High Heels and Homicide

Chapter fourteen

Maggie was halfway to the main saloon—not that long a walk, considering Medwine Manor was about as long as a New York City block—before it dawned on her. She was alone in a dark house. «Well, thanks, Alex. Nice to know you think I can take care of myself.»

Then again, she had a mouth. She could scream. Unless someone came up from behind her and clamped his hand over her mouth while he dragged her into another room and—"Good. Keep thinking like a fiction writer,» she told herself as she broke into a trot.

The doors to the main saloon opened just as she was reaching for the latches, and she stepped back, an involuntary squeal making it very obvious that she was approximately two heartbeats from total hysterics.

«Sterling! You scared me to death!»

«Oh, no, Maggie, I wouldn't do that,» Sterling said, taking her hand and leading her into the main saloon. «I was just coming to see where you were. Sir Rudy wants to talk to you. You and Saint Just both.»

«Not now, Sterling, all right? Saint Just has an idea, and he wants you and Perry to come with me. Bring lanterns with you, and another flashlight for me. A big one. And before you ask me, no, he didn't tell me his idea. You know Alex. He likes the drama. So let's just humor him, all right?»

«Oh, but Sir Rudy said you'd asked him a question, and he feels he didn't give you a complete answer.»

For a moment, Maggie thought maybe Sir Rudy did have some priceless art or something here at Medwine Manor. But then again, how would even Sir Rudy forget priceless art? «I'm sure it'll keep. Go get Perry, okay? I just want to check on Bernie a minute.»

«Tabby did just that a few minutes ago. Felt her head, offered her a cool drink, told her to blow her nose because she was snoring, and all of that. Bernie says she's feeling better now, although she doesn't look very much better. She's sleeping again. And, alas, snoring, although I'd never say so.»

«That's because you're a gentleman to your toes, Sterling.» Maggie peered into the darkness that hugged the farther areas of the immense room, outside the light from all the candles and the fireplace. «Okay. I'll leave her alone. Damn it, here comes the Troy Toy. What does he want?»

«He's been very busy, Maggie. We all have been. Discussing possible suspects.»

«That sounds jolly, in a house with a pair of stiffs taking up space on the tables. Am I on the suspect list again? Because if I am, you may have to hold me back before I punch our pretty boy in the nose.»

«No, no, no, you're not on the list. None of us is, as a matter of fact. Troy is now quite certain that Evan—Mr. Pottinger—is the culprit.»

«Oh, really. Why?»

Sterling sort of lowered his head, although Maggie could still see the flush steal into his cheeks. «It… it would appear that Evan and Miss Pertuccelli were… um… that is to say, they've been…»

«Extremely friendly?» Maggie suggested, trying not to smile.

«Yes, exactly! Thank you, Maggie.»

«You're welcome. What did Evan say?»

«He didn't say anything. He just threw his wineglass at Troy. Tabby got some club soda from the drinks table and dabbed at the carpet. We don't think it will stain.»

«That's our Tabby. Having an extramarital revenge fling one minute, playing the Happy Homemaker the next. Okay, here he comes. Cover me.»

» But… but with—?»

«Figure of speech, Sterling,» Maggie said quickly. «It means I'm asking you to watch my back.»

«I see. You could have said that. You know I have trouble with these modern sayings.»

«Sorry, sweetheart.» Maggie then smiled at Troy Barlow, who was still in costume and still holding his prop sword cane in a two-handed death grip. «Hi, there. Catch any dastardly murderers lately, my lord?»

Troy's handsome face reworked itself into what, Maggie guessed, was his stock deeply serious expression. «I've about given that up, since Evan threw his drink at me. Gleeking bat-fowling codpiece.»

Maggie grimaced. «Do you have any idea what you're saying?»

Troy flourished the cane. «That's not important and it's a waste of my time memorizing all that baloney, too. Me solving the murders is important. Or it was. It's not like my agent is going to be able to use it now anyway. You know—star solves murder on set?»

