Free Murder a la Richelieu (American Queens of Crime Book 2) by Anita Blackmon Page A

scandalous, Inspector Bunyan, please allow me to tell you that my life is an open book.”
    “No wonder she’s a disappointed old maid,” said Hilda Anthony.
    The inspector frowned and looked for the first time a little nettled, but the Anthony woman merely smiled mockingly when he surveyed her with mingled resentment and admiration.
    “If it’s my turn, Inspector,” she said blithely, “I did not know the murdered man. I never spoke to him or he to me, and while the employees in this house are a bunch of snooping busybodies, I defy any of them to tell you the contrary.”
    “No,” said the inspector with what I took for regret, “no one has said anything of the kind about you, Mrs-er-Anthony.”
    I sniffed. “But James Reid was watching her from the stairs while we were at dinner tonight.”
    She grinned at me. “Men always watch a pretty woman, Miss Adams, though of course you wouldn’t know about that.”
    The inspector hastily consulted his notebook, a little as though he needed something to distract his attention from the Anthony’s opulent curves. Apparently he came up with Stephen Lansing’s name.
    “You are a salesman, I believe, of cosmetics,” he murmured.
    Stephen laughed. “Guilty.”
    “Did you know the unlamented Mr Reid?”
    “Nope.”
    “Positive?”
    “Positive!”
    The inspector made a little drawing on the side of the notebook.
    “You were in the Sally Ray Beauty Shop from four to five this afternoon, Mr Lansing, demonstrating a new permanent-wave pad?”
    Stephen Lansing’s eyes narrowed. “Yep.”
    “At five minutes to five a man in the Sally Ray Shop called this hotel and got in touch with 511, the room occupied by Mr Reid, of New Orleans.”
    “And so?” murmured Stephen Lansing with a chuckle that rang anything except true to my ears.
    “Did you telephone to Mr Reid this afternoon?”
    “Nope.”
    The inspector sighed, slowly riffled through the pages of his notebook, and asked, “None of you cares to amend your statement? It will in the long run save you as well as myself a great deal of useless difficulty if you speak the truth, here and now, freely and without reservation.”
    No one said anything. The inspector sighed again and glanced lingeringly from Mary Lawson’s drawn white face to her niece’s bright twisted smile.
    “It was the knife from your desk set, Mrs Lawson,” he said very quietly.
    Mary all but wrung her hands. “I haven’t killed anyone!”
    “And I didn’t even know who was killed until I was dragged upstairs,” Polly cried.
    The inspector pursed his lips. “Yet you tried to run away with the weapon, Miss Lawson.”
    She was trembling. “Someone threw it out the window. I was on the sidewalk, waiting for Mr Lansing to return. All at once something clattered at my feet. It was – it was –”
    “The knife from your aunt’s desk set?”
    “And there was blood on it. I got some on my hand. Then I heard the police siren and I-I lost my head and ran.”
    “Ah!” murmured the inspector. He waited a minute. “Can you prove you did not follow Mr Lansing back into the hotel, Miss Lawson?”
    Polly’s teeth were chattering. “Pinky was at the desk. He would have seen me.”
    “Mr Dodge says that at about a quarter of eight he was in the telephone booth, taking a long-distance call from Memphis, asking for a room reservation. He cannot swear who passed through the lobby at that time.”
    “But there were others in the lobby,” cried Polly. “Miss Adams for one.”
    “I should certainly have seen Miss Lawson had she re-entered the hotel,” I said indignantly.
    The inspector regarded me thoughtfully. “Did you see Mr Mosby when he cautiously circled around you and made his way upstairs, Miss Adams?”
    “No,” I was forced to admit.
    “Did you see Mr Stephen Lansing when he re-entered the hotel?”
    “N-no.”
    The inspector shrugged his shoulders significantly, and Hilda Anthony laughed. “How it must gripe Miss Adams not to have