Alkmene shivered. It was a terrible thought.
Jake continued, ‘And now all the suspects are here again. If they sense we are digging into that murder of old, the killer might get antsy and try to stop us.’
He held her gaze. ‘From now on we will have to be extra careful. Or the next funeral to be held here could be yours or mine.’
Chapter Sixteen
Returning to the estate with her stomach full of pie and her head full of disturbing thoughts about funerals, Alkmene walked in through the front door and went up the broad steps.
She threw a quick glance at the hunting rifles with their polished holds, hanging sedately, waiting for the coming season.
In the corridor upstairs she stood a moment, thinking about places where one might hide a fortune in stones. Since the police had not bothered to search the house for them, they could be in a simple place like in someone’s wardrobe or stuffed into a mattress. After all, nobody had tried to find out if one of the family members was the killer for the sake of the stones.
Alkmene was already on her way to her own room, when she changed her mind and went to the door that led into Lady Winters’ boudoir. After knocking, she waited ’til the clear voice called, ‘Enter.’
Helena sat at her dressing table, brushing her long dark hair. The brush in her hand was an expensive one of special hair, which Alkmene had seen recommended for ladies who demanded the highest standards of their hair care.
Helena looked at Alkmene in the mirror, surprised at her sudden appearance in her domain.
Alkmene had noticed as a child that if two people looked in a mirror, the face of the other one was always a little distorted, so it did not surprise her that Lady Winters’ face was distorted as well, from her point of view. What did disturb her was that a face that was normally so beautiful and perfect became almost frightening due to a little distortion. It was suddenly darker, more intense, hiding passions that could rage and…
But no, she was getting carried away by Jake’s warning and the thoughts that crowded her own mind as to how they could ever prove any guilt in this case. In the two cases actually. Her aunt’s death in faraway India, and Lord Winters’ death more recently, a murder committed in this house, so tangible in one way, so out of reach in another.
‘Yes?’ Helena asked in an impatient tone. She turned round on the stool she sat on, and now her face was normal again, placid and pleasant. The bruises on her wrist were getting lighter again.
Alkmene smiled. ‘I just wanted to ask if you are all right. I do hope your husband has not bothered you again about the letters that were left in the boxes in the blue room.’
Helena shook her head abruptly. ‘The matter is dealt with. I would appreciate it if you would speak no more of it.’
It was odd that someone would come to your bedroom at night, confide in you, share some very personal things and then later say they would not speak of it again. Jake had suggested Helena’s visit that night had served a deeper purpose. That she had some plan with everything she did. Acting aloof, or suddenly inspiring confidence. What could that plan be?
Alkmene came two steps closer, her eyes on the many flasks and bottles on the dressing table. The fired gardener had suggested Helena was addicted to laudanum or other sedatives. What was inside of all those bottles?
In the corner of the dressing table, leaning against the large round mirror over it, was a statuette of a tiger with a monkey on its back. It was crude workmanship, painted in garish colours. A cheap trinket rather than an ornament fit for a lady.
Besides, Anne had suggested to her that Helena disliked animals. Why have such a statuette on her dressing table?
Alkmene nodded at it. ‘Is that from India?’
Helena looked as if she had just noticed the object for the first time. ‘Oh, yes, indeed.’ Her voice was tight. ‘It is just some souvenir I bought once at a local market.’
Alkmene hitched a brow. Everything in this room bore witness to good taste, to a careful selection of matching items. And then this was just a trinket, purchased and then put in place without thinking? Kept because it had been bought?
Why not put it in some drawer and ignore it?
Helena said, ‘I am not feeling very well. I wanted to lie down a bit and sleep.’
In other words, leave me alone.
Alkmene said, ‘Yesterday during the reception I talked to a woman who has also lived in India. She knew my aunt there and told me about her. I was very grateful to learn some more about her. You must understand that I was only four years old when my mother died and I have always wanted to know more about her family. You must have known my aunt quite well as you often came to the house in India. How did you really like her?’
Helena rested the brush on her knee. She seemed to consider the question in earnest instead of dismissing it at once. ‘I was never very close to her. As I explained to you before, there were rumours, and people didn’t like me for it. I tried to befriend her, because it was important to me to be liked.’
Her face set in a wistful expression. ‘I cared a lot for that then. I thought I had to build a new life there, away from everything I had ever known. I cared for her opinion, but she used every opportunity to make me feel unwanted and like I was too much. She would have sent me to a faraway place I think, if she could have.’
‘I thought you said earlier she was kind to you?’
‘At first, but not after the gossip had begun. Gossip is like poison, Lady Alkmene. It kills relationships. Not instantly, but slowly and painfully. Treacherously. It eats them from the inside out.’
Helena’s deep brown eyes held Alkmene’s. ‘My marriage has also been poisoned by talk. By people who envied me for having won the favour of my husband. They knew a little about my past and did not think me worthy of marrying him.’
She laughed softly. ‘Perhaps they would think differently if they knew what he is really like.’
