Walking Into Murder Page 4

  Laura flung off her filthy clothes and stepped into the shower, which fortunately did exist. The hot water felt blissful, and she luxuriated in it for as long as she dared. Images of the dead woman came into her mind, but she pushed them away determinedly. There was nothing she could do for the poor woman now except try to find out how she had died and why.

  “All yours,” she called through the adjoining door when she finished, and then realized with acute embarrassment that she was clad only in a towel. She didn’t want to think about the remarks that might evoke.

  Fortunately, Thomas didn’t answer. Laura scurried into her room and rummaged in her suitcase for clothes. She always brought too much when she traveled because she could never resist stuffing in a few favorite long skirts and brightly colored jackets that might be perfect for some mythical occasion but never were. They certainly weren’t right for this setting. Instead, she pulled out a new purchase, a long dark green dress of some new fabric that was supposed to be wrinkle-free. To her surprise, it was. The slinky stuff fell easily over her head and settled itself smoothly around her.

  Laura glanced in the mirror. Not too bad, she decided, except for her hair. There hadn’t been time to wash it and in the high humidity it exploded around her face like an untamed lion’s mane. Or maybe a baboon’s mane, considering the color.

  Maybe a bun would work? Smoothing the unruly strands back, Laura pulled it into a rough circle and skewered it with a few gaudy pins. That would have to do. Dabbing on some eye makeup and her favorite pair of dangly earrings to give herself confidence, she knocked again on Thomas’s door to let him know the bathroom was free. There was still no answer.

  She found him downstairs, examining some paintings in the study. He too had changed, into a dark blue blazer. She was glad to see a few bulges in the pockets. Perfectly tailored men were too reminiscent of Donald.

  “These paintings are lovely,” Thomas told Lord Torrington. “Have you had them cleaned lately?”

  Laura wasn’t sure she would describe them as lovely, though they were the type of paintings one expected to find in museums and were probably valuable. The backgrounds were dark and the peasant homes they portrayed were little more than grimy shacks. Still, the people in them had cheerful faces, and she liked the touches of bright color that enlivened their ragged clothes.

  Lord Torrington glanced up absent-mindedly at the paintings. “Don’t know,” he replied. “Maybe Antonia did. Look the same as always to me. One of those Dutch painters, you know. Rather good, I’m told, but I’ve never paid much attention to those things.”

  Antonia appeared. “Dinner is ready. This way, please.” She sounded like a bored tour guide, Laura thought. Maybe she too was a young wife tiring of her older husband. There were far too many of that species around.

  Antonia led them into an impressive dining room. More large pieces of ornate silver covered the tables, and portraits in heavily gilded frames, no doubt portraying Torrington ancestors, decorated the walls. Above the sideboard was a more recent painting of a woman with dark hair and aristocratic features that was almost certainly the grande dame when she was younger. Laura felt a stir of recognition. Hadn’t she seen that face somewhere before? Not the face of the present woman, but the one in the portrait. She stared at it, but couldn’t recall the context in which she’d seen it.

  The grande dame, who was clearly their hostess, indicated the proper places for her guests as if this were a four-course gourmet dinner. Clearly informality was not tolerated in the dining room, even with a dead body in the house and cut telephone wires.

  “If you will sit there, Mrs. Smith,” she said graciously, indicating a seat beside Lord Torrington, “and you there, Mr. Smith.”

  “Thank you,” Laura murmured, wishing she knew how to address her hostess properly. Was she Lady Torrington? She couldn’t be, though. That was Antonia, at least Thomas had addressed her as Lady Torrington.

  Laura gave up and tackled her soup, trying not to slurp. The spoon, she remembered from long ago lessons, was supposed to go into the bowl from front to back, though how one got it to the mouth from that position without spilling remained a mystery, especially when the soup bowl was encased in a silver tureen that kept getting in the way. Still, the soup was delicious despite Angelina’s disclaimers.

  The sandwiches were another matter. They were a varied and ill-assorted lot, some with bits of green that she assumed were watercress, others with a pink paste that might be ham or fish, and a yellow one that might be eggs enhanced by a great deal of mayonnaise. Most of them, however, had a sticky brown substance inside that reminded Laura of the mud she had stared at all day. Both Angelina and Nigel were eating them voraciously, so Laura took a tentative bite. She put the sandwich down again in astonishment. Chocolate! How bizarre!

