This Side of Murder Page 4
And so it begins.
My heart dipped into my stomach. The beginning? The beginning of what?
Rising from the bed, I hurried to my valise and began rifling through its contents until I found the letter that had arrived at my London flat a week before. The letter that had lured me to this house party when initially I’d declined the invitation.
I yanked it from its envelope and swiftly unfolded it, holding it up to compare it to the typeface of the note in the book.
I know the secrets you hide.
It was the same.
Part of me wanted to hurl the offending book and letters across the room, but I knew that would be both childish and useless. At any rate, another part of me wanted to clutch the book to my chest knowing Sidney had held it, had sweat and bled on it. Maybe that wasn’t what the dark stain seeped along the edges of the pages truly was, but it looked too rusty to be simple mud, even from the Somme.
I blinked against the sudden burn of emotion at the backs of my eyes and reached up to swipe angrily at the offending tear that had rolled down my cheek. Who was doing this to me? And why? What purpose did it serve other than to hurt me?
The letter I’d received had claimed they had information to share with me about my late husband. Information that implied he’d gotten himself involved with some sort of treasonous activity. But they wouldn’t tell me more until we met in person at Walter Ponsonby’s house party.
My first instinct had been to burn the letter filled with all of its preposterous assertions. I knew Sidney. I knew he wasn’t capable of anything so disloyal, so duplicitous.
But then they’d mentioned my war work, my position with the Secret Service—an organization no one was supposed to even know existed, something I’d never even made my husband aware of. How had the letter writer known about it? Had I given myself away? Had I unwittingly betrayed sensitive information to Sidney? Was that the treasonous activity they referred to? And how was it all connected to this battered copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress?
I flung the open book down on the bed and stalked away from it, tugging harshly at the navy-blue sash around my waist. The belt tightened into a knot, and I grumbled in aggravation. Plopping back down on the bed, I leaned over to remove my shoes before attempting to unsnarl it. The book slid down the satin counterpane toward me and I reached out to shove it back, but my fingers caught on the edge of the binding. I glanced down to see that it had come loose, buckling the shape of the book.
I dropped my shoe on the floor next to the first one and then lifted the book into my lap, curiosity overriding my irritation. By pushing the outer covers inward, I discovered I could create a space between the bound pages and the outer board of the book. And tucked down inside this tiny well was a folded piece of paper. My fingers were slim and I was able to wriggle them down inside and extract it.
With a disquieting certainty that this was what I was supposed to find, not just the typewritten note, I slowly set the book aside and began to unfold the paper. It was slightly faded and showed evidence of some water spots, but the handwriting was still clear and concise. And obviously penned in some sort of code.
In my official capacity with the Secret Service, as a secretary and translator, I’d not dealt much with ciphers. But they’d been part and parcel with the clandestine assignments I’d taken on later in the war, traveling into war-torn Belgium and France. Then I’d routinely been called upon to write and decrypt codes. However, this was not a cipher I was immediately familiar with. Nor was it formulated like any of the traditional trench codes I’d ever seen. It was much too long and complex.
Which was all to the point, what in blazes had Sidney been doing with this coded missive? Why was it concealed in the binding of his book? And why was my anonymous correspondent giving it to me now?
CHAPTER 4
“There you are,” exclaimed Helen as I strode across the lawn. Her voice barely reached me above the din of the rag music blaring from a gramophone issuing through one of the castle’s windows. The tinny melody gave a sort of festive atmosphere to the gathering.
Three tables had been set out under the shade of the tall elm trees bordering the perimeter of the back garden nearest the sea. This garden was much larger than the one we had passed through upon our arrival, and boasted a wide, green expanse of lawn, one corner of which had been converted into a tennis court.
I forced a smile to my lips. Even if it did feel a shade too brittle, I suspected no one would notice. After all, I’d gotten very good at hiding my true thoughts and feelings during the war, sometimes knowing I risked certain death if I let them slip. Feigning delight in a social gathering was a cakewalk compared to that.
“My apologies. I’m afraid I put my feet up for a moment and found I was simply too comfortable to rouse myself with any speed,” I replied, allowing the lie to trip off my tongue. The truth was, the discovery of Sidney’s book and the coded missive concealed within had shaken me, and it had taken me far longer to settle my nerves and change into my tennis whites than it should have. I still felt a slight tremble in my abdomen, and sought to squash it. “Is that lemonade?”
“It is,” confirmed a brunette seated next to the pitcher of soft yellow liquid I was eyeing, its surface slick with condensation. Her dark eyes beneath the wide brim of her hat returned my smile. “That is, lemonade with a little extra kick.”
“Perfect,” I proclaimed, plopping down into the empty chair next to her.
As the other woman poured me a glass, Helen draped an arm over her shoulders. “This is my cousin Mabel.” Her lips curled into an impish grin. “She’s a funny old bird. But she mixes the most divine cocktails. And for that I could forgive her just about anything.”
“Yes, well, we all have our talents,” Mabel responded affably as she passed me my drink, though I didn’t miss the fleeting glance she cast her younger cousin’s way. It was rather sharp with insinuation, but Helen didn’t seem to notice.
