Murder on the Moor - C. S. Challinor [21]
“Ehm … Not at all. I was just trying to fathom how so much water got on the floor.”
“Well, clearly someone had a bath and water must have sloshed over the sides. Perhaps they slipped. Those old-fashioned tubs are less stable than the modern ones.”
“I’ve never had any trouble with them,” Rex countered, though judging by how she had almost uprooted the sink, he could see how she might manage to dislodge one. “In any case, where is the person now?” he asked in vexation. “The door was locked. The bathroom was empty. They couldn’t just have vanished. Unless they went through the window, and why would they have done that? I managed to unbolt the door without any problem. It wasna stuck.”
“It might have locked itself after the last person went out,” Estelle suggested, studying it. “Though I don’t see how …”
Rex gathered up the towels on the rack and furiously mopped up the tiled floor. If people couldn’t be relied upon to take care of his property, he simply wouldn’t invite them again.
“Perhaps you have a ghost,” Estelle teased. “The Ghost of Glen-eagle Lodge! But I wouldn’t go telling Shona Allerdice about it. She’ll have that journalist researching the story and then you’ll get no peace.” She cast a cautious glance behind her. “That woman will do anything for a bit of publicity. All that nonsense last night about a sea monster in their loch! I couldn’t keep my face straight.”
“Aye, and another one in Loch Lown, if Beardsley is to be believed.” Rex straightened up from his floor-mopping and confronted anew the rather startling apparition of Estelle Farquharson. The clay mask was beginning to crack into tiny fissures. It was a wonder she managed to talk at all. “A first cousin to the Loch Ness Monster!” he scoffed.
“Well, it’s good for business, don’t you see? The Loch Lochy Hotel is a dreadful place. Cuthbert had indigestion on the two occasions we had dinner there. The venison tastes like shoe leather, and the grouse! And don’t get me started on the décor! It’s so pseudo. Not real deer heads at all. Fakes! The place is going under, and so Mr. and Mrs. Allerdice are banking on this whole Lizzie business to save them.”
“I think you may be right, and you know how gullible people are. Och, well, I’ll let you get on with your beauty preparations, Estelle. The floor is just aboot dry now, and you’ll find clean towels in the airing cupboard.”
Wellingtons in his hand, he picked his way across the landing to fetch a pair of socks from the master bedroom.
“Rex, old man!” an Etonian drawl called out as he started down the stairs. “Come and see this!”
By now, Rex just wanted his breakfast. He swore never again to invite anybody to the lodge. It seemed the only people you wanted to actually turn up, didn’t—like the McCallum brothers—and the rest just couldn’t be got rid of! To top it all, the voice calling him belonged to Cuthbert, and he had little patience for people of his sort. But what could he do? Half-heartedly he strolled into the main guest bedroom where Mr. Farquharson was beckoning him over to the window. The rain had slowed to a jaded drizzle, almost ready to give up, but not quite.
“What is it?” Rex asked his guest, whose jowls were positively quivering in excitement.
Cuthbert pointed to the far side of the loch. Three quarters of a mile away, Rex could perceive a dark blur in the ripples.
“Here, look through these binoculars. They’re Estelle’s. She uses them for bird-watching.”
Rex had difficulty adjusting the focus. Finally, he made out a longish shape undulating just beneath the surface of the water. It had a sleek head and a thin body or tail.
Rob Roy Beardsley burst into the room. “Is it Bessie? I was at the loch taking photographs when I saw you at the window with the binoculars. Can I borrow