A Sinister Service

by Alyssa Maxwell

“And if not, I’ll talk to our grandfather. He’ll figure out a way. He was an Eton boy himself. He knows lots of people on the board of trustees.”

  Trent shrugged, his expression glum. “We’ll see.”

  Phoebe’s heart clenched to see the boy so dispirited. She supposed she would be, too, after spending several nights in that awful jail. She certainly remembered Julia exhibiting the same behavior after being incarcerated at the Cowes Police Station, as if all the life had simply been wrung out of her, leaving an empty shell. Phoebe clung to the notion that Julia had recovered quickly enough, once she had regained her freedom—or had she?

  Perhaps that time still haunted her, which might explain some of the decisions she had made in recent months. Trent shouldn’t be left alone, Phoebe decided. He needed people around him, to support him and restore his sense of well-being. To allow him to enjoy the remainder of his childhood. Fox was right. If Trent had no one else, they must talk to their grandparents and convince them to become his guardians, if it were possible.

  Phoebe later knocked softly on Julia’s door. Julia had gone in only minutes ago to lie down, and Phoebe was fairly certain she’d still be awake. She wasn’t wrong.

  “Yes, come in,” came Julia’s voice from inside.

  Phoebe discovered Julia sitting up in bed with a book open on her lap. “Oh, good. I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “No, I don’t think I’ll sleep, but an hour alone with my feet up always does me wonders.”

  Phoebe smiled. Though considered outgoing and sociable, Julia had always retreated to the privacy of her bedroom when feeling overwhelmed or put upon by those around her. Which was it today? Or was she merely fatigued because of her condition?

  “Thank you for what you did for Trent.”

  Julia frowned and closed the book, using a ribbon to hold her place. “You needn’t thank me. Trent already has. Several times, as a matter of fact.”

  “Yes, I’m sure he has, but—”

  “You’re surprised. You don’t tend to believe I’d lift a finger to help someone, do you?”

  “Julia, why do you turn everything into an argument?”

  Julia laid her book aside. “Because I think you enjoy believing it’s up to you to save the world, and having someone else step in, once in a while, throws you off your game.”

  “That’s ridiculous. If I thought that, why did I come here to thank you for helping Trent?”

  “To maintain the upper hand. But here’s something perhaps you don’t understand. As a mother-to-be, it was impossible for me to sit by and watch a child suffer, even one who is nearly grown. It could be my son someday, and if I’m not there to help him, I can only hope someone else will.” Julia pinched her lips, and then said, “Oh, I forgot. He’ll have you, Auntie Phoebe, to save the day.”

  Phoebe sighed and left her sister to her own thoughts. She’d like to think Julia didn’t mean it when she said such things, that her apprehensions concerning impending motherhood and an uncertain future were to blame. But Julia’s resentments were nothing new, had been apparent for years now. And, as always, they were aimed at Phoebe—not Amelia, not their grandparents, not Fox. Phoebe alone shouldered the burden of Julia’s rancor, and while Julia had once explained to her the reasons for it, she had never apologized—not really—or made much of an effort to change.

  And yet, Phoebe wouldn’t abandon her. Because the thing Julia never said, but couldn’t quite hide, was that she needed Phoebe. Even if it was merely to have someone to argue with, Julia habitually sought her out, and that said something.

  Once evening had fallen, she and Eva again climbed into the touring car with Douglas, though without Hetta this time. Phoebe and Eva had also left their handbags at home, and dressed in dark clothing. They retraced their route through Langston to the neighborhood that abutted the Crown Lily precincts. The streets looked very much as they had the night before, except for a light but steady drizzle that kept most people indoors.

  “I hope we’ll find her at home,” Eva said as they drew near the street where Lydia Travers lived. Douglas brought the motorcar closer to Lydia’s building this time and accompanied them inside.

  Eva led the way to the top floor, then around the corner and partway down the upstairs hall. “This one.”

  Douglas stepped forward and knocked. No answer came. They waited another moment, and then Phoebe nodded for Douglas to knock again. As he did, she called out, “Miss Travers? Are you at home? Miss Travers?”

