“I haven’t ruled out anything,” Detective Stark replies.
“I can help you,” the cat-hair-sweater lady offers. “I’m an expert on J. D. Grimthorpe.”
“I’ve already got more help than I want,” Stark replies as she looks at me. “And what I require from all of you right now is privacy. I’m going to ask you to clear the vicinity immediately.”
The president nods. “Of course. LAMBS—give the detective space.” She raises her red flag to rally the others. “Detective, we’re here if you change your mind and want background information,” she offers as she guides her group away from the tearoom entrance.
“Please don’t forget us,” says the tiny, gray-haired woman with the fuchsia highlights.
“I couldn’t if I tried,” Detective Stark replies.
The flag-bearing president leads her flock down the corridor and out of sight.
Once they’re gone, Detective Stark raises the yellow caution tape hanging across the entrance. “Go in, Molly,” she orders.
“How kind of you,” I say as I duck under the tape. Detective Stark follows after me.
The two male officers who were zipping up the body bag saunter our way.
“Findings?” Detective Stark asks.
“Urticaria around the mouth, angioedema under the eyes.”
“Meaning: swelling consistent with organ failure or sometimes cardiac arrest,” I say. “But what really causes a heart to stop? That’s always the question, is it not?”
The officers turn my way as though seeing me for the first time. “Who the hell is she?” the taller one asks.
“Molly. She’s just a maid,” Detective Stark replies.
“Molly the maid? You’ve gotta be kidding me,” says the shorter one.
“Wish I were,” Detective Stark replies sotto voce, but not sotto voce enough to escape my ears.
“What’s a maid doing at the crime scene?” the tall one asks.
“Are you assuming this is a crime scene?” I ask. “When you assume, you make an A-S-S out of U and ME.” For some reason I cannot fathom, Detective Stark rolls her eyes, while the mouths of both her officers fall slack.
“Ignore her,” Detective Stark says. “She’s my problem. Just get back to work.”
“But I need to clean this mess up,” I tell the detective. “It will take some time to return this room to a state of perfection.”
“Not a chance. No cleaning,” Stark says.
I realize only then what a foolish impulse this was.
The two officers go back to the mess at the front of the room.
Stark removes a small notebook from her pocket. “Okay, let’s get this over with. I want you to describe the room as it was before the event. Can you tell me who and what was where the moment before Mr. Grimthorpe took to the stage? No detail is too small. Do you understand?”
“I understand perfectly,” I reply as I turn back time to this morning and call to my mind a portrait of the tearoom in its full glory, populated with guests awaiting Mr. Grimthorpe’s entrance.
“At a quarter past nine, all the guests were seated. Porters, waiters, and maids stood on the sidelines. I was right there, near the front of the room, right beside Lily. The photographers and journalists were behind us.”
“And that table?” Stark asks.
“The booksellers were behind it. And Lily was manning Mr. Grimthorpe’s tea cart.”
“Is that his cart there?” She points to a cart at the front of the room.
“It is,” I reply. “I mean, it was Mr. Grimthorpe’s tea cart.”
“Boys!” Detective Stark calls out. “That one’s the Grimthorpe cart.” They nod and begin inspecting it with gloved hands.
“Was Grimthorpe in the room when you entered?” Stark asks.
“No. He was behind the hidden paneled door in the wall. Ms. Serena Sharpe, Mr. Grimthorpe’s personal secretary, knocked. Then Mr. Grimthorpe emerged. The room went pin-drop silent as he walked onto the stage and placed his cue cards on the podium.”
“Right. The cue cards. Boys!” she calls out. “Did you locate any cue cards?”
“No, ma’am,” the tall officer replies.
The other shakes his head.
“And what happened next, Molly?” Stark asks as she scribbles on her notepad.
“Mr. Grimthorpe cleared his throat and asked for a cup of tea, which Lily poured for him and rushed to the stage.”
“We’ll be testing the tea in that teapot.”
“No need,” I say. “It was English Breakfast. I know that for a fact.”
“I mean testing for toxins, Molly. Do you get that? We want to know if someone, like that half-wit in Mr. Snow’s office, put something in the writer’s tea.”
“There’s no need for name-calling,” I say. “And as for Grimthorpe’s tea, there most certainly was something in it: honey.”
“Honey,” Detective Stark repeats.
“Yes. From the honey pot I placed on the tea cart earlier. As I mentioned, right before the big event, I inspected the tea cart myself and realized there were qualitative faux pas. Mr. Grimthorpe takes his tea with honey, not sugar. I straightened an off-kilter doily, then switched out the sugar bowl for a honey pot.”
“Boys!” she calls out again. “Locate the honey pot on that cart.”
The gloved men search for it but fail to find it.
“It’s got to be there,” I say. “A high-quality silver pot with a small cutout in the lid for a Regency Grand spoon.” I march over to the cart, but when I arrive, all I see is a bare doily on the silver tray.
“The honey pot is gone,” I say. I look about the room. There are sugar bowls on every table but no other honey pots because they’re not a part of our regular tea service.
“How strange,” I say. “Mr. Grimthorpe walked off the stage himself to add more honey to his tea.”
“Did he drink from that cup that’s broken on the floor?” Detective Stark asks.
“Most definitely. We all saw it. He took several sips right away and a few more when he got back onstage. Then he put the cup down and started to speak. He was about to reveal a secret—he said as much—but before he could, he began to sway, appearing almost inebriated. Suddenly, he tipped forward and then crashed onto the floor on top of poor Lily.”
“And his teacup went flying,” Stark notes.
“It did,” I reply, eyeing the shards on the floor. “And so did the spoon and the saucer.”
Detective Stark walks over to the broken cup and saucer on the floor, gingerly crouching by the shards. She turns to her officers. “Boys, did you bag a spoon from the floor?”
“No,” says the tall one, and the other shakes his head.
She writes something down, then turns a page on her pad. “What happened after Grimthorpe collapsed?” she asks.
“Everyone rushed to the front of the room. There were calls for help, people jostling. I pushed my way forward, then I extricated Lily from underneath Mr. Grimthorpe. Mr. Snow and his personal secretary, Ms. Serena Sharpe, were trying to revive him.”
The detective’s head jolts up from her pad. “Where do you suppose she is now, that secretary?”
“In her room, perhaps?” I offer. “It adjoins Mr. Grimthorpe’s on the second floor.”
“Adjoining rooms? With her boss?” the detective says. She turns to her men. “Did it occur to either of you to detain and question the personal secretary?”
The two men avoid her eyes.
Detective Stark snaps her notepad shut. “Time to hustle,” she says as she marches toward the exit.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“To find Serena Sharpe.”
I follow the detective out of the tearoom, past the hotel lobby, to the elevators, where several guests are waiting to board.
“You’re dismissed. Go do whatever it is you do here,” Detective Stark announces as she presses the Up button with a good deal more force than is necessary. “But don’t leave this hotel yet, Molly. You hear? And don’t let that sidekick of yours go anywhere either.”