Lady Marmalade Cozy Murder Mysteries: Box Set (Books 1 - 3)

by Jason Blacker

  “Well,” said Florence as she drove them out of the driveway and towards her home, “you’ve kept me thoroughly in the dark, Fran. I can’t wait to learn who did it.”

  “Me too,” said Frances, laughing.

  “You can’t be serious,” said Florence, looking at Frances quickly.

  “No, of course not,” she said and they both laughed together.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Chapter 26

  IT was a sunny day, and it was Good Friday. It was also a good day to bring justice to bear for Ginnie and for Jack. Frances watched as Florence drove away from the Forsyth estate. It was quarter to twelve and the sun was burning an arc across its zenith. Eric had been most helpful after he had gotten over the shock of the week’s events.

  As Frances stood out there waving at her friend who would be back soon with Lottie, she couldn’t help but to think that the bright, clear day was a metaphor for the clarity she had regarding the murders. And if she lay out the breadcrumbs carefully for Inspector Gibbard she was certain he’d be amiable to seeing the truth.

  Frances turned away as Florence exited the driveway and headed out onto the road. She walked up to the main door and knocked on it. It wasn’t long before it was opened by James. He looked well rested though somewhat worried.

  “Good morning, James,” she said as she entered.

  “Good morning, my Lady. Do you think justice will be served today?”

  “I believe it will, James, I believe it will.”

  “I’m very pleased to hear that, my Lady, it has given me no end to worry. Same for poor old Agnus.”

  “I can imagine.”

  Lady Marmalade wasn’t wearing a coat and her handbag was small and light. She was dressed in gray slacks with a pale salmon blouse with a tightly knitted shawl over her shoulders. She took off the gray chiffon scarf around her head and tied it around her neck loosely.

  “Where is Inspector Gibbard?” she asked James.

  “I believe he is in the study with the others,” he said.

  “Thank you, James.”

  Lady Marmalade walked down the hall and turned into the living room where everyone was gathered so far. Everyone except for Lottie and Florence. Inspector Gibbard was standing to one side of the living room with two of his constables. Frances walked over to him.

  “Good morning, Inspector,” she said.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  Frances looked around and saw Dr. Luther Garnet sitting down in the one couch, next to Meredith. Garrett and Gerald were seated in the other. On the table by the couches was a tray with a teapot and used teacups and the crumbs of what might have been cakes or toast or crumpets.

  “I see you managed to find Luther. Thank you for bringing him.”

  Gibbard nodded.

  “Did you happen to have one of your men visit Rachel Badcocke?”

  “We did.”

  “And?”

  “Well, there’s nothing really to say about her. She’s young, in her late twenties and she’s a charwoman. She thinks she’s in love with the late Jack Forsyth. As we’re getting to know him, it seems that he strung her along for quite some time. Rachel says she’s been with him for almost a year now.”

  “Did you tell her he’d been murdered?”

  “Yes and she was very genuinely upset about it. She didn’t know and she was at home all of Wednesday evening. She rents a room in a boarding house and the other renters remember her coming home just after six and not leaving again until six the next morning.”

  “She might have snuck out.”

  “Not likely, this particular boarding house has a curfew. They lock the doors at eleven during the week. Besides, she has no car and had no idea where Jack was. She assumed he must have been murdered here at home. She’s an attractive woman, but by no means would I say she was the brightest. And certainly naïve.”

  “As I suspected, Inspector, thank you for your trouble.”

  He nodded at her, standing erect and tall with his hands clasped behind his back, watching over everyone like an owl surveying a field full of tasty morsels. Frances looked around the room. Everybody was particular somber and sober. Nobody was drinking alcohol, the only drinks out at this time were the mostly empty teacups. Luther was sitting upright in in the couch wearing a black suit and white shirt, his doctor’s bag snugly between his legs.

  Garrett was dressed in gray slacks and a white shirt with red suspenders. Meredith was wearing a black polka dot dress which fell below her knees, with long sleeves, and Gerald was wearing a light brown suit.

