“Today we shall have members of our community read from some of the professor’s most popular works and relate some of their fondest memories of his antics at various Jane Austen events over the years. But first, we’ll show you clips from the recent documentary on the professor’s life and work.”
A projection screen rolled down in front of the Christmas tree. The camera flashed the name of a documentary director famous for creating sensationalist profiles of ‘misunderstood’ men. It didn’t surprise me Hathaway had been connected with him. The camera zoomed in on a younger Hathaway – his features smug as he spoke to a class filled with cheering students. With his windswept hair and military-style jacket, he looked every bit the romantic hero. Emotional music swelled, and the narrator started to list Hathaway’s accomplishments.
“Intriguing,” Morrie said, leaning forward on his elbows.
The documentary was sickening in light of what Carmichael, Gerald, and Alice had revealed about Hathaway. It spent scant minutes on Jane Austen’s life and work, focusing instead on the scholarly methods that led Hathaway to his various Austen discoveries. Interviews with the professor showed a vain man who was an expert at manipulating the conversation to make himself appear clever and humble and attractive. Gushing interviews from David and various young female students seemed sinister in context.
I glanced over at Christina while her father talked on screen. Although she held her body rigid, tears streamed down her face. David offered her his handkerchief, his face wracked with concern.
Concern, or guilt?
The narrator spoke of Hathaway like some kind of intellectual freedom fighter who was disparaged and outright censored by the ‘academic establishment’ in an attempt to silence his ideas. In reality, he was clearly a manipulative bully with a lot of fringe theories who loved using Jane’s own words to advocate for the same misogynist worldview he’d forced onto Christina, who he held up as a shining example of true womanhood. What a dick. If I’d been indifferent to him before, I was now abhorred.
Press clippings and old photographs flickered on the screen as the narrator explained how Hathaway’s reclusive wife was struck down by a hereditary bone disease, leaving him distraught and heartbroken. All around me, Janeites sniffed into their handkerchiefs, touched at the sad story.
Next, the narrator spoke about how Hathaway tried to take down the academic establishment ‘at their own game’, whatever that meant. Cut to a scene inside a packed lecture hall. Professor Carmichael stood at the lectern, delivering a prestigious lecture series. Surprised, I looked around the orangery for her, but couldn’t see her anywhere. Maybe she’d left in disgust? Back on the screen, Carmichael was in the middle of a point about Austen’s hidden feminism when Hathaway leaped up and started arguing over one of her points. He wouldn’t let her get a word in. When she ordered security to escort him from the building, he accused her of being unable to participate in debate, stopping just short of accusing her of censorship. She yelled, “You’ll pay for this, Julius! I swear to you that you will suffer for what you’ve done.”
According to the narrator, that event caused Carmichael to be lampooned by Hathaway’s followers online, and memes of her red, flustered expression appeared all over the internet. Apparently, this was all part of Hathaway’s ‘cause’. Carmichael nearly lost her university position over his outburst, on what was supposed to be her platform to shine. Wow, no wonder she hates him—
“Mina,” Morrie pointed to the time on his phone.
Yikes. Time to go. I skulled the rest of my chocolate, collected my phone and purse, and turned to leave. Morrie rose and offered his hand. “I shall help you back to the Hall so you don’t slip in your dainty shoes,” he said, slightly too loudly, for he was shushed by several women.
We ducked outside, and I raced down toward the wood, the wind biting at my skin. At my side, Morrie kept his hand on the hilt of his sword, his eyes trained on the trees, searching for a foe. As we moved under the canopy of trees, Quoth soared down and landed on my shoulder.
I plunged into the trees, casting my eyes in all directions. Branches snapped behind me as Morrie followed close behind. “Alice?” I called. Ahead of me, a grey statue rose out of the snow. Scantily-clad, nubile women danced in a circle, clutching tiny harps and amphorae where wine spilled into the mouths of bearded satyrs. I turned right and stumbled over the icy ground.
Morrie’s fingers dug into my arm. “Gotcha. Over there. I can see something.”
