These thoughts ran through her mind as she did a circuit of the room. She stopped beside the billiard table, arrested by the sight of the stains on the parquet flooring. She had refused to look this way earlier, when they had searched the room for a secret door, but now she found her gaze drawn to the spot. A shiver rippled through her. Ralph’s blood. The andiron had been removed, probably when the coroner’s men carried out the body. The roman statuette flashed in her mind. Yes, Hastings proved his ability to snatch things and attempt to use them as weapons. But how had Hastings known that Ralph had discovered his guilt? He had written the note to Phoebe, to be delivered via Margaret, the kitchen maid. She had dropped the note, and possibly Valeria Grekov had read it. The Grekovs, both still missing. But what link could possibly have existed between the Russian couple and Hastings?
She turned to face the doorway and tried to remember who had already been in the room and who had entered behind her when they discovered Ralph. Olive had been inside, that much had been obvious. Miles entered next, followed by Phoebe and Eva. Then, she remembered, Hastings appeared, with Julia and Myra Stanley running in behind him.
That left Cousin Clarabelle and Verna. Which had entered next? She paced, thinking, while the awful memory of Cousin Clarabelle lamenting over Ralph rang out in her mind.
When had Verna come? Yes, Phoebe remembered now. It had been a few moments later. That accounted for everyone. But it didn’t explain how Hastings had gotten in and out of the room quickly enough to avoid being seen by Olive Asquith. They had all heard the thud of the andiron and come running.
All except Verna, who had lagged behind the rest. Had Verna been somehow involved? But that still wouldn’t explain how Hastings had managed to slip in and out without being seen . . .
Unless he had never left the room. Phoebe studied the room again. When she admitted to having overheard the argument between Hastings and Verna, Hastings had assumed at first that she had been hiding in their bedroom. His scrutiny had darted to the various chairs, alcoves, and doorways that might have concealed her—because he had done exactly that after killing Ralph. They had searched the room for hidden passages. How silly. It was not nearly as complicated as that. He must have ducked behind a piece of furniture, perhaps one of the wing chairs, or even behind the open door, and then simply stepped out as the others began arriving. In the confusion, who would notice that he hadn’t rushed down the corridor like everyone else?
But how to discover what Ralph had wished to reveal to her? An idea spurred her into the corridor.
* * *
Lady Mandeville the younger had spoken nary a word since the dowager and Lady Phoebe left the room. Adhering to the rule of speaking only when spoken to, Eva had taken up position to the side of the settee where her ladyship sat staring into space, on hand if needed but otherwise inconspicuous. That suited her, for she wouldn’t have had any notion how to comfort Verna Brockhurst, especially when it seemed the woman’s social prospects concerned her more than her husband’s heinous actions or his likely fate.
The muffled ringing of the telephone interrupted her musings. Moments later Lady Julia returned. “Eva, that’s the constable on the line. He’d like to speak with you.” When Eva hesitated with a glance at Lady Mandeville, Julia nodded. “You go. I’ll stay with her.” To Lady Mandeville, she repeated, “I’ll stay with you now, Verna.”
Eva lingered another moment. “Did you speak with your grandfather?”
A change came over Lady Julia’s expression, one that raised a vague sense of apprehension in Eva. “No, I didn’t. I spoke to Grams and explained what has happened here. Grams was horrified, of course, but—” She broke off and nipped at her bottom lip. She lowered her voice, as if to spare Verna Brockhurst unpleasant details. “Oh, Eva, Grampapa’s physician is there. He’s been having chest pains. Grams can’t possibly tell him about Regina’s murder, nor anything else about this dreadful day. She wants us home immediately and is sending the cars to collect all of us.”
“Yes, of course we must go, my lady.” Eva spared a glance at Lady Mandeville, who continued staring into space and gave no sign she’d heard any of Lady Julia’s news from home. “I’ll go speak with Miles, and I’ll tell him—tell him, my lady, not ask—that we are leaving High Head Lodge.”
Lady Julia nodded and took a seat beside Lady Mandeville on the settee. Long strides brought Eva to the rear hallway, where she seized the ear trumpet in one hand and the candlestick base in the other.
