Room With a Clue (Pennyfoot Hotel Mystery) (4 page)

Already the storm had darkened the evening, bringing an early dusk. At first Phoebe thought the wind had scattered pieces of laurel about. Then lightning danced across the dark red surface of the ground, and she saw that the laurel was in fact chunks of brick. In the same instant, the white-hot light bathed a bundle of wet clothes lying on the rockery in the corner. A second later it vanished, so suddenly Phoebe thought she’d imagined it.

She heard John’s grunt of surprise, and her stomach seemed to drop like a bucket down a well. Even without the lightning, she could now see a pair of satin shoes sticking out from the wet bundle. Dancing shoes. And they still clung to a pair of feet.

Thunder rumbled closer, longer, then erupted with an angry bellow. Phoebe shrieked, her hand slapping her mouth as if to
stop the sound. From the open French windows of the ballroom came the lilting strains of the opening waltz. The ball had begun, minus one of its guests.

Unable to move, Phoebe watched John creep closer, his slight stoop hunching his broad shoulders. He knelt by the side of the macabre mound and reached out a hand.

Shivering, Phoebe waited for the worst. How was she going to tell dear Algie his mother was responsible for a death by python? She felt sick. And she desperately needed to go to the lavatory.

Slowly John turned his head to look at her. Just at that moment another blinding flash transformed his face into a white blob. “From the looks of the bloody mess her head be in,” he observed quietly, “it be very likely the lady be dead.”

Phoebe’s legs gave way, and she sat down hard on the drenched bricks. It didn’t seem to matter, anyway, since she’d already wet her drawers. Her lips seemed to be imprisoned in ice. “Who … who is it?”

John’s voice seemed very loud in the hush that followed the thunder. “It be Lady Eleanor Danbury, Mum.”

CHAPTER

4

Cecily had enjoyed one saving grace when competing with her brothers—her height. By the time she was fifteen she equaled her youngest brother’s stature of five feet six. At eighteen she’d come close to her eldest brother at five feet nine.

There weren’t too many women who looked her straight in the eye, but Gertie Brown was one of them. When it came to width, however, Gertie easily exceeded her. Built like the conventional farmer’s daughter, the housemaid actually hailed from London. In a reversal of tradition, at twelve years old she’d sought a position in a seaside town to escape what she called “the ’orrible muck and racket.”

James Sinclair had hired her for her strength and her forthright manner, the latter of which he’d regretted on more than one occasion.

Cecily, for the most part, found Gertie’s enthusiasm refreshing, but at that moment the girl’s usually pale face glowered
with temper. She stood with her back to the gleaming black fireplace in the tiny sitting room, her fists dug into her fleshy hips that no corset could diminish.

Altheda Chubb, head housekeeper of the Pennyfoot, hovered anxiously close by, doing her best to look unobtrusive. It was difficult to do in such cramped quarters.

From the kitchens across the hall wafted the delectable aromas from a dozen mouth-watering dishes that had been carried to the ballroom minutes before. Cecily realized she was hungry. It was already eight o’clock, and she hadn’t yet eaten. She’d spent the last half hour looking for Gertie.

“I didn’t take the blinking brooch, and Miss Hoity Toity blinking knows it,” Gertie declared. “Where does she come orf accusing me of thieving?”

“Just tell me what happened,” Cecily said, “and do try not to fabricate.”

Gertie looked hurt. “What, me? Never!”

Mrs. Chubb folded plump arms across her bountiful breasts and grunted a warning. Although a good deal shorter than Gertie, the housekeeper matched her in girth and temper. Mrs. Chubb’s position forbade her to interrupt her employer, but nevertheless she managed to convey her own authority.

Gertie scowled and stared down at her shoes peeking out from under the hem of her dark blue skirt. Cecily noticed the housemaid’s white cap had slid to one side, but decided that could wait for the moment. “Go on, Gertie.”

“All right. But I am telling the truth now, Mrs. Sinclair, honest. I didn’t take no brooch. I went up there ’coz Mr. Danbury told me his ink bottle was empty. So I took some up there and filled it, and just as I was leaving, in comes that—”

She broke off, slid a sideways glance at Mrs. Chubb, and finished quietly. “Lady Eleanor Danbury, with her lady’s companion.”

“Mr. Danbury wasn’t there?”

“No, mum, he wasn’t. I mean, I didn’t see him, anyhow.”

“So what happened then?”

“Well, milady asked me what I was doing there, and I said as how I was filling the ink bottle and I shows her the ink jar
in me hand. Well, she goes straight across to her dresser, don’t she, and lo and behold announces that her bleeding—”

Mrs. Chubb clicked her tongue against the roof her mouth. Cecily gave her a slight shake of her head. Gertie’s swearing had become a natural part of her speech pattern, and Cecily had long ago given up on weaning the girl from the habit.

