Murder at the Car Rally

by Sonia Parin

  The detective shifted, then he surprised Evie by saying, “My apologies for my earlier behavior, Lady Woodridge. I’m afraid this case has me on edge. So far, there haven’t been any solid leads and I feel you are all being put at risk.”

  “That’s why we should join forces, detective. The sooner we have this sorted out, the sooner I can return to Halton House.” She hoped he wouldn’t let pride stand in his way.

  “While you two discuss your differences,” Tom said, “I’ll see if I can find something in the cars. If you would hold the lamp closer, please…”

  Evie smiled at the detective. “Yes, I think we can set aside our differences for the sake of our common goal.”

  The detective nodded. “Agreed.”

  “I’ll… I’ll just stand by and act as official holder of the lamp,” Evie suggested.

  “Here’s something.” Tom drew out a parcel from one of the trunks.

  The detective had a look at it and then proceeded to unwrap it. “It’s a thick layer of fabric wrapped around a package of cocaine.”

  “Whose vehicle is it?” Evie asked unable to identify it because it had been covered against the rain.

  The detective cleared his throat. “Mr. Winchester’s. I’d say someone wanted to incriminate you both.”

  “Thank you for not jumping to conclusions, detective. Is there any way you can get fingerprints from the package?”

  “We’ll have to wait until tomorrow. With any luck, we might be able to find something. Not that I see it will do us much good since I doubt the perpetrator’s fingerprints will be on file.”

  Could Caro really have overheard the person responsible for distributing the cocaine packages? But why would they put a parcel in Tom’s motor car?

  “Oh…”

  The detective and Tom turned toward Evie.

  “I’m sorry. Something just fell into place.” As she told them about Caro’s observations, she tried to join the dots. Had the parcel been placed in the trunk by the same person who’d tampered with their tire? Why? “Detective. I take my hat off. You deal with devious minds every day. How do you ever manage it?” Another thought struck. “Is the parcel addressed?”

  “Hold the lamp closer, please.” The detective brushed his hand across his chin. “Portsmouth.”

  “Phillipa said she received instructions to deliver the parcel,” Evie remarked.

  “This one doesn’t have instructions.” Tom shrugged. “It’s possible they intended taking it back once we reached Portsmouth.”

  Evie gritted her teeth. “Our collaboration has been enlisted by stealth. If this gets back to the dowagers, I shall never hear the end of it.”

  Tom gave her a pat on the shoulder. “You can put out that fire by using your leverage.”

  Evie could never confront the dowagers. She didn’t have it in her to make a fuss about a few pieces of furniture being removed from the house.

  The detective shook his head. “Is this something I need to know about?”

  “You already have too much on your plate, detective,” Evie assured him. “This is only a small domestic matter.” Although, if any of this business became public, Evie suspected her reputation would suffer without any hope of ever being repaired. “I only need to make sure I do not become the notorious Countess of Woodridge.” Turning her attention back to the parcel, she asked, “What shall we do with this?”

  “I suggest putting it back for now. I will keep an eye on the motor car tonight. Luck is on my side. My room has a corner window which faces the stables.” The detective placed the parcel where they had found it and guided them back inside the house.

  Evie returned to the drawing room making a show of holding the handkerchief to her nose to justify her absence.

  A while later, Tom and the detective appeared, both talking about the game of billiards they’d supposedly played.

  “Have I missed anything?” Evie asked as she took her seat next to Caro.

  Caro nodded. “I have been following your instructions and studying the car rally group. Having conversed with all of them, I have found it quite interesting to now see how they behave. For instance, when I spoke with Unique, she came across as being quite lively. But I have observed a different side to her. She appears to fall into quiet introspection. Something must be weighing on her mind because a wedge appears between her eyes. Anyhow, the moment someone approaches her, she lights up and becomes vivacious.”

  Evie’s eyebrows curved. She would call that a public mask but Caro seemed to be entertaining a different idea. “And what do you make of all that?”

  “I believe her true nature is on display when she is quiet. The rest of the time, she appears to adopt a different personality.”

  “Don’t we all do that?” Phillipa asked.

  “Cousin Evangeline doesn’t. I have always felt she wears her heart on her sleeve.”

  Smiling, Evie thought for someone who had struggled to accept Tom Winchester, the chauffeur, stepping into the shoes of Mr. Tom Winchester, self-made oilman, Caro appeared to have made an easy transition from maid to cousin, twice removed…

  She had only recently lost her chauffeur. Had she now lost her maid too?

  Chapter Twenty

  The heir and a spare

  “If you insist on talking about the case, all I have to say is that you’re the only person to have left the drawing room,” Caro observed. “You set off a wave of murmured remarks. I’m sure they were only expressing their concern and heartfelt wish you did not come down with a serious illness.”

  Or, Evie thought, they might have panicked.

  “Also,” Caro added, “if there is a killer among us, I doubt they’ll do anything tonight. Everyone is engaged in one form of entertainment or other.”

  “Killer? Who said anything about a killer?” Evie tried to sound mystified.

  “Cousin Evangeline, you seem to think me slow-witted.” Caro stifled a yawn and only succeeded in setting them all off. “It seems no one wishes to retire. It is well past my bedtime. I suppose everyone keeps gentleman hours, rising at ten if not later.”

