Murder Most Malicious (4 page)

From them Eva received a velvet-covered notebook for keeping track of her duties and appointments, a linen blouse Mum had made and embroidered herself, and a hat with little silk flowers for which they must have sacrificed far too much of their meager income. But how could she scold them for their extravagance when their eyes shone so brightly as she opened the box?

Mum gripped the arm of the sofa and pulled to her feet with another of those huffs that so concerned Eva. “I'll just check on the roast. Should be ready soon. Oh, Eva, you've forgotten your box from the Renshaws.”

So she had. “There's something inside for you, too, Mum.”

“You have a look-see, dear. I mustn't burn the roast.”

“All right, I'll peek inside and then I'll come and help you put dinner on, Mum.”

She picked up the box and returned to the sofa. Her father grinned. “So what do you suppose is in there this year?”

“We'll just have to see, won't we?” She tugged at the ribbons, pulled off the cover, and set it aside. The topmost gift was wrapped in gold foil tissue paper. The card on top read:
To Eva, with fondness and appreciation, from Phoebe and Amelia
. She carefully unrolled the little package and out tumbled a set of airy linen handkerchiefs edged in doily lace, each adorned with its own color of petit point roses: a pink, a yellow, a violet, and a blue. Eva didn't think there were such things as blue or violet roses, but her heart swelled and her eyes misted as she pictured the two girls bent over their efforts, quickly whisking away their gifts-in-the-making whenever Eva entered their rooms.

“Look, Dad. See what the girls have for me. Aren't they perfection? And here's a fifth, with a tag that says it's for Mum.”

He craned his neck to see. “Look a mite too fine for the use they're meant for.”

Eva chuckled and glanced again into her box. “And here's a card. . . .” She took out a simple piece of white paper, folded in half. She unfolded it. “It reads,
‘For the Huntfords, for their pains.'
Odd, there's no signature.”

“Isn't that jolly of the Renshaws to remember your mum and me.”

“I'll bet it's a bit of cash, like last year. Let's see. . . .” Eva bent over the box to peer inside. The breath left her in a single whoosh.

“Well? What's next in that box of surprises?” Dad leaned expectantly forward in his chair. “Evie? Evie, why do you look like that? Surely they haven't gone and given us one of the family heirlooms, have they? Evie?”

“I . . . Oh, Dad. . . . Oh,
God.
”

“Evie, we do not blaspheme in this house,” her mother called from the kitchen. She appeared in the doorway, drying her hands on a dish rag. “Eva, what on earth is wrong? You're as white as a sheet of ice.”

“It's . . . it's a ring,” she managed, gasping. Her hands trembled where they clutched the edges of the box. Her heart thumped as though to escape her chest. “A s-signet ring.”

“That's lovely, dear. So why do you look as if you've just seen a ghost?” Her mother started toward her. Her father's rumbling laugh somehow penetrated the ringing in Eva's ears.

She held up both hands to stop her mother in her tracks. “Mum, stay where you are. Don't come any closer.”

“Why, Eva Mary Huntford, what
has
gotten into you? What sort of signet ring could make my daughter so impertinent?” The sullenness in her mother's voice mingled with that incessant ringing. A wave of dizziness swooped up to envelop Eva.

The room wavered in her vision. “One that's still attached to the finger.”

C
HAPTER
2

V
ernon delivered his message in a whisper near Phoebe's ear. She sprang to her feet, drawing the attention of the other ladies in the second-floor Rosalind sitting room, so named for her great-great-grandmother, who had furnished the room to reflect the pinks and reds of the rose garden in summer. “Excuse me, everyone. I'll . . . er . . . be back.”

“Phoebe,” Grams called after her.

“Where on earth is she going in such a hurry?” Lady Allerton said as well, but Phoebe didn't stop to explain.

She couldn't, not without alarming ladies Allerton and Cecily. Grams was aware of the macabre developments that brought the servants home hours before they were expected. Several of them were directly affected and word had quickly spread among the rest. Grampapa had explained to Grams, and she in turn had brought Phoebe into her confidence. This had been too much to bear alone, even for stoic Grams. Grampapa, meanwhile, was telephoning all over the village and nearby inns for any sign of Henry.

She repressed a shudder and traveled the corridor a brisk clip. With Vernon following close in her wake, she made her way to the back of the house and down the service staircase. Eva, her eyes wide and her face blanched of color, stood shivering at the bottom.

“Milady, I'm so terribly sorry Vernon disturbed you. I asked him not to, but—”

“He was acting at my request, Eva. I wished to be notified immediately if you returned to the house.”

Vincent Huntford, the bearded, burly man beside Eva, placed a calloused hand on his daughter's shoulder. “Perhaps we should have gone straight to the Chief Inspector's office rather than burden poor Lady Phoebe with this.”

Phoebe shook her head. “No, Inspector Perkins is already here. So I am to understand you also found . . .”

Eva's eyes opened wider still. “Do you mean there were others?”

“Several. Phelps and Dora, and two of the shopkeepers in the village to whom Grampapa sent gifts.” A sudden queasiness tempted Phoebe to find the nearest seat. Instead, she drew herself up straighter. “Tell me what you found. Was it in your Christmas box, too?”

