In Like Flynn (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #4)

That will not be necessary,” Bimbaum said. “I can see you wish me to leave. I can assure you I have no desire to stay here any longer. It will only take me minutes to pack my small suitcase and then I shall be out of your lives. Please excuse me.” He bowed, clicking his heels, and went into the house. Desmond was left staring after him.

It occurred to me that I had never heard Desmond O'Mara volunteer to do anything helpful during mytimeat Adare. Why was he anxious to help Dr. Bimbaum pack his case? I watched and waited, and the moment Joe Rimes had gone indoors to arrange for river transportation, Desmond quietly slipped inside the house as well. I was curious and also alarmed. I got up and excused myself, feigning a need to lie down, then I followed Desmond into the house. Sure enough, he was going up the staircase and I watched him hurry around the upper gallery to the second stair that led up to the tower bedrooms where Bimbaum had been sleeping. What-ever he had really wanted to do, he was thwarted, however, as he met Dr. Bimbaum already coming downstairs, his grip in his hand and his hat on his head. He nodded to Desmond and went on down the stairs and out of the front door. Desmond hung around for a moment, then sighed and turned to follow him down.

I stood in the hallway wondering what to do next. What had Desmond hoped to accomplish up in Dr. Bimbaum’s bedroom? There were two possibilities I could think of: one that he suspected Bimbaum of being the person who killed Theresa and that he had been brought to the house for that purpose; or the opposite—that Desmond was Theresa’s killer and was afraid that Birnbaum knew too much. I remembered that Bamey and his entourage had arrived just when Bimbaum had been telling us about being awake for most of the night. Had there been a telltale noise? Had Bimbaum passed Desmond in the hallway while heeding the call of nature? In which case, exactly what had Desmond planned to do in that tower room? I shuddered and wished again that Daniel had not returned to New York. The sooner I was out of this house, the better.

As I walked along the gallery in the direction of Theresa’s room, I remembered that she was still lying there. I told myself that any good detective would have wanted to view the scene of the crime and examine Theresa’s body. There was nothing I would have less wanted to do. To see that sweet, pretty woman lying there stiff and cold would surely break my heart. But would she be counting on me to find out the truth? Everyone else wanted to call it a suicide, especially her murderer. That could mean that vital evidence might be destroyed before the police got a chance to look at it. I couldn't trust the thick Mr. Plod to know what to look for and I doubted that a detective would be summoned.

I steeled myself and crept to her door. A notice had been af-fixed to it: DO NOT ENTER, and the door was locked. But surprisingly the key was still in the lock. I glanced around, turned it, and went in. The blinds had been drawn and the room had that sickly-sweet smell of death that I had experienced before in my life. I couldn't exactly identify it, but it was the smell that lingered when my mother passed on and I knew it now. In the half darkness I could just make out the white shape of Theresa’s body lying under a sheet on the bed. I tiptoed across the room, as if I might wake her, and switched on the electric light.

Apart from the white mound on the bed there was nothing out of place that I could see. Theresa’s silver-backed toilet set was perfectly arranged on her dressing table. The clothes she had been wearing had been removed by Adele and only her dressing gown was draped over the back of a low chair, in case she should need it in the night. I went around the bed to her dressing table. There were various bottles of French perfume on it, a gorgeous cut-glass eau de cologne spray with a pink silk-covered bulb, and the sort of toilet preparations I supposed that all rich women used. Then I noticed something interesting—a jar of face cream was on the bed-side table with its top off. This struck me as significant. I took out my handkerchief to wrap around it, lifted it to my face and smelted it. It smelted like face cream—slightly perfumed but with no under-lying bad smell. For a second I had wondered whether it was possible to administer poison in a face cream, since she had obviously used it last night. But I wouldn't know what poison smelled like anyway and it seemed a rather elaborate way of killing somebody.