A Pretty Deceit Read online

  “Taken by the killer, I suppose. Perhaps to confuse the issue.”

  “And why would he have begun doing so? Purely based on Mr. Plank’s story?”

  “Because he’d found one before.”

  Sidney turned to me in surprise, unaware of this information as I’d just remembered it.

  “Reg told me a Roman coin had been found just last year, that it had been tossed in with all the others.” I nodded at the ornate box at our feet. “I bet it was Mr. Green who did so when he was home on leave last autumn.”

  “And he merely stumbled across it?” Thoreau queried, his stance softening.

  I shared a speaking look with Sidney. “No, he was burying something for someone else near the site where the Roman remains were supposedly found.” I wondered if the late Lord Ryde had had better information than even the Pophams currently possessed. If he was counting on the obscurity of the information known to but a few Roman scholars to conceal the object from Ardmore.

  “And what is this something he buried?”

  But I balked at this, shaking my head. “I can’t tell you that.”

  He glowered at me.

  “Or who the someone is. He’s dead now anyway. Which is part of the reason I think Mr. Green dug the object back up.” I scrutinized the contents of Minnie’s bag, my brow puckering. “Which is partly what set off this chain of events.” A hazy picture was forming. If I could just connect all the dots.

  I turned away to pace across the room toward the window. “All the evidence points to the fact that Minnie was our thief, and that she intended to abscond with her ill-gotten goods and make for London. But someone stopped her before she could do so. They killed her, buried her body at the edge of the gardens near the river.” I could just make out the spot through the fogged glass where a cobweb stretched across one corner. Whirling about, I surveyed the detritus filling the attic. “And hid her bag up here, where presumably no one would find it for a very long time.”

  Thoreau accepted all of these suppositions with a single nod. “That would seem to indicate someone who had easy access to the house, but only Miss Musselwhite, Mr. Green, and Mr. Plank were here at the time we assume the victim was murdered. And thus far we’ve uncovered no viable motives for any of them.”

  “Do we truly believe that Miss Musselwhite could have dragged the victim’s body to the river and buried her?” Sergeant Crosswire ventured to ask.

  “No,” Thoreau conceded. “Not in the time allotted. And not with the head cold she was suffering from. But she may have had help.”

  “Her brother-in-law,” Sidney supplied gravely. “Who then ended up murdered two weeks later. Dosed with nicotine by his wife or some unknown . . .” He broke off as Thoreau shook his head.

  “I’ve just seen the toxicology results. Mr. Green was not poisoned with nicotine. It was curare.”

  “Curare,” I gasped. “But isn’t that rather rare?”

  “Yes, from Central and South America. It’s not something a person would readily have on hand.” His expression was thunderous. “And while in the case of both poisons, death would ultimately result from respiratory failure, the symptoms and other effects to the body are quite different. Though, if no one was around to witness the victim’s death, I suppose that could account for the difficulty in diagnosis.” Thoreau might be trying to justify the hasty misdiagnosis to me, but I suspected he would not be so kind in his review of the police surgeon and Hungerford constabulary to his superiors.

  “Then, has Mrs. Green been released?” I asked.

  “She has. We had insufficient evidence to continue to hold her.”

  I felt a moment’s worry about her state of mind, and whether she would be able to resist the temptation to drink now that she had access to it. But it was not my responsibility to keep Mrs. Green sober. That charge fell on her shoulders. I could only hope her neighbors would be willing to help her.

  “Miss Musselwhite should be told,” I said, knowing she would be relieved to hear it.

  He turned to his sergeant. “Ask the butler to have Miss Musselwhite sent to us in that dreadful parlor.” Thoreau knelt to begin repacking Minnie’s bag as his sergeant hurried off to do as he was bid.

  “Then Mr. Green wasn’t given the poison with his dinner?” Sidney clarified, reminding us we all had to adjust the time frame of the second murder in our minds.

  “No, curare has no effect if it’s ingested. It has to be injected into the bloodstream via syringe.” He turned to me. “Hence the prick at the back of his neck.”

