Page 45 of Murder Most Actual

“That she’s signed with her initials,” Liza pointed out, “probably because whoever wrote it knew that the hotel might have seen her real signature.”

Sir Richard gave an approving nod. “Good spot, old girl, but not exactly conclusive.”

“She was also still holding the pen,” explained Liza. “In her right hand. Having shot herself in the right side of the head.”

Professor Worth raised his left hand as if holding an imaginary revolver and tried to reach around to point it at his opposite temple. “Oh, that is uncomfortable. No, it seems very unlikely she’d have done that.”

“What if she wanted to kill herself but make it look like she’d been murdered?” suggested the ever-unhelpful Colonel Coleman.

“What, like in the Problem of Thor Bridge?” Liza was a little concerned that her mind had gone straight to Holmes, but she could feel guilty about fictionalising a complex situation later. “If she was going to do that, wouldn’t she not write a suicide note? Are you saying she tried to make her suicide look like a murder that somebody had tried to make look like a suicide?”

“It’s possible,” maintained the colonel with a tenacity that had probably proven really useful in the war, but now very much wasn’t.

“No, it isn’t.” Sir Richard slapped the table enthusiastically. “I’d lay five hundred pounds on it.”

Lady Tabitha leaned towards her nephew. “Dicky, dear.”

“Sorry, make that one hundred pounds. Trying to rein in the old spending.”

At the back of the room, Ruby was looking increasingly concerned. “Suppose you’re right,” she said. “Suppose there was somebody else involved. What does that mean?”

A look of steely certainty was spreading across Sir Richard’s face. “It means—that we’re being ten-green-bottles-ed.”

Ruby arched an eyebrow. “Come again?”

“You know, like the counting song. ‘Ten green bottles, hanging on a wall,’ and all that.” The significance of the allusion, Sir Richard’s tone at least was implying, should have been obvious. “‘And if one green bottle should accidentally fall, there’ll be nine green bottles hanging on a wall.’”

The expression on Ruby’s face was one of exquisite unimpressedness. “Are you saying we’re being picked off?”

Colonel Coleman shot out of his seat like a rocket out of a bottle. “Burgh, to the gun room.”

Hands covering her face, Hanna slumped back in her chair. “Can we please not introduce more firearms just when we’ve got the last one locked up again?”

“I suppose it is locked up?” added Liza.

“It is.” Mr Burgh didn’t look hugely confident. “And I have put the key in a new safe place I shall not reveal.”

“Is it around your neck?” Ruby’s eyes darted to a suspicious outline just visible through Mr Burgh’s shirt.

His hand went reflexively to his chest. “No?”

The dining room doors opened, causing several of the guests to jump, but it was only Emmeline White. “Just came through to say we’re officially out of sausages.” She stopped and looked around the guests’ faces. Nobody was looking especially like sausages were on their mind. “Oh no,” she said, “what’s happened now?”

“Ms Blaine believes that Mrs Ackroyd was murdered,” explained Mr Burgh.

“And Sir Richard believes we’re being hunted down one by one,” added Ruby. “Like dogs.”

Ms White looked sceptical. “Why would anybody do that?”

“Be sure your sin will find you out,” said Sir Richard gnomically.

At that Colonel Coleman grew pale. “You mean, we’ve all been lured here by some … some avenging angel?”

“I’m sure we’ve all sinned.” The vicar’s tone was grave, as if he was taking this far more seriously than Liza thought was really necessary. “But angels don’t kill; people do.”

“I meant it metaphorically.”

Hanna ran a hand through her hair. “Can we lay off the sin talk? This isn’t some cosmic punishment. It’s just a shitty situation we’re stuck in.”

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