“Miles, we are all leaving immediately for Foxwood Hall. Lord Wroxly is ill. We’ll take the two Ladies Mandeville with us.”
There was a brief pause, and then Miles said, “That’s fine, Eva. You’re all free to leave. I only called to tell you the Grekovs were apprehended in the next village. In Bradford. They’re being questioned as we speak.”
“That’s good news. What about Olive Asquith?”
She could almost see him shaking his head. “There is still no sign of her.”
“Well, I’m sure she’ll turn up soon.”
“No, when I say no sign, I mean absolutely no sign. Nothing. People saw the Grekovs fleeing through the fields and the outskirts of town there. They left enough of a trail that could be followed. Miss Asquith seems to have vanished into thin air.”
“That’s impossible. It’s dark now. Something will turn up in the morning.”
“I hope you’re right. I’m coming back there soon. I want to poke through Lord Mandeville’s possessions again. Will you still be there when I arrive?”
“If you come soon, then yes. Lady Wroxly is sending the cars for us, but we still need to pack and prepare to leave.” She was about to hang up, but a thought held her still. Once she returned to Foxwood Hall, she would once more be swept up in the day-to-day duties of caring for Ladies Phoebe and Amelia, not to mention Lady Julia again, until she found a new maid. It might be some time before she found the liberty to see Miles again. “Do hurry back,” she said. “I’d like to see you again before we go home.”
* * *
Pausing to listen and hearing nothing to indicate either someone coming up the stairs or Cousin Clarabelle exiting her room, Phoebe let herself into the bedroom and closed the door behind her. Rich greens and blues surrounded her, dark hues made deeper by the evening gloom. She forewent switching on the overhead light. It would be too easily seen beneath the door outside. Instead, she went to one of the bedside lamps, turned the shade to angle the light against the wall, and flipped the switch.
The sight of Ralph Cameron’s dressing gown hanging over a chair nearly drew a gasp. As more of the room took shape in the dim light, she spied his shaving kit on the silent butler, a leather-bound journal on the nightstand, a pair of house shoes on the floor near the armoire. It was as if he had just stepped out and would return at any moment: a life brutally interrupted, cut off in the middle, with so much left undone. The breath left her, and she leaned against the bed as she groped for equilibrium.
When she could breathe normally again, she picked up the journal. As she had expected, here were no secrets divulged to the creamy pages, but merely lists of appointments and tasks to be completed. There were so many of them . . . so very many to which he would never attend.
She went to the desk, but this too proved unenlightening. No, what she sought would not have been left out in the open for anyone’s eyes to happen upon. Ralph Cameron would have been more careful than that. She tried the armoire next, opening its doors and shoving aside suits and shirts. A leather-covered portmanteau sat against the back wall. Phoebe lifted it by its handle, having to use two hands due to its heft.
She set the case on the bed and tried the clasps. They were locked, as she had expected. Ralph Cameron would do no less with his clients’ personal affairs. She studied the locks and wondered if a hairpin would do the trick. Eva had taught her how to unlock doors this way. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. But hairpins were for discretion’s sake, and here, Phoebe felt little need for discr
etion. She wanted only answers.
Glancing around the room, her gaze lighted once more on the shaving kit. A chilling memory from last Christmas nearly arrested her intensions. Still, she crossed the room, opened the kit, and extracted the straight razor. Thank goodness Ralph hadn’t opted for a safety razor, for that would have made her job more difficult. With the straight razor clutched in her right hand, she returned to the portmanteau and one by one slashed through its leather straps. When the case opened, she reached in and drew out several thick cardboard folders stuffed with papers.
Good heavens, she hadn’t counted on having to pore through so much. With little other choice, she carried the stack to the desk and switched on a second lamp.
She didn’t know how long she hunched over page after page, hoping she would find whatever she sought before her grandparents arrived or before Cousin Clarabelle rose from her bed. Some folders bore no relevance to the Brockhurst family. Those she set aside. But each member of the family had a folder of his or her own, including Cousin Basil. She opened Hastings’s first. Her frustrations mounted with each page that offered no new information. She found no mention of his military service during the war. Had she expected to? If Cousin Basil had taken such pains to convince everyone that Hastings had been captured by the Germans, he’d hardly have supplied his solicitor with details to the contrary.
