The Best of Sisters in Crime (21 page)

“What are you
going to do?” Frances Clearey asked.

“Do you plan to
keep us here until one of us admits to something?” the German doctor scoffed. “You
cannot search us without some authority.”

“That’s correct,”
Lynley said. “I can’t search you. Unless you agree to be searched.”

Feet shuffled. A
throat cleared. Urgent conversation was conducted in German. Someone rustled
papers in a notebook.

Cleve Houghton
was the first to speak. He looked over the group. “Hell, I have no objection.”

“But the women .
. .” Victoria pointed out.

Lynley nodded to
his companion, who was standing by a display of copper kettles at the edge of
the group. “This is Lady Helen Clyde,” he told them. “She’ll search the women.”

As one body,
they turned to Lynley’s companion. Resting upon them, her dark eyes were
friendly. Her expression was gentle. What an absurdity it would be to resist
cooperating with such a lovely creature.

The search was
carried out in two rooms: the women in the scullery and the men in a warming
room across the hall. In the scullery, Lady Helen made a thorough job of it.
She watched each woman undress, redress. She emptied pockets, handbags, canvas
totes. She checked the lining of raincoats. She opened umbrellas. All the time
she chatted in a manner designed to put them at ease. She asked the Americans
about their class, about Cambridge, about great houses they had seen and where
they were from. She confided in the Germans about spending two weeks in the
Black Forest one summer and confessed to an embarrassed dislike of the
out-of-doors. She never mentioned the word
murder.
Aside from the operation in which they were engaged, they might
have been new acquaintances talking over tea. Yet Adele saw for herself that
Lady Helen was quite efficient at her job. for all her friendliness and good
breeding. If she didn’t work for the police herself—and her relationship with
Lynley certainly did not suggest that she was employed by Scotland Yard— she
certainly had knowledge of their procedures.

Nonetheless, she
found nothing. Nor, apparently, did Lynley. When the two groups were gathered
once again in the kitchen, Adele saw him shake his head at Lady Helen. If the
silver had been taken, it was not being carried by anyone. Even Victoria
Wilder-Scott and the tour guide had been searched.

Lynley told them
to wait in the tearoom. He turned back to the stairway at the far end of the
kitchen.

“Where’s he
going now?” Frances Clearey asked.

“He’ll have to
look for the silver in the rest of the house,” Adele said.

“But that could
take forever!” Dolly wailed.

“It doesn’t
matter, does it? We’re going to have to wait to talk to the local police
anyway.”

“It was heart
failure,” Cleve said. “There’s no silver missing. It’s probably being cleaned
somewhere.”

Adele fell to
the back of the crowd as they walked across the pebbled courtyard. A sense of
unease plucked at her mind. It had been with her much of the morning, hidden
like a secondary message between the lines of Noreen Tucker’s words, trying to
fight its way to the surface of her consciousness in the minibus, lying just
beyond the range of her vision ever since they had arrived at the manor. Like
the children’s game of What’s Wrong With This Picture, there was a distortion
somewhere. She could feel it distinctly. She simply couldn’t see it.

Her thoughts
tumbled upon one another without connection or reason, like images produced by
a kaleidoscope. There were yew hedges in the courtyard of St. Stephen’s College.
Sam and Frances Clearey had had a fight. The walls have ears. The silver was
available. It was pictured in their text. It was in the brochures. They’d seen
both in advance. Dolly wanted Cleve. She loved antiques. Sam Clearey liked
women, liked the blonde from the Dickens class, liked . . .

Once again Adele
saw Lady Helen go through their belongings. She saw her empty, probe, touch,
leave nothing unexamined. She saw her shake her head at Lynley. She saw Lynley
frown.

The two groups
entered the tearoom and segregated themselves from each other. The Americans
took positions at a refectory table at the far end. The Germans lined up for
coffee and cakes.

“Victoria, can
we go back to Cambridge?” Frances asked.

