Room With a Clue (Pennyfoot Hotel Mystery) Read Online Free PDF Page B

women who looked her straight in the eye, but Gertie Brown was one of them. When it came to width, however, Gertie easily exceeded her. Built like the conventional farmer’s daughter, the housemaid actually hailed from London. In a reversal of tradition, at twelve years old she’d sought a position in a seaside town to escape what she called “the ’orrible muck and racket.”
    James Sinclair had hired her for her strength and her forthright manner, the latter of which he’d regretted on more than one occasion.
    Cecily, for the most part, found Gertie’s enthusiasm refreshing, but at that moment the girl’s usually pale face gloweredwith temper. She stood with her back to the gleaming black fireplace in the tiny sitting room, her fists dug into her fleshy hips that no corset could diminish.
    Altheda Chubb, head housekeeper of the Pennyfoot, hovered anxiously close by, doing her best to look unobtrusive. It was difficult to do in such cramped quarters.
    From the kitchens across the hall wafted the delectable aromas from a dozen mouth-watering dishes that had been carried to the ballroom minutes before. Cecily realized she was hungry. It was already eight o’clock, and she hadn’t yet eaten. She’d spent the last half hour looking for Gertie.
    “I didn’t take the blinking brooch, and Miss Hoity Toity blinking knows it,” Gertie declared. “Where does she come orf accusing me of thieving?”
    “Just tell me what happened,” Cecily said, “and do try not to fabricate.”
    Gertie looked hurt. “What, me? Never!”
    Mrs. Chubb folded plump arms across her bountiful breasts and grunted a warning. Although a good deal shorter than Gertie, the housekeeper matched her in girth and temper. Mrs. Chubb’s position forbade her to interrupt her employer, but nevertheless she managed to convey her own authority.
    Gertie scowled and stared down at her shoes peeking out from under the hem of her dark blue skirt. Cecily noticed the housemaid’s white cap had slid to one side, but decided that could wait for the moment. “Go on, Gertie.”
    “All right. But I am telling the truth now, Mrs. Sinclair, honest. I didn’t take no brooch. I went up there ’coz Mr. Danbury told me his ink bottle was empty. So I took some up there and filled it, and just as I was leaving, in comes that—”
    She broke off, slid a sideways glance at Mrs. Chubb, and finished quietly. “Lady Eleanor Danbury, with her lady’s companion.”
    “Mr. Danbury wasn’t there?”
    “No, mum, he wasn’t. I mean, I didn’t see him, anyhow.”
    “So what happened then?”
    “Well, milady asked me what I was doing there, and I said as how I was filling the ink bottle and I shows her the ink jarin me hand. Well, she goes straight across to her dresser, don’t she, and lo and behold announces that her bleeding—”
    Mrs. Chubb clicked her tongue against the roof her mouth. Cecily gave her a slight shake of her head. Gertie’s swearing had become a natural part of her speech pattern, and Cecily had long ago given up on weaning the girl from the habit.
    “—brooch were missing,” Gertie finished, without breaking stride. “I tells her, polite-like, as how I never touched it, but she’s screaming and yelling that she’s sending for the bobby. Tells me to get out, she does. Then Miss Morris, she puts a word in, says as how milady might have dropped it, but that moo wasn’t having none of it. Made up her mind, she ’ad.”
    Out of the corner of her eye Cecily could see Mrs. Chubb’s bosom bristling with outrage at Gertie’s insolence. One of the hotel cats, there to keep down the mice, slunk past the irate housekeeper, who aimed a kick at it with her foot.
    Cecily felt sorry for Gertie. The poor child would very likely bear the brunt of the housekeeper’s sharp tongue the minute Cecily was out of sight. As if the housemaid didn’t have enough to worry about.
    Apparently unconcerned, Gertie plowed on. “That Miss Morris is a bit of all right,