This Side of Murder Page 14

  And then suddenly it was over. A telegram in a brown envelope was delivered by one of the boys on their blood-red bicycles, telling me Sidney was dead. That was the only closure I’d been given. No body. No funeral. No sensation of some inexplicable earthly tether between us being severed. Just . . . emptiness. Never-ending emptiness.

  Unaware of the confusion that reigned inside me, Sam cut straight to the heart of the matter. “Then what you’re really wondering is if I’m suspicious about Ben’s death.” His brow furrowed as he stared at the painting above my head, but somehow I knew he wasn’t focused on the seascape, but on something in the past. “And the answer is, yes.”

  Max and I shared a look filled with both dread and a sort of vindication. For suddenly this was not our own little theory, but one shared by others.

  “I’ve been suspicious for some time,” Sam added.

  “Why?” Max asked. “Did Ben write to you or say something about any misgivings he was having?”

  Sam’s eyes slowly lowered from the wall, and it was clear he knew what Max was talking about. “Not to me.” His gaze shifted to meet mine, and I knew what he was about to say. “But he did tell Sidney.”

  My stomach clenched.

  “About the two men who were executed for desertion? About his doubts that they were guilty?” Max attempted to clarify.

  “Yes,” Sam replied, though he never broke eye contact with me. “That’s why Sidney requested I be assigned to his company. He wanted my help to uncover the truth.”

  All I could do was stand there mutely, trying to reconcile it all. Those certainly didn’t sound like the actions of a guilty man. If he’d been responsible for Ben’s death, wouldn’t he have wanted to keep Sam as far away as possible?

  “Because he didn’t trust the others?” Max guessed.

  Sam’s dark eyes flicked toward Max, unpinning me from his stare. “Yes, he said he didn’t know who was involved, and he couldn’t risk exposing his interest.”

  “Not even to me.” His voice rang hollow.

  Sam didn’t attempt to deny it. “He . . .” His words faltered and he shifted his feet, glancing over his shoulder again. “He said he had a lead, and he intended to look into it during that last leave he took in February of ’eighteen.”

  “And did he uncover anything?” I lowered my voice to ask, following Sam’s cue.

  He shook his head in frustration. “I don’t know. By the time he returned, I was laid up in the field hospital with a severe case of bronchitis. I resumed my command at the front just two days before the bombardment and our disastrous retreat. There was never time for him to divulge what he’d found out.”

  Disappointment trickled through me, but it did not last long, for Sam inhaled a shaky breath to continue.

  “Which, in the end, may have saved my life.” His eyes pinned me again with compassion. “Because I don’t think Sidney was killed by a German bullet. I think it was one of our own.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Hearing this pronouncement a second time shouldn’t have had as great an impact on me, but it did. Max’s earlier suggestion that Sidney might have been killed by one of his fellow officers had been disturbing, but it had been nothing but a guess. One I had led him to by not revealing the true contents of the letter my anonymous correspondent sent to coax me into attending the house party.

  But Sam’s assertion had not been influenced by anything I had said or done. He had come to it all on his own. Having served beside Sidney as his subaltern and been privy to the doubts and suspicions he was weighing, Sam almost certainly knew the facts of the matter better than anyone. So his supposition shook me to the core.

  I reached out a hand to steady myself, and this time Max latched on to it, pulling me closer. He wrapped his arm around my back, lending me his support as I forced a breath into my lungs.

  “I’m sorry,” Sam said in alarm. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything. . . .”

  “No, I’ll be all right,” I assured him in a wobbly voice. “It’s just . . . not an easy thing to hear.”

  The corners of Sam’s mouth curled in a humorless smile, letting me know he understood. After all, he’d had a similar conversation about his brother with my late husband.

  I leaned into Max, focusing on breathing in and out as he asked the question I hadn’t yet been able to form.

  “Why do you think Sidney was killed by a Tommy? Did you witness something?”

