The Clue is in the Pudding (7 page)

“I hope you’re right.” Charlie brushed his fingers across his forehead. “I wouldn’t like to think I brought a murderer into the Pennyfoot.”

Pansy swallowed. She had to get to Samuel and tell him what she’d heard. “I have to go,” she said, twisting around to run down the steps.

“Just be careful, that’s all,” Charlie said, following her down. He bent down to scoop up an armful of sheets. “You never know what that chap is capable of doing.”

Pansy didn’t answer. She flew down to the landing and picked up the basket. Now she could hardly wait until she saw Samuel again, and boy, was he in for a shock.

*   *   *

Kevin arrived as promised, less than an hour later. Cecily received him in the library, where a warm fire glowed in the fireplace. “It’s getting colder outside,” he observed, as he warmed his hands in front of the flames. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see it snowing by this evening.”

“Oh, heaven forbid.” Cecily rolled her eyes. “The last thing I need now is snow. I need Mr. Rickling’s choir here for our carol-singing ceremony.”

“I wouldn’t concern yourself. Even if it does snow, it probably won’t be enough to prevent your choir from getting here.”

“I hope not.” Sensing his uneasiness, she started to worry. “Kevin, is there something you need to tell me?”

He turned to face her, his smile rueful. “I never could hide anything from you for long.”

Worried now, she moved closer. “What is it? Is it about Mr. Armitage’s death?”

His smile vanished. “I’m afraid so. I’m sorry, Cecily. I brought my test kit with me. The poison that killed Armitage was in the whiskey bottle and glass.”

“Oh, my.” Her hand strayed to her throat as she stared at him in dismay. “You are quite certain?”

“There’s no doubt in my mind. There was enough left in the bottle to make a thorough assessment. It must have been a very large dose. Since the arsenic would have been colorless and virtually tasteless, Armitage had drunk most of the bottle without any idea that someone had tampered with it. It would have been a most unpleasant death.”

“How ghastly. That poor man.”

“Indeed.” Kevin paused. “That’s not all. The bottle bore the Pennyfoot logo on the label. It was one of the bottles brewed especially for the hotel.”

Cecily felt for the armchair behind her and dropped down on it. “So someone here in the Pennyfoot must have poisoned him.”

“It looks that way. I’m inclined to think that someone either presented Armitage with the bottle, or left it in his room while he was absent.”

“That’s possible. Our guests don’t always lock their rooms when they leave.”

“Quite.” He paused, looking even more uncomfortable.

She stared at him. “There’s something else?”

“I rang the constabulary. P.C. Northcott has already left for London. The constable on duty will be here shortly. From what I understand, however, Inspector Cranshaw is also away on holiday, so at least you won’t have to deal with him until after Christmas, and by then we could have all this cleared up.”

Cecily cringed at the sound of Cranshaw’s name. The inspector had been an adversary ever since the Pennyfoot had first opened as a hotel. Suspecting the presence of illegal card rooms hidden beneath the floorboards, he’d done everything in his power to prove his theory and had vowed to shut down the hotel once and for all.

Now that the Pennyfoot had been turned into a country club, card games were legal, and the inspector had lost a valuable tool in his quest. Nevertheless, he continued to search for reasons why the Pennyfoot should be put out of business, and his discussions with Cecily were always most unpleasant.

She was vastly relieved to hear the inspector was out of town, but the prospect of dealing with an unknown constable who could possibly share Cranshaw’s views was unsettling, to say the least. “I don’t suppose you found anything that might indicate who was responsible for this?”

Kevin shook his head. “I’m a doctor, not a detective. I leave all that up to you.”

She sighed and leaned back on her chair. “It appears that I’ll be spending another Christmas hunting down a murderer.”

“If I didn’t know better, my dear Cecily, I’d say that you rather enjoyed the chase.”

She gave him a sharp look. His expression was quite sober, though his eyes twinkled with amusement. She folded her hands demurely in her lap. “I’d never admit to such a thing.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to do so.”

A sharp rap on the door compelled her to sit up. “Who is it?”

A timid voice from out in the hallway answered her. “It’s Pansy, m’m. There’s a constable here to see you.”

Cecily exchanged a worried glance with Kevin and rose to her feet. “Show him in, Pansy.”

The door opened and a young man stepped into the room, wearing a constable’s uniform and carrying a helmet under his arm. He inclined his head as he came forward. “Good afternoon, m’m.” He nodded at Kevin, who returned the gesture with a nod of his own.

