Canapés for the Kitties

by Marian Babson

  “It’s Plantagenet Sutton, isn’t it?” Betty Alvin had come up behind them. “I knew I shouldn’t have left him there.” Her voice rose, wavering out of control. “I should have waited and walked him back to Coffers Court, no matter what Dorian said. He was in no condition to be left on his own.”

  “You knew the deceased?” She had attracted the attention of the police. One of them detached himself from the group around the body and came over to them. “Are you the person who made the telephone call to us?”

  “No.” Betty quailed under his frown. “No, that was Gemma. The lady with the dogs. She was walking them when she discovered –”

  “Then perhaps you’ll be good enough to clear the area.” He lost interest in her.

  “All of you. Leave your names and addresses with the constable and we’ll be around to talk to you later.” He waited patiently, expressionless, obviously determined to see them off the scene.

  They turned reluctantly and walked back through the gateposts to join the others on the pavement outside.

  “Is he really dead?” Jack asked, earning an indignant look from Gemma, who had already told him so. “What happened?”

  “Doornail,” Freddie confirmed. “Don’t know. There wasn’t a mark on him. Not,” she qualified cautiously, “that I could see.”

  “Yeah? Well, whatever happened to him, there’ll be a lot of dancing in the streets when the word gets round.”

  “Jack!” Karla’s protest was automatic; she looked anxiously at the others to see how they were taking his remark.

  “I thought you got along very well with him,” Macho said.

  “Hey, listen, I liked him OK. Don’t get the wrong idea. But that Brussels sprout was his idea, you know.” Jack paused thoughtfully. “You know, down deep, he had a lot of hostility towards you, people.”

  “And vice versa,” someone muttered, too low and too quickly to be identified.

  “I don’t think it’s smart to make cracks like that with all these cops around,” Karla said. “We don’t know what happened to him yet – and he wasn’t the most popular guy around.”

  “Now who’s making stupid remarks?” Jack looked over her shoulder at an approaching constable. “Considering the kind of books you people write, the last word in the world any of you should hint at is you-know-what. Oh, hello, Officer –” He gave a bright, nervous smile. “We aren’t blocking the way, are we?”

  “Good afternoon, sir.” The words were unexceptional, the, tone said, clear off, you lot. “Madam.” He turned to Gemma, glancing down at the dogs, who were beginning to stir restively again. “I understand you reported this, er, incident?”

  “That’s right,” Gemma said. “We ... the dogs and I ... found the – Found him.”

  Betty Alvin suddenly began to weep quietly.

  “Perhaps we could speak to the rest of you later.” The constable was young enough to be uncomfortable. “If any of you have any relevant information, that is.” His tone showed that he doubted it. They were just another crowd of bystanders trying to pretend they weren’t just being nosy.

  “Come on.” Impulsively, Karla threw an arm around Betty’s shoulders. “Let’s go back to my place and have coffee. All of you,” she added. “I baked cookies yesterday; wasn’t that lucky?”

  “Honey,” Jack protested in a warning tone. “I’m not sure we have enough cups.”

  “Then Freddie will help out, won’t you, Freddie?”

  “Sure,” Freddie agreed promptly, a gleam in her eye. “No problem at all. What are neighbours for?”

  “Gemma –” Karla called as they began walking away. “You come and join us when they’ve finished with you.”

  “Gemma –” Lorinda hung back. “Would you like me to take the dogs? You can collect them at Karla’s.”

  “Oh, would you?” Gemma handed over the leashes gratefully. “They’ve had their walk. I don’t want them to stay outside too long, they might catch a chill.”

  The dogs frisking in front of her, Lorinda did not catch up with the others until they reached the house.

  “How charming,” she said, looking around as Jack tethered the pugs to the banister and took her coat.

  “Karla likes it.” He shrugged. “But I feel like I’m drowning in chintz. No, I mean it,” he answered her smile. “Some nights I really dream I’m sinking down through waves of chintz, past chintz rocks into a deep undersea cavern all swathed in chintz. I wake up choking and trying to breathe.”

