Understanding dawned on Lottie’s face just as I caught on myself. I couldn’t believe it. “Charles, I think you’ve sorted it out.”
He reddened and gave me a beaming grin, dimples and all. “Did I? Well, it just seemed to make sense.”
It made perfect sense. In fact, it was the perfect plan, so simple yet so ingenious. Working with their servants, Mary could obtain a boundless supply of gossip about every member of society. And no servant would ever admit to selling her the information for fear of losing his position. Therefore, they could never betray her. But it brought me no closer to understanding why she’d done it.
“So now we have a theory for how and where she obtained the information for her columns,” Lottie said. “But how did she obtain this employment in the first place, and why was she doing it?”
“I’m not entirely sure, but both her sister and sister-in-law told me today she’d refused any support from them.” I turned to Charles. “Was she simply determined to be independent?”
He stared in confusion. “Independent? I’m not sure we came to know each other quite that well.” He drummed his fingers on the table, screwing up his face in concentration. “That is to say she was always quite agreeable to any outings I suggested. Agreeable to everything, in fact. She never expressed strong opinions or insisted on having things her way.”
I released a long breath. Why on earth had I asked him?
“I’m trying to make sense of everything I heard about Mary today. You said she didn’t want to meet up with the Archers at the theater because she didn’t get on with them.”
“That’s what she told me,” he said.
“Caroline Archer made quite a point of that today,” I said. “It bothered her that Mary had become so distant with the family since her husband’s death. On the other hand, Gordon Archer sounded angry rather than hurt.”
“You must be very good at this, Lady Harleigh, to get them to confide in you that way,” Lottie said.
In truth, I’d done nothing to deserve such a confidence from them. I closed my eyes, trying to bring the Archers’ words to mind as well as the emotion behind them.
“At first, Caroline Archer might have been trying to distance her family from the shame of Mary’s murder.” I glanced at Lottie. “I gather this holds true among the old families in New York as well. If a woman’s name appears in the paper for any reason other than her birth, marriage, or natural death, she has made herself notorious, and the family would prefer simply to disown her.”
She grimaced. “I suppose that’s true, though hardly fair in this case. Mrs. Archer was murdered.”
“Caroline implied she’d brought it on herself by living alone and associating with a lower class of people.”
Charles released a grunt of disgust. “Her life was perfectly circumspect. Clearly her relations didn’t care much about her. Why would she want to live with them?”
This left us no further ahead. Either Mary was so fiercely independent she would refuse all support, or the rift between herself and the Archers was a sore enough point with her that she’d prefer employment to taking assistance from them. Or even more odd, did she simply enjoy airing her friends’ and neighbors’ indiscretions?
And did it really matter? Must we know why she wrote the gossip column in order to determine why she was murdered? I scribbled a note on a page of Lily’s leftover stationery and decided to speak to George about it.
* * *
As if thinking of the man conjured his presence, Mrs. Thompson escorted George to my drawing room within fifteen minutes. Charles had just taken his leave of us through the garden pathway. A good thing, too, as George was accompanied by Delaney. I doubted my cousin would be eager for a meeting with the inspector after their recent encounters.
Lottie clearly wished to linger but good manners forced her to excuse herself once the introductions were performed. Upon her departure, Delaney and I made ourselves comfortable, each of us taking a chair, while George chose to pace back and forth behind the sofa.
“I apologize for intruding on you in this manner, Frances,” he began. “But I happened to meet up with the inspector and thought it time we brought one another up to date on our findings.”
Delaney, who had just opened his notebook, raised a brow at this. “I’m happy to hear any information you have for me, but you understand I’m not at liberty to divulge evidence we’ve discovered through our investigation.”
George reached the end of the carpet and turned back. “Of course, Inspector, though perhaps you’d be willing to confirm one or two items we’ve found. For example, through my investigation I’ve learned something of Mrs. Archer’s financial situation. She had a small income, source unknown. Have you arrived at the same conclusion?”
Delaney dropped his notebook in his lap and leveled a glare at him. “She made regular, small deposits herself. And no, we don’t know where the money came from.”
George inclined his head in my direction. “Lady Harleigh has made some progress with the notes, which may shed some light on that income.”
“Is that so?” Delaney turned his gaze to me. “Anything indicating blackmail, Lady Harleigh?”
“Obviously I haven’t been able to examine every note in Mrs. Archer’s files, and after the first day’s sorting, I found only a handful that appeared to have potential for blackmail. But after speaking to three of the people in question, all had alibis for Tuesday evening, which I assume was the time of the murder.”
“You spoke to them?” The vehemence in Delaney’s voice even stopped George in his tracks.
“Of course. How else was I to learn anything?”
His brows drew together. “Reviewing these files is one thing, but confronting potential suspects is far from your area of expertise, Lady Harleigh. You should have given a list to me, or to Hazelton, so one of us could question them.”
“And waste precious time?” I waved away the suggestion. “You were both too busy with your own assignments. This was nothing I couldn’t deal with and I’ll be happy to give you that list now as someone still needs to confirm those alibis.”
