by Sara Rosett
Elrick announced, “Inspector Thorn.”
Thorn said, “Good morning, Lady Gina, Viscount Daley,” as he came across the room. The sharp-eyed sergeant entered behind Thorn and waited near the door.
A flare of worry crossed Gigi’s features, but her voice was even as she said, “I’m afraid we’re in the middle of preparations for the funeral—”
“No need to disturb you, Lady Gina,” Thorn said. “It’s Miss Belgrave I’ve come to speak with.”
I pushed back my chair. I was actually surprised Thorn hadn’t insisted on interviewing me the day before. “Perhaps we should move to the other side of the room.”
Thorn waved a hand, indicating that was suitable for him. The morning room was not as vast as the drawing room, but by the time we’d moved to the grouping of furniture upholstered in striped apple-green fabric, we were out of earshot of Gigi and Felix. The sergeant shadowed Thorn and took a seat near us.
Once I’d stated my full name, Thorn asked, “And your residence?”
I gave him Mrs. Gutler’s boardinghouse address and said, “That was my most recent address. I’m in the process of looking for new lodgings.”
“So you are staying here with Lady Gina?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
“Living off her largess, is that it?”
I tamped down my irritation at his insinuation that I was a sponger. After watching Thorn from behind the screen in the dining room, I recognized his technique of using questions to poke and prod and generally throw his interviewees off stride. “Gigi is a school chum of mine. I’ve known her for years. I would never dream of imposing on her. I’m here at her invitation.”
Thorn said, “Then you were acquainted with the dowager?”
“No. I’d only visited Alton House once during our school holidays. Even though the dowager was in residence here at that time, I did not meet her.”
“Really? Why not?”
“The dowager duchess was busy with various committees and chairmanships. She and Gigi had tea one afternoon, but I was not invited.”
“I see.” Thorn’s tone indicated the dowager’s exclusion of me meant my character must be lacking in some way.
I kept my expression neutral. I wouldn’t allow myself to respond to his baiting.
“But you met the dowager during this visit, correct?”
“Yes. Gigi presented me to her and tried to convince the dowager to tell me what was bothering her. The dowager was rather worried about something—”
“Yes, you mentioned that before. What were your movements the day before as well as the night of the dowager’s death? As much detail as possible, if you please.”
I swallowed my protest at his dismissal of the dowager’s fears. I recounted how I’d searched for a flat, then visited the nightclubs, and finally participated in the treasure hunt. “And then we arrived back here and received the news about the dowager.”
“What was your impression of the relationship between Lady Gina and her grandmother?”
“They seemed to be at odds in some ways.” That bit of information was certainly not news to Thorn. “For instance, the dowager disapproved of some of Gigi’s activities, but she never forbade Gigi from meeting her friends—at least, I never heard her do that. I also had the impression that the dowager was secretly pleased with Gigi’s spirit, even though she wasn’t pleased with some of Gigi’s actions.”
“And this Murder Party,” Thorn said, “what was Lady Gina’s reaction to being the butt of a joke?”
“She wasn’t thrilled, of course, but one must be a good sport. She played along.” That was stretching the truth, but I wasn’t about to betray Gigi. “Have you been successful in finding out what the dowager was afraid of?” I asked again before he could get in more questions about Gigi’s reaction to the Murder Party.
“No.” He nodded at the sergeant, who put away his notebook. To me, Thorn said, “Thank you for your time, Miss Belgrave. I may need to speak with you again. Do not leave London.”
He and the sergeant were gone before I could press him further about the dowager’s worries. He’d avoided answering me, but I didn’t think it was because he had information he didn’t want to share. On the contrary, his attitude conveyed that he thought my question was entirely irrelevant and didn’t want to spend even a moment refuting it.
Gigi spent the rest of the day preparing for the funeral, and I helped in any way I could. Later that afternoon, Gigi rang for Dowd and had her meet us in the dowager’s room. Dowd looked as stern as always, but she unbent a fraction when Gigi said, “Dowd, I need your opinion on which dress would be most appropriate to send for the funeral.”
