Angel's Flight (A Mercy Allcutt Mystery) (27 page)

      
Chapter Sixteen
 

Astonished, I said, “What . . . ?”

      “I’m really sorry you started snooping, Miss Allcutt, because so far you seem to be the only one with a brain who has been.”

      “What?” I said again, sounding, I’m sure, as stupid as I felt.

      “And I regret having to do what I have to do, because I honestly like you.”

      “But . . .” Not a bit better. In my defense, however, Sylvia Dunstable
was
pointing a gun at me. I believe I can be forgiven if my brain was swirling and I couldn’t think clearly.

      The car stopped on the twisty dirt path halfway up the hill. Unfortunately, once Sylvia pulled the emergency brake lever she was able to hold the gun steady and it was still pointed at my face. “But I honestly don’t have any choice. Don’t you see? You ought to have taken Mr. Templeton’s advice and stayed out of it.”

      “But why are you doing this? Why are you pointing a gun at me?” I cried, finally able to form coherent, if unhelpful, sentences.

      “I have to do this because you’ve come too close to the truth.”

      “What truth? I don’t understand.”

      She sighed with what seemed like genuine regret, although my facility for judgment wasn’t at its best at that moment. “Jacqueline Lloyd and I are sisters, Miss Allcutt.”

      “
Sisters!
”

      “Yes, indeedy. We came here from Tennessee about five years ago.”

      “T-Tennessee? You did?”

      “Oh, my, yes. We had to, you see, because life had become intolerable for us at home.” She sneered and repeated the word
home
as if it tasted bad.

      My mouth had been hanging open pretty much ever since the word
sisters
had escaped it. I shut with a clack. “I’m . . . you did? It was?”

      “It was, and we did.”

      “Oh. Um . . . you went through quite a bit in Tennessee, you say?” As you can probably tell, my thinking processes hadn’t fully regained their full strength and vigor.

      “Quite a bit?” Her laugh was positively ugly. I hadn’t believed a noise so sardonic could issue from her ever-so-professional-and-proper lips. “It was hell, pure and simple. Our parents were dead, and our uncle, who was supposed to take care of us and protect us . . . well, let’s just say he didn’t, and that he wasn’t the only man around who had noticed my sister’s beauty.”

      Although I wasn’t sure since my own background was so pristine, I got the impression that Miss Dunstable referred to something sordid and unnatural, and I felt sorry for her. Until my eyes lit on that blasted gun once more. However, in the interest of self-preservation, I said, “I’m sorry you had such a difficult time.”

      Again the bitter laugh. “You have absolutely no idea, Miss Allcutt. You’ve clearly been protected from the wicked, wicked world.” The sneer looked as ugly as the laughter sounded. “Suffice it to say that we came west to Los Angeles, thinking that Jacqueline might be able to break into the pictures. And she did, eventually. Jacqueline—she’s the elder of the two of us—had to work at all sorts of strange jobs to put food on the table before she hit the big time. It wasn’t her fault that she had to do some things we aren’t proud of. She was forced to work very, very hard. She was only sixteen years old, for heaven’s sake.”

      “Sixteen?” If what I was inferring was correct, I was horrified.

      “Sixteen. I was fourteen. Jacqueline worked like a slave to put me through secretarial school. I won’t sully your pure little ears telling you what she had to do to keep us in food and clothing.”

      “How . . . how awful.”

      She laughed another unpleasant laugh. “You have no idea. You,” she repeated scornfully, “know nothing about how to survive in this world, do you?”

      “Um . . . I . . . um, don’t guess I do.” It was a miserable confession, but it was also the truth.

      “Anyhow, eventually Jacqueline got a break. I was already Mr. Carstairs’s secretary by that time—and what a miserable creature
he
is, by the way, always groping and grasping and pretending to be a gentleman.”

      I gulped but didn’t speak. It would appear, however, that Ernie had been correct about Mr. Carstairs.

      “After those first few blue pictures, Jacqueline acted as an extra in a couple of cowboy pictures. Then Mr. Goldfish saw her and cast her in
Whispering Oaks
.”

      “Oh, I saw that, and she was wonderful. In fact, the entire picture was wonderful. My sister and I went to see it, and—” I stopped babbling.

