I stared at her, horrified. “Why wasn’t he arrested?”
“I can only assume she was too afraid to tell what had happened. I counted myself fortunate to have parted ways with him, and I had never thought to see him again. But then we were both invited to the Barringtons’ dinner parties. I tried to act normally, as though we didn’t have history, but it soon became apparent that he wanted to … renew our acquaintance. That night at the ball, he had followed me upstairs and tried to push me into one of the bedrooms. We struggled, and it was only when someone came along that I managed to slip away. I think he intended to move on to someone else after that. I was, well, hiding in one of the bedrooms when the shot sounded.”
I thought of the bruises I had seen on her chest at the hat shop. That explained them, her uneasiness when I had mentioned Nigel Foster, and why she had lied about being in the ballroom when the murder had happened.
“I don’t think he would have cared about me in the slightest, if it hadn’t been for Alexander. But once he knew I cared for someone else, he decided he would stop at nothing. It isn’t as though he loves me. He only wanted to prove that he could have me.”
An athlete’s competitiveness, I thought. Combined with the violent streak of a ruthless man, it might prove deadly.
“Nigel’s attentions made Alexander jealous at first, though he’d never admit it. But things have often been uneasy between us. We’ve quarreled frequently, almost since the beginning. He is kind but often thoughtless. He always does just as he pleases with no consideration for anyone else. Nigel’s return to London was just the final straw. Alexander and I had a terrific row and said some terrible things to one another. Until that night at the Barringtons’ home, we hadn’t seen each other in weeks. Mrs. Barrington didn’t know, of course, and I think it was all rather awkward for her.”
It made sense that Lord Dunmore had begun dangling after me that night. Perhaps it had been his own attempt at inducing jealousy in the woman he loved. I never ceased to be amazed at the games we play with the people we love. I had been guilty of it myself, to some degree.
“I’ve been planning to go away,” she said, “saving money to go to my sister in Australia. Then I went to see him a few nights ago, and … Well, I thought it might be possible to make amends. But now I just don’t know. We quarreled again tonight…”
“Was it about the diamond?” I asked, hoping to make amends for that at least. “There’s an explanation.”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t that. It’s just so many things,” she said sadly. “I think Alexander cares for me, in his way, but I can’t go on the way I have been. I just can’t.”
“I’m sorry,” I told her. I could think of nothing else to say. I knew only too well that one-sided devotion just wasn’t enough.
“I just thought you should know,” she said, turning toward the door. “I didn’t like to leave the country without someone knowing the truth.”
I stood in the room for a moment when she had gone, digesting what she had told me. I didn’t know what to make of this unexpected confidence. While I did not wish sympathy to bring down my guard, her story had had the ring of truth to it, and I didn’t believe she was the killer.
I felt sorry for her, and I hoped that, if she could not find happiness here, she would find it in Australia, starting a new life with her son.
The clock on the wall chimed eleven, drawing me back to the matter at hand. I had informed all the suspects of the location of the Dunmore Diamond. I supposed I needed to go upstairs and see if the trap would have any effect.
I went out into the hall and was walking back toward the foyer but stopped before turning the corner when I heard voices.
I recognized one of the speakers as Milo. His arrival did not so much catch my attention as did the fact that there was a woman with him.
They were speaking in French.
I hadn’t seen Helene Renault at the ball tonight, but I could think of no one else with whom my husband would be conversing in that particular language.
“Come into this room with me,” she was saying. “I must speak to you.”
I hazarded a glance around the corner and saw them enter the sitting room in which my earlier dramatic scene had been enacted. Luckily, they did not close the door completely behind them.
Naturally, I did what any self-respecting wife would do and moved to listen. I leaned against the wall, hoping that anyone who happened to see me would think I was only resting after a particularly strenuous waltz.
