Murder at Blackburn Hall

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Murder at Blackburn Hall Page 14

by Sara Rosett


  As we went in to dinner, I wondered how many typewriters there were in Hadsworth and who had access to them.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I wasn’t aware of what was served for dinner that evening. My mind was too full of the encounter with Pearce and the fact that Anna was Mayhew’s ghostwriter. Thankfully, I was seated next to Lord Holt, who provided a running monologue of his most recent golf games. I only had to murmur an occasional “I see,” or “How interesting.” When we turned, Jasper was on my other side, and he seemed to sense that I couldn’t handle anything more than light conversation. He kept a surface discussion rolling about our acquaintances in London and his time on the golf course.

  I spent most of the evening watching Pearce, who was seated at the other end of the table beside Lady Holt. Pearce, relaxed and smiling, told several stories that caused Lady Holt to laugh. Across the table from him, his wife maintained a quiet conversation with Mr. Busby, and then later with Colonel Shaw, but her gaze continually darted back to her husband.

  When Lady Holt rose and led the ladies into the drawing room, I found myself beside Mrs. Shaw, who struck up a conversation about travel. I wanted to speak to Anna, but Mrs. Shaw launched into a complicated story about her and the colonel’s time in India, their bungalow, and its resident ghost. “She liked to rearrange the table service,” Mrs. Shaw said, “which was a bit difficult when one had guests, but one couldn’t blame the poor woman. Her husband had stabbed her with a dinner knife. It would rather make one want to throw the silver on the floor.”

  Dr. Finch came into the room and made his excuses to Lady Holt. “I’ve had a telephone call and must leave.”

  Anna, who had been talking with Serena, moved to his side. “I’ll come with you.”

  Lady Holt said, “There’s no need for you to leave as well, Anna. We can have the chauffeur bring the motor around and run you home later.”

  “I’d better go with Dad.”

  “No, stay,” said Dr. Finch. “Enjoy yourself.”

  Anna arranged her shawl more securely around her shoulders. “You left your glasses at home on the table by the door. You know you’re better off with me driving. Your distance vision is terrible at night.”

  Dr. Finch didn’t argue. Within a few moments, his motor had been called for, and he and Anna departed. After they left, a servant entered and placed a coffee pot on a table at the back of the room, where cups, cream, and sugar were arranged.

  “Oh, here’s the coffee.” Mrs. Shaw scooted forward on the sofa cushion. “I believe I’ll have some.”

  “Let me.” I stood. “How do you take it?”

  “So kind of you. A dash of cream.”

  I crossed the room, then paused at the edge of the table behind Mrs. Pearce. She poured herself half a cup of coffee, added a heavy dollop of cream, then ducked her head as she stepped out of my way.

  Dr. Finch’s departure must have led the men to cut short their time alone in the dining room because they appeared in the drawing room as I poured coffee for Mrs. Shaw and me. Pearce stepped up to the table as I set down the coffee pot and added cream to Mrs. Shaw’s cup.

  Pearce picked up the coffee pot. “It was a lovely dinner tonight, wasn’t it?”

  Anger set my heart racing and my hands trembling. The teaspoon jangled against the china saucer. “Don’t think you can smooth over what happened and pretend to be a genial country solicitor.”

  Pearce moved smoothly, reaching to replace the coffee. “I can see you have an animosity toward me, Miss Belgrave, but I assure you, I did nothing wrong. You’d be better off channeling your anger into something else. The incident was investigated, and I was found to be blameless.”

  “On the contrary, you were investigated, but there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prove your guilt. That’s why you were allowed to leave London and take up your law practice in this quaint village.”

  Pearce picked up his coffee and gave me what appeared to be a pleasant smile, but it didn’t stretch to his gray eyes, which were the color of sheet metal. “Don’t make trouble. You’ll regret it, I promise you.”

  He ambled away. I turned and caught Mrs. Pearce’s worried gaze fixed on him from across the room. Once Pearce took a seat beside Mr. Busby, Mrs. Pearce’s attention skipped back to me. She studied me, a wrinkle between her eyebrows. Emily Pearce must be one of those sensitive souls who were attuned to atmosphere and could pick up the smallest vibrations of displeasure. I took a second to compose my face into careful social blankness, then I picked up the two cups of coffee.

