Murder on Skiathos Page 7

  ‘I say, will you really?’ exclaimed Ron, disappointment very much evident on his own face. ‘How rotten for you.’

  ‘Yes.’ There was a long pause, and then Mabel said rather timidly, almost as if she were plucking up the courage to ask the question: ‘Do you ever return to England, Mr Thurlow?’ She averted her gaze while she waited for him to answer, smoothing the fabric of her dress and removing from it an invisible thread. ‘I suppose,’ she added quickly, perhaps afraid of his answer, ‘that you travel a great deal on the Continent for your tour company?’

  ‘Yes, I do. That’s to say, there has been very little reason for me to return to England until now.’

  The emphasis that Ron placed on the last two words was not lost on Mabel. She said hurriedly, before she lost her nerve: ‘And now there is?’

  ‘I should say there is! Look here, I do wish you’d call me Ron.’ He moved towards her and, with something of an awkward gesture, took her hand in his. ‘Mabel, you must know … oh, dash it all!’ He let go her hand abruptly and glared in the direction of the hotel. ‘There’s someone coming.’

  ‘Is there? I didn’t hear anything,’ said Mabel startled, reluctant to let the conversation falter, yet moving a step or two back so that a respectable gap existed between the two of them.

  ‘Yes. That’s to say, I thought I heard footsteps and someone whistling. I can hardly believe I imagined it. Yes, look … I was right. There is someone coming.’

  The figure of a young man dressed in a single-breasted jacket and white flannel trousers came sharply into view. Mabel was vaguely aware that her companion gave a start, while the newcomer appeared equally surprised to find them on the cliff path at such an early hour of the morning. Indeed, for a fleeting moment it looked as if he might retrace his steps rather than encroach on their privacy. He appeared to think better of it, however, and quickened his pace, now apparently intent on making their acquaintance. Mabel turned to Ron in order that he might make their introductions, yet that gentleman remained resolutely silent, his lips pursed. She was conscious suddenly that they must appear a rude pair, and that it was up to her alone to make amends.

  ‘Mr Dewhurst,’ she said hastily, recognising the newcomer as the stranger of the night before. ‘How do you do? This is Mr Thurlow,’ she turned to indicate Ron, who made no move to step forward and shake hands, ‘and I am Miss Adler. We are fellow guests.’

  ‘How do you do, Miss Adler, Mr Thurlow.’ The young man gave each of them a shrewd look, taking in the scene. With a half-smile, he said: ‘I do hope I am not intruding.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ cried Mabel, far too quickly, clearly flustered. She added hurriedly, keen to change the subject: ‘Tell me, Mr Dewhurst, how is your sister? I understand she is something of an invalid. She must have found the crossing from Athens rather tiresome?’

  ‘My sister? Ah … yes. You are quite right, Miss Adler. Sophia did find it somewhat tiring.’ He turned, somewhat abruptly, to address Ron. ‘I beg your pardon, I did not quite catch your name, Mr ...’

  There was an awkward silence. ‘Thurlow,’ said Mabel, when it became painfully evident that Ron had no intention of supplying his name.

  ‘Thurlow,’ Alec Dewhurst repeated contemplatively.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mabel, inwardly furious to be placed in such an excruciating position. For she was all too conscious that Ron was resolutely, and annoyingly, silent, and that Mr Dewhurst in contrast made rather a pleasing picture with his engaging manners and his dark good looks. His physical appearance was at sharp variance with Ron’s straw-coloured hair and freckled complexion. In her eyes, it led to an unfavourable comparison as far as the courier was concerned. It occurred to her then, rather belatedly, that she had been staring at Mr Dewhurst for rather a long time. It was possible that he read her thoughts, for the smile he gave her, as he bid them farewell and proceeded with his walk down towards the beach, was particularly disarming.

  Annoyed as much by her own transparency of feeling, as with her companion’s insolent manner towards their fellow guest, she turned to Ron and said rather curtly: ‘You were awfully rude to Mr Dewhurst. Whatever can he have thought? Really, I can’t think what has got into you.’

  Ron shook his head and said. ‘Nothing has got into me. I just didn’t take to the fellow, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, I doubt whether he took to you,’ said Mabel crossly. ‘Come on, my father will be wondering where I’ve got to.’

