Fatal Masquerade

by Vivian Conroy

  ‘Why would he listen to you?’ Alkmene raised her chin in a challenging gesture.

  ‘He will listen to me. To everything I have to say.’ There was a deep satisfaction in Zeilovsky’s eyes, his smug smile.

  An unpleasant possibility reoccurred to Alkmene. ‘Is that why you’re here? To evaluate Denise’s friends and behaviour?’ Mrs Hargrove had refused to answer her question to this point earlier, but it did seem logical. Denise had acted rather impetuously lately, being excited and expectant one moment, dejected or spiteful the next. Perhaps her parents thought she was under nervous strain and would benefit from an expert opinion?

  Zeilovsky turned away from her. ‘You will not be able to save the maid, Lady Alkmene. She tied the noose in which her throat is now caught. Leave her be. Or somebody else might get caught in it by accident.’

  Goosebumps rose on Alkmene’s arms as she watched the little man walk away. If he was here to evaluate Denise, he had a lot of power. He could go and tell Hargrove he believed Denise was mentally unstable. He might even suggest she had something to do with the murder. He would cast a shadow over this family that would be hard to lift.

  But why? What was he himself so eager to hide?

  She had to extract Jake from Keegan and prompt him to speed up his enquiries into Zeilovsky’s credentials and past.

  Mrs Zeilovsky, too. And the initials RD.

  When Alkmene caught up with Jake, he had already lost the lawyer somehow and drew her aside. In a low voice he asked if everything was well.

  ‘Well, if you consider being caught by Zeilovsky leaving Keegan’s room “well”, then everything is fine indeed,’ Alkmene said cynically. ‘However, what he said to me was rather telling. I try to convince myself the encounter was not all bad.’

  Jake looked sceptical. ‘If he turns to Mrs Hargrove to complain about your snooping, you could be sent off.’

  ‘I’m afraid my time here will be limited as it is,’ Alkmene said with a wistful smile. ‘Nobody likes us working on Megan’s behalf.’

  ‘Speaking of Megan…’ Jake put an arm round her shoulders and ushered her along. ‘I’ve arranged for us to speak with her at the police station. We have to ascertain why she left the boathouse when it was her assigned workplace for the night. We also have to find out if she observed anything peculiar when she was there, or after she’d left and was walking back to the house. Anything that can give a clue as to the identity of our killer.’

  Alkmene nodded. ‘I also have a few questions of my own. But we have to see first whether the police will grant us access.’

  Jake gave her a crooked grin. ‘Oh, I’m sure the chief of police will have a different view of the matter now. In my calls, in which I obtained some information about Cobb’s former position, I also enquired after him. It seems he left the army after a scandal. It was covered up, so nobody around these parts knows about it. I suppose he wants to keep it that way.’

  ‘You’ll put that kind of pressure on him? It’s almost like blackmail.’

  Jake shrugged. ‘Well, if we assume Cobb was a blackmailer himself, it seems appropriate to use his own means to bring the truth to light. I’m not doing it to put our chief of police in a spot, but merely to get to the truth and acquit Megan. I learned in my undercover work that sometimes, to achieve your aim, you have to do things you would normally never choose to do.’

  Alkmene wondered if such an action had put Jake in prison. After all, the blackmailers had informed her he was a convict, and he himself had never denied it. They hadn’t discussed the circumstances under which he had landed in gaol, but Alkmene had simply assumed Jake had been wrongly convicted. Having seen him in action, she believed in Jake’s integrity.

  But at moments like this, Alkmene realized Jake was used to stooping to certain means to get to his ends. He had convinced his conscience it was acceptable. But Alkmene wasn’t so sure. Did catching a killer – or, rather, acquitting an innocent person of murder – justify all means?

  And, aside from that, it might be dangerous to antagonize the chief of police. He might think up ways of getting even with them.

  By shifting the blame to one of them, for instance?

  She knew her privileged position protected her to some extent, but she had not forgotten how Zeilovsky had suggested she might be vulnerable to a handsome servant’s amorous invitation. If he and the chief of police could construct a situation in which the murdered man had enticed her to an illicit meeting and then threatened to reveal the sordid details to the outside world, they might just have created a powerful motive for murder.

