The Christie Caper Read online

  Praise for Award-Winning Author Carolyn G. Hart and

  DEATH ON DEMAND

  “Irresistible! Expertly written. Hart drops big names from the mystery world like murderers drop clues, and it’s all great fun. The plotting is classic perfection. Annie and Max are the most endearing new pair of sleuths since Tommy and Tuppence. More, please!”

  —Nancy Pickard, award-winning author of I.O.U.

  A LITTLE CLASS ON MURDER

  “A classy mystery with … more twists than a Low Country river…. Hart’s mysteries give us some much needed entertainment. I’ll look forward to the next one.”

  —Mystery Scene

  “Mystery readers will find this series a delight. Hart is onto a good thing.”

  —The Drood Review of Mystery

  “Hart has a light touch with her characters, a fresh heroine in Annie, and a delightfully different setting!”

  —Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine

  DEADLY VALENTINE

  “Carolyn G. Hart is the new shining star in the mystery galaxy—Deadly Valentine will more than satisfy anyone looking for a wonderfully old-fashioned … and marvelously plotted mystery.”

  —The Clarion-Ledger, Jackson, Mississippi

  “Ms. Hart is on target once again with Deadly Valentine…. Annie and Max are … one of the most charming and intelligent teams in fiction.”

  —Mostly Murder

  “In the sixth novel in her award-winning series, Hart is in top form…. All in all, Deadly Valentine is a classy performance.”

  —Mystery Readers Journal

  ALSO BY CAROLYN G. HART

  DEATH ON DEMAND

  DESIGN FOR MURDER

  SOMETHING WICKED

  HONEYMOON WITH MURDER

  A LITTLE CLASS ON MURDER

  DEADLY VALENTINE

  SOUTHERN GHOST

  DEAD MAN’S ISLAND

  SCANDAL IN FAIR HAVEN

  MINT JULEP MURDER

  AVAILABLE FROM BANTAM BOOKS

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Cast of Characters

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Author’s Postscript

  Copyright

  In honor of Agatha Christie,

  the world’s greatest mystery writer.

  My thanks to Barbara D’Amato and the Malice Domestic Mystery Convention for permission to use portions of the “Agatha Christie Treasure Hunt,” which Barb and I co-authored for Malice Domestic I, April 1989.

  And my thanks to Dorothy Cannell for sharing memories of Garden Fêtes from the coconut shy to the lucky dip.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  NEIL C. BLEDSOE

  Sarcastic, brilliant, unpleasant, the rugged critic is definitely looking for trouble.

  VICTORIA SHAW

  A soft-spoken, kindly woman, but she has not forgotten and she will never forgive.

  HENNY BRAWLEY

  Mystery reader extraordinaire, she looks forward to the conference and showing off how much she knows about Christie.

  KATHRYN HONEYCUTT

  She hated to think ill of anyone, even her nephew, Neil Bledsoe.

  JOHN BORDER STONE

  He couldn’t wait to arrive at the meeting. His life would never be the same.

  ANNIE LAURANCE DARLING

  Owner of the best mystery bookstore this side of Atlanta. Lively, intense, determined.

  INGRID SMITH

  Annie’s wonderful assistant at Death on Demand. Always patient, sometimes acerbic.

  LAUREL DARLING ROETHKE

  Annie’s ever cheerful, unpredictable, maddening mother-in-law. In the grip of a new enthusiasm.

  EMMA CLYDE

  Broward Rock’s famous resident mystery author. Suspected of authoring a real-life mystery.

  NATALIE MARLOW

  Author of Down These Steps. Awkward, frumpy, brilliant. How angry is she?

  FRANK SAULTER

  Chief of police. Thoughtful, honest, worried.

  VINCE ELLIS

  Young and energetic publisher of the Island Gazette.

  BARB

  Secretary at Confidential Commissions, Max Darling’s “counseling” agency.

