“Come on, Julie,” he replied. “You know I can’t talk about the case yet. I haven’t even interviewed the whole cast.”
“You, you, you ... ” she snapped, unable to express herself adequately in a ladylike fashion. “You snake. If you give the story to some scribbler that Calvin sends ... ”
Steve held up his hands in a defensive position. “You will get the scoop. I promise. The moment I make an arrest, I will get ahold of you first.” In an attempt to mollify her, he continued, “I will tell you that Emma Black is at the bottom of the list. I shook her hand, and she doesn’t have the strength to stick the scissors into a cream pie, much less between Mrs. Chandler’s ribs.”
Julie glared at him. “Can’t you do anything but lead me on? This is getting to be a habit with you, isn’t it? Leading me on until you get what you want, then dumping me!”
She jabbed a finger in his direction. “You had just better get ahold of me first, mister. Or the next time there is a story on you, I will make sure you get crucified. I should have known I couldn’t trust you. I came here because ... Oh.” She grabbed her bag and slipped out from behind the table and flung back the curtains. As a parting shot, she snapped, “Dinner is on you.”
Steve put his head in his hands. Why do I have so much trouble with smart, beautiful women? he asked himself.
Chapter 9
The inspector had just finished signing the check when Buck appeared at the amused waitress’s elbow. There was a grin on his face. “I just saw an angry, good-looking young woman storm out of here. That’s how I knew you were here. Made another friend?”
Steve looked up in disgust. “Let’s just say intelligent, beautiful women intimidate me and I handle it badly.” He wondered how much of his flip comment was true.
He picked up his hat and slid out of the booth. At a table across the room, he noticed a party of young men and women. A tall, well-set-up fellow was glaring at him. The man’s antagonistic look followed them from the restaurant.
As they crossed the lobby, Steve asked, “Did you see that well-dressed bunch at the back table?”
Buck nodded. “That’s the group Silene Chandler hangs out with. The kid who was giving you the eye is Dean Williams. They’re a number, I suppose. Another friend?”
“I have no idea. I never met him.” Steve dismissed the incident as unimportant.
They exited the hotel and got into Buck’s constabulary automobile. On the way to the estate, he brought Buck up to date on the Sullivan interview. “They seem the best bet so far, but nowhere near actionable.”
Buck never took his eyes off the road. “I saw Haney at his home. He had just gotten up and is as surly as you are in the morning. Anyway, I asked him if there was any length of time that he was away from his station when Francis could have left.
“Haney got all insulted and said that he never shirked his duty and that he was awake and alert, and so on. He swore that Francis never left his office until Red came for him, after the murder. I got a long speech on how he never let Colonel Roosevelt down, and he was right behind him during the charge up San Juan Hill.”
Steve interrupted. “He was in Cuba? Really? I thought Francis was talking about embassy duty or something.”
Buck nodded. “He was there, all right. You have an afternoon? Haney will talk your ear off, unless he is on duty, of course.”
He continued with his report: “Also, Silene’s friends, Dean Williams and the Steen-Mastersons, vouched for her. They swore she could not have gotten to Chandler and back to Harrotsville in the time she had borrowed Miles’s car.”
“Were they too drunk to remember, do you think?” asked Steve.
Buck snorted. “Not that they would admit. Dean has a thing for her, and apparently he kept close track until Silene returned. Rumor is that he expects to marry the heiress, though no one knows what she thinks.” Buck slid his eyes sideways for a quick glance at Steve and grinned. “Maybe Silene has been talking about you, and that’s why he gave you the evil eye just now.”
Unexpectedly, Steve felt a twinge of jealousy. He immediately yanked his mind to Julie and banished his thoughts of Silene to some dusty corner of his brain. He told himself that he did not need another woman to further complicate his life.
Steve pulled Julie’s notebook from his pocket, and the two officers spent the rest of the trip reviewing her entries. Buck had nothing to add, but he agreed with it, in general.
