His newly acquired Aunt Annie took her eyes from the bartender and raised them toward the ceiling. He followed suit. She said,
"Well, what are you going to do about it?"
Jim reflected on the thirty-eight. It did things to his scalp. Apparently the bartender didn't trust him any more than the desk clerk. He didn’t like guns pointed at him, loaded or unloaded. But it also seemed quite obvious he was trying to throw a scare into Jim. The gun was there, all right, but hidden quite casually and clumsily.
Aunt Annie repeated her question as if he hadn't heard it. "Well, what are you going to do about it?" He lowered his chin as she lowered hers and looked her squarely in the eye. "Nothing, Aunt Annie," he said sweetly,
"nothing at all. After all, he does have the drop on me, don't you think?"
Lena, Lady Mantel's voice was raised over the music which turned off suddenly. "Bring us another round, Garcon!" she shouted in the direction of the bar. The gun had disappeared, at least out of Jim’s sight. Why the switch? He wondered. Why the gun, and why did he jerk it out of sight? There was the beer drinker, Aunt Annie, Lena, and Jim. He heard a stirring in the doorway which might have answered the last part of the questions.
George stared for a moment in the direction of the commotion, fiddled around the bar, and came over with two Camilles and a bourbon and water. He swabbed the table and moved the drinks before them with an unintelligible grunt. At least he had not brought another Camille for Jim. That showed some kind of intelligence. When George was out of hearing, Jim leaned over and said: "Are there any other guests in this establishment, ladies?"
They both came to attention and Lena's mouth dropped open. Jim was all set to lead to Jerry Duprey, but suddenly before he could pop the question, Lena pounded her gloved fist on the table and shouted: "I am never going into that barbershop again as long as I live!" Jim saw Aunt Annie's eyes flick to the doorway. Then she touched her friend on the shoulder. "Why not, Lena dear?" she asked anxiously, "Why on earth not?"
Jim crossed his legs and shifted his body so he could see the door. Sure enough, the desk clerk, Leddon, was standing there looking like a reasonable facsimile of an undertaker's assistant. Jim didn't wonder how long he'd been there.
Lena seemed completely unaware of him. She said sharply, "Why not, Annie? Do you know that dunderhead refused to cut my hair unless I removed my hats?" Jim began to think Lena was carrying things a bit too far. She was far…far out. He felt like he was living in some sort of nightmare.
George reached up and turned out the bar lights. His beer customer weaved through a door at the far left which must have led to the outside. "The bar is closed for the night,"
George announced firmly.
Jim cringed as he watched the two old girls upend their Camilles. Neither of them seemed the worse for Auntie's concoction when they rose with considerable dignity. He took his glass with him against George's frown. In the lobby, Brother Leddon was again planted behind the desk. He offered a smile which reminded Jim of the spread on the mouth of a hammer-head shark. "Are you staying with us long, Mr. Smith?" Leddon asked.
Jim decided to make him happy, but not too happy. "Not too long," he replied, trying to look properly undone. With this ambiguous remark, he followed Auntie and Lena up the stairs, wishing he could give Leddon a short right hook. But he had to find Jerry Duprey first, and there would be other opportunities, he was sure.
As they walked down the hall he managed to get out half a question, "Where is…?" when the door across from Auntie's room opened. The light from inside outlined a bristle-haired man who filled the opening from side to side. What was with the watchdog bit? The man’s appearance certainly stopped Jim’s question in midair. He shrugged and opened Aunt Annie's door. She and Lena scuttled through the opening like a pair of Siamese twins, with Aunt Annie beckoning surreptitiously. "Shall we have a little visit before bed, Auntie?" he asked loudly and closed the door with a bang.
A little of his growing annoyance was showing up.
Auntie's room was no more charming than his.
True, the flowers on the wall were of a different hue than his, and the spread on the bed was faded lavender. But, below an ancient ceiling fan was a large ornate chandelier, a complete anachronism which would have dwarfed a banquet hall. He blinked as she flicked the switch bringing the prisms on the chandelier to life.
"Lena has the room on the other side of mine."
Auntie was saying. She pointed to the chandelier, and Lena assumed a poetic stance directly beneath it and began humming loudly in a clear monotone. Auntie rolled her eyes and motioned for Jim to put his head down.
She whispered in his ear: "The joint is bugged!" and pointed her finger at the heavy chandelier. By this time Lena was beginning to get weary of humming. Jim turned his glass up and finished the drink. Maybe the Camilles hadn't affected Lena and Annie, but the Grand Manor Hotel and booze combined to make him feel as goofy as these two women acted.
