The Christie Caper (3 page)

“Do you think we need more champagne?” Annie demanded frantically. “Henny said more than a hundred have already checked in. What if
everybody
comes?” She shoved a hand through her thick, already tangled blond hair. It had seemed like such a good idea when the conference was in its planning stage. What could be nicer than a champagne reception Saturday night at Death on Demand to welcome the early arrivals for Sunday’s kickoff of The Christie Caper and at the same time subtly—she had ignored Ingrid’s snicker at this statement—introduce all those wonderful mystery readers (the kind who buy
hundreds
of dollars’ worth of books at one whack!) to the finest mystery bookstore this side of Atlanta? She had the latest books by Peters, Elkins, Pickard, Barnard, Clark, Matera, and Cannell enticingly displayed right by the front cash register. But last-minute details whirled ominously in her mind. Would it, for God’s sake, rain tomorrow afternoon on the Grand Garden Fête on the grounds of the Palmetto House? Had the printer delivered the banquet programs? Were the copies of the Christie Treasure Hunt clues ready? Would Billy Cameron, Police Chief Frank Saulter’s assistant, serve as night watchman for the vintage-car exhibit? Had Max checked on the grand prize for the treasure hunt? Max! Oh, dear. She’d promised her unflappable, adorable spouse (Max Darling was definitely Joe Hardy all grown up and sexy as hell) that she would squeeze in a jog before the Saturday evening reception—“So you don’t explode before the conference even starts, sweetie.” Dear Max, he was so
good
for her, an example of the relaxed life, though she sometimes thought perhaps her husband was just a tad bit
too
relaxed. Did anything ever ruffle him? Max, a jog, the printer. Oh, God, the champagne. Did she have enough? A magnum was 1.5 liters. How many ounces in a liter? Annie didn’t even try to figure that one out. But say a hundred people came, and estimate two ounces a glass, that made two hundred ounces. Oh, hell, she hated math. All right, say everybody drank two glasses—

“Agatha,
stop
it!” Annie wailed.

Annie used both hands to remove the sleek black feline from the middle of the centerpiece and to carry her squirming, furry captive to the storeroom and shut the door. Swinging
around, she called out, “More champagne! Ingrid, hurry. Go buy at least two more bottles. Magnums.”

“Annie, I really think we have enough.”

Annie darted to the coffee bar and ripped open the second box of glasses. “I’ll do this. Hurry, Ingrid. At least two more. Better make it three.”

After Ingrid left, the phone rang.

Of course it waited until Ingrid had left to ring.

Annie stared at the ornate French ormolu instrument. A gift from Max. Honestly, did he think she had rococo taste?

The damn thing rang again.

Annie had for some time now had a love-hate relationship with the telephone. Ever since Laurel Darling Roethke, at that time her mother-in-law-to-be, had enriched MCI with her frequent calls to consult over details for Annie and Max’s wedding. Mercifully, that time was behind them. She and Max had now been married for almost a year. There had, of course, been other, later calls from Laurel. Enough calls to instill in Annie a somewhat nervous response to the shrilling of a bell. But, to tell the truth and Annie had never expected it to happen, she positively yearned for this call to be from Laurel.

And not from Lady Gwendolyn Tompkins.

Perhaps Lady Gwendolyn’s airplane had been hijacked to Tibet.

Feeling guilty, Annie amended the silent prayer. Perhaps Lady Gwendolyn’s airplane could be hijacked for just a few hours, just long enough to diminish the continuing shower of incredibly complicated albeit cheerful suggestions for improving the conference. After all, she’d succumbed to Lady Gwendolyn’s siren song about the beauty and majesty of classic cars. But it hadn’t been easy to arrange! One of them—the six-seater Nürberg Mercedes-Benz—had come all the way from Pasadena.

Annie yanked up the receiver. She didn’t start breathing again until she realized it was a local customer who wanted to know why the latest Eugene Izzi book wasn’t in yet and was cheerfully oblivious both to the impending conference and the fact that Death on Demand was closed this Saturday in preparation for the evening’s festivities.

She was reaching for the last plastic wineglass when the phone rang again.

There had been three calls from Lady Gwendolyn yesterday. Annie always recognized her caller immediately. The British crime writer’s effervescent voice brimmed with eagerness, delight, and good humor—and more good ideas (involving
beaucoup
work on Annie’s part) than John Creasey had titles.

