And One to Die On(84)

Gregor knew the feet belonged to Richard Fenster, because no one but Richard Fenster wore clothes like this in this house. He had been sure as soon as he saw the legs that Richard Fenster was already dead. That was why he hadn’t rushed to check on him. Checking on him now, Gregor was careful anyway. He moved the table, not the body. He got down on one knee and felt for Richard Fenster’s pulse.

Gregor didn’t think he had ever been as shocked in his life as when he felt that vein begin to beat against his fingertip. It was a very faint beat, but it was unmistakably there. Gregor dropped Richard Fenster’s arm and moved quickly to his head. The wound there was just like the other two he had seen, except that it was lower and a little off-center. The killer had been standing above Tasheba Kent when whatever it was had been smashed into the side of Tasheba Kent’s head. The killer had been standing above Carlton Ji, too. In the case of Richard Fenster, the killer had had to swing upward, and it hadn’t worked so well. Almost all of the right side of Richard Fenster’s face had been caved in. Unlike Tasheba Kent’s and Carlton Ji’s, very little of Richard Fenster’s skull had been destroyed, if they could get him out of here and to a hospital right away, he might get off without even a hair of brain damage.

Gregor went to the door of the dining room and looked inside. The decorations had mostly been taken down. The paper plates and cups had been put in stacks and stowed away on the sideboard. Lydia Acken was setting out the silver candlesticks that had been on the table the night before. Gregor folded his arms across his chest and coughed to get their attention.

“Oh, look,” Hannah Graham said in her nasty voice. “If it isn’t the great detective.”

“That’s right,” Gregor told her. “It’s the great detective. And the great detective now requests the pleasure of your company in the television room. Immediately.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Hannah Graham said dismissively. “You ought to know that by now.”

“I know that if you don’t walk across that foyer under your own steam like a civilized human being, I’m going to drag you there by your hair,” Gregor said. “I no longer have any interest in putting up with your act. Ladies and gentlemen. If you would, please.”

“Where’s Richard Fenster?” Mathilda Frazier asked.

Gregor didn’t answer her. She would find out where Richard Fenster was soon enough. He turned away from the lot of them and went back across the foyer to the television room. They followed him in a big round herd, like cartoon sheep. Gregor stepped back far enough for the rest of them to get into the doorway and see inside. When most of them didn’t seem inclined to do this, Bennis Hannaford came forward and walked into the television room on her own.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “There’s another one. There’s another one dead.”

“Who’s dead?” Mathilda Frazier asked, hurrying forward. When she saw Richard Fenster on the floor, she went green and backed up, smacking into Kelly Pratt.

They were all crowding close now.

“Jesus Christ,” Kelly said. “What’s going on around here?”

“I know what’s going on around here,” Hannah said. “It’s a plot. Cavender and Geraldine planned it all months ago. They just waited for us to get here so that they could pull it off.”

“Planned what?” Lydia asked. “What could they possibly have wanted to plan?”

Cavender Marsh didn’t come anywhere near the television room door. Gregor noticed it, but didn’t remark on it.

“Right now,” he told them, “there’s only one thing we really have to worry about. And that’s the fact that Richard Fenster is not dead.”

“Not dead?” Hannah demanded. “What do you mean he’s not dead? His face has been smashed in just like all the others.”

“Not quite like all the others,” Gregor said. “The murderer’s stroke was off. More of Richard Fenster’s cheek and jaw were crushed than his skull. So now he’s alive, and we have to get him off of this island. We have to do it now. We don’t have much time.”

“But there isn’t any way to get him off this island,” Mathilda Frazier wailed. “The weather is still terrible. Just look at it.”

“I can think of a way we might be able to tell the people on the mainland that we needed help,” Geraldine Dart said suddenly. “It might not work, but it might. It couldn’t hurt us to try. But we need somebody who knows Morse code.”

“I know Morse code,” Bennis Hannaford said. “Eight straight years at Camp Winnipesaukee. What do you want me to do?”