Murder at the Mikado (A Drew Farthering Mystery Book #3)

by Julianna Deering

  Birdsong gave him a pained smile in return. “Go on, the three of you. And mind what I said, Detective Farthering.”

  Madeline giggled once they were safely out of the office. “Good thing he likes you, Drew, or you’d probably end up in one of his cells.”

  Drew laughed as Nick took them each by an arm and directed them toward the car. “Come along, you two. I forgot I’m meant to be accompanying Mr. Padgett and Dr. Wight on a check of the livestock.”

  “Oh, lucky you,” Drew said.

  “Dr. Wight?” Madeline asked.

  “The local vet, darling. Good man. A bit strict, but kindly.”

  “Kindly, yes,” Nick said, hurrying them along, “unless he’s kept waiting.”

  They got back to Farthering Place with just enough time for Nick to make his appointment. Much later in the afternoon, Denny announced that Mr. Landis was on the telephone.

  “Landis,” Drew said when he picked up the phone in the study, “what can I do for you?”

  “Pardon me for troubling you at home, Mr. Farthering.” Landis’s voice quavered. “It’s, well . . .”

  “Is it about Mrs. Landis?”

  Landis drew an audible breath. “The police have taken her away.”

  “I’m sorry. Have you spoken with Clifton?”

  “He’s on his way here. To the police station.”

  Drew sat himself on the corner of the desk. “Tell me what I can do to help.”

  “I know you’ve dealt with Chief Inspector Birdsong in the past,” Landis began. “Fleur couldn’t possibly have killed anyone. I thought perhaps you could convince him to release her.”

  The chance of that happening was comically slight, but Drew kept any hint of amusement out of his voice. “I don’t know if there is much I can do in that respect, I’m afraid. Our chief inspector does not arrest the guilty party on each and every occasion, but he does tend to have good reason for any arrests he does make.”

  Landis was silent for a long moment. “Very well. I am sorry to have troubled you with a personal matter.”

  “Now, don’t misunderstand me, Landis. I’m not saying I won’t try to help. Getting Mrs. Landis released is very likely beyond my powers, but that doesn’t mean I can’t try to find out what Birdsong has against her and do a bit more investigating on my own. Has he said why he decided to arrest her now? He wasn’t prepared to before.”

  Again Landis was silent.

  “Landis?”

  “There’s been another murder. Some girl at the theater. Script girl, wardrobe girl, I’m not certain which. Tess Davidson.”

  “Good heavens,” Drew breathed. “When was this?”

  “Last night sometime. Must have been after the performance when she was putting everything away.”

  “And Mrs. Landis doesn’t have an alibi for last night?”

  “She was at home.”

  “All night?”

  “Yes, of course. And she would have no reason to kill this girl, would she?”

  Drew cringed inwardly at the desperation in the man’s voice. Would she? Drew didn’t know, just as he didn’t know what help he could be.

  “No,” Drew finally said. “No, of course not. And why are they just now making an arrest?”

  “Evidently the girl was stuffed into a wardrobe or a closet of some kind. They didn’t find her until late this morning.”

  “And then they came round and arrested Mrs. Landis.”

  “Yes. But I told them she couldn’t have done it. I don’t suppose you could make the chief inspector see reason.”

  “I would like to talk to him, in point of fact. I’ll be right down, Landis. Stiff upper lip now.”

  Drew hung up the telephone and went back into the parlor. Madeline was reading the latest Albert Campion novel, and she smiled up at him.

  “Anything important?”

  “I’m afraid so, darling. There’s been another murder.”

  Madeline’s smile vanished. “Oh, no. Who is it?”

  “Tess Davidson. From the theater. They’ve arrested Mrs. Landis for it.”

  Her expression grew cool. “And now you’re supposed to go and get her released?”

  “Landis would like me to speak to Birdsong.”

  She was still for a moment, and then she bit her lip. “I want to come.”

  “You don’t have to. I realize you and she aren’t exactly the best of friends.”

  “No, really, I want to go. I want this over and done with.”

  He pulled her to her feet. “Of course, darling. How could I ever manage without you?”