  Douglas resumed knocking, louder this time.

  The door directly at the top of the stairs swung open. “She’s not there. Stop your yammering and off with you.”

  Phoebe turned toward this man she assumed to be Lydia Travers’s neighbor, and did her best not to show her distaste. But a more unsavory individual she could not imagine, with his hair falling in strings about his face, his dirty linen shirt stretched over an unsightly paunch, and gaping holes where teeth should have been. Those teeth that had managed to cling to their sockets couldn’t have seen a toothbrush in many a year. “I’m terribly sorry to bother you,” she said. “We’re looking for Miss Travers. You say she’s not home? Do you know where we might find her?”

  “How in the hell am I supposed to know where the hussy spends her time?”

  Douglas started forward, no doubt in a temper over the man’s rudeness, but Phoebe stopped him with a hand on his forearm. “As I said, we’re sorry to bother you. We’ll try again another time.”

  She hoped he’d retreat back into his flat, as she didn’t relish the notion of having to pass so close to him on their way back down the stairs. Could he be the individual who snatched her handbag last night? She didn’t think their attacker had been as round as this man, nor could she envision him outrunning Douglas.

  He remained on his threshold, staring at them through slightly unfocused eyes. “What do the three of you want with ’er, anyway? Why’s she so popular all of a sudden? Never been before.”

  This caught Phoebe’s interest. “What do you mean, all of a sudden? Has someone else been here today?”

  The man shrugged. “Couple o’ blokes here earlier, looking for ’er.”

  “Did they find her?” Phoebe asked him.

  He gestured at her door with his chin. “Went in for a time. Ha! Don’t think I don’t know what that means, the little trollop. But you three . . .” He gave a snide laugh. His eyes went small and mean. “Wouldn’ta pegged her for this sort o’ thing.”

  Phoebe couldn’t stop Douglas fast enough. He surged toward the other man, fists in the air. “I’ll thank you to shut your trap. You’d better get back inside before I shove a fist down your impertinent throat.”

  “Douglas, no!” But Phoebe needn’t have worried. The man had stepped back and slammed his door before Douglas had finished his threat. Phoebe blew out a breath and reached for Eva’s hand.

  Eva’s fingers curled around Phoebe’s. “We’d best be going, my lady.”

  “I’m sorry, my lady. But he pushed too far.” Douglas curled his fists again, as if savoring the very thought of using them on Miss Travers’s neighbor—as if such a civil term could be used to describe the insolent baggage. Douglas and Eva started for the stairs, but Phoebe lingered by Miss Travers’s door another moment. She thought, perhaps. . .

  She tried the latch and it moved readily. “It’s open.” She gave an inward push, slowly, her breath suspended and her nerves buzzing, because she knew an unlocked door, especially in this neighborhood, could only be an ill omen. “Miss Travers?”

  It took her only a second or two to take in the tiny flat—and the figure lying across the bed, a leather strap wrapped around her neck so tightly the flesh bulged above and below it, her arm and one foot hanging limply over the side.

  * * *

  Eva hadn’t expected to find herself at the police station that night, but she, Lady Phoebe, and Douglas sat together in what looked to her like an interrogation room designed to encourage cooperation with its u
tter lack of human comforts. Bright light poured down from bare bulbs dangling from the ceiling, hard wooden chairs sat on either side of an equally inhospitable oak table, and no one offered a beverage to help warm them. They’d been here for a quarter hour, according to the locket watch pinned to her shirtwaist. She believed she could speak for them all in saying they were exhausted, shaken, and very badly wished to go home.

  Not that anyone had asked or was likely to.

  “Are you sure you don’t want my coat, my lady?” For the second time Douglas began to unbutton his overcoat, but Lady Phoebe shook her head.

  “No, you keep it. I’m truly not cold. Only . . .” She shivered. “I’ve been wondering if Miss Travers’s death is our fault.”

  “Of course not, my lady,” Douglas was quick to reply. “How could it have been?”

  Eva wished she could offer a similar reassurance, but she hadn’t Douglas’s conviction. But when another thought jolted through her, she couldn’t help but speak it aloud. “I do hope there are plenty of people at Lyndale Park who can swear to Trent’s whereabouts tonight—all night.”

