A Jazzy Little Murder

by Beth Byers

  Violet snickered as Victor’s expression admitted that Jack was accurate enough about the more criminal of them.

  “So,” Victor suggested, “if Jack is Holmes, Violet is Adler, who is Watson?”

  “Violet can also be Watson,” Jack said.

  “No, no, no,” Denny declared, “this doesn’t work at all. I’m sorry, Jack, but Violet is the more interesting detective. Being willing to break the laws is my favorite part about her.”

  “You are making me sound like I go around causing mayhem. I am, generally, nice and kind.”

  “You bullied Gertrude into confessing, so your wedding wouldn’t be delayed. You set her up, lied to her, and made sure Scotland Yard was listening.”

  Violet grinned. “I did do that, didn’t I?” She sniffed and then sipped her cocktail. “It was deserved.”

  “It might have been,” Denny agreed. “The key thing here is that I’m Watson.”

  Violet reached out and patted Denny’s hand. “I don’t mind if you’re Watson, Denny.”

  “Oh laddie,” Lila laughed, “if they made a mocking version of Holmes, you could be Watson then. Stumbling through an investigation and barely surviving some Machiavellian villain by sheer happenstance.”

  “Are you saying I’m stupid?” Denny demanded.

  “Mmm, more lazy,” Lila told him. “Now refill my cocktail, please.”

  Denny shot her a look, but he rose to get her cocktail glass and handed it to Victor before flopping back onto the sofa. “It’s hard to be me.” He pouted towards Vi and then said, with a complete change in attitude, “Saw Jack at the club. He said you’re looking for a place to tango. I know one.”

  “Do you?” Violet asked as their butler appeared in the doorway to announce Ham and Rita.

  “Know a fellow who works at the tango club. The bloke’s a bit dramatic.” Denny nudged Violet and waggled his brows towards Ham and Rita appearing at the same time. “Tends to have a story that’s full of rumors and secrets.”

  “They don’t sound very secret,” Rita said as she took a seat next to Vi, kissing her cheek and then accepting a cocktail from Victor. “If he’s just blabbing them all.”

  “You’d think so. But he only tells little bits of the story here and there. You never know if you have all the pieces. No one knows but him. Sometimes I’m not sure if he knows at all or if his own half-stories become the truth in his head.”

  “Oooh,” Violet said, lifting a brow at Denny. “That sounds a little poisonous, my friend. Why do you like this fellow who works at the tango club?”

  “He’s almost as fun as you, Vi.” Denny laughed at the look on Vi’s face and added, “You’re not poisonous, my friend. I don’t like him so much, now that I think about it, but he does throw a good party.”

  “Why don’t we eat before Denny offends Violet and refuses him entrance to the house?”

  “Speaking of leaving Denny out,” Violet said, pausing long enough for Denny to squirm, “shopping tomorrow, ladies?”

  “Never,” Kate said. “Have fun, dolls. I will never approach a shop again ever. I’m just going to wear sackcloth and ashes, mourning my figure and my wardrobe.”

  Violet only laughed at Kate’s whine. There was little doubt in Vi’s mind that Kate’s poor swollen feet were the issue, not her shape. Violet had witnessed her sister-in-law running her hand over the baby bulge too many times with a soft look on her face.

  “Uh-oh,” Vi said, “Victor didn’t rush in to tell you you’re beautiful growing the baby.”

  “He’s only allowed to say it once per day. He’s trying to give me a fat head, I think. To go with my fat feet and my fat stomach.”

  Vi groaned and nudged Victor. He kept his mouth shut, but she could read his thoughts in his gaze and laughed at the combination of panic, stress, and frustration.

  “Stop it,” Victor told Violet.

  Her expression told him that she’d never stop, but she reached out and took his hand, squeezing. “I wrote some of a new book.”

  “Good,” Victor sighed. “I’ve gotten stuck on about three. My writing process includes you telling me all the things I’m doing wrong. When I know it’s off, I find myself just thinking, I need to talk to my Vi.” Victor glanced at Jack to watch him react and then smiled to himself when Jack lifted a silent brow.

