Walking Into Murder (5 page)

Donald had picked it all up the next day and gone back to Patti, oblivious both to her distress and to his children’s. Melinda opined that he had vanished into the self-absorbed state known as male menopause, which compelled middle-aged men to prove their manhood and show off to their friends by nabbing a sexy young wife. Laura wasn’t so sure. Donald had never been all that interested in sex. In her opinion, what he had wanted was an orderly life and a housewife who would uncomplainingly keep it that way. Patti seemed born for the role.

Pounding her pillow into a more comfortable position, Laura pushed all thoughts of Donald and her children out of her mind. Perversely, Angelina drifted in instead. Laura saw her again, looking down at the body in the dim light of the green room and then touching the arm, feeling how cold it was….

Laura’s eyes opened wide. Nigel had touched the arm, too, so had the Baroness. Both had seemed sure Lottie was dead. Only Lottie wasn’t dead; she was alive, and so was Cat, and that meant…That meant the woman they had all seen lying on the bed as Lottie might not have been Lottie at all, but someone else, first with her face covered with a Cat mask, then with a Lottie mask, but it had been the same arm, an arm without a pulse…Thomas had made sure…

Laura jumped out of bed, grabbed her bathrobe and slipped quietly out of the room. She had to look at least.

The door of the green room was closed. She eased it open and peered inside. It was very dark. Probably the curtains had been drawn. Wishing she had thought to pack a flashlight, she crept cautiously across the room toward the windows. If she could open the curtains, she might be able to see a little.

Reaching out, she ran her hand along the heavy draperies, feeling for the opening so she could pull them apart. Just as her fingers found the crack, her wrist was grabbed in a steely clasp and twisted behind her. Another hand slapped across her mouth.

CHAPTER FIVE

Laura’s stomach lurched with fear. “Let me go,” she sputtered, twisting away from the hand at her mouth. It disappeared, but the grip on her arm didn’t relax. She was dragged along while her captor felt for a light switch, and then she could see.

“You!” Thomas said in disgust, releasing her arm with a jerk. “I thought I might have a murderer in my grasp.”

Laura rubbed her aching wrist. “How do you know I’m not? You seem better qualified for the position of murderer than I am anyway,” she added tartly.

Thomas didn’t answer. He had already turned on another light beside the bed and was leaning over the pillow, concentrating intensely.

“Don’t you ever answer a question?” Laura asked in frustration.

Taking advantage of his preoccupation, she went to the other side of the bed to see if the body was still there. It wasn’t. Then what was Thomas examining with such fascination? All she could see was a pale object, mostly hidden by the bedclothes.

Thomas pulled the rest of the object out, using a handkerchief, and for the first time Laura saw what it was - the mask of Lottie. A tremor of fear ran through her. It looked pathetic now, like a discarded theatrical prop - which was exactly what it was, except that it was so incredibly life-like.

“Remarkable young chap,” Thomas murmured thoughtfully. “So good he fooled himself.”

“You mean he didn’t realize he was looking at his own mask, not at Lottie’s face,” Laura answered. She swallowed hard, struggling to digest the unwelcome fact that she had been right. There had been a body, a body with a Cat mask and then Lottie’s mask on its face, or else why was the second mask still there? Someone had taken the body away, only the person had forgotten the mask. How horrible to do that, as if the woman’s body was no more than a bundle of flesh, to be disposed of like…

Thomas’s voice cut into these morbid ruminations. “Exactly. But on the other hand, Nigel doesn’t see very well at close range without his glasses, and as Sherlock Holmes, he couldn’t wear them.”

“He had a monocle,” Laura pointed out. “And how do you know that about Nigel?”

Thomas gave her a quick, admiring glance. “You’re a good observer. However, as you may also have noticed, Nigel didn’t use the monocle to look at Lottie. He put it in his pocket. And I know he needs glasses because he told me when he showed me his studio. He does very professional work, as you can see.”

Laura nodded, intrigued despite the feeling of revulsion that came over her every time she looked at the pale object on the pillowcase.

“I wonder how he makes the masks so realistic, and how he learned to make them in the first place,” she mused.

“I believe the Baroness taught him,” Thomas answered. “She once had something to do with the theater, I think, and knew a lot about mask making.”

Maybe that was why the portrait of a younger Baroness had seemed so familiar, Laura thought, because she had been in the theater. The elusive sense of recognition surfaced again, but vanished just as quickly. How frustrating!

