“Karen, remember the state they were in that night. Fairly inebriated. How could he have had the wherewithal to conceive a plan like that, let alone carry it out?”
“It sounded like he was gone in his cups—but who knows how drunk he actually was. He might have been faking it.”
“You have a very devious mind. Remind me never to get on the wrong side of you.”
“I don’t think you could do that.”
We kissed. But then I continued. “Remember that Sally had said he was of the House of Savoy. Well, that’s like claiming he’s related to the king of Italy. I don’t know much about the family, but it would be interesting to see if he really is any relation to them.”
“He could be a fraud and still not have killed Sally.”
“Oh, I know, but I’m curious.” I cuddled up to him. “And you are such a whiz on the computer.”
“I’ve always wanted to be a whiz,” Caldwell said, giving me his darling half smile.
“I’ll even do the dishes.”
“ ’Bout time you carried your weight around here,” he said as he left me in the kitchen.
I had just wiped down the counters when he came back in the room and said excitedly, “Come and see what I have discovered.”
Caldwell kept his laptop in his bedroom, set under the front windows overlooking the street, on a small oak desk. He pulled a chair up for me, and first he showed me one picture of an old man in a dark suit. The caption underneath read: “Alfredo Remulado von Savoy.” However, the man was obviously not our Alfredo.
“Could be his father,” I said.
“Yes, perhaps. But I have something else to show you.”
He went to a travel website called Viva Italia! Then he clicked on a button that said “Tours.” A picture came up that showed a tall and handsome man standing in front of a lovely villa. The man had a big, toothy smile and was flourishing one hand as if inviting all to come in.
The man was our Alfredo.
But the caption underneath read: “Giuseppe Molto, tour guide extraordinaire, will show you around the magnificent Villa Pelouza, where you may sample the fine wines and cheeses of the region.”
“Do you think Sally knew about this?” I asked.
“She probably did. Sally loved playacting. She would have fallen right into his role-playing.”
“What about Penelope?”
Caldwell shrugged. “It’s hard to know what went on when Penelope went down to visit. Maybe Sally and Alfredo fooled her the whole time she was there.”
“But to what end?”
“Just for the fun of it.”
“What do you think Penelope would do if she found out? Would she have blamed Sally?”
Caldwell thought for a moment. “I don’t think such a stunt would have caused her to want to hurt her sister—but years of such things might have. Sally was not always very nice to Penelope, often putting her down and teasing her. I actually think Sally was fond of Penelope, but I’m not sure her younger sister ever really knew it.”
“So maybe this charade was the straw that ended up breaking Sally’s back instead of Penelope’s.”
Caldwell said, “Maybe.”
THIRTY-ONE
Rolling, Rolling
I heard Caldwell get out of bed to start breakfast for the guests, but I couldn’t quite rouse myself. I’m not sure how much longer I slept, but when I woke up the sun was definitely shining, and I could hear the sound of people talking downstairs. Time to rise and shine, as my father would say.
Caldwell had emptied out two drawers for me in his dresser, but as I scrounged in them I saw that it was getting to be time to do a load or two of wash. I was running out of outfits to wear. I put on a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of brown corduroy pants. I threw water on my face, brushed my teeth, and took a comb to my hair. It would have to be good enough.
I wasn’t sure what was on our agenda today: finish straightening up the library, read the paper, maybe go book shopping, which we had hardly done since I arrived. Such an outing would be a treat for Caldwell and me, and lord knows we needed a treat. Oh, and find out who had pushed the bookcase over on Sally. Priority number one.
Still trying to wake up, I started down the stairs. The voices from the garden room grew louder. I could hear Alfredo’s (or Giuseppe’s) booming voice above all the rest. I could see how he would make a good tour guide.
Halfway down the stairs, I took a step and my foot hit something round. I went flying.
Thank goodness I remembered the crash course I had taken on jumping out of an airplane. For a couple of weeks, I had dated a paratrooper who wanted to take me skydiving. I never went. I was so thankful we broke up before the scheduled flight. But I still remembered the lessons I had taken in preparation for it—on how to land safely on the ground from a very high fall.
So as I was flying through the air, I managed to tuck and turn on my side. I landed on the carpet at the bottom of the stairs with a big thump. The side of my back and my hip took the force of the landing. Both areas were fairly well padded, but I still had the breath knocked out of me.
Before I could move or speak, or even breathe, I was surrounded by everyone in the house: Bruce, Alfredo, Penelope, Brenda, and, of course, Caldwell. Their faces peered down at me like I was a mouse in a maze. I felt stunned.
Caldwell knelt beside me and held my shoulders. “Don’t move,” he said. “We need to make sure you haven’t broken anything.”
I gasped for air. “Yes,” I wheezed.
His hands felt along my legs and then my arms and my neck. “Where does it hurt? Can you move everything?”
“Yes, I think so.” I whistled a word at a time, trying to reassure him while I was not so sure of my okayness. “Let me catch my breath.”
“Give her some room,” he said to everyone who was crowding over me. They all stepped back, and I felt like I could breathe again.
