Chapter 24

24

I SAT BACK in my chair, my head spinning. Milo had informed Inspector Jones that Gil had been on the terrace before the murder? It seemed almost impossible that it could be the truth, but if it was not, what reason could the inspector possibly have for saying such a thing?

“I understand why he kept it from you, of course,” Inspector Jones continued in that calm, formal way of his. “It wouldn’t look at all sporting of him to accuse his rival of murder.”

“I’m so confused,” I said, trying desperately to string together the facts that Inspector Jones was giving me into some semblance of order in my mind. “You can’t mean … Surely you don’t think Milo was attempting to implicate Gil solely on my account?”

“I’m afraid that is a possibility. At the time, I had no reason not to take his word for it. Now, other circumstances have arisen to put a different light on things. If it is the case that he gave false information, your husband may be charged with perverting the course of public justice. That is why I wish to speak with him.”

“Good heavens.” I breathed. “I know Milo is competitive, but I don’t believe it would come to anything like this.”

“I’m afraid that’s the way it appears.”

“I think you’re mistaken,” I replied. “You see, I’m simply not that important to him.”

He looked at me for a long moment, and when he spoke he did not acknowledge my doubts. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Mrs. Ames. I know how difficult things have been for you as of late. That is why I hesitated to…”

“It’s perfectly all right, Inspector,” I said, cutting him off as smoothly as I could manage. “I’m glad you told me.”

He rose, taking my cue that I would like to be alone. “If you hear from your husband, or if you have need of me, please call.”

“Thank you. I shall.”

After the inspector left, I changed into dry clothes as I tried to gather my thoughts. What he had suggested seemed completely illogical. I could conceive of no reason why Milo should falsely implicate Gil in Rupert’s murder. It was not at all the sort of thing Milo was apt to do. He preferred direct assault to underhanded schemes, whatever Inspector Jones might believe. In any event, I was not nearly grand enough a prize to risk legal ramifications.

For that matter, I still couldn’t understand why he had bothered to come to the Brightwell at all, especially if he only intended to leave again after a few days. Perhaps it had been to prove that he could still have me if he wanted me. Well, there he had succeeded admirably. I had let myself, once again, be too readily seduced. Once secure in the knowledge that I was his for the asking, he had felt it safe to leave again. Well, he would be surprised to learn that I did not intend to spend the rest of my life waiting for him to return. Five years had been long enough.

I realized I was gritting my teeth, and, in an effort to calm myself, I picked up the suspect list. Slowly and methodically, I began to read over it.

There had to be something I was missing, some piece of the puzzle that had only to be discovered in order to make the entire picture clear.

My thoughts returned to poor Mr. Hamilton. He had picked up something on the beach. Somewhere along the way, he had disposed of it. I wondered if it would ever be found. I had thought it had shone momentarily

in the moonlight when he picked it up, but perhaps that had been my imagination. If it had been a random rock or piece of brick, it was unlikely that it would be discovered. Even if someone should happen across it, the blood would no doubt be washed away by the torrential downpours that were beginning to fall. Then there was my suspicion that it had not been the weapon at all. If not, what could it have been?

I stared at the list, as though willing the murderer’s name to appear in red letters before my eyes. I felt I was so close to discovering something, if only I could find the right link, some bit of information that would point in the right direction. At least, that was how it worked in the mystery novels.

If only I had been able to peek at the inspector’s extensive dossiers on each of us. Of course, he had no doubt been poring over them, and it did not seem he had discovered anything substantial yet. Nevertheless, I had the feeling that more than one person was hiding something.

But people weren’t the only aspect of this case. There were things, mysterious objects, involved, too. For instance, the sleeping pills that seemed to be haunting so many of us. They were easy enough to obtain, so that particular bit of information was not necessarily enlightening.

Four of us had been drugged: Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton, me, and Emmeline, the latter albeit by doctor’s orders. I knew Mr. Hamilton had been in possession of sleeping tablets. I also knew that the Rodgerses claimed to have misplaced theirs. Whether that story had been the truth or a ruse on their part in order to cover something more nefarious had yet to be determined.

I was missing something. I felt that I had all the pieces of the puzzle, but somehow I just could not make them fit.

Suddenly weary beyond all words, I set the list aside and sat down on the sofa. My head pounding, I leaned against the cushions and closed my eyes. Perhaps if I rested for just a few moments …

* * *

A MOMENTOUS CRASH of lightning startled me awake, and I sat upright on the sofa, momentarily unaware of where I was. Then I recalled that I was in my room. It took me a moment to realize I must have fallen asleep.