With remarkable—considering her feelings—control, Annie scooped up the phone. “Death on Demand.” Fortunately, mental images are not, as yet, transferable over telephone lines and no one but Annie could see her personal internal vision of a certain famed English author bound and gagged—eyes still twinkling, no doubt—and securely stowed in the darkest recesses of a French dungeon. Where was it they’d put the man in the iron mask?

The hotel banquet director’s voice was a distinct whine. “Mrs. Darling, I understand your concerns for authenticity. But this is
not
England. Lionel—our chef—threw up his hands. Literally, he threw up his hands! Where do you expect him to find kipper stock!”

“Not to worry. The kipper stock arrives tomorrow.”

Unless—she refused to relinquish the faint hope—an insanely daring hijacker made off with Lady Gwendolyn’s plane. It would, of course, be his last hijacking. Within half a day, Annie was sure, Lady Gwendolyn would have persuaded the miscreant to devote the balance of his life to ecological pursuits.

“Tomorrow.” The hotel banquet director sounded glum.

“With Lady Gwendolyn Tompkins. Our co-sponsor. She’s bringing the recipes, too. She’ll talk to Lionel.”

“Lionel is one of the most famous of the Low Country chefs. His okra, crab, and shrimp gumbo is legendary. His she crab soup—he uses pure cream—is beyond belief. He poaches oysters in champagne—”

“I’m sure Lionel and Lady Gwendolyn will work together splendidly. Thank you for calling.” Annie hung up, glared at the clock, and pulled out the last glass. She grabbed up the empty boxes, raced to the storeroom, thrust the boxes inside, used one foot to block Agatha, who hissed and bared razor-sharp
canines, shut the door, then swung around to vet the party area.

And realized she was panting.

Relax, she ordered herself. It was all going to go smoothly. Of course it would. After all, Lady Gwendolyn wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow. That had been the upshot of yesterday’s last call. “I do
so
hate to miss your wonderful cocktail gathering—and you know, Annie, you might want to add caviar to your buffet, always such a thrill. I remember my first when I was just a girl—a trip to the Balkans. Perhaps that’s why I’ve always adored
The Secret of Chimneys.
Such fun Agatha has with the Balkans. But I’ve had a few more thoughts about the fête. Don’t you think perhaps a maypole and young girls in soft pastel dresses? They dance in and out. The girls. Not the dresses. Really, so lovely in the spring. Though, of course, this isn’t spring. Or perhaps an animal show—the children, you know, bring their pets. It can be such fun. Sociable dogs and determined cats—don’t you think cats are
the
most determined animals? Although, I always feel a pang at calling a cat an animal. And I’m certain my own dear Prince Ladislas would be offended. Of course, he is
easily
offended. A tortoiseshell. Quite majestic. But then, where was I? Oh, yes, an animal show …” Annie had resisted the late addition of an animal show. Undaunted, the author had merrily capitulated. “Of course, of course, I do see the difficulties. Alligators are certainly a complicating factor. Ah well, I know our fête is going to be absolutely glorious. I shall arrive on Sunday at the stroke of three to open the fête, the kind our dear Agatha knew so well. Although at home, fêtes are held on the grounds of the grand houses, not at inns, but one must do with what one has at hand. I’ll breathe a tiny prayer that it doesn’t rain, but no matter if it should, we will merely pop up our brollies and persevere. Ta ta.”

But tomorrow—and the advent of the most energetic author since Isaac Asimov—was tomorrow. Sufficient unto the day…. As for now—Annie smiled. Everything was in place. Death on Demand had never looked lovelier, never held a more heartfelt exhibit. The displays scattered about the coffee area in tribute to the greatest crime writer of all time were superb:

An enchanting reproduction of a photograph of a very young Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller, large-eyed and solemn, with long, softly curling hair.

An artist’s sketch of Ashfield, Agatha Christie’s childhood home, the rambling villa at Torquay, which she remembered with love her whole life long.

Some of Christie’s favorite childhood books, Mrs. Molesworth’s
The Adventures of Herr Baby,
Edith Nesbit’s
The Railway Children,
and Louisa May Alcott’s
Little Women
and
Little Men.

