A Spelling Mistake

by Nancy Warren

  “Perhaps you could help entertain the troops. They’re all in the front room,” she said. “At least they were. I’ve given up. I can’t stand to go in there. The tension’s dreadful. The detectives have asked them all to stay put. And what do you think that will do to my online reviews? First a murder in my house, and now it’s being used as a veritable prison.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, not knowing what else I could offer. “Can I help you with anything?”

  “No. Go and talk to the prisoners. Maybe you can cheer them up. Oh, wait, Philip’s not in the front room. He and Irving had words, and then I heard him say he had work to do and he stomped up the stairs.”

  You didn’t have to be a witch to feel the oppressive atmosphere pervading O’Donnell House. Lochlan told me he’d go into the front room, and I said I’d tackle Philip. Karen told me that Philip’s room was across the hall from Candace’s. I wondered if he’d heard anything during the night. Giles had claimed to hear voices from his room next door, but Philip hadn’t corroborated or refuted his story.

  I went upstairs, forcing my lead feet to climb, knowing that some of the essence of Candace Branson’s spirit would still be hanging around. Besides, there was still some activity going on as the forensics team went over the room where she’d breathed her last.

  I was glad to know that forensic technicians were across the hall in case I was about to closet myself with a murderer. Philip had every reason to do away with Candace. I’d seen his face when he discovered he wasn’t going to be the agent for Bartholomew Branson anymore. Naturally, he’d argue that he’d only just found out this morning, after she was already dead, but I didn’t believe it. If his room was right across the hall? The way Candace and Irving talked to each other, their voices booming, if they’d talked about Irving being Candace’s agent, he’d have heard every word.

  I could picture him sitting in an armchair reading a potential client’s manuscript and then overhearing Candace and Irving making their noisy plans. Waiting until Irving had left and quietly slipping into her room. Maybe he’d tried to reason with her and then lost his cool and strangled her. Or perhaps he wasn’t the killer. But if not, wouldn’t he have heard Candace and her killer?

  I hesitated before I knocked. It seemed very intrusive to go into the agent’s room, not to mention dangerous. However, even if the techs didn’t protect me, I had only to yell and Lochlan would be up here in a shot. Besides, I had plenty of power up my sleeve. And I was already on my guard. All in all, I didn’t think I had too much to worry about, but still, I took a moment to center myself and recite a quick protection spell. Then I knocked.

  “Come in.” The voice sounded impatient. This was a man who had intended to be back in London by now and, regardless of the circumstances, didn’t appreciate being held up. Besides, this whole trip now turned out to be not only a huge waste of his time but a humiliation as well. No wonder he wanted to get out of here ASAP.

  He looked quite surprised to find it was me asking to be let in. “Miss Callahan. I assumed you were the detectives back to ask more questions.”

  “No. And please, call me Quinn. Could I come in?”

  He was dressed the way he probably was Sunday afternoons in his home. He wore a buttoned-up cardigan sweater over woolen slacks, and on his feet were leather slippers.

  “Of course. This is a surprise.” From his tone, it didn’t seem like it was the best surprise he’d ever had in his life.

  “I’m sorry to bother you. Were you working?”

  He gave me a thin smile. “My dear, a literary agent is always working. How can I help you? Have you a novel you’re working on? Working with books all day, I can imagine you might secretly harbor hopes of publication yourself.”

  “No.” I laughed awkwardly. “Nothing like that.” Now that I was here, I didn’t know how to begin. It was very difficult to ask a complete stranger if they had killed a woman. And it was only slightly less difficult to ask a complete stranger if they’d eavesdropped on a woman in the hotel room across the hall. I settled on, “I didn’t want to sit with the others downstairs. It’s kind of tense down there.”

  He might have wondered why I’d bothered coming back at all then, since I wasn’t staying here, but as I had hoped, he was so caught up in the drama in the bed and breakfast that he probably hadn’t paused to consider what I was doing back here.

  “I couldn’t stand it myself. I might have behaved in a very ungentlemanlike manner to our American friend.”

  Great, he was giving me the opening I’d hoped for. “I can’t believe Candace Branson would choose someone like Irving to be her literary agent over you.” I walked into his room when he held the door wider, and he returned to the chair he’d been sitting in, part of a nice little bistro set by the window. I sat opposite him.

  As I’d guessed, he was working. A manuscript lay on the tabletop.

  The sour smile hardened on his face. “I discovered Bartholomew Branson and encouraged him, shaped his career. And as for the things I did for Candace Branson…”

  That made my ears perk up. “Candace? Did you have contact with her?”

  “More than I’d ever have wanted in a lifetime. When they were married, she was perfectly ghastly. Constantly ringing up, demanding that he should get higher advances or more advertising, better placement in the bookstores, more media attention, spots on late-night talk shows—her demands were endless. She treated me like a genie who could magically grant all her wishes. Though she certainly didn’t stop at three.”

  “I heard her say she was his business manager.”

  He laughed at that. One of those low, bitter laughs when you don’t think something’s at all funny. “There was nothing business-like about Candace Branson. She was driven by greed and always wanted more money. That was the only part of the business that interested her.”

