No Mortal Reason (31 page)

Her other self-appointed task was almost as unappealing. She’d left Belle to go through her late husband’s effects, particularly the proofs of his criminal activities. To save her own skin, Belle would cooperate. Diana had been certain of it when she’d left the other woman’s suite the previous day, but she’d also intended to check on her before now. The longer she put off another meeting, the harder it became to face a potential murderess.

But was she? Belle’s attitude after she’d told her story, Diana recalled, had been that of a child who’d gotten away with something. She’d made up at least part of the tale, but which part? Diana was certain Belle had lied to her, but about killing Elly? About her husband’s death? Of that she was no longer so certain.

If Belle was a killer, then Ben was right. Diana had been foolish to confront the woman alone. But she
had
met with Belle and, aside from a profane rant denigrating Diana’s ancestry and suggesting she try impossible physical feats, the actress/hotel thief had done nothing overtly threatening when she’d lost her temper. 

Diana considered waiting until Ben returned before she interviewed Belle a second time. She considered it for about five minutes. Then she realized that if she left Belle to her own devices any longer, the woman was likely to refuse to cooperate further. Belle was still in a position to cause trouble for Myron, even if it lead to her own incarceration. She struck Diana as the sort who wanted instant gratification. Diana had promised her a reward—her freedom and enough jewelry for a nest egg. It didn’t seem likely that Belle would wait much longer for her to pay up. Besides, if Belle had too much time to think about it, she’d realize that Diana thought she was guilty of more than fraud.

“She could be a cold-blooded murderer,” Diana muttered under her breath, but this last-ditch effort to talk herself out of confronting Belle alone had little effect.

“Talking to yourself now, are you?”

“Mrs. Curran!” Diana felt her pursed lips stretch into a smile as she looked up and recognized her landlady.

“Isn’t this a delightful place?” Spry as a woman half her age, Mrs. Curran’s bright little eyes snapped with enthusiasm. “I’ve been out walking. Met a goat.”

“Her name is Tremont, after the hotel in Boston, I presume.” Built almost a hundred years earlier, that landmark had been the first hostelry to call itself a hotel—someone had told Diana that the word meant palace for the people—and boasted that it had offered the first bellboys, the first inside water closet, the first hotel clerk, the first French cuisine on a Yankee menu, the first menu cards, the first annunciators in rooms, the first room keys, and the first Reading Room.

“Where are you off to?” Mrs. Curran asked.

“To see Belle.” She studied the smaller woman for a moment. If the two of them went . . . . “You said yesterday that you wanted to talk to Belle. If you still do, you—” Diana broke off in the middle of asking her landlady to come with her. She’d never seen the woman look so guilty as she did at this moment. “What have you done?”

“I suppose I’d best confess. I had a little chat with Belle already, last night after you and Dr. Northcote went into town. I had a few words I wanted to say to her. Leftover business, as it were.”

And Ben thought
she
was impulsive. “Even knowing she might be a murderess, you visited her alone?”

“The day I can’t handle myself with the likes of Belle Rhymer—”

“What if she’d had a gun?”

“She doesn’t.”

Diana didn’t think she did, either. Wouldn’t she have gone for it the night Myron attacked Saugus if she had? But Diana took a moment to consider the possibility. Was that what Ben had feared? If it was, it was no wonder he’d been so worried about her.

“Since she knows already that you’re here, you may as well come with me now.” Diana headed for the elevator. “Did she mention her husband’s murder? Or the bones we found under the floor?”

“Those things may have come up, yes, but I was more interested in getting my good emerald earbobs back if she still had them, which of course she didn’t.”

The door to Belle’s suite was cracked open.

“Stay back,” Diana told Mrs. Curran. Then she stood to one side herself and cautiously gave the portal a shove. When nothing happened, she peered around the door frame into the parlor. “Belle?”

The place had an empty feel to it when Diana stepped inside, and it was chilly, as if the fire had gone out hours earlier. She glanced toward the fireplace and gasped. Belle had been burning papers. Even the boxes they’d been kept in had gone into the flames.

She checked the bedroom to be certain, but there were no documents left. Nor was there any sign of Belle.

“No body?” Mrs. Curran asked from the doorway.