  Ham, however, laughed while Rita tried to hide her reaction. The butler saved both Jack and Victor from pretending to fight and they made their way to dinner. Dinner was delicious, as was the conversation. When they finished, Denny said, “Well, loves, we could go lay about the parlor, listen to the wireless, and enjoy our people being back where they belong.”

  “Or?” Jack asked.

  “The fellow I know is playing at a new little club I also happen to know. It won’t be tangoing this time, but it should be fun all the same.”

  “Never,” Kate declared, pointing to her feet. “Victor will go with you. I’m going home to loll about, beached-whale style.”

  “We can just stay here,” Violet told Kate, hooking their arms.

  “Darling Violet,” Kate said, patting her cheek, “don’t be silly. I want to loll about with you or without you.”

  “I’m certain I ordered a lolling lounge.”

  Kate just grinned and shook her head. “I need my bed, darling one, but I will loll on your sofa soon.”

  Chapter Three

  The club was slightly larger than a hole in the wall with a nest full of chipmunks fighting for space inside. There was an actual line out of the club, but Denny led the way to the person standing at the door, whispered something in his ear, and pressed something into his hand. A moment later, the door opened and they were led inside.

  “This feels illegal,” Ham remarked, glancing about and pulling Rita into his side as a drunk young man nearly stumbled into her.

  “It probably is,” Denny agreed happily. “Fun, however.”

  The dance floor was crowded, there was a bar along one wall with people fighting to reach the barman, the smoke was thick in the air, and beyond the scent of too many bodies pressed together was the smell of mold and mildew. Violet scrunched her nose but then the music started with the wail of a trumpet. She paused and turned and Denny shouted, “See!”

  She did see. Or hear, rather. It was as if an angel were playing the instrument.

  “Oh,” Violet breathed. Jack tugged her into the center of the dance floor. Given his size, the press of bodies on the floor didn’t overwhelm them. They danced until sweat was pouring off of both of them and Vi forgot all about the crowd, the smoke and the mildew.

  When the band took a break, Violet and Jack did as well, looking about for their friends. Vi could see nothing above the crowd, but Jack took her hand and led them through the throng. Victor was leaning back with a cocktail, and Violet immediately stole it from him before glancing around. Denny and Lila were chatting with the trumpeter from the band while Ham and Rita were in line for cocktails. Jack jerked his head towards the bar and left her with Victor.

  “Meet Joshie Barnes, Vi,” Denny shouted above the din. “This is the girl I was telling you about,” he said to Joshie.

  “The witty one?” Joshie turned towards Violet and gave her a charming, lascivious grin. He held out a hand that was strong and calloused from his instrument. His skin was a bit darker, and Violet wouldn’t have been surprised to find that the man in front of her had an interesting genealogy. His dark eyes raked over her, and she found herself flushing at the way his gaze lingered on her chest and then moved on to her legs. Her evening gown was rather short, and she hadn’t considered that until this Joshie fellow made her feel about one breath from naked.

  When his gaze returned to hers, she lifted a brow, and he didn’t even look the smallest amount ashamed. Violet turned to Denny and lifted the same brow, and he—at the least—blushed slightly and shrugged as if to say: what can you do?

  Violet sipped Victor’s cocktail and then suggested, “Perhaps we should try to find some fres
her air?”

  “This way,” Joshie said.

  Violet glanced at her brother. “Can you see Jack?”

  Victor nodded. “They can see us.”

  Violet followed Denny and Lila who followed Joshie. They moved through the crowd towards the back of the building and ended up passing a roomful of people half-hidden in a thick smoke that wasn’t quite right. Violet scowled when she noticed one young woman sleeping with her mouth open and legs spread.

  “Just a moment,” Violet said, leaving her brother and crossing to the girl. She pulled the girl to her feet and heard a, “What?”

  “Time to go home, love,” Violet told her.

  “Oh, no. I need my fellow to take me home. He stepped out. He’ll be back soon, I’m sure.”

  Violet’s smile belied her anger. “I have a driver. I’m sure one of these gents would tell your fellow that you’ve gone.”

