The Christie Caper - Carolyn Hart [60]
Nothing Henny could have said would have made her feel worse. It would only add an aura of acceptability to Bledsoe’s calumnies if Annie or anyone else took them seriously enough to answer.
Annie clapped a hand to her head. “Henny, no! Don’t you see what that will do? People will take it as a legitimate debate. They’ll think the questions he’s raising have merit. It will be just like Griswold slimily saying an unpardonable offense was common knowledge!”
“Oh.” Henny had come directly to the hotel from a board meeting at the hospital. She looked superb in a green linen blazer, daffodil yellow blouse, and beige skirt. She fingered the heavy twisted-rope gold chain at her throat. “I see. But, Annie,” she asked reasonably, “isn’t it better to take an opportunity to refute slander? If it’s ignored, some people will assume it’s right merely because it’s printed.”
Annie, freshly dressed in a blue-on-white cotton sweater and a short polka-dot navy skirt, dropped into the wicker chair opposite Henny’s and glared morosely down into the Palmetto Court “Look at him. Swollen with ill-gotten success, like a nasty bloodsucking leech.”
Laurel glanced down into the court, but she didn’t look worried at all. No doubt confident that her ladyship would soon settle the matter.
Indeed, Bledsoe did look larger than life, his ruddy face flushed with excitement, his huge hands dwarfing the subscription slips as he counted them. It was almost noon and the last persons in line had reached his table, made out their checks, and received receipts. He made yet another stack in front of him and spoke to Natalie Marlow. The young author smiled.
Annie did not consider herself a critical person. She couldn’t help thinking, however, that Natalie Marlow looked about as attractive as an inmate at Tehachapi. Her bilious-green khaki shorts flapped just above bony knees, and a pink tank top emphasized her equally bony shoulders. A sex symbol for a grasshopper, maybe.
Yet Bledsoe was focusing his not inconsiderable sex appeal on her as if she were the kind of voluptuous blonde so beloved of pulp-fiction writers. No white suit for Bledsoe today, but still all white. His polo shirt and polished cotton shorts set off his impressive physique.
He leaned forward, stared into Natalie’s eyes, and spoke.
The writer’s angular face glowed with happiness, she nodded several times, pushed back her chair and hurried off into the hotel.
Bledsoe bent back to his counting.
Annie didn’t want to know how many subscriptions he’d sold. Beaucoup, obviously. Did each stack hold a hundred? Dammit, it wasn’t accomplishing anything to sit here and watch the sorry bastard in his triumph. Besides, it was almost time to meet Max at the registration table and get the Christie Treasure Hunt under way.
Suddenly, Henny drew her breath in sharply. “Oh my God!” she cried.
Laurel gasped and pointed toward the roof.
Annie looked up and watched in frozen horror.
A blue vase along the roof wall teetered for a long, heart-stopping instant, and then it began to fall, slowly, almost lazily.
Directly below, Neil Bledsoe was just pushing back his chair.
A woman screamed.
AGATHA CHRISTIE TITLE CLUE
Dolly Bantry’s worried sick;
She recruits Miss Marple quick.
The huge vase, a blur of sapphire and red, exploded on impact. Bledsoe’s table crumpled beneath the crushing weight. Fragments of pottery and clumps of dirt and geraniums rose in a shower of debris.
“Oh my God,” Henny said again, but this time in awe, not horror.
“Why, look at him climb!” Laurel exclaimed.
Alerted by the scream of a waitress, Bledsoe had looked up just in time to fling himself backward to safety, and now, his face blood-red with anger and exertion, he was swarming up the carved pillars that supported the balconies, from the ground floor to the roof. He made that climb look easy, his huge hands seeking fingerholds among the protruding curls and knobs of the hyacinth-decorated pillars, his sneaker-clad