  “If you don’t want it, I’ll have it,” Angelina said, noting that Laura had taken only one bite.

  “Angelina, that is not polite,” her mother corrected.

  “Yes, mother,” Angelina answered, and coolly grabbed the sandwich from Laura’s plate.

  Conversation was desultory. Antonia seemed lost in her own thoughts and so did Lord Torrington. Tom Smith, who was seated beside their hostess, was talking to her about art, a subject both of them seemed to know a lot about.

  Their voices suddenly ceased and Laura realized that everyone’s eyes were focused on the door behind her. Antonia gave a sharp cry of fear, and Nigel looked as if he were about to faint. Lord Torrington was open-mouthed with astonishment. Thomas had a glint in his eye that looked almost dangerous. Even the grande dame had lost her steely composure, as if she had no idea how to rise to this particular occasion.

  Angelina, as usual, looked mutinous. “You’re dead!” she exclaimed. “You’re supposed to be dead, so you can’t come in here.”

  Lord Torrington’s astonishment morphed into triumph. “No dead body, after all,” he said, beaming. “Didn’t see how there could be. Not reasonable, doncherno.”

  Belatedly, Laura looked behind her. A duplicate of the woman she had seen on the bed in the green room stood in the doorway, wringing her hands. Her long bony face was suffused with embarrassment.

  Lottie rushed toward them. “I am so sorry, Baroness Smythington, so very much sorry that I have not attended to my duties,” she said in an anguished tone, bowing until she had almost prostrated herself at the grande dame’s feet. Her accent was very strong. One of the Scandinavian languages, Laura suspected.

  Gratefully, she took note of the name Lottie had used. It was a strange way to find out the proper form of address for her hostess, but she was still glad to know it.

  Lottie went on apologizing as if unable to stop. “I do not know what happens to me,” she moaned, stumbling over the words. “One moment I am drinking the tea in my room, and then I am falling down, and I wake up many hours later, but I do not know where I am and what has come over me, and I…”

  Abruptly, her voice broke off and she slumped into a chair.

  “All right, Lottie,” the Baroness said. “I am sure it was not your fault. I think all of us have been the victims of a very nasty joke.”

  Deliberately, one face at a time, she examined each person at the table, including Laura. “I do not know who is responsible for this outrage,” she said severely, “but I intend to find out.” No one met the probing dark eyes. Even Lord Torrington seemed subdued by her gaze.

  The old lady rose slowly to her feet. “Shall we take coffee in the study? Antonia, I would be pleased if you would carry the tray from the kitchen.” She turned to Angelina. “There are some petit fours in the sideboard. Perhaps you will bring them?”

  Angelina’s face lit up. “Yes, Gram,” she answered meekly. Grabbing the delicacies, she ran ahead of them to the study so she could chew unobserved. The others trooped behind the Baroness, as intimidated as a group of students on their way to the principal’s office.

  Coffee was served and Angelina passed the petit fours, taking care to eat one
every time she offered the box to someone else. No one seemed to notice except Lottie, who looked too sick and miserable to object and finally excused herself, with many repetitious apologies, to go lie down.

  As if by unspoken agreement, no one in the family raised the subject that was uppermost in their minds: Lottie and her miraculous recovery. Laura suspected that the Baroness wouldn’t ask for explanations until her guests had retired for the night.

  She was right. “I am sure our guests must be tired,” the Baroness said, rising to her feet. Laura took the hint and stood up too.

  “Thank you for the dinner, Baroness Smythington,” she said politely. “Good night, everyone.”

  “You go first, darling, and use the bath,” Thomas suggested. “I’ll have a quick look at the weather and be right behind you.”

  Laura heard him saying his good nights as she headed down the hall. When he opened the front door to look outside, she heard thunder. Great, she told herself, an even wilder storm as well as everything else.

