Mystery at the Regal Rose Hotel

by C Jane Reid

  “I wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea,” she said, patting Brandon’s arm. He looked down at her with adoration that he quickly masked, but not before Lola saw.

  Apparently Daphne had, too, for she gave Lola a questioning look. Lola said nothing.

  Together, the two walked to the front desk where Mr. Argyle was finishing with a guest.

  Daphne gasped.

  “What?” Lola followed her gaze.

  A stunningly handsome, aristocratic man stood at the front desk. His black hair was unfashionably long and pulled back into a queue, his black goatee was trimmed and styled, and his suit and fur-trimmed coat were impeccable.

  The man standing behind him was equal polished, though his hair and trimmed beard were blond. He wasn’t dressed as fancily as the other, but what he wore was still fine and in style.

  “Who is it?” Lola asked, lowering her voice.

  “I have no idea. But he is striking, isn’t he?”

  Mr. Argyle finished with the gentleman. The blond-haired man picked up a valise and followed him away from the desk. He glanced at them as he passed, but the first gentleman didn’t so much as acknowledge their existence. Given the way the blond-haired man looked them over, he was very aware of their presence and that they were female.

  Lola turned away, but Daphne was fascinated and watched until they were on the lift.

  “Miss Rose,” Mr. Argyle said, approaching where they stood by the desk. “What assistance can I be to you and your companion?”

  “Actually,” Lola told him with a wide smile, “I’m looking for Gaspard. Is he here?”

  Mr. Argyle hesitated for merely a beat, but Lola caught it. “Monsieur Brodieur is occupied at the moment, but I am happy to offer my skills.”

  “Oh, that’s all right, Mr. Argyle.” Lola waved her hand. “We’ll wait. Can you send for tea?”

  “At once.”

  Lola led Daphne to the chairs by the glass partition.

  “I couldn’t drink another thing,” Lola confessed, “but it makes for good distraction, doesn’t?”

  “Sitting down for tea is always a useful way to linger without appearing to do so. Do you think he suspects us of mischief, though?” Daphne asked her.

  “Naturally. He’s Mr. Argyle. I think he believes all the guests will get up to some sort of mischief at one point or another.”

  “He is an odd one for a front desk clerk.”

  “Isn’t he? I’ve asked after him, but the staff is always reluctant to speak about him.”

  “I wonder why?”

  “It is a mystery, isn’t it?” Lola rubbed her hands together then folded them back into her lap. “But it will have to wait.”

  “Too true. After we clear Gordie’s name, then.”

  “Do you know Gordie?”

  “Not a bit.” Daphne smoothed down her skirt.

  Lola laughed. “I think I like you, Daphne.”

  “I know I quite like you.”

  One of the kitchen waiters came out with the tea trolley and set the tray down between them.

  “Do you know if Gaspard is available?” Lola asked the young man before he could retreat.

  “I believe he is still with the detective inspector,” the young man said.

  Lola nodded to him in thanks, keeping a smile firmly in place, but as soon as the man left with the tea cart, she scowled and stood.

  “Where are you going?” Daphne asked, standing with her.

  “To find out where they are and then to give the detective inspector—” the title dropped from her with venom, “—a scolding.”

  “That sounds less likely to be a scolding and more likely to be attempted murder. Which,” Daphne added, “isn’t wise to attempted with a detective inspector.”

  Lola ground her teeth.

  “Why not another tactic.” Daphne gestured for her to sit, so she did. “Who else can we interrogate?”

  “I would like to speak with Henry,” Lola answered, calming as she considered. “The lift operator from last night,” she added. “He brought Herr Prinz up from below. Oh, and we haven’t a clue what floor the room was where he was staying. It wasn’t on the ground floor where he left the lift. Why did he only take it so far? Why take the stairs? Was he ill?”

  “Possibly, if he had imbibed enough to make him stagger that drunkenly.”

  “Unfortunately, Henry’s shift isn’t until seven.”

