The Christie Caper - Carolyn Hart [113]
“Nero Wolfe never left the brownstone. At least, hardly ever. And I haven’t left this room, but I’m making progress. You can expect a complete report on the deployment of the fireworks within the hour.” The line went dead.
Annie stared curiously at the phone, then hung it up. “Henny says she’ll call back within the hour and tell us how the killer engineered the firecrackers and smoke bombs—all without setting foot outside her room.”
Max chuckled. “If she manages that, we’ll have to admit she’s the best detective of all.”
Annie didn’t bother to answer. Certainly, she knew who was the best detective—and it was neither Henny nor Laurel nor Emma Clyde nor Lady Gwendolyn, however much each might aspire to that role. Who but Annie was on such intimate footing with the greatest detective of all time? Now, if she were Hercule Poirot, what would she do?
Employ the little gray cells, of course.
But she was already doing that.
Poirot, Poirot—he always enjoined Hastings to study the personality of the victims. Because in their lives were the seeds of their deaths.
But not, she thought dispiritedly, this time.
She picked up the blue-backed folder with the bios. No, it wouldn’t help to reread them. Still, she opened it up, flipped through the pages, glancing at the names. Behind some familiar face, hidden behind everyday expressions of anger or concern or despair, was a ravening hunger for revenge. Someone whose name was in this folder was determined to see Neil Bledsoe pay for the evil he had wrought. Who was the wolf among the sheep or, as Christie put it so well, the cat among the pigeons?
AGATHA CHRISTIE TITLE CLUE
A mislabeled path at Victoria Falls;
Look for the answer in the wooden giraffe.
Sheriff’s deputies were everywhere. Hotel guests were permitted to leave their rooms only after the police completed a room-by-room survey, setting up interviews at ten-minute intervals in Meeting Room A, beginning at nine A.M.
The atmosphere in the Palmetto Court that morning was subdued. Low-voiced conversations, furtive glances, and somber faces created a funereal atmosphere. Every eye watched as Saulter and Posey strode through the court shortly before nine. Saulter’s khaki uniform looked crumpled and creased; his lean face sagged with fatigue. Posey lacked his usual sartorial splendor, his tie loose at his opened collar, his unshaven cheeks covered with stubble.
Lady Gwendolyn’s plump, pink face creased in an unaccustomed frown. “I was so confident. And yet our efforts failed. With the tragic addition of an innocent victim. What did I overlook?” She propped her chin in a pudgy hand and sank into a reverie.
Annie started to speak, but Laurel quickly held a finger to her lips. “Thinking,” she whispered huskily.
Henny looked up irritably from her sketch pad, sniffed sardonically, then returned to her work. When Annie’d inquired earlier, Henny had briefly replied, “Fireworks placement.”
Max gave his mother a quick smile.
Annie finished a last sip of coffee, but she didn’t feel her customary morning zing. She sighed heavily. She had come to a decision, and a painful one it was.
“I’ve made up my mind. The conference is over. Ended. No more.” She tried hard to keep the tremor out of her voice.
“Annie, why? Tomorrow’s the last day anyway,” Max pointed out.
Lady Gwendolyn, deep in thought, ignored them.
Laurel’s blue eyes darkened in distress. “Shh, my dears. We must give Lady Gwendolyn every opportunity to exercise her brilliance.”
Annie wasn’t deflected. She pushed away the plate with its untouched waffle. “I’m not going to be responsible for anyone else being hurt—or killed. If I had cancelled the conference when somebody tried to shoot Bledsoe at Death on Demand or after the vase almost hit him, Kathryn Honeycutt would be alive. Maybe Stone, too.”
“Look, Annie,” Max said reasonably, “you’re not a psychic. Anyone who found those incidents upsetting—including Kathryn—could have left the island. These murders didn’t happen because of The Christie Caper, and it’s unfair to