  I returned to the sofa and handed Mrs. Shaw her coffee. “I’ve heard in India, everyone retreated to the mountains in the summer.”

  Mrs. Shaw sipped her coffee. “Perfect. Thank you. Yes, anyone who could escape to the mountains did so in the summer. It was lovely and cool, and there was the most beautiful lake . . .”

  Mrs. Shaw was happy to chat about India, recounting her memories, which allowed me time to calm down. Even though I’d put on my outward social veneer, my heart pounded and my hands quivered, causing my cup to clink in the saucer. How dare Pearce tell me to forget everything? He’d turned my world upside down. I couldn’t just forget it, but now was not the right moment to dwell on that.

  I forced my thoughts away from Pearce. Lady Holt suggested bridge, and despite my best attempts to avoid it, I found myself at a table with Mr. and Mrs. Pearce. Lady Holt was determined that we should play cards. Zippy attempted to make his excuses and fade out the door, but Lady Holt said, “Nonsense. You have time for bridge. Your friend will wait,” and steered him to her table.

  Mrs. Shaw said she’d sit out because the numbers were uneven, and Lord Holt quickly motioned for Mr. Busby to have a seat at the card table with Lady Holt. “Guests must have priority,” Lord Holt said and retreated to the drinks cabinet.

  At least I was partnered with Jasper. Pearce pointed out several mistakes to Mrs. Pearce, who murmured, “Yes, of course, I should have done that,” in the same tones one would use to ask for the butter to be passed down the table. Jasper wasn’t a competitive sort, but he was a good player and we won most of the tricks.

  While I was shuffling the cards, Mr. Pearce shoved back his chair. “More coffee, my dear?” he asked Mrs. Pearce.

  She didn’t look up from the score sheet. “Um—yes, thank you,” she said in a distracted way.

  Pearce stalked away, carrying Mrs. Pearce’s cup. His own coffee cup was half-full, and he left it on the table. I thought he probably wanted to walk off his frustration with his partner. He returned, set down Mrs. Pearce’s half-full cup of buff-colored coffee with a thump, then jerked his chair into place.

  Near the end of the next hand, the pace of play slowed. It was Pearce’s turn. I’d been concentrating on the cards, and I looked up to see what was taking Pearce so long. His face was flushed as he studied his cards, blinking several times. He pulled at his collar, then turned to a servant who was clearing the coffee. “Bring me a glass of water.”

  The servant departed, and Pearce turned back to the table. “Warm tonight.”

  The temperature of the room seemed fine to me, but I had my back to the open French doors, and a cool breeze wafted across the nape of my neck. When the water arrived, Pearce drank it in a few gulps. Play continued for a few minutes, then Pearce slapped his hand onto the table. Mrs. Pearce, Jasper, and I started at the sudden violent movement. “Got it,” Mr. Pearce said.

  He jerked his hand away, but there was nothing underneath it. We all sat in stunned silence. “There’s another one.” Pearce smacked his hand down again, then he pointed across the table to Jasper. “It’s by your arm, man. Quick, get it.”

  Jasper put his cards on the table facedown. “What do you see?” His voice was a calm counterpoint to Pearce’s strident tone.

  “Bugs . . .” Pearce pulled his collar again. His ruddy complexion was now bright red, and his chest rose and fell as if he’d been sprinting.

  Mrs. Pearce put a hand on his arm. “Don
—”

  He threw her hand off, his gaze darting around the table. “Hurry, get them! Don’t you see? They’re all over the table!” He stood, and his chair toppled. Stepping back, he tripped over the chair leg. He grabbed for the table and caught the edge as he fell.

  The table jumped. Cards slid. Cups fell and splintered, and Pearce collapsed among the china shards.

  Chapter Sixteen

  For a second or two, the room was completely silent except for the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece and the whisper of the wind gusting through the trees outside the open doors. Across the table from me, Mrs. Pearce sat frozen in her chair, the fingers of both hands pressed over her mouth, her gaze fixed on her husband on the floor. At the table beside us, Lady Holt’s expression conveyed disbelief as she surveyed the scattered cards and Pearce’s prone form. Lady Holt seemed to be at a loss. The collapse of a guest isn’t a topic covered in etiquette manuals.

