by Beth Byers
Violet thought back. He really hadn’t looked sick. But you didn’t have to look sick to have something wrong inside. She wanted it to be a heart attack or some other natural cause. She wanted that so badly. It was a hard thing to believe with the fires. She glanced at Victor, who was thinking the same thing.
“The fires,” he said.
“It would be rather a lot to believe it wasn’t murder given the fires.” Kate looked as sick and bothered at the idea as Violet felt. There was a part of Violet that wanted to ask Jack to stay out of it.
If Greyly was dead and Jack was here, they’d get sucked into another investigation. Or Jack would. Violet would very definitely not be invited, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to have anything to do with it. If her dreams were sending a message, they were telling her to stop getting involved with these murder cases.
Violet saw Denny and Lila moving through the crowd towards them. She nudged Victor and nodded towards their friends so they could move as a group over there. The crowd had moved towards the commotion, but Violet, Victor, and Kate had backed away. With Lila and Denny, there was quite the space between them and whatever Jack was having to deal with.
“What’s happening?” Denny asked. He had his arm around Lila and was eyeing the people ahead of them as if they were animals. “We almost got trampled.”
Violet shot them a disbelieving look and then caught Lila’s expression in the light of the fire. Lila, who always seemed either bored or amused, looked harried.
“You all right, darling?” Violet asked. She let go of her brother for Lila and wrapped her arm around her friend so Lila was encapsulated between Denny and Violet.
Lila lied with a smile towards Violet, but she grabbed Denny’s hand where it was on her waist. Violet could feel the clench of Lila’s fingers into her husband’s hand.
“Where’s Wendy?” Victor asked. They all glanced around, looking for him.
“Maybe he’s trying to help?” Kate suggested. She’d stepped into Victor’s protection at the sight of Lila. “Was he with you?”
“He was,” Denny said with a frown, looking behind him. He seemed to expect his brother to be right there. When he wasn’t, Denny searched through the crowd. It was too dark to see anything useful.
“When did he disappear?” Violet asked.
Denny’s gaze settled on hers. It was dark, too dark to see the expression in each other’s gaze, but Denny knew Violet well, and they all heard the edge of suspicion in her voice.
“Was it murder?” Lila demanded. “Even it was, it wasn’t Wendy.”
“All we know,” Kate said carefully, “is that Harvey Greyly is dead.”
Violet bit her lip. They knew quite a bit more than that, didn’t they? They knew that someone was angry enough about what Greyly was doing that they were willing to commit arson. They knew that the men who worked for Greyly had their livelihoods on the line and had already put their working reputations at risk. Were any of them at greater risk of losing their reputation? Perhaps one of them had found something of great value. Something they didn’t want to share with Greyly?
Chapter Ten
They were eventually escorted by the police into a parlor. The party had been split into groups as they went, and all of Greyly’s archeologists were included in the parlor where Violet and her friends were placed.
“What’s happening?” Lila whispered.
Violet’s date, Parker, had joined Simon Jones across the room. They were in a pair of armchairs in a corner. Both had lit cigarettes and leaned back, smoking without conversation. Violet moved from them to the sofa across the room near the center of the room. It had the older man that Violet had noted before with Wendell Lancaster at his side. She also noted Wendell glancing their way, but he sat silently next to the man Violet assumed was the archeologist that Wendell had been working with.
There were a few other men in the room. Violet wondered if they were also associated with Harvey Greyly. She suspected that they were separated because they were more important to the case. Why were Violet and her friends here? Violet, Victor, and Kate—at least—could be alibied by Jack himself. Violet had little doubt that Lila and Denny were here because of their link to Wendell Lancaster and his link to the dead man.
Violet took a seat next to Kate, laying her head on Kate’s shoulder. “What do you think, Kate? Are we dealing with murder?”
“I would expect so,” Kate murmured. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have been segregated like this.”
