Walking Into Murder

by JOAN DAHR LAMBERT

  At the end of the tour, Nigel asked if anyone would like to see the cellar. Patrice held up her hand but didn’t speak. Laura decided to ask for her. Seeing the cellar again was high on her list too. She was aching to examine some of the wine labels, never mind all those rooms she hadn’t had time to explore before. Who knew what treasures they might hold – and clues.

  Heavily accented English, she decided, would be most in character. Madame Merlin would do her best to speak the language of her host.

  “Ma fille… my daugh-ter likes to go to les caves - ze cellars. Elle s’interesse in… in ze atmosphere, n’est-ce-pas, Patrice?”

  “Ah, oui,” Nigel answered with a lift of his eyebrows that reminded her once more of his grandmother. “We will go then. But please watch your step. The stairs are very steep.”

  He ushered them to a door along the hall that led to the kitchen. Beyond it Laura saw stairs, which were indeed steep but not nearly as bad as the ones she had crawled up last night. She wished she had known about them before subjecting herself to the tunnel and the winding staircase, but at least she now knew there was another way to get from the cellar to the house. That could prove very useful tonight.

  Nigel led them through the maze of the cellar, explaining the purpose of various rooms, but mostly just letting them soak up the ancient and musty atmosphere. When they came to the room Laura and Catherine had entered from the big double doors, Laura noticed that the large chest of drawers had been moved back to its original place, covering the tunnel. She wondered if Nigel would mention that, but he didn’t. Perhaps he was afraid some of the visitors would insist on exploring it.

  The big freezer was still in use, she noted, if the long extension cord was any indication. An extra freezer would be handy, she supposed, when they had large groups of guests. She pulled it open a crack while the rest of the group was examining the old linen press, curious to see if anything was in it.

  The lid fell back with a soft thump, and Laura felt the blood drain from her face. A hand was in the freezer, a human hand. She had seen it clearly, sticking up past some large bags of ice. Barely visible beneath it was a body, a body that almost certainly belonged to the missing cook.

  Laura’s stomach churned. To find her here, thrown carelessly into a cold freezer and surrounded by ice, was somehow far more terrible than finding her comfortably lain out in a bed and covered with a beautiful warm duvet. And the pale disembodied hand; it was sad, so horribly sad that anyone had been so neglected, so…so thrown away…

  Laura stood perfectly still, her mind reeling with shock, and tried to recover her poise. She mustn’t let anyone see how affected she was. Catherine especially mustn’t see, mustn’t look. Nigel, too - he didn’t need this as well as the other burdens he must carry. The other tourists mustn’t know, either.

  She glanced at them and saw to her relief that they were still intent on the clothes press, all but the Scotsman, who was reading wine labels. Laura’s gaze strayed back to the freezer. She had to look again, had to make certain she’d seen what she thought she’d seen. Easing the lid up, she peeked in. The hand was still there, and it was attached to a body that was faintly visible under all the ice.

  Ignoring the sick feeling in her stomach and the faint ringing in her head, she straightened her shoulders and walked slowly toward the group. She was glad now that she had to be Madame Merlin. If she’d been Laura, she wasn’t at all sure she would have been able to act normally.

  She leaned over the linen press with feigned interest and then went on to the wines to peer at some labels. Catherine gave her a sharp glance that didn’t look like Patrice, but she didn’t speak, and Laura was relieved. By the time they reached the front hall again, she had recovered enough to thank Nigel in heavily accented English for a wonderful tour.

  At that moment, Antonia came down the hall, and Laura was glad she had used English instead of French. Antonia would have picked up the lingering American in her French in seconds.

  Antonia paused when she saw them, nodded briefly and moved on. Before she turned away, her eyes lingered on Laura’s clothes, especially her fashionable purse. There was avarice in those cool eyes, Laura thought, and was vastly relieved. Her accoutrements had attracted Antonia, not her face. The Baroness had done a good job.

