Lethal Legend (6 page)

She placed one hand on his arm and waited until he met her questioning gaze. “Perhaps the poisoning had more to do with Mr. Somener than with the victims.”

“Meaning?”

“A few years ago, your friend was responsible for the loss of innocent lives.” Diana watched his face carefully for a reaction, but Ben merely looked sad.

“That was a great tragedy, but not Graham’s fault. There were no charges brought. Ever since, he has lived very quietly here and avoided calling attention to himself, which is precisely why he asked for my assistance. He didn’t want any foolish rumors to get started.”

“Too late for that.”

“What have you heard?”

Diana hesitated, but she saw no alternative to telling him about the visit from Justus Palmer. As briefly as possible, leaving out Maggie’s comments and her own strange feeling that there was something not quite right about the man, she repeated what Palmer had said.

“Illegal activities?” Ben’s look of astonishment was almost comical. “Absurd.”

“You’re certain? You haven’t seen him in some time and he does seem to have a penchant for secrecy.”

“Only because he was hounded by the press over that building collapse. And because he doesn’t want wild rumors about the archaeological excavation to attract treasure hunters.”

“Is there a chance of treasure?” Her interest piqued, Diana shifted position on the boulder that served as a bench until she could see Ben’s face more clearly.

“Doubtful. The archaeologists are seeking evidence of an early settlement on the island. But perhaps you should hear about that from the horse’s mouth.”

She sent him a searching look. “I’d like that. Especially since I gather the archaeologist is a woman.”

“How did you—ah, you talked to the captain of the
Miss Min
.”

She nodded.

“Miss Serena Dunbar. A most unusual woman. You’ll no doubt find her fascinating. You’ll meet her shortly. Graham likes to dine promptly at one.”

“I’m not sure—”

“He won’t bite,” Ben promised, “and we can’t leave here until the
Miss Min
returns at around four. You’ll be half starved if you don’t eat before then.”

“I’m half starved now.” It was just past noon and she hadn’t eaten since early morning.

“Then Graham will have to feed you. First, though, I need to check on my patients one last time. I set up a temporary infirmary in the old nursery on the top floor of the house. Would you like to accompany me?”

Diana felt as if a great weight had been lifted off her heart. He’d said
they
could leave. He was coming with her. Even better, he hadn’t balked at answering her questions.  Without hesitation this time, she went with him into Graham Somener’s mansion.

“You’re certain none of these men has an enemy who’d try to kill him?” she asked as they stepped into the foyer. Fresh flowers of a variety she did not recognize filled vases in the corners and on a small table, suffusing the space with a sweet, pungent scent.

“I’ve questioned them thoroughly. They had no information to offer. They saw no strangers, noticed no one tampering with their provisions, have no enemies they know of. They just fell ill.”

“I am surprised they’re willing to go back to work after what happened.” She followed him into a long hallway hung with portraits and lined with curio cabinets.

“They’ll be eating in the house from now on, and sleeping indoors, too. They should be safe enough.”

“Unless the cook is the one who poisoned them.”

He chuckled at that and abruptly changed course. Instead of heading upstairs, he led her towards the back of the house. “I think you should meet Mrs. Monroe,” he told her. “She’s both housekeeper and cook here and has been for years. She’s devoted to the Somener family.”

Prudence Monroe was a beanpole of a woman somewhere in her middle years. She was clearly accustomed to being in charge in the kitchen and looked with disfavor upon intruders. “What do you want, Mr. Ben? I’ve got work to do.”

“Don’t let us stop you, Mrs. Monroe. I simply wanted you to meet the lady I’m about to marry.”

Mrs. Monroe gave a sniff and continued rolling out the dough for a pie. “About time you got married. Mr. Graham, too, though I can’t say I like the way the wind blows in that quarter.”

The entire kitchen smelled of cinnamon and apples and of the freshly baked rolls cooling on a rack. Predictably, Diana’s stomach growled.

Ben chuckled. “If you’re very polite to Mrs. Monroe, Diana, I am sure she will offer you a ham sandwich from the leftovers of last night’s meal.”

“You know where the fixings are, Mr. Ben,” Mrs. Monroe told him. “I’m in the middle of making dessert and you know how fussy Mr. Graham is if his dinner’s late.”

While Ben set about slicing bread and ham, Diana seized the opportunity to talk to the cook. “Do you know anything about what happened to those archaeologists?”

