Designer Detective (A Fiona Marlowe Mystery) (10 page)

“Miss Marlowe, may I help you? Have you lost
something? It is good of you to pay a visit. Isn’t it a bit early in the
morning?
 
Have you misplaced something?
Your cell phone again?”

“Hudson, you startled me.” I acted like it was
perfectly normal for me to be snooping around the kitchen in the middle of the
night. “Jake is locked in the wine cellar. I was searching for the key so I can
let him out.”

Hudson moved across the room to come face-to-face
with me. He was attired in full butler uniform and looked like he had just come
from the shower with wet hair slicked back from his forehead, replete with
spicy aftershave. I hadn’t noticed before how broad his shoulders were. Maybe
he seconded as a bodyguard for Albert.

He cocked his head and did a rapid eye blink,
like he was trying to understand what I had said. “That’s odd, Miss Marlowe.
Why would he be locked in the wine cellar?”

“Opal tricked him into going in to see some
rare wines. She left and locked the door on him.”

“I should have known,” he said like this was a normal
occurrence. “I’m sure she didn’t mean to lock him in. Her mind hasn’t been good
lately. Here, let me open that door for you. Might I assist you in releasing
him?”

Out of his pocket he extracted an impressive
ring of keys and opened the door.

“I have a key to the wine cellar on this ring. Shall
I lead the way? We will secure Mr. Manyhorses’ release in no time.”

He was about to descend the steps when I said,
“Let me congratulate you on your upcoming marriage.” That was a showstopper.
Obviously, I was fishing for information as well as checking to see if Opal was
a loony as I suspected.

He looked at me like I was sprouting horns and tail.

“I beg your pardon.
Marriage?”

Just as I thought.
“Yes, Opal told me the two of you are to be married.”

“Married?
To Opal?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry Miss Marlowe, but I am quite unaware
of such plans.”

In the quiet, humming kitchen, we seemed to come
to an understanding. I voiced our understanding. “Opal isn’t in her right mind,
is she?”

“No,” Hudson said without the least hint of
hesitation in his voice, “she is not, I am sad to say. Some nights she wanders
the halls in search of I know not what.”

I could see the tired circles under Hudson’s
eyes, but I pressed on with my questions unable to stop. “Forgive me for asking
but did you inherit this house?”

His mouth opened and worked but no sound came
out.

I said, “Opal said you inherited the house as
payment for your service to Albert as a spook.”

“Spook, Miss Marlowe?”

“Spy.”

He started to chuckle, then had trouble stopping.
His eyes filled with tears and the chuckles turned to hearty laughs. “
Wooo
,
hooo
,” he finally ended,
pulling out his ironed, creased, white handkerchief and wiping his eyes.

“I say, she has quite the imagination, doesn’t
she? I’m afraid those are stories Miss Opal invented.”

“Probably this is another of Opal’s stories but
it’s been bothering me. Did she ever mention to you that while Albert was
married to Olivia, he had an affair with a woman he worked with? That she
probably murdered Albert using some creative spy technique?”

Hudson didn’t meet my eyes but looked over my
shoulder at something I knew he would not share. I read defeat in those eyes
but I could have been wrong.

“No,” he said. “I have never heard of her.”

Was this a true story or a figment of Opal’s
imagination? Did Hudson know and wouldn’t tell?
And why not?

I went in another direction. “Are you having as
tough a time as I am trying to figure what is going on in this family?”

“I gave that up long ago, Miss Marlowe. I do my
job and try not to look surprised at the odd behavior that transpires under
this roof.”

“Has anyone thought of locking dear Opal up in
a nice high end retirement home?”

“I don’t know. I am not privy to those decisions.
I know what I overheard in Mr. Lodge’s conversations. I don’t believe he was
aware of the extent of her illness.”

“Do you know she hired Jake to investigate Albert’s
murder?”

He frowned. “Was Mr. Lodge murdered?”

“She seemed to think so. That’s why Jake is
here. I’ve been helping him, sort of.”