“—brooch were missing,” Gertie finished, without breaking stride. “I tells her, polite-like, as how I never touched it, but she’s screaming and yelling that she’s sending for the bobby. Tells me to get out, she does. Then Miss Morris, she puts a word in, says as how milady might have dropped it, but that moo wasn’t having none of it. Made up her mind, she ’ad.”

Out of the corner of her eye Cecily could see Mrs. Chubb’s bosom bristling with outrage at Gertie’s insolence. One of the hotel cats, there to keep down the mice, slunk past the irate housekeeper, who aimed a kick at it with her foot.

Cecily felt sorry for Gertie. The poor child would very likely bear the brunt of the housekeeper’s sharp tongue the minute Cecily was out of sight. As if the housemaid didn’t have enough to worry about.

Apparently unconcerned, Gertie plowed on. “That Miss Morris is a bit of all right, she is. Usually them lady’s companions are so blooming toffee-nosed they wouldn’t see a pile of cow shit till they’d stepped in it. Think they’re better than the likes of us, they do. Load of bloody cod’s wallop, that’s what I says.”

Mrs. Chubb made a desperate sound in the back of her throat.

Taking pity on the housekeeper, Cecily nodded her head. “Very well, I’ll see what I can do. Perhaps by now they’ve found the brooch. Try not to worry, Gertie. I’m quite sure we can get this matter taken care of without any undue unpleasantness.”

Cecily left quickly, Mrs. Chubb’s harsh voice already echoing around the kitchen as the door swung to behind her. Poor Gertie was in hot water this time.

Reaching the foyer, Cecily saw Colonel Fortescue, looking flamboyant as usual in his regimental dress uniform, making
straight for her. It was too late to pretend she hadn’t seen him. She arranged a smile on her face and prayed someone would rescue her before she had to be rude.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Robert Danbury heading for the stairs, but he was too far away and in too much of a hurry to pretend a need to speak to him.

The colonel’s ruddy face bore a worried frown as he bore down on her. Sir Frederick Fortescue had fought in the Boer War, narrowly escaping death when a shell exploded within feet of him. The shock had left him with a slight stutter, a rapid and constant blinking of his watery, bloodshot eyes, and, according to some less benevolent folk, permanent damage to his brain.

“So glad I caught you, Mrs. Sinclair. Haven’t seen my pith helmet anywhere, have you? Put it down for just a minute and now I can’t find the pesky thing. Dashed nuisance, that.”

“Where did you leave it, Colonel?”

“Hung it on the umbrella stand, old girl, over there by the front door. Only for a minute while I went to get a quick snifter. When I came back, by Jove, it had gone.”

He leaned closer, breathing gin fumes in Cecily’s face. “Don’t want to think someone stole it, old bean. Nasty bit of work, that.”

Guessing that the befuddled man had most likely left the helmet in his room, Cecily said soothingly, “Oh, I’m sure no one in this hotel would do such a dreadful thing. It’s very likely somewhere around. I’ll have my manager look for it for you.”

The colonel beamed. “You will? Dashed decent of you, old girl. Went all through the war with that thing, saved my life more than once. Wouldn’t want to lose it, you know.”

Ten minutes later, Cecily was still trying to put an end to his somewhat exaggerated tales of his army exploits.

“If you’ll excuse me, Colonel,” she said, feeling a little desperate, “I really must—”

The colonel’s luxuriant winter-white mustache twitched with excitement as he leaned forward. Just about intoxicating Cecily with his gin-laced breath, he muttered, “I say, old girl, a little bird told me the theme for tonight’s ball is Arabian Nights. Is that right? What? What?”

Cecily’s smile remained fixed as she assured him he’d heard correctly.

“I say, what screaming fun. ’Pon my word, should be a ripping time. Yes, indeed.” Blinking furiously, he leaned in closer. “Got those dancing girls, have we? Know what I mean, what?”

Cecily grimly held her breath while he drew an hourglass shape in the air with his hands. “Flimsy veils and all that rot, what?” He attempted a wink, but it lost its impact in the midst of his blinking.

“I’m sure you will enjoy the presentation, Colonel. Now if you’ll excuse me—”

The front door banged loudly as someone entered the foyer. The colonel shot up in the air. “Great Scott! Here they come! To the battlements, men! Fight to the death!” With a bloodcurdling howl, he brandished an imaginary sword and disappeared down the hallway.

Cecily barely saw him go. Her gaze was fixed on the two figures moving slowly toward her. Phoebe appeared to be sleepwalking, her eyes half-closed in a dead-white face. The wide brim of her hat hung limply to her shoulders, dripping water onto her already sodden frock.

But it was the look on John’s face that alerted Cecily, a look that spelled a far more serious problem than Phoebe’s bedraggled state.

A muffled rumble of thunder filtered through the windows, and for some reason Cecily’s mind sped back to Madeline’s ominous warning.

“I don’t know what’s got into you, lately, so help me I don’t,” Mrs. Chubb declared, having exhausted the list of sins the hapless Gertie had committed. “You know better than to speak that way in front of madam. I couldn’t believe my ears. The nerve of it!”