  Daphne reached into her pocket and withdraw a small, round pocket watch. She flipped it open. “It is half past two.” She closed it and returned it to her pocket. “Our next option would be?” she prompted.

  “Jack,” Lola said at once.

  “Jack. Ah, Mr. Edgars. Do you know how to contact him?”

  “No. But I know someone who does.” Smiling, she took a sip of tea and instantly regretted it. Daphne smiled at the look on her face.

  Chapter Eleven

  By the time Lola had the information from her mother and called to see that Jack was available, Brandon, Vera, and Willa had returned.

  “Onward, ducks,” Brandon declared, opening the doors for them all to pile into the auto.

  “You’ve taken this business to heart,” Daphne observed.

  “A chance to clear an innocent man’s name and assist a good friend?” Brandon answered. “Of course I have.” He put the auto in gear. “And,” he continued, “it gives me no small amount of pleasure to feel like I’m doing my bit for the war effort.”

  “The war’s over, Brandon,” Vera reminded him with a laugh.

  “Ah, yes, for most. But these poor chaps are reminded of it every day.”

  That sobered them all.

  “It makes a man feel guilty,” he said, uncharacteristically subdued, “to have come out unscathed. Not a mark to show I’d ever fought.”

  “You were a soldier?” Lola asked, then she could have kicked herself for saying something that foolish.

  “I was going to be.” Brandon sighed. “Finally called up on my eighteenth and made France a month before Armistice. Not even enough time to get my uniform dirty.” He sighed.

  “You wanted to see battle?” Vera asked, surprised.

  “Not a bit, but all those chaps who did, and some of them fighting for years, well—” Brandon didn’t finish, but he didn’t have to. They all understood as best as they could.

  Willa reached over and laid her hand over his.

  They reached the area of town where Gaspard resided, which surprised Lola to learn was in the East End, a place she’d heard so much of and yet never visited.

  They piled out of the auto and into the building to find Gaspard’s flat. The building was old, but it was in decent repair. On the second floor, they stopped at the door and Lola knocked. Jack answered at once, having been warned they were coming.

  “The gangs all here, I see.” He stepped back and greeted each as they entered. “And you are?” he added as Daphne entered last.

  “Daphne Darring. That one’s sister.” She gestured off-handedly to Brandon, who sighed.

  “Jack Edgars. I’d offer you all a seat, but I’m not sure Gaspard has that many.”

  “I don’t mind a perch,” Lola told him. She crossed the tiny sitting room to a leather upholstered chair and gestured to Daphne, who sat. Lola perched on the arm.

  Jack laughed. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “And here I thought to shock you with my impropriety.”

  “Eccentricity, I’d say.” Jack pulled the two chairs from the small dining table as Willa took the other leather chair, Brandon standing behind her. Vera pulled a dining chair closer to Jack’s before sitting, giving him a sideways grin, which he answered in kind.

  “So,” he began, growing serious, “I’m guessing this is about Gordie.”

  “No guessing involved,” Lola said.

  “Listen, I won’t say I’m at all sorry for what happened to the German, but it’s a bad business for Gordie, and that I’m sorry for.”

  “He didn’t do i
t.” Lola’s declaration was as staunch as ever.

  “You are that certain.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Jack shook his head. “He was at the top of the stairs, Lola. You were there.”

  “Yes, I was, thank you for reminding me. I’d nearly forgotten.”

  “There’s no need to be upset.”

  “There is every need to be upset.” She stood. “A good man is being held for the death of what seems to be a bad one. It’s unconscionable. Oh,” she said before Jack could respond, “I know Gordie had every right to be angry, but I cannot believe he would ever have taken it so far.”

  “I don’t want to believe it of him, either,” Jack admitted. “He’s a good fellow. But, Lola—”

  “He was as likely to kill Herr Prinz as you were,” Lola interrupted.

  Jack straightened. “You do think he could do it.”

  “Not a bit.”

  “But you just said—”

  “I know what I said, Jack. I’m the one who spoke the words. And I stand by them. Gordie was as likely to kill the German, which is to say not at all, as you were.”

