Frowning, Cecily tucked it into her sleeve and tapped lightly with her knuckles on the door panel. When there was no response, she turned to leave, then paused. Perhaps he was asleep, having grown tired of waiting for his wife to return. She rapped harder. To her surprise, the door inched open.
Worried now, she put her mouth up to the gap. “Mr. Danville? Are you in there?”
Nothing but silence greeted her.
She hesitated, heart beginning to pound. Something was wrong. She could feel it, like an ugly sense of evil, reaching out to her.
Carefully, she pushed the door open. “Mr. Danville?”
Inside the room, light from an oil lamp flickered across the wall opposite. Cecily caught her breath, prickles of ice attacking her spine. Across the rose-patterned wallpaper she could see letters scribbled in red.
She pushed the door open wider and stepped into the room, her gaze pinned on the message scrawled on the wall.
ALL WHO KISS BENEATH THE BOUGH WILL NOT LIVE TO KISS AGAIN.
She caught her breath, and turned to leave. As she did so, her glance fell on the bed. Her shocked cry seemed to echo around the silent room.
He was sprawled on his back, his eyes wide open. His neck had been cruelly slashed. She had found Mr. Danville too late to save him. The killer had struck again.
CHAPTER 15
“Well, that settles it, dunnit.” P.C. Northcott removed his helmet with a flourish and dropped it on the nearest chair. “You’ve gone and done it this time, Mrs. B. You’ve got yourself one of them serial killers, that’s what.”
Standing in front of the dying fire in the library, Cecily eyed the constable with frosty disdain. “I hardly think that any of this can be attributed to anything I might have done.”
Northcott looked flustered as he stammered, “Oh, no, no, m’m. I wasn’t blaming you, of course. I was merely pointing out that you have a very large problem on your hands.”
“So I’ve noticed. The point is, what are you going to do about it?”
The constable stuck his stubby fingers into the top pocket of his tunic and pulled out a tattered notebook. He took a great deal of time flipping through it before he found a clean page. Then he fished in his pocket again and pulled out a short pencil. After examining it for a moment or two, he licked the point of it and poised it over the page. “Now, Mrs. B., tell me exactly what you saw in that room.”
Cecily clenched her fingers. Where the devil was Baxter? He was so much better than her at intimidating this irritating man. “Sam, I have already told you what I saw. You were in the Danvilles’ suite. You saw it for yourself.”
“Yes, m’m. You’re quite right. I did. Just in case the evidence had been tampered with, however, I need to know what it was you saw when you first entered the room, so that I can compare it to the scene as I saw it.” He licked the pencil again and began scribbling. “But first, let us begin with the body of Mrs. Danville. You say it was hanging from the rafters over the stage.”
“I’ve already told you
everything
I saw.” Cecily made a supreme effort to keep her voice down. “Meanwhile, a dangerous killer is somewhere in or near this hotel, most likely looking for his next victim.”
“I am fully aware of that possibility, Mrs. B.” His pencil crawled across the page. “ ’ Owever, it h’is my duty to write down all pertinent information from the witnesses as soon as possible.” He squinted at the notebook and held it a little farther away. “You’d be surprised how much people forget after the shock wears off.”
To Cecily’s immense relief, the door opened and Baxter strode in, his features carved in stone. “What are you still doing in here, man? Why aren’t you out there looking for this beastly brute?”
The constable snapped his notebook shut and tucked it in his pocket. After stowing the pencil, he looked at Baxter as if he were a particularly nasty insect. “Not that it’s any of your business, sir, but my hands are tied at this moment.”
Baxter’s eyes turned icy. “Then I suggest you untie them, unless you want another body on your hands.”
Northcott drew himself up a half inch. “It is my considered opinion,” he said, turning his back on Baxter and addressing Cecily instead, “that as I aforementioned, there is a mass murderer afoot somewhere around here.”
Baxter snorted most unbecomingly. “Why didn’t we think of that?”
“Sam,” Cecily said, ignoring her husband’s churlish behavior, “we really need to look for this man now. This moment.”