The room was black as pitch, illuminated only by the occasional flash of lightning. Night had come upon me as I slept, and with it had come the raging storm that had been threatening for so long. The rain outside pounded against the hotel, the wind rattling the windows like something from a ghost story. I reached out to switch on the lamp and found it didn’t work. The storm must have knocked out the electricity.

Rousing myself, I felt along the table and located matches. I struck one, looking around the room to see if there was a candle about. I didn’t recall having seen one, and I couldn’t locate one now. The match burned out, and I was about to strike a second when I heard a tap on my door. “Amory, it’s Gil. Are you there?”

“Yes, Gil. I’m coming.”

I felt my way to the door and opened it to find Gil, oil lamp in hand.

Emmeline stood with him, her face pale in the flickering glow. They made a sort of sad little pair around the dull pool of light.

“The storm’s knocked the power out,” he said. “The hotel’s got a few odd candles and such in the sitting room. Shall I fetch you one, or would you like to come down for a bit of company?”

“Do come down, Amory,” Emmeline said. “It’s so dreary in the sitting room. I couldn’t bear for Gil to leave me there when he came to fetch you.”

The thunder rumbled again. I had no special desire to remain cooped up in my room in the dark, in the middle of a raging storm. “Yes, I’ll come down. Are the others there?”

“That’s what makes it so bad,” Emmeline said. “Mrs. Hamilton’s there, pale as a ghost. No one seems to know what to say to her. I … even I can’t seem to think of anything … and I know how she feels.” Emmeline looked on the verge of tears.

“You needn’t come down if you don’t feel up to it,” Gil interjected. “If you’d rather not speak to Mrs. Hamilton just now…”

“It’s all right,” I said. “Perhaps we can cheer her up a bit.”

We ventured downstairs. The hotel was strangely quiet, save for noise of the storm and the pounding of the sea, which was audible even in the lobby.

A few people sat around with candles and lanterns, talking in subdued voices. I supposed most of the guests had kept to their rooms.

Gil and I entered the sitting room. Emmeline was right. The mood in the room was strangely oppressive. Everyone was still and very quiet. It was almost eerie. Mrs. Hamilton sat near Mrs. Rodgers, neither of them saying anything.

“Perhaps we can get someone to light a fire in the fireplace,” I told Gil.

“It would brighten the room.”

“I’ll go speak to the desk clerk,” he said.

“There’s a windup gramophone on the table there,” Anne Rodgers suggested as silence descended once again. “We don’t need electricity for that.”

No one responded, and she made no move toward it. Perhaps she realized none of us felt much like music.

I approached Mrs. Hamilton. “How are you feeling tonight?” I asked her.

“Not very well. The storm seems to make everything much worse.” Her eyes welled with tears that glimmered in the lamp-lit room.

She reached into her purse and pulled out a handkerchief. Wiping her eyes, she also removed a cigarette case. She put a cigarette to her lips and lit it with fairly steady hands. Despite her poise, I knew she must be unnerved, for I had not seen her smoke before this.

“I couldn’t sit all alone in my room in the dark,” she said.

“Of course not. No one would want you to.”

“I can’t wait to get away from this place,” Veronica Carter said suddenly, her voice loud in the room. “It’s simply ghastly here.”

“Yes,” agreed Mrs. Rodgers, emphatically. “If it wasn’t for this storm, I’d leave here tonight, that inspector be hanged.”

“That’s no way to talk, Anne,” her husband said in that perpetually dull tone of his. “There are legal formalities to be observed.”

“It’s the strain,” Lionel Blake replied, puffing at a cigarette. He appeared perfectly calm, as he had when we had spoken outside, but his voice sounded strange.

A sudden shriek startled us all, and a moment later Mrs. Roland flew into the room like a great bat. She was dressed head to toe in black, including the velvet turban wrapped around her head. Indeed, the long, draped sleeves of her dress flapped like bony wings as she waved her arms about. “I was almost killed coming down the stairs in the dark,” she said.

“The lift isn’t working, and neither is the telephone. It was like wandering around in a cave.” She dropped into a chair and heaved a great sigh. “A cigarette, please. Someone give me a cigarette.”

