No Clue at the Inn (Pennyfoot Hotel Mystery Book 13) (27 page)

Once more she had acted on impulse, with dubious results. Now all she could do was sit and stew while Baxter dug a hole for himself that just might be too deep for him to climb out.

She was in such a state by the time the door to their suite finally flew open, that she wasn't at all surprised to see the heavy scowl on Baxter's face.

What did unsettle her was the cold fury in his eyes as he stalked across the room, dragged off his evening coat, and flung it on the bed.

Watching him stomp to the window, she tried out several questions in her mind and discarded them all.
How did things go?
was not a good one, since it was quite obvious from his dark expression that things did not go well at all.
What happened?
seemed equally precarious, and at that moment it didn't seem prudent to ask him if he'd found out anything helpful.

In the end, she kept silent, while viewing his stiff back with some trepidation. It wasn't often that Baxter lost his temper, but she'd learned to hold her tongue on the rare occasion he had become this incensed.

It seemed like an eternity before he finally spoke, and when he did, his voice was clipped and chipped with ice. "Well, you have certainly outdone yourself this time, Cecily."

As guilty as she'd felt earlier, she wasn't prepared to take all the blame for whatever disaster had transpired in the card room. Lifting her chin, she said quietly, "Perhaps if you explain what it is I'm supposed to have done, I might be able to understand why you are so angry."

He turned then, and this time the bleak expression on his face frightened her. "I tried to tell you I was no gambler. You wouldn't listen. I knew as soon as I started playing that dratted game that I had no business there, but there didn't seem any way I could withdraw without appearing to be a dishonorable, underhanded cad. So I stayed."

"I'm sorry if you were embarrassed—" she began, but he interrupted her with a roar that startled her half out of her wits.

"Embarrassed!
Dammit, Cecily, if that were only all of it. I'm afraid there's a great deal more than embarrassment involved here."

She sat down, afraid of what she might hear next. "What happened? Did you find out more about Cureagambler?"

"No, I did not." He came toward her, his fists clenched at his sides. "I didn't find out a blasted thing. It was all for nothing, Cecily. All of it."

He stopped short, closed his eyes, and slapped a hand to his forehead in a way that at any other time would have seemed melodramatic.

At the moment, however, she recognized his anguish, and rose quickly to her feet. "You are frightening me, Hugh. Please, tell me, what is it? What's wrong?"

He lowered his hand and gazed at her with such sorrow her heart began pounding with fear. "It's all gone, Cecily. Everything we have. It happened so fast I found it hard to believe. I kept betting more and more, hoping to recoup at least some of the loss, but it just kept mounting up and . . ."

His voice broke, and she stepped toward him, her arms outstretched to comfort him.

To her shock and alarm, he turned his back to her. Regaining control of his voice, he said harshly, "We shall have to sell the house in London in order to pay the debt."

She uttered a cry of dismay. "No, it can't be that bad. Surely there is a way—"

"There is no way. This is your doing, Cecily. I hope you
are satisfied." With an abrupt movement he strode to the door and dragged it open.

She started after him. "Where are you going?"

"I don't know. I need to be alone. Go to bed. There is nothing you can do that you haven't already done."

The door closed behind him, and she sank onto her chair, utterly at a loss. Stunned with disbelief, she tried to make sense of what he'd told her. Sell the house? No, surely not. And what of his business? How would that fare if the house had to be sold? His office, all his associates, all the work he'd ever done was tied up in that house. To sell it now would surely mean ruin.

Now she was truly frightened. She couldn't wait for him to return, so that he could calm her fears and tell her he was simply overreacting to a distressing situation. Even Baxter, in all his ineptitude for gambling, couldn't have possibly lost that much money. No matter how humiliating the circumstances.

No, he was trying to frighten her so that she would never put him in that position again. In that, he had succeeded. She had already vowed to herself that very thing, even before he'd returned in such a temper.

Now all she could do was wait for his return and beg his forgiveness. Promise him anything he wanted as long as he did not look at her with that terrible coldness in his eyes.

