Murder Most Malicious

by Alyssa Maxwell

  “Nothing,” Nick said with obvious relief. “Looks like . . .” He peered in closer, squinting as Eva had done in the pale light. “Extra tack. Even a few horseshoes.”

  “Supplies were kept here in case anyone threw a shoe or the like during the hunt.” Phoebe next turned to a cupboard in the rear corner. Once again, Nick preceded her and reached for the latch. As before, he hesitated, then stood so his back would block the contents from Eva’s and Phoebe’s view.

  Another disagreeable odor filled the air, dank and moldy. But Eva detected no hint of rotting flesh. Neither did Phoebe, apparently.

  “I’m beginning to believe I was quite wrong about this,” she said.

  “Are you disappointed, my lady?”

  “In a way, yes. Lord Allerton must be found, and given everything we’ve learned so far, this seemed the most likely place to hide a . . . body. I was just so convinced the authorities missed . . . I don’t know . . . something . . .”

  “Let’s keep searching.” Nick headed for the only other door. “Another cupboard, or does this lead into the living quarters?”

  “Yes, that would be the kitchen.” Phoebe went past him and turned the door handle. The door stuck, and she gave it a shove that sent it swinging open to bang against the inside wall. Eva jumped at the sound, then peered into a smaller room fitted out with a fireplace, a coal stove, an old-fashioned sink with a water pump, and cupboards ranged above the work counter.

  Nick followed her in and began opening cupboard doors. Remembering Phoebe’s comment about the assailant perhaps having not stopped with merely severing Lord Allerton’s fingers, Eva found herself holding her breath again with each creaking door that opened.

  “Nothing but dust and mold,” Phoebe griped minutes later. They had gone through the third room that had served as both parlor and bedroom for the gamekeeper.

  “I suppose there’s nothing left but to go.” Eva started toward the door through which they had originally entered, but stopped when she realized Lady Phoebe hadn’t moved to follow. Instead she stood staring up at the ceiling, an odd expression on her face. “My lady?”

  “We need a ladder,” she said, still gazing upward. Eva followed her line of sight and gasped.

  “The attic!”

  “Indeed.” Lady Phoebe finally dragged her gaze away from the square trapdoor cut into the ceiling. “We’ll need a ladder. . . .”

  “Hang a ladder.” Quickly Nick grabbed the nearest crate and set it on the floor directly beneath the trapdoor. As he reached for another, both Eva and Phoebe each bent to lift two more. Soon they had fashioned a makeshift ladder. “I’ll go up.”

  “Do be careful, Mr. Hensley.” Phoebe stood watching with hands clasped, her brow furrowed. “I know this is it. I know it is.”

  Eva moved to hold the crates steady as Nick climbed until he was able to press his palms against the trapdoor. It gave easily enough, and he slid it to one side of the attic floor before maneuvering himself higher, until his head and shoulders disappeared through the opening.

  “What do you see?” Phoebe bounced on the balls of her feet.

  With one hand fisted against her mouth, Eva watched with rather more apprehension, not at all certain she wished to know what sight might be confronting Nick at this very moment. The seconds seemed to drag on unendurably. . . .

  “It’s quite dark. . . .” His voice emerged from above, echoing hollowly against the rafters. “But . . .” He pulled himself higher, until only his legs dangled into the storage room. Finally, he said, “There is nothing up here, my lady. Nothing at all.”

  “But . . .” Phoebe seemed to lose inches from her stature. “I was so sure . . .”

  Eva put an arm across her shoulders. “Come, my lady, let’s start back. It was a good hunch, and if nothing else we did rule out the cottage altogether. Now we need never wonder if Inspector Perkins might have missed something.”

  Phoebe allowed Eva to guide her back outside. She kept her eyes on the ground and continually shook her head with a baffled expression. “It doesn’t make sense. The footprints leaving the house are deeper than those returning, and I believe that to be significant to Lord Allerton’s disappearance.”

  “It may yet prove significant, my lady.” Nick gazed off through the trees as they returned to the trail. “Perhaps he’s lying somewhere in the woods.”

  “If that’s the case,” Eva said, “it could take weeks or even months to find him.”

