by Beth Byers
Violet bit down on her bottom lip, unable to call up any kind of amusement. “It’s not over.”
“No,” Jack agreed, his gaze searching hers.
“It’s time to set a different kind of trap. We’ll need my father.”
Jack lifted a brow and glanced beyond Vi to Ham.
“We’re doing this,” Violet told him flatly. Then another thought struck her. If it were her…Vi turned and ran towards the way the boy had come. She bypassed the obvious paths and saw another form running.
Vi pushed on her speed, but she couldn’t catch up. It was like she was chasing a gazelle, and Vi was nothing more than a squirrel. A stabbing pain in her side made Vi stop, but Jack and Smith, in another dress, went rushing past. Their longer legs gave them a better chance, but the form jumped into another black cab, and the driver sped away.
Vi placed her hand on the ache and limped back towards Rita, who lifted a mocking brow. “Don’t say a word.”
Rita ignored Vi’s order. “I thought you were being active daily to help keep your blues away.”
“Not as active as that person.” Vi dropped onto a bench and looked up at Rita. “Listen—”
“That wasn’t Partridge,” Rita finished for Vi. “She’s way too old and thick to have outraced you like that. Could have been a man.”
“She was wearing a skirt.”
“So was Smith,” Rita shot back.
“Beatrice said it was a ‘she’ when we found her at the party.”
Rita considered this. “Still—”
Ham cursed at both of them when he reached them, but then he said, “I’ve got to go. Try not to engineer any more trouble.”
“We can’t help ourselves,” Rita told him, patting him lightly on the cheek, and then to his shock she kissed him on the cheek.
“Are you feeling all right?” he asked her, stunned.
She grinned. “It’s not cat-and-mouse if I don’t give you hope sometimes.”
He groaned as she kissed him lightly on the lips. “Be safe,” she told him.
Rita led the way to the side of the park and then past it to a café. “I need coffee. Did you sleep this time, or are you going to cry again?”
“I slept last night.”
“Mmm hmmm.” Rita ordered Turkish coffees and scones while Violet stared out the window and watched the Yard men come and go.
“They won’t let us play,” Violet told Rita. “They know us too well. We need to be entirely unexpected. I have an idea, but you aren’t going to like it.”
“Why?”
“We’re rebellious,” Violet said instead of answering. “We’re independent women. We do what we want to do and we dress absolutely fabulously while we do it.”
“This is true, but what does it have to do with being unexpected?”
“It’s time for a garden party.”
Rita set her coffee cup down.
Violet nodded. “Precisely. We’re going to have to drink tea and wear very large hats with flowers. Parasols. Bow ties. My stepmother the Countess. Her cronies.”
“Why?” Rita gasped. Then she paused. “Oh, what a great way to prank you.”
“Indeed,” Violet sighed. “The worst part is that I’ll have to speak to Lady Eleanor and ask a favor.”
Rita winced for Violet, who nodded in appreciation and then cut her scone to apply clotted cream and blackberry jam. She took a bite and then told Rita, “I don’t want to do it. You ask your father to do it. He’ll throw you a big party. He loves you more than my stepmother loves me.”
“He does,” Rita agreed, “but he’s not thrilled that I told him it was his fault that I was targeted by murderous lovers on a ship. He seemed to think it was my fault that Martha told everyone on the ship I was an heiress, and I told him it was his fault he was rich, and then I told him I didn’t want to go to Scotland for fishing because I was going to marry a poor police officer who doesn’t like bankers.”
“Does he care that Ham is poor?”
“Ham’s not poor, but no, of course not. My father is somewhat self-made. He started with a rather nice amount from his parents that he turned into buckets of money.”
Violet glanced at Rita and then demanded, “Why doesn’t he like Ham?”
“He does,” Rita said frowning, “and that’s the problem. I suspect my father went down to Scotland Yard and introduced himself and fell a little bit in love himself.”
“You don’t want your father to like Ham?”
