London (22 page)

“I can't imagine what effect she must have had in real life,” Sebastian said quietly.

“That's exactly what I was thinking.”

I turned to Agnieszka and asked, “Do you mind if we look around?”

“Nah, you go ahead. I'm going to take a quick look in the kitchen. It's through there, in case you need to find me,” she said as she pointed across the far side of the hall to a door that was smaller than the others (which, with their size and the grand carved door frames, I assumed led into the reception rooms). “Take your time.”

Sebastian and I walked through the first carved door frame into the library that I'd seen through the window the other day. I got that stuck-in-a-time-warp feeling again, but it was intensified, despite the rich furnishings, by the atmosphere of sadness and emptiness inside the house.

We walked through the dining room—faded Chinese wallpaper and a large chandelier—as well as through a rather large drawing room with faded blue decor. But the rooms I really wanted to see were on the floor above.

Sebastian and I slowly climbed the stairs. They were indeed slippery, I noted as I watched even Halley's paws slide out from under her as she scampered up ahead of us. I was thankful I was in Converse.

“So how do you want to start?” Sebastian asked as we approached the second-floor landing.

“Well, thanks to Mr. Rivera, we have an approximate idea of where Clarissa, Caro, Georgie, and Johnny—plus Jane and the housekeeper, Mrs. Underwood—were just before Clarissa fell. So I suggest working out where they were in relation to each other. According to Mr. Rivera, Mrs. Underwood was out running errands.”

“Right. So Mrs. Underwood was away from the house?”

“Correct.”

“And Clarissa?”

“Clarissa and Georgie were on the second floor in their respective bedrooms. Caro was also in the house until she left in a rush shortly before her sister fell.” We stopped on the second-floor landing. From there a wide corridor ran in a straight axis through the house. Another shorter corridor crossed it further along. Doors lined both sides of the corridors. I turned the handle on the first one I came to.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but the door led into a room that, like the rest of the house, had stood still since Clarissa's tragic death. Touches of pink satin could be seen from under the corners of the white dust sheets. The furniture was painted white, the carpeting now a dull cream. The room was feminine but not a child's room. It also didn't strike me as a room Clarissa would have decorated for herself—although the only reason I thought this was because I had yet to see a portrait of her dressed in pink.

Speaking of which, there were a couple of framed photos in this room. It took me a while to see who they were of though, because the subject had changed so much. It was Caro—but as Carolyne Ryder she looked less like the cutting-edge stylist I knew and more like a Clarissa wannabe. She must have been in her late teens in the photos. Surely this was Caro's bedroom then. Was this the room she'd rushed from just before the accident?

Sebastian and I walked farther down the corridor. The second door led to a bathroom, the third to another, smaller bedroom. The last door, however, opened onto what must have been Clarissa's bedroom. It was large with an adjoining dressing room and bathroom. The light blue silk of the furnishings and bed hangings shimmered in the late afternoon sunlight that seeped in through and around the white blinds of the windows. A four-poster bed dominated the center of the room, and a generously sized dressing table stood, draped in lace, in front of the window.

A pretty portrait of Clarissa hung to the left of her bed, and under her image on a dainty night table sat an empty water carafe, a bejeweled alarm clock, and a very old telephone. Even covered up and in dim lighting, the room was elegant and impressive, yet comfortable. I didn't think many people in London had bedrooms like this one—at least not anymore. The scale of the suite was more in keeping with a country home.

“This must have been where she was resting before she fell,” I said, pointing to the bed as Sebastian walked in and stood next to me. “Mr. Rivera said Clarissa's usual routine was to stay in her bedroom in the afternoon, from after lunch until three.”

“I wonder what made her leave the room early,” he said.

“Good point, Watson.”

“I was thinking maybe one of the children had called her, but they were on this floor and the floor above, so she wouldn't have gone down the stairs to see them.”