  Exhaustion hit the moment she looked at her bed. It was covered with a thick duvet encased in ivory fabric with tiny blue flowers, and soft pillows with the same pattern invited her to rest her weary head. Laura resisted until she had brushed her teeth and found a nightgown. Then she tumbled under the covers and closed her eyes.

  Perversely, sleep wouldn’t come. It often didn’t. Being alone at night was the worst part of being single. She’d become accustomed to a warm body beside her in the bed, even one who had long ago lost his appeal. Why had she married Donald anyway? Sex, she supposed. That was how the species kept going. The impulse to mate was as strong today as it had been thousands of years ago. It kept going even after the job of child-bearing was over. She often wished it didn’t. That empty ache never went away.

  Her mind moved on to the day’s events and then drifted to her children. Both were young adults now, but they still worried her. Donald’s defection had come at a terrible time. She had just started a demanding new job; Melinda had decided to get married despite multiple reservations about that patriarchal institution – now unpleasantly confirmed by her father. Mark had been in the sullen throes of adolescent rebellion and had refused to talk about anything. He had seemed most comfortable with Patti, which was hard to take, as were the sympathetic glances from faculty members who assumed that Laura had been ignominiously dumped. In fact, she had intended to ask Donald for a divorce as soon as Mark was a little older and had calmed down, but Donald had stolen her fire. That was what rankled most of all. That and the fact that he had gone straight to Patti’s after his perfidious announcement and stayed out of sight for weeks, leaving her to pay for the infamous dinner.

  Laura grinned, remembering her revenge. She had come home from that dinner in a rage so fierce that she had taken every article of Donald’s clothing she could find and tossed each piece triumphantly out the window into the pouring rain. The sight of his soggy trousers, his shirts, socks, ties, shoes and underwear hanging limply from bushes and trees had thrilled her.

  Donald had picked it all up the next day and gone back to Patti, oblivious both to her distress and to his children’s. Melinda opined that he had vanished into the self-absorbed state known as male menopause, which compelled middle-aged men to prove their manhood and show off to their friends by nabbing a sexy young wife. Laura wasn’t so sure. Donald had never been all that interested in sex. In her opinion, what he had wanted was an orderly life and a housewife who would uncomplainingly keep it that way. Patti seemed born for the role.

  Pounding her pillow into a more comfortable position, Laura pushed all thoughts of Donald and her children out of her mind. Perversely, Angelina drifted in instead. Laura saw her again, looking down at the body in the dim light of the green room and then touching the arm, feeling how cold it was….

  Laura’s eyes opened wide. Nigel had touched the arm, too, so had the Baroness. Both had seemed sure Lottie was dead. Only Lottie wasn’t dead; she was alive, and so was Cat, and that meant…That meant the woman they had all seen lying on the bed as Lottie might not have been Lottie at all, but someone else, first with her face covered with a Cat mask, then with a Lottie mask, but it had been the same arm, an arm without a pulse…Thomas had made sure…

  Laura jumped out of bed, grabbed her bathrobe and slipped quietly out of the room. She had to look at least.

  The door of the green room was closed. She eased it open and peered inside. It was very dark. Probably the curtains had been drawn. Wishing she had thought to pack a flashlight, she crept cautiously across the room toward the windows. If she could open the curtains, she might be able to see a little.

  Reaching out, she ran her hand along the heavy draperies, feeling for the opening so she could pull them apart. Just as her fingers found the crack, her wrist was grabbed in a steely clasp and twisted behind her. Another hand slapped across her mouth.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Laura’s stomach lurched with fear. “Let me go,” she sputtered, twisting away from the hand at her mouth. It disappeared, but the grip on her arm didn’t relax. She was dragged along while her captor felt for a light switch, and then she could see.

  “You!” Thomas said in disgust, releasing her arm with a jerk. “I thought I might have a murderer in my grasp.”

  Laura rubbed her aching wrist. “How do you know I’m not? You seem better qualified for the position of murderer than I am anyway,” she added tartly.

  Thomas didn’t answer. He had already turned on another light beside the bed and was leaning over the pillow, concentrating intensely.

  “Don’t you ever answer a question?” Laura asked in frustration.