  “Oh.” The girl blinked slowly, and Violet was sure the girl was more than just tired and zozzled. Vi wanted to track her beau down and give him a piece of her mind, but instead, she took the girl towards the exit with Jack pacing beside her.

  “This place is something Denny would find,” Jack said as he helped bring the girl to their auto and sent her home with their man. “It’s horrible.”

  “And fabulous,” Violet admitted as the auto drove away. She breathed deeply. “The air is so much fresher, isn’t it? After that club?”

  “Violet,” Jack replied with a baffled glance, “I am almost certain I smell urine.”

  Vi grinned at him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Perhaps just a little. The club, however, was rank in a way that demands a thorough scrubbing and possibly burning our clothes.”

  Jack pressed a kiss against her forehead. “You’re right. You are foul now.”

  Vi gasped and shoved away, but he tangled their fingers together.

  “I adore you still.”

  “My feelings are under debate after such a comment as that!”

  “It was no good of that fellow to leave his girl like that.” Jack sighed, but it was more of an angry sound than an unhappy one. “She could so easily have been harmed. Whoever the man is, I’d like to teach him the error of his ways.”

  Violet laughed, stepping aside what looked like a bag of trash that had been torn apart by feral dogs. “I am not certain I am wearing the right shoes for this place.”

  “Certainly not,” Jack agreed, wrapping his arm around her waist and lifting her enough off the ground that her shoes weren’t destroyed.

  “What a useful gent you are. A rescuer of shoes, a carrying of burdens—even me—a…ah…something very gallant indeed.”

  “Is this my Vi struggling for words?” Jack side-stepped the line and walked to the front. The bloke at the door clearly wanted another tip, but Jack told him. “We’re only playing once for entering such a place.”

  “Mebbe I won’t let ya enter,” the fellow said, straining a rather prodigious neck.

  “Maybe I’ll report this fire hazard to the authorities and have you shut down,” Jack suggested idly as though discussing the weather. “Come now. You know we’ve paid once already.”

  “Bobby ain’t gonna like you sent his girl home,” the fellow said.

  “Then perhaps Bobby shouldn’t have left her to herself in such a state,” Violet snapped. “He’s lucky all we did is send her home and not off to a convent. She surely needs someone to intervene.”

  “Bobby don’t like mouthy dames,” the fellow said, giving her something of an evil glance, as though this Bobby would be able to teach her a woman’s place.

  Violet winked at the doorman just to watch his ears turn red. A moment later, he cursed and opened the door to the club, letting Violet and Jack back in.

  “You should turn them in,” Violet told Jack.

  “Feeling vengeful, sweet Vi?”

  Violet scowled at the press of bodies and yelled over the clamor. “I suppose we must at least tell the others before we leave them to be poisoned by the air and drinks here.”

  That time, they had to push through the crowd despite the lateness of the hour and the size of Jack. The band had begun again but without Joshie, and it had none of the brilliance it possessed with him.

  Violet could almost see the appeal of this place. It felt exclusive, like only those who knew about it would find it. It catered to music lovers with the band and the forbidden with what had to be drugs. The man at the door only letting in people as he chose, it made others feel left out. It made their own forbidden trip—when it happened—feel all the more like something special. In the end, however, she’d prefer Indian food with Jack or dancing on the beach.

  “This place is ridiculous,” Violet said as she passed a woman whose dress had flipped up in the back. They’d entered the hall with the slew of back rooms and were pausing in each doorway as Jack glanced in to look for their friends. Violet paused at the sight of a woman fervently kissing a man against quite a dirty wall. Her dress had slid up, and Violet snapped it back into place before telling Jack, “I want to go back to Spain. Why can’t we just be taken there as if on angel’s wings?”

  “Shall we leave in the morning?”

  Violet almost nodded to see if she said yes whether he’d pack a bag that evening and buy them tickets on the next ship, but she knew that Victor would never take Kate this close to giving birth to their baby. She sighed and shook her head. “I can’t leave Victor and Kate and the baby, and there is no way that Kate will go. Perhaps we can get her to motor down to the country house with us? We could take it slow and easy and get her there to have the baby in their new home. That would be better than London, surely? We could horseback ride and breathe country air and—”

  “Get the stink of this place off of us,” Jack agreed. “I think we’d need to take Lila and Denny or he may weep right into his coffee every morning without you.”

