The Cat of the Baskervilles

by Vicki Delany

  “You might have deleted them.”

  “I’ve been kinda busy here, Detective. I didn’t take any photographs.”

  “We have plenty,” Ryan said. “Lots of people took pictures.”

  At last, they told me I could go home, as could Jayne, Fiona, and Jocelyn. I hopped off the stool.

  “Don’t leave town without checking with us first,” Estrada said. “We’ll have further questions.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. It’s the busiest time of year in the shop.”

  “See that you don’t.”

  I avoided rolling my eyes. Ryan hefted the box containing our themed tea sets and carried it outside, leaving me alone in the kitchen.

  Leslie’s tote bag, the one she’d brought the volunteer aprons in, lay on the floor next to the back door. I picked up a box full of the plastic containers we’d used to bring the food to the house, and carried it across the room to the back door. I put it on the floor, neatly in place for the police and scooped up Leslie’s bag to put it on the counter next to the sink. I glanced around the kitchen, making sure all was clean and organized. And not at all incidentally, checking that no one was peering in through the windows. I opened Leslie’s bag and went quickly through it. There were six white aprons with pink ruching. Five of the aprons had intact appliqué, but on the sixth, a section of the ruching along the hem had been torn off, leaving the remaining end hanging loose. I stuffed all the aprons back in the bag and went to tell Jayne we were ready to leave.

  Chapter 6

  My phone had buzzed with an incoming text while I’d been talking to the police, but I’d refrained from checking it. As soon as they left and I’d examined the volunteers’ aprons, I pulled it out of my pocket. Grant, telling me the police said he could leave and he’d made a reservation at the Blue Water Café for eight thirty.

  I found Jayne standing with her mom on the patio, watching the police activity. Most of the guests had left, and the police were taking statements from the few remaining stragglers. I didn’t see any of the theater people. Yellow crime scene tape fluttered in the breeze, sealing off the entrance to the woods.

  Jayne and Leslie turned as I opened the French doors and stepped onto the patio. Leslie’s face was very pale and her eyes, so like those of her daughter, were rimmed red. Jayne had her arm around Leslie’s shoulders. They gave me identical sad smiles. “Can we go now?” Jayne asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Thank heavens,” Leslie said. “I don’t remember when I’ve last been so exhausted. Rebecca was kind enough to let me sit with her, but I couldn’t stay still so I came back outside.”

  “They’ve taken the Sherlock tea set,” I said.

  “Who has?” Jayne asked.

  “The cops. They want to check for poison or something in Nigel’s cup. They’re also going to analyze every one of the champagne flutes. I told them that’s a waste of time. All the food and drink came from shared sources, and nothing Nigel used was separated ahead of time. Still, it’s their time to waste.”

  Leslie lifted a hand to her mouth.

  “He wasn’t poisoned,” Jayne said. “He jumped off a cliff, isn’t that obvious? He made a fool of himself in front of a hundred of Cape Cod’s most influential people. Are you okay, Mom?”

  Leslie didn’t look okay. If anything, she’d turned even paler and fresh tears threatened to flow.

  “Did you come on your own?” I asked her.

  “What?”

  “I asked if you drove here.”

  “Oh, yes. I did.”

  “I’ll drive you home. Jayne can follow us and pick me up.”

  “It’s out of your way,” Leslie said.

  “I don’t mind.” I will admit I had an ulterior motive. I wanted to get Leslie on her own and find out what happened between her and the late Sir Nigel Bellingham.

  She shook her head and gave me a weak smile. She pulled a tattered tissue out of her pocket and wiped at her eyes. “I’m perfectly fine. Heavens, Gemma, you were the one who found the body. You need someone with you more than I do. Jayne, be sure you look after Gemma. As for me, a hot shower followed by a glass of wine on the back deck will be just the ticket. I won’t even cook tonight. I have some things in the freezer I can reheat.”

  The issue had been so neatly deflected, I couldn’t have done better myself. I couldn’t now continue to argue that Leslie needed me to accompany her.