  “Unless the inspector were to expand his search party and—”

  Eva stiffened at the sound that cut Phoebe’s words short. It was a snap unlike that of the trees bending to the weight of the snow or protesting the push of the wind. More like underbrush being stepped upon. An animal? She hoped so. Nick tensed, his face raised. His eyes glittered in concentration. Phoebe inched closer to Eva and slipped a hand into hers.

  They listened another several moments, but the sound didn’t come again.

  “Did we imagine it?” Phoebe whispered.

  “We must have. Or it was a deer, perhaps.” But Eva’s heart hadn’t stopped its staccato rhythm.

  Nick remained unmoving and cast wary glances into the shadows beneath the trees. “Let’s get back.”

  “Yes, let’s.” Phoebe released Eva’s hand. Her stride lengthened, taking her several paces ahead of Eva and Nick. Where a fallen branch blocked the path, Phoebe stepped nimbly over it. Nick offered his arm to assist Eva over.

  He did not release her once they safely reached the other side. Instead he placed his hand over her own where it rested in the crook of his elbow. Eva found herself smiling. Even through their gloves, she liked the sensation of her hand nestled beneath Nick’s larger, sturdier one.

  Phoebe stood with her ear to her bedroom door, listening. Her room lay in darkness but for a thin band of moonlight falling through a gap in the curtains. The silence from the corridor persuaded her to turn the knob and soundlessly open the door. She stepped lightly onto the hall runner and paused, again pricking her ears. Only the steady tick of the grandfather clock echoing from the Great Hall disturbed the midnight hush. She set her feet in motion, finding her way by memory in the gloom.

  Even through the rug and her slippers, the marble floors breathed their chill into her feet. She hugged her wrapper tighter about her as she reached the gallery, bathed in moonlight shining through the clerestory windows high above the front doors. Rather than comforting, the glare made her feel exposed and she hurried across, passing the open door of the darkened billiard room and seeking the guest wing of the house. Once there, she counted off the doors and slowed as she came to the bedroom Henry had inhabited.

  She listened again for signs that anyone might be awake, and scanned beneath each nearby door for telltale signs of lamplight inside. By all appearances their guests were deep in slumber. Still, one never knew and she dared not take too long in her errand. Would she find the evidence Henry had claimed to hold over Julia? Or better still, would she discover proof of Henry’s manipulation of war bonds? Victory Bonds, England had called them, yet these particular ones sounded as if they had brought victory to no one—not those who had invested their savings in “the cause,” and certainly not Henry, wherever he lay.

  She would have liked to conduct this search sooner, but with the inspector’s men constantly underfoot she’d had no choice but to wait for her opportunity. Had Julia already been here?

  She and Theo had acknowledged a need to destroy evidence. Yet it wasn’t Julia’s style to go snooping about. Instead, she tended to keep her nose in the air and ignore situations until they erupted in front of her, whereupon she relied on her considerable skills to talk her way out of any difficulty. She could envision Julia doing just that no matter what evidence ultimately surfaced. Beyond a doubt, whatever it was, she would have Grampapa believing the exact opposite of the truth before the day was out.

  Phoebe steeled herself before wrapping both hands around the doorknob. With the utmost care not to make a sound, sh
e turned the knob and paused again before pushing inward. Despite her bravado in the forest today, snooping came no more easily to her than to Julia, though perhaps for different reasons.

  Holding her breath, she opened the door, then instantly pulled it closed again but for an inch. A gasp pushed its way to her lips, but she found the presence of mind to clamp them shut. Across Henry’s room, in a small circle of light cast by a kerosene lantern, Lord Owen sat at the desk with his back to her. She recognized him by his height, the lines of his shoulders, his tapering torso clothed only in a shirt and waistcoat. Just beyond his elbow angled the lid of what appeared to be a travel desk, Henry’s no doubt, open upon its hinges. The sound of fluttering pages sifted through the air. Even if she hadn’t recognized Lord Owen by sight, she would have known him by how nimbly he rifled through whatever items inhabited the portable desk. Theo, with his debilitated hands, could not have pored through so quickly and quietly.

