Murder on Skiathos Read online

‘Oh, I shouldn’t believe a word that Old Vickers says, if I were you,’ retorted Lavinia, before Miss Hyacinth had an opportunity to complete her sentence. ‘The man is a first rate bore, if you ask me. He’ll talk about anything if you give him half the chance. Why just yesterday –’

  ‘Lavinia!’ exclaimed Rose. ‘Pray, do continue with what you were saying, Miss Hyacinth,’ she said, turning her back to her friend and giving the older woman a nod of encouragement to continue with her story.

  ‘Well, I suppose it’s not very exciting; for young women such as yourselves, I mean,’ conceded Miss Hyacinth. ‘But you will understand my sister and I live such a very quiet existence. Very little happens in Clyst Birch.’ She paused a moment as her mind drifted back to her birthplace. ‘It is a very little village, you see, little more than a hamlet really.’ Her eyes glistened as she battled with a tear, overcome with a sudden wave of homesickness. ‘Our dear father was the clergyman there.’

  ‘Yes. You told us on the first day we made your acquaintance,’ said Lavinia rather unkindly, tiring of making any pretence that she was not thoroughly bored with the conversation. Indeed, having abandoned any semblance to civility, she rose and made as if to leave. ‘If you will excuse me –’

  ‘Oh, but Lady Lavinia,’ cried Miss Hyacinth, stretching out her hand as if to pull at the young woman’s cloak to detain her. ‘You have not heard my news.’

  ‘You have just said …’ began Lavinia, before catching Rose’s eye. She sighed and resumed her seat, a look of resignation on her face.

  Miss Hyacinth, aware that she now had her companions’ attention, decided to play her advantage without further delay. ‘It concerns one of the hotel guests,’ she said quickly. ‘That’s to say, a guest that is yet to arrive.’ Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lavinia roll her eyes at Rose. ‘Mr Vickers,’ she continued hurriedly, ‘has it on good authority that they chartered a boat in Athens and are making their way here to the island. I believe they should arrive any minute.’

  ‘Who chartered a boat?’ asked Rose, with renewed interest. She had been watching Miss Hyacinth keenly from the moment the woman had mentioned there was to be an additional guest. Unlike Lavinia, she was not bored with the hotel’s clientele, and her curiosity was roused. Miss Hyacinth, always timid and deferential, appeared strangely agitated, as if she were in two minds whether to speak out or not. Indeed, she hesitated a moment before replying, permitting an awkward silence to fill the terrace, disturbed only by the noise of the cicadas.

  ‘I have had quite enough of all this intrigue,’ declared Lavinia rising. ‘No, it’s no good,’ she added, as Rose made to protest. ‘Miss Hyacinth, you have had your chance,’ she continued, addressing the older woman. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t all day to sit and gossip. I daresay our mysterious guest will present themselves at dinner.’

  With that, Lavinia set off across the terrace, her little striped cloak billowing out behind her in the breeze. She had only walked a few feet, however, when her ears caught Miss Hyacinth’s next words, though they were uttered to Rose in a loud whisper.

  ‘It’s the … Duchess of Grismere.’

  Rose, who had been watching Lavinia’s retreating figure, dismayed by her friend’s rudeness to Miss Hyacinth, was surprised to witness the girl halt abruptly, almost as if she had turned to stone. The next moment she had turned to face them, the sun hat that had been clutched in her hand falling to the ground abandoned. It was not this, however, that intrigued Rose as much as the expression on Lavinia’s face. It was one of incredulity. With a stab of something akin to foreboding, Rose realised that it was the first time during their stay on the island that her friend had appeared animated, her face lit up with barely concealed excitement.

  Chapter Two

  ‘The Duchess of Grismere?’ queried Rose, as soon as Miss Hyacinth, having imparted her news, had scurried into the hotel. Except for a servant sweeping away fallen leaves, the two girls were quite alone on the terrace.

  ‘Yes,’ cried Lavinia, dashing back to her chaise, and throwing herself down upon it in so reckless a fashion that the wickerwork groaned loudly in protest. ‘It’s frightfully exciting, don’t you think?’ Her eyes, Rose noticed, were very bright; gone was the glazed look of boredom that had been so prevalent before.

  Rose pondered her friend’s question and did not reply immediately. The name sounded familiar, yet she could not remember the context in which she had heard it mentioned before.