  “Did you happen to find Dr. Garnet’s revolver, inspector?”

  He shook his head.

  “Not yet, he said he’d lost it a few weeks ago so we’re looking into that and we’re also searching his home. I have one of my men still there.”

  “Good, I hope it turns up.”

  Gibbard turned to look at her and leaned in towards her.

  “Are you sure about this, Lady Marmalade?” he asked in a hushed voice.

  “Quite sure, Inspector and I believe you will be too when we’re all done.”

  He leaned away from her and looked into her eyes, he was searching for a crack but he found none, so he nodded instead.

  “Very well.”

  The clock standing still in the corner like the never blinking centurion struck noon. Lady Marmalade waited until it went silent. Then she went and stood in front of all the guests who were seated in the living room. She looked at each of them in turn.

  “On Monday evening I was invited by my friend Florence Hudnall, whom all of you know, to dinner here at the Forsyth home. Ginnie Forsyth had graciously extended an invitation to me, a stranger, to dine with her and her guests.”

  Frances stopped for a moment as she heard the front door being answered by James. Then there were footsteps and Florence entered into the living room followed by Lottie. Frances turned to them and smiled. She extended her arm pointing towards the clutch of chairs and couches.

  Florence came and sat down in an armchair that was to the side of the couch where Meredith and Garnet sat. Florence was closer to Meredith than Luther. Garrett was patting the couch next to him. He had moved up closer to Gerald, though he wasn’t that close as the couch he was sitting on was larger than the one that held Luther and Meredith.

  Lottie smiled and came over to sit by him. Lottie looked over at Meredith and Luther nervously as she came up to where Garrett sat. Garrett patted her knee when she was seated and smiled warmly at her.

  “The woman sitting next to Garrett who some of you have not met is Ms. Lottie Daubney. She was the woman with Garrett when Jack was shot. She also happens to be Jack’s daughter through Ms. Maude Daubney.”

  Frances paused to let that sink in. She watched Meredith who looked over at Lottie with some disdain as if she might have been naked.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Meredith.

  “There is a lot that you don’t believe, my dear,” said Frances. “Nevertheless, she is Jack’s daughter and she has the paperwork to prove it. I’ve seen the letters that Jack wrote to her mother when Maude shared the good news with him that she was pregnant with Lottie.”

  Frances looked at their faces. Only Meredith wasn’t looking back at her, she was still looking Lottie up and down. Lottie who sat quietly and stiffly on the edge of the couch next to Garrett. Her hands clasped together in her lap and her eyes cast down. She was clearly nervous.

  “One could almost say that Lottie is the reason why Ginnie was murdered. That and the gold of course. Everything comes back to the gold, which only one of you in here has actually seen.”

  They all looked around at each other wondering who that might be.

  “But first, I want to talk about Ginnie’s death. Her unnecessary and callous murder, committed by one of you here.”

  Again they all looked around at each other trying to determine who that might be.

  “You see,” continued Frances, “Ginnie was murdered in the gr
eenhouse which seems a terribly odd place to murder someone. What, after all, do tomatoes and flowers have to do with murder?”

  It was a rhetorical question, not one that Frances was looking for an answer. But she gave her audience time to let it sink in.

  “The answer of course, is that tomatoes have nothing to do with murder, but gold and dark secrets do. You see, Ginnie had had enough of Jack’s philandering ways and she’d found her way out of her failing and miserable marriage.”

  “How is that?” asked Gerald.

  “She had found the gold. The gold that everyone here has been chasing.”

  “I wasn’t chasing any gold,” said Meredith.

  “Not directly no, but you were hoping to keep the gold with Jack and therefore solidify your future with him.”

  “You see, the greenhouse held the secrets to Jack’s undoing. Ginnie had stumbled upon two letters that Jack had hidden in the greenhouse. These two letters were hidden by Jack in the greenhouse because that was the only area where he thought they would remain safe. But Ginnie had uncovered them.”

  “And what was so secretive about these letters?” asked Luther.