  “How uncomfortable.” Lorinda had chintz curtains herself; there wasn’t much she could say. “Would you prefer leather?”

  “What do you mean by that crack?” He glared at her suspiciously.

  “Mean?” She raised an eyebrow and stared him down. “What could I mean?”

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “My nerves are shot to hell these days. Accidents all over the place – and then people dropping dead. I wish we’d never come here.”

  Lorinda was spared trying to answer that by a kicking at the base of the front door. Jack opened it to find Freddie, laden with a tray full of mugs, cups, saucers and glasses.

  “You’ve got enough to supply an army there,” he said.

  “Just wait,” Freddie predicted. “We’ll use them all.”

  “Wait! Hold it!” Footsteps pounded down the path as Jack started to shut the door. Professor Borley appeared in the doorway. “What’s going on?”

  “You see?” Freddie said meaningly, carrying her tray through into the kitchen.

  Jack took a quick nervous look around outside before stepping back smartly and almost slamming the door shut.

  “I was working,” Professor Borley explained earnestly to Lorinda, “so I was only vaguely aware of all the commotion. By the time it registered and I went out to see what it was all about, there was nothing to see. That is, there probably was, but the police were putting up tapes to seal off the scene and trying to chase everybody away. They wouldn’t answer any questions and told me, in the nicest possible way, of course, to get lost.”

  “Oh, Abbey –” Betty Alvin advanced to meet him as they entered the living room. “Abbey, it was terrible!” The ever-present tears spilled over again. “And I’m so terribly afraid it was all my fault!”

  “I hope to hell you’re not going to talk like that in front of the cops,” Jack snapped. “You’ll give them the wrong idea.” He paused and stared at her stonily. “I hope it’s the wrong idea.”

  “Now, just a minute –” Abbey Borley, one hand patting Betty’s shoulder consolingly, glared at him. “Can’t you see she’s upset?”

  “Coffee’s up!” Karla brought in a tray of steaming cups, then glanced uncertainly at Betty. “Or something stronger, if you want.”

  “Coffee will be fine.” Betty smiled bravely and reached for a cup. Professor Borley caught her hand.

  “Something stronger,” he ordered. “The strongest you’ve got.”

  “Brandy?” Karla offered. “Or the last of the full-strength duty-free Bourbon?”

  “Bourbon sounds good to me,” Borley said.

  “Well, perhaps a teeny splash of brandy in my coffee.” Betty dabbed at her eyes with her tissue and appeared to pull herself together a bit more. She remained within Abbey Borley’s encircling arm.

  “Right,” Jack said in answer to Karla’s imperative glance. “Coming right up.” He moved to the cluster of bottles on the sideboard, a reluctant host about to do his duty.

  The doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” he said, with the look of a reprieved prisoner, but Freddie was ahead of him, shouldering him aside as she dashed into the front hall.

  “Gemma’s here!” Freddie called out, although the yapping of Lionheart and Conqueror had left no one in doubt as to the identity of the latest arrival.

  “They let you go then,” Jack said, somewhat tactlessly. “Why shouldn’t they?” Gemma glared at him, affronted.

  “Sorry, sorry. I just meant ...” He trailed off, as though unsure of just what he did mean.<
br />
  “What did the police say?” Karla edged forward. “What happened to him? Was it his heart?”

  “Heart? What heart?” Gemma stared at her, bewildered. “Well said,” Macho applauded.

  “Hey, come on, now,” Jack protested. “Nil-boni-whatever-it-is. The guy’s dead, after all.”

  “And not before time,” Macho said. “It’s easy for you to talk, you only met him socially. You were never reviewed by him.”

  “My books haven’t been published in this country,” Karla snapped. The vagaries of international publishing were always a delicate subject, as was the fact that Jack had not actually written any books himself. “They said no one would be interested in a couple of young American backpackers. They didn’t think it would work, even if I turned them into Australians.” She brooded quietly. “Not that I’d do that. There are so many differences –”

  “Oh!” Betty gave a choked sob. “How can – ?” She broke off abruptly, but it wasn’t hard to guess what she nearly said before recalling herself. Lorinda supposed that their preoccupation with their own characters and work must sound like untrammelled ego to other people.

