Death by the Book

by Deering, Julianna

  “Why don’t you just call Bunny on the telephone?”

  “Well, I could, darling, but then I wouldn’t get to see his new motor car. It’s a Lagonda.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You boys and your motor cars.”

  They went into the Queen Bess and straight to the front desk where a frazzled Mrs. Burrell greeted him with a reasonable amount of cordiality.

  “Have you and the young lady come to lunch again?”

  “No, actually.” Drew took the questionable key from his pocket and showed it to her. “I think this may belong to you. Has one of yours gone missing?”

  The woman drew her heavy brows together as she studied it. “It’s certainly one of ours, but no, I didn’t know we were missing of it. Of course, with Sarah and Maggie both out sick and me left to do their work and my own, I might not take notice if the kitchen went missing.”

  Drew leaned on the desk conspiratorially. “I wonder who’s in room four right now.”

  “None of your honeyed words this time, Mr. Drew. Don’t think I’ve forgotten the mischief you made in my inn the last time I let you talk me into something.”

  He put a touch of roguishness into his smile. “Now, admit it. There was no harm done in the least. In fact, I imagine there will be a lot of people wanting to come here, not in spite of that little scandal but because of it. How many of them have the chance to stay where a famous cinema star has stayed?”

  “That’s as may be, Mr. Drew, but I have a duty to my guests to keep their business private. So if you’ll kindly return hotel property, I’ll be getting back to my work.”

  Sighing, Drew surrendered the key into her outstretched hand.

  “Thank you. Now, if there’s nothing more—”

  “I wonder if that’s my cousin in room four.” Madeline appealed to her with a smile. “I can’t think of how else I might have picked up this key without noticing it.”

  “Cousin, miss?”

  “Yes, Mr. Frederick Bell. The gentleman we had lunch with here a couple of days ago.”

  “The American gentleman. Oh, yes. I should have known he would know you, being American and all, but I didn’t know you were cousins.”

  Drew gave Madeline a suspicious look, but the expression of innocence on her face did not change.

  “Well, we’re not really cousins, you know. Not technically. But we say ‘cousin,’ even though it’s not so close a family relationship.”

  The older woman displayed a reluctant grin. “Well, I know how that is, dearie. My mother had an aunt her same age, couldn’t abide when Mum called her Aunt Tilda. Always made her say cousin, too.” She jangled the key playfully. “And no harm done with this. I’ll see Mr. Bell has it back, though how he’s gotten in and out since he lost it, I’ll have him explain.”

  “Is he in at the moment?” Drew asked.

  “Mr. Bell? Haven’t I got enough to keep me hopping here without minding the whereabouts of all my guests day and night?” Just then the telephone rang, and she threw up her hands. “It just doesn’t stop, I tell you.”

  Drew took Madeline’s arm. “Come along, darling. If we’re going to track down your Mr. Bell, I suppose we’ll have to—”

  “You two looking for me?”

  They turned to see Bell standing not two feet behind them, grinning as usual.

  “Oh, hullo, Bell.” Drew shook the man’s hand. “In point of fact, we were.”

  “Really? What for?”

  “Have you been missing your room key?”

  “Why, yes. Yes, I have. Did you find it?”

  “Madeline came across it this morning. We’ve just turned it in.”

  “Well, that’s a relief. I looked all over for the stupid thing. Where’d you find it?”

  Madeline’s cheeks turned a little pink, but she smiled. “In my handbag, as a matter of fact. Do you know how it could have gotten in there?”

  Bell glanced at Drew. “That’s kind of awkward, isn’t it?”

  “Rather.” There was no humor in Drew’s expression. “But the question remains. Do you know how it got there?”

  He shrugged, shaking his head. “You’ve got me.”

  “When was the last time you had it?”

  “Last time I know for sure was when I left the room yesterday morning to go buy some things here in the village. I went to the drugstore and the post office, a couple of other places. I don’t remember. I bought a few things here and there and then came back. That was when I had the message that I was invited to your party last night. After that broke up, I went up to London with your friend Bunny and his gang, got in at a reasonably prodigal hour this morning, and darned if I couldn’t find my key.”

