by Kate Parker
“Child? She was old enough to be married,” Lady Kaldaire said.
“But she was so innocent. She’d been well chaperoned until the day of her wedding, and Abbott gained the title only the week before. They both had a lot to learn.” Lady Ravenbrook stopped and looked at each of us in turn. “What does this have to do with who poisoned me?”
“Maybe nothing,” I admitted. “Tell me about Lord Armstrong.”
“He was there when I went into the dining room during the ball.” She shook her head. “I don’t remember much after that.”
“What’s he like?”
“As dissolute as Lord Theo Hughes, but not as cruel. Armstrong is more of a prankster, but his jokes quickly become annoying. His wife is ready to have him jailed in the colonies so not to embarrass her cousin the king.”
“Drastic, but effective,” Lady Kaldaire said in an approving tone.
“How would that…? Oh, the London papers would be less likely to hear about his incarceration,” I said as I figured out where this would lead.
“Who are Lord Armstrong’s friends?” the duchess asked.
“I don’t think he has any real friends. Lord Theo Hughes and Lady Beatrix are the closest thing he’d have to a friend.”
“Lord Theo is dead and Lady Westkirk has her hands full with Lord Westkirk,” I replied, and Lady Ravenbrook nodded. “So who are his friends now?”
“Certainly no one at court. I suspect he no longer has friends,” Lady Ravenbrook said.
Which ruled him out as part of the pair to move Roxanne’s body. I was running out of possibilities.
“Lady Ravenbrook,” the duchess asked in a quiet voice directly to our hostess, “are you and Lord Ravenbrook going to the country to separate yourselves from the dangers of cocaine?”
“Planning to gossip about me?” our hostess asked, her arms wrapped around her waist as if protecting herself from an assault.
“I was the victim of too much gossip as a newlywed to ever gossip about another. I was merely going to say if you are, that’s very wise.” The duchess gave her a smile and Lady Ravenbrook lowered her head for a moment.
When she raised it, she said, “That is good advice. Helpful to a large number of people. I’ll keep it in mind.” And then she returned the duchess’s smile.
“You and your husband had no reason to kill Lady Theo Hughes, did you?” I asked. The expressions on the ladies’ faces told me I’d been too bold.
“What a monstrous thing to say,” Lady Ravenbrook snapped at me.
“You and your husband were the last pair I could think of who had any contact with Lady Theo,” I tried to explain.
“Why a pair?” she sounded surprised.
“We know to move her body from where she was killed to where she was found would have required two people. I’ve been searching among everyone who knew her for those two people.” My shoulders sank from a great weight. “I’m out of ideas.”
“It wasn’t us,” she told me. “I liked Roxanne. She deserved better. I wish you luck in finding her killer.”
* * *
Once we were in the carriage, I asked, “Can you ladies talk to the Hughes family and the servants, away from the Duchess of Wallingford, and find out if anyone knew that Roxanne was planning to leave the house or leave England? Did she confide in any of the servants?”
“Of course. What are you going to do, Emily?” Lady Kaldaire asked.
“I’m going to talk to someone about Lucky Marlowe and his employees.”
I reached the shop in time to find out from Jane about the orders that had come in while I was gone. Then I closed up, took my sketch pad up to the flat, and started getting the dinner ready that Mrs. McCauley had left for us.
Noah and Annie came in a few minutes later from the workshop. “Does this mean we’ll have dinner on time tonight?” he asked.
“Of course.” I made it sound as if I’d dished up dinner on time every night recently.
“So, you’ve stopped chasing after a killer?”
“Not at all.” I gave him a smile. “I need to talk to my grandfather after dinner.”
“Is he as unhappy as I am about your investigation?” He glowered at me.
“If anything, he’s even more unhappy. If you’ll watch dinner for a minute, I’ll change into a dark muslin frock.”
“So you’re harder to see, I imagine,” Noah said as he tasted the chicken.
