The Tomb of the Honey Bee: A Posie Parker Mystery (The Posie Parker Mystery Series Book 2)

by L. B. Hathaway

  There was silence. Puzzle pieces were coming together in her mind, but Posie kept her cool. Ianthe had said that the book was a murder mystery set in a Cotswold country house such as Boynton Hall, and that the main character had been based on Alaric. But what if she had known a great deal more?

  Had she in fact known who it was who wanted to hurt Alaric? And was that real-life person revealed as the murderer on the final page of the ‘fictional’ novel?

  Suddenly Bernie Sharp’s protestations didn’t seem quite so ridiculous or outlandish. Posie turned and addressed the room:

  ‘I think there may well be something in what Mr Sharp says. It’s just as well that I have called in one of the best Inspectors from Scotland Yard. He’s on his way here now, together with his team.’

  She watched with some pleasure as Sergeant Plummer turned puce.

  ‘In fact, they should be here in about two hours’ time, roads and traffic permitting. Hopefully they’ll be able to make some sense out of all of this. Sergeant Plummer, if you’d be so good as to refrain from calling the Funeral Director. And Dr Greaves, perhaps you could hold fire on submitting that death certificate to the Coroner for a while. Inspector Lovelace will be bringing his own Home Office Pathologist with him, and he’ll need access to the body in order to conduct his own investigation. And in the meantime, until they get here, I suggest that no-one should leave the house. No-one. Not even you, Mr Burns. I’m sorry, I know you were planning on leaving today. Could you delay?’

  Mr Burns nodded instantly, puzzled shock showing clearly on his face. ‘Of course, Miss Parker. Only too willing to help.’

  Lord Roderick was looking at Posie with real hatred and Lady Eve had started shouting uncontrollably at the top of her voice, a stream of bile all seemingly directed at Lady Violet, as if the whole sorry mess were somehow her fault.

  ‘See what you’ve gone and done, you little minx? Bringing interfering busybodies into the house! Now it seems we’ve got a proper murder on our hands! As if we don’t have enough on our plate!’

  But Lady Violet gave no indication of having heard her sister-in-law. Posie sat down again on the sofa and tried to put her arm around the girl, who was rocking to and fro, shaken by uncontrollable sobbing, jolted out of any show of decorum. Posie had been surprised earlier by Violet’s attacks of nausea in the car, but she was more surprised by this: Violet was a mess. A far, far cry from the cool, collected girl who had walked into the Grape Street Bureau only a couple of days before. Had Ianthe’s death tipped her over the edge?

  Posie looked around at the people in the room, feeling uncomfortable. Well, now there had been a murder, in all probability. At least now there was a body and evidence to investigate, even though Alaric Boynton-Dale, her main focus, was still missing.

  She remembered with a sharp shivery chill Ianthe’s light-hearted joke of the previous evening about the possible murdering of Mr Burns for his money. But it had turned out that it was Ianthe herself who had possessed something far more precious than a million Texan dollars.

  What had been on that final page of the novel? And what was it that she had wanted to tell Posie?

  The answer was locked somewhere here in the Library amongst these people. But where?

  ****

  Seven

  Tea and a sandwich brunch had been served in the Library, another dismal affair, and no-one apart from the policemen had had any appetite. The family and servants had taken to their rooms, having all now been formally questioned.

  The strange languid silence which Posie had felt in the house yesterday was back again, punctured only by the heavy footsteps of policemen’s hobnailed boots tracking up and down the ancient wooden staircase, the occasional ringing of the now-repaired telephone and the opening and closing of the door to Lord Roderick’s study, where Inspector Richard Lovelace, maverick detective of Scotland Yard, had set up an impromptu headquarters, together with his trusty crack-team of Sergeants Binny and Rainbird.

  The interviews and inspection of Ianthe’s room and body had all now been concluded and Inspector Lovelace was finalising details with typical efficiency.

  Posie sat on a hard chair next to the sash-window in the study. She had given her formal statement about finding Ianthe’s body much earlier and filled Inspector Lovelace in on the background as to why she was staying at Boynton Hall. She had given him all the details as to the catastrophic events leading up to the disappearance of Alaric Boynton-Dale and the Inspector had simply nodded, making his usual careful list of action-points. He hadn’t asked any questions about Alaric at all. Indeed, the explorer seemed a very distant and unimportant concern right now, even in Posie’s own mind.

