Berried Alive (Manor House Mystery) (5 page)

Elizabeth lifted the heavy black iron knocker and let it fall. It was in the shape of a horse's head, and she was still studying it when the door creaked open.

The woman who stood in the doorway almost filled the entire space with her massive hips and bosom. Her dark hair was coiled tightly around her head, and sad blue eyes peered out from under puffy lids. She didn't speak, but waited with a sort of resigned, empty look on her face that struck Elizabeth as being completely without interest or hope.

"How do you do?" Elizabeth said briskly, offering her
gloved hand. "I'm Lady Elizabeth Hartleigh Compton from the Manor House. I do apologize for not visiting before this, but things have been rather hectic lately. The war, you know. Keeps one very busy."

"It does indeed," the woman said. Her voice, like her face, was lifeless. "I'm pleased to meet you, your ladyship. I'm Annie Adelaide. Won't you come in?" She stood back to allow Elizabeth to enter.

Squeezing past the decidedly buxom woman, Elizabeth entered the parlor, which was tastefully furnished and impeccably clean. Sadie should see what a house could look like when the work was done properly, Elizabeth thought darkly.

"What a pleasant room," she remarked, drawing her gloves from her hands.

Annie Adelaide looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. "Thank you. Won't you sit down? Can I offer you some tea? Or would you prefer a glass of sherry?"

"Oh, sherry, please," Elizabeth said quickly. Things were beginning to look up, she thought, as she settled herself in a comfy armchair that had seen better days.

Annie left the room, and Elizabeth studied her surroundings with interest. Vases of flowers stood on pedestals and tables in every corner. In one corner in particular, a framed photograph of a young girl was flanked by candles, and tiny bunches of forget-me-nots.

Elizabeth guessed this was the daughter and got up to take a closer look. Such a beautiful child, with wide, trusting brown eyes and a gentle mouth. What a tragedy. No wonder her father had such an unfortunate attitude.

"That was my youngest, Barbara," a soft voice said behind her. "She died two months ago."

Elizabeth put down the mother-of-pearl frame and returned to her chair. "I'm so very sorry. You must find it very difficult to talk about her."

"It is, m'm. But then again, sometimes it helps." Annie laid the tray she carried on a small table. On it were two glasses of sherry, a plate filled with cream crackers and a surprising selection of cheeses. She handed one of the glasses to Elizabeth, then filled a tea plate with crackers and slices of cheese and balanced it on the arm of Elizabeth's chair.

Elizabeth glanced at the plate with apprehension. There was enough on there to kill her appetite for the next two days, yet it would be churlish not to eat it all.

She watched Annie pile her own plate up with food. No wonder the woman was so large. She waited until Annie had settled herself into an armchair, then said gently, "Do you feel like talking about her now? You said her name was Barbara?"

Annie stuffed a large cracker loaded with cheese in her mouth and chewed it down before answering. "Yes, m'm. She were only sixteen. She got in the family way, by one of them GIs at the base. He wanted her to get rid of it, so she took the money and went to North Horsham to find a doctor who'd do it for her. I don't know where she found the one who did it, but he weren't no doctor, I can tell you that. He cut her up so bad she couldn't stop the bleeding. Dick found her in the bathroom." For a brief moment she paused, then added quietly, "It was too late to help her by then. My baby died on the way to the hospital."

"How utterly awful for you. I'm so sorry. Your husband must have been devastated."

Although she didn't feel at all like eating, Elizabeth reached for a cracker and the smallest slice of cheese she
could find. After nibbling for a moment or two, she murmured, "I hope that man is in prison for what he did."

Annie stuffed more food in her mouth. When she could finally speak she muttered, "We never found out who he was. Nor the Yank who got Barbara into trouble. They got away with murder, the two of them."

"And the police couldn't help?"

"What police?" Annie uttered a mirthless laugh. "Those fools in the village did nothing. My husband went to the base and they said they couldn't help him. No one cared that my beautiful daughter bled to death." Her voice finally broke, giving Elizabeth some relief. Up until then she was afraid the poor woman had lost touch with her feelings.

"There, there," she murmured, "I can understand how you feel. Did Barbara not talk about her boyfriend?"

