A Pretty Deceit Read online

  “What about the evidence the police have collected?” I asked into the tense silence that had fallen. “Did he tell you what Mr. Green was clutching in his palm?”

  “No, but he started to tell me about the disturbed ground when the inspector yelled for him. Said there was more than one spot where the soil had been turned over.”

  I frowned in confusion, wondering why someone would do such a thing, be it Mr. Green or someone else. I began to ask him just that question and then stopped, realizing he wouldn’t know the answer any more than I did. “We need to take another look at that glade.”

  “I agree. But not today.” He gestured toward the windscreen where the electric wiper was struggling to keep up with the steady drumbeat of rain.

  I had no intention of arguing with him. Not when what little light there was had already begun to bleed from the sky.

  “What of you?” His mouth curled into a grin. “What did Dr. Razey have to say?”

  Ignoring the teasing tone of his voice, I relayed what I’d learned about nicotine poisoning, the state of Mr. Green’s body, and the discovery of the puncture wound in the corpse’s neck.

  “You suspect another poison,” he surmised as he navigated past the overgrown gatehouse.

  “Truthfully?” I sighed. “I don’t know what to suspect.” I drummed my fingers against my leg as I stared out at the poplar trees. “But you must admit that puncture wound is odd.”

  “And its placement.”

  “But why would someone inject him with poison? Why not simply shoot him or bash him over the head?” Poisoning Mr. Green in such a manner seemed a rather complicated and roundabout way for the killer to achieve his or her aims.

  “Perhaps they didn’t have access to a gun, or know how to properly use it. Maybe they were worried they couldn’t overpower him or sneak up on him unawares.”

  “And they did have access to poison and a syringe, and took the chance of being able to get close enough to him to administer the dose without him noticing?”

  He tilted his head, conceding my point. Bashing a person over the head took much less finesse, and could be accomplished at a greater distance, than jabbing them in the neck and then pushing the plunger of a syringe. Sidney gave the engine a gun as we crested the rise and Littlemote House came into view.

  “The only logical reason I can think of that the killer would have chosen poison is to distance themselves from the crime. For if the police believe the poison was administered elsewhere, then they’re going to pay less attention to the place where the victim actually died.”

  “I can think of one other,” he replied ruefully. “They wanted his wife to take the blame.”

  CHAPTER 14

  I reached down to grip the seat as he swung the motorcar to the right, pulling into the enclosed estate yard rather than driving around the circle to the grand entrance. We passed through a pair of brick gate piers with cornices and ball finials to the pitted yard around which a number of buildings ranged, including the carriage house, stables, laundry, and game larder. Sidney drew the Pierce-Arrow to a stop just outside the carriage house, from which my aunt’s chauffeur emerged, donning his cap.

  There wasn’t time to remark on my husband’s last statement as the chauffeur opened my door to help me alight, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t thinking about it. For why would someone wish to frame Mrs. Green? Who hated her that much?

  Or was it purely a matter of expedience? For if Mrs. Green was the person most likely to fall under suspicion of her husband’s murder because of her conduct, perhaps the killer was merely taking advantage of the circumstances. If so, their ploy had worked thus far. But what if the poison was discovered not to be nicotine? What then?

  Rather than approach the house, I turned my steps toward the stables, trusting Sidney would follow. I paused just inside the door, allowing the scents of hay and old wood to fill my nostrils before advancing toward the harness room. The gray mare lifted her head drowsily before snuffling and returning to her bag of oats.

  I found Mr. Plank seated in the single chair with his feet propped on one of the battered trunks and one eye propped open to regard who had approached. Yet more evidence that he hadn’t the least care for his employer’s opinion of him.

  “I wondered when ye was gonna come see me,” he remarked in his rasping voice. “And I see ye’ve brought yer ’usband wi’ ye this time.”

  I looked over my shoulder at Sidney. “Yes, he proves to be useful some of the time.”

  Sidney’s lip curled upward at one corner. “I endeavor to please.”