  “Take it easy. Here –” Jack thrust a glass into Betty’s hand. “Drink up and you’ll feel better.”

  “I think I need a drink more than she does.” Gemma spoke with some asperity. “I was the one who found him, you know. And the police have been questioning me.”

  “Coming right up.” Jack poured with a lavish hand, perhaps because he had some questions of his own. “What did you tell them? I mean, what did they tell you? Do they know what happened? Will they have an inquest? An autopsy?”

  He looked suddenly queasy and turned away to pour and gulp at a large drink for himself before serving anyone else.

  They all knew too much about the inner workings of a police investigation, Lorinda recognized sadly. It did not make for comfortable conversation or thoughts when those workings were being applied to someone they had actually known.

  “They … they think he was there all night,” Gemma said slowly. Her reluctance was obviously because she did not wish to think about it herself, not because she was hesitant to share the information with them. “He … he would have died of hypothermia. Exposure, we used to call it. It was the coldest night of the year so far.”

  “I knew it! I knew it!” Betty began sobbing uncontrollably again. “I shouldn’t have left him! I shouldn’t!”

  “There, there.” Professor Borley patted her shoulder ineffectually, but she broke away from him and hurled herself into a corner of the sofa, wailing incoherently.

  “Pull yourself together!” Freddie had dealt with hysterics before, as evinced by the expert way she yanked Betty upright and shook her. “You are not responsible. You didn’t go off and leave him lying on the ground, did you?”

  “Of course not!” Betty was shocked into indignation. “I’d never do a thing like that!”

  “Then where did you leave him?” Lorinda had the feeling that she already knew the answer.

  “With Dorian.” Betty hiccoughed and dabbed at her eyes. “I – I’d been up there helping him pack ...”

  She’d been doing all the work, she meant. It was par for the course with Dorian; he’d use his part-time secretary as valet, waitress, chief cook and bottle-washer and anything else he happened to be in need of. The thought caught Lorinda unawares. Anything else? She blinked and looked at Betty with a sudden question in her mind.

  “Mr. Sutton ... Plantagenet ... had come up say Bon voyage to Dorian and ... and he’d brought a bottle of champagne with him. They ... he ... gave me a glass,” she said defiantly, “while I was packing. We all drank the champagne – but it wasn’t the first drink Plantagenet had had that night, I could tell.” She sipped at her own drink again, as heads nodded in agreement.

  “Then ... then the packing was finished. Except for the last-minute bits – toothbrush, toothpaste, razor, you know – to be tossed in in the morning ... and I was ready to leave. I expected Plantagenet to come with me – we were both going back to Coffers Court and Dorian had to get up at the crack of dawn, but ... but ...”

  “But you left alone.” Lorinda had done her best to sound sympathetic, but Betty was looking for criticism.

  “I did suggest ... but I couldn’t insist. And ... and Dorian said he had this special bottle he wanted Plantagenet to sample ... but that I didn’t have the taste buds to appreciate it. And ... and ... he’d ring me in the morning to come up for last-minute instructions and ... and to finish his packing. I knew they ... he ... didn’t want me around any more ... in case they had to be polite and share their precious bottle with me. Well ...” For an instant, something indescribably ugly flashed in her face. “It didn’t do them any good, did it?”

  She had been used and coldly dismissed until she was needed again. How typical of Dorian. And ... how unfortunate for Plantagenet Sutton.

  “But I should have waited outside –”

  “Don’t be silly, you’d have caught pneumonia,” Freddie said sensibly. “They could have lingered over that bottle for a couple of hours – and there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t have opened another one. There was nothing you could have done.”

  “But – but that wasn’t the worst,” Betty wailed. “When I got home, I – I unplugged my telephone. So that Dorian couldn’t call me at the crack of dawn –”

  “Good for you!” Karla said.

  “I was going to tell him the phone was out of order. But, don’t you see? If I’d gone up to do all those last-minute things, I’d have found Plantagenet hours earlier than he was found. I – I might have been in time to save him.”

