6 Grounds for Murder (19 page)

He hadn’t breathed a word to anyone about what he’d seen. If it was nothing more than rotting vegetables, he’d feel like a fool. If it was something else, he couldn’t think of anyone he’d want to open that thing. Unless it was Mr. Baxter. Or the bobbies.

The night breeze rustled a pile of dead leaves, making him jump. The moon was hidden by the thick bank of clouds that had covered the skies for the best part of the week. Only the glow from the lamplight at the kitchen windows cast soft shadows across the ground.

Tomorrow night would be Guy Fawkes, and the Esplanade would be lit up from end to end with the bonfire on the beach and hundreds of fireworks exploding in the dark sky.

Tonight, however, all was still and silent, except for the steady swish of the ocean breaking on the shore, the breeze rustling through the empty branches of the sycamore, and the distant hoot of an owl from the woods on Putney Downs.

Thinking about those woods gave Samuel the cold shivers. He hunched his shoulders and thought once more about the sack waiting ominously for him in the dark corner of the coal shed.

His fingers touched the gate that led to the stables, and the note for the constable seemed to burn in his pocket. Let the bobbies take care of it, he told himself. It was their job.

He swung the gate open and passed through. He could point out the sack and let the constable look inside.

He paused, his fingers gripping the top bar of the gate. His gaze seemed relentlessly drawn back to the dark outline of the shed. More than likely the constable wouldn’t tell him what he found. Not unless it was rotten potatoes or something, and Samuel’s instincts told him it was something a lot more sinister than that.

Samuel had an idea what was in that sack. And he was burning to know if he was right. He hesitated, thinking again about the note in his pocket. Then slowly he pushed the gate open again and inched back into the yard.

Just one quick peek would tell him what he wanted to know. Then he could scarper right down to the constable’s house and tell him what he’d seen.

He could just imagine telling the boys down at the pub what he’d found. That’s if he was right about what was in that sack. And there was only one way to find out.

He reached the shed and tugged on the door handle. The door was jammed, and he had to haul on it to get it open. It came with a rush and a loud squeak, shuddering as it broke free from its restraint.

Samuel waited a moment or two but heard no movement from the kitchen. Reaching inside, he found the oil lamp that hung from the wall. On a shelf behind it lay the matches, and he struck one, shielding it with his hand until he had the wick alight.

Popping the glass cover back on, he waited for the glow to burn bright enough to cast a light across the shed floor. The sack huddled in the corner, waiting for him.

Holding the lamp above his head, Samuel swung it around, making sure that no one else watched him from the shadows. Then, with a sickening thud of his heart, he advanced toward the sack.

His hand trembled so much he could hardly untie the rope that bound it, but at last he had it free. Holding the lamp with one hand, he grasped the neck of the sack and pulled it open.

The movement disturbed the contents, and before he could move, something rolled out of the sack and landed against his foot.

Samuel took one look, then staggered outside into the fresh air, where he gave up everything he’d eaten at his last meal.

CHAPTER
19

The next morning, Madeline arrived at the Pennyfoot bright and early, pulling behind her the handcart loaded with bronze and dark red chrysanthemums. Huge sprays of bulrushes bobbed in the breeze as she parked the cart at the wall of the hotel. Leaving it there, she went inside to have a brief word with Cecily, then emerged a few minutes later to reclaim the cart.

The clouds appeared to be breaking up when she marched around the side of the hotel and through the garden gate. Approaching the ballroom from the rose garden, she eyed the shorn stalks of the rosebushes. John Thimble, the Pennyfoot’s dedicated gardener, had performed his usual
meticulous surgery on the shrubs. By next summer the roses would bloom in a glorious palette of color.

Madeline adored flowers. She and John shared a strong affinity for the mysteries of the plant world, though John approached his work with a less ethereal attitude.

Madeline used plants to heal pain and to stir emotions. With her flower arrangements she created picturesque beauty, designed to enchant the eye of the beholder and bring a sense of peace and love. Madeline was a child of the earth and believed that every living thing earned a place upon it.

