High Heels And Homicide Part 22

"I agree. But perhaps you'd like to use this?" he suggested, retrieving Nikki's lighted headband and handing it down to her.

"Good thought," Maggie said, trying to smile, but her teeth were chattering, so she gave up that particular effort as a bad job.

One last dive did the trick, as the handle of the bag actually seemed to be waving to her as she searched for it, and she was back on the surface and then on the slippery, b.u.mpy path a moment later, lying face-to-face with Nikki Campion as the gray light of dawn became a little brighter. "Come here often?" she asked the drenched Nikki.

It was morning, and the case was solved. Sort of solved. Most of it solved. She hoped Alex was happy. She was. Rapidly freezing to death, maybe nearing a slight case of fatigue-induced delirium, but happy.

"I believe you two have been introduced," Alex said, a.s.sisting Maggie to her feet. "Here," he added, draping a wet slicker over her shoulders. "This won't help much, but it's better than nothing. Can you navigate the path back to the house while I a.s.sist Miss Campion?"

"Don't...don't let her get away," Maggie told him, heading for the still-open back door to Medwine Manor. "I'm so cold!"

She wasn't quite halfway to the house before Sterling, looking really adorable in his own yellow slicker, came running toward her, gathered her close under his arm, and led her into the kitchens, where Perry was waiting with a large red-and-green-plaid wool blanket.

"I love you guys," Maggie told them, shaking all over. "Fireplace. Get me to a fireplace. I'm so cold."

And that's when the lights went on...

"I thought it was the generators, but they're probably ruined," Sir Rudy said, handing Maggie a cup of hot tea as she entered the main saloon. "Our local electrical council has certainly outdone themselves. I don't remember power being restored this quickly before." He held up the silver sugar bowl. "Sugar?"

"Yes, three, please. Or four, if that doesn't insult you," Maggie said, trying with all her might not to spill the tea because her hands were still shaking. She glanced at the mantel clock. It was after six. Gee, it was true: Time flies when you're having fun.

Tabby and Bernie had grabbed her almost the moment she'd climbed the stairs to the first floor, pushing her into the study, to sit and drip and shiver while Tabby raced upstairs for towels and dry clothing, and Bernie told her she was an idiot-and Maggie had agreed with her.

But now she was back in the main saloon, and the power was on, which meant the central heating had kicked in, and the fire was still blazing in the fireplace, and Maggie actually had a moment to wonder how she was supposed to get all her wet clothes into a suitcase, then explain them to an airline security guard.

Because she was leaving England today if she had to swim. Okay, maybe not if she had to swim.

"Where's Alex?"

"Here, my dear," he said, and she turned to see him standing to the far left of the large room, looking the epitome of the Gentleman At Home, as he had crossed one ankle over the other and was leaning, so nonchalantly, on the k.n.o.b of his sword cane. "And, before you ask, here, too, are all our new friends, including Miss Campion and the robin. Although I don't believe either of them is pleased to be here."

"I was leaving," Nikki explained through chattering teeth. "A person can't leave a house before she's murdered? So I picked up someone else's bag by mistake. So what? A person can leave a place when a person wants to."

"This is ridiculous," Byrd Stockwell said, glaring at Evan Pottinger, who was standing over the seated Byrd, holding the fireplace poker. "She ran, which proves she's guilty. All I did was diddle the s.l.u.t."

"So very charming. Always the gentleman, Robin, aren't you?"

"Really?" Byrd said with a sneer. (Maggie all of a sudden didn't think he looked half so handsome.) "At least I'm not trying to act like some stuffed-shirt English lord."

Alex put a hand to his chest and recited a line from Aeschylus. "'Oh me, I have been struck a mortal blow right inside.' Pardon me, Robin, as I toddle to my chair, a broken man."

And then he did just that, propping his sword cane against one arm of the chair as he sat facing Byrd Stockwell. "Now, if we could dispense with the histrionics and be on with this?"

