Murder at the Ice Ball

by Leighann Dobbs

  As she made her way around a large pillar, she spotted Lord Bath’s flapping cuffs as he led Elizabeth into the shadow cast by two of the pillars. With the ball in full swing, no one appeared to notice that he’d taken her aside. Katherine, also shaded beneath that overhang, paused in her step, not daring to breathe lest she interrupt an important moment.

  Lord Bath pressed Elizabeth’s hand to his heart and sank down onto one knee.

  He was proposing already! Katherine stifled a gasp and hastily stepped back, hiding herself behind the pillar to give them a private moment.

  Mrs. Fairchild found her there. “See? Child’s play. It only took Captain Wayland asking to fill her dance card later this evening and a whisper in his ear about the seriousness of the captain’s suit.”

  So Wayland had done as she asked.

  “You’re right. This match couldn’t have been made without you.”

  Mrs. Fairchild smiled and inclined her head at the compliment. “Nor without you.”

  At Katherine’s startled look, she continued. “And I do say your matches end in love. Like Miss Burwick and Annandale.” She inclined her head toward the dance floor, where Pru and Annandale were whirling around, joyous smiles on their faces, apparently oblivious to everyone else.

  Katherine’s thoughts turned to the case. She was bursting to tell Pru that Lord Conyers had been occupied at the time of Lady Rochford’s death. They needed to make a new plan. Perhaps Harriett could talk to one of Lord Rochford’s staff and see if he really was indisposed the next day or if he could have gone to Conyers’s townhouse and planted the ring. If only the dance would end so she could discuss this with Pru and Annandale.

  Miss Fairchild’s words interrupted her thoughts. “...though Miss Burwick is a bit eccentric. The two seem to fit. I daresay they will make a handsome wedding couple. I hear she has engaged the most expensive seamstress money can buy.”

  “Mrs. Burwick will hear of nothing but the best for her daughter,” Katherine said with one eye on the dance floor. When would Mrs. Fairchild stop blathering on so she could catch Pru’s attention?

  Mrs. Fairchild nodded. “It’s true, that seamstress is in high demand. There is a waiting list for her concoctions. I’m surprised Miss Burwick could get in.”

  “Perhaps she took advantage of a cancellation,” Katherine answered absently. However, the moment the words left her lips, she recalled her visit to the shop the day after Lady Rochford’s murder, when the lady and her stepdaughter had missed the appointment in the morning.

  Zeus! She did not have just one suspect left. She had two... and if her suspicions were correct, one of them might be unhinged enough to do something drastic. They had to talk to Mrs. Dillinger right away.

  Glancing back at the crowd, she saw Pru swept up in Lord Annandale’s embrace, oblivious to the world.

  Zounds! They were so wrapped up in each other that she didn’t have the heart to interrupt, not that Pru would notice even if she jumped up and down to catch her attention. Who else could she enlist? Lyle was at Bow Street. Wayland, perhaps? He’d done as she asked before, so maybe they could work together just this once.

  She bade Mrs. Fairchild adieu and made a quick circuit of the ballroom. Wayland was nowhere to be found. Very well, she would follow the lead herself. After all, she needed to learn how to handle her investigations on her own, and there was no time like the present.

  Still, as she paused on the threshold of the street, she left instructions for the butler to tell Pru where she had gone should she ask. For now, she was on her own.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Light seeped from the drawing room of Mrs. Dillinger’s house, alerting Katherine to the fact that someone was at home. Perhaps, as Mr. Dillinger had said, his wife was in mourning, if only to keep up appearances. With as small a presumed stipend as had been given to her husband—evidenced by the townhouse that shared its walls with both its neighbors in a long, squashed row—the Dillingers couldn’t afford a carriage of their own, nor possibly a male servant. Katherine hadn’t seen a livery nearby as she’d made her way, so she didn’t know where they would stable the horses if they had any. At Katherine’s guess, Mrs. Dillinger used her father’s carriage. In fact, her suspicions hinged upon it. Therefore, she didn’t bother checking to see if the carriage was in.

  Instead, leaving her own carriage to wait outside, Katherine climbed the steps and used the worn brass knocker. It shuddered a sound through the house.

