Murder on the Orient Espresso(33)

Missy took them and read, ‘Titanium.’

‘What’s that?’

She looked embarrassed and handed them back to me. ‘A … gentlemen’s club?’

‘Ah, then definitely Potter’s.’ I slipped the match book into the pocket of my sundress.

Missy looked around the cramped space again. ‘He came this way, then.’

‘But probably not to smoke,’ I said, looking around myself. ‘Unless he did it in the restroom. Maybe that’s why it smelled like that.’

‘I think that was just train smell and toilet. There are a lot of us onboard and we’ve all been using that restroom. I think the other is at the far end of the sleeping car.’

‘So if Potter isn’t in this bathroom, maybe he’s in that one. The only other option is …’

‘Oh, dear. Do you think he’s with Rosemary? I wondered if that’s what his wife was insinuating.’

‘Insinuating’ was putting it mildly. ‘Could Potter have snuck in there after you left?’

She shrugged. ‘I hate to think he’d do that, but, well, I’m starting to believe no one is what they seem to be.’

As far as I was concerned, Laurence Potter was exactly what he seemed – a pompous sleazeball, but then I tend to be judgmental. ‘Where is Rosemary sleeping it off?’

‘The farthest roomette – that’s what the train company calls the little sleeping compartments – from where we are. On the left. I knew we’d be using the nearest one to the passenger car for solving our program’s crime, so I wanted Rosemary to be as far away as possible so she wouldn’t be disturbed.’

‘Good idea,’ I said, not bothering to add that it was also the room where, like the last one on a hotel corridor, two people could fool around with less likelihood of being discovered. ‘We know Potter came through here, because of the matchbook. Is there an outside platform anywhere that he could smoke?’

‘You mean like on the back of an old-time campaign train? I doubt it, though I suppose he could open an exit door.’

Yikes. ‘Haven’t you seen the news stories about people disappearing from trains?’ I asked. ‘Granted, many of them were older or ill but the authorities suspect they got confused and thought the door led to the bathroom or the next car. Once opened, with the velocity of the train, they—’

‘Oh, dear. But then why aren’t the exits kept locked?’

‘Because there are also safety issues arguing against that. People need to be able to get out quickly in case of an emergency.’

Could Potter have opened the exit door to have a smoke and somehow, perhaps when the train hit a rough section of track, tumbled out?

Leaving the question and the vestibule behind, I opened the first roomette door on the left and peered in. All I saw was blackness and all I felt was warmth. Someone had opened the window. ‘Hello? Is anybody in here?’

Missy reached past me and felt for a light. ‘I think—’

As I took a step forward, she screamed and grabbed my arm.

At first I thought the scream was because my sandal had landed in the mutilated left foot from the cake left lying on the floor, grinding buttercream into the carpet.

But then I saw the body, knife protruding prominently from the chest.





THIRTEEN





‘We have to get the sheriff,’ I said, backing-pedaling and pulling Missy with me. ‘He’ll know—’

The body sat up, and Missy’s scream nearly deafened me. But the corpse wasn’t the critic, of course. It was Pavlik in the fake mustache.

‘Damn it, Pavlik.’ Deafened but not mute, I stomped my foot into a second smear of cake icing on the floor. ‘You scared the living hell out of us.’

Missy was crying. ‘How did you get past … ohhh.’ Realization dawned on her tear-streaked face. ‘Did you shut us in that bathroom?’

‘I’m sorry.’ The sheriff was smiling and didn’t appear a bit apologetic. Perversely desirable, though. Made me want to jump right in that bunk with him.

Missy, however, was not as easily mollified. ‘That was cruel.’

Pavlik held up his hands. ‘Truly, I am sorry. I couldn’t resist, but it was a childish thing to do. Please forgive me?’

Now it was Missy who was smiling, her toe doing little coy circles. ‘Well, I suppose so. If you promise not to do it again.’

With luck, the opportunity to shut two women in a train bathroom in order to scare them by playing a fictional murdered villain come-to-life wouldn’t pop up on a regular basis.

‘Promise.’ Pavlik crossed his heart.

Oh, please.