  The small distraction helped to put the gruesome discovery out of her mind. So did Catherine’s pleasure when she left to join Angelina and Mrs. Paulson. Laura was doubly grateful now to see the girl leave. Not only would it give Catherine a welcome break from being Patrice; it would give her a break from the strain of pretending she had nothing more than the general mystery on her mind.

  She went back to her room and slumped onto a chair. The idea of rest seemed ludicrous now, but she could at least try to think. If there really was a body, she had to call in some kind of official help right away. But what if she was wrong again and there wasn’t a body? Her mind had begun to work more clearly now, and she realized she could once again be jumping to unwarranted conclusions. The hand might not belong to a body at all, but to a mannequin, like the one Nigel had made of his grandmother. Now that she thought about it, the hand in the freezer had looked just like the fake grande dame’s hands as she had grasped the back of the Victorian sofa, and she hadn’t been able to see the body clearly enough through all those bags of ice to tell if it was real or not. Maybe Nigel put his models in the freezer. Perhaps it was part of the finishing process, to keep the wax from melting or to stiffen the body.

  Laura shuddered. The only way to know with certainty was to examine the hand and whatever was attached to it more carefully. Before she called in the authorities, she had to be quite sure of her facts. She wished she could sneak down the cellar steps now and get the unpleasant task over with, but that could be disastrous. Someone would be bound to notice her. She would have to wait until tonight.

  In the meantime, she decided to distract herself by using the computer at the local library. Thomas’s dissertation on art forgeries in that horrible shed on the moor had been interrupted, and she needed to know more before she went on her search tonight. She was determined to find out more about Thomas, too, and this was the first chance she’d had to do it. Where was Thomas anyway? The man was like an elusive shadow!

  To her surprise, the Scotsman who had been on the tour came into the library while she was struggling to find a useful site. He nodded politely and walked toward her. Laura nodded in response but then turned pointedly back to the computer. She didn’t want one of the guests at Torrington Manor looking over her shoulder right now, with a large print headline announcing the latest art forgery techniques. What would he think?

  To her horror, the Scotsman picked up a chair, placed it next to hers and sat down. He glanced with interest at the glaring headline.

  “Ah! Art forgeries. Yes. Now where was I? I believe I had mentioned that the first major type is simply a good copy of a masterpiece which often fools even the experts. The second is the pastiche. A copyist uses typical scenes from paintings by a well-known artist to -”

  “Thomas!” Laura hissed the name. Her first impulse was to slug him, but since she was in a library, she couldn’t. Why hadn’t she seen through his disguise before? He had obviously seen through hers, which was maddening. And how had he managed to look so old and uninteresting?

  Thomas continued relentlessly, seeming to enjoy her discomfiture. “The typical scenes used by the copyist give the impression that this painting is also genuine. The third type is an original fake, which means a copyist imitates the style and subject matter of a well-known painter. Some painters are remarkably good at it. To sum up, any of these three types can and do fool professionals if they are well done, and they often are.”

  Laura gaped at him, speechless. She still couldn’t find Thomas under all that bristly hair. Had the Baroness done him too? What a macabre sense of humor the woman had! And what talent.

  “Of course, copies of masterpieces can be sold legitimately too,” Thomas ad
ded with a grin that for a second made him Thomas again. “It’s a good business for artists. Many collectors can’t afford originals but will pay well for fakes they can pass off as originals to their friends.”

  Laura held up a hand of protest. “Enough,” she said faintly. “I get the point. Forgeries are everywhere and not as hard to make as I’d thought.” She sighed. “I will never look at a Rembrandt or a Vermeer with the same eyes again. Or for that matter, any of the paintings people gape at so reverently in museums.”

  “I could tell you all about what to look for to see the difference,” Thomas promised, “but right now, the librarian looks annoyed.”

  Laura glanced at the desk. The librarian was indeed flashing fierce looks at them over her thick half glasses.

  “How did you know who I was so easily?” she whispered. “I must be a lousy actress.”

