I was silent a moment while I considered what this information meant.
“Then he would have had no reason to steal them,” Milo said. He made no attempt to hide the interest in his voice.
“Exactly. And there is more. The jewels were not all there. You remember the bracelet, Mrs. Ames?”
I nodded. It had been a very distinctive piece.
“It contained twenty-two stones in total. Only four were found in James’s pocket. And there were a few more scattered about the floor.”
“Did the police recover the rest?” Milo asked.
“No. They searched the room but didn’t find them.
“Then that means…” I said, the implication of her words startlingly clear.
“Yes. Now you see why I’ve come,” she said. “Poor James didn’t kill himself. He was murdered.”
9
“MURDERED?” I REPEATED, though somehow I was not really surprised. It had been in the back of my mind since last night that something was amiss in all of this, and it seemed that now my suspicions were confirmed.
I hazarded another glance at Milo. His countenance was completely unruffled, but there was a watchful look in his eyes that went beyond his customary indifference.
“Yes,” Mrs. Barrington said. “The theft of my jewels and James’s death are obviously connected. I just haven’t determined why or how.”
I poured myself another cup of tea as I allowed the implications of what she was saying to settle around me. As far-fetched as it might seem, the events appeared too closely connected to be mere coincidence.
“The police are aware of your concerns, of course?” Milo asked, as though it was perfectly natural to announce at tea that one’s relative had been recently murdered.
“Yes, I spoke with them again today. They said they are content to let the rumor of suicide stand for the time being. I suppose it will give them more time to muster forces or whatever it is that they do. Poor James. I’m sure he would be mortified to have everyone think he would do such a thing, though anyone who knew him is bound to disbelieve it. And, of course, if it will help to catch his killer, I suppose the end justifies the means.”
She looked at me, as if expecting me to concur.
“But why come to us?” I asked, finding my words at last.
“Don’t you understand, Mrs. Ames? I need you now more than ever.” She turned to look at Milo. “And you too, of course, Mr. Ames. Your help will be invaluable.”
“But surely the police…” I began.
She shook her head. “The police will do what they can, of course, but they cannot go where you go, Mrs. Ames. They haven’t the influence in our sphere that you do. You know that people of our set won’t be open with policemen … but they will be open with you. You were able to do it before, on the south coast. I’m asking you to do it again now.”
“I … I don’t think…”
Milo was watching me, and I wished that he would say something.
“Please,” Mrs. Barrington said before I could refuse. “If you think there’s anything you can do to help, I should be deeply indebted to you.”
How could I refuse her?
“All right, Mrs. Barrington,” I conceded, albeit with grave reservations. “I’ll do what I can.”
“Bless you,” she said, rising from her seat. I rose with her, and this time she did embrace me, pressing me tightly against her ample bosom. She released me and turned to Milo, whom I suspected she would have enjoyed embracing as well, and settled for squeezing his hands warmly.
“I shall be busy with arrangements. The police say we may be unable to bury James until next Monday, a week from today. Will you come and have tea with me next Wednesday?”
“Yes, that should be all right.”
“Excellent. A week should be ample time for you to gather evidence. I shall see you then.” And with that she swept out of the room and was gone before I could have Winnelda show her out.
After the front door had closed, I turned to look at Milo, who had resumed his seat and was placidly eating a watercress sandwich.
“What do you make of that?” I asked him.
“Very interesting,” he said, though one certainly couldn’t have determined his interest from his tone.
“I don’t know what to think,” I said, still looking at the door through which Mrs. Barrington had departed. “I’m not certain how I feel about being involved in another murder investigation.”
“You like it,” Milo said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You like the idea of plunging headfirst into this tangle. In fact, I’d hazard a guess that you’re thrilled at the prospect.”
I was incensed at this assumption, whether or not it was true. “Whatever gave you such an absurd idea?”
“When you poured your tea after she told you about the murder, your hands were perfectly steady. It didn’t upset you in the slightest.”
“That’s nonsense.”
He sat back in his chair and scrutinized me. “And now your eyes are unnaturally bright, like liquid silver.”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” I huffed.
“Come now, darling, you may as well admit it.”
The buzzer rang again, sparing me the necessity of having to answer his ludicrous accusations. “Mrs. Barrington must have thought of something else,” I said.
However, it was not Mrs. Barrington who entered the room behind Winnelda, but an enormous basket of red roses, from under which the delivery boy was attempting to refrain from knocking into anything of value.
“Just set them there,” I told him, surprised. Winnelda steered him to a corner. The bouquet was nearly as tall as the boy himself. Milo tipped him, and Winnelda ushered him out before hurrying back into the room.
“Aren’t they lovely, madam,” she said with delight. “The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen!”
“Yes, they’re very lovely,” I said, as I made my way carefully to the flowers and plucked out the card. My humblest apologies and sincerest wishes for your speedy recovery, it read. The night was an utter failure, but I promise to make it up to you. —Dunmore
“From the viscount,” I said.