  “You heard us plotting.”

  “No, I heard Gaspard.”

  “And that’s not damning enough?”

  “You would not have gone through with it.”

  “How can you be sure?” Jack’s tone had darkened.

  “Because you’ve seen too much killing and done more than you want to remember. Just as Wyatt has.” Lola focused on him. “It’s your eyes, Jack. Wyatt’s have the same haunted look. You both try to hide it, but it’s there.”

  “Wouldn’t that give me even more reason to want the German dead?”

  “No, because that would haunt you more than taking a life in battle. You didn’t have a choice then. This you would have chosen. I cannot believe you could live with yourself if you had. Not by the way Wyatt has spoken of you.”

  Jack didn’t respond.

  Vera reached over and took his hand. “She is an excellent judge of character. I quite agree with her.”

  “I think everyone in the room does,” Willa added.

  “You’ve all known me for a day, if that,” Jack told them.

  “I’ve only known you ten minutes and I happen to agree,” Daphne said. He stared at her and she shrugged. “I happen to be an excellent judge of character as well. And,” she continued, “from what I understand, you are bound to return to America in another two days.”

  “That’s right. But I don’t see how that would matter. If anything, it puts me in the more likely column of suspects.”

  “It seems unlikely that you’d leave your good friend, Gaspard, to suffer the consequences of your actions alone.”

  Everyone looked at Daphne. She shrugged again. “I’ve seen it often enough. You soldiers have a bond. After helping each other survive that travesty that was the Great War, you’d naturally loathe to see one of you hanged for a crime not entirely of his own making.”

  “That’s awfully clever of you, Daphne,” Willa told her.

  “I am clever.”

  “As she’ll remind us often,” Brandon grumbled, but his tone held a note of respect.

  Jack sat back, Vera still holding his hand. “You’re right. I wouldn’t have left. I’d already convinced Gaspard that I wouldn’t help because he’d suffered enough without going to the gallows. He doesn’t see it, though, so I can’t say he wouldn’t have gone through with it.”

  “As it is,” Lola said, “he didn’t have the chance. Herr Prinz drank too much and tripped down the stairs. We saw him,” she said to Jack. “You were there.”

  He gave her a wry grin. “Great come-back.”

  “Not really, but it will do.”

  “You’re forgetting that Gordie was there, too,” Jack said grimly. “At the top of the stairs. It’s rotten luck we happened upon him and got him caught, but there it is.”

  “He did not do it.”

  “Lola—”

  A knock on the door interrupted them.

  “Are you expecting someone?” Vera asked him. He shook his head.

  Lola frowned. “Then I think we all know who it must be.”

  They all stood as Jack crossed to open the door.

  It was, as she suspected, Arthur. He stopped in the doorway when he saw them.

  “I should have known.”

  “Whyever for?” Lola said in her sweetest voice. She stepped over to him. “We are simply visiting a dear friend.”

  “Who you’ve known for two days.”

  “One day, but that’s beside the point. He is a dear friend of my cousin’s, therefore I’ve declared him a dear friend of mine.”

  “And since we are all dear friends of Lola,” Willa said, “we would naturally include Jack among our little group.”

  “He is a good chap,” Brandon added.

  “And handsome.” Vera gave Jack a warm smile.

  Arthur looked to Daphne. “Have you anything to add?”

  “I’ve only known him for fifteen minutes.”

  “Ah.”

  “But as I’m an excellent judge of character, much like my dear friend, Lola, who I have known for half a day, I can agree that he has become a dear friend to me.”

  “Heaven help me,” Arthur muttered.

  “I think you’re beyond that.” Lola’s voice had gone cold. “And what gives you the right to tell poor Mr. Argyle to watch over me?”

  “Since your mother is marrying my cousin.”

  “Your father’s cousin. Let’s be quite clear on that. We wouldn’t want any misunderstandings of rank or career, now would we?”

  “Lola—”

  “Miss Rose.”

