by V. M. Burns
The maid lifted her red, tear-stained face from the table. She glanced from the butler to Mrs. McDuffie. After a nod from the housekeeper, she ran from the room.
Mrs. McDuffie looked up. “Before you start in on me, let me fill you in.” She lifted her fingers and ticked off the items. “McTavish is missing. Frank said ’e didn’t come ’ome last night. With Captain Jessup dead upstairs, ’es worried sick for’is da’.”
“What’s wrong with Gladys?” Thompkins asked.
“She’s worked ’erself up, believing Frank or one of ’is mates done the captain in on account of ’er.”
Thompkins stared at the housekeeper. “And you?”
Mrs. McDuffie snorted. “I’m worn out. Flossie’s mum wouldn’t let her come in because there’s a murderer on the loose. Gladys is . . .” She waved a hand. “Gladys is ’aving ’ysterics, and there’s company in the ’ouse and work still needs done. Oh, and the police have traipsed mud throughout the ’ouse. I’ve barely had any sleep and . . .” She snapped her finger. “I’m this close to pushing Gladys out the way and wailing right beside ’er.”
Thompkins stood straight and tugged on his waistcoat. “Why didn’t you sleep?”
“With folks outside arguing all night, it’s a wonder anyone got a moment’s sleep.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t ’ear it either? Must ’ave been around two or three in the morning. I came downstairs for a cup of milk, and I ’eard Jessup arguing with that man.”
“What man?”
“That other military man that was ’ere visiting his lordship.”
Mrs. Anderson brought a tray loaded down with tea, scones, seed cake, and sandwiches and handed it to the butler.
Thompkins turned to Mrs. McDuffie. “Don’t move. I’ll take this tray upstairs and then I’ll be right back.”
Thompkins brought the tea cart into the library for the second time that day. Lady Elizabeth was in the same position on the sofa where she had sat earlier while visiting with Mrs. Merriweather. Her knitting was in the bag near her foot. However, this time, Lady Penelope sat across from her aunt. Lord William sat in his chair with his foot propped on the ottoman, with Cuddles curled up near the foot of his master’s chair. Victor smoked near the fireplace.
Lady Elizabeth said, “I don’t know if Clara and Peter—”
The door to the library flung open and Lady Clara rushed in, followed by Detective Inspector Peter Covington.
“Sorry we’re late,” Lady Clara said, hurry- ing to the sofa. “Glad we didn’t miss tea. I’m starving.”
Lady Elizabeth smiled at her young cousin. “You’re just in time, dear. We were just getting started.” She poured tea and passed the cups around, while the family helped themselves to sandwiches, scones, and pastries.
“Why don’t I go first while you all have your tea,” Lady Elizabeth said. “I invited Mrs. Merriweather over today.”
Lord William grunted.
Lady Elizabeth grinned. “I know you’re not a fan, but she really is a nice woman who does a lot of good charity work.”
“Gossipy busybody,” Lord William mumbled.
Lady Elizabeth picked up her knitting. “Violet’s family has been in this area for centuries, and she knows a great many people, which is why I wanted to talk to her.” She gave Victor a sympathetic look. “I didn’t want to spread rumors about your family, but I just didn’t think there was any other way but to ask.”
Victor waved away her concerns. “It’s bound to all come out now, anyway.”
“I quite agree. Captain Jessup made his remarks in public, and we could hardly hush it up.” Victor looked as though he was about to interrupt, but Lady Elizabeth hurried on. “Even if we wanted to, which of course, we don’t.”
“Let me guess what she had to say,” Victor said. “My uncle was a cad who seduced young women and then abandoned them to raise their illegitimate children and fend for themselves.”
“Actually, she didn’t seem to know anything about Captain Jessup’s claims. In fact, she seemed thoroughly surprised by them.” She took a sip of her tea. “Her recollection of your uncle was that he was an honorable man. In fact, she spoke very highly of not only your uncle Percival but of your father and your grandfather. She felt very strongly that had your uncle fathered a child, whether it was covered by the veil of marriage or not, your family would have done the right thing.”
