This Side of Murder Read online

  “So tell me, how does an officer in the trenches manage to distinguish himself enough to be promoted to a staff officer?” I knew the change in topic was abrupt, but at the moment I couldn’t manage anything smoother.

  Max grimaced. “My father.”

  This wasn’t entirely surprising, as the previous Earl of Ryde had been a rather influential and powerful politician, but Max’s tone of voice made it clear he hadn’t been pleased by his father’s actions.

  “I was injured in my shoulder. A minor injury,” he emphasized. “I was ready to resume my command in a matter of weeks. But by the time I was preparing to return to the front, my father had already had me promoted away from the trenches.”

  “And you didn’t want that.”

  “Sounds cracked, doesn’t it? What officer doesn’t wish to be promoted? And to a safer position well behind the heavy fighting?” He inhaled, as if remembering the burden he’d carried. The burden he plainly still carried. “But if I wasn’t there, who would look after my men? Not all the officers were conscientious, you know.”

  I did. I’d heard the complaints often enough from the men I worked alongside at the Secret Service. Usually from the soldiers who had been invalided home from the front, but sometimes even the Chief had chimed in, lamenting the fact that one man or another had been given a command.

  But my agreement would not ease the guilt and frustration I still sensed vibrating through Max at his inability to protect his men. Though, I couldn’t help but wonder if his promotion had occurred before or after the devastation of the Thirtieth on the Somme.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sure that’s more than you wanted to know. It’s just this house party.” He glanced over his shoulder at the couples still dancing near the middle of the terrace. Walter now held Helen in his arms, castle-walking with her. “It baffles me why Walter invited all of the surviving officers from his battalion to his engagement party.” His voice lowered as if he was speaking to himself more than to me. “Most men want to forget the war when they come home, not be forced to relive their memories of it. Especially in front of their young fiancée.”

  His words echoed the same thoughts I had been turning over and over in my head since I arrived, and it was reassuring to hear I wasn’t the only one to note the oddity of the guest list. However, it didn’t explain Max’s presence here.

  “Perhaps this is an impertinent question, but why did you come then? I mean, you and Walter don’t exactly seem to be bosom buddies.”

  His mouth creased into a humorless smile. “We aren’t. To be honest, I was shocked when I received my invitation. And I almost declined, but . . . I suppose I felt I owed it to him to attend. I wondered . . . I wondered if perhaps there just wasn’t anyone else for him to ask in order to fill the numbers.”

  Because of the war. Because of all the thousands and thousands of young men who’d died. Some of whom would have been under his command. He didn’t say the words, but I could read between the lines.

  “And . . .” He broke off, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to say more.

  “And what?” I prodded, somehow knowing whatever he said next would be important.

  His eyes were troubled. “I know this will sound mad, but for some reason the entire thing seemed strange to me. Everything about it is just a little off.” He shook his head. “Though I can’t put my finger on the exact reason why.”

  My gaze drifted toward the other couples dancing, noting that our separation from the others had not continued to go unnoticed. We wouldn’t be left undisturbed much longer.

  “Does that make any sense at all?” he asked, seeming genuinely baffled by it all.

  “It does,” I murmured. “Because I sensed it, too.”

  His eyes studied me intently, as if trying to divine my thoughts, but I wasn’t yet ready to give them up. “So you didn’t come just because of Sidney?”

  I knew he meant because of Sidney’s friendship with Walter, but ironically he couldn’t have been more right. “On the contrary, he’s entirely the reason I came.”

  CHAPTER 7

  By the time I’d managed to extricate myself from the drinking and dancing on the terrace, it was well past midnight. Normally, I would have dived wholeheartedly into such frivolity, but underlying it all there had been a tense, almost desperateness to the fun. It lurked underneath everything about this party.

  My first inclination upon returning to my room was to pack my bags and leave at first light, to abandon this entire charade. But then I thought of Sidney, of living with the letter writer’s accusations about him hanging over me, making me doubt everything I knew about the man I still loved. I couldn’t merely brush them aside and leave them here like an old coat I no longer wanted. Even if I burned the coded missive and whatever secrets it held, they would still haunt me, probably for the rest of my life.