Dinner was a quiet affair. I did the dishes with Annie’s help and then put on my hat and gloves.
“Emily, I don’t like this. Be careful,” Noah called out to me as I was closing the door.
“I will.”
The omnibus ride was uneventful. I left the bus not far from my grandfather’s house so I could use the alley shortcuts. It was still light out enough to see activity on the streets, but the alleys were already filled with shadows. Ominous shadows. I quickened my steps, keeping a sharp lookout around me.
An ashcan half a block in front of me rattled and I froze. A moment later, a cat, or a big rat, ran across the alley. I took a deep breath and hurried on.
I reached the cross street and felt tension leave my shoulders as I looked around. Just normal traffic. No cats, rats, or men carrying lethal-looking knives. I sped up my pace.
In the next block, I thought I saw a shadow move. I stopped and waited, but there was nothing else. I continued on my way, glancing all around me.
I was nearly to the next street, thinking I would be safe when I reached the busier thoroughfare, when I was grabbed around the waist from behind.
Someone forced me toward a carriage that was just pulling up on the street. I screamed at the top of my lungs.
Whoever he was stuck a dirty hand over my mouth. I bit down, and as he loosened his hold on me, elbowed him in the stomach. Then I swung around to smash him in the mouth.
He let go of me completely, but then someone else put a knife to my throat. That seemed to be a good time to stop resisting.
“Watch her,” the first man said. “She’s got a nasty right hook.”
“That’s what you get for grabbing a lady,” I said in a soft voice, afraid to aggravate the person with the knife.
More shadows jumped out from behind the carriage and the man who’d first grabbed me fell to the brick paving. The second person pushed me away. I hit the bricks and rolled away, glad I’d changed from the nice afternoon frock I’d worn earlier.
I looked up to discover a man swinging his blade at anything that moved. The shadows stayed out of range. Then the man jumped onto the carriage. A whip cracked and the carriage sped away. My first attacker limped away into the shadows.
“What are you doing here, Emily?” my cousin Tommy asked, holding out a hand to help me rise.
“I’ve come to see Grandpapa and your father, since they seem to know Jeb Marlowe better than anyone.”
“Let’s get you to the house and then I’ll get my dad.” Two other cousins followed Tommy and me down another alley and then to my grandparents’ home, where the glow of the gas lights welcomed me.
Gran welcomed us at the door with “What happened to you?”
“She was attacked by two men with a carriage.”
“There had to be more than two. Who was managing the horses?”
“Oh, you think you’re so smart.”
“Wow, can she fight.” My cousins all talked at once, over and on top of each other until I couldn’t tell who said what.
“My cousins rescued me,” I said and turned to face them. “Thank you.”
“They’re good lads, all of them,” my grandmother said. “Let’s get you straightened up and set down with a cuppa,” she added as she escorted me into the kitchen. The kitchen was her territory. I’d never been allowed in that room since I was little.
I washed my hands at the sink, brushed off my dress, and repinned my hair while she fixed us each a cup of tea.
“I got a letter from your brother in the mail yesterday.”
�
��Oh, good, Gran. What did he have to say?” I could tell by her smile she was thrilled to receive a letter from Matthew.
“He misses my cooking and looks forward to his next break so he can eat dinner here.”
“I’ll be sure to bring him over. And stay for dinner, too,” I said and gave her a warm smile. I was glad to see the thaw in our frigid relationship grow.
My grandfather hurried into the kitchen, a stricken look on his face.
Gran and I both leaped to our feet. “What’s wrong?” I asked as Gran tried to help him into a chair.
He resisted her efforts. “Tom’s been kidnapped.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
It took me a moment to find my voice. “Are you sure Uncle Thomas has been grabbed?”
“I don’t know if they’re our enemies or involved with this investigation of yours, but I’m sure he’s been kidnapped. When Tommy and Garrett went to get Tom, since you wanted to see us both, they got there just in time to see him being forced into a carriage at knifepoint.”