  Her expression warmed. “Well, with Nick busy with the stock and everything, I think someone should come along and be Watson for you.”

  He tucked her arm into his. “You’re much too pretty for Watson, you know. Tuppence, I think, better suits, though you’re much too pretty for her as well, apart from sharing a determined chin.” He tapped her chin and smiled. “Shall we be Tommy and Tuppence, then?”

  “Fair enough,” she said, “but you’re rather too pretty for Tommy, too.”

  That startled a laugh out of him. “Pretty?”

  She traced one finger down his nose to his lips. “Gorgeous.”

  “You’re a shameless flatterer.” He kissed her fingertip and hoped his face wasn’t too frightfully flushed. “Be kind enough not to say that in front of my friends, eh? Bunny would get no end of amusement out of it and manage to bring it up at every awkward moment he was able. He might forget his own name from time to time, but things like that have a way of sticking with him.”

  Her eyes twinkled. “Oh, all right. I won’t say it to anyone but you. But you’re nothing like Tommy, as much as I enjoy reading about him. Red-haired and pleasantly ugly? No, that’s not you in the least.”

  “And I am thankful for small favors. Now, we’d best get up to Winchester. Landis sounded as if he could use a friend at the moment, and no telling what our beloved chief inspector has up his battered sleeve.”

  They found Landis sitting on a bench just down the corridor from Birdsong’s office, elbows propped on his knees and head in his hands. He leaped to his feet when he saw Drew and Madeline.

  “Bless you both for coming,” he said, reaching out to shake Drew’s hand and then turning to Madeline with an apologetic look. “I know you have your wedding to prepare for. This really is a terrible imposition.”

  “Not at all,” Drew assured. He examined the man more closely. “Are you all right?”

  Landis shrugged. “Been a bit sluggish all day. Slow start again this morning. I thought I might be coming down with something, but it doesn’t really matter at the moment. I just need to see to Fleur.”

  “Has Mr. Clifton arrived yet?” Drew asked.

  Landis nodded. “About fifteen minutes ago. He’s in with Fleur right now.”

  “And the chief inspector?”

  “I told him you would want to talk to him about the case.”

  “All right,” Drew said. “I don’t doubt they think this murder is tied to the first one. Ravenswood.”

  “I suppose.” There was pleading in Landis’s eyes. “But she couldn’t have done the first murder, so why would she have done this one?”

  “You’re certain she was home all night when Ravenswood was killed.”

  The older man nodded.

  “All night?” Drew pressed.

  Again Landis nodded. “I was in bed next to her. She took her sleeping medicine and didn’t move till morning.”

  “How about earlier that evening? Was everything amicable between the two of you?”

  “Well, we, Fleur and I, had a bit of a row. Not much of anything, mind you.”

  Drew looked at Madeline again and then back at Landis. “I don’t mean to pry into personal matters, but what did you quarrel about?”

  Landis pushed his fingers through his hair. “It was nothing really. A misunderstanding more than anything.”

  “Did it have to do with Mr. Ravenswood?” Madeline asked
.

  “No. We didn’t know about the murder at the time. Our quarrel was very silly. It was over Peter. Well, Winston, his nurse, to be absolutely precise.”

  “What?” Drew pressed.

  “Oh, Fleur claimed she was spoiling the boy and letting him have his own way far too much. I told her I hadn’t seen any sign of him being spoilt and that we couldn’t possibly let her go. Peter’s very attached to her, you know, and for all I’ve seen, she’s quite good with him.”

  “And what time was this?”

  “I’m not exactly sure,” said Landis. “Eleven or later. She was already dressed for bed. I was about to change. I could tell she was unhappy about something. She’s not much of one to hide it if things are not the way she wants them. I couldn’t think of anything I might have done that would have provoked her, so I thought I’d come straight out and ask.”

  “That was all?” Drew asked.

  “That was all.”

  “Had she and Miss Winston not been getting along?” Madeline asked.

  Landis shrugged. “So far as I know, they have. It’s not as though the two of them spend a great deal of time together. And, truly, Peter is a very well-mannered little boy. I don’t say that just because he’s mine, either. Whatever Winston is doing, she must be on the right track.”

