Chapter 13 #2
I followed the direction of her masked face and saw the unmistakable, white-haired figure of Desmond Norman approaching.
He was wearing a scary black and red mask, and his clothes were all made of black satin.
He could have been a medieval undertaker or a sinister jailer.
It was easy to imagine him heating a red-hot poker in a brazier ready for a gruesome torture session.
Reflecting back on what Alice had just told me, I couldn’t help thinking that the next few hours might well turn out to be torture for at least some of the guests.
Over the course of the next hour, the guests all assembled in their costumes that ranged from the outrageously revealing and decadent gown made up of pink silk, pearls and gold thread worn by Maggie McBride, to the all-white tunic, pantaloons and tights worn by Freddie Baker, now looking considerably shorter without his ridiculous gold shoes.
The women all looked very glamorous, even Lucy O’Connell, whose costume and mask conveniently concealed her worn and ravaged complexion, and whose wimple covered her unkempt hair, giving her an almost ecclesiastical look.
Champagne was served, and it came as no surprise to see Jack Sloane once again doing his best to empty any bottle he found.
Freddie Baker stuck to mineral water and I stuck to beer – and not too much of it.
After what Alice had told me, I felt sure this was going to be an interesting evening, and I wanted to be in command of my faculties so as to observe it.
At exactly seven o’clock, Alice tapped a glass with a spoon and silence fell across the terrace.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, before dinner is served, I promised that I would give you all cards with details of your characters, along with some clues for you to pass on to other guests over the course of the evening. As it’s a beautiful night, we intend to serve dinner outside, and you’re free to sit wherever you like.
In order that you can all have the opportunity to mingle, I will ask you to change tables every now and then as the meal progresses so that by the end, you should have had the opportunity to talk to as many people as possible.
Once the murder has taken place, Dan here, that’s Don Daniele, the Magistrate, will gather you together and give you each the chance to offer your solution to the mystery.
I hope that’s clear. Now, to animate the evening, here are some other participants who have come along to help you in your investigations. ’
The door to the dining room opened, and the actors trooped out one by one and, as they did so, Alice introduced them – particularly the Doge and his half-brother – to the guests.
She didn’t introduce the guests to the actors by name and I wondered how many of them would be recognised in the course of the evening.
Hidden as they were beneath their Renaissance costumes and masks, it would be hard to identify the celebrities.
Besides, I reminded myself, the only immediately recognisable faces among the guests were probably the two actors and possibly Carlos Rodriguez and Freddie Baker, the famous directors.
I presumed that the faces of the others would probably be as unfamiliar to the locally recruited actors as they had been to me.
Alice moved around among the guests, handing out individual cards to each of them.
I did my best to scrutinise the people as they read what was on their cards, but the masks made it almost impossible for me to see any of the faces.
There were a few exceptions. Desmond Norman, the octogenarian film producer, pushed his mask up onto his forehead and dug out a pair of reading glasses from the hidden recesses of his pantaloons, perched them on his nose and studied his card intently.
As he did so, I distinctly saw him straighten up and even in the twilight beneath the arbour, as the sun headed for the horizon, I felt sure I saw his face flush.
Whether this was with anger, embarrassment, or fear was impossible to tell, but clearly his opinion of our hostess hadn’t improved since lunchtime.
Alastair Groves didn’t remove his mask, so I couldn’t see his facial features, but from the way he froze for almost a minute before raising the card to barely a few inches in front of his face so he could study it letter by letter, I had little doubt that whatever was on there had come as a considerable shock to him.
His wife reached over and almost jerked it out of his hand so she could study it closely.
A bit further along, I saw Carlos Rodriguez react in a similar way, holding out his card towards Greg Gupta, clearly stunned by what he’d read.
The others were impossible to judge except for Jack Sloane, who also needed the assistance of reading glasses and had to remove his mask to read the card.
His already flushed face turned the most unhealthy puce colour, and I saw him empty his glass in one and reach out for another from a conveniently positioned tray.
Something he had read had definitely come as a considerable shock to him.
I took a sip of beer and settled back to see what happened next. Just as it says on boxes of fireworks, light blue touch paper and stand well clear. The games had started – by which I mean, not only the murder mystery game, but also the far more serious one being played by our hostess.