  Frances looked at him and smiled.

  “You know,” she said. “All of you know of at least the content of one of the letters, and some of you know about the content of both letters.”

  Frances looked at Gerald and then at Garrett and Luther.

  “I haven’t seen any of these letters,” protested Meredith.

  “You have, Meredith, you have.”

  “I meant,” said Meredith rolling her eyes, “that I only saw the one after Garrett threw it at me so rudely.”

  “I’d like to know what these letters mentioned,” said Lottie, looking up at Frances.

  “The one letter was yours, Lottie,” said Frances. “Lottie had written to Jack demanding that he meet with her or she’d tell everyone about the truth of his affair with her mother. You all know about this letter because Ginnie mentioned it to you. Garrett overheard her having an argument with Jack and he mentioned it to you Gerald.”

  “So what, came as no surprise to me,” said Gerald.

  “And Ginnie told you about it too, didn’t she Dr. Garnet?”

  Garnet nodded and leaned down and fiddled with the buckle on his bag.

  “She told me about it, she told me about the gold. I told her she should take it and make a fresh start of it. We all know Jack was no good.”

  “That’s right, he was no good, to her at least. And that is exactly what I believe Ginnie was planning on doing with her life. She knew where the gold was and that it was worth a substantial amount, even as a reward for turning it in. It would earn her a fresh start. But it wasn’t just Lottie’s letter. Lottie was born of one of Jack’s earlier affairs. That happened a long time ago and Ginnie might have forgiven him those early indiscretions. But he hadn’t stopped being indiscreet.”

  Frances turned to look at Meredith sitting smugly in the corner of her couch by Florence.

  “For you, Ms. Church,” said Frances, “wanted to ruin his marriage and so you planned it that she would find you and Jack in bed together.”

  Meredith shrugged her shoulders.

  “He was supposed to have left her a long time ago. He promised me that and I was just trying to help him keep his word.”

  “Except he wasn’t only with you, Meredith, he was with others. And one of the others had written to him from Manchester demanding that he keep his promise to leave Ginnie and move to Argentina with her.”

  Frances kept her gaze sharply on Meredith. Meredith lowered her eyes for a moment and her face flushed.

  “And you knew about this too, didn’t you?” asked Frances.

  Meredith said nothing.

  “Because Ginnie told you, but you wouldn’t believe her. She said she had proof, it was all in the greenhouse if you’d just follow her there. And you did. But before she could show you the letter you beat her over the head and strangled her to death, rather than face the truth that Jack was not the kind of man you thought he was. His promises were empty, very much like his bank accounts.”

  “You have no proof of that,” said Meredith, coolly.

  “Oh, but I do. When we arrived that afternoon, after Ginnie had been murdered by you, I noticed a few things that you had forgotten to cover up. Your shoes were scuffed from the same dirt that I noticed in the greenhouse and your nails were not painted any longer. In fact your nail polish which just the night before had been perfect had been stripped off. Why? Because you had strangled her and scuffed your nails against the dirt floor of the greenhouse.”

  Meredith looked at Lady Marmalade with a hateful spite in her eyes.

  “You don’t know what it’s like to lose a husband. And the only man who can bring you any comfort was his brother, Jack. Ginnie was trying to ruin that. She wanted to ruin my second chance at love.”

  “I think she was just trying to protect you. She was leaving him, I’m sure of that. She was going to take his gold and leave him.”

  “She was a vindictive cow. She was upset because she couldn’t give Jack what I could. So I did it. She said she had a letter to show me that would show me exactly how Jack was playing us both. She told me I was such a naïve simpleton to think that Jack would ever leave her for me. She laughed it off as if it were the funniest thing she had ever heard of. So I did it. I showed her and I don’t care anymore, Jack’s dead and with him has gone my hope at a second chance of love.”

  Frances looked at Meredith as she had her tirade. How blind love could be. There was no explaining it. The desperate will do anything for a chance, for the hope of keeping their dream alive, even if it is just a mirage.