Victor’s eyes filled with water, and he turned away and fidgeted with items left on the mantle.
Lady Penelope wiped her eyes. “I knew it wasn’t true.”
“Unfortunately, just because Violet Merriweather hasn’t heard it, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.” Lady Elizabeth reached over and patted her niece’s hand. “However, I do feel it’s a good sign.”
“Victor and I can go next,” Lady Penelope said. “We went to visit Reverend and Mrs. Baker, and we decided to divide and conquer. Victor talked to the vicar, while I spoke to Mrs. Baker.”
Victor, now fully recovered, turned back to face the group. “Once the police release the body, Reverend Baker will perform the ceremony. We’ll add him to the family vault.” He shrugged. “Not much more to talk about. He hadn’t met Jessup before dinner the other night and didn’t notice anything helpful.”
Lady Penelope scooted to the edge of her seat with excitement. “Well, I got on much better with Mrs. Baker.” She smiled at her husband. “It was so hard not telling Victor anything earlier, but I wanted to tell you all together. It turns out that Mrs. Baker did know Captain Jessup before the party.”
“She did?” Lady Elizabeth asked. “I had no idea.”
“Mrs. Baker was miserable. She seemed relieved to tell me about it. Mrs. Baker’s father was German, and he belonged to an extremely conservative sect called . . .” She fumbled in her pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper. “Schwarzenau Brethren or Neue Täufer.” She looked up. “I think I pronounced that properly.”
Lord William pondered for a moment and then said, “If I recall my schoolbook German, that means New Baptist.” He chuckled. “My German schoolmaster would be proud.”
Penelope shrugged and sat back in her seat on the sofa. “She said in the States, the New Baptists are sometimes called Dunkards. Anyway, her father was one of them. They’re very conservative. They don’t swear, won’t go to war, and don’t drink.”
Lady Clara frowned. “Sounds boring but hardly criminal.”
“The Kaiser didn’t think much of Dunkards, and when Germany went to war, he made everyone participate or he shot them and their family. Her father was forced to join the military, but at least they made him a chaplain so he didn’t have to actually fight. In the end, it didn’t matter. She said just being there destroyed him. He saw so much death and devastation that he was . . . shell-shocked and ended up with an alcohol problem.”
“How unfortunate for the poor man,” Lady Elizabeth said.
“Yes, well, the thing is he couldn’t just walk into a store and buy the alcohol, so he had to get it from someone.” She leaned forward. “Guess who that someone was?”
Victor’s eyes widened in shock. “Not Archibald?”
Lady Penelope nodded. “Archibald Jessup.”
Covington sat quietly in a corner taking notes. “Where did Jessup get the alcohol?”
“That’s the truly important thing. She said Jessup ran some type of underground market. He supplied whatever anyone wanted . . . for the right amount of money. Forget about ration books or shortages. It didn’t matter if the items were legal or not. He had connections and could get anything.”
“She knew for a fact that Captain Jessup got alcohol for her father?” Covington asked.
“Sometimes, her father was too bad to go himself, and she’d have to go. She was shocked through and through when she saw Jessup here.”
“Did she confront him about it?” Lady Elizabeth asked.
“She said she didn’t. She was too afraid that Captain J
essup would remember her and betray her father’s secret, but she wasn’t sure he recognized her.” She smiled. “She said she used to be young and beautiful. I suppose Mrs. Baker could have come back and murdered Captain Jessup to keep her father’s secret from getting out, but . . .”
Lady Elizabeth glanced at her niece. “But?”
“I don’t believe it.” She sighed. “I don’t want to believe it. I like Mrs. Baker. I’ve known her my entire life, and I don’t want to believe that she murdered that odious man.”
“I know, dear. I like her too. However, we have a duty to find the truth and make sure that justice is served, regardless of who we discover committed the murder.”
Lady Penelope flopped back in her seat. “I know, but I still can’t see her sneaking back and poisoning the man.”
Lady Clara said, “I can go next, if that’s all right.”
Everyone nodded.