Spurred on by her show of interest, Thomas continued his explanation. “Nigel adapted one of her techniques to create a series of face portraits, as he calls them. First, he makes a bust of his subject; then he covers it with fabric – buckram, I think it’s called, that conforms perfectly to the contours of the face and head when it’s wet. When the fabric dries, he peels it off and has a mask. It’s quite flexible, Nigel tells me, and can be kept in place by an almost invisible piece of elastic under the hair. By the time he adds coloring, paints the eyes and mouth, adds hair and eyebrows and all the rest, the results can fool almost anyone, at least in dim lights. I’ll ask him to show you, if you want. Or maybe he’ll do one of you if you’re around.”

Laura shuddered. In normal circumstances she would have been fascinated, but at the moment masks made her feel rather nauseous. “Later on, maybe,” she answered. “Right now I’d be afraid there would be yet another body underneath.”

“So you realized there must be a body, too.” Thomas sighed. “Hard to come alive again when you don’t have a pulse or a heartbeat.”

Laura shivered. “And so cold,” she said. “The Baroness and Angelina felt her arm, and so did Nigel. Maybe that’s why he was fooled. Or not fooled, depending on how you look at it. I wonder what he thinks now.”

“That he was wrong and Lottie was alive all the time,” Thomas answered. “Or at least I hope that’s what he thinks. It’s safer.”

“Safer?” Laura was startled, and then she saw what he meant. “You mean the murderer wants everyone to think no one is dead. That was the point of using the masks and then removing the body, so they would think Lottie had been lying here all the time and had recovered.”

“As possibly they do, except for you,” Thomas observed and Laura thought she detected a note of suspicion in his voice. “You decided to return to the scene of the crime to ask more questions Are you a detective in disguise, like Miss Marple?”

“Not at all,” she answered primly. “I came because I was…Well, I was just curious.” She grimaced. One might even say, as Donald had, insatiably curious. The tired maxim about cats had inevitably followed. Donald hadn’t liked her impulsiveness, either. She leaped before she looked, he said, and she had to admit he was right about that. The fact that she was in this room looking for clues and wrangling with a possible murderer was proof enough.

“You are also not lacking in courage,” Thomas said, and this time Laura thought she really did see admiration in his face.

Terrified that she would blush again, she leaned over the bed to hide her face. Her eye was caught by a small red spot on the pillow. Blood, she was sure. Had Thomas seen it? Should she point it out? Was that risky? After all, he could be the murderer.

Thomas’s voice made her jump. “As I said before, people do not rise from the dead, not without a pulse or heartbeat, and there’s some blood on the sheets as well. The question is, why all the disguises?”

“To give the murderer time,” Laura replied promptly. “He, or she, had to wait until everyone was asleep to move the body, but in the meantime he had to prevent anyone from seeing who the victim really was, or even from knowing that there was a victim in the first place.”

Her stomach lurched suddenly. She was such an innocent! Maybe that was why Tom Smith was in the green room right now. Maybe he had already removed the body, had come back for the incriminating mask and to make sure no other clues to the murder were left behind. And then she had interrupted him, seen the damning clues. If that was true, she was in a very bad position. She took a few steps backward.

“Good thinking!” Thomas exclaimed. “Now all we have to do is find out how the murder was done. And who murdered her,” he added with a note of menace in his voice that startled Laura.

She glanced up at him and caught a look that terrified her with its intensity. His eyes, his mouth, all his features seemed to rearrange themselves into another personality, one that was totally focused on some perceived goal and would use any means to attain it. The look vanished in an instant, but she had seen it.

Laura began to shiver and found to her horror that once again she couldn’t stop. Tom Smith looked at her sharply. “You need a strong drink.” Grabbing her arm, he hauled her out the door and down the stairs. Laura was incapable of resisting. He poured a generous measure of brandy into a glass and thrust it at her.

“Drink,” he ordered. Laura obeyed.

Slowly, the shivering receded, and she felt her courage and her common sense return. What an idiot she was to get so worked up! If Thomas had wanted to murder her, he would have finished her off by now and stashed her wherever the first body was stashed. There had been plenty of time and opportunity. But he hadn’t.

“Thanks,” she mumbled, not looking at him lest he guess that fears about him had triggered her shivering fit.

“In my opinion,” Thomas said, watching her carefully, “you should get out of here as fast as you can. Go on with your walking trip first thing in the morning and don’t come back.”

Laura nodded, but she had no intention of obeying. The shivering had only been a momentary lapse of courage. She was all right now, and she wasn’t going to let him stop her from finding out for herself what was going on.

Thomas looked at her doubtfully but said no more. He took her arm again, more gently this time, and led her upstairs. “Get some more sleep if you can,” he urged. “That’s what I’m going to do. It’s been a very long day.”

For the first time, Laura noticed that he was fully dressed. “You haven’t gone to bed at all,” she said, surprised.

He shook his head. “No, my dearest, I have not.” he agreed, looking into her eyes and smiling faintly. He was so close that their bodies were almost touching, and Laura felt an almost forgotten surge of longing rise inside her. It must have showed in her face, for Thomas took it as an invitation. Without warning, he bent down and kissed her on the lips. Laura kissed him back, casting inhibitions to the winds.

