A Knightsbridge Scandal

by Anita Davison

  ‘This must be a difficult time for you all.’

  ‘Indeed. Evangeline’s funeral is tomorrow and the entire affair has been impossibly fraught.’ She took a sip from the glass and then set it down carefully beside the decanter.

  ‘Are you all right, Mrs Lange?’ Flora asked.

  ‘Of course.’ Her head wobbled on her neck, her eyes unfocussed. She planted her clasped hands in her lap and fixed Flora with an amiable, if shaky smile. ‘Now, what shall we talk about? I haven’t had a decent conversation since this whole thing began.’

  ‘That’s really why I came.’ Flora concealed her revulsion for this self-absorbed woman and summoned a smile. ‘To let you know that a man has been charged with Evangeline’s murder.’

  ‘When? When did this happen?’ Mrs Lange stiffened and blinked rapidly as if this information confused her.

  ‘Last night. Inspector Maddox took him to Cannon Row Police station.’ She did not mention whether or not he had yet confessed, but everyone seemed to regard that as formality.

  ‘You cannot know how relieved I am to hear that.’ Mrs Lange pressed a hand to her bodice, exhaling slowly. ‘Howard will be too when he gets home.’ She jumped up again and plucked another glass from the tray and waved it in the air. ‘I think this is cause for celebration, don’t you? Might I offer you a glass of Madeira?’

  ‘Not for me, thank you.’ Flora held up her hand. From the looks of it, her hostess had already consumed several glasses. But then who was she to judge? Grief took many forms. ‘Mrs Lange, you haven’t asked me who the man was.’

  ‘What?’ Her hostess blinked again, her eyes suddenly vague and unfocused. ‘Oh yes, yes of course.’ Then a thought seemed to strike her and she lifted a finger to her cheek. ‘It wasn’t Harry Flynn was it, or someone Evangeline knew?’

  Flora shook her head. ‘The killer was a stranger to you, and in fact to Evangeline as well. He was a Serbian.’ Flora stopped talking, information about spies and government officials would be far beyond the woman’s comprehension in her current state. ‘Suffice it to say he will stand trial.’

  ‘I see.’ Mrs Lange broke off to take a large gulp from her glass of Madeira. ‘But why are you here? Why not the police?’

  ‘I was present when the - assailant was apprehended.’ Her connection to Mr Gordon was bound to come out later. ‘I thought you’d like to hear the news from a friendly face. I’m sure Inspector Maddox will call at some stage to explain.’

  Mrs Lange merely hiccoughed loudly, a strange smile on her face as she resumed her seat, her glass now cradled in both hands as if it were precious.

  ‘I can see I’ve called at a difficult time.’ Flora gathered her bag and placed the condolence card she had brought with her on a side table, giving it a small pat. ‘Perhaps I should return when either John or your husband are at home?’

  ‘Oh, please don’t go yet.’ Her features twisted in childish disappointment. ‘We haven’t had a proper chat and I hardly see anyone these days.’

  The door opened a crack and Sally’s face appeared round the jamb, beckoning with a finger. Flora looked from her maid’s eager expression to Mrs Lange, who seemed unaware of the interruption.

  ‘Would you excuse me for a moment?’ Flora asked, but not waiting for an answer, rose and stepped into the hall. ‘What is it, Sally?’

  ‘You were wrong, Missus.’ She cast a swift glance through the half-open door to where Mrs Lange sat smiling to herself. ‘There’s more going on here than you thought.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Flora lowered her voice.

  ‘The maid complained to the housekeeper just now about Master John’s laundry. He’s taken to changing his collar several times a day.’

  ‘Really, Sally.’ Flora tutted in frustration. ‘And you decided to mention that to me now?’ She looked back at her hostess, who hummed between taking sips from the glass. ‘I’ll make my excuses in a moment and we’ll go. You can tell me all about it in the taxi home.’

  ‘I haven't finished.’ Sally pouted. ‘The housemaid said Master John has hurt-his-neck.’ She enunciated the words slowly as if explaining to someone half-witted. ‘His collars have had blood and puss on them every day for a week. It’s got no better and now the collars are disgusting.’