“The black velvet with silk panels,” Dowd said immediately.
“Thank you. That sounds perfect.”
A maid entered and said, “Telephone for you, my lady.”
Gigi nodded and turned to Dowd, “May I leave this in your hands?”
“I’ll see to everything,” Dowd said.
Gigi left. I followed her but paused before I left the room. “Dowd, did the dowager ever speak to you about being afraid or worried?”
Dowd sniffed. “No, miss.” She removed the black gown from the wardrobe. “It wouldn’t have been proper for her to do so. The dowager was a lady. She wouldn’t burden any of her staff with a worry, even if she did have one.” Her tone said the subject was closed. “Will that be all?”
“Yes. Thank you.” I walked out to the hall with the feeling that I was being of very little use to Gigi in this matter surrounding her grandmother.
Dinner that evening was another subdued meal. Addie had a tray in her room, so it was only Gigi, Felix, Clara, and I. We made an effort to behave normally, but since we avoided speaking of the topic that was foremost in our minds, conversation was arduous. We played a few halfhearted games of bridge after dinner, then Clara retired for the night, and the rest of us followed soon after.
Chapter Sixteen
I surfaced from a deep sleep and gradually became aware of noises in the hall. A door thudded, and I rolled over to look at the luminous dial of my watch that I’d left on the bedside table. Five in the morning. Voices murmured and staccato footsteps pounded by. I pushed back the blankets and reached for my dressing gown.
The chandeliers and wall sconces glowed brightly in the hallway, and I had to pause for a moment while my eyes adjusted. I followed the sound of voices down the corridor. When I came to the head of the central staircase, Elrick’s deep voice floated up. He stood at the telephone table, asking to be connected with the police.
The door to the servants’ staircase had been left ajar, which was unusual, and voices in sharp questioning tones filtered through the opening. I padded along, my bare feet sinking into the thick carpet runner, and poked my head through the half-open door. In contrast to the sumptuous furnishings in the front rooms of the house, the servants’ staircase was made of small treads of plain dark wood. No runner covered the narrow steps, and the walls were painted a flat white.
Mrs. Monce, who was in a pale blue dressing gown and had a scarf tied around her hair, was guiding a young housemaid down the flight of stairs below me. The housekeeper’s arm was around the girl’s shoulders, and the girl’s white cotton nightgown billowed around her as they descended. Mrs. Monce was murmuring soothing phrases, but the housemaid’s steady stream of words continued to flow.
“. . . didn’t realize she’d left our room and gone to the loo during the night. I had no idea she was so sick. I feel so awful. Dr. Benhurst said she must have been in there for hours and hours, too weak to move. If only she’d been able to make it back to our room, I could have called for help. I didn’t even know—”
“Hush now,” Mrs. Monce said. “What you need is a cup of tea . . .”
Their voices trailed away as they disappeared down the stairs, but the voices from the floor above me were growing louder. I climbed the stairs to the floor above, my bare feet slapping on the cold wood. Servants in ni
ghtclothes stood in clumps along the narrow hallway. I almost didn’t recognize Dowd with her hair in pin curls and a frilly pink dressing gown wrapped around her bulky figure, but her glare was unmistakable. Dowd was speaking to another servant nearby, saying, “I know why Stella called for that minx. Stella wanted to accuse her to her face. At least Dr. Benhurst is in there. He’ll hear the whole thing and can testify—”
Dowd broke off as I stepped forward. “What’s happened?”
“Stella’s been sick all night—just like Her Grace was.”
I went to the open door and paused as the odor of sickness washed over me. The room was small and plain with only two narrow beds pushed against opposite walls and a deal dresser between them. A thin cotton curtain covered a window set high in the wall above the dresser. One bed was empty, the quilt thrown back and the sheets rumpled.
The only person in street clothes, who I assumed was Dr. Benhurst, was a slender man with a bristling mustache that I hadn’t seen before. He’d removed his jacket and laid it across the foot of the empty bed. A gold watch chain stretched across his waistcoat, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up.