“Constable Watkins, m’m. At your service.” The constable edged as close to the fire as he could get. “I understand there’s been a possible homicide here.”

Cecily studied the constable with a certain amount of trepidation. He seemed hardly old enough to be a policeman. His unwrinkled face was freckled and topped with a thatch of thick, curly red hair. He seemed ill at ease, fidgeting with his helmet and shuffling from one foot to the other.

Cecily had the distinct impression that this was his first murder investigation. Given the circumstances, she would have much preferred to be dealing with P.C. Northcott. He might be a bumbler in the worst degree, but having dealt with him for so many years, she knew how to handle him. She had learned long ago to take advantage of Northcott’s ineptitude and had conducted her own investigations without his meddling.

This constable, on the other hand, was a quite different kettle of fish. He was young and probably inexperienced, but no doubt eager to prove his worth to his superiors. Especially Inspector Cranshaw. That did not bode well for her Christmas season.

No doubt P.C. Watkins would insist on questioning the guests, thus upsetting everyone. That was something she had usually been able to avoid with Sam Northcott. Her only option was to find out who had administered the poison to Archibald Armitage, before P.C. Watkins disrupted the entire holiday for everyone.

CHAPTER

6

Gertie’s heart seemed to stop as the bulky figure loomed up in front of her. One arm raised, she yelled, “Come any nearer and I’ll knock your bleeding block off!”

The voice that answered her sent shivers down her back. Pleasant shivers. “Oh, and here I was thinking you liked me.”

Feeling foolish, she lowered her arm. “Clive! You scared the heck out of me. What are you doing down here?”

“I saw you come down here and thought you could use a hand carrying this.” He swung the heavy basket up as if it contained nothing more than cotton wool. “Sorry I scared you.” He peered at her. “You really were frightened, weren’t you?”

She nodded, feeling perilously close to tears. The rare sensation made her blink really hard. “I nearly died down here once.”

He muttered something and before she could react, he wound an arm around her shoulders and hugged her to his chest. “I’m such a dolt.”

Her mind was telling her to move away from him before she made a complete idiot of herself, but her body didn’t seem to listen. She sniffed. “It wasn’t your fault. I just get jumpy every time I have to come down here.”

“I’m not surprised. From now on, you just tell me when you have to fetch more wine and I’ll come down here and get them for you.”

Acutely aware of her newly discovered feelings for him, she drew back. “Ta ever so, Clive, but I’ll manage.” She tried to take the basket from him but he held it out of her reach.

“You can at least let me carry this up the steps for you.”

Softening, she smiled at him. The shadows made his eyes seem darker, and more intense. Her heart leapt in response and she hurriedly brushed past him, heading for the stairs. “I’d better get them bleeding bottles back to the bar or I’ll have Tucker the Terrible after me.”

He laughed, a full, rich sound that echoed up the stairway. “You are such a tonic, Gertie McBride. Don’t ever change.”

Surprised, she looked back at him. “Me? Why would I change?”

He shrugged, his face suddenly serious. “People do.”

She thought about that as she trudged back to the kitchen carrying the heavy basket of wine. Clive had sounded so sad when he’d said that.
People do.
Who had changed for him, she wondered, and why had it hurt him so? There was so much she wanted to know about him. About his past, and what had brought him to the Pennyfoot and a job for which he seemed far too educated and intelligent. Who was Clive Russell, really? She longed to know, yet at the same time was apprehensive of what she might learn about him.

Would it change her feelings for him? She didn’t know the answer to that, but it certainly gave her something to think about.

*   *   *

Pansy was in such a hurry to get to the stables she failed to see the deep puddle in front of her until she was right on top of it. She made a desperate attempt to sidestep, but the heel of her shoe got caught in the hem of her skirt. Before she knew it she was sprawled on the ground with one elbow deep in the puddle of muddy water.

With her dignity injured more than her body, she scrambled to her feet and brushed off the mud and wet leaves from her uniform. Her sleeve was soaked, and the leaves had left a stain right in front of her skirt. Stomping across the courtyard, she hoped her clothes would dry before she got back to the kitchen. If not, Tucker the Terrible would make her change her clothes, and that would put her behind with her chores and cause all sorts of problems for everyone.

What she should do is go back now and get changed as quickly as possible. Her urge to see Samuel, however, was stronger than her fear of the housekeeper, and she kept marching until she reached the stables.

She could hear Gilbert talking to Samuel, and he sounded agitated. His voice rose as she drew closer, and she paused, hiding behind the wall of the stalls, so she could hear what the argument was about.

