Walking Into Murder (23 page)

Laura ignored both of them. “I took a first aid course once, and learned how to put them back in place,” she volunteered, hoping she remembered the technique and had sufficient strength.

Thomas looked at her appraisingly. “How many times have you done it? And how long ago was that course?”

“I haven’t actually had to do it on someone whose shoulder was out,” Laura admitted. “I guess the course was about ten years ago.”

Thomas turned a greenish color. “Thank you, but I think I’ll wait for the doctor. I have had it done once or twice and it isn’t pleasant even in experienced hands.”

“If you two have finished discussing your health,” Antonia interrupted irritably, “you might want to remember that two guns are pointing at you and unless you start paying attention, your life span might be rather too short to worry about things like shoulders and first aid.”

Just as she finished this cold-blooded little speech, a sound distracted all of them. Laura looked up and saw the painting of the woman with the big hat sliding in slow motion toward the floor. It landed at a rakish angle on its side, so that the woman was on her back. Maybe she had tired of standing after so many hundreds of years, Laura thought with more than a touch of hysteria, and had decided to try lying down for a change.

The bullet had hit the wall just above the painting, she observed more rationally, not an eye. Antonia wasn’t a very good shot.

Her head whipped back to Antonia, and she almost cursed aloud. Both Antonia and Roger had been caught off guard for a few seconds, and she had missed a heaven-sent opportunity to leap at them and maybe grab one of the guns. Now it was too late. Antonia was covering both of them while Roger pulled a length of rope out of a bundle he had brought in with him.

“Tie them to the chairs,” Antonia ordered coldly. “I want them out of commission until we’ve finished. Then put them back to back and tie their hands together, too.” The thought seemed to please her and she smiled.

“Him first,” she added. Roger nodded and pushed Thomas into one of the chairs Adrian had thoughtfully placed in the room for viewing purposes. None too gently, he grabbed one of Thomas’s wrists, then the other and twisted them behind him. Thomas promptly fainted and fell forward onto the floor.

“Stop that!” Laura screamed. “He’s got a dislocated shoulder!”

Roger shrugged and looked at Antonia. She too gave a shrug, an infinitesimal one that made the gesture seem positively evil.

“Prop him up on the chair and tie him anyway,” she instructed the endlessly accommodating Roger. “Then get on with her.”

Roger complied. Looking pleased with his assignment, he tied Thomas to one chair, her to another and then tied their hands together with vicious jerks. Rubbing his hands together in satisfaction, he went back to Antonia to await further orders.

Thomas looked as if he had fainted again, and Laura pressed his hands gently. A brief returning pressure told her that he was still conscious. That was a start. He wasn’t going to be able to give her much help, though, which meant she had to get them out of this predicament on her own. She should have taken a knife from the kitchen, she thought glumly. If that was in her pocket now…

An image of Morris’s knife came into her mind. It was still in an outside pocket of her pack, she remembered, and her pack was only a few feet away. If Antonia and Roger left the room, she could try to get to it - if Thomas had the strength to walk the few steps with her. They would have to drag the chairs, too.

Antonia’s voice interrupted. “We have only an hour, so we shall have to work fast,” she told Roger in a businesslike tone. “Are you sure they’re securely tied?”

Roger looked hurt. “Of course,” he replied, his voice sulky.

Antonia slid her arm into his. “Don’t be cross with me, Roger,” she pouted. Her full lips parted in a sultry smile. “You know how I depend on you. You’re the only one I can trust, you really are. Everyone else…”

She let the sentence dangle, but Roger got the point. He glowed with pride, and Laura felt a little sick. What did he expect from Antonia, and why did he obey her so slavishly? Did she reward him in the usual way, or was she canny enough to dangle promises in front of him like carrots so he would keep waiting on her, asking for nothing but praise, until he was no longer useful?

“We are going to have to work together, you and I,” Antonia went on, contriving somehow to sound as if she and Roger were alone in a bedroom. “If you take the heaviest paintings and I take the others, we can be out of here quite quickly. That’s why I wanted to make sure they were tied.”

