by C. J. Archer
“He’s gone home.”
I had expected as much. “Does he lock his office door at night?”
He shrugged. “Peter will know.”
The hard-working Peter looked just as bored as Goliath. He yawned before leaning both elbows on the front desk. “Only two more hours before the night porter takes over,” he said. “I’m that tired. Mr. Hobart’s had me going over the guest register for tomorrow, seeing as Mr. Armitage no longer works here. There’s going to be a lot of new arrivals in the afternoon.”
“Speaking of Mr. Hobart,” I said, “does he lock his office door when he goes home?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I need to look at the records of the room deliveries for the night of Mrs. Warrick’s murder. I want to see if one of my suspects ordered enough food for two people at dinner time.”
“You think she dined with her killer?”
“I’m not sure. It might amount to nothing, but I want to check before I pass on what I know to the inspector.”
“I know where you can find a key to Mr. Hobart’s office,” Peter said.
He ducked behind the counter. Goliath leaned over to see what he was doing, but Peter stood again, a set of keys on his palm.
“One of them is for Mr. Hobart’s office. Another is for Mr. Armitage’s office and his private chamber, and I’m not sure what the fourth one unlocks. They both handed in their keys to me when they left. I gave Mr. Hobart’s set to Mr. Chapman, who gave them back to Mr. Hobart when he returned. He told me to hold onto Mr. Armitage’s.” He held them up by the ring.
“Why didn’t he want you to give them to Mr. Chapman or Mrs. Kettering?” Goliath asked. “They’re more senior than you.”
“If we hold onto them here, then anyone can ask for them if they need something from Mr. Armitage’s office. This desk is always manned.”
I took the keys and promised to return them.
“I’d better come and keep watch for you,” Goliath said, following me into the senior staff corridor. “I’ll whistle if someone comes.”
I lowered my voice to a whisper. “If I close the door, it will be as it was before. Nobody will know I’m inside.”
“You have to turn the light on. Or can you see in the dark?”
“Very amusing. But you do have a point. Very well, whistle if someone approaches, and I’ll quickly switch off the light.”
Goliath positioned himself where he could see the foyer as well as along the corridor in both directions. Mr. Chapman should be in the dining room all evening, and as far as I was aware, Mrs. Kettering was in her private chambers or her office. If she happened to come out while I was inside Mr. Hobart’s office, I hoped I’d have enough time to turn off the light upon Goliath’s whistle before she noticed it.
As quietly as possible, I tried the keys until I found which of the three opened Mr. Hobart’s door and I slipped inside and turned on the light. His desk was neat; all the day’s paperwork had been safely stowed away. I searched the bookshelf of ledgers but found nothing relating to the kitchen except for some old renovation plans. I expected to see ledgers listing the supplies, but there were none. Perhaps they were in Mr. Armitage’s office or the head chef kept that information himself.
Nor could I find a ledger listing the room service orders taken through the speaking tubes. I checked the books again, pulling them off the shelf and checking inside, in case their spines had been mislabeled. They hadn’t. Perhaps it was kept in the kitchen.
But surely Mr. Hobart would need that information so he could add it to the guests’ expenses. He would also require it each day, to account for guests checking out. Either he took down notes for the guests, then handed the ledger back to the kitchen, or they simply used loose paper, starting afresh the next day.
I searched the stack of papers in Mr. Hobart’s tray then turned to the filing cabinet. I clicked my tongue in frustration as I tried to open some of the drawers only to find them locked. Thankfully, the bottom two weren’t. I pulled out the leather document wallets and rifled through the contents.
Success! One of them contained loose sheets of paper with neat columns ruled in ink. Each entry was written in pencil, and included the date, time, room number, guest name and their order. A tick had been placed in ink beside each entry, probably by Mr. Hobart after he’d transcribed the details over to the guest’s account.
There was one piece of paper for each day. The name of the staff member who’d taken the order was written beside it. Victor had been responsible for taking the room service orders on several occasions.