She felt a certain sense of calm as she went along placing the flowers in the huge ornate pots that stood on either side of the stage. She arranged tall bulrushes at the back, spreading out at each side to provide a framework for the chrysanthemums. The white baby’s breath filled in the spaces, and for depth she added sprays of cedar and pine.

She worked steadily, concentrating on the balance of color and shape, until she had filled the pots with almost identical arrangements. Finally satisfied, she stepped off the stage and backed away to the center of the dance floor to obtain a wider view of the entire creation.

The sun had not yet broken through the clouds, and shadows darkened the balconies around the ballroom. Massive stone pillars surrounded the dance floor, obstructing the view of the tables set against the walls.

Madeline’s gaze was concentrated on the stage, and she did not see or hear the movement from the doorway on her left. But she sensed it.

She turned slowly, almost as if in a trance.

The figure stood directly in front of her, silhouetted against the French windows, looking taller somehow, more sturdy than she remembered, and infinitely evil.

Very slowly, Madeline looked down to where strong
fingers gripped the handle of the gleaming, deadly weapon that had been used too many times before. The missing axe.

“I don’t flipping believe it,” Gertie said, staring at the clock ticking away on the mantelpiece. “Every morning this week that blinking Doris has been late, but this time she’s really gone and done it. Look at the bloody time!”

Mrs. Chubb lifted her head from the lump of bread dough she was kneading. “It is rather late,” she said, sending a worried look at the clock. “Doris has had a bad cold for the last two days. Perhaps she’s ill. I think you had better go and find out if she’s all right.”

“Strewth!” Gertie flung down the towel she’d been using to wipe the dishes and marched to the door. “As if I hadn’t got enough on me bleeding plate, what with me bellyache …”

“You got pains?” Mrs. Chubb asked sharply, but Gertie didn’t have time to wait around to answer her.

She still had the dishes to finish and the silverware to polish, and her stomach was killing her, it was. And that bleeding lazy Doris was lying in her bed, snoring her head off, no doubt.

Tramping down the corridor to the housemaid’s room, Gertie could feel her temper rising. Nobody liked to bloody get out of a warm bed on a blinking cold morning. Nobody hated hitting the ice-cold floorboards with bare feet worse than she did. But she could manage to get to work on time, even with her aches and pains, and there was no reason why Doris shouldn’t, too.

Gertie paused for a moment as a stab of pain hit her low down in her belly. Gawd, that was a strong one. Took her breath away, it did. If the pains kept up, she’d have to sit down the rest of the day to do her work. She just hoped there wasn’t anything wrong with the baby.

She waisted for the spasm to pass before continuing on down the corridor. Her back ached worse than ever these days. If only the baby would flipping hurry up and be born, maybe she could get back to feeling like a human being again, instead of a bloody sick elephant.

After what seemed like an eternity, she reached the door of Doris’s room. She rapped sharply with her knuckles and yelled, “Doris? It’s bleeding seven o’clock. Get your flipping arse out of that bed and into the kitchen. Good job you ain’t in Buckingham Palace! They’d have you locked up in the Tower.”

She waited, but could hear nothing from the other side of the door. Rapping again, she yelled once more, “Doris! What the flipping heck are you doing in there?”

Still no answer. Muttering to herself, Gertie tried the handle. Much to her surprise, the door opened.

She stuck her head inside the room and stared in disbelief at the huddled shape beneath the eiderdown. Flipping girl hadn’t even budged.

Losing the last remnants of her patience, Gertie strode across the room and gave the figure a hefty slap on the rump. “Come on, you flipping twerp, up and at ’em. You’ve only got a cold, you ain’t going to die. Look at me, I’m still on me feet, and I bet I hurt a lot worse than you do.”

A muffled grunt came from the sleeping girl. The eiderdown was pulled up over her head, and Gertie leaned down to get her mouth as close as she could to where she judged Doris’s ear to be.

Taking a deep breath, she yelled, “You want me to call the doctor?”