Mrs. Hamilton offered her one. “What a lovely case, dear. I do so love gold things. Mr. Howe had a magnificent lighter … but perhaps I shouldn’t speak of that now. I’m sorry if I’ve upset you, Emmeline. You probably bought the lighter for him.”

“No, I…” Emmeline said, and for a moment I was afraid she was going to cry. Then she summoned up the courage to keep on talking in the same level voice. “It doesn’t upset me. It was a lovely lighter. He was very proud of it. From one of the better London jewelers, Price and Lord, I think he said it was. I don’t know how he acquired it … I should like to have it, to remember him by.”

“Haven’t the police given it to you?” Mrs. Roland asked, the cigarette dangling between bright red lips.

“No, it … it wasn’t on the list of things that they found…” Her voice trailed off, and I knew that she meant the things that had been on the body.

The poor girl. I felt it a good sign that she was able to discuss him without dissolving into tears.

“Perhaps it will turn up,” I said.

“He may have put it in his little treasure box.”

“Treasure box?” Mrs. Roland’s heavily penciled brows rose, and I sensed that the attention of the room had suddenly shifted in our direction.

Emmeline smiled, a sad little smile that made her seem very young.

“That’s what I used to call it. He brought it with him when he traveled to keep his valuables in. He’d usually hide it about his room somewhere.” She frowned. “The police didn’t mention having seen it in his room, and I’ve been so upset that I didn’t think of it. I shall ask them, tomorrow perhaps, when the lights come back.”

“Speaking of light, has anyone a light?” Mrs. Roland asked, pulling a handkerchief from her bosom and dragging it across her face. “I’m so very flushed from my ordeal … I feel as though I may combust and light it myself. Humans do that sometimes, don’t they? Combust, I mean. I’ve heard that, though it seems frightfully silly to me.”

Mr. Blake supplied a match, and Mrs. Roland inhaled deeply. Then she sat back and sighed out a great cloud of smoke. “What I really need is a good stiff drink. I’ve had quite a fright. The lights went out, and I couldn’t see a thing.”

The conversation resumed, but I barely heard it, my thoughts wandering in another direction. A gold lighter was an expensive gift, especially if it hadn’t come from Emmeline. Perhaps he had bought it for himself, though men like Rupert seemed very adept at getting things out of women.

Unwillingly, my thoughts wandered to the gift I had bought for Milo yesterday, gold cufflinks, which had just happened to be engraved with an A. Engraved …

Mrs. Roland had seen Rupert with a gold lighter. I had found a gold lighter among Mr. Hamilton’s things. It had been engraved with an H.

Could it be that it had belonged not to Mr. Hamilton but to Rupert Howe? It was an interesting thought.

If only I could find some way to inspect the lighter again. Or, better yet, see if I could find one amid Rupert’s things. Surely the police would have mentioned a “treasure box” containing Rupert’s valuables to Emmeline.

Something suddenly occurred to me. Nearly all of our party was gathered here in the sitting room. What was to stop me from going to Rupert’s room to look around? It would only require a key … and I felt fairly certain I could gain hold of one.

My sense of caution, heightened by recent events, warred with the desire to attempt to gain some vital piece of information. In the end, the impulse to follow my hunch was stronger than my more practical inclination to remain quietly sitting in the lamp-lit room with the other guests. One of whom was, in all probability, a killer, I reminded myself.

“Gil was going about collecting guests,” Miss Carter said to Mrs.

Roland, and I realized they were still talking about the unexpected loss of power. “I’m surprised you didn’t encounter him.”

“He’s off to find Olive, I expect,” Mrs. Roland said. “Emmeline dear, you’re looking thin. I’ve a box of very good chocolates in my room. When the lights come back on, I’ll fetch them for you.”

“That reminds me, I’m going to fetch something from my room,” I said to no one in particular, rising in what I hoped was a passably nonchalant fashion. “I’ll be back in a few moments.”

I took one of the spare lights that rested on the table and set out into the lobby. The people who sat there had begun a game of cards and paid me no mind. I had hoped, because of the power outage and resulting chaos, there would be no one at the desk. Unfortunately, the desk clerk was there. I hesitated a moment in the shadows, feeling vaguely like some Victorian murderer waiting for a passing victim. If I could just create a minor distraction of some sort …

Then a perfectly wicked thought crossed my mind, and before I had half thought it through, I dropped the oil lamp I was holding. It shattered on the

marble floor, creating a small whoosh of flame as the fire hit the pool of oil, brilliantly lighting the dim foyer.

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