Beatrice

by King, Rebecca

  To Ben, it was evident that she hadn’t sold the damned thing at all. She had lied, kept it, and merely moved its storage location so that nobody knew she still had it. If she had nothing to hide, why would she need to be so secretive?

  One thing was certain. If, for some reason only known to herself, she had decided to target Beatrice, and had taken the opportunity to make several attempts to either scare or hurt her, then it was evident that the woman knew exactly where Beatrice was going, when and who with.

  They were being followed, and it wasn’t by Sigmund Hargraves.

  Was Caroline Smethwick responsible for killing Brian Mottram? If so, why? Ben hadn’t seen much of Brian Mottram’s corpse to know how tall he was. Had he been murdered in a case of mistaken identity because the killer had struck thinking he was Beatrice?

  Ben cursed his own foolishness. He had been so wrapped up in the wonderful woman in his arms that he hadn’t seen this new set of surprises coming. He briefly wondered whether they should call at Harriett’s and see if Mark was at home but, given that it was still the middle of the afternoon, Mark was most probably at work in Great Tipton. However, given the nature of his job, it was unlikely that he was at his desk. They could traipse all the way over to Great Tipton for nothing and, right now, he wanted Beatrice out in the open as little as possible.

  “Oh God, no,” Beatrice whispered when several loud thumps on the front door rang hollowly around the house.

  “I’ll go,” Ben said as he stood up. “It could be Fred.”

  That was enough to get Beatrice up too, and she moved to stand in the sitting room doorway while Ben disappeared into the front parlour to look out of the window.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “It’s Mark and Isaac,” he announced when he re-appeared in the hallway seconds later.

  Beatrice almost sagged beneath the enormous weight of relief that swept through her, and hurried across the hallway to let him in.

  “Thank heavens you are here,” was all she managed to get out before she burst into tears.

  Ben immediately drew her into his arms and cradled her while she cried into his shoulder. He shared a look with Mark and Isaac as they entered the house.

  “I am sorry,” Beatrice whispered as she wiped her eyes. “A few weeks ago, I thought my life was boring. I wish it was now.”

  Mark smiled and shared a rueful look with Ben as he followed everyone into the sitting room. “Look on the bright side; it will be something to tell your children.”

  “What do you know?” Ben asked when Beatrice had composed herself.

  “The carriage belongs to Caroline Smethwick. I have been to see it, and recognise that horse. I don’t think she sold it as she claimed she had. We know it hasn’t been kept at Brewster’s Yard, so I think she just relocated it and lied to everyone.”

  “I have been to Caroline’s house, but there is nobody at home,” Isaac added quietly.

  “The next meeting of the Circle is tonight.” Her eyes met and held Mark’s for a moment. “What do we do about her?”

  “I think that it has to go ahead, Beatrice. I really don’t know if she will come or not. If she is completely innocent, then she will arrive as though nothing has happened and have absolutely no idea about what has been going on. Even guilty, she may try to brazen it out anyway and attempt to deny everything. We know that she is a great actress because she lived in disguise as her aunt for weeks in an attempt to try to gather information on the fraudsters who were targeting her relation. Unfortunately, we just didn’t consider her to be a danger to anyone. At the time, she said that she was gathering evidence to bring to the police so we could arrest Madame Humphries and Hepplethwaite. There was nothing to suggest she was anything but truthful. I am going to stay here and wait, if that is alright? If she turns up tonight, I will take her down to the station to answer some questions. There is nothing to lose even if she is innocent because if she has genuinely sold her carriage, we need to know who she sold it to, where and when.”

  “Do you think that the incidents with the carriage might be related to the body in the garden?” He hated to suggest it and point the finger of suspicion for the murder on someone who could, quite conceivably, be innocent, but he just had to know just how dangerous Caroline Smethwick could be.

