Dye Hard (Australian Amateur Sleuth Book 3) Read online

  “What’s going on here?” Dorothy’s strident voice cut through the tense atmosphere.

  “Dorothy, Sue has died,” Cressida said.

  Dorothy gasped. “What? Sue died?”

  We all nodded.

  “Can you tell me what you were doing this morning?” Blake asked her, but the question did not go over well.

  “Slaving over a hot stove making cooked breakfasts, that’s what!” she exclaimed rudely, waving a stubby fist at Blake. “And no one came down for breakfast, so all the food’s wasted!” Her voice rose to a high pitch. I wondered if all the antique glassware would crack.

  Mr. Buttons’ face turned a ghastly shade of red. “Madam, please desist and refrain from this unseemly manner of conduct. There is a deceased person present.”

  Michael, Alex, and Ken looked at each other with barely veiled excitement. I expect they thought that Mr. Buttons meant that he had sensed a ghost.

  Dorothy narrowed her eyes and glared at Mr. Buttons. “This is what happens when people start to mess with the occult! First your tarot cards,” —she nearly spat the words— “and now these ghost busters. No good will come of it. You mark my words!” She waved her fist at all of us and then disappeared back down the corridor.

  Blake walked closer to Mr. Buttons. “Keep an eye on these guys,” he said in a whispered tone. “Please call me if any of them try taking off or make any suspicious comments, or anything, anything at all.”

  Mr. Buttons nodded, and I watched the ghost hunters as they stood there, trying in vain to comfort James.

  Chapter 5

  I walked into the boarding house and headed for the kitchen. On my way, I came across Cressida sitting next to the landline, her head down, and sipping from a coffee mug. “Good morning,” I said.

  Cressida let out a scream. “Whoa! You scared me. Lord Farringdon didn’t tell me you were coming.”

  I sat on the over-stuffed, plush red velvet, antique grandmother chair next to her and looked down at the fat, tabby and white cat sitting at Cressida’s feet. “Naughty Lord Farringdon.”

  He glared at me, his cheeks puffed out. I thought of my vision. “Cressida, perhaps it’s a good idea if you don’t dye your hair for a while, given what happened to Sue.”

  “Sure. I’m waiting on a call from the plumber,” Cressida said. “He said he’ll call when he’s free and I need him to hurry back right now. He said he’d have my private bathroom finished by today, but he had the nerve to get called out on an emergency. What could be more of an emergency than me having to use the east wing bathroom while mine is out of action? That’s where Sue was, well, you know.”

  I nodded in sympathy.

  “Anyway,” Cressida continued, “Lord Farringdon told me that not having my bathroom fixed by now will actually cause an emergency.”

  I raised my eyebrows but said nothing. “It would be easy if you had a cell phone,” I said. “Then you wouldn’t have to sit around by this ancient landline.” I pointed to the old-fashioned, black handset on the wall. “It’s not even cordless,” I added.

  Cressida pulled back the folds of her outsized, golden and sky blue sarong to reveal an old-fashioned pager on her belt. “This little guy warns me whenever the phone rings. It’s brilliant.”

  I fought the urge to laugh. “Sounds like a plan.”

  At the sound of a door banging, Cressida leaped to her feet. “Finally! Someone has been in that bathroom for a good twenty minutes.” She stormed off to claim her turn.

  I smiled and walked down to the kitchen to get myself a coffee. No one else was in the kitchen, so I sipped my coffee, my mind on recent events. I thought back to earlier days, and how everything now seemed so much more complicated in comparison. Was this a natural event or a brutal one?

  The sound of the landline ringing made me jump, so lost was I in thought. I hurried to the front desk, concerned that Cressida’s ancient pager might not work. I reached the landline, and stretched out my hand for the old receiver, when I saw Cressida hurrying toward me. My first thought was that her hair was covered in bright red dye. My second thought was that Cressida was staggering. My third thought was that Cressida had not heeded my warning about not dyeing her hair.

  Cressida hit the floor just as Mr. Buttons arrived on the scene. Without hesitation, I reached for the phone, which had now stopped ringing, and called the Australian Emergency number, 000. I gave them the address and then hung up, then called the police station.

