Sharyn McCrumb - Missing Susan

“The Fred Smith?” asked Elizabeth solemnly.

“No,” said Rowan Rover. “A Fred Smith.”

A few more rooms finished the ground-floor exhibits, and Rowan led them up a wide marble staircase festooned with paintings which, after the first shudder, he steadfastly ignored. “The Agatha Christie room is tucked away somewhere up here,” he muttered. “I suppose we’ll have to plow through more of this to find it, though.”

He poked his nose into one dimly lit room. “Ah!” he cried, turning to face his party. “There seems to be a real painting here. Come on, come in. That large picture over there is The Children’s Holiday by Holman Hunt. It is the showpiece of the collection.” He stepped back to what he hoped was out of earshot and murmured, “Dear God, I never thought I’d see Holman Hunt seem so exalted. I think they use him at the Tate to prop doors open.”

Frances Coles, who quite liked Victorian art, was gazing admiringly at the happy scene of a matronly woman presiding over a silver-laden tea table at an outing with her five children and their various pets. It was as exact as a photograph, and seemed to capture the children’s personalities in their varying expressions.

“You can tell she had domestic help,” said Alice MacKenzie, who was also studying the painting.

“I wonder if they had to cook all those things for the picnic every time Mr. Hunt came to paint some more of the picture,” mused Kate Conway.

Having already given Mr. Holman Hunt considerably more than his due, in Rowan’s jaded opinion, the guide shooed them out into another passageway. “Now this is more like it!” he exclaimed, catching a glimpse of the framed drawings that lined the corridor. “These are William Blake’s own illustrations for Songs of Innocence. Wonderful! I thought these were in the Tate!” While the group congregated around the first few etchings, Rowan took another look at his crib sheets. “Reproductions!” he exclaimed. “The originals are in the Tate!” Seeing the questioning expression on the faces of his followers, Rowan forced a note of enthusiasm back into his voice. “But these are very good copies. Quite recognizable. And should you ever visit the Tate, you will know what to look for. Let’s move along, shall we.”

The next room proved to be the Carys’ dining room, formally decorated eighteenth-century style, with pale green walls and an ornate ceiling, all adorned with white bas-relief scenes of Roman figures and other ancient images.

“You have heard of the famous architect Robert Adam and the term Adam room!” Rowan solemnly inquired.

Eagerly, they all nodded that they had indeed.

“Well, this isn’t one.” He turned on his heel and walked out.

He was more enthusiastic about an unconverted part of the ancient building, with its thick stone walls and simple medieval lines. These rooms were used as workrooms for the servants. As they wound their way up the twisting stone staircase, Nancy Warren noticed a small slit in an alcove by the stairs. “What is this hole for, Rowan?” she asked. “It reminds me of a laundry chute, but it’s too small.”

“You’re on the right track,” he said. “It’s… why don’t you lean over and take a deep breath just above it.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Nancy and Alice did as he suggested.

“It smells like my catbox,” Alice declared.

Rowan nodded approvingly. “Identical purpose, but for people instead of cats. The smell never quite comes out of the stone.”

Elizabeth MacPherson muttered, “Remind me not to buy a castle.”

“But where is the Agatha Christie room?” asked Maud Marsh, tugging at the sleeve of the guide’s sweater.

He ran his finger along the map. “I think if we go through this door, we should be there. So, if no one wishes to try out the laundry chute, let us proceed.”

They emerged again into the renovated part of the ancient abbey, in a carpeted upstairs hallway. “Here we are,” Rowan announced, peering into an open door. “This door on the right. Go right in.”

There was barely space for a dozen people in the tiny room with its casement window-and its air of having been a bedroom before the museum people started stashing exhibits in every cranny. The walls were now taken up with bookcases, all filled with various editions of Agatha Christie’s eighty-odd novels, and amidst this literary display were a few framed, unautographed photos, a Mousetrap program, and a battered manual typewriter. Gravely the group studied these tributes to the city’s most famous author.

Finally Susan Cohen broke the leaden silence. “I have a better collection than this,” she said quietly. “I have a copy of every book she ever wrote, too, and I have seen all these photos elsewhere. Except that one over there, of her brother’s dog.”

“I have a movie poster from Death on the Nile,” said Frances Coles.

Maud Marsh peered at the photographs and frowned. “I don’t get any feeling of the woman herself from this room.”

“That would have pleased her,” said Rowan. “I do know that much about her.”

“Did you say this place served teas?” asked Charles Warren, who had endured the afternoon’s enlightenment with remarkable forbearance.

“Yes, and I think it’s time we sampled them,” said Rowan. “Nearly five. Everyone ready? I think there’s a staircase we haven’t tried at the end of this hall.” His voice trailed off into a mutter. “God knows what they’ll have stuck up on it. Stuffed badgers in choir robes, I expect.”

Alice MacKenzie caught up with him on the way downstairs. “Look, Rowan,” she said. “This month is the centennial of Agatha Christie’s birth. There’s bound to be some sort of commemoration here in Torquay. God knows it isn’t here. Maybe there’s another museum, or if we could just go into a few shops. I promised Phyllis back at Grounds for Murder-that’s our mystery bookstore in San Diego-that I’d bring her back something on the centennial for the shop, a tea towel or something. Couldn’t we just go into town and look?”

Rowan shook his head. “Sorry,” he told her. “We’re on a tight schedule, and I have to get you back to Exeter in time for a seven o’clock reception.” Really , he thought to himself, if this lot had been on the Crusades, they would have bought the Holy Land.

Elizabeth MacPherson, who was just behind them on the stairs, had overheard this exchange. “Yes, Alice,” she said eagerly. “We have to get to the hotel in Exeter as soon as possible. Someone’s going to be murdered!”

“Oh, dear! Rowan, are you all right? These stairs are treacherous, aren’t they?”

EXETER

THE MURDER PARTY pronounced Torre Abbey’s cream tea with fresh scones and clotted cream infinitely superior to its exhibits. They dawdled for nearly an hour in the cheery cafe next to the abbey kitchen, wolfing down their allotment of homemade pastry and discussing the weekend’s entertainment at the hotel in Exeter. The hotel had scheduled a murder mystery event, wherein an acting troupe stages a participatory drama, killing off several cast members during the course of the weekend. The guests play bit parts in the charade while they attempt to solve the murders, trying to make sense of the very Christie-like clues put before them. All is revealed on Sunday morning after breakfast, and prizes are awarded to the correct guessers.