“I can answer that.” Douglas scowled, his face reddening again. “Down at the pub, there were Crown Lily workers saying they protected their own, even if it meant lying. They were right proud about it, too.” Douglas leaned forward over the table. “I heard them myself.”
“Maybe so. The point is, it’s not your business to find out. All your interference is good for is getting people hurt.”
At this pronouncement Lady Phoebe winced and Eva felt another stab.
Mr. Nichols sat back and regarded them with an amused smirk. “Do you know Gus Abbott lives in Lydia Travers’s neighborhood?”
“No, we didn’t.” Lady Phoebe looked to the other two for approbation. They shook their heads. Eva certainly hadn’t known.
“Yes, well, I know because contrary to what you believe, I have continued to investigate this case, even while young Mercer was still in jail. And, by the way, I don’t appreciate your sister throwing her weight around to have him released.”
“He’s a child,” Eva pointed out none-too-gently. “Or doesn’t that matter to you?”
“Not if he murdered his father, it doesn’t.”
“He couldn’t have murdered Lydia.” The tension in Lady Phoebe’s hands finally eased, and she released her grip on the table’s edge. “As you said, my sister and the others at Lyndale Park can vouch for his being there tonight.”
“Perhaps,” the detective inspector murmured, “but as you’ve all pointed out, people sometimes lie to protect their own.”
“No one is lying about Trent’s whereabouts,” Eva insisted. Indignation made her bold. “Certainly, Lady Annondale’s word is to be trusted.”
“I’m merely pointing out that nothing is settled. Nothing has been proven or disproven.”
After a pause Lady Phoebe said, “If Gus Abbott lives in Lydia’s neighborhood, he could have slipped that note into my purse, couldn’t he?”
“Or, if guilty of Ronald Mercer’s death, he could also have murdered Lydia,” Eva added.
The detective inspector came to his feet. “That will be quite enough. You lot don’t learn, do you? There you go again, speculating on things you’ve no business interfering with.” He leaned, spread his arms wide, and flattened his palms on the tabletop. His booming voice filled the room. “Listen to me, and listen well. Your involvement in this case ends here and now. You will return to Lyndale Park and stay there. Better yet, leave Langston at the first opportunity and don’t come back. Because if I catch the slightest hint of any of you questioning anyone, or being where you shouldn’t, I’ll have you apprehended and locked up for your own good, not to mention the good of this community. Have I made myself clear?”
They mumbled their replies and were only too happy when he told them they were free to go.
CHAPTER 16
After dinner that evening, Phoebe stole off alone to Gil’s study, a room little used since his death. The item she sought occupied the desk, but as she sank into the leather desk chair, so large and tufted she felt like a child in comparison, she hesitated. Several times she reached for the candlestick telephone, only to ease her hand away.
It wasn’t a call she wished to make, at least not for the reason that had sent her here. Detective Inspector Nichols had been brutally honest earlier, and no one, not even Eva, could silence the accusations clawing at her ever since. Through their interference they had led a killer to Lydia Travers’s flat. That poor young woman’s life had been snuffed out because of them. Because of her—and because of her arrogance in believing she could solve what the police could not.
It didn’t matter that she had been acting on Trent’s behalf, or even on Fox’s. True, Fox had threatened to become involved to clear his friend’s name, and she couldn’t allow that. And, yes, it had appeared as though the police were satisfied with their conclusion that Trent had murdered his father and were finished investigating. But what Phoebe hadn’t taken into consideration was that the detective inspector had been under no obligation to keep her informed of his activities regarding the case.
And now a girl lay dead, strangled, and she could banish neither Mr. Nichols’s admonishments nor Lydia’s lifeless features from her mind.
She reached again for the telephone, dragging it close. Lifting the brass earpiece, she tapped the metal switch hook twice.
“Langston Post Office,” a woman’s voice announced. “Do you wish to make a call?”
“Yes, please.” Phoebe lifted the telephone and spoke into the mouthpiece. She gave the exchange operator the information, and waited while the proper connections were made. Finally a voice came over the wire.
