Murder on the Orient Espresso(29)

‘Oh, yes,’ the young woman said. ‘But only props for the workshop. Rubber knives and the like.’

That was a relief, at least. Maybe I would attend, after all.

‘… shipped everything I needed, along with my handouts,’ Pavlik was saying.

That explained what was in the UPS box that had been waiting for us in the hotel room.

‘My Glock Forty semi-automatic,’ he continued, ‘and a Colt Detective Special, a revolver designed for a six-chamber cylinder. I also have a variety of cartridges – standard, hollow-point, Hydra-shok, the Glaser Safety Slug—’

Suddenly the Flagler Suite wasn’t looking quite so romantic.

‘You will talk about caliber versus millimeter, won’t you?’ This from Prudence, whom I’d forgotten about. ‘That always confuses people and we really need to know those things in order to write intelligently.’

‘I’ll have thirty-eight, forty and forty-five caliber cartridges as well as nine millimeter, to illustrate,’ Pavlik assured Prudence, then turned to me. ‘What we’re talking about, Maggy, is the diameter of the ammunition. A forty-five caliber bullet or cartridge – the same thing, for our purposes – is forty-five one hundreds of an inch in diameter, or nearly half an inch across. A nine millimeter is, as you might guess, nine millimeters across.’

‘And nearly equal to the size of a thirty-eight caliber,’ Missy contributed brightly. ‘If you do the conversion from metric, I mean.’

‘A nine is a bit smaller than a thirty-eight,’ Pavlik said with an approving nod. ‘But very close.’

Obviously gratified, Missy asked, ‘And did you bring – or ship – a variety of knives as well?’

‘I have a rubber knife with a five-inch blade to use in the hands-on demonstration, of course. For show-and-tell, I shipped a switch blade, and gravity, pocket and buck knives.’

What, I thought, no death by butter knife?

‘Oh, and my assassin’s dagger, of course.’

So I would hang out at the pool tomorrow. Or maybe go to the beach. There was an original thought, given I was in South Florida. From rainforest tonight to sand castles tomorrow. And I’d thought Wisconsin was diverse.

‘Gravity,’ Prudence said. ‘Is that the one with the button on the handle?’

‘Exactly,’ my personal weapons expert said. ‘When that’s pushed and you flick out to the side with your wrist, the weight of the blade opens the knife.’

‘But isn’t that a switchblade?’ Missy seemed puzzled.

I, for my part, was completely lost.

‘Not at all,’ Pavlik said. ‘When you thumb the button – or ‘switch’ – on a switchblade, the blade flicks out automatically.’

‘So no gravity needed.’ Prudence was nodding.

‘Correct,’ Pavlik said. ‘The pocket knife, on the other—’

‘We’re moving,’ I interrupted, feeling the train hiccup in the other direction. And with Pavlik still safely inside. My delaying tactic had worked.

‘Oh, thank goodness.’ Missy was back to the window. ‘The engineer has already moved to the other locomotive. We must be starting back toward Fort Lauderdale.’

‘Spry old fellow,’ Prudence said.

‘The engineer? Oh, he’s quite the character.’ Missy checked her watch. ‘I do worry that we’ll get back to the station too early, though. You know, before the crime is solved?’

‘Maybe someone should make an announcement,’ I suggested. ‘Requesting that Potter and the rest of the “cast” come to this car.’

There was a flaw, of course, in my plan: Laurence Potter obviously didn’t want to appear. Missy, however, didn’t seem to see it. ‘That’s a wonderful idea, Maggy. Zoe should—’

‘Zoe? Why not you?’ Prudence prodded. ‘You do most of the work, anyway. Why let her take all the credit?’

Missy blushed, tugging down her dress. ‘Oh, no, I prefer to work behind the scenes. I couldn’t.’

‘You couldn’t what?’ Zoe, perhaps instinctively, had magically turned up, too.

‘Maggy suggested that we make an announcement …’

‘Maggy?’ Zoe repeated.

I raised my hand. The woman was either stupid or trying to rile me. I was betting on the latter.

‘Oh, right,’ Zoe said distractedly, her attention drawn to the commotion in the corner, where a huge man dressed in a zoot suit was trying to climb onto the table.

Pavlik, having been thwarted in his effort to save the day by venturing into the Everglades, slid out of the booth. ‘You!’ he said in a thundering voice. ‘Down! Now!’