  Drew nodded. “Is it possible that Mrs. Landis isn’t pleased with her over something else and is just using the boy as an excuse?”

  “I suppose it’s possible, though I don’t know what it could be. As I said, it’s not as if the two of them spend much time together. What else could they quarrel over but the boy?”

  “And that was all you and Mrs. Landis discussed?”

  Landis looked down again, faint color coming into his face. “You know how it is, or I expect you will soon enough. We started with Winston spoiling Peter and quickly worked our way up the list to the point where she declared with some certainty that I had never really loved her and wished I had never married her.”

  Drew gave him a sympathetic smile. “That’s rather a leap, isn’t it? Over such a trivial matter?”

  Landis looked sheepish. “That would be Fleur. One moment purring like a kitten, the next, claws out and yowling. One can never tell about the fair sex.”

  “Quite. So you didn’t tell the police this when they originally questioned you?” Drew asked.

  “I didn’t think that it mattered. It had nothing to do with Ravenswood.”

  “What about last night, Mr. Landis?” Madeline asked. “Do you know where your wife was? Was she at home again?”

  “Yes, of course she was.”

  “And you were with her?” Drew asked.

  “She slept next to me all night.”

  “You’d have noticed if she got up, would you?”

  “Oh, yes. I’ve always been a light sleeper. It doesn’t take much to—”

  Landis broke off when Birdsong emerged from his office giving instructions to a rather sturdy-looking constable. When the constable hurried off, Birdsong turned to Drew.

  “There you are, Mr. Farthering.” He shook Drew’s hand and nodded to Madeline. “Miss Parker. Won’t you both come into my office?”

  Landis looked at him, a desperate hope in his eyes, and Birdsong’s face was professionally sympathetic. “If you don’t mind, Mr. Landis, would you wait out here? We’ll be just a few minutes.”

  With a nod, Landis sank back down onto the bench as Drew and Madeline followed the chief inspector into his office.

  Ten

  Birdsong offered Drew and Madeline each a chair and then sat down at his desk. “I suppose Landis told you what’s happened.”

  Drew nodded. “He said the wardrobe girl, Tess Davidson, was murdered last night.”

  “She was strangled with the cord from the iron, the one they use on the costumes.”

  Birdsong pushed a file folder across the desk. Drew opened it, looked inside, and swiftly closed it. “You may not want to see this, darling.”

  Madeline pressed her lips together. “Is it pictures of the body?”

  Drew nodded.

  “All right,” she said. “I can take it.”

  He opened the folder again. The first photograph showed the girl huddled in the corner of what looked to be a closet in the wardrobe room at the theater. There were costumes hung on a rod along the back and a large box of military-looking hats in the corner. Judging from the cloth wadded in her hands, and the clothes hanger that had slid out onto the black-and-white linoleum floor, she must have pulled one of the pirate costumes down as she was being strangled. The cord from the iron was still around her neck.

  “What happened to the iron itself?” Drew asked as he thumbed through the other photographs, close-ups of the cord, the costume clutched in her stiff hands, her blanched, distorted face.

  “The iron’s still on the ironing board,” Birdsong replied. “There in the wardrobe room. The killer evidently cut the cord off with the shears from the sewing kit they keep. I rather wondered why our murderer didn’t bash the girl on the head with the iron, though. Just to make sure.”

  Drew studied one of the photographs again. She was just a wisp of a girl. It wouldn’t take much for anyone, male or female, to make away with her. “Why do you think Mrs. Landis did it?” he asked.

  Birdsong frowned. “She was a suspect in the Ravenswood murder. She was seen at the theater that night after the performance.”

  “Not really.” Drew glanced at Madeline and then back at the chief inspector. “Even Benton doesn’t claim he actually saw her face.”

  “Perhaps not,” Birdsong said, “but it does make her a suspect in this case. Not likely to have two murders in the same little theater without them being connected, eh?”

  “Landis tells me his wife was at home last night,” Drew said. “Benton doesn’t claim he saw her at the theater again, does he?”

  “No.”

