Дебора Хоу - Howliday Inn

“Escaped,” I added. “But soon she’ll be back with us.”

“Nonsense,” Chester said scornfully. “She didn’t escape. And she won’t be back. No one comes back from murder!”

“Murder?”

“Of course, murder,” Chester replied evenly. “It’s all falling into place, don’t you see?”

“What’s falling into place?”

“The suspects. The motives. And now the evidence,” said Chester.

I was confused (which around Chester is a normal state of being, so it didn’t alarm me). “What evidence?” I asked.

“Look for yourself,” he said, with a nod toward the bungalow. “What do you see?”

I surveyed the interior. “A rug. A water dish. A food dish,” I said. “Just like mine.”

“Ah, but it isn’t just like yours, Harold, and that’s the key.”

“Why? I don’t see anything so different.”

“Look again. And this time use your powers of observation, such as they are. Now , what do you see?”

I scrunched up my eyes and looked carefully at each square inch of space as if studying for a final exam at obedience school.

“Well?” Chester prodded.

“A rug. A water dish. A food dish,” I proclaimed.

Chester sighed and shook his head sadly. “Sometimes I despair, Harold,” he uttered. “Allow me to fill you in on what you’ve missed.”

“Please do.”

“The rug. How is it different from yours?” I shrugged. “It’s all jumbled up,” Chester went on. “A real mess, in fact. And the food dish? Almost filled with food. These observations may seem insignificant, but wait, my friend. Now we come to the water dish, perhaps the most significant item of all. And yet it isn’t really the water dish, but what lies around it that is so disturbing.”

Thoroughly confused, I looked at the water dish and the floor around it. Nothing struck me as unusual.

“But don’t you see?” Chester asked. “What is lying all around the water dish?”

“Water?” I ventured.

“Exactly!” he exclaimed triumphantly.

“But what else would you expect to find around a water dish?”

“Ordinarily, the appearance of water around a water dish would not be out of the ordinary in the least. But given the unusual combination of factors, it is most striking. And it will be given serious consideration in our investigation.”

Suddenly, Lyle zoomed by us.

“Faster than a speeding bullet—” I heard him call out as he passed. “Able to leap buildings in a single bound!”

Chester shook his head. “That Lyle is a disgrace to the species,” he said. Then, back on the track of his previous thought, he said, “Come on, Harold, I need to talk this out with you right now.”

We found a quiet spot under a tree in a corner of the compound. The storm seemed to have abated for the moment, and I thought how pleasant it would be just to lie here for a while and commune with nature. But Chester had other ideas.

“The rug, the food dish and the water on the floor all add up to foul play, my dear Harold, don’t you see? Signs of a struggle, old boy!” Old boy? I thought. “My guess—and it’s only a guess, mind you—is that someone pushed Louise’s head into the water while she was drinking. She resisted, which accounts for the spilled water and the wrinkled rug.”

“And the food?” I asked.

“She never finished her dinner,” Chester said simply. “She was … shall we say … interrupted.”

I must confess Chester’s deductions began to awaken in me the possibility that what he was suspecting was true. Still, I wasn’t going to give up my theory of Louise’s escape so easily.

“What if it happened just as Jill and Harrison said?” I asked. “Isn’t that possible?”

“Sure, it’s possible,” Chester answered. “But it’s unlikely.”

“Why?”

“If Louise had run away, it’s only logical she would have finished eating her dinner first, since she couldn’t have known when she’d be eating her next meal. And why the appearance of a struggle? And why,” Chester added, “was Max’s door open as well?”

“So you’re saying Max did it?”

“I’m not saying anything—yet. Obviously, Max had the motive. And the strength to pull it off. Let us picture the scene: He comes to Louise’s bungalow telling her he wants to apologize. She lets him in. He pushes her head into the water. She struggles, but he has the strength to hold her down. Afterward, he drags her body out through the front gate.”

“But he’s so upset today,” I said, still not believing Max capable of such an act.

“Either that or, as I suggested before, he’s pretending he is. To throw us off, you see?”

I allowed as how I did. “What about Georgette?” I asked. “She could have done it. I wouldn’t put much past her.”

“Yes, that’s possible, too. The only problem there is that I doubt she has the strength to hold Louise’s head down. What’s more likely is that they’re in cahoots, she and Max. She may have been his accomplice. Unless, of course,” and here Chester thought for a moment, “I have the method of the murder itself wrong. Hmm, that will bear some thinking.”

In the distance, Lyle dropped from the branch of a tree onto Taxi’s head. Taxi, not in the mood to wear Lyle as a hat, shook him off so violently that he landed several feet away. Stunned, he picked himself up and screamed at Taxi, “I can tell when I’m not wanted! Don’t think I can’t take a hint!” And he stormed off.

“What about Lyle?” I asked. “Do you remember how he threatened Louise yesterday?”

“Indeed, I do,” Chester answered, nodding slowly. “ ‘You haven’t seen the end of me,’ he said. ‘Just watch out!’ And you know, Harold, Lyle is just crazy enough to do it. When you think about it, the murderer could be anyone here.”

“Anyone?” I asked, puzzled.

“Anyone!” Chester affirmed. “We know, for instance, that Howard and Heather are part werewolf—”

“ You know,” I corrected.

“Oh, come on, Harold, no normal dog howls like that.”

“That’s true,” I concurred, “ I don’t.”

“True. Of course, you’re not normal either, but we’ll overlook that for the moment.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Besides, werewolves are very hairy. Look at how hairy Howard and Heather are.”

“They’re wire-haired dachshunds. You said so yourself.”

“They’re very hairy wire-haired dachshunds,” Chester countered, refusing to allow logic to blow his theory. “And if they are werewolves, they can change shape anytime they want.”

“Huh?” I inquired.

“Werewolves can change into anything, anytime at all, in order to assist them in their pursuit of evil.” I tried to imagine Howard and Heather changing shape. It was hard to picture Howard as a clothes hanger or Heather as a toaster-oven. I was about to mention this to Chester when he spoke again.

“You have to admit they were behaving strangely today,” he said. “Guilt, Harold. They were consumed with guilt!”

I said, “I doubt werewolves feel guilty.”

“The guilt comes from the wire-haired dachshund part of them. It’s common to the breed.”

“Oh,” I replied. “And what about Harrison and Jill? Do you suspect them, too?”

“Of course,” said Chester. “They’re both a little on the shady side, if you ask me. Besides, we don’t know the whole story on this Dr. Greenbriar yet. If you want my opinion, it’s more than a little strange that he’s gone off and left us in the care of these two. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they’re acting on his orders.”

“What are you implying?”

“I’m not implying anything,” Chester answered innocently. “I’m just thinking out loud. It’s interesting, that’s all, that while the doctor is away, Louise disappears. And neither Harrison nor Jill seemed too concerned about letting him know.”