“I went to Somerset House and there’s no record of a marriage between Percival Carlston and anyone. Jessup must not have been born in England because I couldn’t find a birth certificate either. All in all, a rather useless day. However, I’m going back tomorrow and will keep digging.”
“I wouldn’t say the day was completely useless,” Covington said. “We learned there’s no legitimate claim on the title, although . . . the legitimacy may not matter to Victor, but it might to the court.” He flipped back a few pages in his notebook. “I swung by the Yard and had a chat with the coroner. It looks like Jessup died from an allergic reaction.”
“Bees?” Lady Elizabeth asked.
“Yes. There was a rash where he was stung.”
Lady Elizabeth looked up from her knitting. “Could a bee sting have killed him?”
“It could if he were allergic to bees. Apparently, some people are violently allergic.”
“Amazing what medicine can do nowadays.” She glanced up. “It’s a bit cold for bees, but there could be a nest on the roof?”
“Modern medicine has come a long way. Maybe the bee got in through the window. Remember that open window in Jessup’s bedroom you pointed out?”
“Did you find any fingerprints?”
“We didn’t find fingerprints from our killer, but we did find imprints in the dirt below the window, indicating there had been a ladder there within the last few days.”
“How do you know it was in the last few days?” Lady Clara asked.
“The weather’s been dry. It rained the night before the dinner party, so it had to be within two days of the murder.”
Lady Elizabeth glanced at her husband, who was very quiet. “How did your meeting go with Nigel?”
Lord William came out of his reverie. “I didn’t get a chance to talk with him. He was off to see his solicitors. I’m going to try again tomorrow.” He huffed on his pipe. “I did get to talk to Sir Thomas Chadwick.”
Victor sat up. “The family solicitor?”
“He had never heard anything about Percival fathering a child and had a few choice words to say about the allegations.”
“Anything else?” Lady Elizabeth asked.
Something in Lord William’s face indicated he was bothered by something, but whatever it was, he kept it to himself. He shook his head.
Lady Elizabeth looked around. “Is that everyone?”
Thompkins coughed discreetly.
“How could I possibly forget, Thompkins.” She smiled at the butler and waited.
Thompkins coughed again. “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to interview more of the staff.” He reluctantly explained about the missing groundskeeper. There was a slight flush to his skin when he talked about the upheaval belowstairs. He realized that the staff were his responsibility and didn’t want anyone to get a bad impression of them. He took a deep breath and told of Mrs. McDuffie’s tale of going down for a glass of milk and overhearing an argument. “She wasn’t eavesdropping.” He quickly added, “But it was very difficult for her to avoid hearing the conversation.”
Lady Elizabeth smiled. “I know Mrs. McDuffie would never deliberately listen to a private conversation that didn’t concern her, but did she by chance hear what the argument was about or who was arguing?”
“She believed the gentlemen were Captain Jessup and Nigel Greyson.”
“Nigel!” Lord William yelled. “Why, I wonder what he could have been arguing with Jessup about?”
Thompkins took a deep breath. “I’m afraid she didn’t hear the nature of the argument, m’lord. The argument was ending by the time she stumbled upon them. However, she did hear one of the men say, ‘You’ll not ruin this. I’ll make sure of that, if it’s the last thing I ever do.’”
Chapter 21
The next morning, we loaded aboard the tour bus, and despite the fact I’d stayed up late writing and got very little sleep, I was excited. The ride to Torquay took almost four hours, but we eventually pulled up to the Grand Hotel, and I could barely contain myself.
Nana Jo chuckled. “You look like a kid who has just arrived at Disney World.”
I smiled and whispered with the same reverence people generally reserved for church. “This is the hotel where Agatha Christie spent her honeymoon with Archibald Christie back in 1914.”
Nana Jo smirked. “Yeah, her honeymoon with her husband, Archie, the cheater.”
Agatha Christie’s first marriage to Archibald Christie only lasted twelve years. In the twenty-first century, that is practically an eternity. In the twentieth century, or in my Nana Jo’s mind, anything short of twenty years was merely a drop in the bucket.