  NATHAN HULMAN

  CEO and Executive Editor of Hillman House, who lost more than a prize author when Pamela Gerrard Davis married Neil Bledsoe.

  DEREK DAVIS

  He blamed Bledsoe for the death of his mother.

  MARGO WRIGHT

  Literary agent. She would never forget what Bledsoe did to her.

  MAX DARLING

  Annie’s unflappable, equable husband. “Joe Hardy all grown up and sexy as hell.”

  FLEUR CALLOWAY

  Why did she stop writing? She won’t even look at Neil Bledsoe.

  JAMES BENTLEY

  A conference attendee. He sees the marksman outside Death on Demand, but he can’t give a good description.

  BILLY CAMERON

  Chief Saulter’s assistant. The conference gives him a colossal headache.

  LADY GWENDOLYN TOMPKINS

  Co-sponsor of the conference, England’s reigning Crime Queen. Sprightly, perspicacious, indomitable.

  ED MERRITT

  The hotel manager. He wants all this murder nonsense to stop!

  BRICE WILLARD POSEY

  The pompous circuit solicitor. He and Lady Gwendolyn do not have a meeting of the minds.

  JEAN REINHARDT

  She remembers Stone’s manuscript—“all those missing feet!”

  DUANE WEBB

  Ingrid’s good friend. He tells Bledsoe to bug off.

  TERRY ABBOTT

  Says Stone had only one problem: no talent.

  The Agatha Christie Title Clues at the beginning of each chapter are part of the Agatha Christie Treasure Hunt in Chapter 15.

  AGATHA CHRISTIE

  TITLE CLUE

  Beware the false face;

  Can’t trust someone in this place.

  Great minds have great ideas. Neil Bledsoe enjoyed a very good opinion of himself, but the inspiration which had struck so abruptly was brilliant, peerless—and the answer to all his problems.

  Where the hell was that brochure? Impatiently, he dumped the wastebasket, ignoring the cigar ashes and crumpled balls of printer paper. He found it finally and spread open the wrinkled flyer. Quality printing, quality paper. No expense spared.

  The first panel told the story:

  THE CHRISTIE CAPER

  A Centennial Celebration of

  the birth of

  AGATHA CHRISTIE

  The greatest detective-story writer of all time

  September 9–September 15

  The Palmetto House

  Broward’s Rock Island, South Carolina

  Co-sponsored by England’s Present-Day Crime

  Queen

  Lady Gwendolyn Tompkins

  and DEATH ON DEMAND Bookstore

  Proprietor Annie Laurance Darling

  They’d all be there, all those bloody women writers and editors and agents and the damn pansy men who wrote whodunits instead of real blood-and-guts mysteries.

  Neil leaned forward, selected a cigar from his humidor. When it was lit, he rolled the oily smoke over his tongue, savoring the pungent, masculine odor that enveloped him. Women hated cigars. So he smoked them everywhere. Especially in elevators. Inevitably, some skinny bitch complained, stabbed a red-nailed finger at the No Smoking sign. Neil took great pleasure in telling her where she could stick it. No-smoking laws were a joke. Was some asshole going to make a citizen’s arrest? Of him? He shifted his two-hundred-pound bulk until he could see his dark visage in that prissy damn mirror that Pamela’d put up. All that was left of Pamela.

  A face to reckon with. Heavy, black brows drawn in a menacing frown. Florid, acne-scarred skin, tougher than leather. Nobody’d ever mistake him for one of those pansy writers.

  And they hated him.

  Hated him and feared him.

  By God, he’d crash their party. He flipped through the brochure. A garden party, author panels, English dinners, a classic-car display, a Christie Treasure Hunt, a Christie Trivia Quiz, the Agatha Christie Come-as-You-Wish-You-Were Ball. He scanned the list of authors scheduled to attend. Bubbles of laughter stirred in his chest. Holy shit, it couldn’t be better. A conference filled wall-to-wall with his enemies. And if they weren’t enemies when he got there, he’d make damn sure they were before he left.

