A Healthy Place to Die

by Peter King

  “Listen!” Elaine snapped out the word so abruptly that I almost jumped out of my skin. She was right, there was … something. It resembled voices but no words were distinguishable, and the echoes from the ice mangled the sound beyond identification. There was no choice of doors here, just one large one. Elaine shrugged, opened it, and went through.

  “Glad you could join us!” called out a welcoming voice. “Come on in and have a glass of champagne.”

  It was a smaller room, though perhaps that was just the contrast from the spacious main hall. It was warmer too, because of the tapestries that hung all round the walls, screening off the chill from the ice. It was furnished like a luxurious club room, with carpets, large leather sofas and armchairs, small tables, and built-in wooden cabinets. It was brightly lit with floorlamps and overhead lighting.

  “Cozy place you have here,” I commented as Elaine and I sank into one of the comfortable leather sofas.

  On the wooden table before us was a bottle of Dom Perignon in a bucket of ice. Leighton Vance and Caroline de Witt occupied armchairs opposite us. Leighton rose and went to the wall cabinet, returning with two fluted glasses. He placed them in front of us and poured. He carefully topped them after waiting for the foam to subside.

  “What shall we drink to?” Elaine asked brightly.

  There was a silence. Leighton picked up his half-empty glass and drank most of it.

  “The end of the line?” he suggested.

  I glanced at Caroline de Witt. She looked as regal as ever, calm and composed but not inclined to join in the conversation, it seemed.

  “You know most of it already, don’t you?” Leighton’s voice was measured, his utterance more statement than question.

  “No, we don’t,” I said quickly. “We don’t know a thing. Just what are you doing down here? Brewing moonshine liquor? Plotting to overthrow the Swiss government? Forging thousand-franc notes?”

  Leighton and Caroline looked at each other and laughed. Caroline drank some more champagne. “What are we doing down here?” chuckled Leighton. “Caroline and I? What a dreadfully gauche question!”

  Elaine was less than amused. Her voice was a little touchy when she said to me in what was almost an aside, “It’s a love nest, we realize that.” To Leighton, she went on, “We also know that your real name is Lionel Fenton, and you are the former owner of the Bell’Aurora, a restaurant in northern New York State, where a dinner guest died from eating poisoned mushrooms.”

  Neither Leighton nor Caroline reacted, but the silence was significant.

  “Is that what this is all about?” I demanded. “You were accused of manslaughter but found not guilty. Kathleen Evans found out about it and blackmailed you into giving her free vacations here. You killed her in the Seaweed Forest and disposed of her body. …”

  Leighton and Caroline exchanged laughs again. Leighton slapped his knee. “We murdered a magazine columnist over free vacations! That’s a good one!” He pointed to Elaine. “Your learned friend knows better than that.”

  I looked at Elaine. She was torn between wanting to tell everything she knew and avoiding saying anything that might endanger our already precarious position. It would be a tough choice, I could see that in her face. I hoped she would decide correctly. Leighton didn’t know her as well as I did, and he misinterpreted her hesitation.

  “You’d better tell him,” Leighton continued, still looking amused. “Accusing me of manslaughter, indeed! What an awful thing to do! Isn’t that grounds for slander?”

  Caroline was joining in the amusement now, her red lips parted in a wide smile. All this joviality pressed Elaine into making up her mind.

  “It wasn’t Leighton who was accused of poisoning the guest at the Bell’Aurora,” she said, not just to me but to the room at large. “He didn’t stand trial for manslaughter. It was Mallory.”

  I was determined not to indicate any dissension in the ranks so I didn’t ask Elaine accusingly. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Elaine was aware that the words were on my tongue, though, and she said, mainly for my benefit, “I only just found out.”

  Leighton refilled his glass, shaking his head sadly. “It’s hard for a man to keep something like this concealed for so long. I’ve kept quiet about it as far as I could but there comes a time …” He drank champagne with a flourish that illustrated drowning his sorrows.

