Murder in the Shallows

by Byers, Beth

  “Would have been far more romantic to go to sleep in each other’s arms and wake for a hearty breakfast, in my opinion,” Denny said through a yawn.

  “No one asked you, my lad,” Lila told him. “It was romantic.”

  “It was stupid,” Victor countered.

  “It was fiction,” Kate said, shaking her head. “Neither Juliet nor Romeo lived and they did not die from poison or a blade. It was the cruel stroke of a pen and nothing more. Perhaps we should return our attention to the tragedy at hand rather than our petty squabbles.”

  “For another day,” Denny said, yawning again. “On another day, Victor and I would have been victorious.”

  Lila’s snort was his only answer.

  “So he took a photograph of the dead girl from the house.” Kate wrote it down, but she looked up after she finished. “Why does that make her death suspicious?”

  “Because,” Violet said, “Jack had the photograph in his pocket today. When we found them searching for the scene of the crime, he’d already discovered the photograph. Mr. Tanner was either there or he had given the photograph to Jeremiah Allen before he died. I didn’t tell Jack I saw the boy steal the photograph. I thought it was romantic, and I didn’t want to get Tanner in trouble if Jack decided to tell Morgan.”

  “You saw the photograph in Jack’s pocket and didn’t say anything about how it came to be missing?” Victor’s voice conveyed his opinion, and Violet winced.

  “I should have said something.” She ran her fingers through her hair, wincing at her own stupidity. She had sent Beatrice for Jack because Violet knew she had made a mistake. It would have been incurably stupid of her to approach a man who was the likeliest suspect in this investigation, given that if Mr. Allen was correct, the killer had both killed Miss Morgan and then Mr. Allen to hide his crime.

  Perhaps Violet’s guess about Rachael Morgan was wrong. It could have been another crime that Mr. Allen was tripping into. His sister referenced multiple investigations. Except, Violet thought, you didn’t necessarily commit murder to hide petty thievery or plagiarism or even blackmail. The punishment for murder was too great when compared to nearly anything else.

  Violet fiddled with her ring, worried that Jack wouldn’t forgive her. She paced back and forth before the windows, hoping that Beatrice would be successful in tracking down Jack and Hamilton.

  The telephone in the suite rang, and Victor answered it while Violet’s attention was caught by the journal Miss Allen had left. She crossed to it.

  A part of her wished to hand it over to Jack as amends, and a part of her wanted to keep it for herself and use whatever she might learn to solve this crime. The reason she was helping—or meddling—was because Violet didn’t want to carry the guilt of not helping Mr. Allen. Especially when Jack had to be carrying the same guilt—his guilt tinged with memories of the young man as a boy and being the subject of hero worship.

  Violet winced for Jack and looked up when the suite door opened. It was Ginny and her tutor. It took Lila a long-suffering minute before she stood and said, “Come along you two. We’re off.”

  “But we just got back,” Ginny protested, her gaze flicking to Violet.

  “We’ll go have tea,” Lila ordered, “and then go shopping. I very much look forward to giving your dear Victor a bill for a slew of nonsense.”

  “Get more chocolates, darling,” Denny said before rising and going to their bedroom. Violet had no doubt that Denny would be asleep in the next few minutes.

  Lila grabbed her handbag, shot Violet a look and left. As they did, they passed Jack in the doorway. He watched Lila leave with the girl and her tutor and then turned to the others.

  “What’s going on?”

  “We’ve lost faith in you,” Victor proclaimed, rising to pour himself another drink and making one for Jack as well. “We’ve met the horror.”

  “The horror?” Jack asked, looking to Violet for a translation.

  “Miss Allen is staying in this hotel. We had a visit with her.” It took Violet a moment to decide. “Here.” She pushed the journal at him. “Emily said that this contains her brother’s notes on whatever he was investigating. He must have given her details about what he was investigating since she tried to blackmail me into getting you to help. Perhaps after the train and before the reception. I am guessing since she handed the journal over, he doesn’t clarify which of his theories were the aim of his focus before he died.”