  ‘Sounds to me like he has a wound that has become infected.’ Flora grimaced. The hall seemed to tilt, then recede and a rush of ice ran through her veins. She grabbed Sally’s hand. ‘Get our coats, we have to go. Right now!’

  ‘Why, Missus? I can find out more if you-’

  ‘No time. Quickly. Get our coats.’

  Flora’s panic seemed to transfer to Sally. She nodded, then scampered back along the hall and disappeared through the green baize door into the kitchens.

  Flora smoothed down her skirt and prepared to return to the sitting room when the front door opened. Her stomach tightened at the sight of John Lange.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Harrington.’ His smile was wide and genuine as he slowly removed his coat. ‘I didn’t expect to see you today.’ He slung the coat over a hook, his gaze never leaving her face, closed the door and leaned against it, his smile fading. ‘Is something wrong? You look nervous.’

  ‘Good morning, Mr Lange.’ Flora licked her dry lips and summoned a smile. ‘I-I called to see your mother, but she seems distraught. I don’t think she’s very well, so perhaps I ought to go.’

  ‘So soon? We’ve hardly exchanged more than a few words.’ He planted his feet apart, his arms folded across his chest effectively blocking her way. ‘You know I always enjoy your company, Flora.’ He raised one sardonic eyebrow, his unblinking stare strangely unnerving.

  Flora’s nerves prickled at his use of her name, something he had never done before. ‘Inspector Maddox has apprehended the man who killed your sister. That’s what I came to tell you.’

  ‘Step-sister,’ he growled. ‘Then why rush away?’ His voice turned silky, ingratiating, and entirely at odds with the hard expression in his eyes.

  Flora thought quickly. ‘Your mother was talking to me just now when she became disoriented and unsteady on her feet. I thought she might be unwell and I wasn’t sure what to do.’ She extended a hand to where Sally had gone. ‘I was about to summon your butler.’

  John pushed open the door to the sitting room. ‘Mother, what have you been saying to our guest?’ he demanded in a brusque, cold tone, very different to the reticent, almost shy young man she had met on the Embankment.

  Flora’s gaze snagged on a thin, but ugly-looking scratch just below his ear; red and swollen it had left a yellowish mark on the edge of his collar. She stiffened and looked away quickly, but it was too late. His eyes glinted and he tugged up his collar to cover the wound.

  Mrs Lange stumbled into the hallway, her glass still in her hand, the other braced against the wall to keep herself upright. ‘There you are, John, darling. Flora came to tell us that they’ve arrested someone for killing Evangeline. Isn’t that simply marvellous?’

  ‘You promised me you wouldn’t take any more laudanum today.’ John hissed and he snatched the glass from her hand.

  ‘I don’t care anymore.’ Mrs Lange swayed against the doorframe, her shoulders slumped ‘This has all been such a strain. But it’s over now, don’t you see?’

  Flora eyed the front door which bore not only a cumbersome lock, but a bolt that had been drawn across. She would never get it open quickly enough before John stopped her.

  ‘I asked you,’ John slammed the glass on a small table beneath the hall mirror, ‘what have you been saying to Mrs Harrington?’ He grabbed his mother’s upper arms with both hands and shoved her roughly onto the chair beside the hall table. The movement dislodged the sheet of black serge that covered the mirror, but no one appeared to notice except Flora. Her own face in the glass looked white and scared. No wonder John had guessed what was in her head.

  ‘Nothing,’ his mother whined, eying the glass greedily. ‘You know I wouldn’t do that, John. We agreed.’ She ma
de a childish mewling noise and rubbed her arms with both hands where he had gripped them.

  ‘Don’t blame her.’ Flora made to step between them, but John’s fierce expression sent her backward. ‘She didn’t say anything. I put the details together myself. You killed Evangeline,’ she blurted, unable to stop herself.

  ‘Straight to the point as usual.’ John’s face darkened with anger. ‘You’re quite good at this detective stuff, aren’t you?’

  ‘I like to think so.’ He didn’t have to know she had completely misjudged everyone so far, except Lydia. And even she had harboured a secret in the end. ‘That is how you hurt your neck. Evangeline did that to you while you were strangling her.’

  His hand drifted to his collar. ‘She caught me off guard with that blasted brooch of hers. Not that it did her any good.’ The ghost of a smile tugged at his mouth but was gone again in an instant.