Maggie walked over to stand beside Alex. "What have I missed? Have I missed anything?"

"A phone call from Mary Louise, as a matter of fact. A very interesting phone call from Mary Louise. But we'll allow that information to fall into our conversation as we get on with this, if that's all right with you."

"Do I have a choice?"

"Not really, no."

"Didn't think so," Maggie said, sipping her tea as she looked more closely at Nikki, who was shivering in a blanket on another chair dragged to this side of the room. And surprise, surprise, someone had tied one of her ankles to a leg of the chair. Good thinking. "Okay, go for it. I'm kind of tired anyway."

"I hate you," Nikki said, glaring at Maggie. "You tried to drown me. I'm going to sue you, you know. You won't have a pot to p.i.s.s in when I'm done with you."

"Gee, I'm scared." Maggie looked at Alex. "You have the bag?"

"It's safe, yes," Alex told her, then got to his feet and turned to speak to everyone. "I am happy to announce, ladies and gentlemen, that we have both our miscreants safely in hand now, and there should be no further impositions on your time or constraints on your movements. In other words, you may go."

"Not until we know what the h.e.l.l happened here," Bernie said, looking at Tabby. "You want to know, right?"

"Only if my name doesn't come up again," Tabby said, pouting.

"I think you've had your fifteen minutes with this one, Tabby," Maggie told her, grinning. "Come on, Alex, fill in the blanks here. I can fill in one of them-how Nikki here knew about the path. She knew because she spends all her time running around, up and down the halls, the stairs. She had to have looked out a window at some point and seen the path. Her getaway path. Once she'd found the jewels in Byrd's bedroom, all she needed was to figure out when to make her escape. I mean, it's not like acting was really going to work out for her anyway. But remember her running around with her hair all wet with sweat? That wasn't sweat; that was rain. And she was asking us where Byrd was because she wanted to give him the slip. She was just biding her time, her luggage and the jewels already stashed in the kitchen, and when we said we were going to search all the bedrooms, she knew it was time to make a break for it. It's all so logical now."

"Nikki?" Alex asked the woman. "Do you care to comment? Or would you rather I supply more details? For instance, the fact that your last name isn't really Campion. It's Campiano. And that your uncle is Salvatore Campiano, a gentleman with, as my informant told me, connections."

Maggie slapped a hand to her forehead. "Just when you think you know everything..."

"Shh, my dear. Miss Campion? We know now that Boffo Transmissions, a marvelously successful enterprise that had its birthplace in Brooklyn, is owned by your uncle, who was nice enough to pay for his favorite niece's nose job-I believe that's the term-then feature her in his nationwide television advertisments, thus making you a celebrity. Rather like Paris Hilton without the Internet photos, I believe my friend explained to me-known for being known. I really don't understand the concept. But I applaud you, my dear. Many wouldn't know what to do with a windfall of stolen jewelry. But your uncle would. Wouldn't he, Miss Campion?"

"Mary Louise knew all of that?" Maggie asked, impressed. "That's what she told you?"

"No, my dear. Our friends Vernon and George knew all of this, George's relatives once more proving veritable fonts of information."

"George is Killer, right? And Killer's Italian, right? How could I forget that one? Does everybody in the five boroughs know everybody else? Why don't I know anybody?"

"Perhaps you should consider getting out more?" Alex suggested with a smile.

"I'm ignoring that. But you're saying you don't think Nikki here was in this thing from the get-go? Hers is what they call a crime of opportunity? What makes you so sure?"

"I'm not, actually. But this entire exercise, start to ign.o.ble finish, has the air of slapdash and clumsy improvisation about it, don't you agree? Robin, put us out of our misery, please. Remember, confession is purportedly good for the soul."

Oh, goody, now they were getting to the really nifty part. "Yeah, Robin," Maggie urged, "you know the jig is up. Tell us everything."

Byrd Stockwell looked up at Evan, who had just noticed that his gla.s.s was once more empty and was wandering off, poker in hand, to correct that lapse.