A recreation of some of the notes Christie made during World War I when studying for the Apothecaries’ examination—

Those days in the dispensary ignited Christie’s lifelong interest in poisons … and poisoners.

A huge wooden surfing board, circa 1920, recalled Christie’s glorious month-long holiday in Hawaii in 1922 with her first husband, war hero Archie Christie. Those were the halcyon days. She and Archie were divorced six years later.

A 1930 calendar with September 11 circled in red, the date of her marriage to Max Mallowan, the young archaeologist she first met in 1929 on her second trip to Sir Leonard Woolley’s diggings at Ur.

A poster from
Witness for the Prosecution,
featuring Marlene Dietrich’s enigmatic, unforgettable face.

A sack filled to the bursting with bright red apples, the favored fruit of Ariadne Oliver.

A faded photograph of the Nile steamer the
S. S. Karnak.
Christie used the steamer in her thirtieth mystery novel,
Death on the Nile,
her own favorite among her books with foreign backgrounds.

A copy of the Hekanakhthe Papers, found in a tomb near Luxor. These ancient letters by an Egyptian landowner who also looked after a nearby tomb were the springboard for
Death Comes as the End.

Annie sighed happily and looked beyond the books and
displays to the back wall. The September paintings were wonderful indeed. She had no doubt that everyone attending the conference would be duly impressed by the Death on Demand custom of monthly hanging untitled paintings which represented famous mysteries. The first person to correctly identify author and title received a month’s free coffee and a free book. (From the current stock, not the collectibles, of course. Annie’s generosity didn’t extend to, say, a first edition of Robert Hans van Gulik’s
Dee Goong An: Three Murder Cases Solved by Judge Dee,
a privately printed edition of twelve hundred numbered copies signed by van Gulik, at nine hundred dollars, or a first edition of Dorothy L. Sayers’s
In the Teeth of the Evidence
at eight hundred dollars).

In the first painting, an elderly, black-haired man with an egg-shaped head, catlike green eyes, and a luxuriant mustache stared down at a splotched area on the dark carpet of an English country home bedroom. A soldierly-looking man observed his actions closely. The bedclothes were tumbled and tossed. The fireplace was filled with still-smoldering ashes. Summer roses bloomed outside the windows. A table by the bed had been overturned. Among the debris on the floor were a reading lamp, books, matches, and the finely crushed remnants of a coffee cup. A small purple despatch case with the key in its lock lay on a writing table. The door from the hall was closed as was an interior door. A third door, to a connecting bedroom, hung brokenly on its hinges.

In the second painting, a well-dressed man paused on the threshold of a study, bag in hand, looking back into the room at the dark blue leather chairs, the round table with magazines and journals, the bookshelves, the fireplace. The rest of the study wasn’t visible from the hallway. The man’s face was furrowed in thought as he gave that last measuring glance and began to shut the door. Approaching him from the hallway was an oily-faced butler.

Annie loved that particular book. Clever, oh, it was clever. But only one of this wonderful author’s completely original tales.

The book represented in the third painting was without doubt one of the most unusual crime novels ever written. The hands of the clock in the dining room pointed to twenty-two
past nine. The eight guests in evening dress appeared white-raced and fearful, from the elderly, white-mustachioed gentleman standing by the fireplace to the rather handsome young fellow near the French windows that opened onto the terrace to the elderly woman sitting rigidly, hard spots of color in each cheek. Broken cups and spilled coffee marked where the butler had dropped his tray.

The fourth painting told a grim story. An old woman’s body lay sprawled on the floor of the modest parlor. The back of her head had suffered a brutal blow. Blood stained her gray hair and the dark carpet The desk drawers were askew; papers were strewn about. A pale young man—his face reflecting terrible horror and indecision—hesitated in the doorway. A smudge of blood stained one cuff. There was no sign of a weapon.

An elderly woman sat transfixed in the fifth painting, staring through the window of her train compartment at the compartment in a train running parallel to her own and at the tableau of murder: a man stood with his back to his compartment window, his hands fastened about the throat of the woman he was strangling to death.

Perfect, perfect, perfect.

Annie felt a glow of eagerness. Everything was in readiness here at Death on Demand. She glanced at her watch (an el cheapo on a sturdy plastic band; the very word
Rolex
raised her hackles). Almost four. Maybe there would be time for a jog and, if Max were home early, not an unlikely occurrence, other afternoon delights.