“Oh! How very thoughtful of him!” Winnelda cried. “He’s such a gentleman, isn’t he, madam?”
“‘Gentleman’ is not the word I would use,” Milo remarked over his teacup.
“He wishes me a speedy recovery.”
“Yes, I’m sure he does.”
Ignoring his tone, I turned to Winnelda. “Will you get some water for them?”
“Yes, madam.”
She went to the kitchen, and I turned back to Milo. Of course he would sneer at the flowers. Not only did he have general objections to Lord Dunmore, but extravagant floral arrangements weren’t much in Milo’s style. I, on the other hand, thought it was quite a sweet gesture. I didn’t share Milo’s concerns. Lord Dunmore was something of a flirt, perhaps, but there was nothing serious in his attentions. He certainly had no cause to believe that I would be receptive to them.
“Well?” I prompted Milo. He had said surprisingly little about Mrs. Barrington’s revelations, and I was curious to know what was going on behind that impassive face of his.
He looked up at me. “Well, what? Shall I applaud Lord Dunmore’s taste in roses?”
“I don’t give a fig about the roses,” I told him crossly. “What do you think we should do about Mrs. Barrington?”
He rose, tossing his napkin onto the table. “I think you’re going to do just as you please, no matter what I say. There is, at least, one positive thing about the situation.”
“And what’s that?”
“I was in the room with you when the murder occurred this time. You can’t possibly accuse me.”
He was smiling, but I sometimes wondered if that rift had been completely mended. Things had been tense and uncertain at the Brightwell, but the plain fact remained that, for a few mad moments, I had believed him capable of murder.
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“Aren’t you curious about James Harker’s death?” I asked.
“Vaguely,” he admitted. “That doesn’t mean I think we should go wading into matters that do not concern us.”
He was steadily moving toward the dining room door as we spoke.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to meet up with Garmond again to finish settling matters about my horse. And then I’ve a dinner engagement with a few friends. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Not at all,” I said, refusing to acknowledge the disappointment washing over me. “Have a nice evening.”
* * *
MILO LEFT, AND I did not allow myself to think about where he might really be going. I was not so naive as to accept his carefully reported plans for the evening at face value.
I felt again the sensation that things were beginning to fall apart at the seams, that the happiness we had constructed so carefully over the past two months was beginning to crumble.
I hobbled mournfully into the sitting room but found I was not to have the luxury of solitude in which to pity myself. Winnelda followed me and began dusting things in a very conspicuous way. She had been waiting all day with thinly veiled impatience for me to relate the events of Lord Dunmore’s ball. I was sure that bits and snatches had come her way throughout the day, and she wanted a full report, which I had been thus far too harried to give.
Now, as I sat in one of a pair of ivory-colored leather chairs before the fireplace, she was making her presence known by cleaning everything near me as energetically as possible. When she nearly knocked over the Lalique vase on the mantel, I thought it time to put an end to her domestic charade.
“Would you like to hear about the ball, Winnelda?”
“Oh, yes!” she said, dropping the duster and perching on the chair opposite me with startling speed. “I’ve been ever so curious, though I didn’t like to say so.”
“Yes,” I replied. “I thought you might be.”
I gave her a condensed version of events, with just enough of the grim details to satisfy her appetite for the macabre. Though she tried to hide it, I knew that her tastes tended toward the sensational, for I often found her scandal sheets hidden about the premises.
“That’s ever so strange,” she said when I had concluded. She had settled back in the chair by this point and was frowning as she contemplated my tale. “It doesn’t seem quite like a gentleman would do away with himself at another gentleman’s ball, does it, madam?”
This was, in essence, the same thing I had thought myself.
“It was quite a shock,” I said vaguely.
“And just think, you were just down the corridor from the scene of a tragic death,” she went on, something disturbingly like envy in her tone.
“If I had been able to walk, I might have been able to be of more use,” I said, refusing to acknowledge, even to myself, that my aid might have been more akin to snooping.
“I’m ever so sorry you fell down the stairs,” she said. “It must have been frightfully embarrassing.”
“Thank you, Winnelda. Yes, it was very unpleasant all around, though mercifully there weren’t many people to witness it.”
I thought suddenly of the four young people who had been seated on the stairs. I wondered if any of them had heard the shot that had killed James Harker. If so, one of them might have seen something of use. I wonder if that inspector had spoken to them. I thought back to the humorless expression of Inspector Harris and surmised that he was not an overly imaginative sort of person. Perhaps, if I were to …
“That reminds me, madam,” Winnelda said, drawing me from my traitorous thoughts. “One of your shoes seems to be missing. I was putting your things away before tea and forgot to mention it.”
“I believe Mr. Ames put it in the pocket of his dinner jacket.”
“I’ll just fetch it so that I can put them together in the closet. Things will be tidier that way, and then you can finish telling me all about it.”