  I pressed a hand to my stomach, suddenly recalling something. But was it really possible? The implications were unsettling and bewildering, and yet, it made some sort of bizarre sense.

  “Mrs. Kent?” Thoreau prodded, obviously noting my sudden preoccupation.

  I inhaled a swift breath and offered him a tight smile. “I just need to powder my nose.” A lady’s universal euphemism for using the facilities. “I’ll meet you in the parlor.” I could only hope he would ascribe my odd behavior to a stomach complaint. One glance at Sidney as I brushed past told me he was not so easily fooled. But I wanted to speak with Reg first. I wanted to be sure of my suspicions before I voiced them.

  CHAPTER 27

  I found my cousin readily enough in the library, waiting impatiently as his valet searched through yet another book of records. His head turned toward the door as I entered. “Still no luck,” he told me shortly, his eyes trained vaguely at the wall above my head and his mouth twisted in irritation.

  “I’m not here about that,” I told him before addressing the valet, who had broken off his search to rise to his feet. “Would you give us a moment?”

  He nodded and strode from the room, clearly relieved to have a respite from this tedious task.

  “You sound quite serious, Ver,” Reg retorted, but then his face lost its derisive appearance. “Has something happened?”

  “I need you to answer a few questions.” I sank into the chair across from him. “And I want you to do so without your usual scorn and mockery.”

  He scowled at this request, but then relented with an aggrieved sigh. “What do want to know?”

  “Your mother’s medicine. Do you know what it is?”

  “No. Something Dr. Maslen prescribed for her, and Dr. Razey did not contradict when he took over his patients. I trust they know what they’re about.”

  “It’s not curare, is it?”

  His brow furrowed. “That stuff used on poison darts in the Amazon?”

  “Yes.”

  “I should think not.”

  “But am I correct that her medicine is administered by syringe? Is that why she insisted only Miss Musselwhite could do it the day Mr. Green’s body was discovered?”

  His mind seemed to be grappling with my words, trying to understand why I was asking them. “Yes, she takes an injection once a day, or when it’s needed.”

  I stared down at my hands as the sinking realization began to grip me. Miss Musselwhite had been in the house alone with Minnie when she was killed. She had access to the attics. She had access to a syringe. And she knew that Mr. Green often searched the west park for coins in the dark of night. Where she had gotten the curare from, I didn’t know. Neither did I understand why she would have committed either murder. But the facts had to be addressed.

  “Why are you asking me these questions?” Reg asked me, uneasiness making his voice sharp. “If you want to know about Mother’s health, you should speak to her. Or Miss Musselwhite. She knows all the pertinent details.”

  “Can you honestly imagine your mother answering any of these questions? She would take great umbrage at my even asking them.”

  His mouth curled upward at one corner. “True. And harangue Miss Musselwhite to no end if she learned she’d shared them.”

  I smiled tightly and then let it drop when I remembered he couldn’t see it anyway.

  “It’s no wonder she sneaks out to the terrace every night to have a smoke after Mo
ther goes to bed.”

  I stilled. “What did you say?”

  He faltered, perhaps thrown by my reaction, and then chuckled incredulously. “Don’t tell me you’re put off by the idea of a woman smoking?”

  “No, the other bit. You said Miss Musselwhite sneaks out to the terrace every night. Who else knows this?”

  “Well, no one I suppose. I doubt she even realizes I do. Forgets that just because I can’t see her doesn’t mean I can’t hear her. She has a rather distinctive tread.”

  She did. I’d recognized it, too. Quick and sharp, like little staccato notes.

  “Reg, I need you to think back to the night Mr. Green was killed.” I leaned forward anxiously. “Did Miss Musselwhite go out on the terrace?”

  His face paled, plainly grasping why I was asking. Why I’d posed all these questions. He swallowed and then nodded. “Yes.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you hear her come back in?”

  He hesitated and then shook his head. “No, not before I went up to bed.”