“I had to come and see you tonight,” she told him. She had a low, sultry voice that was only enhanced by the fluidity of her native tongue. It was exactly the kind of voice I would have expected a French seductress to have, and I found it intensely irritating. “I think, perhaps, that you’re angry with me, and I couldn’t bear that.”
“Not at all,” Milo answered in an amiable tone. “Why should I be?”
“Because we were caught in that photograph. I knew that it would displease you.”
“It wasn’t so much the photograph that surprised me.”
“You mean the kiss?” She laughed, a throaty laugh that sounded well-rehearsed. “You didn’t like it?”
“It was, shall we say, ill-timed.”
I felt a sinking feeling, as though all my worst suspicions had been confirmed. Milo was chiding her for her indiscretion and nothing more. I wanted to walk away, but I found that I couldn’t. Not just yet. I had to know how things really stood between them, the extent to which she had captured my husband’s affections.
She laughed again. “The photographers follow me around. They like to see interesting things. And you, Milo,” she purred his name, “are very interesting indeed.”
She was laying it on rather thickly. If Milo was entranced by such obvious charms, I had greatly underestimated him.
“What did your wife say?” she asked with a giggle that made me grit my teeth.
“She was not pleased.” Milo had always had a knack for understatement.
“Did she curse and hit you and throw things at you?”
I felt a surge of indignation. What did she think I was? A sailor?
“Hardly,” Milo replied, and I could hear the humor in his tone. “But she was displeased, nonetheless.”
She sniffed. “You English are inclined to take things much too seriously. Did you tell her it was only a bit of fun?”
“I told her that we were photographed at an inopportune moment and that it went no further.”
“So sad,” she lamented. “But there are no photographers now.” The invitation in her tone was very clear, but she said the words anyway. “Kiss me.”
I tensed, waiting for a telling silence as he acquiesced. I was rather surprised when I heard his answer.
“No, Helene,” he replied, in the same calm tone. “As I told you before, I’m not interested.”
“I think you are teasing me,” she taunted him. “Perhaps you think to drive me mad with desire. Is that it?”
I clenched my teeth. For pity’s sake. She spoke exactly as if she was playing a role in some absurd melodrama. I had never seen one of her films, but if this performance was any indication of her talent, I was not missing anything.
I recognized the growing impatience in Milo’s tone. “I’m not teasing you, Helene. And I’m not going to kiss you.”
She gave a little sniff of displeasure.
“I hope you don’t think I don’t appreciate the offer,” he continued. “You’re a very beautiful woman, and I am flattered, but I’m afraid the answer is still no. You see, it may be dreadfully English of me, but I’m very fond of my wife.”
I stood very still, relief coursing through me. I felt oddly as though I might cry. Naturally, a husband should care for his wife, but it was different to hear it from Milo’s lips when he didn’t know that I was listening.
He was going to come out of the room soon, so I passed quickly by and moved toward the stairway.
I must have loo
ked quite the fool rushing up the stairs, a ridiculous smile on my face.
* * *
ONCE UPSTAIRS, I tapped at the door of the bedroom across from the card room. It was opened instantly by a portly sergeant who must have been hovering just inside, waiting for the culprit to make an appearance.
“Good evening,” I said, brushing past him and into the room. “No sign of a thief yet?”
He was, I think, caught a bit off guard by my arrival, but he recovered quickly. “Not a peep out of anyone yet, ma’am,” he said.
I felt a nagging bit of worry. Perhaps the trap had been too ridiculous to work. Or perhaps one of the Barringtons or even Lord Dunmore was the killer and was privy to the entire thing. In retrospect, it all seemed quite hopeless.
I took a seat in a brown velvet chair. I might as well wait a bit longer. It was still possible that something would happen.
The sergeant seemed ill at ease with my presence. I thought it possible he wasn’t entirely sure who I was and what I was doing bursting in upon his clandestine assignment. Nevertheless, he was too polite to say so, and we chatted for a few moments about the weather.