Diana hadn’t even considered that possibility. Belle was not the sort to take her own life. “She’s flown the coop.”

Why had Belle left? Diana didn’t think the questions she’d asked the previous day could have frightened the woman off. On the contrary, they’d been designed to keep her here. Had she known more than she’d said when Diana interviewed her? Or had she found something in Saugus’s possessions after Diana left the suite?

Mrs. Curran plopped down in the chair in front of the fireplace. She could see the evidence of what Belle had done as plain as Diana could, though she probably didn’t understand its significance. “Was it something I said?”

Diana pulled up a second chair and sat. “You tell me. Can you recall your conversation?”

“I always remember dialogue,” Mrs. Curran assured her. She took a moment to gather her thoughts, then launched into an almost verbatim account. She even changed her voice when she spoke Belle’s lines.

Most of it was irrelevant to the murders. Belle had stolen Mrs. Curran’s earbobs years before and Diana’s landlady had wanted them back. She’d settled for an apology and a glass of Norman Saugus’s whiskey, after which the two of them had engaged in a surprisingly amiable chat about mutual theatrical acquaintances.

“Did she say anything about her husband?” Diana interrupted.

“Only that he’d been too smart for his own good.”

What did that mean? Diana wondered. That he’d thought he’d gotten away with murder? Or something else entirely?

“She was nervous. I could see that,” Mrs. Curran said. “She wasn’t
that
good an actress.”

“Had she been packing? Her clothes are gone from the bedroom.”

“The door to the other room was closed. There were several boxes of papers stacked by the fireplace, though. I suppose that’s what she burned.”

“Had she gone through them, do you think? Or was she going to burn them unread?”

“How would I know?” Mrs. Curran sounded a trifle irritated.

“You couldn’t, of course,” Diana said in a soothing voice. “And it wasn’t your fault that she fled. I just wish I knew why. Does this mean she
is
the killer?”

“It might mean she’s afraid she’ll be his next victim,” Mrs. Curran suggested.

“What makes you think that?”

“The way she answered the door to my knock, for one thing. She was startled when I identified myself, but relieved to have company, too. And she said something about people trying to get at her. Perhaps she meant you, my dear, but what if there was someone else? Someone who meant her harm?”

“Who?”

“I don’t know, but she’d shoved the sofa in front of the door to the corridor to block it and had to move it aside to let me in.”

Diana opened her mouth and closed it again. There was no point in chastising Mrs. Curran for holding back this pertinent detail. She’d had her own agenda when she’d gone to call on Belle.

“What Belle told me,” Diana said, “was that her husband killed Elly because Elly found out about the scheme to burn down the hotel. Then, after her bones were found, someone figured out he’d killed her and killed him to avenge her death. If that’s true, the same person might have wanted to kill Belle, if he believed she was equally responsible for Elly’s death and the fire.”

But something about that theory didn’t quite mesh.
How
had someone deduced Saugus’s guilt after all this time? True, Diana herself had suspected him of the crime, but she’d had no proof. Not of murder.

“That’s odd,” Mrs. Curran said.

“What is?”

“If she really thought he killed that girl, why tell you and no one else? She could have convinced some simple country coroner of that story without a bit of trouble.”

“And if she’d murdered her husband, she’d have wanted to cast blame on someone else.”

“She would, yes, but I don’t think she did. Belle’s sneaky, but she’s not vicious. Besides, the only reason she’d kill him was if he was a threat to her.”

“If he realized she’d killed Elly Lyseth—”

“Why would she?”

“Jealousy?”

Mrs. Curran snorted. “If Belle had been jealous—and I doubt she was—she’d have taken it out on her husband, not the girl.”

“An accident during an argument?”

But Mrs. Curran shook her head. “You saw them together. Was Saugus afraid of his wife? He’d have had reason to be if he believed she’d killed the girl, even if it was an accident.”

“He was rattled by something. That’s why he was drinking so heavily. And if it wasn’t Belle he suspected, then—”

“He must have figured out who really killed that girl,” Mrs. Curran finished for her. “That’s why he was killed. The murderer had to silence him. And that’s why Belle was afraid. She thought the murderer might be planning to get rid of her, too.”