“I do. I don’t, however, want my father to pressure me about Ham. Because now Father wants Ham and me to go fishing with him in Scotland.”
Chapter 17
“I need a favor,” Lady Eleanor said as Violet stepped into her stepmother’s parlor. “I’m surprised you came so quickly after I called.”
Violet blinked and glanced behind her. She felt as if Lady Eleanor was speaking to someone else. “I also need a favor.”
The two of them eyed each other with something akin to resigned distaste. Lady Eleanor had never really liked Violet or Victor. Looking back, Violet could admit that she’d been a terrible stepchild. Violet believed, however, the key description was child. Lady Eleanor did not.
“What do you need?”
Violet explained. Lady Eleanor had, of course, heard of Vi’s troubles, and Vi didn’t miss the smirk that her stepmother had openly cavorting on her face.
“A garden party is absolutely unacceptable.”
“It needs to be accessible for someone to slide in who doesn’t have the invitation.”
Lady Eleanor’s head tilted as she looked Violet over. “It is one of us doing this to you, Vi.”
“Us?” Violet stared at her stepmother. Was she saying that Geoffrey was the prankster? It certainly couldn’t be Gerald or the earl. It didn’t make sense for it to be any Carlyle but Geoffrey, but Vi wanted to believe her little brother had grown beyond that. Surely he wouldn’t have? Not with the body and the horse feces? Surely not.
Still, she had to ask. “Do you mean Geoffrey?”
Lady Eleanor shot Violet a death glare. “Someone connected to our world. They knew you’d have your auto brought to the front of your house. They knew you’d have deliveries that would allow them to slide into your house and leave the snake. They knew when the butler would not be lingering around the front door for putting mice through the slot.”
Violet stared at Lady Eleanor.
“The money to pay for pranks? Only the very rich have that kind of wealth, Violet. Anyone else would throw a drink in your face and spread rumors about you.”
Vi rubbed the back of her neck and accepted the cup of Earl Grey tea from her stepmother with the formal politeness required, regardless of their feelings towards one another.
“I thought you were supposed to be clever,” Lady Eleanor scoffed. “It’s likely enough that your prankster would be invited to whatever party I throw. They may well have been invited to your party, which was quite distasteful. Really, Violet. It would be excellent if you would stop making yourself so very notorious. A calm elegance is what is expected from an earl’s daughter, even if she had the poor taste to marry a detective.”
Violet snapped her mouth shut before she told Lady Eleanor how very much she was despised.
“What do you need from me?” she asked instead.
“Let’s save it until after this nonsense is over, shall we? I have no desire to have half your attention when you’re so clearly struggling with what should be easy.”
Violet set her teacup down with a clink and rose stiffly. “Thank you.”
Vi took the black cab back to her brother’s house and went inside to find the parlor crowded with Kate, Victor, Denny, Lila, and Ginny working their way through the tips gotten though the Piccadilly Press article. Even Vi’s little brother Geoffrey was helping. Had anyone thought to mention that he was one of the suspects?
Rita was in the room, but her eyes were closed and her feet propped up. She hummed as she rocked her feet back an
d forth. On her chest lay baby Vivi and one of the puppies. Kate carried Agatha in one arm while she read through piles of notes from the Hotel Saffron.
“What have we heard?” Vi asked.
“There’s nothing useful here,” Kate said, shoving a pile of messages aside. “Silly tips about specific people. There’s one for the Duchess of Gloucester. Another for the university librarian. One for a series of school girls. One for that French opera singer. One of the staff of the museum, but they only gave a description of a man who doesn’t work for the museum. It’s all vague inferences and then questions of when they’ll receive their reward. There are also quite a few insults towards you, Vi. People say mean things and we gave them the chance to say them anonymously.”
Violet frowned and closed her eyes. “Jack knew, I bet. He knew too well what we’d be receiving.”
“Of course he did,” Rita agreed. “Ham stopped by, saw the stack of notes, and left laughing.”
“This one,” Denny announced. “This is the person who did the feces in Jack’s auto. Do we follow up?”
