Who's Sorry Now?

by Maggie Robinson

  And then he might try to kiss her. He could claim his brain was scrambled from the attempt on his life. Anyone would empathize.

  “Why did you poison my sister’s drink at the Savoy?” Lady Adelaide asked, as if she were inquiring about the weather. Keep him talking. Keep him too distracted to remember he held the gun and all the cards.

  “It w-wasn’t meant for her. W-Wheeler and Trenton-D-Douglass are d-disgusting. Perverts. W-why should men like them live when your brothers d-died, Lucy? I only m-meant to m-make him sick. W-warn him someone knew.”

  When Dev had interviewed the man before, there was hardly any trace of a speech impediment. The stress was getting to him, and he could barely get out three words in a row without tripping over his tongue.

  His agitation might prove his eventual downfall.

  Eventual was the operative word.

  Lady Lucy shut her china-blue eyes. “And you killed Roy Dean because he was to inherit the family business and I thought it was unfair to Pip because she was female.”

  Just as Lady Lucy could never inherit from the Earl of Marbury, not that there was anything worth having, judging from Dev’s current surroundings.

  “You said so, d-didn’t you? It w-was so easy. When I d-dropped the cherries in his drink, I had a vial of nicotine in my hand. No one n-noticed a thing.”

  “And Mary Frances needed to die. She could identify you, since you bought the poisons from her. Was she blackmailing you?” Lady Adelaide asked. “Or perhaps she turned you down, too?”

  Jesus, Addie! If she’d wanted to enrage the boy, she’d succeeded.

  “As if I w-would touch her! If anyone d-deserved to d-die, it was she. Grasping l-little bitch. The Forty Dollies! More like the Forty Whores. Trollops and thieves. I d-did it with the greatest of p-pleasure, and I’d do it again! Watch me!”

  And there was Dev’s case solved. If he could get into the Yard to turn in the paperwork.

  Bizarrely, Dunford began to sing a song that had come out a couple of years before. Everyone and his uncle had recorded it, but none sounded as macabre as the murderer.

  Who’s sorry now?

  Who’s heart is aching for breaking each vow?

  Who’s sad and blue?

  Who’s crying too?

  Just like I cried over you.

  He pointed the gun at the women, his smile a fearsome thing. The man had lost touch with reality, which made him more dangerous than ever.

  How quickly could Dev roll up onto his feet and attack before Dunford shot him again? Judging from the pain in his chest, not very.

  “I made them all p-pay, didn’t I? T-time and t-time again. I only d-did what you w-wanted and c-couldn’t d-do yourself.”

  “I wouldn’t, Bunny. Play God. It’s one thing to criticize or gossip, but to kill—for me—you’ve ruined everything. I wish I were dead.” There was no doubt in Dev’s mind that if she were in possession of Lady Adelaide’s gun, she would use it, preferably on Dunford first.

  “W-we can go away. To P-Paris. Or S-South America. I have plenty of m-money.” Dunford sounded less sure of himself now. Less like a man and more like a boy. How old was he? Twenty-two or twenty-three?

  “Are you mad? You just killed a policeman. They’ll never let us go. I hate you, Bunny Dunford!”

  His face was a mask of fury. He cocked the gun at Lady Adelaide and Lady Lucy as they cowered on the floor.

  Which one would he shoot first? Dev decided to clear his throat. “Fortunately for you, I’m not quite dead yet.” The words came out on a wheeze.

  Lady Lucy screamed again, and Lady Adelaide held her, whispering something in her ear.

  “Shut up!” Dev wasn’t sure whom he was addressing, but Dunford turned the pistol on him.

  This was it. He couldn’t miss at so close a distance. All those nights of reading—Dev wondered if his comparative religious studies would pay off wherever he was going. He shut his eyes, trying to remember a prayer that would deliver his soul to a higher plane.

  No real regrets. Dev had done his best, although he wished he’d solved this case a little sooner.

  Dunford fired. A click echoed around the stone walls, and he fired again. “What the…?” Dunford threw the gun down in disgust and snatched up Dev’s knife from the table. He looked even crazier than before.