      “Everybody saw it. Including Hedda Heartwood.” She gave me another sour look. “You don’t know anything about blackmailers, either, I suppose. In fact, you don’t know a single thing about how the real world works do you, Miss High and Mighty Boston Allcutt?”

      That hurt. “But I’m trying!” I cried. “I truly am trying to learn how the rest of the world lives. I want to fit in. Truly, I do!”

      “I suppose you are.” She heaved a big sigh. “And you’re really quite nice. In fact, in spite of yourself, I actually like you.”

      “Th-thank you. I like . . . liked you, too.”

      She heaved another huge sigh. “But I’m sorry, Miss Allcutt. You won’t be able to work at learning about life any longer.”

      “Um . . . I don’t think I understand.” What with that gun pointing at me and all, I thought I comprehended her meaning quite well, but I was hoping to be surprised.

      “I’m afraid I’m going to have to kill you.”

      No surprise there. My heart, which had been hovering around my knees, sank to the earth beneath the automobile. “You don’t really need to do that, you know.”

      “Oh, yes I do.”

      “But why? I’m not going to say anything to anybody. Honest! I never would have come up with the sister motif. Truly, I wouldn’t.”

      “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll have to tell somebody, because you’re too much of a Goody Two-Shoes not to.”

      “Oh, no I’m not,” I assured her. “This will be a lesson in survival for me. A salutary lesson, in fact. I won’t breathe a word to anyone. It will be our secret.” Even I could tell I was lying. Talk about innocence of the world! I was disgusted with myself. Darn it, I was fighting for my life here, and I couldn’t even tell a decent fib!

      Her smile this time was actually rather kind. “You’re a lousy liar, Miss Allcutt.”

      I already knew that.

      “The thing that amuses me is that you can’t seem to help yourself. You’re an honestly good person.”

      Feeling defensive as well as scared to death, I asked tartly, “What’s wrong with that?”

      “Not a thing, my dear. You should consider yourself lucky to have achieved your present age with your goodness intact. Not all of us have been so fortunate.”

      “Lots of people from unfortunate circumstances don’t kill other people,” I muttered.

      “Not all that many.”

      “I don’t believe that for a minute. Why only last month—” I sensed Miss Dunstable’s lack of interest in my detectival career, so I ceased talking about it.

      Choosing another tactic, which would probably prove as unproductive as the last one, I said, “Well, if you’re going to do me in anyway, won’t you please tell me why you killed the Hartlands? I gather that Mrs. Hartland was blackmailing your sister.”

      “She was, indeed, the miserable cow.”

      “Ah.” I still couldn’t quite grasp that the two women, Miss Lloyd and Miss Dunstable, were siblings. “But why did you have to
kill
her? Didn’t Miss Lloyd make enough money to . . . well, to pay her off?”

      “Don’t be such a baby. There’s no paying off blackmailers, Miss Allcutt. If you give in to them, they’ll bleed you forever.”

      “Oh.” I guess that made sense. If a person viewed another person as a source of income, I don’t suppose a one-time payment would dissuade him or her from tapping that source again if money got tight. “But why did you have to kill her son?”

      “You hit the nail on the head earlier today. He decided to carry on the family business,” she said dryly. “He suspected Jacqueline had killed his mother. Then he went through her papers and discovered the reason. I’m sure Jacqueline wasn’t the only one, either. Really, Miss Allcutt, Jacqueline and I did the world of motion pictures a favor.”

      “Were you the one who killed Mr. Hartland? I mean, was your sister truly knocked out at the hospital?” My voice was small, and I asked out of faint hope. If she wasn’t already a seasoned murderer, perhaps she’d balk at killing me.

      No such luck. “Of course I did. I donned a white outfit and pretended to be a nurse.” She uttered a short laugh. “I guess acting runs in the family. He was out as cold as Jacqueline was, so I just used a pillow to smother him. The fool.”

      Feeling hopeless but curious, I asked, “And Miss Lloyd killed his mother.”

      “Precisely.”

      “There was a prick on her back. Was that where the poison was administered?”

      “Heavens no! That was a red herring.” She squinted at me doubtfully. “Do you know what a red herring is?”

      “Yes. I read detective fiction.” I’d wanted to
write
detective fiction, but it didn’t look as if my wants would be met. And I was only twenty-one, for heaven’s sake!