  At the police station, Jake went in ahead of her, striding with his shoulders pulled back as if he was geared up for a fight. But it turned out the chief of police himself was not present, and the sergeant they had talked to before was willing to let them speak with Megan without so much as a bad word.

  ‘The chief told me,’ he said, as he led them down the corridor to the cells, ‘that you might want a word with the girl and that it’s only right to oblige you. After all, Lady Callender, your father is an influential man.’

  Jake grimaced at Alkmene behind the sergeant’s back. She hitched a brow in reply. This change in attitude had come rather suddenly.

  As if the chief was aware Jake had asked questions about him and hit upon the secret of his past…

  The sergeant produced a bunch of heavy keys and opened the cell door. Megan sat on the narrow cot against the wall. Her face was smudged from crying. She jumped to her feet when she heard the door open. As Alkmene came in, she ran for her and caught her hands.

  The girl’s touch was as cold as ice. As if she was already dead.

  Megan said, ‘Oh, my lady, get me out of this dreadful place. I haven’t slept a wink. I kept thinking about my poor mother and what it will do to her when she hears about this. Please don’t make me stay here.’

  ‘We can only help you get out of here if you tell us the truth about what happened in the boathouse,’ Jake said. He turned to the sergeant. ‘You can leave us now.’

  The man nodded, retreated and locked the door on them. The clink sent a shiver up Alkmene’s spine.

  Jake went to the door and peered out through the grille. ‘He’s gone,’ he assured them. He turned round and leaned against the door. ‘I’ll keep an eye out for his return.’

  ‘We must speak softly,’ Megan said, ‘for there is a man in the cell beside me. I think it’s some drunk tramp who was arrested out in the fields, perhaps for poaching.’

  The normal subject returned some calm to her tone, but then her eyes became anxious again, and she pleaded with Alkmene. ‘My lady, I’ve done nothing wrong. I know how it looks, but you must believe me.’

  Jake said, ‘Let’s go back to the start of the evening, Megan. You were positioned at the boathouse to serve drinks to the waiting guests.’

  ‘Yes. I tried to get another thing to do. I knew Cobb was one of the gondoliers and I was afraid he’d come to bother me again. The boathouse is isolated. If I’d called for help, nobody would have heard me.’

  The girl’s face crinkled.

  Alkmene’s heart ached for a girl this age, put into a household to serve and make money for her family, alone and unprotected, easy prey for men like Cobb.

  ‘I asked Mrs Carruthers for another chore,’ Megan continued with a catch in her voice, ‘but she wouldn’t let me have one. She always said I wanted the easy work, that I was lazy and no good for my job. It wasn’t true, but… Whenever her back ached, she was in a foul mood and took it out on everyone.’

  Megan looked down, clenching her hands. ‘I had to be in the boathouse. At first it wasn’t bad. I served the drinks and in between I went to the door and stared back at the house. I could see the lanterns bobbing on the breeze, these fairy-tale little lights… I told myself nothing bad was going to happen on such a beautiful night.’

  She swallowed hard. ‘Cobb had been in the boathouse twice, between boat rides. He had drunk champagne, even though we�
��re not allowed to touch the drinks for the guests, and made crude jokes to me. But he hadn’t touched me. He seemed… different.’

  ‘Different?’ Jake echoed.

  ‘Yes. Like he was… excited about something. Almost nervous. Tense like a racehorse waiting to be released. As if I didn’t matter. Not on this night.’

  Jake nodded at Alkmene. She understood what he meant. If Cobb had been up to something at the boathouse – a meeting to exchange the letter for money, or a meeting with Keegan about this ‘life or death situation’ – he would have been nervous and not interested in Megan for once.

  Megan continued. ‘When Cobb came back for the third time, he told me to leave. There was nobody else there.’

  ‘What time was that?’ Jake asked, pulling a notebook from his pocket.

  ‘I don’t know, sir. I don’t own a watch. But it must have been late.’

