Saddled with Death

by Irene Sauman

  ****

  Emma suggested they sit in the drawing room, but Madame Fournier wanted to check on Sachi who, she said, was in the kitchen. Bea was mixing cake batter and Tillie was cutting out a batch of scones, when they entered the room.

  “You’re a little early for afternoon tea,” Bea said.

  “Perhaps we could just have a pot of tea in the drawing room,” Emma suggested. “I’ll make it.” She took the teapot from the hob and emptied it into the slops bucket.

  “Oh, but it is much nicer in here,” Madame Fournier, said, taking a seat beside Sachi, who was drawing, Hux at her feet.

  “Can we go for a walk, now?” the girl asked, looking up eagerly at her mother, pencil poised over her paper.

  “Non, cherie, it is too dangerous.”

  “I need to speak to you privately, Madame,” Emma said. They could forgo the tea. She needed to take control or Dora Appleton would. “Please join me in the drawing room.

  “Privately? Really?”

  “Yes, please, Madame.”

  Madame Fournier looked from her to Dora Appleton. “Oh, very well.” She gave a shrug and got to her feet. “I will be back shortly, cherie.”

  She followed Emma into the homestead, Mrs. Appleton taking up the rear as if to prevent escape.

  “What is this matter you wish to speak?” Madame asked once they were seated.

  Emma produced the note. “Can you explain this, Madame? It was found in Mr. Appleton’s jacket pocket.”

  Madame Fournier took it in her hand and glanced at it. “What is this?” she asked, flourishing the paper.

  “You know what it is,” Mrs. Appleton said. “You arranged to meet Vernon last night and killed him.”

  “What? Merci.” She glared at the older woman. “You are out of your mind. Why would I? What reason?”

  “Did he refuse to marry you? Or did he make some advance on you and you have to fight him off?”

  “Refuse to marry? Fight him off? You are mad. There was not that between us. Beside, he could not chase if I run. No.”

  Emma acknowledged the truth of that. With his stiff leg and need of a cane he would not have been difficult to avoid.

  “Did you arrange to meet Mr. Appleton at eleven o’clock last night?” Emma asked.

  “Non, non. Of course not.”

  “Then what was that note doing in his pocket?” Mrs. Appleton persisted.

  “How do I know? I never write to Mr. Appleton, certainly not to meet.”

  “And yet it is your note, Madame?” Emma asked.

  Madame Fournier looked at it again. “Yes, is mine. My note paper, my initials, Gabriela Marie Fournier. I write this, is true.”

  “On what occasion would you have written a note such as that?” Emma asked.

  The note didn’t stipulate what time of day, morning or evening, but ‘outside’? Outside where? Outside the homestead seemed a logical answer. It seemed the sort of note you would slip to someone after dinner.

  “Oh, any, many. Meet with a friend for breakfast, shopping. I have many friends in Paree. Maybe I send it to Claude, on the ship.”

  “But it wasn’t found in your brother’s pocket, Madame.” Mrs. Appleton was like a bloodhound on the trail.

  “What can I do about a note that leaves my hand? It could go anywhere. Poof. And what reason to kill Mr. Appleton. We were—ah—connaissances.”

  Mrs. Appleton stared, uncomprehending and clearly annoyed at being so.

  “You were just acquaintances, Madame?” Emma supplied the translation.

  “Oh, please. You were clearly more than mere acquaintances. My brother-in-law was courting you,” Mrs. Appleton quickly said.

  “La. A little flirt on the steamship to pass time. What he thinks, is his business. It was Claude’s idea, this visit. He wants to see horses. I do not care.”

  “So, your brother used you as bait, Madame?” Mrs. Appleton spat the words at her. “To entice Vernon to make this visit? How noble of him.”

  Madame Fournier had the grace to blush and looked down at her hands. Had it been Claude Devereaux in the stable last night? Had the deception been revealed, Vernon Appleton discovering he had been led on, made a fool of? It seemed a flimsy enough reason to kill someone, but who knew what words had been hurled. A gentleman’s honour, or a lady’s, could have been impugned. And the problem of the two weapons again. Could it have been the two of them? Emma tried to clear her mind of supposition.

