Death Wears a Mask

by Ashley Weaver

  “Oh, no,” Felicity insisted softly. “He wouldn’t have done that.”

  Inspector Jones glanced at me and then rose to his feet. “You ladies had better come with me, nonetheless,” he said to the Echols sisters. “There are a few more questions we’ll need to ask you.”

  Inspector Jones and the sergeant led the Echols sisters, Marjorie sauntering and Felicity sniffling, out of the room. I sat back in my chair with a sigh.

  Milo lit a cigarette, his eyes on my face. “I can see the wheels spinning. That’s rarely a good thing.”

  I sat forward. “Something isn’t right. There is something that we’re missing. It’s all so very unsatisfactory.”

  “Alas, such is life. Perhaps that’s all there is to it. Perhaps they’ll confess to the murder after a thorough interrogation.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I believe Miss Echols’s story.”

  “It’s very bizarre,” he said skeptically.

  “That’s just why I think it’s true. Why should she make up something like that?”

  “I imagine Foster would have a rather different account of events if questioned.”

  “I wouldn’t put him past theft and murder,” I said darkly. “The way he behaved this evening…” I stopped. I had not really intended to share that with Milo.

  As usual, however, he missed nothing. His gaze, I thought, was suddenly very sharp. “Exactly how did he behave this evening?”

  “Oh, it was nothing I couldn’t handle,” I said. “But let us say Lord Dunmore is a mere child in comparison.”

  “Indeed?” There was a hard glint in his eyes. “I think I shall have a word with Mr. Foster.”

  “Oh, Milo. You needn’t make a fuss,” I said, secretly pleased that he should care. “But we have more important things to consider. It doesn’t make sense that Mr. Harker might have been selling the jewels for himself and giving paste replicas to the Echols sisters. Surely he would have known they would discover it eventually if he did.”

  Milo shrugged. “Perhaps he would have gotten what he wanted from one—or both—of them by then.”

  This wasn’t satisfactory either. I didn’t see Mr. Harker as the type of man to string women along to see what he could get from them. Then again, I certainly wouldn’t have styled him a jewel thief.

  “Someone was certainly selling the pieces in Whitechapel.” I had not yet had time to tell Milo of the most recent development with Mr. Gibbs, how I had gone to look at the Eiffel Tower brooch. I related the events of the evening to him.

  “Did Mr. Gibbs say who had sold it?” he asked.

  “He told Winnelda, and I quote: ‘The gent was of medium height with dark hair.’”

  “How very enlightening.”

  “The description could fit Mr. Harker, I suppose. Then again, it could fit most anyone. One thing we know for certain: someone was having copies made. But why? If they thought to confuse Mrs. Barrington by covering up the theft, it doesn’t make sense to have only replaced a select piece. And what happened to the paste bracelet that was stolen at the ball? It was never discovered, and they searched all of the people who were on this floor at the time of the murder.” A thought occurred to me suddenly. “Do you think it might still be here somewhere?”

  “Unlikely,” Milo said, squelching my enthusiasm. “The killer would have had ample opportunity to retrieve it by now.”

  “Not necessarily,” I said stubbornly. “What excuse would they have had to come here since the ball?”

  I thought suddenly of Mr. Douglas-Hughes’s visit to this house on the day I had come to see Lord Dunmore, of the false story he had told me of a missing earring. Was it possible he had come to retrieve the stolen bracelet from its hiding place? If so, then we were too late.

  Somehow, I didn’t believe that to be the case. Was it possible the bracelet might still be in the library? Perhaps the thief had taken it while Mrs. Barrington slept and had decided to hide it until it could be safely retrieved.

  “Let’s go to the library,” I said. “Perhaps we’ll find something.”

  I rose to my feet and Milo stood, grinding out his cigarette in a nearby ashtray.

  “I think, my darling, that, in spite of what all the slanderers say about me, you are the reckless one in our marriage.”

  I ignored him, going out into the hallway and walking toward the library. He followed me.