“Then are you Nellie Ashley’s cousin as well?” I asked, searching for my childhood friend among those lounging in the dappled shade. Although I could see some resemblance between Helen and Nellie, Mabel couldn’t have appeared more different. Where they were all blond and lightness, Mabel was sloe-eyed and olive complexioned.
“Good heavens, no,” Mabel replied with such vehemence I nearly choked on my lemonade.
Helen grinned. “Mabel is the daughter of my mother’s sister, while Nellie is some distant cousin through my father. I can’t recall the exact connection.”
Mabel arched her eyebrows. “Then why on earth did you invite her?”
“I know she can be a bit of a Mrs. Grundy, but I felt I had to invite someone to represent my father’s side. And believe me, she’s by far the most tolerable.” Her eyes slid toward the tennis court and narrowed in consideration on Tom, who appeared to be doing a rather admirable job returning his sandy-haired opponent’s shots, even with his weak leg. “At least her husband seems to be a darb.”
“Yes, Tom’s a capital fellow,” I assured them.
Helen glanced at me in surprise. “You’re acquainted?”
I took another sip of the sweet liquid, attempting to gauge how much liquor had been added to the beverage, and nodded. Much as I would have loved to down my glass in one swallow and ask for another, I knew I had to keep my wits about me. “We were raised in Yorkshire not far from each other, and he and my oldest brother were great friends.”
“And you kept in touch?”
I met her curious gaze, finding her interest a bit odd. “Well, Freddy did. I haven’t seen Tom since early in the war. We happened to cross paths fleetingly one morning outside St George’s while he was on leave.” Much of my warmth at the memory fled as I recalled why I had been there in the first place. It had been shortly after my middle brother, Rob, was killed, shot down over France. “We shared a cup of coffee and then he was off again.”
I still remembered as I watched Tom walk away how terrified I’d been for him,
for all the boys from back home. By then the grim reality of war had sunk in, and I knew each meeting with any soldier might be the last. My mother kept me updated about all the families who lived near us in the Dales, and oh, how I had dreaded those letters. Each one seemed to relay news of another death, another tragedy. Sometimes I set them aside for weeks until I felt capable of reading them. That usually meant I was a trifle corked, so that when I woke the next morning, their contents seemed almost like they’d been nothing but a bad dream.
I could feel Mabel studying me, so I shook aside the memory and gestured toward Tom’s sandy-haired opponent. “Who’s that fellow?”
“That’s Sam Gerard.” Helen peered coyly over her shoulder at her cousin. “Mabel’s beau.”
I smiled at Mabel, wondering if Sam had also served in the Thirtieth or if he was solely here because of her.
A gasp from one of the other women returned our attention to the court, where Tom had crumpled to his knees, his weakened leg evidently having given out as he dashed to return a serve. I stiffened in alarm, but knew from long experience not to rush forward. All the males of my acquaintance tended to become rather waspish when you fussed over them or offered them unwanted insistence, viewing it as an insult to their manly pride. My male colleagues at the Secret Service, some of whom had been invalided out of service at the front lines because of serious injuries, had been the worst.
In any case, Tom was already pushing himself to his feet to test the strength of his left leg by the time Nellie reached him, chastising him like a schoolboy. “I told you not to play. I knew your leg wasn’t strong enough yet. What were you thinking?”
“My leg is perfectly fine,” he snapped back.
But Nellie wasn’t listening. Instead she’d turned to admonish Helen, who cautiously approached the pair. “Why on earth did you decide we should play tennis? You can see that half these men aren’t capable of it. Even your fiancé is hiding inside because he can’t play.”
My eyes widened in shock at her insensitive words. As if these men needed to have their infirmities thrown in their faces. My eyes strayed toward Charlie, who fidgeted in his chair. Next to him, Jimmy’s thunderous expression darkened as he rolled the shoulder of the arm he was missing below the elbow.
It was true, I had also noted Walter’s absence. However, I had not leapt to the assumption it had anything whatsoever to do with tennis. In fact, I’d been wondering whether it had anything to do with that look he and Helen had shared earlier in the entrance hall. Or if it was in any way connected to the gift that had been left on my bed.
It was quite possible Walter had been the person to place Sidney’s book in my room, but then logistically it could have been any one of the people present. Several of the guests—including Mabel, Sam, and two young women to whom I’d yet to be introduced—as well as our hosts, had arrived at the castle earlier than the rest of us. The gentlemen on the boat at midday had all been shown up to their rooms close to ten minutes before I had, giving them plenty of time to discover where I was staying so they could slip in and leave the book. Though Tom and Nellie were the least likely culprits, having gone up only minutes before I had, even one of them feasibly could have accomplished the task.
But why? Why go to such trouble to send me that letter and convince me to attend this house party only to leave Sidney’s book with that coded missive tucked inside the binding on my bed? There had been no further explanation of what I was supposed to do with it. Was it simply meant to be proof of their initial accusations of treason? Did they think that cryptic note alone would convince me of Sidney’s guilt?
