by Beth Byers
When Violet returned to the combination sitting and dining room, Victor and Kate had come back. She set the letters from the writing chest down on the table and looked at her brother.
“We got Tanner a room,” Victor said. “But it seems we’ve lost him.”
“Jack took him to find Hamilton. I think Jack believes him, but he won’t be leaving any of the suspects here with us.”
“With you,” Kate said, smiling.
Violet shrugged and then tossed the journal to Kate. “I have a job for you, darling. Mr. Allen’s journal is written in multiple languages, and Jack has entrusted us with discovering what we can.”
Kate took it, grinning. “What fun.”
Violet recapped what they’d learned from Mr. Tanner before Kate retreated to dig through what she could of the journal. While Violet had been speaking, Lila and Ginny had returned and Denny had awoken from his nap.
“Do the thing,” Denny told her. “With the journal and the list.”
She showed them the love letters first, and Denny rubbed his hands together and picked up one. He cleared his throat before reading.
R,
Seeing you today and being unable to take you into my arms was more painful than torture. Your eyes…
Denny looked up. “It’s just full of praise and compliments. Lila darling, shall I plagiarize this for you?”
“I’ll pass,” Lila said dryly, “but it seems young Ginny is intrigued.”
Ginny leaned forward and tugged the letter from Denny’s hand. She glanced it over. “Who is E? Is that the one that went off with Jack? Do you think that he will mourn her endlessly? Like Romeo would if he’d lived?”
Violet glanced at Victor, who shuddered at Ginny’s reference to Romeo and Juliet. “What is it with these ladies and that bedamned tale? Ginny, would you truly want the man you loved to kill himself if you died?”
Ginny considered and then admitted, “It is romantic.”
“That’s all it is, my dear. As we have discussed before, Victor, Romeo and Juliet is not a real story and real children did not die.”
“Well, if they had lived, they were too stupid to carry on,” he muttered.
Violet snorted and smacked her brother on the shoulder.
“What about you, Violet? Would you want Jack to love again if you died?” Ginny’s gaze was fixed on Violet, who nodded immediately.
“I would want Jack to enjoy every second of his life. That’s part of loving, Ginny darling.” Violet paused a moment and then asked, “Did you say E? An E signed the letter?”
Denny nodded.
“Are you sure it isn’t an N?”
Denny showed Violet the letter, then she flipped through the whole stack. There were two sets of handwriting. No…there was a third as well. The last was feminine, and Violet guessed that it was Rachael herself.
Ginny was watching. “She had two lovers? That’s far less romantic.”
Violet opened Rachael’s last letter. It started, ‘My dearest Nathan.’ He must have been the one she truly loved. Had she been playing the two against each other? Or had she been trying to keep one at bay while she waited for the other to propose?
“I am not so sympathetic for her now,” Ginny told Violet and Victor.
“She was ill, Ginny darling,” Vi told her. “She was dependent on her uncle, who had chosen one man for her while she loved another. She was killed for some reason…maybe because she loved the wrong man? Maybe because of these letters? Maybe for another reason we don’t yet know, but I can assure you that losing her life is punishment enough.”
Ginny frowned. “How did she die?”
“Someone she believed she could trust poisoned her,” Violet told her.
“Maybe we should blunt it a little for her, Violet.” Victor’s gaze was fixed on the expression on their young ward.
“Victor, Ginny has been through quite a lot already. She isn’t your average spoiled child.”
“I know but…” He glanced at Violet and then at Kate. “I’d love for her to be.”
“Which is why we all adore you,” Kate told him, running her hand over Ginny’s back.
“If we want her to be mature,” Violet told Victor, “and accept that the spoiled brats at her school are not worth ruining her life over, then we need to treat her as the nearly grownup young woman she is.”
Victor scowled. “You’re going to do better in your classes then?” he asked the young woman in question.
Ginny nodded, jaw firming.
“Who do you think killed her?” Denny asked, bringing them back to the matter at hand. “Someone send for a chalkboard. Let’s do the thing.”
