Murder Most Malicious (13 page)

His chin went down and his gaze became hooded. “Inspector Perkins already asked me that, miss. And I'll tell you what I told him. I ain't never spoken to the marquess—not to any marquess. I never even spoke to Lord Wroxly upstairs. Why would I? I know my place, Miss Huntford, and it ain't among the toffs.”

“I wasn't suggesting otherwise, Josh. But perhaps your father had some business with Lord Allerton?”

Josh's father had specialized in fine saddles and tack before the war, a good business, but with so many horses having perished for the cause, he had been forced to close his shop. He still plied his trade from home when occasion called for it, but mostly he performed odd jobs around the village. He had jumped at the opportunity for his son to take over the hall-boy position at Foxwood when the former boy, Arnold, enlisted two years ago. Unlike the gamekeeper, Arnold had returned from the war, but had gone to London to seek, as he put it, “modern” employment in a factory.

“Dunno, miss,” Josh said in answer to her question. “I s'pose I could ask.”

“Yes, would you? That would be a great help.”

The wary look returned. “We won't be getting into any trouble, will we, miss?”

“Oh, no, Josh. Of course not. Don't worry about that.”

But as she watched him retrieve his coal bin and go on his way, guilt niggled. She could make no such promise. In attempting to exonerate Vernon, she very well might incriminate someone else. There was no telling whom that might be.

To find Dora, her next quarry, she had only to follow the clanking of the breakfast pots and pans. The girl stood in the scullery at the long trough sink, elbow-deep in steaming water. Eva went to her side, shoved up her sleeves, grabbed an extra dish rag, and submerged the next pot that needed washing. She sprinkled in Dora's mixture of salt, flour, and vinegar and started scouring.

Dora went utterly still but for the repeated blinking of her eyes. “Are you having some sort of an apoplexy, Miss Huntford?”

“Of course not. Why would you suggest such a thing?”

Dora blinked again. “A lady's maid helping in the scullery?”

Eva scrubbed at something stubborn and crusty on the side of the pot. “Yes, I'm sorry you don't often receive help, Dora.”

“Connie pitches in when she can. She's a good sort, that one.” Her eyes narrowed. “Not that
you're
not a good sort yourself, Miss Huntford, but . . . surely you must want . . . something.”

“Dora!” She might have gone on with her shock and indignation, but the undeniable truth settled over her. She
did
want something, or she would be busy ironing the blouses that had just come from the washhouse. “Yes, you're correct,” she admitted. She kept scrubbing, rinsed the pot, and next hefted a cast-iron fry pan. “Tell me, Dora, do you believe Vernon is guilty?”

“Well . . .” She let both hands dangle in the water, the wash rag floating like a bit of seaweed. “I'm not sure. I think, well, he
might
have done it.”

Eva went still. She hadn't expected this. “Do you? I thought everyone here believed in his innocence.”

“I like Vernon well enough, but . . .”

“Please go on.”

Dora blew a strand of dull brown hair away from her face. “I wouldn't blame him if he did go after the marquess, after what the marquess did to Connie.”

Eva's patience had worn about as ragged as the cloth in her hand, but she spoke her next words calmly enough. This might not be the information she came for, but her buzzing senses told her she might be about to learn something important. “What do you know about Connie and the marquess, Dora? If it involves Vernon, you shouldn't keep it to yourself.”

“Well . . .” She flicked excess water off her hands and went to the doorway, looking into the short corridor that separated the scullery from the main kitchen. She returned to Eva's side. “You know my room is down here, and Christmas night I couldn't sleep, so I got up to go find something to nibble on. Just a scrap of cheese or something,” she added hastily. “Nothing that would be missed.”

“It's all right, Dora. I don't think Mrs. Ellison would begrudge you a bit of cheese.”