  “You’ll feel better if you tell the whole story,” I told him piously. “Confession is good for the soul.”

  Caroline spoke up for the first time. “I’d better tell it. Leighton milks it. He and Mallory had this restaurant, the Bell’Aurora. It was getting to be really popular. Leighton’s partner, Edward Lester, had this crush on Mallory, wouldn’t leave her alone. She didn’t want to discuss it with Leighton—he has a jealous streak. She put some poisoned mushrooms in Lester’s salad. Perhaps she only intended to give him a scare. That’s what her lawyer said. Anyway, he died. Lester’s infatuation with Mallory was well known to the regulars and the restaurant staff. Several of them gave evidence, and she was tried for manslaughter. Her lawyer was good. She was found not guilty.”

  “Mallory and I changed our names. We went to Canada, then to France, then came here to Switzerland.” Leighton took up the story, not wanting to be left out. “Kathleen Evans found us by accident. She was planning a story on husband-and-wife chefs. She came across the story of the Bell’Aurora and linked it to us. Naturally, we let her stay here for free rather than have the story leaked.”

  “So you killed Kathleen to stop her from telling anyone you were here,” I said indignantly. “Let’s not lose sight of that!”

  Caroline stretched back languidly in the big leather armchair. “It’s Leighton’s fatal charm. One of the girls has a passion for him—”

  “Rhoda,” I supplied.

  “Yes,” she said. “Rhoda turned the flagellation level up too high. We knew nothing about it until it was too late. We had to get rid of the body, of course.”

  “Then Rhoda tried to get rid of me,” I reminded her. “In the mud baths. Fortunately, she failed.”

  “Did she really?” Caroline looked surprised. “The girl is very zealous, I know, but that was going a little too far.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  There was no keeping Elaine quiet for very long. “Tell us about Janet,” she invited.

  “We were surprised when she showed up here,” Caroline said. “Presumably she decided to take up where Kathleen had left off.”

  “And where is she now?”

  Leighton and Caroline looked at each other. Caroline was the first to answer.

  “How would I know? I thought she had gone back to New York.”

  “Didn’t I hear that she had checked out hurriedly and taken a cab to the airport?” asked Leighton in that offhanded manner.

  I was baffled. This all sounded plausible. Could it be true? Could even part of it be true?

  “You’ll have to do better than that,” I suggested, “or are you going to blame this on the murderous Rhoda too?”

  Leighton shrugged as if he could not care less. Caroline was impassive.

  “Well, if there’s nothing more to be learned here, we might as well leave,” Elaine said.

  “True,” I said, and rose. We both headed for the door. This would be the test, I thought. Would either of them make a move to stop us?

  The door creaked as it opened. Elaine and I turned. We both stared at the man who walked in, but I wasn’t looking at Elaine’s expression. I was too astonished.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  THE NEWCOMER NODDED PLEASANTLY to Leighton and Caroline.

  “Unexpected and late but nonetheless very welcome,” Leighton said with a smile. “Do come in and have a glass of champagne.”

  “We wondered about you.” Caroline’s greeting was just as warm. “We thought you would be here, but when you didn’t arrive, well, we just had to go ahead and run the week without you.”

  He was just under six feet
tall, sturdy but not heavy, brown hair and brown eyes, and he moved lithely and confidently. I was still staring at him. Why did people keep saying I looked like him? I didn’t really.

  “What the devil are you doing here?” I demanded angrily.

  Elaine cut through the proceedings with a voice like a scimitar. “Will someone introduce me?”

  “Carver Armitage,” Caroline obliged. “Elaine Dunbar.”

  They shook hands politely. Carver turned to me. “I’m supposed to be here, remember?”

  “You were,” I corrected. “You asked me to come in your place.”

  He eased himself into an armchair and immediately looked at home. It was one of his irritating characteristics. Leighton handed him a glass of champagne and he sipped it appreciatively.

