A Fatal Footnote

by Margaret Loudon

Penelope made a great show of putting her notebook and pencil in her tote bag.

  “Off the record,” she said.

  Tina hesitated but only for a second. “It was like this. Things were going missing from the girls’ rooms—little things—like someone’s Alice band or a picture frame or a keepsake like a stuffed animal. The girls complained to Mrs. Gregor but she put it down to carelessness. She was always on at the girls about straightening their rooms. It was no wonder they couldn’t find their things, she used to say.” Tina clucked her tongue.

  “But then more expensive things started to go missing—a gold locket, a silver-backed brush, a wallet. That’s when Mrs. Gregor began to take the girls’ complaints more seriously.” Tina pursed her lips. “I, myself thought there was something to it right from the start.”

  Tina shifted in her chair. “Mrs. Gregor asked the girls to come to her in the strictest confidence if they knew something or suspected someone. Not long after, Cissie Emmott appeared, wanting to see Mrs. Gregor, and shortly after that, Jemima Kirby was sent for.”

  There was a rustling sound from behind the closed door and a look of panic crossed Tina’s face. Penelope held her breath but the door remained closed.

  “Of course, Jemima’s parents were summoned immediately and it was arranged for her to see a counselor. It seems her parents were going through a difficult divorce and it was unsettling the poor girl, as I’m sure you can imagine,” Tina said in a lowered voice.

  Penelope’s parents had divorced and she hadn’t resorted to stealing things, she thought. But perhaps it had been more of a shock to Jemima—being away at a boarding school, she might not have seen the writing on the wall so to speak.

  There was another louder noise from behind the closed door to the headmistress’s office, and Penelope hastily thanked Tina, said good-bye to her and Wanda, and began to leave.

  Her stomach rumbled as she was walking to her car and she realized she hadn’t had anything to eat. On the other hand, she certainly had enough food for thought. From what Tina had said, Cissie had clearly resented her friend Jemima’s successes. Penelope knew the type—there’d been a girl like that in her class in high school—she expected all the accolades to come to her and resented it when they didn’t.

  It also seemed likely that Cissie knew about or had discovered Jemima’s stealing and had told the headmistress. Did she consider it appropriate revenge for the times Jemima had stolen the spotlight from her?

  Had history repeated itself? Had Cissie caught Jemima red-handed, lifting one of the items missing from Worthington House? And had Cissie threatened to spill the beans on Jemima and the only way for Jemima to stop her had been to kill her?

  Had Jemima recently acquired something that Cissie wanted or thought should be hers? And had that led to a deadly conclusion?

  SIXTEEN

  That smells delicious,” Mabel said, pointing to the bag in Penelope’s hand.

  Penelope held the bag up—a splotch of grease was beginning to bleed through on the front.

  “I was starving so I picked up some fish-and-chips from the Chumley Chippie. I have enough to share if you’d like?”

  “No, thanks.” Mabel patted her stomach. “My waistbands are getting a bit tight. I’m on a slimming regimen at the moment.”

  Penelope thanked her lucky stars that she still didn’t have to worry about her weight at least.

  She took her feast into her writing room, spread it out on the table, and opened her laptop. She scrolled through her e-mail as she munched her chips and picked at her battered haddock.

  She thought about working on her revisions but wasn’t in the mood—although after reading an e-mail from her editor, she realized she needed to get into the mood tout de suite, as the French would say.

  Darling Pen, I do hope you aren’t finding those revisions too odious. Any idea when they’ll be done? Everyone is so excited about your latest and of course the powers that be hope it will make them pots of money. I know that once you shore up that middle, we’ll have a huge hit on our hands. Cheerio, Bettina

  Penelope somewhat reluctantly pulled up her manuscript and got out her revision notes, but her mind kept wandering.

  What might Jemima have had that Cissie wanted—if that was, indeed, what had driven Jemima to murder?