Hudson was back in control of his butler face.
“Miss Marlowe, I catch snatches of conversation. People often think a butler is
a piece of furniture so they ignore the fact that I’m in the room, or coming
and going or busying myself with something.”

I nodded.

“I don’t share what those snatches are. I don’t
even speculate in a family like this one. This is what, I believe,
psychologists call a dysfunctional family.”

“That is putting it mildly,” I said.

He turned to the basement stairs. “Shall we liberate
Mr. Manyhorses?”

“Do you realize you are a suspect?” I couldn’t
stop. I had to know.

He looked back and stared straight into my
eyes. “What would be my motive?”
 

“You don’t seem to have anything to gain except
the house, if in fact you’ve inherited it.”

“Precisely so.
Do I
look like I’ve inherited this house? If I may say, Miss Marlowe, the end of my
employment and my move to Cornwall to my comfortable retirement cottage cannot
come too soon.”

“I get the picture,” I said. “We better liberate
Jake.”

He hadn’t exactly answered the inheritance
question, and I now wanted to know if the mysterious spy woman was real. He
hadn’t met my eyes when he answered the question. That’s the first time I felt
he was lying.

* * * * *

Jake’s prison cell in the wine cellar was comfy,
not at all what I imagined. He sat on a loveseat with end tables and lamps.
A pint sized frig
hummed in a kitchenette. He was surrounded
with, and I’m not kidding, thousands of bottles of wine, arranged neatly around
the walls of the room. The air was chilly, resulting from the automatically
controlled room temperature that fine wines appreciate.

“Hi, Jake,” I said.

He looked from me to Hudson. “I see you found
the easy way in.”

I smiled. “Taste any fine wines?”

“I’ll take whiskey any day.”

Hudson said, “If you will excuse me, I have the
kitchen to clean and breakfast to arrange. Might there be anything else?”

It was clear Hudson did not want to involve
himself anymore than necessary. I couldn’t blame him. The cottage in Cornwall
beckoned.

“Thank you, Hudson. We appreciate your help,” I
said. “By the way, when will your service end?”

“In two weeks. I have given notice. You’ll
excuse me.” He removed himself from the room with his usual studied dignity.

“What now,” I said to Jake, “that I won your
freedom?”

He scrubbed his face with both hands. “I need a
shower and a decent meal. Wine just doesn’t do it for me. I need steak and
eggs.”

“Right.
Do you think
the wine keeper hides out here?”

“Somebody must.
The frig
is stocked with chocolate and cheese.”

“Maybe that’s what they eat with wine tastings.
This is a crazy house.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Let’s explore the underground while we’re
here.”

“What for?
I’m not
working private investigation anymore.”

“No? Did Opal fire you?”

“Nope, gave my notice. That’s probably why she
locked me up.”

“Have you noticed Opal is doing some strange
stuff?”

“Yup.
In my opinion,
she needs to be institutionalized, sorry to say.”

“Agreed.
Let’s look
around. Aren’t you even curious?”

He shook his head. “I know too much about this
family already.”

“Okay, then who inherited the money and the
house?”

“Fiona, I can’t put a straight story together.
I’ve followed lead after lead, and they all come to the same dead end. Albert
died a natural death as far as I’m concerned. I’m headed back to Oregon.”

“What about Albert’s spy bimbo doing him in,
and Opal wants us to exact revenge? Do you know who the bimbo is?”

“No. Opal’s story is the first I heard of her
which leads me to believe it’s just a story.”

“I wonder,” I said, and let it go at that. What
I really wondered was how I could find this woman. I put that on my to-do list.
“We should look around. It won’t hurt.”

“I thought you resigned?”

“I’m just curious.”

He rose from the chair. “I’m not. I just want
to get out of this place.”
 

The underground was byzantine. Brick arches
framed the doors of the storage rooms. Everything was brick from walls to
floors. The architecture was medieval English dungeon and didn’t go with the
rest of the house. The storage doors were locked.

“Jake, don’t you think this is strange?” I
said, after I had tried yet another locked door.

“Fits with the family.”

“What do you think they store in these rooms?”

“Brandy smuggled from France?
Gold doubloons?”