  “It’s a possibility we cannot rule out right now. We know that Caroline doesn’t have a job, and is a relatively free person without commitments. She has the time, and is familiar with driving the carriage around the lanes by herself at night,” Mark sighed and looked at both Beatrice and Ben frankly. “She tried to run Harriett over not long after Miss Haversham’s death. She told us that she wanted to warn Harriett that danger surrounded her.” His eyes met and held Beatrice’s for a moment. “Now though, I cannot help but wonder if it is something she likes to do.”

  “Do you think she is unhinged?” Her stomach began to churn at the possibility that she had made friends with a cold and ruthless killer. Not only that, but she had been alone with the said killer on a number of occasions. The thought of just how vulnerable she had left herself made her feel a little numb.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t want to say too much in case she is innocent. However, until we get answers, don’t take any risks. Don’t go out again today. I am going to be here now, and hope that she does turn up tonight. She is arrogant, I know that much, and could quite conceivably attempt to bluff her way in. However, knitting needles are dangerous, so don’t underestimate her. I certainly won’t allow her to spend any part of the evening with you. As soon as she arrives, I am going to put her under arrest and get her out of here. At worst, she will be innocent and spitting mad at being dragged off to the station. However, given there has been another murder in the village; and her old carriage has been involved in several attempts to harm you; then I think she will be left with no choice but to understand.”

  Beatrice nodded. Anyone who was aware of what had happened would understand why they had been taken in for questioning. Of course they would be angry but, if innocent, they would have no qualms about co-operating with a police investigation.

  “I am going to be here,” Ben announced firmly. “I have no intention of letting that woman past the hallway.”

  Mark nodded. “Together we can subdue her. I will put irons on her if I have to. We will get her out of this house quickly, Beatrice.”

  Beatrice nodded and shivered at the thought of the evening that lay ahead.

  However, Ben’s thoughts turned in a completely different direction.

  “Is there any news on Hargraves?”

  Mark shook his head and stared hard at Ben. He didn’t want to tell them right now because Beatrice looked as fragile as that flower she had received. However, he owed it to them both to make sure they didn’t consider Caroline Smethwick’s arrest to be the end of the dangers that surrounded them.

  “He has vanished without a trace, I am afraid to say,” he announced reluctantly.

  “God in heaven,” Beatrice whispered. “Everyone seems to be disappearing.”

  “What were you doing at Jules Sanders’ house?” Mark suddenly demanded, and pierced Beatrice with a look that warned her that he would accept nothing less than the absolute truth.

  She shared a look with Ben and sighed. “We went to the university to see if we could find out about this plant. Since it appeared on my doorstep, so many horrible things have happened that I just want the wretched thing away from me. I don’t even know if I am supposed to be the one to keep it because I have no idea why it was left with me. I just want it off my hands, preferably before anyone – namely me – gets hurt. If we could get to the bottom of who cultivated it and why, I can give it to its rightful owner and forget all about it. Hargraves and his employer can then go and pester them for it. If it is rightly mine, I am going to donate it to the university just to get the horrible, horrible thing out of the house.” She shivered and drew her arms around her middle in a protective gesture that told everyone just how vul
nerable she really felt. “We went to the university and got one of the scholars there, Archibald Harrington, to transcribe the notes for us. He told us that Jules Sanders had cultivated it, so we went to his house to ask him why the plant had been sent to me. I was going to ask him if he wanted it back. Unfortunately, when we got there, he -” She broke off and shook her head.

  Ben briefly detailed the rest of their meeting with Archibald Harrington, and frowned when Mark and Isaac shared a steady look.

  “What?”

  He nudged Beatrice and felt her look up.

  “Archibald Harrington died a month ago.”

  Beatrice felt her stomach drop to her toes. At first, his words didn’t register with her. When they did, she turned to stare blankly at Ben for a moment before she leaned forward in her seat.

  “Pardon?”

  “Archibald Harrington died a month ago, Beatrice.”

  “How?” This time it was Ben who leaned forward in his seat. “What from?”

  “He was found dead in his garden. The doctor said it was a heart attack.”