«Life imitates art imitating life, you mean?»

«No. I don't think I mean that. I mean fantastic free publicity. But nobody's going to shoot this movie now. The writer's dead, Joanne's dead. It's like that old movie. Well, lots of old movies. I heard about them. Cursed sets. I think

The Misfits was one. Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe. The Exorcist was another one, I think. And one where all the actors got cancer years later. Cursed sets. Nobody's going to touch this one again.»

«That's beginning to work for me, to tell you the truth,» Maggie said honestly. «As long as we all don't have to give the money back.»

«Oh, no, no, we'll keep the money, although that's probably cursed, too,» Troy told her. «So you don't want your books to be made into movies or a TV series?»

«Not unless I get a lot more say-so than I got this time, no. Look, Troy, it's been just grand talking to you, but Sterling and Perry and Alex and I are going to do a little more looking around, in case anyone asks. Has anyone else tried to leave the room?»

«Are you kidding? You'd have to be nuts to—well, you won't be alone, will you? Oh, and Sir Rudy was looking for your friend.»

«Yeah, I heard that, thanks.»

Sterling and Perry joined her, and she made it all the way back into the hallway before Sir Rudy, who had been half asleep on one of the couches, Marylou all but wrapped around him, caught up to her.

«I remembered,» he said, grinning at her. «Although I don't think it's much help.»

«You remembered something valuable? You've got so much that you could forget some priceless work of art?»

Sir Rudy gave a wave of his arms. «No, no, I know what I have, and I know what it's worth. I wanted this place, but I'm not stupid. Everything was appraised before I signed on the dotted line.» He laughed. «Foolhardy, I know, considering the way we're all floating here, but I knew that going in, I did, I did. Knew the place was going to eat through money until I could whip it back into shape. But it's not often a small frog can get to be a big frog right in his own pond, eh, where all his old chums can watch?»

«You sure got the pond part right.» Maggie liked this guy, she really did. But every moment spent with him was one less moment to figure out the murderer before the police got here and rained all over Alex's parade. «The something valuable, Sir Rudy?» she prompted.

«Yes, yes, I'm getting to that. You didn't read about it, in the histories? The book with the blue cover. It's the only one. Can't miss it.»

Maggie shook her head. «No. No book with a blue cover. Only those marble-backed ones, all tan and brown. I think they're called marble-backs. No blue book.»

«Oh, well, that's strange. I had everything all spread out on the library table for everyone. That's the one with Uncle Willis, you know. The blue one.»

«The ghost Sterling and Perry were looking for,» Maggie said, nodding. Time was a-wastin'.

Not that Sir Rudy seemed to notice that Maggie was shifting from foot to foot while she sort of backed down the hallway.

«They say that's why he never left.»

«They? Who's they? Why do people always say they? Why don't they ever have a name?» Then Maggie shook her head. Now who was wasting time? «Go on. Please.»

«I was going to,» Sir Rudy said, looking confused. «We're talking about more than two hundred years ago, remember. Uncle Willis had huge gambling debts, so he pilfered all the family jewels and hid them. But then this place flooded, and he couldn't get away…»

«That sounds familiar,» Maggie said, getting interested. Very interested.

«Yes, so he was questioned about the jewels, and his uncle had him caned—they did that back in those days. Have your servants cane someone for you, you know?»

«Know that, too. Go on, go on,» Maggie urged.

«There's not much more. Uncle Willis wouldn't give up his secret, so he was locked in that attic room so that he couldn't escape until he said where he'd hidden the family jewels—some rather lovely diamonds as well as much more. You can see most of it in the paintings of the ladies in the Long Gallery. The old lady never sold the paintings. She said they were the only way she could see the family jewels. There's one yellow diamond bigger than a goose egg, I swear.»

«Is that good?» Sterling asked.

«It's good, Sterling,» Maggie told him. «And about to get better, I think. What did Uncle Willis do, Sir Rudy? I take it he never escaped.»