  ‘The newspapers have been full of nothing else,’ Lavinia said, a touch reproachfully, feeling that some of the wind had been taken out of her sails by Rose’s continuing silence.

  She threw her sun hat down on to the floor beside her and regarded her companion meditatively. She could hardly believe Rose was ignorant of the rumours to which she referred, and yet her lack of response suggested otherwise.

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about,’ admitted Rose. ‘Having said that, I do feel that I have heard the name before, though I am certain I have never met the duchess, or the duke, come to that.’

  ‘I should think you have!’ Lavinia snorted in something of an unladylike fashion. ‘Really, Rose, you are quite impossible,’ she said, her look incredulous. ‘I daresay,’ she sighed, ‘it is not your fault. I suppose you just read all the wrong sorts of papers. The village gazettes and all that. Why, I bet you busy yourself with reading the Parish magazine; who had the prize marrow at the Sedgwick village fete, that sort of thing.’

  ‘I do nothing of the sort,’ exclaimed Rose, suppressing a giggle. ‘That’s to say, I do, but I read other things too. But not the scandal sheets and gossip columns if that’s what you mean?’

  ‘Is there anything else worth reading?’ enquired Lavinia, making a face, though there was a gleam in her eye. She leaned forward suddenly and grabbed the other girl’s hand. ‘No, but seriously, Rose, you must have read all about it in the papers? Why, Ceddie must have spoken to you about it. After all, the Duke of Grismere is a member of his club.’

  At the mention of her husband, Lavinia noticed that her sister-in-law’s face suddenly looked flushed. ‘Is everything all right?’ she enquired. ‘With you and Ceddie, I mean? You have both been very quiet. Indeed, you hardly speak to each other at dinner, and when you do you are frightfully polite –’

  ‘The Duchess of Grismere?’ Rose prompted hurriedly, hoping fervently that Lavinia would not pry any further into the relations between her brother and his spouse. Lavinia gave her an odd sort of look but continued to talk obligingly on the subject of the duchess.

  ‘She’s vanished!

  ‘‘The Disappearing Duchess!’’ exclaimed Rose, recalling some headline or other that she had glanced at. ‘I say, is that her?’

  ‘Yes, of course it is,’ said Lavinia, a note of exasperation in her voice. ‘How many duchesses do you think have vanished? No, don’t answer that,’ she continued hurriedly. ‘It’s all jolly mysterious. One evening the duchess was at a ball, and the next minute she had disappeared. A bit like Cinderella, though of course she was already married to her prince. If you can call the duke that. He’s frightfully dour and heaps older than her and –’

  ‘What do you mean by disappeared?’ asked Rose, interested in spite of herself.

  ‘She hasn’t been seen since that fateful night.’

  ‘I take it by that you mean, she has not been seen out in society? Is that so very odd? Very likely she’s ill. I mean to say, surely the duke knows where she is?’

  ‘That’s just it,’ Lavinia said. ‘No one thinks he does. The duchess hasn’t been seen for weeks. Not by anyone, if one believes what one reads in the papers. Not by her servants, or even her closest friends. I can’t tell you the amount of gossip there is doing the rounds in London. It is all anyone talks about. And,’ she added, tightening her grip on the other girl’s arm so that Rose winced, ‘the old duke has kept himself to himself, which is not a bit like him. He is rather a one for hosting lavish parties, y
ou see. But, of late, he has become something of a recluse, hardly venturing out and, when he does, he won’t talk to anyone. He just skulks about as if he had something dreadful to hide. And they say he has aged terribly. Why, Ceddie barely recognised him when he came across him at his club the other day. Didn’t he tell you?’ She did not wait for an answer but hurried on. ‘Rumour has it that the duke spends all day shut away in one of the turrets at Grismere Castle. He just sits there and broods.’ Lavinia sighed reflectively. ‘I suppose grief hits one like that. It’s frightfully sad. Everyone is saying that he’s dying of a broken heart.’

  ‘Indeed?’ said Rose, eyeing her friend rather cynically. To her ears it sounded a highly improbable tale, which she thought Lavinia enjoyed telling a little too much for her liking. However, though it was obvious that the narrative had been highly embroidered and exaggerated, she was, nevertheless, sufficiently moved and interested by it to enquire whether or not the police had been called in to investigate the duchess’ sudden disappearance.