Violet nodded at Beatrice, who had been waiting nearby, and the girl stepped out of the hotel suite.
“Who do you think killed her?” Kate repeated.
Violet shrugged, uncertain. “Is there anything in the journal?”
Kate flipped through the pages. “There’s no pattern to it.”
Violet glanced at everyone, who was looking at her for answers. She hated investigations like this one. The ones where the crime was so terrible. When Mr. Danvers had been killed, Violet’s predominant emotion had been relief for Isolde. When Bettina Marino had been killed, Violet had felt regret for the woman, but she’d hardly been innocent.
Rachael Morgan, however, had been killed despite not doing anything to deserve it. Violet was well aware that no one truly deserved to be murdered, but sometimes the crime felt far more wicked. She paced as she thought and every time she looked up, she found Denny’s gaze on her, his mouth twitching.
“Stop it,” she told him.
“It looks like hard work,” he said. “Someone call for more cold drinks. Lila, love?”
“You have hands and a mouth, darling.”
“But you always remember the other things that go so nicely with drinks.”
Lila rose, a long-suffering look on her face, and turned to Ginny. “This, darling, is what real love looks like. Somehow wanting to be with someone despite all their odd little foibles.”
Lila made the order as Beatrice came back with several of the hotel porters, who rolled in a chalkboard. Beatrice was carrying a box full of chalk that she handed to Violet. Vi took a piece of chalk from the box, placed the rest on one of the tables and paced in front of the blank chalkboard.
“Was there nothing in the journal?”
Kate shook her head. “It’s all nonsense.”
“Then we need to start with Rachael Morgan and see if we can find an overlap between what we know of her and what that journal has in it.”
Violet wrote on the chalkboard.
RACHAEL MORGAN —
It took Vi a long time to think about what she knew of Rachael Morgan. Some of it had to be incidental, and some of it was relevant.
“She was an heiress,” Ginny said. “That mattered when it was your aunt.”
Violet nodded and added it after Rachael’s name. Then she followed it up with: Who was her heir? Mr. Morgan? Another relative we haven’t met?
“She was beloved of that E fellow and Mr. Tanner,” Ginny added again. “Mr. Danvers was killed because his son loved Isolde.”
Violet glanced at the girl, who was staring just as seriously at the board as Violet. It was a little intoxicating, Violet thought, noting the way Ginny’s head tilted like Kate’s did. The way she glanced at Violet and then back at the board, searching for something to contribute. Ginny’s desire to be like them—to be included—it must have been similar between Jack and poor Mr. Allen.
Violet added: Rachael had two lovers.
“People kill over love,” Ginny said. “I don’t understand it.”
“But you think it’s romantic that Romeo and Juliet killed themselves?” If Victor’s tone had been mocking, Violet would have had to hit him fiercely over the head.
“Well…” Ginny considered. “They made that choice. It wasn’t someone killing the person they loved because they couldn’t have them. That doesn�
��t feel very much like love.”
“It’s not,” Violet agreed. “But we only have the words on the letters. We don’t know if the feeling behind the words was real. She was lovely, and for these boys, she was as well-connected as you could wish. She was valuable to them. Like a commodity.”
Ginny gasped, her eyes glinting, and Violet nodded. Exactly that reaction—that was the one that Violet wanted to encourage in Ginny. The utter rejection of herself as something to be bargained with.
Violet turned back to the chalkboard and wrote: Treated as a commodity. Whether Violet felt it was right or fair, the truth was the girl had an inheritance and her uncle had hoped she’d love one of his lads. Had there been some bargaining between her uncle and this E? Perhaps. Perhaps the uncle had tried to manipulate events and bargain with Miss Morgan’s inheritance.
Violet wrote ‘money’ after Rachael’s name as well. She frowned as she examined the board. She added, ‘weak heart.’
Violet read the board aloud when she was done.
RACHAEL MORGAN — Heiress. Who was her heir? Mr. Morgan? Another relative we haven’t met? Rachael had two lovers. E (Elijah) and Mr. Nathan Tanner. Treated as a commodity. The money? Or just the connection? Weak heart.