Aunt Annie cocked one eyebrow. "Tell me, Charlie, where is your dear father? We've been so out of touch since your mother passed away."
Now, this was an interesting question, but one he could hardly answer since his father had been dead for twenty years. He could hardly tell a lady where he was certain his father might be. He leaned over and whispered,
"Where can we talk?"
Aunt Annie mouthed, "Your room, later. I'll join you there."
He said loudly, "Tomorrow, Auntie, I'll tell you all the news. The Gulf air seems to have affected me. Suddenly I am very tired. Shall we have breakfast, all three of us in the morning? "
She winked. "Oh, of course you're tired. How about eight o'clock in the morning?" She saw Jim to the door. Lena flapped her hand in his direction and continued humming.
Jim sank on his bed and lit a cigarette. Why had the desk clerk been so hostile? And what about the firepower his pal George had displayed so awkwardly. Obviously, from the tone of Leddon's conversation with the two salesmen who had come in after Jim signed the register, it wasn't just him. It was anybody who wanted a room. What were these guys clearing the decks for and why?
Through the thin wall he could hear Lena still humming. Aunt Annie opened the door so quietly he jumped when he saw her standing there. He closed the door behind her and locked it, and Aunt Annie seated herself in the only chair. He squatted down beside her. It was time somebody made some sense.
"Would you mind telling me what's going on around here? Why did you claim me as your nephew?" he asked.
"Lena was afraid for both of us." The old girl shivered. "It's because of what happened to Mrs. Benning," she added.
Jim prayed for patience. "Who might I ask is Mrs. Benning?"
"Mrs. Benning owned the Grand Manor Hotel.
She's dead. She was buried today." She stroked the letters on her sweater absently.
Then she looked at Jim and her eyes were bleak and entirely sane. "I think somebody killed Mrs. Benning!"
"Would you please begin at the beginning, Auntie?" Jim pleaded. He wondered if he could make any sense of it if she did.
Shedding any indication of flightiness, Aunt Annie gave him a rundown on the Grand Manor with surprising brevity.
Aunt Annie had struck up a friendship with Lena some years before, here at the Grand Manor. The hotel had been a small genteel hotel in its heyday. Lena had lived at the hotel and commuted to Gulfport when she was teaching. Aunt Annie was also a retired teacher from Detroit when she headed south.
So, she and Lena had much in common (Jim suspected a leaning toward Camilles). Then Aunt Annie, being the more cosmopolitan of the two, drifted about the country for several years. A week before, she returned to the Grand Manor to find the hotel sadly deteriorated.
"Lena was the only guest!" Aunt Annie said shaking her head. "The old desk clerk was gone and Mr. Leddon seemed reluctant to register me until Lena intervened."
"Lena isn't really Lady Mantel," Aunt Annie announced. This hardly surprised him, but Jim just squatted there patiently waiting for her to go on.
She switched the focus of the conversation.
"You didn't just happen to arrive at the hotel, did you? Who are you?" she asked.
He decided to tell her. "My name is Jim Smith.
I came here to find Jerry Duprey. He's short and fat and wears glasses. Do you know if he is in the hotel?"
She cocked an eyebrow at Jim and nodded, "Of course. He is upstairs in the room over mine.
Unfortunately, by this time he is quite drunk."
She got a far away look in her eye and went back to Mrs. Benning. "When I first came here years ago, Mrs. Benning often invited Lena to dine with her in her rooms, where she took most meals. I suppose it's really my fault Lena and Mrs. Benning fell out. You see, Lena came from this part of the country. She was here at the Grand Manor long before I arrived." For a moment Annie looked coy. "After all, she is a wee bit older than me," she said. Aunt Annie's eyes twinkled momentarily. "When Mrs.
Benning found out Lena and I liked our little toddy, it was the end of their beautiful friendship. Even after all the years they had known each other."
Little toddy! Jim shuddered, remembering Aunt Annie's double drinks. "And Mrs.
Benning preferred gin, I suppose?" Jim couldn't keep the sarcasm out of his voice. It seemed he was getting nowhere fast.
Aunt Annie's tone was a reprimand, "Mrs.
Benning was a teetotaler, a rabid one. Lena told me Mrs. Benning said the tongue wags at both ends when one drinks. That's exactly why she and Lena fell out. Mrs. Benning couldn't even abide the smell of alcohol in any form."
Aunt Annie gave Jim a severe look. "She wouldn't take a mouthful of food containing vanilla extract. That's how temperate she was!"
Jim guessed he had better let her tell it her way. Maybe they might get back to Jerry Duprey.
