“So I’m sure you’ve noticed some unusual behavior.”
“Unusual behavior?”
“Perhaps some of the guests are not quite what they seem.”
“Not quite…”
“Or a little more than appears on the surface.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” she said.
“Some of the others have noticed things,” I said. “Inconsistencies, odd behavior.”
“They have?”
“And reported them to us.”
“Oh, dear,” she said, frowning. “But you’ve only just spoken with Nigel, haven’t you?”
“There were some other informal discussions earlier. With some of the others.”
“I see.”
“And I can’t violate a confidence, but-”
“No, of course not.”
“But if everyone adds a little piece to the puzzle, soon the whole picture may emerge.”
“Yes, I see what you mean,” she said. “And there is something.”
“I thought there might be.”
“Except it’s really nothing, you see.”
“Well, of course it would seem like nothing.”
“It would?”
“It always does.”
“Ah,” she said. “I see. It always seems like nothing.”
“Always.”
“Well,” she said, “it was a look.”
“A look?”
“A glance, really. One person glanced at another.”
“And who did the glancing?”
“Mr. Rathburn. Poor Mr. Rathburn.”
“And he glanced at-”
“Mrs. Savage.”
“Leona Savage.”
“Yes. Millicent’s mother.”
“And Greg’s wife,” I said. “And Mr. Rathburn glanced at her?”
“He did.”
The colonel cleared his throat. “Men do glance at women,” he said, “although with every passing year I find it a little more difficult to remember why. But they do, and Mrs. Savage is an attractive young woman, and Mr. Rathburn is a vigorous young man. Or was, that is to say. So if Mr. Rathburn glanced at Mrs. Savage the way a man glances at a woman-”
“I’m sure that’s all it was,” Cissy Eglantine said.
“No,” Carolyn said, “you’re not. Are you?”
Cissy sighed, set her shoulders. “No,” she admitted. “I’m not. It wasn’t that sort of glance at all.”
“It couldn’t have been, or you wouldn’t have mentioned it. What sort of glance was it?”
“It was just a glance,” Cissy said, “and perfectly innocent, I’m certain, but the thought that came to me-”
“Yes?”
“-was that they knew each other, and that they weren’t keen that anyone else should know this. But I’m sure there was nothing to it. I’m sure there was just something about her that reminded him of someone he’d known years ago, but only from a certain angle. And then when she turned her head the resemblance was gone. That happens all the time, doesn’t it? You think you recognize someone, but once you take a second glance you realize there’s really no resemblance at all.”
“That fellow Wolpert,” Rufus Quilp said. “He talks like a lawyer. You may have noticed.”
“Everyone talks like a lawyer,” Carolyn said. “I think Court TV’s what did it, that and the OJ trial.”
“Perhaps that’s all it is,” Quilp said with a sigh, settling his clasped hands upon his ample stomach. “He can’t actually be an attorney, can he? Because they’re all terribly busy, and Wolpert has the time to come here for a lengthy holiday.”
“He was talking about extending his stay,” I remembered.
“We’re all extending our stay now, aren’t we? Like it or not. No TV to be watched, either, Court or otherwise, so perhaps our Mr. Wolpert will lose his lawyerly aspect. If that’s where he got it.” He sniffed. “He certainly doesn’t dress like a lawyer. No Brooks Brothers suits in his closet. Tweed jackets with elbow patches, that’s more his line. Knows a lot about poisons, did you notice?”
“About mushrooms, anyway.”
“About everything. Could be a professor. Dresses like a professor, wouldn’t you say? Ought to be fiddling about with a pipe, forever taking it apart and cleaning it. Fit the image to a T.”
“You don’t like him,” Carolyn said.
“Don’t dislike him, either,” Quilp said. “No need to feel one way or the other about him, actually. Wouldn’t have said boo about him, but you did ask about little suspicions and observations.” He leaned forward. “I’ll tell you what it is. I’ve watched him eat.”
“You have?”
“I have. He picks at his food. I never trust a man who picks at his food.”
“Miss Dinmont can walk,” Millicent Savage reported.
“I think she said as much,” I said. “She was telling me that she has a first-floor room because of the wheelchair. She can manage stairs if she absolutely has to, but then somebody has to carry the wheelchair upstairs. If she can get up a flight of stairs, I suppose she can walk.”
“She was dancing,” the child said.
“Dancing?”
“In her room. She was all by herself, too, in her room with the door locked and the curtain drawn.”
“If the door was locked and the curtain drawn,” said the colonel, “then how could you possibly have seen her?”
“Maybe I was wrong and the door was open,” Millicent suggested.
“And maybe it wasn’t,” Carolyn said. “Maybe you looked through the keyhole.”
Millicent giggled. “Maybe I did.”
“I say,” the colonel said. “That’s no way to behave, young lady.”
“I know,” she said. “But I’m only ten years old. It would be a lot worse if a grown-up did it. And I never would have done it except for the music.”
“The music?”
“That she was dancing to. It was all dreamy and gooey and romantic, and I heard it coming through the door, and that’s what made me look.”
“I don’t believe you,” Carolyn said. “I bet you look in keyholes all the time.”
“Not all the time.” The imp giggled. “You’d be surprised what you can see that way.”
“And what did you see this time?”
“Miss Dinmont dancing, and she was very graceful, too. She had her arms held out as if she was dancing with a partner, but she was all by herself. Unless she was dancing with a ghost. But I’m sure she wasn’t.”
I’d have let that pass, but Carolyn thought to ask her what made her so certain.
“Because it wouldn’t have been decent.”
“To dance with a ghost?”
“Not like that.”
“Not like what?”
“Naked,” Millicent said. “Miss Dinmont didn’t have any clothes on.”
Rufus Quilp was apt to drop off to sleep at any moment. It might be Pickwickian syndrome and it might be apnea. And it might be feigned-sometimes he appeared to be sleeping, but something he said later would indicate that he’d overheard what was being said during his little nap.
Miss Hardesty had been seen in urgent conversation with the cook. Greg Savage, who mentioned seeing the two of them, had assumed the conversation had something to do with Miss Dinmont’s dietary requirements, which one somehow knew would be complicated. Now, though, it seemed to him that Miss Hardesty had appeared a bit agitated, and the cook faintly disgruntled.
Jonathan Rathburn, whom I had observed writing at the desk in the library, had been spotted doing the same thing in other parts of the house as well. There was some disagreement as to what he’d been writing. I’d sort of assumed he’d been writing letters, as that’s one of the things people are forever doing in English country houses, but someone reported him as having written on a pad, and another thought he had been making entries in a diary. Neither letters nor a diary had been found on his body, or elsewhere in the library, which might mean that the murderer had carried them off, or that he hadn’t had them with him when he was murdered.
No one admitted to having met Rathburn prior to his arrival at Cuttleford House. Hardly anyone could recall exchanging a word with him. Several people described him as preoccupied, and Leona Savage, who’d also seen him scribbling away, had thought he might be a writer. “Struggling to make headway on a book or story,” she said. “He had that air about him, as if he’d come to the country to free himself creatively.”