He helped me down the slope. I recognized Alice’s coat on the ground. “Alice, we’re here. Tell us quickly, please, we’ve got to get back before Morrie’s testicles retract into his body—”
“Shite,” Morrie stopped dead, his face grim.
“Croak.” Quoth’s voice cracked, as though he was in pain.
“What?” But then, I saw it, too. Alice’s coat covered something else – a white muslin gown, speckled with blood. Beside the body lay a croquet mallet, the flat end dyed with wet crimson.
“Oh, no.”
Morrie slid down the slope and rolled the shape over. Alice Yo stared up at us, her mouth wide with terror, and the side of her skull caved in. The coat slid off her shoulders, revealing four bloody letters scrawled across her chest. They spelled out one word.
LIAR.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I staggered back. “No. Oh, no.”
The professor was one thing. He was a horrible person, and even with our suspicions, we could still end up chalking his death up to a robbery gone wrong. But I liked Alice. And this… this was cold-blooded murder.
Morrie tugged me out of the trees. “The manner of our courtship leaves something to be desired. We keep meeting over dead bodies.”
“No jokes, please.” Bile rose in my throat. I fought to keep down my breakfast.
“No jokes,” Morrie promised, his voice grave. “We need to raise the alarm. The killer could still be nearby.”
“Croak.” Quoth launched himself off my shoulder and soared into the air. He’d make a scan of the area faster than we could on the ground. If Alice’s killer was making a run for it, Quoth would catch them.
When we emerged from the wood, Lydia was outside playing croquet with her posse. “Mina? James? What are you doing in the forest? Mina, why do you have sauce stains on your dress?”
“It’s not sauce,” I cried, stumbling over the icy path. “Stop the memorial. Alice Yo has been murdered!”
Lydia screamed, clutching her hand to her forehead. Her cries drew people to the windows of the orangery. Security guards raced to the garden, surrounding us. One of them approached me, hand out, telling me to remain calm.
“I am calm,” I said, as people started to spill out of the orangery. “I’m telling you, Alice Yo has been murdered. You’ll find her just off the path. Turn right at the statue of the maenads. That’s the naked dancing girls. I have to sit down now.” I slumped in the snow, the cold no longer penetrating my numb body.
Alice was going to tell me who the murderer was. And then someone bashed her head in with a croquet mallet.
Because someone didn’t want her to reveal what she knew.
A crowd gathered at the edge of the wood. Lydia’s suitors crowded around her, offering her handkerchiefs and smelling salts. I had one better – Heathcliff raced over and mashed my body against his, crushing my ribs with the force of his embrace.
To Cynthia, Morrie said, “Have your security team guard the woods. Don’t let anyone in there, and don’t allow anyone to leave the grounds. You’ll need to call the police. You have another dead body.”
Cynthia sobbed. “How could this be? This will ruin us!”
“I’m sorry, Cynthia, but that should be the last thing on your mind.” I stumbled to my feet, aided by Morrie and Heathcliff. “Lydia, we’re leaving, now.”
“No, we’re not,” she moaned. “I told so many people last night that I’m staying at the infamous bookshop. The murderer will know to look for me there.”
“Don’t yell at me like that,” Lydia pouted. “You’ll stand a better chance of catching the killer if we remain here. I don’t wish to leave until I know this brute is safely in custody. My very life is at stake, in case you’ve forgotten!”
“She’s right. Besides, the police aren’t going to let us leave,” Morrie pointed out.
Quoth swooped in, folding in his wings and settling on my shoulder. I didn’t see anyone fleeing through the wood. There are a few people walking around by the house, including Gerald. But it’s possible the killer returned to the party via the rear of the orangery. There’s an open door there for the kitchen staff.
“You don’t think the killer was after you, Mina?” Lydia asked. “You entered the woods and then the next moment a woman in a similar pale dress is murdered. It’s just too grotesque to think about.” She shuddered.
