wouldn’t you know? All I have is a room number, ten. You can work with that, right?” Alex leaned over the counter and said confidentially, “The girl at the shop is new, and I wouldn’t want to get her in trouble.”
The desk clerk waved a hand. “No worries. I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks. You’re the best.” Alex pushed away from the desk and avoided looking at me on the way out.
I said some nonsense into the phone and noticed the doorman inching my way. I shifted and broke eye contact. I pretended to listen to a voice coming through the phone, but concentrated on the desk clerk as she tapped on the computer then nodded to another hotel employee. She handed him the flower arrangement. “Take this up to Mrs. Blakely in room ten.”
Chapter 7
MRS. BLAKELY WAS IN ROOM Ten? As in Mrs. Cyrus Blakely? Or could it be a coincidence? Was the Mrs. Blakely staying at the Royal Crescent Hotel someone completely unrelated to Cyrus? But then why would he get a text from a complete stranger? I sent a text to Alex and was turning to leave when I spotted the employee with the flower arrangement coming back down the stairs.
“Mrs. Blakely isn’t in,” he said, returning it to the desk.
“Oh, wait, I have a message here. She wanted a table for lunch.” The desk clerk checked her watch. “She’s probably still there.”
“You think I should take it through?” the other employee asked doubtfully.
“It’s always good to get flowers. Yes, take them through to her. She’ll be delighted, I’m sure.”
The employee picked up the arrangement again and after a few seconds I finished my text to Alex, Mrs. Blakely (!?!) is the guest. She’s in the restaurant. I’m going to see if I can get a look at her.
If I could get a glimpse of the woman who received the flowers then I could check online and find out who she was. I was pretty sure I could find a publicity photo of Cyrus and his wife somewhere on the Internet.
I stowed my phone and followed the young man with the flowers to a restaurant area tastefully decorated in blue and taupe. He threaded his way through the tables to the far side of the room. It was quite crowded and another full table blocked my view of the woman seated by the windows.
“How many for lunch, ma’am?” asked a voice at my elbow.
I turned to the man who held a stack of menus. “One. I’d like a table by the window, if you can manage it.”
“Of course. This way.”
I followed the man across the room to the table next to the woman who was now staring at the flowers. She’d removed the card and was tapping it on the table.
I sat down and sent another text to Alex. What did you write on the card?
His message came in right away. Thinking of you. No signature.
The hotel bellhop had been hovering at her elbow. “Shall I take it to your room for you?”
“No, leave it.” She spoke with a posh accent that carried to my table.
The bellhop left, and a waiter appeared at my table. I glanced over the menu quickly, ordering the first thing I saw, a chicken sandwich. He departed, and I shifted so that I could look at the woman at the next table.
Everything about her, from her Champagne-blond hair to her understated elegant black pantsuit to the leather purse tossed casually on the table, spoke of wealth. She had beautiful bone structure and creamy translucent skin with a few wrinkles around her eyes. She looked to be somewhere in her late thirties or early forties. She pushed her plate away and ordered a coffee.
I went back to my phone and searched for photos of Cyrus and his wife. It didn’t take long before I found a picture of them in attendance at a charity event. The woman at the next table was definitely Mrs. Cyrus Blakely.
>
In the photo, she wore a strapless aquamarine evening gown with a frothy line of ruffles along her décolletage. Her hand rested on Cyrus’s tuxedoed arm, but they looked as if they’d rather not be touching at all. Perhaps it was the gap of several inches between their bodies combined with the look on both their faces, forced smiles that seemed to be firmly fixed in place.
I looked for another photo. I knew all too well that photos could capture people in unflattering poses and with expressions that made the nicest people look surly. I found another photo of them together. This image had appeared in a tabloid during the release of Cyrus’s last project, a television mini-series set during World War Two. Cyrus and his wife were walking down the street, and the camera had caught them at a moment when his wife had pulled her elbow away from his hand. The look on her face could only be described as angry. Cyrus was smirking. The caption read, “The war continues off-screen for director Cyrus Blakely and his wife, Octavia, during a recent outing in Mayfair.”
The waiter brought my lunch, and I ordered another sandwich packaged in a to-go container for Alex. I figured I might as well eat now that I was here. I dug into my sandwich, noticing that a man had approached the table next to mine while the waiter had been taking the to-go order, which had blocked my view of the new arrival.
I chewed more slowly, studying the back of the man’s gray suit and his neatly trimmed thin brown hair. “Octavia Blakely?” he asked as he turned his head slightly, revealing a pair of rimless glasses.
She watched him a moment over the rim of her coffee cup. “Yes?”
“I’m Detective Inspector Byron. Could I have a word with you in private?”
I froze, a bite of sandwich in my mouth, grateful that Byron’s back was turned to me.
The restaurant was full, but it wasn’t extremely loud. Conversation and the clatter of cutlery was the only background noise, and I could hear the conversation at the next table easily.
“Why don’t you join me?” She waved to the chair beside her. “I haven’t finished my coffee yet. Would you like something?”