  I sank my head forward for a moment, wrestling with the truth and the weight of all it meant. It hadn’t been Ardmore’s doing after all. And Mrs. Green was about to face the loss of not only her husband, but her sister, as well.

  I pushed to my feet, rounding the table to drop a kiss on Reg’s head. “Thank you.” Then I tugged on his ear before leaning down to whisper. “Don’t ever doubt your worth or ability again.”

  I turned to go, but his hand reached up to clasp mine where it rested on his shoulder. It lasted only a few seconds, but I recognized what he was saying without words. I slipped away before I could give way to maudlin tears.

  Sidney and Chief Inspector Thoreau stood before the window that one of them had forced open, smoking their mutual cigarettes and amicably conversing, when I burst into the room.

  “Have you spoken to Miss Musselwhite?”

  “No, we’re still waiting for Sergeant Crosswire to bring her,” Sidney replied. His gaze took in my flushed countenance. “What is it, Ver?”

  I crossed the room before murmuring the dreadful words. “She’s the one. She’s the murderer.”

  I laid out all the facts I’d learned, including the ones I’d just discovered from Reg. When I’d finished, both men seemed as disturbed by the truth as I was.

  “But why? What can her motives have been?” Thoreau ruminated, and I knew he wasn’t doubting my interpretation of the facts, merely trying to understand it.

  “I’m not sure we’ll know until we speak with her. Perhaps she caught Minnie leaving with all those stolen items and tried to stop her. Maybe Minnie turned on her with the letter opener first. I don’t know.” I clasped my fingers together around one knee. “I have a harder time explaining why she would have killed her brother-in-law, of whom I know she was fond.” I glanced sideways at Sidney to see if he was considering the same thing I was. “But perhaps there were other pressures at play.”

  Captain Willoughby factored into this somehow. I wasn’t sure how. But he did. Last night’s interaction between them proved it. And Willoughby was the aggressor, not the other way around.

  I looked toward the door for about the tenth time. “Shouldn’t Sergeant Crosswire have returned by now?”

  Thoreau’s gaze followed mine. “Yes, I was just thinking the same thing.” He rose to his feet to move toward the door when the sergeant suddenly appeared.

  His brow was furrowed. “Sorry, sir. But I couldn’t locate Miss Musselwhite. Mr. Miles suggested maybe she’d already heard the news and gone to the village.”

  I sat forward anxiously. “Did you speak to my aunt?”

  “Lady Popham is looking for her, too.”

  Then she hadn’t asked permission to go to her sister. An image flashed in my mind of Miss Musselwhite leaning against the balustrade at the top of the stairs, clutching those garments before her. I sat forward. “She knows. She heard Miles telling us they’d found Minnie’s bag. She knows we know.”

  “Then she would go to her sister,” Thoreau stated.

  Maybe. To explain herself. To try to get away. Or would she go to Willoughby? To try to force him to help her.

  “Bring the motorcar around,” Thoreau ordered his sergeant before turning to us. “Are you coming?”

  “Shouldn’t someone stay here in case she turns up?” Sidney asked, his perceptive eyes having already deduced my conundrum.

  If Thoreau questioned our willingness to stay behind, he did so only for a second. “Send word if she appears.”

  “What are you thinking?” my husband asked as I began to pace the room.

  “I’m trying to decide what Miss Musselwhite would do. And I suspect it all hinges on why she killed her brother-in-law.”

  “Maybe she loved him.”

  “I’ve already considered that.”

  “You have?”

  “Yes, and it’s quite possible she did. In a not strictly sisterly sort of way.” I shook my head. “But she also loved her sister. I don’t doubt that. And she knew her sister adored her husband.”

  “But how did Mr. Green feel?” Sidney pointed out with a lift to his eyebrows.

  I paused to look at him. “I don’t know. How would you feel if you’d found yourself in his shoes?”