  The registration form and hotel reservation slip were on the last panel of the brochure. Despite the cigar clamped in his teeth, his mouth split in a ferocious grin as he wrote his name in bold, black strokes.

  Oh, Christ, was he going to raise hell.

  AGATHA CHRISTIE

  TITLE CLUE

  Lucky, lovely, rich Linnet.

  Luckiest girl in the world—or is she?

  Victor
ia Shaw stood in front of the rural mailbox, the envelope in her hand. Her heart thudded. She’d walked up the lane too fast. Janice kept urging her to have a check-up. But what did it matter, really, how many heartbeats remained? She hadn’t cared, not since—

  No, no, no. She wouldn’t think about it. She would not.

  The frail hand holding the envelope trembled. If she mailed this letter, if she attended the conference, wouldn’t it reawaken not only the anguish but the poisonous fury that had corroded her spirit when Bryan died?

  Not unless she permitted it to do so. She had learned one painful lesson these past lonely years. The mind could be controlled. Not joyfully, perhaps, but effectively. Victoria had been forced to learn that lesson or go mad.

  This conference, after all, was at least in part a tribute to Bryan’s greatness. Of course, its focus was upon Agatha Christie’s legacy to the world of the mystery, but Bryan was one of several authors of classic mysteries who were scheduled to be recognized in a retrospective for their contributions to the traditional mystery.

  Bryan would be admired, praised. Once again his books would be talked about, valued.

  She could hear the chug of the postman’s car, coming up the lane. Quickly, her heart pounding, Victoria yanked open the mailbox, thrust the letter inside.

  AGATHA CHRISTIE

  TITLE CLUE

  Children’s laughter, bobbing apples;

  Too much talk and murder strikes.

  Henny Brawley paced her study. Where was that damn book? She’d had it in hand just a minute ago! Innumerable sheets from a yellow legal pad, covered with her neat, precise printing, were strewn from one end of the book-lined room to the other. Despite the hour—it was just past midnight—she whistled over and over a rollicking rendition of “Three Blind Mice.” She hadn’t had this much fun in years! Oh, there it was! Shifting a pile of Christie novels, part of her lovely new bound collection of the Crime Queen’s works, Henny flipped open the revised edition of The Agatha Christie Companion by Dennis Sanders and Len Lovallo. Yes, yes, yes, here it was, marked by her newest bookmark from Death on Demand, the island’s mystery bookstore.

  She whistled now in sheer delight. Oh ho, nobody would ever answer some of these questions!

  Racing back to the desk and her legal pad, she wrote briskly:

  What gave Christie the idea for Thirteen at Dinner?

  On a separate sheet entitled Answers to the Agatha Christie Trivia Quiz, Henny added:

  The monologuist Ruth Draper, 1884–1956, became quite famous in London for stage presentations in which she portrayed a great variety of personalities, ranging from a nagging wife to a peasant girl kneeling in a cathedral. Intrigued by Draper’s successful impersonations, Christie’s fertile mind came up with yet another devilishly original plot.

  Sighing happily, Henny reread her list of questions. Certainly this would be a popular pan of the upcoming conference. Be interesting to see how well Emma Clyde would fare. Not that Henny was trying to show that she knew more about Christie than the island’s most famous mystery author—although of course she did! As for that British writer—Henny’s eyes slitted—Lady Gwendolyn Tompkins, what made her such an authority on Christie? Not that Henny was jealous of Lady Gwendolyn’s prominence as a co-sponsor of The Christie Caper. Certainly not. Jealousy was beneath her.

  But, dammit, who’d done all the work? Henny Brawley, that’s who!

  AGATHA CHRISTIE

  TITLE CLUE

  Where was Agnes Woddell,

  Or is this too ob-skewer?