  Mrs. Dillinger answered, her eyes narrowing when she recognized her visitor. “Lady Katherine? What brings you here at this time of night?”

  “Just a few questions.” Katherine mustered all her bravery and pushed in through the open door. She intended to get answers.

  “If this is about my husband, he’s not home.”

  “It’s not about your husband. It’s about your stepmother.”

  Something flashed in Mrs. Dillinger’s eyes. Guilt? Fear? Anger? Katherine’s resolve wavered. “Wait in the sitting room. I’ll get some tea.”

  Katherine shut the door softly. Apparently Mrs. Dillinger did not follow formalities. To her right, Katherine saw the small sitting room. It was sparsely furnished with a worn sofa and two chairs. A small fire burned in the hearth. A hound dog lay nearby. He opened one bored eye to assess Katherine then, apparently finding her of no interest, went back to sleep.

  Should she leave her cloak on? She glanced around and spied a coat rack down the narrow hallway to the left. She’d just have to hang it up herself.

  There were two cloaks already on the rack. The scarlet cloak matched the one Mrs. Dillinger had worn to Bow Street. Next to it was another, dark in color. Katherine’s heart stilled.

  She pulled it off the hook to peer at the color. It was dark blue.

  Everything clicked into place.

  The lack of remorse Mrs. Dillinger had shown, the lack of mourning attire at Bow Street.

  Her father’s carriage outside Charles Street after Lady Rochford’s death.

  Lord Rochford’s housekeeper griping over how she’d had to rouse Lord Rochford in the afternoon so he could break the terrible news to his own daughter.

  The missed seamstress appointment that morning.

  Mr. Dillinger being arrested for attending the pugilist match the night of the ice ball.

  Mrs. Dillinger couldn’t possibly have known of her stepmother’s demise the morning after she was dead, not if she hadn’t attended the ice ball as she claimed, because her father didn’t tell her until the afternoon. So why had she missed the appointment with the seamstress? There was only one reason: she knew her stepmother would not be showing up. And how would she know that? If she already knew the woman was dead.

  Mrs. Dillinger had claimed she was at home the night of the ice ball, but with her husband in jail, there would be no one to verify that.

  Her heartbeat ratcheted higher, roaring in her ears as she spotted a distinct white stain on the blue cloak, a stain precisely like the one Katherine had seen on her stepmother’s cloak in the closet. Katherine had found a telltale clue. Lady Rochford had a vial of the waters from Bath, too, and it must have broken during the struggle! This proved that Mrs. Dillinger had been at the ice ball.

  The maid and cook had not been unreliable—there had been two cloaked women running out of the house that night. That explained the conflicting descriptions of the path the woman had taken. Mrs. Dillinger didn’t have her own carriage, so she would have needed to hail one on the main street, whereas Susanna had parked hers on the side street so as not to be noticed.

  “What are you doing?”

  Katherine whirled around. “I was, err... hanging up my coat.”

  Mrs. Dillinger stood blocking most of the light in the narrow hallway. Even with such little light, Katherine could see that her face was pinched in anger. She held something behind her back, and Katherine didn’t think it was tea.

  “Tell me, do you know Lord Bath or his grandmother?” There was a slight chance t
hat Mrs. Dillinger had spilled some of her own waters of Bath on the cloak. Katherine had to make sure before she accused her.

  “No. You ask too many questions. An earl’s daughter should stay at home or attend balls at night, not wander about, knocking on people’s doors.”

  Katherine swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth. “Then tell me. How do you explain this?” Bending, she grabbed the bottom of the cloak and displayed the stain. “I know what caused this stain: a liquid only Lady Rochford could have had on her person.” If Lord Bath hadn’t been acquainted with Lady Rochford prior to Susanna’s introduction, he certainly wouldn’t have known her stepdaughter. “And she retrieved it the night she was killed. You were there, at the ice ball.”

  Mrs. Dillinger whipped her hand out from behind her back. A pistol!

  In as small a house as this, Katherine stood no farther than three feet away from Mrs. Dillinger, a distance the murderous woman would not squander. She would not miss, nor would Katherine be able to run away, as Mrs. Dillinger stood between her and the hallway that led to the door.