  Besides, what would I be returning to? An empty flat. I had no job, no obligations. Only endless swathes of time to be filled with endless rounds of parties and meaningless social engagements. And far too much time to think. The alternative was to return to Yorkshire, and I simply couldn’t do that. Then I wouldn’t have to just face Sidney’s loss, but also my brother Rob’s, and all the other boys I’d grown up with who had never returned from the war.

  No, I couldn’t leave.

  So there was nothing for it then but to move forward, confront the truth head-on. I planted my hands on my hips and turned to face the wardrobe. No more dodging and hedging. If I was ever to begin to understand exactly what this was all about, it seemed I would have to decrypt that message. And the sooner it was done, the better.

  I removed my shoes and crossed the soft carpet to kneel down and extract Sidney’s book from its hiding place. I considered curling up with it on the bed, but I knew the temptation to doze off would be too great. So instead I settled down at the desk and scrutinized the items before me.

  The fact that the coded missive had been tucked inside a book—a book Sidney had specifically requested—made me wonder whether it was a book cipher of some kind. If that were true, then it would mean my husband might have been committing treason for quite some time, and that without my knowledge he had involved me in his duplicity by asking me to send him the book. The idea made me want to retch, but I swallowed my dismay and did my best to push such thoughts from my mind. If I was to succeed, I must stay objective and focused.

  Picking up the battered copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress, I flipped through the pages, searching for stray marks or particularly well-thumbed pages, and examined the spine for other hiding places. When nothing leapt out at me, I turned to the coded missive itself, trying to tell whether it had any tell-tale patterns or markings linking it to the book. However, I rapidly deduced that if the book could be used to decode it, then I was missing the key. Whether the missive itself somehow contained the key or it was a separate document I did not hold in my possession, I didn’t know, but if so, I hoped it was the former. Otherwise deducing it was going to be infinitely harder.

  Lifting the letter to my nose, I sniffed the paper, curious whether some sort of invisible ink might have been used. At the Secret Service, invisible ink had been its stock in trade, and the agency was always looking for better substances that could be used for such a purpose. Though, as a woman, I wasn’t supposed to know anything about it, I recalled how excited C had become when one of the staff had discovered semen could be used in such a manner, particularly as it didn’t respond to iodine vapor. Though adopted by some, not all of the agents had employed this method.

  Waving the paper under my nose, I could smell any number of scents, but none that indicated a particular material I knew to have been utilized for invisible ink. I did not have any iodine solution or lemon juice at hand, but I cautiously lifted the page toward the lamp, curious whether heat would render anything visible. When after a few minutes no reactions occurred, except a singeing of my fingertips, I abandoned the effort. There was always the possibility that the
book contained the invisible key, but searching through its hundreds of pages individually would take far too long, and I only had ten fingers.

  With a determined frown, I pulled out a few pieces of the blank stationery stocked in one of the drawers and began the painstaking work of considering one of the more analytically intensive ciphers. Despite the divergence in word and sentence length, I strongly suspected this was a transposition cipher, for they were much more common and had a far greater capacity for variation and difficulty. However, I knew there was also the chance it had been written in a much simpler Caesar Shift cipher, and if I didn’t spend the relatively short, but tedious amount of time needed to check, only to later discover it had been something so mundane, I would be furious with myself. So I bent over the scratch paper and began my examination.

  It didn’t take long for me to realize this cipher was anything but simple. I wasn’t even sure whether the plaintext of the code would be written in English, German, or French, though fortunately I was fluent in all three. Tapping my pencil against my paper, I considered the possibility that rather than a monoal-phabetic cipher like the Caesar Shift, the missive might be coded in a polyalphabetic cipher, like the Vigenère or the Beaufort variant, methods that were nearly unbreakable without a cipher disk. At least for someone with my limited skills. If so, I could spend months attempting to crack the code without ever making a dent.