"He said he'd hit me with that. You people are all crazy. Americans. Everything's violence for you."

"Yeah, yeah, shame on us," Maggie said, putting down her teacup, as she'd realized about three sips ago that Sir Rudy had laced the tea with brandy. Which was why she'd finished all of it, the warmth of the brandy doing wonders for her. "Now spill your guts. You and Joanne and Sam. Maybe Nikki here, too, maybe not. How did it start? How did you all get together? Come on, Robin. First one to roll over catches the break, but the offer goes on the table only once. Let's hear it, Robin-one, two, three, cop that plea."

"And you say I watch too much television," Alex said, shaking his head.

And then Byrd Stockwell surprised her. He crossed one long leg over the other, folded his hands in his lap, and became one hundred and fifty percent stiff-upperlip British. "Oh, very well. Only an idiot would not try to salvage something out of this unG.o.dly mess. But I want to make this clear. I killed n.o.body."

"Don't try to blame me, Byrd Stockwell! You just shut up!" Nikki yelled, throwing back the blankets and jumping to her feet...only to fall forward, flat on her face, as she must have forgotten the rope around her ankle. It was beautiful to see, Maggie decided, grinning. Almost poetical.

"No, Nikki, you shut up," Bryd declared flatly. "Always walking around the room naked, hunting for your nail polish while prattling on in that annoyingly high-pitched voice of yours about how I should admire your biceps, of all things. That's how you found the jewelry, isn't it? My jewelry. I shouldn't have listened to Joanne."

"Listened to Joanne about what?" Maggie asked. "You talked to her about Nikki?"

Byrd rolled his eyes. "Joanne felt that we should behave as if we weren't already acquainted, although she didn't much care for the method I chose to allay suspicions on that head."

Maggie pointed at him. "You're the one I heard arguing in the study yesterday. You and Joanne."

Byrd shrugged. "Possibly. Probably. She was becoming a bit intense. Even unnerving."

"Being the object of Miss Pertuccelli's affections could very well be terrifying, I'd imagine," Alex suggested sympathetically.

"Funny, Alex," Maggie said, then looked at Byrd. "She loved you? She expected marriage?"

"You Americans. You need everything wrapped up in a fantasy, don't you? This was business, Miss Kelly."

Maggie believed she was getting closer now. "Except American Joanne didn't think so. She got jealous. She thought you were going to drop her for Nikki. So you killed her."

"Incorrect on all counts," Byrd said, pushing back his blond hair, almost preening. "If you'd allow me to explain from the beginning?"

"Who's stopping you?" Maggie asked, then winced. "All right, point taken. At least it's only Alex and me talking this time. Go ahead."

And he did. He explained that he'd happened to meet Joanne in London. She was impressed ("naturally"), and he was intrigued by her tale of woe about an upcoming movie she'd been all but blackmailed into working on. Re-creating England on a California soundstage-ridiculous.

But the budget was limited, there was no choice, nothing she'd found in England could be had for a reasonable amount of money.

"She was all about money," Byrd said. "Probably why I was attracted, as I am also very concerned with money. I won't bore you with the details, but we came to conclude that I could help her and she could help me, and we both could get very rich. It seemed that she paid alimony to quite a few people."

"You set up that meeting between Joanne and Sir Rudy?"

Byrd brushed some invisible lint from his slacks. "Right down to the red dress, Miss Kelly. My jumped-up uncle so admires red. By the end of the evening, he believed it was his idea to offer Medwine Manor to the production company, gratis. He's a simple man, my uncle. Joanne, unfortunately, turned out to be much more complicated."

"So that's how the movie got switched from Hollywood to England at the last minute. Sorry, go on," Maggie said, even as she could hear Marylou saying, "There, there, sweetie, we had fun, remember? It's not all bad," to an obviously upset Sir Rudy.