  Jake caught Alkmene’s eye for a moment. ‘Late’ was hardly an accurate statement of the time. ‘I told Cobb I couldn’t just leave,’ Megan went on. ‘That if Mrs Carruthers saw me, she’d be angry. I told him I didn’t want to be dismissed. Normally, he would get all over me, catch my chin in his hand and say he would never let me be sent away because he wouldn’t want to lose me. But last night he just snapped at me to get going. I was afraid of the look in his eyes and I went away.’

  ‘And the steak knife was on the table then?’ Jake asked. Alkmene assumed it was to test the girl as they had assumed all along the knife had come off the dinner table.

  ‘No, sir,’ Megan said. ‘There was no food being served there. There was no need for any knife to be there.’

  Jake looked at Alkmene. ‘So we were right: the killer brought it.’

  Alkmene held his gaze. ‘That makes the murder premeditated.’

  Megan grabbed Alkmene’s arm. ‘Does that mean it can’t have been me?’ Her voice was hopeful suddenly, and her eyes shone with a feverish need to hear confirmation.

  Jake shook his head slowly. ‘I’m afraid not, Megan. You left at Cobb’s request, but they might argue you returned shortly after with a knife you’d fetched from the kitchen. Cobb had harassed you mere hours before, in Lady Alkmene’s room while you were unpacking her things. He had touched you, even leaving a mark on your neck. People saw that. The police could argue you were so angry with Cobb, or perhaps so afraid of him and further actions on his part, that you decided to kill him while he was alone at the boathouse.’

  ‘But I would never have had the nerve. I was afraid of him, I wouldn’t have gone near him.’

  Megan turned pleading eyes on Alkmene. ‘I left, my lady, I really did. I went back to the house. I hid away so nobody would see me and notice I was not at my post.’

  ‘So nobody saw you? Nobody can give you an alibi for the time of Cobb’s death?’

  Megan shook her head. ‘I had no idea he’d be killed. I had no idea I’d need an alibi. I just wanted to be left alone.’

  Alkmene reached out and squeezed her hand. ‘I understand. Now, think back and try to remember everything as carefully as you can. When you left the boathouse, how did the table look?’

  ‘Look?’ Megan repeated in bewilderment.

  ‘Yes. Were there glasses on it, bottles? You just said it had no knife. But what else was there?’

  ‘Glasses on a tray, and wrapping, a sort of decoration, like. Nothing else. The bottles were kept under the table to refill the glasses. There were also boxes with more bottles in a corner.’

  Alkmene nodded. It all fitted with what she had seen herself. ‘And how was the room lit?’

  Megan didn’t hesitate one moment. ‘With two lanterns.’

  ‘Two?’ Jake pounced. ‘You saw only one on the table. Correct?’

  Alkmene nodded. ‘When I came in, there was only one. And the light inside it was burning low.’

  Megan shook her head. ‘When I left, there were two lanterns on the table. Both burning brightly.’

  Jake looked at Alkmene. ‘You rounded the table, isn’t that right? You hit on the body then.’

  Megan whimpered.

  Alkmene nodded, trying not to think of Cobb’s dead eyes staring up at her in mute surprise.

  Jake said, ‘Did you observe one lantern lying on the ground? Maybe it was knocked over in a struggle?’

  Alkmene shook her head. ‘I don’t remember seeing that. And I did look at the ground around the body.’

  Jake shrugged. ‘Maybe it rolled away under the table. It need not be important.’

  Alkmene tried to picture the man she’d seen leaving in the boat. The one who had handled the oar so clumsily. Had it been Cobb’s boat? Had the man fled the scene of the murder? Had he taken the lantern with him?

  But to her knowledge the boats had been lit by lanterns of their own. Why take one from the boathouse?

  She focused on Megan again. ‘So, when you left the boathouse, everything was as it should be. The lanterns burning high on the table, glasses with drinks ready for the guests, no steak knife in sight. And Cobb manning the table.’

  Megan nodded. ‘He shooed me away, practically shoved me out of the door. I was surprised because normally he’d corner me and...’ She bit her lip. ‘I had been so afraid he’d want something of me again and now it turned out he wasn’t even interested in my presence. I felt relieved. I ran back to the house thinking maybe at last he understood I didn’t want him and he would stop hounding me. That everything would get better.’

  She burst into tears.

  Alkmene patted her shoulder. ‘Everything will get better. We’ll do everything we can to clear you.’