“Jane was upstairs as well, and Caro had left before it happened…so why did Clarissa go downstairs? Was she about to go out? Actually, that makes me wonder—we don't know anything about how she was dressed. Was she dressed to go out? Was she in a dressing gown if she'd been in her bedroom? That's something else I might ask Mr. Rivera…”

“Maybe she simply needed something from downstairs. Her diary or something.”

I nodded. “Could be…” I stopped in front of a small, delicate writing desk that sat in front of the window of her dressing room and opened its various drawers.

“What are you looking for?” Sebastian asked.

“Nothing special—the drawers seem to be empty anyway. It's just that some of the dust has been disturbed around a few of the drawers.”

“Maybe there really is a ghost in the house.”

“Maybe…”

After we'd looked at her bedroom a few moments longer, Sebastian led me along the corridor, back toward the landing, and opened the door opposite Caro's bedroom.

“This must have been Georgie's bedroom, don't you think?” he asked.

“Definitely,” I said as I quickly took in the small bed and ballerina wallpaper. I put my fingers to my lips and signaled to Sebastian to be quiet. I was thinking of the note I'd received that morning.
At the time everyone asked me about what I could see, but not about what I could hear.

Perhaps because of the cavernous dimensions of the hall and stairwell, and the hard surface of the stairs, the acoustics of the house meant that we could hear Agnieszka moving about below. We lost her if she closed a door behind her, but otherwise, sounds carried upstairs easily. Closer to us, Halley's claws clattered clearly as she ran up and down the stairs. I looked under the bedroom door. (I'd closed it from the inside.) There was a good half-inch of space between the bottom of the door and the carpet. Noise easily floated in through the gap too, I noted. Georgie could have heard all sorts of things from her bed.

We left her bedroom and I said, “Let's go up to the nursery.”

The house is starting to feel claustrophobic
, I thought, as we climbed up to the third floor. The sense of gloom and neglect was depressing, and I was starting to feel a need to escape. I wondered about Georgie and the occasional visits she made to the place and why she and Johnny hadn't sold it yet. They'd certainly get a fortune for it. Some mega-millionaire oligarch or banker would have a field day turning this place into a trophy house.

Like the library, the playroom was in a real time warp. It reminded me of
Downton Abbey
. An old rocking horse stood under a dormer window, and a small table and set of chairs were placed in the center of the large, low-ceilinged room. Bookshelves lined the far wall, and a large trunk was pushed into a corner.

What was interesting was that, as on the second floor, the hall and staircase acted as a sort of channel. All manner of noise from below was bounced upward on the hard surface of the stairs. Alternatively, I imagined that any noise from above would also be carried down the stairs. No matter where anyone stood in this house, the closer you were to the stairwell or landings, the more you would be able to hear—from above or below.

Sebastian and I walked to the top of the stairwell and looked down the two flights of stairs. The first sentence from the note I'd received kept playing on rewind through my mind. Quietly, I said it out loud…

At the time everyone asked me about what I could see, but not about what I could hear.

“So what had Johnny or Georgie or Jane heard?” I asked Sebastian as we leaned over the balustrade, our whispers echoing gently within the stairwell. “And was it definitely something to do with Clarissa's death? The words, ‘at the time' seem to suggest it was, don't you think?”

“Yes,” Sebastian answered, “and then there's the photo of the hall as well…”

“That's what my gut tells me too, Watson.” Slowly we began to descend the stairs. We stopped on the second-floor landing and walked along the corridor again, making sure we'd left the bedroom doors shut—as we'd found them.

“And what about Caro?” I continued. “Had she heard something that made her leave the house in haste? I find it odd that she was absent at precisely the time her sister fell to her death. Or am I reading more into these details than I should? After all, it didn't take the police long to decide that it was accidental.”

“That's because everything points to an accidental death,” Sebastian countered. “It's only you who doesn't think so,” he added with a smile. “But then you think everything is suspicious.”

“Thanks, Watson. So what do you think then?”

“Well, actually I think you might be on to something,” Sebastian said with a laugh.

“Ha, Watson! Good answer.”