  With that, she set off at a pace towards the hotel, Ron following miserably in her wake. There was no light-hearted banter this time as they made their way towards the terrace. In fact, Mabel barely gave Ron a second glance. Certainly, the easy camaraderie that had existed between them minutes before seemed to have evaporated. It was no longer a moment for confidences or declarations. The time had passed and Ron Thurlow, as he watched Mabel’s furious, retreating back and heard her hurrying footsteps, had the odd feeling that the moment was lost forever, never to return. For him the day was ruined and he cursed himself severely, for he knew the reason for this was as much to do with his own bad temper as with Alec Dewhurst’s ill-timed interruption.

  ‘Well, I must say, you two are getting along,’ remarked Lavinia to her sister-in-law over breakfast. They were seated at their allotted table in the hotel dining room. A smile played across her lips, as she turned her gaze from Rose towards her brother, who was standing before the sideboard, helping himself to another portion of poached eggs.

  ‘Well, of course we’re getting along,’ replied Rose, rather brusquely, somewhat embarrassed by this observation. Lavinia raised a questioning eyebrow, and Rose added, rather flippantly: ‘He is my husband.’

  ‘I don’t put much store by that,’ retorted Lavinia, regarding her keenly. ‘In my experience, women very soon bore of their husbands, and husbands of their wives. I’m quite sure I would soon bore of my husband if I were married.’

  ‘Then perhaps it is just as well you’re not!’

  Lavinia made a face; there was mischief in her eyes. Rose felt, on reflection, that she could hardly blame her friend for noticing that Rose’s relations with her brother were no longer strained, indeed, that during the course of the night they had undergone rather a remarkable transformation. She had no wish, however, for Lavinia to pry any further into the matter of her marriage. Seeking to distract her, she looked desperately about her for some object or other to divert Lavinia’s interest. Settling on one, she said:

  ‘I do believe the Trimble sisters are actually having a proper conversation.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ enquired Lavinia, displaying little interest in this observation, certainly not bothering even to turn her head.

  ‘That they are talking to one another. In the ordinary way of things, Miss Hyacinth does all the talking and Miss Peony doesn’t utter a word.’

  ‘That’s hardly surprising is it?’ muttered Lavinia, a trifle bored with the topic of their conversation. ‘That Miss Peony seldom says anything, I mean. I doubt she manages to get a word in edgeways when Miss Hyacinth’s talking; I know I don’t. And besides, she’s deaf, which can’t help matters.’

  ‘Well, they definitely seem to be discussing something this morning,’ said Rose. ‘I don’t think I have ever seen either of them look so animated.’

  With a shrug, Lavinia turned in her seat to regard Miss Peony who, commonly being silent and undemonstrative, had never held much fascination for her. ‘They look to me,’ she said, ‘as if they are having some sort of argument.’

  ‘Don’t make it obvious that you are staring at them,’ Rose whispered hurriedly, clutching at Lavinia’s arm, rather regretting that she had ever drawn the Trimbles’ activities to her friend’s attention. For Lavinia, whose curiosity had at last been roused, was now craning her neck in a very blatant fashion to look at the two older women.

  ‘They’re poring over something,’ Lavinia reported, her bored manner quite forsaken. ‘Yes … Why, I do believe it’s a newspaper.’

&nb
sp; ‘Oh?’ said Rose, with a degree of foreboding as various photographs she had seen of the Disappearing Duchess in the society pages flashed before her in her mind’s eye. She peeped cautiously at the other table. The sisters’ manner did little to alleviate her growing anxiety for, if anything, they appeared strangely furtive in their actions, casting nervous glances around the room, and half concealing under a napkin the newspaper they were so closely scrutinising.

  ‘They’re definitely hiding something,’ declared Lavinia, evidently now intrigued by the women’s odd behaviour. ‘I wonder what it is they are looking at in that paper?’’ She surveyed the room and gave a little laugh. ‘I wonder if they’ve put something in the water. Everyone seems to be acting a little strangely this morning, don’t you think? First, there were you and Ceddie, hanging on each other’s every word, then the Misses Trimble acting in the most suspicious manner, and now even Miss Adler and Mr Thurlow are behaving a little oddly.’

  ‘Are they?’ said Rose, interested in spite of herself. ‘I can’t say I’ve noticed.’