  ‘Or you yourself, come to that,’ said Lavinia. ‘After all, you would have been the obvious choice given your reputation for being something of an amateur sleuth. But no, you see, that’s just it. The duke hasn’t contacted anyone, which is what is causing all the speculation and gossip.’

  ‘Surely that would suggest that the duke does know what has happened to his wife?’

  ‘It’s difficult to say,’ said Lavinia. ‘It’s all frightfully mysterious.’

  ‘In a minute you will be telling me that the duke has done away with the duchess!’

  ‘Murdered her, do you mean?’ exclaimed Lavinia. ‘Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.’ Her eyes brimmed with excitement and her mouth fell open as a thought suddenly struck her. ‘I say, do you think she could be buried beneath the floorboards in that turret of his?’

  ‘I do not,’ said Rose, picking up her discarded magazine and glancing through its pages, aware that she had almost permitted her thoughts to become as fanciful as Lavinia’s. ‘Not if what Miss Hyacinth says is true, and the duchess is about to arrive here by boat.’

  By common accord, the two girls remained on the terrace until it was time to dress for dinner, each absorbed in their own thoughts concerning the missing duchess. At each gust of wind, or sound of voices carried to them on the breeze, they looked up as if half expecting the missing woman to appear before them, having climbed the steep steps up from the beach. In this, however, they were to be disappointed, and it was with a growing feeling of despondency that they retired to their rooms to dress for dinner.

  When they came down to dinner that evening, it struck Rose immediately that the atmosphere was different. There was an unmistakeable tension in the air that had not been present on the previous evenings. She gazed about her trying to determine the cause, aware only that everyone appeared to be on edge, as if waiting in anticipation for something to happen.

  Certainly, most of the guests appeared restive; even little Miss Hyacinth Trimble’s actions seemed particularly pernickety and erratic that evening, as she dabbed at her cheeks with her handkerchief and adjusted the position of her wire-rimmed spectacles for the umpteenth time. It was almost as if she feared that something might escape her notice if they were not lodged firmly on the bridge of her nose.

  Her sister, Miss Peony, naturally reticent due to her deafness, sat looking about her eagerly, her two-piece Bakelite ear trumpet, reminiscent of an oversized pipe, peeping out from under her napkin in case it should be required later. The very fact that it was present in the dining room and not hidden in her room was a sign that Miss Peony was greatly excited, for she was usually loath to be seen using the device in public, preferring it seemed to remain deaf and ignorant to the conversations taking place about her rather than produce the ugly instrument. Instead, she was obliged presumably to content herself with nodding and smiling blindly, pretending she could decipher what was being said to her when really it was as if those about her were speaking in some foreign tongue that she alone could not understand.

  During Rose’s study of the Misses Trimble, Mr Vickers had entered the dining room, and it was with some amusement that she noted that Miss Hyacinth was making discreet efforts to catch his eye. Having succeeded in this mission, Mr Vickers, the resident hotel bore, as Lavinia had so aptly described him, weaved his way on unsteady feet towards the Trimbles’ table. It was no coincidence, Rose thought, that the man seemed to spend the majority of his time propping up the hotel bar. His jacket looked creased and his bow tie was inexpertly tied, so that he gave the overall impression of being dishevelled and unkempt.

  ‘The man’s three sheets to the wind,’ Rose heard Lavinia declare loudly in her ear. ‘They’ll never get rid of him,’ she added, looking in the direction of the Trimble sisters. ‘Not that I suppose it matters very much if he talks a lot of rot. Miss Peony won’t hear a word he says. She’ll just nod and smile politely. It’s Miss Hyacinth I feel sorry for. I suppose she wants to hear what has happened to the duchess, not that Old Vickers will know. I don’t know why she encourages him; one can’t believe a word he says.’

  Despite her fine words, Lavinia, Rose noticed, studied Mr Vickers intently, as if he was in possession of the key to the Duchess of Grismere’s disappearance. The two girls caught only the odd unsatisfactory word as it drifted towards their table. Any moment now, Rose thought, the hotel band will strike up, and all will be lost. The same thought had obviously occurred to Lavinia who, after a moment’s hesitation, made her way towards the sisters’ table. Not for the first time did it occur to Rose that the hotel, and indeed the island itself, was a great leveller in respect of class. In England, Lavinia would have had little to do with the Misses Trimbles of the world. Socially, they were her inferior, and in her opinion barely worthy of a glance being bestowed in their direction. But here on Skiathos, due to the scarcity of hotel guests, their presence was more conspicuous and, though Lavinia might pretend to view them with something approaching contempt, she was not opposed to engaging them in conversation for her own ends.