“How do you know which ones are the originals?” Thomas asked innocently, and Laura jumped. She had thought him barely conscious.

Antonia shrugged her slender shoulders. “I keep track.”

“So do quite a few other people,” Thomas observed with a maddening drawl. “There’s been a lot of interest in those paintings.”

Antonia whirled on him. “What do you mean?” she demanded.

Thomas began to shrug in imitation of her gesture, grimaced and thought better of it. “The Baroness, for one, Lord Torrington for another.”

“Oh, them.” Antonia was dismissive. “They don’t know what’s going on. Charlotte just thinks she does and Bark hasn’t a clue. Hasn’t much of a clue about anything else, either. Never did have.”

“I gather you’ve known him for some time,” Thomas remarked.

Antonia looked at him sharply. “That is none of your business,” she snapped.

“Perhaps you’re right,” Thomas answered lazily. “It’s just that I’ve been in France recently, where I came across some interesting documents, quite unexpected ones. Still, I’ve had them checked out…” He left the sentence unfinished, watching Antonia’s face carefully.

Her reaction was fast and furious. “Shut up!” she told him. “You talk too much. You know too much, too.”

“Want me to shut him up?” Roger asked eagerly.

Antonia considered. “Not just yet,” she told him. “I rather enjoy watching his face. But believe me, you will get your chance to shut him up - permanently.”

Thomas persisted. “You haven’t answered my question. How do you know which ones are originals?”

“It’s not hard,” Antonia said indifferently. “Stewart’s good, one of the best, but I can still tell.”

“I suppose you can,” Thomas conceded. “It’s just that I’ve been keeping an eye on the manor recently, and I’ve seen the Baroness and Lord Torrington replacing the paintings you’ve brought from here with their copies. Clever, I thought. The originals from here are replaced by Stewart’s fakes, and the fakes by the originals all over again. Hard to tell what’s what now.”

Laura gaped. So that was why Nigel had been helping Lord Torrington yesterday! The family must have known all along what Antonia and Roger were up to, and were replacing the originals they had stolen from Adrian with their own copies. That meant Antonia could be sending out fakes she thought were real to her discriminating buyer. But what did they hope to gain from that?

Antonia had the same thought. “I can’t see what they would want to do that for,” she replied, but she sounded worried now.

“Maybe,” Thomas drawled, “they want you to get caught.”

Antonia stiffened. “Charlotte and Bark know better than to do that,” she snapped. Her eyes were intent on his face.

“Perhaps you are right,” Thomas said. “But that may no longer concern them. They could have information of their own.”

Antonia stared at him, grasping a meaning in his words that Laura couldn’t. “I see,” she said finally, and gave him a look so hostile that Laura cringed.

“At any rate,” Thomas went on blandly, “are you still sure you know which paintings are the originals?”

Antonia turned to examine the paintings still hanging on the wall. For a moment she looked uncertain; then an odd expression came over her face. It was part acquisitive, part triumphant, part gloating, and part just nauseating. Laura looked away in distaste.

Roger was staring at the paintings, too. “What about the ones in the van? Are they the ones we want or not?” he asked, confused. “Shall I bring them in here?”

Antonia laughed. It was a chilling sound. “Oh, I think we’ll just keep them
all
for ourselves now that we’re not sure which is which,” she cooed, giving his arm another lingering pat. “Adrian had his chance and lost it, so we needn’t bother with him anymore. Besides, we might as well sell them all and get twice the money. After all, no one seems able to tell the difference anyway. Don’t you agree?”

Roger glowed again, and she favored him with a brief peck on the cheek. Thomas glowered.

Adrian groaned suddenly, surprising all of them. Antonia glanced down at him. “I do wish he would wake up,” she said, and there was genuine disappointment in her voice. “You shouldn’t have hit him so hard, Roger. I would have enjoyed watching his face as his precious art collection disappeared. He crossed me, and he should pay with more than just a bump on the head. Now it’s too late.”