The figure jerked and shook her head violently.

“Then get the bleeding heck out of this bed, you hear me?”

The head nodded.

“I want to see you in the kitchen in ten minutes. If not, I’m sending Michel in to drag you out there. You hear that?”

Again Doris’s head nodded.

Satisfied, Gertie crossed the room to the door, grumbling and muttering to herself about the lousy quality of help nowadays and how she had to do everything herself in order to get it done right.

Back down the hallway she trudged, wondering if she was ever going to feel normal again. If she’d known what she was in for, she would never have gone within a hundred miles of Ian Rossiter. Bleeding lumbering her with a baby and taking off to London to be back with his wife—he was the one what ought to be locked up in the Tower. In the darkest, deepest dungeon, that’s what.

She was panting for breath by the time she reached the kitchen door. Doris would have to bleeding scramble if she was going to get to work in ten minutes. By the time she’d washed herself and done her hair, climbed into her clothes, and laced up her oxfords, she’d have to run like a bleeding hare to get to the kitchen.

Gertie smiled to herself as she pushed the door open. Do Doris bleeding good to run for a change. She crawled around like a bleeding slug most of the time.

Mrs. Chubb looked up as Gertie stomped into the kitchen. “Oh, there you are, duck. We was just wondering if you were all right.”

“Course I’m all right. It’s that blinking Doris you want to—”

Gertie stopped short, blinked, and blinked again. The figure at the sink stared back at her, looking as if she was about to wet her drawers.

Gertie stared at Doris in sheer disbelief. The girl was fully dressed, hair tucked neatly beneath her cap, her black
laced-up shoes peeking out from beneath the hem of her black dress.

“How the bloody hell did you get in here?” Gertie demanded. “I just bleeding left you snoring in your bed.”

“Now, Gertie,” Mrs. Chubb began, then paused as Doris suddenly burst into tears.

Gertie looked wildly at Mrs. Chubb, wondering if she was losing her mind. “She was in her bed,” she said again, her voice rising in her agitation. “I bleeding saw her. I touched her. I came straight back down the corridor, and here she is.”

“It wasn’t me,” Doris wailed between sobs.

For a long moment both Mrs. Chubb and Gertie stared at the weeping girl. Then Mrs. Chubb said faintly, “If it wasn’t you, girl, then who was it?”

Doris gulped, held her breath, then lifted her tear-stained face. “It was my sister, Daisy.”

“Daisy?” Mrs. Chubb folded her arms across her chest. “I think you’d better tell us what’s going on here, then.”

Doris gulped and sniffed, then wiped her wet hands on her apron. “All right. There was only one job, you see. We wanted to be together. We only had each other, since our mum and dad died—” A sob interrupted her words, and she caught at her lip with her teeth.

Gertie felt a surge of sympathy for the little twit. She knew what it was like not to have proper parents.

“Anyway,” Doris went on, her voice quivering on another sob, “when we decided to run away from Aunt Beatrice, we made a promise that we would never be parted. But there was only this one job, so we sort of share it. Daisy did the mornings, and I did the afternoons. Until she caught a cold, that is, then we switched over so she could sleep in. That way I wouldn’t get too tired doing a whole day. I’m not as strong as Daisy, and me back hurt so bad.”

“Blimey,” Gertie said in awe. “You mean there were two of you doing the work? No wonder you seemed different. But you must look exactly alike.”

“We do,” Doris said miserably. “We’re twins.”

“You live in the same room?” Mrs. Chubb said, sounding as if she couldn’t believe her ears.

Doris nodded. “We sneak in food for each other, and we sleep in the same bed.”

“Blimey, I bet that’s bleeding uncomfortable,” Gertie said with feeling. Since she’d grown a belly on her she hardly had room for herself in the narrow bed.

“It is. Especially when I have to sleep on me stomach because of me back.”

“Mercy me.” Mrs. Chubb threw her hands up in the air. “Whatever next?”

