5 Check-Out Time (8 page)

Finding him in the middle of all those trees wasn’t going to be that easy, neither. She just hoped it didn’t start bloody pouring before she found him and dragged him back to the hotel.

It must have taken her the best part of the afternoon before she found him. She’d searched the woods, shouting and threatening until she was hoarse, but had not seen hide nor hair of the flipping kid.

She had finally given up and was on her way back for a well-earned cuppa when she heard someone talking over by the fish pond. The voice caught her attention because it sounded so bleeding weird, like someone in a trance or something.

Creeping up to the bushes that shrouded the pond, she peered carefully around the corner. There was the bloody little horror, kneeling with his back to her, staring at something in the pond.

Her hands fairly itched to give him a good shove. Serve the little bugger right, it would. Him and his big mouth. Who the hell did he think he was, just ’cause his bloody father was a toff?

’Cept he didn’t have no father now. Gertie’s shoulders relaxed. Poor little bugger. It must be terrible to lose a father like that. All crumpled up on the pavement. It was a blessing Stanley and his mother hadn’t seen the body when they
came back from the beach. Couldn’t have been a pretty sight, that.

Gertie narrowed her eyes as Stanley started mumbling again. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he seemed intent on something in the pond.

Her lips tightened. Probably tormenting some poor fish or one of the blinking frogs. She’d bloody torment him, dead father or no dead father. Creeping forward, she edged along the side of the pond until she could see what he was doing.

She stopped short, intrigued by the sight. Stanley was leaning over the water, his hand outstretched. From his fingers dangled a gold watch on a chain, and it swung back and forth in a wide arc while the boy seemed to be repeating something over and over again.

He was still too far away for Gertie to hear the words, but for a moment a sharp memory of something sprang into her mind. She struggled with it for a second or two, but then it vanished, and she couldn’t get it back.

Shaking her head, she advanced on Stanley, her feet making no sound on the thick grass. She came up behind him, but he was far too engrossed in what he was doing to notice her there.

Placing her hands on her hips, Gertie said loudly, “’Ere, what you up to, then, you bleeding little pest? I’ve been looking for you—”

She got no further, because Stanley, startled out of his wits, lost his balance and slowly toppled into the water. He landed with an almighty splash and the most piercing shriek Gertie had ever heard in all her born days.

CHAPTER
8

For a second or two Gertie stood transfixed by the sight of the boy howling and splashing around like a mad bull in a swamp. He screamed for help, water spitting from his mouth. “Save me! I can’t swim! I can’t swim!” He made a
glugging
noise, and his terrified face disappeared beneath the water.

Galvanized into action, Gertie leapt for the edge of the pond, leaned over, and grabbed a handful of hair. She gave it a hard jerk, feeling a grim satisfaction when Stanley let out a yell.

“You don’t have to swim, you stupid little twit,” she said, putting her face close up to Stanley’s. “The water only comes up to your bleeding hips. Stand up, dummy, and you’ll bloody see for yourself.”

Stanley stopped crying and clambered to his feet. Water
poured from him in streams as he rubbed at his eyes with his fists. His normally curly hair lay plastered on his head and shoulders, and his face was streaked with mud, as were his saturated clothes.

“Cor blimey, look at you,” Gertie said dismally as she dragged him up onto the grass. “I’ll probably get merry hell for this. I’d better get you back to the hotel before you catch your blinking death of cold.”

She grumbled at him all the way back, though part of her felt sorry for the little bugger. He never said a word, not even when she told him how bloody stupid he was to think he could drown in two feet of water.

Luckily they met no one in the foyer when they went in. There was no sign of Arthur, who must have gone down for his porridge.

Arthur ate porridge every afternoon. Gertie couldn’t even eat the muck in the winter, leave alone in the middle of summer. But then, Arthur was different from any man she’d ever met.

She made it downstairs with the silent boy dripping water everywhere. She’d probably have to go and mop it up once Mrs. Chubb got an eyeful of sogging Stanley, Gertie thought as she pushed open the door to the kitchen.

Sure enough, Arthur sat at the table with a steaming bowl of porridge in front of him. But what surprised Gertie was the sight of Mrs. Chubb, leaning over him with her tits brushing his shoulder while she spooned brown sugar onto the oatmeal.

For a moment or two neither Arthur nor Mrs. Chubb noticed the two figures standing in the doorway. Arthur had his face tilted up, smiling into the housekeeper’s flushed face, while she stared lovingly into his eyes.

“I hope that will be sweet enough for you, Arthur,” Mrs. Chubb said in a voice Gertie didn’t recognize.

“Sure now, won’t it be every bit as sweet as the fair hand that sprinkled it,” Arthur said softly.

Mrs. Chubb uttered the closest thing to a giggle Gertie
had ever heard from her. “You do have a way with words, Arthur. Enough to turn a lady’s head, I’d venture to say.”

“Well, it won’t be for the want of trying, Altheda. A head as lovely as yours I’d delight in turning, to be sure.”