Gertie scuffed the toe of her shoe on the carpet, and the cat pounced for it. The housemaid clamped her mouth shut and refused to look up as Mrs. Chubb went on warming once more to her theme.

“And where have you been for the last half hour? You were
supposed to be here at half past seven. Mrs. Sinclair has been looking for you all over the place.”

“I had to deliver a message,” Gertie mumbled.

“A message? Who to?”

“Lady Eleanor.”

“And that took you thirty minutes?”

Gertie looked up, her expression defiant. “I bumped into that daffy colonel on the way back. He said as how he’d lost his watch, so I helped him look for it.”

“And did you find it?”

“Nah, he had it in his waistcoat pocket all the time, nutty old ponce.”

Mrs. Chubb’s hand itched to slap her face. “That’s enough, young lady. You know better than to speak about the guests that way. And look at you! You’re a disgrace to the Pennyfoot name. Cap on sideways, button missing on your pinafore! Go and fetch the button tin from the larder right now and sew one back on this minute, miss.”

Gertie began stomping toward the larder, which led off Mrs. Chubb’s sitting room, but the housekeeper wasn’t finished yet. She never used one sentence when three would do more good. It was her job to keep the maids in line, and she was determined that they knew exactly who was in charge.

“And put that cat out. I don’t know how it gets in here, I’m sure I don’t.”

“Comes in through the larder window from the yard,” Gertie mumbled. “I seen it the other morning jumping through there.”

“Well, never mind that now. Just get that button. And be quick about it. The ball’s already begun, and they’ll be bringing the dirty dishes back any minute. And where’s that Ethel? She should have been here by now. Can’t rely on no one anymore, I can’t. It’s all those high falutin’ ideas them suffragettes are putting into all you young girls. No good will come of it, you mark my words.”

Gertie emerged from the larder, carrying a square blue biscuit tin. She dumped it on the floor, then squatted down to prise off the lid and began sorting through Mrs. Chubb’s
colorful collection of buttons. “Ethel said she had a bellyache this morning. P’raps she’s lying on her bed.”

“Not if she wants her job, she won’t be.” Her wrath now directed in another direction, Mrs. Chubb could afford to let up on Gertie.

She stalked over to a mahogany rolltop desk in the corner, her keys jangling on the ring at her belt. “Can’t let a little thing like that stop us. We all have to put up with the curse. God knows I’ve had my days when I could’ve done with a lie down. Just can’t give into it, that’s all. Grin and bear it, that’s what I say. What would the world come to, if we all laid down every time we had a stomachache?”

“I bet the toffs lie down when they get one.”

Mrs. Chubb slid up the lid of the desk and opened one of the drawers inside. “Yes, well, we’re not the toffs, are we? Don’t know as if I’d want to be. Spending all their time trying to work out how to spend their money, all trying to outdo each other with their posh motor cars and their Worth gowns and those ridiculous fancy dress costumes.”

She found a spool of white cotton thread and some needles threaded through a folded slip of paper. “Don’t know where it’s all going to end, I’m sure I don’t. Poor old queen Victoria would turn over in her grave, she would, if she could see what her son has done to this country.”

Gertie noisily shut the lid back onto the biscuit tin. “Haven’t noticed you doing too bleeding bad out of it.”

“Here, watch your tongue, you cheeky monkey.” Mrs. Chubb pulled out a needle and dropped the rest back in the drawer. “I earn my money the honest way, by working my fingers to the bone for it.”

“Yeah, not like the toffs, hey? Some of ’em marry it, like that Robert Danbury for one.”

“Yes, well, it’s not our place to gossip, I’m sure.”

Gertie wasn’t about to be sidetracked from her favorite subject. “Well, everyone knows he married that stuck-up bitch for her money. Not that it did her any bleeding good, anyway. What she don’t know is he’s having a bit on the side. She’d have a cow if she knew that. Serves her bloody well right.”

“Gertie, I’ll thank you not to use that gutter language in here.
I’ve told you a thousand times …” She slammed the lid back down on the desk. Valiantly she struggled, but the temptation was too great. “How do you know?”

Gertie grinned. She picked up the tin and carried it back to the larder, saying with a toss of her head, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Mrs. Chubb pinched her lips together. She would dearly like to know, but she wasn’t going to let Gertie have that satisfaction. If she waited long enough, the dreadful child wouldn’t be able to resist telling her.

Gertie trudged back, her eyes glinting with expectation.

She looked disappointed when the housekeeper handed her the needle and cotton.

“Sew that button on now.” Mrs. Chubb busied herself folding napkins and watched Gertie out of the corner of her eye.

The housemaid bit off a length of the cotton with her teeth, then stuck the end of it between her lips. After a moment she drew it from her mouth, held up the needle, then scrunched up her face and made several ineffective dabs at the eye of the needle with the wet end of the cotton.

Mrs. Chubb stood it as long as she could, then exploded. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, give it to me.” She took the needle and with one deft movement threaded the cotton through it. “Here, now sew.”