  “Darling Jack, is that jealousy I hear?”

  “I am almost entirely certain Denny looks on you as his personal performing monkey.”

  Violet choked on the sudden shock of laughter just as they heard shouting from behind another door. “Shall we make a wager?”

  But Jack wasn’t listening, his head turned to the door. “Certainly that is Victor.”

  Violet paused and realized it was her twin. He so rarely got furious to that level. She’d just assumed her friends had somehow involved themselves in whatever dramatic things were happening in the back rooms but this was something far, far more serious.

  Jack opened the door, and Violet’s jaw dropped as she saw Victor shaking Martha, Lila’s sister. The girl was dressed so scantily that Violet felt like she was wearing a nun’s habit by comparison.

  “Are you trying to ruin my life? What is the matter with you? Bloody hell, woman!”

  “Victor, old man,” Denny said easily, “perhaps don’t knock her teeth out of her head.”

  Lila was watching Martha be shaken like a rag doll, easily balancing her drink. She sipped idly from it as Martha’s wailing head rolled about her shoulders.

  Victor didn’t even pause in his tirade until Violet shouted, “Victor Ulysses Carlyle, let go of the girl at once!”

  Victor turned, his cheeks and ears red with fury and his lips covered in lipstick.

  “Oh heavens,” Violet said with a gasp, “it’s on his collar. I will slaughter her myself.” She started forward just as Jack hooked his arm around her waist.

  “I believe,” he said calmly, “that there are enough witnesses to protect Victor from getting in trouble. Especially when we make him scrub down at our house to get the stench of this place off of himself. I believe those with child tend to have more sensitive noses.”

  Violet glanced at Jack and then at Victor, who was still in a rage with his fingers digging into Martha’s arms. “Darling,” Violet told Victor, placing her hand on his wrist. “You’re leaving marks.”

  “I find I care little.”

  “Regardless,” Violet
snapped, shrugging off Jack’s hold, “let her go. Kate will be fine. She knows you adore her.”

  “But why?” Martha demanded. “The plain little thing, completely unstylish, so bookish.”

  Victor shoved Martha away from him, but not before Violet gave her a ringing slap. Martha gaped in horror as Violet slapped the loose girl once again. “Do not play games with my brother’s happiness, you idiotic child.”

  Martha let a crocodile tear loose, but her calculating gaze met Violet’s in challenge.

  “Don’t think you’ll win against me,” Violet told her flatly. “There’s little I wouldn’t do to ensure you lose.”

  Martha dropped her hand from her face and straightened her dress. “Lila, what kind of sister are you? You didn’t do anything to help me.”

  “If I have told you once, I’ve at least told you twice,” Lila said idly, “you’re making your own bed. If you are determined to paddle your way to hell, I’m not going to waste my energy trying to row you back.”

  Martha stamped her foot and then glanced about. Joshie was smoking in the corner of the room, an open grin on his face at the scene, while another man scowled at all of them. Rita and Ham were nowhere to be seen. Violet felt a flash of worry at the recollection that Rita was something of an adventurer and Ham was a former soldier and now a Yard man.

  “I hear you’re the one who floated my girl away,” the other man told Violet.

  “What are the chances,” she asked Jack, ignoring the man, so she didn’t turn into a crazy fishwife on him, “that the auto is back?”

  “Small.”

  “Indian food?”

  “What time is it?” Denny asked. “I’m suddenly hungry. Has it been so long since we ate?”

  “Hours,” Lila answered. “It’s nearly morning. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed.”

  “Must be why I’m so famished.”

  “Indian food,” Jack agreed. “Victor, find Ham. I’m taking the ladies out of here. Did you want to bring along Martha?”

  “She’s hardly a lady,” Lila answered, and Martha scowled at her.

  “I suppose we must,” Denny sighed, taking Lila’s hand and placing it on the crook of his elbow and then taking Martha by the upper arm in what looked to be a not so gentle grip.