  Charlotte had been right—people like Cissie and Jemima and Tobias kept to the members of their own exalted circle and it was nearly impossible to break in or gain their confidence. She was sure that plenty went on behind the scenes that no one knew about—not even the reporters and photographers prying into their lives from a distance with their cameras and long lenses.

  Still, they did manage to uncover plenty of secrets and scandals. And that gave Penelope an idea. Perhaps she’d find a nugget of some sort in the society magazines and scandal rags—something that would hint at what might have gone on between Jemima and Cissie.

  She closed her laptop, bundled up the wrappings from her lunch and stuffed them into the bag, and tossed them in the trash.

  Mabel was on the telephone, arguing with a publisher whose shipment of books had arrived damaged. Penelope straightened the books on display as she waited.

  “How was your lunch?” Mabel said after she hung up the telephone.

  “Great. No wonder the British like fish-and-chips so much,” Pen said. “You don’t by any chance happen to have a collection of society and gossip magazines, do you?”

  Penelope seriously doubted that Mabel would—Mabel was about as down-to-earth as they came—but people had hidden depths, so she figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

  Mabel raised an eyebrow. “What on earth do you want those for?”

  Penelope explained her idea.

  “You’ll be wanting to talk to India, then. She collects Tatler and Hello! and all those others along with that royal commemorative tat she so adores.”

  * * *

  * * *

  As a distant relative of the Duke of Upper-Chumley-on-Stoke, India had inherited a small cottage on the Worthington estate. Penelope had been there once and she hoped she would remember how to find it.

  At the time, she’d been shocked at the state of disrepair of the cottage as well as the obvious signs of India’s straitened circumstances. She’d talked to Mabel and Mabel had promised to put a bug in Worthington’s ear.

  Even as she approached the cottage from a distance, Penelope could see that the roof had recently been repaired; the window frames had been painted; and the bushes, which had been wildly overgrown, had been trimmed and tidied. Obviously, Mabel’s word to Worthington had borne fruit.

  India, when she answered the door, was wearing her usual English gentlewoman’s outfit of wool skirt, twinset, and a strand of yellowing pearls.

  India’s broad smile, quickly suppressed, indicated her pleasure at having a visitor. Penelope knew she lived alone and had no close relatives. The Open Book was her refuge when she became too lonely to stay at home.

  India’s tiny sitting room, with its beamed ceiling and wavy-paned windows set in thick stone walls, was comfortably toasty. Sitting in pride of place in front of the sofa was a brand-new flat-screen television replacing the old model that had been there the last time Pen had visited.

  India must have noticed her looking at it. “I came into some money from a relative I quite frankly didn’t even know I had. One day a check arrived from a solicitor’s office in London along with a letter saying that I had been left a bit of money. I was that surprised.”

  Penelope smiled to herself. Obviously Mabel’s word to Worthington had done a world of good.

  India clutched at her pearls. “I know it’s quite an indulgence—a new television when the old one worked just fine most of the time—but I do enjoy my programs. At my age, there isn’t all that much to look forward to, you know.”

  “I’m glad you treated yourself,” Pe
nelope said.

  “How about a cup of tea, my dear? I can have the kettle on in a jiff.”

  “That sounds wonderful. Can I help?”

  India pointed to the sofa. “You sit and put your feet up. It won’t take me a minute.”

  India came bustling back moments later with a tray set with cups and saucers, a teapot in a hand-knitted cozy, and a plate of McVitie’s digestive biscuits. She put the tray on the coffee table and set about pouring the tea.

  Penelope accepted a cup along with a biscuit. She’d become rather fond of this ritual of afternoon tea. It slowed the pace of the day down just enough to allow one to catch one’s breath.

  “It’s so lovely of you to visit me,” India said, nibbling the edge of her biscuit.

  Penelope felt guilt wash over her knowing that she was there with an ulterior motive.

  “I’m actually hoping you can help me,” Pen said.