“Well, I don’t care what you bloody say, that bastard deserved to die.”

Samuel made a sound of disgust. “Well, I don’t have time to stand around arguing with you about it. Madam wants someone to take Sir Reginald Minster into town. Take one of the carriages and meet him at the front entrance in ten minutes.”

Gilbert muttered something under his breath and charged out of the stables without even noticing Pansy crouched against the wall.

Shaken, Pansy crept forward until Samuel saw her. He held out his arms and she rushed into them, closing her eyes as he hugged her. “What are you doing here?” His lips brushed her cheek. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting the dining room ready for afternoon tea?”

“I had to sneak out and tell you something.” Pansy snuggled up to him. “There was a constable come to the Pennyfoot a little while ago. I took him to see madam in the library.” She pulled back to look up into his face. “I heard him say that there’s been a homicide. That means murder doesn’t it? He was saying Mr. Armitage was
murdered
.”

Samuel let her go, his face frozen in shock. “Who killed him, then?”

“We don’t know. We thought at first it was Tucker the Terrible, because she sent him up a slice of Christmas pudding and it was the only thing he ate that nobody else did, but then I went and found the pudding in his room so now we don’t know what killed him.”

“Well, I’m sure madam will find out. She’s good at doing that.”

Pansy glanced over her shoulder. “What if Gilbert poisoned him?”

Samuel’s eyebrows shot up. “
Gilbert?
Why on earth would he do such a thing?”

“I was talking to Charlie just now and he said that Mr. Armitage stole money from Gilbert and he took this job here so’s he could fix the brakes on Mr. Armitage’s car.”

“That’s bonkers. Charlie’s full of rubbish. Gilbert would never do something like that.”

“Then why did he tell Charlie that’s what he wanted to do?”

“He must have been joking.”

Pansy tossed her head. “What if he wasn’t? What if he decided that poisoning was better than messing about with the brakes of a motorcar?”

Samuel crossed his arms. “You’d better be careful. Talk like that could get you in a lot of trouble.”

Pansy tossed her head. “From who? Gilbert? I’m not afraid of
him.
”

“From me.” Samuel frowned. “Gilbert says a lot of daft things but he’s a good bloke and a great mechanic. Not many people know how to work with motorcars the way he does. He knows them so well he can sense when something’s wrong and how to fix it. More and more people are buying motorcars every day, and they’re going to need people to take care of them. There’s going to be a big demand in the future for people like him and me.”

“So what?”

“So I won’t have you going around calling him a murderer.”

“I didn’t call him a murderer. I just said he
might
have done it.”

“Well, he didn’t.”

Pansy pouted. “How do you know? He’s only worked here a week. You don’t know nothing about him.”

“I know a lot about him. We spent a couple of evenings in the pub together and talked about a lot of things.”

“You went drinking with him without me?”

A dangerous gleam appeared in Samuel’s eyes. “It was business.”

“What kind of business?”

“Never you mind.”

Fear started to creep along Pansy’s veins. This wasn’t like Samuel at all, to keep things from her. Confused, she threw caution aside. “Well, it
is
my business if we’re going to get married.”

A red spot appeared in each of Samuel’s cheeks. He avoided her gaze, pretending to study the horse in the stall closest to him. “Who said we were getting married?”

Pansy’s stomach seemed to drop to her boots. Fighting back tears, she declared, “You said you loved me, and I love you. That’s what people do when they love each other. They get married. I’ve waited long enough for you, Samuel. I want to get married.”

“Well, I don’t.”

Horrified, she slapped a hand over her mouth, unable to prevent the tears streaming down her cheeks.

As if he’d suddenly noticed her distress, Samuel’s expression changed to regret. “Don’t cry, sweetheart.” He moved toward her, but she jerked back out of his reach. “I didn’t mean never. I just meant not now.”

“Why not?”

She’d mumbled the words from behind her hand, but he must have understood. He raised his chin, staring at the rafters a moment or two before answering her. “I need to save my money. I want to buy a garage for motorcar repairs and start a business. Gilbert’s going in it with me. We think we could have a really successful business going in a few years. Once we’re established and making money, then you and I can get married.”

Disappointment, anger, and fear had sent Pansy’s mind into turmoil. When Samuel reached for her she backed away from him. “No, no. I’m not going to wait for you forever. I’ve waited too long as it is. If I don’t get married soon I’ll be too old to have babies and I want babies, Samuel.” The tears kept coming, and she dashed them away with the back of her hand. “If you don’t want to marry me, then I’ll find someone who will.”

“Pansy . . .”

