The Underwater Ballroom Society

  Harriet’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, is he?” She looked at Bertrand. “Did you find anything out from the newspapers?”

  Bertrand groaned. “There are tons of them. I don’t think this hotel ever throws anything away. I did find out that Emily used to be an opera singer.”

  “Who?”

  “Emily. The maid who found the body. A very good one, apparently. Good singer, that is, not good dead body. Ah. If you see what I mean. Her father was a mechanician’s assistant, so it was quite a story when she made it to the opera. And everyone says there’s something terribly scandalous about the Comte d’Arcy, but no one knows what it is.”

  “Anything helpful?”

  Bertrand looked pained. “I still think the socks are important.”

  “They’re not.”

  “You don’t really think Sir Lancelot will solve the murder first, do you? The newspapers say he never fails anything he sets his mind to.”

  “Not if I have anything to do with it.”

  “I hope not. Oh, yes. Did you know the Edgewares had been to the Great Wall of Cyclopia, just like us? That wasn’t in the newspapers. I asked them questions and they just told me. Isn’t that a coincidence? The trip, not the telling. Old man Edgeware really must love his ruins, eh?”

  Now that was interesting. Ancient Martian artifacts could still be found deep in the Great Wall, and the smuggling gang Harriet was after specialized in such artifacts. Maybe it was a coincidence, but too many coincidences generally turned out to be anything but.

  “You know,” Bertrand said. “I think I’m going to find out what operas Emily sang in before she became a maid.”

  Harriet fixed her brother-in-law with the baleful look. “You’d better not be getting any inappropriate ideas about Emily.”

  Bertrand’s jaw dropped. “I would never betray Amy! You know I wouldn’t.”

  She did know that. Occasionally, when she’d been younger, Harriet had found Bertrand’s loyalty to her sister a little annoying. The idea he would let Amy down was absurd. You’re just anxious. You’re letting your nerves get the better of you. She wasn’t used to feeling so helpless and lost.

  It’s not just you who needs this, she reminded herself. Bertrand and Amy and their baby needed this murder to be solved quickly. If Sir Lancelot really did find the murderer first, it would give Sir William an excuse to dismiss Bertrand. I won’t let that happen.

  “Fine,” she said. “But I don’t see what relevance operas have. Emily has an alibi, remember?” There was nothing to connect her to the smuggling ring, and neither of the people who had attacked Harriet had been female, although of course Bertrand didn’t know that.

  Bertrand’s face fell. “I know. I just…” He spread his hands helplessly. “I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know what to ask. None of them seem like murderers.”

  “Find out about the Edgewares. Mr. Edgeware, in particular. See if he has any connections to any of the other men here or any connections to Lunae City. And keep going with the newspapers.”

  “But the Edgewares have children!”

  “I know,” Harriet said grimly.

  Some strange sense made the back of her neck prickle. She scanned the room. Most of the guests were craning toward Sir Lancelot. But one man wasn’t. Colonel Fitzpatrick had his blank gaze fixed firmly on Harriet, and he didn’t let it fall, even when she stared right back.

  The truth, Harriet thought as she strode down the corridor toward the hotel manager’s office, was that she was a drowning woman clutching at straws, and that wasn’t a comforting metaphor in a hotel beneath millions of tons of water. What she knew for sure she could count on the fingers of a closed fist. She was left with suspicion, coincidence, and guesswork, and it wasn’t good enough. Her contact was dead, and there was nothing she could do about that, but if she could retrieve the package, they might at least be a step closer to bringing down the smuggling ring.

  The manager had been drinking when Harriet pushed into his office. Fading friction lamps threw heavy shadows from stacks of ledgers and a wilted parlor palm. A window in the ceiling let in faint sunlight, filtered by the deep water, to illuminate the room, but it only served to make the man inside look even more green and unhealthy. A cactus-dog watched mournfully from its burrow in a terrarium in one corner, its red spikes drooping.