  Such a realization was incredibly discouraging. I sighed. Then there was nothing for it but to focus on what I could do in such a restricted amount of time. That meant turning my efforts to what I deemed to be the far more likely transposition cipher and all its variations. Which in and of itself was no mean feat. Examining just one technique from all angles could take hours.

  Nonetheless, I dived in. And for a moment, I thought I’d caught a lucky break and stumbled on to something, but I soon discovered it was a false lead. Perhaps even an intentional one.

  Sometime later, I was staring bleary-eyed at my piece of foolscap, trying hopelessly to concentrate, when I heard a man cry out. The harsh exclamation, which sounded as if it had been pulled from the depths of his soul, sent a chill down my spine. I pressed a hand to my wildly beating heart and listened for more, but all had fallen silent.

  It wasn’t the first time I’d been woken in the middle of the night by an ex-soldier having a nightmare. But, at least, in this instance, I couldn’t tell exactly who it was. At home, I knew all too well it was my hollow-eyed neighbor. Inevitably, it seemed, we would meet in the hall the following morning. He would keep his gaze lowered in shame while I would try to treat him as if nothing had happened, as if I hadn’t heard his anguish. I sometimes wondered if our determination not to acknowledge his torment made it better or worse.

  Setting down my pencil, I rubbed my eyes and glanced at the clock. It was nearly half past two in the morning, and I still hadn’t found the correct variation. I blinked down at the paper before me, wondering if I should continue this last attempt, even as the letters swam before my eyes. Sighing in dejection, I stuffed the letter and the pages filled with my scribblings inside the book and returned it to its hiding place.

  Flopping down on my bed, still wearing my evening gown, I moaned. If only I could telephone my friend George. An absolute whiz at mathematics, he had been one of the foremost codebreakers in all of Britain during the war, and had taught me the little bit I knew about decryption before I was sent on my first assignment in the field. If anyone could decrypt the missive, it would be him, and far faster than I ever could. But I knew it would be foolish to even think of contacting him until I knew more.

  George was a good man, but his rationale was also very black and white. If whatever we found in that message indicated treason or misconduct of any kind, he would report it to the authorities, regardless of who was involved. If it pointed to Sidney, and consequently me, if it turned out I’d unwittingly betrayed sensitive information to my husband, I knew George would hesitate. But in the end, neither our friendship nor my demurrals would secure his silence.

  At any rate, it seemed best not to drag him into this mess. Not yet. Not when I didn’t know what I would find. If there was something in that letter that pointed to Sidney and traitorous activity, I wanted to be the first to know.

  At the very least, I owed it to the man I loved, to his memory, to keep quiet until I knew for certain. If the worst came to be . . . Well, then, I supposed I would have to deal with the ramifications then. For now, all I really had was the word of an anonymous letter writer that Sidney had done anything wrong.

  I tried to comfort myself with that thought as I turned off the light and tried to settle into slumber, but I already knew his memory would haunt my dreams. As it had every night since that blasted German bullet had taken him from me.

  * * *

  I wasn’t surprised to discover I was one of the first people to stumble downstairs for breakfast the following morning. Had my mind not been consumed by that coded missive and my own misgivings, I would have still been in bed, too. As it was, I’d barely slept, and what slumber I had gotten had been filled with dark figures and lurking shadows.

  Sam and Mabel greeted me as I entered the sun-filled room, and pointed me toward the sideboard, where a large selection of food had been laid out for us to serve ourselves.

  “Coffee or tea,” Sam asked as I settled into a chair next to him.

  “Oh, thank heavens. Coffee, please.”

  I hadn’t indulged as much as I often did, but the quantity of champagne I had consumed along with the late night and intense concentration on the code had left me with a mild throbbing in my temples.

  Sam passed me a cup as well as the cream and sugar so that I could prepare it as I liked. I was relieved to taste it was a dark Turkish roast and sighed contentedly.

  Mabel’s eyes danced with amusement. “Like nectar from the gods.”