  Jayne called to Fiona and Jocelyn. “Let’s get our things and get out of here.”

  “Uh . . . about that,” I said. “The police said we’re not to remove anything except our personal bags.”

  “What?” Jayne said. “I need my teapots.”

  I shrugged. “Detective Ashburton’s orders.”

  “He can’t do that.” Jayne looked around. “Where is he? I need to talk to him.”

  “Leave it,” I said. “I have a couple of teapots at my house. I’m sure we all do.” Fiona and Jocelyn nodded. “We can manage with borrowed pots for a day or two.”

  “I’m not using that ugly Brown Betty of yours in my tea room, Gemma Doyle.”

  “It’s a teapot, Jayne. It will suffice to serve tea. Let’s not stand here arguing. We do not want any more police attention directed our way.”

  We went into the house, gathered up the last of our personal belongings, and left by the back door. Leslie Wilson swept up her tote bag containing the aprons.

  Jayne walked her mom to her car and then we drove off. Police cars, cruisers and unmarked, filled the wide driveway in front of the house. Officer Johnson was stationed at the front gate, preventing the curious from entering. She gave us a wave as we drove slowly past. We turned left, back to town. In the rearview mirror, I watched Leslie Wilson peel off to the right.

  “That was fun,” Jocelyn said.

  “You think?” Jayne said. “A man died, I’ll remind you.”

  “Well, it was fun up until then. I didn’t get much of a chance to have a look around the house, but what I saw was absolutely fabulous. What an amazing kitchen. I’d love to have a garden like that.”

  “And have garden parties,” Fiona said.

  “Too much work keeping up a place that size,” Jayne said.

  “If you can afford a house and garden like that, Jayne,” Fiona said, “you can afford to hire staff.”

  “Instead of being the staff.” Jocelyn sighed. “Like me.”

  “Like us,” I said. “We all work for a living.”

  “All except for Moriarty,” Jocelyn said. “In my next life, I want to be a shop cat.” In this life, Jocelyn was a young mother with two kids and a husband known to be a frequent visitor to McGillivray’s Irish Pub.

  “Anyway,” Jocelyn said. “It was fun until the end. I hope we can get more gigs like that.”

  “Rebecca was pleased,” Jayne said. “She’s going to pass our name on to some of her friends.”

  Jocelyn squealed in delight. I was delighted too, although I refrained from squealing. Jayne had worked hard to make Mrs. Hudson’s a success, and referrals among the well-connected, afternoon-tea-party-giving set would be a nice bonus. As long as she didn’t try to rope me into helping.

  “It was great meeting the actors too,” Fiona said. “They were so polite and friendly, even to us. They didn’t have to be nice to us.”

  “It’s too bad that guy, Sir Nigel, died,” Jocelyn said, “but he wasn’t nice.”

  “No,” Fiona agreed.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “He smiled at the guests and was oh-so-charming,” Jocelyn said, “but the minute they walked away, he’d have something snarky to say about the way the women were dressed or the men talked. I heard him call that woman in the red print dress and matching shawl a fat cow.”

  “She wasn’t fat,” Fiona said, “but her dress was way too tight. I wasn’t there when he insulted that actress by saying she was too old, but I heard all about it. I wasn’t surprised. He was sure rude to me. He snapped at me to get him a glass o
f wine, and when I said we were serving tea and the wine was self-serve at the bar, he made a crack about not getting good help in the colonies. The people at his table laughed, but you could tell they were embarrassed.”

  “Rebecca Stanton kept her eye on him all afternoon,” Fiona added. “She looked absolutely furious most of the time. He was drunk. I bet he’d been drinking before he even arrived.”

  “Come on, guys,” Jayne said. “The man’s dead. Give him some respect.”

  Jocelyn and Fiona were momentary chastised, and then they went on to gossip about the other guests.

  I cursed Jayne under my breath. What’s wrong with speaking ill of the dead anyway if you’d have no problem speaking ill of them in life? I wanted to hear more about Nigel Bellingham’s last hours on this earth, and it seemed as though not much of it was going to be favorable.