  Jack glanced down at the leather-bound journal and then around the room. Kate and Victor were both staring at poor Jack.

  “You called her Emily? You’re on a first names basis now?”

  “I got tired of Miss Allen,” Violet told him. “She was using ‘lady’ so ironically, I countered as I could.”

  Jack grunted and sat down. He lifted the drink that Victor had poured and looked at it for a moment before shrugging and taking a sip. “She’s a viper,” Jack muttered.

  “Oh thank goodness,” Kate said, taking a drink from Victor. “I was so worried that you weren’t nearly as clever as we’d thought.”

  “Believe me—” Jack took another long sip of whatever Victor had poured. He sighed. “I doubted myself for some time after I was free. I think Ham still has a celebratory drink on the anniversary of things falling apart.”

  Victor handed Violet a glass of ginger wine and she smiled into it.

  “I could drink to that,” Victor told Jack, clapping him on the shoulder.

  “You could drink to anything,” Kate said, setting aside her drink and looking down at her notes. “Get it over with, Violet. Before we’re interrupted again.”

  Violet met Jack’s gaze, saw it sharpen on her, and sipped her comforting wine.

  “Are we expecting company?” Jack’s head tilted as they stared at each other. He didn’t look angry that she was still here. He didn’t seem angry that he’d found them searching out the site of the dispute. He did know what he was getting with Violet, she thought. She didn’t surprise him at all.

  “Nathan Tanner is coming. We’ve invited him.”

  “Should I be concerned by your interest in some university lad?”

  “He was the one who took that photograph of Rachael Morgan at the reception last night. I don’t know how you found it today, but I assume it has something to do with what happened to Jeremiah.”

  Given the expression on Jack’s face, Violet felt it was a good thing he’d set his drink down. He looked as though he’d have choked on it. He examined the journal she’d given him and then shook his head. “How do you find these things out?”

  “He was interesting at the reception. I was bored.”

  Jack reached out and took her hand, rubbing his thumb over her wrist. “You would be an excellent detective. You knew there was something wrong while the rest of us were making small talk about the weather and whatever laurels we had to prose on about.”

  Violet wove their fingers together as she looked at the journal in his lap. “I’d like to help.”

  “I’d like you to be safe.”

  “I won’t go anywhere without Victor or you.”

  “People will tell her things that they don’t tell you, Jack,” Kate told him. “You’re intimidating. They all think she’s nothing but fluff, cocktails, and money. Half the men who meet her think about how great it would be if they were you. They all seem to believe they have a chance at her because she is almost as good as Victor at hiding her cleverness.”

  Victor snorted at Kate’s backhanded compliment.

  “Don’t take it as accolades, luv. My life would be far easier if my mother thought you were clever about anything other than cocktails.”

  “I’m quite good at twinning,” Victor pronounced. “Tell your mother that one. That’ll get her on my side.”

  “Let us help?” Violet asked Jack quietly. “It’s not necessary, you know. To do this alone. I think, if Mr. Tanner isn’t the killer, that he might talk to me.”

  Jack’s face searched hers, and s
he tried a winning smile. He grinned at her when she pasted the dopey expression on her face. “You won’t approach them alone? You promise?”

  “I promise.” Violet crossed her fingers over her heart and fluttered her lashes at him. He shook his head as another telephone call came from the front desk. Victor answered it and a moment later said, “He’s on his way up.”

  Chapter 14

  “Kate, pretend as though you are writing a letter in the corner and take notes. Victor, quickly make Tanner a drink and then eavesdrop from one of the bedrooms with Jack. Beatrice, take the dogs into one of the other bedrooms.”

  They scattered according to Violet’s instructions, and Violet stopped Jack at the knock on the door. “May I have Mr. Allen’s journal?”

  Jack hesitated and then handed it to Violet, who tossed it haphazardly on one of the chairs in plain view. She grinned at him and then winked, shooing him away as she turned, but before Jack let her step away, he took her wrist and pulled her close to him. His fingers pressed into her lower spine with one hand while the other continued to shackle her wrist. With a low voice that only Violet could hear, he leaned in, nuzzling his chin over her forehead and said, “We will find a time to finish our earlier conversation.”