  Mr. Plank chuckled, lowering his feet. “Come in then. Come in.” He eyed Sidney with mischief. “Can I interest ye in a draught o’ scrumpy?”

  “Don’t be fooled,” I warned my husband as I removed my gloves. “That cider could down a sailor.”

  “You forget, I’m from Devonshire,” Sidney reminded me. “I’m well aware of the unsuspecting wallop a good glass of cider can have.” He accepted the glass of scrumpy from Mr. Plank, who watched him as he took an experimental sip with nary a flinch at the dry bite. He nodded his head in appreciation. “Nice.”

  I could tell this simple compliment had earned him the old stablemaster’s tentative approval. He turned to offer me a glass, but I declined. Fatigue from the too few hours of sleep the night before and the day’s discoveries dragged at my bones. Two sips of scrumpy and I would be nodding off. It was also the reason I remained on my feet rather than take the chair Mr. Plank vacated for me.

  “You know why we’re here?” I asked as he sank down on the battered trunk with his own glass of the golden liquid.

  He nodded as he swallowed. “My nephew arrested Mrs. Green, but Miss Musselwhite doesn’t believe she did it.”

  “Succinctly put.” I studied his weathered appearance. “But what do you think?”

  Leaning back, he surprised me by setting the remainder of his glass on the table at his elbow and scrunching his face as if to give the matter some thought. “I think there must be some sort o’ evidence against the missus, or else my nephew would ne’er have arrested ’er. But . . .” He held up a finger. “That doesn’t mean ’e’s done lookin’.” His gaze met mine levelly. “Titcomb may act quickly, but ’e doesn’t rest on ’is laurels.”

  “That’s good to hear,” I replied, reassured somewhat by this assertion. Though I wasn’t sure precisely what this assurance of his diligence meant. That the inspector would be searching hard for more evidence to convict Mrs. Green, or exploring all other avenues and potential suspects. “Did you know Mr. Green was also working for the airfield?”

  Mr. Plank reached up to scratch his beard, his gaze turning speculative. “Was ’e now?”

  “You didn’t know?” Sidney queried, perching on the corner of the desk behind me as he sipped from his glass. He seemed to be weighing the other man’s response as much as I was.

  “Well, I suppose I had my suspicions,” he admitted. “At times ’e wasn’t the easiest man to find. But then the estate is large, and there’s only the one o’ him to tend it.”

  “You told me he avoided the west park, particularly in the late afternoon and evening,” I reminded him. “That he claimed that the fading light played tricks on his eyes.”

  His scraggly brows formed a vee between his eyes. “That ’e did. It would appear ’e lied. For I presume that’s how yer tellin’ me ’e moved back and forth from the estate to the airfield.”

  “I am,” I confirmed.

  He nodded and then frowned. “Don’t know why ’e had to do such a thing. A man’s business is his own. I wouldn’t o’ said anything.”

  Given his affront, I elected not to voice the obvious. That Mr. Green had lied about the ghosts so that no one would go looking for him in the west gardens or park at that hour of the day, so they wouldn’t catch him coming or going to his second job.

  “Other than its abuttal to the airfield, and the rumors of ghosts, is there anything else noteworthy about the west park?”
I prodded, hoping to draw him out of his unhappy ruminations.

  But he shook his head, clearly troubled by this new revelation about Mr. Green.

  Sidney and I soon excused ourselves, picking our way across the estate yard through the rainy twilight and into the chill back corridors of the manor. Shadows cloaked the passageway.

  “What I don’t understand,” he declared as he shook the water from his coat. “Is why Mr. Green returned here at ten, ten thirty at night? Why was he in the west park? He couldn’t have been on his way to do some work at the airfield.”

  I matched my tone of voice to his, pitched low so that no one farther along the corridor could overhear us. “If he was poisoned with nicotine before he left his home, as the police believe, then he wouldn’t have lived much later than midnight.” I frowned in thought, wondering what all duties the late man-of-all-work had undertaken. “Could he have been checking or setting traps of some kind?”

  “At that hour?” Sidney’s expression was skeptical. “I doubt it.”