  Posie had been asked to come in for an update. So far she had not been asked for her opinion on anything. So she sat quietly, as unobtrusively as possible, which was hard, as she was dying to know what was going on.

  It was airless in the room and Posie would dearly have loved to open the sash-window, but she had been ordered not to do any such thing. She gazed out as a black police van drew up next to the two gleaming police cars already stationed outside, and men in dark suits emerged. Minutes later they were seen traipsing back, carrying a black-shrouded stretcher between them, accompanied by a jittery Bernie Sharp and a resigned-looking Sergeant Plummer.

  ‘She’s off then,’ Posie announced to no-one in particular. ‘Ianthe, I mean. Poor love.’

  But no-one heard her. Inspector Lovelace and his Sergeants were locked in a hushed conversation with the Police Pathologist, Dr Poots, whom Posie had met once before.

  Mr Maguire, the senior Forensics Officer from Scotland Yard, was sitting just along from Posie on another hard wooden seat, filling in slips of paper with obvious enjoyment and placing several different objects into clear cellophane bags marked ‘EXHIBIT’. She watched now as he wrapped up a lipstick and an old powder compact, and then he made a big show of wrapping up Ianthe’s sleek black Underwood typewriter in tissue and protective layers before putting it into a cellophane bag. Maguire was a man who relished the small and varied minutiae of his job and he was obviously savouring the celebrity connection in this case.

  He handed over one of the cellophane bags to Dr Poots at his request, giving his colleague a knowing nod, and Posie saw something golden shining within it, glinting in a ray of reflected sunlight. It was the small tin of sleeping powder that she had first observed this morning on Ianthe’s bedside cabinet.

  Dr Poots shook it with a meaningful raise of the eyebrow towards Inspector Lovelace and put it into his own heavy metal suitcase which seemed to be filled with glass jars of strange-coloured liquids and various chemical paraphernalia.

  Dr Poots and Mr Maguire had obviously got ‘enough’ of whatever it was they were after, and they smiled all around before leaving the room, bowing out unobtrusively and taking the precious cellophane EXHIBIT bags and the heavy metal suitcase with them. From the window Posie craned her neck and watched them get into the back of one of the police cars, their heads bent together in earnest discussion.

  When she turned back into the room she saw that the Inspector and his Sergeants had packed their papers together, and were also now ready to leave. They were regarding her with a look she interpreted as a mixture somewhere between ‘serious concern’ and a mild amusement that she was up to her old tricks again.

  ‘You were right to call us in, Posie,’ said Inspector Lovelace appreciatively but seriously.

  ‘So you do suspect foul play?’

  The Inspector nodded. ‘Poots can’t be one hundred per cent sure until he’s got the body back to the lab in London and done an autopsy, but he’s ninety-nine per cent sure she was given a huge overdose of a sleeping draught. Veronal, to be precise. That gold tin was full of it, and the glass by the bed contained some dried up grains at the bottom. It has a particular smell apparently, like very bitter almonds. Very similar to powdered cyanide. Acts like cyanide, too.’

  ‘But some would say that the presence of veronal
could indicate this was a suicide, or an accidental overdose?’ Posie said provocatively.

  Sergeant Rainbird flicked through his police report. ‘No. No way. There is evidence, which needs to be confirmed of course, that in addition to having given her the sleeping draught, which she wouldn’t have noticed by the way, as veronal is flavourless and colourless, Dame Flower’s killer made double sure she was dead by using a pillow to suffocate her when she was already drowsy.’

  ‘That accounts for the black flush on the face,’ cut in Sergeant Binny.

  ‘And we think the killer placed the gold tin of sleeping powder next to the bed as a nice little finishing touch, just for show. Bernie Sharp insists that Ianthe Flowers never took sleeping powders in her life; slept like a baby apparently. And he swore he’d never seen that gold tin before, either. We’ll fingerprint it, of course, but if the killer is as clever as he seems to be, chances are it’s clean as a whistle. So, even before the autopsy, the hard evidence and the fact that this crucial page from her new book has gone missing leads us to think that this is murder.’

