Mistletoe and Mayhem Read online

  Disappointed, Cecily nodded. “It’s all right. I understand. Is there anything at all you can tell me about him? His voice? His clothes? His hair?”

  Madeline shook her head. “Nothing that I can remember. There is something, though. Something that seems important, though I don’t know why it would be.”

  With a flare of hope, Cecily leaned forward. “Tell me, what is it?”

  “A handkerchief.” Madeline frowned, as if she were struggling to see again the elusive article. “A small lace-edged handkerchief, belonging to a lady.”

  “A lady?” Cecily sat back. “That can’t be. I don’t know how the killer got Ellie’s body into the woods, but I doubt a lady would have had the strength or the fortitude.”

  “You’re quite right. The killer is a man. It was definitely a lady’s handkerchief, however.” Madeline shook her head. “I don’t know why it is so significant, but believe me, Cecily, you would do well to take note.”

  Feeling defeated, Cecily could only nod. She simply couldn’t imagine what bearing a woman’s handkerchief could possibly have on Ellie’s murder. Then again, she had dealt with such matters often enough to know that anything and everything was possible.

  She’d hoped that Madeline would be able to give her a little more to go on, but it appeared that once more, she would have to rely on her wits and a great deal of luck, if she was to bring a ruthless killer to justice.

  “I suppose you didn’t tell Mr. Baxter that you were going to the Fox and Hounds,” Samuel said, as he helped Cecily into the carriage that afternoon.

  “Mr. Baxter hasn’t returned from his visit to Wellercombe.” Cecily settled herself on the seat and tucked her hands in her muff. “He is doing some last-minute Christmas shopping and doesn’t expect to be back until later this afternoon. By that time I hope to be home again, Samuel.”

  “Yes, m’m. I’ll do my best.” Samuel touched his cap, closed the door, and climbed up into the driver’s seat.

  The carriage jerked, sending Cecily back against the cold leather. Shivering, she leaned forward again to look at the ocean as they rattled down the Esplanade.

  Patches of white froth rode in on the waves, driven by a chill east wind. All along the seafront the stiff arms of the gas lamps were wrapped in holly, the bright red berries adding a splash of color against the dull gray sky.

  The latticed windows of the shops lining the street displayed their wares, everything from toy soldiers and red-cheeked dolls to Christmas crackers and decorations of all shapes and sizes-silver stars and white angels, brilliant red and green glass balls twisting on slim cotton thread, colorful paper chains and tiny candles.

  A shudder of dread shook her body. She had once almost burned to death in a fire caused by Christmas tree candles. Ever since then she had been unable to view them without a shudder and a feeling of dread.

  Shaking off her morbid thoughts, she focused her gaze on the ocean again as Samuel urged the horses into a fast trot. Madeline’s words popped into her mind. A handkerchief. How could a woman’s handkerchief help her find the killer? Unless it belonged to Ellie. Why hadn’t she thought of that before?

  With a start she remembered the necklace. Samuel hadn’t mentioned it, so she had to assume he hadn’t found it. She made a mental note to ask him as soon as they arrived at the Fox and Hounds.

  The ride took them over the cliffs and across the Downs. Buffeted by the winds and bouncing along the rutted path, the carriage rocked and bucked until Cecily was quite sure she would lose her front teeth.

  She was most thankful when they arrived at last in the courtyard of the Fox and Hounds. Feeling bruised and battered, she climbed down from the carriage before Samuel had a chance to offer her a hand.

  “I’m coming in there with you, m’m,” Samuel said, without waiting to be asked. “I know Mr. Baxter would want that.”

  “Thank you, Samuel. But before we do, tell me, did you look for the necklace?”

  “I did, m’m. I didn’t see it anywhere in the yard, and it was sort of hard to look for it in the coal shed. I shone my torch all over the coals but didn’t see nothing. It could have been scooped up in one of the coal scuttles and thrown on the fire.”

  “I suppose it could have. Well, thank you for looking, anyway, Samuel.”