  And yet, Mr. Green must have been there for some reason.

  “Perhaps we’ll have a better idea what he was doing once we examine the glade tomorrow.” I removed my broad-brimmed hat, shaking out my bobbed tresses. “But first, I think I should try to find out what Mrs. Green has to say. Perhaps Miss Musselwhite would like to accompany me.”

  Sidney nodded, recognizing as I did that Mrs. Green’s sister had a better chance of convincing Inspector Titcomb to let us speak with her than my going alone. “It will be, what? Three days since her last drink. It won’t be pretty.”

  “I know. But she may be the only person to hold the answers to some of what we don’t know.” My lips creased into a rueful smile. “That, or incriminate herself.”

  * * *

  True to my expectations, Inspector Titcomb was not happy to see us when we filed into his constabulary the following morning. He was even more displeased when Miss Musselwhite requested that she and I be allowed to speak with her sister. But having already thwarted my aunt’s protests about our borrowing her maid, the burly inspector’s stony stare seemed much less of a challenge.

  Until a suspicious glint lit his eye. One that I instinctively did not trust. He nodded to Constable Jones. “Show ’em back to her cell.” He arched his chin. “I’ll give ye ten minutes, ladies. No more.”

  Miss Musselwhite thanked him, but I remained silent, still trying to puzzle out the reason for his easy capitulation and the satisfaction he almost seemed to take in it. I turned to catch Sidney’s eye as the constable led me and Miss Musselwhite through a door, trusting he would find a way to see us released should Titcomb attempt to incarcerate us.

  However, I swiftly discovered imprisonment wasn’t the inspector’s objective. Not when I could smell it before we’d even turned the corner at the back of the corridor to reach the block of jail cells. Though we’d passed a room with a table and chairs clearly intended for interviews, Titcomb had decided our discussion with Mrs. Green should take place here, where the air was rank with vomit, sweat, and desperation.

  The woman was evidently deep in the grips of illness from the denial of alcohol. She lay draped over the single cot in her cell, her skin slick with perspiration and her hair a tangled mess. Her eyes were open, staring up at the ceiling. In fact, the only sign of her being alive was their periodic blinking.

  “Tilly,” Miss Musselwhite gasped, hurrying over to the bars. She gripped them between her hands, leaning against them and nearly kicking the tray of food that sat untouched on the floor just inside the cell door. “Oh, my dearest. Might I . . . ?” she turned to ask, but the constable had already retreated, presumably to clearer air.

  I approached more slowly, watching Mrs. Green as her sister continued to croon to her, fretting over her condition. The knowledge that this could have been me if I’d continued down the path I’d been on before Sidney had returned from the dead was like a punch in the gut.

  Mrs. Green rolled her head to the side to look at us, blinking several times as if to clear her vision. “Rhoda, is that really you?”

  “Yes, dearest. Oh, what have they done to you? You must be in despair.”

  But Mrs. Green had but one thing on her mind. “Did you bring me a drink?” she gasped, pushing herself upright and then cringing from the pain. Her sister fell silent. “Please tell me you brought some gin. Or . . . or even some of Frank’s whisky.”

  Miss Musselwhite appeared stunned, and I wondered how much of her sister’s absorption with alcohol she’d willfully ignored. “Well, no, Tilly . . .”

  “Why not?” The skin across her face tightened. “I need it, Rhoda. Please, you can bring it to me.”

  She glanced vaguely in the direction where the constable had disappeared. “No, I . . . I don’t think I can.” She wavered. “But the children are doing well . . .”

  “I need it!” Mrs. Green snarled, her face transforming in twisted fury. “You must get it for me, Rhoda. Now!”

  Miss Musselwhite’s mouth hung open in shock as her sister tried to rise to her feet and then sank back down.

  “Go! Go get it for me. Please, Rhoda. Please. I need it.” She begged, her ferocity dissolving into pleading as swiftly as it had begun.

  “The police won’t let her give it to you, Mrs. Green,” I said, drawing her gaze for the first time.