“No, the killer was after Alice. He wrote the word LIAR on her chest. But there’s no telling what he might’ve done to me if I’d been there a few moments earlier…” I shuddered. Heathcliff’s body crushed mine again, as though he could someone squeeze the fear out of me.
“I, for one, don’t intend to stand around waiting to be beamed with a croquet mallet. We’ve got one choice,” Morrie declared. “We’re going to have to solve this murder ourselves.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“I’m in.” I shivered as the memory of Alice’s bloody face and Professor Hathaway’s silent scream flashed across my mind. “Where do we start?”
Heathcliff sighed. “If Mina insists on putting herself in the path of a murderer again, then I’m going to be at her side.”
“Croak,” Quoth added from my shoulder.
“And I guess I’ll help,” Lydia said. “Just as long as it doesn’t interfere with my husband-scouting duties. I believe that with liberal application of snogging, I can convince Mr. Grimsby to propose by the end of the weekend.”
Morrie glanced at Lydia as if he was about to say something, then thought better of it. “Very well. First, we need to establish whether both victims were murdered by the same person. If so, it puts the opportunistic killing of the professor to the test.”
Heathcliff pointed to the house. “There’s the windows that look in on Uppercross. Which window was open?”
I pointed. “The fourth on the left – it’s the one located directly behind Professor Hathaway’s chair. Morrie, you have your evil genius face on. What are you thinking?”
Morrie rubbed his chin. “I’m beginning to have an inkling of what’s happened here. Lydia, I require a distraction.”
She gave him a mock salute. “I shall oblige.” She ran off toward the patio.
“Let’s go.” Morrie grabbed my hand.
“We can’t just leave the scene! The police are going to be here at any moment. They’ll want—”
“Exactly. Less jabbering, more running. Heathcliff, hold the fort here for us.” Morrie dragged me across the lawn. Lydia had faux-fainted on the lawn and was busy being revived by the men. The security officers rushed the scene, but they were distracted by keeping guests from entering the wood and didn’t stop us as we raced inside Baddesley Hall.
“This way,” Morrie yanked me across the entrance hall. “Oh, my heart is racing a mile a minute. Mina, I have to tell you something.”
“Can it wait?”
“Not really. I love you.”
My throat tightened. I tried to put the breaks on, but Morrie only ran faster. He didn’t look at me. “Hang on. What did you just say?”
“No time to discuss it.” Morrie ducked under the police tape and headed straight to the window. “Check by the fireplace. Maybe there’s something we missed.”
Wait, you just said you loved me and now you’re back on the murder case? What even are you?
Unfortunately, as mean as he was, Morrie was also right. We didn’t have time to deal with his revelation now. My head filled with clouds and happiness, but I tried to rein it in and focus. I cast a glance over my shoulder. Seeing no one there, I ducked under the police tape, my heart in my throat. I made my way to the gilded fireplace and bent down to inspect the marble. Jo had taken the chair and rug as evidence, and the floor had been scrubbed until it shone. I couldn’t see anything that would give us new information.
“As I suspected,” Morrie said from behind me.
“What?” I rushed over to look.
“Last night at the ball, you opened the window to let Quoth in. He couldn’t open the latch from the outside.” Morrie showed me the window. “The same is true here. There’s no way an opportunistic killer could have opened this window if it was locked, because it opens outward, and the latch is on the inside.”
Oh, shite. “Perhaps he forced it in some way?”
“There are no signs of forced entry.” Morrie pointed to the smooth edge of the frame. “We’d see damage here if the killer used a tool to gain access. Now, there’s a chance of course that Hathaway himself opened the window, but as a good friend once said, ‘when you’ve eliminated the impossible, what remains, however improbable, must be the truth’. I’m suggesting it’s impossible for our killer to have accessed this room from the outside on his or her own.”
“How did the police not notice that?” I asked.
“The world is full of obvious things which nobody ever observes,” Morrie grinned. “Besides, they were distracted. Cynthia gave them the run of the dessert buffet.”
“How soon you’ve switched to cliches.”