  We went into the room, and I walked to the chair where Mrs. Barrington had been sitting. I glanced around the floor and saw nothing. I slid my hands around the cushions of the chair and even knelt to look under the chair, but there was nothing to be seen. I stood and looked around the room, trying to think of any other place it might be.

  One thing didn’t make sense. If the gems had been removed from the bracelet, why hadn’t we found the empty setting? It seemed almost as if the bracelet might still be intact. If that was the case, how had the gems been found on Mr. Harker’s body?

  I felt the vague stirring of a memory. There was something I had heard, some bit of information that would help make sense of all of this. And then it came to me.

  Paste gemstones. They had been present in more than just the jewelry.

  What if the stones found with Mr. Harker’s body weren’t from the bracelet at all? What if they had been from a masquerade mask? I knew of only one of the suspects who had been wearing a blue mask that night.

  The description of the thief that Mr. Gibbs had given might have matched James Harker.

  It would also match his uncle.

  “Milo,” I said suddenly. “I think I…” My words cut off as I heard the sound of footsteps in the hallway outside. It was possible that it was just Inspector Jones returning, but something made me pause.

  I walked silently to the door. We had left it open a crack, and I could see out into the hallway. There, near the grandfather clock against the wall, stood Mr. Barrington. He glanced back down the hall, but I was confident I could not be seen. Then he opened the clock case and pulled something out.

  I pushed open the library door and stepped into the hall.

  He was surprised to see us and concealed it badly. “Oh. Er … Good evening. I was just … If you’ll excuse me.”

  “Just a moment, Mr. Barrington,” I said. “What is that in your hand?”

  I could now see quite clearly what it was: a blue masquerade mask and a sapphire bracelet.

  I was aware of Milo behind me, and I was sure that I could feel his displeasure. No doubt he thought that I should have let Mr. Barrington retreat. Perhaps he was right, but I couldn’t do that, not when we were at the resolution of the case.

  “It’s … well, I’m afraid it’s rather a long story.” Mr. Barrington tried to look casually chagrined, but sweat had begun to bead on his forehead, and his eyes were darting past me, as though he intended to run.

  “Why don’t you come into the library and talk to us for a moment,” I said gently.

  Milo let out a disapproving breath through his nose, but I ignored him. If I could convince Mr. Barrington to come and talk for a moment, we could summon Inspector Jones and do things in an orderly way.

  Mr. Barrington wavered, attempting to decide between flight and the possibility of formulating a plausible explanation, and then he walked past us and into the library.

  “Why don’t you go get Inspector Jones,” I whispered to Milo.

  “And leave you alone with a murderer?” he asked. “I think not.”

  Then we would just have to hope that he returned to us after speaking with the Echols sisters, for I had no intention of leaving either.

  We followed Mr. Barrington into the room. He hadn’t taken a seat, but stood facing us. His face was red, his dark hair damp with perspiration.

  “So you killed Mr. Harker.” I hadn’t meant the words to sound quite as accusatory as they had come out, but there was no taking them back now.

  “Amory…” The warning note in Milo’s voice held just the faintest tinge of exasperati
on.

  Mr. Barrington’s face flushed, but his expression remained steady. “Nonsense, Mrs. Ames,” he said, something of an uneasy smile on his face. “I didn’t have anything to do with my nephew’s murder. I just forgot I had placed these things there for safekeeping.”

  “It’s your mask from the masquerade, isn’t it?” I asked, nodding toward the disguise in his hand. “Might I see it?”

  “No,” he said.

  “That’s because there are stones missing, aren’t there? They were the paste stones found on James Harker’s body.”

  “This is nonsense,” he said stubbornly.

  “That isn’t true,” I said. “At some point, Mr. Harker must have turned his back to you, and you took advantage of it to kill him with his own gun.”

  I thought I heard what might have been another disapproving sigh come from Milo, but it was so faint I couldn’t be sure.