“A finger,” Eva whispered through quivering lips. “A severed finger with a signet ring.”

“I see.” Not for the first time since this began, a chill swept through Phoebe. “The inspector will need you to help identify the . . . the . . . victim.”

“I know exactly who it is.” Eva's next words confirmed Phoebe's own suspicions. “Lord Allerton.”

 

Eva preceded her father and Lady Phoebe into the jarred goods pantry, where she had deposited that dreadful Christmas box. She loathed involving Phoebe in the sordid details, wished she could prevent the girl from peeking inside. After all, she
had
just divulged the contents of the box, so what was the point of looking, really? But Lady Phoebe had that determined set to her chin and there would be no deterring her.

Her father drew the box to the edge of the counter and lifted the lid, whereupon Lady Phoebe rose up on her toes and glanced in. A second later, she turned away and reached for Eva's hands.

Her face was pale. “I'm so sorry.”

“You've no reason to be sorry, my lady.”

“To have your holiday ruined by this . . .” Lady Phoebe let out a breath. “I think you and Mr. Huntford had better come upstairs. The inspector will want to speak to you both.”

A few minutes later, Lady Phoebe knocked on the morning-room door. Ranged along the corridor were others staff members—Josh the young hall boy, Dora the scullery maid, and Lord Wroxly's valet, Mr. Phelps. Phoebe had mentioned two of the villagers as well, but Eva saw no sign of them. Perhaps the inspector had already interviewed them in their homes.

Apparently, Inspector Perkins and his assistant had set up for questions in this relatively small room set back from the main part of the house, and where there would likely be fewer distractions. He glanced up as Lady Phoebe led Eva and her father across the threshold. Her father held the box, his face slightly averted as if the contents gave off a vile odor. Which perhaps they did. Eva didn't believe she'd drawn a full breath since first opening it.

“My lady's maid discovered a gruesome surprise in her box as well,” Lady Phoebe said with an authority that belied her nineteen years. “I thought you might wish to see her.”

Had Eva been wrong to leave the new handkerchiefs at home with Mum? Were they evidence, too? She didn't care. She wouldn't hand over the gifts her girls had labored over especially for her.

Her
girls. She often thought of them that way despite being only seven years older than Phoebe.

Douglas, the young under footman, sat at the table across from Inspector Perkins, his right hand tugging at the left cuff of his livery coat. The inspector's assistant, a young man and a stranger to Eva—rare in a village like Little Barlow—sat to his employer's right, a pencil poised above an open notebook. He wore the blue woolen tunic of a constable; his high-domed helmet sat on the table beside him.

Inspector Perkins spoke quietly to Douglas.

“All right, lad, that'll do for now. I'll send for you if I have further questions.” He looked up at Eva. “Have a seat, Miss Huntford. Ah, Mr. Huntford, nice to see you. Well . . .” He let out a bark of a laugh. “Not
nice.
Surely not, with such business afoot.” He gestured to the chair Douglas had vacated and the one beside it.

“Do you wish me to stay?” Lady Phoebe whispered to Eva.

“No, it's all right, my lady. How is Lady Amelia? When I think of her setting your lovely gifts on top of that horrible thing, it's almost worse than the thing itself. What if she'd seen it?”

Lady Phoebe placed a manicured hand over Eva's. “She didn't. The boxes were up on a shelf and she slipped our present inside right before Julia and I tied the lids closed with ribbon. None of us ever thought to glance inside.”

With that Phoebe stepped out and closed the door behind her, leaving Eva and her father to face the inspector's questions. Five minutes later she began to feel as though she were running round and round the hedge maze with the exit nowhere in sight. The inspector asked myriad questions several times each, as if he couldn't remember her answers from one moment to the next despite his assistant jotting everything down. Had she seen any strangers in the house recently, either above or below stairs? Did she talk to anyone on her way to her parents' farm? Had she left the box unattended anywhere for any length of time as she crossed the village? Had she argued with anyone recently?

Did he think the daily squabbles above and below stairs could result in this kind of act? If so, there wasn't a safe manor house in all of England.

She studied the chief inspector's eyes with their webbing of red lines and surrounding pockets of flesh. A pocked nose shot through with tiny purple veins completed the picture. It wasn't hard to guess how he had spent Christmas Day—with his feet up in front of a hearth fire and a bottle of whiskey close at hand. It was no great secret that Isaac Perkins liked his spirits, but in a parish that hadn't seen a major crime in over a hundred years, no one saw much reason to complain.

Until now.

“Inspector Perkins, I don't understand why you don't examine the ring itself. If you do, you'll see that it belongs to Lord Allerton.” She gulped and continued lower. “As does the finger, one can only assume.”

“Lord Allerton?” Inspector Perkins exchanged a look with his assistant. The assistant, a man about Eva's age with a curly mop of dark red hair and bright blue eyes that marked him most likely of Irish or Scottish descent, merely kept writing in his notebook. The inspector looked back at Eva. “Are you certain? I was to understand he's not been in the house all morning.”