  “Don’t look at me,” Phillipa laughed. “Born and bred in the middle of nowhere, I had to get up at the crack of dawn and help milk the cows.”

  “Didn’t you have servants to do that?” Caro asked.

  “We did, but my parents wanted to keep us honest and learn to appreciate our advantages. I’m not really complaining. Once, my motor car broke down between villages and I had the skills to help myself to some milk.”

  They both turned to Evie who had been busy taking mental notes of everyone’s behavior.

  “Cousin Evangeline. Do you have any tales of hardship growing up that I don’t know about because we’re cousins twice removed and have only now discovered each other?”

  Hardship?

  For her fifth birthday, her father, who had made most of his wealth in the railways, had engaged an engineer to build Evie a functioning model railway big enough for her to sit on. Yes, she’d been pampered and, some would say, spoiled.

  Evie engaged her creativity and said, “One summer, I had to fish for my supper.” She made a point of leaving out the part about it being a game. Although, the rules had been strict. Everyone who caught fish then had to sell it, which had been a task and a half since all the neighbors had been as rich as Croesus and their French cooks had been too snooty to purchase fish from the local silver spoon riff raff.

  Evie tuned out and glanced around the drawing room. Sir Richard had once again retired early. As had the detective who’d wanted to keep an eye on the stable yard from his window. She couldn’t see anyone making a move to call it a day.

  Batty and Charlie had invited a couple of others to play cards.

  Unique, Marjorie and Lark had procured some pencils and paper and were drawing portraits of each other.

  The others sat around the piano listening to Edward Spencer tinkling with the piano keys. Evie watched the play of light on his ginger hair and wondered
if she should make a special trip to a Parisian salon.

  Feeling she needed to make more of an effort, she said, “Yes, I do insist on talking about the case because it needs to be resolved. We have physical evidence of trafficking.” Now, they needed a motive for murder. Mostly, they needed suspects.

  Evie searched for Tom and found him talking with Lord Alexander Saunders.

  It took her a few moments to catch Tom’s attention. But when she did, he excused himself and crossed the room.

  “Have you had a spark of an idea?” he asked.

  “I might have. Correct me if I’m wrong, but we seem to be under the impression someone placed the parcel in your trunk the night before we left Halton House. What if we’re wrong and someone wanted to dispose of evidence without necessarily getting rid of it? They might have put the parcel in your car today.”

  “You might be onto something there. I brought out the luggage and didn’t see anything. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.”

  Once again, Evie felt they were playing a waiting game.

  Lowering her voice, she said, “I know we should wait for the detective to read the police report, but what if the parcel of cocaine found in Lorenzo’s car is different to the others? What will that mean? Had he been in competition with someone else?”

  Tom shrugged. “It might mean he worked for someone else or he wanted to take over someone else’s territory.”

  “Is that how it works in the trafficking world?”

  “I probably know as much as you do about the subject.”

  “Phillipa.” Evie leaned forward and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Can you think hard about this. You might have seen someone hovering around the vehicles or, like Caro, you might have overheard a conversation that didn’t quite make sense at the time.”

  “At the risk of coming across as flighty and indifferent, I can’t say that I ever noticed anything odd about anyone.”

  They all lifted their eyebrows.

  Phillipa added, “Odd as in, out of the ordinary behavior for them.”

  “What about anyone missing from the group for any length of time?” Evie asked. At some point, they would have to stock up on the cocaine parcels. How did they gain access to their supply?

  “It’s hard to say.” Phillipa shrugged. “Even when we’re traveling together, there’s always someone bringing up the rear. Sometimes, they fall behind or… they lose sight of the motor car ahead of them and end up taking a wrong turn.”

  “Yes? Can you think of a specific instance when that happened?”

  “I wish I could but no one really pays much attention to what’s going on. I’m sure they didn’t notice me missing until someone needed to ask me something. I have no trouble picturing someone turning to ask me a question only to realize I wasn’t there. It might have taken them a couple of days to decide to do something about it.”

  They all fell silent. The parcel’s intended destination had been Portsmouth. So, the person responsible for putting it in Tom’s vehicle had probably assumed Evie would continue on with the car rally group.

  Evie had already told Charlie and Batty she would be returning to Halton House.

  That put them in the clear. Unless they wanted the cocaine parcel to be taken to safety back to Halton House…

  What if someone wanted them to take the parcel to Portsmouth because they didn’t want to risk doing it themselves? That would narrow the list of suspects to anyone who didn’t know Evie had planned to return to Halton House.

  Everyone except Charlie and Batty.

  They were once again in the clear.

  “If I wanted to throw people off my trail, what would I do?”

  “Fade into the background,” Phillipa suggested.

  “Or,” Caro said, “take center stage. Become the life of the party.”

  Evie had actually been thinking more along the lines of actually doing something…

  Caro clicked her fingers in front of Evie’s eyes. “Are you still with us?”

  “Yes, I lost myself in thought.” Charlie and Batty both knew of her plans to return to Halton House. By placing the parcels in Tom’s motor car, they would think no one would suspect them.