Slowly I sat up. The room didn’t spin, nothing felt broken, but I knew I was going to have one heck of a bruise on my hip.
“What happened?” Caldwell asked me.
“I stepped on something on the stairs,” I said.
Everyone looked behind me and then shook their heads. I turned my head around and saw what they had seen. Nothing. There was nothing on the stairs, yet I could completely remember the feeling of a rounded thing under my foot.
“There was something there,” I said. “I’m sure of it.”
“You probably caught your toe,” Penelope said.
“Just so long as you’re all right,” Bruce joined in.
“I cleaned the stairs yesterday,” Brenda said. “So they might have been a bit slippy.”
“What do you think it was?” Caldwell asked.
At least he believed me.
“Oh, silly me. You’re all probably right,” I said, trying my best to sound lighthearted about my slip.
I knew I hadn’t caught my toe or slipped on the stairs. The rounded object had been under the ball of my foot. But I decided not to argue. I would act as if everything was okay. If someone had put something on the stairs, maybe it was better not to let them know I was onto them.
Caldwell helped me up and, while my hip ached, nothing seemed to be broken or even sprained.
But I would find out who had put something on the stairs for me to trip over. I knew it had not been an accident.
THIRTY-TWO
Shopping as Antidote
After all the guests had cleared out for the morning, I checked around the stairs, looking for something that I might have tripped over. The hall was clean and empty, but the kitchen was right next to the stairs. Whoever had done it might have stashed the implement there. But when I started to look, Caldwell came in and asked me what I was doing. I didn’t want to tell him there. I felt like someone might overhear us and I wanted to be cautious.
“You’re limping a bit,” he said.
“I’m fine,” I assured him.
“Sit down. I’ll make you s
ome tea.”
When Caldwell and I were sitting down for a “cuppa” on our own—actually, he was doing the dishes and I was sitting with my feet up, resting from my fall—I said, “Let’s go look at some old books in a store you haven’t shown me yet. Remember your long list of shops we were planning on visiting—to get ideas and maybe some books?”
He turned around so fast, he sprayed the kitchen with water from his hands. “Really?” he asked. “Do you think you’re up to it?”
I stood up, trying not to show how much my hip ached, brushed myself off, and said, “Absolutely good to go.”
“That would be lovely,” he said.
I loved how men in England could say lovely and not sound like a prissy lady. I couldn’t imagine an American male ever saying the word lovely, even to his girlfriend, even when she was lovely.
“You’re sure?” he asked again. “I’ve been wanting to show you this new smallish shop that I’ve discovered. It’s walking distance away. Could you manage a walk, do you think?”
“I think a nice, easy walk with books at the end would be just what the doctor ordered,” I said.
“What a smart doctor,” Caldwell said, and wiped his hands on a towel. “I can be ready to go in a sec.”
“Me too,” I said. When he turned back to put the dishes away, I hobbled out of the kitchen. As I walked I noticed that my hip eased up and my back didn’t hurt so much. Some movement would be good for me.
It was a perfect English day: brisk enough for a coat, but not so cold you needed a hat; a scattering of clouds in the sky, but nothing ominous. Caldwell and I started off. He took my arm, and we walked slowly down the streets. I felt so at home with him by my side.
As much as I hated to ruin our contentedness, I had to tell him of my concern. “You know when I fell . . .”
“Yes, it was awful,” he said as if I needed reassurance.
“Yes, whatever. But what I’m trying to tell you is I’m sure I stepped on something.”
He nodded. “I don’t doubt it. I’ve never seen you be clumsy or trip. On the contrary, you are exceptionally stable.”
“Well, be that as it may, I felt something under my foot and it was round—like a can or a rolling pin.”
“Rolling pin?” he asked, his eyebrows shooting up to the middle of his forehead. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, why?”
“When I was putting the dishes away this morning, I went to put the silver in the drawer and found the rolling pin in there. Not where it belongs. But it is the closest drawer to the door.”
“That is interesting. Who had the opportunity to put it on the stairs and then replace it in the kitchen?”
Caldwell stopped walking, and so I stopped too. He thought, then shook his head. “I’m afraid everyone. Except me. I was totally focused on you, so I wasn’t watching what anyone else was doing.”
“And the kitchen is so close to the stairs it wouldn’t have been hard for anyone to put the rolling pin back.”
“It might have been an accident. Both your fall and that the rolling pin was in the wrong drawer,” Caldwell said, and I could tell he was trying to convince himself of this possibility because the alternative was so unpleasant. We started walking again, holding hands.
“Yes,” I said. “But I rather doubt it.”
He sighed. “Why would anyone want to hurt you? You might have been . . .” Again, he stopped as he thought of what might have happened. “Why, Karen, you might have been killed.”
“Yes, I know.”
“What is going on?”
“Someone is very angry about something.”
“But what do you have to do with that?” he asked.
“Maybe they don’t like it that I’m nosing around. Maybe they think if I was put out of action by a fall, you would end up taking the blame for Sally’s death and they would be safe.”