She waited all night, but he did not return. And in the grayness of the next morning, as the snow began to fall once more, she faced the fact that this time she had gone too far. She could only hope that it wasn't too late for forgiveness, and that she hadn't lost the love and respect of the man she so greatly adored.

It was much later that morning when Baxter finally returned to the suite. He changed his clothes and went down to his office without saying a word to Cecily about where he had been. Her brief attempt to open a conversation was met with a stony stare and a chilly silence and she withdrew, knowing it would take time before she could approach him.

After picking at a solitary breakfast in her sitting room, she approached her desk with the idea of working on a shopping list for Christmas gifts. The prospect of Christmas with Baxter ignoring her was too dismal to contemplate, and she pushed the list aside. She reached instead for a pencil and started doodling aimlessly on the blotting paper. She wished now she'd simply asked the Benchers about the IOU she'd found in Peebles's wardrobe. Or at least questioned Mrs. Peebles.

Then again, it would be difficult to explain how she had come about it, or what her interest in it might be, and since the other notepaper with the name of Cureagambler on it had been wrapped around stolen pearls, that, too, would have been a little awkward to explain.

She should have done as Baxter had suggested and left well alone. She was no closer to solving the puzzle, and now she had possibly lost her home. Though now that she'd had time to think about it, she failed to see why she should take all the blame. After all, Baxter had been foolish to the extreme, risking everything they had to salvage his pride. This was every bit as much his fault as hers. And she would point that out to him. Just as soon as he got over his snit. If he ever got over it.

More dispirited than ever, she stared at the word she'd
written down.
Cureagambler
. It did seem odd that a company that apparently made a fortune from gamblers would form a name suggesting a cure for gamblers. That didn't make sense at all. The name must mean something else.

Her heart still ached so badly it hurt, and she did her best to keep her mind off her problems by rearranging the letters of the word that had caused so much trouble. Forward and backward, in and out. Nothing made sense. She began to play one of her favorite games, seeing how many words she could think of using the letters of Cureagambler.
Game, crab, blur, bar, luck
. . . no, there was no
k
. She crossed off the last letter, then stared at what she'd written. She started scribbling again, becoming more excited as she wrote. Then, with a small cry of triumph, she wrote rapidly on a piece of notepaper, then headed for the door. Angry at her or not, Baxter had to see this.

A few minutes later he answered her light tap with a curt, "Come in, come in then!"

When she put her head around the door, her heart sank at his forbidding expression. "I'm busy at the moment," he said shortly. "Whatever it is will have to wait."

She tightened her lips, but ignored his attempt to be rid of her and advanced into the room. After sitting herself down firmly on her chair, she slid the notepaper across the desk toward him.

For a moment she thought he would simply pretend it wasn't there, but evidently his curiosity got the better of him and he picked it up. "What the devil is this?"

Delighted to have drawn even that curt communication from him, she said quickly, "I broke the word
Cureagambler
down into four parts."

He made a sound of disgust and threw the paper at her
across the desk. "You simply do not have the sense to know when you have gone too far," he snapped. "Enough of this. I refuse to listen to any more wild conjecture about this company. No matter what it is. What these people do is none of our business, and quite frankly, the very thought of gambling right now is like waving a red rag at a bull. Please give me the courtesy of eliminating the subject from your mind, unless you want to conduct the rest of our lives together in silence."

All notions of attempting to placate him vanished in the face of this onslaught. Her own voice trembled with outrage when she answered him. "You are being most unfair. It wasn't I who gambled away our home which, in case you are under some misapprehension, is every bit as important to me as it is to you. Had you been more vigilant and less concerned with your insufferable pride, you would not have allowed the situation to arrive at such a disastrous conclusion. I suggested you attend the game, yes. I certainly did not sit there prodding you in the back while you recklessly threw away our entire assets. That is entirely on your shoulders, not on mine."

His chilling gaze was formidable, but she held her own without flinching. After a moment he said quietly, "This is not the time to discuss this matter."