  We pulled into the alley behind the bakery.

  “I cannot believe you let the cops take my Sherlock tea sets,” Jayne said.

  “What was I supposed to do, throw myself on them? Grab them and take off, pursued by a pack of howling dogs? I’d have been unlikely to get far, running down the street lugging a box of bone china teapots and cups while taking care not to break them. The police take whatever they want from a murder scene. They didn’t need my permission.”

  Jocelyn and Fiona whirled around. “Murder!” Jocelyn said. “We thought it was an accident. He was so drunk, I figured he’d walked off the cliff without noticing it right under his feet.”

  “Or rather, not right under his feet,” Fiona said. “Kinda like Wile E. Coyote.”

  “I only mean they’re investigating all possibilities, as is normal procedure in a suspicious death,” I said. Was it murder? I was pretty sure it was. Unlikely Nigel would have headed off into the woods for a solitary walk, not in his state. The woods were too far from the bar, for one thing. He had to have been lured there, by someone wanting a private chat perhaps. Someone like Leslie Wilson? I shoved that thought aside. The possibilities were just about endless. Nigel had not been a popular guy.

  Then again, perhaps I have a suspicious mind, and it had been an accident after all.

  “I sure hope I get my pictures back,” Jayne said. “I had a quick peek at the ones you took, Gemma, and they were great. If we ever want to expand into catering parties, pictures from today will be good promotion.”

  “Why’d they want them?” Fiona asked. “Do the cops want to learn the proper setting of afternoon tea?”

  “They asked everyone for their photos,” I said. “In case someone caught an image of something significant. Maybe without knowing what they were seeing.”

  Fiona and Jocelyn bade us good-bye, and Jayne headed for the kitchen to do whatever she had to do to get ready for opening the tea room tomorrow. I went into the Emporium.

  By now it was half seven. I’d phoned to tell Ashleigh I was delayed, although I hadn’t said why. Obviously, that hadn’t been necessary. She greeted me by saying, “Wow! Sir Nigel Bellingham died at your high tea thing.”

  Moriarty jumped onto the counter. His ears were up, and his intelligent amber eyes shone with interest. Even the cat wanted to hear all the details.

  “Afternoon tea,” I said, “is not the same as high tea.”

  “Whatever. Do the cops know what happened?” Her eyes opened wide. “Do you think that piece of paper he signed for my granddad will be worth something now? It might be the last time he wrote his autograph.”

  “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t go around suggesting his death has been to your advantage, if I were you.”

  Her mouth snapped shut.

  “Not until it’s all cleared up, anyway.”

  “What are the cops saying?” she asked. “Do they think he was murdered? Who do they think did it?”

  “I don’t know. Have you been busy?”

  “Do you think they’ll want to interview me?”

  “Why would they do that? Do you know anything?”

  “I was here Wednesday when he came in. I can tell them how the other people around him acted. Like his PA, that skinny guy? You could tell that he and Sir Nigel were really close.”

  “You could tell that, could you? How has business been today? The bookshelves look quite undisturbed.”

  “A lot of people came in between when you left and dinnertime. They bought plenty of books. I found more upstairs and put them out. I hope that’s all right?”

  “Perfect. Thank you. I’m dead beat, and I want to go home. Do you think you can close up by yourself tonight?”

  “Sure! No problem.”

  Moriarty nodded his agreement.

  I dragged myself the few blocks home. Not only had it been a long day and I’d been kept on my toes serving tea, but I find sparring with the police not a relaxing activity. The West London Police Department and I have what might be called a history. A professional one in addition to my personal relationship with Ryan Ashburton. Ryan and I had met a few years ago—before Uncle Arthur, Jayne, and I opened the tea room—when a string of arsons plagued the shops on Baker Street. I attempted to help the police by telling them the minor details I’d observed among my fellow business owners, one in particular. West London’s finest had repaid the performance of my civic duty by marching me down to the station, fingerprinting and photographing me (in highly unflattering light), and accusing me of being the guilty party because apparently I knew too much about details the police had not released to the public.