“I mean, when
this is over? We’ve another house to see today, but we can drop it, can’t we?”

Victoria was
hesitant. “Ralph did specifically want us to—”

“Screw Ralph
Tucker!” Sam said. “Come on, Victoria, we’ve had it.”

“There’s the
minibus to consider, the driver’s salary . . .”

“Couldn’t we
just chip in some money and tip him or something?” Dolly set her camera on the
table in front of her. She folded her hands around it, her shoulders slumped. “I
mean . . . oh, I guess that’s dumb. Forget it.”

And there it was
in an instant. Right before her. Adele saw it at last. She knew what Noreen
Tucker had been saying during their walk to the bus. She knew the source of her
own disquiet on the journey to Abinger Manor. She acknowledged what she had
seen without seeing from the moment they had arrived at the manor. Thirty-six
was the key, but it had been exceeded long ago. The knowledge brought to Adele
an attendant rush of wrenching illness. Thomas Lynley had made an assumption
from the facts at hand.

But Lynley was
wrong.

She pushed
herself to her feet and left the group. Someone called after her, but she
continued on her way. She found Lynley in the drawing room, directing three
workmen who were crawling across the floor.

How can I do
this?
she asked herself. And then,
Why? With the future a blank slate upon which nothing but hope
and success were written. Why?

Lynley looked
up. Lady Helen Clyde did likewise. Adele did not even have to speak to them.
They joined her at once and followed her to the tearoom.

“What’s going
on?” Cleve asked.

Adele didn’t
look at him. “Dolly, give the inspector your camera.”

Dolly’s blue
eyes widened. “I don’t understand.”

“Give him the
camera, Dolly. Let him look at the lens.”

“But you—”

Lynley lifted
the camera from the girl’s shoulder. Lined along its strap were containers for
film. All of them were empty. Adele had seen that earlier, had seen it and had
thought no more about it than she had thought about the fact that there had
been no film in Dolly’s shoulder bag. Nor had there been any in her pockets.
She’d been shooting pictures all morning with no film in her camera at all, in
order to conceal her real reason for carrying the camera with her to the manor
in the first place.

Lynley twisted
off the macro-zoom lens. It was useless, hollowed. Two pieces of rococo silver
tumbled out.

Howard dropped
into the seat next to Adele. “You okay?”

“Okay.” She didn’t
want to talk about it. She felt like a Judas. She wanted to go home. She tried
to keep from thinking about Dolly being led off by the police.

“How did you
figure Dolly?”

“She took too many
pictures. She would have had to change film, but she never did that. Because
there was no film.”

“But Noreen. Why
did Dolly . . .”

Adele’s limbs
felt numb. “She didn’t care one way or the other about Noreen. Probably
intended the seeds to make Noreen good and sick, not kill her. She just needed
a diversion to get to the silver.”

“I don’t get it.
How could she possibly have known what yew seeds do?”

“Sam. He
probably didn’t know what he was telling her or why she was asking. He probably
didn’t think of anything except what it felt like to be his age and to be in
bed with someone like Dolly.” Even that was hard to bear. Knowing that Dolly’s
solicitous conversation with Frances Clearey about her marriage had been
nothing more than part of the game. Just another diversion, just another lie.

“Sam
and Dolly?” Howard looked across the aisle to where Cleve Houghton
lounged in his seat, eyes half closed. “I thought Cleve . . . when Noreen was
telling us that Cleve was talking last night about seducing women . . .”

“She was talking
to me. About me. Cleve wasn’t with Dolly last night, Howard.” Adele looked out
the window, said nothing more. After a moment, she felt Howard leave the seat
and move away.

I will bury you, Bob,
she had thought with Cleve Houghton.
I will end it between us this way.
So she had
drunk in the college bar with him, she had walked on the backs and listened to
him talk, she had pretended to find him intriguing and delightful, a man of
passion, a soul mate, a replacement for Bob. And when he wanted her, she had
obliged. Hurried grappling, urgent coupling, a body in her bed. To feel alive,
to feel wanted, to feel a creature of worth. But not to bury Bob. It hadn’t
worked that way.

