“Will do.” She turned and scampered down the stairs. I breathed a sigh of relief when she had disappeared without taking any pictures of Violet or Our Lady of Chintz. Who were looking particularly … themselves at the moment. Or maybe it was because they were standing side by side, both, even to my unfashionable eyes, seriously in need of a wardrobe makeover. Someone should tell Violet that at thirty-something she should leave the pastel prints, ruffles, and lace to her rooms and find a more sophisticated style. And while I was relieved that Our Lady of Chintz didn’t dress with the same wild explosion of colors and prints that she stuffed into her room, I didn’t think the shapeless brown and gray garments she wore were a good alternative.

Not my problem, I reminded myself, and put on my helpful face to see what they wanted from me.

Luckily, Our Lady of Chintz didn’t object to the location of the Christmas tree, as long as she was allowed to decorate the bits visible in her room to match her design scheme. I gave her my blessing.

Tomás handed me a note from Eustace saying that effective immediately, Tomás and Mateo were on Randall’s payroll, and unless I had any objection he’d have them get started repairing the wall Clay had destroyed.

“Sí,” I said to Tomás. “Gracias.”

He flashed me a quick smile and hurried back to the master bedroom.

Princess Violet had lost her key to the house. Again. I’d deduced as much when I saw her holding her frilly pink purse.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I could have sworn I left it on the dresser in my room.”

“Why don’t you just keep it on your key ring?” I asked. I was already headed downstairs to the locked cabinet in the coat closet that served as my on-site desk. I’d learned to keep a few spare keys there.

“I have one on my key ring,” she said. “My main key ring. But I can’t find that today. I’m using my spare key ring. And it’s really a nuisance, because the car key I have on my spare key ring is a valet key that doesn’t open my trunk and—”

“Here you are.” I handed her a key. “Twenty dollars deposit.”

She continued babbling about her key rings—apparently she had three or four, each containing a slightly different assortment of keys. I waited until she’d rummaged around in her purse and found two fives and a ten—none of them in her wallet. I wrote out a receipt, handed her the top copy, and put the money and the carbon in my locked cash box.

Randall Shiffley strolled in while I was completing this transaction.

“I’m soooo sorry,” Violet said, as she tucked the key into her purse. “I’ll try to hang on to this one.”

She scurried back upstairs.

“Can you get a few more keys made?” I asked Randall.

“More keys? We must have enough keys floating around for half the town to have one.”

“I suspect we could find most of them if we searched Violet’s house, her car, and her purse,” I said. “Let’s just make sure the place is rekeyed as soon as the show house closes.”

“Already on my punch list.”

That was one of the things I liked about Randall. His punch list was the equivalent of my notebook, and I knew that anything on it was going to get done, and on time.

“The bank had a lot of problems with squatters and vandals before we started working here,” he went on, “so they’re pretty hyper about security. Speaking of vandals, is Clay still here?”

“I chased him out.”

“Sorry, Stanley,” Randall called. “Not here.”

I turned to see Stanley Denton, Caerphilly’s leading (and only) private investigator, standing in the foyer.

“I’ll check on that damaged wall,” Randall said as he headed upstairs.

“Hey, Stanley,” I said. “What do you need Clay for?”

“Got some papers to serve on him.”

“I didn’t know you did process serving,” I said.

“Not my favorite kind of work,” he said. “But it pays the bills.”

“What’s Clay getting served for, or are you allowed to say?”

“No big secret,” he said. “Clay and one of his former clients are suing and countersuing and filing charges against each other like crazy. Almost a full-time job lately, serving papers on the two of them. She says he didn’t finish her house and what he did was all wrong; he says she rejected work that was done according to her orders and hasn’t paid him.”

“He’s a jerk,” I said.

“Well, she’s no prize either, but I have to admit, the whole downstairs of her house is a sorry mess.” He shrugged. “It’s for the courts to decide. All I need to worry about is finding him for the latest set of papers. He wasn’t at home last night, and his office hadn’t seen him but said to come over here.”

“He left here maybe half an hour ago,” I said. “Not voluntarily. I’d offer to call him, but he might misinterpret it as me backing down from kicking him out. Maybe you could get Randall to call him.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ve got his number.”

“By the way,” I said. “Any chance you could get Randall to hire you to do a little detecting here at the show house?”

“Detecting what?”

“Someone’s been stealing packages,” I said. “Stuff the decorators have ordered. None of the packages have been fabulously valuable, but there have been so many of them that it probably adds up to hundreds of dollars by now. And the whole thing’s got some of the decorators at each other’s throats.”

“Not that I’d mind investigating, but have the police done what they can?”

“Now that’s a good question,” I said. “I keep telling the designers to make a police report about it, but who knows if any of them have done so. I’ll talk to the chief tomorrow.”

“Good,” he said. “And I’ll talk to Randall about hiring me to supplement their efforts.”

He headed upstairs after Randall.

I looked at my watch. Almost time for me to leave, to meet Michael and the twins for an afternoon of caroling, Christmas shopping, and eventually dinner. But with so much going on, I couldn’t leave my post unguarded. I’d asked my cousin Rose Noire to fill in for me this afternoon. Where was she?

Probably out delivering more of the customized, organic herbal gift baskets that she sold by the hundreds over the holiday season. I was still getting used to the notion of my flakey, New-Age cousin as the owner of a thriving small business. I’d have felt guilty, asking her to take the time away from her work, if I hadn’t been sacrificing so much anvil time myself.

“Meg?” I looked up to see Martha standing nearby. “Any chance I could go up and take a few measurements in the master bedroom?”

“Technically that’s still Clay’s room,” I said.

“Understood. And if the committee decides to let him stay, I’ll just have wasted a few minutes of my time. No problem. But if they decide to kick him out, I want to be able to say that yes, I absolutely can get the room ready by opening day.”

I thought about it for a few moments. Mother and Eustace still had a lot to do in their rooms. Sarah would be fighting the clock to undo what Clay had done to her room. And I couldn’t see handing the master bedroom over to any of the others. If we kicked Clay out, Martha would be the logical person to take over the master bedroom.

“I feel responsible,” she said.

“For everything Clay has done?”

“Well, not exactly,” she said. “But I am to blame for getting him into the decorating business in the first place. He used to work for me—briefly. Till he got too big for his britches and struck out on his own. Taking half my clients with him. The female half,” she added, with a bitter laugh. “A few of them started crawling back when they figured out they’d made a mistake, but by that time it was too late. My business was folding.”

No wonder Martha felt so miffed at Clay getting the room she’d wanted. If only I’d known from the start how much hostility there was between them.

“Take your measurements,” I said. “But be discreet.”