The Christie Caper - Carolyn Hart [16]
It wasn’t until she was within a foot of the table that Annie identified the objects being added to the book bags: two-inch statuettes patterned after the Edgar Allan Poe awards presented for the best in mystery fiction every spring by the Mystery Writers of America.
Laurel had struck again.
But that would have to wait. She had a crisis at hand.
“Henny!”
Henny’s fox-sharp face, flushed with pleasure, turned toward Annie. Her welcoming smile slipped away.
“Annie, what’s—”
The scream exploded behind them.
Annie, Henny, and the young man turned startled faces toward the stairs.
Annie recognized the white suit, still smudged with dirt and a few spots of blood, but the sound issuing from that heavy face, the lips stretched back in terror, the eyes sightless from horror, curdled her blood. An elephant’s trumpet, the whistle of a steam engine, a peacock’s screech, the shrill cry in Christie’s “The Mystery of the Blue Jar,” Neil Bledsoe’s scream incorporated them all.
Startled exclamations broke from the onlookers in the foyer.
It seemed almost to occur in slow motion, Bledsoe’s uncontrolled ricochet down the stairs, running, slipping, caroming from wall to railing and back again, that agonized wail rising and falling.
Neil Bledsoe fell the last few feet and landed in the lobby facedown, but with almost inhuman agility he rolled onto his hands and knees, his big head swiveling back and forth. Spittle flecked his lips. He gasped for air, struggled to breathe.
Henny was the first to move. Annie followed close behind.
As she hurried forward, Annie realized, with an instant’s sharp disappointment, that the young man had whirled and was running away. He’d had a nice face. She wouldn’t have expected him to be that kind of person.
It was Henny who understood what was happening.
“Don’t be frightened.” Her voice was soothing. She gently touched Bledsoe’s shoulder.
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.” The tall woman—Miss Marpie’s sister, for God’s sake—darted down the stairs and joined them. “Neil, it isn’t real. It isn’t real.”
The dark eyes stared at her without comprehension. Bledsoe’s face was ashen with a horror Annie had never glimpsed before.
“The crocodile—”
“Alligator,” Henny murmured.
“—it’s just a painting, Neil. It just looks real.” The woman turned toward Henny and Annie, her shell-pink face puckered with distress. “Poor Neil. He just can’t bear snakes and—”
The big man, still on his hands and knees, shuddered. Annie felt a pang of sympathy for him. Surely no one deserved to suffer so. Whatever had terrified Neil Bledsoe must have been dreadful indeed.
“A phobia,” Henny said calmly. She straightened, then reached down to tug at his arm. “Come now, we’ll see you to a different room. It will be all right.” Over her shoulder she directed Annie crisply, “Get a bellboy to pick up the bags from Suite 313—” she nodded at Bledsoe and the tall woman “—and move them next door. I’m in 315. The mural there won’t upset him. The surf and dolphins. Very restful.” Annie stared after the trio until the elevator door closed, then hurried to do Henny’s bidding.
Darn.
If only there’d been some way to forestall Henny from her thoughtful, saving gesture. The hotel was sold out for the weekend. There were no free rooms. What a wonderful way it would have been to rid her conference of Neil Bledsoe.
But she couldn’t be too worried about him after that episode. That attack should be enough to take the starch out of him, no matter how hateful the man was reputed to be. She felt a quiver of shame. Certainly she didn’t take comfort in any human creature’s bondage to irrational fear, but Bledsoe’s phobia surely cut him down to size.
Neil Bledsoe was just a paper tiger, after all. She could relax now and look forward to the wonderful, welcoming champagne party at Death on Demand, the unofficial opening of The Christie Caper, a centennial celebration of the birth of the world’s greatest writer of detective fiction, Agatha Christie.
AGATHA CHRISTIE
TITLE CLUE
Jane’s ulster