The Christie Caper - Carolyn Hart [36]
“But, Max,” the little pastry was so flaky and good it almost melted in her mouth, which should have helped but didn’t, “how can she be so dumb?”
“So what kind of guy gives up like that?” Max jerked his head at Derek’s receding back. “You go after a girl if she belongs to you.”
“Women do not belong to men,” Annie remonstrated.
“Mmmmh,” Max replied noncommittally.
But Annie was looking from face to disconsolate face.
Nathan Hillman, the chunky editor of Hillman House, stood beside the tea tent. He gazed after Derek, shaking his head.
Margo Wright, the statuesque agent, was strikingly attractive in an all-white dress with a layered lace skirt. She broke off an animated conversation in midphrase as Bledsoe swaggered past, one hand firm on Natalie’s elbow.
Victoria Shaw, the author’s widow, put down her plate with trembling hands, turned, and walked blindly toward the thick and tangled Wildlife Preserve that bounded the lawn on the south.
But it was the transformation of Fleur Calloway that shocked Annie the most. Fleur’s face blanched and she looked as though she might faint. Emma reached out to take her arm.
“I say, a problem?” The query sounded at Annie’s elbow.
Annie looked down, into alert, discerning blue eyes.
Annie didn’t know how to respond. She certainly didn’t want to worry her famous co-hostess. Besides, it was too complicated to try and explain: Bledsoe and those who disliked him, the flurry of shots, the uncertainty of what was intended, mischief or murder.
Then, the hair prickled on the back of Annie’s neck, and was that from the sudden increase in the onshore breeze and a sharply cool edge to the air or from the brisk summation by the official hostess? “They are so easy to pick out, aren’t they?” Lady Gwendolyn’s voice was sympathetic and not the least judgmental. “It’s as if they were linked by an invisible cord. They are, of course. Quite strong emotion. Hatred, I’d say.”
Annie stared at Lady Gwendolyn in astonishment.
The old lady nodded toward the fortune-telling tent. “I heard all about your spot of bother last night. It’s always shocking when violence erupts in what seems to be a civilized milieu. But as Dame Agatha made so very clear, there is so much evil under the sun.” Lady Gwendolyn gripped Annie’s arm, her pudgy fingers surprisingly strong. “It’s a mistake to think it can’t happen here.”
AGATHA CHRISTIE
TITLE CLUE
“He was murdered, wasn’t he?”
But the ladylike killer talks too much.
The weather had on its most beguiling face Monday morning, which was not always true in September on a barrier island. There was that memorably dreadful Labor Day weekend when it had rained and rained and rained and rained. Eight inches in one day. The golf courses shimmered with lakes, the streets ran ankle-deep, and snakes fled the saturated ground, seeking refuge on porches, in dumpsters, and inside garages. Of course, September always held the possibility of hurricanes. That specter had haunted Annie throughout the months of planning, but Monday dawned with a robin’s-egg-blue sky, the silkiest of onshore breezes, and a balmy temperature that only hinted of afternoon heat.
The surroundings sparkled. Their suite was on the third floor in the central block of the hotel. Wings extended from either end of that block. All of the rooms on this, the sea side, had spacious balconies with tile tables and canvas-backed directors chairs. Fiery red geraniums flourished in the twin royal blue vases at the corners of each balcony. The ornately carved columns supporting the balconies added a Moorish flavor. The red-flowered blue vases, positioned at regular intervals along the balconies on every floor and along the roof wall, created vivid pointillist splotches of color against the cream-colored stucco facade.
Their view was magnificent: the red-tiled central courtyard, accented again with royal blue by the fountains on either side, the stuccoed walls that afforded privacy to ground-floor rooms, the crystal clear water of the pool, the creamy gold of the dunes, the age-browned boardwalk, the shiny