The Sleuthing Starlet Mysteries

by Bianca Blythe

  “There’s going to be a whole lot more deaths, and of people whose lives were never anywhere near as grand as Mrs. Ivanov’s husband.”

  “What a maudlin conversation,” Mr. Fawcett yawned. “Politics have a complexity that you clearly do not understand.” Mr. Badger shrugged. “I hope you’re correct.”

  The accountant gave an assessing glance around the room, and it occurred to Cora he might know how much each item in the room cost. Was there a reason, apart from a generous nature, that Mrs. Ivanov had expressed a desire to keep him happy? Just how valuable was the art in the room? And had Mrs. Ivanov asked him to use a more creative and illicit form of accounting?

  Mr. Badger seemed far too stodgy to take part in any accounting gymnastics, even if he did seem determined to take the most advantage of Mrs. Ivanov’s breakfast offerings.

  “It is still sad her husband died,” Mrs. Badger insisted. “It’s tragic.” She downed her tea and rose abruptly from the table.

  Tears prickled Mrs. Badger’s eyes, and the constables looked away. They seemed young, no older than in their twenties, and perhaps had no wife at home to acclimatize them to a woman’s tears.

  Cora moved to the side of the sofa, and Mrs. Badger sat down gratefully. One of her legs bounced against the marble floor, as if energy still surged through it, as if her body were anxious to propel her away from this place.

  Mrs. Badger glanced up at one of the pimple-ridden men. “Constable, are we free to go?”

  “I—er—suppose I could interview you now. Though I’ll have to check with the chief inspector to see if you can leave. He’s the boss.”

  “Yes, you obviously are not the boss.” Mr. Fawcett scanned the constable, and a smile curved onto his face. Perhaps he found the scrawniness of the constable’s shoulders amusing, or perhaps his amusement was directed at the lack of polish shown by the man’s buttons.

  Cora had long ago discovered snobbery seemed to have no limits, and Mr. Fawcett seemed generously equipped.

  “Perhaps you should interview Mr. Fawcett,” Mr. Rosenfeld said casually. “Mr. Fawcett is Mrs. Ivanov’s nephew and will inherit this estate.”

  Mr. Fawcett swerved his gaze at Mr. Rosenfeld and scowled. “That was dashed unnecessary for you to say.”

  “The sooner they interview everyone, the sooner we can leave. I, for one, would quite care for a cream tea,” Mr. Rosenfeld said. “I’ve heard Alfriston has a quite good tea shop.”

  “I didn’t take you for a cream tea enthusiast,” Mr. Badger remarked.

  “I don’t tend to be a murder suspect either. But when in the Downs...”

  The others nodded.

  “You mean to say you intend to proceed with your holiday as normal?” Mr. Fawcett asked.

  “Naturally,” Mr. Rosenfeld said.

  The constable approached Mr. Fawcett. “Perhaps we should start with you.”

  Mr. Fawcett gave an exasperated sigh. “Fine. But it’s not like there would be much motive for me to kill my aunt’s husband. That would not bring me any closer to inheriting this modern monstrosity. Not that there’s much in the family coffers left for me to inherit, as her accountant will no doubt verify.” He gestured to Mr. Badger, who composed his face into a neutral expression and seemed to renew his interest in the dwindling food on his plate.

  “You’re her accountant?” the constable asked Mr. Badger, who had an odd smile on his face.

  He nodded. “Though Mr. Fawcett is no doubt aware that I won’t share my client’s account details. There’s such a thing as confidentiality, and I take my professionalism seriously.”

  “You’ve still got to obey the law,” the constable said, glancing at Mr. Badger’s broadsheet. “Perhaps just one person died here, but that doesn’t mean his death wasn’t important. This is England, and we won’t abide with murder.”

  “Meanwhile, your chief inspector is still touring the ballroom,” Mr. Fawcett said drily. He rose. “Come, constable. Let’s get this over with.”

  The constable looked at Randolph. “Perhaps you—er...” The constable looked down.

  Randolph rose. “Naturally, I’m happy to assist.”

  The constables and Randolph exited the room, leaving Cora alone with the other guests for the first time.

  Chapter Nine

  Mr. Rosenfeld stretched out his legs and lit a cigarette. “Now. Who do you think murdered our congenial host?”