  “I got the feeling that Bartholomew Branson made good money from his books. How much could she possibly need?”

  He shook his head at me. “Some people have an endless craving. However much they have, they want more. Her appetite for money was insatiable.”

  I thought about poor Tristan Holt getting screwed out of half his advance. She hadn’t spent much of her vast wealth on honoring her commitment to him. “What did she spend her money on?”

  He shook his head again. “Mansions, jewelry, shopping. She wanted the best of everything. But at some point, I don’t think it was about what she could have anymore because she could pretty much have had anything. She became like a drug addict, and money was her drug. After they were divorced, Branson used to call me absolutely beside himself because she kept threatening to take him back to court to increase her alimony. He didn’t want the negative publicity, so then it was him always asking for higher advances.” He shuffled the pages together and put them into a neat stack. “Not that she was the only one spending the money. Bartholomew Branson liked the good life as much as his ex-wife did.”

  Now that he was talking, I asked the question I’d really come here to ask. “Giles said he heard someone in Candace’s room last night. Did you hear anything?”

  He leaned across the table as though we were in a busy restaurant and he didn’t want to be overheard. “I don’t want you thinking I was pressing my head to the wall, water glass to my ear, like in some corny, old film.”

  “No, no,” I hastened to assure him. “I was wondering if, your room being so close to hers, you might have overheard something.”

  “She had a phone call.”

  That didn’t seem very exciting. “She did?”

  “Yes. About two in the morning, that would have been. I only know that because the ringing woke me.”

  “Who phones people at two in the morning? Did she answer it?”

  “She did. Talked for about fifteen minutes. Sounded quite excited.”

  Huh. “Any idea who was on the other end of the phone?”

  He shook his head. “Curiously, the police haven’t found a mobile.” />
  That was curious. As though the killer didn’t want the record of Candace Branson’s calls and texts easily available. They had to know that the police would be able to obtain the records.

  “And then there was the American.”

  “Right. That young guy. Karen mentioned that she’d seen his shoes, and Giles said he heard him in Candace’s room.”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t hear that. But…”

  He looked away from me, out the window into the garden, where late-summer roses bloomed against the rock wall.

  “But?”

  “It will sound crazy to you. It sounds crazy to me, and I can’t believe I’m even telling you this, but I thought I glimpsed Bartholomew Branson in the garden late last night.” He grimaced. “It sounds mad, I know. I got up for the toilet and, on my way back to bed, decided to open the window a trifle, as it was warm. That’s when I saw him. Though I suspect I’d been dreaming and, given that we’d launched his novel, only thought it was him. Still, it rattled me.”

  And it was seriously rattling me. If Bartholomew Branson had been at O’Donnell House late last night, as furious as I’d seen him, I might win my bet with Lochlan, but it would give me no satisfaction to collect my winnings.

  “Did he do anything?” Like climb into Candace’s bedroom window?

  “No. I only caught a glimpse of him crossing the lawn. As I said, it was probably a dream.”

  “Did you hear or see anything else?” I asked.

  “I heard whispering a couple of times. Impossible to say who it was. For all I knew, she was talking to herself.”

  “Did you visit her room?” I tried to ask it in the most casual manner, as though they were neighbors in the B&B. Old friends who hadn’t seen each other in a while. Why wouldn’t he?

  He was looking out the window, as though reliving his strange vision of the night before. “No. I didn’t visit Candace Branson’s room. Had no reason to,” he said at last.

  The words came out in a slightly higher pitch. I suspected he was lying.

  I had all the answers to my questions and no more reason to stay here, and the agent was beginning to send pointed glances to the manuscript I’d interrupted him in the middle of reading. Just in case it was Candace’s manuscript as ghostwritten by Tristan Holt, I asked, “Is that the next J. K. Rowling?”

  “Probably not.” And, giving me a hard look, as though he knew perfectly well why I was asking, he held up the manuscript so I could see the front page. The Magician’s Garden by Daphne Keene. A Novel for Children.

  Not the next Bartholomew Branson, then.

  Chapter 16

  I went downstairs and found Lochlan chatting idly to Karen, clearly ready to go.

  “How’s it going down here?” I asked Lochlan and Karen. They both grimaced.

  “I now understand why Karen’s refusing to go into the lounge. Irving is loudly complaining that he needs to get back to New York.”

  Lochlan looked over at Karen, who nodded and added, “And Giles is coldly, fastidiously polite to Irving. He’s made it very clear to the police that he’ll cooperate but also wants very much to get back to his office in London. Chloe’s put on earphones and is spending all her time on her laptop computer, no doubt pretending she’s back in Dublin.”

  She glanced up towards where Philip was still working in his room. “Is he all right up there?”

  “Seems to be. He’s working.”

  She nodded. “I’ll make him some coffee and take it up.” Then she hesitated and said, “Quinn, come with me into the kitchen. I want your advice on something.”

  I looked at Lochlan with a silent question, and he nodded, telling me to go ahead.