“Yes, that must be it.” He grabbed my arm even tighter than before and we continued walking.
“Or,” I said, “maybe someone just doesn’t like me.”
THIRTY-THREE
What Would HP Do?
The shop wasn’t on Caldwell’s list of the best booksellers in London, but it was small and quaint, and struck me as a good model for the shop we were thinking of starting. A sign that read FUDGEWINKLE’S FOLLY hung above the door and made me like it already.
When we walked in three things happened: a tinkling bell rang; a large, orange-colored cat, stretched out in a spot of sun, raised its head; and an older, thin man sitting behind a desk looked up from the book he was reading. All of which I took for good signs.
Also, my hip was feeling better. The walk and Caldwell’s concern had more than improved my spirits.
“Good day,” the thin man said.
We both answered that it was a good day. The thin man, I saw as we got closer, was not as old as I’d thought he might be. He just dressed old—wearing a bow tie and a ratty cardigan sweater. While his clothes spoke of someone in his eighties, his smooth face and dark hair said thirties.
I couldn’t help myself. I had to ask. “Are you Fudgewinkle?”
The thin man smiled. “No, that’s Fudgewinkle.” He pointed at the cat, who was now in the process of cleaning an outstretched leg. “This, however,” he said, moving an arm to encompass the shop, “is the folly.”
“And a wonderful folly it is,” said Caldwell, and he stepped forward to shake the thin man’s hand. “Poppy, this is my friend, Karen Nash, from America. Karen, this is Poppy Stoneheart, bookseller extraordinaire.” The thin man then shook my hand.
“Anything new come in that I might be interested in? You know my taste,” Caldwell said.
“As in something I might tempt you with?” Poppy asked. “I had the extreme good fortune recently to buy up the entire library of an old estate—a marvelous collection although not in the best shape. I just finished putting the books where they belong, so you’ll have to look around to find them.”
I noticed that there were signs above most of the shelves categorizing the books. Most helpful. I found the shelf of mysteries and decided I would start there. As I stood in front of the rows of books, reaching too far above my head, I felt like I was back with my own people: Josephine Tey, Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, the older vanguard of British women mystery writers. I loved them dearly and was always on the lookout for a new addition to my library.
I had to remind myself that I should really be shopping for our store, and then caught myself as I thought the word our. After all, I hadn’t yet made a decision on my involvement with said store. But I found it hard to think of Caldwell starting the store without me. I made note of that. Maybe I was closer to a decision than I knew. How odd to be surprised by oneself.
The books were shelved in very good order—simple, just alphabetical by author’s name, but often, like with Agatha Christie, they were also alphabetical by title. This was a touch that made my librarian’s heart sing.
Suddenly I saw a book I had never seen but only read about—Ten Little Niggers by Agatha Christie—the first British edition, published in 1939 by the Collins Crime Club.
When it came out in the United States the next year, the title, because it was so politically incorrect (even though that phrase hadn’t been coined yet), was changed to And Then There Were None. The book became Christie’s bestselling novel and the bestselling mystery of all time.
I wanted it. For me.
The price was six thousand dollars. Way out of my range. But probably worth it—the dust jacket was in very good condition, featuring ten small black men dancing on a disk with a hand coming down to pick one of them up.
As I held the book out in front of me, I foresaw a problem with buying books for the store—would I want them all for myself ? I needed to learn how to shop for the general public, and that meant learning the prices on books and what was a deal, what we could make money on.
I made myself put the book back on the shelf and pulled down another of Agatha Christi
e’s books, a lovely original edition of Appointment with Death.
I always loved the books of hers that included a scene where Hercule Poirot meets with all the suspects and, to the amazement of the police, explains how and why the murders were done. There was something about this clarity that so pleased my library mind—a place for everything and everything in its place.
I closed my eyes, held the book to my chest, and savored it. What a genius Agatha Christie was. She wrote book after book, murder after unusual murder, then solved each one with some nice neat little package of a treatise.
Then my thoughts shifted to our own possible murder case. How I would love to turn into Poirot, replete with mustache, and call the possible suspects—Penelope, Alfredo, Brenda, Bruce, and, yes, Caldwell and myself—to the garden room, where I would then explain how the books came to tumble down on Sally.
Maybe I could do it—if I knew the answers to a few more questions.
THIRTY-FOUR
A Little Cry
When we got home, Caldwell went upstairs to take a nap and I wandered toward the back room to page through my new books. Besides the Agatha Christie I had splurged on a Tey and a Marsh. I was just getting used to the idea that I could spend a little more money on books than I was used to. Again, bless the Flush Budget. Who would have thought so much good could come from a toilet?
I thought it very sweet that Caldwell was comfortable enough with me that he would take a nap if he needed one and not worry about me. The thought of him sleeping was in itself comforting.
When I walked into the garden room, I found two weeping women—Penelope and Brenda—already occupying it. Penelope was using a lovely linen handkerchief to wipe her tears away, while Brenda was using what looked to be a dustrag. I hoped it had not been used earlier for its original purpose.
Death Overdue (Librarian Mysteries) Page 13