The Christie Caper - Carolyn Hart [130]
Would Kathryn Honeycutt take Valium?
No. Annie knew it just as clearly as Miss Marple knew Gladys was innocent in “The Case of the Perfect Maid.”
One false note.
If that was false, what else might be false?
Murder by snake. Absurd. Yet, it had succeeded. But—Annie rubbed tired eyes—the person who placed the snake in that hamper had no assurance whatever that it would succeed. A different matter indeed from gunfire and a plummeting vase. And why, dammit, had Bledsoe opened the damn basket? Whatever the man had been, he was not stupid; he was, despite his offensive views, indeed an expert on the mystery. Of all people—
Annie sat very, very still. Another false note. Though it could be argued from Bledsoe’s behavior during the week—his attempt to run after the gunman at Death on Demand, his swift scaling up the pillars to the roof after the vase fell—that he was indeed fearless.
But perhaps fearlessness had nothing to do with it. Perhaps the answer was simple, very, very simple and much more illuminating.
But if Annie’s surmise were true, it meant that nothing was what it seemed to be.
She picked up Lady Gwendolyn’s note:
The solution is clear. Apply logic. What did the murderer achieve with shots, vase, Stone, Honeycutt?
Look at what actually happened, the canny author was saying.
The shots—They were seen as the start of a murderous campaign against Bledsoe.
The vase—Further evidence of deadly intent against the critic.
Stone’s death—Stone is silenced. If he knows more than he has admitted about the attempts against Bledsoe, that knowledge is forever lost.
Honeycutt’s death—An innocent victim if Bledsoe is the killer’s quarry.
Neil Bledsoe wounded—The killer stymied again.
Neil Bledsoe—A man pathologically afraid of snakes. But who could know he would fall to his death to escape one?
Scaled back to the bare bones, what did they have?
John Border Stone dead in his room.
Kathryn Honeycutt murdered.
Neil Bledsoe wounded.
Neil Bledsoe killed in a violent fall from his balcony.
In that order.
Suddenly, Annie understood. Oh, yes, Lady Gwendolyn. Yes, yes, yes. But how had it been managed? Annie closed her eyes for a long moment, picturing again the Bledsoe suite the night Kathryn died and Neil was wounded. For just an instant, she had to admire the guile and care and, yes, courage involved. Not impossible. Difficult, yes. Complicated, yes. Untidy, yes. But life was difficult, complicated, and untidy. Just like rivers running to the sea, human emotion wasn’t contained within narrow bounds. It was of these kinds of human emotions, so often doubling and twisting within civilized confines, that Agatha Christie wrote.
Annie knew at least a part of the answer. Now all she had to do was prove it. She got to her feet and restlessly prowled around the living room area, but this time she was looking, studying, imagining. Finally, she stopped to stare at the iron grillwork that separated the foyer from the living room.
And she could almost hear a high, clear voice joyously announcing, “Bully for you, my dear, you’ve got it.”
AGATHA CHRISTIE TITLE CLUE
Lady Hoggin is willing to pay;
Will Shan Tung come home today?
Oh, Lord.” Annie stared in dismay at the tables in Conference Room D. Each table was littered with an assortment of rubbish. Three-by-five cards were taped next to each piece.
Max looked over her shoulder. “Can’t say they didn’t give it their all.”
Chief Saulter sighed heavily. He hadn’t been pleased to be recalled to the hotel after only four hours sleep, but that was four hours more than she had enjoyed, Annie had pointed out.
“I thought they kept a clean hotel here,” Saulter groused.
The collection of trash demonstrated just how much waste people discarded even in a carefully policed environment. Although perhaps the gatherers of this motley mess had been a trifle overenthusiastic. Indeed, the conference-goers who had participated, two by two, in a search of the hotel, the terrace, and the