Angel's Flight (A Mercy Allcutt Mystery) (11 page)

      He frowned at me. I guess he figured that since Ernie wasn’t there to do it, he should. “I’m not happy to see you, Miss Allcutt. What the devil happened here?”

      Well! I no longer felt the least inclination to cry. Rather, I decided to be punctilious and businesslike. I’d show him I wasn’t a hysterical female. “We were all attending a séance conducted by the d’Agostino siblings.” I ignored his contemptuous snort. “Then, when the lights went on after the séance was over, Mrs. Hartland was slumped over the table. I thought she was sleeping, but she was . . . dead.” I admit to a gulp at that point but believe I may be excused for it.

      “A séance? For cripes’ sake.” Still scowling, he surveyed the room full of people. “Who are all these nuts anyway?”

      In a furious whisper, I said, “They aren’t
all
nuts. Including me. I’m only here because . . .” But I didn’t want to go into that in front of everyone. I said softly, “There’s a good reason I’m here, and it might actually tie into Mrs. Hartland’s death, but I’ll have to tell you about it later. Maybe tomorrow if you can come to Ernie’s office.”

      It looked to me as though he was going to protest loud and long, but fortunately the doctor showed up at that point and Mr. Bigelow had to deal with him. Blasted man. He was very nearly as annoying as Ernie. I never would have thought it since, before that evening, he’d always seemed nice and polite.

      Men. Unpredictable creatures.

      Nevertheless, whatever Mr. Bigelow thought about séances and the people who attended them, the police worked efficiently and, as far as I could tell, with commendable rectitude. From the little Ernie had let slip about the Los Angeles Police Department before this time, the department was riddled with corruption. These fellows seemed legitimate enough—on the surface at least. I mean to say that I didn’t notice anyone accepting or receiving a bribe or slipping an expensive bauble into a pocket. Nor did I see anybody trying to persuade an officer to let him go before questioning. And no one offered any of the policemen a drink from one of the tainted teapots. Of course, all three men from the police department studiously ignored those teapots, but I don’t really count that as corruption. Murder was much more important than people in private party who had suffered a severe shock being served with calming doses of liquor.

      Did I say murder? I meant to say death.

      Oh, very well, I didn’t mean to say death. I said murder, and I meant murder. It just seemed too convenient that the most widely published of the burgeoning legion of gossip columnists, Miss Hedda Heartwood, should have died in a pitch-dark room during a séance. A
séance
, for heaven’s sake!

      “I know this is an inconvenience,” Mr. Bigelow said to the assembled attendees. “But my men will be talking to you one at a time before you go home. They’ll only be taking down your names and addresses and asking a very few simple questions. Purely routine, I assure you.”

      A likely story.

      Mr. Bigelow went on, “While my men chat with you, I’m going to accompany Dr. Fitch to the body.” He turned to whisper to the doctor, “Where is she?”

      Instantly I said, “I’ll show you!”

      Before he could protest, I hastened ahead of him and the doctor and was out of the living room, down the hall, and at the door of the dining room in a wink. Mr. Bigelow’s frown was magnificent to behold when he caught up with me, but I was impervious. Well, almost.

      “Miss Allcutt—” he began, but I cut him off.

      “Listen, Mr. Bigelow, there’s a lot more going on here than you know about yet. I need to fill you in on some stuff.”

      He rolled his eyes, looking in that instant exactly like Ernie Templeton, only a little older and considerably less rumpled. I think Mr. Bigelow had a wife to take care of him. Ernie was on his own.

      “I’m serious!” I whispered, impassioned. “I don’t think this is a simple death by heart attack. I think the woman might well have been bumped off on purpose.”

      “Bumped off?” His lip curled and his left eyebrow rose.

      Furious, I said, “Yes!”

      “Okay, okay. Let’s see.”

      My first choice would have been to tell him all about the spiritualists, Mrs. Easthope’s infatuation with same, and the circumstances surrounding Mrs. Hartland’s death right there in the hall, but both Mr. Bigelow and the doctor strode past me and on into the dining room. I followed with some trepidation. Hanging out with dead bodies wasn’t one of the things I had aimed to gain experience with when I came to Los Angeles to gain experience, if you know what I mean.