“Phoebe?”
“Owen.”
* * *
She hadn’t asked him to come. She had only wished to unburden herself to the one person who would offer neither sympathy nor condemnation, but who would simply listen. But the next morning as Eva helped her dress, the rumble of a motorcar on the drive sent them both to the window. Phoebe immediately recognized the three-wheeled Morgan Runabout, a prewar racing vehicle that, although nearly a decade old, still had the power to outrun most other motorcars on the road. And while its canvas top obscured the interior, a glimpse through the driver’s side window revealed a head of tousled black hair.
A thrill and a sense of joy rose up inside her, which she attempted to conceal behind a frown.
“I told him I’d be all right, that he didn’t have to come,” she said to Eva. “He never listens. Goodness, he must have driven through the night to arrive so early.”
“On the contrary, my lady, he does listen. Quite well, I’d say. That’s why he’s here.”
“Whose side are you on?” Phoebe couldn’t help an ironic grin in response to Eva’s shrewd smile.
“Yours, always.”
Downstairs, Phoebe donned an overcoat and hurried outside, meeting Owen on the front steps as he was about to raise the knocker. His arms engulfed her, and she felt swept up in a wave of solid security she hadn’t known she’d needed, not like this.
“Are you all right, my dearest Phoebe?”
“Yes, yes, I am now.”
With his masculine scents swirling around her, she suddenly couldn’t conceive of how on earth she would have gotten on without him. Yes, Eva had been right. Last night he had listened to her, really listened, and heard everything she hadn’t spoken across the wires.
“Thank you for coming.” She burrowed her cheek against his coat front and held on beyond all sense of proper decorum.
He made no move to put space between them, but seemed as content as she to let the moments continue on. “Of course I’m here. Where else should I be? And why . . . Phoebe, why didn’t you simply ask me to come?” When she didn’t reply, he released one arm from around her and raised her chin with his fingertips until her gaze met his. “Is admitting you might need me such a regrettable sign of weakness?”
“No, it wasn’t that. You’ve so much to worry about. The pressures from the textile union and your workers’ demands . . . How could I possibly add to that, especially when I put myself in the position I’m in now? It’s my own fault.”
She couldn’t tell him the entire truth: Yes, he was right. In some small way she didn’t like admitting to needing him—not yet. Wanting him? Yes, most certainly that. But needing involved a host of inadequacies she’d been fighting against her entire life, and most especially in the years since Papa had died.
Before he’d gone off to war, Papa had essentially left her in charge of her siblings. Taken her aside and told her he was trusting her to look after them because she was the sensible one, the steady one. And ever since, she had fretted over making a hash of it, of disappointing him, of failing. How could she look after her brother and two sisters when she oftentimes felt inadequate to look after herself? What kind of example could she possibly set when her mistakes stretched as long as the early-morning shadows obscuring the edges of the park surrounding them?
She searched Owen’s face, his dark eyes. Did he
see through her, know her for what she truly was? She’d told him everything last night over the telephone. Unburdening herself across the wires, rather than face-to-face, had perhaps been cowardly, but so much easier than beneath his earnest scrutiny.
Had he reached the same conclusion as Detective Inspector Nichols, that Lydia Travers had died because of her? How could he not? Several years older than she, he must think her a silly chit of a girl, butting in where she had no business interfering. Yet, here he was, and she saw nothing of judgment staring back at her from his handsome features. She saw only kindness and concern and something that mirrored a sensation that gathered deep in the pit of her stomach. It prompted her to rise up on her tiptoes even as he lowered his face and pressed his lips to hers.
How long he kissed her, she couldn’t say, or have cared. Had someone seen? At that moment the notion struck her as inconsequential, of no matter at all. When their lips parted, they smiled at each other—she somewhat ruefully, he tolerantly—linked arms, and set off around the house in an unspoken agreement that they weren’t ready to go inside yet and face the others.