The girl nodded. “I heard voices from the stairwell, angry ones. They frightened me a little, so I crept along the corridor a ways so I could hear what they were saying. It was Connie and the marquess, and she was begging him to let her go. He was laughing—not loud, mind you, just a mean little laugh, and I heard scuffling on the steps, and Connie saying no over and over again. And the marquess said, ‘Too bad, my dear, you owe me this.' ”

Eva braced her hands on the edge of the sink. “What time was this? Do you have any idea?”

“Sometime after midnight. I don't know exactly.”

“And then what happened?”

“I heard footsteps coming down, and a voice—Vernon's—asking what was going on. That's when I peeked round the corner. I saw Vernon and the marquess staring each other down like two bulls in a pen, and Connie cowering against the stairwell wall. She was crying, Miss Huntford, and her dress—it was all crooked-like. Finally, the marquess pushed past Vernon and stormed upstairs, and Vernon reached to help Connie. He hugged her and she cried on his shoulder, and she said . . .”

Here Dora compressed her lips and plunged her hands back into the water, searching for the rag that had submerged beneath the suds.

“Please, Dora. This might be vitally important. I promise, whatever you tell me, I shall reveal to no one that you and I spoke.” Her conscience gave another whisper of warning. She seemed to be making questionable promises this morning, so she vowed silently that she would not use any information unless she could verify it herself—however she may. She said again, “Please.”

Dora blew out a breath. “Connie said she would kill Lord Allerton if he ever touched her again.”

 

Phoebe lightened her tread on the stair runner. No sound came from above her. She could only assume both Fox and Theo had reached their destinations. Where had Theo gone? She hoped not to his room. That would make it impossible to strike up a conversation. But the billiard room or even Grampapa's smoking room—no longer used for smoking ever since his physician forbade him—would suit her purposes. Before the war, both rooms would have been off limits to Phoebe and her sisters unless Grampapa invited them in, but the preceding years had loosened the old rules. As long as the door stood open and she and Theo didn't occupy the same settee, no one could raise an eyebrow, or at least not much of one.

Yet murmurs led her, not to either male domain, but to the Rosalind sitting room that overlooked the dormant rose garden and the bare willows scraping against the ice-covered pond. She again muffled her steps, this time along the hall runner, and stopped a door away from the one from which the voices emanated. How familiar it seemed—Phoebe eavesdropping outside a door. But while the feminine voice once again identified Julia, the other held Theo's deeper, gruffer tones. And unlike Christmas night, Phoebe heard no anger. What she did hear kept her rooted to the spot, albeit tempted to move closer.

“Do you suppose anyone else knows?” Julia said, her voice low and rushed.

“I don't think so, at least not yet. But as for the evidence—”

“It must be destroyed, Theo.”

“What are you doing?”

Phoebe bit back a cry. She spun about to find Fox lurking several feet away, his eyes glinting with speculation. Wouldn't she like to hang a bell from that boy's collar, or better still, put him on a leash.

She seized him by the wrist and dragged him away, down the corridor. “You're supposed to be in your room,” she whispered. “What would Grampapa say if he discovered you disobeyed him?”

“Tell him and I'll tell Julia you were eavesdropping on her and Theo.”

She was tempted to twist his arm behind his back. If not for her devious little brother, she might have learned about this evidence Julia and Theo must destroy. Evidence of what? Murder? Something rather less diabolical? Could they have been referring to the secret Henry held over Julia on Christmas night, the one that robbed Julia of her usual cool aplomb?

Had that secret spurred Julia to rash action? Or had Theo finally had enough of Henry's arrogance and tightfistedness?

It wasn't the first time Phoebe's thoughts turned in either direction. But even with Fox's untimely interruption, she had learned something new: Julia and Theo were somehow in league together. Yes, that touch she'd witnessed yesterday in the drawing room had not been haphazard. Now all Phoebe had to do was discover whatever common interest had joined two people who in the past rarely took the time to acknowledge each other's presence, much less strike up conversations.

She and Fox turned a corner and stopped outside his bedroom. Phoebe released him and attempted to stare him down, but he only stared back in silent, arrogant challenge.