  Perhaps she should not have come alone after all.

  The only hope she had was that Pru would decide to leave the ball early, receive the message from the butler, and knock on the door to this townhouse before Katherine was shot. She needed to buy herself time.

  “You killed your stepmother, and you’re going to kill me too.”

  “You don’t need to be a detective to figure that out.” Mrs. Dillinger’s voice dripped with disdain.

  “Will you at least tell me why? Your father is nearly in his grave over the loss of his wife. He loved her dearly. Why didn’t you?”

  “That grasping, conniving harpy?”

  If nothing else, Mrs. Dillinger had a good vocabulary.

  “She only married my father for the prestige of being baroness. She never loved him. She cavorted openly with Lord Conyers and God only knows who else!”

  “So you decided to plant her ring in Lord Conyers’s planter?”

  “How do you know about that?” Mrs. Dillinger asked, sounding startled. “That ring should have been mine by rights, you know. But Papa gave it to her. I got it in the end, ripped it right off her finger as she went over the railing. I found it again at Papa’s house. I assumed Lord Conyers found it in the planter and was trying to use it against my father somehow.”

  “How could Lord Conyers use the ring against your father?”

  She shrugged. “To frame him, of course.”

  “Why would he need to do that? Everyone thought your stepmother’s death was an accident.”

  Mrs. Dillinger frowned, her grip on the gun tightening visibly. “They did at first. But I heard talk at the police station when I was there with my husband. And then there were too many questions, too many whispers that Papa had killed Celia. I didn’t want him accused, so I thought it better to send the rumors in Lord Conyers’s direction with a few well-placed slips of the tongue and some rumors about her ring.”

  So that was why Mrs. Dillinger had been so open about the affair at the police station. She was trying to start the rumor so people would look to Lord Conyers if it came out that Lady Rochford did not fall by accident.

  “Is that why you confronted him at Lady Carleton’s ball?” Katherine asked.

  “I wanted to warn him off of trying to frame Papa. To buy more time for me to produce evidence against him. He was rude and uncooperative. Insisted Father must have done it. I might have been able to work something out with more time, but you came along and ruined my chances.”

  “I must say, dropping the ring into the planter wasn’t the best move. Anyone could have put it there, so it’s hardly damning evidence against Conyers.”

  “I was actually trying to get it inside his house. Some nosey neighbor caught me trying to pry open a window. I intended to drop it in, but since that old biddy was watching, I had to resort to the planter.” Mrs. Dillinger raised her arm, the gun now pointing at Katherine’s head.

  Katherine swallowed hard around the lump in her throat. “Then satisfy my curiosity. What did Lady Rochford do to anger you so? It couldn’t be only her affair.”

  “Why not?” the murderer sneered. “She brought this on herself. And when she gleefully told me that she was with child—”

  Mrs. Dillinger cut off, the poison in her voice so potent it thickened the air. Katherine didn’t dare move, not even to breathe. Her heartbeat grew louder in her ears, but Mrs. Dillinger didn’t pull the trigger.

  If she had stood a touch closer, Katherine might have tried to thrust the arm with the pistol aside. However, lunging at Mrs. Dillinger held its own perils. She had to keep the woman talking and wait for help to arrive.

  If, indeed, help was on its way. Katherine had no idea whether or not Pru had received her message.

  Mrs. Dillinger composed herself and spat, “Lord Conyers’s child has no business inheriting Papa’s estate. Even if, by some miracle, the child was my half brother, he didn’t deserve to be baron. I am Papa’s daughter. I deserve his estate when he cocks up his toes. Besides, she was older than I. If anyone should have been able to conceive…” She dropped one hand to her belly.

  Money and jealousy. Powerful motives.

  “Does that satisfy your curiosity?” Mrs. Dillinger hefted the gun, smug. “It turns out it is a lucky thing I purchased this pistol. I thought I’d need it when I killed Celia, but happenstance provided a better opportunity, one that looked like an accident.”

  “Aren’t you afraid your neighbors will hear the gunshot? You’ll be swept off to Bow Street before you can sneeze.”