  “We missed you,” Caroline said, “but we managed.” She could have given me some credit for filling the gap, I thought, and gave her a further opportunity to do so, but when she failed, I tossed a little vinegar into the blend.

  “I hope you are well enough to be traveling, Carver. Is it wise so soon after being released from hospital?”

  Caroline and Leighton looked solicitous. “Hospital?” said Leighton, “I didn’t realize that was why you weren’t here.”

  “I presume the surgery was successful,” I added, unwilling to relinquish the needle.

  Carver basked in the wave of sympathy and treated my comment as part of it. He nodded in my direction. “Should have told you, I suppose. Fact is, I damaged a finger and went to St. Giles’s Hospital for treatment. Trivial, I know, but very painful.”

  Caroline and Leighton made appropriately commiserating noises. I was trying to decide whether I believed him or if he was playing some devious double game. Only Elaine was stonily resistant to this syrupy compassion. “You have a food program, do you?”

  “I do, indeed, and a daily column. I am also—”

  Elaine didn’t want a list of his credentials. She knew where she was going.

  “If you’re a columnist, you must know Kathleen Evans—and her editor, Janet Hargrave.”

  There was a stillness for just a couple of seconds. I glanced at Leighton and Caroline. They sat calmly, awaiting Carver’s response.

  “Of course. They are both here, I understand.”

  “They were,” Elaine corrected him. “Both returned to their office earlier this week.”

  Carver drank champagne, gave a studied approval to the rising bubbles. “Actually, they didn’t. Their office thinks they are still here.”

  Elaine flicked her gaze toward me, but I was waiting for the reaction of the man and woman opposite. Caroline twisted the stem of her glass between her fingers. She put the glass down. “We had rather that this subject had not come up,” she said, “but since it has … I am sure you can understand that running an operation like this, we are susceptible to guests’ opinions, especially those concerning other guests’ behavior.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said bluntly.

  “Two women, coworkers, perhaps unable to show their true feelings in the workplace. They share a room here, sense a resentment around them, decide to go somewhere else—”

  “That’s nonsense!” I burst out. “They didn’t share a room here, they had different rooms.”

  “Our records show that they did share a room,” said Caroline. Her large dark eyes were round and persuasive.

  “We have more evidence than that.” Elaine was loud and forceful. “Don’t we?” she said to me.

  “We do. Kathleen asked me to meet her in the Seaweed Forest—” I began.

  “Just the two of you?” asked Caroline. “You and her?”

  “Yes. When I got there, I thought she was dead. I went for help. …”

  When I finished my story, the tension in the chamber had increased. “If she was gone and there was no alarm,” said Carver, “presumably, she wasn’t dead at all.”

  “There’s more,” prompted Elaine.

  “There’s a lot more,” I said. “I went to the Herb Garden to meet Janet Hargrave—”

  “My, my,” Leighton commented. “You have been active. Maybe we should be concerned about his effect on our reputation too,” he said, turning to Caroline. I ignored him and went on. When I came to the end, it was Carver again who said in a skeptical voice, “And her body had disappeared too?”

  “That’s right,” Elaine said silkily, and I knew she had a purpose in agreeing so readily.

  “Let me get this straight,” Caroline said. “Two guests, you thought them both dead and both have disappeared.”

  “A good summary,” nodded Elaine. “The difference with Janet, though, is that she really wasn’t dead. She had been overcome by the fumes but the air rushed in when the glass wall was smashed and revived her.”

  “You’ve seen her since then?” Leighton asked, enunciating carefully.

  “Oh, yes.” Elaine’s casual response should have been accompanied by a studied examination of her fingernails.

  “So where is she now?” asked Carver.

  Elaine said nothing, and I could sense her willing me to keep quiet too. The tension increased.

  Carver addressed Caroline. “Didn’t you say the two of them had left?”

  “Apparently they both called cabs and went to the airport,” Caroline replied, still as cool as ice.

  “So if they’ve both left—”

  “Janet is still here,” Elaine said. “She was with us at the farewell luncheon today.”