When they got to the house, Buck dismissed the deputy sitting outside the sewing room door—not Ruth Beckstrom, but a constable he had not seen before. Steve informed Jeremy, who had opened the main door and collected their hats, that he could have the room to clean as soon as they had a chance to look it over again. The butler left to organize the staff. There was little time before the committee arrived.
The new seal was cut and removed, and they entered the room. Nothing had changed. Steve stared at the quilt pinned to the wall, convinced that it was the key to the investigation and willing it to talk to him. He wandered from point to point, reviewing his earlier visit in light of the information he had picked up.
Steve turned when he heard a hubbub in the hall. Mrs. Black bustled in, followed by two women. Buck, by the door, pointed to the plump woman and mouthed, “Anna Carlyle.” The other was Mary Flowers. Mrs. Black drew up short, causing her companions to jerk to a halt to avoid colliding with her.
“Look at that,” she exclaimed, staring at the quilt wall.
“What’s the matter, Mrs. Black?” asked Steve. With a frown on her face, she waved a gloved hand at the quilt. “The quilt. Who did that?” She looked accusingly at Steve.
Puzzled, Buck asked, “Who did what?”
She looked at him like he was an obnoxious, troublesome boy. “The quilt,” she repeated. “We left it lying on the table; we had not determined the material. Oh,” she continued, “Alice must have been trying both.”
Steve stepped in front of her, causing her to snap her eyes to his. “What are you talking about?”
“My goodness. When we ended our efforts for the evening, we left the quilt lying on the table. The loops that we use to hang the quilt during the show. We still had to decide. I spoke to you regarding them. Several of us wanted the darker color, and the others, including Alice, leaned toward the lighter. She must have pinned samples of both to get a more clear perspective.”
Steve turned around and refreshed his memory of the two sets of strips that had been attached next to the vertically oriented quilt. Twelve-inch strips of light- or dark-colored cloth at the top of the quilt and next to the turned-back section on the lower left, folded over. Now that she mentioned it, Steve remembered the tapestries in the country homes he had seen in England. The tops had looked like crenellations on castle walls. When he approached the quilt, he saw that the loops had not been sewn in. There were four along the top of the quilt. The two on the left matched a lighter piece of the body of the quilt, while the other two matched the border. One of each had a round red patch of cloth, which matched a petal on the central rose, pinned to it. The lower left of the quilt was folded back and pinned to show the reverse of the quilt. Two more patches, one of each, were pinned next to the diagonal fold.
Steve looked back to Mrs. Black. “You’re sure that the quilt was on the table?”
“I am not yet in my dotage, young man,” she snapped, her bright eyes piercing. “Of course, I distinctly remember that the quilt was resting on the table. The piece was complete, with the exception of the hanging strips. The swatches of light and the olive and magenta border material were ordered on it.”
“Didn’t you see it the night you found Mrs. Chandler?” asked Steve.
Mrs. Black froze for a moment. “No-o-o. Jeremy kept us from entering. He was blocking our view. He should have let us in so that we could check for signs of life. I was a volunteer during the epidemic and may have been able to help.”
The conversation broke off when Jeremy ushered in a slight, older man. Buck greete
d him. “Welcome, Professor.” The newcomer hesitated in the doorway, nodded at the chief, and looked back at the tableau near the table. “Is anything wrong?” he asked.
Buck patted him on the shoulder. “They’re talking about the quilt, Professor.”
Before Poltovski could say anything, another couple entered. Steve arched an eyebrow at Buck who nodded. Barry and Wanda Jones. They, too, halted. “Here. Aren’t we going to finish this off tonight?” asked Barry. Wanda stood with a slightly vacant look on her face, and Steve wondered how far the bottle level had been lowered before they got to the mansion.
“Inspector Walsh and I are here to interview the committee. You are free to do what you want in the sewing room.” Buck looked a question at Steve, who nodded. “Mrs. Flowers, will you come with us, please?”
Jeremy arrived with Susanne and Annette, who were carrying cleaning supplies. The butler invited the committee to wait in the dining room while the room was being tidied. “There are coffee, tea, and refreshments available,” he informed them.