The Grand Hotel was a striking Victorian building. Originally built in 1881, the hotel’s seafront location made it popular during Christie’s youth. The hotel website even mentioned the Agatha Christie room, which could hold five. However, our pockets weren’t deep enough for that. Instead, we were housed in a nice, clean room. It wasn’t expansive, but it was larger than our London hotel room and its closet-sized bathroom.
Our first order of business was lunch. We agreed to meet in the hotel’s dining room. When Nana Jo and I got off the elevator, she spotted Sebastian sitting alone and made a beeline for him. I glanced around for Debra, but she was nowhere in sight. True to form, Ruby Mae was seated at a table near the window having a conversation with D. S. Templeton and someone who was dressed like a chef. Dorothy was seated with Oscar Hoffman, and Irma was with Professor Lavington. I glanced around and saw Lavender Habersham sitting alone and walked over.
“Mind if I join you?”
She looked up. “Not at all.” I noticed the suitcase under the table and Bella in her lap.
She saw my look. “The Grand Hotel is pet friendly. Isn’t it wonderful?” She petted the small sleeping dog.
Lavender leaned forward. “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”
“Not at all.” I hoped she wasn’t going to ask me about the birds and the bees.
“What do you do for a living?”
I couldn’t believe this was the burning personal question she wanted to ask. “I own a mystery bookshop.” I took a deep breath and hurried on. “And, I write cozy mysteries.”
Lavender gasped and clapped her hands. “How wonderful. I love mysteries, but I don’t know what differentiates them. What exactly is a cozy mystery?”
This was a question I was well prepared for, having answered it many times in my life. I went through the spiel I had fine-tuned over the years. “Cozy mysteries, or cozies, are mysteries that feature an amateur sleuth, which is usually a woman but doesn’t have to be. They are often set in a small town, and they don’t have excessive violence, sex, or bad language.” I smiled. “It’s all about the clues and figuring out whodunit.”
Lavender Habersham hung on to every word, as though they were golden nuggets that would unlock a magic door to wealth and riches. “Oh gosh, that sounds wonderful.”
“I enjoy them.”
“How did you come to open your own bookstore? I love books, and I think that might be something
that I can do to support myself.”
I explained to her that it was something my husband, Leon, and I always dreamed about doing because we were such big mystery fans. “I think the idea of being surrounded by books and sharing that love of mysteries with other people who love mysteries too had a lot to do with it.” I thought about Leon and smiled. “I remember one night Leon had just finished reading a mystery by Stuart Kaminsky. It was a Porfiry Rostnikov mystery. I think it was the fourth book in the series. Anyway, it was late, and he wanted the next book in the series. There was no local bookstore in North Harbor where we could get mysteries. The closest bookstore was in River Bend, Indiana, which was thirty minutes away.” I looked across at her and smiled as the memory came back. “This was before you could just go online and download the books. It must have been ten o’clock at night, and he threw his clothes on over his pajamas and drove like a crazy man to get to the big-box bookstore before it closed.” I chuckled. “He made it with ten minutes to spare and picked up the next three books in the series. On the drive home, all he talked about was how nice it would be to own a mystery bookshop where we could get any book we wanted whenever we wanted.” I sat there and allowed the warmth of the memory to flood my being.
“How nice,” Lavender whispered.
I laughed at her reverential tone. “Well, I think it was the spark that got us dreaming. When Leon died, he made me promise to take the insurance money, sell the house, and stop waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“I think we let fear of failure hold us back. We were waiting for . . . our ship to come in, the planets to be perfectly aligned, and for everything to fall in our laps.” I looked across at the eager woman, who was hanging on my every word. “Look, if you wait until everything is perfect before you take a chance and follow your dreams, then you’ll be waiting for the rest of your life. Perfection doesn’t exist. Life is much too short not to at least try.”
“Weren’t you afraid you’d fail?”
“Absolutely. I’m still afraid. Even the big-box bookstores are closing all the time. People either don’t read or they’re reading ebooks. Will anyone really want physical books? Do people still want mysteries? Maybe I should write other genres like fantasy or romance. I worry every single day, but then I get up and do what I love doing.”