Sir Rudy rubbed at his chin, one of his chins. «Well, legend has it that the beatings were kept up, but Uncle Willis wasn't budging. Went on for months. Uncle Willis went mad as a hatter, and nobody found the jewels. We heard the old boy had made a map and hidden it somewhere, but nobody ever found it. Nobody's ever found anything, not in all these years. They finally gave up and just kept Uncle Willis in the attics.»

Maggie could barely wait to tell Saint Just. «But the old lady—that is, the previous owner? The last of the line? She stuck it out here, even as the whole place started going downhill. She and the paintings of her ancestors, all wearing those jewels? Did she believe the jewels were here?»

«Everybody loves a legend. The young lads used to try to break in here and search,» Sir Rudy said, then grinned. «I was one of them. We'd break a window in the kitchens and sneak in, then think we heard Uncle Willis walking around and run back out again. The old biddy was down to living in just a couple of rooms by then, and we proba-bly drove her crazy. Chased me all the way to the end of the lane once, with a broom. But let me finish with Uncle Willis. He was mad as a hatter after a while, so they left him alone in the attics. He didn't even try to lope off. Must have been content. I read in the blue-backed book that he laughed a lot. Then one day they found him, hanging up there, in that room. More than a few slates slid off the fellow's roof before the end, I'd say.»

«And anyone who read the diaries would know all of this? How extraordinarily interesting,» Alex said from behind Maggie.

Maggie turned around quickly, and just as quickly tried to give Alex a sharp punch to the stomach, which he, naturally, adeptly sidestepped. «Don't do that. Don't sneak up on people like that.»

«A thousand apologies, my dear,» Alex said. «But think of all the time we've saved, now that you don't have to repeat the story to me. Sir Rudy? Do you believe any of it? Are you , perhaps, still looking for the stolen jewels?»

«Me? Oh, maybe at first. If I was in Scotland, I'd be keeping an eye out for that Loch Ness monster, too. But it's probably all a hum. I'll bet the jewels were found more'n a century ago and never reported. Taxes, you understand. The very devil here in England. In America, too, I suppose. No, the jewels were found, and then they disappeared, that's how I see the thing. But you did ask if I knew of anything worth stealing. You never found the blue book? Strange. Somebody must be reading it, don't you think?»

«Or has already read it,» Maggie said quietly to Alex. «Let's go somewhere and talk.»

Alex gifted Sir Rudy with a slight inclination of his head. «My profound thanks, dear sir, although I fear you are correct. The jewels are most likely long gone. Excuse us, if you please? We're off on a small excursion of our own. Fruitless, I'm already convinced, but it will keep us occupied until the constable arrives. Sterling? Perry? Do try to keep up.»

«You just love taking charge, don't you?» Maggie gritted her teeth as she climbed the main staircase alongside Alex. «But do you think that's it? One of those people back there was bored, read the blue book, and decided to wait out the monsoon by looking for the jewels?»

«And found them?»

Maggie frowned. «Right. They would have found them. In just a couple of days, when everyone else has been looking for two centuries. That seems impossible. But why else would they—I'm still thinking it was Joanne and a partner— why else would they have to kill Sam, unless he stumbled on them right as they found the jewels?»

«Or the map leading to the jewels. Sir Rudy did speak of a map, remember, although that could all be conjecture, or wishful thinking, as everyone loves a treasure map with a large X marking the spot. And I agree, the idea of both the map and the jewels being hidden for several centuries, just to be discovered by chance by a pair of half-hearted treasure seekers anxious to ease their boredom? That does not, as you Americans say, compute.»

Maggie had to half-skip to keep up with Alex's long strides as they turned into the wing holding their bedchambers. Which wasn't easy because Maggie, sadly, was one of those people who, if they can't see the floor in front of them, is of the opinion that maybe, just possibly, that floor may have disappeared and they were about to step off the end of the world.