  Rose looked on in some amusement as Lavinia interrogated Mr Vickers, while Miss Hyacinth listened intently at Lavinia’s shoulder, smiling in a deferential fashion. Alone at her table, Rose smiled contentedly and breathed in the warm night air. The floor-length windows remained open, permitting the night air to drift in and mingle with the hazy scents of perfume and herbs. Later, as the evening progressed, the windows would be pulled shut and the curtains drawn, and they might almost be in an English drawing room, save for the wickerwork chairs and tables, the potted herbs of thyme and basil, and the grape vines that sprouted out from scattered plant pots and grew up to the ceiling.

  Rose studied her menu card and threw a surreptitious glance at the door. There was no sign of her husband, who had spent the afternoon fishing with the local fishermen and, with Lavinia deeply engrossed in conversation at the next table, she suddenly felt strangely alone. She was reminded of her sister-in-law’s remark that something appeared to be wrong between Rose and her brother, an observation that she had hastily brushed aside, but which now filled her thoughts. She bit her lip as she contemplated the chasm that had sprung up between them since the awful event that had occurred in the folly. Inwardly, she cursed herself for allowing the doubt and suspicion in her mind to bear fruit and grow and linger, so that it seemed to taint her every thought. She stared before her, her vision blurred. Tonight, she resolved to have it out with Cedric. She would not continue on this path of mistrust and uncertainty. She must know the truth; however awful it might prove to be.

  With this thought uppermost in her mind, she looked up and caught sight of her husband making his way across the floor to their table. Despite the fact that he was dressed for dinner, his white tie and tails strangely out of place in the hot Mediterranean surroundings, she was reminded of the impression he had made on her when she had first laid eyes on him at Ashgrove House. He was tall and slender with chiselled features to rival those of any matinée
idol. His skin, usually a golden brown, had darkened in the Greek sun, and there was a vitality about him that he had brought in with him from the sea. His blond hair, commonly worn slicked back from a side parting, was slightly ruffled, as if it still bore traces of being tousled about by the wind. Rose noted with a pang that he cut something of a dashing figure as he crossed the room. The observation made her rather pity poor Mr Vickers and his sorry entrance. It made her conscious too of her own ordinary looks. For a moment she caught Cedric’s eye, and it is possible that she might have held his gaze had they not both been distracted by a high-pitched laugh emanating from the Trimbles’ table. Lavinia, it appeared, was in full flow, her features animated, her lamé gown accentuating her willowy frame and delicate, aristocratic features.

  ‘I must speak with you,’ Cedric said quietly, seating himself beside his wife. ‘We can’t go on like this.’ Had they been alone, he might have taken her hand. Instead, he gave her an imploring look. ‘Darling, I ...’ he began and faltered, for Lavinia had returned to their table, a vision in gold, and was regarding them with ill-concealed curiosity.

  ‘Oh, don’t mind me,’ she said rather flippantly, realising the conversation between husband and wife was unlikely to resume in her presence. Indeed, both parties appeared to be struck dumb, and were now staring down rather blindly at the tablecloth, as if for each it held some peculiar fascination.

  ‘I have just been talking with that awful Mr Vickers and –’

  ‘Ssh Lavinia! He’ll hear you,’ snapped her brother, casting a furtive glance in the man’s direction.

  ‘I don’t care if he does,’ Lavinia declared petulantly. ‘It would serve him jolly well right. Besides,’ she added hurriedly, as Cedric made to protest, ‘he’s half cut. I wonder he’s capable of hearing anything.’

  ‘Lavinia!’

  ‘Well, he is, and it’s no good your looking at me like that, Ceddie. I don’t know how the Trimbles can stand him, breathing his whisky fumes over them like that. Still,’ she said, taking her seat, ‘I suppose they’ll suggest he returns to his own table in a minute. He had nothing more to tell us, after all. He denies everything, you know.’