The door opened a moment later, interrupting the sergeant just as he was beginning to regale me with his own highly developed theory regarding the best climates in which to catch criminals. It was Inspector Jones, and Milo was behind him. “Good evening, Mrs. Ames,” said the inspector as they entered and he closed the door behind him, leaving it open the barest of cracks. “I thought we might find you here.”
I looked at Milo and found his eyes were already on me. I smiled. “Hello,” I said.
He gave me a little smile in return, and I felt a rush of love for him. There was so much I wanted to say to him, but I knew perfectly well that now was not the time.
“Nothing yet, eh?” Inspector Jones said, calling my attention back to the matter at hand.
“No, no one has taken the bait yet,” I said glumly.
“Well, with any luck it won’t be much longer.”
The sergeant stationed himself near the door, where he could see through the crack out into the hallway. Milo and Inspector Jones both took a seat, and we waited in expectant, yet not exactly optimistic, silence. I thought how dull the evening would prove to be if we had only sitting around looking at one another to keep us entertained. Someone should have thought to bring a deck of cards. We might have played bridge.
As it turned out, however, we did not have long to wait. As usual, the inspector’s instincts were correct. It was only a short while later that the sergeant signaled to us. Then I detected the faint sound of footsteps outside the door. The inspector held up his hand for silence.
We waited a moment, and then Inspector Jones moved silently to the door and eased it open a bit wider. I couldn’t see from my vantage point, but a moment later he pulled the door open fully, and I could see out into the hallway.
Marjorie Echols stood there, the Dunmore Diamond dangling from her hand.
I stood, my eyes wide. I couldn’t believe that it had worked. It seemed almost absurd that it had. Yet there she stood, as guilty as you please.
“Good evening, Miss Echols,” Inspector Jones said in a tone that somehow managed to be both polite and accusatory at the same time. “Would you mind telling me what you’re doing with that necklace?”
I saw something flash across her face, and I thought that she was going to be stubborn about it, make up some preposterous excuse. Then it seemed almost as though she wilted a bit. “I suppose you’ve found me out, haven’t you? I knew it was too good to be true.” She shot an angry glance at me. “I should have known it was some sort of trap.”
“Perhaps you’d better step into this room,” Inspector Jones said. He took the diamond from her hand and deposited it in his pocket.
“Oh, wait!” cried another voice. “She hasn’t done anything.” It was Felicity Echols who had come down the hall. She was pale and wringing her hands. “Please don’t arrest her. She didn’t mean it.”
“Be quiet, Felicity,” Marjorie said, though her tone was kind.
“If there is an explanation to be had,” Inspector Jones said calmly, “it would be best if you gave it to me now.”
They filed after him, and he closed the door. We all sat down, and Inspector Jones looked at Marjorie Echols. “Now, why don’t you tell me what’s been going on.”
She let out a sigh and shrugged. “If you must know, Jim had been giving me pieces of his aunt’s jewelry to sell.”
This surprised me. James Harker had been stealing his aunt’s jewelry? This I hadn’t expected. In fact, it didn’t make sense.
“Why would he do that?” Inspector Jones asked pleasantly.
She smiled, a flash of confidence returning. “Because I asked him to.”
“I see. He was in love with you, then?”
She shrugged again. “I don’t think Jim ever really thought of it in those terms. We were just great friends. He wanted to help me when he could. And he wanted to help Felicity. Truth be told, I think he was perhaps a little in love with her. Felicity cared for him, too, in her own way. She was very fond of him.”
Inspector Jones glanced at Felicity, who was quite pale, and then back to Marjorie. “He wanted to help your sister how?”
Marjorie looked at her sister, and I saw Felicity give an almost imperceptible nod.
“She was being harassed by Mr. Foster.”
“Harassed?” Inspector Jones repeated skeptically. I marveled again at the way in which the man could convey so much while saying so little.
“Yes, he is quite mad to get Felicity to … succumb to his charms. She doesn’t like him and never has, but he doesn’t let that worry him. He’s been rather relentless about it.”