«Slow down, will you?» Maggie grumbled, knowing full well that Alex knew of her fear of walking in the dark. «But yes, that's too many coincidences. The map or the jewels. That's one. That two of the crew would agree to work together when it's pretty clear none of them like each other. That they'd find in a day or so what nobody could find in a million years. That Sam would find them just as one of them was holding up the yellow diamond and saying, 'Eureka, we're rich!' «

«Unless Sam was one of the search party from the beginning?» Alex suggested, opening the door to Maggie's bedchamber.

«No,» Maggie said, stopping dead. «Sam? But he's the innocent victim. I mean, we cast him as the innocent victim right from the get-go. I never thought about him as one of the bad guys.»

«Yes, I do remember your feelings about the man. You were about to nominate the fellow for sainthood, I believe.»

«Bite me. So I didn't like him. But you shouldn't speak ill of the dead, and all that bilge. I just assumed—»

«Shhh, we'll leave it at that and spare your blushes.»

«Oh, yeah, right. You thought he was an innocent victim, too, right up until the Uncle Willis part. Admit it.»

«If it will make you happy, I'll admit to anything,» he said, then turned to address Perry. «You'll come with me, if you please, while Sterling and Maggie remain here. Safety in numbers.»

«Where are you going?»

«Upstairs, to Uncle Willis's bedchamber-cum-prison, of course. I would like you to count to sixty and then begin to speak with Sterling here. Stand in front of the fireplace, if you would, and talk.»

«About what?»

«My dear, must I do everything? Very well. May I suggest you begin with 'Into the valley of death rode the six hundred'?»

«Smartass,» Maggie said, but she was beginning to understand. «You're thinking about those vents in Uncle Willis's room, aren't you? The ones that come off one of the fireplaces? You think they come off this fireplace? And that anything said in here can be heard upstairs?»

«That's part of it, yes, although that is not the be-all and end-all of my hopes. Perry? Shall we?»

So Maggie stayed in the room with Sterling, and counted, and fumed, and then walked to the fireplace and began reciting «Invictus,» because it was one poem she'd had to commit to memory in school that she actually remembered. Well, the first verse, anyway.

She was about to recite the poem for the third time when Perry reentered the room. «I'm sorry to report we couldn't hear anything. Alex would like you to move to the next room on this side of the hall now, please, and do the same thing. Oh, and can I stay downstairs with you now? I don't want to go back up those narrow stairs in the dark.»

Sterling cheerfully offered to trade places with Perry, but Maggie wasn't in such a jolly mood. It was dark up here, it was cold up here, and she was getting really tired of «Invictus.»

«Wait, before you go. Whose room is next door, Sterling? Do you know?»

«Not mine or Saint Just's, as we're on the opposite side of the hallway. I think, perhaps, that it is the chamber occupied by Mr. Dennis Lloyd. Tabby's, um, friend.»

Maggie grimaced. «You mean I was sleeping next door to the love nest? Because I saw Tabby's room and they weren't in there, and they've been… together almost since we got here. Okay, go back upstairs to Alex, and let's get this over with.»

Another count of sixty, and nearly five choruses of «Row, Row, Row Your Boat» later—Perry Posko actually had a very nice tenor voice—Maggie heard something and shushed her duet partner as she stepped closer to the fireplace in Dennis's bedchamber.

«You hear that?» she asked Perry, who just bit his lips together and shook his head. «I hear it.» She stepped even closer to the fireplace. «Alex? Alex! Is that you? Talk to me.»

«I still don't hear anything,» Perry said. «Must we sing again?»

«No, no more singing. I'm going up there.»

She got as far as the door before Alex and Sterling appeared.

«Recitation, Maggie. I believe I suggested recitation,» Alex scolded as he strolled into the room.

She followed him over to the fireplace. «You don't like my singing?»

«Do you?»

«No,» she said, then grinned. «I know I can't sing. But you heard us? The vents to Uncle Willis's room come off this fireplace chimney? What does that prove? And why are you knocking on the wall?»