“Hey.” Adele
pretended not to hear him, but Cleve crossed the aisle and dropped into the
seat. He carried a flask in his hand. “You look like you need a drink. Hell, I
need one.” He drank, spoke again in a lower voice. “Tonight?”

Adele raised her
eyes to his face, trying and failing to force his features into the shape of another
man’s.

“Well?” he said.

Of course, she
thought. Why not? What difference did it make when life was so fleeting and
youth without meaning?

“Sure,” she
said. “Tonight.”

Back to table of
contents

Carolyn G. Hart is the
recipient of two Agathas, two Anthonys, and a Macavity for her novels, as well
as a Macavity for the short story. Annie Laurance Darling, owner of a mystery bookstore,
Max Darling, Max’s mother Laurel, and the Death on Demand bookstore are
featured in nine novels, including
Mint Julep Murder.
With the introduction of Henrietta
O’Dwyer Collins, known as Henrie O., like Carolyn, a former journalist, the
American mystery scene is enriched by the example of a seasoned sleuth who
knows her way around the world and maintains her vigorous, no-nonsense pursuit
of the truth in five novels, most recently
Death in Paradise.

In “Upstaging Murder,”
Annie’s mother-in-law, Laurel, discovers that all the world’s become a
stage—and one of the players isn’t sticking to the rules.

Laurel Darling Roethke
was a latecomer to mysteries
, but, as with all
her enthusiasms, she gave her new interest her all. She subscribed to both
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
and
Alfred Hitchcock Mystery
Magazine
, belonged to the Mystery Guild, and was on the mailing list of a
half dozen mystery bookstores, from Grounds for Murder in San Diego,
California, to The Hideaway in Bar Harbor, Maine. Her heart, of course,
belonged to Death on Demand, the mystery bookstore so ably directed by her dear
daughter-in-law, Annie Laurance Darling. She adored Annie, though it was a bit
of a puzzle that Max had chosen such a serious young woman to be his wife. Oh,
well, one could never quite understand the squish of another’s moccasins.

Still, it was
Max’s love for Annie that had led Laurel to the mystery. A true thrill was
discovering the delights and pleasures of mystery weekends, from the Catskills
to the Sierras, from the Louisiana bayous to the Alaskan tundra.

Annie encouraged
her, of course. Dear Annie. So thoughtful to send a brochure on that Tibetan
weekend. Murder at the Monastery. But she was already committed to Death Stalks
the Smokies at this gorgeous inn in southeastern North Carolina, and it would
only make sense to visit Annie and Max on her way home. She was so near.

So far, this
weekend had been such a wonderful experience, a welcoming dinner devoted to one
of Laurel’s favorite authors, Leslie Ford, with choice tidbits about three of
Ford’s most famous characters, Grace Latham and Colonel Primrose and
dear
Sergeant Buck.

Laurel hummed
vigorously as she inspected her image in the mirror. What was it that lovely
police chief, the guest of honor, had murmured as they danced last night? That
she had a Grecian profile and hair that shimmered like moonlight on water? How
sweet! Men were so often obtuse, but they added such spice to life. She brushed
a soupçon of pale pink gloss to her lips, nodded in satisfaction, and turned
toward the door. Not that she expected to encounter anyone else abroad at this
hour, but a woman owed it to herself always to look her best.

She slipped
quietly down the hall. After all, you couldn’t be too careful at mystery
weekends. Everyone was so determined to win. Very American, of course, the
spirit of competition. Some people (her mind skittered to Henny Brawley, one of
the most avid mystery readers to frequent Annie’s store) would do almost
anything to win. So Laurel felt it was quite fair to scout out the territory in
advance.