The Christie Caper (38 page)

Bledsoe lifted an arm in mock greeting. “Oh, the screw-up’s pride and joy, that wonderful little mama’s boy, Pamela’s good son, Derek.”

Annie struggled to shut out the ugly words. But worse than the words was Bledsoe’s vicious pleasure in the pain they inflicted. She could see it in the tiny satisfied curl of his lips, in the hot glitter of his eyes. He was having himself a hell of a time.

Natalie reached out for Derek’s arm. The young man shrugged her away, shook loose from the deputy. “I can walk,” he said with sodden dignity. The publicist started down the aisle toward the podium one lurching footfall after another. His drunken eyes never left Bledsoe’s face. “I swore I would kill you, Neil. I swore it the day Mother died.” His mouth trembled, tears began to spill down his unshaven cheeks. “You killed her. I know you did. I swore I’d make you pay—and I will.” Derek fumbled inside his coat. He drew out a gun, its shiny blue black metal glinting in the overhead lights.

Bledsoe’s head jerked up, his eyes widened in naked surprise.

The deputy launched himself into a brutal tackle. Derek came crashing down into the aisle, his head striking the seat of a chair. The gun clattered harmlessly to the floor.

For a moment no one spoke.

Margo Wright was the next to stand as she drawled, “I think I can bypass this little comedy.”

“A comedy,” Posey repeated loudly. “That’s what all of this has been, because the murders have nothing to do with Neil Bledsoe.”

If Posey’s intention was to shock, it was an unqualified success.

Everyone gaped at him in stunned silence. Including Neil Bledsoe.

“When every path leads to the same door, the
intelligent
detective becomes suspicious.” Posey smoothed his thinning blond hair. Was he imagining the whirr and clatter of news cameras? “But what is the sole relationship between the two victims?”

The only response was a heavy sigh from Saulter.

Posey smiled avuncularly at the police chief. “I am indebted to my co-officer of the law for unwittingly having shown me the way.”

Saulter stared grimly at the floor.

“John Border Stone and Kathryn Honeycutt”—Posey intoned the names like a bailiff—“were guilty, in the eyes of the murderer, of a heinous crime: daring to take on the
appurtenances of Agatha Christie characters! John Border Stone registered at this convention as James Bentley, the lodger in a book entitled
Mrs. McGinty’s Dead.
Kathryn Honeycutt had the temerity to emulate Christie’s most beloved detective, Jane Marple. A grave mistake on their parts. The result: a sentence of death.”

Max stood, and there was nothing easygoing about him now. “Hold it, Posey. This sounds crazy, and it sounds—”

“Not crazy, Mr. Darling. Arrogant. Supercilious.”

Posey jumped down heavily from the platform and strode to the front row. His finger stabbed at Lady Gwendolyn. “Who is the world’s foremost authority on Agatha Christie? Who became incensed when Bledsoe threatened to write a nasty biography? Whose cape was stained with the blood of a young man who should have had many years yet to live? Whose latest book,
Death of a Nabob,
includes firecrackers thrown as distraction and a light pistol as the murder weapon?”

Annie glanced frantically at Henny, who reluctantly nodded.

“Who—” Posey paused dramatically, “threatened Mr. Bledsoe last night? Came up to him after the program and all but informed him his days were numbered?”

“No. Never.”

Annie had never thought
neow, nevah
could sound so valiant.

The aged author slowly rose. She hardly came to the prosecutor’s imposing midriff. “There
is
an interesting parallel between
Death of a Nabob
and this crime.” Her tone would have been appropriate at a symposium.

Annie had had enough. “Wait a minute, Posey. This is
crazy.
For starters, Lady Gwendolyn wasn’t even on the island Saturday night—”

A mischievous grin lit the pink-and-cream face. “Actually, Annie dear, I did happen to be here. You see, I always avoid cocktail dos: Besides, I was determined to have an absolutely smashing arrival at the fête. In fact, I was in the vicinity of your bookstore during the attack. It quite took me back for a moment to my days in France during the war. However, I must announce that I am the victim of circumstantial evidence.
Don’t you know, that’s such an intriguing situation for a mystery novelist!”