  “No, you wouldn’t.” Freddie was still being sensible. “A couple of hours on that frozen ground would have been enough to finish him in last night’s weather.”

  “Sure. Once he hit the ground and didn’t get up right away, he didn’t have a chance.” Jack quietly topped up Betty’s glass.

  “And now Dorian will find out.” Betty’s real terror spilled over. “Dorian will know I did it deliberately. Unplugged the phone because I didn’t want him to bother me. He – he’ll sack me. I’ll lose my job.”

  “So what?” Jack was puzzled. “He’s not the only one paying you around here. The rest of us will still need you – and your hours will be a helluva lot better.”

  “But I’ll lose my little home, too. I won’t be able to stay in Coffers Court. It – it’s a sort of a tied cottage.” She began to cry again. “Oh, I wish I’d never done it! But I was so tired ... exhausted ... I’d had all I could take. I couldn’t stand even one morning more ...”

  “Don’t worry,” Freddie said grimly. “You’ll stay in Coffers Court. The rest of us will see to that.”

  “Anyway, Dorian will never know if you don’t admit it,” Macho pointed out. “There’s no need for you to tell all these details to the police. All that’s relevant is that you finished your job and left. Plantagenet wanted to stay and keep on drinking. It isn’t as if you arrived together in the first place. You couldn’t be expected to leave together.”

  “Will the police make Dorian come back, though? He’ll be furious. And –” Betty would not be comforted. “And he’ll take it out on us ... on me.”

  “I doubt that the police will have any inquiries that can’t be handled by a telephone call,” Lorinda said. “Given the circumstances, the verdict is sure to be ‘Misadventure.’ ”

  “That’s right,” Freddie agreed. “Once they get a reading on the alcohol level in his blood, the only mystery will be how he managed to stagger as far as he did.”

  10

  Chapter Twenty

  “I fear that my patience is becoming exhausted.” Miss Petunia aimed the spray gun at the greenfly on the roses and wielded it violently.

  “You, Petunia?” Lily was incredulous. “But you’re the one with all the patience. Got none myself, I know. And Marigold is too impetuous for her own good. You got the patience for all three of us. And t
he brains,” she acknowledged humbly. “You can’t run out of patience, it’s practically your middle name.”

  “Perhaps – but I can be pushed too far. I have warned that woman!” ... squirt ... “I have given her every chance.” ... squirt ... “I’ve bent over backwards –” ... squirt ...

  “Oh, do be careful, Petunia.” Marigold turned worried blue eyes on her eldest sister. “You’re going to wrench that spray gun apart.”

  “I’ll wrench her apart!”

  “Petunia!” Marigold was scandalized.

  “Action,” Lily agreed. “That’s what we need. Been rusticating too long. Nothing to get our teeth into. No action except for –” She broke off and frowned, not wanting to admit the action they had been involved in, even to herself.

  “Precisely!” Miss Petunia said.

  “You mean ...” Marigold quavered. “That terrible dream ... nightmare ... I had last night? The rest of you had it, too?”

  “Precisely!”

  “It won’t do,” Lily said. “Can’t go on like this. Never knowing, when a perfectly innocent investigation is going to explode in our faces.”

  “Precisely!” Miss Petunia took a deep breath and hurled the spray gun into the herbaceous border, something she had never done before. “The ingratitude of it all! We have fed her, clothed her, bought her a house, supported her for all these years – and now she turns on us like this!”

  “Not good enough,” Lily brooded.

  “My whole body aches,” Marigold said piteously. “And I’m afraid to look in the mirror for fear I’ll discover I’m covered in ... in blood.”

  “Got a fearful pain in the neck,” Lily agreed.

  Miss Petunia rubbed her stomach reflectively and said nothing; her expression was grim.

  “I feel so peculiar,” Marigold said. “As ... as though ... I’m fading away.”

  “This cannot be allowed to go on,” Miss Petunia proclaimed.

  “Quite right.” Lily nodded. “Had enough.”

  “But, Petunia ...” Marigold quavered. “What can we do? We’ve already tried to plead our case with her.”

  “Fired a warning shot across her bows,” Lily corrected.