“By the way, what about Mrs. Underwood, the housekeeper?” I asked after a moment.

“Holmes, she's dead! If you think she sent you the photo this morning, then your levels of suspicion are way too high—even by your standards!”

“Very funny, Watson. And thanks. I know she's dead, but Mr. Rivera's words keep running through my mind—the bit about how the housekeeper said she wasn't surprised that Clarissa had died. What did she know, I wonder?”

I stopped directly beneath Clarissa's portrait and we both looked up at it. She smiled down serenely, her beauty and style still very much alive in the painting. “Or,” I asked as I looked up at her, “had the beautiful model and muse herself said something that had predicted her own death?” I took a deep breath and turned to Sebastian. “This case keeps going around in circles in my head… It's so frustrating!”

“You know what I think?” Sebastian asked as we walked down the last few stairs.

“No, Watson, enlighten me.”

“There's only one course of action to take at a time like this.”

“Okay, and what is that?”

“I think we need a cheeseburger and a good side of hot fries.”

I laughed. “Sometimes, Watson, your state-of-the-art sleuthing techniques amaze me.”

“I'm glad something does, Holmes.”

Before leaving Dawson Place I had to ask Agnieszka one last question:

“How many phones does the house have?”

“Two,” she answered. “One in the corridor between the hall and the kitchen and one upstairs in Clarissa's bedroom.”

Hmm…I stored that useful bit of information away, thanked her for her help, and we exchanged numbers. She agreed that I could call her if there was anything else I wanted to check out.

I attached Halley's leash and we headed home. Halley had been on the go with me all day (her second day as an undercover model dog!), and I knew she was hungry. So we stopped by my house long enough to leave her there and feed her. While Halley ate, I quickly ran up to my bedroom and took my laptop from my desk and something else I thought might be useful. I put them both in my shoulder bag, and then leaving Halley behind, Sebastian and I walked around the corner to the Lucky Seven Diner.

The diner was busy—it was a Thursday evening, after all, and London is an especially buzzing place on that night of the week. After a short wait, a small booth was ours. We slid in and wasted no time in ordering—and continuing with our work.

I took out the list I'd made during the La Lune show, as well as my laptop and the other item I'd taken from my desk.

“What's that?” Sebastian asked.

I laughed as I passed it to him. “You're not the only one with state-of-the-art sleuthing techniques, you know.”

“Yeah, but a magnifying glass? I mean, that's like straight out of a Hercule Poirot mystery,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “When I spoke to Tallulah earlier, she said there might be a clue in the file name Gavin used for the photographs on the stick. She thought ‘Close-up' could be taken literally. And while we can, of course, zoom in and out of the images with my laptop, it might be easier with the magnifying glass.”

“You have a point. But looking through every image in microscopic detail could take days!”

I smiled. “Think of it as a game, Watson. I bet it won't take us as long as you think, and besides, I have to do it. Time is ticking.” And as long as the case remained unsolved, Gavin remained at risk of another attack.

“Right, Holmes,” Sebastian said. “Then I'll hang on to your state-of-the-art detective aid, and if you open Gavin's file on your laptop, I'll take a closer look at the photos while you get cracking with your notes.”

“Now you're talking, Watson.”

A while later, Sebastian took a long sip of his milk shake. “So far, I can't find a thing.” He sighed.

“How far have you gotten?”

“About halfway through.”

“How about we switch for a while?” I suggested. “I'll look at the images, and you can take another look at Gavin's photo and mine from this morning. Maybe something will jump out at you.”

I handed Sebastian the two photos, and he pushed my laptop and magnifying glass across the table.

After some time, Sebastian said, “If there is a clue in these photos, it's buried deeper than Atlantis.”

I stretched my back—I'd been slumped over my laptop, magnifying glass in hand, for way too long—and finished my milk shake before answering Sebastian. “Well, keep the faith, Watson. There has to be one in there somewhere. I mean, Gavin's attack didn't just happen for no reason.”