I flicked back through the papers until I found the one dated Christmas Eve and traced my finger down the entries. There it was, one of the names I’d been hoping to find. Now that I’d found it, I couldn’t quite believe it. I felt a little giddy as I read through what he’d ordered. It was two of everything.
Mr. Hookly was either a hungry man or he’d entertained a guest in his room.
I returned the sheet to the wallet and placed it back in the drawer and hurried for the door, only to suddenly stop.
Goliath whistled the Pirate King’s song, from The Pirates of Penzance, loudly and clearly. I switched off the light, hoping it hadn’t been visible beneath the door.
“Mr. Hobart asked me to check on Mr. Armitage’s office from time to time,” I heard Goliath say. “I’ve just come from there.”
There was a pause in which I could just make out Mrs. Kettering’s shrill tone, if not her words.
“Yes, I’ll move on. Goodnight, Mrs. Kettering.”
I waited a moment before opening the door a crack. The coast was clear. I slipped out of the office and quickly locked the door behind me, racing into the foyer.
I didn’t draw breath until I reached the front desk. “Thank you, Goliath,” I said to the porter as I handed the keys back to Peter.
“So?” Goliath asked. “What did you find?”
I could hardly contain my excitement. The stalemate in the case had finally been broken. “Mr. Hookly ordered enough for two on Christmas Eve, yet he’s here alone.”
“Hookly?” Peter echoed. “The gentleman just back from Africa? The one who gave his address as Berkshire?”
“I think Mrs. Warrick recognized him. I overheard her say as much that afternoon and comment that he shouldn’t be here.”
Goliath leaned against the counter, arms crossed. “So she confronted him, he got worried and decided he had to kill her to stop her telling someone that he shouldn’t be in the hotel. He invited her up to his room for dinner, poisoned her food, and she returned to her room where she died.”
It didn’t quite make sense. Apparently she was poisoned between three and six AM. Either the pathologist was wrong about the time of death or she took some food back to her room with her and consumed it later. But where was the evidence? There were no plates or cups that shouldn’t have been in her room, and no leftovers.
“Why did she think he shouldn’t be here?” Peter asked.
Goliath rubbed his jaw. “What if she thought he should still be in Africa? Perhaps that’s why she was surprised to see him here.” He clicked his fingers. “What if he got into trouble there, maybe murdered someone, and came back to England to escape justice, and Mrs. Warrick knew it.”
And I thought my imagination was vivid. “I like your theory, Goliath. It makes sense.”
Peter shook his head. “It’s a mad theory. You’re both mad.” He suddenly stopped and bit his lower lip. “Forgive me, Miss Fox, I don’t mean it.”
I leaned forward a little. “It’s quite all right, Peter. I’m not going to get you into trouble with my uncle when you’re simply being honest.”
He looked relieved. “In that case, I don’t think you’re right. It can’t be Hookly. He’s got a letter of recommendation from Lord Addlington.”
“It could be falsified.”
“It’s on our hotel stationery. How could he falsify it on our stationery if he hadn’t checked in yet?”
&n
bsp; I didn’t think it was a watertight argument. Blank hotel stationery wouldn’t be easy to obtain outside the hotel, but it wasn’t impossible. “Pass me the keys to Mr. Hobart’s office again.”
“Why?” Peter asked.
“I want to make a telephone call to Mr. Hookly’s address. We can ask someone there when Mr. Hookly is expected to return home and if they know why he came back from Africa.”
“How will you discover that?”
“Lie, of course. I’ll pretend I’m working for the police on the murder case and am just following up on all the guests’ addresses. ” I put out my palm but Peter shook his head.
“No one will believe a woman works for the police. Let me make the call from here. There’s no one about now.”
There were a handful of people leaving the vestibule and heading to the lift, smoking room or billiards room, but none approached. Peter flipped the pages of his register until he came to Mr. Hookly’s entry.