  One bullet? Lady Adelaide must be extremely confident of her abilities. If they put this incident behind them, Dev would like to see her on a firing range.

  “Nothing needs to be decided right now,” Lady Adelaide said soothingly. “We’re all frazzled. Why don’t I fix us some tea, and you can put the knife down, Bunny.”

  Dev wanted to laugh. Trust Lady Adelaide to come to the conclusion that tea would cure everything, even a gunshot wound and criminal impulses.

  Of course, the last time they had confronted a murderer together, a pot of hot tea had come in very handy. Maybe she hoped history would repeat itself.

  “There is no t-tea, you stupid t-twat. Shut up, I said.” Dunford glanced down at Dev. “Why aren’t you d-dead?”

  “Just lucky, I suppose. I’m probably bleeding to death internally. I can help you, you know. Get you out of here.”

  “How?”

  “Lady Adelaide’s car is outside.” Every word cost him. His lungs seemed unwilling to fill with air.

  “I d-don’t have a license.”

  Dev stopped himself from laughing. What was breaking the driving laws when one had already murdered a bunch of people?

  “I can drive.”

  “Dev! No!” Lady Adelaide cried.

  “I t-told you to b-be quiet. Stay still or I’ll c-cut you.”

  “Really, we can leave right now. I just need a little help getting up,” Dev said. A crane might come in handy.

  “I’m not getting tricked b-by you,” Dunford sneered. “Lady Adelaide, you’ll take me.”

  No. No. Dev hoped Lady Adelaide would forgive him. “Have you driven with her, man?” he rasped. “Even with her specs on, you’ll be taking your life in your hands. I thought we were going to die on the way over here, truly I did. Woman drivers—you know how they are. You’ll wind up in a ditch.”

  Once he got the fellow out of the gatehouse, he could see about driving into a ditch himself. Lady Adelaide had plenty of other cars.

  “He’s trying to be chivalrous, Bunny. Don’t believe him—I’m a perfectly safe driver.”

  Damn it. He’d thought no heroics hard enough, but she hadn’t gotten the message.

  “I’m a more valuable hostage. The police won’t shoot one of their own.”

  “Nonsense. I’m a marquess’ daughter. Widow of a war hero. Imagine the scandal if something were to happen to me. The press would have a field day. You’d be made famous, Bunny. Everyone would know the name of Bernard Dunford.”

  Damn her to hell and back. Dev could see the poor fool’s eyes light up.

  Lady Lucy stumbled up. “No. I’ll go with him. This is all my fault.”

  “Of course it isn’t, Lucy,” Lady Adelaide said. “You had no idea the lengths he’d go for you.”

  “I l-love you, Lucy. We can be happy. I know it.”

  “Are you utterly insane? What if I burn the bacon? How do I know you won’t put Harpic in my milk, or strangle me in my sleep if I snore and disturb you? Or shoot me, since it seems you know how to use a gun?”

  “We’ll all go,” Dunford said, that ghastly smile back on his face.

  Chapter Forty

  Mr. Hunter had winked at her again when he staggered up from the kitchen floor, his hands bound, his mouth stuffed with Dunford’s handkerchief. A scorch mark was visible in his suit jacket, but no blood that she could see.

  There must be a bullet lodged somewhere in his body.

  Addie would never forgive herself if he died. This was all her fa
ult. She’d insisted on coming. Supplied a murderer with a gun. Had been too stupid to see that harmless Bunny Dunford wasn’t harmless at all.

  Where was the nearest doctor? If she knew, she’d drive there. Let Bunny stab her too.

  He’d already slashed through Lucy’s jumper when she told him she wouldn’t tie up Inspector Hunter with an old length of clothesline. Droplets of blood had dripped down her wrist and shaking hands as she’d finally relented. Then Bunny had tied hers together, whistling as if he were on a walk in the country. He’d been so quick, Addie didn’t have time to leap upon him and pummel the stuffing out of him.

  She was behind the wheel now, with that idiot—that murderous idiot—pointing Inspector Hunter’s knife much too close to her face. Addie imagined Mr. Hunter somehow plunging forward and garroting Bunny from the backseat.

  She relished the image.

  She was becoming nearly as unhinged as Dunford himself.