  “Yes, m’m.” He hesitated, then asked, “Was it really important?”

  “I really don’t know.” She shook her head. “To be honest, Samuel, I don’t know what is important and what isn’t. Perhaps we shall find out something useful from Barry Collins.” With that, she marched across the gravel to the side door, where the publican had his private quarters.

  After rapping on the door with the fox’s head door knocker, she waited, hoping she wasn’t disturbing the publican’s afternoon nap. Since the pub had to stay open until eleven p.m., that brief respite when it closed in the afternoon had to be so coveted.

  The door opened to reveal a young woman holding a baby. She seemed shocked when she saw her visitor. “Mrs. Baxter! Whatever are you doing here?”

  Cecily smiled at the publican’s wife. “I’m so very sorry to disturb you at this hour, but I would like to ask your husband some questions. I was hoping he’d have a few minutes to accommodate me.”

  “Of course, do come in.” The woman sent a curious glance at Samuel, who was hovering behind Cecily, his cap crushed in his hands.

  “Oh, this is my driver and stable manager, Samuel. I’d like him to accompany me, if he may.”

  “Of course. Welcome.” Mrs. Collins drew back and opened the door wider.

  The baby gurgled, and Cecily smiled at him. He was about the same age as Angelina, though a good deal heavier, by the look of him. No doubt his diet wasn’t as nutritious as Madeline’s meals.

  Following the young woman into the parlor, Cecily took a seat by the window, while Samuel stood close by.

  “I’ll fetch my husband,” Mrs. Collins said, and left them alone.

  Looking around the familiar room, Cecily could see little change since Barry Collins had taken over the license. Her eldest son had become publican of the Fox and Hounds soon after his father died, and she had spent many hours in this room, listening to Michael’s tales about unruly customers and the hard luck stories he’d heard.

  Now the pub belonged to someone else, and Michael was on the other side of the world. She rarely heard from him. She thought of him often, but never quite as clearly as she did when in the warm comfort of the Fox and Hounds.

  Her thoughts scattered as Barry Collins walked into the room. A tall man with a luxurious mustache and a thick head of blond hair, he seemed more suited to be a musician or artist than a publican charged with keeping a rowdy group of drunkards in order.

  He seemed a little disoriented as he greeted her and acknowledged Samuel’s presence with a brief nod. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” he enquired, as he perched on the arm of a comfortable easy chair.

  Cecily wasted no time in coming to the point. “I have reason to believe that Mr. Mick Docker visited your establishment three nights ago.”

  Collins frowned. “Docker? Oh, the roofing chap. Yes, he was here. He came in soon after opening time, if I remember, with that other young fellow. Lenny, his mate.”

  “They stayed all evening, is that so?”

  The publican gave her an odd look. “Well, now, I can’t swear to that. I saw them come in, and I saw them leave at closing time, but I can’t say if they were here all evening. We had a bit of excitement in here that night, so I wasn’t paying much attention as to who was here and who wasn’t.”

  “Excitement?”

  The publican looked uneasy. “Look, I don’t like telling tales. If this is about the fight between Docker and Stan Whittle all I can tell you is that no one really got hurt. A couple of glasses got smashed but that’s all, and we got the mess cleaned up right away.”

  Cecily sat up. “Mick Docker fought with Stan Whittle? Do you know what the fight was about?”

&
nbsp; “Nothing. It was just a couple of chaps letting off steam, that’s all. Those two are always going at it over something or other. A Scotsman and an Irishman. What can you expect? They’ve both got hot tempers. It doesn’t take much to set them off. We broke up the fight, Stan left, and…” He paused. “Come to think of it, I don’t remember seeing Mick for a while after that, but I know he was here at closing time. I chased him out myself.”

  “So it was possible he could have left and returned without you noticing?”

  The publican lifted his hands and let them drop again. “In a place like this, Mrs. Baxter, anything can happen under my nose. There’s always something going on, and I don’t have eyes in the back of my head.” He laughed to soften his words. “I often wish I did.”

  “So do I, Mr. Collins.” Cecily rose to her feet. “So do I.”