      Standing as far away from the corpse as I could, I watched the doctor inspect it as I explained things to Mr. Bigelow. His face remained impassive during my narrative, which was pretty darned concise and coherent considering everything that had happened that evening.

      “Anyhow,” I concluded, “I wouldn’t be surprised if someone did her in on purpose. I mean, consider the circumstances.”

      “The circumstances?”

      “Yes! I mean, the d’Agostinos are crooks, for heaven’s sake.”

      “Of course, they are, but they depend on people’s gullibility. They don’t want their victims dying on them.”

      He had a point there. I instantly thought of another one. “But what if she was going to change her will in their favor? What if she was going to leave everything to them? She must be a wealthy woman.” I was proud of that, but only for about a tenth of a second.

      “Was she?” Mr. Bigelow asked, puncturing my happy conjecture and sounding sarcastic.

      “Um . . . I don’t know.”

      “And why would the d’Agostinos want to kill her if she was going to leave all her money to them?”

      “Blast it,
I
don’t know! Maybe she’d already changed her will.” Another thought slapped me upside the head. “Or maybe she was
going
to disinherit someone, and they bumped her off to prevent her from doing so. A relative or someone like that.” I thought it was a moderately intelligent suggestion.

      Mr. Bigelow clearly did not. “Were any of her supposedly disinherited relations here at the séance?”

      “Um . . . I don’t know.”

      “You said it was Mrs. Easthope who was smitten with the pair, not Mrs. Hartland.”

      I heaved a hearty sigh. “Yes. That’s true.” After fuming for another moment or so, I muttered, “I still think there’s something really fishy about all this.” I pondered for a heartbeat. “Anyway, what if she was spreading malicious gossip about someone and whoever it was decided to stop her permanently?”

      “Was she?”

      “Darn it,
I
don’t know. But it’s possible, isn’t it? Or maybe she was being blackmailed by somebody.”

      “As a rule, Miss Allcutt,” he said, sounding insufferably condescending, “people who are blackmailing other people prefer those other people to remain alive so as to keep making payments.”

      Fiddlesticks! “Well, maybe
she
was blackmailing somebody! I’m
sure
this is no simple heart attack. It’s up to the police to investigate!”

      He grunted, once again reminding me of Ernie, but darned if my suspicions weren’t confirmed in the next instant. Well, at least one of them was.

      Dr. Fitch was leaning over Mrs. Hartland’s back. He’d lifted her hair and was squinting at her collar when he said in a distracted voice, “Detective, you should see this.”

      With a glare meant, I’m sure, to keep me in my place and across the room from the body, Mr. Bigelow walked over to the doctor. Since I grew up with an expert at keeping young women in their places, and Mr. Bigelow didn’t even come close to my mother’s expertise in the activity, I followed him—very softly, so he wouldn’t hear me—across the thick Persian carpet.

      “What is it?”

      “Do you see this?” The doctor gestured at the back of Mrs. Hartland’s dress.

      I stood on tiptoes and peered over Mr. Bigelow’s shoulder. Fortunately for me, he was bending over the body because he’s much taller than I. I didn’t see anything.

      “Do I see what? I don’t see anything.”

      “This,” the doctor repeated, pointing.

      “Ah. Yeah, I see it.”

      Finally I saw it, too: a speck, no more than a pinprick, really, on the back of her gown.

      “So what? What is it?” Mr. Bigelow asked.

      Dr. Fitch straightened, putting a hand to the small of his back and groaning slightly. Immediately I straightened, too, and pretended I hadn’t been snooping. I smiled innocently, but I don’t think my precaution was necessary. He didn’t even seem to notice me.

      “On her dress here. What is it?” Mr. Bigelow repeated.

      “I’m not sure, but I think it’s a speck of blood. And you see here?” With another groan, he bent over the body once more, and pulled back the neck of Mrs. Hartland’s dress. “That speck corresponds with this tiny puncture wound here. Right here, at the base of her neck, above the left clavicle.”

      “Hmm.”

      Aha! A puncture above the left clavicle! That must mean . . .
poison!

      Hmm. I wondered what kind of poison killed people so quickly. It must have worked extremely fast, since she didn’t even cry out during the séance. She only fell forward onto the table without even releasing the hands of her neighbors. It occurred to me that someone ought to ask Miss Lloyd and Mr. Carstairs if they felt a spasm in her fingers or anything like that. I hoped Mr. Bigelow would think of querying them about the possibility. Perhaps I’d just give him a hint.