Alkmene shuffled her feet. She didn’t want to discuss Albert’s violent tendencies but her aunt’s murder. ‘My aunt died quite unexpectedly. I heard it was of tropical fever. Was it an epidemic?’
‘No.’ Helena smiled absentmindedly, playing with her brush, running her fingers over the pattern in the handle. ‘There are fevers that are passed on by insects that sting. We used netting over our beds at night to keep them away, but it was impossible to always avoid them. Some people got stung all the time and never got ill, while others suddenly developed symptoms and died within days.’
These were just facts that were probably correct, but in the context it suggested Alkmene’s aunt had died of such an insect-transferred fever. If Alkmene had not been here to delve into murder, if she had just met this woman at a party and had discovered she had known her aunt in India, if they had talked about her and her death, she would no doubt have taken this factual statement for confirmation that her aunt had died of such a fever.
Now she wondered if Helena was consciously deluding her by giving information that had nothing to do with the death. If she herself drew a wrong conclusion, Helena could always later claim she had never said in so many words that an insect sting had caused the death in question. She could claim Alkmene had simply misinterpreted her words.
It was very odd. Surely Helena would know the real cause of Alkmene’s aunt’s death? She had been quite close to the family at the time and had even married into it shortly after. Surely Albert would have told Helena the truth about his mother’s murder?
Or had he not, as he knew very well that his father had strangled his mother so he could marry Helena, while Albert had wanted Helena for himself? In what way had Albert betrayed his father? Lord Winters had accused him of betrayal right after the marriage to Helena. She had to be the cause of the betrayal somehow.
Alkmene sighed as if sad. ‘I do wish I had gotten to know her as a child. But I guess one cannot wish for everything. Well, I’d better run along and leave you to get your rest. I do hope you will feel better soon.’
/> She retreated to the door.
Helena suddenly sat up straighter. ‘Lady Alkmene, I must ask you…’
An anxious look passed over her face. She bit her lip and tapped the brush on her upper leg.
‘Yes?’ Alkmene came back a few paces, leaning over in an encouraging way. Her heart beat fast that Helena would give her some important clue in the case. With the funeral imminent, time was running out.
Helena said, ‘Well, you know the police have arrested a burglar for killing my father-in-law. The man who was arrested on the scene that night, with the blood on his hands. But today my husband was informed by telegram that he has gotten an attorney and they are claiming he did break into the room by scaling the house’s front, but he did not kill my father-in-law. They have come up with some preposterous story that the dead body was already there when the burglar crawled in through the window.’
Alkmene held her breath. She had known Jake was working to help his friend, but she had not figured these developments would be reported back so soon to the grieving family. She was not sure either why Lady Winters was telling her this.
Helena said, ‘Albert was furious when the telegram arrived. He even talked about going to the police to force them to take the burglar to trial for the murder as soon as they can. He is worried that some slick lawyer will try to get the criminal off on some technicality or other minor issue.’
Alkmene waited, not sure what was expected of her.
Helena said, ‘I tried to detain him, but he is very stubborn and does what he wants anyway. He does not believe, as I do, that pressure on the police to close the case will only make us look suspicious.’
Alkmene hitched a brow. ‘Suspicious?’
Helena held her gaze, a strange fire in her dark eyes. ‘You must have heard about the argument the night before my father-in-law died. What George yelled at him.’
Alkmene tried to look innocent. ‘Oh, yes, now that you mention it. I did hear there was an altercation of some sort, but I do not know what was said exactly. I understood George often drinks and then speaks out of turn?’
Helena laughed. ‘This was different. George accused my father-in-law outright of being guilty of his mother’s death. He said he was going to make him pay for it. That it had been coming to him for a long time. He mentioned something about a final accounting for past wrongs. A few hours later my father-in-law lay dead in his room. When I saw it, saw the man leaning over the body, I was myself convinced it had been a burglary gone wrong. But now that the burglar denies it all, I have to think in another direction. Perhaps the burglar will convince the police he has done nothing wrong. If he has a good attorney, he might be heard. I am worried…’ she wrung her hands ‘…the police will soon change their tack and come for George.’
Helena sucked in air as if she had trouble breathing. ‘It will look bad for him once they know what he said to his father that night.’
Alkmene made a so-so gesture with her hand. ‘It was but words. I heard George left to drink himself into a stupor and did not come back until late the following morning – after he had been informed that his father had been killed.’
‘That is not true.’ Lady Winters banged the brush on her dressing table. The bottles rattled. ‘George was here in the house. I saw him.’
‘He was here?’ Alkmene echoed in bewilderment. ‘That very night?’ Jake had said George could have left the inn as his room had been on the ground floor and the window was large enough to climb through. But that someone had actually seen him on the spot was new to her. Why had Helena not mentioned this before?