  ‘Why did you kill her?’ Flora felt suddenly cold. She didn’t want to hear his reasons. The man disgusted her, but she had to keep him talking.

  ‘Why?’ he repeated. ‘I should have done it before. You have no idea what it was like living under this roof with that indulged brat and my Machiavellian stepfather?’ His eyes narrowed to slits as he spat the words which must have repeated in his head often. ‘For me anyway. Things weren’t quite so fraught for you, were they, Mother?’

  ‘I did my best to make him like you.’ Mrs Lange’s childlike whine grated on Flora’s nerves. ‘You simply didn’t try hard enough to endear yourself to him.’

  ‘He always resented me,’ John sneered. ‘My presence was a constant reminder that Mother had a son when he didn’t.’

  Ignoring him, Flora addressed Mrs Lange. Surely one of them had a conscience. ‘You raised Evangeline. She was your child in everything but her birth.’ She knew better than most that blood wasn’t everything. Riordan Maguire had been devoted to her and, as it turned out, they weren’t related at all.

  ‘She was never my child!’ Her vehemence sent Flora back a step. ‘She was always Howard’s.’ Mrs Lange rocked back and forth on the chair, both hands gripped tight to the squab on either side of her knees. ‘The child of a dead saint and the only one he had time for. John and I might have been servants for all the care he took of us. I – we could never compete.’

  ‘She was a child.’ Flora slid a foot closer to the door, which neither appeared to notice.

  ‘Exactly!’ Mrs Lange’s eyes flashed as if her real personality was trying to break through. ‘A child, who should never have owned his heart the way she did. I was his wife.’ In an instant she had become vague again, an unsteady hand reaching for the glass.

  Is that what had driven these two? Jealousy? Or was it avarice? Probably both.

  Without warning, John’s hand shot out and grabbed Flora’s upper arm, his fingernails digging painfully through the fabric of her blouse.

  ‘We learned to live with his neglect, even expected it,’ he snarled in her ear as he pulled her roughly along the gloomy hallway towards the staircase. ‘What we hadn’t anticipated, was his leaving everything to his precious daughter. When he dies, which won’t come soon enough for me, Mother and I would have been forced to live on Evangeline’s charity for the rest of our lives. Then she would have married that upstart Flynn, and between them, they would have made our lives miserable.’ He twisted her roughly towards him, his face an inch away from Flora’s, his eyes dark and menacing but tinged with what could have been regret. ‘Why did you have to meddle?’

  ‘If you recall, Mr Lange,’ Flora said through gritted teeth. ‘At our first meeting, you asked for my help.’

  ‘That was my mistake.’ His face loomed inches from hers. ‘Being so good at it was yours.’

  Chapter 31

  Flora’s boots slid easily across the slick tiles as he dragged her along the hallway toward a flight of stairs that curved sharply to an unseen upper floor, rendering her efforts to resist useless. As the gap closed, she gauged the sturdiness of the rail which was highly polished and likely slippery, but the rails might prove easier to hold onto. Dismay sharpened her fear when he ignored the staircase, and instead, hauled her toward a door in an alcove to one side of the newel. Slightly smaller than the others, this one had a wooden knob instead of a brass handle.

  The cellar.

  She gritted her teeth, but refused to react to the pain in her arm, determined not to give him the satisfaction he was hurting her.

  The door grew large in her vision as he pulled her closer, while panic built inside her chest. Where were the servants? There was Jenks and the two maids from the kitchen. Had they no idea what was happening? And Sally? Where was she?

  ‘I need to know how you did it.’ Flora shifted her weight onto her left foot, forcing him to a near halt, gambling on the fact he wouldn’t be able to resist boasting how clever he had been. ‘Tell me, John. How did you lure Evangeline into that alley?’

  He turned towards her, a cruel smile twisting his features, his grip on her arm loosening, but not enough for her to extricate herself. She would be bruised in the morning.

  ‘Evangeline couldn’t resist sharing her scheme to unmask a seducer of women. I followed her that night and saw her go into the same building where you are staying. I’ve no idea who the man was whom she went to see, but assumed he must have been this Victor.’