  I followed Karen into the kitchen. The world might be chaos, but her kitchen was spotless, and she was obviously managing the extended stay of her guests quite well. I’d half thought she might want to hire me as a waitress or something when I wasn’t busy at the bookstore, but to my surprise, she walked me over to the back of the kitchen by the window that looked over into the backyard. She dropped her voice and said, “There was a set of Victorian kitchen scales sitting right there.”

  I obediently looked at where she was pointing, and all I saw was a shelf that had nothing on it.

  I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t exactly certain what she was getting at. She picked up one of the crystal salt and pepper shakers that she put out with the breakfasts and put it down again. “I could take you all around O’Donnell House and show you where other things have gone missing.” She looked truly distressed. “Quinn, I think one of our guests is stealing from me. This has all been so horrible, and now I’m not only dealing with murder but petty theft?” She turned to me, and her brown eyes looked wide and glassy, like a woman suffering from shock.

  “Oh no,” I said, but I knew it wasn’t one of her guests stealing from her. Someone was stealing from her though, and I was pretty sure it was my not nearly long enough lost relative, Biddy O’Donnell.

  She began rearranging her salt and pepper shakers. I didn’t even think she knew what she was doing. “It’s that damned television show. Playing constantly with all those antiques and telling the world how much they’re worth now.”

  I knew she was right. And I felt terrible because it was my fault that no other program would play. I’d been tricked by Biddy so that my spell was reversed.

  “That’s why I wanted your advice. I don’t know what to do. Should I tell the police?”

  “Oh, no, don’t do that,” I said in a panic.

  She nodded. “That was my instinct, too. But what if the same person who is stealing my antiques is also a killer? And I never said anything to the police? Wouldn’t that make me guilty too? An accessory after the fact or something?”

  I shook my head vigorously. “No. It wouldn’t even be the same police investigating. A little petty pilfering is a long way from murder.”

  “But I keep thinking, what if Candace Branson caught the thief red-handed? They could have been taking things from her room when she walked in. And they panicked and killed her.”

  It wasn’t the worst theory I’d ever heard, except for the fact that I was a hundred percent certain I knew who the thief was. I said, “Do you really think a top literary editor and two successful agents would stoop to petty thievery? And Chloe is always on her laptop computer. I don’t think she even looks up at the TV.”

  She tapped the side of her nose. “Kleptomania is a serious disease, Quinn. It’s not about need. It’s a kind of addiction. I saw a program about it once.”

  She was probably right. And I knew who had it.

  And yet… What if she was right? I was so certain that Biddy O’Donnell was behind the thefts, but what if it was one of her guests? And I was perverting the course of justice? I tried to think. “What about your shop? Has anything gone missing from there?”

  “I don’t think so. Not that I’ve noticed. I haven’t been today, though, obviously. I had a friend watch the shop for me today. She wouldn’t know the stock well enough to be able to tell if anything was missing, though.”

  “Well, all your guests are stuck here for the moment. Is anything gone that was extremely valuable?”

  She shook her head. “A few things were sentimental though.”

  “My advice is to do nothing for the moment. Anything that you feel is valuable or sentimental, I would put in your shop, maybe tucked away in the storage room. Replace the items with things that have no value, or little value, and certainly not sentimental value to you.”

  “Yes, that’s a good idea. I’m so glad I had someone to talk to. It’s awful serving tea and biscuits and breakfast with a smiling face while all the time worrying that I’m housing a thief.”

  I didn’t say it, but more frightening was that she was probably housing a murderer.

  Then I said, “How are you managing?”

  She grimaced. “This wasn’t how I thought running a B&B would turn out. But on the bright side, I’ll make a good
bit of money in my first month now that they’ve all had to stay on.”

  “What about upcoming bookings?”

  “Too early to say. I’ve got a few weeks booked and no one’s canceled yet, but then of course the news hasn’t traveled far yet.”

  She’d stretched out the yet, and I understood what she meant. Hopefully the news that Bartholomew Branson’s widow had been killed would be the story that traveled to the United States and wherever else his readers had been. And the specific location of the murder would hopefully not be widely reported.

  Having calmed her down, I headed out to where Lochlan was patiently waiting for me by the front door. We said goodbye to Karen and left.

  I waited until we were back in the car before I told him everything. He knew better than anyone what Biddy was capable of. She’d wrapped my entire cottage around with impenetrable thorns like I was some middle-aged Sleeping Beauty when she was in a temper tantrum. I was sure she’d steal from Karen without a second thought. “What am I going to do? I’ve got to shut this down.”

  “You’re certain Biddy O’Donnell is stealing Karen’s antiques?”

  “The old witch is obsessed with the Antiques Roadshow. In her day, a penny would probably buy you a castle. Now she sees that old everyday items are worth so much money, she’s delighted.”

  “But how is she selling them? She can hardly go into Karen Tate’s store and try and sell her back her own goods.”

  “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out. Did you find out anything in the front room?”

  “I can tell you that those two men, Giles and Irving, have no love for each other. If there’s another homicide, it will likely be agents or editors killing each other out of professional jealousy. The young woman’s ignoring both of them, but I suspect she stays in the front room to keep an eye on them.”

  “Good for her. We really need to get this thing wrapped up.”