  Inspector Lovelace rubbed his stubbly ginger chin distractedly. ‘The killer was obviously hoping that the local country doctor and the equally dim-witted local policeman would come to exactly the conclusion they reached: that this was a natural death, with no reason to investigate further. What a pair of noddles! The killer obviously hadn’t reckoned with you, Posie, and your bloodhound’s nose for sniffing out trouble.’

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ interjected Sergeant Rainbird, ‘is why if the killer thought everyone would assume it was a natural death, he did such a stupid thing as to remove the final page of the manuscript? It’s damning – it makes the death look instantly suspicious – it makes it look as if the manuscript contained a secret which couldn’t be allowed to leak out.’

  ‘That’s exactly what it probably did contain,’ said Posie, nodding.

  ‘Well, why didn’t the killer just leave the final page where it was, or else remove the whole manuscript?’ said Sergeant Rainbird in exasperation. ‘Surely the killer should have realised that the literary agent, Bernie Sharp, would have checked the manuscript within an inch of its life! Mr Sharp told us that was the first thing he did here following finding out that Dame Flowers was dead.’

  Posie wrinkled her nose, thinking hard.

  ‘What you say is absolutely right, Sergeant, but only if the killer knew that Bernie Sharp was coming here today. If Mr Sharp hadn’t turned up, no-one would have thought to check the manuscript for any missing pages. Why would they? It would have been the last thing on people’s minds. Everyone would have assumed the book was intact, and in a few weeks’ time when the dust had settled it would have been posted back to Ianthe’s solicitor or agent, and if any pages were then noticed to be missing it would have been easy enough to blame the post, or the servants who had packed up the bags. As far as I know, Bernie Sharp’s appearance here this morning was a shock to everyone in the house. In fact, I think Dame Ianthe only told me that Bernie Sharp was coming to pick her up today. She told me last night in the Library, at the same time as she told me she had something important to tell me. I think she knew something about Alaric’s disappearance.’

  ‘And you’re sure no-one else overheard her talking about Bernie Sharp coming down here?’

  ‘No. But Ianthe did tell the whole room she was leaving today and she thanked people for their ‘hospitality’. So everyone in the house knew she was going.’

  ‘And one of those people realised that she had to be silenced,’ said Sergeant Binny with a smidgen of ghoulish relish.

  ‘Looks like it,’ said the Inspector, fiddling with his tight starched collar which was growing limp with sweat and damp. The oppressive heat, nearly as bad as in London, was making him uncomfortable and he was longing to be away; a town boy at heart, his house with its sliver of shady garden in Clapham was as close as he came to country living.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said, standing up and picking up his brown attaché case. ‘I think we’ve enough evidence gathered and statements taken to get somewhere with this. No point lurking around here any longer. Let’s be getting on. Posie, go and grab your bags. There’s room in our car if Binny rides up front with the driver.’

  ‘Sorry?’ said Posie, flummoxed for a second. ‘Ah! Thank you, but no. I’m coming back tomorrow on the first train to Paddington. I’d like to stay here and lend my support. Lady Violet seems to have taken this badly. And she seems to have few enough friends in this place as it is. Also, I’d like to interview one more person about Alaric’s disappearance.’

  She watched as all three policemen gave each other incredulous looks and Inspector Lovelace’s rugged, handsome face took on even more of a red tone than could be strictly attributed to the heat.

  ‘You must be joking!’ he roared. ‘There’s no way I’m leaving you here! I’ll arrest you if I have to, Posie, in order to keep you safe! Don’t you realise that we’re dealing with a killer who is capable of playing the long game? This murder isn’t a single one-off event, you know. It’s part and parcel of this whole other business you’re up here investigating. If the killer has already disposed of one person to keep things quiet, he’ll do so again. Only this time it will be you, Posie. You’re not safe here.’

  ‘So you do think Alaric’s disappearance and the string of events leading up to it are suspicious?’ she said, relieved. She had begun to think herself slightly paranoid of late.

  Lovelace nodded.