Her words had the ring of truth to them. I had, unfortunately, had a glimpse of the lengths to which Mr. Foster would go. And Mrs. Garmond confirmed that he would stop at nothing to get what he felt was being denied to him.
I had been able to escape him, but I wondered if Felicity had been less fortunate in the past. I hoped not. I remembered what she had told me that night at the Sparrow. She had been drunk and confused about who had brought me there. It had not been Lord Dunmore she had been warning me against, but Mr. Foster.
“We were going to wait a while to sell the things, and then we were going to leave London and go abroad,” Marjorie went on. “Jim gave us a few pieces, but then he thought his aunt was growing suspicious that the things were disappearing in her house. So he said he would meet us at the ball and give us one last piece. However, when he met up with us that night, he said that his aunt had decided to wear a paste bracelet and we would have to wait.”
So Mr. Harker hadn’t taken his aunt’s bracelet. Then who had? I felt as though we were turning around in circles.
“The night of the murder, did he have a gun with him?” I asked suddenly. Inspector Jones looked as though he didn’t quite appreciate my butting in.
“Yes.” She let out a laugh. “Poor fool. He said he would protect us from Mr. Foster, if need be. It was his own gun that he was killed with, wasn’t it? I was afraid something like that would happen.”
“Did you kill him, Miss Echols?” Inspector Jones asked.
“Oh, no!” cried Felicity.
Marjorie looked genuinely surprised. “Certainly not! I was truly fond of Jim.”
“Despite the fact that you were forcing him to steal from his aunt and give you the jewels,” Inspector Jones said.
She shrugged. “I needed the money. Mrs. Barrington has a lot of jewels. I didn’t think it would matter that much in the end.”
“We shouldn’t have done it,” Felicity whispered. “We shouldn’t have taken those things. Jim didn’t mean to be a thief. He thought of us as a charity, people who needed his help. He was so very sweet. He only wanted to…” She broke off suddenly, weeping into her hands. The sergeant handed her his handkerchief.
“It wasn’t all that nice to take advantage of Jim, perha
ps,” Marjorie admitted. “But he said that he wanted to help us, and I wasn’t going to say no. Besides, he didn’t help us much in the end.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Things escalated quickly. Mr. Foster began turning up everywhere we went, trying to get Felicity alone. Even that night at the ball, he arrived in the same mask as Jim. I think he meant to try to trick Felicity into going off alone with him.”
So that accounted for the duplicate mask, why he had called Mr. Bertelli about a “joke” he wished to play. Mr. Foster had meant to use it as a trap of his own. I found the man utterly detestable.
She looked at me. “That night we had dinner with you and the Douglas-Hugheses, Felicity stayed home because we expected Mr. Foster would be there. I thought maybe if I tried to talk to him, he would leave her alone, but it was no use. He’s a cad through and through. So I decided to sell one of the pieces sooner than we had planned. And that’s when I found out.”
“Found out what?” Inspector Jones asked.
“That all the things Jim had given us were paste.”
30
I STARED AT her. For just a moment, the room was silent and I could hear the loud ticking of the clock on the wall. I think we were all a bit stunned at this newest revelation.
“What do you mean?” Inspector Jones asked at last.
Marjorie sighed, as though we were quite dense and explaining all of this was becoming a great inconvenience. “I took them to sell them, and the proprietor told me that they weren’t real. Just costume pieces, he said.”
I frowned. James Harker had been giving them paste jewels all along? Then where were the real things? None of this seemed to make any sense.
“Are you certain?” I asked.
She looked at me impatiently. “The jeweler ought to know, I think.”
Then the piece she had attempted to sell hadn’t been the piece Mr. Gibbs had found for me in Whitechapel. He had insisted the pin tonight was genuine, and I was inclined to believe him.
“Either James was very stupid and took the wrong things,” Marjorie said, “or he did it on purpose.”
Death Wears a Mask Page 26