Murder at the Mikado

by Julianna Deering

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Drew assured him as he bent down to get a better look at the object, hands behind his back.

  “What is it, old man?” Nick leaned over his shoulder, eyebrows drawn together.

  “Another of those tassels like the one Tess Davidson had in her hand when she was strangled.”

  Madeline put one hand over her mouth.

  “Tompkins,” Birdsong called. “Get a picture here.”

  The photographer snapped two pictures, and afterward the chief inspector removed an envelope from one of his overcoat’s pockets and carefully placed the tassel inside it.

  “You know Mrs. Landis couldn’t have done this one,” Drew said. “Unless she’s got a key to your jail.”

  “No.” Birdsong’s voice was grim. “She’s there all right. Had a chat with her not three hours ago.”

  “May I ask what you spoke to her about?”

  “I merely asked again who she thought might have a motive to kill Ravenswood and the Davidson girl if she hadn’t done it. She said she didn’t know, but she was wondering if someone wasn’t trying to implicate her in both murders.”

  Drew nodded. “Could be.”

  “She couldn’t possibly have killed Mr. Zuraw,” Madeline said. “So why would someone kill him to frame her?”

  “Perhaps this someone doesn’t know Mrs. Landis has been arrested.” Drew stood, looking around the room a final time. “I expect they’ll have to release Mrs. Landis now.”

  “That doesn’t mean she couldn’t have done the first two murders, does it?” Madeline asked.

  “True. But they don’t actually have any hard evidence against her, just Benton’s rather histrionic claim that he saw her. Best I can tell, he didn’t actually see anything conclusive. I’m sure our Mr. Clifton will have his client out of custody before teatime tomorrow.”

  Chief Inspector Birdsong looked more than a bit put out when Drew appeared in his office two days later.

  “Yes, Mr. Farthering, Mrs. Landis has been released. For the present. She was discharged yesterday afternoon. Do you have any suggestions regarding who might take her place as our chief suspect in these murders?”

  “I’m afraid not, though I am doing my best to make sense of the deuced case. May I sit?”

  Birdsong nodded toward the battered chair in front of his desk, and Drew made himself comfortable.

  “I don’t suppose you have any other information that might be of help?” Drew asked.

  The chief inspector gave him a shrewd look and then tossed a manila folder onto the desk toward Drew. “According to the coroner, Zuraw was killed at approximately seven o’clock Thursday evening.”

  “That’s not possible.” Drew opened the file and looked over the report. “I tell you I spoke to him at almost nine o’clock. Couldn’t have been seven.”

  “And you couldn’t have been mistaken about the time?”

  “Not at all. I remember he was very specific about us being there right away, and I knew we were going to have to rush a bit to get there.”

  Birdsong knit his brows. “What was so important about the time? Did Zuraw say?”

  “No.” Drew chewed his lip, thinking. “Just that he wanted to talk to me before the performance was out.”

  “But that would have gone on till . . . when, ten o’clock? Half past?”

  “More or less,” Drew agreed. “Why did he want us there by then in particular? I’m guessing it was so no one in the production would know he was talking to us. Could the coroner be mistaken in this instance?”

  “Possible,” Birdsong said, “but highly unlikely. He’s been at his job longer than I’ve been at mine, and he does it very well.”

  “I will add that to my list of things to think about. I’ve been considering the question of timing, however. Zuraw was insistent about our hurrying up there. I wondered too about what might have been happening onstage when he was killed and when our mysterious intruder was dashing out into the alleyway, so I took Madeline back to see H.M.S. Pinafore last night.”

  “It’s a wonder you could get in,” the chief inspector observed. “They’ve sold out every night since the murders started.”

  “Yes, well, I managed to convince a nice couple they would much rather have a healthy return on their investment in a pair of tickets than see a rather tired version of Pinafore.” Drew grinned. “They eventually agreed.”

  “A golden key opens every lock, eh?” Birdsong gave him a sour look and then a reluctant smile. “I suppose you prove yourself valuable now and again, Detective Farthering. In your way and with certain methods we don’t have at our disposal. And what did you discover?”