  All I knew was what I had observed and the logical conclusions I had come to.

  I’d been able to persuade Ryan, if not his superior officers, to act on my tip, and the next time the arsonist attempted to burn down a store, he was caught red-handed.

  Thoughts of the past faded as I turned onto the path to my house. It was coming up to eight o’clock, but even in my tired state, I felt myself smiling. I share the house with Great Uncle Arthur, and it’s big enough for the two of us to lead separate lives when we want to. He keeps a private apartment on the second level, and I fill the much larger ground floor. It’s far too much house for the two of us, but we love it. Built in 1784, it’s a classic colonial saltbox, meaning two stories at the front and one at the back. The exterior of the house could be used on the set of a historical movie, but the interior is thoroughly modernized, although the renovations had maintained many of the house’s best features: the wide-planked redwood floors, foot-high baseboards, and a dramatic, sweeping oak staircase. The yard is small, and the lovely garden is maintained by a friend of Arthur’s who moved into an apartment when her husband died but then found she missed her favorite hobby.

  I went around the back and through the mudroom as usual, to be greeted by a wildly enthusiastic Violet.

  Now I was home, the last thing I wanted was to go out again. One of Uncle Arthur’s rich beef stews with thick gravy and plenty of plump mushrooms, pulled out of the freezer and reheated, followed by a long read curled up in the den, was exactly what I needed tonight. I’d brought The Whole Art of Detection by Lyndsay Faye home from the bookstore and was eager to dive into it. I’m not a Sherlock Holmes fanatic. I can’t discuss at length every bit of minutiae of the Great Detective’s (fictional) life or debate (with quotes from the books) whether he was a woman in disguise (I thought that highly unlikely), but I do enjoy a well-written novel, and many of the pastiche books were just that.

  Now that I was home, I only wanted to stay home. But I’d accepted Grant’s dinner invitation, and it would be impolite to cancel at the last minute.

  I didn’t have time to take Violet for a walk, so I promised her one later and let her into the enclosed backyard. I kicked off my trainers, took off my black clothes suitable for serving tea and tossed them into the laundry hamper, and hopped into the shower. I didn’t worry too much about what to wear for dinner. Summer in Cape Cod is very casual, and we were dining alfresco.

  My phone rang, and Irene Talbot’s name popped up on the display. I let it go to voice mail. She’
d want the scoop on what I knew about the death of Sir Nigel Bellingham, and what little I did know, I wasn’t planning on telling anyone, particularly not the newspapers.

  Irene’s call reminded me: I dug through the laundry basket and pulled out the trousers I’d been wearing this afternoon. I took the scrap of pink ruching out of the pocket and placed it in the palm of my hand. Any one of the six volunteers could have worn the apron it belonged to. They appeared to be identical, and all were the same size. The aprons themselves had been mass-produced and store-bought: plain white, knee length with a bib and a sash that tied at the back. Leslie had bought the aprons and added the pink trim to make them more attractive. The aprons were plain cotton. It might be possible to get fingerprints off the surface, perhaps even some DNA. Leslie’s fingerprints would be on all the aprons, as would many others. I’d seen some of the women tying each other’s sash or helping to adjust the bib. The police would have no way of knowing who’d worn the damaged apron. At the end of the party, the volunteers took off their aprons and left them in the kitchen, where anyone passing would have had access to them.

  I thought back over the volunteers. Highly unlikely Mrs. Franklin and her walker had gone for a stroll to the cliff, never mind shoved a man over. That left, aside from Leslie, four others. I’d not seen any of them interacting with Nigel or showing any undue interest in him. They’d done their jobs efficiently and had seemed to be enjoying themselves. Only one apron-wearing woman had argued with Sir Nigel: Jayne’s mother. The same woman who was the last person I’d seen with him before his death. Leslie had been distracted and upset most of the afternoon.

  I did not believe Leslie had killed Nigel. Therefore my reasoning was sound: this scrap of pink cloth torn from a mass-produced white apron could not provide a clue to the identity of Nigel’s killer. Assuming, that is, he had been murdered.