  “That’s hardly enough to arrest someone on,” Drew protested. “Why would Mrs. Landis want to have killed this girl anyway?”

  Madeline narrowed her eyes at the chief inspector. “There’s something else, isn’t there? Something you haven’t told us or you wouldn’t have arrested her.”

  Birdsong nodded gravely. “It seems our killer left behind a tassel from her cloak. It’s unquestionably Mrs. Landis’s. Even her husband can’t deny it or explain it away.”

  There was a knock, and then the door opened and a uniformed officer leaned in. “A Mr. Clifton to see you, sir, on the Landis case.”

  “Right,” Birdsong said. “Send him in.”

  The officer stepped back, and a tall, somber-looking man came into the room and shut the door behind him. Drew and Birdsong both stood.

  “Mr. Clifton,” the chief inspector said, shaking the man’s hand. “I believe you know Mr. Farthering here.”

  Clifton shook Drew’s hand, too. “Indeed. Good afternoon, Mr. Farthering. Mr. Landis told me you were here.”

  “Good afternoon. Madeline, this is Mr. Clifton from our firm of solicitors. Mr. Clifton, may I present my fiancée, Miss Madeline Parker?”

  “Miss Parker.” Clifton nodded, then turned back to the chief inspector. “Mr. Landis says I’m to make Mr. Farthering and Miss Parker privy to anything we discuss. If that’s all right with you, I have a few questions.”

  “Certainly,” Birdsong said. “Won’t you sit down?”

  Clifton accepted the invitation. “Apart from the matter of the tassel, which could easily have been planted to incriminate my client, what else do you have against her, Chief Inspector?”

  “Mrs. Landis was implicated in the Ravenswood killing. Now she is implicated in this one. It can hardly be a coincidence.”

  “And hardly proof positive, either,” Clifton said. “Mr. and Mrs. Landis claim she was at home all evening.”

  The telephone on the desk rang, and after excusing himself, Birdsong answered it. His eyes grew shrewdly pleased at what he heard on the other end of the line.

  �
��Perhaps we ought to have Mr. Landis in after all,” he said once he had rung off. He quickly went to the door and opened it. “Mr. Landis, if you please.”

  Landis hurried in, and the chief inspector shut the door behind him. There were no more chairs, so Drew gave Landis his next to Clifton and moved to stand behind Madeline. Chief Inspector Birdsong sat behind his desk once more.

  “Now, Mr. Landis, would you care to tell us where you and your wife were last night?”

  “We were home.” Landis glanced at Drew. “Asleep.”

  Birdsong nodded. “And tell us who is likely to have access to your car.”

  Landis looked puzzled. “My car? Our driver, Phillips, of course. Me. Sometimes my wife.”

  “One of my men has been at your home, sir, questioning your staff. It seems your car was moved sometime in the night.”

  “Moved?”

  “So your man says. He left a pan under it because he noticed an oil leak. This morning it wasn’t in the same place.”

  “The pan?” Drew asked.

  Birdsong shook his head. “The pan was where he put it, on top of a stain in the cement. But the car had been moved. Not much, but moved all the same. And not by him.”

  Landis opened his mouth to speak, but Clifton put a cautioning hand on his arm. Landis immediately shook him off.

  “Excuse me, but I have nothing to hide. If that car was moved last night, it wasn’t moved by me or my wife.”

  “So you absolutely vouch for your wife’s whereabouts?”

  “I do. She had taken a sleeping tablet and gone to bed. It was something she often takes, and she sleeps quite soundly afterward. She was still sleeping when I woke this morning. I tell you, it couldn’t have been Fleur.” Landis had both hands clenched into fists now, and his jaw was tight.

  “And neither of you drove the car?” Clifton asked, his voice calm.

  Landis shook his head. “No. She was asleep, I tell you. She didn’t even know when I got into bed with her.”

  Birdsong leaned forward. “Is there anything else you would like to add, Mr. Landis?”

  Landis glanced at Drew and then shook his head again.

  “Until I can speak to the judge about bail, I take it Mrs. Landis will remain in your custody, Chief Inspector,” Clifton said.