She stared down at Adrian for another moment; then her face became businesslike again. “No more talk,” she said crisply. “We have work to do and it’s getting late.”

Roger went into action, struggling manfully with the heaviest painting. Antonia confined herself to the smallest one, and they went out the door.

“Quick,” Laura whispered. “There’s a knife in my pack. Can you stand up? I can grab it if you come with me.”

“I’ll try,” Thomas said. Together they shuffled crab-wise to the pack, their chairs dragging noisily behind them. Feeling like a contortionist, Laura bent backward as far as she could and felt for the knife. Her stiff fingers finally found it. Trembling with the effort, she bent her knees as far as she could so she could get some leverage to pull it out.

“Got it,” she breathed, and they shuffled back again.

They had just sat down when Antonia and Roger returned. Laura hoped no one would look behind her and see the knife in her hand. She hoped she wouldn’t drop it either. Her fingers felt numb.

Antonia regarded her suspiciously, but she said nothing and picked up another small painting. Roger took two this time; together, they went out again.

Laura sawed as carefully as she could at the rope between their hands. Thomas winced and she knew she must have cut him. If only she could see what she was doing!

“Sorry, it’s an awkward angle,” she apologized, struggling to maneuver the knife into a more effective grip. The strain on her arms and shoulders was intolerable. How Thomas was enduring it she couldn’t imagine.

Twice more Roger and Antonia went out. Laura sawed through a few strands each time, until finally the rope that tied them together came apart.

“Hold our hands together with the frayed pieces inside, so they can’t tell,” Thomas whispered as they heard Antonia and Roger returning. Laura obeyed as best she could, and they held their hands close together. The touch was comforting. Laura was very glad not to be here by herself.

The feeling didn’t last. Only three paintings were left, the one that had fallen, and two others on the wall. She and Thomas didn’t have much of a life span unless they could get free soon, Laura thought gloomily.

Thomas seemed to share her thought. The next time they were left alone, he jerked hard against the ropes that bound him to the chair, at considerable cost to his injured shoulder, while she sawed diligently. Finally, the last rope snapped. Thomas grabbed the knife and freed her. Handing her the knife, he shook out his numb fingers. Laura did the same; then, hearing the returning footsteps, she tucked her hands and the ends of the rope back into Thomas’s grasp.

“We’ve done it!” she whispered exultantly. One knife and three free hands against two guns wasn’t much, but at least it was a start.

She looked down in horror. The knife! She had put it on her lap when she shook out her fingers. Dislodged by her movements, it was sliding slowly off her knees. It dropped to the floor with a thud just as Roger and Antonia came through the door.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

Thomas jerked spasmodically, as if he were having an uncontrollable fit. One leg thrust out in one direction, one in the other. The first foot landed squarely on the knife. Groaning dramatically, he pulled the leg slowly back into place, the knife beneath it.

“He’s in terrible pain,” Laura babbled as Antonia and Roger entered. “I think he’s going into convulsions.” Antonia regarded Thomas with curiosity, a gleam of prurient pleasure in her face. Then her mood changed.

“Oh, for goodness sake!” she snapped irritably. “So much drama for one small shoulder that won’t know the difference soon anyway.”

Relief flooded through Laura. Antonia hadn’t seen anything but Thomas’s dramatic performance. Her off-hand comment, however, cast a shadow over their reprieve. They still had two guns to contend with.

“Take those last two off the wall, there’s a dear,” Antonia cooed to Roger in another complete change of tone. “I’ll take one of them and you take the other, along with the hat lady. She will bring quite a bit, so treat her carefully.” Roger obeyed and trotted out of the room after Antonia.

“This is the first and I hope only time in my life I will be glad someone is a sadist,” Laura muttered as she grabbed the knife. “Antonia enjoyed your convulsions so much she didn’t even see the knife.”

“As bad as her brother,” Thomas commented. “Where can we hide it?”