  “My goodness, Eva, you’re right. First he’s released, and now Miss Travers is dead. Surely, the police won’t think . . . but, of course, they might.” Lady Phoebe shut her eyes and wrapped her arms around herself, prompting Douglas once more to look concerned about her comfort.

  The door opened and Detective Inspector Nichols strode in. Without a word he circled the table and took a seat facing them. He bent forward, braced on his elbows. “Now, then.”

  Eva forewent chastising him for neglecting to greet Lady Phoebe properly. It would only irritate him and he already looked plenty irritated, and had been since discovering them at Lydia Travers’s flat. After finding the poor girl laid out in such ghastly disregard across her bed, they’d sent Douglas to find a telephone, which he had finally located at an inn several streets away. He’d telephoned the police, while Eva and Lady Phoebe had stayed with Lydia—with the body. They’d locked the door behind him and made sure to touch nothing until he returned with the police. It had been difficult, as both Eva and Lady Phoebe had wished to cover Miss Travers and bring dignity to her death.

  When the detective inspector arrived, he had treated them to disgusted looks. He had also silenced them and sent them outside as he and two constables took an account of the crime scene. When he finally exited the building, he’d ordered them to meet him here, at the station. Judging by his expression now, Eva could see that his mood hadn’t changed.

  “What were you all doing there?” he abruptly asked. “And don’t tell me you went to deliver more charity.”

  They looked at each other uncertainly, and then Lady Phoebe spoke. “No. We went hoping to speak with Lydia, to find out who had accosted us last night, and why. Obviously, we were too late.”

  “Obviously.” He studied them for several long, squirm-inducing moments. “Let me fully understand you. After being targeted the first time you went to Lydia Travers’s flat, you all thought it would be a good idea to venture into the same neighborhood again. At night.”

  When he put it that way, Eva couldn’t but agree their plan sounded daft.

  Lady Phoebe explained their actions. “We would not have done it if you had taken us seriously when we came to you earlier today. But you dismissed the note we brought you as irrelevant and—”

  “I did no such thing,” he interrupted. “What the h . . . er, that is . . . what gave you that idea?”

  “Why, your own actions, the way you dismissed us.”

  Eva added her agreement with an emphatic nod.

  “Even now,” Lady Phoebe went on, “where is Mr. Grimes? Why haven’t you brought him in?” She spoke of Lydia’s neighbor, as they now knew he was called. “He saw Lydia Travers’s killers. He told us he saw two men who came by her flat—”

  “What Edwin Grimes saw earlier this afternoon was me and my associate. As he had nothing else to add, I saw no reason to drag him down to the station.”

  “You and . . . ?” Lady Phoebe shook her head. “But we never told you who we’d been to see yesterday.”

  The detective inspector laughed grimly. “How difficult do you think it was for me to find out who you’d visited? A few questions on the street. People remembered you. You were hardly discreet.”

  “Oh.” The man’s revelation rendered Lady Phoebe—and all of them—speechless. A sense of foolishness crawled across Eva’s shoulders and prickled her arms.

  Mr. Nichols quirked his eyebrows at them. “So today we questioned Miss Travers about what happened there last night, and if she had ever seen that note before. Which, by the way, she said she had not, and I tended to believe her.”

  “I see . . .”

  “Do you, Lady Phoebe? Whoever murdered Miss Travers arrived at her flat sometime between when I was there and when you and your cohorts showed up—uninvited and unnecessarily, I might add. I was handling things, making appropriate inquiries, if you’d only have trusted me. As it is, you might have walked in on a murder and been murdered yourselves.”

  “Or,” Lady Phoebe whispered, “we might have saved her.”

  Eva felt a pang in the vicinity of her heart. Yes, if they had only gone earlier, perhaps they might have prevented Lydia’s death, or at the very least been able to identify the killer.

  Detective Inspector Nichols’s hand came down on the table with a thwack. “That is not the point I’m trying to make. Lady Phoebe, it’s one thing to play with your own life, but your maid and your driver work for you and have little choice in matters such as these.”