“Yes, and there could be a very significant reason for that. Look at the ring.” Eva tried to smooth the frustration from her voice. She gestured at the still-closed box sitting in front of her father. “The A on the signet is as clear as day. Who else could it belong to? It would also explain why no one has seen Lord Allerton. Because he's . . .”

Her throat ran dry. Her father reached over and rubbed her shoulder gently. Inspector Perkins stretched an arm over the table, a wordless request for the box. Her father complied and pushed the thing across the surface.

“Ah, yes. Sorry to say, this has become an all-too-familiar sight today,” the chief inspector declared upon peering in.

“What was found in the other boxes?” Eva wanted to know.

Inspector Perkins pulled a handkerchief out of his coat pocket and mopped it across his brow. “More of the same, I'm afraid. Except without identifying circumstances. An appendage lying beside a gold watch. Another with a tie pin. Yet another with a set of sapphire shirt studs. And so on. A half dozen in all. Makes no sense.”

“Have you shown the other items to his man?” Dad's voice rang with impatience. “He could identify them as Lord Allerton's or not.”

“We had no reason to, not until now.” Inspector Perkins's assistant stopped scribbling and leaned forward with an elbow on the table. “But now that we have an identity,” he said in the slightest of brogues, “the question for the time being is not so much the who or how of the crime, but the
where.
As in, where is the rest of Lord Allerton?”

Eva groaned in queasiness.

 

Phoebe stared out the Petite Salon's bay window at the sweep of lawn bordered by white-crested shrubbery and icy flowerbeds. At the sound of a spoon tinkling against the fine porcelain of a teacup, she turned to Julia, who was sitting at the table.

“You're awfully calm about this,” Phoebe noted. “Especially seeing as it was your beau who met his demise this morning. Or last night.”

Julia offered one of her trademark shrugs and sipped her tea. “As far as I am concerned, Henry was neither my fiancé nor my beau. He was little more than an acquaintance.”

“Good heavens, Julia, that's terribly unfeeling of you. We've known the Leightons all our lives. You might at least feel a smidgeon of sympathy for his mother.”

Julia stared impassively back. “It's not as if I wished him ill. I'm simply not devastated that he has left us.”

“Left us? Henry hasn't gone off on holiday. He is most assuredly
dead,
Julia.”

“Is he?” She wrinkled her pretty nose, which, unlike Phoebe's, had never known a single freckle. “Thus far we have no real proof of that. Inspector Perkins said there isn't a speck of blood in Henry's room, nor anywhere else they've looked.”

“His blood is
somewhere,
Julia. His fingers were severed from his hands!” Phoebe paused to regain her composure.

Though the others had assembled in the drawing room to await their turn to speak with Inspector Perkins, there was no telling when one of them might come looking for either Julia or herself. Julia had sneaked away earlier to avoid questions about the night before, especially the constant ones posed by Henry's aunt Cecily, who hadn't quite grasped the gravity of the situation and still believed an engagement to be imminent.

“Julia,” Phoebe began again more calmly, “it is a foregone conclusion that Henry did not survive such a vicious attack on his person. And that everyone in this house could be viewed as a suspect.”

“That's ridiculous.”

“Which? That Henry is very likely dead, or that any of us might be considered culpable?”

“The latter, of course.” Another shrug followed.

Phoebe wanted to shake sense into her. No, not sense. Feeling. Empathy.
Life.
During these past years Julia had seemed less than alive, disconnected from the rest of the world and everyone in it.

Papa's death had done that to her, just as it had turned Fox from an unruly but good-natured child into a grasping, self-centered adolescent. And Amelia . . . poor Amelia worried about everyone all the time, constantly seeking ways to ensure the happiness of the entire family. Well-meaning though she might be, there was often something quite desperate and grasping in Amelia's vision of how life should be.

If only Papa hadn't gone to war. If only he hadn't died in the trenches.

And if only Henry Leighton had been a decent man, one with whom Julia could have fallen in love. But none of that had happened, and Phoebe knew they must face what did happen head-on, or they would never be free of it.

She sat at the table across from her sister. “When the inspector questions you, it would be best if you come clean about last night. About your argument with Henry.”

Julia paled. Her eyes narrowed within their dark rim of lashes. “That is no one's business. Not yours, and certainly not Inspector Perkins's.”

“Don't you understand? I'm not the only one who overheard you last night. The servants clearing the dining room witnessed a good deal. Wouldn't it be better for you to explain yourself rather than allow them to speculate on your behalf?”

“I feel no need to explain myself, Phoebe. And how dare you imply that I might have had something to do with Henry's death.” Her expression smoldering, she stood and thrust her napkin to the table.

“I implied no such thing. And I thought you weren't convinced Henry was even deceased.” She raised her eyebrows, a silent dare for Julia to backtrack once again.

“I've had more than enough of this.” Julia headed for the door.

“Of course I don't believe you had anything to do with what happened to Henry,” Phoebe called after her. “That's exactly why you should speak honestly with the inspector. Julia, wait. . . .”