Chesapeake Crimes: Invitation to Murder. Donna Andrews

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СКАЧАТЬ paper in the tiny hearth. “Normal for December, unusual for July.” Like Grandma, Aunt Janet was quiet, but with an underlying strength that could surprise you.

      “Whatever.” The girl stepped into the hall and started to close the door. “Are you ready?”

      I scanned the room. It had all the elements of a mansion library, but with less substance, like a poor relation trying to blend in. The teetering bookshelf threatened to vomit dusty books onto the scuffed floor, and the coat rack in the corner sported a giant splinter. Dirt clods collected at the corners, and a musty smell filled the air. Unlike the families in Agatha Christie’s novels, the Styles family apparently hadn’t employed domestic help.

      “Time starts now.” The door closed and the clock on the screen started counting down. Already only fifty-nine minutes and miscellaneous seconds left.

      “Let’s examine the room for clues and compare notes,” Delphine said.

      The room was dark, all browns and grays, with only a few lamps to fight the gloom, and no windows to reveal that we were on the third floor of an office building. The fireplace wall had imitation wood paneling, while two other walls had a wallpapered image of stacked stones. The bookshelf on the fourth wall held peeling books. A battered antique desk in the center of the room held a green-shaded lamp and brass paperweights. A toppled chair lay on an Oriental rug next to the taped outline of a sprawled body.

      “I think we should have a plan.” Aunt Janet’s pale-blue eyes glinted. She was enjoying this.

      “I have no idea where to start,” Delphine said. “David, you’ve done escape rooms before. What do we do?”

      “We should especially look for anything to do with numbers,” I told her. “So we can use them to open combination locks.” I knew by now to avoid interesting objects that turned out not to have anything to do with the solution. In a Harry Potter escape room, I’d gotten all caught up with a note gripped in the beak of a stuffed owl, and missed the real clues.

      Delphine spun a stained globe near the bookshelf. “Maybe there’s a misspelled country that will give us a clue.” I rolled my lips together to stop a smile. Escape room clues weren’t that subtle. The clues tended to be physical, not intellectual.

      “I will look for zee clues.” Hubert ruffled the spines of some decaying books before twirling a stray hair on his mustache. “I am the great detective Hercule Poirot, and I will find the…qu’est-ce que c’est? Evidence.”

      “You know Poirot was Belgian, right?” I said. “Not French.”

      “Is not important. The little gray cells, they are what count.” He tapped his squarish head. I fought the temptation to tell him Poirot’s head was egg-shaped.

      “Fine, Hubert, how do we get out of here?” Delphine planted sturdy fists on her narrow hips. “Only fifty-five minutes to go. Tick tock.”

      Had five minutes passed already? “Let’s divide the room and each look for keys, and for things in rows or series,” I said.

      Hubert pointed to a fake stone wall with a few small tables holding various objects. “I’ll take that side.”

      “Hey, Delphine,” Cody said. “Let’s check out the bookshelves.”

      Felicia’s mouth twisted into a grimace as the three of them shuffled to the bookshelf.

      We explored the room at varying paces. I checked the coat rack near where we’d come in. Delphine and her friends ruffled through books at random. Hubert picked up small objects and peered at them. Aunt Janet poked through the ashes in the fireplace.

      After shaking out the coats on the rack, I concentrated on the desk. I picked up a brass dog on the desk and put it right back. Clearly a red herring. I opened each drawer. Most were empty, but one held a magnifying glass. “Delphine, maybe we can use this later to read a clue.” We’d used a black light in the Harry Potter escape room.

      “We found some mismatched bookends.” Delphine fiddled with a snarling plaster tiger, while Cody held up a plastic lion. “Maybe that’s a clue?”

      Or maybe mismatched bookends were just less expensive.

      “This painting is revealing.” Hubert gazed at the oil painting above the mantel. The tips of his loafers nearly collided with Aunt Janet’s knees as she moved a log in the fireplace.

      I trotted over to take a look. The rural landscape was free of everything but rolling hills, lush trees, and a twisty river. Not even a grazing animal. “What clue do you see there, Hubert?”

      “Just working ze little gray cells.”

      In other words, he had nothing. Hubert could never own up to a mistake. The closest he’d ever come was admitting that a bottle of wine had gone bad.

      Delphine pointed at the TV. “Look, David!” The screen read, “A scrap of wisdom is worth more than rubies. Time left: thirty-eight minutes.”

      “A scrap of wisdom?” I crouched next to Aunt Janet, who cupped charred scraps of paper in her palm. They had handwriting on them. I helped her gather the pieces and spread them on the desk. Delphine and I pieced them together, with Hubert slowing us down by moving scraps after we’d positioned them. Finally, we had a complete page, revealing two scrawled sayings: “Clothes make the man” and “Search the corners of the world.”

      “What does it mean?” Delphine prodded a stray scrap into place.

      Hubert dipped one hand, like a conductor leading an orchestra. “Lucius Styles must have been a well-dressed, well-traveled man. That may be a clue to his murder.”

      Aunt Janet coughed. “I think this refers to the coat hanging in the corner.”

      Hubert raced to the coat rack and picked at the faded brown coat hanging there.

      “I already checked it,” I said.

      He whipped a small book from one pocket. “A clue,” he announced.

      I felt like an idiot. I’d checked the coat but missed a pocket. At least Hubert wasn’t rubbing it in.

      We huddled around Hubert and a paperback copy of Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders. “Those are letters, not numbers,” I said. “We’re likely looking for a combination lock, remember? And they work with numbers.”

      “Letters correspond to numbers, A being one, B being two, and so on.” Aunt Janet came up behind me and laid a warm hand on my spine.

      “So ABC would be one two three,” I said, kicking myself for not seeing it right away. Another stupid oversight. Grandma’s cancer was upsetting me more than I’d realized.

      “That’s one way of looking at it.” Aunt Janet watched the pages as Hubert flipped them. “But I wonder—”

      “How many numbers do we need?” Delphine asked.

      “We can’t tell until we find the lock we’re supposed to open, which will be on a hidden door,” I said.

      The wood-paneled wall was the most likely to hide a door. Thirty minutes left. I pressed each panel. One was loose. СКАЧАТЬ