Page 89 of Murder at the Dinner Party
My mind was not altogether in the present moment, as I was still thinking over the events of the day. That was my excuse for not noticing someone had been following me. I’d barely had a chance to remove my key from the door when a hand clamped over my mouth and I was ushered inside.
“Don’t make a sound, Miss Fox.” Davey forced me into the sitting room, but did not remove his hand.
I tried to wriggle free, but he was too strong. I tried stomping on his toes but missed. My shouts were muffled. No one could hear me. No one had seen him capture me. I was alone and at a distinct disadvantage.
His grip tightened. “Quiet! I have a knife, but I don’t want to harm you. I just want to explain.”
I opened my bag and eased my hand inside. I kept a small knife with me at all times for just such an emergency.
Davey ripped the bag out of my grip and threw it on the sofa. The contents scattered on the floor. “Just let me explain!”
I put up my hands in surrender.
“I’ll let you go, but don’t shout. All right? I don’t want to cut you, but I will if I have to.”
I nodded.
He let me go and eased away. “It wasn’t me, Miss Fox. I didn’t do anything.”
With my hands still in the air, I slowly turned to face him. He held a knife in his white-knuckled grip. “Of course you did, Davey. Don’t take me for a fool.”
He wiped his sweating brow with the back of his hand. “All right, I did it, but I didn’t mean to kill him. I just wanted to make him sick and scare him a bit into keeping mum. But he died. I swear, I didn’t give him much of the stuff, just a bit more than the dose it says on the label.”
“You gave him nearly an entire bottle. I saw it in Mrs. Danvers’ house.”
“Those old crones don’t remember how much they started with.”
“Mrs. Danvers’ housekeeper is as sharp as a knife. She remembers everything.”
He swore and started to pace the floor.
“Davey, why did you come here? Am I your hostage? That won’t go well for you in court.”
He wiped his forehead with the back of the hand that gripped the knife. “I like you, Miss Fox.”
“And I liked you, Davey. That’s why I’m urging you to give yourself up. If you explain that you didn’t want to kill Mr. Hardy, the judge might give you a lighter sentence.”
“Ha! Ain’t no chance of that happening.” He lunged toward me, only to stop when I yelped in fright and backed away. “Listen, this is what we’ll do. I’ll walk out of here and go into hiding. You return to Scotland Yard and tell them you made a mistake.”
“You saw me go there?”
“Aye, but I couldn’t stop you. I missed the bus you caught and had to take a cab to follow you. Once you got out at the Yard, I had to keep my distance. It was too public and there were too many pigs around for me to speak to you. So I bided my time until you came out again, then I followed you here. That snobby old doorman wasn’t going to let me in, but I got past him.” He adjusted his grip on the knife handle as he thrust it in my direction, more with the intention of frightening me than harming me. “You tell them I’m innocent, Miss Fox. They’ll listen to you. You’re an heiress—”
“I’m not.”
“You must be connected to someone important to be able to afford to stay here.”
I didn’t correct him. It was safer if he thought I was merely a guest. “I’ll do my best, Davey, I promise."
“Good. Right. I’ll take myself off now. Give me time to leave then—"
At that moment the door to my suite opened and Harmony entered. “Cleo, what—” She gasped, as Davey instinctively turned toward her, knife at the ready.
I took advantage of his momentary lapse in concentration and lunged at his outstretched arm, forcing it back with the entire weight of my body. He cried out in pain and dropped the knife. I kicked it in Harmony’s direction. She stepped over it as it skittered toward her and grabbed his other arm while I still gripped his right. Between us, we forced him back into the wall and pinned him there.
“Bloody hell.” Floyd had been a little behind Harmony and missed the capture. “What the devil, Cleo?”
“This man is a murderer,” I told him. “Telephone the police.”