  “Sibyl,” Mr. Buttons called frantically, “quick, wash it out of her hair! The poison must be in the dye!”

  I ran to Cressida who was shaking on the floor. “We can’t drag her,” Mr. Buttons said, “Quick, fetch water!”

  I ran down to the east wing bathroom and mercifully found a plastic pitcher. I filled it with water and grabbed some towels and ran back to Cressida.

  Mr. Buttons and I put towels under her head, and I poured the water over her head, at once drying it with towels.

  “It must be readily absorbed by the skin,” Mr. Buttons said. “Wash it off your hands each time you go for water.”

  And so I ran between the bathroom and Cressida, pouring water on her head and drying off the excess, and I repeated the process, until at last sirens wailed.

  Blake burst into the corridor, followed by two paramedics.

  Mr. Buttons stood up. “Blake, it’s the red hair dye, just the same as Sue. She was dyeing her hair…”

  I interrupted him. “And she ran out to answer the phone, so the hair dye couldn’t have been in for long and we washed it out, as best we could.”

  The paramedics already had Cressida on a stretcher with an oxygen mask on her face. It seemed to my relief that she was breathing more easily. They took her outside with Blake and me following hard on their heels. “We had a death here yesterday from hair dye,” Blake told them. “It must be a toxin absorbed by the skin.”

  As they took Cressida away, sirens blaring, I looked around for Mr. Buttons. He appeared at the door, just as Blake hurried back into the building.

  I stood there, in shock, clutching Mr. Buttons’ arm. Neither of us spoke until Blake reappeared, holding a plastic bag containing a bottle. “This is another bottle of hair dye,” he said. “The bathroom is now a crime scene, and Constable Andrews is on his way. Whatever, you do, don’t go in there. I’ve taken this bottle for testing. You said the ghost hunters are out for the day?”

  We both nodded.

  “Good, but Mr. Buttons, can you give me their cell phone numbers? I’ll need to call them to tell them to avoid that bathroom. They might not take notice of the yellow tape.”

  I sat on the front steps, in a daze, while both Mr. Buttons and Blake disappeared back inside the building. I only nodded to Constable Andrews when he arrived. Soon, Blake and Mr. Buttons were back. Blake patted me on the shoulder, before driving away. Mr. Buttons took my arm. “Come on, Sibyl. Let’s go to the hospital and see how Cressida is.”

  I followed Mr. Buttons to his car, an old, green Bentley that looked as though it had been manufactured in the 1980’s. Despite the car’s elderly yet pristine appearance, the engine was powerful. Gravel flew everywhere as it surged down the driveway.

  In no time at all, we arrived at the emergency room wing of the hospital, where we managed to find a parking spot fairly easily, and we made our way inside. My heart was in my mouth, wondering how Cressida was.

  The nurse behind the desk looked up.

  “Hi,” I said. “Our friend, Cressida Upthorpe, was just rushed in here by ambulance. We wanted to know her condition.”

  The woman frowned. “Are you her relatives?”

  “No, but…” I said, but Mr. Buttons cut me off.

  “Yes, I’m her husband, and this is her daughter-in-law.”

  My mouth fell open, until I remembered that hospitals often refused to give out any information to non relatives.

  The woman frowned. “I’ll just check for you.” She walked through a side door. When she didn’t
return after a minute or so, Mr. Buttons and I took a seat.

  The nurse returned through her door just as the emergency room door opened, and a young, handsome doctor stepped out. He looked at us. “Are you two here to see Cressida Upthorpe?”

  We nodded.

  He motioned for us to follow. He led us into a small room and closed the door.

  I was fearing the worst, and so apparently was Mr. Buttons, given the way he was clutching my arm, his long, bony fingers digging in painfully.

  “Ms. Upthorpe is in a stable condition. She got lucky,” the doctor said.

  I breathed a long sigh of relief, while Mr. Buttons said, “Got lucky?”

  The doctor nodded. “Something interrupted her. Whatever caused this was in the hair dye. Given that the police have informed me of the recent death due to what they say is the same hair dye, it is something readily absorbed by the skin.”

