Nearly A Murder: A Violet Carlyle Historical Mystery (The Violet Carlyle Mysteries Book 22)

by Beth Byers

  “I wonder if we would wire their father,” Violet suggested. “I wonder how he would feel about husbands who lust after the same woman. I wonder how he’d feel about a son-in-law who hurts his daughter. How he’d feel about the way they use these girls for his money.”

  “We are storytellers,” Victor suggested to Mrs. Kristiansen’s mounting horror. She had more of a reaction to this idea than she did to the sight of the two women lying side-by-side. “We might be able to explain it correctly.”

  “A job for you,” Kate said to her husband. “It will mean more coming from a man. An earl’s son. Make sure you sign it as an honorable. Make sure you sound horrified and make it impinge on his honor. Suggest the righteous fury of a father to strike.”

  Victor snorted, but Vi knew he would do just that, simply because Kate had asked him to. These sisters wouldn’t be worse off, physically at least, if their father knew the truth. It might destroy their faith in him if he didn’t act, but it was worth the risk, Violet thought. After all, what if it did work? They needed an escape. Love from a father. A safe place. Perhaps it was a fairytale, but Vi wanted to believe.

  And of course, if the sisters died, their father needed to know why they had died and where to strike. Also, Vi thought meanly, if they died, she wanted their father to know he’d contributed by not allowing them to be safe.

  “Who is the friend?” Vi asked, changing the subject again. “The dark haired man?”

  “Wenzel Wagner? The would-be poet?” Mrs. Kristiansen laughed and then muttered. “The Romeo who thought that dying for love was better than living?” Her expression was mean. “Idiot women.”

  Violet leaned back. They had a name for the fellow and a picture of Mrs. Kristiansen. Vi wanted to talk to the fellow, but she also wanted Mrs. Kristiansen to fear for comments such as that. She seemed to see the women as mere roadblocks to her own wants. “You know of course that if you didn’t poison the wife, her husband did.”

  Mrs. Kristiansen shook her head. “Oskar isn’t like that.”

  “What about Liam? He has an eye on you as well.”

  “Liam?” Mrs. Kristiansen’s confident scoff was back. “I might pursue a married man. I might be amoral, but I am not completely dim. A man like Liam will hurt whoever he loves, and I’m not a person who wants pain in my life.”

  “He wants you,” Rita said. “We can all see it.”

  “We don’t always get what we want.” Mrs. Kristiansen licked her dry lips and her gaze focused on the suffering twin sisters again. Sympathy passed over her face and she said, “Oskar didn’t do this. Perhaps Liam did.”

  Violet thought that Mrs. Kristiansen believed her claim. She seemed firm, but Violet knew that people lied. Often to themselves. Violet fiddled with her ring as she considered. If Mrs. Kristiansen was lying to herself, it was because she didn’t want to believe she had been wrong. She didn’t want to admit she’d thrown herself at a married man, and he was a killer.

  “What are your plans then? Just to carry on with the wife in the way?” Kate’s voice was gentle as though she sympathized. Maybe Kate did.

  “Oskar wants to divorce Ruth. They’re not in love anymore, if they ever were.”

  Violet rolled her eyes, unimpressed. It was difficult to stay in love with a man who was straying and refused you the things you needed. A safe sister, a true husband, was it so hard to provide so little?

  “He probably never loved her,” Rita said, thinking more like Vi. “Ruth brought him money. He married her for his business. He’s never going to marry you.”

  “He loves me.”

  “Is that enough?” Kate asked in the same gentle manner that had Mrs. Kristiansen tearing.

  Rita wasn’t any more gentle than Vi when she answered for Mrs. Kristiansen, “He loves money more than her, Kate. Their father doesn’t sound like a man who keeps his money invested in a company of a man who abandons his daughter.”

  “He’d have stayed involved for Margaret,” Mrs. Kristiansen shot out and then regretted it. Vi lifted both brows, gasping.

  “I didn’t mean that.” Mrs. Kristiansen shuddered and then said, “I am not myself. I am in shock. My friends are dying, and I—”

  “Well, you hope that one is dying,” Rita answered, refusing the excuses. “You need the other.”