“Don’t tell Jack,” Victor suggested quickly. “That’s a job for Ham.”
Vi and Victor’s gazes met, and they both winced at the memory of Jack kicking his auto’s tires.
“Nothing else?” Vi asked, picking up a stack of tips before sitting. She leaned back and flipped through them. Could this be any stupider, she wondered. They were looking for a spoiled rich fiend who had put mice through Violet’s letter slot and burned her book. “Lady Eleanor says that the prankster is one of us. Because, as she pointed out, painfully accurately, only someone as rich and spoiled as we are could afford to do this to us.”
“Well, yeah,” Denny said, “as the only one in the room who has ever had a job, no one with a regular paying position has the time to spend a whole day dumping out someone else’s good alcohol to replace it with vinegar that they would definitely not spend their own money on.”
Violet stared at Denny and then glanced at Rita, who nodded. “My father worked as well, and he might have spent money on a prank, but he wouldn’t have done it himself. He had to be in the office or building relationships with the crazy rich and well-connected like you people.”
“Everyone we know is unemployed,” Violet said, considering, “and either heirs of great-aunts or sponging off of those who inherited. Denny does both.”
“Have done both,” Denny corrected. “I once sponged and then I complimented my great aunt into naming me in her will when my brother was far more deserving. I also sponge off of you all the same since you’re still so much wealthier than Lila or I.”
Violet rolled her eyes while Ginny bit back a laugh. “Don’t think he’s amusing, Ginny.”
“He is funny,” Ginny said.
“You like Geoffrey too,” Victor said. “He’s our main suspect.”
“Hey!” Geoffrey complained. “I didn’t do it!”
“It’s all right,” Violet told Geoffrey. “We only think it could have been you because you’re clever enough for it.”
He stood, offended. “Now I wish it was me. Why would you think I would do that to you?”
“Your mother dislikes me,” Violet suggested. “You’re a child. It seems like my own reasoning abilities.”
“We also did similar things when we were children,” Victor reminded Violet.
“We weren’t so mean! I never would have burned her book or broken all of the china she’d inherited from her great aunt.”
“You did this to my mother?” Geoffrey demanded. “If I’d known, I might have helped. I know my mother is a bit—”
“Mean?” Lila asked.
“Snobbish?” Denny suggested.
“Arrogant?” Victor demanded.
“Opinionated,” Geoffrey cut in. “My mother told me that you were inconveniently clever and if you were a man, you’d have been someone to be proud of. She doesn’t hate you that much.”
Victor choked on a laugh as Violet smacked the back of Geoffrey’s head. “What do you mean that you would have helped?”
“I saw the advertisement.”
“You know something,” Violet said, leaning down to meet his gaze.
He swallowed.
Ginny gasped, and she stood to stare at Geoffrey, gaze narrowed. “He burned Vi’s book. It takes her forever to write those.”
“He hurt Beatrice,” Violet added coldly.
“She,” Geoffrey said, clearing his throat. “All I know is that one of the boys from school heard that someone intended to get revenge on you.” When Violet didn’t speak, he winced. “The fellow I heard it from is much larger than me.”
“On me?” Vi frowned. “Why?”
“It’s your fault Ginny went to that school.”
Ginny gasped, shooting an apologetic look to Violet. “It’s my fault?” Ginny’s voice cracked.
“You knew?” Violet shot back at Geoffrey. “You did nothing?”
Geoffrey’s mouth twisted. “He’s much larger than me and mean. I told you before the fellows at school don’t like me.”
“You have to quit telling on them,” Victor groaned. “I told you that. No one likes the snitch.”
“So you tell on the boys at school, but not on those on the train.”
“Not Herbie St. Marks. He’s huge. He broke Leonard Spry’s arm and Leonard only tripped into him. Leonard wasn’t even tattling on him or causing trouble or anything. I don’t want my arm broken!”
“Herbie St. Marks?” Violet groaned. “Victor!”