Gran sank into a wooden chair with a thud.
“Was it the same men and carriage they just rescued me from?”
“They think so.” Grandfather sat next to Gran and took her hands in his. “We’ll get him back.”
“Who would do this?” she murmured.
“We have enemies.”
“But they’ve never done anything like this before, have they?” I asked.
He shook his white head, looking ten years older than when I last saw him. “Zach raced back here and brought the whole family the message while Tommy and Garrett followed the carriage. They’ll send us word when they can.”
Zach was Uncle Thomas’s youngest. At ten, he was skinny, fast, and an expert at sneaking through anywhere to bring messages. He’d be the one to pass word once my older cousins learned where the men with the carriage had taken my uncle Thomas. With my thoughts tumbling, I asked, “Jeb Marlowe. Could he do something like this?”
“He’s crazy enough,” Gran said, frowning.
“Why would he?” Grandpapa asked.
“Uncle Thomas knows him the best of everyone in the family. And if Marlowe knows what we discovered, he may not want me talking to Uncle Thomas.”
“This is about those toffs getting murdered?” Grandfather sounded enraged. Probably at me, since I was the one who brought this problem to their door.
“Maybe,” I said, not wanting to admit this trouble was all my doing. “How long have you known Marlowe?”
“Since he was a tot. Why?”
“He came from this neighborhood. How did he manage to acquire a gaming club?”
“He saved his money, obtained some investors—”
I interrupted him. “Anyone you know?”
“Well, no.” He gave me a level stare. “What are you thinking?”
“What if his partner was a toff?” Lord Theo and Lord Armstrong came to mind. And if it was Armstrong, the two men could have moved Roxanne’s body easily. But that raised the question in my mind of where Lord Armstrong, having only a small allowance, would get the money to start up a gaming club.
“It’s possible.” My grandfather rubbed his wife’s hands.
“Is there anyone around here that Marlowe is still close to?”
“Tom, I suppose. They’ve been friends forever. I don’t know of anyone who’d be closer to him than Tom. He doesn’t have family anymore.” Grandfather studied the well-scrubbed kitchen table for a while. Finally, he said, “I don’t know what happened to that girl.”
I half jumped from my chair. Could he have known Roxanne for a long time? “What girl?”
“The tart,” Gran said.
“Now, Aggie.”
“Well, she was.” Gran scowled at him. “Going after any man she could to get anything she wanted at that moment. And then dropping that man to chase after another who had even more money in his pockets.”
“Do you remember her name?” I asked Gran.
“No. She was always the tart to me.”
I looked at my grandfather. “Do you know her name?”
“No. She was from the area close to the docks. Italian, I think. A lot younger than Marlowe. He was wild about her.”
“She was almost young enough to be his daughter,” Gran said with a sniff worthy of an aristocrat.
I remembered where I’d heard that description before. Was it possible? Could the Italian girl be Lady Westkirk, and could she and Marlowe have killed Roxanne? They were in the perfect position to hide the details of Victoria Abbott’s murder. One had taken the girl to be slaughtered, and the other provided the location.
But Marlowe said Roxanne was going to go to Australia with him. Was she really going to leave? “I need to talk to some people in Mayfair.”
“Pet, I can’t let you run all over England. We’ve had one kidnapping tonight—”
I interrupted him. “If I get the answers I expect, I’ll know who kidnapped Uncle Thomas and why. Did Uncle Thomas keep his automobile?”
“Yes.”
“Can you drive it?” I asked my Grandfather. This would only work if he could.
“No, but your father can.”
For a moment, I almost said no. I was still furious with him for not bothering to send word to my mother when she was dying. Even if he was in jail and couldn’t come to see her, he could have sent words of encouragement.
But Uncle Thomas, and my grandparents, deserved better than for me to refuse to work with my horrible father. “Get him.”
My grandfather rose and pushed one of the buzzers on the board on the kitchen wall that connected to my father’s and various uncles’ nearby homes.