It was absurd. For one thing, how could they expect me to believe that they had, in fact, found that message concealed inside Sidney’s book? My mysterious letter writer could have placed it there themselves. And for another, the code wasn’t even written in Sidney’s handwriting. It was messy enough that I supposed it was possible he could have written it with his left hand to disguise his script, but that seemed rather far-fetched.
No. Surely my correspondent wouldn’t think me so foolish as to believe I wouldn’t require further proof. It was all too ridiculous to be believed.
Whatever Helen responded to Nellie’s accusation, we couldn’t hear for she did not raise her voice. But it seemed to give Tom some sort of grim satisfaction. He smiled tightly at his hostess and then gripped Nellie’s arm, propelling her off the lawn court as he limped beside her, his stride growing stronger with each step.
He guided her toward one of the chairs, but rather than take a seat, she pulled her arm free of his grasp and stamped off toward the house. His shoulders drooped wearily as he watched her go, clearly debating whether to follow her or not.
“It’s time to let some of the rest of us have a go anyway, old chap,” Felix declared, rising to slap Tom heartily on the shoulder.
This seemed to catalyze Tom into motion. “Excuse me.”
Mabel shook her head. “That man needs to rest his leg, not go running off after his wife.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” I tilted my head in consideration. “But then apparently his injury has healed remarkably well. So maybe chasing after his wife has done him a world of good.”
She laughed, a pleasant, hearty sound, nothing at all like the tinkling twitters most women made.
“Verity, what say you?” Felix moved closer to stand over me, smirking confidently. “Are you still up for a match?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” I replied pertly, disliking his smug tone.
“Well, then.” He flipped his racket toward the court. “Ladies first.”
Felix proved to be an able, if vainglorious partner. I quite lost count of the number of times he reached over or darted in front of me to return a ball I was quite capable of hitting. It was all rather tedious. And to make matters worse, he refused all my attempts to gain information from him, either ignoring my questions or turning the subject so that it was about something he wished to talk about, usually himself. I couldn’t decide if he was as hesitant to discuss the war as most men who had returned from the front, or just incredibly self-centered and shallow.
I suspected I would have found the match much more pleasant and enlightening had I been paired with our opponent, Max. He had teamed up with one of Helen’s friends, a woman named Elsie. She had an annoying tendency to titter, particularly when she missed the ball, which was sadly quite often. When she did manage to make her racket connect with it, it had a tendency to sail off in every direction but the lawn court.
After one of these wild shots, which had narrowly missed striking one of the guests lounging in the shade some fifty feet away, I stood near the net fanning myself as we waited for someone to collect the ball and return it to us. While not overly warm, the sun still shone bright, and I was grateful for the cool breeze blowing in from the sea.
Max pointed his racket at me. “You have a wicked serve. Don’t tell me old Sidney taught you how to do that. He never mentioned what an ace he was.”
I smiled. “No, that would be my brothers.”
“A rowdy lot, were you?”
“Maybe,” I teased.
“Looks like you could have used some of those lessons, Westfield,” Felix called out to Max as he moved closer to the tables to get the ball.
Max shrugged off this dig as he had all the others, though the truth was he was playing quite well, all things considered. It wasn’t his fault Elsie wasn’t much of a player. In any case, this was supposed to be a friendly match. But Felix, whatever his reasons, seemed determined to best Max, and his antagonistic behavior had only grown worse as the match continued.
I was accustomed to most men’s competitive natures, and the good-natured ribbing that went along with them. I’d grown up with three brothers, after all. But this was something different. There was a nastiness underlying Felix’s words, and the sharp glint in his eyes said it was personal.
I frowned after Felix, wondering at his harsh animosity and the cause for it.
“Perhaps,” I replied. “But that doesn’t make his actions any more pleasant.”
“True.”
I tilted my head, trying to understand what he wasn’t saying. Something evidently concerned him, but I wasn’t sure whether it was Felix’s hostility or something else.
“Hurry up, will you,” Felix barked at someone.
We glanced over to see Charlie striding forward with the ball. His head was lowered, almost as if he was ducking whatever words or expression Felix might aim at him next as he handed him the ball. However, Felix was paying him little heed, his attention having shifted to Jimmy, who sat hunched in his chair staring rather forlornly out at the tennis court, as he’d done for much of the match.
“Oh, cheer up, Tufton,” Felix jeered. “You aren’t missing much. You were never very good anyway, even when you had two arms.”
Jimmy glared at him, but Felix only seemed to find the other man’s anger amusing. A few of the ladies giggled nervously, but no one else seemed to find his jest particularly funny. He jogged back toward the court, where Max shook his head.
“That was rather poorly done, Halbert.”
Felix rolled his eyes. “Oh, sod off, Westfield. It was a joke. Just because you red caps all lost your sense of humor doesn’t mean the rest of us have.”
I turned to study Max with new eyes. I hadn’t realized he’d been a staff officer. One of the lucky men who were stationed well behind the front lines in commandeered manors and chateaus shuffling papers about and issuing orders. Orders that could potentially see thousands of the soldiers under their command injured or killed. They were called red caps by the men in the trenches because of the red band they wore on their hats, and they were largely derided for being heartless and out of touch with those doing the actual fighting.