“So this may all be Julia’s soon,” he commented absently as they rounded the corner and the gardens came into view.
A scenic landscape opened before them, rolling hills and distant forests that gave no hint of the region’s industrial underpinnings. The bottle kilns, the smoke and soot, the workers’ poor housing, and the coal mines that fed it all—none of it was visible from here.
“Well, not Julia’s, I suppose,” he amended, “though it might as well be, until her child is an adult.”
Phoebe only shrugged. Her arm linked through his, she leaned against his side as they walked. Julia’s conundrum with the estate, once a significant issue, now seemed trivial next to a boy accused of murder and two people in their graves.
“You’re quiet,” he remarked as they meandered down a twisting garden path. “That detective has you riddled with guilt. But how do you know your visit to the girl had anything to do with her death? She might have been targeted much earlier. Might have known something about the murder at Crown Lily, and the guilty party decided she needed to be silenced. Or the police themselves might have led the killer to her.”
“The police only went to see her because of what they learned from me, because my handbag had been snatched.”
“Yes. I’m not going to say you shouldn’t have gone into that neighborhood, especially at night, that it was dangerous and foolhardy and you might have been hurt.” His free hand descended on hers, where it lay in the crook of his arm, and tightened around it with an urgency she understood.
And yet she also perceived his teasing and teased in return, “You just did.”
“Yes, I did. I’m sorry, I won’t bring it up again.” His arm went around her, and hers spanned his waist beneath his open topcoat. As they reached a tall stand of rhododendrons, their leaves faded and weary-looking, he guided her around them, thus blocking their view of the house—and the house’s view of them. Embracing her, he dipped her slightly back and kissed her again. Soundly, in a way that overwhelmed her. She felt absorbed by him, enveloped, elated, yet oddly calm, content. When he finally lifted away, it was only an inch or two, just enough for her to catch her breath. She wanted to sigh and at the same time let go the laughter that bubbled up inside her—delighted, wicked laughter.
“That,” he said, the cool breeze catching at his words, “was to let you know I’ve been waiting for you, but I don’t want to wait around forever.”
She instantly sobered. “What does that mean? That I must make a decision and make it soon?”
He stared down at her a good long moment, fleeting thoughts darting across his face. The previous moment shattered, he helped her to straighten, released her, and shoved his hands in his coat pockets. “Damn it, Phoebe, I don’t know what it means. It’s not an ultimatum. It’s just . . .” He shook his head briskly. “Tell me what you’ve learned so far since you’ve been here. And what did send you into that neighborhood?”
Unsure whether she was grateful, relieved, or thoroughly disappointed he had changed subjects so readily, she let him guide her back onto the garden path. “We went because of the way Miss Wickham—that’s the supervisor of the painting department—dismissed Lydia Travers. Eva saw it happen, and she felt Miss Wickham might have let her go too easily, more on a hunch than any evidence Lydia had been giving away Crown Lily secrets. Designs and such.”
“And did Lydia provide any new insights?”
“She denied Miss Wickham’s accusations against her. But she made a curious charge of her own—that Ronald Mercer had stolen his own pattern book.”
“How does one steal something one already has in one’s possession?”
“The book was his, used to record his pattern designs, but in actuality it belonged to Crown Lily. Lydia thought perhaps he sold his designs to another company for a chance to advance his career. He might have been planning to leave Crown Lily.”
Their arms once again linked, Owen strolled with his free hand behind his back. “So based solely on that scenario, his killer could have been someone to whom he planned to give the book. Perhaps Mercer demanded too high a payment and this other individual decided he could have the book free and clear.” When Phoebe nodded her agreement to this possibility, he went on. “Or, the owner of Crown Lily learned of or guessed his plans and killed him, and perhaps he has the pattern book somewhere.”
Phoebe nodded again, but pointed out, “If either of those scenarios is true, why the clay-mixing building? He was killed in one of the vats where natural clay, bone ash, and stone are ground into a fine substance and mixed. Why would Mr. Tremaine, or even someone from another company, plan to meet with Ronald Mercer there?”