  The only answer was Mrs. Kristiansen letting out a cry, spinning on her feet, and rushing from the room.

  Chapter 11

  Violet crossed to the twins and leaned down to them. “I’m sorry.”

  Slowly Ruth Nielsen’s eyes opened. Violet gasped and took her hand. She squeezed lightly in case she was in pain. Ruth was trying to speak and Violet asked her, “Can you blink?”

  Slowly the woman blinked once.

  “Can you blink twice?”

  The woman blinked twice.

  “Once for yes, twice for no.”

  She blinked once.

  “Your sister has woken, but she’s not really aware. It’s only been half a day. There’s hope since she’s not dead yet.”

  Despair filled Ruth Nielsen’s gaze and slowly tears leaked out of both eyes. Violet used her own handkerchief to mop them away.

  “Do you want us to contact your father?”

  It took Ruth Nielsen a long time to answer, but when she did, she blinked once.

  “My brother will do it for you. Your father will respond to a man easier?”

  Another solitary blink.

  “It’s good that you are awake and moving,” Violet told her. “The nurse believes you’ve been poisoned with hemlock. You’re getting better rather than worse. There’s hope. Fight for yourself and your sister.”

  Ruth blinked once. If blinks could be fierce that one was and Violet was cheered, however mildly, to see it.

  “We believe your sister was poisoned with arsenic.”

  The despair and the tears were back and Violet allowed Mrs. Nielsen her helpless cry. She tried and failed to speak and then Violet sighed.

  “Should we talk to Wenzel?”

  Ruth blinked and then she tried to speak again. Violet leaned closer to hear it and then leaned back frowning.

  “Here?”

  Ruth's frustrated gaze blinked once and then her gaze tried to turn to her sister.

  “Here for your sister?”

  Ruth blinked again.

  Perhaps it was the case of the star-crossed lovers. Would Margaret recover better if she heard her lover reading to her rather than Kate? Violet nodded. “We’ll find him.”

  “I’ll find him now,” Rita declared. “I won’t fail you. Keep fighting, Ruth.”

  Ruth’s gaze moved around the room and then she turned to Violet. They seemed to be asking a question, so Violet sat with her and told the woman the story of the morning. When she was finished, Ruth closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She was trying to move and speak, Violet thought, but she was bound by the poison that had been administered.

  When she’d heard that her husband was being questioned, she’d rolled her eyes. Didn’t she fear him? Violet wondered about that and then about who Ruth thought had poisoned her and her sister. Violet asked, “Do you think it was Mrs. Kristiansen?”

  Ruth didn’t blink at all.

  Vi sighed and then asked, “You don’t know who did it?”

  Ruth blinked once.

  Violet leaned back fiddling with her wedding ring. She glanced at Victor who was writing something out on a paper and guessed it was the announcement of the daughters’ predicament. She said, “It would have to be someone who knew you both.”

  “It would take knowledge of them to poison them like this,” Kate said. “They were in different rooms, in different passageways. If it were some maniac, then it would be two different people poisoned.”

  “Agreed,” Victor said. “That is what Ham said to the captain as well. It’s why they’ve had those worthless husbands in the brig shooting questions at them for so long.”

  Violet listed the names out loud. “Oskar Nielsen. Liam
Hanson. Wenzel Wagner. Milly Kristiansen.” Vi turned to Ruth and asked, “Do you know anyone else aboard?”

  Two blinks.

  Violet nibbled on her lip and then rose to pace. She moved back and forth ignoring the doctor, the nanny, even the twins laying in suffering. Kate had gone back to reading to the women and Victor had gone back to scratching at his paper. Nanny Jane rose and checked the IV bags, took pulses and listened to hearts.

  “Margaret Hanson seems a little better. Her heart rate has gone from thready to steady and not too fast.”

  “Wonderful,” Violet said and then noticed that poor Ruth was crying again. Kate paused in her reading to mop the woman’s tears. Violet returned to pacing.