  “Not directly,” Sam replied. “But Sidney was . . . on edge. He was usually so astoundingly calm during engagements. While the rest of us were struggling to keep our nerve, he seemed so dashed assured and steady. It’s one of things that made him such a fine officer.” He frowned. “But that time was different. He seemed wary, mistrusting. Constantly scanning his surroundings. Checking his back.”

  “Couldn’t his resolve have just been shaken?” Max asked. “He had recently been injured, and that can rattle even the bravest of men.”

  I straightened, not certain I liked hearing such a thing suggested about my husband, even if he was only playing devil’s advocate.

  Sam shook his head. “No, he wasn’t windy. Just attentive, cautious. And when the retreat was sounded, he hustled all the men down the communication trench toward the rear before him, including me.” His brow tightened with distress. “I wish he’d let me stay behind with him, but I couldn’t disobey a direct order.” He looked to Max for reassurance.

  “No, you couldn’t,” he answered, not ungently.

  Feeling stronger, I stepped away from his supportive arm. “Who reported that Sidney had been shot by the Germans?”

  “Walter,” Sam said. “But he didn’t say who the shot came from. He didn’t see it. Everyone just assumed with the Jerries swarming the area that it must be one of them.”

  Which meant that either Walter had fired the bullet or he had been nearby when it happened.

  I crossed my arms over my chest against the sudden chill of the hallway. I hated to think of Walter as a suspect. He had been one of Sidney’s closest friends. They’d known each other since they were practically babes. And yet, I couldn’t quite dismiss the possibility. I’d already observed Walter’s strange behavior more than once during this interminable weekend.

  “Did anyone else see anything?” I asked.

  Sam sighed heavily. “If they did, they didn’t report it. But I’ve done a great deal of thinking about this, and I’ve figured that the only people who could have been directly involved with all aspects of this are Walter, Felix, Charlie, and Jimmy.” He ticked the chilling events off on his fingers. “They each gave testimony at the deserters’ court-martial or submitted reports that held bearing on the matter. They each either took part in or were stationed within the front-line trench during the night raid when my brother was killed. And they were some of the last officers to escape from the trenches after our retreat.”

  “And all four of them are here,” I pointed out. “Or were here,” I revised, recalling Jimmy’s timely suicide.

  “Yes,” Max murmured. “It does all seem rather convenient.”

  I arched a single eyebrow cynically. “Which part? Their all being invited to his house party or Jimmy choosing to end it all and carry whatever secrets he held to the grave?”

  “Both.”

  A blast of music from the gramophone spilled out of the parlor, recalling our attention to the fact that the others might miss our presence at any moment and come looking for us. Especially since Max had all but promised to help move the furniture for Helen so that we could dance.

  “I think we could use some more information about all three of those incidents,” Max declared, staring over Sam’s shoulder at the entrance to the parlor. “And the men involved. I have a friend in the War Office who might be able to help us.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “It’s a bit late, but if you two can keep the others occupied, I’ll go telephone him and see if he might be able to dig up some records for us tomorrow.”

  We agreed t
his was a sound plan. After all, none of us had seen the official reports in entirety on any of those incidents. As a staff officer, I knew Max had tried to keep abreast of the events concerning his old battalion, but naturally he had only had access to those files that crossed his desk or that colleagues had been willing to consult with him on.

  I watched Max as he strolled down the hall and disappeared around the corner, half hoping his friend would also stumble across some indication as to why my mystery correspondent had accused Sidney of treason.

  Or was their allegation all a ruse? Perhaps they’d only written that in order to lure me here, knowing I would never be able to dismiss such a horrid assertion about my late husband without discovering who had made it and why.

  The more I uncovered, the less likely it seemed to me that Sidney had been a traitor. There was still that coded missive hidden inside his book to be considered, but as I’d already recognized, someone else could have slipped that message inside the binding. It might not have had anything to do with Sidney at all. And even if it did, the contents of the letter need not indicate treason. Perhaps they were written in cipher for another reason. Perhaps they were notes about his own investigation into the framed deserters and Ben Gerard’s death.