  There was no question to which conversation he referred and Violet shivered. She wanted a re-do on that proposal without interruptions and without the flavor of Miss Allen and her brother tainting the moment.

  “When this is done,” she said and slipped from his hands to open the door to the suite. Jack stepped through the open doorway where Victor had already disappeared as Violet greeted their guest.

  “Mr. Tanner,” she said, as he shuffled before her. “Thank you so much for coming.”

  He shrugged and entered when she stepped back for him.

  Violet examined him. He’d left with a photograph that ended up with the dead body. Why? What had happened since he left Morgan’s house to now?

  “I thought you were staying with Mr. Morgan.”

  “I was,” Violet told him lightly, channeling the cheery voice she used whenever the occasion called for it. “Did you hear of the awful accident that befell Mr. Jeremiah Allen? My friends are doing what they can, and I didn’t want to be a bother to Mr. Morgan while they were gone. It’s hardly fair to invite someone for a day and have them linger on. Not comfortable for any of us really.” She gestured to Kate and lowered her voice. “My friend is in the middle of writing quite a terrible letter. Her mother is…well…I’m sure you have difficult people in your life. She probably won’t even realize you’re here. I’d interrupt her, but…” Violet leaned in confidentially, “She’s been working on that letter for hours. I’m rather terrified to stop the flow of her thoughts and have her turn on me. She’s got a bit of a gorgon in her when thwarted.”

  Mr. Tanner smiled, but like in their last conversation, it didn’t reach his eyes. “What can I do for you, Lady Violet? Your invitation was rather unexpected.”

  Violet gestured him to a seat and handed him a drink that Victor had poured heavy and strong. It probably wouldn’t loosen the tongue of a university student who had probably developed the ability to drink to an excess, but Violet thought they might as well try.

  She sat down across from Mr. Tanner and asked, “Then why did you come?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” His gaze shifted to the side as he answered, and Violet guessed she knew the reason why.

  “You took that photograph from Mr. Morgan’s home and wondered if I had seen you. It must be all the more fraught since you’ve lost it.”

  Mr. Tanner froze as though a ghost had walked over his grave. He tried to laugh it off, but he choked on the laughter. “I—”

  “I’d prefer that you aren’t the killer of Mr. Allen or Miss Morgan,” Violet said quietly, and if Kate weren’t paying attention she might not have heard.

  “I—”

  “I’d prefer to believe that my first reading of you, that of the heartbroken young man, was accurate. Was it?”

  “I…”

  Violet searched his face. With his ginger coloring and paler skin, the flush on his neck, ears, and cheeks was all the more powerful.

  “Mr. Tanner,” Violet said gently. “Tell me about it. Let me help you.”

  “Why would you help me?” His tone was agonized, and he pushed his hands into his hair, leaning forward.

  “Mr. Tanner, I should like to believe that a man who is mourning, as I can see that you are, is not the slayer of his beloved.”

  “She didn’t…she wasn’t…there’s no reason to believe that anything happened to her that was nefarious. No reason except the incoherent ramblings of a young fool.”

  Violet believed him. Stupid though it may be, she believed him. She reached out and took his hand, turning it over, and placed the cocktail in it. He needed a stiff drink. He was going to need it desperately when she helped him process the next round of facts.

  “There wasn’t,” Violet agreed. “I imagine that Mr. Morgan has enough official friends that they’d have stepped in to help if there was reason to believe she was murdered.”

  “Exactly,” Mr. Tanner ground out. “Just what I told that fool Allen.”

  “If there was a scrap of reason to believe it, they would have found it. Those police officers and doctors. They would have stood up for Miss Morgan—the beloved niece of someone like Daniel Morgan.”

  “Yes!”

  “By Jove,” Violet added, building her argument purposefully but in careful measure. She was using the theory that the girl had been murdered because she was young and beautiful and it would have been a plot device if she were writing a book. A girl who had decided to love an unapproved man—of course she would die in a fluffy little book. She would die and send the hero on his quest. Violet added, “It would be ridiculous to think that a girl who was so widely beloved as Miss Morgan could be killed anyway. It wasn’t as though she were doing something that would upset her family.”

