Peta hated her own company. Almost tearfully, she ended up by saying, “You were the sole beneficiary in my will but the first thing I’m going to do when I get back to London is cut you out.”
Crystal did hear that. She thought briefly about following Peta downstairs and making amends, but that would mean taking the rollers out of her hair. She picked up the magazine again.
Priscilla ushered Peta into the dining room. There had been no reason to turn another room into a separate dining room, for no one else was eating at the hotel that evening. Peta looked so downcast that Priscilla said that the cook was preparing a special meal for her, as she was the only diner. Priscilla was relieved that Sean had returned from the village sober and in such good spirits and prepared to create something for Peta.
In the kitchen, Sean looked down at his handiwork with satisfaction. He had skinned the cat and stewed it gently for hours in a rich wine sauce embellished with mushrooms and herbs. Before it, he planned to serve only a thin consomme, not wanting to spoil the glutton’s appetite.
Peta drank the soup and eagerly waited for this special main course. The waitress brought it in in a large casserole. Peta’s eyes gleamed. “Leave it,” she said. “I’ll serve myself.”
She got through the lot, along with a mountain of sauteed potatoes and a dish of cauliflower and cheese and then leaned back and wiped her mouth with her napkin and gave a satisfied belch. “Bring the cook here,” she said grandly to the waitress. “I wish to compliment him.”
As Sean entered the dining room, he whispered to the waitress, “Run along. I’ve left a glass of wine for you in the kitchen.”
Then he approached Peta and smiled in triumph as he saw the empty casserole.
“That was excellent,” said Peta. “But what was it? Venison?”
Sean smiled insolently down at her. “Cat,” he said. Archie Maclean, who had crept quietly into the dining room, stared at them. Peta blinked at Sean. “You surely didn’t say ‘cat’.”
“Aye, cat, moggie, pussie…C-A-T. I bet the boys in the bar that you waud eat anything, and so you did. One auld smelly wild cat.”
“Get the manager,” spluttered Peta, turning green. “You’re mad.”
“Oh, no, you fat pig,” hissed Sean, leaning over her with a courteous smile pinned on his face in case anyone looked in the dining room door. “You say one word, and ah’ll take the meat cleaver through your fat neck. But you won’t. You do and ah’ll phone the newspapers and say ah served you the beast to teach a snorting, guzzling pig like you a lesson.”
He turned and stalked off and Archie slid out after him.
Peta got shakily to her feet, her handkerchief jammed against her mouth. She ran all the way to her room, where she was very sick indeed. She would need to leave, need to get away. It was awful, horrible. Just because she enjoyed her food that madman had threatened her. She would call on that nice policeman. She was almost ready to go and look for Hamish Macbeth when she sat down again with a groan. What if it got in the newspapers? Maria would claim that she was ruining the business. Everywhere she went, people would watch her eating. Peta snuffled dismally.
It was all Maria’s fault. Maria must have been spreading tales about her. Yes, Maria was jealous and had no doubt paid the cook to drive her away. So she wasn’t going. She was going to stay and snatch up one of these men and teach Maria a lesson.
♦
Priscilla received a phone call from Hamish Macbeth. He sounded worried. He said he was on his way up to the castle to talk to her.
Soon she heard the police Land Rover skidding to a halt outside the castle. She went out to meet Hamish.
“Where’s Peta Gore?” he asked.
“In her room.”
“Well, I hope she’s all right. I saw Sean rushing into the bar and followed him in and listened. He was collecting bets. They didn’t see me at first, so I was able to learn that Sean had cooked up some old wild cat and served it to Peta, who ate it for dinner.”
“He’s run mad,” gasped Priscilla. “Let’s hope she never finds out. I’d better tell Johnson to fire Sean, although where we’re going to get another cook in the middle of the season, I don’t know.”
“It’s worse than that. He did tell her.”
“We’ll have the press on the doorstep in the morning. We’ll be ruined,” wailed Priscilla.
“Aye, but maybe we can keep it quiet. Look, there was one thing that struck me about Peta. She fair fancies herself with the fellows. You’d best take me up to her. Leave the whole thing to me. You can keep Sean for the summer if I can arrange everything and then get rid of him when things quieten down. Tell Johnson to start now looking for another chef but don’t tell him why.”
“But the locals…”
“Oh, them,” said Hamish. “I can get that lot to shut up any time. Now lead me to Peta.”
Priscilla took him up the stairs and knocked at Peta’s door. A faint voice called, “Come in.”
“Do your stuff, Hamish, but God knows how you’re going to manage it,” said Priscilla.
Hamish went into Peta’s bedroom and closed the door behind him. Priscilla waited, irresolute, and then went off down the stairs.
“What do you want?” Peta asked the tall constable who stood humbly before her, his cap under his arm.
“I came to see if you were all right,” said Hamish. “I gather the mad cook served you a venison casserole and told you it was cat.”
“Venison…?”
“Aye, you see he made this daft bet with the locals that he could get anyone to eat anything and so they gave him an old wild cat. Not wanting to lose his money, he pretended to you that it was cat, although he actually made it from the best haunch of venison. The trouble is, I gather, he was insulting and threatening.”
“He was indeed!”
“Aye, well, there he was telling the others that that wass the only thing he wass ashamed of,” said Hamish, his accent growing more sibilant, as it usually did when he was upset or embarked on a really stupendous lie. “As a matter of fact, he wass telling them that he fair fancied you himself. That wass what wass so disgusting.”
Peta glanced in the mirror and tweaked a curl into place. “Of course,” went on Hamish, “I am sure you would rather leave and sue the hotel for the indignity of it all. Mind you, it’s the silly season and these things haff a way of getting into the newspapers…”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want that,” said Peta hurriedly. She wanted this nice policeman to go on telling her about how the cook actually fancied her. Her subconscious was grasping that there was a way out of facing up to the fact that she was a compulsive overeater in the way that an alcoholic will blame the coffee and marmalade at breakfast or anything else as a reason for his chronic diarrhoea. Anything is to blame but drink. And in Peta’s case, anything but food.
“In fact, the silly loon was chust saying about how pretty you wass,” said Hamish, laying it on with a trowel.
“You men,” said Peta. “I don’t understand you.”
“I don’t understand the behaviour of some men myself,” said Hamish severely. “They will go to cruel lengths to attract the attention of some lady, even to the extent of threatening her. The point is this: If Sean apologizes to you, will you let the whole matter drop?”
Peta chewed one chubby thumb and glanced up at the constable. She longed to sue the hotel, or at least get Tommel Castle to pay her something for the indignity. But if she did that, the whole thing might come out, including the fact that she had been gullible enough to think that delicious meal was old wild cat. The newspapers would have a field day.