"Well," she said, "things had gotten a little sticky around here and exceedingly dull. I didn't feel exactly wanted with that Leddon man glaring at me. Lena finally suggested we go somewhere else. Lena has always been most kind…" She stared into space, and Jim felt as if she were wandering into the attributes of her nutty friend. She did.
"You know, I have always felt Mrs. Benning could be quite spiteful at times. It must have hurt Lena's feelings although she never said so."
"What do you mean, spiteful?"
"Actually, I think the woman was a bit unhinged. She wouldn't let anyone in her room all day. Lately, at night, she had the bellboy drive her out in the country and didn't come back until after we had gone to bed."
Aunt Annie frowned. "If she ever came through the lobby, she passed by us with her nose in the air. Recently, Lena tried to speak to her several times, but the woman looked right at her and simply raised her eyebrows."
Aunt Annie folded her hands primly in her lap. "Yesterday Mr. Leddon told us Mrs.
Benning had succumbed in her sleep." Aunt Annie unfolded her hands. "I might add, the woman seemed as rugged as an ox."
Jim wondered wearily when the conversation would get to Jerry Duprey. It did, quickly.
Aunt Annie went on: "And then, this morning, I just happened to be in the post office. It's in a corner of the drugstore, you know. Mrs.
Anderson, who has a fax machine, called the hotel after receiving a fax. She has one of those resonant voices, so I could barely keep from hearing the message. It was to Mrs. Benning from the Duprey person. Apparently Mr.
Leddon took the message as there are no phones in the rooms." Aunt Annie closed her eyes. "It said, Arrive by limousine from New Orleans this morning. It was signed Jerry." Aunt Annie opened her eyes and frowned. "I was in the front parking lot of the Grand Manor when Jerry arrived."
Oh boy, Jim thought…Miss Nosy herself.
"And why did you take it upon yourself to meet the limo?"
She caught his tone and her voice grew crisp.
"I met the limo, Mr. Smith, because Mrs.
Benning was dead when the fax came in. It was the only decent thing I could do. After all, Mr. Duprey was her nephew. How would you like to have that Leddon person tell you your Aunt was dead?"
She had a point. Jim could think of nothing he would have liked the desk clerk to tell him except 'Goodbye'. "I'm sorry," he conceded, and she went on. "Mr. Duprey seemed stunned when I told him. But he also was more surprised Mr. Leddon was the manager of the hotel." She sighed. "I don't like Mr. Duprey any more than I liked his aunt, even if she is dead."
Not knowing the late lamented Mrs. Benning, Jim couldn't agree with her. But on Jerry Duprey, he could go along. Duprey was hardly a charmer.
Aunt Annie tucked a strand of white hair into the flat bun at the back of her neck. "When Duprey checked in, Mr. Leddon told Mr.
Duprey he didn't know a thing about any fax.
You may as well know, Mr. Leddon seldom leaves the desk. He even sleeps on a cot in a small room behind it. Also, he told Mr.
Duprey he had just fired the bellboy who had probably taken the wire." She arched her brows. "The only bellboy in the place, and Duprey should have known it, is the fat one who has been here for years."
Aunt Annie continued, "Leddon told Duprey Mrs. Benning's remains were at the local undertakers in a sealed casket. He apologized saying he had taken care of arrangements because he had no idea she had any living relatives."
Jim lit a cigarette. "How did all this strike Duprey?"
"Well, he did seem shocked. But Leddon was most sympathetic. He even produced a bottle of scotch, compliments of the house. This was after Duprey indicated he did not share his late Aunt's views on temperance. They arranged to have the funeral tomorrow. That was the last I saw of Duprey. Leddon was worried, though.
Only a fool could miss his reaction."
By this time Jim was sure Aunt Annie was anything but a fool.
"So," she went on, "while Lena and I were taking our walk this afternoon, we decided to stop by."
"Stop by where?" he wasn't following her.
"Well, it was my idea. Lena didn't want to go.
She tried to talk me out of it. I think she was really quite fond of Mrs. Benning. I told her it was her duty to pay her last respects and I would go with her."
Aunt Annie leaned forward and hissed: "We went to the undertakers, and the director said they had a quiet funeral an hour before with only that horrid fellow you saw across from my room attending. And now we can't go anywhere without him following us. Do you wonder we're worried? And there's Bertha to contend with."
The hell with whoever Bertha was. Jim had enough females to deal with. He wanted out of this mess. But he wished later he had sense enough to ask about Bertha. Whether he knew it or not, Bertha was going to be the one female who could and would keep him at the Grand Manor.