  “Are you sure?” Beatrice was still struggling with the knowledge that Archibald Harrington was dead.

  “But we saw him at the university,” Ben protested with a scowl. “We had a meeting with a man who said he was Archibald Harrington.”

  “I hope not,” Isaac retorted with a snort. “Otherwise the university has more problems than they bargained for.”

  “Who did we speak to then?” Beatrice whispered. She thought about Mark’s comment that Caroline Smethwick liked to dress up, but then immediately dismissed that notion as utterly ridiculous. Not even Caroline Smethwick was a sufficiently good actress to be able to pass herself off as a man.

  “What did he look like?” Isaac asked and drew his notebook out of his pocket along with a pencil. He licked the nib and sat for a moment with it poised over the small block of paper as he waited for Ben to recount the details. “That’s Richard Browning,” he announced with a frown.

  Once again, Beatrice looked askance at Ben, and he realised that she was silently asking him if they should tell Mark and Isaac about their visit to Browning’s. The very faint negative shake of his head kept her silent, and she couldn’t help but wonder why he didn’t want Mark and Isaac to know that they had called at Browning’s house. Still, it wasn’t the time or the place to ask.

  “We got directed to room 51 by a man at the reception desk who suddenly vanished,” she whispered with growing dread.

  “What did he look like?”

  Ben sighed and probed his memory for as much detail of the ‘receptionist’ as he could remember.

  “That’s Bernard Murray,” Mark growled. “Now, why would they be at the university, in Archibald Harrington’s office?”

  “Was there any name plaque on the door?” Isaac asked.

  “No, the name plate just said ‘Room 51’,” Beatrice replied. “He certainly didn’t give us the impression that he shouldn’t be there, and feared being caught. Does Browning have connections with the university?”

  Mark shook his head. “Not as far as I am aware, no. Jules Sanders is the one who used to give lectures there. Browning is an adventurer. His family was once incredibly wealthy and afforded him an extremely comfortable lifestyle as a child. He travelled extensively as a young man and took to bringing rare and exotic plants back. From what I have found out about him, he regularly brought exotic finds back to England, sold them to a niche market, and got good money for them. Some of the purchasers were universities who wanted rare plants for their collection. All went well for a while, but then Browning started to find himself short of money, and sold some of his plants to a rather less discerning collector, shall we say?”

  “There is a black market in exotic plants now?” Ben’s brows shot skyward and he shared a look of horror with Beatrice. “Is that what the body at the end of the garden was all about?”

  “Do we know who that was for definite yet?” Beatrice asked. Her head was swivelling this way and that as she looked first at Mark, then Ben, then back to Mark. Her breath lodged in her throat as she studied Mark, and she knew who he was going to say before he said it. Sure enough, she was right.

  “Brian Mottram.”

  “So, of the four men on the list; Jules Sanders and Brian Mottram are dead. The person we thought we were meeting, Archibald Harrington is also dead, but was really Richard Browning.” Ben rubbed a hand down his face and realised that it was going to take some time for his brain to process all of this information. He opened his eyes and glanced first at Mark, then Isaac. “The ‘receptionist’ who guided us to the room may have been Bernard Murray.”

  Ben stared blankly at the floor for a moment.

  “What?” Isaac asked as he studied Ben’s thoughtful expression.

  “How many people have we had following us?” Ben growled in disgust. “Caroline Smethwick must have been following Beatrice to know that she was alone on the lane last Sunday. She must have followed us to Marchwell Bishop today to be able to be behind us. Now it appears that we have Richard Browning following us to the university as well?”

  Beatrice started to feel slightly sick. “How? There has been nobody around,” she exclaimed, and felt her temper begin to boil. She frowned at Ben. “We haven’t had a string of carriages behind us whenever we have gone somewhere, so how can that many people follow us?”

  Ben nodded and shook his head in consternation.

  Beatrice frowned. “I did see Sigmund Hargraves at the market in Great Tipton on the way to the university.”

