The Christie Caper - Carolyn Hart [117]
“The hounds smelled the gloves,” Max prompted gently.
“Oh, yes, of course.” Laurel resumed her crisp tone. “The dogs went down the hall to the stairs, down the stairs, stopped and set up a lovely howl outside the closet with the breaker switches, then trotted outside to the terrace and went there and there and there”—Laurel waved gracefully, raspberry nails glistening in the sunlight, at various points around the perimeter of the terrace—“where the firecrackers and smoke bombs went off, then stopped at the center of the wall. And that’s where they’ve stayed.”
Annie and Max stared at the blank, unrevealing wall.
Henny snapped open her gleaming black patent-leather purse, pulled out a scratch pad, and began to draw. “Let’s see, they started here …” A dark head and a blond head bent in consultation.
“I’d say the dear fellows could use some more scouting lessons,” Annie said dryly. “I mean, why stop at the wall? That’s a dead end.” She leaned forward, and Max reached out to keep her from falling. “Oh, hey, why don’t they take the dogs and go around to the other side? Maybe the murderer went over the wall there.”
As if on cue, the handler motioned for the people pressing close to step back. The dogs broke into a trot. As they passed, it seemed to Annie they were tugging their handler along. They were close enough to see their reddish brown eyes, shiny black noses, and low-hanging ears. The dogs reached the end of the wall, turned, sniffed down the inside of the wall—and did not stop at the spot opposite their initial stand.
But Annie wasn’t following their progress now. “Uh-oh,” she warned, poking Henny with her elbow.
“I see him,” Henny replied.
Brice Willard Posey, the circuit solicitor from the mainland, hustled importantly after the handler and his dogs. When the dogs passed the area opposite their sighting, Posey pompously exploded, “Those damn dogs have smelled too much dope. They didn’t even hesitate where he must have jumped down.”
The dogs had reached the other end of the wall now and were returning. They didn’t stop at any point on the inside of the wall. Reaching the first end, their handler swept them around it and once again, yelping in delight, the hounds trotted straight for their original, unremarkable, unrevealing position and bayed energetically.
Hurrying in their wake, Posey’s always red face turned yet a brighter hue. He stopped and glared at the yelping dogs. Hands on bulbous hips, watery blue eyes bulging dangerously, he berated the dogs’ keeper. “Useless. Worse than useless. They’re supposed to be able to smell something the killer’s worn and track him. Right?” The circuit solicitor poked a stubby forefinger into the chest of the handler.
An arc of brown spit from the wad of smokeless tobacco in the dog owner’s cheek curved dangerously close to Posey’s dark blue suit. The wad shifted. “Did,” came the laconic answer. The handler, whose mustache drooped in a manner of which Hercule Poirot would have stringently disapproved, pointed toward the middle of the café. “Gun. Gloves.” Then he half turned, pointed across the terrace, close to the table where Bledsoe had been sitting when the vase fell. “Smoke bomb. Firecrackers.” Turning, he pointed toward the end of the hotel wing behind the interested quartet. They craned to see better. “Breaker panels.” The finger moved again, jabbing at the wing. “Interior stairs. More smoke bombs, firecrackers. Third floor, ditto. That’s the route.” He bent and stroked his dogs. “Good going, boys.” Rising, he turned and began to stride toward the parking lot, the dogs trotting obediently beside him, with the look of choirboys who’d sung like angels.
Posey bellowed. “Wait a minute! What the