As I paused in the doorway, he was pulling a sheet over the face of the body that lay in the second bed. I only caught a glimpse of flyaway tangled brown hair before he covered Stella’s face. Shocked, I put a hand to my chest. What had happened?
The doctor smoothed the sheet and began to unroll his sleeves as he turned to Gigi, who knelt beside the bed. She was completely still and looked shell-shocked. Her face and neck were pasty against her blood-red silk kimono.
“There’s nothing more to do here,” Dr. Benhurst said. “You should return to your room and try to get some rest. I can prescribe something for you.”
Gigi didn’t move. I stepped into the room. “Dr. Benhurst?”
He didn’t reply, just shrugged into his jacket as he took in my silk dressing gown. “You’re a friend of Lady Gina’s?”
“Yes. I’m Olive Belgrave.”
“Well then, Miss Belgrave, take your friend downstairs and get a cup of hot tea with plenty of sugar into her. She’s had a shock and needs to rest before the police speak to her.”
“You are sure it’s a police matter?” I asked, even though I couldn’t think of any reason that Stella, who had been healthy only hours before, would now be lying with a sheet covering her face.
“Oh, yes. No doubt about it. She exhibited exactly the same symptoms as Her Grace.”
I tucked the blanket around Gigi. “There. That should help you warm up.”
I’d drawn Gigi to her feet and guided her back to her sitting room. I’d rung for a maid to make up the fire because Gigi’s hands had been icy when she’d gripped my arm as I’d helped her up.
A blaze was crackling, and I’d shifted her chair as close as possible to the warmth, but she was still shivering. I sat down in the chair across from her and poured her a cup of tea, then stirred in several lumps of sugar. “Drink this.”
She took a sip, then a ghost of a smile crossed her face. “I would have thought it would be something more potent—brandy, at least.”
“Doctor’s orders. Tea with heaps of sugar for you.”
She grimaced. “He thinks I did it.”
“Did what?”
“Poisoned Stella. It was arsenic again.” Gigi didn’t drink any more, just held the cup and warmed her hands. “He said he has no question about it. It’s the same thing that happened to Granny.”
I picked up my own cup of tea. “But how can he be so sure?”
“Dr. Benhurst was with Stella for the last several hours. He said Stella’s symptoms were the same as Granny’s.” I didn’t think it would be possible for Gigi to look worse, but her skin transitioned from white to ashen. Her teacup clattered against the saucer as she put it down. “The police will be here soon, and they’ll take me away.”
“What do you mean? Why would you say that?”
“Because of that box of chocolates.”
“I don’t understand.”
Gigi tilted her head toward the rubbish bin. “Remember the box of chocolates? That same box was in Stella’s room. Someone left it on her bed with a note that read, ‘From your secret admirer.’ It was the only thing Stella ate that was different from everyone else.”
“But that would mean that someone came in here—”
“Yes,” Gigi said with a sharp nod, “and took the box away, then added arsenic to the chocolates. I saw them—the chocolates—when Dr. Benhurst was looking at them. There were a few of them left in the box. They’d been cut open and then—resealed, I suppose you’d say. It was sloppily done, not at all what Fortley’s Chocolates look like. They’re the finest chocolates, you know.”
“The one you ate earlier—are you sure it didn’t look like the others?”
“No. I know it didn’t. They have such pretty designs. They looked like flowers or had crisscross patterns when I ate one, but now all the imprints on the chocolates are smudged.”
“I suppose you could cut them open, then use a little heat from a candle or a lighter to warm up the chocolate and smooth over the cut to mask it.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what it looked like. I would have noticed. But Stella didn’t.”
Gigi bent forward and put her elbows on her knees, then rested her forehead against the heels of her hands. Her words were muffled as she said, “It was so, so awful, Olive. It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen—watching someone die.”
I put down my cup and patted her on the shoulder. After a few moments, she dug in a pocket and took out a handkerchief.