Mrs. Flowers was obviously flustered at the attention but followed Buck and Steve from the room. They walked silently to Mrs. Chandler’s office, and Buck moved a chair beside the door. After seating the woman, Steve circled the desk, sat, and took out his notebook.
Mrs. Flowers was a slight, plain woman who hid her sex behind a shapeless dress and cowed demeanor. At second glance, observed Steve, she might be pretty if she took a little time to dress up. There was no trace of any cosmetics, and her face looked strained because her hair had been pulled into a severe bun at the back of her neck. Her hair was a mousy brown, and when she finally looked at him, he saw that she had large, arresting brown eyes.
“Mrs. Flowers, we need to determine the movements of everyone who was here the night Mrs. Chandler died.” He asked her the same questions he had presented to Mrs. Black. Her answers were straightforward, but in the same vein as the older woman’s. There was no one she could remember seeing the whole time, with everyone moving in and out of the dining room. She fluttered her hands constantly, clutching a lace handkerchief in her left hand. Her narrow face was strained and her brown eyes wide and worried. There were dark smudges under them.
After writing down her answers, Steve sat back. Something had been niggling at his mind since he had entered the room that morning. Suddenly, he had it. If this was Mrs. Chandler’s office, where had her secretary worked? He peered hard at the carpet and saw the signs of a smaller desk and chair at right angles to the large one. A secretary’s desk had been removed from the room. “Where was Mrs. Chandler’s secretary?” He snapped the question, more to himself than Mrs. Flowers. The overwrought woman began to cry.
“What the ... ? What is the matter?” he asked cautiously, puzzled and slightly alarmed by her reaction. He had never been comfortable with a weeping woman.
Regaining some composure, Mary looked up and replied in a quiet voice, “I was. At least, until ... ”
Steve thought he understood. “Until you stole the money.” The thought popped out of his mouth before he realized how harsh he sounded.
This brutally bald statement brought another spate of tears, much to Steve’s chagrin. “I’m, uh, I’m sorry,” he said.
Mrs. Flowers raised her tearstained face and gathered herself. “I had Mrs. Chandler’s trust until then. If I hadn’t been so desperate I would never have done it. I told her I was wrong not going to her; she had been so good to me. She said she understood, and she was so good to me after,” she repeated. Mrs. Flowers, through a waterfall of tears, confirmed the information Julie had supplied. “I needed the money for my mother. She was so ill, and her treatment was so expensive. I convinced myself that it wasn’t wrong if it did good and allowed a sick old woman to be comfortable at the end of her time. And I was planning on paying it back. I was.” She ended with, “Mrs. Chandler told me during the interview, after the discovery, that she would take care of her own correspondence in the future.”
It was obvious to Steve that any trust that had been established between the two women had been shattered. He thought Mrs. Chandler had decided to leave the pieces on the floor. She may have forgiven Mrs. Flowers for the theft, but she was not going to keep the woman in her confidence. It was understandable from the old woman’s point of view. In a moment of crisis, Mrs. Flowers had broken the law instead of going to her mentor, the unforgivable sin according to Mrs. Chandler.
Hoping to receive different answers now that she was in an emotionally shocked state, Steve took advantage and reviewed her previous answers. “Could the servants have slipped from the room during the critical period?”
Mrs. Flowers, pale and wan, dabbed her eyes and took a deep breath. “As I said before, Susanne was by the dumbwaiter most of the time. When Jeremy had a need for something, he told her. She spoke into the speaking tube by the dumbwaiter and waited to take what the cook sent up and put it out. There were several platters, the coffee and tea, water—I don’t know what else. Jeremy was mostly in the room, leaving occasionally, stepping to the outside doors to see if everything was in order. He was never gone for more than a minute or two. The other girl was in and out. Cook was in the kitchen downstairs. I don’t know how she could have gotten from there to the sewing room and back. She could not be sure when more instructions would arrive from the dining room.”
“You say that you never left the dining room?”
