Crossing the Lion (a Reigning Cats and Dog) (2010) (24 page)

“And what exactly were you doing?” I asked calmly.

Gwennie bit her lip. For a few seconds, she looked like a scared young woman barely out of her twenties rather than an uneducated maid who’d seen too many episodes of
EastEnders
—or a calculating actress with dollar signs where her pupils should have been. I had a feeling that, for the very first time, I was getting a glimpse of the real Gwennie.

“A couple of years ago, things started to dry up for us in London,” she said wistfully. “Acting-wise, I mean. Both Jonathan and I were suddenly having a really hard time finding work. I may not be old by the real world’s standards, but I’m not twenty-one anymore. I was starting to lose that blush of youth that directors love. I was drifting into that period of being too old to play the ingenue and too young to play the mother—not to mention being too youthful for any interesting character-acting roles.”

“And Jonathan?” I asked, sincerely interested. “Does that happen with men, too?”

She shook her head. “That’s one more area where they’ve got all the luck. But Jonathan had some other … problems. He can be kind of temperamental. When it comes to his acting, I mean. He sees himself as a true artist. In other words, he always thinks he’s right, even when his take on the way things ought to be done is different from the director’s. He had a few run-ins along the way, and he ended up with a reputation for being difficult to work with.

“That was when he came up with his big idea.” With a sad little laugh, she said, “I told him from the start that it sounded like the plot from an Agatha Christie play. You’ve heard of her, haven’t you?”

With a wan smile, I said, “I think I’ve heard the name once or twice.”

“Anyway, his idea was that he and I should come to America, where no one knew us. Besides, most Yanks aren’t very good at telling the difference between one British accent and another. He decided we should get jobs as servants for some rich family, one where the person who controlled the purse strings was really, really ancient. Then we’d do everything we could to ingratiate ourselves, with the idea that once the old man kicked the bucket, he’d include us in his will.”

“So that’s how Gwennie and Jives were born,” I observed. I had to admit, their plan was clever. Hateful, but clever.

“That’s right,” she said. “Jonathan and I did some research and we came up with the name of a posh
employment agency in New York City that places maids and butlers in the homes of very wealthy families. The agency was supposed to be top of the line, which it was.”

Except when it comes to doing background checks
, I thought wryly.

“Jonathan and I presented ourselves as two people who’d worked together before but weren’t romantically involved,” Gwennie went on. “They wouldn’t have liked the idea of us being a couple, because they’d be worried that if we split up one of us would quit. Either that or we’d be sneaking off into the broom closet together all the time.

“Anyway, having worked together in the past seemed to make us pretty attractive candidates—that and the fact that we both spoke with British accents. Jonathan decided to mold himself after the butler Anthony Hopkins played in
The Remains of the Day
. You know, polished, dignified, and ready to do anything to please his boss.”

Except carry luggage, I thought begrudgingly. Or maybe that was just the way he acted around visitors.

“As for me, I decided to play the fool with a Cockney accent,” Gwennie explained. “I didn’t want the lady of the house to see me as competition, so I figured acting as if I wasn’t too bright—or too attractive—would be seen as an asset.”

I had to admit that I was impressed by the fact that she’d thought of every angle. She had even custom-designed her accent and her hairstyle for the role.

“We were presented with quite a few opportunities,”
Gwennie continued. “We interviewed at a number of places, but the potential employers either weren’t rich enough or old enough. We had to come up with different excuses not to take those jobs. Too far from New York, not enough pay, whatever. Then this gig came up.”

A dreamy smile crossed her face. “We knew right away that it was perfect. We’d actually heard of the Merrywoods, all the way over in England. Of course, we’d made a point of learning everything we could about the richest people in America. And Linus Merrywood was near the top of the list.

“We knocked ourselves out at the interview, and lo and behold we got the job. The two of us started working here a year and a half ago.” Her eyes grew as big as hamburger buns as she added, “I remember the first time I set eyes on this place. I couldn’t believe how huge it was. It’s true that it’s seen better days, but I could still see that the Merrywoods were dripping with money.