Feeling like gagging, Gertie loudly cleared her throat. Mrs. Chubb sprang in the air like one of Father Christmas’s reindeer. “Mercy me,” she gasped, clutching her heaving chest. “How you startled me.” Her gaze fell on Stanley, and Gertie almost laughed at the look of horror that spread across the housekeeper’s chubby face.

“Good God Almighty,” Mrs. Chubb cried, holding up her hands in dismay. “Whatever has he gone and done now?”

Stanley, who up until that moment had not uttered one sound, said succinctly and very clearly, “She pushed me into the pond.”

Gertie glared down at his dripping head, fighting the urge to slap him one up the side of the ear. “I bloody did not, and you know it. You bleeding fell in.”

Stanley’s response was to promptly burst into loud and heart-wrenching sobs.

Mrs. Chubb clicked her tongue and bustled over to him. “There, there, ducks, don’t cry. We’ll soon have you dry. Go and stand by the stove, and I’ll make you a nice fat ham sandwich. Would you like that, luv?”

Stanley nodded, his sobs subsiding into a disgusting spate of snorting sniffs. Obediently he slopped over to the stove, leaving a trail of muddy water all across the floor.

Mrs. Chubb folded her arms and fixed Gertie with a baleful stare.

“I didn’t do it, honest I didn’t,” Gertie began. “He was kneeling by the bloody pond—”

“Haven’t I already told you a thousand times not to use those repulsive words in front of the child? It’s bad enough that
we
have to put up with it, but I will not allow innocent ears to be abused by that dreadful language.”

“You ought to hear what he says sometimes,” Gertie said hotly. “Bloody hell make your hair stand on end, it would.”

“Ger-tay!”

Gertie recognized that tone of voice only too well. She sent a glare at Stanley, who stood with his back to the stove, watching the proceedings with great interest.

Secure in the knowledge that the housekeeper couldn’t see him, he lifted his fingers to his nose and waggled them at Gertie.

“As for letting him fall in the pond,” Mrs. Chubb went on relentlessly, “it is your fault for not taking better care of him. What madam would say if she saw him, heaven only knows. God help you when you get a child of your own, Gertie Brown. You’ll have to have your wits about you then, that’s for sure.”

Behind her, Stanley was pulling the most horrible faces Gertie had ever seen. She looked over at Arthur for support, but he was watching the little bugger with a huge grin spread all over his face.

Gertie’s resentment ignited into a hot fire of outrage. She compressed her lips and threw her shoulders back while Mrs. Chubb went on ranting and raging for several more seconds. Then, as if remembering whose almighty presence sat at her kitchen table, the housekeeper turned off the torrent of rebuke and lowered her voice.

“Well, the harm’s been done, so it’s too late to say anything now. Just get a mop and a bucket and clean this mess up. I suppose it’s all the way across the foyer, too?”

Gertie nodded defiantly, her heart filling with revenge.

“I expect it to be spotless when I come and inspect it later,” Mrs. Chubb snapped. Then she turned her back on Gertie and in a completely different voice said to the still-grinning doorman, “I’m so sorry, Arthur. Sometimes these girls are enough to try a saint, so help me. Please get on with your porridge before it gets cold, and I’ll make you a nice cup of tea.”

Released from her torment, Gertie stomped across the kitchen to the scullery to get a mop and bucket.
I’ll make you a nice cup of tea,
she mimicked in her mind.

What about poor Gertie? she thought, slapping the mop inside the bucket with such force it threatened to put a hole in it. She didn’t get no bleeding tea. No, what she got was a bloody tongue-lashing and most likely a backache from mopping the bleeding floor, that’s what.

And it was all thanks to that flipping kid. Well, she was going to get even with that rotten, horrible Stanley if it was the last bleeding thing she did.

Conjuring up all kinds of torture in her mind, she trudged off to clean up the foyer.

Cecily climbed the stairs to the second floor, hoping that Lady Lavinia would not be too ill to see her. According to Mrs. Chubb, the woman refused to see a doctor, preferring instead to be left alone to handle her grief in her own way.

While Cecily respected that, there were one or two questions that remained unanswered, and time was of the essence if she were to make some sense of Sir Richard’s death before Inspector Cranshaw arrived to question everyone.

Reaching the door of the Marltons’ suite, Cecily gave the paneling a gentle tap. “It’s Mrs. Sinclair, Lady Lavinia,” she called out softly. “I just wanted to enquire as to how you are feeling and if you need anything.”

After a pause a weak voice called out, “You may enter, Mrs. Sinclair. I’m in bed and can’t come to the door.”

Cecily pushed the door open and peeked in. Lady Lavinia reclined on the bed in a swirl of pink satin sheets. The lace curtains of the canopy were drawn back, allowing the sun to fall across the satin and lace bedspread, and a book lay open near her pale, fragile-looking hand.

“I’m sorry,” Cecily said, advancing into the room. “I don’t wish to disturb you, but I was a little concerned when I heard that you had declined to see a doctor.”

Lady Lavinia shook her head. “I do hate being pulled around by doctors, especially ones I don’t know.” She made an effort to sit up, then fell back on the lace-edged pillows.
“I do hope Stanley isn’t being too much trouble. He was getting very restless being cooped up in this room, and he promised me faithfully that he would behave if I let him play outside.”