And Byrd went on, Nikki being very quiet, to explain that he had somehow become persona non grata in his uncle's house, unfortunately just as he'd discovered an old set of plans for the house in the back of one of the silver cupboards. Someone, he told them, had actually used them to wrap up some G.o.dawful bits of blackened silver. Byrd took the plans, not knowing at that moment what they were, to wrap up "a few things."

"You stole my candlesticks," Sir Rudy said, speaking for the first time. "I barred you from my house, you ungrateful puppy. Told you I'd set the dogs on you if you showed your face here again-if I had dogs."

Byrd spread his hands, palms up, and looked at Maggie. "You can see my dilemma. I'd heard all the stories about the jewelry. About Uncle Willis. At some point, probably while bored, I unbent the plans, looked at them, and realized that there was a secret pa.s.sage located directly inside Uncle Willis's attic prison. It led down to my usual room, as well. I'd been sleeping not ten feet away from that lovely jewelry! After all, where else would the man have hidden it, if not there? I had to get back in that room."

"Sir Rudy wasn't happy to see you the other day," Maggie said, taking up the story. "But you'd convinced Joanne to get the movie filmed here, because when you showed up, and the house was full of people, your uncle wouldn't make a scene, and you knew it. That's why you cut Joanne in on anything in the first place."

"A stupid mistake, I agree," Byrd said, nodding. "I think I enjoyed the intrigue of the thing. Besides, she told me she could, as you Americans say, get me into show business if I helped with her own cash flow. It was all very quid pro quo."

"You wanted to go to Hollywood and be a movie star? Another model-turned-actor? Oh, good grief, of course," Maggie said, shaking her head. "I should have figured that one out the minute you walked in the door."

Alex paced as Byrd kept talking, his hands clasped behind his back, his expression thoughtful.

"I won't be insulted by you, Miss Kelly," Byrd stated firmly. "And I won't be held responsible for any murders. It was Joanne's idea to bring that ridiculous brown hack into the mix without consulting me. And it was she who strangled him after knocking him unconscious as the fool leaned over the jewelry, telling us both how he would use his share to produce his own screenplay. I was completely shocked. But he had been very helpful in finding the latch for us."

Maggie looked at Alex. "Was there a b.u.mp on the back of Sam's head?"

"I didn't notice one," Alex said. "Perhaps I wasn't all that thorough, once I'd seen the pair of marks on his throat. Although I most sincerely doubt that, don't you?" He turned to Byrd. "You did help her hang him up, didn't you, Robin? You'll at least admit to that?"

"Stop calling me Robin."

"Forgive me, but I do so enjoy it. Back to the late Mr. Undercuffler. You were, according to you, and with no one else alive to gainsay you, shocked, dismayed at the murder of the man you hadn't wanted involved in the first place-splitting the profits three ways rather than two-and are completely innocent of anything other than robbery. However, you did a.s.sist Miss Pertuccelli in, shall we say, disposing of the body?"

At last, Byrd looked disconcerted. "I didn't know what else to do. We'd left him up in the attic, but that wasn't good enough, and Joanne was going crazy, totally off her head. I remembered Uncle Willis, and we decided to make it look like a suicide."

He looked at Dennis and Tabby. "But now they were in the room. I had to find a way to get them out so they wouldn't hear us up above their heads, dragging Undercuffler about. The man was, if you'll pardon me, a dead weight. Besides, Joanne had thrown her stopwatch somewhere, as if suddenly, somehow, it had turned into a snake she couldn't bear to touch, and we might have to move furniture to find the thing. We never did find it, but that really wasn't a problem for me, was it? I had the jewelry."

Maggie raised a hand. "So you didn't think about the dust? The only reason there were no footprints in the dust was because each time you guys went up to the attic room, you went up through the secret pa.s.sage? d.a.m.n. I was so sure of that one."

"Even incorrect a.s.sumptions can lead to valid conclusions, Maggie. We would never have even considered the existence of a secret pa.s.sage otherwise," Alex told her. "Now, if you will, Stockwell, on to the jewels. And Miss Pertuccelli's murder."