  Now they were back on the list of suspects. Perhaps they intended collecting their parcel after their trip to Portsmouth…

  No, that didn’t make sense.

  “Now you look confused,” Caro said.

  Evie wondered if they should let everyone know they were not continuing on with the car rally. It might serve as a prompt to remove the parcel from Tom’s vehicle and then the detective would have someone to interrogate.

  Nodding, Evie leaned forward and whispered, “Listen up, everyone. I have a plan.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Spread the word

  “I think we should have consulted with the detective before letting everyone know of your plans to abandon the car rally,” Tom mused. “And… I’m not really sure I understand your reasoning.”

  “It’s simple. If someone other than Charlie or Batty tries to retrieve the parcel because they now know we are not going to Portsmouth, then I can finally cross Charlie and Batty off the list. It will be a small step but, considering how much time I have spent including them in the list and taking them off, it will, in fact, be a significant step forward.”

  Caro and Phillipa had moved from one group to the other and had woven the news into the conversations.

  Within minutes, the car rally group had, one by one, excused themselves and left the drawing room.

  “Does that mean they are all guilty?” Caro asked.

  “We’ll find out soon enough.”

  Once they had all left, Evie and Tom made their way to the library to take up their vigil at a corner window. If they leaned out far enough, they could see the stable yard.

  “I’m getting a stiff neck,” Evie complained.

  “Is that my cue to take over from you?”

  Evie moved away from her position at the window and flopped down on a chair. “I have abandoned my post. That’s your cue.” She glanced over at the clock. Nearly midnight.

  Tom said, “So far, no one appears to have acted on our open invitation to give themselves away.”

  Evie laughed. “We were rather blunt about it. In hindsight, if I were driven by selfish reasons, I would try to delay the investigation for at least five days.”

  “Five days,” Tom murmured and then laughed. “I see. You’re hoping to be forced to stay here until Isabel’s family arrive.”

  Evie stifled a yawn. “Does that make me devious and selfish?”

  “It makes you a survivor.”

  She’d been that for quite a while, but not in the way the average person would think. Instead of navigating the difficulties that daily life could bring for some, she had to navigate the complexities of a society she sometimes still struggled to understand.

  “Earlier, I made up a story about the hardship of having to fish for my supper. In reality, I am one of the lucky few, brought up without a care in the world. Yet, my father always tried to educate us in the ways of the world.” Evie laughed under her breath. “He used the most creative ways to make us understand the value of a coin. Also, while I enjoyed a luxurious life, my father also encouraged me to run around barefoot and swim in the lake.”

  “Are you trying to illustrate a point or are you making light conversation?”

  “Both, and I’m trying to keep myself awake. I suppose my point is that, if I had to, I would be able to increase my wealth or at least ensure it is not significantly diminished. From a young age, we were equipped with the necessary skills. It’s not something I really need to concern myself with as I am fortunate enough to have a brother I can trust to look after my interests. But not everyone can say that. We know Batty will inherit an estate on its last legs. We also know he has found creative ways to earn a living.”

  “I thought you had cleared him of all wrong doing.”

  “It’s not exa
ctly my place to do so. In any case, that would be a mistake. He might be a master of disguise, pretending to be hard up when all along he is the head of some sort of trafficking consortium.”

  “Guilty until proven innocent?”

  “Yes, I believe your habit of assuming the worst about people has rubbed off on me.” Evie straightened. “He does have the strongest motive to become involved in the trafficking of drugs and I doubt he would be satisfied with earning a small fee for delivering parcels.”

  “Now you think he’s the mastermind?”

  “He could be. But would he be capable of killing his competition? Assuming Lorenzo had been working for himself or another band of misfits, he would have posed a threat to Batty’s operation. Then, there’s Charlie. He is such a jolly character, no one would suspect him of carrying out nefarious activities. What do we know about his family background?” Evie surged to her feet and went in search of the ‘Stud Book’. She found a copy of Burke’s Peerage in a prominent shelf.

  “A bit late in the day to be doing some reading,” Tom murmured.

  “If Henrietta had been here, I would not have to use this. She knows everyone who is anyone.” Evie waved the book. “It lists all peers and their descendants.”

  “Who will be the lucky first?” Tom asked, his tone conveying a hint of amusement.

  “Lord Braithwaite, Charlie to his friends. I believe his joyful manner makes him the least likely suspect.” After a lengthy search, she said, “It would appear we were wrong about Charlie being a first-born son. Actually, I can’t remember if we even made that assumption.”

  “Dare I ask?”

  “His father is the Duke of Linsborne and the family name is Braithwaite. Charlie goes by the name Lord Braithwaite which makes him a second son because the first son uses his father’s secondary title of Marquess of Tiltham.”

  She heard Tom push out a breath.

  “I know, it can be somewhat confusing. You should have been around when I first set foot in an English drawing room. I refused to speak to anyone in case I got the title wrong. My mother hired a Baron’s daughter to act as my guide into society but I believe she played a few tricks on me. It didn’t take me long to realize there can be nothing more terrifying than addressing a duke as ‘my lord’ when a social inferior should address him as ‘your grace’.”