“But how did Saugus guess who it was? How did Belle?”

“Perhaps that’s what frightened her most. She didn’t know the killer’s identity any more than you do.”

Diana sighed. It made sense. Belle had certainly been afraid of something or she’d not have left without the reward Diana had promised her. Either she was guilty, or she was running for her life.

“I wonder how she managed to leave the hotel without anyone noticing? And she must have had transportation. She took all her trunks and boxes with her.”

“There was plenty of confusion here last night. Even Belle heard the ruckus outside. She asked me about it when I first got here.”

“It must have calmed down after Ben and I left.”

“Hah! When I went back downstairs after talking to Belle, the entire family was still closeted in their parlor, deciding what to do with that dreadful young man. You could hear the ‘discussion’ clear out in the lobby.”

“What did they decide?”

“He’s being shipped back to his parents later today. His uncles are going to take him to the train station and send him on his way. In the meantime, he’s being kept locked in his room.”

“You heard all that from the lobby?” Diana asked with a wry smile.

“I did, yes.” She looked at trifle uncomfortable. “That is, I heard raised voices. Is it my fault I had reason to go a bit closer while they were still debating the lad’s future?”

The smile turned into a grin. Like Mrs. Ellington, Mrs. Curran was not above a bit of eavesdropping. What a pity no one had overheard pertinent conversations between Belle Saugus and her late husband!

Chapter Fifteen

“Have you seen Dr. Northcote?” Diana asked Mercy.

She wasn’t sure what to do about Belle’s disappearance. In her heart, she no longer believed Belle guilty of murder. Not after what Mrs. Curran had said. She wanted to talk it all over with Ben, to use him as a sounding board and get his reaction to what she’d learned. She couldn’t imagine he was still in Lenape Springs. He’d had time to question everyone in the village by now.

The young woman didn’t seem to hear her.

“Mercy? Are you all right?” She had a bruise on her cheek where Sebastian had struck her, but Diana didn’t think she’d suffered any other injuries in the skirmish.

“What? Oh, I’m sorry. Did you want something?”

“I want to know what the matter is.”

Mercy promptly burst into tears. It took some time for Diana to get a coherent explanation out of her, but when she did, she shed a few happy tears herself. “So,” she said. “Your father asked Mrs. Ellington to marry him.”

Mercy nodded, smiling as she dashed the moisture from her cheeks. “And he told me what he intended first. This time.”

“I take it you approve.”

“Aunt Tressa all but raised me. How could I not be happy for them?”

“She accepted, then?”

“She’s loved him for years. And this is perfect timing. She was so upset about that wretch, Sebastian.”

“Has he left yet?”

“He’ll be gone in another hour.”

“I’d like to speak to him.”

“Why?” Mercy asked.

“Because I want him to know that he never had a chance of success. He would never have gotten Elmira Torrence’s support, even if he had destroyed the document he was trying to steal last night.”

“Your husband said he could call off Mr. Leeves. Was he able to contact him this quickly?”

“We didn’t try to reach Ed Leeves.” Diana took a deep breath. The deception had gone on long enough. “I sent a telegram directly to my mother. I’m your cousin, Mercy, and Sebastian’s. I’m Elmira’s daughter.”

“Oh, my,” Mercy said.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away, but I wasn’t sure I’d be welcome here if I did and I wanted to meet my family. I grew up thinking I had no one but my parents. I—”

“You can’t tell Uncle Myron! He gets furious at the very mention of Aunt Elmira’s name. I thought he was going to have an apoplectic fit last night when Sebastian kept saying she was behind his scheme.”

“What?”

“That’s what he said. I didn’t believe him. It was obvious he’d changed his story because he’d thought better of bragging about it being all his own idea. What Dr. Northcote did to him would have been nothing compared to the thrashing he’d have gotten from Uncle Myron.”

Diana’s heart sank. She couldn’t even deny her mother’s role in this latest fiasco. The way Elmira had been treated by her family had inspired Ed Leeves to take this petty revenge. Even if she were totally ignorant of his plan, she had to bear some responsibility for it.

“Diana?” Mercy’s sounded tentative. “You won’t tell him, will you?”