The Christie Caper - Carolyn Hart [69]
“The Nemean Lion, Poster 13, Clue 25.
“Death in the Air, Poster 14, Clue 20.
“Sad Cypress, Poster 15, Clue 19.
“The Boomerang Clue, Poster 16, Clue 22.
“Appointment with Death, Poster 17, Clue 21.
“At Bertram’s Hotel, Poster 18, Clue 5.
“Evil Under the Sun, Poster 19, Clue 12.
“The Body in the Library, Poster 20, Clue 15.
“Hickory Dickory Death, Poster 21, Clue 13.
“Murder After Hours, Poster 22, Clue 7.
“Easy to Kill, Poster 23, Clue 9.
“A Caribbean Mystery, Poster 24, Clue 1.
“Death Comes as the End, Poster 25, Clue 10.”
Annie reached out to shake hands. “Congratulations, Ms. Truelove.”
Truelove untwined sufficiently to lay limp fingers delicately on Annie’s palm.
Her smile a trifle strained, Annie picked up the box of chocolates.
All hell broke loose.
“Disqualification! Disqualification!” The virago-faced redhead screeched like the Simplon-Orient Express rounding a Turkish mountainside. “Book titles. Book titles!”
Truelove shed her amiability faster than Miss Marple knitted in The Tuesday Club Murders. Snatching the box of candy from Annie, she clutched it to her bosom and snarled a vulgarity at the redhead. Not a term in common use by ladies in period costumes.
It was at that point that a bellhop edged near with a message for Annie. Grabbing it, she stuffed it in her pocket and turned back to the fracas, which had escalated into body contact that would have shamed a hockey goalie.
When Annie, with Ingrid’s help, separated the two women, the box of candy was split open, the redhead was nursing a black eye, and Truelove’s display of gutter language surprised even Ingrid, who read the hardest of boiled (Valin, Izzi, Ellroy, Thompson).
The redhead wasn’t a quitter. “You said book titles. I distinctly heard you say book titles. ‘The Nemean Lion’ is not a book title. I turned in the book title, The Labours of Hercules.”
“Title, smitle,” Truelove snapped. “The clue and poster represent the story ‘The Nemean Lion.’ I figured it out first. I turned it in first. The candy is mine.”
“The book title is The Labours of Hercules,” the redhead replied stubbornly.
The cry was taken up, people separating into for and against, pro Truelove or pro Redhead. Shouts reverberated as opinions clashed.
“A pottery store,” Annie muttered. “Why don’t I run a pottery store?”
The redhead lunged again for the candy.
“Mine!” squealed Truelove.
“Mine!” proclaimed the usurper.
Or perhaps a shoe store, Annie pondered.
The claimant lowered her head and butted Truelove in the chest.
Truelove screeched, “Murder! Help!”
“Point of order,” Annie bellowed.
The two women turned to look at her.
That had been so successful, Annie wished she knew more parliamentary terms, but her repertoire was exhausted.
Her forefinger extended, Annie stalked to the redhead. “No one,” she intoned, “who commits forgery can be eligible to win.”
“Forgery? I? Forgery? Are you blackening my good name?”
Annie almost told her, à la Miss Marple, that she was a dead ringer for the biggest cheat in Annie’s high school, Cinda Mae Coldspot, but bypassed that pleasure for the blow-away.
“You turned in a slip with the title The Labours of Hercules?”
“I certainly did and …” The redhead realized her peril, and changed course. “You can’t ignore the fact that you said book titles, and ‘The Nemean Lion’ isn’t—”
Annie faced the crowd. “Forgery in the first degree. There is not, never has been, and never shall be an official Christie Treasure Hunt Title Slip by that name. The official slip, available only at Hunt Station Number Thirteen, reads ‘The Nemean Lion.’” Whirling around, Annie yanked up Truelove’s arm and waggled it in the air. “The winner, the champion, the world-class treasure hunter, Miss Millicent Arrowby Truelove.” A pause. There were, of course, some catcalls and an ominous rumble of dissent. “Tea and crumpets,” she yelled, on a desperate impulse, “in the lobby. Courtesy of Death on Demand.”
A battle station call on Alistair MacLean’s H.M.S. Ulysses couldn’t have cleared the decks any faster. Once again, Annie and Ingrid held