  Serena was the first to move. She left the other table and knelt beside Pearce.

  Mrs. Pearce leaned forward and gripped the edge of our table. “Is it his heart? He has a weak heart.” Emily Pearce’s light green eyes looked enormous as her gaze darted from her husband’s form on the floor to Serena.

  Lord Holt, who’d taken a seat across the room, turned and rested his arm along the back of his chair. “Old boy had too much to drink, did he?”

  “No, that’s not it.” Serena felt for a pulse, pulled open one of Mr. Pearce’s eyelids, then sat back on her heels.

  Lady Holt put her cards down on the table and turned to Zippy. “Send for Dr. Finch.”

  Zippy stood but hesitated as Serena spoke.

  “No, I’m afraid . . .” Serena shot a glance at Mrs. Pearce, who had gone as pale as the china cups we’d been drinking from. I shifted my chair back and stood, which gave me a better view of Pearce.

  I sat down abruptly. He was dead—I knew it from a glance. Pearce’s jaw hung loose, and his form had the lifeless quality of a carcass that an insect leaves behind when it sheds its skin. Mrs. Pearce, her skin paper-white, asked, “He’s gone, isn’t he?”

  Serena stood. “Yes. I’m afraid so, Emily.”

  Mrs. Shaw put down the magazine she’d been looking through and came across the room. She removed her shawl and dropped it around Mrs. Pearce’s shoulders. The shawl draped down on each side of her, the fringe pooling on the scattered playing cards on the table. “Oh dear. Perhaps some brandy for Emily might be in order?” The shawl began to slip, and Mrs. Shaw readjusted it so that it wouldn’t slide.

  Lady Holt blinked. After a second, she said, “Yes, of course.” She motioned for a servant to see to it.

  Serena moved to Colonel Shaw, who was still seated. She bent and spoke a few words in his ear. The colonel’s face didn’t change, but his posture stiffened, and his gaze leaped from Pearce’s body to our table, then to something on the floor.

  I tilted my head so I could see under the table. Colonel Shaw’s attention was fixed on Pearce’s shattered cup. The dregs of coffee had spattered across the rug, leaving dark spots . . . along with something else. I moved the toe of my shoe lightly across a brown stain by my foot, dragging away a small piece of what looked to be a leaf from the liquid soaking into the rug.

  A servant moved forward to right the fallen chair, but Colonel Shaw held out a hand. “Best leave it for now.” Colonel Shaw pushed back his chair. “Lord Holt, I think we should all move into the library. We need to lock this room.” He turned to our table. “Except for Miss Belgrave and Mr. Rimington. I’d like to speak to both of you.”

  My legs felt spongy as Jasper and I walked down the hall to the small sitting room where Colonel Shaw said he’d meet us. I’d never seen someone die. I’d seen a dead body before, but it was shocking to think that only moments before he collapsed, Mr. Pearce had been playing cards beside me. Jasper offered his arm, and I took it, glad for the solid feel of it under my hand. “Did you see anything?” I asked.

  Jasper shook his head as he opened the door and let me precede him into the cold room. “No, but I’m not sure there was much to see.”

  The room was dark, and I made my way through the maze of furniture to a table and switched on a lamp. “There was something—bits of leaves, maybe—in his coffee.”

  “Then you saw more than me.”

  “Some of it splashed under the table and landed by my foot.”

  “Hmm . . . something that produces hallucinations.” Jasper rang for a servant and instructed him to make up the fire and bring tea. I waited, arms crossed, until the servant finished, then I took a seat near the crackling fire. “I’ll pass on the tea.” A tremor raced up my spine as I thought of Pearce’s wide-eyed gaze skittering around. “He was convinced bugs were crawling across the table.”

  As the servant moved to the door, Jasper said to him, “Never mind about the tea. Bring brandy instead.”

  I watched the flames for a few moments, then the door clicked again and the servant returned.

  “Here, drink this.” Jasper handed me a tumbler. I sipped and sputtered, but the drink warmed me from the inside out. Jasper had a matching glass. He sat down on the sofa and took a drink.