  I was watching Caroline and Leighton as soon as I realized what Elaine was saying. Neither batted an eyelid, but the tension rose one more notch. Something had to snap soon.

  For the first time since he had arrived, Carver looked less than his normal composed self. “An attempt was made on Kathleen’s life in the Seaweed Forest, you say? And another attempt on Janet in the Herb Garden?”

  A silence greeted this review, but I saw it as having an affirmative overtone.

  “Then where is Janet now?” Carver wanted to know.

  Leighton and Caroline looked at us for a reply. We looked back at them.

  “I know that neither of them is back in their office,” Carver said. “When I called there yesterday, they certainly weren’t, and no one had heard from them.”

  “Is that what brings you here?” I asked him.

  “In a way,” he said.

  “More specifically,” Caroline asked and was unable to keep an edge out of her question, “how did you find us here in the Glacier Caverns?”

  “Mallory brought me.” Carver tossed it out casually and reached for his champagne glass.

  That brought the strongest reaction so far. Leighton leaned forward suddenly. He opened his mouth to say something but didn’t. Caroline looked as if she wished she hadn’t asked the question.

  “Is Mallory here?” Elaine asked.

  “We ran into some of the last people leaving the luncheon room,” Carver said. “She stopped to talk to a couple of them.” He emptied his champagne glass with an air of moving on to more important matters. “I did, in fact, have another reason for coming here,” he said as he put his glass on the table.

  “And what is that?” Leighton asked as if not sure that he wanted to know.

  “The case has been reopened.” Carver looked at us in turn. “I’m sure we all know by now what case I’m referring to. A new trial is going be held, based on fresh evidence that has come to light. The charge this time is murder.”

  That brought the temperature down to the chilly region of the ice walls. Leighton was the first to speak.

  “Poor Mallory,” he said softly.

  Then he asked, “Who else knows we are here?”

  “Kathleen and Janet knew,” Elaine said promptly. “That’s why you wanted to kill them both.”

  “That’s absurd,” said Leighton. He turned to Carver. “You stayed here last year, which is why we asked you to participate in this event, but what’s your interest in the trial?”

  “Kathleen
approached me with the idea of a story about husband-and-wife chef teams—”

  “Why would she do that?” I interrupted. “She’d want to keep a story like that for herself.”

  My suspicions of Carver were resurfacing.

  “Because after her first enthusiasm over the idea, Kathleen decided it would be even better as a TV series. The human story of a married couple, their rivalry in the same business, cooking on camera, perhaps trying to outdo each other in some specialties … She thought that my TV contacts would help pave the way at the studio”—he reflected for a moment—“well, they would, I suppose,” he added in that supercilious way he has. He really isn’t in the least like me.

  “Go on,” I said.

  “I said I would work with her on it. She did more investigation and came across the story of the first trial.”

  “And how did you hear about the new trial?” asked Leighton.

  “When I called Kathleen’s office, they were getting so concerned about her that they asked me if this message from the Manhattan Law Library helped at all in locating her. Apparently, she had flagged this case so she would be informed as soon as anything new came in on it.”

  The heavy iron lock of the door rattled.

  Mallory entered.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  LEIGHTON WAS OUT OF his chair and hurrying to Mallory’s side. He took her hand.

  “My dear, come and sit down. You remember Carver Arsmitage from last year, don’t you?”

  She wore a simple blue dress, the blue of Alpine wildflowers. She had on plain white shoes and she looked pale, although that was perhaps the unaccustomed lower temperature of the Glacier Caverns after the heat of the kitchen.

  She acknowledged Carver. He returned the greeting but was looking at her strangely. She began to look around the chamber, “the love nest” as Elaine had called it, and her gaze went to Leighton and Caroline. Some color came back.

  In view of the revelations of the previous minutes, the awkward pause that followed was not surprising. Someone had to break it, and the intrepid Elaine was the most likely.