Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman
Page 26
“Colonel Valentine thinks that Teddy had planned to double-cross Baker and do a burglary on his own at Northcombe. The money to be had from the Staunton diamonds alone was stupendous. He’d found a man in London who would do the actual burglary, the man seen walking towards Haversham by both Stafford and Theo Cartwright. Mr. Teddy met him in the village and drove him over to the Northcombe estate on Saturday evening. The colonel thinks that Mr. Teddy planned to meet up with his burglar after the ball to pay him off and collect his haul.
“But Mr. Teddy underestimated Wallace and this Baker fellow. He didn’t make it to the rendezvous at Northcombe at the end of the ball, of course, but Wallace did. Most likely Wallace took the loot from Teddy’s burglar and went up to town to hand it over to Baker. By the way, Colonel Valentine will arrange for Mr. Wallace’s arrest tonight, so we have no need to worry about him skulking around here anymore. That was a horrible moment, Jackson, I am so sorry.”
For the first time since she had come into the room, Mrs. Jackson’s face showed something other than mere polite inquiry. She sat back in her chair and look of supreme self-satisfaction crossed her face. Clementine suspected that everything she had told her about Teddy’s involvement with the Northcombe burglary was confirmation of what Mrs. Jackson had pieced together this evening. What a brain, she thought with admiration.
“I don’t know how you worked it all out, Jackson. I mean, how did you get there?” Clementine leaned forward as if waiting for a word from God.
“I knew Violet had been out in the garden during the ball, m’lady, and Dick had bruised knuckles, afterwards. After my talk with Miss Lucinda I understood something of what had happened that night. But the timing was all off. I couldn’t work out how Mr. Teddy was bound and put into the dray when he was last seen in the rose garden. It was Lady Verity reminiscing about watching the ball from the north pavilion when they were children. The minute she said they could come and go from the rose garden to the service area through a gap in the hedge, everything was quite clear. For the first time I knew how someone could have got Mr. Teddy to the dray without being seen from the terrace. I knew Dick was involved but he had to have had help. Whoever had helped him had killed Mr. Teddy.”
Clementine couldn’t help herself: “Yes, it took two of them, didn’t it? Dick could not have done it alone. He was in a scrape and he went to someone he trusted for help, giving Jim Simkins his opportunity. Poor Jim was desperate, his time was running out, and there would be nobody to look after…” Clementine couldn’t bring herself to finish.
“What will happen to Dick, m’lady?” Clementine was grateful for Mrs. Jackson’s tactful interruption.
“Not much, at the most he’ll be bound over to keep the peace. After all, Jim made a full confession to Colonel Valentine that he hoodwinked Dick.”
“And Mr. Simkins?”
“Jim is terribly ill, so ill we doubt he will live to come to trial. He will stay in his cottage until then and not go to prison in Market Wingley. Lord Montfort will see to that.” Lady Montfort stopped for a moment and Mrs. Jackson saw her look down and away.
“Dr. Carter is arranging for Violet to come to be with her father. He doesn’t have long to live, Jackson. It all ends here.”
They sat silently together for a few minutes. Yes, it all ends here, Mrs. Jackson thought as she saw Lady Montfort’s distress and unhappiness at the unspoken failure of the Talbots to protect a young girl who had worked for them.
“So Lord Haversham didn’t know anything about this at all, m’lady,” Mrs. Jackson said, so that they did not have to linger over the Violet business.
“Nothing! Lord Haversham’s head is always firmly in the clouds.” Lady Montfort laughed and Mrs. Jackson watched her turn and fill two glasses from the decanter on the table next to her. “I know you have a soft spot for amontillado.” Lady Montfort offered her a glass of sherry. “Here is to your very good health, Jackson, and my heartfelt thanks for everything you have so cleverly achieved. Well done!” She raised her glass to her housekeeper.
“Thank you, m’lady. It was nothing at all.” Mrs. Jackson took a small sip of sherry; it warmed her throat as it slid down, such delicious stuff, amontillado. She was barely listening as her ladyship continued.
“Yes, Lord Haversham is in the clear all right; except of course he is in hot water with his father. Silly boy has gone and got himself a job, as he calls it, flying for a friend who makes…”
Mrs. Jackson nodded her head obediently as she acknowledged Lord Haversham’s little ways. She thought perhaps she might pop down to the sunken garden and find Mr. Stafford tomorrow morning. She had a lot to thank him for. Without his prompting she would never have made that trip to London. For the first time, she didn’t feel hesitant about him.
“… Lord Haversham will just have to write and put him off.” Lady Montfort’s voice brought her back to the present. Good Lord, Mrs. Jackson thought as she put down her glass on the side table next to her chair, how on earth could I have forgotten?
“There is just one more thing…” Mrs. Jackson rose to her feet.
“Surely there can’t be!” Lady Montfort exclaimed. “Haven’t we got it all tied up?”
From her pocket Mrs. Jackson took out Mr. Teddy’s silver cigarette case. She opened it and offered it to Lady Montfort. “I’m not quite sure what do with this.”
A perplexed Lady Montfort stared at the cigarette case until she saw what was neatly folded within it. “Oh, really no, it can’t be!” She looked at Mrs. Jackson, who said nothing at all. Lady Montfort burst out laughing. “Ah, I see it is. Well, I know what to do with it. Just take that awful thing downstairs to the furnace and sling it in.”
Read on for a sneak peek of the sequel of Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman
Death Sits Down to Dinner
Available in March
Clementine was turning to smile her appreciation to Hermione when she noticed the footman, who had been in attendance by the door, start in surprise, lean his head toward the paneling of the door, and then swiftly turn and open it. From downstairs there came up to them a cry of such magnitude that Clementine was afterward surprised that no one else had heard it. But Hermione’s guests were clustered, unheeding to the harsh sound of a voice far less musical than that of Lady Ryderwood, around the diminutive soprano standing at the far end of the room. Miss Kingsley, however, leaped to her feet with surprising agility for a woman of her years and pushed the footman away from the door.
“Is that Jenkins?” Hermione cried as she took Clementine by the arm. “What on earth…?” she exclaimed as she pulled her through the open door.
As they started down the stairs to the inner hall, Clementine was immediately aware that Hermione’s elderly butler was leaning against the wall outside the dining room, palms braced to stop himself from falling.
“What is it, Jenkins?” cried his mistress, halfway down the stairs. “Jenkins, what has happened, are you all right?”
But all the poor man could do was wave to the dining room and gasp the words, “The cloth … all over … the bloody … cloth.”
About the Author
TESSA ARLEN, the daughter of a British diplomat, had lived in or visited her parents in Singapore, Berlin, the Persian Gulf, Beijing, Delhi, and Warsaw by the time she was sixteen. She came to the United States in 1980 and worked as an HR recruiter for the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee for the 1984 Olympic Games, where she interviewed her future husband for a job. Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman is Tessa’s first novel. She lives in Bainbridge Island, Washington.
Visit her Web Site at www.tessaarlen.com.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
DEATH OF A DISHONORABLE GENTLEMAN. Copyright © 2014 by Tessa Arlen. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
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Cover design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein
Cover art by Tom Hallman
Cover photographs: house © Matthew Collingwood / Shutterstock.com; flowers © Ruud Morijn Photographer / Shutterstock.com
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Arlen, Tessa.
Death of a dishonorable genteman: a mystery / Tessa Arlen—First edition
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-250-05249-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-5427-7 (e-book)
1. Countesses—Fiction. 2. Great Britain—History—Edward VII, 1901–1910—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3601.R5445D43 2015
813’.6—dc23
2014032395
e-ISBN 9781466854277
First Edition: January 2015