“In here.” Laura slipped the knife delicately into the wide pocket of her walking skirt. How convenient! In pants the knife might show. In her full skirt, it wouldn’t.

Roger eyed them nervously when he came back. “What do we do with them now?” he asked anxiously. Laura felt a spurt of hope. Maybe Roger liked the idea of shooting them better than the reality. He might even be waking up to the possibility that Antonia intended to leave the dirty work – and the murder charges – to him, while she escaped with the goods. A reluctant assassin might be even more help than the knife.

“I know I can safely leave that to you, Roger darling,” Antonia purred, providing him with another of her seductive glances. “What would I ever do without you?”

Roger shuffled his feet. “I’m not all that sure…” he began.

Antonia patted his arm. “If you should feel the least bit squeamish, and I doubt a man as brave as you ever would, remember that it’s not our fault if they end up dead. They insisted on getting in the way, so really, they asked for it.”

“How did you kill Marie? And Morris?” Thomas asked so suddenly that Laura jumped. Who was Marie?

Antonia’s head whipped around. She looked frightened. “I had nothing to do with Marie. I have no idea how she got there,” she said emphatically. “I didn’t kill Morris either. I don’t know who did but I swear it wasn’t me.”

“I guess she’ll blame both murders on you,” Thomas said blandly to Roger.

“I didn’t even know Morris was dead,” Roger protested. “No one told me that. I swear I didn’t know, so I couldn’t have killed him.”

Laura frowned. It was hard not to believe them. But if neither of them had killed Morris, who had?

“And Marie?” Thomas pressed.

“Marie did it to herself,” Roger answered self-righteously. “Fell down the stairs. You’ll see when you look at her. No bullets, nothing. She just fell down those stairs. Dangerous stairs.”

“Which stairs?” Laura asked, understanding now. Marie was the missing cook, the other detective. “The stairs to the cellar, or the ones...”

“Yes, that’s them,” Roger interrupted, “You believe me, don’t you? I mean they’re terrible steep, those stairs. I was nowhere near Marie then. Morris was behind her, not me, but he said he didn’t push her or anything like that. She just tripped, I guess.”

“Or got tapped,” Thomas suggested. “There’s a bruise on the back of her head.”

“That was from before,” Roger protested, “when she was poking around earlier. I only gave her a little tap, just to make sure she did what she was told. She was only out for a minute.”

“Who put her in the green room, and who put the mask on her face?” Laura asked, determined to take full advantage of this unexpected flow of information.

“That wasn’t me either,” Roger said defensively. “It was Morris. He’s the one. Switched the mask later, too. I wouldn’t play a trick like that, but Morris got a kick out of it. All I did was help him carry her up there and fix up the lights a bit so no one would see it was a mask.”

“I guess you helped carry her down to the freezer and then helped take her out again, too,” Thomas remarked casually.

Roger stared. “I put her down there, but I don’t know who took her out. Why would they do that? She was all right in there. Preserved her.”

Laura shuddered. “I suppose you gave Thomas just a little tap, too,” she inserted. “Twice, if I remember correctly.”

Roger bristled. “I only do what I’m told. I didn’t really hurt him, only knocked him out for a bit. Morris was supposed to finish him off that second time, once he’d talked, not me.”

Laura frowned, wondering why Antonia was letting Roger speak so freely. The answer came quickly. So far Roger was only incriminating himself.

“I suppose you were told to drug Lottie as well,” Thomas said to Roger, but Laura noticed that his eyes were on Antonia now.

“I didn’t do that either,” Roger muttered, with a guilty glance at Antonia. “It wasn’t me,” he repeated. “That was her id -”

“Shut up!” Antonia interrupted furiously. “Can’t you see they’re just trying to get you to talk so you incriminate yourself? I don’t want you to talk anymore. No more, do you understand?”

“Now that your name is under discussion, his wagging tongue must be stopped,” Thomas observed sardonically, confirming Laura’s thought. “But you did drug Lottie. And me, so you could search my room. We found the sleeping pills ground up as face powder on your dressing table. Horrible things. Made me fuzzy for days.”

