Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

Bee beamed. “Darling! Am I a suspect? How exciting! Let me see. You and I spoke on the terrace. Then you went off with Stone, such a strong name, and poor Charles and the major. I stayed in the drawing room and read a magazine, and after that the major came and joined me, we chatted. Then Charles Sr. came in with Sally, and that’s about it, really.”

Dehan frowned. “He came in with Sally?”

“Yes, dear.”

“You heard the doctor shouting at him?”

“Oh yes, one could hardly fail to, but that was a little earlier. I’m afraid I’m not awfully good when it comes to time. One moment flows, as it were, into another.”

I nodded a few times, considering the fact that there are few things in this world as slippery as a member of the British upper classes.

“In your opinion, Bee—and please understand I am only asking for your opinion—who stands to gain from Charles Jr.’s death?”

Her eyebrows arched. “Well, Pamela, naturally, and me. But only if daddy Charles doesn’t marry again, and only when he dies. Pamela will get everything. She is now, to all intents and purposes, his sole heir. I get a percentage of his estate, I don’t know how much, but I believe it is generous. However…” She shook her head. “All of that could change over night if he gives Pamela the old heave-ho and marries Sally. Then we are all well and truly screwed. Metaphorically. The only one who’s getting screwed literally is Sally, lucky bitch.”

Dehan smiled. “Bee?”

“Yes, darling?”

“Screwed is a metaphor. Sally is not literally getting screwed.”

Bee smiled vacantly. “Oh, yes.”

I took a deep breath. “Is there anything else, Bee, that you feel you need to tell us, or that we ought to know?”

“Not really. I am sure you are doing a simply marvelous job. I should now like to go to bed. It has been an awfully trying day. And perhaps you could ask that appalling Doctor Cameron to give me something.” She stood and added absently, “They do let almost anyone into the professions these days. It is too bad, really.”

Dehan went to the door with her, smiling and muttering, “No standards…”

“None, darling. None at all.”

Bee left, Dehan closed the door and leaned against it, looking at me. She smiled unhappily. “Some honeymoon.”

I nodded, then shook my head. “Next time, I choose the destination.”

“Next time?”

“You better believe it.”

She gave a small laugh. “I’d like to talk to Gordon. I’d like to know about his will. He’s the key to all this. Him and his dead father.”

“I agree. But before we do, I’d like to have a chat with the major.”

She frowned. “The major? You like him for this?”

“No, but he is the country manor equivalent of the village gossip. Whatever Bee is hinting at, he has the dope. When we talk to Gordon, I’d like to have the major’s intel behind me.”

She nodded. “See? That’s why you’re the oldest.”

She turned, opened the door and leaned out. “Major, could we have a chat?”

There was the sound of anxious bumbling closely followed by the major smiling apologetically as he hurried in. I gestured him to a chair at the head of the table and he sat. We sat on either side of him and he said, “I suppose you’ll want to know what I was up to between six and eight.”

I nodded. “Amongst other things.”

“Of course, we were all in the study together, and he was alive at that time.”

Dehan smiled. “We would have noticed if he wasn’t.”

He nodded, frowning. “Oh, most assuredly. No, he was definitely alive then. And after that, well, you chaps went upstairs, Charles stayed in the study, and I went over to the drawing room, hoping for a snifter.”

“Was there anybody there when you went in?”

“Yes. Bee was there, reading one of those awful magazines. Offered her a drink and she said, ‘Not half, govenor!’” He laughed out loud, then flushed bright red. “Like a Cockney, you know. She’s a great laugh, old Bee. Aristocracy, you know. Never guess, not toffee-nosed at all. Just an average gal.”

Dehan nodded. “Yup. Just one of the guys. So, did either of you leave the room after that?”

“Well, um, ah… I may have um… ahh… you know… um…”

I drummed my fingers on the table a few times. “Gone to the bathroom, Major?”

“Quite so, exactly, um, yes.”

“And Bee?”

“Yuh, also, perhaps. But other than that, we were there until everyone started coming in for cocktails. Including your, uh, good selves.”

“Did you see or hear anybody else during that time?”

“No, only Cameron, making a bit of a spectacle of himself, shouting at Charles. Can’t blame the man, I suppose, bit of a rough deal, when you… When you think about it…”

He looked embarrassed and turned away.

I leaned forward. “What is a rough deal, Major?”

He seemed to bark, like a Scottish terrier. “Well! One doesn’t like to gossip… Man’s private life… but, you know…”

“I agree, but given that this is a murder inquiry, and that our personal interest in the doctor’s private life is somewhat less than zero, I think you are justified in telling us what the rough deal is.”

He looked momentarily startled, then nodded. “Yes, I see, quite so, quite so. Um, well, the odd thing is that Bee and I had, just before the shouting started, you understand, had been, as it were, discussing, not gossiping but discussing, more widely, the doctor’s position on the island.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Really? And what did you judge his position to be?”

“Well… um…” He nodded several times. “Precarious, to say the least.”

Dehan sighed noisily, like a person putting together a five thousand piece jigsaw puzzle, blindfolded. “Would you please explain why you thought that, Major?”