She didn’t wait to hear what he had to say. Blinded by tears and aching in every part of her body, she flew out of the stable and into the courtyard. It was over. She and Samuel were never going to get married now. She was going to be a spinster for the rest of her life.

*   *   *

Constable Watkins fixed his gaze on Cecily’s face, waiting for her to speak.

She chose her words carefully. “One of my maids found one of our guests had died in his bed. I called Dr. Prestwick and he examined the patient.” She looked to Kevin for help.

“Shouldn’t you be taking notes?” Kevin asked abruptly.

“Oh, right-ho.” Watkins pulled a notebook from his breast pocket and hunted in the other pocket for a pencil. Not finding one, he looked from Kevin to Cecily and back to Kevin again with a helpless look that reminded Cecily of Gertie’s twins.

Kevin rolled his eyes and produced a pencil from his own breast pocket. “Here. You should never go anywhere without a pencil.”

“Yes, sir. I mean, no sir.” Looking a little desperate, the constable flipped open the notebook. “The name of the victim?”

Cecily listened as Kevin answered the constable’s hesitant questions. It didn’t seem likely that the policeman would understand half of what Kevin said, but eventually he seemed satisfied and closed his notebook.

“I’d like to take a look at the room, m’m,” he said, walking slowly toward the door.

“I’ll show him,” Kevin said and followed the constable out the door.

Cecily watched him go, full of misgivings. How was she going to stop him from questioning all the guests? It had to be obvious that someone here in the Pennyfoot could have poisoned Armitage. Her mind whirled back to her conversation with Phoebe. Should she mention the argument between Sir Reginald and the actor to P.C. Watkins? Was it enough motive for murder?

Moving closer to the fire, she acknowledged that she probably should tell him. If Sir Reginald was the killer, the constable would no doubt question him first and with any luck, decide he was guilty and delay questioning anyone else. She might still be able to avoid upsetting the rest of her guests.

It seemed an eternity until Kevin returned to the library. Seeing that he was alone, Cecily stared at him in dismay. “Where’s the constable? He’s not questioning the guests already?”

Kevin smiled. “No, he’s on his way back to the police station.”

Cecily sat down on her chair. “How on earth did you manage that?”

Kevin stood with his back to the fire, his thumbs tucked into his trouser pockets. “Don’t get too excited, Cecily dear. I’ve managed only a brief respite. I told Watkins that it was possible that Armitage had been ingesting arsenic over a period of time, and may have brought the bottle of whiskey with him. I told him I wouldn’t know for certain until I’d conducted more tests, in which case I would report the results to him. He agreed that it would be better not to upset everyone by questioning them if the murderer was not among them. Inspector Cranshaw, I told him, would not appreciate that.”

Cecily’s smile of relief had grown wider with every word. “You didn’t show him the bottle with our label on it?”

Kevin shook his head. “I told him I needed to keep the evidence for a couple of days to conduct my tests. If needs be, I’ll just say I didn’t notice the label until later.”

“Kevin, you are a genius and an absolute angel. Thank you so much.”

“Don’t thank me. I’m not sure I’m doing you that much of a favor.” Kevin turned, holding out his hands toward the flames. “Someone here in the Pennyfoot administered that poison, which means it’s very likely you have a killer on the premises. I know you want to solve this yourself as discreetly as possible, and I have no doubt you will manage it somehow.” He turned to look at her. “Just swear to me that you will be careful.”

She rose, reaching out to grasp both his hands. “I’m always careful, Kevin. You know that. Just to be on the safe side, let’s not mention this to Baxter just yet. I’ll tell him when the time is right.”

Kevin frowned. “I think he already suspects that it’s murder.”

“Maybe, but as yet he doesn’t know I’m investigating it. You know how he is about me getting involved. He keeps holding that ghastly position over my head, threatening to take it if I don’t stay out of trouble, as he calls it.”

“Position?”

“I told you about it some time ago. Baxter has been offered a position abroad, overseeing the construction and staffing of new hotels in various spots in the world. He wants to take it, and I’ve managed to talk him out of it so far, but on condition that I stay out of police business once and for all.”

Kevin’s frown cleared. “Ah, yes, I do remember you telling me. So what are you going to do about it?”

She shrugged. “What can I do? I have to protect my guests and staff, and if that means hunting down a murderer, then that’s what I must do.”

“You can’t just leave it up to the constable?”

Cecily rolled her eyes. “You saw him. He’s little more than a child. I have no doubt at all that I’m far more experienced than he is in exposing a guilty person.”