  ‘Well, you wouldn’t,’ replied her sister-in-law, rather rudely. ‘I don’t think you would notice anyone but my brother this morning. But they are; acting oddly, I mean. Mr Thurlow has been trying this last half hour to catch Miss Adler’s eye, and she has been very pointedly ignoring him.’ Lavinia sighed wistfully. ‘I suppose they must have had some sort of a falling out.’

  Unobtrusively, Rose looked across to where Ron Thurlow was sitting at his solitary table. She was careful not to catch his eye, for she had no wish to be caught spying and thereby adding to the young man’s misery. She noticed that he was picking rather listlessly at a piece of bread and, now that she observed him more closely, she thought he made a dejected figure. Before she had an opportunity to study Mabel Adler’s demeanour, while also trying to steer Lavinia’s conversation on to more general topics, she saw Alec Dewhurst wander into the dining room.

  The young man’s arrival caused something of a minor sensation, following on as it did from his odd entrance the night before. Alec Dewhurst’s dark good looks, which had been most becoming in the forgiving light cast by the chandeliers, still held a certain charm in the harsher light of day.

  Not until that moment when a hush fell over the hotel guests, was Rose aware that before there had been a general hum of voices. Now, however, the room had become unnaturally silent, and she was conscious, even without looking about her, that all eyes were turned in the direction of the newcomer. Certainly, Lavinia was distracted by the young man’s entrance, all thoughts of the other hotel guests’ odd behaviour clearly forgotten. Mabel Adler, too, was apparently affected by the young man’s arrival, a spark of recognition lighting up her grey eyes. Rose saw Cedric stiffen, plate in hand. This movement was mirrored by Ron Thurlow, arrested in the act of picking at his bread, which he crumbled with uncalled for savagery between his fingers. Father Adler beamed rather blandly at Alec Dewhurst, his thoughts obviously still with the monasteries he hoped to visit. Mr Vickers, for once sober and alert, stared at the stranger with undisguised interest, as did the Trimble sisters, who surreptitiously covered the newspaper they were studying with a nest of napkins.

  Alec Dewhurst looked about him and grinned. There was a confidence about him that suggested the art of making an entrance was not foreign to him. Certainly, he looked unruffled by such avid scrutiny as was bestowed on him by the hotel patrons. Indeed, if anything, he seemed rather to bask in it, as if it was the sun that blazed so brightly outside the window. He surveyed the room in an unhurried manner. A servant stepped forward, presumably to direct him to one of the unoccupied tables. Miss Adler, however, seemed to have other ideas. For, out of the corner of her eye, Rose saw the girl tap her father on the arm and mutter something hurriedly in his ear. The vicar, for whom his daughter was a being to be indulged and acquiesced to, nevertheless raised an eyebrow in surprise. Though rather taken aback that Mabel should be so insistent, he was nevertheless quite prepared to acquiesce to her request, considering it to be his Christian duty to welcome a stranger to Hotel Hemera. Alec Dewhurst was watching the exchange between father and daughter with a degree of amusement. Indeed, his smile was sardonic now, and there was a gleam in his eye which suggested that he had won some private victory. As the vicar stood up and beckoned to the young man to join them at the Adlers’ table, instructing the servant to lay another place, Rose noted both Alec Dewhurst and Miss Adler threw a glance in the direction of Ron Thurlow. That gentleman, his face white, was sitting quietly fuming at his table, his piece of bread now little more than a pile of crumbs.

  Cedric returned to the Belvederes’ table scowling, his own face a mixture of emotions.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ demanded Lavinia.

  Cedric ignored his sister and spoke in an undertone to Rose.

  ‘The gall of the fellow!’

  ‘Ssh!’ His wife gave him a warning look, but it was too late, for Lavinia had evidently heard the exchange and was regarding them closely, clearly puzzled.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ she queried.

  ‘Never you mind,’ her brother replied curtly.

  ‘Well, I do,’ objected Lavinia. ‘I think it beastly of you to say what you did. It is hardly Mr Dewhurst’s fault if we all stared at him when he came into the room. If anything, it is us who were rude. Why, I’ve a good mind to go over and introduce myself to him.’

  ‘Don’t you dare!’ said Cedric.