After a few brief conversations as he was passed from one exchange to the next, he finally had a longer conversation with the person on the other end. His frown deepened. He thanked the other speaker then hung the receiver on the cradle.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Goliath said.
“That’s because I have.” Peter swallowed. “Mr. Hookly is dead.”
Chapter 11
“I got through to the police station nearest Mr. Hookly’s address.” Peter looked down at the reservation book, open to Mr. Hookly’s entry. “They said he died two months ago.”
“Bloody hell,” Goliath murmured. “So who’s our Mr. Hookly?”
“And how did he get Lord Addlington’s letter?”
“Did the policeman say if the real Mr. Hookly died in suspicious circumstances?” I asked.
“Natural causes. His heart gave out.”
So our Mr. Hookly was not Mr. Hookly at all. “If he’s used a false name to check in here, it’s reasonable to assume his real name is associated with wrongdoing, and Mrs. Warrick knew it.”
“So we need to find out his real name and what he did,” Goliath said. “The maid who cleans his room can look through his things in the morning.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t prepared to put the maids in danger. If Mr. Hookly found out, we could have another murder on our hands. “I’ll inform the detective inspector in the morning. No one is to confront Mr. Hookly in the meantime. Is that understood? We’ll let Scotland Yard know and they can decide what to do next.”
“I’ll call the Yard now and ask for the inspector to come first thing tomorrow,” Peter said, reaching for the telephone again.
I didn’t sleep well that night. The turn of events had made me quite sure the poisoner was Mr. Hookly. Innocent people didn’t use a dead man’s name for good reasons. But two things didn’t make sense. First of all, Mrs. Warrick had been poisoned in the early hours, and there was no evidence of food or drink in her room. If Mr. Hookly had added the poison to her meal, she would have died earlier. If she’d returned with extra food or drink to her room and consumed it in the small hours, where was the cup or plate or leftovers?
Had the police made a mistake in determining the time of death? How accurate was their estimate?
Or had Mr. Hookly given her the face cream as a gift and she’d got up in the middle of the night and used it? It was an odd gift, but it was a little more feasible than him giving her a tube of toothpaste or a bottle of tonic.
Something else troubled me even more. Mrs. Warrick had not been frightened or outraged when she saw Mr. Hookly in the foyer that afternoon. She’d simply been confused and surprised to see him. So he was probably not a murderer or criminal. If so, wouldn’t she have alerted Mr. Hobart immediately? She’d spoken to him about Danny that afternoon, and she had not mentioned Mr. Hookly at all.
I fell asleep sometime during the night with a series of questions swirling around my head and no answers.
I found a message from Harmony slipped under my door the following morning to say she couldn’t do my hair, and she was having a short break at ten-thirty in the parlor if I wanted to talk. I got the feeling either Goliath or Peter had hinted that something was afoot but not given her more details and she hoped I would.
I waited in my room for detective inspector Hobart, but he didn’t come. At ten-thirty, I went downstairs to find the hotel undergoing a transformation. Floral garlands were being hung and four men carefully wheeled a flatbed trolley across the tiles, its large load hidden beneath a sheet of canvas. It was New Year’s Eve, the day of the ball, and every staff member seemed to have a task. No guests were allowed to dine in the dining room for breakfast or luncheon as the room was turned into a ballroom, and the adjoining vestibule was off-limits too. Mr. Hobart stood by the Christmas tree, clipboard in hand, directing staff. He looked exhausted as he spoke sternly to a delivery man for not using the rear entrance. He was doing the work of two men, thanks to me.
“May I offer some assistance, Mr. Hobart?” I asked.
“No, thank you,” he said without looking up from his clipboard.
“I could deliver messages to the staff for you.”
“Thank you, but there’s no need. We can manage.” He spotted some newly arrived guests and went to greet them, smiling all the way.
I sighed and headed to the parlor where I found Harmony and Edith sitting with four other maids, drinking tea. They separated from the group and joined me in the corner.
“Shouldn’t you be helping with preparations?” I asked.