  India became as attentive as a bird keeping its eye on a worm. Her eyes glowed and she clasped her hands together.

  “Don’t tell me you’re doing your detecting again,” she said. “It was the talk of Chumley last year when you tracked down Regina’s killer.”

  It was more like Regina’s killer had tracked her down, Penelope thought. She shuddered at the memory.

  “I am trying to locate some information,” Penelope admitted. “Mabel thought you had a collection of gossip magazines—you know, the ones that write stories about the royals and other aristocrats and people in the news.”

  “I certainly do,” India said, setting down her teacup. “I have albums of clippings as well, although sadly some of the newsprint is beginning to turn yellow and quite brittle.” Her hand trembled slightly as she reached for her cup. “Believe it or not, I even have clippings from the newspapers of Prince Charles’s investiture as the Prince of Wales.”

  Penelope did her best to look impressed. She cleared her throat.

  “Do you have anything more recent? I’m looking for stories about Cissie—about Lady Winterbourne—and that crowd.”

  India looked slightly insulted. “Of course I do. I have all the back issues of Tatler from when I first subscribed and also any of the issues of Hello! and OK! that cover the royal family and the nobility. I pick them up at the library’s used-book sale for pennies.” She hesitated. “Would you like to see them?”

  “Yes, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  India put her hands on her knees and pushed herself to a standing position. “I’ll go get them, shall I?”

  She disappeared into another room and returned moments later with a stack of magazines in her arms.

  “I’ve brought the ones that are most likely to have what you’re looking for.” She grunted as she put the pile on the floor near Penelope.

  “This is marvelous,” Pen said, picking up the first magazine—a Tatler from several years ago. She began thumbing through it.

  Cissie Winterbourne, or the Loo Paper Princess, as the tabloids referred to her, featured frequently in the pages of the magazine, but there was nothing that particularly stood out to Penelope.

  She started in on an issue of Hello!, whose coverage was a bit more gossipy—stories intimating that Kate and Wills weren’t speaking to each other, or they weren’t speaking to the queen, or one or the other of them wanted a divorce. There were plenty of blurry photos shot from a distance with lurid captions underneath.

  Cissie wasn’t absent from these pages either, although she mostly appeared in photographs, dressed to the nines, at some charity function or other. Several times articles included pictures of her when she was younger and dating Worthington with headlines like The Queen Drove Them Apart or Who Cheated First?

  Penelope shuddered. She was certainly glad she wasn’t famous. Even writing a bestselling novel had hardly made her a household name worthy of salacious coverage in the tabloids.

  She picked up another magazine and came upon a collage of photos of Cissie, including one when she was quite young—barely out of her teens—Penelope thought. She was standing at the foot of a rather grand staircase dressed in a dark blue ball gown. Penelope assumed the man standing next to her was her father—partially bald and rather portly with a double chin and wire-rimmed glasses. Standing off to the side was a young girl, approximately Cissie’s age, in a pair of dark slacks and a rather worn-looking sweater. There was a look of wistful longing in her eyes although her mouth was stretched into a smile showing a gap between her two front teeth.

  Penelope flipped through a few more magazines. This wasn’t getting her anywhere, she thought. She was about to give up when she turned a page and came upon a large photo of Cissie dressed in a short cocktail dress and sky-high heels. She was in a clutch, as Pen’s grandmother would have said, with a man who was nuzzling her neck. Penelope thought he looked vaguely familiar.

  She read the caption—Cissie Emmott, the Loo Paper Princess, and Lord Ethan Dougal caught in some steamy PDA.

  Penelope let the magazine drop into her lap.

  “Is everything okay, dear?” India said, lowering her own magazine and peering at Penelope over the tops of her reading glasses.

  Penelope smiled. “Yes. Fine.” She gathered the magazines into a pile. “I must get going.”

  “You’re welcome to stay as long as you like,” India said hopefully.

