“What’s going on?”
Bertrand peered down at her. His hair was sticking in every direction and his cravat hung loose.
“Oh. There you are. Sir Lancelot Coverdale has arrived.” He offered Harriet a hand and pulled her up onto the chair next to him. Harriet saw that the crowd had gathered around a tall, blond–haired man who stood framed by the window. “He says he’s going to solve the murder.”
Harriet’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, is he?” She looked at Bertrand. “Did you find anything out from the newspapers?”
Bertrand groaned. “There are tons of them. I don’t think this hotel ever throws anything away. I did find out that Emily used to be an opera singer.”
“Who?”
“Emily. The maid who found the body. A very good one, apparently. Good singer, that is, not good dead body. Ah. If you see what I mean. Her father was a mechanician’s assistant, so it was quite a story when she made it to the opera. And everyone says there’s something terribly scandalous about the Comte d’Arcy, but no one knows what it is.”
“Anything helpful?”
Bertrand looked pained. “I still think the socks are important.”
“They’re not.”
“You don’t really think Sir Lancelot will solve the murder first, do you? The newspapers say he never fails anything he sets his mind to.”
“Not if I have anything to do with it.”
“I hope not. Oh, yes. Did you know the Edgewares had been to the Great Wall of Cyclopia, just like us? That wasn’t in the newspapers. I asked them questions and they just told me. Isn’t that a coincidence? The trip, not the telling. Old man Edgeware really must love his ruins, eh?”
Now that was interesting. Ancient Martian artifacts could still be found deep in the Great Wall, and the smuggling gang Harriet was after specialized in such artifacts. Maybe it was a coincidence, but too many coincidences generally turned out to be anything but.
“You know,” Bertrand said. “I think I’m going to find out what operas Emily sang in before she became a maid.”
Harriet fixed her brother-in-law with the baleful look. “You’d better not be getting any inappropriate ideas about Emily.”
Bertrand’s jaw dropped. “I would never betray Amy! You know I wouldn’t.”
She did know that. Occasionally, when she’d been younger, Harriet had found Bertrand’s loyalty to her sister a little annoying. The idea he would let Amy down was absurd. You’re just anxious. You’re letting your nerves get the better of you. She wasn’t used to feeling so helpless and lost.
It’s not just you who needs this, she reminded herself. Bertrand and Amy and their baby needed this murder to be solved quickly. If Sir Lancelot really did find the murderer first, it would give Sir William an excuse to dismiss Bertrand. I won’t let that happen.
“Fine,” she said. “But I don’t see what relevance operas have. Emily has an alibi, remember?” There was nothing to connect her to the smuggling ring, and neither of the people who had attacked Harriet had been female, although of course Bertrand didn’t know that.
Bertrand’s face fell. “I know. I just…” He spread his hands helplessly. “I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know what to ask. None of them seem like murderers.”
“Find out about the Edgewares. Mr. Edgeware, in particular. See if he has any connections to any of the other men here or any connections to Lunae City. And keep going with the newspapers.”
“But the Edgewares have children!”
“I know,” Harriet said grimly.
Some strange sense made the back of her neck prickle. She scanned the room. Most of the guests were craning toward Sir Lancelot. But one man wasn’t. Colonel Fitzpatrick had his blank gaze fixed firmly on Harriet, and he didn’t let it fall, even when she stared right back.
The truth, Harriet thought as she strode down the corridor toward the hotel manager’s office, was that she was a drowning woman clutching at straws, and that wasn’t a comforting metaphor in a hotel beneath millions of tons of water. What she knew for sure she could count on the fingers of a closed fist. She was left with suspicion, coincidence, and guesswork, and it wasn’t good enough. Her contact was dead, and there was nothing she could do about that, but if she could retrieve the package, they might at least be a step closer to bringing down the smuggling ring.
The manager had been drinking when Harriet pushed into his office. Fading friction lamps threw heavy shadows from stacks of ledgers and a wilted parlor palm. A window in the ceiling let in faint sunlight, filtered by the deep water, to illuminate the room, but it only served to make the man inside look even more green and unhealthy. A cactus-dog watched mournfully from its burrow in a terrarium in one corner, its red spikes drooping.
“It’s a bloody disaster,” the manager slurred as he looked up and saw Harriet. “A dead body, a police investigation. This is supposed to be the Louros Hotel’s big triumph. I’ve got half the journalists on British Mars coming along to report it. I’m finished.”
The man hadn’t stood when she’d entered, so Harriet didn’t wait on propriety either. She pulled out a chair and sat opposite.
“Do your staff have any storage areas apart from their rooms? A desk somewhere, perhaps?”
The manager was already shaking his head. “My secretary has a desk, of course, and there’s the front desk. Strachan worked there sometimes.”
Too public. If Strachan had hidden the package there, another member of staff might have found it.
“Anywhere else in the hotel Strachan might have gone?”
The manager heaved himself up, reached for his glass, then finding it empty, set it back down.
“There’s a kitchen. The staff eats there. And a staff drawing room he could use when off duty. Mr. Heathcote, our butler, supervises the footmen. He’d know more about it.”
“I’ll need to see it.” Maybe there would be hiding places there. “How about air vents?”
The manager blinked.
“Could he access them?”
“They’re sealed.” The manager wobbled his head toward the grill above him. It was flush with the wall and fixed in. There were no screws or bolts, and Harriet didn’t think she could lever it off. “What’s the point of this? He’s dead. I’m done.”
You’re not the only one, Harriet thought, if I don’t find that package.
“How about maintenance?”
The manager cast a look at his glass. “They access it through the pump room. Only I have a key. I sign them in and sign them out again, whatever the time of day or night. Not that it matters any more. The whole place is probably done.”
The manager’s eyes were now firmly fixed on his glass and his voice trailed away. Harriet wasn’t going to get anything more out of him.
“The kitchens and the staff drawing room?”
He waved a loose hand. “Ask Heathcote. Front desk, I expect. Now leave me alone. Didn’t know the fellow. Nobody did. Didn’t like him, didn’t hate him, didn’t know anything about him at all.”
When Harriet reached the foyer, Reginald was leaning against the tall clock, grinning. He caught her eye, then glanced up at the clock, shaking his head.
Harriet bit the inside of her cheek. Hell. He was probably composing his report in his mind right now, finding some way of blaming the whole fiasco on her and putting himself in the clear.