Helena said, ‘I told you before that I could not sleep and was wandering through the house, looking for a book to read. I thought it was in the library, but then I remembered how I last had it in the sitting room. I was sure I had left it there. I went downstairs and just as I was in the room, someone came in through the front door. I stayed very still. It was George. He wasn’t banging things and singing as he usually does when drunk. He was very quiet and determined not to be noticed. I think he was completely sober.’
Helena held her gaze. ‘In fact I think George was never drunk that night at all. He only pretended to be. He came back to the house to kill my father-in-law after everybody had gone.’
Alkmene pursed her lips. It would fit with Mac’s admission to Jake that he had been engaged by George to steal the stones. She pretended to be doubtful. ‘But if it was a plan George had made in advance, he should not have threatened to kill his father so soon before and in the presence of witnesses.’
‘On the contrary. That was the most devious part about the whole thing. He actually wanted everybody to see that he was leaving in a violent rage and he would not be coming back that night. That is what everybody is saying, in the village and beyond: that George was not here that night. But he was. I saw him. If the police ask questions, I will have to tell them. It will look bad for George.’
Alkmene tilted her head. ‘You have not told the police about George’s presence before? They questioned everybody, I presume?’
Helena shrugged it off. ‘They asked me nothing. They found the man on the scene and believed him to be the culprit. They took him along. They have not been back here. I did not feel obliged to tell them of my own accord. My husband would have beaten me to death if I had said one word that could incriminate his brother, smudge the family name.’
Alkmene’s thoughts raced. George’s reference to the stones when he had barged in on them the day of her arrival suggested Helena knew something about the stones. Had they made the plan together? Was Helena now incriminating George to go scot-free herself?
Alkmene said slowly, ‘But you do feel obliged to speak up now.’
‘I will not go to the station to share what I saw, if that is what you mean. But after Albert received the telegram about the burglar’s guilt being doubted, he is certain the police will be back here soon, asking for more information. I do have to be honest then. I will not lie. I will certainly not perjure myself, should it come to an inquest. Not for this family.’
The venom in her words hissed in the air.
Alkmene stared at the floor for a moment. Helena’s sentiments were understandable if she was innocent. If she was, on the other hand, involved somehow, along with George, her behaviour was a conscious attempt to let George take the fall for what they had planned together. It would be betrayal of the worst kind.
Then again, Helena seemed to have taken part in a betrayal before…
Alkmene asked slowly, ‘Why are you telling me all this?’
Helena shrugged. ‘I cannot speak to my husband about this. He would tell me that I would have to lie of course, to protect the family name.’
Or to protect his own position, if he is the killer, Alkmene thought.
Helena said, ‘I have a feeling you are both perceptive and intelligent. You can tell me what I should do.’
Alkmene considered for a moment. ‘Have you asked George why he came back to the house that night?’
‘As if he would be honest about it.’
‘It does seem to me that George is close to you.’
Helena hitched a brow. ‘Where on earth did you get that idea? I despise his drinking.’
‘Nevertheless,’ Alkmene said, determined to press on now, ‘I did detect a certain…personal connection between the two of you the day I arrived here. How he came in asking for you…’
‘Oh, that.’ Helena looked down on her hands, folded in her lap. She turned her left hand so that the light twinkled in her wedding ring. ‘It is painful to me to say this, but I fear George is in love with me. He follows me around like a puppy dog, always asking me to sing and play. He wants to ride the horses with me or accompany me into the garden to pick flowers. He knows, or maybe just suspects, that Albert beats me. George has threatened once or twice that he will kill Albert for it. I cannot share any of my worries about his behaviour on the night of the murder with George, for he might take it as encouragement. He will
certainly think I am worried for him because I love him in return.’
‘And do you?’ Alkmene asked, looking straight at her.
Helena’s cheeks turned a deep red. ‘Of course not. George is immature, like a schoolboy. Life has never tested him. He flatters me, and I can laugh at some of his jokes, but there is nothing more to it. In his mind, however, there is a whole lot. It could become painful if he takes my interest in his plight as…more than it is.’
‘Do you want me to discuss the matter with him?’ Alkmene asked. Helena was driving at something, and she was determined to find out exactly what it was. Helena had confided in her before, according to Jake with an ulterior motive in mind. If he was right, Helena had to want something now too.
Helena looked at her. ‘Could you in any case just sort of probe to see if George responds in a guilty fashion? I do want to know if he really…’
Alkmene could not quite read the emotion in her eyes. ‘If George is the killer, what will you do then? Will you turn in your own brother-in-law?’
Helena sat motionless. ‘Perhaps you are right. Perhaps it is best not to know anything.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘It will not be the first time we are all hiding secrets from one another.’
The death of her aunt? Covered up with a fancy story, but really a murder committed not by an intruder but by a family member? Just like Lord Winters’ death.
The two cases looked too much alike to be coincidental. Someone who knew the truth about events in India had set up the death of Lord Winters in the same way. Involving a burglar who had not known he was being used as a pawn.
George had hired Mac, that was for sure. But did that also mean George had killed his father?
Diamonds of Death Page 14