“Hmm. All right, who would ordinarily have been in that building that time of day?”
“Very few men, in fact, but a worker named Gus Abbott is in charge and was definitely on site that morning. He claims he was in the main warehouse and has several workers willing to vouch for him.”
“You sound skeptical.”
She sighed. “Douglas overheard some Crown Lily workers claim they protect their own, even if it means being less than honest. Although Gus Abbott did tell Eva that Mr. Tremaine saw him in the warehouse as well. I doubt he’d bring Jeffrey Tremaine’s name into it if it weren’t true.”
“Still, any reason he might have had it in for Mercer?”
Phoebe shook her head. “None that we’ve discovered for certain, but someone has been stealing from Crown Lily. It could be this Mr. Abbott.”
“Yes, and Mercer found out. All right, this Miss Wickham. What did she have to gain by dismissing Lydia due to what could have been imagined or invented wrongs?”
“Invented—Eva and I considered this. She might have been using Lydia as a scapegoat. As I said, there have been thefts at Crown Lily. Miss Wickham—or Gus Abbott—could be involved in the latter. I should think, though, that of the two of them, only Miss Wickham is in a position to sell designs to a competitor.”
“All right, that’s three—the factory owner, Abbott, and Miss Wickham. Who else?”
“There’s the other head designer, Percy Bateman. We detected friction between the two men before Ronald Mercer’s death. Although most of the resentment did seem to be on Mr. Mercer’s part. He didn’t seem to relish a much younger man coming along and showing as much talent—or perhaps more—than himself.”
“In that case it could have been a crime gone wrong, with this other designer defending himself and killing his attacker.”
“Yes, we thought of that. And Mr. Bateman became frightened and decided not to reveal what happened for fear the police wouldn’t believe his story.”
They continued walking until the path looped around the late-fall foliage and brought them back toward the house. “That makes four individuals you have reason to suspect. There’s someone you haven’t mentioned,” Owen said as he brought them to a halt. “The boy.
”
“Trent? None of us believe he’s guilty.”
“Why not? The police certainly do. Even though they’ve released him, according to what you told me last night, they haven’t entirely ruled him out.”
“Julia, Fox, Amelia, and even Mildred all swear Trent was here last night and could not have murdered Lydia Travers. It only makes sense that the same person committed both murders, doesn’t it?”
“I suppose it does. But you said Trent had good cause to resent his father. Sounds like the father’s and son’s visions of the future were diametrically opposed. That might have made Trent desperate. And desperate people do desperate things. Perhaps someone else murdered Lydia to protect Trent. Have you thought of that?”
People lying to protect their own. But in this case, who? Trent was basically alone in the world. His own distant relatives wanted no part in helping him. As for murdering his father . . . in her heart she simply didn’t—or perhaps she couldn’t—believe the boy to be capable of such a horrific act.
“If you saw the manner in which Ronald Mercer died—actually saw the grinding pan—you’d do everything in your power not to believe a child could be such a monster.”
“Then let’s go in, and I can meet him.”
They climbed the steps to the terrace, whereupon Phoebe happened to glance over her shoulder. An approaching figure prompted her to turn full around toward the garden.
“That’s Ernie.”
“Ernie Shelton, Gil’s cousin?” Owen peered into the distance.
“The very same. His cottage is on the grounds, through the gardens and down a lane.” Her mouth slanted in distaste, yet she remembered he had rushed up to the house when they’d believed Julia to be in labor. For that, she had yet to properly thank him. “Let’s wait and see what he wants.”
It took him a few minutes to reach them, appearing slightly out of breath as he climbed the terrace steps. “Good morning, Phoebe. Owen, this is a surprise. What brings you to Lyndale Park?”
“Phoebe, of course.” He took her hand in his, which Ernie acknowledged with a lift of an eyebrow behind his spectacles. “What brings you to the main house so early this morning?”
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