“Yes, well, as I’m trying to establish, I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Northcott puffed out his chest and rocked back on his heels. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this murderer is the Mayfair Murderer that Scotland Yard is after. That is a top priority case and calls for a fully fledged investigation by Inspector Cranshaw. He would not thank me for messing about with his case. Oh, no.”
Cecily couldn’t suppress a shiver at the mention of the inspector’s name. “Nonsense. I don’t believe it is a serial killer at all. I’ve been giving this whole situation some thought, and I happen to believe that this all started with Ellie. I believe Charlie saw who killed her and had to be silenced.”
Northcott smiled, in an indulgent manner that had Cecily seething. “It’s obvious, Mrs. B., that you have no h’experience with such matters. This has all the marks of a serial killer. After all, there are four people dead now, and there’s the writing on the wall. That’s the killer’s way of leaving his signature, so to speak.”
“If that is so, then why didn’t he leave his signature with the first three bodies? For that matter, why would he kill both men and women?”
Northcott frowned. “I can’t see what that has to do with anything.”
Baxter, who until now had kept remarkable control of his temper, suddenly uttered a mild curse and strode forward. “How you can be so dense and remain in the constabulary is beyond me,” he snapped. “What my wife is trying to say is that a serial killer’s victims all share a common trait of some kind. The serial killer usually has an image in mind, connected to someone or something that has deeply and adversely affected him in some way. That’s why he kills. He’s ridding himself of that perceived evil over and over again.”
It was obvious to Cecily, judging from the constable’s expression, that he had understood not one word of her husband’s comments. Again he addressed Cecily, with a somewhat desperate look that suggested he was losing his authority and couldn’t wait to get out of there. “In any case,” he announced, “I can’t do h’any more until I have reported to the inspector and received his instructions on how to proceed next.”
“Then I suggest you do that right now.” Baxter strode to the door and flung it open. “You can use the telephone in Mrs. Baxter’s office.”
“I can’t do that.” Northcott picked up his helmet and tucked it under his arm.
Baxter roared again. “In God’s name, why not?”
“Because,” Northcott said, moving warily toward the door, “the inspector is on holiday in France. He won’t be back until after the New Year.”
Cecily relaxed her shoulders in relief.
Baxter, however, was not in the least thrilled. “Well, good heavens, man, there has to be someone taking his place while he’s away?”
Northcott, having reached the door, edged around him. “Yes, sir, there is. But Inspector Cranshaw is most particular about his cases, and he wouldn’t thank me for handing it over to someone else. Oh, no, sir. We shall just have to wait until he returns.”
Baxter looked ready to explode into tiny pieces. “And what, pray, are we supposed to do about this dangerous killer in our midst?”
“Well, I suggest you all lock your doors at night.” Northcott nodded at Cecily. “Goodnight, m’m. I will be contacting you just as soon as I’ve heard from the inspector.” He exited, leaving Baxter purple in the face.
“One of these days,” he said, through gritted teeth, “I’m going to take great pleasure in throttling the life out of that idiot.”
“Don’t say that!” Cecily shuddered again. “Not even in jest.”
“Who’s jesting?” Baxter came up to the fireplace, rubbing his hands. Holding them out to the dying embers, he added, “Did you show him that note?”
Cecily gave a guilty start. “No, I didn’t. In all the upheaval, I completely forgot about it.” Seeing Baxter’s skeptical frown, she added, “Since you brought it up, I really didn’t appreciate you telling Kevin about it. Or, for that matter, your tone of voice when you mentioned it.”
Baxter sighed. “My apologies. I was out of sorts.”
“We are all out of sorts, but I manage to remain reasonably civil.”
His expression softened. “You are quite right, my dear. I’m sorry.” He sighed again. “I seem to be apologizing a lot lately.”
“Yes, you do.” She eyed him warily. “Are you ready to tell me what it is you have been keeping from me?”
He put an arm about her shoulders and gave her a light squeeze. “All in good time. Right now we have more than enough to worry about. I must say, I am greatly concerned about that note. I really do think we should have given it to Northcott, if only to escape the inspector’s wrath should he find out we kept it from the constable.”
