An Unwanted Guest

Matthew pulls on his winter jacket and boots and follows David and Bradley outside onto the porch. The wind is a force to be reckoned with, angry and noisy; the trees seem to cower before it. They’ve checked all the ground-floor windows and doors from the inside, and they are all secure. There’s just the one broken basement window they have to go and look at now. Matthew wonders how they’re going to make it around the east side of the hotel to check the window, given how slippery it looks out there.

They’ve had to leave the oil lamp inside because no one wants to scramble over the ice holding an oil lamp. Instead they’ve got Matthew’s iPhone torch – David has hardly any charge left in his and wants to conserve it. But Matthew isn’t going to lead the way – he’s given his phone to Bradley.

‘Follow me,’ Bradley says.

They slide slowly across the front of the hotel, and then round the corner and make their way along the side of the hotel, their hands against the wall for balance. As they near the basement window, they can see there’s a broken branch lying in front of it, fallen from a nearby tree crippled by the storm. They bend down and peer at the window, Bradley shining the light.

But they can’t tell if the branch fell and broke the window, or someone used the branch to break the window. With the ice, they can’t see any footprints.

‘What do you think?’ Matthew asks, studying the window, the branches strewn about in front of it.

‘I don’t know,’ David says, looking worried.

Chapter Twenty

Saturday, 7:30 PM

DAVID, BRADLEY, AND Matthew return to the lobby, to the anxious faces of the others waiting inside.

David sags into a chair by the fire and explains their findings to the others. He finishes wearily, ‘So, we have a room that looks like it’s been used, and a mysteriously broken window. Other than that, we haven’t seen any sign of someone else in this hotel. Or of anyone going in or out.’

They all glance at one another in silence, as if they can’t possibly make sense of this information. They’re visibly on edge.

‘So is there someone else here or not?’ Riley asks, her voice strident.

‘I don’t know,’ David says. ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

Ian says, ‘Are you really suggesting that it might be one of us that killed Dana and Candice?’ Ian’s voice rises with incredulity. ‘Why on earth would one of us kill either of them? We don’t even know them.’

‘We don’t know that. We don’t know that no one here knew Dana or Candice,’ David says evenly. ‘I don’t know anything about anyone here.’ He looks around them as if daring someone to speak. ‘As far as I know – as far as we’ve led each other to believe – we are all strangers. But maybe that’s not the case.’ He looks around slowly at the assembled group. ‘In any event, when the police get here there will be an investigation. They will look very carefully into Dana’s background and Candice’s background – and into all of us, as well.’

And he knows what that’s going to be like. He watches the others as they look uneasily at each other. ‘Just for a moment, let’s assume it is one of us. We need to know where everybody was this afternoon. Bradley saw Candice alive when he picked up her lunch tray from the library – when was that, Bradley?’

‘It was about one thirty,’ Bradley says.

David continues. ‘All of us were here in the lobby together, with the exception of James and Bradley, until around two, when Henry and I went to get wood and everyone seemed to go their own way. We all met down here for tea at four o’clock. All of us then went out to the icehouse together and came back together. With the exception of James.’ He pauses, and adds, ‘Of course, Bradley, you came back in to look for her, when the rest of us were in the icehouse.’ He gives everyone a frank glance. ‘But let’s focus on where everyone was between about two o’clock and four. I was in my room, alone.’

Gwen says, ‘Riley and I were in our room.’

Lauren says, ‘Ian and I were in our room, too.’

Matthew says, ‘I was in my room – you told me to stay there. I only came out when I heard that scream when you found Candice dead.’

Henry says, ‘I was down here, in the lobby. I fell asleep in my chair for a bit. Then I went upstairs to freshen up just before four.’

Beverly nods. ‘I was in our room – I came down briefly to chat with Henry in the lobby, but went back up to our room after. He came up just before four.’

James says, ‘I was in the kitchen, and Bradley was helping me.’

David says wearily, ‘So, that doesn’t help much, does it?’

‘If you think it’s one of us,’ Henry says into the ensuing silence, ‘if I had to guess, my money would be on Matthew.’

Matthew turns to him in shock.

Henry’s been thinking about this during the long, cold search of the hotel. If it’s even possible that the murderer is one of them, maybe it’s time to shake things up a bit. He’s decided to play devil’s advocate. ‘You’re the most likely culprit,’ he says mildly, turning on Matthew. ‘Maybe you killed Dana after your argument and Candice figured it out and you had to shut her up.’

The others watch in alarm, but no one tries to defend Matthew.

Lauren says, ‘How could she have figured it out?’

‘I don’t know. She seemed kind of snoopy to me. Or maybe’ – he’s thinking out loud here – ‘maybe Candice was writing a book about Matthew – the famous, wealthy businessman. Or about Dana, who was about to marry him. And Dana argued with her about it at the top of the stairs and Candice pushed her down. And Matthew knew it must have been her who killed Dana, so he strangled her.’

‘That sounds pretty far-fetched,’ Ian says.

‘Murder is far-fetched,’ Henry says. ‘We’re not dealing with normal here. Somebody around here is a killer. Somebody had good enough reasons to kill Dana and Candice. I’m just trying to figure out what they are.’

Lauren turns to Matthew and says haltingly, ‘Candice was staring at you and Dana at dinner last night.’

Matthew looks back at her, frowning. He shifts uneasily in his seat. ‘Was she? I’m well known in the business world. Our engagement was announced in all the society pages. So yes, it’s possible she recognized me and knew who I was.’

Lauren says, ‘She knew who you were – she told us all at breakfast this morning.’

‘But I didn’t know her,’ Matthew snaps, ‘and Dana didn’t either. If she was writing a book about us, we didn’t know about it. And neither of us have anything to hide, so we wouldn’t give a shit.’

Then Riley says, ‘But maybe Dana did have something to hide, something you didn’t know about. Maybe Candice knew about it, and was writing about it, and she and Dana fought on the stairs and Candice pushed her down.’

‘But if I didn’t know about it, why would I conclude that Candice pushed her down the stairs and then kill Candice?’ Matthew says sarcastically.

‘Maybe you did know about it,’ Henry says. ‘We only have your word for it.’

Matthew leans forward and says, deliberately, ‘I didn’t kill anybody.’

Riley says, her voice intense, ‘You brought a gun. Maybe you knew Candice was going to be here. Maybe you planned to kill her all along but the thing with Dana happened first.’

‘I don’t have to listen to this,’ Matthew says.

Beverly breaks in. ‘Hold on. Maybe the fact that Candice is dead too means that Matthew didn’t kill Dana, and that he has nothing to do with this – did you ever think of that?’ She turns to Henry and says, ‘Doesn’t it make him less likely to be guilty?’

‘Possibly,’ Henry says.

‘That’s kind of what I was thinking,’ Gwen admits. ‘If it was just Dana, then yes, I’m sorry, Matthew, but you would seem like the obvious suspect. Especially since Beverly heard you arguing late last night.’ She turns to the others. ‘But once there’s another death, doesn’t that make it seem less likely that Matthew did it?’

‘She kind of has a point,’ Ian says.

Henry watches everyone carefully. He doesn’t know anything for certain, but he’s going to keep his eyes open.

‘If we could all just stop pointing the finger at me for a minute, there’s something I’d like to bring up,’ Matthew says. He knows he sounds a bit aggressive; he doesn’t care. They’ve practically accused him of murder, for God’s sake.

‘What’s that?’ David says.

‘I think James and Bradley are hiding something.’