Antonia stiffened. “That’s ridiculous. Why would I drug Lottie?”

“So that when she reappeared from the dead
,
so to speak, the others would think there hadn’t been a body after all. That way, no one would know that Marie had been murdered. Very clever, actually.”

“Until you thought Lottie really was dead,” Laura observed. “That must have been a shock. If she had died of a drug overdose, you would be charged with murder.”

“But she didn’t and I wasn’t,” Antonia taunted, and Laura felt her spurt of hope evaporate. A woman who could flawlessly execute an art heist as complicated as this one, managing even small details such as cut telephone wires, wasn’t likely to let a reluctant Roger bungle the job of silencing them.

Antonia’s words confirmed her fears. “Enough,” she snapped. “Everything you’ve said is pure speculation, and I shall make sure you don’t last long enough to tell anyone about your pretty little theories anyway.”

Her expression changed as she turned to Roger. “Well,” she said softly, letting her long-lashed eyes linger lovingly on his face, “we’ve got all the paintings, haven’t we, darling. I’ll wait in the van while you finish up here.”

Smiling lazily at Roger, she lifted her arms and stretched voluptuously, so that her breasts were clearly outlined against the thin silk of her shirt. Roger goggled at her and began visibly to sweat.

She blew him a kiss and walked slowly toward the door. “They’re all yours, Roger dear,” she called back in her sweetest tone. “I’ll be waiting for you. And then…” She let the sentence dangle and smiled seductively.

Roger swallowed hard and licked his lips. “Wait!” he exclaimed urgently. “Maybe it would be better if you did it,” he added tentatively. “I mean…”

“Darling! Are you getting cold feet?” Antonia stopped beside the door, a trace of impatience on her face. “What you have to do, Roger dearest, is to think of us basking on a beach somewhere warm, or perhaps - ”

She stopped abruptly as a car door slammed. The unexpected sound was jarring. A voice piped up, a very familiar voice.

“Can I pour out the milk for him? Mama never let me have a puppy, but now I’ve already got Muffin, and she can’t give him back, can she?”

Angelina’s childlike question was so incongruous in the midst of Antonia’s sadistic plotting that all of them froze.

“Oh my God,” Thomas muttered. “I told Mrs. Paulson she could come back any time after eleven. I was sure I’d have Adrian in handcuffs and out of here by that time.”

“Maybe they won’t come in here,” Laura said hopefully, but at just that moment, she heard the clipped sound of a dog’s toenails trotting along the uncarpeted hall to the gallery. Other feet followed, Angelina’s feet.

“You better bring the puppy back in here,” Mrs. Paulson warned from the kitchen. “The doctor won’t want him peeing on the rugs.”

Angelina giggled from the study. “He already has.” The puppy burst into the gallery, wagging its tail frantically, and went to sniff at Adrian’s prone form.

“What’s Uncle Adrian doing on the floor?” Angelina asked from the door. “Is he hurt?” She ran after the puppy and knelt down beside Adrian.

“Angelina, I want you to go back to Mrs. Paulson,” Antonia said. Her voice had a strangled sound. Laura saw that she had hidden the gun behind her.

“Right now, Angelina!” she ordered, but there was no authority in the command. There never was when she spoke to Angelina. It was as if she had no idea how to deal with someone she couldn’t manipulate, even when that person was her own child.

Stewart’s child, too, Laura remembered suddenly. Where
was
Stewart?

“If you’re a good girl and go back to Mrs. Paulson with the puppy right away, you can keep him,” Antonia offered, resorting to bribery. Angelina didn’t cooperate. Instead, she got up and went to her mother.

“Why are you holding a gun?” she asked. “Roger has one too. Can I see it, Roger?” She reached out a hand.

