Murder Most Convenient: A Mrs. Xavier Stayton Mystery (8 page)

  “Who called to Phyllis, besides yourself?”

  “Ruth,” I replied.   

  “Who set out the candelabra on the table?”

  “I did myself.”

  “Where did you get it from?”

  “It was always in the room,” I told him.

  “When I arrived, it was back on the table,” he told me.

  “Yes, by reflex, Henderson picked it up and replaced it.”

  The inspector asked, “Was he wearing gloves?”

  I thought about the question for a moment. “Yes, why?”

  “There were a few fingerprints on the item, I suspect yours. Otherwise, it was quite clean.”

  “Of course my fingerprints will be on the thing,” I retorted.

  “What about matches?” he asked.

  “Yes, Lucy had set out a little box of matches for me to use.”

   “I saw no box of matches on the table last night.”

  I thought about it for a moment; they were also missing from the table. “Yes, I don’t remember them being on the table as I reached about.”

   Rhetorically, he asked, “Who has them now?” then he looked to me and asked, “Were they in a large box or a small box?”

  Yes, this would be an excellent clue. “A small box; it was from the Hotel Cote d’ Azur. They had been in Lucy’s luggage since our trip to Monte Carlo.”

  He smiled at me, pleased with my handy piece of information. “Had there been any tension in the house during your stay?”

  “Nothing but. My husband’s family are not what I would call happy people,” I told him.

  “And Miss Masterson?”

  “She was a queer individual. I have to admit, she frightened me at first. Because of her gaunt figure and the way she held her injured arm, she seemed rather sinister. As I got to know her, though, my opinion changed.”

  The inspector asked, “How did she interact with the Staytons?”

  “Ruth was very devoted to her. Nicholas was...respectful, friendly. I think Randolph may have spoken to her, some. Joan ignored her for the most part, or rather, they ignored each other.”

  “How did she get on with the servants?” he asked.

   When Phyllis wanted a cigarette lit, she had relied on Ruth or Nicholas. She rarely spoke to Henderson or the maids, and she’d indicated she thought little of the chauffeur. “She treated them like nameless domestic help, neither politely nor rudely.”

   He made a note in his book. “Right. You’ve had time to think about it now. Tell me, has it occurred to you why she had that letter inside her cigarette case at the ready to give to you?”

   I answered too quickly. “No.”

   He peered at me suspiciously and asked, “Did the two of you discuss the novel she quoted from?”

  “At luncheon with the vicar’s wife, she saw the book and quoted from it.”

  “The same quote?” he asked.

  “No, though it was rather dark as well.
In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew was right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.
She had said that several of the passages of the book had spoken to her.”

  The inspector wrote down what I told him. Once his pencil was done moving, I said, “I can assure you that I had no reason to murder poor Phyllis.”

  The handsome man met my gaze and said, “Last night, I had the impression that your in-laws would like for me to think otherwise.”

Chapter Nine

After checking in with Lucy, I hid myself in the butler’s pantry once more.

  I could hear Ruth speaking after I was settled with my ear against the door. “No, Randolph and Joan were away at the time. I heard her scream and went running to see what had happened.”

  “And what had happened?” asked the inspector.

  “She’d lost her footing and tumbled down the stairs. I can’t tell you how frightened I was,” Ruth replied.

  “This was four years ago, you said; before that, how long had she been your secretary?”

  Ruth must have been calculating, as it took her a moment to reply. “Four years.”

  “How did she come to you?” he asked.

  “She had worked for my husband’s company. When he sold off his percentage, we hired her,” she replied stiffly.

  “So you’ve known her for longer than these past eight years?”

  “No, I hadn’t met her. While my husband was away in the war, she was his secretary in London. He realized that she’d be sacked with his departure…”

   “What type of company was he a part of?”

  I did not hear Ruth’s reply; my heartbeat doubled as the door to the pantry from the kitchen edged open. To my relief, it was Lucy. She handed me a note and then crept away as quickly as she had appeared.

  I read her hurriedly scribbled note. Thus far, Lucy had learned that Phyllis had once been very friendly with the domestic help, more one of them than part of the family. After the fall, this changed. She had become demanding of them while she convalesced and had made an enemy of the former butler, whom Henderson had replaced. This was all told by the gardener.

  Putting my ear back to the door, I heard the inspector ask, “And how long did the doctor tell you she had left?”

  Ruth’s voice was very soft when she replied, “He’d said six months, at the longest.”

  “So she had maybe two, three months…”

   “I doubt even that long. She had been resistant to go on morphine; she was dealing with the pain as best as she could. Still, she was getting weaker and weaker, and she hardly ate. Just the other day, I had the dress she is to be buried in sent for alterations.”