With slumped shoulders she answered almost too quietly to hear. “Yes. They don’t like me. Everyone thinks that Mrs. Chandler was too, well, easy on me.” Tears flowed again from the miserable woman. She dabbed at them with the soaked handkerchief. Steve reached into his pocket and extracted his own, which was clean, thankfully, and handed it to her. She thanked him with a weary smile. “They all hate me. I suppose they can have their way now. The committee is sure to remove me.”
She looked at Steve with the first look of strength she had shown so far. “I am a good secretary. I am a good person. I made a mistake.” She straightened in her chair and gave him a look that dared him to contradict her.
She turned her head and stared at the corner of the room, a sudden anger flashing from her eyes, twisting his handkerchief until it tore in her hands. “That Emma Black. I could just ... just ... ”
“Kill her?” Steve finished for her quietly.
Mrs. Flowers’s hands flew to her mouth. Her wide eyes met his. “Oh, no!” she cried, aghast. “No, not that.”
Steve leaned back. “That will be all for now, Mrs. Flowers. Stay around the house until Captain Daniels or I give you permission to leave. Will you send in Miss Carlyle when you go back, please?” he asked mildly.
She looked at his damp, rumpled handkerchief and tentatively offered it back to him. Steve waved it away with a grin, and she turned to go. After she had stumbled out of the room, the inspector looked at Buck, who shrugged and said, “I don’t think she had any good reason to kill Mrs. Chandler and every reason to wish her a long life. Now, if Mrs. Black had ended up with the scissors in her ribs, I would look at her. And probably everyone else in town, who would show up for the celebration,” he added.
Chapter 10
The men looked up when a short, stout, gray woman gave a sharp, businesslike knock on the doorjamb. She wore a gray dress and dark hose. Her square-toed black shoes would have been considered sensible by Steve’s grandmother. A matching purse was held tight to her body. Her salt-and-pepper hair was gathered in a loose bun at the back of her neck. Her eyes were pale enough to be almost colorless. The only splash of color was a bright red scarf loosely knotted around her heavy neck. Buck seated her and received a brilliant smile in return. She looked like everyone’s grandmother. There were laugh lines around her plump-lipped mouth and friendly, twinkling eyes. Steve swore that he could smell fresh bread and cinnamon, reminiscent of his own Mimi’s kitchen.
He lost himself momentarily in the sudden memories of Christmas mornings and then pulled back from the awkward silence with an effort.
“Good evening, Miss Carlyle. How are you?”
“I am just fine, Inspector. How are you?” she replied. She twisted in her chair and looked at Buck. “And how are you, Buck? You are looking well. How are Margaret and the children?”
Steve saw that this was rapidly turning into a social event, and he brought the discussion around to the business at hand. “Miss Carlyle. Can you tell me about the night of the murder, please?”
She described the evening much as Mrs. Black and Mrs. Flowers had. Under his probing, she reviewed the committee members’ movements after they broke from the quilting. “Mrs. Flowers sat at the table most of the time, but I wasn’t there myself the whole evening. The professor spoke to her briefly, I think, and then left. Wanda and Barry left to go out on the terrace.
“I am sorry. I wanted to see how Mrs. Chandler’s new hybrids were doing and went out,” she finished. “Then the professor and I spoke until Emma came out and gathered me up to leave. The two of us came in her automobile.”
Steve stopped writing and looked directly into her eyes. “When did you have time to go upstairs, then?”
She blushed and lowered her eyes. “Inspector! I felt the ... the call and repaired upstairs to the powder room. That was immediately after we left the sewing room. When I returned, I exchanged a few words with Alice—Mrs. Chandler—before I went to the sideboard.”
“So it wasn’t after Mrs. Chandler left?” Buck asked.
“Why, no, Buck. I remember because I wanted to discuss my opinion on whether to use the light or dark hanging strips on the quilt. I knew that Alice always went back to the sewing room after we adjourned. I felt sure that the reason, that evening, was to decide which she liked, though she had expressed her interest in the light when we were all together. You have to understand Alice. She was never someone who forced her opinion on the committee. She felt that all of us should have equal weight in any decision.” Miss Carlyle smiled. “Not in the least as she organized her private life and businesses.”
The Rose Quilt Page 9