  “If it makes you feel better, I don’t think I would have known except for Catherine. She played her part extremely well, but I have an advantage. I saw her in a similar type of uniform not too long ago. Her mother’s idea; it was a boarding school and Catherine left within a month. I couldn’t blame her. The place was called a finishing school. Mostly they taught deportment and how to say the right things to the right people.”

  “Sounds ghastly,” Laura agreed. “I gather, then, that the Baroness didn’t tell you who we were.”

  “The Baroness seldom tells anybody anything, at least not directly.”

  “True,” Laura agreed. “Is the Baroness responsible for your new and hairy appearance? And why are you disguising yourself?”

  “I did most of it myself,” Thomas answered breezily. “I’ve always wanted a beard, so every once in a while I put one on, just for the experience.” He eyed her attire. “Do you occasionally crave stiff-looking designer suits?”

  “No,” Laura answered tersely. “I dislike them intensely. But why are you in disguise? I don’t believe the beard bit. And ginger hair falling over your eyes and half your face is a bit much.”

  “You’re in disguise, too,” Thomas pointed out. “I imagine we have more or less the same reasons. What are yours?”

  “Occasionally, I don a new persona to remind me how pleasant my own actually is,” Laura replied sarcastically. If he wasn’t going to tell her what he was up to, she wasn’t going to explain, either.

  “Please could you continue your discussion elsewhere?”

  Laura jumped. The librarian had come up behind them so quietly she’d never heard a thing. “Yes, of course, so sorry,” she whispered. “I’ve got to go anyway,” she hissed to Thomas. “I need to search the Baroness’s supplies for an equally conservative outfit for dinner tonight.”

  “Not the sort of thing you generally bring along, I gather,” Thomas remarked as they went outside. “Thank heaven,” he added. “How about that green dress you had on before? I found it fetching.”

  “Thanks.” Laura was pleased. He had actually noticed what she was wearing. Then she glanced at him suspiciously. Was he teasing her again?

  “I gather you and Catherine have had more unusual experiences since I last saw you,” Thomas continued. “I must say that you demonstrate a great deal of ingenuity in extracting yourselves from difficult situations, but you seem to have an equal talent for getting into them. If I remember correctly, you did say you would keep my daughter out of trouble while I was away.”

  “I tried,” Laura said, abashed. “All I did was get into the car Adrian had sent for us to take us to Torrington Manor. That didn’t seem dangerous until Roger pulled out his gun.”

  Thomas suddenly grasped her hands. “Laura, I really need you to understand that this is a job for professionals, not amateurs, however talented or brave they may be. Please, please, don’t do anything rash.”

  “I never do things that are rash,” Laura pointed out. “All I’ve done so far is go on a walking trip, and through no fault of my own I found a body and then I got chased with a knife and locked in a cottage, and then…”

  She stopped abruptly. She wasn’t about to mention the body in the freezer until she’d had a chance to make sure it really was a body.

  “And then?” Thomas prompted. “What else have you found?”

  “Nothing in particular,” Laura hedged, and blushed. She always blushed when she lied. Maybe he wouldn’t see through the makeup.

  His suspicious eyes told her that he had. “You’re a terrible liar,” he commented, but to Laura’s relief, he let the subject drop.

  As soon as they returned to the manor, she went in search of a dinner outfit among the racks of clothes in the workroom. Her own clothes were much too comfortable for Madame Merlin to consider them appropriate. Funky, Donald had called them, which wasn’t precisely true. Birkenstocks were not her style, nor were all those layers of shapeless cotton. The correct word, Laura decided, was individualistic. Her clothes seldom looked like anyone else’s and she liked it that way.

  In the end, she took the Baroness’s advice and wore a black linen suit that looked impossibly conservative. Clip-on gold earrings that pinched her ears, black pumps that pinched her toes and a black clutch purse that did its best to pinch her fingers every time she opened or closed it completed the ensemble. Laura found herself wondering what Thomas would think.

  A pang of guilt assailed her. Maybe she should have told him about the body in the freezer. He had seemed genuinely upset by his colleague’s death, and he would want to know if the poor woman was lying in the freezer. But if she did tell him, he would try to stop her from looking in the freezer again - and from searching the outbuildings and the box room in the attic, all of which she was still determined to do.