“We’ve been scrubbing the dining room and foyer since dawn,” Harmony said. “We’re just having a quick fifteen minutes to ourselves before we clean rooms.”
Edith pressed a hand to her lower back and winced. “I’ll be glad when this is all over.”
“Sorry about your hair,” Harmony said to me.
I touched my hair. “It’s not as elegant as one of your arrangements, but I have been doing it for many years now.”
She smiled. “I’ll fix it later for tonight.”
“I’m not going to the ball.”
“Don’t tell me it’s because you have nothing to wear. If you’d made your mind up days ago, you would have something by now.”
“I was going to say that I don’t feel like joining in the revelries,” I said defensively. “I’m still in mourning.”
Her lips flattened but her eyes were sympathetic.
Edith poured a cup of tea and handed it to me. “Harmony says Goliath is acting strange this morning. He says there’s been a development in the murder case but he can’t say more until you’ve spoken to the police.”
“He’s got a nerve not telling me,” Harmony said into her teacup. “I’m the one who got you involved in the investigation in the first place.”
Victor pushed open the door and entered with two other young cooks. Harmony straightened, as did several of the other maids. Where they smiled flirtatiously, however, Harmony pursed her lips and pretended not to see them.
“Good morning, ladies,” Victor said, joining us. “So what’s this I hear about Peter calling the police?” he asked me.
It would seem I wasn’t going to get away with keeping silent any longer. I told them about Mr. Hookly dining with a second person on the night of the murder, and then Peter’s telephone call to the police station nearest Mr. Hookly’s address.
“According to them, Mr. Hookly is dead,” I said.
Harmony gasped. “Then who’s our Mr. Hookly?”
“Maybe he killed the real Mr. Hookly,” Victor said, sitting on the edge of the table.
Edith put a hand to her throat. Her eyes were huge as they stared back at me, full of worry.
“Don’t be afraid,” I told her gently. “He died of natural causes. But the man we know as Mr. Hookly is impersonating him, for some unknown reason.”
“To kill people,” Victor said.
Harmony scowled at him. “Do stop it, Victor. You’re frightening Edith and not making any sense what
soever.”
“Or I’m the only sensible one here.”
She rolled her eyes. “It was a good idea to contact the police, Miss Fox. Why haven’t they come yet? Did Peter stress how important it was?”
I hadn’t heard Peter’s call so I couldn’t be sure.
“There must be a mistake,” Edith said, frowning into her teacup. “If Mr. Hookly were dead, why does he have a letter of recommendation from that lord?”
“You know about the letter?” I asked.
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“Not me,” Victor said.
“I heard it from Peter,” Harmony said.
Edith searched my gaze. “Miss Fox? What do you think? Can Lord Addlington’s word be trusted?”
I patted her arm. “I’m sure it can. He’s very well known here, after all.” I didn’t want to tell her the letter could have been falsified. I didn’t want to upset her more.
Victor stretched out his legs, his heels trapping the edge of Harmony’s skirt. She didn’t notice. “You can’t assume it was Mrs. Warrick dining in his room that night either. For starters, she’s much older than him.”
“So?” Harmony said. “What’s wrong with a middle-aged woman having a liaison with a younger man?”
“She’s past middle age.”
“So?” she asked again.
He turned to me and she rolled her eyes again. “It’s more likely he entertained a…different kind of woman in his room,” the cook said.
“Victor!” Harmony’s voice drew the attention of the other maids and cooks. “Don’t be so vulgar in front of Miss Fox.”
Victor adjusted his crossed arms, pushing his hands into his armpits. “Sorry, Miss Fox, but I didn’t want to say whore in front of you.”
Harmony rubbed her forehead and sighed.
I tried to suppress my smile. “I didn’t think those sort of women came into the hotel.”
Victor merely shrugged and the women didn’t comment, but the moment I said it, I remembered the Russian count and his mistress in the smoking room. It would seem the hotel’s staff looked the other way if the whore looked sophisticated enough.