Violet shuddered. She was so tired of stumbling over bodies and murderers. How hard was it to not kill your enemies? How hard was it to make other changes in your life rather than to slaughter someone in your way?
Violet glanced down at Kate’s stomach and considered Violet Junior, who was growing. They fought so hard during the Great War to preserve this way of life. For what? To bring little ones into the world to be slaughtered in their own homes instead of in the trenches?
“Take that look off of your face,” Victor told her, reaching out and grabbing her hand. “Stop thinking so hard about this.”
“Why shouldn’t I think hard about it?” she asked him, drawing her hand away and clasping both together. “Why aren’t you thinking hard about it? Why aren’t you bothered?”
“Darling Vi,” Victor said. “People have killed each other over stupid stuff since Cain and Abel. Yet, siblings have also been like we are. Has our life been so hard that we shouldn’t have existed?”
Violet shook her head. She dug her fingers into her wrist where she was grasping her hand, and shook her head again. This was the melancholy coming on again, she thought. She needed to move. To breathe, to distract herself.
She rose and crossed to Wendy before she could think about it too long and settled next to him. “Wendy!”
“It’s Wendell,” he replied, sounding exhausted.
“Tell me a story,” she begged. “I’m thinking sad thoughts. Did you see what happened?”
Wendy’s gaze fixed on Violet, so like Denny’s, and he shook his head.
“It wasn’t an accident. Not with us having been ushered into here.”
“I’m afraid not, my dear,” the older man said. “I’m Dr. Lands. I’d say it was a pleasure, but it feels a bit unkind to make such a statement.”
“Lady Violet Carlyle,” Vi replied. “I am delighted to meet the man who has mentored my friend’s younger brother. I only wish it were under better circumstances. I fear my own brother still looks at Wendy and sees the boy who used to muck about in the garden. Imagine! Making that your life.”
“It’s Wendell,” Wendy said.
Vi smiled at him, patting his hand.
“And you also, Dr. Lands, work uncovering hidden treasures in the garden. Sort of like you’re mucking about but with more purpose these days.”
“Ah, yes. Well, I suppose we do.”
Violet fluttered her lashes prettily at him and asked, “How do you determine where to dig?”
Dr. Lands flushed a little. “It’s a combination of rumors, other digs, theories of my own—or at times others…”
“Others like Mr. Greyly?”
Dr. Lands’s flush intensified and he nodded. “Yes.”
Violet could see it was a point of contention. Wendell shifted with that look on his face that would have said Denny had stolen the chocolates you were looking for. On Wendell, Violet suspected it meant that he knew what was making Dr. Lands uncomfortable but wouldn’t be sharing.
Violet ignored both of their discomfort as she asked, “And where have you been digging?”
Dr. Lands frowned. “We’ve been having quite an unsuccessful dig, I fear.”
Had they really? That did lessen him as the perpetrator of the fire assuming the fires had been set to destroy something that had been found on one of the digs or perhaps something associated with that the archeologists had been doing. She felt the fires and the murder rather had to be linked. “What about these others? Where have they been working? Somewhe
re exotic and wonderful?”
“Simon Jones has been working for some time in Greece,” Dr. Lands said. “These things can take years to do properly.”
“But that isn’t what Mr. Greyly really cared about was it? Working carefully?”
Dr. Lands glanced sharply at Violet, who said, “I fear my companion this evening was not much of a fan of Mr. Greyly. I came with Henry Parker.”
Dr. Lands lifted his brows. “I saw him. I was rather surprised he was invited.”
“The invitation was extended to me,” Violet told Dr. Lands. “I met Dr. Parker at the British Museum and asked him to come and explain what I was seeing here.”
“I can’t imagine he had very many good things to say about the work Mr. Greyly was financing. I’ve heard his opinion.” Dr. Lands’s expression was fierce, and Violet felt a flash of alarm.
“People can have differing opinions about a subject and both have a relatively reasonable standpoint? I can only imagine that the fellow who found Troy he was quite mocked by some.”