  “What was so special about the horses?” Emma asked.

  Madame Fournier shrugged. “It is all about the spirit and colour of the horse. For young men you know, these things, the cut of the jacket, the fold of the cravat.” She shrugged again, “A matching fast pair for a curricle, Miss ‘Aythorne. Some men might do most anything.”

  “Might they indeed.” Mrs. Appleton remark was heavy with suggestion.

  “Tch,” Madame Fournier responded with a movement of her head.

  “What time did you retire last night, Madame?” Emma asked. “Did you see anyone outside?”

  “It was not late, was it? Near ten, I think. I saw Mrs. Appleton on her way to the outhouse as I was come in.” This with an oblique glance at the older woman. “I went to the kitchen for milk for Sachi. Someone was in the garden.”

  “You saw someone else outside?”

  “I smell a cigarette and when I look I see a glow. So, a man.”

  That would have been Mr. Macdonald. She would have to ask this question of everyone.

  “Thank you, Madame. I’m sorry for the questions, but you must see the matter of the note needs to be cleared up.”

  “I suppose so, but never have I been accused of such a thing as to kill someone. One would have to be excessive passionate to do such a thing, non?”

  Emma thought so as well, given the circumstances of the murder. Madame Fournier left them, whether to take a walk with Sachi or not, she didn’t ask. Whatever she did she would be watched.

  “Well, what a thing.” Mrs. Appleton was on her feet, walking about the room. “Playing up to a man as if in a game. Using him to further her brother’s interest in horses. Horses! Have you ever heard of such a thing, Miss Haythorne?”

  She seemed highly disturbed, but then she had lived with Vernon for probably some twenty years. However close or not their relationship, it would be natural to feel some outrage at his treatment.

  “The French,” Dora Appleton continued, “are wholly immoral and without the finer feelings of properly civilized people.”

  “That is probably over stating the matter a little,” Emma remonstrated mildly.

  Mrs. Appleton reined herself in and sat down, pressing her hands together in her lap.

  “There I go again. Please forgive me. Poor, dear Vernon. Better he hadn’t lived to learn of that woman’s true intentions.”

  “I don’t know if she was telling the truth about the note, in any case,” Emma said. “If they arranged to meet outside, they may have gone to the stable. It would have been warmer. I just can’t see her knocking him down and then stabbing him. Unless he attacked her. Or Mr. Devereaux was involved as well. It could have been an honour killing, I suppose.”

  “It all comes back to the French pair, doesn’t it,” Dora Appleton said, her words laden with satisfaction. “That note is the only reason Vernon was in the stable in the first place.”

  Unless Mr. Macdonald’s idea was the correct one, and he went to let the horses out to ruin chances of meeting the shipment. But why do that if he had money invested in the project? Was he out to make as much trouble for his brother as he could, regardless of the cost to his own pocket?

  “Did you see anyone around last night?” Emma asked Mrs. Appleton.

  The woman looked a little startled but answered immediately. “Only George, Mr. Macdonald. I said goodnight to him but I don’t think he heard me. He was walking down to the river.”

  “You didn’t see Mr. Appleton?”

  “No.”

  That might have bee
n after the brothers encountered one another in the stable, as Mr. Macdonald had said he went down to the river then. But if that were the case, where had Mr. Appleton got too? He must have doubled back to the stable immediately? Or hid in the shadows so Dora didn’t see him. When he took Pepper out of her stall was he just filling in time? Or was he hoping to show off for Madame when she kept their assignation?

  Everyone had been outside sometime between ten and eleven o’clock, but no one had taken any notice of the exact time, so it was impossible to work out the sequence of encounters. And anyone could be lying.

  “The scones are hot out of the oven,” Bea said appearing at the doorway. “Do you want afternoon tea here or in the kitchen?”

  “In the kitchen, I think,” Emma said, not looking at Mrs. Appleton for agreement. She had heard enough from Dora for the time being.