  Somehow I needed to decrypt that message. Whatever it was, it must hold some answers as to what was going on here, and why Walter and Helen had invited such a contentious collection of guests to their engagement party.

  But before I could retire to my chamber, I had a task to accomplish. It certainly wouldn’t do to have one of our suspects overhear Max on the telephone. So I took Sam’s proffered arm and strolled nonchalantly into the parlor.

  But rather than the dancing I expected, we found the guests ranged around the room on various chairs and settees while the ladies indulged in some sort of feverish debate. Walter, Tom, and Felix seemed content to sit back, sipping their chosen libations and smoking. From the looks on their faces, I gathered they found the ongoing discussion quite entertaining. A cursory glance around the room told me Charlie was still absent.

  A tingle of unease swept through me. The last time someone had been absent for so long, we’d found him dead in the old pottery warehouse.

  Taking a firm hold of myself, I dismissed the wayward thought as nonsense. There was no reason to think anything was amiss. Charlie had visibly been upset by my and Max’s questions. As such, he was almost certainly in his room upstairs, hiding from us. And just for my peace of mind, I was sure Max could be prevailed upon to look in on him before he retired.

  Though I’d entered the parlor twice before as we gathered for dinner both nights, I was struck anew by the bold sumptuousness. With its deep red Romany damask wallpaper, black marble fireplace, Japanese lacquer chest, and silvered bronze chandelier, it somehow seemed suited to the evening. Most parlors and drawing rooms were decorated in soothing feminine tones and gilded elegance. Not so with this room. Helen seemed to have deliberately eschewed such standards, instead opting for brazen and ostentatious.

  “Verity, we need you to break the tie,” she exclaimed to be heard over the gramophone. The fire crackling in the hearth behind her seemed to create almost a halo around her blond bob and creamy white dress. “Nellie and Mabel wish to play a humdrum game of charades, while Gladys and I think Wink, Murder would be more amusing.”

  I stiffened at the jollity of her suggestion, and couldn’t stop myself from darting a glance at Mabel. She arched her eyebrows high, acknowledging the macabre nature of such a proposal less than twelve hours after we’d found Jimmy’s body. Clearly, Walter had not informed Helen of this morning’s misadventure.

  “No dancing?” I questioned, confused by the change in plans after Helen had seemed so set on it earlier.

  “We’re short of gentlemen who are up to the task.” She arched her eyebrows pointedly. “Charlie has gone off to who knows where, and Jimmy is likely still in bed nursing whatever illness he’s mysteriously come down with. And now even Max has seen fit to abandon us all. Six women can hardly share three eager men and one who’s quite reluctant.” She glared at her fiancé.

  “A bit like France, ay, chums?” Tom remarked, cackling at his own jest. “’Cept ’twas the other way around. Not enough pretty French girls.” He elbowed Walter, who leaned against the Bombe chest that served as a sideboard, sloshing the drink in his glass. “Though you always seemed to have the luck. What was that blonde’s name?”

  Walter’s face had gone conspicuously blank. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, ole chap.”

  “Sure ye do,” Tom insisted. “She used to hang round the estaminet in that slinky mink.”

  “Sorry. You must have me confused with someone else.” He turned a black scowl on Tom, who finally seemed to realize this wasn’t a topic his host wished to discuss, particularly in front of his fiancée.

  “Max will be rejoining us shortly,” I hastened to reply to Helen’s unspoken query, hoping to shift some of the attention away from Tom’s ill-advised comments.

  However, Helen’s eyes remained narrowed on the two men, and I couldn’t decide whom she was angrier with—her faithless intended or bumbling Tom.

  I’d visited an estaminet once. I’d seen the relatively harmless merriment that went on inside those cafés, some of which were real establishments in the French villages a few miles from the front, and others that were scarcely more than barns or shacks filled with bales of hay and a makeshift bar from which to dispense the liquor. But I’d also been aware of the activities that went on just upstairs or next door. Services that could be bought by a lonely, desperate soldier for five francs.