  ‘He wasn’t.’ Flora couldn’t let him think he had been too clever. ‘Victor was someone else entirely.

  He gave a bored shrug as if this detail was irrelevant. ‘I waited in the Alexandra Hotel until I saw her leave the building. I caught up with her in the street and pretended to be in a panic. That Mother had found an obliging establishment willing to provide her with brandy and I needed her help.’ He issued a low, evil-sounding laugh which did nothing for Flora’s fears. ‘I said Mother was in The Grenadier, drinking. That we had to get her home before Father discovered her gone. He disapproves you see, as he does most things.’ He gave a self-satisfied snort. ‘Evie didn’t suspect a thing, nor did she hesitate to accompany me. We must keep up appearances, you see?’

  ‘How could you strangle your own sister?’ Flora had almost forgotten she was there under duress, apart from his painful grip on her arm. She listened for voices or approaching footsteps but nothing interrupted the silence.

  ‘Step-sister! It was easier than I imagined. She was so shocked she didn’t react at first. When she realized what was happening, she ripped that damned brooch from her coat and jammed it into my neck.’ He winced, rubbing his neck with his free hand, his lips twisted in fury.

  Flora’s stomach churned at the thought that while she and William were at the theatre, John had taken Evangeline to her death.

  She turned her head to where Mrs Lange still sat, but the woman remained in the chair where John had put her, examining her empty glass with open disappointment.

  ‘When I heard you asking about Evangeline that day.’ John shook her to make her look at him again. ‘I knew I had to watch my step. Then you brought me that cursed bag.’ His superior smile returned. ‘Which, by the way, I left beside her body deliberately. I knew about the library receipt.’

  ‘You wanted the police to find it?’

  ‘Naturally, in order to lead them to this Victor person. You almost spoiled everything. Almost’ He gave her arm another rough shake which made her teeth click together painfully.

  Flora’s thoughts raced.

  It was the brooch that had convinced Flora he had killed Evangeline. The brooch he was so keen to make her believe was virtually worthless. It would be the one thing which could seal his fate. If she lived long enough to tell the world. This fact struck her as ironic and she almost laughed. How could she have allowed herself to get into two life-threatening situations in two days? This wasn’t happening.

  ‘Was Evangeline’s brooch that valuable you had to beat a barmaid to get it?’

  His grating laugh sent a wave of fear through her veins. ‘Have you any idea what that brooch
is worth? I had intended getting that ring Flynn gave her as well, but I was still struggling with her glove when that slut from The Grenadier saw me. I had to abandon them both and get out of that alley before she raised the alarm.’

  ‘You would let an innocent man be hanged for a crime you committed?’ The second the words were out she regretted her naivety. Just like Elena Lowe, this man too was a monster and wouldn’t hesitate. She cast a fearful glance at the green baize door, willing it to open, but then changed her mind. Sally might still remain undetected, and if so, there was a chance she could find help. The desperation she had felt the day before in Crabbe’s sitting room returned in full force, despite the absence of a gun.

  ‘Why not? The police don’t suspect me.’ He slammed her up against the wall beside the cellar door and reached for the key that sat in the lock. ‘And they won’t, because I don’t intend to risk you telling anyone.’

  ‘I have no proof you murdered her.’ Flora managed to keep her voice steady. The brooch might be evidence enough but she didn’t have that either.

  ‘It’s too dangerous.’ He shook his head, frowning, almost as if he was talking to himself. ‘Not when I’ve gone to so much trouble.’

  He fumbled with the key one-handed, the lock stiff and difficult to manipulate, his vice-like grip on her arm still firm. The lock finally gave and frantic, Flora aimed a boot at his shin, but it connected weakly, eliciting nothing from him but an angry grunt. He was far stronger than she had imagined, evidenced by his swift kick to the door that flew inwards, revealing the top of a steep wooden staircase that dropped into what looked like a black, bottomless hole.

  Flora glanced behind her where the butler Jenks had appeared silently from the servant’s door. A rush of hope made her flail her free arm. ‘Mr Jenks. Help me please, I-’ she broke off at the sight of his flat colourless eyes and the fact his face had not changed expression. He would be no more help than Mrs Lange. What kind of house was this? Though if they were all terrified of John, she had even more to worry about.