Murder Takes the High Road(21)
“How’s your room?” Ben asked. “We’ve got a view of the woods.” He looked nice in a gray wool pullover and jeans.
“I think the word is quaint,” I replied. “We’re facing the front garden but our only window is recessed and offers a lovely view of the fire escape.”
“The good news is you’ll manage to escape when the place burns down tonight. The power went out on our floor.”
“Ours too. Only for a few seconds though.”
Yvonne said, “I suspect some of these rooms might have been the old servant quarters. There should be some compensation for that.”
“Well, it’s all part of the adventure, right?”
Wrong, said Yvonne’s expression.
“I guess in a place this old there are bound to be problems with the wiring. I’m willing to make the tradeoff.” Laurel Matsukado was seated on my other side. “I can see why Vanessa used it as the setting for the first time Rachel and Michael spent a night together.”
“I seriously doubt Vanessa ever slept here,” Yvonne said. “I doubt if she so much as had a meal here. I was looking through my guidebook and there are much nicer hotels in the vicinity.”
“But the idea is to stick to the locales Vanessa used for the books,” I said. “That’s the point of the tour.”
“Isn’t there something called literary license? Rachel and Michael deserved better. As do we.”
Laurel and I glanced at each other. I had a feeling my expression matched her determinedly pleasant not-going-to-get-into-it one. There was probably an Yvonne on every tour.
Our meals came. For me, roast leg of lamb with a rosemary and red wine gravy, and blackcurrant and apple-mint jelly on the side. It looked great and smelled even better. Between the double whisky and the prospect of a nice—and traditionally Scottish—meal, my spirits rose.
Yvonne leaned across to say, “I can never understand people who order lamb.”
“It’s pretty tasty when it’s prepared properly.”
“I can’t help thinking about how sweet they look, stumbling around the meadows, their little tails going a mile a minute.”
If someone was going to be murdered on our tour, I hoped it would be Yvonne. And I hoped it would be soon.
Ben gave me one of his apologetic smiles. I summoned a return smile. It occurred to me I hadn’t seen John. I glanced around and finally spotted him three tables over, deep in conversation with Gerda Rice, one of the teacher quartet. Gerda was smiling, but she kept glancing at her companions like how did I get stuck with this guy? Maybe he was trying to sell her an insurance policy.
Happily, murder was not the topic of conversation during the meal.
In fact, the dinner table mood was congenial and lively, despite the frantic rush to get ready and get downstairs in time. The naps and whisky on the bus seemed to have left everyone refreshed and ready to party. A few more drinks at dinner didn’t hurt.
Sally and I talked about books and the challenges of keeping print relevant in the digital age. She complained too many of her customers treated her bookstore like a library. I complained that too many of my patrons treated my library like a daycare center.
Before dessert was served, the lively scrape and slide of fiddles drifted from down the hall. The musicians were warming up in the former ballroom, which was now used as the hotel meeting room.
“Are you going to the ceilidh?” Ben asked.
“Sure. We all are, aren’t we?” I couldn’t help noticing Yvonne was listening to our exchange. I smiled at her. Her mouth curved tightly in automatic response.
“Is there dancing? I’m not much for dancing.”
“I’m not sure, but Scottish country dancing isn’t like ballroom dancing. It’s more like controlled running and skipping. They’ll have someone to walk us through the sets.”
“I’m not much for skipping either.”
I smiled, but I found his attitude disappointing. I mean, I wasn’t exactly the adventurous type—as Trevor never hesitated to point out—but even I knew when in Rome—or Scotland. Wasn’t that the point of travel? Broaden your horizons? Push your boundaries? I didn’t want to think I had more boundaries than horizons.
*
The meal ended and the various tour directors began shepherding their groups out of the dining room. Alison informed us that yes, there would be country dancing for anyone brave enough to give it a whirl, and I decided to put those old lessons to good use and went upstairs to change my boots for running shoes.
For a hotel full of guests, the halls seemed eerily quiet as I jogged up the flights of stairs leading to the second level and then down the shadowy corridor to my room. An old hotel definitely smelled different from a new hotel. It wasn’t musty exactly, but the scent of decades’ worth of pets and pipes and flowers and furniture polish had permeated the paneling and floorboards. In some strange way the odor reminded me of old books. Maybe because it was the fragrance of hundreds of lives, hundreds of stories.
As I reached the door I realized it stood slightly ajar. Someone was moving around inside my room. The hair rose on the back of my neck. I halted.
Not the maid. The hotel did not offer turndown service. Probably no one who wasn’t a paying guest wanted to stay past sundown.
Not John. I’d just seen him downstairs, on his way toward the ballroom with most of our group.