      Another sardonic bark of laughter met this statement. “Oh, my, Miss Allcutt, you don’t know how lucky you are, to have to learn about these things through works of fiction.”

      “I don’t feel very lucky at the moment.”

      She sobered. “No, I’m sure you don’t.”

      “What poison did you use?”

      “Datura.”

      “I read about that at the library. How’d you get it? I mean, you can’t just walk into a pharmacy and ask for datura, can you?”

      “Goodness, no. Jacqueline had to snitch a couple of darts from Amory Jordan’s collection of artifacts.”

      I’m pretty sure I gasped. Amory Jordan was one of the biggest names in the picture business, being a producer and director of all sorts of movies. He was also a well-known world traveler who was always going on African safaris and trips down the Amazon and things like that. I’d read about him in the newspapers even before I moved to Los Angeles.

      “I think he got the darts in some God-awful South American country when he went on an Amazon trip.” She snorted. “Some people have more money than sense. Why in the name of everything holy somebody would want to visit a tropical hell like that is beyond me.”

      I could have enlightened her, being of an adventurous nature myself, but I sensed she didn’t really care. “How did she get the poison from the dart?”

      Miss Dunstable gave a careless shrug. “Soaked it.”

      “So where was the point of entry of the poison if it wasn’t that prick on the back of her neck?”

      She smiled. “Why, on her wrist, just under her bracelet. Jacqueline had to hold the old witch’s hand, if you’ll recall. All it took was a little prick, and
voila
! No more Hedda Heartwood. She pricked that place on her back to throw the coppers off the scent.”

      “How did she do that when she was holding her hand?”

      “Jacqueline is extremely nimble-fingered, Miss Allcutt.” Again the sneer.

      I decided not to ask when and where Miss Lloyd had practiced her finger agility. “Then she poked Mrs. Hartland’s neck when she pretended to faint?”

      “Exactly.”

      “I think she succeeded in throwing the police off the track,” I said, sounding as defeated as I felt.

      “I think she did, too.”

      “Was it she who caused Mr. Hartland to faint?”

      “Yes. Again proving her dexterity. Gave him a whiff of chloroform.” Miss Dunstable looked bemused for a second. “I’m surprised no one else smelled it.”

      “So am I.” Blast it, if I’d sat next to him, I’ll bet I’d have smelled it before it dissipated. But Jacqueline Lloyd wasn’t about to give herself away, and poor Mrs. Easthope had probably been too rattled to notice anything out of the ordinary.

      Miss Dunstable heaved yet another sigh. I sensed she really didn’t much want to kill me but knew where her duty lay. I understood all about doing things out of a sense of duty, oddly enough, but it didn’t make me feel any better. “But it’s time we got this over with. I only have an hour for lunch.”

      “You’re going to murder me and then go back to work as if nothing happened?” My mind boggled. It had been misbehaving for some time.

      She didn’t react to the word
murder
, which I’d used on purpose in order to jar her. “Why, yes. As I said, I’m every bit as good an actress as Jacqueline is. She was the prettier of the two of us, though, so we decided she should be the one to go into the pictures, and I’d be the one to snag a job in a Hollywood attorney’s office.”

      “Ah.” Their foresight and planning might have garnered my admiration if it weren’t for the murder thing.

      “Therefore, as much as I don’t really want to kill you, I have to, you see. It’s a pity, but there you go.”

      There I went, indeed. Nuts. I eyed her gun. “Are you sure you know how to use that?”

      She laughed again. I didn’t like her laugh at all. And to think I used to admire her so. “Miss Allcutt, my sister and I learned to shoot before we could read. We had to in order to put food on the table. We had a
very
hard life in Tennessee.”

      Good Lord. And I’d never held a gun in my entire life. It wasn’t the first time I’d considered the disparity between people like me, who were born into wealth, and everybody else. If I got out of this one alive, I’d definitely increase my donations to various good causes.

      She’d put the car in neutral, pulled the emergency brake handle—it pulled up from the floor—and held the gun steady when she opened the driver’s-side door. Keeping an eagle eye on me as she exited the automobile, she said, “Get out of the car now, Miss Allcutt. We need to finish this up so I can get back to work.”