"Oh, she talked about him. Said his name was Buddy. That weren't his real name, though. The man at the base told Dick that a lot of the GIs have that nickname. Barbara never told us his last name."

"And you never saw him?"

Annie stuffed more food in her mouth, chewed with the determination of a cow with a mouthful of cud, then said bitterly, "Once. I spotted her with him in the town. Went by me in one of them Jeeps, they did. I wish I'd been able to stop them, I might have been able to say something, do something to save her, but they went by so fast. She didn't even see me. Not that she would have listened, anyway. She might have been my youngest, but she had a mind of her own, she did. Not like her brothers and sister."

"Oh, so you do have other children," Elizabeth said, in hopes of lightening the conversation. "That must be of some comfort to you."

"It would be if they were here." Once more Annie forced
food down her throat, then washed it down with a gulp of sherry that must have burned her throat. "The boys are away in the navy," she added, when she'd digested the load. "Jennifer, my eldest, she's a nurse in a London hospital."

"Oh, I'm sorry. You must miss them all." Elizabeth sipped her sherry, then introduced the question uppermost in her mind. "Did your husband ever see Barbara's boyfriend?"

"No, m'm. Never. He'd have killed him if he'd ever set eyes on him."

Elizabeth put her glass down so quickly she spilled some of the sherry. "Was this young man wearing a hat when you saw him, by any chance?"

Annie frowned. "I think so, m'm. Can't say as I remember, to tell the truth."

"Ah, then you didn't notice the color of his hair."

"His hair? No. I really didn't get a good look at him. I s'pose I was too busy looking at Barbara to pay him much attention."

"I would imagine so." Elizabeth looked at her plate, wondering how she was going to finish all the cheese on it.

As if reading her mind, Annie said quickly, "Please don't feel you have to eat all that, m'm. I know I sometimes go overboard when I give someone food. I eat too much myself. Can't seem to stop eating these days. All I want to do is eat, as if I have to have something in my mouth to keep going, if you know what I mean."

"Yes, I quite understand." With relief Elizabeth got up and put her plate and glass down on the table. "Sometimes it helps to have something else to concentrate on."

"Yes, mum." Annie heaved herself out of her chair. "It's just as well everything's rationed, or I'd be twice as huge."

Her heart aching for the woman, Elizabeth held out her
hand. "I'm truly sorry to hear about your daughter. I hope that in time you can think of her without so much pain."

"The only way I'm going to be free of pain, m'm," Annie said, in a voice so quiet Elizabeth could hardly hear her, "is to see that butchering so-called doctor rotting in prison where he can't hurt no more young girls like my Barbara."

"Well, perhaps I can do something about that," Elizabeth said impulsively. "I can't promise of course, but I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you, m'm." A vestige of a smile flickered across Annie's face. "That would make me and Dick feel easier in our minds. There's such a lot of this kind of thing going on, but somehow you never think it'll happen to someone right in your own family."

Elizabeth returned to her motorcycle, the unfortunate woman's words repeating in her mind. Somehow she would track down the despicable monster who had done this dreadful thing.

Somehow you never think it'll happen to someone right in your own family
. She could say the same about her own situation, Elizabeth reflected with a stab of guilt. She would never have imagined herself involved with a married man. In fact, until it had happened to her, she had deemed such women as heartless harlots without a decent bone in their bodies.

She'd read so many stories about women caught up in wartime romance who invariably ended up with a broken heart. It would seem that she was doomed not to find happiness with a man. She could have accepted that if it weren't for the fact that she was desperately in love with Major Earl Monroe, and there wasn't a blessed thing she could do about it.

CHAPTER

4

Later that evening Elizabeth was delighted when Violet came to tell her that Earl wanted to speak to her. Seated in her favorite refuge, the conservatory, she waited eagerly for the light tap on the door that would announce his arrival.

When it came, she felt a ridiculous fluttering in her stomach, and her voice sounded a trifle breathless when she called out for him to enter.

The dogs, who had been lying contentedly at her feet, scrambled up and greeted him with tails furiously wagging. He squatted on his haunches to ruffle their ears, and his eyes crinkled at the edges when he looked at her. "I figured you'd be here in your little hideaway."

