The Christie Caper (17 page)

“Derek Davis,” she said aloud. “Max, that has to be the publicist with Hillman House. My God, Bledsoe’s his stepfather!”

“Former stepfather,” Max clarified.

Derek Davis, young and eager—until he saw Bledsoe. Davis had done nothing to help when Bledsoe careened down the hotel stairs in the throes of a panic attack.

Annie read on:

“I remember her,” Annie said abruptly. “I saw her on
Good Morning America
once. She had such a
cheerful
face.”

The memory sharpened in her mind. But the face that came clearly was Derek’s, roundish, snub-nosed, wide-spaced hazel eyes, a sprinkling of freckles. He was, as sons so often are, the image of his mother.

“A fatal fall,” Annie said thoughtfully.

On the surface the all-English dinner was a rousing success. Everyone was having a wonderful time, that was clear from the rapid chatter and bursts of laughter. The hotel had come through magnificently. Beneath the chandeliers, china and crystal glittered on shiny damask tablecloths. The food was perfect, succulent, and authentic: oyster soup, roast beef of Old England, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, curried
chicken with rice, syllabub or tea, and, of course, a hearty serving at meal’s end of clotted cream and fresh strawberries or sherry trifle. Lady Gwendolyn enjoyed it so much, in fact, that spatters of the golden cream adorned the front of her pink-flowered lavender dress.

But, as she scraped the last microdot of cream from her dish, the old author swept the table with a troubled glance. “The brew is bubbling.”

Annie stiffened. Max frowned. Laurel bent forward in rapt attention, but Henny only half hid a yawn behind her napkin.

Lady Gwendolyn absently swiped her spoon again in her empty bowl.

Laurel murmured, “Banting, you know. I’d be so happy to give you mine. It’s quite untouched,” and she offered her dessert.

The old lady happily plunged her spoon into the full bowl. “I do abhor waste.” Not quite indistinctly, despite the deployment of her spoon heaped with golden cream, Lady Gwendolyn continued thoughtfully, “I took the opportunity prior to the opening session to visit with those who have been linked to Bledsoe.” She smiled almost shyly. “One of the fruits of longevity—often unappreciated both by its possessor and recipients of the resulting pearls of wisdom—is the ability to judge character.”

Annie wanted very much to derail these observations. Talking about Bledsoe and his adversaries detracted from the glow of this marvelous dinner, but she knew that Lady Gwendolyn meant well.

Annie’s face must have revealed more than she realized.

Lady Gwendolyn chided her gently. “Remember Arthur Bantry, Annie. It helped him not at all to refuse to see what was happening around him.” Those bright, questing blue eyes swept the dining room. “Much is happening around us—all the result of the intermixture of characters assembled here.” The old author’s tone was somber. “Bledsoe, of course, is the focal point.”

With an effort of will, Annie managed a strained smile.

Lady Gwendolyn absently smoothed her upswept hair. “Oh, Bledsoe’s obviously posturing, but I sense a purpose, a plan. At this point, I’ve been unable to determine his true objective. Whatever it is, I fear he will achieve it at all costs.”
She said it coolly, without great dramatic flair, but Annie’s skin prickled. It was as ominous as a muffled roll of drums. “And the rest of them, bound to him by ties we cannot see. Fleur Calloway—such a charming woman, but she’s shackled by misery. I see it in her eyes. She needs to break free of the past, live again. Emma Clyde—oh, she’s immensely clever and she knows it. A bad enemy. Derek Davis—life is hard on the young. His emotions are raw. He’s living on the edge. Natalie Marlow—gauche.” Lady Gwendolyn reinserted a bronze bobby pin in her braids. “She doesn’t know how to be a woman, but she wants to be, a very dangerous combination. Natalie’s ripe for the picking. Margo Wright’s a cool customer. She doesn’t miss much. Nathan Hillman—assuredly a very civilized man, but his feelings run deep. Victoria Shaw—her dead husband is more real to her than the people here. Resentment can fester, twist even a gentle nature.”