  She stared at me as if seeing a woman with two heads, and then her shoulders slumped and she began quietly weeping. “But I need it,” she sobbed. “I can’t do this. I can’t.” She hiccupped. “Not without Frank. Oh, Frank.” Her fingers scrabbled in the sheets beside her, seeming to reach out blindly for something that wasn’t there.

  My heart ached for her. Yes, in many ways she’d done this to herself, but in other ways she had not. The war, the weight of fear and anxiety, the isolation caused by being forced to hide her struggles from a society that told its citizens to either press on or that they failed their loved ones and their country. All of it had fallen too heavy on her shoulders. To now be facing the painful process of sobering up without her husband and while under arrest for his murder must make it triply agonizing.

  But time was ticking away, and if we were ever to uncover the truth and help her, I could not cosset her or tiptoe around the niceties.

  “Mrs. Green, did you kill your husband?”

  “Mrs. Kent,” Miss Musselwhite protested forcibly. “You can’t ask that.”

  “It’s a legitimate question.” When she would have further protested, I lifted my hand to forestall her.

  Mrs. Green sniffed, her brow furrowing briefly in either confusion or pain. “No,” she muttered, and then with more force, “No. How could you . . . ?” She broke off, lowering her head again, as if realizing what a foolish question that was. The effort it cost her was evident, but she straightened, holding her head high. “No, I did not.”

  “Do you know who did?”

  She sat staring at me for a moment, her shoulders sinking, and then began to shake her head. She cringed, pressing her hand to her temple. “No.”

  I studied the dark circles around her eyes, the puffiness of her features, and tried to breathe shallowly through my nose and ignore the nauseating smells. If nothing else, the woman should be offered a way to bathe beyond the means of the tiny sink, and the mess around the toilet should be cleaned. I suspected her sister would do it, if they would let her into the cell.

  “Why did your husband leave your home that night? We know you were fighting.”

  She didn’t speak, simply stared dejectedly at her lap.

  “Was he often in the habit of returning to Littlemote at night?”

  “He was excited,” she murmured so softly I strained to hear her. “He . . . he said he’d found something. Something that could fix everything.” She made a sound between a sob and a laugh, and then clapped a shaking hand over her mouth as she began to weep. “But I just wanted him to stay home. To stay . . . with us. Not go out there digging every night.”

 
“Digging for what?” I asked as interest stirred inside me. That disturbed ground we’d found near Mr. Green’s body. Had he been the one digging? But then, where was his shovel?

  However, this question seemed to recall Mrs. Green to her surroundings, and precisely whom she was talking to, because she pressed her hand to her mouth again, rocking back and forth. After all, the land where her husband had been digging belonged to my cousin, as did any property found on it. Was any such property sitting in her home now?

  “Mrs. Green, what did he find?”

  But all she did was continue to rock.

  “Is any of it at your home now? If so, it could be the proof needed to show the police that someone else may have had motive to kill your husband,” I coaxed, despite the fact I still wasn’t convinced she hadn’t.

  She looked up at this, her eyes widening as if she’d never considered this. “I don’t know. He . . . he never told me.” Her hands clenched and unclenched. “I think he knew if I knew what it was and where he put it, I would . . . spend it. But it was to be for my treatment. The hospitals. They’re all full of soldiers. None of ’em would take me.” Her gaze drifted to the side, staring sightlessly once again at the floor as she clutched her stomach. “But he said, once we had clout, once we had funds, they would treat us differently. They would find me a place.”

  Miss Musselwhite dabbed at the tears trailing down her cheeks with her handkerchief. “It’s true. Frank tried to have her admitted to several different hospitals.” She shook her head. “But none of them would take her. They said priority went to the returning soldiers.” Her mouth clamped shut before she could utter the thoughts I saw reflected in her eyes. The unkind remarks I suspected some of those hospital administrators had said about Mrs. Green and her weakness. Having heard enough self-righteous condemnation spewed from the mouths of society matrons, I silently thanked her for not sharing those comments.