“Why were you there, in Stella’s room?” I asked as she wiped her eyes.
“Because she asked for me. But then when I got there, she wasn’t coherent. She just kept asking for her mother. It was—” Gigi pressed the handkerchief to her mouth for a moment. “She kept saying ‘Ma’ over and over again. Olive, why would someone do that to Stella?”
I remembered Stella’s preoccupation and how she’d asked about the inspector. “She must have seen something or realized something that threatened the person who murdered your grandmother.”
A sharp knock sounded. The door was flung open, and Thorn strode in. He went directly to Gigi. By the time Thorn stopped in front of her, she’d tucked away the handkerchief, straightened her posture, and her face was composed. The sergeant, his hair a little rumpled in the back, followed Thorn in and went to a chair in the corner of the room. He took out a notepad and balanced it on his knee.
“Good evening, Lady Gina.” Thorn didn’t wait for an invitation to sit down. He pulled a chair close to us.
“I’ll save you some time, Inspector,” Gigi said. “My fingerprints will be on the box of chocolates, but I didn’t do it.”
“They were your chocolates.”
“No, they were delivered to me. I’d thrown them in the rubbish.”
“Did you eat any?”
“One.”
“Only one?” Disbelief laced Thorn’s tone.
“Yes, just one,” Gigi said firmly. “I only allow myself one. I’m very strict about sweets.”
“Then there were twenty-three left.”
“And those had been tampered with,” Gigi said, describing how the chocolates looked smudged when Dr. Benhurst examined them.
“So you say,” Thorn murmured under his breath. “Who sent you the chocolates?”
“One of my dancing partners, a young man I barely know. Thomas was his name, I believe.”
“You don’t know his surname?”
“No, I don’t remember.”
“Yet he sent you chocolates?”
“He wants to know me better, Inspector. Elrick will be able to give you his full name. He sees to all the deliveries. But I’m sure the young man didn’t have anything to do with Stella’s death.”
“You sound very confident about that.”
“Why would someone I barely know send poisoned chocolates?”
“I
suppose it depends on what happened between you two on the dance floor.”
“I must ask you to watch your tone, Inspector.” Gigi’s carefully modulated words were as cold as the November wind. “I’m willing to speak with you because what’s happened to Stella is appalling, and I want the person who did that to her caught. If, however, you continue to make these uncalled-for comments, I’ll contact my solicitor and tell you nothing else.”
Thorn dipped his head. “I apologize, Lady Gina.” Before Gigi replied, he went on, “You do realize that if it wasn’t your dancing partner who altered the chocolates, it was someone in this house.”
Gigi closed her eyes briefly. “Yes.”
Thorn held out his hand. “Do you recognize this?” A small cameo brooch rested in a handkerchief.
“Yes, that’s Clara’s,” Gigi said. “She wears it on her coat or sometimes on her hat.”
“She’d lost it, though.” I recounted how Clara had come to my door and we’d searched my room.
“Where was it found?” Gigi asked Thorn.
He folded the fabric over the cameo and tucked it into his pocket. “In a drawer in the dead girl’s room.”
“Stella,” Gigi said. “Her name was Stella Barstow.”
“Right. Was Stella known to be light-fingered?”
Gigi looked scandalized. “No. Certainly not. Stella was not a thief.”
“It’s something to be considered,” Thorn said mildly.
“Stella liked fine things, but she would never take something that wasn’t hers. I don’t know how she came to have it, but I’m sure she didn’t steal it.”
“The maid who shared a room with Miss Barstow—” Thorn looked to his sergeant, who supplied the name.
“Lillian Gramarcy.”
“Right,” Thorn said. “Miss Lillian Gramarcy says she saw Stella putting the cameo in the drawer and asked Stella about it. She said she’d found it and, as it was late, she’d give it to Mrs. Monce in the morning.”
“There you are,” Gigi said.
“Yet a model servant would have turned it in the moment she found it,” Thorn said.