  ‘Of course! Just because Oats dismissed this out of hand when Lady Violet reported the disappearance doesn’t mean it’s not important. I’ll apologise to Lady Violet myself in a minute personally, reassure her we’ll look into it. I understand the family don’t want policemen and the press creeping around the place, but frankly it’s too late for that now. Dame Flower’s death will be all over the papers before we’ve had time to blink! She was very famous in her own right. The hacks will be clamouring at the gates here. I’m giving an order that no-one is to come in, and no-one is to go out: the whole household are under house arrest from now on. I’m instructing Sergeant Plummer to stay here with his men for the next few days, too. He might not be any good at detective work, but let’s hope he can keep an eye on the house, ensure no-one leaves the place at least. Now, let’s get a shuffle on.’

  Just then there was a rap at the study door. Lady Violet poked her head around the door.

  ‘Hullo,’ she said nervously, looking around at the policemen. ‘I just wondered if I could assist you in any way? Poor dear Ianthe. You know she was quite alone in the world? No real family to speak of…’

  ‘Ah, Lady Violet, I was just saying I was coming to see you before we go,’ said the Inspector with a bashful look on his face. Could it be that the Inspector was ever so slightly star-struck? Looking around, Posie almost chortled to herself as she saw how all three Scotland Yard policemen were gazing at the girl as if hypnotised. Having spent a good deal of time in her company of late, Posie realised that she had forgotten quite how beautiful Lady Violet really was, and how famous.

  Posie listened with only half an ear as the Inspector laid out his plans for the next few days to keep the Boynton-Dale family and household safe. But how safe could they really be with a killer in their midst? And anyhow, the Inspector’s plans for their ‘safety’ were as much about imprisoning them all here in the house as anything else.

  When the Inspector had finished his speech he opened his attaché case and Posie was startled to see him bring out the same magazine which Posie had bought yesterday at Oxford train station. Almost shyly, the Inspector passed The Lady across to Lady Violet.

  ‘My wife Molly is a big fan of your cookery articles, my Lady,’ he said with a faint flush of embarrassment. ‘Your honey cake has really made her the talk of our street! She won’t forgive me if you don’t sign this for me. I wonder – would you oblige?’

  Almost laughing, Lady Violet inked her name across the glossy front pag
e. She turned to Posie with a look of real regret.

  ‘So you’re off too?’

  Posie nodded. ‘But I won’t stop searching for the truth, Lady Violet. I promise you. The first news I have of Alaric, or of anything at all in fact, I’ll telegram you.’

  ****

  Posie was silent all the way down the drive, her carpet bag clutched precariously on her knees, her sweaty back pressed uncomfortably up against the hard leather seat. She felt relief to be leaving Boynton Hall but it was going to be a long and sticky three hours’ drive back to London.

  The police car passed a red-bricked and honeysuckle-covered Victorian house which Posie had not noticed properly before. It nestled in the shadow of an oak tree by the big iron gates. Posie read the sign, half-hidden in overgrowth: ‘The Gatehouse’.

  ‘Stop the car!’ she shouted through the glass divide at the police driver. ‘I’ve got to get out here. I promise I’ll be quick, Inspector! I promise! This is the house of the person I wanted to interview. PLEASE! Please indulge me on this.’

  Inspector Lovelace sighed and rolled his eyes. He nodded at the driver who drew up on the grassy kerb.

  ‘Ten minutes!’ he said, patting his wristwatch and giving her a wry half-smile. ‘No more.’

  Posie hopped out and banged on the front door.

  She heard a wretched howling coming from inside and then the door was opened by a housemaid in full uniform. On being ushered into a Drawing Room, she found Lady Cosima Catchpole reclining luxuriously on a floral sofa, a glass of white wine in one hand, a book in the other. Cosima was dressed in a Japanese silk kimono and Posie had no idea if it was a nightdress or perhaps some theatrical costume she had put on for the sheer fancy of it.

  Bikram was sitting over in a corner, looking mournful and excluded. He let out another howl and made an odd chewing noise. Posie introduced herself hurriedly.

  ‘Don’t mind that bally dog,’ Lady Cosima said with a glance of irritation over to the far corner, putting her book down and cracking its spine carelessly.