  “It’s a bloody disaster,” the manager slurred as he looked up and saw Harriet. “A dead body, a police investigation. This is supposed to be the Louros Hotel’s big triumph. I’ve got half the journalists on British Mars coming along to report it. I’m finished.”

  The man hadn’t stood when she’d entered, so Harriet didn’t wait on propriety either. She pulled out a chair and sat opposite.

  “Do your staff have any storage areas apart from their rooms? A desk somewhere, perhaps?”

  The manager was already shaking his head. “My secretary has a desk, of course, and there’s the front desk. Strachan worked there sometimes.”

  Too public. If Strachan had hidden the package there, another member of staff might have found it.

  “Anywhere else in the hotel Strachan might have gone?”

  The manager heaved himself up, reached for his glass, then finding it empty, set it back down.

  “There’s a kitchen. The staff eats there. And a staff drawing room he could use when off duty. Mr. Heathcote, our butler, supervises the footmen. He’d know more about it.”

  “I’ll need to see it.” Maybe there would be hiding places there. “How about air vents?”

  The manager blinked.

  “Could he access them?”

  “They’re sealed.” The manager wobbled his head toward the grill above him. It was flush with the wall and fixed in. There were no screws or bolts, and Harriet didn’t think she could lever it off. “What’s the point of this? He’s dead. I’m done.”

  You’re not the only one, Harriet thought, if I don’t find that package.

  “How about maintenance?”

  The manager cast a look at his glass. “They access it through the pump room. Only I have a key. I sign them in and sign them out again, whatever the time of day or night. Not that it matters any more. The whole place is probably done.”

  The manager’s eyes were now firmly fixed on his glass and his voice trailed away. Harriet wasn’t going to get anything more out of him.

  “The kitchens and the staff drawing room?”

  He waved a loose hand. “Ask Heathcote. Front desk, I expect. Now leave me alone. Didn’t know the fellow. Nobody did. Didn’t like him, didn’t hate him, didn’t know anything about him at all.”

  When Harriet reached the foyer, Reginald was leaning against the tall clock, grinning. He caught her eye, then glanced up at the clock, shaking his head.

  Harriet bit the inside of her cheek. Hell. He was probably composing his report in his mind right now, finding some way of blaming the whole fiasco on her and putting himself in the clear.

  A sudden thought hit her. Had he already retrieved the package? If so, he wouldn’t tell her. He’d let her flail around and then produce it triumphantly. Reginald Pratt, Viscount Brotherton, here to save the day. She felt physically sick.

  The kitchens were hopeless, as was the staff drawing room. The kitchens were fiercely occupied by the cook, Mrs. Blake, and her army of maids and automatic servants. There was nowhere to hide a package that wouldn’t be spotted before the day was out, and Mrs. Blake insisted the kitchens were never left unattended. The drawing room was small and quickly searched.

  The murderer had to have been one of the people without alibis. Harriet could rule out the Edgewares’ little children, and probably Mrs. Edgeware, too. That left Mr. Edgeware; Colonel and Mrs. Fitzpatrick; the student, Sebastian Davies; the Comte d’Arcy; Reverend and Mrs. Asheville; the hotel manager, Mr. Ellis; and of course, Reginald. One of them, at least, was a murderer and an agent of the smuggling ring. But which one? She had too many suspects.

  Bertrand wasn’t in the dining roo
m, but he was in his bedroom, sitting at the desk, piles of newspapers scattered around him.

  “Harriet! There you are!” He sat back in the chair and ran his hand through his hair. “Tell me you found out who the murderer was and I can stop reading these blasted newspapers.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Ah, well. Didn’t think I would be so lucky.” He gestured to a smaller pile of newspapers on the bed. “These are the ones that mentioned our suspects. There’s one or two things you might find interesting. I’ve marked the places.”

  Harriet settled on the bed and opened the first of the newspapers. “Anything else interesting?”

  “Oh. Yes. There was something.”

  “Well?”

  “Reverend and Mrs. Ashville went to the opera. They told me.”

  “Um… That’s wonderful for them. How exactly does it help us?”