After a long time that seemed to pass in a nanosecond, she drew away, breathless. She still didn’t know if Thomas was friend or foe, but she did know that kiss had felt wonderful. Better than anything she’d felt in years.

**********

Laura stumbled back into bed and to her surprise fell instantly asleep. A few hours later she awoke feeling undeservedly refreshed. The duvet, she decided. It was marvelously sleep-friendly. Or perhaps the second, lingering kiss she and Thomas had exchanged. She had enjoyed that one too, even if he was a villain.

There was no sound from the next room, and she hurried to use the bathroom before Thomas woke up. She wasn’t sure she wanted to encounter him again – especially while showering or brushing her teeth - until she’d had a chance to sort out her feelings about him. She liked him, mistrusted him and was frustrated by him in equal measure. Adding to the confusion, she was attracted to him – very attracted. How did one behave toward a man under those circumstances? Twenty years of marriage hadn’t prepared her for that sort of dilemma.

The sight of sun outside her window buoyed her mood and she pulled on a burnt orange shirt, a favorite color, and her walking skirt. It was loose enough to sway as she walked but sleek enough not to trip her up, and when she wore it she felt like an intrepid female explorer striding fearlessly across the African savannah.

Breakfast was laid out on the sideboard and Laura helped herself. It was pleasant not to be served, more peaceful. No one else was about, either, which helped a great deal. The Torringtons were not a relaxing family.

She had almost finished when Antonia turned up. She seemed distracted. Yesterday, she had been perfectly dressed and coiffed, with carefully applied makeup enhancing her lovely features. Today her makeup was smudged, her clothes rumpled, almost as if she had slept in them. So was her hair. If she had been married to anyone except Lord Torrington, Laura would have surmised that she had come straight from a spontaneous bout of morning lovemaking, but she found it difficult to picture the Lord and Antonia indulging in such play. More likely, he was in the stables conferring with the horses.

“I hope you slept well,” she said politely to Antonia, and received a startled look in response.

“Yes, I mean, not so well…It’s been a difficult time, and then one doesn’t…”

“Yes,” Laura answered sympathetically. “I hope some of the problems are resolving themselves. At least Lottie has reappeared.”

“Yes,” Antonia answered flatly, and excused herself to take some dishes back to the kitchen. She didn’t reappear.

Laura frowned. How odd that Antonia had looked like that, as if she just got out of bed. It seemed out of character. Where had she been?

The answer came from Lord Torrington. “Antonia’s got everything under control,” he drawled with robust heartiness as he came into the room. “Got up early, sent the groom out to see if we can get supplies, check the flooding and all that.”

So there was a groom! That was interesting news.
Maybe Antonia had been with him earlier. An affair with a groom seemed to fit her a great deal better than checking out floods and supplies.

Shades of Lady Chatterley,
Laura mused, except in that lady’s infamous case her lover had been a gamekeeper. She would have to find out more about the groom – and about the colorless cook who had vanished. She was missing, and so was a body, presumably female. Were they the same person?

“I’ll be off right after breakfast,” she told Lord Torrington. “Thank you for putting up with me in the midst of so many difficulties.”

“Not at all,” Lord Torrington drawled. “Happy to have you. Char – the Baroness that is, sends her regards,” he added hastily. “She is resting but asked me to thank you for your help.”

“Please thank the Baroness for her hospitality and tell her I enjoyed meeting her,” Laura replied, aware that it was true. The grande dame – and she would always think of her by that name - was a wonderfully invincible character, one she would not forget.

“I’ll go check on Thomas,” she called back as she left the room, recalling her wifely role. Lord Torrington was already deep in his paper and didn’t look up.

Laura knocked on the adjoining door but there was no answer. Could Thomas still be asleep? It seemed unlikely. She eased the door open a crack.

Her mouth dropped in astonishment. The room was in total disarray, with clothes flung everywhere and drawers pulled open. Even the mattress had been pulled askew, the duvet tossed carelessly on the floor.

Thomas wouldn’t leave a room like this, Laura thought, puzzled. Or would he? She didn’t really know, but it seemed unlikely. Even she would never make this much of a mess. Instead, it looked to her as if his room had been searched. Was someone else at Torrington Manor curious about Thomas and what he was doing here?

Where was he, anyway? She was surprised that he hadn’t communicated with her, since he was so insistent on being her husband.

Laura felt a prickle of anxiety. She ought to find out where Thomas was before she left, at least. Grabbing her suitcase with a vow that next time she would leave half the contents behind, she lugged it down to the hall to be picked up and taken to her next night’s lodging.