Who next? Her fingertips glided over the front of the folder marked “Clarabelle Brockhurst,” then slid past onto the one marked for Regina. Phoebe picked it up and opened the cover. Nothing at first caught her eye as being significant.
And then her breath caught. Hands trembling, she held up a letter written in Cousin Basil’s own hand, which she recognized from letters he had sent to Foxwood Hall. As she scanned the contents, her heart pulsed wildly beneath her breastbone.
Cousin Basil had feared for Regina’s welfare, indeed had predicted an attempt on her life. Had Ralph known? Or had he only discovered this letter, perhaps today? Is this the thing he had wished to tell her?
She needed Eva. She needed the constable. She needed to get downstairs without delay.
CHAPTER 20
Cousin Basil’s letter in hand, Phoebe slipped back out into the hallway—and nearly walked into Cousin Clarabelle. Startled, she whisked the hand holding the letter behind her.
“Cousin Clarabelle. Er . . . what are you doing up?”
“I couldn’t sleep and thought I’d go down.” She eyed Phoebe as she moved closer, making her feel pinned to the door behind her. The letter felt cold and stiff in her fingers, a message from the grave. She willed Cousin Clarabelle not to notice, to continue to the stairs. But she made no move to go. “What have you got there, Phoebe? And what were you doing in Ralph’s bedroom?”
She tried to back away, hitting the door with her spine. “I . . . nothing . . .”
Cousin Clarabelle, her features impassive, seized her arm and yanked it forward, hurting her, jarring her elbow and shoulder. She ripped the letter from her grasp. At the same time, a bitter odor surrounded Phoebe. Cousin Clarabelle raised an ether-soaked cloth to her face, pressing cruelly. She tried not to breathe it in, but a sickly taste filled her mouth, her nose, her lungs. The chemical swirled about her brain with dreamlike insistence. Phoebe tried to pry Cousin Clarabelle off, but her limbs grew heavy, her hands dull and clumsy.
Before the darkness enveloped her, Cousin Clarabelle lifted the handkerchief away. Reaching around her, she opened the door to Ralph’s bedroom and pushed Phoebe inside. She stumbled, sprawling headlong across the carpet. She landed facedown, her nose in the woolen pile. The fibers tickled her nose. The door clicked softly shut, and the beginnings of relief tingled along Phoebe’s extremities. But then Cousin Clarabelle yanked her by the arm again, flipping her onto her back. Phoebe opened her mouth to cry out from the pain; Cousin Clarabelle slapped a hand over her mouth.
“Shhhh. One word and this goes into you.” Something in her free hand gleamed slightly, catching a beam of moonlight through the undrawn curtains. No more than a pinpoint, the light danced along the object, long and thin, with something perched at its end—something metallic, a silver bird, with outstretched wings. Realization bore a lethal rent in Phoebe’s courage, just as a similar object had born a lethal rent in Regina’s skull. She stared down the length of the hat pin in Cousin Clarabelle’s hand; such an ordinary thing, so innocent, with the power to kill. “You know I’ll do it, Phoebe. I’ve done it before, haven’t I?” Clarabelle made an ugly sound, a grunt. No, a laugh, but to Phoebe it sounded feral, guttural.
She nodded. Yes, she knew Cousin Clarabelle would do it. The hand against her mouth slowly withdrew. Her lips felt bruised, cracked where they had struck her teeth. She stared up into Cousin Clarabelle’s calm eyes. How can she be so composed? Had she been so when she pressed an ether-soaked rag against Regina’s face and plunged the dragonfly deep into her skull?
“Why?” Phoebe managed after a croak.
“I think you know why.” She waved the letter over Phoebe’s face. “My husband told me he wrote this, and that at the right moment, Ralph would find it, and any claim I tried to make on the inheritance—on Regina’s inheritance—would immediately be deemed null and void.” She swore under her breath, words Phoebe had never in her life heard a lady utter.