  Bertrand’s brow furrowed. “They saw Emily perform. You know, before she came here to be a maid.”

  Harriet suppressed a sigh. “I thought you were going to find out about the Edgewares.”

  “I did, and you were right. They have been to Lunae City. Mr. Edgeware took the family to visit the ruins on the Martian Nile. They’ve been all over the place. And they’re not the only ones. That student is an archaeologist. And Colonel Fitzpatrick once led an expedition searching for an undiscovered dragon tomb, although he didn’t find it, so I guess it’s still undiscovered.”

  Which would place all three of them in the Lunae Planum at one point to another. The same place that Strachan had come from. It didn’t prove anything, of course, and it certainly didn’t prove no one else had been to Lunae City, but it was somewhere to start.

  “You don’t happen to have the twelfth of April edition of the Tharsis Times, do you?”

  Bertrand shifted through the piles. “Why? Here you are.”

  “It’s the paper our victim was carrying when he died.”

  She had taken a look at the paper after she had pulled it from under Strachan’s body, in case there was anything hidden inside, but now she read it more closely. Why had Strachan chosen this issue in particular? Just because it was old so no one else would be carrying it? There was nothing in it about any of their suspects or any other guests. But then Strachan could hardly know he would be murdered. She was missing something, she knew she was. It itched at her.

  “Must have brought his own copy,” Bertrand said. “Bit strange. It’s over a month old. Anything about him in it, maybe?”

  Harriet shook her head. “Just Mrs. Parker and her blasted birthday ball scandal.”

  “Who?”

  “No one.” She tossed it onto the bed.

  “Voi Che Sapete.”

  “What?” Harriet wondered if her brother-in-law had finally gone mad.

  “Cherubino. You know, in The Marriage of Figaro. That’s the part Emily sang. That was her aria. Dee dum dee-dee-dee-dee. You must know it. Reverend Asheville said she was very good. Quite convincing in trousers.”

  “I literally have no idea what you’re talking about, Bertrand,” Harriet said, turning back to the newspapers.

  But when she finished them, she looked up, smiling. “This is very interesting. You know, Bertrand, I think it’s time we had another word with our suspects.”

  Half an hour later, the suspects were gathered in the large drawing room, along with the maid, Emily, and the elderly couple who had all seen Strachan fall to his death.

  “Well?” Sir William demanded, as an automatic servant moved around in a whirr of cogs, serving tea. “Found out who did it, Simpson?”

  Bertrand grimaced. “Just have to ask some questions, sir.”

  Sir William shook his head. “How hard can this be? Fellow was pushed. Not many suspects. I expect my policemen to be able to solve cases like this. I will not have you interfere with people’s preparations for the ball.”

  “Maybe after…”

  Sir William’s glare hardened. “After the ball, guests will be free to leave. There are important people here, Simpson. I’ll not damage the force’s reputation because of your incompetence, you hear me?”

  “It’ll be all right,” Harriet whispered to Bertrand as Sir William turned away. She hoped so, anyway. She could feel the pressure squeezing down on her like the water above the hotel. One mistake, one crack, and everything would collapse: Bertrand’s career, her hopes of becoming a spy, and her soon-to-be niece’s or nephew’s future.

  The door to the drawing room burst open with such vigor that Harriet almost expected to hear trumpets. In strode Sir Lancelot, blond hair swept back as though by a strong wind.

  “I,” Sir Lancelot announced, “will be joining you.” He winked at Harriet. Harriet resisted the urge to punch him. See, Amy. I am growing up. Maybe later, when no one was watching.

  “Ah…” Bertrand cleared his throat. “I’m not sure that would be appropriate. Police matters, you see…”

  “Nonsense,” Sir William called from the back of the room, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Let the fellow help. He, at least, might have a chance of actually solving the case.”

  “Why don’t we start with Emily?” Harriet said, quickly.

  The maid started. “Me?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  The maid’s face turned as red as a sunset as everyone faced her. Strange, Harriet thought, for someone who had made her living as an opera singer. But then maybe it was different when you were on stage, lights blinding you to the audience. And Emily had given up her life as a star of the stage to work as a lowly maid. Maybe she didn’t like the attention.