"Perhaps not, but the very least you can do is listen to what I have to say. What I have discovered is of the utmost importance, and could very well shed a light on the reason why Roger Peebles died. Perhaps Jeanette, too. And be good enough to spare me the black looks until you have heard the entire story."

His mouth tightened, but he held out his hand for the paper she thrust at him. Taking it from her, he scanned it,
then said brusquely, "I still do not understand what you are trying to show me."

"Look at the four names written there. Lucille, Gretchen, Amelia, and Barbara. Take the first three letters of each name, rearrange them, and you end up with . . . "

"Cureagambler." He stared at the paper. "My God. The partnership that owns those two gambling houses . . . "

"Unless it is an extraordinary coincidence, it would seem the partnership consists of the Benchers of Lincoln's Inn. I can think of no other reason for such an odd name."

"If this got out, the scandal could cost them their careers."

"Not could, but certainly would. According to Percy Chatsworth, the Masters of the Bench are prohibited from owning or being engaged in outside businesses. They would be instantly disbarred for life."

After another long moment, Baxter handed her back the paper. "Well, I see what you mean. This would certainly be a good reason to silence someone."

"Particularly if he or she threatened to disclose this interesting fact to the authorities."

"So you're saying that Roger Peebles discovered his fellow Benchers owned not only a business, but a disreputable one at that, and threatened to expose them? But why would he do that? What would he have to gain?"

"Professional jealousy, perhaps. After all, one must suppose that they are in competition with each other for influential clients."

"From what I understand," Baxter said dryly, "there are more than enough clients to keep them all busy. But what would this have to do with the death of our maid?"

"I have no idea at this point. Moira seemed to think
that Jeanette and Peebles were personally involved, since she saw them together. On the other hand, perhaps Jeanette knew about the partnership somehow, and threatened Peebles. Perhaps he killed Jeanette to silence her."

"Then one of the partners killed Peebles? That doesn't make sense at all."

"Nothing makes sense until we see the reasons behind it. In any case, I'm not really sure what I'm saying at this point. I haven't had time to think about it." She rose from her chair. "I've taken up enough of your time. I wanted your opinion in the hopes that you would help confirm my suspicions. Now I need to ponder on it all and try to remember what it is I keep forgetting."

He looked as if he would say something, then shook his head. "I can't think about this now. I have some serious work to do if I'm to salvage anything from the fiasco of last night."

Aware of the barrier still between them, she took her leave, her heart heavy with anxiety. If this catastrophe caused a permanent rift between them, she would never forgive herself. Or him. She could only hope that his coldness was a temporary condition that would soon be remedied. If not, this Christmas Season would be a depressing affair indeed.

Although Baxter shared her bed that night, he did not turn to her as he normally would, but instead presented her with his back and in a very short while was snoring heavily. She eventually fell asleep, but awoke sometime in the night, feeling decidedly chilly without the warmth of Baxter's body to comfort her.

He lay on the very edge of the bed, and although she was tempted to move closer, she refrained for fear she
would tip him off onto the floor. He surely would not appreciate such a rude awakening in his present mood.

Instead, she lay on her back, staring at the shadows on the ceiling, and thought about the new development in the puzzle of Peebles's death. It was a risky venture indeed for the Benchers. The partnership must be extremely lucrative for them to take such a chance, though one would suppose it would not be difficult for barristers to keep such an enterprise a secret. After all, it was merely by chance that she had come upon it.

She tried to imagine the Benchers engaged in such a dubious association. It was difficult to imagine Sir John Gilroy in that role, or even Percy Chatsworth, who was so quick to advise her that Benchers were not allowed to own outside interests.

As for Roger Peebles and Lionel Fitzhammer, if Peebles killed Jeanette and Fitzhammer found out about it. . . . She sat bolt upright in bed, dragging the eiderdown from Baxter's shoulders. His snoring ended in a snort. He grunted, and tugged the warm covering back under his chin.