He spread his hands, shrugged. "I don't know. We'd planned to just hold onto them, wait for the water to go down, and I'd leave, take them with me. n.o.body knew we'd stolen anything because n.o.body knew the jewelry even existed. But, as I've said, Joanne had to go and kill that idiot writer. That's when everything began to fall apart."

"Writers will do that for you-screw up everything," Maggie said, grinning.

"It doesn't matter. I did not kill that writer. I did not kill Joanne." He turned on Nikki. "She did! And she stole my jewelry!"

Everyone, Maggie included, turned to look at Nikki...and when they turned back, everyone was looking at Byrd Stockwell, who now held Alex's sword cane in his hand, unsheathed. And he looked like he might just know how to use it-who knew what English schoolboys learned in cla.s.s?

"Hand over that bag. It's mine!"

"Of course, Robin," Alex said, bowing, "as you do appear to be holding the upper hand." He stepped back, slowly, then sort of whirled around, grabbing the Troy Toy's sword cane out of the actor's hands. A heartbeat later, it was unsheathed, and Alex was facing Stockwell once more, both of them in the en garde position.

"Alex, for crying out loud, that's a prop," Maggie said, really worried now. "You can't fight him with a prop sword. Give him the jewelry. He won't get far."

"I should, shouldn't I?" Alex said, not taking his eyes off Stockwell. "But this man murdered two people. We cannot allow him even an attempted escape."

"Oh, great, you're doing that honorable thing again, right? Well, cut it out!" Maggie looked behind her. "Where's the jewelry? Who's got the jewelry? Hand it over, okay?"

"Why?" Bernie asked, then blew her nose. "Alex and I already looked at it. It's fake."

Maggie worried that her eyes might just pop right out of her head. "It's-"

"Fake. Paste. Gla.s.s," Bernie elaborated. "I know my jewelry. Uncle Willis stole fake jewelry. Good fakes, so the pieces are worth something, but not all that much. Life's a b.i.t.c.h, ain't it?"

Maggie's head was spinning. Looking at Alex, who was looking at Stockwell-the two of them still squared-off-she tried to sort out this entire mess in her mind.

"You know," she said, "it could make sense. People back then often replaced their real jewelry with fakes when they needed money. Good fakes, too. But if Uncle Willis stole the jewelry and took it to a p.a.w.nbroker, then everybody would know the family was broke."

Now she was pacing, well clear of Alex and Byrd Stockwell, who were beginning to look a little silly posing like that. "They had to find that jewelry, and they couldn't let Uncle Willis out to tell anybody the family secret, either. If he figured it out once he actually inspected the pieces, and told anybody, they'd be ruined. Tradespeople would start calling in their accounts, they'd end up in debtor's prison, the whole nine yards. I mean, you think we all live on credit now? Those guys were ten times worse than us. And then, once he'd maybe figured out he was locked up for life and would be hunted down and killed if he escaped with what he knew-not just with the jewelry, but with what he knew-Uncle Willis went mad and got his revenge. G.o.d, I love this! I want to write this!"

"Appeals to your romantic, and often bloodthirsty, fiction-writing mind, yes, I'm sure," Alex said, still watching Byrd. "I believe, however, the late Mr. Undercuffler and the late Miss Pertuccelli might not share your joy."

"That's true," Maggie agreed, still running scenarios in her head. Yes, this could be a good story. She could drop Saint Just in the middle of it, have him solve the crimes. The idea was definitely better than the book she'd just finished. But Alex was still talking, so she really should pay attention.

"Stockwell, it's over. You murdered two people for paste and have been ungentlemanly enough to attempt to blame two females for your crimes. You weren't about to share with Mr. Undercuffler, and you killed him while Miss Pertuccelli watched in horror-even borrowing her stopwatch cord to do the deed. Miss Pertuccelli must have been terrified, realizing, as you did, that all the jewelry was much better than half. I imagine you discovered her trying to escape, flee for her life, and you stabbed her with one of the kitchen knives."