by Emily Queen
Mr. Wright’s forehead creased as he furrowed his brow, and suddenly he looked even older. “You young women these days think you can speak to your elders any way you like. Don’t forget I could call the police and press charges against you, or at the very least have you removed from this hotel,” he reprimanded. He might as well have shaken a finger at her.
“A course of action you would find more difficult than you think,” Vera huffed, “now that we have a better idea of what you’ve been up to. I’d say we have more ammunition than you do, so why don’t we just cooperate with one another?”
“You’re certain the hotel is not available?”
“I am, and I have it on very good authority.”
“Then, I am sunk. Cecily DeVant’s death was a matter of great inconvenience to me.”
“Have you any idea who killed her?” Rosemary asked bluntly, thoroughly irritated by the events of the afternoon and no longer remotely scared of Richard Wright.
The man sank down into the desk chair and heaved an enormous sigh as though defeated. “How on earth should I know?” he asked.
“You must have seen something or heard something that makes you think it’s one person or another,” Rosemary said, still awkwardly holding her bloody hand against her skirt. She shifted her weight to her other foot and vehemently wished he’d invite her to sit even though the circumstances of their presence in his room didn’t dictate that he was required to do so.
“I was given to understand Miss DeVant had stepped in to run the hotel because the owner was in ill health and that it would likely go up for sale in the event of his passing. When I looked into public records, however, I was unable to find the owner’s name.”
Pausing, he waved a hand towards the nearby sofa. “Sit, please.” Wright cleared his throat. “I thought if I could only speak to him, I could get him to sell sooner. Take the white elephant off his hands, as it were.”
Rosemary cocked a brow at him. “While working steadily to drive the price down by undermining the hotel’s reputation.”
A dull red color crept up from beneath Wright’s collar as Rose pinned his motive with deadly accuracy.
“Say what you like, but I’ve seen a great many things during my stay at this hotel. Discovering the two of you in my coat cupboard isn’t even terribly shocking. Not, mind you, that I expect to find either of you poking around my room again.”
His reprimand had weight behind it, but Mr. Wright was still taking their trespassing with surprising aplomb, especially considering his usual churlish demeanor. He crossed his legs and determined himself to brave out the accusation.
“As to the murder, it could have been any one of them. Yes, I suspect it could have been. Miss DeVant made it a point to harangue every single one of her staff at one point or another. Is it any wonder they all seemed to despise the woman?”
Having seen Cecily taking Gloria to task, Rose offered no argument.
“But would a public dressing down be a motive for murder?” Wright mused. “A rather extreme reaction, what? There are plenty of places to work on this island. Maybe none of the other hotels hold the same status as The Aphrodite, but…” he trailed off. “Though I suspect the young maid will struggle to live up to higher standards than she’s been held to at this establishment.”
“You can’t possibly think Charlotte killed Miss DeVant,” Vera said incredulously. It seemed everyone wanted to point the finger in her direction. “Especially if Cecily’s death would put her in dire straits.”
“I shouldn’t think so, but as a seasoned traveler, I’ve stayed in hotels in every major European city, America, and the West Indies. Never have I seen the level of patience Miss DeVant showed that maid, with the exception of family ties. I don’t believe little Charlotte is related to Miss DeVant, but I do believe there was some deeper connection between the two. Murder is often committed for personal reasons, don’t you know?”
Having heard enough to know Mr. Wright hadn’t a clue, nor was he responsible for Cecily’s death, Rose stood to leave. “I’m sorry to have troubled you, and I’d like to thank you for being so patient with us after we invaded your privacy.”
“Quite all right, young lady. No harm done.” He graciously waved away the apology. “And you’re quite certain the hotel will not be sold?”
“As certain as I can be.” With that, Rose and Vera swept from the room with more information than they’d had going in, but also with more questions than answers.