  Frustration was making her snippy, she thought, as she made her way back to the carriage, with Samuel close behind. Every path she took resulted in a dead end. Mick Docker had been telling the truth when he said he spent the evening at the Fox and Hounds. But had he stayed there all night, as he’d proclaimed? It seemed she would have yet another conversation with the slippery roofer.

  She had to wonder how much more patience the man would have with her before he refused to answer any more of her questions. Or worse, decided that she was becoming a nuisance, and needed to do something drastic to shut her up.

  CHAPTER 14

  Phoebe stood in the wings at the back of the ballroom glowing with pride. The pantomime was almost over, and for once there had been no major disaster. True, the dancers had stumbled on occasion, but they had managed to finish their numbers without knocking down any of the scenery, which was a major victory for her.

  There might have been one or two occasions when she’d had to hiss cues at the Ugly Sisters. Unfortunately, the Fairy Godmother had caught her wand up in her net skirts and had to be untangled, but considering past disasters, these were all minor concerns.

  Only a few more minutes to go and she could chalk up a successful event for once. The triumph of that moment would be well worth all the hard work and constant irritations she’d been forced to endure during the six weeks of rehearsal.

  As always, she was concluding the performance with a pyramid-something the audience anticipated with noticeable glee. The fact that a good many of the male onlookers were expecting to see the young ladies topple to the floor, thus revealing more of their appendages than was seemly, was something Phoebe preferred to ignore.

  After all, men would be men, and she lived in hope of her dance troupe holding the pose at least until the curtains were drawn. Something that didn’t happen too often.

  The orchestra, or rather the string quartet she’d bullied into attending, did their best to rise to a crescendo as Cinderella accepted the prince’s proposal and the dancers gathered onstage for the final presentation.

  Phoebe crossed her fingers and waited.

  One by one the dancers lined up, linking arms to provide the bottom rung of the pyramid. Slowly they bent their knees, allowing three of the remaining women to climb up on their shoulders.

  Phoebe held her breath. Only one more to go. She had picked Deirdre, the lightest and skinniest of the young women, to climb to the top of the pyramid. Deirdre was a little dense at times, but she enjoyed the attention, and was willing to risk life and limb to get it.

  Not that Phoebe expected anything disastrous to happen to her. At the very most, if she fell, there were plenty of women there to catch her, and it really wasn’t that far to the floor. Besides, Deirdre was quite nimble and supple. She had learned how to fall-completely relaxed, with head and knees tucked in ready to roll.

  Nevertheless, Phoebe gritted her teeth as Deirdre ran lightly over to the group and began to climb over knees and shoulders to the top. Some of the dancers muttered an “Ouch” or two, but at last, Deirdre wobbled to a full stance. Straightening her back, she stretched out her arms and threw her head back in triumph.

  A burst of applause greeted this remarkable feat. Bursting with excitement and relief, Phoebe rushed out onto the stage to take her bow. As she did so, an ear-splitting scream rent the air. Then from somewhere in the audience, another voice joined in, howling as only a baby can.

  Crying, “No, no, no!” Phoebe turned, just in time to see the pyramid collapse. The young women fell to the floor and lay sprawled all around, some moaning, others convulsed with the giggles.

  The audience groaned in unison, until someone in the back sent up a cheer, and once more applause rocked the roof. Phoebe directed her fiercest glare at the front row, then dashed over to see if Deirdre had survived the calamity.

  She found the young girl sitting on the floor, making a dreadful noise with her wailing. “Where are you hurt?” Phoebe demanded, trying to draw the girl’s skirt down to cover her knees.

  Deirdre only shook her head and cried louder. The rest of the dancers picked themselves up and gathered around, offering words of advice.

  “She’s hysterical,” Dora explained. “Here, I’ll slap her face. That’ll bring her out of it.” She stepped forward, her hand raised.

  Phoebe lifted her own hand and knocked Dora’s arm away. “If there’s any slapping to be done, I’ll do it.” She looked back at the sobbing girl. “Deirdre, dear, you must tell me where you are hurting.”