  The note of anger in her brother’s voice was not lost on Lavinia and she stared at him, slightly taken aback, for she was not used to him speaking to her in such a manner, nor seeing him so evidently riled.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she persisted and then, when Cedric declined to answer, she turned to Rose and said again: ‘What is the matter? You know, don’t you? Won’t you tell me?’

  ‘I think we should,’ said Rose quietly, conscious that Lavinia’s fascination with the young man was unlikely to wane, and that her friend’s voice carried at the best of times, and particularly when she was excited or agitated, as she was now. Indeed, she could hardly believe that Alec Dewhurst was not at that very moment staring at them. She gave a surreptitious glance in the direction of his table and was somewhat relieved to discover that the vicar’s party was in fact leaving the room, having chosen to take breakfast out on the terrace.

  With their departure, there was every sign that the previous idle chatter that had existed in the dining room would resume, with Lavinia contemplating aloud how they should spend their day. Indeed, Rose was just on the point of inwardly breathing a sigh of relief, an awkward moment and explanation having been at least temporarily postponed, when she was aware of a presence at her shoulder. Unbeknown to her, Miss Hyacinth Trimble had sidled up to their table, and a quick look was sufficient to tell her that the ominous newspaper was clutched tightly in the woman’s hand.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Miss Hyacinth,’ said Cedric, with undue sincerity. He was presumably thanking providence for the woman’s timely appearance which in effect put an end to Lavinia’s persistent questioning. ‘What may we do for you?’

  Miss Hyacinth, who until that minute had been rather hesitant in her actions, no doubt afraid that she was intruding on a family affair, beamed at them all, considerably relieved at her welcome. A moment later, however, and she was colouring slightly at the news she had to impart, uncertain whether it could be classed as gossip, something of which her father had heartily disapproved.

  All the while, Rose looked on with an awful fascination, consumed by a feeling of helplessness to stop the events that were about to unfold. For a fleeting moment, she wondered whether there was anything she could do to prevent the inevitable revelations concerning Miss Dewhurst’s identity. A quick glance about her, however, soon dashed any hopes that might have lingered. For something of Miss Hyacinth’s excitement had been caught up by the others. It was not only Cedric who was giving the woman his full attention, but also Lavinia, who e
yed Miss Hyacinth somewhat warily, words of protest directed at her brother frozen on her lips. Even Ron Thurlow and Mr Vickers did not appear immune to what was happening at the Belvederes’ table, each edging forward a little and craning their necks so that they might catch Miss Hyacinth’s news.

  ‘Well, really,’ began Miss Hyacinth, suddenly flustered. ‘I hardly know if I should say anything. It was my dear sister who noticed the resemblance …’ She paused and looked rather helplessly back at her sister, who at that moment appeared engrossed in looking out of the window, and so did not catch her eye. ‘Well,’ continued Miss Hyacinth pluckily, resigned to not receiving any aid from that quarter, ‘it is uncanny but … well, we may be quite wrong, and if we are, well, I do feel I should never forgive myself. I mean to say, to take away someone’s good character … to cast aspersions which may well prove quite unfounded … My poor, dear father would be quite appalled; he would turn in his grave. I –’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ asked Lavinia, clearly losing patience with the older woman. Even Cedric was looking a little bemused by the woman’s ramblings.

  Miss Hyacinth, no doubt fearful that she was about to lose her attentive audience, suddenly thrust the newspaper she was holding down on the table and pointed at a photograph that occupied a corner of one page. Rose stared down at it with growing trepidation. Her heart sank. If she had hoped that the image would be blurred or taken from a distance where a positive identification would prove difficult, she was to be disappointed. For it was a studio photograph, which showed all too clearly the features of the handsome woman it depicted. Worse still, both the pose and the costume adopted by the woman pictured were so reminiscent of the stranger who had appeared the night before in the dining room that any doubt that might have existed in Rose’s mind regarding the accuracy of her husband’s identification of the woman as the missing duchess soon evaporated. Indeed, peering at the newspaper more closely, she thought it was quite possible that the silver fox coat, draped in such a nonchalant fashion around the shoulders of the woman in the image, was the very same fur that had partially shrouded the face of Miss Dewhurst from observers the previous evening. Instinctively, she felt a pang of pity for the woman who had appeared so reluctantly at the window of the dining room, remembering the way she had clung nervously at the curtain, only to be dragged rather unceremoniously into the room by her companion.