  Inspector Gibbard stood silently watching the whole event unfold. He smiled a little when Meredith came out and confessed. His constables looked at him but he didn’t give them the nod to arrest her. There was more to come. Lady Marmalade was just getting started.

  “Meredith said she wasn’t after the gold. So how is the gold involved in my mother’s murder?” asked Garrett.

  “Indirectly. Your mother was going to take the gold and leave. You see, the gold was kept in a small box where the letters were kept in a small recess in the floor of the greenhouse. But when I went to look, the only things remaining were the letters. The gold was gone. At first I assumed it was taken by Ginnie, but she hadn’t the time to access the box to show Meredith the letters, let alone take the gold. No, the gold was taken by someone the day of Jack’s murder.”

  “And who was that?” asked Meredith, glad to have the attention off her for now.

  “We’ll be getting to that. I believe that at first the idea was not to murder Jack, but rather find where the rest of the gold was and then steal it and leave him holding the bag and having to deal with the consequences.”

  Frances looked around again at the blank faces. She might as well have been giving a speech, as no one seemed interested in contributing to the conversation.

  “You see, this gold that everyone has been after is incredibly valuable. I’ve learned from my husband, Eric, that several years ago, the United States government minted double eagle gold coins. The 1933 minting being the last. These coins were never released to the public, but some of them went missing and the American government has promised a reward of ten thousand dollars for each one safely returned. Obviously, you can get more a private sale.”

  “If it was all about the gold, then why kill Jack in the first place?” asked Meredith, starting to become interested in why Jack had been killed.

  “I believe that was out of revenge for Ginnie’s murder,” said Frances. “Though it made finding the gold all that more difficult.”

  Florence looked at Frances but couldn’t quite figure out where all of this was going.

  “Why did it make finding the gold all that more difficult?” she asked.

  “Because the only person who knew where the gold was, other than Jack, was Ginnie, and she was now dead. However, I
believe she gave some idea of where the gold was to the person who killed Jack.”

  They all looked around at each other.

  “Who killed Jack?” asked Meredith.

  “One of you killed Jack, but it was a conspiracy of a few of you.”

  Frances took her time looking around at everyone present. Meredith looked at Luther sitting next to her, then over to Gerald and Garrett.

  “And Lottie knows who it is. Don’t you, Lottie?”

  Lottie looked up at Frances nervously and nodded quickly.

  “The person who killed Jack is Dr. Luther Garnet,” said Frances.

  She waited and watched as everyone turned to look at Luther. He didn’t say anything.

  “Says you,” he said.

  Frances looked at Lottie.

  “Am I correct, Lottie? Is Dr. Garnet the man you saw running away from the docks with the gun in his hand?” asked Frances.

  Lottie nodded quickly, glancing over at Dr. Garnet and then at Frances.

  “My God, I suppose it had to be,” said Garrett. “Why?”

  “Don’t start with me, you bloody well know why. Your father killed my sister, that’s why?”

  “No he didn’t,” said Garrett, “you just heard Meredith confess.”

  “If he hadn’t been playing around with that whore, none of this would have happened.”

  Meredith looked at Luther with her mouth opened, stunned for a moment. Then she slapped him across his left cheek. It stung, you could see him wince.

  “Bastard!” she said.

  “That’s enough!” said Frances. “Dr. Garnet might have pulled the trigger, but he wasn’t acting alone.”

  She looked over at Garrett and at Gerald.

  “The two of you were cooperating with him.”

  “Certainly not!” exclaimed Garrett.

  “Ludicrous,” said Gerald.

  “I don’t believe you knew that Dr. Garnet was going to kill Jack, but you all were planning on robbing him of his gold and splitting the proceeds.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Gerald.

  “Agnus overheard you and Dr. Garnet talking about it on the side of the house when she was in the kitchen cleaning up after lunch. She overheard the two of you. You said, Dr. Garnet, that you knew about the docks. That it was your chance to get all of the gold, that Jack would be the one left holding the bag.”