My father appeared in a minute and a half, buttoning up his waistcoat. “What’s wrong? I…” His voice trailed off when he saw me. “Emily?”
“Can you drive Uncle Thomas’s motor-car?”
“Better than he can.”
“Good. You’re driving me to Mayfair. I’ll explain on the way.” I rose and headed toward the barn where the motor-car was kept.
“Wait. I’m coming with you.” My grandfather hurried out after me, my father following with a puzzled expression.
He cranked over the motor and the vehicle started. We all climbed in, me in the back seat, and started off at a good clip.
“What’s going on?” my father asked, raising his voice to be heard.
Grandpapa filled him in on the kidnapping, and then I told them both about how it would have taken two people to move Roxanne’s body up the stairs without dragging her, and what I’d learned about the disposal of Victoria Abbott’s body away from the Marlowe Club.
“How did you get mixed up in murder, Emily?” my father asked.
“Lady Kaldaire found out about you. She threatened to tell all my customers about my criminal relatives if I didn’t help her find Roxanne’s killer.” Well, not exactly, but my explanation was close enough.
“That’s blackmail.” He growled and shifted gears to go around a goods wagon.
“I thought you called it ‘persuasion,’ Father.”
“Both of you stop right now,” my grandfather said. “After we get Tom back safely, you two can fight all you want.” His tone was feeble, as if his heart wasn’t in it.
Traffic was light until we reached the West End, and then my father drove through the crowded streets with an expertise that surprised me. “I’m getting to be an excellent getaway driver,” he told me, pride in his voice.
Then he spooked two carriage horses, who tried to bolt. “If you can’t manage your horses better than that,” he muttered.
I resisted saying what I thought of his criminal activities or his driving and instead gave him directions to Blackford House. When he pulled up, I climbed out and said, “Wait here.” I dashed up the steps and rang the bell.
The butler opened the door and I jumped inside before he could shut me out. “Is Her Grace home?”
“Not to callers.”
“I only need to see h
er for a moment. It’s a matter of life and death.”
The duke and Mr. Sumner came down the hallway toward us, both looking solemn in their evening jackets. “Life and death?” the duke asked with raised brows.
“My uncle was kidnapped tonight, by men who tried to abduct me first. I’m sure Lucky Marlowe is behind it. I asked the duchess to find out something about Lady Theo for me today. I wondered if she learned anything.” My words tumbled out as if I’d been running.
“Take a deep breath,” Mr. Sumner said, looking as frightening as he did before. “I’ll take care of this, Your Grace, if we could have a moment of Her Grace’s time.”
The duke shook his head slightly as he walked off. Less than a minute later, the Duchess of Blackford appeared, looking more beautiful than our Queen Alexandra and wearing enough jewelry to dazzle my relatives.
“I’ve talked to Lady Margaret Ellingham and Lady Dorothy Frethorton, and they both said Roxanne wasn’t making any plans to leave for Australia. Margaret then talked to her father, and Wallingford admitted they were making arrangements with Roxanne for her to establish a household in the north near her family. She sounded to him to be quite relieved for things to end this way.”
“They’re both certain,” I asked, “that she wasn’t running away with Lucky Marlowe?”
“Yes. She’d mentioned him to Margaret in a derogatory manner.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.” The pieces of this sad tale were coming together.
“What are your plans?” Sumner asked me.
“I’m going to get my best ballgown and go back to my grandparents’ house to wait for my cousins to report where they’ve taken my uncle. I suspect it will be the Marlowe Club.”
“You think Lucky Marlowe killed Lady Theo?” the duchess asked.
“With the help of Lady Westkirk.”
Both the duchess and Sumner looked stunned.
“Marlowe has known her since long before she married Westkirk. Remember the story about her father, an Italian immigrant, being a peddler on the London docks? And I think we’ll discover it’s Marlowe and Bianca Westkirk who plan to run off to Australia. Thank you for your information. Now, I have to hurry.”