There was nothing for it but to strike a bargain. “You keep mum and so shall I,” she said. “Besides, I wasn't eavesdropping. I was on my way into the sitting room when I heard their voices. I hadn't wished to intrude, and was about to turn around and go to my room when you decided to frighten ten years off my life.”

His cunning smile suggested he didn't believe her story for a minute. “If you say so.”

“I do, and if I were you, Fox, I'd be in my room minding my own business rather than roaming the house looking for trouble.”

“Is that a warning, dear sister?”

She reached past him and opened the bedroom door. “Merely a bit of advice you would be wise to heed.”

She didn't wait to see if he took her counsel. She hurried back to her own room and rang for Eva, who came up straightaway, almost as if she had been waiting for the summons. She seemed out of breath, flushed, her eyes lit with urgency.

She and Phoebe spoke the same words at the same time. “I have something shocking to tell you.”

They fell silent, regarding each other, and then Eva said, “You first, my lady.”

Phoebe took her hand and brought her to the little settee facing the fireplace. Eva hesitated as Phoebe sat. Phoebe gestured at the place beside her. “Please, Eva. We cannot speak earnestly with me sitting and you standing. If we are to work together on Vernon's behalf, we must act as partners.”

“Oh, dear,” Eva muttered, even as she sat beside Phoebe and primly smoothed her skirt.

“Thank you. Now, then. I overheard something only moments ago. Julia and Lord Theodore were speaking together in the Rosalind sitting room, and—”

“You were eavesdropping, my lady?”

“Don't scold me. But yes. They spoke all in a rush about whether ‘anyone else knew' and ‘evidence that must be destroyed. '”

“My goodness! What were they talking about?”

“I cannot say, but Christmas night I quite accidentally overheard Julia and Lord Allerton arguing in the drawing room after everyone else had gone up to bed. She had just turned down his proposal of marriage, and in retaliation Lord Allerton threatened her with some secret he knew about her, something which left her obviously flustered.”

Eva was silent a moment, then let out a breathy, “Oh.” She placed her hand over Phoebe's. “That was why you asked me if I would tell the inspector if I knew something that might incriminate someone I cared about. You were struggling over whether or not to tell Inspector Perkins about Julia and Lord Allerton's argument.”

“Did I do the right thing in not telling?” Phoebe searched Eva's features, which always exhibited such patient kindness. Would she see disapproval there now?

To her relief, Eva's forehead remained smooth. “I believe you did, at least for the time being. Inspector Perkins has botched this investigation so far, and I doubt this information would change anything for Vernon.”

“I agree, but what about Constable Brannock? He seems an astute fellow.”

“Perhaps . . .” Eva nipped at her bottom lip. “I don't fully trust him, my lady. I can't put my finger on it, but I sense he is hiding something of his own.”

“Such as what?”

“To begin with, he seems frightfully whole and unimpaired, at a time when so many men have returned home maimed or scarred or emotionally wounded by the war . . . or simply never came home. I keep wondering why that should be.”

“You think he was a scrimshanker?”

Eva drew back. “My lady, wherever did you learn a term like that?”

She shrugged. “I expect I heard Grampapa say it a time or two. He has little regard for healthy men who avoided their duty during the war. Why? Is it a bad word?”

“No, I don't suppose so. It's just not one I would expect to hear from you.”

Phoebe waved a hand in the air. “Never mind that. You seemed agitated when you got here. Have you also learned something significant?”

“I might have. I've begun questioning the others who received . . .”

At Eva's hesitation, Phoebe hastened to reassure her. “You needn't fear being blunt with me. Not after the breakfast conversation I enjoyed a little while ago. What you mean to say is, ‘the others who received bits of Lord Allerton.' ”

Eva swallowed and nodded. “Yes, I've begun questioning them in an attempt to understand what each had in common. Why them—or us, I should say, since I was among them—and not others. One possibility that came to mind was business dealings. What else
could
link a workman or artisan with a marquess?”

“Good thinking. We should question the other recipients as well. The ones in town.” When Eva agreed, Phoebe prompted her to continue with what she had learned below stairs.