“As for Jonathan, he was positively thrilled,” she went on. “In fact, I’d never seen him so happy. He was convinced we’d found the perfect way to strike it rich. All we had to do was act like two devoted servants, kissing up to the old man every chance we got, and we’d walk away with a nice chunk of money—hopefully enough to keep us both on Easy Street for a while.”

Somehow, her use of the words
Easy Street
reminded me of Fleet Street—as in Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of.

“Did it work?” I asked simply.

“What?” Gwennie looked confused, as if she’d gotten lost in telling her story.

“Did Linus name you and Jonathan in his will?”

“I—I don’t know,” she replied, suddenly flustered. “Linus never actually said anything about it. I suppose Jonathan and I won’t know whether or not our ploy worked until the reading of his will.”

At this point, I was as curious as she was to know if the two of them had achieved their goal of going from bogus butler and mendacious maid to heir and heiress. After all, they hadn’t been working for Linus for very long, especially compared to the family’s cook.

Then again, they could have come to the conclusion that they’d already been successful in ingratiating themselves with Linus. Or maybe Gwennie had lied about knowing whether or not she and Jonathan were in the will. Perhaps Linus had even come right out and told them he’d included them.

Or maybe they’d simply gotten impatient and decided to bump off the old man and hope for the best. After all, Gwennie had told me herself that Jonathan was temperamental.

As if she had read my mind, Gwennie suddenly said, “But just because we were hoping to get a piece of the old man’s fortune doesn’t mean we ever wished him any harm. Or that either one of us is capable of murder.”

She stood up a little straighter as she added, “Some people might see what we were doing as stealing. But stealing money is a far cry from killing someone!

“In fact,” she continued, her voice wavering, “that’s why I’m being honest with you. I intend to tell our whole story to the police, too. I want them to know I’m cooperating fully. If they see that I’m being honest, I’m hoping they’ll believe that I had nothing to do with Linus’s murder.”

And Jonathan?
I thought.
Is he planning to come forth with the truth, as well?

“But there is something else,” she said, twisting her fingers again. “I don’t mind telling you all this because, well, I hardly know you. And since you overheard what Jonathan and I were saying and all, I don’t want you forming the wrong opinion. But would you do me one favor?”

“What is it?” I asked skeptically.

“Please don’t say anything to the Merrywoods,” she said, sounding almost like a scared little girl. “I actually became quite fond of them while I was working here. Not Taggart. He’s slime, as far as I’m concerned. But I really have a lot of respect for Charlotte. I’d rather she didn’t find out what Jonathan and I were up to.”

I thought about her request for a few seconds, then said, “I don’t see any reason to say anything at this point.”

At least not to the Merrywoods. I was so anxious to tell Nick what I’d just found out that I was as ready to burst as an overfilled balloon.

“Thanks, Jessie,” Gwennie said. “I really appreciate that.” Both her smile and her gratitude struck me as sincere.

“By the way,” I asked, “you told me Jonathan’s real name, but you haven’t told me yours.”

“It’s Gwendolyn.” She sighed, then added, “It was hard enough living a lie day in and day out. I figured the least I could do was hang on to one piece of truth: my own name.”

As if I should feel sorry for you
, I thought angrily.
Playing a charade like this for months on end, all to wrangle a few bucks out of an old man
.

Pretty despicable.

Still, as Gwennie had pointed out, stealing wasn’t murder. And I still wasn’t convinced the two of them had carried off their plan of winning Linus over.

Yet I couldn’t discount them completely. Especially if Gwennie and Jonathan had reason to believe that their plan had succeeded and that Linus had written them both into his will. If he had, one more possible scenario was that he had suddenly seen through their ruse and was planning to change the will. In that case, waiting for him to die a natural death could have cost them. Perhaps a
lot
.

So while Gwennie insisted that her confession about what she and Jonathan were up to was enough to clear her, knowing the truth had only solidified their place on my list.

•  •  •

Once again, I headed back to my bedroom—and Nick. I was anxious to update him, as well as to spend a little good old-fashioned quality time with him.

But as I entered the bedroom, the excited look on his face told me he had some news of his own.