  “I would never force them—”

  Eva could keep silent no longer. “Indeed not. I came along because I wanted to. Because I would never let my lady do such a thing on her own.”

  “Nor me, neither.” Douglas’s face reddened with ire. “A bloke has got to have some honor in him, doesn’t he? Let these ladies go alone? No, sir, not me. Even if Lady Phoebe had ordered me not to go, I would have gone.”

  “Settle down, all of you.” The detective inspector looked bored by their protests. “We can safely assume whoever murdered Ronald Mercer most likely had a hand in Miss Travers’s death. She must have known him and somehow figured out it was he who murdered Mercer.”

  Lady Phoebe gripped the edge of the table between them. “I hope you don’t think it’s . . .”

  “Trent Mercer?” His eyebrows shot upward. “I telephoned over to Lyndale Park a few minutes ago. According to your sister, she and most of the household can vouch for Trent being there all night tonight. Lucky for him.”

  “Oh, thank goodness,” Eva murmured.

  “Hmph.” The man leaned forward, pinning his stare on Lady Phoebe in a manner that urged Eva to administer a slap of admonishment. It was an urge she resisted. “Whether you wish to acknowledge it or not, Lady Phoebe,” he said, “you might have led that individual directly to Miss Travers with your jaunt to her flat last night.”

  Lady Phoebe paled. Her hand rose to press her lips. Eva reached out to take hold of her free one. But she could offer little other comfort, not here, in front of this man who accused them so remorselessly.

  Was Mr. Nichols correct? Could they be responsible for Lydia’s death? The possibility pinched Eva’s throat and stung her eyes, and a growing ache made breathing difficult. She had wished to help the girl, yes, but they had also used her in their effort to obtain information. She, Eva, had used her, for she could not forget that going there to speak with Lydia had been her idea. Not Lady Phoebe’s, as the detective inspector seemed to believe. Hers. The knowledge was like a weight around her heart.

  “You have very much made your point, sir.” Eva felt wearier than she could remember ever being. “May we go home now?”

  “No, you may not,” he said without hesitation or kindness.

  “Are we being held?” Lady Phoebe looked alarmed. “Are we suspected of something?”

  “No, I’m not daft enough to think you murdered anyo
ne, but I want some answers.” The detective inspector folded his hands on the tabletop. He had the air of someone settling in for an extended period of time. His attention turned to Eva. “When you saw Lydia Travers last night, what did the two of you talk about?”

  “Crown Lily, and some of the people there.” Eva attempted to make sense of her chaotic thoughts. “Mostly Moira Wickham. I wanted to know how Lydia felt about her, as well as some of the others in the painting department.”

  “And?”

  “And, of course, she resented Miss Wickham. She protested her innocence of the charge Miss Wickham had leveled against her, namely selling china patterns to a competitor. Miss Wickham suspected Lydia of conspiring with a young gentleman who works for another pottery. Lydia claimed they were no longer seeing each other, and I believed her.” She shook her head. “No gentleman would allow a woman he cared about to live in such unfortunate circumstances.”

  He casually dismissed the comment. “What else?”

  “I asked her about Ronald Mercer’s missing pattern book, and she said something I found most curious. She thought he was as likely to have stolen it himself as anyone else. That he might have done it as part of a plan to move to another company.”

  “Hmm. Interesting.” He said this with grudging reluctance. “If that’s the case, then the book is gone and not likely to be found.” He addressed his next question to Lady Phoebe. “Who else have you two harassed?”

  “I’d hardly call it that,” Lady Phoebe began, but Eva saw no point in concealing the truth.

  “Gus Abbott,” she said.

  Mr. Nichols tented his fingers beneath his chin. “Head of clay mixing.”

  Eva nodded. “He should have been in the building the morning Ronald Mercer died.”

  “But he wasn’t,” Mr. Nichols pointed out, apparently having learned that much for himself. “Witnesses placed him in the warehouse that morning.”

  “Perhaps, but we have reason to believe those who claimed he was in the warehouse might have been lying,” Eva said.

  “Oh? Pray tell me, Miss Huntford, what reason could that be?”