      “So what does that mean?” Mr. Bigelow frowned at the doctor.

      “She must have been pricked with something.” Dr. Fitch gently lifted Mrs. Hartland’s head and gazed at her face. Her right cheek had been resting on the table, and I noticed it was turning purple. Was that a symptom of poisoning? I longed to ask, but didn’t quite dare.

      “I don’t know if it matters. Could have been a mosquito.” The doctor shrugged.

      I longed to protest, but didn’t want either man to kick me out of the room.

      “Could be anything,” Mr. Bigelow said, nodding.

      The doctor sighed and reached for his black bag. “I won’t be able to tell you much until I get the body to my office. I’ll be able to do a more thorough examination there. Right now all I can tell you for certain is that the poor woman is deceased.”

      “Yeah,” said Mr. Bigelow. “She sure is.”

      “My post-mortem examination will undoubtedly tell us more, although it’s probably just a heart attack.”

      “But you will check into that puncture wound, won’t you?” I said, unable to control myself a second longer. “She might well have been poisoned.”

      Both men turned to look at me, and neither one of them with favor. I cursed my too-ready tongue even as I lifted my chin. “She was a famous woman,” I declared. “She dealt in scandal and gossip. It’s absolutely possible that someone wanted to stop her from revealing secrets.”

      Dr. Fitch and Mr. Bigelow exchanged a glance. Dr. Fitch shut his black bag with a snap. “I will perform a thorough examination, young lady. You needn’t worry about my competence.”

      “Oh, I wasn’t—”

      “Yeah,” said Mr. Bigelow. “If there’s anything to find, Dr. Fitch will find it.”

      Darn it! “I wasn’t questioning your competence, Dr. Fitch. Really. I only wanted to make sure that you don’t overlook anything.”

      “I am not in the habit of overlooking things, my good woman.”

      Oh, boy, I guess I’d put my foot in it that time. But darn it, nobody seemed to be taking the possibility of murder seriously, and I thought it was a highly likely possibility. “I’m sure that’s so,” I said meekly. “I only wanted—”

      “Yes, yes,” said Dr. Fitch. “I understand.” He stomped out of the room.

      With a sigh, I gave him a couple of seconds, then left the room after him.

      Mr. Bigelow followed me. He was chuckling, the rat.

      I soon forgot all about the detective’s inappropriate sense of humor, however. Shortly after the doctor left the house and the police had allowed the séance attendees to go, I realized I’d have to call a taxicab in order to get home since Mr. Francis Easthope, who had promised to escort me to Chloe’s house, was occupied with his mother.

      “Don’t bother with a cab, Miss Allcutt,” Mr. Bigelow said, surprising me. “I’ll take you home.”

      A police car. With lights on the roof. “Oh, but—”

      “I’ll
take you home
,” he repeated with such emphasis that I knew it would be useless to argue.

      Thus it was that I arrived at my sister Chloe’s house in a police car, driven thereto by a detective on the Los Angeles Police force, and I faced the appalling task of relating the events of my evening to Chloe and Harvey. Worse, I had to tell my mother.

      At least the auto’s roof lights weren’t flashing and the siren wasn’t blaring.

Chapter Seven
 

“This,” declared my mother in her most austere and commanding voice, “is the limit. You are to cease disobeying your father and me at once, Mercedes Louise Allcutt. You have no business with a
job
.” She said the word
job
as if it were a crawly bug that had landed in her soup.

      “I’m twenty-one years old, Mother,” said I staunchly. “I love my job, and I shall keep it.” At that point in time, I fear I sounded a good deal more staunch than I felt.

      “You are a disobedient child,” said she regally. “You are being utterly ridiculous. At your age, you need to be thinking about marrying and starting a family. You have no business pretending to be of the working classes.”

      “I’m not pretending to be anything,” I cried, feeling beleaguered and overwhelmed. “I
am
a working woman! If that makes me one of the
working classes
, I guess I am. And I’m proud of it, too.”

      “You’re taking a job away from someone who needs it,” Mother declared. I guess she figured that if she couldn’t get to me using her tried-and-true bullying tactics, she’d shame me into quitting.