“Lady Gwendolyn Tompkins, you are under arrest. Before we ask you any questions, you must understand …”

The Miranda warning. Annie had never expected to hear it like this.

E
arly on in the planning for The Christie Caper, Annie realized that the committee for the Agatha Christie Come-as-You-Wish-You-Were Ball (composed of Henny, Laurel, and Ingrid) was out of her control.

Out of all control.

At that point, besieged for decisions regarding printing, brochures, reservations, meals, cocktail parties, panels, author signings, program copy (why did some authors assume that surely they would be included and damn surly if they weren’t if they mailed it in the week before the conference?), treasure hunt clues, and questions for the Agatha Christie Trivia Quiz, Annie had wished the committee Godspeed.

So the transformed ballroom was as impressive and exciting to her as to the conference registrants. The ballroom was divided, by means of decorated screens, into fourths with an unusual difference. The bandstand was in the center of the ballroom, and the screens ran flush to the platform, so that each area was open to the music but self-contained with its decorations. Each square thus formed represented a particular kind of Christie mystery, the Country House, Travel, St. Mary Mead, and Adventure. It was cleverly done, the watercolor murals on the screens given substance by a few appropriate stage pieces: a fireplace complete with hearth rug and a country gentleman’s desk; luggage and a Model T Ford, an elegant mockup of a railroad dining-car table with fine china and a damask rose in a silver vase; a mud-spattered bicycle leaning against the painted fence in front of a cottage and tennis rackets propped carelessly
against slatted wooden lawn chairs; a sealed oilskin packet and a crate filled with carved wooden animals from Africa.

By the time Annie and Max arrived, the ballroom was jammed, most of the three hundred costumed party-goers opting to display their cleverness in the appropriate arena. Annie and Max were running late because it had taken time to convince Ingrid that she no longer needed to guard all the flotsam turned in to Meeting Room D by the conference clue hunters.

Shouts were required to be heard over the excited din and the tea dance band music (heavy on Cole Porter, which vividly evoked the marvelous 1982 film version of
Evil Under the Sun).

Annie and Max came as Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, emulating the jaunty versions done so well on television by Francesca Annis and James Warwick. (Though, as all Christie readers know, Tommy is a redhead.) Max’s thick blond hair wasn’t appropriate either, but Annie was confident that otherwise Max was a quintessential Tommy, brave, stalwart, and forever admiring of Tuppence. As a couple, the Beresfords did not engage in mawkish shows of affection, “Good show, old bean,” was high praise. At the beginning of their collaboration in detecting, they’d scrambled for funds, Tuppence a parson’s daughter lately of the VAD (Volunteer Aid Detachment) and Tommy a newly discharged war hero without prospects. All they’d had (in common at that moment with Agatha and Archie Christie) was youth and love, but that, Annie thought, was the best the world could offer.

On one point, however, Annie had prevailed with the committee: Name tags identifying the character portrayed were required at the ball. That made encounters a great deal of fun. A bookseller from Denver was a marvelously effective Poirot, complete with black bowler, luxuriant black mustaches, and shiny black patent-leather shoes. A librarian from Downers Grove, Illinois, a feather duster tucked beneath the bow of her apron, was superb as the refreshing and unconventional Lucy Eyelesbarrow, who helps Miss Marple confound a murderer in
What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!.
A local bank vice president (whom Annie had always considered a bit of a stuff) revealed an unexpected capacity for playfulness. His name tag read
EDWARD
ROBINSON.
As he tangoed past, his
companion adorned with a magnificent (paste, no doubt) diamond necklace, Annie recalled the short story “The Manhood of Edward Robinson” and wondered what that indicated about the banker’s psyche.

Max looked at her anxiously. “Having fun?”

“Sure.” She tried to sound lighthearted.

“Annie, relax. Everybody else is.” But Max’s blue eyes were understanding. “You know Lady Gwendolyn would exhort us to keep a stiff upper lip. And there isn’t anything else we can do tonight. For her or Derek.”