“What can I say? We’re pressed for time. I’ll think of a wittier retort and get back to you,” Morrie paced across the floor. “We know from Jo that the professor had been dead for at least two hours before you found him, which meant he was killed near the beginning of the ball. This gave everyone a chance to wander through the antechamber and see him in the chair, very much alive. All the killer had to do was leave the ball, go into the antechamber, drive the sword into his heart, change their clothes or clean their shoes somehow, and return to the ball.”
“That could be Gerald… but then why would he go outside? Lydia and her snogging partner both saw him. Gerald wouldn’t have been able to get in the window unless it was already open.”
“Exactly.” Morrie wagged a finger in the air. “I suppose he could have had an accomplice who opened the window, but that’s starting to sound unnecessarily complicated. This puts us back at square one. Anyone at the ball could have killed Hathaway. Our key to solving this is Alice. Whoever killed her did it to shut her up. That much is evident.”
“Agreed. But how do we find out who it was? Quoth didn’t see anything.”
“We need to look at Alice’s bedroom,” Morrie said. “She’ll have files on the story she’s working on – notes, maybe a laptop. If I could get access to her phone, so much the better, but it’s probably on her body—Oh, shite. Here comes the cavalry.”
I followed where he was looking. Through the window, Inspector Hayes strode toward the house. He pointed at me, jerking his thumb to indicate we were to get outside.
“So much for that. We’re not going to be able to get to Alice’s room before the police,” I said.
“We’re not, but somebody is.” Morrie stuck his head out the window. “Oh, birdie?”
“Croak!” Quoth fluttered down on the windowsill.
“Care to do a little reconnoiter for us?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I peered past Hayes’ face at the imposing hall, shivering even under both Morrie’s and Heathcliff’s topcoats. Where’s Quoth? He should be gone from the room by now. Hayes was still yelling at us about disturbing the crime scene and how we weren’t cops and we needed to leave them to do their jobs. I nodded in all the right places and Morrie poured on the charm and eventually Hayes calmed his tirade and started to question us about finding Alice’s body.
I was describing the conversation Alice and I had behind the parterre when Quo
th fluttered down and landed on my shoulder. Hayes regarded the bird with a bemused expression. “Is that the same raven that lives at the shop?”
“No. That’s his cousin,” Heathcliff said without a smile.
“I see.” Hayes shut his pad. “Thank you for speaking with us, Ms. Wilde, Mr. Earnshaw, Mr. Moriarty. Please don’t leave the village, as we may need to ask you more questions.”
I frowned at Morrie. I knew what Hayes was really saying. We found the body, and then he’d caught us mucking about on the primary scene. And Heathcliff had dark skin, which automatically made him a suspect. We were on Hayes’ list – maybe not top of the list, but definitely there.
Jo emerged from the trees just as Hayes dismissed me. She gave instructions to the SOCO team to remove the body and take samples from the snow and surrounding plants. As she peeled off her PPE, I wrapped my arms around her.
“I’m so sorry. I know you were friends with Alice.”
Jo shook her head. “Not close friends, but still, it’s sad. Alice was a talented writer with a desire to do good in the world. All that’s left now is to find out who did this to her and get the justice for her in death she never had in life.”
“What did you find out about the first murder? Is this the same killer?”
“It’s hard to tell at this stage,” Jo said. “Different murder weapons were used, but the attacks are equal in brutality. Plus, the handwriting on Alice appears to match the person who wrote on your door. If what you told Hayes is true and Alice knew the identity of the killer, then it suggests they did this to cover their tracks. What I can say for a fact is that the professor’s murder wasn’t opportunistic. It was premeditated. We found a large number of sleeping pills in his system.”
“Sleeping pills?”
“Yes. Apparently, he’d been taking them for years, along with a litany of other pills for various health issues. Under that dyed hair and expensive dental work, Hathaway was rather old. But this was far higher than any prescribed dose. Not high enough to kill him, but they’d have made him drowsy, slowed his reaction time way down, made it so that he stayed in that chair all night. They may also have allowed the killer to take the weapon from him.”
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