  “She stopped dyeing her hair to answer the phone,” I said, “and we washed it out as best we could.”

  “Will she be all right?” Mr. Buttons’ voice was strained.

  The young doctor looked reluctant to speak, but answered regardless. “We can’t make any promises, of course, but at this stage, it looks as if she will make a complete recovery.”

  Both Mr. Buttons and I let out a long sigh in unison. I was so thankful that I thought I would burst into tears from sheer relief.

  “Can we see her now?” Mr. Buttons asked.

  “If you can wait twenty minutes or so,” the doctor said, “she will have a room.” He nodded, and left the room, leaving us sitting there.

  “Thank goodness she’s okay,” I said.

  Mr. Buttons nodded, and wiped a tear from one eye with an embroidered, linen handkerchief. “She gave me quite a fright.”

  “Who would want to kill Cressida?”

  Mr. Buttons shrugged. “Cressida and Sue had nothing in common. It might be the case that Sue was the target, and some hair dye meant for Sue was left in the bathroom.”

  “You would think the murderer would clear away the evidence, though.”

  Mr. Buttons scratched his head. “It’s beyond me. The main thing is that Cressida’s okay.”

  I agreed. “Where will we wait?”

  “The hospital cafeteria,” Mr. Buttons said. “We have another twenty minutes, so we might as well wait somewhere away from the smell of disinfectant.”

  I wrinkled up my nose. I had never liked the smell of hospitals. Soon the two of us were sitting opposite each other at a small white plastic table on two uncomfortable red plastic chairs. We were sipping horrible-tasting coffee. “At least it’s caffeine,” I said aloud, to no one in particular.

  Mr. Buttons did not respond, but kept looking at his watch.

  Finally, twenty minutes had passed. “It’s been twenty minutes. Let’s go and find Cressida’s room.” Mr. Buttons stood up.

  When we arrived at the front desk of the ward, the woman sitting behind the computer looked up with a smile on her face. “Hello, may I help you?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Our friend, Cressida Upthorpe, was just given a room and the doctor told us we could go up and see her.”

  “Name?”

  “Cressida Upthorpe,” I repeated, more slowly this time.

  The older woman slid on a large pair of glasses and pressed them to her nose. She clicked away on the computer’s mouse while peering at the screen. “Room 308.” She pointed down the hall. “Go down there. Take the first elevator on your right up to the second floor. Walk past the nurses’ station and look for her room number on your right-hand side.”

  We thanked her, and hurried off. After the elevator ride up one floor, we stepped out and walked in the direction of Cressida’s room. 306, 307, 308. There it was. I knocked on the door, but Mr. Buttons walked straight in.

  To my delight, Cressida was propped in bed, looking far better than my expectations. Blake stood beside her, with a notebook in his hands.

  “Hey, you two,” he said.

  “It hurt so badly,” Cressida said quietly.

  “What did?” I asked, crossing the room to stand beside her bed.

  “The hair dye. I’d only just started to put it on, when my pager went off.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “It was hard to breathe, and I felt sick and dizzy. That’s pretty much the last thing I remember, before waking up here.”

  Blake crossed his arms. “I’ve called in the detectives. This is going to be treated as an attempted murder, and Sue’s death is going to be investigated as a murder.” Blake nodded to us and then left the room.

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, I bathed two Persian show cats for the one client, and then I returned to my house. I fed Sandy and Max, and then threw a frozen dinner in the microwave. While it was being nuked, I took a quick shower. I was on edge; I could not get the day’s events out of my mind.

  I was about to get dressed when I heard a knock on the door. I threw on a silk bathrobe, which was the closest thing I could find. My sister, Phyto, had sent it back from China for me: it was a pretty, pale green, with embroidered dragons on it.

  I opened the door to see Blake standing there. “Hi Sibyl, may I come in?”

  “Of course.” I stood back to let him in. Unfortunately, I forgot that Max was still in the living room. He bobbed his head up and down, and then squawked at me, “I love your outfit. Did it come with a pole?”

  I opened the back door and Max flew outside. I rolled my eyes, wrapped my bath robe around me more tightly, and turned to Blake. “Would you like a cup of coffee, or something?”