  I cradled the tumbler in my hands. “You don’t look rattled at all. In fact, you look like one of those adverts for the new shirts with the collars attached—a coolly debonair chap in evening clothes.”

  “Oh, I’m rattled all right. I’m just good at hiding it.”

  I took another drink, a smaller sip. “Two deaths so close together . . . surely they’re related.”

  “Mayhew and Pearce? Possibly. Did they know each other?”

  “Yes. Pearce was Mayhew’s solicitor.”

  “That’s hardly a reason—”

  “There’s more.” I took another gulp of the brandy, grimaced, then sat forward on the cushion. “I didn’t tell you before because I knew you’d fuss, but I had a quick look around Mayhew’s cottage.” I told Jasper about the state of East Bank Cottage and the inconclusive post mortem.

  “I suppose I should frown and scold, but—”

  “Skip that,” I said. “There’s more important things to concentrate on now.”

  “I agree.” He gazed at the fire. “Since the link between Mayhew and Pearce is a business relationship, I suppose the question is, who would want to kill a solicitor and his client?”

  The side of my leg near the fire felt too warm, and I shifted away from the flames. Both Anna and Dr. Finch had a reason to want Mayhew and Pearce out of the way. But they were both supposedly at Birchwick Farm. Since I’d promised Anna I would keep quiet about what she’d told me tonight, I didn’t say anything about Dr. Finch or Anna to Jasper.

  Jasper settled deeper into his chair. “It sounds as if his coffee was tampered with, so I suppose the main question is, who poured Pearce’s coffee?”

  “He did.”

  “You saw Pearce pour his cup of coffee himself?”

  “Yes, I was right beside him.”

  “Anyone else come around?”

  I stared down into the tumbler. “I don’t think so, no.” I’d been so focused on Pearce’s taunts about channeling my anger away from him that I hadn’t noticed much going on around me, but I didn’t think Pearce would have made those comments if there was a chance of anyone overhearing them.

  “Did you notice who he was around after he got his coffee?”

  “No. I took Mrs. Shaw her cup and sat with her. A few minutes later, Lady Holt suggested bridge, and Pearce brought his cup to our table.”

  “And in the commotion of setting up the tables and taking our places, anyone might have dropped something into his coffee.”

  “But surely he’d have noticed those bits of leaves in his coffee,” I said.

  “Not if they were saturated and had sunk to the bottom of the cup,” Jasper said. “His coffee was right by my elbow, and I didn’t notice anything floating in it. Someone must have made sure the leaves were well-steeped before adding them to Pearce’
s cup.”

  “But how could someone do that?”

  “Probably in their own cup,” Jasper said. “That would be the easiest way. Then when we were setting up for bridge, the person only had to tip the contents of their cup into Pearce’s and make sure it settled before Pearce noticed.”

  “And of everyone at dinner tonight, the three of us had the best opportunity to add something to his coffee—you, me, and Emily Pearce.” I felt queasy. “Which is why the colonel wants to speak with us.”

  “I’m sure you’re right. He’ll give Mrs. Pearce some time to recover before he speaks to her.”

  “What impression did you get of Mrs. Pearce?” I asked.

  “She seems timid.”

  “Yes, not the sort to poison her husband—and in company too.”

  Jasper tapped the edge of his tumbler as he watched the fire. “Although that trick she played early in the game—it was quite bold.”

  The door opened, and Inspector Longly entered with a constable. He nodded to us both. “Good evening. Colonel Shaw has asked that I interview you.” His words were clipped and his manner was formal. “Mr. Rimington, if you’d wait in the next room . . .” Longly held the door open with his left hand.

  Jasper stood. “Of course, Inspector.” Jasper turned so only I could see his face and gave me a warm smile, then he ambled out the door with his tumbler.

  I set my glass down on the side table. I didn’t want anything to cloud my thinking. If Colonel Shaw had already turned to Longly, then Pearce’s death was definitely being treated as a crime. The constable took a seat to one side of the room, and Longly sat down where Jasper had been. “Miss Belgrave, if you could describe what happened this evening . . .” he said as he arranged his notepad on his knee and took out a pencil.

  “We were playing bridge—”

 

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