  He slid his hands into his pockets and lifted his gaze to contemplate the tarnished chandelier overhead. “Weary. Guilty. Anxious to help my wife however I could.” He sighed. “But also frustrated, disappointed, and desperate for some form of normalcy.” His gaze dropped to his feet. “I can’t imagine he felt much genuine affection or attraction for his wife after seeing her drunk night after night, and being screamed at day after day for one fault or another.”

  “But he was so determined to get her accepted to a hospital to address her problem.”

  “Yes, but that might have been motivated more by guilt than anything else. Guilt for leaving her to fight in the war. Guilt for not being there.” He paused. “Guilt for no longer loving her like she wanted him to.”

  I pressed a hand to my mouth, feeling the ring of truth in his words.

  “After all, there’s only so much a person can endure before the love they once felt is smothered completely. They might stay. They might soldier on. But it’s not out of love. Or not the same kind of love.”

  “And you think he found this affection, this attraction with Miss Musselwhite?”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe. But it’s certain he found stability, and conversation, and compassion.”

  I inhaled past the tightness in my chest. “Then maybe if Mr. Green did something she couldn’t reconcile herself with. Maybe then she could do it.”

  Sidney crossed toward me, realizing I needed bolstering after all these revelations, and wrapped me in his arms. I allowed myself a moment to revel in his warmth and the familiar scent of the bay rum in his aftershave, and then pushed away, determined to face what was to come.

  “Let’s go speak to the staff again. Now that we know who our culprit is, they might have more light to shine on the matter.”

  But once again my plans were interrupted by Miles. He was striding down the corridor toward us as we left the room. A look of consternation etched his face. “Here you are, madam. A message was just delivered for you.”

  “In the post?” I asked in bafflement as I took the plain white envelope.

  “No, he was dressed in uniform. From the airfield, I imagine. And if I do say so, he had a most unpleasant demeanor.”

  I gazed down at the letter in misgiving. “Did he wait for a response?”

  “No, madam. Rode off on a motorbike straightaway.”

  “Thank you.”

  He nodded and strode off while we stepped back into the parlor to better utilize the sunlight spilling through the tall windows. There was no seal, no sender, but given the manner in which it was delivered, there were really only a few options. When I slid the paper from the envelope and skimmed to the bottom,
the name I most feared leapt out at me.

  We have the maid. Bring the package to the barn at the end of the lane opposite the main gate to RAF Froxfield by 14:00 sharp. Come alone. Or else the staff at Littlemote loses one more member.

  Major Basil Scott

  I lifted my hand to my neck, where the bruises from my last encounter with Major Scott were just beginning to heal, and tinged a shocking palette of colorful shades.

  “You are not going alone,” Sidney stated firmly.

  “I never thought I would,” I replied. In my experience, men with ill intentions usually told you to come alone, but they rarely followed through on their threats when you failed to do so. Or if they did, they’d planned to carry them out regardless of whether you complied. No, going alone would be the height of stupidity. “And we’re also not taking the package with us.”

  “Not that we know where it is.”

  Ah, but I was fairly certain I did. I’d simply been distracted from my objective by Max’s telephone call and the discovery of Minnie’s baggage. But now was not the time to test my theory. Not when Miss Musselwhite was in genuine danger.

  “But we can take a decoy,” Sidney suggested.

  “And hope Scott doesn’t know any better than we do precisely what Ryde buried?”

  He shrugged. “Do you have a better suggestion?”

  “No,” I admitted. “But I wish I understood the lay of the land we’re heading into.”

  He frowned. “I do, too. We could be walking, or rather, driving into an ambush.”

  I looked at the clock on the mantel, hoping it was accurate, and pulled Sidney toward the door. “Come on. We haven’t much time, and I want to see if there’s a map in the library. It may not have the airfield marked on it, but at least it will give us some idea of the topography.”

  Five minutes later, we were striding through the great hall with a map in my hand and a box Sidney had scrounged from some storeroom cradled in his arms. My aunt cried out as we neared the entry, hastening after us. “Verity! Verity, what is going on? I can’t locate Miss Musselwhite, and the house is all at sixes and sevens.”