Murder on the Moor - C. S. Challinor [54]
“How were the guests?” Shona asked, sitting upright on the sofa. “Is everything under control?”
Not for long, Rex thought. Once word was out about their journalist friend, pandemonium would reign at the Loch Lochy Hotel. “I did not see any of the guests, but everything seemed to be running smoothly. Your maid Phyllis kindly let me use the phone at reception. And I have your cell phone right here, Shona. You can call the hotel yourself.”
“Did I leave it there? I was so sure I had brought it here. How silly of me.”
Rex glanced around for reactions from the guests, but none were visible. Only Hamish responded.
“You really are soft in the head,” he upbraided his wife.
“Did you try the tow truck company again?” Flora asked sleepily, raising her head from the sofa cushions.
“I did not,” Rex replied. “I called the police about an imposter staying at the hotel.”
Rob Roy’s back stiffened at the mention of police, all interest or feigned interest in the game of backgammon abandoned. If Chief Inspector Dalgerry got to the lodge before Rex managed to extract a confession from Beardsley, the journalist might clam up as soon as he was recited the caution. He resembled the terrified hare Rex had seen in the woods. Or the rat in the stable. For Beardsley, however, there was nowhere to hide.
Rex checked to make sure Alistair was guarding the door.
Rex addressed Mr. and Mrs. Allerdice. “There was a guest at the hotel two summers ago who checked in under an assumed name, and who had not undergone his current transformation.”
“How do you mean?” Hamish asked.
“It was at the time the wee girl drowned in your loch. She wanted to see the mystical sea dragon. I wonder who put that idea in her head …”
Shona snapped her attention to Beardsley and stared at him with a look of incredulity. “You? Amy was obsessed with the idea of a creature living in our loch,” she began haltingly. “She would run to the window at breakfast and say, ‘Good Morning, Lizzie Monster, shall ye come oot and play wi’ me today?’ You were staying there then?” she asked the hotel guest. He would not meet her gaze. “No, it’s impossible. I would remember you.”
“Aye,” Rex answered for him. “Your guest Rob Roy Beardsley told me he had not visited Loch Lochy before. This turns out not to be true. Apparently, the lure of revisiting your hotel proved too great. He also lied aboot his writing assignment on Lizzie. The Inverness News-Press flatly rejected his query—weeks ago. I have the letter right here.” He waved it in the air. “He couldn’t get any publication in the land to print his story. He has no real writing credentials.”
“Damn you to hell!” Beardsley cried.
“You first,” Rex told him.
Hamish snatched the letter out of his hand and read it. “We’ve been had,” he snarled at Beardsley. “You wee sponger—”
“Wait, Hamish, there’s more,” Rex told him. “Sit back down a moment.”
Allerdice did so with a rude arm gesture at Beardsley and chucked the letter on the floor.
“He also lied aboot not having been to Rannoch Moor. But you have, haven’t you, Beardsley? At least four times?”
This got everyone’s unblinking attention. Rex sensed a collective suspension of breath. “You could get to Rannoch Moor in under an hour and a half by car from the hotel, taking the A9 toward Blair Atholl and Pitlochry, and turning off on the 847 or 8019.”
“I don’t have a car.”
“A van, then.” Rex read out the license plate number that the law clerk had unearthed along with Beardsley’s various aliases. “Dark green. Verra handy for hiding out in the woods and generally blending in with the landscape.”
“You’ll find I have no vehicle parked at the Loch Lochy Hotel.”
“Well, I know that. But I’m sure I’d find it near a train station around here.”
Rob Roy did not move. “A green van proves nothing. I was at the hotel yesterday when Melissa Bates went missing.”
“So you say. Shona packed a lunch for your alleged ten-mile hike to the far end of the loch. But you actually went to Rannoch Moor. That’s why you were late getting back and coming here.