  “Not a lot yet,” Drew admitted. “I paid special attention to what was happening onstage at about the time we were there on Thursday night. Unfortunately, it was the entire cast singing ‘He Is an Englishman,’ which was no help at all. But then I recalled what I heard from the stage right when we heard the clatter in the storeroom. It was Miss Cullimore singing ‘The Hours Creep on Apace.’ ”

  “Which proves she could not have been your hooded phantom.”

  “Right. But it also proves that, as that is a solo piece, almost anyone else in the company could have been.”

  Birdsong pursed his lips, thinking. “It would take some rather good timing. And how would this person get back in time for his next cue?”

  “I’ve wondered that myself,” Drew said. “Turns out there’s another door from the alley into the theater. It was locked when Nick and I checked, but that doesn’t mean this particular person wasn’t the one who locked it after himself, after he’d gone back inside. Mind you, that doesn’t mean that actually was what happened, but it was at least possible. So Mrs. Landis and Miss Cullimore could not have murdered Zuraw.” He paused for a moment. “No, that’s not right. Mrs. Landis could not have done it. Miss Cullimore could have, though she could not have been our cloaked intruder.”

  “One other thing we know, seeing you’ve mentioned it, is that there’s a second black cloak. The one belonging to Mrs. Landis is still locked up in our evidence room with the two tassels.”

  Drew nodded. “I thought as much. Might I see them? The tassels?”

  “Why?”

  “I would like to compare the two, of course.” He gave the chief inspector his most charming smile. “If I might.”

  Birdsong gave him a stern look and then picked up the telephone. “Baker, bring me that cloak we have for the Landis case and those tassels. Yes, straightaway.”

  A few minutes later, a constable brought them the cloak and a small paper bag containing the tassels that had been found on the bodies. Birdsong emptied them out onto the desk. “Now, let’s give these a look.”

  The two tassels looked identical, except one was tagged DAVIDSON and the other ZURAW.

  Drew frowned. “Notice anything odd about them?”

  “Odd?”

  Drew nodded. “Imagine you’re in a death struggle with someone and you grab at that person’s cloak and catch hold of a tassel. You wrench that tassel hard enough to pull it off. It’s not going to have a neatly cut end, is it?”

  “Shouldn’t have, no.”

  “But look at that one. It looks as if cut with a scissors. As if it were put there to be found. You lot grabbed it up so fast I didn’t have time to think about it much. But if you look at it again, you’ll see what I mean.”

  Birdsong examined the one marked Davidson. “This one’s clearly torn, but this one . . .” He touched the one marked Zuraw with the tip of his pencil. “This one was definitely cut. You have a keen eye, Detective Farthering.”

  “I shouldn’t wonder, Chief Inspector, if the one on Zuraw wasn’t planted there by someone. Now, what about the cloak itself?”

  Birdsong spread it out on the desk, searching for the place where the tassel was missing.

  “This is cut, too,” he said once he’d found the place. “But it can’t be the tassel we found at the Zuraw scene. It’s been locked up here.” He looked over t
he rest of the cloak. “As best I can see, there aren’t any others missing.”

  “Then there’s definitely a duplicate cloak, just as we suspected. And some planning in advance. Do we know where this one came from? It doesn’t much look like something Mrs. Landis would wear, if you ask me. Rather bourgeois, don’t you think?”

  “It came from Lewis’s,” Birdsong said. “They sell them by the dozen.”

  “Mrs. Landis shops at Lewis’s?”

  “It was a gift. Seems all right to me.”

  “A gift? From whom?”

  “From her husband, or so she says. She claims she hated not to wear it, since it was from him and all.”

  Drew pressed his lips together. “Landis, eh?”

  The chief inspector peered at him. “What are you thinking, Detective Farthering?”

  “Nothing that makes me very happy, I’m afraid.”

  Birdsong’s dark eyes narrowed. “You think Landis is up to something?”

  “I don’t see him as the type, no, but I can’t help wondering all the same.”

  “Wondering if he’s involved in all this?”