  “Why didn’t you tell Mrs. Burrell you’d lost it?”

  “Heck, I didn’t want to get on her bad side. I was afraid I’d have to tell her if I was going to get into my room, but then I saw one of those passkeys hung up behind the desk. I didn’t think it’d hurt anything if I borrowed it until I found my own.”

  “And you didn’t put yours into Miss Parker’s purse?”

  “No. Why would I?”

  “An invitation perhaps?”

  Bell’s affable expression turned decidedly cool. “In my country, we consider those kinds of remarks an insult to a lady.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  Drew fixed him with a hard glare, but blast it if the American didn’t give him as good in return. Madeline finally came between them.

  “Grow up, both of you. Maybe I picked it up by accident somewhere when Aunt Ruth and I were in the village yesterday. All that matters now is that it’s back where it belongs, right?”

  Drew still stared at Bell, his jaw clenched. Bell narrowed his eyes.

  Madeline shook Drew’s arm. “Right?”

  “Oh, yes, right. Right.”

  She smiled sweetly and turned to Bell. “And I can’t imagine you’d be so ungentlemanly as to make that kind of assumption about me, Freddie.”

  “I hold you in the utmost respect, Miss Parker.” He made a slight bow. “I apologize for any embarrassment I may unwittingly have caused.”

  She smiled again and took his arm, too. “Now that’s settled, where are you both taking me for lunch?”

  “My treat this time,” Bell said. “I insist.”

  “Now, hold on here a moment, Madeline.” Drew extricated himself from her grasp. “I have another question or two before you make us swear brothers and all.”

  She laughed. “Well, ask them then. I’m hungry.”

  Drew glared at Bell once more. “If you misplaced your key somewhere in one of the shops, how did you get back into your room to dress for the party?”

  The American’s ubiquitous grin reappeared. “I never lock up during the day. I didn’t bring anything on the trip worth stealing except what I’ve got on me.”

  “So you couldn’t say if you did or did not have the key at that time? Or if you lost it later? At the party, for example?”

  “Afraid not.”

  Madeline took Drew’s arm again. “You’re making an awful fuss over nothing, aren’t you?”

  He gave her a reluctant nod. “Perhaps I am. All right then, I believe Mr. Bell was about to treat us to some sort of ostentatious feast, wasn’t he?”

  “You just see if I don’t.”

  Bell led them into the dining room, and just as they were about to sit down, someone called from the far corner of the room.

  “Young Farthering!”

  Drew grinned, gave Madeline a sly wink, then turned to the older gentleman raising a pint to them.

  “Good afternoon.” Drew escorted Madeline to him, Bell in tow. “How are you, Mr. Llewellyn? You remember Miss Parker?”

  “Oh, certainly, certainly.” Llewellyn stood, shaking Drew’s hand and then bowing over Madeline’s. “Charming to see you again, ma’am.”

  “It’s good to see you too, Mr. Llewellyn. Have you and Mr. Bell met?”

  Bell gave the gentleman’s hand a hear
ty shake. “We have.”

  “Did you find your guidebook, young fellow?” Llewellyn asked Bell.

  “A suitcase full, sir, but none as thorough as these two.” He grinned at Drew and Madeline. “And none as good with current events.”

  Llewellyn laughed and gestured to his otherwise empty table. “You’ll all join me, I hope. Miss Parker?”

  “Oh, no, Mr. Llewellyn. We wouldn’t dream of disturbing your lunch.” Drew could see his plate of bangers and mash was more than half gone. “You wouldn’t want to be bothered with our nonsense.”

  Llewellyn grinned and pulled out a chair for Madeline. “Your nonsense wouldn’t happen to be about these recent, um, incidents, would it?” He glanced at Madeline, but when he looked again at Drew there was a conspiratorial glint in his rheumy eyes. Madeline was already sitting by then, so the two young men sat at the table with her. “Any break in the case, Farthering?” Llewellyn asked.

  Drew frowned. “Not really, sir. No.”