  Mr. Barrington said nothing, but I didn’t need him to at present. Things were beginning to make sense, and I was warming to the tale. “It was you who was stealing your wife’s jewelry, wasn’t it? He knew that you were selling Mrs. Barrington’s jewels and replacing them with paste copies, and he had to be silenced.”

  Mr. Barrington looked stunned. “How did you know about the jewels?” He stopped, as though he realized he had said too much.

  Though now was not the time for gloating, I couldn’t help but feel a bit smug.

  “We have our sources,” I told him grandly. I remembered his love of sport. “What was it? Gambling debts?”

  He hesitated. He had wanted to deny it all, but it was really impossible now. He had already said too much. He looked suddenly very weary, as though confession would be something of a relief.

  “I’ve had a streak of rotten luck the past few months,” he said. “It’s been one loss after another. I only intended to sell one or two of Serena’s things in order to cover the most pressing of my losses, but then I realized how easy it was. I had an efficient system going. I would take one of her pieces at a time to be copied and then put the replicas back in her jewel case. She only noticed once, when I took a ruby earring to have a paste pair made, but I put it back in her bureau and she was convinced she had only misplaced it. The replicas were excellent. Serena never knew the difference.”

  “But Mr. Harker did,” I said.

  He snorted. “James didn’t know about the jewelry. I only recently discovered the night of the ball that he was stealing from Serena as well. Only he didn’t know that the pieces were paste. Almost everything in her jewel box is a replica now. Apparently, he has been taking things during dinner parties to divert suspicion from himself. The idiot. Served him right that they weren’t worth a thing.”

  I was suddenly confused. If James Harker hadn’t known about the jewels, then why had he been killed?

  “But why steal the paste bracelet from your wife that night?” I asked.

  “You don’t know as much as you think, do you, Mrs. Ames?” he asked. “This bracelet is made of real sapphires. I told her they were paste so she wouldn’t be much alarmed when I stole them later, but they were actually genuine. One of the few genuine pieces left. I went into the library when she was asleep and took it. She had told me about her trap, of course, but she sleeps like the dead, and it was easy.”

  “Did James see you?”

  “No, he knew nothing about it.”

  I was still puzzled. “If it wasn’t the jewels, then why?”

  He sighed. “It got to be where I was in desperate need of money again. I put off selling that brooch, knowing how she loved it. But it was the most valuable thing left. When that was gone, there was only the bracelet and one or two smaller things remaining. I knew I needed to do something else. There wasn’t enough left of value to sell, only one or two pieces. I had heard rumors, of course, about Foster.”

  “What sort of rumors?” I asked.

  “Rumors that, though he is almost impossible to beat, it is not impossible for him to lose.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He did it once before, you see.”

  “That match at Wimbledon,” I said, as things clicked into place. I remembered Lord Dunmore’s reference to Mr. Foster’s loss, the vague aspersion he had cast upon it.

  “Yes. Foster and I had agreed to meet and discuss the possibility of a … joint venture. He is heavily favored at the match in Switzerland, and if we bet on his opponent, we could stand to make a good deal of money if he loses.”

  It was beginning to become clear now, but that didn’t make it any less horrible. And there was one thing I still didn’t understand. “What did any of it have to do with the ball?”

  “I thought it would be less suspicious if I stole the bracelet at the ball rather than at home. Serena had begun to notice things missing. I thought at first that she was looking for things in the intervals when I had taken them to be copied, though I had tried to be careful, but then I realized there was another thief. You can’t imagine my surprise that night when I arrived home to discover that someone had stolen the replica of the Eiffel Tower brooch. I had to have a second replica made, and it was only recently completed. At that point, I didn’t know who might have done it, but I couldn’t take any more chances. She was expecting a thief at the ball, and that suited my plans quite well.

  “I arranged to meet with Foster that night. When the time was right, I went into that empty room and let him in through the balcony door so we wouldn’t be seen together. We were talking about the possibility of his throwing the match and our splitting the profits if we bet on his opponent. I tried to give him the bracelet as my portion of the bet, but he said I’d have to sell it myself, so I kept it in my pocket. After we’d talked, I let Foster back out through the balcony. No one would know we had met. I thought that was the end of it.”