«I'm knocking, my dear, because I couldn't locate the latch from the other side. I'm hoping it will be easier from this side.»

Maggie's mouth fell open even as her eyes went wide. «You found it? You found a secret passage?»

«A rather dank and dark little bit of ingenuity, yes, built almost directly beside the chimney, so that it would be disguised from the outside of the building.»

«I want to hear everything,» Maggie said, even as she moved to the wall beside him and started knocking on it.

«Very well,» Alex said, inspecting a rather ornate sconce beside the mantel. «I discovered the vent as I followed the sound of your voices. It was located beneath a rather large wardrobe Sterling and I shifted. Ingenious invention, that vent. Inspection showed me that it is composed of a pipe that runs straight down the wall and into the side of the fire grate, not of the chimney itself, as that would be entirely too smokey. But it's not half as ingenious as the door cleverly fashioned into the wall and hidden by the wardrobe. In fact, if the wardrobe had not been there, and if I'd looked at the wall with no real interest, I wouldn't have seen the door at all.»

«But you saw the door.»

«We'll call it an opening, shall we? Not really a door. And I saw that opening mostly, I must admit, because, upon close examination, I also saw more drag marks in the dust where the wardrobe had been moved. Recently. After our discovery of Miss Pertuccelli's stopwatch, remember, we gave up searching the remainder of the room, which is my fault. From that point, it was rather elementary to find the door… the opening—»

«Call it a zebra, if you want, and it isn't your fault. We didn't know to look for a secret passage. How did it open?»

Alex was now carefully running his fingers down the side of the mantelpiece. «A small, hidden lever just at the point where—»

There was a small click .

«Yes, at just about that point on the wall. Strange that I couldn't locate it on the other side, but I'm sure I will when I look again,» Alex said as a section of wall no higher or wider than three feet opened.

«You're right. It's not really a door. More of an opening. I should have realized. Your knees are all dusty.»

«Easily remedied. There's a stone staircase leading from this floor to the attics, or from the attics to this chamber, depending on how you want to look at things. Would you like to be amused? I know I was, watching you and Perry. You were pretending to row your boats, I believe? Very inspiring.»

«You saw us?» Maggie would have been embarrassed, but she was too curious. «How did you see us?»

«Take up that flashlight and take a peek for yourself. Although I warn you, if we wondered where the bats came from, we now know, as the roof is damaged and a passage is now open to the roof.»

«There's bats in there?»

«I believe most have adjourned to the attic by now. Still wish to go exploring? Be careful not to trip over the vent pipe, as it hugs the floor just inside the opening.»

Maggie took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then dropped to her knees and crawled into the passage, holding the largest flashlight in front of her. Once inside, she got to her feet. She trained the flashlight upward and saw the narrow, steep flight of stone steps and, higher still, a small, ragged square of what might just be the first faint light of dawn. Not that this mattered, because she sure wasn't going up there. She knew her limits. «Okay, what now?»

«Now look to your left and up, Maggie,» Alex told her. «See the light?»

Maggie lowered her flashlight, at which point she saw two pinpoints of light shining into the passage. «What's that?»

«That, my dear, would be me, shining my flashlight onto the painting above the mantel. A lovely pastoral scene that quite effectively disguises the holes. Now, point your flashlight toward the floor. See the steps?»

Maggie did as he said and saw the three or four stone steps that led up to a narrow area stuck between the false wall of the room and the wall of the building. «Two peepholes,» she called out, not really anxious to climb those steps to look through them. «I could use this in one of our books. But doesn't the chimney get in the way? Don't answer. I'm coming out. This place is giving me the creeps.»

She took Alex's offered hand after crawling out of the passage and got to her feet. «Where are Sterling and Perry?»

«I sent them back downstairs. Sworn to secrecy, of course.»

«Probably a good move. And I repeat,» she said, looking at the pastoral scene above the mantelpiece, «doesn't the flue of the chimney get in the way? Why could I see into the room?»