“Master Stanley is quite all right,” Cecily assured her, crossing her fingers behind her back. “He is being looked after by the kitchen staff and seems to be enjoying the attention.”

“I hope he isn’t eating too much.” Lavinia stared up at the roof of the canopy. “That boy seems to put on weight just by looking at food.”

He does more than look at it, Cecily thought, remembering Stanley’s demolishment of the bread and cheese. “I’m sure Mrs. Chubb will keep an eye on him.” She pulled up a padded velvet chair and sat down on it. “I’m concerned about you, however. Have you been eating?”

Lavinia moved her head as if it weighed a ton. “I’m not interested in food right now.”

“Perhaps if I sent up something light later on?”

“Perhaps.” Lavinia sighed. “There doesn’t seem much point to it all, does there?”

Cecily frowned. She felt a very deep sympathy for the poor woman, but Lavinia had a son to think about now. She just couldn’t give up on everything.

“I mean,” Lavinia went on, “when one thinks how easily life can be taken away from us, it makes one wonder why we struggle so hard to preserve it.”

Cecily leaned forward, her ears suddenly alert. “Taken away from us?”

“Well, yes. I mean, there Richard was, hale and hearty and seemingly happy with his life, and in a few seconds …” She waved a limp hand. “Poof! He’s gone. Like blowing out a candle.”

Cecily tensed. “So what do you think happened?” she said quietly.

Lavinia’s eyes looked feverish when she turned toward
Cecily. “Who knows what happened? Black magic, if you ask me. Something made him do it. I wish I knew.”

“Did he meet with anyone the night before?”

Again Lavinia’s head moved from side to side. “He was with me all evening. And in the morning, until Stanley wanted to see the Punch-and-Judy show. Richard hates … hated the sands. He always said it made him feel itchy for days. I wasn’t going to go without him, but Stanley threw a tantrum, and Richard was so restless I thought it would give him an hour or so of peace and quiet.”

“How was he restless?”

Cecily waited while Lavinia apparently considered the question.

“I don’t know,” she said at last. “Just the way he was acting. He kept looking at his watch, as if he had an appointment to keep.”

“Was he planning on meeting someone?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Lavinia closed her eyes. “He never left the hotel, until he fell from the balcony. And there couldn’t have been anyone with him. The door was locked from the inside. Mr. Barrett had to force the lock to open it for me.”

She raised her head for a second or two then let it drop. “I suppose I should have the lock repaired,” she murmured.

“I’ll have Samuel take care of it,” Cecily said, staring at the door. “Mr. Barrett must have forgotten to inform me the lock was broken.”

“Oh, that’s probably my fault.” Lavinia’s voice had softened to a whisper. “I told him not to worry about it. I didn’t want anyone messing around with it and making a lot of noise. I just … wanted … to be … alone.”

Quietly Cecily rose from the chair and crossed to the door. Leaving Lavinia resting peacefully, she let herself out into the hallway and gently closed the door again.

Noise or no noise, she would have to have the lock repaired, she thought as she descended the stairs. The guests and their property were her responsibility while they stayed
at the hotel, and she couldn’t take the chance of allowing something to be stolen from the room while Lady Lavinia slept.

Reaching the main floor, she went in search of Baxter, knowing she could put off no longer the need to reconcile their differences.

She finally found him out in the stable yard, discussing the condition of the traps with Samuel. The young footman doffed his hat as Cecily approached, then settled it on his head again.

“Samuel,” Cecily said, without delay, “I understand the lock is broken on the door of suite five. Lady Lavinia is resting in her room at the moment, but after you have finished your chores here perhaps you could take Ethel with you and repair the lock? Just make sure you have milady’s permission to work on it first.”

“Yes, mum.” Samuel looked worried. “What if she don’t want me to work on it?”

“Then explain to her that it is the policy of this hotel to keep all locks in good working order. It is for her own protection, as well as her privacy. I don’t think she will be too difficult about it.”

“Very well, mum.”

Cecily could feel Baxter’s gaze on her face, but she continued to watch Samuel as he strode toward the stables where the horses were waiting to be fed and watered.

“I wasn’t aware that the lock was broken on the Maltons’ suite,” Baxter said, sounding a little strained.

“Neither was I until a few minutes ago.” She finally looked at him and found him regarding her with a grave expression. “So Arthur didn’t say anything to you about it?”

He looked surprised. “No, was he supposed to say something to me?”

“Not particularly. I just wondered why he hadn’t mentioned it to one of us, that’s all, considering he was the one who broke it.”

Baxter raised an eyebrow. “Are you telling me that Arthur
Do-No-Wrong Barrett actually neglected to report an infraction?”

Cecily gave him an exasperated look. “You are being childish, Baxter.”

“Yes, madam.”

“Arthur had no choice in the matter. The door was locked from the inside and had to be forced open.”

“I understand, madam.”

“I’m glad you do.”

“I merely wonder why he didn’t ask for the skeleton keys to open the door, instead of forcing it.”