  “But it wasn’t,” I said.

  “I realized that Serena might raise the alarm once she discovered the bracelet missing, and there was the possibility we might be searched. It was then I realized that a stone was missing from the bracelet.”

  I remembered suddenly how Mrs. Barrington had snagged the bracelet on her gown. Perhaps a stone had come loose. That must have been the gemstone near the stairway that had become lodged in my shoe.

  “That was what gave me the idea,” he said. “The stones were nearly the same size as the gemstones on my mask. I could replace them, wear the gems away, and no one would be the wiser. I had pried a few loose when James came into the room.”

  “And he saw you with the bracelet,” I prodded.

  “It was more than that. He must have been listening to my conversation with Foster. He always was a snoop. He said, ‘That wretched Mr. Foster’ didn’t deserve the money, and nor did I. He said he intended to take the sapphires to give them to someone who had more need of them. He removed a gun from his pocket and set it on the table. Then he scooped up the gemstones from the mask to put them in his pocket. A few slid from the table and fell onto the floor, and he bent to pick them up. I suddenly knew that there was nothing else to be done.”

  There was a moment of silence as his words hung in the air.

  “I had to do it,” he said. I thought, in addition to the glint of sorrow, there was something a bit desperate in his gaze that made me uneasy. It was desperation that had led him to kill his own nephew. I somehow thought that he would have no qualms about doing away with Milo and me.

  “I didn’t want to do it. I had to,” he said again. “Don’t you see? There wasn’t any other choice.”

  “He was your nephew,” I said. “He would have known to keep quiet.”

  He let out a strangled laugh. “James couldn’t keep his mouth shut about anything. It was as if information just poured out of him at the most inconvenient times.”

  I remembered what Milo had told me. James Harker had blurted out his uncle’s financial difficulties at an inopportune moment, and it had cost Mr. Barrington a business deal. I hadn’t thought revenge was likely, but
I had never considered that there might have been a greater secret that Mr. Barrington thought was worth killing for.

  “I knew that if this came out, it would cause an immense scandal … for me and for Foster.”

  I thought of Nigel Foster’s part in this for the first time. Surely he must have suspected that Mr. Barrington might have killed James. But the secret was his as well, and he had been unwilling to risk his own reputation.

  “I didn’t have time to collect the paste gems from his pocket after the shot sounded. I hurried from the room, hiding the mask and bracelet in the first place I saw, that clock. I shoved them inside, intending to come back for them later. Then I walked back toward the room as though I was investigating the shot.” He rubbed a hand across his face. “I have relived that wretched night in my mind a thousand times.”

  “Mr. Barrington,” I said soothingly, “perhaps the best thing would be for you to turn yourself over to the police.”

  “No!” he said. He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a pistol.

  Now was not the time to reflect on the irony of facing down the barrel of a gun held by a killer for the second time in as many months.

  “This is getting to be a very bad habit of yours, Amory,” Milo remarked, as though he had followed my train of thought.

  I ignored him, my eyes still on Mr. Barrington. Great beads of sweat quivered on his forehead and began to roll down his face, and I could see that his hand was trembling. I hoped he was not gripping the trigger too tightly. Perspiration and unsteady hands seemed a very poor combination.

  “Dunmore was so very smug about tonight. I was sure he knew something. I brought this gun along in case I needed to deal with him, too.”

  “There’s no need to do anything desperate, Mr. Barrington,” I said calmly. “The police are in the house, and you’ll be caught. The best thing to do is just to give yourself up.”

  He seemed suddenly sad, defeated. The gun wavered in his hand, almost as though he had deflated. I was aware of Milo moving slowly to stand beside me, and I wondered what he intended to do.

  “Let me have the mask and bracelet, Mr. Barrington,” I said gently.