  “Suppose someone is trying to incriminate Mrs. Landis,” Drew said. “If there were to be duplicate cloaks, someone would have to make sure Mrs. Landis had one and wore it often enough for the cloak to be identified with her, right? What better way to do that than to make a sentimental gift of it?”

  “But why?” Birdsong asked. “What does it benefit Landis?”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet,” Drew admitted. “From all I can tell, he’s perfectly mad about his wife and would be devastated to lose her.”

  “It would seem so,” Birdsong said, “but it has been my experience that there’s many a murderer who can give a subtle performance that would put professional actors to shame.”

  When Drew returned to Farthering Place, he found the Landis car pulled up to the front door and their chauffeur loading several suitcases into the boot. Miss Winston and Peter were coming down the front steps.

  “Miss Winston!” Drew called as he pulled the Rolls up behind the Daimler, and Peter ran up to him.

  “Mr. Drew! Mr. Drew! Mummy’s come back from her trip and we’re going home!”

  “So I’ve heard.” Drew picked him up and then turned again to the nursemaid. “Leaving us already, Miss Winston?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so, Mr. Farthering. Now that Mrs. Landis is home, Mr. Landis feels we ought not impose upon you any longer.”

  “Nonsense. It’s been no imposition in the least. Lovely to have all of you.” Drew tapped the boy’s turned-up nose. “Mr. Chambers hasn’t had so fine a time in ages.”

  Peter looked toward the house. “He’ll forget about me, won’t he? He’ll think I left him and didn’t even tell him goodbye.”

  “No need to say goodbye, Peter,” Drew said, “because you can come back to see Mr. Chambers again sometime.”

  The boy’s expression brightened. “May I, please?”

  “Just as often as you like.”

  “Can he come see me, too?”

  “Well . . .”

  “Now, Peter,” Miss Winston broke in, “you know Mummy doesn’t allow us to have animals in the house.”

  “But Mr. Chambers lives in Mr. Drew’s house.”

  “That’s Mr. Drew’s house and not yours.” Miss Winston reclaimed her charge. “Now tell Mr. Drew goodbye. Daddy and Mummy are waiting for us at home.”

  “We’ll miss you, Peter,” Drew said. “You come see us again, all right?”

  Peter gave him a brilliant smile, a perfect copy of his mother’s. “You betcha.”

  Miss Winston put him into the backseat, and he immediately stood up on it, leaning out the window. “Tell Mr. Chambers I love him and I won’t forget him.”

  “Certainly,” Drew told him. “Not to worry.”

  “Peter,” Miss Winston scolded, “sit down at once! You know you’re not to stand on the seats.”

  Crestfallen, Peter immediately sat.

  “I’m certain he didn’t mean any harm,” Drew said out of his hearing.

  “Oh, I know,” Miss Winston said. “Poor little lamb, he’s very attached to that cat already. He would so love to have a kitten or a puppy of his own to play with, but his mother won’t allow it.”

  “What’s his father say?”

  That soft light came again into her eyes. “I think he would like to have a dog. He says he always had one before he married her, and he still speaks fondly of the last one he had. But she won’t hear of him having another. She says she won’t have pet hair on her furniture and clothes, especially on her black dresses.”

  “What’s your opinion on the matter?” Drew asked.

  “I was raised in an orphans’ home, Mr. Farthering. None of us had pets. I always wished I had one.” She laughed. “Or a dozen. But as you may well imagine, working in other people’s homes, I can never have any of my own.”

  “You never know what the future holds,” Drew said. “Perhaps one day you’ll have a home and family and pets of your own.”

  “And if the sky falls, we shall all catch larks.” She snorted softly and then hurried to the car. “We ought to be off now. Thank you again, Mr. Farthering.”

  She sat down beside Peter, and they both waved goodbye. Madeline came down the front steps just as they disappeared from sight.

  “She’s got it bad and how, as they say in the cinema.” Drew shook his head. “Poor thing. How I would hate it if I knew you belonged to someone else.”

  “Do you suppose Mr. Landis is in the same boat?” Madeline asked, still watching the empty driveway.

  “No, I’d hardly think so. It seems rather obvious to me.”

  There was a sudden wariness in her expression. “Because he’s already got Fleur, is that what you mean?”