Delaney ran a hand through his already-disheveled hair and turned to George as if for support. George just smiled and raised his hands. “She managed it well enough.”
“You knew about this?”
I let out a huff of impatience. “Enough. Mr. Hazelton told me to use my judgment, and I did. Allow me to know when I am putting myself in a dangerous position. Every meeting took place in public and the gentlemen in question had no idea I was interviewing them.” I thought it best not to mention I’d taken Lottie along for those meetings.
“Now,” I said, addressing Delaney, “aside from the interviews, I have learned more about these notes and I believe it relates to the income you discovered.”
Delaney made a growling sound in his throat but gave me his attention. I explained about the columns, their relation to the files from Mary’s house, and that the columns stopped running shortly after Mary’s death. I concluded my report with our theory that she was working for the Daily Observer.
Delaney had been taking notes while I spoke; now his head shot up. “The Daily Observer, you say? Are you certain of this?”
The question took me by surprise. “Of course we’re certain. I read clippings of the column myself just yesterday. It was definitely the Observer. Why?”
Delaney pursed his lips and let out a long breath. “Because a man who works as an editor for that newspaper has also been murdered.”
Chapter 12
George’s head snapped around at Delaney’s words. “An editor at the newspaper? You say he was murdered? How?”
The older man scrubbed a hand across his jaw as he leafed through the pages of his notebook, released a heavy breath, and dropped the book on the table. “Only heard a bit here and there. Not my case or even my jurisdiction. If I remember correctly, his name was Milton, or Morton. No, Norton. That’s it. He was murdered at his offices after hours
.”
He rubbed the pencil against the stubble along his jaw as he stared upward as if a police report were written on my ceiling. “Quite sure he was shot. That’s about all I heard. I’m not even certain what day, but it was recently.” He opened his notebook to slip the stubby pencil inside. “I’ll have to pay a visit to Bow Street to get the details. It’s their case.”
“Shot, you say?” George’s brows inched upward.
Delaney twisted his lips into a wry smile. “Hardly sounds like a coincidence, does it?”
“Coincidence?” My gaze traveled between the two men. “What coincidence? Mary was strangled, not shot.”
“She was,” George agreed. “But the police believe she attempted to defend herself—with a revolver. A bullet was found lodged in the wall of her sitting room. They discovered a case for a revolver in her desk drawer, but the weapon was missing.”
He turned to Delaney, who nodded in confirmation. “The firearm may have been missing for years, of course, but the bullet in the wall leads us to believe she fired at her attacker. Chances are, he now has the weapon.”
“And perhaps used it on this editor,” I said.
“That would be pure speculation, my lady.” Delaney jotted a few more notes in his book. “I should get this information to Bow Street. With any luck the inspector in charge has made some headway in his case. He may have a suspect, or at least some idea of the motive for the editor’s murder.”
“Do you suppose they were both involved in blackmail?” I asked.
George resumed his pacing then stopped abruptly, turning to face us. His expression was of someone who wasn’t certain if he’d just discovered a new planet or merely a speck on his telescope lens.
“What if this had nothing to do with blackmail? This Norton was a newspaperman after all. What if they were going to expose someone?” He placed his hands on the back of the sofa and leaned forward as if he were interviewing a witness in the box. “If there was no question of withholding the story in exchange for payment, and their intent was to expose some wrongdoing, perhaps that person felt it necessary to stop them.”
“Or maybe they already had exposed someone,” Delaney added, “and were murdered out of anger. Revenge.”
“I’ve read her last fifteen or so columns. She wrote nothing that would push someone to murder. And a threat of exposure, or exposure itself might explain the murder of the editor, but why murder Mary? How would the killer have known she was writing the columns?”
“Do women really keep secrets that well?” Delaney spoke as if he were wondering aloud. “She must have confided in someone, and that person let it slip to someone else, and so on, and so on. Wouldn’t all of society know by now?”
My spine stiffened at this. “Women most certainly do keep secrets, and this is something Mary would never have confided in anyone. She had a reputation to maintain as a gently bred lady. She could never reveal she was employed. To think she’d tell anyone she was paid to spread gossip is beyond belief.” I shook my head, giving Delaney a firm negative. “And if all of society were aware of it, Mary would have been considered beyond the pale. Her friends, even her family, would disown her.”
Delaney stared in amazement, then turned away, muttering under his breath.
“Someone had to know,” George said. “Otherwise this is amazingly coincidental.”
I raised my hands in surrender. “I’m not saying no one knew about her employment. Just that Mary wouldn’t have told them.” A thought struck me. “If you two are correct about this, then Mr. Evingdon ought not to be a suspect. I specifically searched for his name in her files and found nothing.”
Delaney came to his feet. “I’m not quite ready to see it that way. If they were a courting couple, she might have confronted him, face to face, with something that so outraged her she threatened to have it published if he didn’t stop. He was at her home that night, with a chaise. He could have murdered her, then gone off to murder the editor.”