  Addie glanced backward. The detective’s eyes were closed. He didn’t appear to be in pain, however. A tear spilled down her cheek.

  “G-get hold of yourself,” Bunny growled, “or I’ll have to d-drive myself.”

  “I thought you said you couldn’t.”

  “I c-can. Just d-don’t want to. Too many things to p-pay attention to. It’s n-not r-relaxing.”

  None of this was in any way relaxing. Addie shifted gears and crept along a narrow lane. It was raining very lightly, just enough to cause the surface of the road to be slippery. Squinting through the windscreen, she really didn’t have the first idea where she was at the moment, but Bunny did not know that. None of it was familiar. She expected a signpost at any turn. Or a farm wagon. A herd of sheep. Any distraction to give someone time to do something.

  Could she drive around in circles indefinitely until they ran out of petrol? Bunny did not know this part of the world, and Addie wasn’t so sure now either. She’d taken one too many short cuts.

  “We need to put the top up.”

  “A l-little rain won’t hurt you. C-can’t you g-go faster?”

  “The road isn’t very good—it’s wet and I might skid. We’ll lose an axle or puncture a tire. You wouldn’t want that, would you? We’d be stuck here.”

  “I’d b-be b-better off on foot at this r-rate.”

  “Let me know if you want me to stop and let you out,” Addie said sweetly. “There’s an umbrella in the back.”

  “Shut up!”

  They rode on in silence. Addie wondered how this dreadful situation would impact Lucy’s life. Would she feel forever guilty that the man who claimed to love her had killed for her? How did one go forward after something like that?

  Addie slowed the car to a crawl.

  “What’s the m-matter n-now?”

  “I can’t see—my glasses are speckled with rain. And the gauge is telling me the engine is overheating.” It told her no such thing—there was no such gauge—but maybe Bunny wasn’t aware of that.

  “B-bullshit! P-pull over. I’ll drive myself.”

  “Why don’t you let all of us go? We’re miles from anywhere. No one will stop you.”

  “You’d l-like that, wouldn’t you? N-no. Lucy is c-coming with me. You t-two—I haven’t d-decided what to do with you.”

  “Mr. Hunter needs medical attention.”

  “T-too bad. G-get out of the car.”

  With the knife wavering near her face, Addie complied. She stole a look into the back seat and received another wink.

  Was Devenand Hunter really all right, or was he trying to reassure her by being brave? She knew he’d been wounded in the war—he and her gardener had talked a little about it last August. But no one enjoyed getting shot.

  Addie now had the chance to do something. Bunny couldn’t have two hands on the steering wheel and still hold the knife. He inexpertly ground the gearbox and they pitched forward, picking up speed over the rutted road.

  “You’re going too fast.”

  “Shut up! Again. If you s-say one m-more w-word—” He pulled the knife from his breast pocket—“I’m going to fix your pretty little face.”

  Addie had no intention of becoming his next victim. Could she grab the steering wheel without getting all of them killed? She shut her eyes, feeling sick to her stomach as the car bounced around at a speed that felt far from safe.

  And then Bunny shouted and the car swerved. “Jesus Christ! What was that?”

  Addie opened her eyes. There was nothing on the road in front or behind them. She was about to offer to drive again, then remembered Bunny’s threat.

  She would be quiet. And she might use the time to pray.

  A figure appeared suddenly in the distance. Was there any way she could signal their distress? She might toss her hat out of the car. But what would a farmer do with her green velvet hat? He’d just think she was crazy for throwing a perfectly good hat away, though the rain was ruining it drop by drop.

  But there was a hatpin. Why didn’t she think of that before?

  Her hand rubbed her neck, then went a little further. She was about to tug the green glass tip free when Rupert smiled and blew a kiss from the middle of the road, just a few feet away.

  Both she and Bunny screamed. He tried using the fly-off handbrake, but the Lagonda had been designed to function in a different manner from most motor cars. Bunny lost control, falling against her shoulder as the car slid sideways, Rupert now cross-legged on the bonnet and holding onto the windscreen for dear life.

  Or death, she supposed.

  Inspector Hunter dove over the driver’s seat, viciously elbowing Bunny out of the way. He was now in Addie’s lap, a perfect target for her hatpin.

