«Oh, he did, he did,» Sterling redux said, nodding furiously. «But you're all right now, right? Right?»
«Yes, I'm fine, thank you. Both of you.»
But they didn't take her word for it and go away. They just leaned over the couch some more, still staring at her. As if she might go pop at any moment.
«Um… so, have you guys found Uncle Willis yet?»
Both Sterlings frowned, shook their heads. «We thought we heard him earlier on, while we were poking about in the attics, but we didn't see anything.»
Ah-ha! As Alex would say: a clue . Perhaps even the beginning of the reason Sam killed himself. Please let him have killed himself . Maggie pushed for more information. «You heard something? What did you hear? When? Which wing of the attics? The wing where Sam was hanging?»
«Is something amiss, Maggie?» Alex asked, for he was a man who missed nothing.
She looked up at him in mild disgust, and with a fleeting nervousness as she remembered their earlier interlude. Oh, bad word, interlude . Much too romantic a word. «What do you have, anyway? Built in radar? And not amiss, Alex, no. But the Sterlings—I mean, Sterling and Perry—said they heard some noise in the attics. Earlier.» She turned to the Regency Twins. «When earlier, Sterling?»
The two exchanged looks.
«After the suit of armor?»
«Definitely after the suit of armor.»
«But before the bat?»
«Most definitely before the bat.»
«Gentlemen? Can we be a tad more precise, if you please.»
«Let them alone, Alex. They're trying,» Maggie said, then finished the rest of the water someone had brought her and sat up straighten «What bat?»
«The one in the attics, of course,» Sterling said. «We heard the squeaking, the wings flap-flapping. One bat. Maybe more. In any case, we concluded that we didn't wish to stand about and wait for the thing to get tangled in our hair.»
Maggie looked at the nearly identical, both partially bald men. Best casting of the whole movie. «No. You wouldn't have wanted that to happen, would you? So, you heard the bat, but you didn't see the bat. Or bats. But when?»
They looked at each other, then said in unison: «Before dinner.»
«Just before,» Sterling added. «Sorry we can't be more precise, Saint Just. I know how you like things precise, and all of that.»
«Not to worry, Sterling. So, shall we say at approximately five o'clock? Once it was already dark? Very well. Thank you, gentlemen,» Saint Just said, and the two retired to a corner of the room where Marylou had set up a small dessert table consisting of the pies and cakes she'd so industriously prepared in the, thankfully, gas-powered ovens.
Sir Rudy, still in his waders, entered the room, wiping his forehead with a large red handkerchief. «So sorry to report this, but the telephones won't work. Checked them all, I did, and it surprised me how many I've got. Upstairs, downstairs. Don't know why I have so many. But they're all those portable types, you understand, and we need power for them to operate. We'll have to find a way to get to the constable in the morning, if the water dissipates. Not that it makes much difference, for the constable couldn't get to us tonight in any case, and the poor boy is still dead. Oh, peach pie. Smashing! Excuse me!»
«Nice to see him so concerned,» Maggie said, getting to her feet. «Poor Sam commits suicide, and our host cares more about peach pie.»
«If it was suicide,» Alex said quietly. «Which I very much doubt.»
Maggie closed her eyes, took a deep breath. «Why did you say that? Why did I know you were going to say that? Why do I know that Sam's ego was way too big for him to kill himself? Do the others know? Damn it. Alex, we could be stuck here with a murderer. Do something.»
«I am doing something, my dear. I'm observing. Have no fears, we'll have this settled before dawn.»
«You wish.»
«I promise,» he corrected, chucking her under the chin, so that she swiped his hand away, which was less revealing than throwing herself into his arms and screaming, «Protect me!»
«The police can't get here? Nobody can come take away the body?» Troy Barlow, still in his Regency costume, spoke from the drinks table, where he'd been dedicatedly depleting an entire carafe of wine, one glass after the other. «So Sam stays here all night? Oh, no. We can't have him here all night. He could start to smell .»
«No more than you do, you imbecile,» Evan Pottinger said on his way out of the room. «I'm going to go get changed. Suddenly, this costume feels silly. Troy? Did you hear me? You look silly. You, too, Nikki.»
Nikki interrupted her grief for Sam to stare down at her gown in sudden horror. «Oh!»
Maggie looked at Alex as Nikki ran past them, then picked up two of the many flashlights on the table and pointed toward the hallway. Even with Evan and Nikki gone, there were still too many ears in the main saloon. Not to mention too many imbeciles.
Once the two of them were sitting side-by-side on the stairs leading down to the ground floor, Maggie asked, «Sam's in the house? When did that happen?»
«While you were still playing the die-away heroine who'd had a tremendous shock to her sensibilities, I imagine, my dear,» Alex told her, carefully wiping his hands together as if to rid himself of any lingering feeling of having touched the dead screenwriter as he hauled him in through the open window.
«You pulled him in? You touched him? Boy, that took guts. I couldn't do that.»
«We could hardly leave him where he was, with his nose pressed against your windowpane as if begging entry.»
«Oh, please. It was graphic enough the first time. Don't re-run it for me.»
«My apologies. Arnaud assisted me in the retrieval, which may explain why he's on his third Scotch at the moment. We placed Sam in the morning room, on the table there. He—Undercuffler, that is, was already in rigor. Stiff as the proverbial board. We discovered the body at six this evening, but I'd say he'd already been deceased for several hours as a body goes into rigor in about three hours. No one can remember seeing him since shortly after the two of you had your argument this morning.»
«Then the Sterlings did hear a bat in the attics, not Sam, at five o'clock. Okay. It's probably good to establish some sort of time line. So you cut Sam down, then laid him out in the morning room? Boy, there goes breakfast,» Maggie said, closing her eyes. «I didn't know you knew about rigor.»
«The Learning Channel,» Alex explained with a slight bow of his head. «Which is where, coincidentally, I also gained my incomplete but at least serviceable knowledge concerning lividity.»
«Well, bully for you. What's lividity? Oh, wait, I know that one. I saw that on CSI . Someone dies, and the blood pools inside the body at the lowest points of gravity, right? So Sam's blood,» she hesitated, swallowed down hard, «was probably in his face, because of the rope, and maybe in his feet and legs?»
«One would assume so, wouldn't one?»
Maggie turned the beam of her flashlight on him. «You're smiling. One of those Saint Just supercilious smiles. I hate when you do that because it means you know something I don't. Still, I'll bite, as it's the only way I'm going to learn anything. One wouldn't assume so?»
«Not once one had stripped the poor fellow of his soggy clothing and looked, no. Sam Undercuffler's lividity was, excuse the crudity, almost entirely behind him.»
«His back? But… but that would mean he was killed, left to lie somewhere, and then later… hung up?»
«To be discovered with only a slight, secondary lividity in the areas you mentioned. Ah, the blessings of forensic science as imparted by commercial television programs. We're all experts now save, I think we can safely deduce, our murderer. Yes, Maggie. The hanging was for effect and after the fact. Hours after the fact, I believe. Entirely unnecessary and definitely overdone.»