Chapter 19
Having learned his secrets, Rosemary and Vera exited Richard Wright’s room to find Frederick and Desmond waiting outside the door of their suite. “What have you two been doing in there?” Frederick demanded before he noticed the blood on Rosemary’s dress. “And what did he do to you?” If looks could kill, Richard Wright would have been dead right on the spot.
“Nothing, Freddie, calm down,” Rosemary said, averting her eyes from Desmond’s gaze. His face had turned bright red, and his fingers clenched at his sides. She still hadn’t been alone with him and they’d hardly spoken since their kiss on the beach. Due, no doubt, to the poor way she’d handled the awkward moment, and probably to Max’s arrival as well.
Seeing her hurt, however, softened his resolve even as he felt his blood rise up to a boil at the thought of anyone harming her. “I cut myself on a nail is all. I’m fine, I simply need a moment to get cleaned up.”
Inside their suite, Anna’s bedroom door was closed, and they could hear her moving around on the other side. By the time Rosemary had changed her clothes and allowed Vera to help her dress the wound on her hand, Max had arrived to round out the group.
He paced across the sitting room, his brow furrowed. “I’ve been looking for the lot of you for hours. Where have you been?”
“Well, first we were talking to Benny, the porter,” Rosemary explained sheepishly. “He didn’t attack Gloria or Cecily for that matter, but let’s keep that to ourselves and let Inspector Boothe run around in circles.”
“I don’t know who Benny the porter is,” Max reminded her. “I only arrived last night, remember?”
Rosemary accepted the gin and tonic Frederick pressed into her hand and grinned up at him. “Thank you,” she said, for once thoroughly pleased that her brother always had a cocktail at the ready. “Benny is a big hulking man child whose deep, dark secret is that he’s hiding a puppy in his staff cabin.”
“Oh,” Max said, catching up. “Gloria mentioned him, and she told the inspector that Benny was supposed to work this morning and never arrived.”
“Yes, that’s correct. The thing is, he says he had the day off and the other porter, the one who has been out of work due to an accident, was actually scheduled. An innocent mix up from the sounds of it, and of no concern to the case.”
“We also managed to check Richard Wright off the list of suspects,” Vera sounded quite pleased with herself. Rosemary sipped her drink and allowed Vera to tell the tale with all the pomp and circumstance of a trained actress.
“He could barely stomach the spots of blood on Rose’s dress, let alone have bludgeoned Cecily to death. It would have taken someone with a strong constitution if not actual physical strength. Which also, one would assume, negates the possibility of it having been little Charlotte, the maid. She’s a mere slip of a thing, after all.”
She couldn’t help but include the not-so-subtle dig in her retelling of the events of the afternoon, and though Desmond appeared to be having second thoughts about their number one suspect, her words didn’t have the intended effect of extinguishing Frederick’s conviction.
“You don’t know that for certain, Vera,” he said sharply. “Desperate people do desperate things. As evidenced by your brash attempt to break into Mr. Wright’s suite.”
Max cleared his throat loudly. “He’s right, you know, and actually, Rose, these two may not be as far off base as you’d like to believe.”
Vera snapped her mouth shut and stared at Max with barely concealed irrita
tion. “What do you mean?”
“Well, Inspector Boothe came through with some information, and I’ve spent all afternoon communicating with London to confirm it. What it amounts to is this: Charlotte’s last name is Marlowe.”
Rosemary’s sip of gin and tonic went down wrong, and after a bout of coughing, she exclaimed, “As in Benjamin Marlowe?”
“The same. She’s his wife.” He paused a moment to let the news sink in. “Apparently, she left him and then came down here to lay low. He’s been looking for her for months. The missing person report ran across my desk, but I didn’t make the connection until the inspector here in Cyprus filled me in.” The fact didn’t appear to please him, but he shrugged it off.
“I knew it!” Vera cried. “I knew she wasn’t just a lowly maid.” She flushed, grateful Anna was in the other room and hadn’t heard the comment.
“Richard Wright said he thought there had to be a more personal connection between her and Cecily,” Rosemary said thoughtfully. “Perhaps Cecily found out who she really was, and…but that doesn’t make any sense. One would think, if that were the case, the blackmail would have worked the other way around.”