“Yes, I imagine so.”
“So, where were these others digging?”
“There are two other main archeologists who work—ah, worked—for Greyly. Jones and Richard Lovegood worked in Greece. I worked in part of Egypt. The one we haven’t discussed is George Morgan, who has been working on one of those tiny islands in the Aegean Sea.”
“Oh, he hasn’t been mentioned yet. Tell me about him.”
“I don't know him all that well,” Dr. Lands said, as the door to the parlor opened and Jack stepped in.
“I apologize for keeping all of you here,” Jack announced. “For those who didn’t see or know, our host, Harvey Greyly, has died.”
“Who are you?” Simon Jones asked loudly. “And why are we being kept here?”
Violet’s eyes tried to narrow, but she kept them bright and wide as she looked at Simon Jones. Her thoughts were hid behind her expression, and she hoped she seemed rather like a girl looking for a gossip rather than anything else.
“The nature of Greyly’s death makes it clear that he was murdered,” Jack said.
Not one person gasped except for Jones, who blustered. “Well how did he die?”
Violet was having a very hard time believing that someone in this room hadn’t seen the body already and that Jones hadn’t gotten that information from the person himself. Why was he pretending to be so shocked?
“He was stabbed,” Jack said clearly. “We will speak with each of you one by one. We’ll take your information for the case to continue.”
“Why are you investigating? Where are the real police?”
Jack’s face was unmoved as he spoke to the room at large. “It is true that I am a sometime investigator for Scotland Yard, but my assistance has been requested in this case. Make yourself comfortable. I fear this will take rather longer than we’d all prefer. Mrs. Carlyle, I’ll take you and Mr. Carlyle first.”
Violet started, wondering who he meant before the realization that Kate had become Mrs. Carlyle settled in. It was too new for it to be comfortable for any of them, but Victor had married, Kate had become Mrs. Carlyle, and they’d even have a baby soon. Violet tried to keep the surreal madness from her face as she watched her twin and sister-in-law leave. Victor glanced back at her with a silent command to be careful and shake the blues that were threatening.
Violet’s state of mind was definitely askew with what’d she’d been through since the murder of her great aunt, but she’d also met Kate and Jack in that time frame. They were, Violet reminded herself, worth any matter of trials, and the sheer fact that she and her twin had fallen in love showed that the world was a beautiful place as well.
Violet focused on the beauty of it even as she leaned back and said, “By Jove! Can it be murder?”
“I fear a stabbing makes it so, my dear,” Dr. Lands said. Violet slowly turned. It had been a rhetorical question, but he didn’t know her well enough to know why she was baffled. She would have preferred a terrible illness or horrific accident than the deliberate coldness of a slaying.
“Lady Violet,” Wendy told his mentor, “and her friends have solved rather a number of murder cases.”
“And yet you are baffled by this one?” Dr. Lands’s scoff was deserved, Violet thought. A bright young thing in a flashy dress and her friends, and they’d solved crimes? It was hard to believe when her makeup didn’t feel smeared.
“I am endlessly baffled by the cruelties of humanity. Take this murder,” Violet said. “The man who was killed tonight was the patron of each of you. He made your work possible—a work that Wendy,” Violet ignored his wince, “as well as Dr. Parker has explained is difficult to do without a man like Greyly to step in and donate his own funds to pay the way.”
Dr. Lands glanced around the room.
“Greyly’s digs have something of a reputation,” Violet told Lands bluntly. “So it’s rather farfetched to believe that any of you will ever work again.”
Lands cleared his throat. “That’s rather succinct.”
“And unkind,” Violet agreed.
“But true,” Land sighed. “Quite true, I’m afraid.”
“Were you with anyone during the fireworks show?” Violet asked him.
He smiled at her as he replied. “Surely people will lie to you with these answers. How do you find the truth?”