“Young Ben here says it was morphine. I ask you, what’s the world coming to? In my day, no one had even heard of such a thing.” She slammed the rolling pin down on the counter and seized the crust, slapping it into a tin pan. With strong, expert fingers, she pressed the dough into shape.

“Are you concerned for your own safety?” Diana asked.

“Why should I be? No one wants to hurt me.” She dumped a bowl full of apple slices, already sugared and dotted with cinnamon, into the pie pan and picked up the rolling pin to prepare the top crust.

Ben handed Diana two slices of bread with a slab of ham between them. She bit hungrily into the sandwich while continuing to contemplate Mrs. Monroe. The woman had a dangerous gleam in her eyes and Diana didn’t like the look of that rolling pin. It was heavy—not wood but marble—and would pack quite a wallop. As she took another bite, she put a little more distance between herself and the cook. Then she posed another question.

“Do you know something about Miss Dunbar, Mrs. Monroe? I get the feeling you don’t approve of her being here.”

“Not my place to say.”

Ben slanted a warning glance at Diana that prompted her to keep silent and wait. After a moment, Mrs. Monroe started talking.

“She used to come here when she was a little girl. Worse than the boys, she was. Always the little troublemaker.”

“Were her parents friends of Graham’s parents?” Ben asked.

“Her mother was friends with Miss Min. It was when Miss Min lived here, after old Mr. Jedediah died, that Serena Dunbar used to come visit.”

“Miss Min?” Diana asked.

“Minnie Somener, Graham’s aunt,” Ben supplied. “And yes, the mailboat was named in her honor.”

“She was christened Minerva,” Mrs. Monroe informed them. “Fancy name. She never did like it much. Often said she wished she’d been named after her mother.” She chuckled. “Born too late for that. Some years before Miss Min was more than a gleam old Jed Somener’s eye, his wife stood godmother to
my
mother. Mama ended up being christened Susan and Miss Min, she got stuck with Minerva.”

Diana didn’t quite understand why more than one baby couldn’t have been given the same name, but if Susan Somener had chosen Minerva for her own child, she had probably had a reason. Perhaps she’d had an interest in mythology. “Minerva is another name for Athena,” she said aloud, “the goddess said to embody wisdom, reason, and purity.”

Ben looked thoughtful. “I only met Min Somener a few times. I can’t say if she embodied those virtues or not.”

Slapping the top crust onto her pie, Mrs. Monroe picked up a knife. “Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. She did like to read them old books. Died about ten years back.” She made a series of decorative cuts. “Don’t you have patients to tend to?”

Taking the hint, and what was left of Diana’s sandwich, they left the kitchen. The back stairs were close by, but so narrow that they had to climb single file. “Had you met Miss Dunbar before?” she asked his ascending back.

Ben took his time about replying. “Till now she was never here at the same time I was.”

“Did you come here often?” With two steep flights of stairs behind them, Diana paused on the landing to catch her breath.

“A fair amount. Graham’s mother and mine were distant cousins and he and I are close in age.” He reached the top floor and waited for her, then indicated a closed door. “I’m about to give these men a clean bill of health. They’ve been chomping at the bit to get back to work.”

Before he could knock, the sound of raised voices reached Diana from the other side. “You’re making a mistake!” a man shouted.

“I know what I’m doing!” The second voice was softer but sounded just as angry.

Ben opened the door to reveal two men engaged in a game of cards on one side of the room and a pair of combatants in the opposite corner. At first Diana thought they were also male. Then she realized that one was a woman wearing masculine attire.

Diana was accustomed to seeing females dressed in a variety of split skirts. The popularity of rational dress had grown enormously in the last few years. But this woman—Miss Dunbar, Diana presumed—wore men’s trousers, high boots, and a loose shirt. The first garment clearly defined her lower limbs, stretching the bounds of propriety by emphasizing a lush feminine figure.

The woman turned to glare at them, revealing an arresting face surrounded by thick, sun-streaked brown hair braided and wound in a style that was as flattering as it was unusual. She appeared to be about Diana’s age.

“May I present Miss Serena Dunbar,” Ben said.

Tension radiating off her like heat from a fire, Miss Dunbar ignored him, flouncing off to the other end of the long room to stare out a window.