“Unless,” Desmond said, drawing out the word, “she’s the one who was stealing money. Cecily tried to draw the thief out, promising that if the money was returned, she’d drop the issue. Let’s say it was Charlotte; that would have given her reason to threaten Cecily. Those letters contained only threats, correct? No demands? Maybe Charlotte wanted Cecily to drop it so she could keep the money and run.”
Anna’s door creaked open behind the group, and a voice that wasn’t hers spoke into the din. “Those are all very interesting theories, but unfortunately none of you have hit the nail on the head.” Rosemary and her friends whipped around to see Charlotte standing with her hands on her hips, a snarl painted across her narrow face.
“Where did you come from?” Rosemary asked even as she figured out that it had been Charlotte in Anna’s room the entire time, and that the girl had overheard everything they’d been saying about her.
“I’m a maid. I was doing my job. Cleaning up after the likes of you all day long wasn’t exactly my life’s ambition, you know!” Malice etched her face. Even though she’d denied the accusations against her, Charlotte looked, for the first time, as though she might have been able to carry out a grisly murder after all.
“If I’d stolen that money, don’t you think I would have used it to get out of here? Why would I continue to do a job that I detest? And I didn’t kill Miss DeVant, either. She was my friend,” Charlotte said, her voice hitting a pitch so shrill Max put a finger to his ear and cringed.
“But that morning,” Rosemary said slowly, “after I found the body when the police were about to question you. You said you didn’t like Cecily.” She thought back and realized that perhaps Charlotte hadn’t quite said as much after all. “Didn’t you?”
Charlotte snorted. “No, I didn’t. You said nobody liked her. I didn’t disagree, but that’s because I was upset. Miss DeVant knew about my estrangement from Ben, and she felt sorry for me. She knew what it would mean—a divorce”—Charlotte spat out the word as if burned her tongue “to my family and to my friends. Some of us were raised with high morals and standards. Some of us don’t subscribe to the theory that marriage ought to be tossed over just because a couple isn’t as happy as they thought they would be!”
Frederick, apparently having come to terms with the fact that he might have been wrong—or perhaps scared that if somehow, Charlotte was still lying, she might make him her next victim—poured the girl a brandy. “Why don’t you sit down and tell us what’s going on,” he said, attempting to lead her towards an armchair.
“No!” Charlotte cried. “I don’t want a drink, and I don’t want to calm down. All I wanted was to make my husband realize what a mistake he’d made. I thought, eventually, that he would tire of his debauchery, come find me, and bring me home.”
A look of distaste mixed with pity crossed Vera’s face. What sort of modern woman would behave this way? She wondered. It hadn’t occurred to her that not all women were as modern as she was.
“Instead,” Charlotte continued, “he brought that hussy Geneviève here with him, and tried to bribe me to petition for divorce.” She was pacing at this point, and in such a tizzy that the hair pulled severely back from her face and wound into a bun had come loose. Tendrils of auburn spilled around her eyes, which were wild with rage. “All he wants is her money and to use her as a trophy. Believe me, if I were going to kill anyone, it would be the two-bit tramp who stole my husband!”
Rosemary wasn’t sure quite what to say or how to handle the situation and was relieved when Max took control. “Charlotte, I’m sure we’re all terribly sorry for what you’ve been through—and for good reason. If what you say is true, and you cared about Miss DeVant, perhaps you know something that might help us catch her killer.”
“Well,” Charlotte said, taking a deep breath and sinking, finally, into one of the armchairs. “That horrible Richard Wright was trying to put something over on Miss DeVant. I wouldn’t put anything past him. He’s spent the last two weeks terrorizing the rest of the staff and me. For what purpose I couldn’t say, though I suspect it has something to do with money. As things so often do.”