“Rather like you, I suspect,” Violet said mildly. “Investigators like Jack patch together evidence and follow it. Maybe we’ll be lucky and someone will have blood on their shoes and no alibi, and we can all go home.”
“Unlikely,” Lands shot back.
“Agreed,” Violet said. “You’re all educated men. Anyone planning a murder isn’t going to be ruined by something as easy as blood on their clothes.”
Violet glanced down Lands. His shoes were perfect. Shining. They looked as though they’d never been worn. She glanced to Wendy, whose shoes were ones she’d seen on Denny time and again. They were a bit loose on Wendy, but they were clean. As a group, they leaned over and examined the shoes of the man who was sitting across the way.
Nothing to see there or across the room on Jones and Parker even though they were too distant to truly tell.
“If he doesn’t find someone with their shoes or some blood on their pants, what will he do next?”
“They’ll figure out where everyone was—start ruling them out—and then focus on those who don’t have a witness for their location during the murder. He’ll string together clues and narrow in on a person or two and then find the evidence to exonerate or trap the man.”
“A woman could have stabbed Greyly,” Lands reminded Violet. “If history has taught us anything it is that women are treacherous.”
“Yet not as treacherous as men,” Violet said. “Unless you have a woman working one of these digs, it was one of you who killed Greyly.”
“Why one of us?”
Violet lifted a brow at Wendell and waited to see if he’d answer. He did a moment later.
“Because, Stephen, who else but one of us would have been setting those fires? It’s a bit of a stretch to believe we’re all back in the country at Greyly’s request, the fires start surrounding the work we’ve done, and then he comes up dead. If someone killed Greyly, it has to be at least associated with the fires, doesn’t it? Maybe it was someone protecting the arsonist, maybe it was the arsonist who killed Greyly, but what did you teach me? You follow the clues of the past, you follow your instincts, but you make sure that a rational mind is involved as well. People didn’t build villages at the worst possible locations in a valley unless there was a reason.”
“And murderers have a reason as well.” Violet’s gaze flicked around the room, taking in each of the men who had been involved in Greyly’s work. “The reason doesn’t have to be one that makes sense to the world at large, but there is always a reason for why someone kills another. Clues, instinct, and reason. Jack will follow those to find the killer. Maybe along the way, he’ll unc
over some hidden crime of Greyly that will take the focus off of the men who worked for him. But right now, all reason and all instinct and all clues say it was one of you.”
Chapter Eleven
One of the uniformed officers stepped into the room and stood in front of the door. He didn’t move and he didn’t speak.
“Are we being held captive, my good man?” Jones asked, running his hand over his thick pelt of hair. His eyes were tight as he glanced around the room. “What is happening?”
The police officer’s gaze landed on Violet for a moment before he turned to Jones and said, “Nothing like that, sir. Nothing like that.” He didn’t move, however, from in front of the door.
Violet played with the ring on her finger as she glanced around the room. It was telling, she thought, that Jack hadn’t pulled Violet with Victor and Kate, and yet there was a police officer in the room. Was he telling her to find out what she could while also ensuring she was safe? She had little doubt that Jack would make it clear if he didn’t like what she was up to, so she turned her gaze back to Wendell. “You were with Denny and Lila when the fireworks started, but you left sometime during the show.”
Wendy sniffed and then asked, “How do you know that?”
“When the screaming started your brother and his wife made their way to my brother and me. They thought you were behind them.”
Dr. Lands glanced at the younger archeologist, and his brows rose. There was something in his face that made Violet wonder if he knew where Wendell had gone.
“Maybe I just went to see what was happening?”
“What are you answering that like a question?”
“Why are you asking? You were asked to look into the fires, but we both know that Greyly really wanted your fiancé, not you.”
“Your patron is dead,” Violet shot back. She glanced up when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye and found Lila and Denny seat themselves in the nearest chairs.
“Why are you avoiding the question, old man?” Denny asked his brother.
“Your friend thinks I killed Greyly.”