Chapter 22
Still wearing these, she went over to glance through the balcony doors.
It was early but some of the guests were already up and about, strolling along the water’s edge in fur coats.
Eve was eager to continue the scavenger hunt, so she went straight to the walk-in wardrobe.
Today it had selected a tailored Lisa Mae shirtwaister white dress, with diagonal jet buttons and a red undercollar.
Accompanying it was a polished pair of strapped low heels in black.
“Are you looking for the Breakfast Room, madam?” the receptionist asked.
Eve took the directions offered and set off down the corridor.
Soon enough, she discovered a light, airy room with marble pillars, a black-and-white tiled floor, and scalloped seating upholstered in powder-pink velvet.
Geometric mirrors lined the walls, reflecting the blue sparkle of the lake outside.
There were several guests there, having breakfast, admiring the view, or reading the paper.
A buffet table at one end was piled high with platters of fruit and croissants, rounds of Gruyère cheese beneath glass domes, and shell-shaped bowls full of honey and porridge.
On the wall above the table hung a large golden sunburst clock, with brass dials and thirty-two golden rays.
Eve took a plate—lavender-grey with an octopus motif, same as the set she’d found in France.
She selected a croissant and some fruit and went over to a free table by the window, where she dug the scavenger hunt card from her pocket and wrote the sunburst clock into place at number two.
She was about to reach for her croissant when she heard a muffled giggle and realised with a jolt that there was someone hiding beneath her table.
She quickly pulled the tablecloth up to peer into the grinning face of a little girl—the same child who’d peeked around the door of her room yesterday.
She was a bit older than she’d first thought—perhaps four years old—clutching some kind of mechanical toy in her hands.
“Well, small child,” Eve said. “Are you supposed to be down there?”
She’d never had much to do with children and didn’t particularly like them, since they reminded her of Bella.
After causing the death of one infant, it had always seemed prudent to stay well away from all others.
Eve hoped the girl would leave quickly or that a hassled parent might appear to retrieve her.
The child’s grin widened. “We’re having a mouse concert. Do you want to see?”
“Not especially.”
The girl pressed her finger to her lips. “Shh. Don’t tell anyone; it’s supposed to be a secret. But my mice can play the most beautiful music in the world.”
Eve’s ears pricked up. Could the girl possibly have the music box Victor had spoken of?
Hadn’t he said something about mice musicians?
She leaned forwards as the child placed her toy on the floor and wound the key with a mechanical clicking sound.
Eve recognised it; she’d seen one just like it at Stanley’s a year or two ago.
It was the Merrymakers clockwork mouse band by Louis Marx, consisting of four tin mice musicians assembled around a tin lithographed piano decorated in black, cream, and red.
The girl pressed a lever, and the four mice sprang frantically to life, enthusiastically bashing at their instruments.
But there was no music. No music at all.
Only whirs and clicks. Eventually, it wound down and came to a stop.
“Superb,” Eve said coldly. “Now would you mind leaving me to finish my breakfast in peace?”
The girl scrambled out from under the table, still clutching the tin piano. She flashed Eve a grin and said, “My name’s Nan. And I know who you are too. You’re—”
“Nan!”
A voice rang out across the Breakfast Room so loudly that Eve and Nan both jumped.
Anna was striding across the room towards them, looking cross.
She’d swapped her violet gown of last night for a belted mint-green day dress with two breast pockets, buttoned cap sleeves, and a pleated skirt.
Her long black hair was tied up in a chignon bun.
Nan didn’t hang around to be scolded; she scurried across the restaurant to join two older boys lingering in the doorway.
Eve guessed they must be her brothers because they had the same auburn hair, but she only saw them for a moment before all three disappeared into the hotel.
Anna continued to Eve’s table. “I’m so sorry,” she said, smiling. “The children are under strict orders not to disturb you. Or any of our guests.”
She held an apple in her hand, extraordinarily shiny and red, so perfect that it looked more like a painted apple than the real thing.
“It’s fine,” Eve replied. “But I have a question, actually, while you’re here. I’ve heard a lot about your grandfather’s art and wondered if I might be able to see his paintings.”
Anna raised the apple and bit into it with a loud crunch. She chewed for a moment before swallowing and said, “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. The paintings have all been lost.”
