Instead of answering, she said, “Gideon, have you worn your sport coat since we got here?”
“No, why?”
“You didn’t rehang it after I put it in the closet?”
“No, why are you asking?”
“It’s been hung backward on the hanger.”
He came over to stand beside her. His gray Harris tweed hung neatly from a wooden hanger. It looked fine to him. “What’s wrong with it? I didn’t know you could hang a jacket backward on a hanger.”
“Sure, you can. Look at it, it’s hung so that the wooden shoulder supports slant backward instead of forward. I would never in a million years hang a jacket like that.”
“You’re as bad as Audrey with her toilet paper,” he said, laughing. He placed his hand on his heart. “I solemnly swear that I, Gideon Paul Oliver, did not-” He suddenly understood what she was driving at. “Somebody’s been in the room – they took the jacket down and rehung it the wrong way!”
She nodded. “And that explains why the key was missing.”
A hurried search, followed by a more thorough one, found nothing gone, although a few more details seemed to prove the entry of an intruder: a pen that she was certain had been lying on top of a post-card was now beside it; the bed skirt, which had been neatly in place when they’d left for dinner, now had a couple of twisted ruffles, as if someone had lifted it to look under the bed. It was odd, but nothing new, that Gideon, who could be so wonderfully, scrupulously observant when it came to some old bone, spotted none of these homely details but had to take Julie’s word for them.
“They were after the vertebrae,” he said, flopping into an armchair.
“But they were in the safe, not here.”
“Yes, but when I left with them after dinner I was going to leave them here. I announced I was going to leave them here.”
Thoughtfully, she took the chair beside him. “So, one more time, it has to be somebody from the group who did it. They’re the only ones who would have heard you say it.”
“Of course. They’re the only ones who know about the vertebrae at all.”
“Well… George knows… at reception?”
“Sure, but he’s the guy that put them in the safe for me.”
“Right,” she said, nodding. “I didn’t really think it was George anyway. I just… I don’t know.”
“You just keep wanting whoever is doing all these things not to be one of these people – one of our friends. I feel the same way. But it’s one of them, all right. There’s no way around it anymore.” He leaned back, hands behind his head, and tried to twist the kinks out of his neck. “And now the vertebrae: How do they fit in? And where the heck did that T10 come from?”
There was a discreet tap on the door. When Gideon went to answer it he found a smiling Kayla there, holding out a plush monkey with the key to 205 dangling from it.
Gideon took it. “Thanks, where did you find it?”
“On the floor, in the Barbary Bar. It looks as if you must have dropped it there after all.”
“No, I didn’t have it there.”
“Well, then, you must-”
“Let me ask you something, Kayla. What time did you come on tonight?”
“When I always do. Ten o’clock.”
Ten o’clock. Everybody would still have been out on the Wisteria Terrace at that time.
“And were you away from reception at all?” He said it with a pleasant smile, so she wouldn’t feel threatened.
His pleasant smile failed him. Kayla immediately turned defensive. “No! I stay there the whole time.”
“You’re up here now. You came up with us a little while ago.”
“Yes, but only for a moment. It’s my job to-”
“Kayla, relax. You’re not in any trouble. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You think someone took the key when I wasn’t looking? You think someone was in your room when you were downstairs? Has something been taken?”
“No, nothing’s been taken, but someone’s been in here. And yes, I think he did get the key when you weren’t looking. Think now. You never left the desk?”
“Well, I did go to the loo once, but other than that, I never.. . oh, there was one other time – someone telephoned to say that there was a lorry blocking the driveway, but when I went out it was already gone.”
“Ah.”
“But I couldn’t have been away for more than thirty seconds.”
Time enough to snatch a monkey, Gideon thought. “What time would that have been?”
“Oh… ten forty-five, or maybe a little after.”
Ten forty-five. Just after the session on the terrace broke up and the others were all on their own. “Okay, thanks a lot, Kayla.”
She hesitated. “Did you want me… shall I call the police?”
“No, don’t worry about it; I’ll take care of it.”
She looked much relieved; police calls at the Rock Hotel were obviously infrequent and best kept that way, especially on her watch.
“You are going to call the police, aren’t you?” Julie asked as the door closed. She had changed into her nightie and returned to the armchair.
“I don’t think so,” Gideon said, returning to sprawl in his chair again. “Not much point to it. It’s after midnight. I’ll tell Fausto about it in the morning. It can wait till then.”
“Are you sure that’s wise? Isn’t it better to check for fingerprints and things as soon as possible, before we muck them up?”
“Yes, but what good would fingerprints do, or DNA, for that matter? Everybody who could possibly have done it has already been in the room.”
“They have?”
“Yes, the first night, remember? Everybody came by and sat around for a while before the testimonial, schmoozing and knocking back their drinks.”
“Oh, that’s right,” she said, barely managing to cover a yawn. “Well, I still think we ought to report it.”
“Report what? That somebody broke into our room and hung my sport coat backward?”
But she had dozed off in the chair, bare dimpled knees drawn up, chin resting on her hand, dark curls falling over her face. For a long while, he sat there and took her in.
“You’re sure pretty,” he murmured. “Too bad you’re asleep.”
“I can be awakened,” she said without opening her eyes. “If there’s a good enough reason.”
TWENTY-ONE
Just as unpacking their clothes on arrival was Julie’s job, as called for by their informal but not-to-be- messed-with division-of-labor agreement, the provision of morning coffee was Gideon’s task. Up a little before seven, he brewed a heavenly smelling pot in their room and carried two mugs of it back to bed, where the upturned corners of Julie’s mouth and her gently quivering nostrils, if not her tightly shut eyes, showed her appreciation and receptivity. (Julie was one of those people who had a hard time speaking in complete sentences, or any sentences at all, until she’d downed a few swallows of good, rich, hot Arabica.)
Sitting up in bed with their backs against the headboard, swathed in terry cloth Rock Hotel robes, they sipped away and talked some more about the vertebrae, but couldn’t come any closer to a plausible explanation for the attempted theft, or even for the very existence of that mystifying T10, than they had the previous night.
“Why don’t we join the others at breakfast and ask them about it?” Julie suggested as he was refilling their cups. (By her second cup she was not only able to speak intelligibly, but to make a certain amount of sense.) “You can show them the vertebrae, tell them you know they’re from Gibraltar Woman, and see what they come up with.”