  Again Deirdre shook her head, then waved her hand in the air.

  “Who the heck’s she waving at?” one of the dancers wanted to know.

  “Dunno,” someone else answered.

  “I told you she was hysterical,” Dora declared. “You’ll have to slap her face.”

  Aware of the fascinated audience out front, murmuring and speculating among themselves while the baby continued to screech, Phoebe turned on Dora. This was to have been a rare performance, free of disaster. Once more at the last moment she had been foiled by yet another calamity. Consequently, she was not in the best of moods.

  “Since you refuse to keep your silly mouth shut,” she snapped, “if I slap anyone’s face at all, believe me, it will be yours.”

  The audience applauded, and someone cheered again.

  Deirdre wailed louder, and pointed up over her head.

  Phoebe followed the gesture, looking straight up into the rafters. Then she clutched her throat and let out an unearthly shriek, far louder and shriller than Deirdre’s howls.

  In fact, startled by the noise, Deirdre stopped crying and clutched the skirt of the dancer standing closest to her.

  The murmurs of the audience intensified, and the baby howled again, but Phoebe was now past caring. Her shocked gaze was locked on the slowly swinging figure of the woman hanging from the rafters.

  Cecily wasn’t quite sure when she realized something was seriously wrong. She was seated a few rows from the stage, with Baxter on her right, and Madeline on her left. Kevin had charge of the baby next to his wife.

  Angelina had been sleeping peacefully throughout most of the performance until the screaming began. The baby awoke and began screeching at the top of her lungs, so loud it actually brought pain to Cecily’s ears.

  Both Madeline and Kevin tried in vain to calm her, while Cecily looked up anxiously at the stage, wondering if she should go up there to see if anyone was hurt. The sight of the dancers sprawled all over the stage was a familiar one. Phoebe rarely put on an event without something disastrous happening, but it seemed the young woman in the center of the attention was in some kind of distress.

  Making up her mind, Cecily leaned toward Baxter, who sat with a pained expression on his face, his shoulders hunched against the noise Angelina was making.

  “I’d better go to see if I can do anything,” she said, and he immediately rose to his feet.

  “I’ll go with you.”

  They had barely reached the end of the aisle when Phoebe’s scream echoed throughout the ballroom followed by another bellow of fright from Angelina.

  Even then, Cecily thought t
hat Phoebe was simply expressing her outrage. Her friend could be quite vocal when seriously upset. She hurried through the wings with Baxter on her heels, and signaled to the footman in charge of the curtains to bring them down.

  He was clinging to the ropes, and looking at her with an odd expression, rather as if he were in a trance. She paused for a moment, puzzled by his attitude. “Bring the curtains down, please,” she ordered. “At once.”

  “Begging your pardon, m’m, but I can’t.” He glanced back at the stage then turned to her, his movements all in slow motion. “They won’t come down.”

  “What the devil do you mean?” Baxter demanded. “Here, I’ll do it.”

  “You can’t.” The footman stubbornly held on to the rope. “There’s a dead body hanging on the other end.”

  Cecily felt as if she had just swallowed a large glass of icy water. She heard Baxter utter a curse as he strode past her and out to the stage. For a moment she couldn’t seem to move her legs, then she heard him say, “Oh, good Lord.”

  Forcing herself to move, she rushed out after him. Phoebe was in a dead faint on the floor, surrounded by whispering dancers. Some were looking up at the rafters, while others stood huddled together, looking ready to cry.

  Baxter stood with his face upturned, his lips clamped together. She followed his gaze, and clutched her stomach when she saw the limp body of a woman twisting slowly around on the end of a rope.

  Taking several deep breaths, she turned to the audience. A few had left their seats and were wandering toward the doors, while the rest stood about, looking as if they weren’t quite sure what to do.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Cecily announced, holding up her hand. “I assure you that all is well, here. Just a little mishap, that’s all. If you would all care to retire to the library, I will see that refreshments are served in a few minutes.”