“All of them?”
“Well, all but one. And you’d have to win the scavenger hunt to see that. But it’s a very special one. It’s where it all began, you see.”
Eve frowned. “Where what all began?”
Anna flashed a smile again and there were those dimples. “Some say it’s the first artwork Nikolas Roth ever produced at the White Octopus, but I suppose it depends.”
“On what?”
She gave a small shrug. “On whether you look at it from the point of view of the artist or the point of view of the hotel.”
“Do hotels have a point of view?”
“Some believe this one does.” Anna calmly took another bite of her apple.
“What’s it a painting of?”
Anna tilted her head. “I suppose you’ll have to win the scavenger hunt to find out.”
“But what happened to the other paintings?” Eve asked. “Were they stolen?”
It seemed unlikely, given how remote the hotel was. After all, it would be extremely difficult for any thieves to transport a painting back across the lake and down the mountain.
“No,” Anna replied. Up close, the shining silver leaf on her necklace looked even more lifelike. Eve could see every single vein in the blade, delicate and beautiful.
“Are there any clues at all as to what happened?” she pressed.
Anna shook her head and then flashed another smile, exposing her cheek dimples. Eve tried not to think of Bella.
“None at all,” Anna said.
“That’s a great shame.”
“Isn’t it? Well, enjoy your breakfast, Miss Shaw. And good luck with the scavenger hunt.”
Anna turned and walked away without another word, leaving Eve to stare at her retreating back.
Max Everly wasn’t the only person who could tell when he was being lied to.
Eve was fairly certain that if Anna had spoken those words about the paintings to her in the Palm Bar, in the presence of the Eavesdropper, then there would have been a great deal of desperate coughing indeed.
She finished her breakfast quickly, eager to start the scavenger hunt properly.
But on her way out of the Breakfast Room she spotted Jane at a table by herself.
Her mother was wearing a lemon polka-dot dress, her plate of fruit untouched before her.
She had a pen in her hand and was writing something on a hotel napkin.
Eve knew she should probably walk straight past but couldn’t resist stopping and saying hello.
“Oh. Hello.” Jane glanced up and managed a smile, but she looked tired and there was a redness around her eyes that suggested she’d been recently crying.
“I thought you might have left already,” Eve said.
“It’s my last day at the White Octopus,” Jane replied. “I wish I could stay. I don’t really want to go home.” She paused, then said, “I don’t think I’m very good at it.”
“At what?”
“Being a mother.” She tapped the napkin and Eve saw that she’d been making a list of girl’s names. “Bella” was there, right at the top, beneath the octopus crest.
“Oh.” Eve stared at her. “Well. I’m sure that’s not true.”
Jane smiled slightly. “Sadly, it is. Though I do try. Every day I try. But I get so impatient and cross with Eve and then I feel horrible. It’s impossible to get it right some days.
Most days, really. I’ve quite enjoyed having some time away from her.
Isn’t that awful?” Tears suddenly filled her eyes and she quickly tried to blink them away.
“I don’t know what’s the matter with me. You must think I’m horrible.”
“I don’t.” Eve pulled out the chair opposite and sat down. “Look, I don’t have children of my own but…well, I can imagine that being a mother must be hard. Really hard sometimes.”
Her eyes flicked to the napkin again, taking in the other names her mum had once considered for her sister.
She was surprised to see “Anna” was on the list, right underneath “Bella.” And beneath that, she saw, was a combination of the two.
She could read the name even though it had been crossed out—“Annabella.”
“It’s just that I’m so tired,” Jane went on.
“All the time. I tried to tell Glen, my husband, about it once and he didn’t say much, but I could tell he was gobsmacked.
Just gobsmacked. And a little appalled. I mean, we’ve got this beautiful, healthy, perfect daughter, so what am I complaining about?
I know I shouldn’t find it this hard. And Glen didn’t know what to say, and I could tell that what he wanted more than anything was for us to rewind the last five minutes, to go back to pretending that everything was fine.
So that’s what we did.” She sighed, wiping her face with the back of her hand.
“I just thought I would know what to do once I had my own child, but I’m making it up.
I’m just making it up as I go along and most of the time it’s not right, and it’s not enough. ”