She returned his smile without looking directly at him,
fearful of giving away her intense pleasure at the sight of him. "I think the dogs would prefer to be out there chasing each other on the lawn. I love this time of year. The light evenings mean I can sit and look at the gardens, instead of staring at that ugly blackout curtain. By the time we have to draw them, it's almost time for bed."

He rose to his feet and stood with his back to her, his gaze on the rolling lawns. The windows in front of him stretched from floor to ceiling, giving the impression that the entire wall was made of glass. "This is the most peaceful room I've ever been in."

Something in his voice alerted her. "What is it, Earl? Is something wrong?"

He stood for a moment longer, then came back to her side and lowered himself onto the wicker rocker. The sight of him gently rocking back and forth was so dear and familiar to her. She looked upon the chair as "his chair," and knew that once he returned to America, as one day he must, she would never allow anyone else to sit on it. She would move it to her office and keep it enshrined there.

"I guess I'm just upset about the death of these guys. It's such a damn waste." He flicked a glance at her. "Sorry, Elizabeth."

"I've told you before," she said mildly, "you don't have to apologize. Using swear words and cursing is a national pastime in this country nowadays. I even indulge in it myself now and again."

He grinned at her. "Isn't that considered a mortal sin for a lady of the manor?"

She wrinkled her nose at him. "I'm guilty of quite a few indiscretions that might be considered a mortal sin for one in my position. So far I've managed to prevail in spite of them. Being here alone with you, for instance."

She had no idea where those last words had come from and instantly wished them back.

Earl gave her one of those looks that made her insides quiver. "Well, I guess you're safe enough. There's no chance of hanky-panky with Violet hovering around outside like an avenging angel."

Shaken by the thought of indulging in anything remotely resembling hanky-panky with him, she said faintly, "Violet is hovering outside?"

He shrugged, his gaze still intent on her face. "Well, I have to go through her every time I want to see you, which kind of cuts down on any chance of anything private or . . . intimate."

She seemed to have a great deal of trouble drawing breath, which resulted in her voice emitting a squeak.
"Intimate?"

"Are you really that scared of me?"

She searched his face, expecting to see teasing in his eyes. Instead she saw he was serious, even a little offended. Impulsively she leaned forward and covered his warm hand with her own. "Oh, Earl I have never been scared of you. I trust you implicitly. You have never been anything but a perfect gentleman."

"Yeah, I know."

Something about the way he said it sent a thrill throughout her body. She'd heard regret in his voice and . . . dare she even think it? Longing. An echo of her own hopeless yearning for something they could never have.

Suddenly and quite acutely aware of her fingers resting on his thigh, she quickly withdrew her hand. "I'm glad you stopped by," she said, in a voice that was decidedly shaky. "I wanted to talk to you about something I heard today."

Stubbornly ignoring the disappointment in his eyes, she
recounted everything she'd heard about Dick and Annie Adelaide. "It did occur to me," she said, when she'd finished repeating her conversation with Annie, "that since Mr. Adelaide despises Americans so much, he has a motive for at least one of the recent deaths. I wonder if any of those poor young men were called Buddy?"

Earl had sat rocking while listening to her story, and now he halted the gentle swaying of the chair. "Well, that's one of the reasons I came to see you. The test results came back from the lab."

Elizabeth's interest sharpened at once. "Really? What did they say?"

Earl sighed and clasped his hands around a knee. "According to the medics, the guys did die of poisoning. But it looks as if the poison came from a plant. They were probably eating wild berries. Some of those babies are deadly poisonous."

Elizabeth looked at him curiously. "Is that what they really think? That it's accidental poisoning?"

Earl shrugged. "That's what they're saying right now."

"And how do they explain the phenomena of all the victims having red hair?"

"Coincidence?"

"You surely don't believe that."

"No, I don't." He lifted his hands and let them drop. "That's the official verdict right now, which means there'll be no investigation. I think they're afraid of opening a can of worms. They have no proof it was deliberate, and until they do, they can't do much about it. Officially, I have to abide by that."