I looked at him under the light of an iron
trimmed lamp. “Jake, what if Albert was involved in smuggling?”

“Fiona, to tell you the truth I don’t know what
Albert was involved in. If he was a spy, if he travelled a lot, he could have
had any kind of weirdo worldwide connections. Who knows what he could have
gotten himself into? And you know what? I don’t want to know.”

“What if there is a dead body behind one of
these doors?”

“It would stink.”

“True. We need to find a key to these rooms.”

“Hudson has them.”

“Maybe there are extras. Did you ever store an
extra key above the door ledge?”

“I never owned anything that needed to be
locked up.”

I walked to the last locked door I tried and
felt along the top of the arch. My fingers contacted cold metal.

“See, a key.” I slipped the antique key into
the metal lock that looked like it came from
The Man in the Iron Mask
movie. The key turned smoothly in the
lock. I pushed the door. It creaked. An odor reminiscent of oil and wood
escaped the room. I pushed the door open further. All lay in darkness. I felt
inside for a switch. Something with feet ran across my foot. I gave an
unfeminine screech.

“What was that?” I said as I watched the little
beast scurry down the hallway. My appetite for adventure went sour. Rodents
were not in my romanticized version of a dungeon.

Jake craned his neck for a look.
“A very large rat.”

“
Yesh
.”
I shivered and pulled the sweater coat tighter. “You find the light switch.”

“This was your idea.”

“I know, but you’re the fearless cowboy.”

“I bet there’s bats in here, too,” he said with
a grin.

I surveyed the dark ceiling above me like the
little critters would be hanging from the bricks. “Don’t you find all this
brick work unusual?”

“Never saw anything like it. Someone must be into
dungeons and dragons.”

“Where do they use brick in cellars anymore?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care.” He was busy fingering
the doorjamb. “Here it is.” A flood of light spilled over the room from a bare
light bulb. The room was full of crates all the same size, long and narrow.

I cast a glance up and down the hall once more and
then followed Jake into the room. I did not have a good feeling about those
boxes. They were stacked against one wall, floor to ceiling.

Jake stood studying the stamps on the outside.
“Don’t need to open these to know what they are. Says right here.” He pointed
to the stenciled numbers on one case.

They
meant nothing to me. “What are they?”

“Rifles.
Looks like
Albert traffics in weapons.”

“Weapons trafficking?”
I said, trying to get my mind around that concept. Jake and I stared at the
boxes. Then I said, “This is quite a twist. If Albert traffics in weapons, he
must have an accomplice. He wouldn’t be able to move this stuff in and out of
here by himself.”

“Right and Hudson would be the likely culprit,”
Jake said. “Then again, it could be anybody. Albert knew so many people.”

“The arrow keeps pointing back to Hudson,
doesn’t it? I hope that’s not the case. Who would suspect an upstanding citizen
like Albert of weapons trafficking?”

“Lots of places in the world use these kinds of
rifles.”

“I’ve a feeling we shouldn’t be here.”

“I’ve a feeling you’re right, and this was your
idea.”

Footsteps echoed in the corridor. Jake flipped off
the light and pushed the door quietly shut.

“Why’d you do that?” I whispered.

“Because we shouldn’t be
here.
We shouldn’t know about these boxes.”

“You’re right.”

The footsteps stopped outside the door.

“Hello?” said a voice.

We made no sound. The key rattled in the lock.

I stifled a croak. “I left the key in the
lock.”

“Yes, you did.”

“How was I to know someone was going to lock us
in?”

“Locked in small rooms is getting to be a habit.”

 
The
footsteps had not retreated. We waited. The key rattled in the lock again. The
door swung in. The hall light outlined Cody’s slim cowboy figure.

“Cody?” I said and flipped on the light.

He had a gun trained on us. I’m not expert on
weapons but it was ugly looking. What on earth was he thinking?

“You two are a nuisance.” That solved the
question of what he was thinking.

I backed into Jake. “What are you doing with a
gun? That’s a rather unfriendly gesture.” I couldn’t think of anything else to
say. I’d never had someone hold a gun on me before. It was an itchy, raw
feeling.