  “He may be employed by Murray and Browning,” Ben sighed. “It would explain how they knew we were on our way and were in position by the time we arrived at the university.”

  “It’s a lot of trouble to go to just for a plant,” Beatrice cried.

  “This is no normal plant though, Beatrice,” Ben argued. “This is rare and incredibly valuable. If these men have an unscrupulous buyer who is willing to pay a lot of money for something that is one of a kind, they could be driven to do whatever it takes to get their hands on it.”

  “Including murder,” Mark added solemnly. He could really find no fault with Ben’s logic and nodded.

  “Has anyone been to check Sigmund Hargraves’ address again?”

  “He wasn’t at home the last time I checked,” Isaac reported crisply.

  The room fell silent, but it was evident from the tension that hovered over them that they were all thinking along the same lines.

  “Was he not at home, or not able to answer the door?” Ben asked quietly.

  Isaac looked at Mark. “Do you want me to force entry?”

  Mark nodded. “I think we need to.” With that, Isaac quietly left.

  Within minutes, Ben slid the bolt across the front door having watched Isaac turn out of the driveway and disappear from sight. He wanted to warn the Detective to keep an eye out for runaway carriages but, given that the carriage that had been the cause all of the trouble of late was now firmly embedded in a hedge, it seemed a worthless piece of advice.

  He returned to the sitting room to find Mark and Beatrice discussing the circle.

  “I will go and sit in the front parlour so I am out of sight, and will wait there until Caroline arrives. When she does appear - if she does appear - I will come out and deal with her. We don’t know how dangerous she is, or how desperate, so don’t be fooled by any innocent act she may put on. Stay completely out of the way and let me and Ben handle it.”

  Beatrice nodded at the clock. The sudden rattle of the front door made them all jump, but Beatrice smiled when the knocks were quickly followed by the high pitched chink of keys against the glass panelling.

  “It’s Maud. She has come back to sort out tea,” she whispered and jumped up from her chair to let the housekeeper in. “She always knocks like that,” she called as she slid the bolts back and yanked the door open.

  “Ben!”

  The words were out before she could stop them,
and held every ounce of the shock that almost swamped her when her gaze landed on Maud, who had Caroline Smethwick directly behind her.

  “Caroline Smethwick,” she heard Ben whisper behind her, but she daren’t turn around and acknowledge him. She couldn’t tear her gaze away from the cold ferocity written on Caroline’s face.

  Before she could say anything, she was waved back into the hallway by a glowering Caroline, who shoved the housekeeper before her. The wicked looking pistol she waved around recklessly was enough to ensure that both women complied without protest. Beatrice grabbed Maud’s hand and continued to pull her toward the kitchen, until Caroline was a few feet away from the front door. As she moved back she was aware that someone was bent over and moved behind her, but she daren’t take a look to see who it was.

  The sudden thud of the bolt being slid across the door sounded like gunfire in the silence of the house. Caroline spun around to stare in shock at Mark, and inadvertently gave Ben the perfect opportunity he needed to yank Beatrice and Maud into the sitting room where they were out of danger.

  “Well, well, I have just sent one of my men to look for you,” Mark drawled and watched Ben close the sitting room door behind him and move to stand in the hallway that led to the kitchen. “You have saved me from having to get half of Great Tipton constabulary to tear the county apart to look for you.”

  The gun was lowered a little as Caroline stared at him blankly for a moment. It was evident that she was trying desperately to find a way out of her current predicament from the frantic way her gaze flickered around the hallway. To begin with, it appeared that she was going to try to brave it out because she squared her shoulders and glared defiantly back at Mark.

  “I came to speak to Beatrice.”

  “With a gun?” Ben snorted dismissively. “You will have to speak to her through us.”

  “Go on then,” Mark urged when she remained silent and watchful. “Beatrice is right there, in the sitting room. Say what you have to say before I cart you off to the station.”