“On it,” Victor said. “But Herbie really is a beast. Tomas likes everyone, and he doesn’t like Herbie.”
“Break his arm,” Violet told Victor. “Then rub his face into feces.”
“I don’t think Herbie had anything to do with what happened,” Geoffrey said carefully, gaze wide. “I think Herbie knew who had threatened you. Father told me not to tattle anymore too, but I told Father what I heard.”
“Father knows?” Violet demanded. “What you heard? And he didn’t say anything to me?”
“He said he’d look into it.”
Vi was surprised by the shock of hurt. She rose and left the parlor before Geoffrey realized how much his statement had wounded her. Violet crossed to Victor’s office where his typewriter stood with the new start of their destroyed book. They’d both begun it again, Violet saw, and she smiled sadly at the sight of it.
At least, Violet thought, she’d always had Victor. She heard a creak at the door and realized he’d followed her.
“The dumb boy didn’t even realize why you were upset.”
“Why would he?” Violet asked, sitting at the typewriter. “He’s young. In his head, the world revolves around him.”
“He also thinks that the feces in the car, the broken glass, the mice—those are the funniest things he’s ever heard. I heard him whispering to Ginny. He doesn’t even see how the snake was so dangerous or why you were attached to the china.”
Violet sighed and rubbed her brow. “They’ve both said she. Beatrice and Geoffrey. And I saw her in a skirt when I was chasing her down.”
“Yes,” Victor said. “Geoffrey pointed that out when you left. Repeated that Herbie only heard someone speaking of it and it was a girl.”
Violet glanced at Victor. “Ginny?” But the moment she said it, she knew it wasn’t true.
“No,” Victor said. “Not Ginny. Someone who hates Ginny.”
“From the number of incidents between Ginny and the other girls, every girl at the school could have been the one.”
“Herbie knows which one. I’ll put the screws to him.” Victor studied her. “Are you all right?”
Violet nodded, but it was a lie. She had been emotional lately, she knew that, but she was so tired of stumbling over dead bodies and seeing the terrible things that people do to each other, usually for some stupid thing like money. She knew she had quite a lot of it and people would think she didn’t understand, but Vi did understand. She and Victor had barely be
en scraping by before Aunt Agatha had left her fortune to them.
Before that, Vi had spent her days generally working hard on her books, knowing if she wasn’t focused she’d either be eating more eggs and sardines or she’d be forced to marry one of the men that Lady Eleanor threw at her.
Violet frowned and then placed a call to Scotland Yard, leaving a message that they’d found additional information. She stayed in Victor’s office while he left to find Herbie St. Marks, their brother-in-law’s younger cousin.
Chapter 18
“What did you find?” Violet asked the moment Victor arrived home that evening.
“Herbie St. Marks is back to school and has been since before the last incident and so can’t be reached quickly. His mother says I’m a horrendous creature and she’ll be discussing this with my father. His father says that Herbie doesn’t have the wit to have pulled off half the things that happened to you. Mr. St. Marks did, however, laugh until he cried about Jack’s auto and the broken lights.”
Jack’s gaze narrowed on Victor, who flopped onto the sofa and whined, “I need a drink.”
Kate rose and made Victor a G&T while Violet sighed. “We knew it wasn’t him. We only needed a name. I asked Father over for after-dinner drinks.”
“Did he say he’d come?” Victor accepted a lit cigar from Jack and then crossed his ankles as Jack sat down next to Violet. “St. Marks is a beast. I’d forgotten how much I dislike those of our class.”
“Father is coming. He said he supposed he knew what this was about.”
“You know what occurs to me,” Kate started. She rose and left the library where they had gathered for drinks and returned with a few of the tips they’d received. “This tip. The one that said school girls were behind it. Someone had heard a pack of them giggling about mice and pranks and hadn’t thought anything of it until the article Miss Allen wrote.”
“School girls.” Jack huffed his cigar and then repeated. “Spoiled school girls. I suppose I can’t beat them, then, even though they deserve it.”