“We was only going to do it until Daisy could get a job somewhere close by. But there’s no hotels near here, and none of the hotels in Wellercombe are hiring until the next season.”

Doris started to cry again. “We just wanted to be together, that’s all. We never meant no harm.”

Gertie felt a strong urge to go over and give the girl a hug. Instead she gave Mrs. Chubb a look imploring her to do something.

“Well, it’s not up to me,” the housekeeper said, looking sternly at Doris. “I’ll have to discuss this with madam, and it will be up to her to decide what to do with you.”

“What do you think she’ll say?” Gertie said anxiously. Doris might be a little twerp, but she was bleeding better than nothing. It was so blinking hard to find anyone to do the work. They all wanted to go to London nowadays and earn the big money.

“I don’t know what she’ll say, I’m sure,” Mrs. Chubb said, “so we shall just have to wait and see. In the meantime
there is work to be done, and we’d better get on and do it. Meanwhile, I’ll go to Doris’s room and talk to her sister. I’m sure she knows by now that the two of you have been found out.”

“Yes, Mrs. Chubb,” Doris said, turning back to the sink with a loud sniff.

Gertie waited until the housekeeper had left the kitchen, then she went over to Doris and put an awkward arm across her shaking shoulders. “Come on, luv, cheer up. It ain’t the end of the world, you know. Madam is really nice, and I’m sure she’ll be able to sort things out. You’ll see.”

Doris turned her face up to Gertie and attempted a smile through her tears. “Thank you, Miss Brown. You’ve been really nice to me, and I’ll miss you if I have to leave, honest I will.”

Gertie didn’t quite know what to say. She thought she’d been bleeding rough on the kid, and was feeling a bit ashamed of herself right now. Patting the thin shoulder, she said gruffly, “You’ll be all right, you’ll see. Madam won’t let anything bad happen to you, I promise.”

Doris nodded as if she didn’t quite believe her.

“Any rate,” Gertie said, grabbing a cloth to help the twit finish the washing up, “it must be nice having a twin sister. Stops you from getting lonely, like. I wish I had a sister to talk to sometimes.”

Doris looked up shyly. “You can always talk to me. I like talking.”

Gertie grinned. “So do I. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that madam lets you both stay. Then we can all have a bloody good gossip.” She felt quite pleased with herself when Doris finally managed to smile.

Madeline stood quite still in the middle of the dance floor and tried very hard not to look at the axe again. Instead she
stared into the overbright eyes of the man in front of her and said pleasantly, “Good morning, Mr. Plunkett. It looks like being a nice day after all.”

Cyril Plunkett’s eyes narrowed to slits. “It is not going to be a nice day at all for you, I’m afraid. In fact, you will never have a nice day again. I’m going to chop off that pretty head of yours, so you had better take your last look at the world before you say goodbye to it.”

Madeline met the cruel gaze without flinching. “I would like to know why you want to kill me. I think you owe me that, at least. I don’t know you, and as far as I know, I have never harmed you in any way. I don’t think I deserve to die by your hand.”

Cyril laughed, a high-pitched cackle that seemed to rise and dance along the balconies, echoing high in the vaulted ceiling. The unearthly sound seemed to shiver in the air as he stared at Madeline with glittering eyes.

“You are a gypsy, and that is enough. You must be destroyed.”

Madeline lifted her chin. “You still have not explained to me the reason. What have the gypsies done to you that you feel compelled to kill?”

“You are treacherous beings, unfeeling and cruel. I loved you once. You were everything to me. I spent every penny I had trying to show you how much I cared for you. And what did you do?”

“I did nothing,” Madeline said gently. “You mistake me for someone else.”

“You, she, what difference does it make? You are all tarred with the same brush. You are all the same. You took everything I offered you—jewelry, flowers, clothes, everything except my love.”

He stepped toward her, shifting his grip on the axe with both hands. “Do you remember how you laughed at me
when I tried to touch you? That laugh still haunts my nightmares. You told me how I disgusted you, that I wasn’t fit to lick your boots.”