  The man seemed rather more intrigued than was polite, and Mrs. Badger frowned. She pressed her lips together, as if she’d accidentally wandered into the side of town that catered to masculine urges and was being confronted with lurid images. “It’s inappropriate to discuss such manners.”

  “Not inappropriate,” Mr. Rosenfeld said, glancing at Veronica. “I would term it...fun.”

  Veronica laughed, and Mr. Rosenfeld smiled in obvious pride of himself. Most likely he was unaware of how easy to make Veronica laugh, especially when she was desirous of procuring a part. Acting was something Veronica excelled at, as evident by her Oscars, which must be packed somewhere here. Veronica never traveled without them, assigning them an importance only equaled by her makeup.

  The room was silent, save for the awkward sound of people crossing and uncrossing their legs and fidgeting with their sleeves.

  “Come now, don’t tell me you don’t have any thoughts?”

  “Obviously it was that servant,” Natalia said finally.

  “Ah, interesting,” Mr. Rosenfeld said, nodding along, pleased someone was playing this game of his.

  “You find it interesting I believe a Bulgarian can be capable of crime?” Natalia rearranged her black stole.

  “I find many things about you interesting.” Mr. Rosenfeld gave her a firm look,

  Natalia’s skin pinked. Her face turned into a pout, and she strode toward the window. The sky had brightened, as if bored of yesterday’s onslaught of heavy rain, and the sea sparkled, but Natalia shivered and her expression was forlorn. “I want to leave this miserable place.”

  “You didn’t seem to mind it last night,” Mr. Rosenfeld said.

  “Everything was different then.”

  “Can’t you see her brother died?” Mrs. Badger scowled. “You should be ashamed of yourself.” She glanced at her husband. “These are cruel people. I-I want to leave.”

  “We can’t do that.” Mr. Badger turned a page of the newspaper and then carefully smoothed it. “Not until we’re given permission to leave.”

  “But they can’t think we had anything to do with it,” Mrs. Badger said. “You’re a pillar of the community. A beacon of respectability. A...a—”

  “Veritable paragon,” Mr. Rosenfeld finished for her, with a wry smile on his face. “And you’re a housewife. Too dull to have murderous inclinations.”

  Mrs. Badger drew back. The scowl on her face returned.

  “I’m sure an accountant’s wife could be capable of murder,” Veronica purred. “One doesn’t need to be a man to kill someone.”

  “I had no reason to kill him,” Mrs. Badger said, turning a rosier color. “That would be quite absurd.”

  “Yes, he was very handsome,” Veronica said, giving her a knowing grin.

  Cora frowned at Veronica, but her friend only smiled. “Those broad shoulders. Quite yummy.”

  Mr. Rosenfeld stiffened, perhaps irritated at Veronica’s open adulation for another man, even one of the dead variety.

  “For a certain type of person,” Veronica qualified, crossing her legs. Cora didn’t think it an accident the action allowed Veronica’s skirt to slip and reveal her knees, and Mr. Rosenfeld seemed momentarily distracted.

  “It was odd to kill him,” Mr. Rosenfeld admitted. “He was quite agreeable.”

  The room silenced, and even Veronica and Natalia didn’t smile. A wave of sadness moved over Cora. Mr. Ivanov had been nice. He’d been young and pleasant to be with and wholly undeserving of having a knife shoved into his flesh after a dinner party.

  Perhaps Mrs. Ivanov
was correct. Perhaps he was simply a victim of a political assassination. Perhaps his closeness to the Bulgarian throne had simply doomed him to a short life, one that could not be alleviated by the general amicability of his character and his seeming happiness in England, far from Bulgaria.

  Wasn’t that what was happening in Europe? Might not people die simply because of their heritage? Wasn’t that why National Socialists had marched through Graz, eager to terrorize Jews? Hadn’t people already died during the German annexation of the Sudetenland? Weren’t there fears of far worse things happening?

  A sudden sour taste sat in Cora’s throat, and she swallowed hard.

  “Honey, are you quite alright?” Veronica asked, concerned. “You look pale.”

  “It’s only natural for someone here to be concerned,” Mrs. Badger mumbled.

  “I’m fine,” Cora said quickly, clearing her throat.

  She wasn’t dead and she wasn’t hurt.