  The problem was the two poisons. Why? It wasn’t like they were so easy to acquire. It wasn’t like some English policeman wouldn’t be able to try to find who had purchased them and why. He’d even be able to include descriptions of the four suspects. How much easier would it be to go into a chemist shop with a photograph and ask if this person had bought arsenic? How did one get hemlock? Vi frowned and then thought again, Why the two poisons?

  She wasn’t able to come up with an answer as she paced and then Rita returned, bringing Denny along with her and the dark-haired man. He wasn’t particularly handsome, but he had a strong frame, and a clear gaze, and he took the sight of the two women in with shock.

  “Margaret!” he breathed, a broken sound. “My god, Margaret!”

  He was across the sick bay in a flash and then on his knees next to the other woman. She didn’t move at his sob, and he actually laid his face down on her body and cried like a man who had just lost everything that mattered.

  “She’s not gone yet,” Nanny Jane said kindly. “She is awake and asleep without being aware, but she seems to be slowly coming back to us.”

  He turned his gaze up and asked, “Will she?” To Vi’s disgust he added, “What does it matter? We’ll never be happy. We are forever thwarted.”

  Violet crossed the room and slapped his face. He gasped in shock and Violet told him, “Enough of that. They are going to live, and if you want to be part of that life, you will rise up like a man and fight for what matters.”

  “Read to her,” Kate ordered. “Tell her that you love her. Make her pretty promises and then swear to yourself you’ll make them come true.”

  Kate backed away and Nanny Jane lifted knitting that Violet hadn’t noticed before and went back to work. Violet paced as he spoke to Margaret, ignoring what he said. The sight of him at Margaret’s bedside had removed him from the suspect list as far as Violet was concerned. Perhaps she was wrong, but she didn’t think so.

  She thought back to the sight of Liam, weeping for his wife, and wondered if he also could be removed. But that didn’t make sense. The problem she told herself again was the two poisons.

  “Do you know what would happen if one of the sisters died? As far as this shipping business goes?” Violet asked Wenzel.

  He looked up from his whispering and said, “I know nothing.”

  “What did Margaret tell you would happen if she left her husband?”

  “She didn’t.” Wenzel broke into crying again. “She refused to speak of it. She said it was impossible.”

  “Did she admit she loved you?”

  “She did.”

  Vi’s head tilted and she asked, “What else concerned her? Outside of her fiend husband.”

  “A fiend indeed!” Wenzel said the words like they were the darkest of curses. “The worst of men who could hurt an angel.”

  Violet didn’t bother to argue with him. This wasn’t an angel before him, however, Margaret was a woman struggling to survive. A woman who was of this world and had this world’s frailties. Again, Vi asked, “What else bothered her? Surely her only concern wasn’t her husband?”

  “She hated Oskar too,” Wenzel said. “If an angel can hate, my Margaret hated Oskar even more than Liam.”

  “Is Oskar violent as well?”

  Wenzel’s face screwed up, but he shook his head. “She loves Ruth more than she loves herself, my sweet Margaret.”

  “Then why did she hate Oskar?” Kate asked gently, using that sweet tone and nature to pull out information that people might have held onto otherwise.

  Wenzel paused. “Oskar made Ruth believe he loved her. He brought her away from everything and the moment she was secured, he went back to his whore. He broke Ruth’s heart and Margaret could never forgive such a thing.”

  Violet turned to her own twin. They eyed each other, each believing Wenzel’s story. What would they bear for the other? What pains would they set aside to see their twin happy?

  “What did Margaret want for Ruth then?”

  Wenzel sighed. “There was no out. Not for either of them. They had discussed it. They had tried to find out if there was a way when they went home this last time. They thought that if only their family would stand by them, they could leave their husbands and do charity work or something.”

  Violet didn’t roll her eyes, but she wanted to. The sisters’ best idea had been to throw themselves at their family, ask for forgiveness and provide lifelong penance for falling in love with the wrong men?

  “What did their family say?” Kate asked, low.

  “Their mother said that their father would never support them in such a scandal and to set it aside. She blamed them. Spoke to them about the lack of children and the lack of loving manners. She said to supplicate their husbands, to anticipate their needs, to be kinder and more lovely.”