  “Mmm, yes,” I agreed.

  “Is that coffee I smell?” a deep voice pleaded from the doorway.

  I glanced over my shoulder to watch as Max staggered forward. “Yes. Have some?”

  “Please.”

  It was my turn to smile as Max accepted his cup and promptly put the hot brew to his lips, drinking half the contents.

  “Do you have any remaining taste buds?” I teased him.

  “No, they were blistered off long ago by that terrible swill they used to give us in the trenches,” he responded good-naturedly. “My batman could only ever serve it boiling lava hot or freezing cold.”

  Sam leaned back in his chair. “I think it was a requirement for their position.”

  “Listen to them complain.” Mabel leaned toward me. “I heard the officers had the best of everything. Including dugouts that flooded only twice a week, and boxes and crates to sit on instead of dirt.” She shook her head, tsking. “Cushy.”

  Sam had opened his mouth to quip back when Charlie came rushing into the room. His gaze darted over his shoulder, almost as if he was afraid of being followed. “Have any of you seen Tufton this morning?” he demanded without preamble, lurching to a halt next to our table.

  “Good morning to you, too, Charlie,” Max replied.

  This seemed to prompt the man to remember his manners. “Oh, yes, good morning.”

  “Now, to answer your question. No, I haven’t seen Jimmy.” Max glanced at the rest of us with raised eyebrows, and we all shook our heads. “He’s probably still in bed,” he added, addressing the distress that had sprung anew into Charlie’s eyes.

  “No. No, I . . . I checked. He’s not there.”

  “Well, then, maybe he’s gone for a morning stroll.”

  I glanced toward the bright sunshine outside the windows, having a difficult time imagining anyone who had been as scrooched as Jimmy was last night willingly going out at such an early hour. It was more likely he’d passed out in some dark corner somewhere and was sleeping off the night’s excess.

  “I’m sure he’ll turn up,” Max assured him.

 
; Charlie nodded, but I could tell he wasn’t convinced.

  “If we see him, should we tell him you’re looking for him?”

  “Yes. Yes, please.” Then without a word good-bye, he scurried off.

  Mabel shook her head. “If that young man ever hopes to become a vicar, he’s going to have to learn not to be so dashed awkward, or those parish women are going to eat him alive.”

  I knew what my mother and her friends would have said about him. And the war would not have passed for an excuse.

  We passed a quarter of an hour pleasantly as we each drank another cup of java and finished our breakfasts. When we still didn’t hear the sounds of anyone else stirring, Mabel pushed back from the table.

  “Well, I’m not going to sit about gathering dust while I wait for everyone else to rise from their beds.” She turned to me and Max. “Have either of you had a chance to see the rest of the island?”

  We both said we hadn’t.

  “Then why don’t Sam and I take you on a bicycle tour.” She grinned in challenge. “If you’re up for it?”

  “I would love that,” I declared, eager to escape the house and stretch my legs. Plus this provided me with a chance to engage Sam in conversation. I hadn’t yet learned much about the sandy-haired man. This would be the perfect opportunity to find out more about him, and perhaps give me a hint as to why Jimmy had been so unhappy about his presence here.

  The morning was already warm, so I elected not to throw on a coat over my slate blue voile blouse and charcoal gray serge skirt with buttons down my right hip. Mabel seemed to agree, looking lovely in a white blouse of silk georgette crepe with black banding on the collar and down the front of the placket.

  After collecting our bicycles, we set off through a small gate on the north side of the castle grounds and turned left down what appeared to be the main dirt road leading across the island. One of the estate’s hounds decided to join us, happily trotting alongside our bicycles with his tongue lolling out. Any glimpse of the castle was quickly swallowed up by the lush greenery and tall pines and elms overarching the road. If not for the salty scent of the sea on the breeze, it would have been easy to forget we were even on an island and not driving through the heart of the English countryside. No wonder King George IV, when still acting as Prince Regent, had declared Umbersea Island one of the most delightful spots in his kingdom.