  Taking advantage of his preoccupation, she went to the other side of the bed to see if the body was still there. It wasn’t. Then what was Thomas examining with such fascination? All she could see was a pale object, mostly hidden by the bedclothes.

  Thomas pulled the rest of the object out, using a handkerchief, and for the first time Laura saw what it was - the mask of Lottie. A tremor of fear ran through her. It looked pathetic now, like a discarded theatrical prop - which was exactly what it was, except that it was so incredibly life-like.

  “Remarkable young chap,” Thomas murmured thoughtfully. “So good he fooled himself.”

  “You mean he didn’t realize he was looking at his own mask, not at Lottie’s face,” Laura answered. She swallowed hard, struggling to digest the unwelcome fact that she had been right. There had been a body, a body with a Cat mask and then Lottie’s mask on its face, or else why was the second mask still there? Someone had taken the body away, only the person had forgotten the mask. How horrible to do that, as if the woman’s body was no more than a bundle of flesh, to be disposed of like…

  Thomas’s voice cut into these morbid ruminations. “Exactly. But on the other hand, Nigel doesn’t see very well at close range without his glasses, and as Sherlock Holmes, he couldn’t wear them.”

  “He had a monocle,” Laura pointed out. “And how do you know that about Nigel?”

  Thomas gave her a quick, admiring glance. “You’re a good observer. However, as you may also have noticed, Nigel didn’t use the monocle to look at Lottie. He put it in his pocket. And I know he needs glasses because he told me when he showed me his studio. He does very professional work, as you can see.”

  Laura nodded, intrigued despite the feeling of revulsion that came over her every time she looked at the pale object on the pillowcase.

  “I wonder how he makes the masks so realistic, and how he learned to make them in the first place,” she mused.

  “I believe the Baroness taught him,” Thomas answered. “She once had something to do with the theater, I think, and knew a lot about mask making.”

  Maybe that was why the portrait of a younger Baroness had seemed so familiar, Laura thought, because she had been in the theater. The elusive sense of recognition surfaced again, but vanished just as quickly. How frustrating!

  Spurred on by her show of in
terest, Thomas continued his explanation. “Nigel adapted one of her techniques to create a series of face portraits, as he calls them. First, he makes a bust of his subject; then he covers it with fabric – buckram, I think it’s called, that conforms perfectly to the contours of the face and head when it’s wet. When the fabric dries, he peels it off and has a mask. It’s quite flexible, Nigel tells me, and can be kept in place by an almost invisible piece of elastic under the hair. By the time he adds coloring, paints the eyes and mouth, adds hair and eyebrows and all the rest, the results can fool almost anyone, at least in dim lights. I’ll ask him to show you, if you want. Or maybe he’ll do one of you if you’re around.”

  Laura shuddered. In normal circumstances she would have been fascinated, but at the moment masks made her feel rather nauseous. “Later on, maybe,” she answered. “Right now I’d be afraid there would be yet another body underneath.”

  “So you realized there must be a body, too.” Thomas sighed. “Hard to come alive again when you don’t have a pulse or a heartbeat.”

  Laura shivered. “And so cold,” she said. “The Baroness and Angelina felt her arm, and so did Nigel. Maybe that’s why he was fooled. Or not fooled, depending on how you look at it. I wonder what he thinks now.”

  “That he was wrong and Lottie was alive all the time,” Thomas answered. “Or at least I hope that’s what he thinks. It’s safer.”

  “Safer?” Laura was startled, and then she saw what he meant. “You mean the murderer wants everyone to think no one is dead. That was the point of using the masks and then removing the body, so they would think Lottie had been lying here all the time and had recovered.”

  “As possibly they do, except for you,” Thomas observed and Laura thought she detected a note of suspicion in his voice. “You decided to return to the scene of the crime to ask more questions Are you a detective in disguise, like Miss Marple?”

  “Not at all,” she answered primly. “I came because I was…Well, I was just curious.” She grimaced. One might even say, as Donald had, insatiably curious. The tired maxim about cats had inevitably followed. Donald hadn’t liked her impulsiveness, either. She leaped before she looked, he said, and she had to admit he was right about that. The fact that she was in this room looking for clues and wrangling with a possible murderer was proof enough.