“Brilliant,” Laurel breathed admiringly.

Henny rolled her eyes.

Max cupped his chin in his hand. “So you think there’s going to be trouble, Lady Gwendolyn?”

“Yes.”

Annie winced. The old lady didn’t have to sound so damned positive—and so convincing. As a matter of fact, tonight’s bash was about as far from trouble as possible, and Annie was beginning to hope that perhaps the quick and thorough police response—thanks to Chief Saulter—to the incident at Death on Demand had made the perpetrator realize the seriousness of breaking the law and that nothing further would occur to mar the conference. Besides, Annie, perhaps a little superstitiously, didn’t want to court trouble by thinking about it.

She popped to her feet. “Got to check on the band.”

As she passed through the dining room, she knew her guests were having fun:

“Obviously Marple is the superior detective. Poirot just postures.”

“I beg your pardon. Think of his brilliance in solving
Sad Cypress.”

“I’d love to see a revival of
Spider’s Web.
She wrote the play especially for Margaret Lockwood, and when it was
produced it ran simultaneously in London with
The Mousetrap
and
Witness for the Prosecution.
How many play wrights can equal that?”

“Sometimes a woman’s hunger for children can be destructive—think of Rachel Argyle in
Ordeal by Innocence.”

“By far the most unforgettable figure of evil in all of Christie’s work is Mrs. Boynton in
Appointment with Death.”

“It would be too dangerous—think of the libel problems—to pattern a character today after someone as openly as Christie patterned Louise Leidner in
Murder in Mesopotamia
after Katharine Woolley.”

“Endless Night
is a psychological
tour de force.”

The band leader assured Annie that the musicians were prepared; there would be plenty of Cole Porter and George Gershwin. (Whenever she heard Porter’s “I Get a Kick Out of You,” she thought of the marvelous 1982 film version of
Evil Under the Sun.
She’d have to check the schedule at the movie room. Maybe she could take time to drop in and watch at least a little of it.)

As she turned away, Chief Saulter came up, and he wasn’t wearing a happy race.

“What’s wrong, Frank?”

“Nothing the end of your conference won’t solve.” At her startled look, he shrugged. “Sorry, Annie. I know how much all of this means to you, but I got some bad news.”

She suppressed a groan.

“There wasn’t any gun on the bottom of the harbor.” He tugged on his black bow tie as if the unaccustomed evening dress choked him.

“Billy may have missed it,” Annie suggested.

“Maybe.” The police chief surveyed the festive dining room. “Dammit, I’ve got a bad feeling. I’ve been looking these people over today”—Annie didn’t have to ask for names—“and I smell trouble.”

First, Lady Gwendolyn. Now, Frank.

“Oh, Frank, everything’s going great”

And it was, she insisted to herself as she started back to the table.

The man at the center of this spider’s web seemed, to all intents and purposes, at peace with the world, his buccaneer’s face genial as he talked with Natalie. Although seated
at a large round table, they sat with their heads close together, ignoring the other guests. Bledsoe spoke only to Natalie, his deep voice subdued. One hand rested on her arm. Annie glimpsed the young author’s face and almost flinched at its eagerness and vulnerability.

Annie had read Marlow’s debut novel. A young wife and mother, isolated in a country home, hears a voice warning her not to open the cellar door. It is a voice she knows, that of an elderly woman who had once owned the house—and been murdered in it. The murderer was never found. The young mother does open the cellar door—Annie tried to will away her memory of Marlow’s brutal, unforgettable, macabre prose. She piled horror upon horror upon horror. Even Ruth Rendell might blanch when reading this.

As she watched, Marlow’s fingers reached up, tentatively, slowly, to touch Bledsoe’s face. His hand caught hers; his lips touched her palm.

Annie turned away. No business of hers, but that young woman needed a refresher course on Jerks, How to Spot Them. And perhaps a seminar on Appropriate Behavior at a Banquet.