  Rita scoffed darkly for all of the women there. “What idiocy.”

  “No wonder they came home hopeless.” Vi returned to her pacing as she considered.

  “Does anyone know if they discovered how the poisons were administered?”

  Denny answered that one. “They did, but the first officer and his fellows took it into the brig. No one is talking and no one has seen Jack or Ham. Luncheon was delivered. Coffee and tea. It won’t surprise me if they keep at those fellows until the day is long gone, but we won’t hear a word until they let our boys free.”

  Vi sighed. If they could talk together about what had happened, they’d be able to weave together some of the tale, she thought. They needed Jack and Ham and their knowledge. Jack and Ham, on the other hand, needed the information Violet and the rest had discovered.

  Chapter 12

  Violet heard the brig open when silence fell upon the little sick bay and they all looked up, listening for the tell-tale sign of one of their own. No such luck. Vi finally groaned and said, “I need coffee before my brain revolts. Once I have coffee, I need air.”

  She left and with her came Kate and Denny. Kate parted almost immediately to check on her daughters and she and Denny found a steward who sent tea to the nursery and then coffee to Vi’s cabin. Vi fished through her pocket for her key and found two. Her gaze widened and she had to hide a smile as she pulled the treasure out of her pocket. Vi glanced down and then Denny followed her gaze.

  “What’s all this?”

  “Jolly good fun,” Vi whispered back, elbowing him for speaking too loudly. She winked when he gave her an askance glance and then said, “We shall have to order something else to this room.”

  “We’ve already gotten a dark look, dear Vi. I believe your steward knows that I am not your husband.”

  Vi glanced and saw Baldwin watching them with an expressionless face, but his eyes were condemning.

  “We are being quite scandalous,” Vi agreed. “For those with ill-flavored thoughts, it isn’t possible for a man and a woman to be unobserved and not indulging in some sort of scandalous affair.”

  Baldwin blushed and Vi announced, “Mr. Baldwin, we’ll have dinner in this room.”

  Denny squeaked, but Baldwin just said, “Very good, ma’am.”

  Vi laughed and then told Denny, “Are you afraid?”

  “Of Jack?” Denny demanded. “Very much so. I am not a fool. He, my dear Vi, is a beast, and I am a flower.�
�

  “A delicate flower?” Vi demanded.

  “Indeed. Most breakable,” Denny added.

  He met her gaze directly and Vi winked. She inserted one of the keys into the lock and twisted. The key refused to turn. Vi coughed and then slipped it into the pocket and tried the other key. It opened the door. The moment they entered the room, she heard Baldwin move past. Vi pushed Denny further into the room and then placed her ear next to the door. She waited, counting aloud so Denny knew what she was up to.

  Once she reached one hundred, she cracked the door. Baldwin was gone. Vi winked at Denny and then tip-toed down the passage towards the small steward’s compartment. It was, as she hoped, empty. Violet hurried back to the cabin assigned to the Hansons. She slipped the key into the door and glanced over her shoulder at Denny who followed her without surprise.

  “I should have guessed.”

  “You really should have,” Violet agreed. “Silly boy.”

  Violet pushed into the cabin and glanced around with Denny quickly closing the door behind them.

  “Surely the stewards will have searched this already?”

  Vi glanced at him and then asked, “Oh really? You would like to go to dinner then? Perhaps we could join in the dancing again?”

  Denny shuddered. “Lila told me flatly that she would no more join in one of the Annabelle’s parties than she would volunteer to do the wash for an orphanage.”

  Vi laughed. “Lila is my favorite. Can you imagine her trying to do any sort of laundry at all?”

  Denny snorted as Violet began flipping through Margaret’s clothes. “It so happens,” Denny said seriously, “I can. She washes her own underthings and stockings.”

  Vi looked up in surprise. She supposed that Lila must have. Vi had done the same once. She turned from Margaret’s rather normal clothes. A few evening gowns and cocktails dresses, several more day dresses, a rather pretty jumper, and one pair of sensible trousers.