Walking Into Murder

by JOAN DAHR LAMBERT

  She rose and walked slowly over to Thomas. “I might have known,” he muttered morosely as she approached. “Simply can’t stay away from the action.”

  Laura flinched. He looked terrible. His face was ghostly, and one arm hung limply by his side. “Were you shot?” she asked fearfully, putting the bust down beside him.

  “Just a bump,” he assured her bravely, and quickly spoiled the effect of this manly dismissal. “Actually, it hurts like hell,” he complained as Laura examined the arm gently, looking for blood or some other sign of injury.

  “There’s no blood,” she pointed out.

  “No,” he said grimly. “Dislocated shoulders do not bleed, but if you would prefer some blood, I imagine that can be arranged.”

  “I am sure it can,” Antonia agreed unpleasantly.

  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.”