  I’d realized then it would be naïve to think that most soldiers hadn’t employed these women at one point or another during the war, maybe even Sidney. Though it churned my stomach to think of him in another woman’s arms, I also found I couldn’t totally begrudge him for seeking some sort of solace. Though I was certain he would have been horrified to discover I even suspected such a thing went on, let alone had witnessed other men behaving this way and fended off a few unwanted advances of my own.

  However, I was aware that most women hadn’t the slightest inkling what went on while their men were at ease during their rotation back from the trenches. Just as they’d had no clue how dreadful the conditions were at the front, or the horrors their men had faced almost daily. The press never told the truth; propaganda at its finest. And the men didn’t want their loved ones back home to know it anyway, even though it caused countless divides and misunderstandings. They didn’t want the terrors they’d confronted to touch those they’d loved and gone to war to protect and preserve.

  That I’d walked in both places as a Secret Service agent had set me apart from the larger part of the civilian population. It had marked and scarred me, even with as little as I’d experienced. And yet, I wasn’t a soldier. I wouldn’t dare to claim their wounds.

  I wasn’t certain how Helen would react to the news that her husband might have taken a French lover. In one sense, she’d seemed more worldly than most, having so easily accepted the fact that she wasn’t the only woman to respond to Walter’s Lonely Soldier advert. But on the other, she still seemed so naïve and immature, blind to the realities of war. Whatever she felt, she’d been trained well, for she masked the vehemence burning in her eyes and resumed her role as hostess.

  “Well, regardless, I decided a parlor game might be more to everyone’s liking,” she said, explaining away her whim with a flick of her wrist.

  “And what of Elsie?” I asked.

  The pretty brunette sat to the side, almost pouting. Couldn’t she have broken the tie?

  “Oh, she wants to play Hot Cockles.” Helen rolled her eyes. “And we’re not doing that.”

  “Unless you want to play it,” Elsie interjected, narrowing her eyes at her friend in challenge before tossing me a hopeful look.

  Despite Elsie’s wheedling, there was no contest as to which game I preferred. Given the events of the day
, Wink, Murder sounded far too ghoulish. And I was not about to lay my head in anyone’s lap to play Hot Cockles. But I suspected if I chose charades, Helen would be very put out with me. She clearly wanted to indulge in something a bit outrageous, and Tom’s tactless remarks would only spur on that desire.

  It was on the tip of my tongue to suggest poker, but witnessing how much spirits had already been consumed that night, I thought that might not be such a good idea, lest one of these ladies or gentlemen gamble away a fortune. “Why don’t we play both,” I hedged. “Surely there’s time for more than one game.”

  “Hmmm, yes. I suppose,” she murmured, turning to stare out the two long windows looking out on the garden. Their drapes had yet to be pulled and we could see the rain sluicing down them in rivers. “Though, with this weather, I did think Wink, Murder would be more atmospheric.”

  “Then we shall play that first,” I suggested, only to be interrupted by a gasp from Helen.

  “I have it!” She grinned with delight. “I have the perfect parlor game for us.” She rushed forward to tug at the bell rope to summon a servant. Then she swiveled to face the room, gesturing to the men. “Help me arrange the chairs around this table.”

  I stepped back as they followed her instructions, shifting the furniture so that it surrounded the low, circular tea table.

  “Helen, what are you on about?” Gladys asked, shifting forward in her seat. “What are we playing?”

  Her eyes lit with mischief, as she clasped her hands before her. “We’re going to do a bit of table-turning.”

  Her words made my stomach drop. If Wink, Murder had seemed somewhat ghoulish, a séance was in downright poor taste, especially with the number of ex-soldiers present. And I could tell I wasn’t the only one who thought so, even if Elsie and Gladys seemed keen on the plan, jumping up from their seats in excitement. Sam’s shoulders stiffened, and Mabel actually gave a start.