Violet tilted her head as she examined the list. “I am not a physician. However, I wonder how much this—” Violet underlined weak heart, “—came into play with the murder. Whoever killed Rachael Morgan knew to take advantage of that.”
“What are you saying?” Victor had followed her thought process, and the twins turned to each other. “That they were putting her down like a horse with a broken leg?”
Violet’s mouth twisted at the thought. “I don’t like the idea any more than you do.”
“Someone who kills a poor innocent girl,” Lila clarified, “might have thought like that. We aren’t talking about someone who reasons normally.”
“Poisoning this girl and watching her slowly fade away—that’s not a crime of passion that one of us could understand even if we would never commit an act like that. Rachael Morgan’s murder was an act of cold-blooded cruelty. They poisoned her and continued to interact with her while she died, patiently waiting without ever being moved to enough compassion to save her.”
“That’s horrifying,” Ginny said, wiping away a tear.
Violet crossed to the girl, hugging her tight and glancing around the room. Lila and Denny both had fierce frowns. Victor and Kate were holding hands, their fingers gripping so hard that Violet could see the impressions of their digits digging in.
“Murders are horrifying by their nature.”
“Why do you get involved?” Ginny asked suddenly.
“Jack feels guilty for what happened to Mr. Allen, Ginny. As do I, to an extent. If I can help alleviate that guilt, if I can help find Rachael Morgan justice, it’s worth some of the horror.”
Ginny nodded, angrily wiping away her tear. “Will you have nightmares later?”
Violet nodded.
“I will too.”
“We all will,” Victor told Ginny. She glanced at him, looking for a lie and finding only truth. She shivered once and curled into Violet’s side.
Chapter 17
Beatrice was setting up the dinner table when there was a knock on the door. Violet nodded to the chalkboard, and Denny and Victor swiftly turned it to face the wall. Once their notes were hidden, Victor opened the door.
They’d paused on their list of suspects while Violet glanced through the journal herself. Kate was right, it was a mess that would take weeks and weeks to translate and sort out. Violet had sighed. “What about the love letters?”
Denny had answered. “They’re all from E and Nate. The ones from Nate are more specific. Like that relationship was more real.”
“That matches up with Mr. Tanner’s story.”
Violet glanced to the door and saw that he had returned with both Jack and Hamilton.
“Just in time to join us for dinner,” Violet said. “Did you learn anything?”
Jack smiled at her, but he didn’t answer other than to press a kiss on her cheek.
“The food will be here soon,” she told him. “Let’s dress for dinner and then compare notes.”
The chance to freshen up was a welcome one. Jack, Hamilton, and Mr. Tanner had already dressed, so the women left them making cocktails while they escaped to their bedrooms.
Violet winked at Jack and stepped into her bedroom, closing the door. Her dress was already hanging on the mirror, and Violet removed her day dress, exchanging her nude stockings for black ones. She dropped the red-beaded dress over her head, fluffed her hair, brightened her lipstick, and then added a strand of black pearls.
It took only minutes for Violet to change and when she returned to the combined dining and sitting room in their suite, Jack, Hamilton, and Mr. Tanner had turned Violet’s chalkboard around and were reading it. She had only gone so far as to add additional names but hadn’t filled in any of the details.
The names were:
MR. MORGAN
MR. NATHAN TANNER
MR. ELIJAH ________
THE OTHER MAN WITH ELIJAH AT THE RECEPTION
MISS MORGAN’S HEIR
PROFESSOR SNAG
“Me?” Mr. Tanner demanded. “Why me? I loved her.”
“But did she love you?” Violet asked him gently.
“Of course she did,” Mr. Tanner stuttered, and Violet glanced to Jack and Hamilton, who were examining the comments following Miss Morgan’s name.
“She’s got the pertinent details,” Hamilton told Jack. “Did you do this by yourself?”