  I understood now why the secretive errand had been done while Phyllis was occupied.   

  The inspector paused for a moment before changing the line of his questioning. “Your brother-in-law, how is it that he and his wife live with you?”

   “Nicky and Randolph are most loyal to each other. Randolph found himself in hard times after the war. I suppose even beforehand. Their father left them debt, not money. As the older brother, Randolph did his best to pay his father’s notes; it left him in a bad way. The family home was sold for a song during the July Crisis—Randolph has always been one to say dark little things that he believes to be humorous. He called the selling of the estate his July Crisis.”

   “You all get along?”

  Ruth’s tone was questionable. “As well as two brothers and their wives might under one roof.”

  “And how is that?” the inspector prodded.

  “I think Randolph tires of living with his younger brother; it does raise an eyebrow or two among
our
social circle,” she said, as if the inspector needed to be reminded of the class distinction between him and her.

  “You get on well with your sister-in-law.”

  There was a long pause, too long. “We have found our way. During the war, she lived with her mother and step-father, dreadful people. At first, she seemed happy to be here, perhaps somewhat humbled. Then she started to resent us.” There was another pause, and I wished that I could have seen the expression on her face. “That all changed. When she and Randolph returned from their holiday, just shortly before Phyllis’s accident, she was different.”

   “How so?”

  “Pleasant, almost grateful, she was charming as she had been when she and Randolph first married,” Ruth replied in a faraway voice. After a pause, she said rather sharply, “I don’t see what this has to do with Phyllis’s death.”

   Responding to her statement, the inspector asked, “You and the deceased were close friends, as I understand. Tell me, who would have reason to harm her?”

  “No one!” Ruth blurted out. Calming herself, she went on, “At least, no sane person. Isn’t it obvious who did this?”

  “No, who did this?” the inspector asked, slowly.

   “That dammed American,” Ruth told the man.

   “What of her friend, Miss Wallace?”

  Ruth responded, “She’s a pretty little flower who sprang from a weed. I doubt she has the smarts to get out of the way from a moving car, let alone kill someone.”

  I heard a match strike, and after a pause, the inspector asked, “Does it take a smart person to commit a murder?”

   Ruth replied, “I suppose it doesn’t, just a smart person to get away with one.”

  “Thank you for your help. That will be all for now.”

   Ruth mumbled something as I heard the chairs moving. Then, the inspector made another statement. “You didn’t happen to see my matches that I left here last night?”

  “Matches?” she replied, sounding annoyed by the question.

   “Yes, in a box from the Hotel Cote d’ Azur.”

   “No, but I would think an inspector should be able to find them,” she retorted in an ugly voice.

   I heard movement in the kitchen. The little door didn’t slide open, so it meant that the cook was preparing lunch, and I was trapped.

   Several minutes passed before I heard Nicholas’s voice. “You seem to have done a damn fine job of upsetting my wife, if that was your intent.”

   They settled at the table, and the inspector replied, “My apologies,” in a way that sounded as if he’d been told that a great many times.

   “Well, let’s get on with it. Phyllis worked for me during the war; I’m sure you already know that. She handled my correspondence, and kept me
in the know,
as they say.”

   “Yes, your wife mentioned something like that,” replied the inspector.

   “Right. Well, there was more to it than she knew. I’ll make no bones about it, when the war seemed to be a sure thing, I bought into a munitions company. I went off to the war, found myself in Africa, a miserable place.

  “While I was there, Phyllis got wind of something, and she wrote me a letter. One of my partners was acting rather dubiously. With her help, I sidestepped what would have been rather an embarrassment.”

  “So you were in her debt?” asked the inspector.

  “That makes it sound like I owed her something. She had done me a favor; I didn’t want to see her sacked when I sold out of the company. Oh, we called her Ruth’s secretary, but she was more than that. Phyllis wrote my letters, kept files, rang up appointments, all sorts of things.”

  “How does this play into Miss Masterson’s death?”

  Nicholas responded boldly, “It doesn’t. I just figured you’d have questions. My brother made an ugly accusation once, that there was something between Phyllis and me, and well, there wasn’t. She looked out for my best interests when I couldn’t.”

  The inspector made what was surely meant to be an infuriating reply. “Yes, I see.”   

   Sounding very hostile, Nicholas said, “That American is the culprit. The daffy thing is obsessed with murder; it's all she talks about. Ask her! You go ask her about her husband's death, there is a reason it's a bloody secret, I tell you.”

  “I peg your pardon?”