“Cecily had, in her possession, letters of a threatening nature. We know Richard Wright didn’t blackmail Cecily,” Rosemary explained. “He would have if he’d had the opportunity, but he couldn’t find anything to hold over her head. Someone else must have had reason to write those letters though. They have to mean something.”
“Do you still have them?” Charlotte asked.
Rosemary produced the clutch that held the stack of notes and handed it to Charlotte. “Cecily left this in our room the night before she was murdered. I suppose we should have handed them over to Boothe,” she said when she saw the look on Max’s face. “It just now occurs to me that we’ve withheld evidence.”
Charlotte fingered the handbag, a puzzled expression on her face. “This isn’t Miss DeVant’s,” she said. “It wasn’t her style. I’ve seen it before, but I can’t for the life of me remember where. Perhaps in one of the guest rooms…”
“If that’s not Cecily’s, then maybe the letters aren’t hers either!” Rosemary exclaimed. “Could we have been chasing a dead end this whole time?” The new information forced her to look at things from another perspective. She began to pace the room, much as Charlotte had done, talking to herself as she did.
“We know it wasn’t Benny; his alibi makes too much sense, and I just can’t see him as the violent type. Richard Wright has too weak a stomach for murder. None of the other staff seem dissatisfied enough to resort to murder. I hate to broach the subject, but just how duplicitous is your husband?”
Charlotte hopped to her feet, the blood rising to her face. “It wasn’t Ben,” she snapped. “He was with me the night Miss DeVant was killed.”
Max whipped his head around to face Charlotte, “All night?”
She shot him an indignant look, and spat, “He was still my husband, so if I had been with him all night, there would have been no shame to it. We were together until after midnight, and though I don’t owe anyone an explanation, it wasn’t a scandalous meeting.” The blush rose to her cheeks again, and Rosemary tilted her head.
“Would he have liked it to be?” she asked, going with her hunch.
“He’s a man,” Charlotte responded without meeting Rosemary’s gaze. “But he’s not a murderer. His new fiancée proves his taste in women has declined, but there’s no crime in chasing after the wrong skirts. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a job to do.” She gathered her cart from the other room and made for the door.
“If you remember where you saw that clutch, please let us know immediately,” Rosemary implored the maid as Charlotte closed the door behind her.
Chapter 20
“As if my opinion of Benjamin Marlowe could have been any lower.”
Vera’s lips twisted with disdain. “He’s the lowest form of life.”
“Huzzah!” Freddie said. “I’ve finally been bumped out of my prime position on your list of men to hate.”
“Don’t be too sure, Frederick Woolridge.” Vera rounded on him. “There’s plenty of room for you still. What makes you any different? You go through women like you go through good gin.”
“The difference, Vera my love,” Freddie said, smiling, but with no trace of his usual cheer, “is that I am footloose and fancy free, and therefore, am entitled to sample my share of the fairer sex. As you should well know, Miss Pot.”
“Don’t you paint me with your depraved brush, Mr. Kettle.” The two squared off yet again. “I’m not the one cutting a swath through every available man on the island.”
“Here, now. I haven’t been out with every available woman.”
Vera picked up on the implied insult, and her claws came out. “I’ll amend my statement to only include the ones dimwitted enough to fall for your overblown charms. Why can’t you be more like Des? Des is a gentleman. Look at how he handled the situation with Rosemary.”
“What situation with Rosemary?” Max was the one who voiced the question, and Vera, her eyes still locked on Freddie’s face, answered without thinking.
“When Des steals a kiss from a woman, and she’s not sure how she feels, does he press the advance? No, he does what a gentleman does and gives her time to think about her feelings and lets her make up her mind in her own time.”
Unaware of the rising tension in other parts of the room, Frederick stepped closer to Vera, so close his breath mingled with hers. “Trust me, Vera dear, if I decided to press my advance, you’d know how you felt about it without me having to give you time to think.”
Vera shivered under the heat of Freddie’s gaze, and after, couldn’t say what might have happened next between them, but before anything could, the sound of Max’s voice cut the moment short.