«I didn't look too closely—all that distracting caterwauling, you understand—but I believe the chimney itself has to be slightly corrupted in order to compensate for the secret staircase. Curved, as a matter of fact, before rising straight up. A fire in this grate would be smoky and not very robust. I imagine a guest forced to stay here in the dead of winter quickly found a reason to bid his host a fond adieu and move on to another more hospitable residence.»

«I doubt Tabby and Dennis noticed,» Maggie said, brushing her hands on her slacks. «The passage goes only from here to the attics, not outside or anything? Why do you think the guy who built this wing built it?»

«I could only hazard a guess.»

«Hazard it.»

«Very well. The majority of the servant chambers are located in the other wing, with only the one room of any real size, in addition to a few smaller rooms, in the attics of this wing. If the master of the house wished to have a mistress among the serving staff, he could hardly house her with the other female servants. He could, however, give her a chamber in this wing, then visit her at night via the secret passage. Either he climbed up or she climbed down.»

«Oh, she climbed down,» Maggie interrupted. «He wasn't going to bend himself in half to go up to her.»

«You're probably right. And nobody would be the wiser. Married couples rarely shared a chamber in those days, in any case, so no one would really know if the master of the house left his chamber for this one several evenings a week.»

«No wonder, then, the passage wasn't marked on the plans. Servant quarters didn't have fireplaces in lots of the old houses. They had to take coals from the kitchen in warming pans. But maybe the guy felt his mistress should have at least some heat as she sat in her attic waiting for him to summon her. What a prince. And now that we've had all this fun, what have we proved? Proven? Whatever.»

«I would say that we have proved that Uncle Willis could, one, hear anything that was said in this room, and two, realized that he might just be able to escape via the secret passage—once he'd found it, that is.»

«Sir Rudy said he'd almost escaped. But they must have caught him before he'd recovered the jewels from wherever he'd hid them, or they would have found them on him.»

«True. And he would be watched more closely after that. I would imagine, once he'd realized the direness of his position, he went a little mad and eventually began contemplating doing away with himself.»

«Then he hanged himself, and the location of the jewels died with him.»

«My first thought, yes, until we discovered the passage. There is, after all, no record of the passage anywhere that we know of or Sir Rudy would have been overjoyed to show it to us. As a matter of fact, I think that Uncle Willis, broken and beaten in mind and spirit, as we are made to believe, actually had the last laugh.»

Maggie looked at Alex from beneath her eyelashes. «Go on.»

«Gladly. Shall we suppose that no one ever discovered how Sir Willis temporarily escaped his attic prison? Shall we suppose that his guard may have been increased, but the secret passageway was left unguarded? Shall we also suppose that, knowing he would never truly escape, or survive for very long if he did achieve freedom, Uncle Willis roamed the house at will after everyone was abed? Possibly raiding the kitchens for cherry tarts, possibly helping himself to his uncle's port and cigars? Living, as a matter of fact, quite well.»

«And laying the groundwork for ghostly happenings once he was gone?»

«Yes, as a matter of fact, although that hadn't occurred to me. What did occur to me is that Uncle Willis visited his hidden jewels at some point and relocated them to an even safer place.»

«The passageway. He sneaked out of his prison, grabbed the jewels from wherever he'd first hidden them, and hid them again in the passageway, where nobody would ever find them,» Maggie said, ready to face possible bats, spiders, and anything else. «Let's go look.»

«I have, alas,» Alex said, closing the doorway to the passage. «There is, indeed, a hand-hewn niche cut into the wall. A rather large niche. But it's empty. The pattern of dust and, sadly, bat droppings tell me that until quite recently, there was something in that crude but carefully cutout niche. Something of a size approximately that of my hat box.»

«And it's gone.»

«Vanished.»

«So somebody has it.»

«A brilliant deduction.»

«Well, hell.»

«Yes, that, too.»