AllFreeNovel
Share Us
No sooner have I had these thoughts than I visibly begin to shake.
“Molly,” Mr. Preston says, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Would it be all right if I went into the kitchen and prepared us all a pot of tea? Charlotte will tell you, I’m very good at it, for a big old lug, anyhow.”
Charlotte strolls into the living room. “He makes a mean cuppa, my daddy does,” she says. “Leave that to him, and you can go freshen up, Molly. I’m sure you’re eager to change.”
“I most certainly am,” I say, looking down at my pajamas. “I won’t take long.”
“There’s no rush. We’ll be here when you’re ready.”
I can hear Mr. Preston clanging around in the kitchen and humming to himself while I’m out here in the hall. This is most certainly a breach of proper etiquette. The guests should be seated comfortably in the sitting room and I should be tending to them, not the other way around. And yet, the truth of the matter is, I can’t follow protocols in this very moment. I can barely think straight. My nerves are too frayed. While I stand, immobilized in my own hallway, Charlotte joins Mr. Preston in my kitchen. They chatter back and forth to each other, like two birds on a wire. It’s the most pleasing sound, like sunshine and hope, and for amoment I wonder what it is I have done to deserve the good fortune of having them both here. My legs gradually regain mobility and I walk over to the kitchen and stand in the threshold. “Thank you,” I say. “I can’t thank you enough for—”
Mr. Preston interrupts me. “Sugar bowl? I know it must be here somewhere.”
“In the cupboard beside the stove. First shelf,” I say.
“Off you go then. Leave the rest to us.”
I turn and head to the bathroom, where I shower quickly, grateful that there’s proper hot water today and relieved to scrub the sour filth of the station and court off my skin. I enter the living room a few minutes later in a white, buttoned-down blouse and dark slacks. I’m feeling quite a lot better.
Mr. Preston is seated on the sofa and Charlotte is sitting across from him on a chair she’s brought from the kitchen. He’s found Gran’s beautiful silver serving tray in the cupboard, the one we bought for a most economical sum at a thrift store so long ago. It’s so strange to see it in his large, masculine hands. The full tea service is expertly arranged on the table in front of the sofa.
“Where did you learn to serve a proper tea, Mr. Preston?”
“I wasn’t always a doorman, you know. I had to work my way up to that,” he says. “And to think, I now have a daughter who’s a lawyer.” His eyes crinkle up as he looks upon his daughter. It’s a look that reminds me so much of gran, I want to cry.
“Shall I pour you a cup?” Mr. Preston asks me. He doesn’t wait for an answer. “One lump or two?”
“It’s a two sort of day,” I say.
“Every day is a two sort of day for me,” he says. “I need all the sweetness I can get.”
Truthfully, so do I. I need the sugar because I’m feeling a tad faint again. I’ve had nothing to eat since the raisin-bran muffin in the station this morning. I don’t have enough food in my cupboards to serve three people and eating on my own would be the very pinnacle of impropriety.
“Dad, you’ve got to cut back on sugar,” Charlotte says, shaking her head. “You know it’s not good for you.”
“Ah well,” he replies. “Hard to teach an old dog new tricks and all, right, Molly?” He pats his belly and chuckles.
Charlotte puts her teacup on the table. She picks up the yellow pad of paper and a sleek gold pen she’s placed on the floor beside her chair. “So, Molly. Have a seat. Are you ready to talk? I’ll need you to tell me everything you know about the Blacks and why you think you stand accused of…well, many things.”
“Wrongly accused,” I say as I take a seat beside Mr. Preston.
“That’s a given, Molly,” Charlotte replies. “I’m sorry I didn’t make that immediately clear. My father and I wouldn’t be here if we didn’t believe that. Dad’s convinced you had nothing to do with this. He’s long suspected there’s nefarious activity taking place at that hotel.” She pauses and looks around the room. Her eyes land on Gran’s flowered curtains, her curio cabinet, and the English landscape prints on the wall. “I can see why Dad’s so sure about you, Molly. But to absolve you, we need to figure out who might actually be guilty of these crimes. We both think you’ve been played. Do you understand? You’ve been used as a pawn in Mr. Black’s murder.”
I recall the gun in my vacuum. The only people who knew about me and that gun were Giselle and Rodney. That thought alone sends a wave of sadness rushing through me. I slump over as it washes away all the gumption from my spine.
“I’m innocent,” I say. “I didn’t kill Mr. Black.” Tears prick my eyes and I drive them back. I don’t want to make a fool of myself, I really don’t.
“It’s all right,” Mr. Preston says, giving my arm a little pat. “We believe you. All you have to do is tell the truth,yourtruth, and Charlotte will see to the rest.”
“My truth. Yes,” I say. “I can do that. I suppose it’s time.”
I start with a full description of what I saw the day I entered the Black suite and found him dead in his bed. Charlotte furiously jots down my every word. I describe the drinks on the messy sitting-room table, Giselle’s spilled pill bottle in the bedroom, the discarded robe on thefloor, the three pillows on the bed rather than four. I start to shake as the memory returns.
“I’m not sure that pillows and messiness are the details Charlotte’s after here, Molly,” Mr. Preston says. “I think she’s looking for details that might suggest foul play.”
“That’s right,” Charlotte adds. “Such as the pills. You said the pills were Giselle’s. Did you touch them? Were they labeled?”
“No, I didn’t touch them. Not that day at least. And the container wasn’t labeled. I knew they were Giselle’s because she’d often take them in my presence when I was cleaning the suite. Plus, I often saw the bottle in the bathroom. She called them her ‘benz friends’ or her ‘chill pills.’ I believe ‘benz’ is a medicine of some sort? She did not seem ill to me—well, not in the physical sense. But some illnesses are a lot like maids—omnipresent but almost imperceptible.”