  Mrs. Dillinger sounded grim as she answered, “As long as you’re dead, the only tale to spread will be the one I tell. And you broke into my home. I have a bad habit of leaving the door unlocked, you know. Perhaps you even attacked me.” She cocked her head, considering the notion. “I’ll have to find a knife from the kitchen, of course, but it wouldn’t take me long to fit it into your cold, dead hand. Enough chatter. I have to kill you before my husband comes home and—”

  A shadow moved behind Mrs. Dillinger, followed by a tremendous ringing thunk, like the peal of a padded bell. She gasped as she fell, hitting the floor and remaining there, still. The person responsible stepped into the light leaking through the street-side window. Katherine sagged against the wall as she recognized Pru.

  Her friend huffed. “I can’t keep hitting murderers over the head for you.” She adjusted her hold on the cast-iron pan, which she must have snatched from the kitchen. How had she done that so silently? “She is the murderer, isn’t she?”

  Katherine nodded. “She confessed to me in full.”

  “Hound’s teeth, Katherine,” Pru swore, prodding the unconscious woman with her toe. “Whatever possessed you to come here alone?”

  “I need to learn to do my investigations on my own. When you marry Annandale, you’ll go back to Scotland.” Katherine stared down at Mrs. Dillinger. “Thanks for rescuing me. I do hope she is not dead.”

  “I’m not leaving.” Pru’s voice was resolute, determined. She held the pan to the side as she squatted next to the body and pressed a finger to her neck. “Not dead, and you’re welcome.”

  “Lord Annandale doesn’t live here. He barely comes to London. He’ll want you in Scotland.”

  “I don’t give a flying farthing what he thinks on the subject,” Pru said. “I’m not leaving, not any time soon. We have our investigations. Moreover…” She paused. When she continued, her voice was small. “You’re my friend, Katherine. I’ve already lost one friend lately. I don’t intend for it to be two.”

  Katherine didn’t trust herself to speak, but she squeezed Pru’s hand tightly. She hadn’t realized how much she’d enjoyed having Pru’s assistance. And she did have a point: it was much safer to bring someone along when interrogating suspects.

  “Do you think I hit her too hard?” Pru asked after a moment.

  Katherine shrugged. She hadn’t the faintest idea. Until t
hey lit the candle, they wouldn’t know the extent of Mrs. Dillinger’s injury. “She’s still alive. How did you get in, anyway?”

  “I peeked in the window and thought I saw Mrs. Dillinger with a gun. The front door was unlocked. I knew you had come here, so I simply let myself in just in case. Good thing, too, or you might have ended up with a bullet in you.” Pru reached forward to grasp the pistol and remove it from where it had fallen inches from Mrs. Dillinger’s hand.

  Katherine gasped, “No! Don’t!”

  Too late. As Pru lifted the weapon, it misfired, blowing a ragged hole through the wall. In the sitting room, the hound barked.

  Katherine shouted over the ringing in her ears. “Pistols misfire if not handled carefully.” Or sometimes, even if handled with care. That was why no one loaded a pistol before they intended to use it.

  Pru dropped the weapon with alacrity. Not that it could do any harm now, with the lead ball already discharged.

  Bang! The door burst open, startling them both. Pru hefted the pan, prepared to defend herself.

  Wayland swept the hall with his gaze and sighed. “Again?” he asked wearily.

  Katherine pressed her lips together to hold back a wave of hysterical laughter, but it was no use.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Despite the merriment of those skating along the Serpentine, Katherine remained firmly on the bank, shivering in the cold air and staring toward the smoke wafting from the roasting chestnuts on the far bank.

  “Aren’t you going to skate?”

  Katherine jumped at the sound of Lyle’s voice, even though she’d seen him approach earlier. They’d stood in companionable silence, letting the joy of the Hyde Park Frost Fair wash over them. Since Katherine had confronted Mrs. Dillinger, it was one of the few times she had been able to remain still and relax.

  Despite the darkness in that woman’s heart, happiness still existed in this world. It showed in her nephews as they flopped on the ice, held up only by their parents’ hands. It showed in the careful way her father made sure Susanna stood on the sidelines away from any ice that could cause a fall, adjusting her hood when it fell back from her forehead. Her family was whole and happy, and even Susanna was able to smile today despite the loss of a friend.