  Kathryn Honeycutt didn’t believe in astrology, of course. But sometimes, you had to admit, it was nothing short of uncanny. She read the horoscope column only occasionally, but this morning’s said, plain as day, “An unexpected message will come your way.” And here was the letter from Neil, inviting her to come as his guest to a celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Agatha Christie. Kathryn would never have expected Neil to be interested in that kind of conference. Why, he’d always sneered at the Christie books, even said they were written with all the pizzazz of a Quaker Oats cereal box. Neil only liked those nasty, gory, brutal novels. Who wanted to read books like that? Kathryn could pick up her morning paper and wallow in rape, incest, and wife abuse, if she wished. She certainly didn’t wish. But Christie—that was another matter altogether.

  Kathryn hurried across the bricked floor of the den to the bookshelves filled with Christies. She reached up and touched the gilt letters on the black spines. Her brand-new set! Neil’s Christmas present to her. Sometimes, he could be thoughtful even though she was just a little bit cynical about his motives. Such a beautiful set. Of course, she’d kept her old ones. They were friends from the past. So many favorites. Remembered Death—how could anyone ever have thought Rosemary Barton would commit suicide! N or M?—look what happened when they tried to put Tuppence out to pasture. Christie loved to make the point that older women saw much and understood much, and the world should take heed of their wisdom.

  Kathryn reached up and fluffed her soft white hair. Surprising how many people had commented on her resemblance to Jane Marple. Just because Kathryn, too, was tall and thin with snowy white hair, faded blue eyes, soft pink skin, and enjoyed knitting fleecy baby sweaters. So, of course, she took rather a proprietary interest in all of dear Jane’s titles. Especially the first, The Murder at the Vicarage.

  She opened the brochure Neil had tucked in the envelope and held it close to her eyes. Oh, my goodness, what a wonderful program. And yes, there was a costume party. She would go as Miss Marple, of course. Her white brows crinkled. Too hot yet for tweeds. A summery frock would be perfect. Tea and panels and famous authors—a full week in the company of others who loved Agatha Christie and all her works—oh, it sounded like heaven!

  Even if it meant being with Neil.

  “Kathryn, I’m ashamed!” She was in the habit of addressing herself aloud. It happened to people who lived alone. “Poor Neil. He really can’t help being the way he is.” A sweet smile budded on her placid face. “Perhaps,” she murmured, “he’s changed.”

  Kathryn did like to look on the bright side.

  Though she’d always found that hard to do with Neil. She had always suspected that he’d deliberately left the gate ajar that spring day when Foster ran into the street and was hit by a car. But surely not even Neil was that horrid! It was just that he looked mean, with that scowling, ruddy face. It was certainly unfair of her to judge him by his appearance. Though Jane Marple would surely have done so. Kathryn sighed. Yes, she looked like Jane, but in her heart she knew she was much closer to Dolly Bantry, Jane’s closest friend in St. Mary Mead. Jane Marple appraised life in such a Victorian way—rather harsh really. Now, Dolly, she was too immersed in her garden to know as much about the dark side of human nature.

  Kathryn’s mouth puckered. It had come as such a shock to her last year when that nice young man—really such a charming young man—sold her that counterfeit stamp. Neil had been furious, said she deserved to lose the money. Well, once burned…. This last time she’d insisted upon authentication.

  She stood on tiptoe to squint at the stamps behind glass that filled the row above her Christie books. The lines and colors, without her magnifying glass, were smudged and indistinct. But there was her latest. She could see the rich violet background. Henry Clay—a premium quality never-hinged stamp. It was another jewel in her nineteenth-century American collection. She’d spent many a tranquil hour these past few weeks studying it through her glass.

  Kathryn clapped her hands. How much happiness she enjoyed with her stamps and her books. They both afforded her so much pleasure. Then, her thoughts darting about like goldfish in a summer pond, she peered blearily at the bookcase. Reading wasn’t easy now, not even with her trifocals. But she smiled as she reached for Sleeping Murder.

  AGATHA CHRISTIE

  TITLE CLUE