   Nicholas went on, “My cousin’s boy, he died mysteriously. They didn’t tell us what happened to him. At the funeral, all I heard was the term,
an unfortunate accident.
Would someone like to describe a bloody accident that isn’t a misfortune?”

   “Right. You’re saying you haven’t a clue to what happened to him?”

  In a voice unlike my picture of mild-mannered Nicholas, he snarled, “Not a clue.”

   There was a bit of silence, and then the inspector asked, “Speaking of accidents, were you injured in the war?”

  “No,” Nicholas snapped.

  “I noticed your limp and thought perhaps…”

   Nicholas gave a little grunt. “Oh, just an automobile accident.” He then lowered his pitch, “Now, listen to me, none of us had reason to kill Phyllis; for Christ's sake, she was terminally ill.”

   “And you are convinced that Mrs. Xavier struck Phyllis at the back of the head with the candelabra.”

   “Who else?” Nicholas responded.

  “What about this Lucy person?”

  “Ms. Wallace? She hasn't the wherewithal to commit murder. Nice enough girl; I don't understand why she has gotten herself mixed up with that American.”

   “Do you care for a cigarette?” 

   Nicholas replied, “Too early; if I start now then I won’t stop until the end of the evening.”

   “Smart,” said the inspector. He paused, and then said, “You haven’t seen a box of matches that I mislaid last night, have you?”

   “I don’t recall.”

   The inspector replied, “Fancy little box, had the name of Hotel Cote d’ Azur on it.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out,” Nicholas said, curiously.

  The shuffle of chairs began, and the inspector told Nicholas that those were all the questions he had for him at the time.

  The other policeman, this one junior to him, stepped into the room, and they whispered as if my presence was known. The other man walked away briskly, and then the inspector welcomed Joan into the dining room.

  “Morning, Mrs. Stayton…”

  “Oh, do come to the point. I didn’t much care for old Phyllis, but Mother Nature had already set to do her in, so why would I?”

   “Why would anyone?” the inspector asked whimsically.

   “Give me a cigarette, and I’ll tell you.”

   There was a moment of silence, the strike of a match, and then Joan said, “That’s better.” There was a little pause, just enough time to take a long drag. “Tell me, what do you know about those rifles the Canadians were armed with during the war?”

   The inspector made no response. I imagined that he shrugged at Joan’s question.

  “Maybe this will ring a bell. In wet areas, they jammed. The Canucks hated them so much that they’d pitch them on the ground and use their revolvers.”

  “Go on.”

   “You know that Phyllis was employed by Nicky during the war. I’m sure he’s already pointed the finger at my Randolph, but he was just a guilty.”

   “I haven’t a clue as to what you are saying.”

    Joan let out her ugly imitation of laughter. “Randolph made a deal to resell the rifles…Nicholas didn’t tell you any of this?”

  “I’m afraid not. Your husband and his younger brother were business partners, you say?”

  Joan sounded completely different to me when she replied, “I don’t think I should say any more.”

   “That isn’t an option, Mrs. Stayton.”

   “Randolph was a junior partner; he was already down on his luck when the idea was cooked up. He had little to offer.”

   The inspector asked, “So it was he who had to do the dirty work. He managed to collect the malfunctioning rifles and transport them?”

   “I don’t know the details—I never asked. All that I do know is that he wasn’t smart about it. He sent a letter that said too much. The other business partner, in London, dictated a stern reply.”

  “And Phyllis took this dictation?”

   Joan’s response was delayed. I could imagine her puffing from her cigarette before she spoke. “Yes. Phyllis realized what was going on.” Joan gave a grunt. “The poor dear thought Nicky to be above such a thing. He and his partner cut Randolph out, thinking him too half-witted to trust.”

  “It sounds as if your husband might have reason to kill Miss Masterson after all.”

   Joan bit back, “Why? She would have been dead by the end of summer.”

   “Then why tell me all of this?”

  “Better to hear it from me than the servants…” her voice trailed off.

  “Then who might have killed Miss Masterson?”

   Quickly, Joan said, “The American.”

   “Why?”

   “Her mother-in-law put her up to it,” she said, in a very thrilled tone.

   “Why would she do that?” asked the inspector.

   “You didn’t ask me who the third partner in the munitions business was, Inspector.”

  “I am remiss. Who was this person?”

   Joan replied triumphantly, “My husband’s cousin.”

   “Mrs. Xavier’s father-in-law?”

  “The very same.” She barked her laugh again and said, “He was forced to buy out Nicky, Randolph too, but there was little reward. The stress of it all was too much for him. He died one morning, they say in his bathrobe, arguing with the cook.”