Page 46 of Murder on the Brighton Express
“I was ready to be insulted. You rather took the wind out of my sails by paying me a compliment.”
“If I’d known comparing you to a seagull was the way to give you compliments without causing you to run away, I would have done it earlier.”
We were venturing into dangerous territory again, so I made no comment. To ensure I stayed silent, I decided to fill my mouth with more food, even though I was quite full. Harry must have had the same idea. We both reached for a chip at the same time. Our hands touched. I should have quickly withdrawn but did not. Something compelled me to linger and lift my gaze to see his face.
Harry’s little finger stroked mine. While I watched him, he studied our hands, as if fascinated by my bare skin, usually hidden within my glove.
I didn’t want to move away. I was frozen there, my skin tingling where he’d touched me. My heart clanged like a bell in my chest. Was it warning me? Or announcing something?
Either way, I knew in my bones that this moment would be one I remembered forever.
Chapter10
Achild’s ball suddenly plopped onto our fish and chip wrapper, breaking the spell.
I quickly whipped my hand back. Harry stared at the ball for several beats before picking it up and tossing it to the boy who’d thrown it.
I felt his gaze on me as I gathered up the leftovers in the paper. “We should go.”
He silently followed me up the beach. Perhaps, like me, he couldn’t think of anything to say.
But Harry was a charmer, a smooth conversationalist who always knew the right thing to say. Had the moment we shared rendered him speechless? Or did he simply know that silence was the wisest option now?
The doormanat the Grand Brighton Hotel remembered me and greeted me by name. It was a good indication that he had an excellent memory for names and faces, so we began with him.
“On the day before I checked out of the hotel, a woman named Ruth Price came here and left me a note at the post desk while the clerk wasn’t in attendance. Does that name mean anything to you?”
“Sorry, Miss Fox, it doesn’t. What did she look like?”
I described Ruth’s appearance, but it was the brown bag that he remembered. “One of the porters offered to carry it for her, thinking she was checking in, but she refused. She got a little stroppy, which we thought was odd. She kept trying to look past us toward your party. Do you know, I reckon she’d followed you here.”
She must have followed us all the way from the West Pier where we’d seen her watching the Pridhursts. The only reason she would do that was because she hoped to find out how we knew Lord Pridhurst. Perhaps she thought we were connected to his scandal in some way. I didn’t think she knew I was a private detective at that point. How could she?
“Thendid she go to the post desk?” I asked.
“No. She waited a while before heading upstairs. I reckon if you ask the lift operator, you’ll find she went to your floor, Miss Fox. All very mysterious, she was. Her interest in your party was very strange.”
“Do you recall if she went upstairs before or after I’d left with my maid to go for a swim?”
“I reckon it was after, but I can’t be sure. It wasn’t until she came downstairs again a few minutes later that she went to the post desk.”
I tried to link all of Ruth’s movements together, from the moment she spotted Beecroft at the Rutherford Hotel, to her death on the train home. I needed to write down what I knew to get it all straight in my head.
Harry asked our final questions to the doorman, describing the two unidentified men we also sought, but the doorman shook his head. Not only did he not recognize them, but he vowed he never forgot a face, particularly a distinctive one.
I followed Harry across Kings Road and back to the promenade, my mind occupied with sifting through what we’d learned rather than my surroundings. “I can’t believe Ruth followed us to the hotel from West Pier and I never noticed. And I’m supposed to be a detective!”
“To be fair, you weren’t working on a case, nor did you think it would matter.”
“Still, I should be more aware of my surroundings.”
“What flavor?”
“Pardon?”
“What flavor ice cream do you want?”
I’d been so distracted by my thoughts, I’d once again failed to notice my surroundings. It really would not do. “Strawberry, please, although I don’t deserve it. Honestly, I could kick myself for not seeing Ruth.”