With a shrug, as if her rude behavior did not surprise him, Ben turned his attention to the card players. “George Amity,” he said.

Grizzled and gnome-like, the signs of arthritis already plain in his fingers, Amity nodded in a friendly fashion.

“Paul Carstairs.”

Carstairs set down the bottle of Moxie Nerve Food he’d been sipping from and regarded Diana with suspicion. He wasn’t much older than she was, but to judge by the loose folds of skin in face and neck and the excess material in the trousers held up by braces, he’d recently lost a good deal of weight.

“And this is Frank Ennis.” Ben indicated the man who’d been arguing with Miss Dunbar. “Gentlemen and Miss Dunbar, may I present my fiancée, Mrs. Diana Spaulding.”

“Charmed,” Ennis said, bending over Diana’s hand. His pallor was the only thing left to indicate that he had been deathly ill. He was a man in his prime, not an ounce of excess fat on his sinewy frame. Yet for all his appearance of familiarity with manual labor, he had the dreamy, inward-looking eyes of a scholar ... or a poet.

In better control of herself for her stint at the window, Miss Dunbar advanced on Ben. “Are my men fit to resume their duties?”

“I’d prefer that they rest for one more day.”

A chorus of protests drowned out the last word. Frank Ennis’s voice was loudest. “I’m ready to make that dive. More than ready.”

“Dive?” Interest piqued, Diana looked to Ennis for clarification.

“We were preparing to explore underwater the day we fell ill. It is perfect weather today. I want to get on with it.”

Diana studied each face in turn. George Amity seemed ambivalent, but the others wore remarkably similar expressions of stubborn determination.

Ben reached for his stethoscope. “No one is going to do anything until I have examined each of these men one more time. Ladies, will you wait in the hall?”

“Where is Miss Dunbar?” Graham Somener glared at the empty place at table. “She rarely misses a meal and she is partial to corn chowder.”

From the look on Diana’s face as she tasted a spoonful, Ben concluded that she was also partial to the dish. He trusted she’d do justice to the entire meal, in spite of the ham sandwich she’d eaten earlier. His Diana had a healthy appetite.

Leaving his own food untasted, Ben answered Graham’s question. “Miss Dunbar is preparing for Mr. Ennis’s dive.”

She hadn’t waited to hear his verdict. Abandoning Diana in the upstairs hallway without a word, she’d gone to the shed where the diving equipment was stored and begun to ready her equipment. Ben had tracked her there to confirm that Frank Ennis was healthy enough to go back to work.

“That confounded shipwreck.” Graham slathered butter on a roll with a heavy hand.

“Do a great many ships come to grief along this coast?” Diana asked.

With obvious effort, Graham forced himself to be sociable. “Not so many since the lighthouses were built, although the
City of Portland
sank off Monroe’s Island just four years back. And there was a very famous shipwreck south of here during colonial times, the
Angel Gabriel
.”

Inevitably, Graham’s love of history overcame his aversion to talking to a journalist. “An ancestor of mine was aboard the
Angel Gabriel
,” he told Diana. “Fortunately the ship was close to shore when a hurricane hit. Most of the passengers survived, although they lost all their worldly goods. 1635, that was.”

“What is it Miss Dunbar is looking for?” Diana asked.

“Do you know much about early explorations in this part of the world?”

“Not a great deal, no.”

“Fishing boats have been coming to these shores for centuries,” Graham said. “They kept the best grounds secret, of course, so the competition wouldn’t know where to find them. Other ships came, too. Explorers. Settlers. It is Miss Dunbar’s belief that one of these ships was wrecked on the rocks off Keep Island during a long-ago storm. That’s what she’s looking for—proof that there were survivors and that they settled here. She hopes to find remains of their buildings, perhaps even artifacts from the ship itself.”

“Would there be anything left of a vessel that sank more than a few decades ago? Surely any wooden parts that weren’t dashed to bits against the rocks would have been dispersed by the tide or would have disintegrated over the years from sheer age.”

“The water here is deep and cold. Those are preservative properties. If the ship sank in mud or sand, protecting it from being washed out to sea, then it is possible there are remnants left. Enough to identify. More likely, of course, is that she will find some trace left on land by the survivors of the shipwreck. That is why the present excavation centers on a small cove below the promontory. Since they have diving equipment, however, it only makes sense to take advantage of good weather to explore underwater.”