She disappeared out of the room before I could say that I had told her all there was to tell. She was back a moment later with the offending shoe in her hand. “I found it in Mr. Ames’s pocket, just as you said. How was it that you fell, madam?”
“I don’t know what happened. My foot just slipped out from under me.”
“I suppose he’d had the floors waxed for the ball.” She flipped the shoe over, examining it. “Was something broken, madam?”
“No, just a sprain.”
“Begging your pardon, I meant something glass?”
“I don’t think so. Why do you ask?”
“There seems to be a piece of colored glass lodged on the bottom of your shoe. Perhaps that was what made you slip.”
She picked at something lodged between the sole and the heel.
I frowned. “A piece of … may I see it?”
She dropped it in my hand. I opened my palm and looked down at what appeared to be a sapphire glinting softly in the warm, flickering light of the fireplace.
10
I KNEW THE prudent thing would be to telephone the police at once. This was undoubtedly a valuable piece of evidence and should be brought to their attention. However, I needed time to think. I wasn’t ready to surrender my tiny piece of the puzzle just yet.
I held the sapphire up, letting the light play through the facets. I was no gemologist, but this looked very like the paste sapphires from Mrs. Barrington’s missing bracelet. I had slipped on it while on the stairs. How exactly had it come to be there? It had been there before the murder, which meant that the jewels had been removed from the bracelet before James Harker had been killed. Had he removed the stones for some reason? Or had someone else done it? I could think of no reason why anyone would have wanted to remove the stones from the setting in the first place. It was all exceedingly bizarre.
The buzzer rang, and my thoughts were drawn to the present when, a moment later, Winnelda came into the room. “There’s a Mr. Jones here to see you, madam,” she announced formally.
“Mr. Jones?” I repeated searchingly, dropping the sapphire into my pocket. “I don’t…”
The gentleman in question stepped into the doorway beside her.
“Detective Inspector Jones,” I said, rising from my chair, my surprise evident in my voice.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Ames.”
For a moment, I was quite unsure what to make of this most unexpected guest. The inspector had been in charge of investigating the murder I had become so unfortunately entangled in at the Brightwell Hotel. When I had left the seaside, I had rather thought I would not be renewing our acquaintance anytime soon. Then again, perhaps he had come to London on business and had dropped by to wish me a friendly hello.
Somehow, in the light of all that had happened, that seemed unlikely.
I suddenly remembered my manners. “Come in, won’t you?”
He came into the room, pulling off his hat, his dark eyes moving about in his customary observant fashion. He was what one might call nondescript in appearance, with dark hair tinged with gray and pleasant features, but there was something arresting about him that made one take notice. I motioned to the chair across from me, but he didn’t sit until I did.
“Would you care for some tea?” I asked.
“That won’t be necessary, Mrs. Ames.” His replies, while perfectly polite, did not hide the fact that there was something formal in his manner. It brought to mind unpleasant memories of when I had known him in his official capacity. Truth be told, though we had eventually cultivated a somewhat cordial working relationship, he had been rather stern with me on more than one occasion about interfering in official police business.
It occurred to me that the timing of his arrival, one night after I had been at the scene of another unexpected death, might not be entirely coincidental.
“What brings you to London, Inspector?” I asked.
“I understand you were at the scene of another murder last night.”
; One could never accuse Detective Inspector Jones of being anything less than direct.
It was one word in particular, however, that caught my attention. “A murder,” I repeated, feigning surprise. “They said it was suicide.”
He looked at me as though he knew perfectly well that I was being disingenuous. “That is what we’ve told the press.”
I frowned as he included himself in the actions of the police. “‘We’? Are you … I’m sorry, but I thought you belonged to the East Sussex police.”
“I’ve transferred to Scotland Yard,” he said. “As of last month.”
“I see.” He offered no further explanation, and I was not entirely sure whether I should be pleased or alarmed at this news. Inspector Jones and I had parted on friendly terms, but I rather suspected he would begin his customary frowning at my having been found at the scene of another murder—not that I could help it. It certainly wasn’t my fault people went about getting themselves killed wherever I happened to be.
“I was given to understand…” I began. “That is, Inspector Harris…”
“Was good enough to turn the case over to me,” he interrupted smoothly. “He is not with the Criminal Investigation Department, you see. When it became known that it was a murder, it was transferred to the CID.”
“I see,” I said again, though I was not entirely sure I did see. Inspector Jones was an extremely competent policeman and would, I was sure, prove an asset to the Metropolitan Police. None of this, however, explained his visit. Why exactly had he come to me?
“When I heard that you were at hand when the murder happened, I was particularly interested.”
“It is rather an unfortunate coincidence,” I admitted warily.
“Or a fortunate one, depending on how you look at it.”
I waited. If there was one thing I knew about Inspector Jones, it was that he was not going to reveal anything until he was ready to do so. It was a particularly maddening trait of his.
“When I saw your name among the list of guests, I asked specifically to be assigned to this case. You may be surprised to hear it, Mrs. Ames, but I’ve actually come to ask for your help.”
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