  She started to back away, but the fluttering abruptly stopped. Lord Owen held something up to the light. Phoebe strained her eyes to see, but Owen’s shoulder blocked whatever it was. His chin turned until the light gilded his strong profile. She tensed, inched backward, but then he turned his head back to his task. He slid whatever he held into his waistcoat. Her curiosity burgeoned, but with no options available other than to reveal herself, she started to back away. Suddenly something on the floor winked a glimmer of light into her eye.

  Acting on instinct, she crouched, widened the door, and slipped her arm through the gap. Her fingers closed tight around a tiny object. Her heart thundering in her ears, she pulled her arm back through, scooted backward, and used the wainscoting beside her to pull to her feet.

  Dare she close the door again? Her instincts told her no, at least not all the way. He might hear the click. Better to retreat at once and let Lord Owen believe what he will. As long as he didn’t see her. But what was he doing there, and what had he found?

  And what had she found?

  Turning, she raced on tiptoe back down the corridor, only to nearly barrel straight into Julia, who appeared before her like a ghost in a fluttering cloud of pale nightgown and wrapper.

  “Oh!”

  “Gracious!”

  “Shhhh!” Phoebe snatched her sister’s hand and pulled her along as she darted across the gallery. Julia tugged, tried to dig in her heels, but Phoebe kept on, determined to drag Julia if she must. They reached Julia’s room and with a firm grip still on her hand, Phoebe dodged inside and shut the door behind them.

  Once released, Julia stood with her arms folded and her eyes a dark glitter against her translucent skin. “What in heaven’s name was that about?”

  “I could ask you the same. You were headed to Henry’s room, weren’t you?”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. What were you doing in that part of the house?”

  “Oh, Julia, what else could you have been intending?” Phoebe blew out a breath and stepped up onto the platform that held Julia’s four-poster. She perched on the edge. A sigh drained a portion of the tension from her limbs. “I was about to slip into Henry’s room. He has yet to be found, and we have yet to discover any reason why someone would wish to harm him. And no, I refuse to believe Vernon is guilty, or if he is,” she quickly added when Julia’s lips parted, “I don’t believe the authorities have sufficient evidence to prove it. A man’s life must not hinge on such flimsy reasoning. But as far as that goes, Inspector Perkins has treated the entire matter with kid gloves. It’s far easier to accuse a servant than find fault in a nobleman.”

  “That nobleman being Henry?”

  “Among others. You yourself enlightened me to Henry’s double-dealings.” Phoebe raised an eyebrow in challenge. “It follows that whoever is responsible for his disappearance is somehow connected to those double-dealings.”

  Julia’s chin rose to a haughty angle, as if she found the entire matter amusing. “And so did you discover anything useful?”

  Phoebe opened her hand. She hadn’t had time to identify the item plucked from Henry’s floor. A dark glimmer winked from the center of her palm.

  Julia gasped. “Is that blood?”

  Phoebe shook her head. “No, it appears to be one of Henry’s shirt studs.” She met her sister’s gaze. “The ones he was wearing Christmas night. Do you suppose he lost it in a struggle?”

  Julia dismissed the notion with a wave. “Henry wasn’t the tidiest of men. He probably merely dropped it while removing his shirt. What else did you find?”

  “Nothing. I never actually went inside.”

  “Why ever not? Lose your nerve, did you? I never thought you had it in you to be cunning.”

  “As you are cunning, Julia?” Phoebe closed her fist around the garnet stud. Julia was probably correct, but even if Henry had lost it in a struggle, the stud brought her no closer to identifying the assailant. “Never mind, you needn’t answer that. You’re probably right, except in this case I didn’t lose my nerve. I lost my opportunity. Someone beat me to it.”

  Julia’s golden eyebrows pulled inward, and she stepped up to sit beside Phoebe on the bed. “Who?”

  She hesitated. How much did she wish to confide in her sister? The memory of how quickly Lord Owen had left Phoebe’s side in the morning room to join Julia—to kiss her hand—sparked an ember of envy, but of caution as well. Just how chummy were they? Would Julia run to Lord Owen the moment Phoebe left her?

  “Come now, Phoebe, you know what’s at stake for me.”