  They stared at one another.

  “And I think that’s enough for today.” Willa stepped forward and put her hand on Lola’s arm. “Things to do, people to visit.”

  “New dear friends to make,” Vera added.

  “G & T’s to drink,” Brandon also added.

  “The day is still young, dear brother,” Daphne told him.

  “All the more reason to get to it.”

  “If that is all,” Arthur said stiffly.

  “For now,” Lola told him. “Shall we?” she asked the others. They began to file out of the flat, bidding Jack goodbye and inviting him along with them that evening.

  “Lola,” Arthur began as she passed by him.

  “Miss Rose,” she reminded him without turning.

  He sighed. “Stay out of this.”

  “Out of what?” she asked innocently and left the flat.

  Arthur caught her in the hall. “Lola, I am quite serious about this. Stop interfering.”

  “Whoever said I was interfering was mistaken. I am merely lending my support to friends in need.”

  Arthur did not look like he believed her. Quite the opposite in fact.

  “Who else do you have in mind to lend your support to?” he asked.

  “Gaspard, naturally,” she answered. “I did try to speak with Gordie but for some unfathomable reason, I was denied entry.” She arched her brow, and Arthur pursed his lips.

  “You know why I had to do that.”

  “No. Please enlighten me.”

  “For the same reason I asked Mr. Argyle to keep an eye on you.”

  “So I don’t embarrass the almighty Blythe family.”

  “No, Lola, so you don’t embarrass your mother.”

  That gave Lola pause.

  “You are both newly arrived in London, and it is well known that your mother married an American against the wishes of her family,” Arthur explained. “And now she’s returned and is engaged to marry one of the more famous barristers of our day who is also the relative of a baron. Given the fact that you, her daughter, soon to be stepdaughter to that barrister, are half-American—”

  “You mean half-Texan.”

  “I do.”

  Lola considered. She didn’t like where Arthur was going with his explanation because it did make too much s
ense.

  “Then I’ll take care,” she told him. “And it is no reason to deny me the chance to speak with Gordie.”

  “He’s a suspect in a murder attempt.”

  “He’s a wounded soldier brought in on circumstantial evidence.”

  Arthur eyed her.

  “I’ve read a few crime novels in my day,” she told him.

  “Fine.” He relented. “I’ll allow you to visit him.”

  “Allow?”

  “A poor choice of words.”

  She nodded and turned to leave.

  “And Lola,” he called, stopping her again. “It wasn’t an accident.”

  “We’ve been through this.”

  “Eckhardt Prinz was poisoned.”

  With that, Arthur returned to the flat, shutting the door behind him.

  Chapter Twelve

  “This changes things considerably,” Daphne said once they were back in Brandon’s auto and Lola had shared Arthur’s dramatic parting words.

  “Yes.” Lola’s thoughts were turning over the matter furiously.

  “Does that mean Gordie will be released?” Brandon asked. “It does, doesn’t it, because it means the blighter didn’t die from a shove down the steps.”

  “He certainly still fell,” Lola told him, remembering that unnatural angle of the German’s head with a shudder.

  “But unless Gordie handed him a cordial with a hearty ‘drink up’ before giving him a shove, it is less likely that the fall killed him.” Willa had turned in her seat to face the other women.

  “If it were fast-acting enough,” Daphne said, “it might have killed him as he was falling or caused him to fall.”

  The three women stared at her, and even Brandon twisted briefly to look at his sister.

  “I’m not suggesting Gordie handed him a cordial with a hearty ‘drink up,’” Daphne declared. “It could have been a different sort of poison. Maybe one injected or air-based.”

  “Wouldn’t we have been affected?” Lola asked. “We were at the bottom of the stairs.”

  “And Gordie at the top,” Willa said. “Unless it were a quite specifically targeted air-based poison.”

  Despite the grim discussion, they chuckled.

  “This is all supposition,” Lola finally said.

  “And, more importantly,” Vera told them, “Gordie will be set free. Should we go to the meet him?”