  But Mrs. Ivanov warned me.

  Guilt rose again that she hadn’t somehow prevented the murder.

  What had she missed?

  Poor Great Aunt Maggie.

  Cora rose suddenly, and a few eyebrows of the other guests seemed to accompany her sudden movement. “I must leave.”

  She turned toward Veronica. “You may tell the chief inspector if he asks that I am downstairs.”

  Veronica nodded, empathy on her face, and Cora hurried from the room. She moved quickly over the marble floor. It glistened and gleamed as the bright sunbeams bounced over the room, darting from crystal vases and chandeliers to silver cutlery and gilt frames of mirrors.

  She opened the door to the servants’ staircase and headed down the rather less lofty stone steps. “Aunt Maggie?”

  A few staff she had not yet been introduced to stared at her. Their eyes were less kind than yesterday, and Cora suspected that word was out in the kitchen that the servants knew she was responsible for the chief inspector’s knowledge that Mr. Mitu was Bulgarian.

  Chapter Ten

  Finally, one woman sighed. She patted her hand against her white cap, making the once fluffy shape look tired and worn. She then jerked her thumb. “Your great aunt’s in there.”

  “Thank you.” Cora gave a curt nod and then entered the room. Yesterday she’d been here with Archibald and Mr. Mitu and Aunt Maggie. She remembered laughter and giving hurried apologies when she had to go upstairs. Now poor Mr. Mitu would be hauled into the police station, and there could be no more laughter.

  She’d destroyed it.

  Aunt Maggie had wanted to see her relative, the only one in England, and Cora had only harmed Aunt Maggie’s life.

  This time a woman in a dark dress and severe bun was with Aunt Maggie. She frowned when she saw Cora, perhaps wary of Cora’s already negative effect. “Perhaps you can see your great aunt later.”

  “No, no. It’s fine,” Aunt Maggie said.

  The other woman nodded and left the room.

  “Take a seat,” Aunt Maggie said to Cora. Her voice sounded hoarse, and Cora noticed her relative clutched a handkerchief in one hand. Cora settled into the wooden chair opposite.

  “Cora, love. How are you?”

  “I’m fine,” Cora said. “But Mr. Mitu—”

  “—is not fine,” Aunt Maggie said, and her voice wobbled. She blinked a few times, as if to prevent an onslaught of tears. “He’s not fine at all.”

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know him very well, but I did see you were fond of each other. He seemed nice...” Cora hesitated, a small part of her wondering if her great aunt would confess she hadn’t known him very well either and that she despised he’d assassinated Mrs. Ivanov’s husband.

  Aunt Maggie did no such thing. She stiffened. “Mr. Mitu is an honorable man.”

  “Of course,” Cora said, conscious of an uneasy tension between them. “Though I suppose it’s possible—”

  “No,” Aunt Maggie interrupted her. “Not everything is possible in this world. Many things are, but it remains impossible for that man to go about killing people.”

  “Oh.”

  Cora assessed her. She didn’t know her great aunt well. A person’s judgment might be impeccable, but one might still be manipulated by a murderer. No one would want to believe a friend might be guilty of such vile things. It was natural for Aunt Maggie to defend Mr. Mitu. She might have thought less of her if her relative conceded it was indeed probable for her dear friend to have spent his evening stabbing his employer after picking up Cora from the station and having congenial conversations in the kitchen.

  Mr. Mitu hadn’t mentioned any hatred against Mrs. Ivanov’s husband or of his place of employment at all, save for some minor grumbling about Mrs. Ivanov’s architectural taste. But if he were to murder anyone for that, it would be Mrs. Ivanov, who’d commissioned the design of the new manor home, and not her husband, who seemed content with the seafront views and retaining a ballroom.

  Cora supposed Mr. Mitu would hardly be prone to express any dissatisfaction with Mrs. Ivanov aloud, particularly if he planned to murder her husband. Stabbing someone at his desk must be a sign of premeditation. It was hardly similar to a scuffle in a bar gone overly violent, due as much to the configuration of the bar’s sharp angles as to the force of a punch.

  “I know you might not believe me,” Aunt Maggie said resignedly. “I know everyone must say their friend doesn’t have murderous instincts. I know Mr. Mitu was Bulgarian, and I know Mrs. Ivanov’s husband was too. And I know Bulgaria isn’t the most stable, though what country seems to be at this time? But that doesn’t mean—” She swallowed back something that sounded precariously like a sob, and Cora’s heart ached.