  “Pity about the Deschner girl, eh?” Llewellyn shook his head. “Shocking stuff.”

  Drew nodded, remembering the poor girl sitting there, still and cold, in that zebra-striped chair. “Certainly that.”

  “Still, a girl like that was bound to have a wrong end. Nearly unavoidable.” Llewellyn leaned forward a bit. “Fast, you know. I heard they’re holding Roger Morris for it.”

  “For now.”

  Llewellyn made a sour face. “Extremely unlikely. Not at all the type, young Morris. I knew his father. Bit of a weed when he was a boy, but right enough.”

  “Little enough to go on for the son, isn’t it?” Drew observed.

  Llewellyn shrugged. “Might be, I suppose. You’ll see, though. Study this sort of thing, and you’ll see. There’s always method in the madness, mark you that.”

  “And have you studied ‘this sort of thing’?” Bell asked with his usual smile. “I’d’ve thought, out here away from the city, you’d have very little to work with. Until recently, I mean.”

  “True enough, young man, true enough. Sometimes the quarry is close to hand. Sometimes it is to be chased after. And sometimes it is to be driven from the brush by oneself.” His bushy white brows lifted. “Ah, there’s Mrs. Burrell to take your orders.”

  After lunch, and after declining Bell’s invitation to take in the marvels of Eastleigh, Bishopstoke, and Fisher’s Pond, not to mention Lower Upham and even Upham itself, leisure and weather allowing, Drew and Madeline took their time walking back up to Farthering Place.

  “Funny old man, Mr. Llewellyn,” she said. “He knows a lot about a lot of things.”

  “Does know a bit about the Civil War, doesn’t he?” He squeezed her hand. “Yours and mine.”

  “And bicycles.”

  “And murders too, it seems.”

  Madeline shuddered. “I realize he wants to know everything about everything, but I wish he hadn’t always wanted to talk about that in particular. Especially the last one.”

  Drew put his arm around her. “Sorry, darling. It’s like any small place, in America as well, I suspect. People have little else to amuse themselves other than local gossip, even something as lurid as murder.”

  “Even?” She laughed. “Especially.”

  “Yes, well, there is that.” He handed her across the little stream that ran behind Rose Cottage. “What I’d like to know, though, is what made you come to the conclusion that the key to room four belonged to your ‘cousin.’”

  Again she laughed. “I didn’t come to any conclusion. I just figured that since he’s the only one I know who’s staying at the Queen Bess, he was as good a guess as any.”

  “And just what is this cousin business? Not only are you not cousins, you’re not related in the slightest.”

  “I told the woman at the inn that it wasn’t a close relationship. We’re all related to Noah, aren’t we?”

  Drew chuckled. “I see I’m going to have to keep a close watch on you, my girl.”

  Chief Inspector Birdsong was good enough to arrange for Drew to meet with Roger Morris the next afternoon. The interview room at the jail was small and grim, just four gray walls with a table and two chairs.

  The guard was friendly and exhibited no more than routine suspicion. “You don’t have anything on your person you shouldn’t, do you, sir?”

  “I assure you, officer, all the cakes with files and saw blades baked into them are securely locked up at home.”

  The officer grinned, showing a gap between his front teeth, and left Drew alone with the prisoner, locking the door firmly behind him.

  Roger sat in the chair, his body twisted up, as if he wanted to curl up into an oblivious little ball but was only just managing to refrain.

  Drew sat in the chair opposite him. “How are things, old man?”

  Roger merely rocked himself in the chair, the motion hardly detectable, his eyes large and dark and staring at nothing.

  “Rog?”

  Finally he looked at Drew. “It’s good of you to come, but I don’t expect you’ll want to waste your time coming here to see me. It’s all over.”

  “Nonsense.” Drew tried to sound encouraging. “We’ll get it all sorted out and you’ll be fine.”

  “I didn’t tell you everything last night.”

  Drew raised one eyebrow. “You didn’t?”

  “They’ll hang me.”

  “What didn’t you tell me, Rog?”

  Roger again stared at nothing.