I rose to my feet. “If he wanted to stop her from publishing something, all he had to do was threaten to reveal to the world what she was doing.”
“You toffs are amazing.” Delaney’s voice was a low growl. “There’s no shame in trying to make an honest living.”
“Not everyone would agree with you that spreading gossip about one’s acquaintance for profit is an honest living.”
George raised a hand before our argument could become more heated. “There’s also the chance the editor was murdered first and the killer found a connection to Mary in his office. One of her handwritten columns or a payment voucher made out to her. It could be any number of things.”
“Well, if I’m to find out, I’d best get myself to Bow Street.”
“Will you keep us apprised of the other case?”
He shot me a glare. “My lady, this is police business. If we find those notes are no longer important to the case, I’m sure someone will inform Mr. Hazelton and come by to collect them. Otherwise it would be in your best interests for both of you to stay out of it.”
With a grumble about private citizens allowing the police to do their work he bid us good day and was off.
I huffed in frustration and turned to George. “Well, that’s gratitude. He’s happy enough to take information from me, but not inclined to reciprocate.”
He gave me a quelling look. “He thinks you’re exceeding your bounds. Remember, you took on my assignment, which was limited to reviewing the files.” His lips quirked up in a smile. “Good thing you didn’t tell him about Miss Deaver helping you. By the way, did you really go through the files looking for Evingdon’s name?”
I bit my lip and retreated a step. “I feel rather disloyal about doing so. He’s your friend and my cousin, but—”
He held up a hand to stop me. “I understand. In fact, though he’s my friend and your cousin, he might also have become my client, so I took the precaution of verifying his whereabouts on Tuesday evening.”
We exchanged looks of chagrin. “I knew Delaney would be questioning both the friend he’d been dining with and Charles’s butler. I had to know what they’d report.”
“Don’t leave me wondering. What did they say?”
“Based on the time he left his friend’s house, and the time he returned home, he appears to have driven straight there.”
“Then why won’t Delaney exonerate him?”
“It’s Delaney’s job to be suspicious. Either man could be lying after all.”
“I still feel rather guilty about my suspicions.”
He took my hand. “It doesn’t make you disloyal, Frances, just a good investigator. Suspicion is part of the job.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I am curious about one thing you mentioned. Would you have cut Mrs. Archer if you learned she was writing a gossip column?”
I frowned as I considered the question. “I don’t approve of publishing other people’s personal affairs, but I am impressed that she found a way to support herself independently. No, I wouldn’t have cut her, but as we weren’t close friends, I doubt my support would have made her life any easier. She would definitely have lost friends, and come to think of it, she might have lost her job as well. The very nature of her column demanded she work in secret.”
“What if someone just guessed?”
I gave him an incredulous stare. “How?”
Still holding my hand, he led me to the sofa. “What if someone confided in her, told her something only they would know, then saw that very on-dit in the gossip column?”
“Mary was too clever for that.” I rubbed my head with the heel of my hand. “It would be easier if we had more information. How long has she been doing this? Who was that editor? Could he have let anything slip, or did anyone else at the newspaper know about Mary? Was he even the man who employed her? We are perhaps jumping to conclusions about their connection.”
I eyed him suspiciously. “Do you really intend to wait for information to trickle in from Delaney?”
“To the newspaper office? You’d take me with you?”
“Experience tells me if I don’t take you with me, you’ll simply go on your own.” His face suddenly lit with wonder. “In fact, I’ve just devised a frighteningly good scheme.” He drew me to my feet, his gaze taking in my funeral garb. “You’re even dressed appropriately. Come, I’ll explain in the carriage.”
* * *
George’s idea was pure genius, but as we descended from the carriage and approached the offices of the Daily Observer, I felt the first twinge of nerves. I wasn’t altogether confident in my ability to play this role. At that moment George opened the door and placed a hand against my back. Too late to back out now, I supposed. And I had to admit it: I wanted to justify his confidence in me. I could do this.
It was already late afternoon when we walked into the reception area where a young gangly man sat behind a desk. Painfully thin and barely an adult, his long fingers clacked away at a typewriting machine, a pencil clenched in his teeth. He jerked around at our approach, dropping the pencil as if he’d forgotten it was even there. I goggled at the machine while George asked to see Mr. Norton. The boy paled.
“Mr. Norton doesn’t work here any longer,” he said. That was an understatement.
“Did he have an assistant? Someone who is now overseeing his work?”
“Um, well. Mr. Mosley is the assistant editor. He might be able to help you. May I ask what this is about, sir?”
George gave him a hard stare, then raised a brow. “No,” he replied. “We’ll speak with Mr. Mosley if you please.”
The young man shrank back in his chair, eliciting my motherly concern. “There’s no need to be rude, George.” I leaned toward the boy and lowered my voice. “What’s your name, young man?”
He blinked his large brown eyes once as he gazed up at me. “Travis Ryan, ma’am.”
A Lady's Guide to Gossip and Murder Page 13