  “Well, darling, there is quite a difference. Poor Miss Winston hardly stands a chance by comparison.”

  Her eyes flashed, and he knew he had chosen the wrong words.

  “Not that looks are everything,” Drew said, slipping his arm around her. “Of course they aren’t. But he’s married to Mrs. Landis. It wouldn’t exactly be the decent thing to leave her for someone else, no matter how great her character and personality, eh?”

  “No, I don’t suppose it would,” Madeline said. “No matter how much I dislike Fleur. We don’t have to see her anymore, do we? I mean, she’s out of jail and bound to be cleared before long. I don’t know why you’d have to be involved in the case now.”

  “Well, it isn’t actually solved yet, you know,” he said. “I really ought to—”

  “You really ought to concentrate on our wedding now, don’t you think?” Her eyes flashed again, and then her expression softened and she put one hand up to his cheek. “Don’t you think?”

  He pulled her close and turned his head so his lips were touching her fingertips. “I do, darling.” He kept his eyes fixed on hers. “As difficult as you make it for me to think at all.”

  “Drew,” she breathed, before melting into his arms, her face hidden against his neck. “Are you sure? Are you very, very sure?”

  With a soft laugh he kissed her hair. “Sure of what, darling? Sure that I adore you? Sure that I want to marry you and spend the rest of my life learning everything there is to know about you? Sure there’s no one else in the world so perfectly suited to be mistress of Farthering Place? Yes, I’m very, very sure. I’ve no doubt whatsoever.”

  She giggled and looked up at him through a glimmer of tears. “Muriel was right about you from the start, you know. You’re definitely a smooth talker, and I’d better keep my eyes open.”

  “Good idea, darling. Then you can’t help seeing how much I love you.”

  For a fleeting moment she searched his eyes. “I’m glad you don’t have to be involved in this case anymore, Drew.”

  “Not with Mrs. Landis’s bit of it, at any rate.” He tapped her pouting lips. “Come along now, love. I’m certain Mrs. Devon must be waiting
tea for us.”

  Fourteen

  The following Monday, Drew slipped away from Farthering Place and dropped in at Brent Landis’s office.

  “I have a question for you, Landis.” Drew’s voice was light and pleasant as he made himself comfortable in the chair facing Landis’s desk. “That cloak of your wife’s, where did it come from?”

  Landis looked rather embarrassed. “From Lewis’s. I bought it for Fleur.”

  “I see. Was it for a particular occasion? A birthday or an anniversary?”

  “No. I thought it would be nice to give her something for no particular reason.” His face reddened. “Just because I love her. Surely with Miss Parker and all, you understand.”

  “Oh, yes, of course. But why that? Did she typically shop at Lewis’s?”

  “No, not at all. I was surprised, actually, because she has always been rather particular about where she shops. But I was given to understand that she wanted that cloak especially, so that’s what I got for her. Good heavens, I never expected it would be part of this whole awful affair.”

  “Did Mrs. Landis tell you that was the cloak she wanted?”

  “No, in fact. It was just a gift. Fleur had been a bit down around that time, and I wanted to do something to cheer her up. But I couldn’t think of anything she’d mentioned she wanted. The cloak seemed to please her very much, more than I thought it would.”

  Drew nodded. “You said you were ‘given to understand’ that she wanted that one. Who gave you that understanding?”

  “Miss Winston, actually. We were talking about how difficult it can be at times to choose just the right gift. She said Fleur had had her eye on that particular cloak. I’m not certain why. But if it pleased her, I thought it would be just the thing.”

  Drew considered for a moment. “Have you told the police all this?”

  “Oh, certainly,” Landis said. “It was one of the first things they asked about before Fleur was released—where I bought the cloak, how long ago and all that.”

  “Yes, but did you tell them about your little talk with Miss Winston?”

  Landis shook his head. “I suppose it never occurred to me to mention it. I mean, they know Fleur was, well, out of play when that business manager was killed. All they have to do is figure out who bought another cloak like that one. Well, someone involved in the case, rather. I’m certain there are many of the same sort of cloak about.”