  She did not hesitate, and more screams ensued. Mr. Hunter knocked Bunny unconscious and removed the knife from his jacket with one hand, while somehow taking charge of the Lagonda with the other.

  The car stopped abruptly. Rupert blew Addie another kiss from the bonnet, and disappeared.

  “Are you all right?” both she and Mr. Hunter asked at the same time.

  “You first.”

  “No! You’re the one who was shot.”

  “I’m going to need a new notebook. The bullet’s embedded in it.”

  “And not in you?”

  “Not in me.” He pulled the clothesline out of his pocket and tied Bunny’s arms behind his back with efficiency. “Thank you very much for the flimsy knots, Lady Lucy.”

  “I was an excellent Girl Guide. Slipknots were my specialty. It’s a wonder Bunny didn’t notice,” Lucy said in a shaky voice.

  “Do you suppose you can get him off me?” Addie asked. He felt like a wet bag of cement on her, or possibly something worse. She pulled her hatpin from his shoulder. No point letting it go to waste.

  “How thoughtless of me.” Mr. Hunter got out of the car, walked around and opened Addie’s door. He hauled Bunny out and dropped him to the mud. “Oops.”

  “What now?”

  “I think we have to find a telephone. Do you know where we are?”

  “Not really.”

  Mr. Hunter removed his necktie, and gagged Bunny with it as he was beginning to make a commotion on the ground. “Lady Lucy, you ride up front with Lady Adelaide, who is, I might add, an excellent driver. I’ll sit in the back with the prisoner.” Bunny flailed and groaned but was unintelligible. None too gently, the inspector shoved him back into the car, then proceeded to put the top up on the vehicle. As he did so, Addie inspected the angry-looking slice on Lucy’s arm, wrapping the worst of it with a clean handkerchief from her handbag.

  “I’m sorry about the revolver,” Addie said, once the car was moving again.

  “Spilt milk.”

  Did that mean he forgave her? He could have been killed! For that matter, they all could have rolled upside down into a ditch after Rupert’s stunt. Addie was surpri
sed at her husband’s recklessness. The Lagonda had been his favorite automobile, after the Hispano-Suiza that he’d died in.

  And Bunny Dunford had seen him.

  Addie coughed. “Did you see what spooked Bunny on the road?”

  “There wasn’t anything. Not even a badger,” Lucy said. “He always claimed to be a nervous driver. I guess he was telling the truth for once.”

  “Well, I’m grateful for whatever he imagined. But you screamed too, Lady Adelaide,” Mr. Hunter said.

  “I panicked.” It was more or less the case. Rupert had that effect on one.

  Epilogue

  A fine Saturday morning in late April

  Bright Young Poisoner Locked Away for Life

  Addie put the scissors down. The newspapers had made a tremendous fuss over the last few weeks, but somehow Mr. Hunter had kept Lucy and Addie out of all of it. He’d received a special commendation from Commissioner Horwood for not only solving the murders, but the apprehension of several of Mary Frances’ confederates. Jewelers and furriers across London expelled sighs of relief and had offered the inspector a generous reward, which he declined. There were still plenty of Dollies on the loose, and he was determined to send as many of them “away” as he could.

  Bunny had been judged unfit to stand trial. His babbling about kissing ghosts was the kiss of undeath, and he had been remanded to a mental institution for the rest of his life. It was only fitting—if one killed four people, and tried to kill several more, one was definitely not of sound mind. Addie had tried to feel sorry for him, but failed.

  She did wonder if Rupert was expressly breaking some rule or other by haunting him, but she couldn’t ask. She’d not seen him since that awful day on that soggy country road.

  Did she miss him? She really didn’t want to consider that. In life, he’d been an awful husband.

  But he’d saved her life twice in death and kept her out of the “pokey.” Was he finally where he was supposed to be?

  She had quite an assortment of clippings now to go into her secret scrapbook. It hadn’t been her idea. One day before they’d left for New York last fall, Beckett had presented her with a stack of newspapers. She’d saved every one that had mentioned the events at Compton Chase in August, and Devenand Hunter specifically.