  Blake shook his head. “Thank you, but no.”

  I was disappointed, but he pressed on. “I have to rush away. They’ve brought a court appearance forward so I have to drive to Sydney tonight. I’ll be away for few days, and I was wondering if you would mind Tiny for me.”

  “Yes, of course.” Tiny was Blake’s chihuahua. My labrador, Sandy, and Tiny were friends. They often played together at the dog park, and after the weekly dog training classes. I was secretly pleased that Blake had asked me to mind his dog. This surely meant that he did not have a girlfriend hiding somewhere. If he had a girlfriend, surely she would be the one to mind his dog. I smiled at my logic.

  “Thanks, Sibyl.” Blake beamed at me. “I do have some bad news, though.”

  “What? Not Cressida?”

  Blake shook his head. “No, no. It’s the detectives. They refuse to come to town to investigate. They say Sue’s death was simply anaphylactic shock.”

  I was gobsmacked. “Well, what’s going to happen?” I said.

  Blake took a step closer to me. “Sibyl, I want you to be very careful. Call me if anything happens. Leave a message if I’m in court. I don’t like going away at a time like this, but I have no choice. When I get back, I’ll sort out the investigation.”

  Chapter 6

  In the time that I had been living on the grounds of the boarding house, I had never been in Mr. Buttons’ room. I sat in it now, perched in a corner upon a wooden chair with a pale blue cushion affixed to the seat by two small strings wrapping around the back frame. Mr. Buttons stood at his closet, pulling on a tan jacket over his usual button-up shirt. We were going to go down to my cottage, to have some privacy while we talked about the murder and Cressida’s subsequent poisoning. I had been surprised when Mr. Buttons had asked me up to his room while he finished getting ready, but it turned out that he had something to tell me that he simply couldn’t wait to discuss.

  Once his jacket was on, he turned and walked over to me. “I can’t hold it in any longer, my dear.” He clapped his hands together and smiled.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “I managed to take some of the poison in Cressida’s bottle of hair dye!”

  My mouth fell open. “You what?”

  “I took some of it, with all of the craziness going around, it wasn’t very hard. I put it in a small vial. Anyway, that’s not the important part.”

&
nbsp; “That’s not the important part?” I asked. “I’d love to know what is.”

  “I sent it in for testing.” A grin so massive spread across Mr. Buttons’ face that I could count every one of his white teeth.

  “You sent it in for testing? Where? Who?”

  “Let’s get down to your place,” he said, waving his hand at me. “The walls have ears, and all of that.”

  “But,” I started, but he was already half out the door. I had no choice but to follow.

  We went down the staircase together and out the front door. I waited until the path toward my house curved to the left, and the boarding house was lost behind a row of delightfully scented, lemon eucalyptus trees after which were a variety of wattle trees, before I turned to Mr. Buttons.

  “So what now?” I asked. It annoyed me a little to see that Mr. Buttons was just as pleased with himself as he had been in his room.

  “I sent it to be tested.”

  I was a little frustrated. “Yes, I realize that, but who exactly did you send it to?”

  Mr. Buttons threw up his hands. “Oh I don’t know, some company I found on the internet. You send them something and pay a fee, and they tell you what it is.”

  I tried to process the information. “Okay, so you sent the poison to be tested. When do you get the results?”

  “I paid a rush fee, so it should only be a few days.”

  We had reached my cottage, and Mr. Buttons sat on the couch patting Sandy, my yellow labrador, while I went into my kitchen to make a pot of tea. After I put on the tea, I let Sandy into the back yard, while inadvertently letting in my foul-mouthed sulfur-crested cockatoo, Max.

  “Hello, idiots,” he squawked, landing on the sofa behind to Mr. Buttons and pecking at his hair. “Oh look, it’s Dumb and Dumber.”

  “Max!” I scolded.

  “*^&$%#” was Max’s reply, so I caught him and put him out the back door, too.

  When I returned, I poured the tea, handed Mr. Buttons his cup and saucer and then sat next to him on the couch. We both took a moment to take a sip of tea and then we looked at one another.