  “Do I?” She studied Julia’s even features, the perfect bow of her lips, the smooth slant of her nose. In the pale nightgown and matching robe, and with her hair hanging in a gleaming flaxen braid over one shoulder, she seemed much younger, even fragile, a mere wraith beneath the steely mask she showed the world. Only her eyes belied that image, with their depths of knowledge and guile and pride. “You’ve told me precious little,” Phoebe said. “Perhaps if you were more forthcoming I’d know if I could trust you. You obviously don’t trust me.”

  Julia sprang up from the bed. “I’ve had quite enough games for one night. You should go.”

  “Julia, sit down.” Phoebe made a snap decision based on very little besides the realization that revealing the identity of the man who presently occupied Henry’s room might produce an enlightening reaction.

  Julia returned to sit beside her, though with obvious reluctance. “Well?”

  “I discovered Lord Owen in Henry’s room just now, going through his desk.”

  “Lord Owen?” Julia blinked, shook her head, and wrinkled her nose. Though an accomplished actress when she wished to be, she seemed nonetheless genuinely taken aback. “How odd. Very odd, indeed.”

  “Has he said anything about Henry to you?”

  “No, nothing other than to express sympathy for Henry’s likely fate.” She stared into the dim outlines of the room’s furnishings, hand-painted and painstakingly carved in Italy. “Lord Owen . . . hmm. This is puzzling. He’s always been such a gentleman. Not like Henry at all. And with his war service, he certainly doesn’t seem like a man who would . . .”

  “Destroy a woman’s reputation?” Julia looked alarmed, but Phoebe went on. “How much do we really know about him? He might be trying to help, looking for something to link Henry to whoever attacked him.”

  “What if he’s looking for evidence that ties himself to Henry?”

  “Such as Henry’s scheme with the war bonds?” Yes, that had certainly occurred to Phoebe. What had he slid into his waistcoat?

  Julia nodded slowly. “What if Lord Owen is responsible for what happened to Henry?”

  CHAPTER 12

  Eva rose earlier than usual Sunday morning and hurried below stairs to see how she could help with the morning chores. The family had decided against going to church in the village, and that left her with more time to offer her assistance to the other staff. Upon reaching the servants’ corridor, however, she stepped into a maelstrom of anger.

  “Where is that gi
rl?” Mrs. Sanders gripped Connie’s bucket of cleaning tools in one hand, while with the other she batted a feather duster at the air. Tiny particles flitted about her head like gnats on a humid summer’s day.

  Eva hurried down the remaining stairs. “Mrs. Sanders, is Connie missing?”

  “Missing? Sleeping is more like it, the lazy hussy.”

  “Mrs. Sanders—”

  “The table isn’t set in the servants’ hall, the linens are still stacked where the laundress left them, and the hot-water heaters haven’t been turned on anywhere in the house. I just sent Dora up to drag the girl out of bed by her ankles. As if we can spare anyone down here for even a minute.” Mrs. Sanders stalked to the stairs and plunked the pail on the bottom step. She thrust the duster in and gave the pail a kick with the toe of her lace-up boot for good measure.

  “I’ll lay the table.” Eva made short work of the task, throwing on a cloth and not worrying overly much about how neatly she placed the napkins and silverware.

  “Let me help you with that.” Nick entered with a spring in his step and began straightening Eva’s haphazard place settings. He whistled a few notes of “Keep the Home Fires Burning.”

  “You seem cheerful this morning.”

  “I am, Evie.” He straightened and beamed at her. “Lord Owen called for me last night. He’s offered me temporary employment as his valet. His own died in France, you know, of the influenza.”

  “No, I didn’t know.”

  “Yes, well, if things work out, the position could become permanent. My troubles could be over.”

  “I’m so glad. But . . . there’s a bit of a problem below stairs this morning. Would you mind finishing up in here—I hate to ask it of you—”

  “Say no more, Evie.” He circled the table and crouched to stoke the fire in the hearth.

  Eva hurried down the corridor to the service entrance, to the row of pegs holding the servants’ winter cloaks. One peg poked nakedly out from the wall, creating a gap in the draping wool garments. Someone had gone outside. A hunch had her reaching for the next convenient cloak, which she swung around her shoulders on her way out the door.