  “Rog.” Drew snapped his fingers in front of his friend’s face. “What didn’t you tell me?”

  Roger flinched. “It’s not . . . it’s not all that much. Not really. But it looks bad. It looks dreadful.”

  “I didn’t come to play parlor games. Just tell me.”

  Roger hesitated a moment more and then pulled down his shirt collar on the left side, revealing three still-fresh scratches, angrily red.

  “Clarice?”

  Eyes closed, Roger nodded.

  He was right. It was dreadful.

  “Why in the world didn’t you say something straightaway? You had to have known they’d find out.”

  “I don’t know.” He seized Drew’s sleeve with both hands, clinging to him. “You’ve got to help me. I swear, I didn’t kill her.”

  Drew could either pity the man or help him. But pity wasn’t going to keep his neck out of a noose.

  Drew shook free of him. “Get hold of yourself.”

  Roger swallowed hard and then sat up in his chair.

  “Now, I want you to start at the beginning, when you came to Long Cottage to call for Clarice. Did you or didn’t you go into the village?”

  “Yes, we did, just as I said. We looked at Bunny’s new car and bought a paper and had tea, and afterwards I took her back home.”

  “And then what?”

  Roger put one elbow on the table and leaned his head on his hand. “Give me a smoke, will you?”

  “Then what?” Drew repeated.

  Roger sighed. “She told me she was going to wear that dress she had over the back of the sofa, that black-and-white thing. I said it was jolly nice and she’d look topping in it.”

  “So?”

  He bit his lip. “It seems rather petty now.”

  “What happened?”

  “She showed me a necktie. I’m sure you saw it there by the dress. She told me she was going to wear that, too. It was blue and red and not at all what a lady wears to a party, you know.”

  “You knew she was a bit of a Bohemian. All right, more than a bit. Good heavens, man, I knew that much about her, and I’d hardly met the girl.”

  “I know. I know. I just told her I would be very glad, as a favor to me, if she would leave the tie off that night. You know, wear something a bit more conventional. A necklace or a brooch or some such.”

  “I take it she didn’t appreciate the suggestion.”

  “Not half. You’d’ve thought I’d asked her to go without the dress entirely.”

  Dre
w glanced at the scratches on his neck and then again at his face. “It must have been more than that, Rog.”

  Roger twisted his fingers together. “Give me a smoke, for pity’s sake.” The chair squeaked with his fidgeting.

  “I haven’t any. Tell me what happened.”

  Roger slid down into the chair, his legs sprawled out in front of him and his arms crossed over his head. “I don’t know what happened. She’d been acting peculiar since the morning, as if she’d been looking for something to quarrel about. I had tried humoring her all day, but by then I was out of sorts myself. I told her if she couldn’t dress properly, she could bally well stay home and I’d go to Farthering Place without her. She told me that would suit her, but I shouldn’t think she’d be spending the evening alone if I did.”

  “And this was in the sitting room, where you found her later on?”

  Roger looked pleadingly at the ceiling. “I suppose I lost my temper properly then. I grabbed her arm and asked her if she was seeing someone else. She only laughed at me, so I shook her. It wasn’t more than that, but it was a good shaking. Then she turned all teeth and claws on me, spitting out words ships’ cooks wouldn’t use. She was going for my eyes with her nails, I expect, but I pulled away, and all she got was my neck.” He tugged at his shirt, pulling it out of the waistband of his trousers, displaying a roundish purple bruise on the left side of his abdomen. “She landed a pretty good one with her fist, too.”

  “And then what?”

  “I flung her back into the chair.” He was crying now, just a silent trickle of tears out of the corners of his eyes. “That hideous zebra-striped thing she loved so much.”

  Drew offered him a handkerchief, but Roger wiped his face on his shirtsleeve. “Then what happened?”

  “Then nothing. I left swearing I’d never be back. I drove about a bit, and then I went home. I rang her up, oh, I don’t know, five or six times. She didn’t answer, so I decided that, whatever else, I was going to your dinner party. I got dressed and tried to telephone her again. Still no answer, so I went round to the cottage. You know the rest.”