Lila answered for Violet. “She’s the only one who would. No offense, Mr. Tanner, but the rest of us aren’t emotionally involved and there’s a reason we have gents like Jack.”
“I might have figured it out,” Victor said. “Though my handwriting would have been much sloppier. Kate could have done it as well. Not all of us are as infernally lazy as you and Denny.”
Lila’s expression told Violet just what she thought of that comment.
“Morgan?” Jack asked Violet.
“He has to be a suspect.”
“But why?” Jack demanded. “He’s rich. He loved her. I know he did. He worried over her constantly.”
“You don’t know the internal workings of his heart, Jack. He was close to her. He could have easily been her heir. She wasn’t doing as he wished. A scholarship student? When there was that Elijah fellow? She had a secret love.”
“Morgan has money of his own, and people have dealt with their children doing other than they wished for centuries without killing them.” Jack sighed. “He’s my friend, Violet.”
“My cousin killed my aunt, Jack. People aren’t always what we want them to be. Besides, he’s just on the list. I vote for this Elijah fellow. He was there last night, he had to have been irritated by Jeremiah, he supposedly loved Rachael, and she loved another.”
Jack nodded with a frown. “All right then.”
There was another knock on the door, and Beatrice let in the porters with the dinner. She and Mr. Giles served the food, but Violet avoided eating to stare at the list of suspects. Finally, with dinner mostly gone, she rose and picked up her chalk.
“What is this Elijah fellow’s last name?” Violet asked.
“Ballard,” Mr. Tanner said.
“Sir Ferdinand Ballard’s son?”
Mr. Tanner nodded. “One of the younger ones I believe.”
“He really won’t have an inheritance,” Victor said. “Even the oldest son doesn’t have much coming his way. Don’t they have a good half-dozen sons, Vi?”
She nodded and added, “Along with several daughters. Miss Morgan and her money must have been quite appealing to Elijah.”
“She was far more than her money,” Mr. Tanner snapped.
“I’m sure she was,” Violet told him. “To you at least.”
“Am I off the suspect list yet?”
Violet shook her head
and grinned merrily at him.
“Not if Morgan isn’t,” Jack said.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Tanner, I haven’t put up Miss Allen or her father yet.”
“Why would Miss Allen kill Rachael?” Mr. Tanner asked.
Jack turned to Violet and waited. If he was offended or in agreement, she couldn’t tell. Her gaze was not nearly as all-knowing and penetrating as his. She grinned at him and said, “I don’t think she did. But, if she killed Jeremiah Allen, then…”
“Then our guess about Miss Morgan dying was wrong, and she’s playing games with all of us.”
“Jeremiah might need his own chalkboard if we take that approach,” Jack said. “Was there anything to be found in the journal?”
“No,” Violet said. “Not yet anyway. Kate is working on it, but young Mr. Allen was paranoid.”
“He was living some sort of fantasy like one of the Allan Quatermain books when he was a boy,” Jack said.
“Or maybe the habit extended to his adulthood and nothing more,” Hamilton said gently. “He wasn’t the boy you knew, Jack. He was an adult. He used skills he learned as a boy to keep his notes. You aren’t avenging that boy, you are avenging the man he became.”
Jack nodded. “I suppose I feel guilty because I left him.”
“Emily cheated on you with a friend from our regiment, Jack. You found them in bed together, and you made the right choice. You weren’t Jeremiah’s father—he had one. One who bought his son’s way into this mess.”
Victor choked on Hamilton’s revelation, but Violet knew it was meant for her. She added, “She wants you back.”
Jack’s expression was mocking. “With you or without you, Violet Carlyle, that will never happen.”
She kept her expression even and nodded at him once. He had told her she didn’t need to be jealous, and she had believed him. She felt it to her bones now. She crossed to the chalkboard and faced the others. “Who was Miss Morgan’s heir?”
“Daniel,” Jack said with a sigh. “He has his own money, Violet.”
She nodded, but she filled in the information on her chalkboard.
MR. MORGAN — Miss Morgan’s heir. Was her death the result of greed?