  “Thank you. I do appreciate your showing me these magazines. Let me help you put them away.”

  “It’s no bother, dear. Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “Yes,” Penelope said.

  She certainly did find what she was looking for, she thought, as India stood at the door and waved good-bye.

  That magazine photograph had made it quite clear that Cissie and Ethan Dougal were once a couple. Cissie had obviously been in search of a title to go with her money, and Ethan had one.

  Had Jemima come along and swept Ethan away? And had Cissie waited for the right moment to exact her revenge, which had finally arrived when things began to go missing from Worthington House? Had Cissie threatened to embarrass Jemima by revealing her kleptomania as she had once done back in their school days?

  * * *

  * * *

  The smell of curry wafted out of the cottage when Penelope opened her door. She dumped her bag in the foyer, hung up her coat, and followed her nose out to the kitchen.

  Beryl had set the table for two and had even placed a vase of flowers in the center.

  “What are those delicious smells?” Pen asked as she opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of white wine.

  “I picked up some chicken biryani from Kebabs and Curries on my way back from the train station,” Beryl said, reaching out to straighten one of the napkins. “The taxi driver was most accommodating.”

  “Who did you have,” Pen said pouring two glasses of pinot grigio, “Mad Max, who is about one hundred years old and drives twenty miles under the speed limit, or Dashing Dennis, who flirts with all his passengers via the rearview mirror?”

  “Definitely Dashing Dennis,” Beryl said, her mouth quirking into a smile. “And here I thought it was me, but now you say he’s that attentive to all the girls.”

  “Fortunately, he’s harmless.” Penelope pulled out a chair and sat down. “How was your day?”

  Beryl’s face brightened. “As the British would say, it was quite brilliant. You should have seen some of the clothes I got to model. Dreamy!” Beryl rolled her eyes heavenward. “Yvette is working on a new spring collection that’s going to be beautiful.”

  “She certainly did a marvelous job on Charlotte’s wedding dress.”

  Beryl opened the takeout bag, and the scent of curry intensified in the kitchen.

  “Do you have some dishes for the chicken and rice?” she asked Penelope.

  Penelope got two bowls out of the cupboard. She wasn’t about to confess
to Beryl that she normally ate her takeout right from the containers.

  Beryl emptied the contents of the containers into the dishes and put them on the table. Penelope carried their wineglasses over and set them beside their places.

  “What is Yvette like to work for?” Pen said as she dished up some chicken biryani. “She seems very . . . reserved.”

  Beryl cocked her head, her fork suspended in the air.

  “She is rather reserved, but everyone likes her. Apparently she’s very fair and also quite encouraging of the younger designers.” Beryl rolled her eyes. “But you should have heard what the staff had to say about Cissie Winterbourne.”

  “Oh?” Penelope speared a piece of chicken with her fork. “Wasn’t she well liked?”

  “I should say she wasn’t,” Beryl said. She pointed her fork at Penelope. “You already know she took credit for designing Charlotte’s dress, but apparently she took credit for everyone’s designs. One of the young girls—Francine—wanted to see if she could make a go of it on her own. It’s not an easy business, you know, but she had a backer who was interested in investing in her. Cissie managed to quash the whole thing! Yvette said she tried to reason with Cissie—she seems to be very protective of the staff—but Cissie was determined that if Francine left the studio, she would never work in fashion again.” Beryl lowered her voice. “According to Yvette, Cissie thought Francine was making eyes at Tobias.” She put her fork down. “Everyone said Cissie could be very vindictive. Francine quit and apparently Cissie made good on her threat. One of the girls heard that Francine was working at Harrods selling lingerie.”

  Beryl picked up her fork again and pushed her food around on her plate. “Cissie did do one good thing, though.”

  “What’s that?” Pen said around a mouthful of rice.

  “She left Atelier Classique to Yvette.”

  “What?” Penelope started to cough and choke.

  Beryl looked at her in alarm. “Do you want some water?”