  “The police saw reason to bring him to the station,” Cora said. “But that doesn’t mean anything more will happen.”

  “Are you certain about that?” Aunt Maggie’s eyes softened, and she shook her head, as if she were dissuading a child from a fantasy. “You should have seen the chief inspector when he marched down here. He looked triumphant, brandishing some horrid little anarchist pamphlet as if he’d just discovered the Holy Grail. None of these people want an extended investigation here. Not now, and not with these people. They’re too important. Or at least—they proclaim themselves to be too important.”

  Cora smiled. “There is a difference.”

  “Indeed.” The skin around Mrs. Ivanov’s eyes crinkled, and her eyes glimmered with more than tears. Cora wished she were getting to know her great aunt under happier circumstances.

  “Well, then,” Cora said in a matter-of-fact manner. “I will do the utmost to ensure the police consider everyone.”

  Aunt Maggie smiled. “Oh, you are a dear sweet child. But I don’t expect you to be able to do that. I know you played a detective for years on the silver screen, and I know dreadful things happened when you visited Yorkshire, but...”

  “I will do what I can,” Cora said again, despising that her voice no longer seemed imbued with confidence. “I know someone who might help.”

  If the police weren’t likely to want to consider other people, Cora would make certain they did. She could begin by speaking with Randolph. He seemed to know the chief inspector well enough since he was able to join this investigation.

  “Still, you must prepare for the fact that Mr. Mitu may have been responsible,” she added kindly.

  Aunt Maggie merely took another sip of tea. The tears had not subsided from her eyes. “I will prepare myself that he will remain seen as responsible.”

  “Perhaps you can tell me more about the house,” Cora said, changing the subject. “Not the architecture. What was Mrs. Ivanov’s husband like?”

  “He was like most men who are aware of their handsomeness and wealth,” Aunt Maggie said. “He was confident and he enjoyed fashion.”

  “Was he suited to Mrs. Ivanov?”

  She shrugged. “What is suitability? I think Mrs. Ivanov appreciated having him on her arm, and he appreciated the fineries of their life together
. In that way they were impeccably suited.”

  “I see,” Cora said. “Did they have much else in common?”

  “If they did, I never saw it. They didn’t spend long nights playing chess in front of the fire or debating Austrian psychology or anything like that. They probably would have termed those things mawkish anyway.”

  “They weren’t overly intellectual?”

  “No. Perhaps this conversation is best had over tea. I’ll put the kettle on.” She rose, and Cora was happy her great aunt had something else on which to focus.

  Aunt Maggie poured water into a faded metal kettle, put it on the burner, and then padded back to her chair. “I don’t want to speak poorly of the mistress. Her concerns are with society, and she is an excellent hostess. Her guests always seem pleased.”

  “How long have you worked here?”

  “Must be five years now,” Aunt Maggie said thoughtfully. “Mr. Mitu was already here when I arrived. At the time Mrs. Ivanov hadn’t married the Bulgarian yet, and occasionally he would show up in some grand vehicle and they would go speeding along the coast.”

  “They were happy?”

  “Who wouldn’t be happy with what they have? Mrs. Ivanov’s late husband left her in a very good position.”

  “There seemed to be some tension with Mr. Fawcett,” Cora said.

  Aunt Maggie nodded. “Her nephew resents her ability to spend money. Her nephew inherited the estate, but her late husband managed to leave her a great deal of money, to be passed on to Mr. Fawcett after she dies. The man is already grumbling. Not, mind you, that he’s doing anything himself to earn money.”

  “He’s a writer,” Cora said.

  “Pshaw,” Aunt Maggie said. “I think anyone can declare themselves that and spend their time wandering the countryside and staring forlornly into distances while supposedly musing about their book.”

  “Then he hasn’t published much?”

  Aunt Maggie shook her head. “Now, his uncle mind you, he made his own money. He was a banker in the city. He was much older than Mrs. Ivanov—and she ain’t young, mind you, and was even made a baron. His nephew is different. No wonder Mrs. Ivanov’s first husband didn’t want to leave his money straight to him.”