Appeased by the hug, Cecily leaned into him. “Sam would most likely lose it before it got to Cranshaw. In any case, even if I had given it to him, it wouldn’t have changed anything. He would still have insisted on contacting the inspector first.”
Baxter sighed. “You’re right, I suppose. How that man can call himself a policeman, I don’t know.”
“I do think he’s rather out of his depth this time.”
“He’s always out of his depth, which is the reason my wife takes extreme risks to ferret out these criminals.”
“I’m being very careful, dear.”
“That was before these other two deaths.”
“I’ll still be careful.” She moved closer to the fire. “I take it you no longer believe this is the work of the Mayfair Murderer, either.”
“I don’t know that I ever thought so. I do know that if the chap in room nine wrote the note that Pansy found, he was either clairvoyant or he’s the one who stabbed that poor chap in the neck. Just as he said he would.”
“There is a problem with that theory.”
“How so?”
“The note said he would leave by the window. To do that he would have to leap four floors to the ground.”
Baxter pursed his lips. “Unless he had a ladder.”
“That’s a possibility.” She frowned. “I’ll have Clive take a look under the window tomorrow. Though I still can’t believe a murderer would be foolish enough to write down his plans to kill someone and leave them lying around for anyone to see.”
Baxter studied her face. “You don’t believe this Mortimer chap is the killer.”
“I didn’t say that. I just can’t imagine why he would kill two members of our staff, and then two guests who have absolutely nothing in common with them.”
“The murders certainly don’t appear to be connected in any way.”
Cecily sighed. “Well, there is the kissing bough and that message on the wall. I happen to know that all four victims at some point in time kissed under that bough. As far as I can see, that’s the only connection. Maybe our killer has something against people kissing in public.”
“It’s certainly a consideration. Though again, why didn’t he leave that message with the other bodies?”
“Exactly, which leads me to believe that the message was an afterthought, most likely to throw everyone off track and make it look as if it was the work of the Mayfair Murderer.”
“Clever.” Baxter frowned. “And utterly cold-blooded. Killing innocent people just to throw the constables off the scent? Diabolical.”
Remembering something, Cecily murmured, “I found something else outside the Danvilles’ door.”
Baxter frowned. “And you neglected to mention it?”
“I forgot about it until now.”
“What is it?”
“A lady’s handkerchief.” She was about to tell him about Madeline’s prediction, but thought better of it. Baxter had no time for what he called Madeline’s hocus-pocus. She pushed her fingers into her sleeve and, after a moment of hunting, pulled out the handkerchief. “Look, it has the initials R.M. embroidered on it. Who do we know with those initials?”
Baxter frowned in concentration, then after a moment or two, shook his head. “The only one whose last name starts with
M
is Mortimer. It could belong to his wife.”
“Exactly what I was thinking. Though why he would carry around one of his wife’s handkerchiefs is beyond me. I must admit, though, he is beginning to look most suspicious. I suppose I should have mentioned all this to Sam Northcott, though he still would have done nothing until his dratted inspector gets back to town.”
“We shall just have to try and keep an eye on the chap until this is over. I’ll have the footmen keep watch on him from now on.”
“As if they don’t have enough to do.” Cecily sighed. “Has Kevin finished his examinations?”
“Yes. He promised he’d ring tomorrow. He was anxious to get his wife and baby home. The baby was making a horrible noise.” He glanced at her. “Are you certain you want the child in the library during the carol singing ceremony? I can’t imagine how anyone can possibly sing carols with that racket going on.”
“Madeline wants to be there. She’s going to be here all day anyway. She’s coming in the morning to bring fresh greens for the ballroom decorations, and she has offered to help us get ready for the ceremony. So she’ll stay here the rest of the day and Kevin will meet her here tomorrow evening.” Cecily headed for the door. “We could certainly use her help, and if that means I have to spend the evening keeping a baby quiet, well, it won’t be the first time.”
He wore such a soulful expression she felt a pang of remorse, though she wasn’t sure why. She paused, looking up at him when he reached her side. “What is it, dear? What did I say?”
“Nothing.” To her pleasant surprise he bent his head and kissed her. “It’s just that I wish we could have had a child of our own.”