  ***********

  Laura took a last look in the mirror, hoping that Madame Merlin’s image would inspire confidence. Then she marched downstairs for the requisite pre-dinner sherry.

  Adrian and Thomas, alias the Scotsman, were both there and came to stand beside her. Adrian gave her one of his probing looks and asked in stilted French if she was all right. Had the Baroness alerted him to her disguise? Either she had, or those eyes were unusually perceptive tonight. They were also very worried, and she hoped he hadn’t come to protect her.

  “Ca va bien,” she told him but his eyes only probed deeper. The man really did look as if he were trying to read her mind. It was most disconcerting.

  Thomas managed to look mischievous despite the beard, making her wonder what he was up to. Like Adrian, he sent her a searching look, but his purpose, she was sure, was to outwit her rather than protect her.

  Dinner was announced and they filed into the dining room. The guests looked stiff and self-conscious, and Laura found herself hoping that Lord Torrington would serve a good wine to loosen them up. Otherwise this was going to be a very long dinner.

  To her dismay, the Baroness directed her to a seat beside Thomas and directly across from Adrian. Now she wouldn’t be able to escape those gimlet eyes or Thomas’s effortless ability to disconcert her.

  The torment began immediately. “Je comprehend que vous aimez les cellars, Madame Merlin,” Thomas asked in indifferent French spoken with what was probably supposed to be a Scots accent. Perhaps sensing the accent was off, he continued in English with a pronounced Scots burr. “I too am fond of cellars. So many treasures and secrets, are there not?”

  “Ma fille…my daugh-ter, aime les caves –ze cellars,” Laura replied firmly, and pretended not to understand the rest of his query. Had he been watching when she looked into the freezer and noticed her shock? Probably he had, she realized sourly. Thomas was hard to fool.

  “So the tour takes you to the cellars, does it?” Adrian remarked stiffly. “I am surprised. Rather musty down there, I should think.”

  Laura smiled at him as if he had said something brilliant. “C’est vrai, Monsieur,” she agreed. “Tres moosty, ees it not?”

  Thomas tried another tack. “Le box room aussi,” he ventured. “Il y a quelque chose tres interessante dans les attiques.”r />
  The Baroness regarded him quizzically. Thomas must know he couldn’t fool her, Laura thought, so who was he trying to fool by playing the Scotsman? Adrian perhaps?

  Thomas’s next words, in Scots again, confirmed it. “I am very grateful, Baroness Smythington, for your introduction to Dr. Banbury. I found his gallery exciting, truly one of the most interesting collections I have come across recently.”

  The Baroness inclined her head graciously, and Thomas turned to Adrian. “I must thank you, too, Banbury, for permitting the tour.”

  “My pleasure,” Adrian replied brusquely, but Laura was sure he hadn’t enjoyed showing his collection to the Scotsman. Why had the Baroness helped Thomas to see the gallery? What was in there that Thomas wanted so badly to see?

  Laura added a second visit to Adrian’s gallery to her list of things to do. First thing in the morning, she decided. Vets were always up early.

  “Je suis tres interessante en les pientures des eighteenth century,” Thomas explained for Laura’s benefit. She nodded politely.

  Since his comment had elicited no response, he returned to his previous question. “Les box room est tres interessante, n’est-ce-pas?”

  Laura nodded again and Adrian smiled at her protectively. No doubt he thought the garrulous Scotsman was irritating her – which he was. With a pointed glance at Thomas, Adrian answered the question instead. Laura was glad to see that for once Thomas looked discomfited.

  “Yes, those old box rooms contain a host of treasures,” Adrian told the Scotsman. “I remember spotting quite a valuable painting among the contents of an old house that were being auctioned off. Apparently it had languished in the box room for all those years. No one else seemed to realize its value, so I was able to procure it for an unusually low sum. Quite a scoop, if I do say so myself.”