  Mr. Tanner did not answer that one, and Violet’s head tilted as she examined him once again. He hadn’t reacted to what Violet had insinuated, but he knew that Miss Morgan’s innocence was not as perfect as one might guess.

  “Was she an heiress? Mr. Morgan’s home feels quite a bit nicer than most professors would have.”

  Mr. Tanner nodded, his jaw trembling.

  “Miss Morgan was lovely. That much is clear. Both in body and in her nature. Even the servants mourn her still.”

  Mr. Tanner nodded again, his lips trembling as he tried to hold back his emotions. That stiff British upper lip really was too difficult in times like these. These poor gents and their need to uphold their ideas of masculinity. This was a man who needed a good cry. Violet and Kate could both explain it to him, but he wouldn’t give in.

  Violet glanced at Kate, who was watching with open mouth.

  “Mr. Tanner, I would have made that same argument to young Allen myself if he’d told me his worries.”

  “See?” Mr. Tanner cursed as he muttered, “Why did he have to make it linger on and on? Why couldn’t he just let his theory go and let her rest in peace?”

  Violet’s voice was gentle when she answered that question. “Because he wasn’t wrong.”

  Mr. Tanner dropped his glass onto the carpet and then apologized profusely.

  “Don’t let that worry you,” she told him.

  His gaze met hers, and his eyes were wide, his expression sick. “Why would you say that? Why would you say that about Rachael?”

  Violet nibbled at her bottom lip and told herself that hesitating was only hurting him further.

  “Because, Mr. Tanner, Mr. Allen was murdered.”

  Mr. Tanner paled, making the dark circles under his eyes and the flush on his cheeks all the more dramatic. “What?”

  “Mr. Allen was murdered. The problem for you is that Miss Morgan, the heiress, loved you. Scholarship lad, I believe?”

  Mr. Tanner nodded.

  “Her uncle wouldn’t have
liked it, I think.”

  Mr. Tanner’s hands were shaking, but he didn’t answer.

  “He wanted her to marry a student of his,” Jack said from the doorway.

  Mr. Tanner gasped and turned an accusatory gaze on Violet.

  “That student wouldn’t have been you. Daniel is many things, but he is an incurable snob.”

  “You’re here with that Barnes fellow,” Mr. Tanner said. “The one from Scotland Yard?”

  “I am,” Jack said neatly. “Come now, my man. Let us help you.”

  “Why would you help me? Why aren’t you calling for the police right now?”

  “Because Lady Violet Carlyle is far more clever than she’d have you believe. And she believes you’re innocent.”

  Violet’s gaze was fixed on Jack, but she could feel Mr. Tanner’s on her. “Is that true? Lady Violet, do you think I am innocent?”

  Violet nodded, facing Mr. Tanner. “Help us so we can help you.”

  “How?”

  “Who did Mr. Allen believe killed Miss Morgan?”

  “He didn’t know. She declined rather suddenly at the end, but it was slow at first. She was a little paler each day. Then one day, she simply didn’t wake up.”

  “What did Mr. Allen think had killed her?”

  “Her tea,” Mr. Tanner said, biting his lip. “She had this special mix. Black teas made her heart race, so she’d drink a blend of mint and berry teas. She loved it and special ordered it, and she was the only who drank it. She had it daily. If you wanted to kill her, it would have been easy to poison that tea and let her slowly die.”

  “You didn’t believe him?”

  “Her heart raced if she exercised too much. If she ran, if she had black teas. I loved her, Lady Violet, but Rachael wasn’t strong. Her decline was horrible, but it also wasn’t all that surprising.”

  “I remember that tea,” Jack said. “Daniel had it mixed for her when she was still in the schoolroom. She didn’t go off to school like the other girls because he worried over her. He had tutors in to teach her whatever she wanted to learn. Jeremy was right. It would have been easy to kill Rachael that way. Easy and nearly undetectable. We all knew she was delicate. Everyone who knew Daniel very well knew he was worried for her.”