The Christie Caper - Carolyn Hart [95]
Clearly, both meant business.
Lady Gwendolyn sat at the head of the table. Laurel slipped into the seat beside her, after placing blue manila folders at each place.
Lady Gwendolyn flipped open the cover of her folder and scanned a page covered with spidery handwriting, while quaffing her tea.
Laurel drew pale blue glasses from her pocket and perched them on her nose. If, Annie thought, it was an attempt to appear businesslike, it failed miserably. Max’s mother looked about as businesslike as the elfin Lady Lucy Angkatell surprising her guest Midge Hardcastle before breakfast in The Hollow.
Annie dropped into her seat, next to Henny and across from Max. Henny, she was glad to see, was sturdily herself, wearing an elegant pale lemon warm-up and a yellow calico headband.
“Bledsoe,” Lady Gwendolyn said pensively, surveying them in turn. “What role does he play in our drama? Villain? Victim? Smoke screen? And, of course, let us not overlook the late John Border Stone, who masqueraded as James Bentley. Why was Stone murdered? Did he see more than he admitted outside the bookstore Saturday night? Was he present on the roof when the vase crashed down? What information had Stone planned to give to Annie? Can we prove a connection between Stone and any of our suspects? Or is Stone’s death a separate issue from the melodramatic attacks on Bledsoe?” A plump hand reached up to reinsert a dangling hair pin. The coronet braids still looked quite tidy. But it was, of course, early hours.
Lady Gwendolyn smiled sweetly. “But we must not think we have divined the truth, or that we even have a clear idea of our quest. We must be certain to look beneath the surface. Something is in the process of happening; something as yet obscure. So what can we do?”
As far as Annie was concerned, not even a delicious breakfast made up for a variation on Twenty Questions at this ungodly hour of the morning. Her vocal cords weren’t even up to a growl, much less insightful suggestions.
But Lady Gwendolyn, with a cherubic nod, was quite happy to provide an answer. “We have one major recourse—we can analyze our suspects. Like hardy trackers across the Serengeti Plain, we can use our skill and knowledge to pick up the spoor of our quarry. And here”—she lifted a blue folder—“is the fruit of our investigations.” She nodded at Max. “Our first report, please.”
Annie didn’t pay too much attention to Max’s report. She already knew about Bledsoe’s sorry past. As she finished the delectable toast, she struggled for clarity. Okay, it was early Thursday morning—God yes, it was early morning, not even a finger of dawn perceptible—and the vase had come tumbling down Tuesday morning. Tuesday night, she and Lady Gwendolyn discovered the body of John Border Stone, alias James Bentley. Was it important that the vase fell on Tuesday morning and Stone was killed that same evening? Annie made a note on the fresh notepaper that had thoughtfully been tucked into the inner front-cover pocket of the folder.
Max finished reading the bio on Bledsoe. He thumbed through several sheets. “Here’s some information that came through late yesterday about Bledsoe’s funding for Have Gun, Will Travel. I traced it back to a sham company: Allied Everest. The company used the address of a building that belonged to Burke Spence. Spence wrote six books that earned him more than five million dollars. His readership was predominantly male. His series detective, private investigator Mick Bolt, operated out of Port Arthur, Texas. He carried a Colt Special .38, played rugby for fun, and had a woman in every coastal town on the gulf. Every five pages offer a grunt-and-gouge fight or a give-it-to-’em-quick sex scene. Spence, like his protagonist, was a rugged