  “You said you saw Mr. Strachan fall from the balcony?”

  The maid nodded mutely.

  “But you didn’t see anyone up there.”

  “No.” She bit her lip. “I…I didn’t think to look up at first. I was too…too shocked.” She seemed, Harriet thought, to be about to burst into tears, and if she did, that would be the end of the questioning. Bertrand was useless in front of a crying girl. To her shame, Harriet had tried it once when she’d been twelve. It had gotten her out of trouble, but she had never done it again. That wasn’t the kind of person she wanted to be.

  “You knew him, though?”

  Emily looked down at her hands. “A bit, if it please you. He’d only been here a week. The maids don’t fraternize with the footmen, of course. He seemed…pleasant enough. He never gave me cause to avoid him.”

  “And you say you heard him whistling just before he fell?”

  “Oh, really!” Mrs. Fitzpatrick pronounced, turning her gaze toward the hotel manager. “What disgraceful standards. I had been led to believe that the Louros was a respectable institution. Whistling, indeed!”

  The manager, who was staring blankly into the air, didn’t respond.

  “It was… It was how I knew it was James before I saw his face. We all knew how terribly he whistled.”

  “And you saw no one upstairs? On the stairs? Descending?”

  She shook her head.

  “Thank you, Emily.” Bertrand turned to the elderly couple. “Mr. and Mrs. Compton, isn’t it? Did you see anything more?”

  The old man shook his head. “We were some yards behind the young lady. But it is as she said. The whistling. The…falling man. I heard him cry out before he hit.”

  Alive when he fell, then.

  Bertrand peered at the waiting guests. “I, ah, have invited all of you here because, other than by word of members of your own families, we have not been able to confirm your whereabouts at the time of the murder. I hasten to add that this does not make you suspects. Merely that we need to eliminate you from our enquiries as quickly as possible. If it is all right, we have a few questions for each of you. Shall we start with the Comte d’Arcy?”

  The Comte didn’t respond.

  “Comte?”

  Still nothing.

  Bertrand raised his voice and waved at the Comte. “Comte? Sir?”

  The Comte started. “I beg your par
don?”

  “Are you having trouble with your hearing?” Harriet asked loudly.

  The Comte shifted his gaze to her. “The pressure of the water. I have always suffered from problems when the pressure rises or falls too far. I endure.”

  Of course you have, Harriet thought. The Comte was in his late thirties, Harriet guessed, and fit with it. The right height, too. She remembered cupping her hands and clapping them across her unseen attacker’s ears. Hard enough to burst an eardrum.

  “May we ask you some questions?” Bertrand said.

  The Comte inclined his head.

  “Could you tell us what you are doing here?”

  The Comte sighed. “It is a Society event,” he said in scarcely accented English. “One feels obliged to lend one’s presence. It is a bore, but we all have obligations.”

  Bertrand shuffled awkwardly. “And did you know the victim?”

  “I understand the fellow was a servant. How would I know him?”

  Bertrand consulted his notes. “He was previously a footman to Lord Barton. Did you ever visit Lord Barton’s house?”

  The Comte shrugged. “It is possible. I could not be expected to notice the servants. I pay no heed to such class of person.” His eyelids slid half closed, as though he were too bored to continue. “I expect I shall have forgotten you, too, by tomorrow. Diverting though this is.”

  Harriet’s hackles rose. Slow breaths.

  “I’m sorry to hear about your ears, Comte.” She smiled sweetly. She’d been practicing that smile and it was now almost convincing. “I would hate to cause you further pain, but I have one more question. I have been reading about you in the papers. You have made a trip to Earth for each of the last four years.”

  “I maintain a house in London. My estates in France have been lost to the monster Napoleon, and London is not what it was, but still. One must respect one’s duties.”

  “That must be expensive.”

  The Comte turned his head away. “I would not know.”

  “The papers say you always travel with dozens of large boxes.”