“Don’t give it to her,” Antonia snapped. “I… I mean, we are playing a game,” she told Angelina with an oddly pleading glance at Roger. “We’re almost finished. You take the puppy back to the kitchen now, and I’ll come in a few minutes and explain.”

Angelina regarded her solemnly; then she turned to Laura. “Will you come with me? I’ll go if she can come with me,” she told her mother.

“Laura has to stay for just a few more minutes.” Antonia said weakly.

Angelina went to stand beside Laura, close enough to touch her. “I don’t like it here, with Uncle Adrian on the floor and Mama has a gun,” she said tremulously, pressing her pudgy body against Laura. “It’s all wrong. I want you to come with me.” Blinking hard, she bit her lip and looked down at the floor.

“Let’s ask your mother if I can come with you,” Laura said gently. She wished she could reach out to reassure Angelina, but she dared not reveal the fact that her hands were free, not just yet.

“Can she come with me now?” Angelina didn’t look at her mother but kept her eyes firmly on the floor.

Antonia stood perfectly still. A series of expressions crossed her face: shock, disbelief and then capitulation. She seemed to shake herself, and when she spoke her voice was perfectly controlled. “Roger and I will go back to the manor now,” she announced. “We will finish our game another time.”

She turned to her daughter. “I’ll see you there later, Angelina. As soon as I have gone, Laura can come with you.” She walked slowly to the door and lingered there for a moment, to look back at her daughter, at the room, as if memorizing the scene of a failure so she wouldn’t repeat it.

“Bye, Mama,” Angelina said nonchalantly. Stooping, she picked up the puppy. “I’m going to give Muffin his milk now,” she told Laura. “You have to come with me, though, okay?”

“I’ll be right behind you,” Laura promised. She rose and shook out her arms ostentatiously, both of them, and decided she would never again enjoy anything so much as the look of incredulity on Antonia’s face.

“Maybe you should come too, Thomas,” she added silkily. Taking his cue, he stood up, his limp arm hanging free by his side. At the same time, Laura drew out the knife and let it dangle tantalizingly from her fingers.

Antonia gave a small yelp of dismay and her face turned white. Laura smiled at her. “It was knocked out of Morris’s hand when the horse kicked him up on the moor. I picked it up because I thought it might be useful.”

Antonia shot her a glance filled with loathing and walked stiffly away.

“See you later,” Laura called to her retreating back. “Though in rather different circumstances, considering what we know,” she added with a theatrical sigh that rivaled Antonia’s own. “Still, I understand that some of the jails in this country are quite comfortable.”

Antonia turned again, and now her face was dark with rage. Laura thought she was going to bring out the gun and shoot her, despite Angelina’s presence. With a visible effort, Antonia controlled herself. Without speaking, she walked slowly out the door, her demeanor once more imperturbable.

Laura started after her. Antonia and Roger would vanish as fast as they could with their precious cargo of paintings. They had to be stopped.

Thomas had the same thought. Grabbing the knife from her hand, he picked up the plaster bust she had left on the floor and charged out of the room. She ran after him, ignoring Angelina’s furious protests. To her relief, Mrs. Paulson appeared behind the child and guided her gently into the kitchen.

Thomas gave a flying leap toward the car just as its engine turned over, and slashed the nearest tire. A loud hissing noise followed; he slashed the next one, rolling to avoid being run over as Roger gunned the engine. Then he flung the bust at the window on the driver’s side. Laura heard glass shatter as the van roared away, its rear end sagging almost to the ground. It wouldn’t get far, she thought with satisfaction.

The bust was in pieces at her feet, and for the first time she saw who it was, or had been. Adrian, she realized, or what was left of him. His sightless eyes stared up at her. She hoped that wasn’t symbolic.

The sound of a loud crash startled her. The van! It had come to rest against a tree where the road turned sharply. She turned to tell Thomas but he was already running back to the house.

Mrs. Paulson met him half-way and pressed a small instrument into his hand. “The doctor has one of these newfangled contraptions,” she said disapprovingly. “Don’t like them myself, but I suppose they come in handy.