  Jake peeked into the corridor again. ‘We don’t have much time. What else can you tell us? Did you see anybody on your way back to the house?’

  ‘Oh, there were plenty of people walking about. But I didn’t look at anybody too carefully. I rushed past them, keeping in the shadows of the trees. I didn’t want any guest recognizing me and talking to Mrs Hargrove about me.’

  ‘A casual guest coming in for the ball wouldn’t know you,’ Alkmene said. ‘Which guests were you particularly worried about?’

  ‘Well, I think I saw the wife of that foreign doctor. She has these odd eyes like she can see right through you. I didn’t want her to tell on me. I think she’s spiteful, likes to hurt people.’

  ‘Why would you think that?’ Jake asked. ‘Just because she’s the wife of a foreign doctor?’

  Alkmene caught the subtle annoyance in his tone. Being half French himself, he was sensitive to people’s prejudices about foreigners.

  Megan shook her head. ‘Once, when they stayed here before, I caught her arguing with Mrs Carruthers. I came from the kitchens with a vase full of flowers for the drawing room and they were already in there. When I walked up to the door, I heard Mrs Zeilovsky say, “I would be careful with that if I were you. It can be dangerous.” And Mrs Carruthers came running out of the door, all pale and frightened as if she had seen some spectre.’

  ‘So Mrs Zeilovsky was threatening Mrs Carruthers.’ Jake frowned. ‘Now that’s interesting. After all, Mrs Carruthers was so eager to accuse you.’

  Megan flushed. ‘She never liked me. I suppose it’s because I don’t like to gossip.’

  ‘Gossip?’ Alkmene queried.

  ‘When I first came here, she was so friendly towards me, invited me to sit with her at night in the butler’s pantry. She had all kinds of questions about my family, how I was raised, what I thought about rich people and where I had served before. She encouraged me to… tell her all the strange habits of the people I’d worked for. She said she enjoyed hearing the quirks of wealthy people as it made them more human. Not high above us normal people. But I felt bad about it, like I was smearing them. So I said I didn’t know many stories. She got angry with me and called me a self-righteous little bitch.’

  Megan flushed deep red. ‘Since then she’s had me do the worst chores around the house, the ones nobody wants to do because they’re hard work or dirty.’

/>   Jake checked the corridor again. ‘I suppose we shouldn’t test the sergeant’s patience too much. Is there anything else, anything significant you can tell us?’

  Megan shook her head. ‘I’ve been going over it again and again as I couldn’t sleep, but there’s nothing I can tell you.’

  She lowered her head. ‘It looks bad for me, doesn’t it?’

  Alkmene met Jake’s gaze a brief moment. They had very little to go on. As yet.

  She tried to sound cheerful. ‘Every little thing can help. We now know for sure that the knife wasn’t on the spot. That might prove to be vital. Thank you very much for being so brave.’

  She took the girl’s hands in hers again and pressed. ‘You have to stay here for a little while longer. We have to make a case against somebody else. But we won’t let you be charged. So take heart.’

  Megan’s lips wobbled, but she nodded. ‘I believe in you, my lady.’

  Clinking in the corridor announced the approach of the sergeant.

  As he swung the door open, Alkmene had already stepped away from Megan, and she left immediately. The sergeant gave her a suspicious look. ‘I didn’t search your person,’ he said, turning red in the face. ‘I should have, I suppose, but it didn’t seem right. I do hope you didn’t give her anything with which to attempt escape. She wouldn’t get far, and it would only work against her.’

  ‘I gave her nothing,’ Alkmene assured him. ‘Nothing except some hope she can be cleared. Now, that can’t be wrong, can it, sergeant?’

  The man looked at her gravely. He seemed to consider her words as he walked ahead of them both to lead them back to the reception desk. There he looked around, as if to check nobody was there to overhear anything he said. Then, lowering his voice, he said, ‘I don’t think she could have done it, my lady. Not the violent type, you know. Even when cornered.’

  He hesitated a moment, visibly struggling with something. Then he said, ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this, because it’s part of our investigation. But it would strike me as very odd if the girl had indeed stabbed him.’

  ‘Yes?’ Alkmene said expectantly.