The Christie Caper - Carolyn Hart [62]
A tall, virago-faced redhead almost dislocated Annie’s shoulder with her determined grip. “Rank unfairness, that’s what this is!” She gestured venomously at the mob.
“Huh?” Annie tried to squirm free.
“The people at the front of the line have an incredible advantage,” the woman hissed.
“If life were fair,” Annie rejoined, lurching away, “no mysteries would ever have been written.”
Two plump matrons executed as neat a sequestering as Annie’d ever seen outside the pages of a Mafia book, one fore and one aft.
“Such a lovely conference, Mrs. Darling.” Peppermint breath and a mammoth bosom overwhelmed Annie. “I know you will agree that working together is surely the American way.”
“Goldie and I always work together,” Aft confided chummily over Annie’s shoulder. Whatever charm that entailed was canceled by unrelenting pressure on Annie’s back.
“The more the merrier,” Annie replied heartily. “After all, Agatha’s father was an American.” That puzzled them enough that she managed a sideways Junge and broke free.
She was almost to the table and she’d spotted Max, head high, searching for her, when a natty old boy in knickers reached out, grabbed her hand, and shook it. “Tremendous excitement generated. Deservedly, of course. But, one can’t help but be concerned. Disputations will undoubtedly arise. Who are the marshals?”
This was a new one. She took in his neatly trimmed Vandyke, horn-rimmed glasses, and terrifyingly intelligent eyes. An academic, of course. “The members of the Broward’s Rock Agatha Christie Centennial Society,” she replied smoothly, inventing it on the spot. She pointed at Henny, who was also battling her way through the crowd. “There’s the president, the lady in the green linen blazer. Direct any questions to her.”
The natty old fellow nodded happily. “Sound organizational structure, that’s obvious.”
When Annie reached Max, she looked at him anxiously.
He gave a reassuring nod, and she sighed with relief. That meant Max had mounted the posters, each containing hints to a particular Christie title. Each poster served as a Hunt Station and was manned by a volunteer from Henny’s book club.
There were twenty-five posters scattered at various points on the ground floor of the hotel.
So that was done. All that remained now was for Max to deliver to each station the Title Slips for that book (actually, twenty-four books and one short story; that was to keep everybody loose) and for Annie to release the Clue Sheets. But, first, it was time to explain the rules. She looked at the surging, intense crowd and realized that she and the box she clutched to her bosom were the cynosure of all eyes. She smiled brightly at Max and handed the box to him, announcing loudly, “The programs for the banquet Saturday night”
AGATHA CHRISTIE
TREASURE HUNT POSTERS
POSTER 1
A cupboard in the corner of a cottage dining room. It contains sports equipment and relics of the sporting life: two pairs of skis, ten or twelve hippopotamus tusks, fishing tackle, a stuffed elephant’s foot, golf clubs, a tennis racket, and a tiger skin.
POSTER 2
The small, mustachioed man on the hotel terrace holds a woman’s fawn felt hat in his hands, showing it to his companion. A look of impatience underlies one of concern on the little man’s face. One finger is stuck through a small hole in the hat’s brim.
POSTER 3
Scissors. Cut-out letters. A young woman standing at an upper window watching, watching. A wasp’s nest and a jar of cyanide.
POSTER 4
The old butler peers nearsightedly through the windows at the drive. A looking glass. Wax flowers on a malachite table.
POSTER 5
The smoldering remains of an air crash. Luggage in a hotel lobby. A much battered tennis racket
POSTER 6
In the candlelight, the body clothed in a black cloak and a black mask looks absurdly melodramatic, but the young man is very dead.
POSTER 7
The black-haired young woman with eager green eyes stares at a ship model behind the plate-glass window of the steamship company. In her hand, she