Annie was still bemused at Posey’s unexpected (and surely unintentional) emulation of a classic Poirot turn-the-tables confrontation that morning, and its shocking outcome: Derek Davis arrested for assault with a deadly weapon; Lady Gwendolyn under arrest for the murders of John Border Stone and Kathryn Honeycutt.

The rest of the afternoon, Annie’d fumed and paced and railed: How could Posey not see the forest for the trees?

But tonight she wished she had a better capacity for compartmentalizing her emotions, because the Agatha Christie Come-as-You-Wish-You-Were Ball was truly spectacular. The decorations perfectly caught the tone and times of Christie’s novels. And she loved the characters-come-to-life, especially, of course, Henny as an untidily coiffured, cardiganed, lisle-hosed, apple-laden Ariadne Oliver; Ingrid as prim, grizzle-haired, angular-bodied, pince-nezed Miss Lemon; and Laurel—[honestly, Annie was willing to indulge fantasies; that was the name of this game, but surely there were limits?]—as the Countess Vera Rossakoff, the only woman Poirot ever loved, the flamboyant jewel thief, the proprietor at one time of a cabaret known as Hell. But damned if Laurel, in a dark wig, a satin gown, and six-inch heels, didn’t look the part! Laurel daintily tipped her fan as she danced past.

Max was right. Everyone was having a jolly good time.

For the mood of the conference-goers had lightened considerably when news of the two arrests swept the hotel. As far as most of the Christie fans were concerned, the terrifying specter of murder no longer hung over the hotel, and the dreadful events were considered closed. Though an angry contingent of Lady Gwendolyn’s fans was at this moment
(Vince Ellis had told Henny who told Annie) marching (in costume) with placards outside the jail, protesting their beloved writer’s innocence. Would Lady Gwendolyn be amused or touched?

Everyone at the ball, however, seemed to be in high spirits. Annie sought out those who had been present when Posey arrested Derek Davis and Lady Gwendolyn. Victoria Shaw was a surprise in a sandy wig, a spattering of fake freckles, and a sensible traveling costume. Her name tag read
MRS.
UPJOHN,
ON
A
BUS
IN
ANATOLIA
. Annie was charmed. What kinship did this reserved and unhappy woman feel with blithe, adventurous, lively Mrs. Upjohn, Julia’s mother in
Cat Among the Pigeons?
Emma Clyde, monstrous in a heavily padded dark dress, her hair blackened and drawn back in a tight bun, was an almost too-successful replica of the dictatorial Mrs. Boynton in
Appointment with Death.
Margo Wright as a blonde was a shock, but Margo Wright as Victoria Jones
(They Came to Baghdad)
was fascinating. Victoria Jones, impulsive, a fluent liar, eager for adventure—what a contrast to Margo’s unshakable control and reserve. As for Fleur Calloway—certainly she was as elusively lovely as Elinor Carlisle in
Sad Cypress
—but did she feel an affinity for Elinor in the dock or Elinor broken free from a living nightmare?

There was no sign of Natalie Marlow or Nathan Hillman. A fox-trot ended, the crowd shifted, and Annie spotted Frank Saulter, not in his official khakis but in country tweeds. “Frank!” Annie exclaimed. She tugged on Max’s hand and plunged into the crowd. They came up behind the police chief.

Annie, as always, didn’t weigh her words. “Chief, listen, Lady Gwendolyn didn’t do it.”

Saulter turned to face them. His tag read
MR.
SATTERTHWAITE
. Annie knew that Frank was just as curious as that longtime associate of Mr. Harley Quin’s, but certainly wasn’t as fussy and prim.

Frank gave a rueful shrug. “Posey’s closed the investigation. Told me to keep my nose out of it.” His right eyelid dropped in a careful, conspiratorial wink. “He’d raise hell if he thought I was here to keep an eye on things.” The chief
surveyed the gaily decorated area. “Heck of a show tonight. Guess you two put this together?”

“Actually, no,” Annie admitted. “Laurel and Henny and Ingrid planned the ball. Do you like it?”