“What have you been up to?” I asked, grinning.

“Plenty,” he replied. “I took your request that I find out whatever I could about the dangerous liaison between Missy and Harry Foss very seriously.”

“Did you have any luck?” I demanded eagerly.

Feigning indignation, he replied, “I can assure you that my impressive success in finding out everything you wanted to know had nothing to do with luck.”

Grimacing, I said, “Don’t tell me. It was all due to that secret weapon of yours, right? The old Burby charm?”

“Exactly.” He grinned. “Hey, you’re the one who told me to take advantage of the fact that I’m the next best thing since James Bond.”

I chuckled. “Okay, James. What did you find out?”

“That Missy has been having an affair with Harry since the beginning of last summer,” Nick said. “The two of them had run into each other a few times over the years, but they were never anything more than casual acquaintances. But back in June, it seems they were both attending some corporate function—a reception at the top of the Empire State Building—and they just clicked. Scarlett said something about their eyes meeting over the buffet table.”

“It sounds terribly romantic,” I said, picturing Harry and Missy gazing at each other across a dune-size mound of pasta salad. “But how can Scarlett be so sure about all this?”

“Because Missy confided in her,” Nick explained.
“She told me the two of them have become pretty close. Missy was apparently dying to talk about it, and Scarlett was someone she trusted.”

“Scarlett spilled the beans to you pretty easily,” I observed. “So she’s not as reliable a confidante as Missy thought.”

“Surely you couldn’t expect anyone to resist the famous Burby charm!”

“Speaking of which,” I said, looking at him askance, “exactly how did you manage to get all this information out of the unassuming Miss Scarlett?”

“Nothing I can’t admit to,” Nick assured me teasingly. “Just a little harmless flirting. And only enough to get her talking. All those years I spent as a private eye taught me a little something about how to get information out of people without them noticing.”

I sighed. “So all is not as it appears with the happy couple—Missy and her husband, I mean.”

“Not if you consider the wife’s extracurricular activity a good indication,” Nick replied.

“The question is whether her secret love affair with Harry had anything to do with Linus,” I mused.

“Maybe Missy finally decided to leave Townie,” Nick conjectured, “but she needed more money to do it. After all, it looks as if Townie was the moneymaker in that family.”

“True,” I added. “And while Harry makes big bucks, if Linus learned his daughter was leaving a son-in-law he was fond of—and leaving him for Linus’s business partner, no less—he might have disapproved to the point where he’d have fired Harry.”

“Still, if that happened, Harry could have easily gotten another job,” Nick noted. “So it’s hard to believe that money would have been a motive.”

“Unless Linus had a vengeful side and found a way to get Harry blacklisted,” I said. “But here’s another idea: that Harry was anxious to take over Merrywood Industries and somehow his relationship with Linus’s daughter was likely to get in the way. According to Winston, now that Linus is dead, Harry is in charge of the company. Assuming that’s true, that means he can run things however he pleases.”

“That scenario sounds plausible,” Nick agreed. “Then again, maybe Harry killed Linus for reasons that had nothing to do with Missy. Maybe he just couldn’t wait any longer to take over the company.”

“That could be,” I said. “Harry told me himself that he and Linus disagreed on certain aspects of the business. Maybe Linus was about to take Merrywood Industries in a direction that Harry found intolerable.”

Nick and I were both silent for a few seconds. I was still thinking about all the possible ramifications of Harry’s affair with Linus’s daughter when Nick said, “Aren’t you going to ask me what else I found out?”

I blinked. “About what?”

“About the beguiling Miss Scarlett,” Nick replied. “Just because I was talking to her with the goal of finding out whatever I could about Missy and Harry doesn’t mean I didn’t also learn plenty about her.”

“Okay,” I said, my eyes narrowing. “And what did you find out about her?”

“That she has a boyfriend.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You mean a boyfriend as in someone other than Linus?”

Now it was Nick’s turn to look surprised. “You mean Scarlett and Linus were—”

“It’s just a rumor,” I assured him. “Cook seems to believe either she or Gwennie was involved with Linus, but that doesn’t mean it’s true.”