“He hated me, you know. Not at first, but as time went on. Because I hated her. Hated her from the first moment they put her in my arms. She wasn’t mine, could never be mine. She belonged to Basil’s whore, you see. But we were in India at the time, and it was easy for me to remain secluded on our estate until she was born. Even the servants didn’t know she wasn’t mine. But from the first, she was willful, stubborn, contrary—everything a daughter of mine would never have been.” She paused, gritting her teeth. Light sparked along the hat pin, inches above Phoebe’s face. The smell of ether continued to permeate the air, making her wonder, in an offhand way, if perhaps she was dreaming.
“We’d tried for years, you understand.” Cousin Clarabelle spoke as if to a friend over tea. “He blamed me, of course, especially after he proved himself by getting his whore pregnant. Surprise on him when, upon returning to England, I had Hastings. It wasn’t me, it was that putrid, unhealthy Indian climate. No decent woman can bear it. So I gave him a son, an heir, but was he grateful?”
Was Phoebe supposed to answer? She tried to move instead, and realized the intolerable weight she’d been feeling, but distantly, was in fact Cousin Clarabelle sitting on her stomach. Crushing, squeezing the breath out of her. She parted her lips, but no sound came out.
Cousin Clarabelle didn’t seem to notice or care. Disdain oozed from every word she spoke. “Basil preferred Regina. Oh, how perfect she was, his clever, beautiful daughter. And how his son never measured up. He wasn’t strong enough, smart enough, not quick enough with his lessons. Didn’t ride well or shoot straight . . .” She made another grunting sound, one Phoebe did not mistake this time for a laugh. “Everything was about Regina, for Regina. So, surely you can see, Phoebe, you can understand, why I could not let my son be snubbed this final time by his father. I could not. Nor could I let Regina simply take everything away from us. And then—oh!—then I learned what she was up to. She was a communist. Did you know that?”
Phoebe only shook her head.
“Oh, yes. Just like one of those violent, beastly Bolsheviks. She wished to spread their filth here, in England, and surely I couldn’t allow her to do that, could I? I couldn’t let her smear the family name, while at the same time taking everything away from us. I had no choice. None. You do understand, don’t you, dear, darling Phoebe?”
“Y-yes, Cousin Cl-Clarabelle.” Her tongue felt dry, fuzzy; it stuck to the roof of her mouth. She attempted to swallow and succeeded only in causing her throat to convulse. She stifled an urge to burst out coughing. “I . . . understand. You . . . had to.”
“Yes, of course I did. And then Ralph told me he knew, that he had found the proof. That Basil had left him a l
etter, this letter you found. He said no one would believe a mother murdered her own daughter, but I wasn’t her mother, was I? I wanted to find that letter first but it’s been impossible to move about this house today without being seen. So I waited. I was coming in just now, you see, to find it. Oh, but my lovely Ralph. I didn’t wish to lose him, Phoebe, surely you see that. But he forced my hand, just like Regina did. It was all Regina’s fault. All of it.”
“Yes,” Phoebe managed, as bile rose in her throat.
“Good. I so wanted you to understand. I didn’t want you to hate me, darling Phoebe.”
“I don’t.”
“Good,” she repeated. “Now, as soon as we’re done here I’m going to go back to my room and have that nap. When your grandparents arrive and someone comes to wake me, it’ll appear as if I’ve been tucked into bed all along, because someone drugged me with ether.” She held up the cloth. “And when they find you, well . . . they’ll believe that horrid Olive sneaked back into the house and killed you. Because this isn’t my hat pin. It’s hers. I stole it from her room.” A triumphant grin accompanied those last words; it penetrated the fog surrounding Phoebe’s brain and spurred her to action.
With a shout, Phoebe shoved with all her strength, rolling and taking Cousin Clarabelle with her. The hat pin flew from the woman’s fingers, but it didn’t go far. Phoebe groped to reach it, but their skirts had tangled and she couldn’t move freely. The handkerchief hovered over her, and then descended before she could react.
Blackness rose up to swallow her. Within the vast whirling emptiness, a voice rang out. It called to her, and she swam toward it, struggling against a current that dragged at her body. She longed to succumb to the tide—how easy, how restful. But the voice called again, louder, more urgent, and she fought the shadows until her eyes once more opened.
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