Nathan Hillman wasn’t engaged with the bonhomie at his table. The seat next to his was empty. Every so often, he looked tensely toward the doors.

Margo Wright, her face gentle and kind, sat beside Victoria Shaw. The author’s widow was animated, her usually faded cheeks touched with spots of color. Every so often Margo nodded in agreement. Occasionally, unobtrusively, she glanced toward Bledsoe and Marlow.

Emma Clyde’s voice always carried. “Fleur, don’t do this to yourself. Let’s go for a drive.”

Fleur Calloway should have been spectacularly lovely, her slim body sheathed in a beautifully cut white satin gown, but her face was as empty as a windswept moor, the muscles slack, her eyes somber.

Suddenly, Nathan Hillman shoved back his chair and hurried past Annie.

Turning, she saw him grab Derek Davis’s arm.

Derek wavered unsteadily on his feet. “Let go,” he muttered. “Let go.”

Annie and Frank reached the two men at the same time.

“Problem here?” Frank asked quietly.

Hillman tried to put a good face on it, though he didn’t loosen his tight grip on Derek’s arm. “It’s all right. Derek’s had a bit too much to drink. I’ll take care of it.”

But Derek was too drunk or too upset to care that he was struggling with his boss.

“Let go of me, Nathan. Lemme go. Maybe you don’t give a damn, but I do. He’s a shit. I tell you he’s a shit.” His voice became shrill. “He killed my—”

Hillman clapped his hand roughly over Derek’s mouth. “Derek, listen to me. Wait a minute, listen. I’ll go over there. I’ll ask Natalie to come join us. But promise me you’ll wait here and keep quiet.” The stocky editor’s face was shiny with sweat, and he looked imploringly at Annie and the chief. “Look, Derek,” Hillman said with false joviality. “Here’s Mrs. Darling, you know who she is—the organizer of the conference. The bookseller. She’s going to sit down here with you. And I’ll go ask Natalie.”

As Hillman loosened his grasp, Derek wavered unsteadily.

Annie reached out, took his arm, and smiled up into alcohol-dulled eyes. “Tell me about the novels you’re promoting right now.”

She wasn’t even certain he heard her. He pulled free and, unexpectedly, careened into a shambling run, lurching past Hillman and stumbling to a stop beside Bledsoe’s table. He reached out a trembling hand. “Natalie.” His voice cracked. “Natalie, he’ll hurt you. Please, come away with me. He’s—oh God, Natalie, he’s evil.”

The young writer’s head jerked up. She stared at Derek in surprise, then an angry red flush suffused her face, vivid in the light from the chandeliers. “Derek, for God’s sake, be quiet.”

Bledsoe leaned back comfortably in his chair and looked up with an amused smile. “Drunk again, Derek? How sophomoric. But then I suppose you can’t get away from your genes, can you?”

Derek made a noise low in his throat and flung himself on Bledsoe, his hands scrabbling for the big man’s throat.

Bledsoe grunted. Although Frank and the harried editor both lunged forward, the encounter was over before they
could intervene. With apparent ease, Bledsoe chopped upward with his forearms, brutally breaking Derek’s grip, then one huge hand grabbed Derek’s tuxedo jacket and flung him backward onto the floor.

Bledsoe erupted out of his chair and stood, legs braced, glowering down at Derek. For a moment, Derek lay flat on his back, stunned, then he rolled over and struggled awkwardly, painfully to get to his hands and knees. His face was crimson with fury and frustration.

Bledsoe glanced at Hillman. “Get him out of here, Nathan, before I have to hurt him.”

Derek lurched to his feet and once again, mindlessly, flung himself at Bledsoe. Frank and Nathan grabbed him, but Derek continued to struggle, head down, drunken arms flailing helplessly, trying to get to Bledsoe.

As the older men hustled him out of the dining room, Annie walked away. She didn’t want to see any more of Bledsoe. She hated his look of smug amusement. It was in such sharp and ugly contrast to Derek’s tear-streaked, maddened face.